Picture This

This dashing young fellow's name is Cammy Lirette, an old friend that goes way back to the single-digit years of age.  He and his family - his mom Peggy and father Guy, and brothers Dennis and Bobby - lived at a house on Lockhart Avenue back in the day.  Cammy was a little younger than me, by about two years, I think.  Dennis a little younger, and Bobby the youngest.  I remember his dad used to work at Lanes' Bakery, which is now tragically called Bimbo (not even kidding).  I don't believe his folks are alive anymore.  In fact, I haven't heard from those boys in decades, perhaps since when I was living at 136.  They were all very likeable guys from a blue-collar family.  I thought I might have heard that Cammy's a marine biologist or something, but that could be wrong.  Dennis, I'm not sure of; but I did see Bobby working at a call center where the old CN buildings were once when I was delivering catering for BJ's Subs.  We exchanged a few pleasantries and I

My sister Cindy, once again at Christmas time, also with her future husband George.  Not sure what she's holding in her hand in that top picture.  You can also see Rick and Dorothy in the foreground of that picture.  Note the chocolate box of Toffifay, which mysteriously changed in modern times to "Toffifee", but is pronounced the same.  I don't get that!  Perhaps proof of Steve Kokic's beloved belief of the Mandela Effect? Honestly, Cindy and George don't look a lot different today than they do from four decades ago.  Not to me, anyway.  They seemed to maintain their youthful look; I think true love can do that for people. Cindy's macrame Santa is there again once more photobombing the picture.  Check out the smile on the 'stache-mugged George!  If that doesn't show happiness, what would?  Cindy simply looks beautiful in these pictures.  I'd say George is a lucky man, but Cindy's lucky too.  George has all the elements of what a man ought

The Queen of the Cooks. At the top you see a very young-looking Thora smiling pretty for the camera at Christmas time.  There's a little glimpse also of what appears to be Dad beside her... except it's not, that's Rick!  Dad's mini-me, who's now a major-him.  Boy, am I glad I was a shutterbug in those days.  All these great pictures, especially of Mom. On the bottom, there she is in her favorite robe sitting on the Crazy Quilt hide-a-bed couch with the matching (not so much) cushions.   Not sure what papers she has in her hand there, but let me just note that Mom was extremely savvy with the finances.  She was on a shoestring budget to manage the household, and she did it quite deftly.  It left all of us wondering how she did it.  Mostly me, I guess, because I didn't have a head for money at all in those days.  Still don't, really!  Thankfully, I had the wherewithal to hand over financing duties to Janice shortly after we got into our house.   A lot of these

Isn't she lovely? That's dear Mom, with a probably-too-close picture (maybe it was a selfie??), and another of her working her crafts. Everybody in the 80s had to have had these aluminum TV tables at one time or another.  And in true 80s fashion, it's loaded with colors and flowers and stuff.  We all had many a dinner and snacks with the aid of those tables, and even did our homework or whatever.  Mom's here taking advantage of one doing what appears to be some kind of crochet project.  She was always doing something.  Any kind of art talent I had in me I think has to come from Mom, and now is passed on to Alexandra.  My artwork was a joke compared to my kid's!  But that's how all parents want it to be, right?  For our kids to succeed ourselves.  I'm pretty proud of the stuff Lex comes up with. You can see that Mom's wearing her wedding ring, long after Dad died.  Despite all of their troubles, she was faithful and loyal right to the end, and even beyond

 The Mitzi gets some couch time with the acne riddled Me. I loved that sweater that I have on there.  Mom gave it to me one Christmas..  In fact, in all these youthful pictures, Mom bought me pretty well all my clothes, seeing as I was still in school and stuff.  It's not brown, right?   I have mixed emotions looking at this.  It brings me back to a rather tortured time when I was dealing with such bad acne.  The names I was called, the stigma attached to it all, pretty much forcing me into exile at my own house, which is why you see all these pictures taken at home.  I couldn't get a date to save my life, much less get a girl to look at me at all.   But times changed.  I remember my brother Peter used to tell me he had acne issues, too, so he related with what I dealt with, making me feel way less alone.  It sort of softened the blow of ridicule that I often felt in school, when I'd find out 'friends' were making fun of my 'pizza face' behind my back.  Toda

