Remembering Charles Thomas Gynes on Remembrance Day

 My Great-Grandfather, Grandma's dad.

He died in WWI, in a training accident. The war was over, he was a week or two away from being home, safe and sound. Some munitions got ignited. Poof. His life, and the life of another soldier, became a statistic.

Many people do not realize what kind of impact wars have on families -- thankfully. And many people might question why I mourn the loss of a man I never knew, might never have known.

Yet his death impacted my entire family through the long years right down to me, my daughter, and my stepchildren.

You might be familiar with the English "nursery" rhyme:

For want of a nail, the shoe was lost.
For want of the shoe, the horse was lost.
For want of the horse, the rider was lost.
For want of the rider, the message was lost.
For want of the message, the battle was lost.
For want of the battle, the war was lost.
For want of the war, the kingdom was lost.
All for the want of a horseshoe nail.

For want of Charles Thomas Gynes, his widow (Ada Swarbrick)and mother of his two children (Margaret Doris and William Albert) had to remarry in order to support herself. She married a Canadian soldier who was stationed in England at the time, Mr. Lampron. 

They moved to Canada. They had a daughter, Eva.

Then Ada, my great-grandmother, died. Mr. Lampron didn't want the two hand-me-down children, so he put them in an orphanage.

The first life lesson for my future grandmother, little Doris, was that step-parents don't necessarily love their step-children.

My future grandmother became the epitome of the Brit with the British backbone, getting a job when she was fourteen and getting her little brother out of the orphanage and raising him.

Meanwhile, on my future grandfather's side, young Fred got happily married to Catherine Flavell. They were happy as clams, looking forward to the child Catherine began to carry. Little Florence was born, she was the apple of her father's eye, but Catherine suffered complications due to childbirth, and did not survive long. She made Fred promise to let her mother raise their daughter for two practical reasons: 1) Fred had to work, and theirs was not the friendly-father-figure generation! Men simply could not raise a baby! And 2) she thought Fred might one day remarry, and stepmothers often did not love their stepchildren as they ought. Fred reluctantly agreed, and Little Florence was raised by Catherine's mother.

Two years after the birth of Florence, Fred and Doris met, and it was pretty much instant. Doris was absolutely dying to raise the little girl, but understood the arrangement Fred and Catherine had come to, having experience the not-so-wonderful step-parent relationship herself.

And here is where Doris' wounds began to surface. She had a son, Russell, my future father. The Great Depression hit and they were penniless, living in Grandpa's family home in Dunvegan Ontario through all the years of the depression. Doris had learned early on to budget wisely, and it brought them through intact. But that early lack of security in her home made Doris frantic to gather her family close, like a mother hen. My father had a somewhat problematic relationship with his mother, and a great relationship with his father. Doris clung to every family member.

Then my father met my mother, Patricia Usas. They looked nice together, and Pat had lost her own mother when she was around ten years old. She appreciated Grandma's mothering, probably like pain to dry wood, soaked it in, loved it. Grandma planned a wedding for them, Uncle Bill (William Albert) gave them a reception, and along I came.

By this point, some of the over-mothering was beginning to take its toll on my parents' marriage. Pat and Russ consulted grandma before they bought so much as a toaster. And sex - holy cow! My grandfather believed in abstinence if you didn't want children, and Grandma believed you climbed on and climbed off to get it done! My dad was fine with this, but my mother began to sense something was lacking. Still suffering from her own lack of mother, she confided things to my Grandmother, asking questions the like of which poor Doris had never dreamed of, and was told she had a dirty mind. Don't forget - Doris had had no one to argue with when she was growing up. She didn't know that one could be in conflict with one's parents or children. She had had no parent teach her that sex was a pleasure, and her husband didn't know better either, what were the chances!

Things quickly went south from that point. Since Mother Doris now disapproved of Pat, and Fred adored Doris, both my dad's parents helped my father cool towards his wife. And one day when I was five years old, having joined the Air Force and been posted to Namao Base in Edmonton, my dad packed me up and drove me off out west without a word to my mother.

Physiologically speaking, my mother's stress went to her neck muscles. She was admitted to hospital because her muscles were so knotted up they were constricting the blood flow to the brain.

