The Bow River, post spring floods, Calgary, Alberta, Canada
My Niece, Michelle, and husband, John, with the Calgary skyline in the background.
Not going to lie, I was a little nervous about visiting the Williamson side of my family, while staying in Calgary. After all, it had been a long long time.
Summer of 1984
1984 – Me, my Gandma Orr, Grandma Williamson on my sister, Shannon’s wedding day.
Shelley leading John and her niece, Michelle into Aunt Rita’s backyard: Hiiiiii everyone! So good to see you. I can’t believe that it’s been twenty-nine years since we’ve visited. Here you go.
Cousin Gordon: You’ve actually hugged Bob. Bob’s not related to us. He’s my daughter, Yvonne’s, boyfriend.
Shelley: Of course he is. Ha! Ha! Well then, I’m just going to hug the rest of you so I don’t leave anyone out. Come here you. And you.. And you.. And you… And you…
Aunt Rita: Shelley, you haven’t changed one bit, except you’re older.
Shelley: Could have done without part two of your greeting, that’s for sure. Ha! Ha! So what’s everyone been up to?
Aunt Rita: Danny’s an electrical engineer. Ken’s in the oil patch, as is Gordon. Mark owns two oil companies. John unfortunately couldn’t be here. He’s a chartered accountant. And I’ve headed a campaign to raise money and awareness for the first Sisters and Nurses of Calgary since I’ve retired. But at eighty-one it’s time to step down from the chair position.
Miniature Bronze Replica of the First Sisters and Nurses of Calgary
Shelley: Wow.
Aunt Rita: How about you, Michelle?
Michelle: I’m with an oil company. I’ve bought and in the process of renovating a house. Renters will move in the basement in the beginning of October. In the fall, I’ll start an “Office Manager” degree program.
Aunt Rita: Excellent. And now that the two of you have retired from teaching, what do you do?
Shelley: Do? Well. Let’s see. When we’re not traveling, we keep ourselves busy kayaking, fishing, climbing, running, hiking, biking, the odd golf game. You know, play.
Aunt Rita: Play?
Shelley: Aaannnnndddddd, we volunteer at “Habitat for Humanity” oh, two, three, even four times per week. We’d love to do more, but they only build four days a week in the summer. Right, John?
(No way John was going to throw me under the bus, because he’d go down with me.)
John:… Right.
Rita: That’s admirable.
Cousin Gordon’s wife, Denise: It must have felt great when everyone headed back to school this week and you didn’t.
Shelley: You bet it did. “See you later suckers!!!!” Oh! Ha! Ha! Ha!
Denise: I’m a Grade 1 teacher.
Shelley: Well how about that? Isn’t that something. Honey?
John: Sure is.
Rita: Dinner’s ready. Everyone to the table.
Shelley: Your home is exactly as I remember it. The garden and lawn look amazing.
Rita: It wasn’t always like that. When we built it in 1958, the gophers dug holes all over my new lawn. I was incredibly annoyed. The only way to get rid of those pests was to kill the little devils.
Denise: We have gophers on our school’s playground. Can you believe they waited until school started to get rid of them? They had all summer.
Aunt Rita: There was no other way. My friend and I would flush them out by pouring water down their tunnels, wait for their heads to pop out and shoot them. Bam!
Denise: They don’t shoot gophers now. Instead they shove air guns into their tunnels, blast them with pressurized air, and when they fly out of the holes, gather them up and chuck them on a pile. If the blast doesn’t kill them, they smack them on the head with a club.
Guessing they look like this sucker.
Rita: We’d get ten cents per tail.
Cousin Ken: Or if you saved enough of them up, you could have made a gopher tail hat.
Aunt Rita: I don’t think that you get any money for gopher tails now.
Denise: Isn’t that terrible?
Cousin Danny: Sure is. If I took the trouble to kill a gopher, I’d want at least ten cents per tail.
Cousin Mark’s son, Evan: Jeesh! Ten cents per tail. Imagine how many gophers you’ld have to kill to buy a ticket to the Coachella concert in Palm Springs.
Michelle: “The” Coachella Concert? I’d love to go to that concert if only…
Shouldn’t have worried. It was a great visit. Still, I definitely won’t wait twenty-nine years before my next visit.
Aunt Rita, niece, Michelle, second cousin, Yvonee, her boyfriend, Bob. Me, Cousins, Ken, Dan and Gordon
Aunt Rita, me, second cousins Evan and Ross, Michelle and John
Great Grandma Williamson, unidentified man, Grandma Williamson, and Grandpa Williamson
Shelley and John
air gun – Daystate Air ranger Rifle www.southyorkshireairguns.co.uk
You two look like little kids on that 1984 photo!!! Great to catch up with kith and kin though. I remember meeting Grandma Williamson.
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We are definitely going to be better at staying in touch. Mark has a 5 bedroom house in Palm Springs.
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Been to some of those get togethers, many years later. They all seem to have a familiar ring to them, in some cases – almost ‘processed.’ The language and stories are from similar templates yet the entire experience is unique and often, enjoyable. Love that your closed with the fireside photo. A fitting conclusion.
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I called my sister for an update of who’s who. She warned me that the first part of the evening I would get lots of questions.
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oh, those poor gophers!!!
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Bam! Toni John, Michelle and I couldn’t look at each other. We could just picture them flying out of their holes with Aunt Rita looking down the barrel ready to shoot.
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Such an awesome post. Thanks for sharing 🙂
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Glad to hear it. Thanks for dropping by.
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Still planing to be in Toronto on the 20th? Waiting on the other side of the border with a cold one. Let me know if you are still interested.
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Still going with that plan. We go North through the Detroit area in a couple of days. Then at the end of the month south through Niagra or Ottawa. Where exactly do you live?
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Rochester, NY
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Whew. Looks like we head through Rochester New York tomorrow, Wednesday at around 1:00. Sorry for the late notice, but we stayed a little longer in Toronto than we had expected. Too late notice to meet for a beer??
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D’oh. I’m taking my daughter on a play date at that time 😦 Do you need any lunch suggestions?
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😦 No worries. I think we’ll keep going until Cooperstown. John “Needs” to see the “Baseball Hall of Fame.” 🙂
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Oh, that place is great! Plus there are several breweries in the area. Also, you may want to check out the JF Cooper house, if it wasn’t affected by the govt. shutdown.
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Thanks. Have passed on to the trip planner.
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