This is me playing that black drumkit that I mentioned before that I bought off of Mr. X.   I think this kit had 8 drums to it, pretty big for me.  If I could afford 20 drums I'd get them!  But that's pretty unrealistic. The Peavey SP2's are lurking in the picture, which tells me I was singing backups with this practice session.  You can see a mic off to my side if you look close enough.  I would have to pull it towards me and away during mid-song to keep it out of the way.  Singing and playing came with practice.  I didn't find it to be very difficult. Thank God for those milk crates!  Or everything would be on the floor and harder to hear.  Not that we didn't play loud.  We played LOUD.  Probably likely because I laid the hammer down on those drums. I would suspect that this was an Asylum practice as we rehearsed for a gig at the Village Pub in Riverview back in those days.  Either that or the University Club Kacho, which was PACKED.  The cool thing about that Uni

Sticking with the YQM theme for this round of pics... this is Chris Goguen, the guy who produced our CD.  I think we were the first project he actually produced.  It was a learning curve for all of us.  Namely because I didn't get to record with a click track to keep time, so it was kind of off in places on the CD, and I'll take the blame for that.  In retrospect, I wish we could've recorded the whole thing live instead of sectionally. This guy made us sound pretty good, though, at least better than if we did it ourselves.  He's a pretty friendly guy who was ambitious with recording.  I can only imagine how our recordings would have sounded had he worked with us a little later in his producing career, but he did a fine job as it was. I remember Chris used to say 'Mike, you should learn guitar, you've got the basic idea!'  I did, after all, write a few riffs on guitar, but I'd come up with them and get Pete to flesh them out fully.  So I could write that

  The magnificent Pete Howell, ladies and gentlemen! I reckon this is at his apartment on Noel Street back in the YQM era, when he was punching in guitar parts for the YQM CD on the DAT, or Digital Audio Tape recorder with Chris Goguen.  That would put this in the late 90s. The thing about this picture that, as random as it seems, Pete looks like he's exuding the character that he was on the cover of the CD, the uptight media guy (which isn't him at all, but it was a 'character').  This could've been part of the promo material for that recording, now that I think of it. I don't really talk about the YQM thing with too many people, because there were some who scoffed at us.  We just wanted to do it to say that we DID it.  And we did.  I think, actually, it was this evening that this picture was taken that he recorded the solo for 'Amazon Girls', which he wrote and had me sing.  And I've said this several times, but that very solo is one of my favorite

  The Gang of 5 at Pete & Doriane's place. This is a little bittersweet.  That's Steve Kokic on the far left, then Alan and Lisa Cormier, Brian Bourque and Wayne Weldon. It's bittersweet because Steve is no longer with us.  He passed on a few years ago, I think due to a suspected heart attack.  Puzzling, because Steve looked after himself.   Steve was an inspiration and continues to be.  He was accepting of everyone, though I believe he suffered from mental illness issues that compromised his judgment from time to time, much like me, but I think my judgment was far worse.  He wasn't perfect, but he was perfectly imperfect.  It hurts to realize I can't go to Halifax and see how he's doing.  I last spent time with Steve having him tag along on a drive from Moncton to Halifax to a KISS show playing there, not knowing that would be the last of us together.  But it was a fun little trip for us. Alan and Lisa have been stalwarts in 'the gang' pretty much f

