This is a photo taken a few years ago on the street where I grew up in Claresholm, Alberta, which is rounghly 100 mikes south of Clagry on the number #2 (shit joke here).
I was on tour with a guy named Gilson Lubin at the time, and he took the picture. Gilson is a popular TV actor now, and a was a very cheming and clever stand-up. He has MAJOR dad issues, which, as usual, I got to take credit for. Even then I was viewed as old, and now, on my 47th (count 'em ) birthday I still feel like a little boy.
I lived in a small house in Claresholm (pop 1200) with my parents and three siblings. I was the youngest with an eight year span between the eldest, Ronald, and me. We lived here until I was seven. It is here, or at least during this time, that I recieved my harshest treatment. My father was principal of the school and my mother was left to take care of the four of us. My recollection of this time is spotty, but I do remeber recieved a great deal a female attention. I clearly remeber standing on a table while my siters adjusted the leiderhausen (sp) I was wearing. I hard to know what was going on with Patricia and Sharon, but they were dressed similarly a lot. There are phots of all of us in co-ordianted outfits - Ronald and I in plaid vests and bow ties. We were entered in a lot of music festivals as soloists as wellas the family music category.
The first competition/stage performance was when I was less the one, when the family sang "Teddy Bear"s Picnic" where i was plopped in front to cuddle my winnie the pooh bear. The piano, and festivals and school came in flurry after that. But those first years, before school, were when it happened, or began.
Being at home with my mom changed, when her mom died. I didn't know it until I was almost 40, but my grandmother committed suicide when I was six. She had suffered a series of minor strokes that had left her unstable, and once she was diagnosed with arterial sclerosis, she checked out of the hospital, went home a took a bunch of pills. That is how my cousin Tanya told me. My own siblings and parents never did tell me their version. But what I think/remember, is that she was a sour cunt of a dnae woman, who wielded her power and control on everyone. She was brilliant, and because he brother drowned, she had to come back from university, and then moved to westlock where my grandfather, (also a dane) married her and started having a family. Unfortunately, and again, don't have the big details, but my mother had twin brother born dead.My grandmother, had two children and believed my mother should also only have two. When my mother had her third, it was okay cause she was a cute little girl. The fourth, moi, was in deep doodoo before birth. 47 years ago today. 9lbs 6 oz, and according to my mother, a quick and easy birth, at noon that day.
My father loved me a lot, and he let me know when he could. But he was also rpone to angry poses, and so he prety much scared everyone else. I wasn't scared of him. I liked him. Oh well.
He was away a lot, and eventually at the age of2 or so, my ailing grandmother was left to watch me at Christmas. I was told not to touch the tree. I poked a red ball with my finger and it slipped form its clip and shttered so completely that it appeard to urn to liquid. My grandmother rage was huge and swift. She had my arm and pulled me to her chair. My pants were done, and then my underwear in a flash. And now the imbalance of being tipped upside down and on her knee. The hail of smacks to my chhecks left me stunned, then terrifeid. The pain was white, and almost unrecognizable. That happened in Edmonton.
After that I got a ot of spankings. Not from my grandmother, but she clearly had sent a message how she thought I should be handled. My mother, I guess not wanting to hurt her hand, used a long wooden spoon on me. She would use it somethimes four times in one day. It was like a work out. And my siblings, most often present, would take turns getting me in trouble, or at least relishing my punishment as gratefully not their's and that I was less then them.
I realise many things about that tiem now, but then it was just the way to was. Certainly I was not the only boy being beaten growing up. I remeber one guy at hockey practice standing up on a bench in the dressing room, pullilling down his pants and showing us the purple belt marks across his butt, and we all gasped and howled with last as he jumped around gleefully. No, it was standard for boys to be physically disciplined. But my attackers were woman. And as I grew to love women and crave their attention and company, I found myself with confusing guidleines as to what to expect. Abuse was all I knew, and how I pursued attention and nuturing. hmmmm
Not a good start.
Unless one were to become a stand-up comedian.
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