Words By Whittall

My mother didn’t teach me to shave;  she actively tried to stop me. She argued that I was too young, unconvinced by my pleas that all the other girls were doing it; unconvinced by the 34 Double C bras she had to order from the Sears catalogue. I didn't want boobs at aged 10. I didn't know what to do with them. I didn't want hairy legs at age 13, either.  I had a mind of my own and my body, alas, did too, regardless of Mom's "too young" argument.  By grade eight, all the other girls – or at least one of them – suggested I see to my legs and underarms before we donned bathing suits for the upcoming co-ed class swimming lesson, which was a big deal. We were to be bussed from our small rural school to a sports complex in Kitchener, big deal.  I would see Robert Woods in his bathing suit and he in mine, big deal! Without telling Mom, I simply borrowed the gummy turquoise Lady Shick that she kept in a bathroom drawer alongside a congealing jar of Noxema and a disi...

Doug and I loved going to Aruba. It’s a beautiful, arid island that’s small enough to travel end-to-end in a day, but full of beautiful vistas and quirky spots like Charlie’s Bar where business cards from around the world layer the walls. In the early 90’s, touring the island meant leaving the two areas where resorts were located. At the time, all of the high-rise hotels were located along one long sandy stretch. This meant you could easily walk up and down the beach, choosing from any of the cantinas, cabanas and sandy spots. A pink tractor – the booze-mobile – covered the entire area, so you could plop down for the day, with all your needs, wants and desires close at hand, napping to the sound of the waves, and the scent of coconut and pineapple. One day, we decided to take a break from lying in the sun and getting drunk to exercise and do some sight-seeing.  We saw a sign for bike rentals and hatched a plan.  The sign did not say “functioning” bike rentals, nor “properly si...

  In the summer of 1980, several things happened. The most important, personally, was my move from Banff, Alberta to Vancouver, BC.  I’d been a chambermaid at a hotel in the resort town and hoped for an office job in the big city.  I bunked with a friend in townhouse in North Vancouver and, armed with a trusty umbrella, took the sea bus across the Burrard Inlet to work every day at various offices as assigned by a temp agency. I should point out that, since I couldn’t type, these jobs mostly involved filing various bits of paper into file folders in various filing cabinets all in alphabetical order. I did know the alphabet. One job involved feeding recipe card-sized pieces of paper into a micro-fiche machine. I sat for hours moving only my thumbs as I fed each card into the maw, imagining, but not actually writing, a novel. I digress. Another thing that happened in the summer of 1980 was the release of the Brian DePalma movie  Dressed to Kill , in which Angie Dickens...

  Thickly painted robin's egg blue cupboards framed the window looking down to the river, a trivial and unimportant view as any farmer's wife preferred to see what was happening at the barn.  And so it was, that the focal point of my grandmother's kitchen was not the window, the cupboards, nor the behemoth, blackened wood burning stove which produced warmth, wonderful scents and greasy gray streaks of soot on the canary yellow walls. No, the focal point of my grandmother's bright kitchen was the overstuffed, threadbare chair wedged in the corner beside that stove, for it was here she let my brother and me comb her hair, told us stories, and, upon begging, taught us bad words in Pennsylvania Dutch: dommy and dumkoff. I’d been hoping for damn or darn, maybe even shit, but none were in this sweet woman’s lexicon in any language.  She inherited the kitchen when she married into the family in 1931. The colours were well established long before then, before I, or my father...

  Oh oh oh, Pine needles in my socks Oh oh oh, It’s like walking, walking on rocks Oh oh oh, Pine needles sting my toes   Oh oh oh, Pine needles getting up my nose!   Chorus: Ooh! Pine needles everywhere, do doot do doo Pine needles in my hair, do doot do doo Pine needles here and there, do doot do doo Pine needles in my underwear!   Oh oh oh, Pine needles sting me like a bee Oh oh oh, Yet they make me hap-hap-happy   Oh oh oh, Pine needles from the Christmas tree Oh oh oh, Remind me of family!  

My father was a very sincere, caring and thoughtful man – but he was also quite in touch with his inner child.  He had all kinds of goofy expressions. “It’s been real” is a favourite of mine.  “Gupe” meant thank you. “Pulling a Hank Snow” meant you were moving on and, without fail, when someone announced they were leaving he’d proclaim “Ah – but you just got here.” He called his guitar his “Mean Six” (because it has six strings.) He was well known for playing his guitar. He got his nickname, Webb, from playing Webb Pierce songs.   A friend brought a tape of Webb Pierce a couple of weeks ago and the day before he died, Dad was trying to sing along to his signature hit, I’m in the Jailhouse Now . Webb Pierce was a little before my time, but I remember on Sundays Dad would come home from church, pull his Mean Six out from under the couch, turn to face the corner and wail.   The acoustics were better that way.   He loved to play his Mean Six and sing. He taught...

