By ERNIE NEUFELD
An annual feature in this space, and as close to Christmas as feasible, has been a trip back through my life and circumstances, going back as many decades as possible, and moving forward 10 years at a time. Readers are invited to do the same, either on paper or just in their own minds, and see how the same years in your life tally with mine. They cannot be the same, for many reasons, but my experiences may trigger memories of your own that may be similar - or myriad poles apart.
Since I had not been born in 1925, I have to settle for 1935 as a starter. I was in my third year of school. As admitted 10 years ago, I was not the favourite of our teacher, but I confessed I was not the favourite of future teachers either, and they couldn't all be wrong. My mother was a widow with no source of income except her sewing, and a pittance from my oldest sister who had been sent at an early age to Winnipeg to work as a domestic. Her time off work was so scant, and her spending money so limited, we might not see her for an entire year, although our village was less than 40 miles from that metropolis.
But somehow, Christmas was always a wonderful time. We always had carefully rationed peanuts and candies, some chocolates and an apple or orange in a soup dish left under the Christmas tree. There were always toys and at least one book each. We never envied other folks their Christmases. (Some of their gifts, natch!)
Ten years later, an unscheduled "graduation" from high school had already immersed me in the printing trade. I had often paused outside the printing shop's windows to watch the linotype operators strike their keys, causing the matrices (alphabet forms) to tumble into the assembling elevator, before being mechanically carried away to create from molten metal a line of type. With the war about to end in summer of 1945, and joining the armed forces at less than 18 years of age no longer an option, I argued my way into going to Toronto to find work before returning servicemen got all the jobs.
Life in a boarding house was a new experience, and mine was a good one. On Christmas Day, because the other boarders had gone home for the holidays, Mother Baxter took pity on me and invited me to her sister's home for a midday Christmas dinner. It was the only day of the year the evening meal was not served, and also the only day the door was locked. With no key of my own, I spent the rest of the day walking the streets or sitting in the chilly veranda waiting for a dismal, rainy Christmas day to end.
The Japanese conflict had ended in mid-summer, a few months after the Axis defeat in Europe, and there was a change of mood in the air. Those who remembered the depression were sure it would return, but the optimists - who won - confidently expected a more prosperous world, with people eager to buy the goods denied them in wartime.
A decade later, in 1955, I was back in Toronto, and had been for five years. In the meantime, I had been talked into going west, and had spent almost three years working at the printing trade in Vancouver, Victoria, and in 10 states, before returning to my home town in 1950 to marry the girl who had been briefly, when we were children, the girl next door.
By Christmas of 1955, while I pounded the Linotype at the Toronto Star, we were living in a suburban bungalow resembling every other house on the street. We had a little boy and a tiny girl. I was learning that whatever fascination the big city may hold for a single person it has less when meeting mortgage payments, furnishing a bare house, and experiencing the mixed blessing of parenthood far from familiar faces. It had begun to dawn on us that in the coming months we might do worse than return to the prairies and the small-town life for which we were intended.
The year 1965 found us in Weyburn, with three more little girls to make life interesting. After a two-year refresher course in weekly newspapering in the shop where I had begun the trade, and taking the plunge into publishing by acquiring the Review and subsequently the Estevan Mercury, we now faced another kind of challenge. A trade that had hardly changed since the turn of the century was suddenly being transformed, as we found we had to join the world in switching from letterpress to offset printing. A total revolution! I never expected to see anything like it again, but I had not even dreamed of computers and other innovations. I was also in the middle of my presidential year with the Saskatchewan Weekly Newspapers Association.
Another decade. The year 1975 found me immersed in the presidency of our national association, which surely deserved better at that stage in its history. We had a great time visiting conventions of provincial associations from Vancouver to Moncton, and my advancing age had been impressed on me earlier in the year when my oldest daughter tied the knot. We were to beginning to accept the need for a larger house.
At Christmas, 1985, now on Scott Street, I was convalescing after a painful introduction to one of the realities of advancing years, and the surprises they may spring on you. By this time, there were three grandchildren, and no one telling me I was much too young. As compensation, a short winter holiday in New Orleans was in the offing.
Christmas of 1995 brought a major change, as I found myself - alone - in our larger house, and decided the time had come to visit that wonderful continent Down Under. From it developed an unexpected association resulting, within a year, in a major change in my life.
So here it is Christmas of 2005, my 10th winter in Toronto after acquiring in Australia a new spouse who had spent most of her life as a concert pianist and teacher. Our years have been spent enjoying the variety of two very different venues, and savoring opportunities available after retirement without some earlier constraints.
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