As I mentioned earlier, remembering my life is, in part, actively travelling the roads back through the different neighborhoods and houses I have called home over the years.
Our first moves (“our” being my family), from Manitoba avenue in the north end, over the iconic Redwood bridge, which crosses our city’s main water line, the Red River, to Avaco Drive; and then to Eade Crescent shortly after in North Kildonan, exist in a flurry of scattered pictures and moments, Eade crescent remains a bit more vivid if only because this is where coming of school age afforded me a better and more acute sense of recognizable patterns and routines. Even then, it’s possible for me to sit with any one of those scattered pictures and moments and find myself transported back to a young kid taking shape, emerging from shadows as something resemlbling an embodied life. Something more than simple snapshots of a five year old kid trudging across a field to his kindegarten class (what makes this image, likely my earliest memory, stand out all these years later I have no idea).
What I remember the most about our brief time living on Avaco Drive is perhaps the quintessential childhood stuff. Favorite past times like climibing with my brothers on to the top of our roof and jumping off, out of sight of our parents of course. Or encountering the older neighborhood bullies, whom once intercepted me and my younger brother pushing eachother in our recently aquired stranded grocery store cart to the park down the street. Effectively grabbing the cart and stranding my brother in a massive (to us at the time) puddle (and subsequently getting an ear full from my mother in the process). I remember some of our early halloween nights, and in the summer playing on our slip and slide with the girl who lived across the backlane. In fact, it was on one of our last evenings at this house, a warm, sunny, summers day. that we were doing precisely this as we said goodbye to our neighbourhood friends.
Eade Crescent would be where I spent most of those early years (Grades 1-3) at John De Graffe School, walking to and from school around the Bay and across the field. Running home at lunch time to sit in font of that old t.v. and catch yet another episode of the old animated Spiderman television show. Whittling away mornings and evenings and long summer breaks playing marbles- my first true foray into the idea of the “collection”- in the school yard, and getting swindled in some very unforutnate trades at the same time. Having to play the obligatory games of “these are the Daves I know, I know,” given that I was one of four in my classroom. I still remember that long, wooden ruler that hung on the wall of the principles office, ready to be used on anyone who got out of line. The sort of image that stays stuck in your brain for a lifetime. I remember the iconic babysitter from the time, whom would make her way down the stairs, which stemmed down from the doorway, and situate herself in front of the t.v. where she would watch wrestling all night, making us boys go to bed early and warning us about disrupting her space.
In what could very well have been an incident with untold life long consequences, one sunny summer evening the three of us boys were out back playing around with a bat and ball. The house actually opened up on to the field behind us, so it was as though we had our very own acreage. I had just wandered over to where my younger brother was dialing up a pitch to my older sibling, and unaware had bent down to look at something. As I stood up, it happened to be at the precise time my older brother was dialing up a massive swing of the bat. My head caught the backwards momentum, the force knocking the world straight into circles. I’m not sure how long the world kept spinning, but without a doubt what I was experiencing was a significant concusssion of a young brain. Sometimes I wonder, if they did a brain scan today if they might see the remnants of some kind of damage.
If there is a single individual who stands out from this point in my life it would be a fellow named Andy, a guy whom I would cross paths with over the years in some unexpected ways given that our friendship never really suvrived the transition into junior high. In fact, it was Andy who would be the first to part ways, moving out of the neighborhood before I ultimatley ended up transitioning to the priavte school (Calvin Christian) down the road in Grade 4.
My connection with Andy actually begins with the Church we shared as kids, the iconic and historic Calvary Temple, which remains a relevant fixsture in Winnipeg’s downtown core to this day. Being the same age we would find ourselves in the same sunday school class, although I never truly connected who he was until our paths crossed at John De Graffe. He was “that guy” from church who I saw on occasion and whom had been over at our place once or twice when our parents were visiting. Now I knew him more personally by face and name, and we spent that brief forging a schoolyard relationship.
