Christine's 50th

I was lucky enough to get to travel to England twice as a kid. My Mom’s parents, Florence and Percy Howard, lived in Hastings in Sussex, England which was on the south coast of England about 2 hours from London. Nanny, Sherri and I went to England in May of 1962 and spent the whole summer there. We got picked up at the airport in London in a taxi by my grandparents as I don’t think either one of them drove.  They lived in a typical English row house with a kitchen, living room and sewing room downstairs and the bedrooms upstairs. They had a long, very narrow back yard that I believe had a gate at the back that led to some open fields.   Its funny the things that you remember. I remember my Nanny teaching me how to knit, and I actually knit about a two foot long, six inch wide thing that I called a scarf. While staying at their place, I learnt to drink my tea without milk or sugar and regularly had bread with real butter for a snack. It was on this visit that I had tradition...

I was out for a walk one afternoon plugged into my music when a song by Delbert McClinton (Midnight Communion) came on.  All of a sudden I was a little girl, sitting on a back porch listening to music I've come to call, "Back Porch Music".  It's the kind that just makes you tap your feet and bob your head (while at least that's the effect it had on me).  I can hear an accordion, a steel guitar, my grampa's mouth organ and drums, and a wonderful fiddle.  Every time I hear this kind of music it takes me back to my childhood.  When I think of my Grampa Albert I ALWAYS think of music.  When my Gramma Dot taught at the Hutterite colony, back porch music was a regular thing.  My grampa would pull out his instruments and before you knew it there was a crowd gathered, many having brought their own instruments to play along. And yes, washboards and spoons were really a thing in the day.   While I didn't inherit my Grampa's gift for music I did inherit...

Dad and I started dating in December of 1971.  In December of 1972 we realized we were pregnant.  In looking back it was a surprisingly calm conversation about what to do, and to be honest, it was a conversation that wasn't unfamiliar in those days.  Dad had been away to university and we were really missing each other.  We had talked about moving in together and had already had many conversations about getting married so this wasn't a case of, "I guess we have to. . . "   We took it all in stride and knew we wanted to get married before the baby came.  Fortunately for me I was very fit and the pregnancy did not show so there was no gossip that we knew of. In the spring we planned our wedding for May, three months before the baby was due and six months into the pregnancy. The story everyone now knows began innocently enough.  My parents were never particularly supportive during challenging times, anger was their first reaction to most situations. ...

Many of my childhood memories centered around going up the lake to the cabin.  The first trip I can remember was when all 7 of us went up in a very heavy wooden boat with a 3 horse motor on it.  It was a very slow trip up to the top of the lake to the cabin that Dad had built many years before with 3 or 4 other single guys.  Apparently the rule when they built it was that if any of them got married they were out.  I guess that's why I only remember going there once. Mom and Dad bought the current cabin along with a good sized boat, a larger engine and a boat house for what I remember was $1200.00.  I could be wrong as that was over 60 years ago.  We spent a lot of time every summer up at the cabin, sometimes for a week or two at a time.  I have a lot of good memories from our time there such as building rafts from the logs that were in the area; Brian casting off the rocks; going over to the Cruickshanks River where Dad tried fly fishing; and many days...

                                                          Georgina Victoria Anne Brown (Watson) May 24, 1934 – July 6, 2023   Born May 24, 1934 in the heart of the Great Depression shaped my mom’s life.     Born to Dorathy and Albert Watson in Rimbey, Alberta my mom was an only child.  There was another baby born the following year but did not survive so it was Mom, Gramma Dot and Grampa Albert moving from Hutterite Colonies to First Nations communities where Gramma Dot taught school and Grampa Albert looked after the home front, a rare occurrence in those days.   Music was a big part of my mom’s life growing up.  She played the guitar, piano and accordion and was quite well known around the Calgary Stampede as she played in the barns and on a chuckwagon in the opening parade for many years. ...

Robert Neal Watson, born to Henry Tolson Watson and Irene Watson (Howard) on June 21, 1954 at Cumberland Hospital. I was the fourth child with 3 older brothers Brian Michael (Oct. 7,1945), David Howard (Jul 18,1947) and Gary Tolson (Jan.4,1949). My younger sister Sherri Lynne was born Dec.13,1956. I always wondered if I was supposed to be one final try for a girl but my Mom said that wasn’t the case. I will talk about my parents and siblings at a later date.  I think I had a pretty typical life growing up in a small town, except for the fact that my Dad was the school principal which had its advantages and disadvantages. I got a hard time on occasion from kids who had been disciplined by my Dad, who did all of the discipline in his schools, and we had our fence torn down once by unhappy students but because  I was so involved in sports  things were made much easier.  The fact that my dad was the principal and had been such an outstanding athlete was something I was a...

Roxanne Lee Brown, born to Georgina Victoria Anne Watson (Brown) and William Hubert Brown on December 21, 1954 in Ottawa, Canada.  My older brother Randal Keith Brown was born December 22, 1953 in Edmonton, Alberta, my younger brother Theodore David Brown was born January 17th, 1956 in Turner Valley, Alberta and my youngest sister Beverly Lynn Brown was born May 9th, 1962 in Edmonton, Alberta.  You can see by the birthdates that for many years I was the middle child between two boys and this defined my growing up years. My parents never really spoke about the early years so I do not know how they saw me as a toddler and younger child.  I do know that from the time I can remember I was a competitive girl always trying to prove I could do it just as good (if not better) than the boys.  I was the typical image of a ‘tom boy’ growing up.  I played sandlot baseball and football and was a regular on the outdoor hockey rink, almost always the only girl amongst the boys...