December, 1969

My parents are throwing a party. Ostensibly it is a holiday party but it is really a party to say good bye to friends and neighbours. They have lived in this town a long time and have put down some deep roots. Moving to another town was not going to be easy for them.

My older sister Sharon was still sulking about leaving her friends and, as it was revealed shortly after the news was announced that we were moving, a boyfriend behind. On the night of the party she was commandeered – which meant paid – to baby sit my sister Mary, myself and younger brother Matthew and to keep us from getting under foot. Early in the evening my mother would put Matthew to bed and, my sister Mary and I would hang out in my sister’s bedroom while she played music by Cream, Led Zeppelin, Jimi Hendrix and other heroes of a fractured decade now at its close. Downstairs the gathering of my parent’s friends is getting drunker and louder until the din of shared laughter and conversation eventually overpowers the music. My father never drank and he, like a lot of sober people at social events, tended to the little details like food, drinks and making sure the music kept playing, even if no one was listening. My mother loved gatherings like these and was in her element as she caught up on the news and gossip. My mother was not a ‘kitchen mom’. She was not bound to convention when it came to hosting a party and if there was a drink that needed refreshing or a plate that needed clearing my mother did not see it as her automatic duty. The party was for forgetting the move and the daunting task of transplanting herself and her family. Tonight was for forgetting, at least for a few hours.

And so the 1960’s came to an end for me and my family. The 1970’s would bring changes and even greater challenges to the family but now on this December night my parents are happily surrounded by friends and music and upstairs, as my sister plays her records, I am dancing in that awkward toddler way to a completely tune.

Number one hit from December, 1969
Someday We'll be Together by The Supremes