They relaxed said muscles with morphine. And Pat became instantly addicted, because of course she was part of the 2% of the population that becomes an instant morphine addict. (I learned this about myself when I had my hysterectomy! Instant withdrawal symptoms: sweats, hallucinations, twitching and itching - that's one of my inheritances!)

So, my mother was unable to come get me. My father, who I adored, kidnapped me away from the most important relationship a human being could have. My grandparents agreed with him. Everybody I loved and trusted took me away from my own mother, and claimed to do it out of love. Did do it out of fear of losing me, they did adore me, they wanted to be with me, but nobody thought about how this would affect me.

So I became a bit conflicted...

My grandparents moved out west shortly after my dad and I did, and Grandma's mothering began to take hold again. At first I was glad - hell, I was five years old! My babysitter's daughter was a year older than me and she used to strangle me! I was thrilled to be taken care of by my grandmother! And there's another example of conflict for me - yet another person who was supposed to care for me failed me.

My parents divorced, we moved around, again a pattern of not having permanent friendships, no other voices but my grandmother's. Yes, my grandfather and my father were there, but let's not kid ourselves as to who ruled the roost!

So I grew up having zero trust in anyone who loved me, total obedience to my matriarch grandmother, an absentee mother (as far as I could process) and an emotionally distant military father. Into this mix throw my stepmother Minnie. The minute she said she loved me, I inwardly wondered what she was going to do to me. When she tried to loosen my grandmother's grip on me, again all hell broke loose, and the result was that my father and stepmother left me behind with grandma.

...Because of course, who knows if a step-parent would love a child properly?!

There's that horseshoe nail again! I was prevented from joining my father and his new wife out of the same old fears that had been firmly rooted in my grandparents' lives.

Now just wait till I had my own child, and then years later my own step-children! Woo-hoo! Are we ready for what I had learned at my grandmother's knee? Total overbearing mothering, total domination? Insisting on unquestioning obedience? Expecting my spouse to support me in those cases where conflict arose?

Hah! Did I ever get a comeuppance! And did I EVER take it out on the children!!!

It wasn't always bad. I remember having a lot of fun as a family. But I also remember scenes of blind fury. And at this point my inner demons took hold and I began my depressions. My recognized depressions - I'd been depressed most of my life but didn't realize it. From about the age of five, actually. No wonder. In hospital this time on suicide watch, because I didn't feel safe anywhere.

Any wonder I didn't feel safe anywhere?

But the bottom line to anyone who could see what was going on, was that this stepmother didn't love her stepchildren properly.

So for lack of Charles Thomas Gynes, Doris had a horrible life without a natural parent. She never learned how to handle conflict, she desired above all things to have a family and keep it close. For lack of parental guidance she didn't learn about physical aspects of relationships and became horrified when her daughter-in-law asked questions. Deciding that my mother was unfit, she drove her and my father apart. She came out to care for me and inadvertently taught me how not to handle conflict, how not to handle a lot of things: because every step of my life was planned for me. I never learned to make good choices. And when I got on my own, boy did I make some doozies!

And because of the over-mothering, I over-parented my step children. (Strangely, I'm pretty sure my daughter came out all right - but her story is different. After all, she had her natural mother, and access to her natural father despite the divorce. And both sets of grandparents, and a set of great-grandparents!)

Because of the type of over-parenting I received and the lack of real communication in my family, and because I was taken away from my mother, I suffered depressions.

Seriously, if Charles Thomas had lived...Even if Ada had still died young, Doris and William Albert would have been parented. Perhaps some of Doris' stranger ideas would have been challenged by her father. Perhaps he would have seen to it that she learned a bit about intimacy as she approached marriageable age. Perhaps she would have been more understanding of my mother's questions. Of differences of opinion. Of the necessity of letting young people go, be free to make their own decisions, even if she disagreed with them. Perhaps she wouldn't have taken me away from my mother.

I firmly believe my entire family history was strongly impacted by the death of my great-grandfather, Charles Thomas Gynes.

This is all I have left of him.

At the going down of the sun

And in the morning

We will remember them.

So They Thought I Could Write

In my schooling years I was told over and over again (by well-meaning teachers) that I could write. That I was a natural writer.

I guess I missed my calling, probably through laziness, as usual!