 Here we have a bit of a trip back to the early 90s.   Two old friends are in the picture here, Greg behind the newspaper, and Tim beside him.   This was taken at Green Gables convenience store on John Street here in Moncton, which doesn't exist anymore anywhere.  This was one of the last locations around before it morphed into "Needs", once TRA Foods, who owned the Sobeys chain at the time, bought the Green Gables stores outright and began changing them all into cookie-cutter uniformed stores.   Greg was a staple at these stores when we worked at them.  I was actually an assistant manager at a location on West Lane, where I started and worked my first real job, and was where I met Janice, Tim and Greg.  After I got hired, eventually Janice joined in, and Tim also got a job there at West Lane.  There's a whole lot of Green Gables DNA in our relationships, orchestrated kind of by a fellow named Donnie Goguen, quite possibly the smartest guy I've ever gotten the pri

  Just in case you need any more proof as to how loyal The Mitzi was to Mom... Here's the two of them taking it easy on the Crazy Quilt Couch/Hide-a-bd.  Look at the armrest of the couch!  It looks like cement or something.  I know that's what it felt like.  Thank God for cushions.  Even if they didn't match.  But what the friggin' heck Would match with a couch like that! Mom sure liked that blue bathrobe.  It's a co-star of hers in a lot of pictures of her here.  

Here we have my second set of drums that I bought off a fellow named Dave Parlee that used to live on this street I live on right now, actually.   Prior to this, I was playing on Tupperware, because that first drum kit I had kind of ran their course.  Although you can see the snare drum from that first pair of drums I had that my brother Greg gave me, in the foreground of the picture. The thing with this set is that beyond my hi-hat, I didn't have any cymbals.  Being a drummer is expensive.  You might be able to get a cheap cymbal for $100, but even that won't sound all that great.  If you're a guitar player, you get a guitar and an amp and you're good to go.  Drummers have to have drums, cymbals, stands, hardware, bass pedals, cowbells, etc.  I'd say the two drum kits I have right now have a good $3000 poured into them over the years between the two of them.  And I don't even have that much. I got a lot of mileage out of this set, though, before I got that blac

  Where I just posted a shot of Alycia, like I'm also doing here, here's another actual picture of her here with her mom Heather and her grandmother, my Mom.  I think by the looks of it, I caught Heather off guard here!  As I do with a lot of people when I have a camera. This would be when my brother Peter and Heather were married.  Heather looks like some kind of model here.   Alycia always seemed to be laughing and having fun, as my memory serves.  This looks like it's in our living room at 136, maybe at Christmas time when the kitchen table was in there.  Maybe not.  I can't quite figure exactly what the occasion is here. I remember Heather dropping in to see Mom a lot through the years.  If Mom were still around, she'd still be doing it.   My brother Pete idolized Mom, like all kids should with their parents.  Always treating her like the Queen she was.

  There's more than enough Christmas pictures I'm throwing out here, eh? Here's Mom getting a professional portrait shot of my brother Peter's and then-wife Heather's daughter Alycia.  Mom was proud of each and every one of her grandchildren.   Honestly I didn't get to know Alycia very well, probably because of the gender issue, because the same could be said for all my nieces.  I did make a connection with just about all mu nephews, mostly, though geography often gets in the way of all that. Alycia is married these days to a pretty fine gentleman named Trevor, and they're raising a daughter named Molly.  The circle of life keeps on spinning. The Color Couch made a valiant effort to photobomb the picture, but alas, Mom and Alycia prevailed here.

  There's lots of 80s stamps in this picture, from the macrame Santa on the door in the background my sister Cindy made - that I have here now and put up every Christmas - to George's 'stache, the ceramic Christmas tree... it's got nostalgia written all over it. George was Cindy's boyfriend back at the time. He came along right when she needed him the most, I think, handy to the time Dad died, if memory serves me. George was a high school sportsman, raised by an ambitious family and became an electrician; he even built a house on his own to his specs and sold it. George and Cindy would prove to be inseparable as they later married and still are to this day, quite happily, with two kids and grandchildren. I remember one particular time when Mom and me were invited to join George and Cindy at his parents' house at Christmas time. I was quite depressed, as I often came to be during the holidays, and took that sulky depressed state to the Mayos house that night

