I Had A Brother

No matter how often I think of him during the year, I always think of Ken on his birthday, August 17. My parents adopted him in May 1952 when he was 9 months old. Wendy and I were so excited to have a baby brother. I was four and Wendy was five when we got him and we enjoyed being able to be little mothers to this new brother.

I remember when he was 'delivered' to us. Wendy and I were playing at a friend's place down the street when we saw the car pull up in front of our door. A woman got out carrying a baby and left without him. For quite awhile after that I thought that the social worker was actually Ken's mother and that she was going door-to-door looking for someone to take her baby because she couldn't take care of him.

Ken immediately became a dearly loved member of our family. He was a quiet, sweet little boy and we doted on him.

These pictures are from my scrapbook. I don't have a lot of pictures of Ken. Just before he died Mum made a pictorial story of his life but I don't have that here with all of his pictures. These ones will have to do. If you click on these pictures they'll show larger.

The McCarthy family - 1986 - Ken, Pat, Wendy, Dad, Mum

As an adult Ken settled in the same village that Mum and Dad lived in and was a great help to them as they got older.

Our kids loved their Uncle Ken - he had an easy way with them and was always loving and kind. Before they met their Uncle (we were living in BC at the time and he was in Nova Scotia) we had the kids convinced that Ken was a giant who would have to duck his head to come into the house - we loved telling them stories (mostly fictional) of this mysterious uncle. When he finally came to visit us the kids were really excited to see him and relieved that he wasn't really a giant - just taller than our shortish family. We had a cliff at the foot of our street, from the top of which there was a beautiful view of our neighbourhood. Ken took the older kids (the oldest was about 9) on a hike to climb the cliff. He ended carrying one of them all the way up it without complaining. He became Amy's hero for that feat of strength.

Ken was a very hard worker, working in road construction as a blaster, as a volunteer fireman, and a miner in a lead and zinc mine. Everyone in the village knew and liked Ken - he had many friends. If anyone needed a helping hand, Ken was there for them. He moved west to Alberta for a few months but soon went back to Nova Scotia where he felt most at home.

He was completing his shift in the mine one day when the guy who was supposed to relieve him called in sick. Ken didn't hesitate to volunteer to take his shift as well. It was during this shift when he was scaling the ceiling of the mine, that it collapsed on him, crushing his chest beyond repair. He remained on life support for almost two weeks before succumbing to his injuries. It was devastating to our family, especially to Mum and Dad. The community was in shock and it was heartwarming to see the positive affect he had on so many people. He was 39 years old.

Happy birthday Ken. It was great having you as a brother. 1951-1991

The Ultimate Look Alike

They say that if you live with a person long enough you'll eventually look alike. Well, Lloyd and I have been married for 38.5 years - is that long enough to qualify?



I'm thinking 'not really' but I like to think that we look like we belong together.


Lloyd got home from High Level today about half an hour before I got home from the hair salon where I had my grey wiped out and ends trimmed. He insisted on getting my camera and taking some pictures of me but I told him he'd have to take pictures of us together. So these are his first attempts at taking a self-portrait. Actually I guess I'm taking the one above, but he took the others.

I think this is the best, although my mouth is open.

I've been thinking of doing a scrapbook layout called "Us At 60" and might use one of these pictures as the focal point. Unless of course a professional photographer in the family volunteers to take an 'official' portrait of us....hint, hint. And yes, I realize that neither one of us is 60. But if you take our real ages (59 and 61) and average them, together we are 60.

Look Alikes, Part 2

OK. As I threatened yesterday, here are a few more family look-alikes.

I'll start with our first son, Rob. When the TV sitcom, Family Ties, was popular, we were struck by the resemblance between Rob and Michael J. Fox. The resemblance has diminished somewhat as they've grown older, but it's fun to remember their teen-age similarities.

Here's Rob at 30.


And here he is at 19.

Here's a young Michael J. Fox

And as he aged. I can still see the resemblance.

The next one is Lloyd's older brother Bert. We always thought he looked like Dave Thomas, the founder of Wendy's Restaurants.

This is Bert

and this is Dave...a definite resemblance.

This last one I've bever been able to see, but my girls used to say that Mary looks like Alicia Silverstone. Here's Alicia...

and here's our daughter Mary. I suppose at certain angles they might look similar. I think Mary is prettier though.


And that's it. I won't bother you any more with family look-alikes.

Look Alikes

For years I've liked Fred Astaire - you younger readers may not be familiar with the best dancer/actor/singer to come out of the 1930's, '40s, and '50s, but I used to love watching him do his thing in the black and white movies. One of the coolest things I liked about him was that his birthday was the same as mine (the day - May 10 - not the year :)).

