December, 1970

The first year of the 70’s is coming to an end. 1970 was a year of firsts – first time the family had moved, first time my mother piloted a boat, first time a child left home, my first friend, my first memory and, just under the wire, my first love.

My sister Sharon has returned from university for the holidays and she has arrived home with fuss and liturgy of a prodigal son (or in this case daughter). Everyone but my sister Debrah is happy to see her as she will be once again bunking with Mary for the duration of Sharon’s stay. Sharon is brimming with excited energy and anxious to tell tales about the city and her roommate and the university. If there is a common denominator of all our familial lot it is that we are prone to spinning the yarn. Telling tales to anyone who will listen is proving to be genetic. Best of all, Sharon has returned with new records and I for one am bursting to hear some new songs. Music has been a little absent since she left for school. Oddly, my father has yet to set up his room (the tiny room at the front of the house from which Matthew, at my goading, tossed away his bottle habit) since moving to Bay Roche. So, with Christmas tree, a Menorah and family about Sharon presents her stories to the eager audience with the new songs playing in the background.
I am not sure if I remember this or if it something told so often to me that I’ve made the recollection my own. One of the new albums has caught my attention. The cover features a bright blue sky at the top, white houses on either side drawn in perspective and at its center there is a hand pointing to the sky. I pull the record out and interrupt my sister in the middle of a story. I tell her I want to listen to this record and she tells me she will play it after the current one is done. I stand by the turntable (my father’s set up in the living room for now) holding the record in both hand waiting for m my sister to put in on the player. After what seemed like an eternity – which for a boy almost three years old is any span of time longer than five minutes – Sharon put it on the platter and placed the arm on the first track. I am told I got immediately excited and started dancing around holding the record with its finger pointed at the sky. There was a photo of me taken that night looking, in retrospect, the most excited I have ever looked in my life. Holding the album sleeve close to my chest with my face peering over the top with bright wide eyes and a big smile I am undeniably in love. I had just discovered my first love and my first favourite song.

From December of 1970
Come and Get It by Badfinger

November, 1970

My earliest memory… I think.

Mathew is still a toddler in diapers and I am helping him crawl up the stairs of the house. The stairs, most likely some type of northern pine, are painted in a glossy brown paint. I help Matthew to crawl, one step at a time by grabbing the back of his diaper and pulling him until both his knees gain one more step. The effort is made all the more difficult as Matthew, at 18 months, is still refusing to relinquish his bottle and is insistent it come up the stairs (as with everywhere else he goes) with him. The bottle dangles from his mouth as he clenches its nipple between newly formed teeth. After several minutes, and unknown to anyone is the house who surely would have been horrified to see me dragging my younger brother up some dangerous and slippery steps, we reach the top of the stairs. Matthew gets up to his feet and takes his bottle in hand and we both walk down the hallway to a tiny room at the front of the house. The room is, for now, being used as storage for things not yet unpacked – predominantly my father’s stereo equipment and records.

I walk across the room, Matthew, chugging away at his bottle stays close behind, and I open the little window that looks out over the small front yard. I pushed the lower half of the double hung window up, letting in the cold November air. I then proceed to pull an unopened box over to the window. I lift Matthew up to the box so he can see outside and I then point to the walkway below that leads up to the front door. I am not sure exactly what I said to Matthew that day but essentially I challenge him as to whether or not he could hit the walkway with his bottle. Also unknown to me if it took much coaxing to make him throw his bottle out the window but the sound of it smashing onto the concrete below prompted my mother to yell. A few moments later my mother was standing at the door of the small room, her black hair, pulled back into a ponytail and wearing a dress with large flowers printed on it. My mother - the first words I can remember her saying – asked, “What are you up to, Cyrus?”

I am not sure if Matthew willingly gave up his bottle afterwards or whether his old bottle was just not replaced but from that day on he had to live bottle-less. I like to think I helped him through a small portion of his childhood development.

Number one from November, 1970
We’ve Only Just Begun by The Carpenters