But a wee ditty I wrote a number of years ago came back to me today. The CBC (radio) had a competition on to win The Complete Works of J. S. Bach. People were invited to submit limericks with the word "Bach" in it.

I won one of the sets that were given away for this, perhaps my best writing ever.

(clears throat)

Zere vunce vuz a composer named Bach
Who complained to his vife one day, "Ach,
I can't do my writing,
For ze kids zey are fighting,
And ze dog is go Bach Bach Bach Bach!"

And there you have it dear reader. My best. Ta-da. 

Lack of Community

So, Covid robbed all of us of our little communities - from family to knitting groups, symphonies, courses, and quilting groups.

But I want to talk about a lack of community from ten to fifteen years ago, I forget how many, because since I retired and Covid came I can barely remember the year I was born, much less any details since then. 

For one year I was the project coordinator for a quilting group I was a part of. I worked very hard, but with little success. At the end of the year I made a poll asking the members what techniques they wanted teachers for, and they requested every single technique I had handled during my tenure. So...not much success there!

No hard feelings -- after all, I might just not be the teacher I thought I was!

But one project I proposed that didn't get accepted still rankles with me, and I've finally processed it's rejection and come to an opinion, ten or so years later. And that was a "Community" project. Community as in old-time, nearly Amish, quilting bee sort of idea.

Here was the plan.

Firstly, people would enter their names in a hat, sort of a lottery or drawing. Everyone who submitted their names was committing to quilting the project. The person who "won" the drawing got to have the help of the others participants in quilting one of their own quilts. 

You couldn't win more than once, and if you won you committed to participating the next year.

Basically it was a lottery to get help hand-quilting your own quilt. I had in mind the way I imagined quilting bees were done in the olden days - a lot of women helping each there get their quilts finished. A community of quilters helping each other get their quilts done quicker than they could finish by themselves.

Now, this wasn't too far off the kind of "lotteries" the group was already doing. Their "ordinary" drawings involved the group piecing and quilting a quilt and then the drawing would take place amongst all the participants to decide who would win said quilt. My plan simply involved an individual's quilt being quilted by the group who would all know ahead of time they were helping a member get their quilt done.

It never made it to the group. The steering committee looked at me with utterly blank faces and said, as one, "Why in the world would anyone want to participate in that?"

They honestly could not understand the point.

The point was being helpful to one of our own members.

The point was for the winner to get help and end up with a quilt finished in one tenth the time.

The point was for the winner to end up with a quilt they liked, instead of a pattern decided by a group of people with tastes different from their own.

The point was to act like a community.

Well, only a small minority understood the point, and the project never happened. So now, after ten or more years, I have come up with the retort I should have given when it was voted down.

"You must all be conservatives."

Seriously, they could not see the value of putting their effort into knowingly giving a helping hand to another member, even though the following years they might themselves benefit from such a lottery. Nope, they would only help out in a year if and only if they might themselves win that same year, even if the quilt they might win was not to their particular taste.

The LEFT seeks to benefit people.

The RIGHT seeks to benefit themselves.

Pardon me for giving a f**k about my neighbour's quilts.

Buttering Up

Betty Botter bought some butter 
And she put it in her batter ---
But she found the batter bitter
So she bought some better butter
(Better than the bitter butter!)
And she put it in her batter
And the batter wasn't bitter.
So t'was better Betty Botter bought some better butter.

I made butter today. Kinda just for the heck of it. The ultimate goal was to obtain two tablespoons of buttermilk, because I have a recipe for home-made soft cheese I want to make for New Year's.

In true 90-second-Deb fashion, I quickly scanned the recipes, mostly to work out whether to use the regular beater on the KitchenAid mixer, or the whisk. It's the whisk.

I poured a liter of whipping cream into the bowl and slowly ramped the speed up to 10.

That's when I realized I should have done what the recipe said and used a towel to catch the splashes. Undaunted, I obtained said towel and watched the mixer do its thing.

And watched.

And watched.

Damn. I needed to read that recipe again to see how long this takes! Turns out, it takes ten full minutes of the KitchenAid on speed 10.

So I returned to my task and the mixer returned to its. Now, years ago, when I first got my own KitchenAid mixer, I nearly set it on fire the first day because I used it to knead bread - too large a recipe for too long. This is why I was concerned and re-read the recipe, because Hubby's mixer was getting just a teensy bit warm.