Anyone remember this band in Canada from the 80s? I loved this band a lot.  They came to Moncton to play the Coliseum many times through the 80s, and I saw them every time.  I liked them enough, apparently, to inspire me to draw their logo on a piece of bristol board and put it in my room. I've got a lot of their songs on my Spotify list, and when I hear it today.... bloody friggin' hell, the singer, who was named, I kid you not... Holly Woods... had the biggest, strongest, most bombastic voice to ever be under-appreciated.  The whole band was just great.  They never overplayed or got too flashy, they just played great, straight-ahead rock and roll.  I believe Woods and her girl guitar playing partner Sharon Alton even wrote some of Heart's biggest songs.   I remember one concert of theirs in particular for their 'Girls Night Out' tour.  My buddy Larry had a girlfriend who had a friend that would be a 'date' for me at this particular concert (I'd rather

Once again, my dear 'ol Mom, complete with her King of the Hill-style glasses! Mom would literally save her pennies.  When she'd gotten enough of them to warrant it, she'd take them to the kitchen table and roll them up in 50s to bring them to the store and cash in for paper money. It was quite funny watching Mom roll those pennies, because it was like playing KerPlunk... one wrong move and everything you'd done brings you back to the start.  You can see the tension in the top pic,  and the surprised look of success in the bottom one.  You'd get a lot of her trademark "aaaaahhhhh!!'s out of her every time she'd do this.  It was quite hilarious, really. Something I value from those days was how much I could make Mom laugh.  I tried to make her laugh all the time.  She had a very distinct laugh that she passed on to all of us Cooks.  My friend Steve, who's passed a few years ago now, would make 'joke tapes' with lots of comedic bits and songs

  Oh boy, SO many memories of playing this bad boy! The klassik KISS pinball machine. Never mind that it looked great and sounded great, but it was actually a really fun pinball machine to play. I'm not quite sure where I took this picture, perhaps at Seven C's variety store at the corner of Humphrey Street and Mountain Road, or maybe somewhere else. But at Seven C's, where my mom actually worked for awhile to try to support the family because we were so poor (with her best friend Anita), it's where I played it the most. There was a king's ransom of quarters that were dumped into this and many other pinball and video games back in the day. In fact, I got in a lot of trouble for being addicted to those things. I had a paper route that I'd spend pretty well all of my money on arcade games. Back then, they were the equivalent of video games that you see today, except you had to pay to play each game. Sometimes I would collect paper money in advance from cust

    "Is this a CKCW Halloween House?" Why, yes it is!  What was your first clue? I was a big mark for CKCW, our AM radio station back in the early 80s that played all the big hits.  They had some kind of a Top 5 show every night where callers would phone in and vote for their favorite song at the time.  At the end of it every night, you'd have a chance to call in and tell them the top 5 songs in order to get yourself a prize.  I got a LOT of prizes.  Records, clothing, gold chains, food, you name it, I won it. Right here see our windows all decked out in rah rah CKCW imagery... Pac Man was new and a really big deal at the time with kids like me, and I took it upon myself to make a pumpkin Pac Man gobbling up pills and chasing 'ghosts'.  The deal was, if you decorated your house with a CKCW theme, you might be asked to become a 'CKCW Halloween House', where you'd distribute prizes to those who asked.  In return, you'd get a boatload of swag from CKC

  It looks like this picture's hanging on for dear life as far as quality goes.  This is my dear brother Greg, in his classic brown leather jacket, most likely dropping in to see mom during one of his lunch hours.  Greg worked at the CN Humpyard for many years back then.  I remember one time him taking me there as a boy and giving me a tour of the place.  So many trains!  It was quite magical for a little fellow like me. I see that ashtray beside him by the chair, here.  Greg, besides me, was the only one that never took up the smoking habit in the family.  He must just not have found it to be for him, thank God.  He's rockin' the 'stache here, sometimes going with a full beard throughout that decade.  I have numerous fond memories of him taking me along with his girlfriends back in those days - I remember Paulette, who worked at the ticket wickets at the racetrack; then Elaine came along - I think of going to these cold water springs off of Mapleton Road and filling up

