Ship Wreck Cronicles - The Early Years in Short.

1973
January - I came into the world - first child to my folks. From what I gather I came along earlier than planned. Aparently - Just once - unprotected is all it takes!

1974
I fell into a globe shaped BBQ that was being started on the ground out of the wind - burned my self from the waist down on
BBQ briquettes - seriously! Each member of my family has claimed my rescue. Interestingly I don't know the truths as to who grabbed me out of the BBQ and rushed me to the tub of cold water. I do know it was prior to the Children's hospital being opened and so my mother and family doctor in a tiny farming community cared for me. And very well I might add - there are only small signs of damged skin which my sister likes to refer to as "chicken skin." Nice.

1975
May - My sister came on the scene and changed us all forever! According to my mother - dad had been out with the boys celebrating the birth of daughter number two - when he showed up with me to the hospital room where I proclaimed "That's My sister Susan!" and mom proclaimed -" Bob you're drunk?"

1978
My sister got some mysterious virus and spent her 3rd Bday in the "newly opened" Children's hospital. This went on for few weeks - she was released and then went back in again for a period of time. My grandpa Chou Chou bought her the coolest Mother Fox plush animal holding a baby fox from the hospital gift shop. I was only slightly more green with envy than the Grinch and convinced Chou Chou that I too would like to have something special from the gift shop. I chose a tin toy - when you pulled the triggar it twirled and opened like a flower and a little person appeared from inside.

1979
January - My Grandpa Chou Chou died 3 days before my 6th birthday. I was not permitted to the funeral. Deamed "too young" to understand I was shipped off to do art & crafts at my mom's best friend's house. I did understand the guy who let me feed him "pop rocks" was not coming back. I had been to see him in hospital and recall his knotted arthritic toes. This was my first introduction to "Cancer."

My second introduction to Cancer was when my mom inherited Grandpa Chou Chou's car. The plastic roof was tinted a yellowish brown by tar from his cigarettes. Mom said it was the colour of cancer and of smoker's lungs. I remember her cleaning the car with the spray bottle of "fantastic" and a J-cloth.

1980
My Granny Moo Moo moo-ved in with us as she was showing early signs of Alzheimer's and could no longer live alone. My kid sister moved into my room becoming my first roommate.

Dad would come into our room to say good night reading bedtime stories was his forte. He would pick up my metal Holly Hobby garbage can to talk into it to changing his voice into the evil Step mom in Snowwhite. My sister and I would giggle from our beds.

We played games jumping from one bed to another pretending there were sharks between the beds. This was very exciting and always resulted in a huge fight between us - over what ? Who knows.

Granny Moo Moo would smoke cigarettes from a white package with a red stripe and a little black cat on them. being a smoker she always had Chiclettes in her purse for post smoke fresh breath. My parents were non smokers. Playing into the Alzheimers my parents "forgot" to buy Granny more smoks. It didn't take long for Granny to "forget" she was a smoker.

My Granny always washed up in the bathroom sink, oddly she left the door open. I recall she had very long boobs that drooped forward while she bent over the sink. I told my sister to run under Granny while she was bent over the sink and swing her boobs as she passed through. (I assumed my sister was brought into the family to do my bidding) of course she did what i asked. Granny Moo Moo screamed; "you rude, rude girls!" We both got in huge trouble from my mom. Thankfully Granny Moo Moo forgot the incident within a few hours of the occurrance. To this day i have no idea what possessed me to put my sister up to it!

My sister was notorious for eating weird things. She would refuse to eat lunch and then my mother would find her outside eating the moldy bread tossed out for the birds. Once, I found her tasting a dried worm she found on top of the electric baseboard heater in the basement. (We also found her naked filling her swimming pool in late October which has nothing to do with eating but was very funny.) On one occasion we had to rush kid sis to the Children's Hospital (see the theme coming with her) because she was found eating a weird mushroom fungus off the oak tree in the backyard. While the doctor's induced vimiting dad and I drove back to the house so I could show him which Oak tree she was eating from. He carefully cut a sample to takeback to the Hospital for the doctors to study to see if it was poisonous. My sister was a funny kid and so cute you could eat her for dinner.

The oak trees were fun to climb but would leave sticky sap all over my clothes. It turned out they were diseased trees - my dad cut them all down. I have often wondered if they were diseased or if my dad was just removing the potential hazardous buffet my sister was so drawn to.

Some time this same year I was told the truth about about Santa, the Easter Bunny and the Tooth Fairy. As much as I love tormenting my sister I did keep the secret from her.

1981
Living in a rural area our house had a septic tank. My mom's prized Iris patch grew on top of the septic tank she said they liked the rich soil. One day the septic tank backed up. Some repair men were called and before long the prized Iris patch was dug up by a back hoe. The service men were at a loss to find the problem with the plumbing. Our excitement arose and my mother was horrified to find the men on the backhoe had dug a line all the way down the backyard to find the back up in the septic line. Black soil and terracotta tubing were exposed to the sunlight. My sister and I watched from a distance from our perch on the fence the smell was pretty disgusting. When the servicemen broke through the tubing the back hoe driver sent me to get my mom to come out to see what was causing the blockage. She arrived on time to see him pull out "a few pair of giant underpants!" Aparently Granny Moo Moo was flushing her underpants down the toilet along with the toilet paper and her business. Not too long after that expensive incident Granny Moo Moo was moved to a Nursing home. My sister moved back into her own room.