I needn't have worried - in just a few moments more the transition began, buttermilk pouring out of solution and pure butter (looking like scrambled eggs) floating on it. After that I poured of the precious buttermilk into a container - I got over a cup! - and then rinsed the butter and squeezed the rest of the buttermilk down the  drain as best I could.

Admiral, there be butter here! And buttermilk!

In a few quick minutes the cheese concoction was set to warming, the butter stored in the fridge, and tidying done.

Now that I'm sitting thinking about this, I can't begin to imagine what it must have been like in OLDEN times, making butter by hand! Oh sure, they had churners made in various sizes, which worked, I assume, to varying degrees of success! But OMG!!! The hours it must have taken! Unless they literally did tiny amounts every day! C'mon - ten minutes at maximum on a huge mixer = at least five hours backbreaking work!

Once again, I am happy to be a child of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, despite my penchant for learning to make butter, chop wood, spin yard, knit, and quilt! Oh, and home-can a lot of food!

The Coffeepot, the Teapot, the Life

 

This is an item few people under fifty years old will recognize. It is a coffee server. Similar to a teapot, it is used to hold and pour coffee when using one’s fine china, in this case, the Royal Doulton Paisley pattern.

One can make tea in the teapot, but to use this coffeepot, one must first make the coffee elsewhere, then pour it into the coffee server, and from thence to the table for pouring.

To those with a thoroughly modern sensibility, this is ridiculous. To fans of Downton Abbey and other British period dramas, less so.

I marvel at that old lifestyle, where kitchen staff had to carry heaping trays upstairs from the kitchens to the dining room. Keeping the food hot, serving it at just the correct time, up and down those stairs at least twenty times per footman… In order to get everything on time, hot, on plates for all the guests - and there were always guests! - it was like a finely choreographed dance. A well-practised, sumptuous ballet.

The closest we come to such fine skill today is getting the turkey dinner on the table. From a kitchen no more than four feet away, I struggle to get the turkey on the platter, with a serving fork; the gravy in the heated gravy boat; the cranberry on the table in its pretty dish with a spoon; vegetables in serving dishes with spoons; stuffing in a dish with a spoon; chilled wine in wine glasses; chilled water in water glasses; napkins folded artistically; a lovely tablecloth under all; my Royal Doulton Paisley proudly laid beautifully for the enjoyment of all.

The men in my life are blissfully oblivious to how complex the timing of all this is! My female friends nod their heads in appreciation. Getting all this ready at the same time is, if not a ballet, then a miracle!

It is a labour, to be sure. But goodness, the table is beautiful.

That image, of course, is not of a turkey dinner, but you get the idea…

I got married the first time many, many moons ago. So many moons, that I was expected to start a gift registry, not on Amazon (which didn’t exist then) but at The Bay, specifically in the China, Crystal, and Flatware department. Otherwise known as the Bridal department. Because in that ancient time, brides-to-be were EXPECTED to choose a china pattern, a crystal pattern, and a flatware pattern. I, in fact, had to practically beat my future mother-in-law off with a stick to prevent her insisting I select a SILVERWARE pattern as well! Yes, there were several familial discussions about that point!

And this wasn’t happening in Edwardian Britain, but here in Canada, in the latter half of the twentieth century!

The only part of that trousseau I have left is the Flatware: Oneida Frostfire, and thereby hangs a tale for another day.

In the long years after my divorce I struggled to make ends meet. But my beautiful Mother had begun, late in her life, to collect Royal Doulton Paisley for herself, and it is this pattern that I inherited and cherish.

There is a sad part to this story, concerning the teapot.

One year I had been bemoaning to my mother that I had no idea what to get her for Christmas, and she replied that I could always help her out with her china collection. She suggested the teapot in the course of that phone call. She called me back twenty minutes later vehemently exclaiming that I was NOT to buy it for her, as she had just looked up the price and nearly lost her dentures.

She went on about what a ridiculous price it was, how any other teapot would do just as well, and I ended up getting her an ordinary teapot with similar colors to her china, and she claimed she was satisfied with that.