 Here's a peek at the aforementioned 'club days' when my mom would gather a group of her friends on Thursday nights, and they'd gather at the kitchen table and make crafts for Christmas and talk; also known as 'stitch & bitch' by some today; although there was really no bitching going on when they got together, they just loved each others' company.  That would be Flo from the Tracy family on the left, Jeanette Longphee in the middle, and dear 'ol Mom with one of her Benson & Hedges or Craven M smokes.  Sometimes she smoked Matinee Special Filter or Peter Jackson. That paneling though, eh?  And those floral kitchen chairs.  Weird how styles evolve through time.  I remember thinking it was all so modern in its own days. One of my brothers piped in some other names Mom would have over for these kinds of nights - names like Bertille, Kay, Pauline Wilson, Anita Tracy... there were so many.  Bertille was funny.  She'd often call when Mom was out an

  Here's a shot of my brother Roy with his short-lived Gerry Rafferty look via the beard.  Looks like he has a pack of Export A Light smokes in his shirt pocket.  Later on, Roy would move on to Colts cigars.  I always liked the smell of those cigars.  Honestly, even the smell of those old cigarettes back then bring on a hint of nostalgia, especially when they were first lit.  That's not an endorsement or recommendation to smoke either, by the way.  We can all do without that. Anyway, that's another Cook prince, Shawn, Roy's second of two sons.  His other boy Christopher and Shawn and myself had so much fun back in those days, because there were only seven and eight years of the generation between us, so we were effectively all kids, and I had myself two new little brothers, at least that's how I saw it.  But they'd say the same today.  Obviously they were my nephews, but I just saw the opportunity to claim them as my bros. So many people often said that Shawn wa

  Here's The Mitzi taking a bath, and Professor Mitzi chillin' on the couch.   Every once in a while we'd have to give our lovable little mutt a bath because she wasn't smelling as pretty as she thought she looked.  The only trick was to get her in that tub, because she didn't quite have the dexterity to leap out of it once she was in there.  I still can smell those Hartz shampoo bottles that we used for her.  Not the loveliest of scents, but better than obese dog sweat at least. For the fun of it, I thought I'd take a picture of her with my windshield-style glasses.  Of course, everyone was wearing those back in the day.  In some corners, they still do.   In that bottom picture is that classic colorful afghan covering up my Dad's favorite old chair.  I'd held onto that until it just fell apart too much to make sense to hang onto.  Dad would sit in that chair on Sundays and read the weekend paper, or watch Atlantic Grand Prix Wrestling on Saturdays.  Sat

  This young man's eyes are so brown, he's full of.... brown clothes. As I've previously said, my mom used to love getting me brown clothes to match my brown eyes.  Here she gives me a scarf  to go with the brown corduroys you might have seen in a previous pic.   One time later, Mom actually gave me a grey scarf, which I still have and even wear sometimes to this day.  I'll never lose that.  I have some other odd clothing items that I kept to remember Mom by.  But I don't think anything brown made the list.  Hindsight is 20/20, eh?  I'd love to have all that brown clothing she bought for me now.  Not that I'd fit in any of it. But I can tell you the corduroys didn't quite make the cut. My brother Pete remarked about Mom's needlepoint artwork that's hanging on the wall behind me there.  She'd put a ton of hours into those.  It was one of her passions, along with doing a lot of knitting and other craft-y stuff.  She was really quite talented. 

