AUGUST 19, 2020 – How do you say good bye to someone who has loved you all your life and whom you have loved too?? All of us have experienced it at one time or another but it doesn’t seem to get any easier. Recently my family lost our wonderful brother, Ron Herrington, affectionately called, “Satch’ by a lot of people who loved him also.
Ron was the best brother anyone could have had. When some of us were still at home and he was already out working, when he came home from work he often had a treat for us younger kids such as some chocolate bars, bas of candy or even a new comic book, He was always a generous man, kind, loving with a great sense of humour and easy laugh.
He looked after my Mom for years and when she went to live in a nursing home he visited her every day. He would go after lunch and stay until her bedtime. Nasty weather did not stop him, not even the awful icy days of the big Ice Storm in 1998. A wonderful son and brother.
This is a great photo of my brother Ron enjoying a birthday celebration and looking relaxed and happy.
Shalom, my brother, until we meet again.
One thing that could be said about Cornwall when we seniors were growing up in the fifties was that it was very ‘homey’. We knew so many people and other kids. Where ever we were we saw someone’s parents, or cousins or other siblings. When I lived on Fourth Street, a lot of the families could be seen sitting on their front porches watching us kids playing on the lawns and streets.
One family were the Carpenters, Pauline and Gordon and son Wayne and daughter Sheila. Pauline’s Mom lived a few doors down and we called her ” Nanny Steel”. She lived with her son Lloyd who was a fireman. We called him affectionately ‘Lloydy”. Wayne became a fireman also when he grew up. He later became the Captain of the Cornwall Fire Department.
One time some of us kids were playing darts on the Carpenter veranda. Someone threw a dart clumsily and hit my hand. Gordon gave me first aid for the wound. Years later when I was a young student nurse I had him as a patient. He laughed and said, “I took care of you when you got that dart in your hand many years ago. Now you are looking after me.” Nice memory.
We had a lot of parades and I can remember looking around the crowd of spectators so often and there were always so many familiar faces in the crowd. Even the store keepers would be outside their doors watching the parade such as Reg Kyte, Mr. Nyman, Mr. Weber, Mr. Chan, Mr. Snetzinger and Mr. Pommier, to name a few. We knew them all. My favourite memory of a parade besides the Pet Parade was when the Black Watch Pipes and Drums Band came swinging down the street. Talk about ‘getting high’..Wow, we kids loved it and all the excitement it caused.
Ahhhh, those were the days.!!
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Friend sent me a list and photos of stuff from the past such as: baby doll pj’s, 4 leaf clovers, bronzed shoes, Smith Brother’s Cough Drops, ringer washing machine, Le Pages Mucilage , Dippity-doo Hair Gel, Saddle Shoes with plaid laces, transistor radio, Pick Up Sticks, a silver Christmas tree, Evening in Paris cologne, old dial phone, Juke box, Out House, little red wagons, 5 year diary and key, Drive-in theatres and many more.
Mom had an old grammaphone stored away that played # 78 records. It was a beauty. I had a more modern record player my brother Ron had given me as a birthday present. I loved it .I especially liked to play my ’45’s on it such a Elvis’s, “Blue Suede Shoes”, Bill Hailey and the Comets, “Rock Around the Clock” and Little Richard’s, “The Girl Can’t Help It.” Poor Mom. She would say, ‘turn that down please. Guess I liked it loud, ( too loud for her.)
My friend Fran Irwin sent me this wonderful photo of a Momma robin feeding her babies. The robin had apparently made a nest under the roof of a porch. Beautiful photo. Fran, thanks for sharing it.
Mother Nature is a blessing right now to help us de-stressed from all the pandemic stress. Looking at the bird photo and feeling the wonderful awe of it all reminded me of a few lines at the end of Max Ehrmann 1927’s, “Desiderata”:
“Nurture strength of spirit to shield you in sudden misfortune. But do not distress yourself with dark imaginings. Many fears are born of of fatigue and loneliness.
Beyond a wholesome discipline, be gentle with yourself. You are a child of the universe no less than the trees and the stars; you have a right to be here.
And whether or not it is clear to you, no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should. Therefore, be at peace with God, whatever you conceive Him to be. And whatever your labors or aspirations, in the noisy confusion of life, keep peace in your soul. With all its sham, drudgery and broken dreams, it is still a beautiful world. Be cheerful. Strive to be happy.”
Here are a few funny thoughts sent in from a friend, Ramblings of an Old Mind:
1)I was thinking about how a status symbol of today is the cell phones that everyone has clipped onto their belt or purse. I can’t afford one. So I am wearing my garage opener.
2) I was thinking about old age and decided that old age is when you still have something on the ball , but you are just too tired to bounce it.
3) When people see my cat’ litter box they always say, “Oh, you have a cat?” Just once I would like to say, “No, it’s for company.”
4) Employment application blanks always ask who to call in case of an emergency. I think I should write, “An ambulance.”
5) Did you notice: the Roman Numerals for forty (40) are XL?
6) The easiest way to find something lost around the house is to buy a replacement.
7) You know you are getting old when everything either dries up or leaks.
8) Ah! Being young is beautiful but being old is comfortable.
Have a good week and keep safe, Dawn
How lucky were we to grow up in “Cornwall, The friendly City’! Enjoyed reading all the familiar names of our past.
-Myrna Plumley Watt