After he left John De Graffe, we didn’t really cross paths again until we found ourselves attending the same school in Grade 10 (M.B.C.I). At this juncture in our lives the thing that brought us together was music, him a learned bass player, me just beginning to take my foray into drumming seriously. This “connection” played out as well into our then new church life, as another mutual classmate named Tim, a singer/guitar player, led worship at the youth group we were now attending.
Eventually, as the years went on, following graduation the very fluid nature of the church world found our paths constantly diverging and reconnnecting. At one point, in a comic moment, one of those “reconnecting” moments found us sharing our place of work- an organization called Foods System Management. The job was simple. We had a warehouse full of food and products that would eventually go out to different schools in the city. We received weekly shipments which we then used to restock the shelves. My job,as the senior worker in the building, was taking care of the freezer area, and when a vacancy opened up in the wharehouse, suddenly Andy came into the picture, bringing with him yet another mutual classmate from our highschool years- Jeremy.
Looking back now, I can see the eventual trainwreck that was coming a good ways down the track. Although I was the senior worker, I was not the one that should have been responsible for these two big and boisterous personalities. Having the three of us largely left alone in the buidling was difficult to corral and keep in order, and all three of us knew it. It didn’t help that they also didn’t like our boss (I wasn’t the biggest fan either, but I had a lot more on the line than they did).
In any case, on one particular morning we were receiving a weekly shipment, which meant one of us had to be positioned at the bottom of the conveyer belt, another at the top helping to transfer goods on to a roller, and the third at the end of the rollers stacking the recieved goods on to a wooden platform.
I was at the top receiving goods from the conveyer belt and transferring them to the rollers.
Being the one with the longest tenure, I had done this many times over. It’s a simple procedure that relied on creating a rhythm. If the person at the bottom is going too fast, the person at the top can’t keep up and/or the rollers get jammed up. I had explained this to my two “co-workers,” but being prone to finding antics behind every corner, instead of heeding instructions they decided to have a little fun, the one loading the belt far too quickly while the other snickered and watched awaiting the anticipated fiasco it would create at my juncture.
There was only so much I could do until things started to clog up, pushing products off the belt and on to the floor, the inevitable fits of laughter ensuing from my co-workers now getting louder on either end. This wasn’t the worst thing in the world… until it came to the big pails of cooking oil. Once that toppled, then the fun really started.
Andy suddenly snapped to attention as I was busy trying to get the pail standing upright, the lid having popped off and oil spilling out onto the floors. As I was attempting to attend to the oil, more and more of the goods just kept falling off the belt and on to the floor behind me. Now the oil was beginning to spread everywhere, making it impossible to stand and get either Jeremy or the conveyer to stop. At one point I ultimately end up flat on my back, lying full bodied in the liquid.
Next thing I know Andy’s now on his back as well. We both try to make our way over to eachother but neither of us could stand up. So there we both were, lying helplless in a gigantic puddle of oil as more and more packages just kept tumbling off the belt. Jeremy finally finishes, and comes back up to the warehouse where, the oil now having spread across the entire space, he also promptly ends up on his back.
So there we were, the three of us, simply lying there staring at each other like we had been scripted in to an old I Love Lucy episode. At some point one of us started laughing. What else was there to do. And then the three of us are laughing. At the same time, the receptionist from the lower level had decided she need to bring us some paperwork, and despite our best efforts at momentary protestations ends up coming straight through the door.
Needless to say, that boss none of us liked wasn’t happy. Attempts to clean up the mess on our own time took forever. Stuff really hit the fan when the monthly inventory ended up so out of whack the following week that the bosses punitive measure of forcing us three to come back in on our own time on a Saturday to redo it led to my two friends ultimatley choosing to not show up and never come back.
That was a long day doing inventory on my own.
There’s a second story, perhaps a bit more serious and arguably more relevant and important, but nevertheless still with the same level of dramatics.