 That top picture, I don't quite recognize the dog... but it appeared every once in a while in a super-suit with the name Killer on it.  We had never seen the Killer.  But we had heard about her.  The Killer was a foot and a half long... God knows how wide... and she had fangs on her... and she'd rip the flesh off of your bones if she ever bit you. The bottom photo, though, is Mitzi in her 'lair'.  It was her private space in the far corner of the living room, where she often nestled right between the Color Couch and the precious end table.  It looks like Mitzi is looking toward the living room window, maybe waiting for somebody. My dumb ass has discovered how to attach more than one picture per post, but I don't want to post more than two at a time.  There's too much to talk about.  It's just that there's quite a surplus of shots of The Mitzi.  With the tag team of the Color Couches looking to steal the scenes. Ah, also there's that afghan.  Mom mad

Here's a couple of Dorothy pictures, one of her opening a Christmas gift that I can't really tell what it is, and another of Prince Jamie.   Dorothy is another one who's had a tough life.  Really, haven't we all?  If you know anybody in any way at all, you know there's been some kind of shitstorm that's changed them.  The fact is that we live to tell about it, it means we survived it. Dorothy, or Dot as she was often called, was a tough lady.  She raised three kids with Rick and contributed her own brand of toughness to their personalities.  I believe she had similar struggles with mental illness like I do currently.  That's a war no one likes to have to fight. I remember spending time with that little family at Poirier Street and then at their house on Whitney.  There were a lot of fun and memorable times, especially at Whitney, which is when Rick landed his post office job and they finally got their house after going to a rental-assistance place after Poir

That's Mom looking lovely at Christmas time, probably '80 or '81. All those crocheted snowflakes in the window are those she made during her friend club visits on Thursday nights.  The usual regulars for that group of gals included Jeanette Longphee, Flo Tracy (I think?) and sometimes others.  Mom had a lot of friends. She always had to have her poinsettia at Christmas time too.  I remember Rick would always put the lights and the tree up every year.  And those were the days of the silver tinsel garland.  At least it was better than the loose tinsel that always, always, always made a mess when it came time to put the decorations away.  What'd they do, outlaw that stuff since?  It should be outlawed if they didn't! I see the end table behind her in the picture, and I can see that same table from where I write this.  The stories all this furniture could tell. A little bit unrelated... I loved 136 so much, that when we moved into our house here on Belmont, and our bedr

"Did you say..... Treats??" The Mama/Mitzi duo is strong in these pics.  Mitzi's accompanying Mom as usual on yet another colorful couch/hide-a-bed in the TV room at 136.  In that top shot, you can see the old cuckoo clock that faithfully went off every hour.  You had to crank those weights up to make sure the clock kept time.  I can still hear the 'tickticktick' when you did it. Mom looks surprised at something she's seeing in the newspaper.  I can hear the cackling "Ahhhh!!" coming out of her looking at this.  Maybe it was one of my letters!  Naw, I wrote a lot of letters to the paper a few years after this.  Too many, actually. Between them and the crazy-quilt of a couch and that not-so-much-matching cushion, there's a lot to challenge the eyeballs, here.

  The Mitzi. I've been made aware that Cindy named Mitzi Mitzi.  And Mitzi was Mitzier than any other Mitzi ever.  Seriously, this dog was Mitzi as soon as she popped out of her mom's belly. And She's So Heavyyyyyy.... we put her on diet food and everything, but this is just Mitzi.   I remember feeding her Gaine's Burgers and Doctor Ballard's.  Then we had to switch her to Total Diet.  I think it was named that because the food sucked so much that she never ate it and always made her diet feel like a total diet.   I believe I stated previously that it was plush brown carpet.... but no, that's the old shag carpet before it.  That was ugly, but at least Mitzi would do her Butt Moonwalk and it wouldn't be so noticeable.  Still, the brown plush carpet was even better for that! Poor Mitzi got so fat that she needed a lift on her hind legs to join you on the couch.  And she always growled to let you know when you helped her:  'Watch those hands big boy!' I

