April 23, 2008, Harper, Texas. Simple Pleasures.

I was born and raised a city girl. I was born in Toronto where my parents were stationed at the Dovercourt Corps of the Salvation Army, living on Ossington Avenue. I was too young to remember, but they then were transferred to Peterborough, in charge of the work there. I remember living there. Two clear memories are still with me. At a Children's Christmas concert, in between the acts of the play, I turned somersaults in front of the curtain, dressed in white panties and undershirt. I did not understand why the audience was laughing. I thought I was doing a good job. And I sang my first duet with my sister. Now I was very young but we sang in two parts. I sang contralto. I think I was four. I do not recall if my brother played the piano for us. He did play for us many times, but he did not enjoy doing it. He always said I sang off key, which was probably true. I also recall the house. My parents loved living in Peterborough and the friends they made there. When my parents retired, due to my Fathers poor health, they moved to Peterborough. But the Salvation Army moved their people often in those days, so after four years there My Father and Mother were sent in charge of the Public Affairs Department in London, Ontario where they stayed for two years. We all liked London, but I actually have few strong memories of London, except I had two good friends there, Carolyn Judge and Jean Shepherd. We stayed friends, in fact we all became teachers together. The next move was to Calgary, which my parents loved, as Calgary was my Father's home town, or rather the city the Family settled in when they moved to Canada from England. The same folks were there, so the time spent there was a happy one. Again, Dad was in charge of Public Relations. When we moved to Vancouver in 1948, my brother stayed back in Calgary to complete his high school year.

We lived almost six years in Vancouver, again in Public Relations for the Salvation Army. It was the growing up years for me. The city is a beautiful place and certainly was a big city even then. We then once again, moved to another big city, Toronto. Ken and I met and married there, and emigrated to the U.S. from Toronto, so I guess it is home. The whole point of these moves is that I have always lived in a city.

When we married I realized that Ken needed to be in the country, without a lot of people around him, so we started to go camping. We used the tent from his youth and not much else but we camped all over North America driving our VW bug and our primitive camping gear. In 1973 we bought our first farm, we called our tree farm. Now some of my greatest pleasures are not in the cities but in the country. It is still amazing to me that this city girl enjoys these simple pleasures. Today, I spent 30 minutes watching our new little calf. Now this calf is only 24 hours old, and that little calf was visiting all the other heifers while they licked her little nose before he went off to the next heifer. Amazing to watch the interaction between the cattle. Then we put 12 little gold fish into the cattle trough and watched them for 30 minutes. Simple Pleasures.

Of course I would be lost without my books and magazines. Simple Pleasures are fine, but I do not want to be without resources!!