The year was 1968 and I was eight years old. The hubbub of the previous year’s Canadian centennial had ebbed. We were done singing This Land is Our Land and One-little, Two-little, Three Canadians . Something new was introduced to capture our imagination and his name was Elmer the Safety Elephant. After a short film and a chat from someone, who was not Elmer, we were tasked with creating posters to promote safety. Our homework assignments would be entered in a provincial contest, with fabulous prizes for the creator of the best safety poster.   The someone who was not Elmer brought an example of a winning poster from the previous year. I stared in slack-jawed wonder at the creation balanced on the blackboard ledge in front of us. I have no idea what was on the poster – likely a child’s drawing of an elephant. What bedazzled my brain was its shimmering plastic cover. I knew the Glad Wrap had sealed the deal. I was certain my poster didn’t stand a chance if it was not al...

On June 8, 1968, Robert F. Kennedy’s funeral was broadcast on television, equal parts sombre and spectacle.   His widow dressed half of their 10 children in black, because they were sad and half in white because they were happy that he was in heaven. This fact stood out in my eight-year-old head and a year later when my beloved grandfather died, I insisted on wearing my black and white dress to his funeral, even though it was, by then, a size too small. That June day, 51 years ago, my mother was also mesmerised by the scenes on the television.   This was unfortunate as she was trying to cut my hair at the same time.   With one eye on the fuzzy black and white, and the other on me, she cut a slanted line across my forehead, then over-corrected, and then cut a third time, leaving me with freakishly short bangs before short bangs became a thing. My bangs were so short that they were a factor in July.   My brother and I were forced to spend the first two weeks...

Growing up, my family spent a week at the cottage every summer. It wasn’t our cottage, but we would rent the same cottage in the same place: Chesley Lake, a Mennonite campground near Owen Sound.   And, it wasn’t just my family, about one quarter to one third of the congregation of the Elmira Mennonite church chose to vacation at Chesley Lake every third week of July.  There were familiar faces everywhere, at the small beach, wandering on the trails or playground, and in the pews at the chapel on Sunday.   At night, smelling of campfire smoke, my fingers sticky with melted marshmallow, and unable to sleep with the stabbing pain of an inevitable sunburn, I would lie in my bed and listen to the adults talking in the kitchen.   “So and so was married to so and so.” “Oh, wasn’t he the one who worked at the Co-op?” “Yes, his brother is the one who lost his leg in that thrasher accident.” It seemed to me like my parents knew everyone in the world and how they were conne...

The scent is unforgettable. Luxury perfected in brown goo.   Wella Balsam shampoo.   My mother cut my hair at the kitchen table, and yes, she once used a bowl.   Saturday nights she set my thick straight hair with prickly curlers held in place with sharp plastic picks. Sunday mornings, I was cranky, but had wonderfully bouncy hair. Mom had naturally curly hair and so her greatest challenge was remembering to remove from her forehead, the piece of Scotch tape she used to keep her bangs in place. This usually happened just as Dad turned our avocado green Ford into the church parking lot.   She’d turn around to the back seat for one last check of our appearance, spitting into a Kleenex to tame my wild locks, combing my brother’s hair with her fingers. Thus, I entered the House of God, sleep deprived and moulded by spit. In the early 1970’s when tight curls became the rage, a new form of hair torture arrived in our house: The TONI Home Perm kit. In a careful proce...

I used to work for the government.   Some people think that is an oxymoron, but there were quite a few of us who did work very hard on your behalf. We’re Group A. Others spend their days yelling at their kids on the phone, complaining about their jobs, or making money on the side, ripping off office supplies. Group B.   Group C types spend their time, drawing up strategies, policies and regulations aimed at keeping the Bs in line, but generally making life more difficult for the As.   For example, I once sat though a 45-minute power point presentation, the gist of which, was that I should not call a member of the public, or a colleague a moron. It was required viewing for all staff – across all government. And, someone, or more likely a team of people, had spent months designing the program and getting it approved by boffins who make a lot of money.   Perfume is another example. The policies on this scen t-sitive issue were over the top in design and underwhel...

Making Beds is Hard Work  I grew up on a farm where hard work and long hours are a given. But even this didn’t prepare me for my job as a chambermaid.   It had sounded so romantic, when a friend spent a summer working at a hotel out west. The job came with lodging, so it seemed like a great way for me to support myself for a while and escape the drudgery of the farm. All that summer, I practiced. In addition to my usual chores stacking hay bales in the barn, picking stones from the fields and weeding the garden, I made all the beds in the house – even the ones we didn’t use.   Then I unmade the beds and made them again. My mother, who had some training as a nurse, taught me how to properly make “hospital bed corners,” although she wasn’t happy that clean sheets had been wasted in my practice chambermaiding. By the time I was hired at the Banff Park Lodge, I thought I had the upper body strength, stamina and bed-making expertise to handle my new exotic new career...

The In-Between Christmas The Christmas memories of my childhood are as magical as Hallmark would have you believe.   Each eve and morning were filled with joy and wonder, and then the inevitable hissy fit when, after opening our new toys, we had to immediately set them aside to attend church.    Once, when I was very young, we arrived home late after a Christmas Eve dinner with relatives in the city.   It might have been one of many harrowing drives through a snow storm, I’m not sure. For whatever reason, my parents announced that my brother and I could each open one gift under the tree.   It was magnificent.   I can’t recall which pretty box I opened, but we, kids, went to bed happy, and a family tradition was born. This is my earliest Christmas memory. A stand-out memory as an adult, is the Christmas I realized I was an adult. (And, not a moment too soon, as I was in my mid 30’s.)   My future husband and I had bought a house in a lovely...