The King of the Cooks and his Prince. This is my brother Rick and his firstborn Jamie, once again in the TV den on Emmerson.   I love seeing the bond that formed with Rick and his boys.  The way they treat him says everything about how they were raised, and how they treat their own loved ones. Two more little ones would come along for Rick and Dorothy, in Steven and Ryan.  All the boys are doing quite well for themselves. It's amazing the kind of guy Rick just always steadfastly was.  The 'Ricky' back then is the same 'Rick' right now.  It's hard to piss him off, and if you do, you know you deserved it.  He was and is never partial and always willing to hear all sides, and ultimately not judge at all in the end. I'm sure he's grown over the years, I just think he adapted to everything as he went.  That's a lesson for all of us.  But Rick's a strong fella.

  Selfie alert. I look at this and I'm seeing young me starting back at old me.   Here's what I have to say to Young Me: Keep eating all the chocolate you want.  The hormone surge is causing the acne, not diet.  You'll get it taken care of. I know girls don't seem interested right now.  But your time is coming.... soon! You've been through a lot.  Stop blaming yourself for things that have happened to you that you had no control over whatsoever.   As for things that went wrong that you did control, everybody will survive, and move on.  Life is what happens to everybody. That drumming you're doing?  It'll get better... have patience.  And thank your brother Greg more. Mom doesn't want you to leave.  Take care of her until it's her time.  Don't let anyone shame you. Stop Blaming Yourself For Dad Passing.  The man was sick.  It couldn't be avoided at that point. Try not to be Too bitchy.  You have every reason to, but rise above it.  It won'

  This is kind of the opposite of what you'd call a 'heads up' picture.  Bad timing on the cameraman's part.... which was me.  I should note that all these pictures you're seeing for the Picture This blog are actually pictures of pictures.  I take pictures of the old photos, upload them to my laptop and do some photo editing.  It's slightly tedious, but I got the hang of it.  This Canon printer/scanner machine that I've got boggles my head a little too much.  They aren't making these things simpler anymore, they just get more complicated. I'm not sure what Mom's opening here as a Christmas gift from my brother Rick and his wife at the time, Dorothy.  It's yet another seasonal picture, in the living room at 136.  Rick was super-skinny in those days.  He largely picked up the mantle that Dad left empty when he passed away, and Rick kind of adopted the role of Dad a little bit to go with his Big Brother duties.  I remember Rick and Dorothy livi

  Christmas time at Emmerson Street.  There's quite a few of these. Here's Yours Truly holding up what appears to be a pair of corduroys my Mom gave me.  Note the Zellers bag in the corner.  File that store under 'you don't know what you've got till it's gone.' Mom always gave me clothing with brown in it because she used to say she loved my 'big brown eyes'.  Thing is, I never liked brown clothing!  So I'd have to wear it to please dear Mom.  Now that I'm around the age today when Mom was at this time of the picture, I see it quite differently. I can't not point out that chain hanging on the wall which led to one of those hanging lamps from the ceiling that pretty well every 80s household had.  Plus that standing cigarette ashtray to the right of the picture.  It's hard to believe that back then, cigarettes were so prevalent in pop culture and they were everywhere.  During many a holiday season, there was so much cigarette smoke in t

  I can't quite remember the year of this exactly, except it was likely the early 80s.  As the clipping says, this is a fellow named Henry Cormier, who used to be the rink attendant at the old Dud James Arena just a hop skip and a jump from our house on Emmerson Street. There are folks in my family that will recognize the name, but Henry's under a Halloween mask here. I remember my brother Rick and me would be a couple of the designated 'rink rats' that would revel in going to the arena and helping Henry around the building.  In particular I remember shoveling the snow left behind by the Zamboni machine on the ice after it was flooded, and the Zamboni would dump the bigger heap of snow from its front cabin into this room with a grate and a drain where we'd take a big hot hose to it and melt it.  We'd also sweep the arena a lot and do odd jobs; and maybe run to the store for Henry if he wanted cigarettes or a newspaper or something.  We loved doing that stuff bec