I can’t remember where we were precisely, but somehow I ended up getting a ride home with Andy and Jeremy from some event we were both at as young adults (as I mentioned, the church world can tend to be small). During the ride they had been having some discussions regarding their newfound charismatic convictions about the role of faith and healing in the Christian life. It was known that I had a long standing chronic ear condition stemming from when I was six months old, which had ultimately left me fully deaf in my right ear and partially deaf in my left. In my right, the chronic infection had eaten away at my ear drum and the bones inside my ear, leaving me with only the mastoid (the big one at the base).
Once they dropped me off, I had gone into my house and was already in my room getting ready for bed when I heard a knock on the door. My room is on the main floor right next to the front entrance. Everyone else is sleeping in their rooms upstairs as it is past midnight. I go to the door and it’s my friends. They ask… actually it was more like a demand, to come into my room so that they can pray for me to receive the gift of tongues, as they were certain that the reason why my ears had never been healed is because I didn’t have enough faith. Receiving the gfit of tongues would be a sign of that necessary faith.
I didn’t consent. I didn’t agree. I also didn’t have the ability to resist. Next thing I know we are in my room, I am sitting on my bed, and the two of them are towering over me with a list of intent and aggressive instructions. I was to settle on a syllable. Once I had that syllable, I was supposed to turn that over repeatedly on my tongue. As i did this they were then going to pray. They would then begin to pray over me in their tongues until, on their word, I would take over. At that point I would recieve the gift.
What is kind of funny about this whole ordeal is that the two of them were so eager to get to their “speaking in tongues” part that they payed no attention to the fact that I hadn’t actually started the process. They didn’t even give me the opportunity, had I wanted, to turn a chosen syllabel over on my own tongue. And in fact, at this point in the charade I was far too concerned with their own very loud syllables waking up my parents to think about any inner “promptings.” Things got more intense when they started jumping down in a holy frenzy.
The tongues never did come. My hearing never returned. My friends were visibly dejected, although not without the capacity to leave me with a final word- one day, they hoped, I would have enough faith.
Perhaps in a different way, replaying this whole scene likewise brings back memories of my parents dragging me down as a young kid (6, 7 years old, maybe a bit older?) to the front of the church one Sunday morning to have the pastor anoint me with oil and pray his own words of healing. I still remember the terror I felt in that moment, grasping at the railings in desperation and crying/screaming loud enough for everyone to hear me multiple buildings over. I even remember the Pastor’s face, looking at me with a sense of deep and troubled concern, as though something was wrong with me beyond just my ears. I don’t know. Mabye he thought I was possessed by a demon or something. All I can say with a fair degree of certainty that these memories would become part of the demons which would haunt me going forward. Perhaps just not in the way anyone intended.
Speaking of my ears. Perhaps the most significant memory of my time at John De Graffe, those years between Grade 1 and Grade 3, was my first major surgery- a mastoidectonomy. Where they dig a separate canal into your ear so as to allow it to properly drain and avoid future infections. It was my first experience of being put under with anaesthesia. Still one of the oddest experiences I think one can have in their lifetime (at least from my perspective). That feeling of sinking deeper and deeper away from reality, where faces and voices counting backwards from 10 slowly become distanced and more and more narrowed until the world appears like a pinhole in the fabric of space and time, and no matter how much you try to grasp at that hole in the distance you can’t reach it. It’s unnerving. I can still smell and taste the anaesthesia lingering in the backdrop of those memories.
Coming back into consciousness might be even more unsettling in some ways, as there is no way to actually prepare for the shock to the system. Before you can say “no, leave me be, I just want to go back to sleep,” hands are grabbing and forcing you into a sitting position, all so that you can promptly throw up into a bucket that has managed to show up suddenly out of nowwhere. In my case, this is also when I first notice the massive bandage around my head and imagine that they’ve actually lobotamized a part of my brain.
