{"id":442,"date":"2016-01-18T17:00:00","date_gmt":"2016-01-18T22:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.olders.ca\/blog\/?p=442"},"modified":"2023-01-07T16:13:28","modified_gmt":"2023-01-07T21:13:28","slug":"the-third-decade-1963-1973-a-walk-down-memory-lane","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.olders.ca\/blog\/?p=442","title":{"rendered":"The Third Decade 1963-1973 – A Walk Down Memory Lane"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Speech by Henry Olders, presented at the Fiftieth Wedding Anniversary of Joseph and Gerarda Olders<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

At the outset, a disclaimer: Peter is the last to talk, and he\u2019s already told me that he will deny everything I say. I know that he\u2019s a politician, so this is just ordinary behaviour for him, but as a responsible citizen, I feel it\u2019s my duty to warn you.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n

Just before coming here, Bill, Peter, and I were sitting around the dining room table at Peter\u2019s house, each working on our little speeches. Very reminiscent of our school years at 12 Kenmark, when lack of space meant that we all sat around the dining room table every evening to do our homework.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n

Of course, living the farthest away, I was given the last choice of which decade I would have the privilege of talking about \u2013 the one nobody else wanted, the third decade. These were the years of the great diaspora, when most of the children left home to start families of their own.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n

Peter was the smart one, though. With the rest of us out, he had the run of the house. I always marvelled when I came home to visit, how Peter had managed to talk my parents into letting him paint his room (OUR room, the boys\u2019 room!) black. Not brown, not charcoal, solid black!. With his ultraviolet \u201cblack lights\u201d making his posters glow in the dark, it was quite an experience, listening to Jimi Hendrix wailing away on his guitar at top volume. How did he manage to get away with all this? I can only conclude that he had somehow discovered my mom\u2019s \u201cguilt button\u201d. Ah, how we envied him, being waited on hand and foot. Bill and I got our share of mothering, though: we both went off to Waterloo to study engineering, and we would hitchhike home every weekend so that Mom could do our laundry. While Bill ran up hundreds of dollars in long distance telephone charges calling his lady, I would brave blinding snowstorms to get to a convenience store to buy cigarettes. And now I wonder why my son Michael has a hard time giving up smoking!<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n

All the really interesting stuff at the beginning of the \u201963-\u201973 decade, it seems, had to do with Bill and various modes of transportation. One year, the whole family went to a cottage up north, leaving Bill home as he had a summer job at Canada Malting. I think Andy Zijlstra who is here with us tonight may remember this. When the family came back home after two weeks away, we were very surprised to see the entire living room turned into a carpenter\u2019s workshop. Bill had decided he needed a kayak, and what better place to build one than in the middle of the living room? It did get built, eventually, and one time Bill paddled from Frenchman\u2019s Bay to Ashbridge\u2019s Bay, which is certainly a good long distance. We were so worried that we called the police and the coast guard to try to find him, when the agreed-upon time for Bill to call had passed. Bill related a story of being towed into port by the coast guard, but he says now that it really didn\u2019t happen. Not only did Bill take the old \u201953 Dodge back and forth to work downtown without a licence\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n

Talking points<\/h3>\n\n\n\n