We have a picture of my dad taken in the mid 1940s while he was overseas during World War 2. I've always thought he looks like Fred Astaire in this picture. What do you think?

Robert McCarthy

Fred Astaire

The resemblance isn't so noticable in these pictures, but I still think Dad looked like Fred Astaire.

One of my favorite quotes about Fred Astaire goes like this:
"Ginger Rogers could do everything Fred Astaire could but she did it backwards and in high heels."

My next blog will feature a couple more family look-alikes...if I can find the appropriate pictures.

Bernie's Grandparents

Look at the size of those paws!

Lloyd and I don't want the responsibility of having a dog of our own but we sure don't mind sharing in the fun of our grandkids new pet. I'll stop posting so much about Bernie soon - just let me do these last pictures of Bernie with his grandparents.

He's so sweet and gentle. He's happy just to lean on you and be rubbed. He went to the vet yesterday for his rabies shot. In the month since Amy and Curtis have had Bernie, he has tripled his weight. He's going to be one big puppy!

Another baby boy for Papa to love.

Knock, Knock

Knock, Knock

Who's there?

Banana

Knock, knock

Who's there

Banana

Knock, knock


Who's there

Banana

Knock, knock



Who's there?

Orange.

Orange who?

Orange you glad I didn't say banana?

This is 4-year old Max's favorite knock, knock joke and he tells it whenever he can. It took him a lot of tries before he 'got' the orange play on words. Whenever he tells a knock, knock joke, he actually knocks in the air with his fist.

Another one he learned today goes like this:

Knock, knock



Who's there?

Harry.

Harry who?

Harry up and open the door.

When I get tired of his made up, doesn't-make-any-sense jokes, I tell one of my own:

Knock, Knock

Who's there

Ida

Ida who?

Ida wanna hear any more knock, knock jokes.

Just thought I'd share.

Home From Lethbridge

When we got to Lethbridge on Sunday night we found the house covered in a thick layer of fine dust - the by-product of sanding the hardwood floors prior to refinishing them. It was on every surface of the house. I spent the first two days there wiping down walls, windows, vacuuming carpets, dusting every surface of the house upstairs and down, and dry mopping the new shiny hardwood. The dust was making Lloyd choke so he went out to the garage to do some much needed organizing there and got waylaid by boxes of old photo albums and a smaller box of love letters he sent to me during the two years before we were married. He wallowed in nostalgia for awhile there and brought them in to share with me. Fun stuff.

When everything was finally clean, our new furniture arrived. We decided that we'd retire most of our old furniture when Lloyd retires next year, so we're furnishing our retirement house with some new stuff. It was like starting out all over again. We're really looking forward to the time we can move down there and enjoy retirement.


This glass-fronted bookcase/china cabinet has been in my parents home for as long as I remember. I can remember having to take everything off the shelves (except the books on the bottom shelf) to dust it. Mum had a nice set of champagne glasses she kept on the top shelf, along with other dainty breakables. I love this piece of furniture and am glad Mum kept it for me. We brought it home from Winnipeg when we were there in May for Mum's 88th birthday.

This is a view of the dining room taken from the kitchen. We love sitting here in the morning when the sun is shining through the window. This room and the kitchen were carpeted when we bought the house (I hate kitchen carpeting - how do you keep it clean?!!!) so we had it removed and had fresh new lino installed. we got our dining room set out of storage (in the garage) and moved it into the room so we're finally able to use it again.

This is the living-room, with our new furniture. This room was carpeted when we bought the house and when we took it out we discovered that it covered maple hardwood, which was in excellent condition. So Lloyd and Mark (his nephew) sanded it all down and Mark put 7 coats of clear varnish on it. The maple looks beautiful now. We've ordered an area rug for the center of the floor to protect it and soften the look of the furniture against the wood.

Another view of the living room.

This is the master bedroom - fairly small by today's standards (the house was built in 1949 - the year Lloyd was born) but very adequate and able to hold the 8-piece bedroom set we bought for it. This floor was re-done as well.

This is the spare bedroom...furnished with some of our old stuff. It has a unique closet which doesn't start at the floor, but about 3 feet up the wall so it's kind of like a cubby hole but is high enough to hang clothes from a regular rod.

Another view of the living room in case you've forgotten what it looks like. We really, really like this room.

And that's it. I forgot to take pictures of the seven sets of blinds we installed but that's all right. You might find that boring. I'll take pictures of them when we get the sun room set up because that's where 6 sets of them are hanging.

So, while it's good to be home now, it's getting harder and harder to leave our retirement home five hours south of us. Our day will come though.