Recovery includes not having to go to school, drinking ginger ail (because back then it was a cure all), getting a care package of cards and gifts from my whole class, and eventually follow up appointments with my quirky, older Jewish ear doctor named Dr. Brodovski, who would always emphasize my name by flipping the A and the I around (so, DIVAD), marked by the routine breakfast or lunch with my mom at the old cafeteria in the medical arts building downtown. My go to was the cinnamon bun, as they were not only big, they would toast them on the grill and then butter them. Perfection.
Actually, another significant part of this time in my life would be my love of action figures, a segway that works well here given that another ritual built into my surgery days was getting a new action figure before heading in. If marbles was my entry point into the art of the “collection,” collecting action figures became my first full fledged hobby.
Along with subsequently getting swindled by some really terrible trades yet again. The monetary worth that could have been in my possession had I been aware.
Although if I am being honest, it never really occurred to me that a collection should sit on the shelf. I don’t think that ever would have made sense to me. For me, these figures were intended to be used. They were there for me to create worlds I could then get lost in. This wasn’t limited to just action figures either, although i spent many days and evenings on my own, often twirling around in cirlces, an action figure in both hands, sometimes for an hour straight. I know this confused my parents, but there was something about being caught up in that state of motion that transported me to another place. By spinning around in a circle, and yes, I get the irony here, the world would somehow stand still, the only thing in view then being the characters I was holding in front of me. Everything else would blur out of focus.
In a more visceral and physical fashion, that same spirit of play would apply itself to my brothers and I making a habit, especially when friends came over, of turning our basement and furniture into our playground, typically choosing a gigantic fort, often times with an enacted drama where we would be running away from home, usually on a raft, being chased by our parents. Or else carting the furniture out on to our front lawn where we would make a train and embark on a journey to whereever our little hearts desired.
More innocent times, to be sure. Although for me, deeper wrestlings were already well on their way to taking root as I muddled my way through the different experiences of growing up into this world. My chronic nightmares were still alive and well, the stories I was reading getting more and more nuanced and complex. It would be at Eade Crescent that I first encountered E.B. White’s Charlotte’s Web, a book that would open me up to deeper questions about this thing we call existence. Equally so the likes of Rolad Dahl, Beatrice Potter, A.A. Milne. It was also at Eade Crescent that my mom read Lewis’ The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe around the supper table. A stepping stone into L’Engle and Susan Cooper. It was also around this time that I was deep into John Bibee’s The Spirit Flyer series and local Winnipeg author John White’s famed fantasy series, The Archives of Anthropos. As someone who always found himself struggling to fit in at school, at home (comes with the territory of being the middle child and the only one without the name John/Jane I suppose), and in the world, this was where I could begin to make sense of things. The thoughts in my head. The polarizing experiences I was finding in the world. The thoughts and feelings I was having that were often met with misunderstanding and confusion to those on the outside.
Switching from John De Graffe to Calvin Christian after finishing grade 3 was of course marked by an eventual move from Eade Crescent to Morning Meade, a slightly bigger bay further north in the area of North Kildonan. Another “transition.” But of course, as with any turn in ones journey we bring the formative stuff of the past with us as we go. I’ve been mulling over what would be the key thing from this time in my life that begins to frame my story moving forward. I think the biggest thing these memories make alive for me is that, for whatever reason, the restlessness I know more concretely today has always been a part of me. Yes, I had experienced this as that young, 5 year old kid floating in and out of dreams and reality back on Manitoba avenue, but here it takes on a new shape- recontextualization. Here i begin to take that experience and formulate it into a childhood, as one drawn to wonder amidst the figurative struggles. One always seeking something true outside of myself, but also one who always had this sense that I was largely left to do this alone, peering through the cracks of the constructs and expectations that surrounded me. Being in the midst of this reality but often finding myself in that figurative twirling, moving in and out of these “worlds” at a moments noitce.
Yes, that sounds hyperbolic, I know. But this is the story these memories bring back. These are the words I have to describe it. This is, I think what becomes important for fleshing out the next chapter of my life.
The Stories of my Life 