THOSE WERE THE DAYS

Story by Rita Joan Dozlaw

Renata’s summers were not all good ones, but looking back she declared life was all about taking the bad with the good and being carefree. She was smack in the middle of a big family constellation, and her personal orbit was chaotic. She’d tried to keep up with her brothers and appear street wise but a tomboy she was not; too awkward! Even pulling off an act as a smart-alek big sister to her baby sister, didn’t work because she didn’t have the smarts! She was an indecisive little wimp. Look out baby brother! Renata took her angst out on the youngest bro, Rob. Hiding behind the façade of ‘family jester,’ so as not to divulge her insecurities, Renata purposely spooked Rob by jumping out in front of his face, wagging her tongue, waving her hands like claws, and rolling her eyes back in their sockets. She got her kicks creeping him out and told him the mosquitoes were going to suck all the blood right out of his head while he slept!

“I’m gonna call the foreign legion and have you shipped to kingdom come if you don’t behave, Renata.” Her mother made that clear repeatedly. One summer night, Renata watched a late-night stand-up comedian on TV. He asked the audience a question she’d always wanted to ask.

“Where on earth is Kingdom Come?”

Someone answered, “Where the boys are!” That did it; Renata wanted to go there. She had no luck searching for the illusive Kingdom Come; boys were yukky anyway. Her consoling dad reminded her of her first love.

“When you were three, you had a crush on a cop! In a crowd at the bus stop, you got onto the wrong bus without your mama! I found you in a cop’s arms at the police station. You were devouring an ice cream cone and pulled an ugly tantrum when I took you from his arms to go home.”

Compared to her sister Jeanie who sang, flirted, danced the jig, pouted and manipulated everyone to get her way, Renata was homely and had no such skills. She got the new clothes, however, while Jeanie wore the hand-me-downs. The kids’ grandma showered the quiet girl with unconditional love—knowing she’d been upstaged by her sister. Once, feeling her oats at Gram’s, Renata tipped over the ironing board, and the hot iron burned her foot. Gram took her onto her lap, smeared zinc ointment on the injury, and coddled the inconsolable child as they rocked in the grand old rocking chair that all the kids scrambled for and fought over.

For being brave, Gram gave Renata a gift book about ponies, carousel horses and mythical unicorns. In the front she wrote, ‘For my precious Renny, Love Gram.’ She influenced the youngster to learn how to play the piano and, with a twinkle in her eye, pointed at the keys so Renata could get it right. Renata learned ‘Country Gardens.’ It was their favourite duet to play together.

The summer Renata was eight, the family stood out on the tarmac to board a flight to a new country. “Where’s Gram,

mommy?”

Renata’s mother explained the sorrowful truth. “She’s in heaven, honey.”

When the plane took off, gazing through the clouds, Renata was sure she was going up to heaven to see Gram. She wept bitterly when the plane touched down in Canada and her beloved grandmother wasn’t there.

In the summers to come, the young teen sang in church choirs, got her first dog and, with an older brother, attended her first concert. Harry Belafonte’s performance, at the Eaton’s Centre, was a highlight of her life. She left with her first vinyl record. It was autographed by Belafonte himself. Her sweet-sixteenth summer was ruined when, following a terrible rain storm, ground water seeped into the crawlspace under their house where Renata’s favorite possessions were stored in a playroom. The contents, of the cardboard box containing the pony book, the long-play record of Belafonte, and the dog-eared ‘Country Gardens’ sheet music, was soaked and destroyed. One stand-alone, magic, rite of passage happened when Renata was seventeen. She fell in love. Three months later she was engaged to Johnny. Her parents’ new jobs, located in the Niagara region, meant they had to relocate. Back then, single girls were bound to stay with their parents. The love-sick girl pined for Johnny all that summer while communicating on long-distance calls and exchanging snail mail… until the night he came to town, stole into her house, absconded with his best girl, who was packed to go, and fled the coop. Renata had to return home; Johnny’s folks refused to let her stay there. At eighteen, the kids had a date at the altar.

The new bride had to grow up: don’t fill the wringer-washer with too much soap; suds can overflow all the way down a back lane! Wool sweaters shrink in hot water! Reds ruin the whites… things like that. Attempting to bake her first cake, the gas stove blew up in her face, singed her hair, and knocked her over. Was being a spouse about survival?

That spring, Renata stored a winter blanket in a plastic bag. It was mistaken for trash and hauled to a land fill. Being a spouse was about losses and learning curves. They led to the decade Renata bore three kids. The boys were daredevils like their uncles and, imagining they were stuntmen and superheroes, they plunged off the roof onto a trampoline.

Renata had to figure out just what being a parent was about!

Fast forward to summers of agerelated health issues.

Renata was a big kid at heart, and her prerogative was to not act her age! The child within helped her write, and her new book was hilarious.

‘Those were the days [for Renata] my friend.’ Sharing her stories, with folks in their second childhood who wore rose-coloured glasses to see their past, brought Renata joys galore!