But with 20/20 hindsight, I regret not just putting this lavish item on a credit card and gifting it to her. Her life was cut short by a terrible stroke. I wish she had had the pleasure of pouring tea for her guests from her teapot that matched her lovely china. Especially since, the moment I inherited her china, I set about filling in all the gaps of the service she had left me, and bought the teapot anyway. And all of that was still on the credit card.

My mom loved to entertain, and she set a beautiful table. She also had great decorating sense, which I didn’t inherit, and that brings me to the point of this ramble.

I want the kind of life that coffeepot / server implies.

I want a clean, orderly, well-appointed home where guests can expect to be comfortable and treated like visiting royalty. Where I can set my table with pride, and experience palpable relief from the rush and bother of everyday life when I look at the china, crystal, and flatware all set out beautifully. Where the food is delicious and served hot at the right time.

And where I can pour the coffee for my guests from the coffee server, and everything be, for one precious moment, elegant.

Bloggable Moments

 Apparently I’m on my LAST NERVE.

I didn’t realize it till the events I’m about to describe were all over, but pressures had been building…

So this morning I had to go to my own vet to pick up extra stuff for my injured cat, whom I had taken to the emergency vet yesterday. I was looking for some special cortisone cream to take to my vet to show her and ask if I could use it on my injured kitty’s neck. (The answer turned out to be no, but that’s not actually today’s topic!)

I looked for the cream last night and had put it in my purse.

It wasn’t there this morning.

After running all over the place cursing myself for not putting things where they belong, I resorted to the DUMP, throwing everything from the purse on my bed, and yes, the cream was there.

I carefully repacked the purse and headed off for my two errands.

    1. Go to vet, discuss cream, pick up antiseptic wash

    2. Go to post office with a small gift to mail to my niece.

I got to the vet, showed pictures, got a new collar, picked up the antiseptic wash, and couldn’t find the cream in my purse.

I went out to the car, dumped the purse again, found the cream again, carefully replaced everything, went back in to the vet, and concluded my business.

Next, off to the Post Office. Put on my mask, squirted my hands, picked up a bubble mailer, dug around in my purse for the gift and card, which were not there.

Went back out to the car and dumped the purse AGAIN, only this time, I “lost it.”

An observer would have seen an old lady yelling at something in the front seat of the car. Swearing, in fact, at every item she was pulling from the purse. Swearing as she found what she was looking for and glancing furtively around to make sure there were, in fact, no observers.

I went back into the post office and managed to send the small gift, came back to the car and held it together till I got home.

I told hubby the story of my MaryFuckingPoppins purse.

I asked hubby if he’d just put his arms around my shoulders, and he said

“Why - is the straight jacket not tight enough?”

Male Designers for Female Needs

 Grumble grumble grumble…

So, as an old woman, I have a common condition. Not into diapers just yet, but needing pee protection. Sneezing, coughing, laughing, and sometimes just getting up or sitting down, stuff leaks out a little bit. A little bit more first thing in the morning, especially if I have to wait for one of my housemates to finish reading everything on Facebook before their bums falls asleep and they realize they’ve been in the gd-bathroom for an hour…

So, because of the morning “gush,” as it were, I have to wear what is termed “extra protection” type of pads.

These extra protection pads are huge, but my complaint is that they are LONG - almost fifteen inches in length!

Now, I don’t know about your anatomy, but fifteen inches is a rather extreme length on me! So long, in fact, that the front part frequently comes away from the panty it’s supposed to grip with its firm adhesive and sticks itself to the underside of my belly.

And let me tell you, that adhesive is FIRM against the underside of the belly! I wish it were as firm gripping the panty.

Recently I found myself waxing philosophical as I sat on the edge of the bed, about to stick my protection to the panty. I marvelled at the length, and it occurred to me that yes, a MAN would probably think that longer is better. I confirmed my suspicions by showing it to Hubby, who said that “obviously,” longer offered more protection!.

Just as I thought. See, longer does NOT offer more protection, as frequently bits have leaked out the sides of the pad. The extreme front of the pad is dry, as is the back, but the sides regularly cannot absorb the volume of liquid. Of course, were one to pee S L O W L Y into the pad, I’m sure it could handle it. However, if I could pee slowly, I wouldn’t need the damned pad!

All of which leads me to the question I would like to put to the designers:

Have you ever actually MET a woman?