Capt. Mondo's World o' Mondo-ness

Is that Boer War Sword Still There?
Immediately prior to the birth of Annie, my Aunt Edith C. sent me a cassette tape containing her reminiscences about growing up in Liverpool. There's lots of interesting stories about my father, my grandfather and grandmother, and tantalizing info about my great-grandparents. Am listening to it again, this time with the intent of trying to think of pertinent questions to ask her. There are great stories about my father as a young lad, such as how he was a wizard with Mechano, and how he once built a device designed to give a rude shock to my great Aunt when she opened the door to his room. There's also the wartime stories, such as the bombings that devastated Liverpool, an important port city at the time. My Aunt used to deliver newspapers, and she can remember a day when she delivered a paper to a stunned looking neighbour, best known for being rather snooty, who was dressed only in her nightgown, standing in front the shell of her bombed-out house. My Aunt gave her the morning paper, and moved on. Surreal, but as she said, "what else could I do?"

Or the time my father was stationed at a "dummy" airfield, set up to deliberately draw German bombers to where an airfield wasn't. Problem was, he ended up at the recieving end of a lot of bomb runs, and they had to douse the fires of their fake runway lights quickly in order to survive. My Aunt remembers a story my father told her of one such incident, where he and a friend used their military-issue greatcoats to put out the fires. His friend got a medal, while my father got fined for ruining his greatcoat. Like my Aunt said at the conclusion of that story: "there's no justice in this life".

Am determined to make a trip to Liverpool, to track down the gravesites of the relatives on my father's side, and to try to see what I could of the rest of the city important to my father, thankfully all marked out for me on a map of the city that came with the casette tape. I would also like to find out more about my grand-mother's side of the family, who had the name Langes and originated from Kiel, Germany (then, in Prussia). Know next to nothing about them, not even names other than that of my grand-mother.

Another story is that, for whatever reason, my father stashed away a Boer War-era sword and rifle under the floorboards of his bedroom in their old house prior to their move to new digs. Wonder if they are still there? ;-)

Swimming at Owen's
Waking up this morning was not an easy thing. Vanessa was saying: "Mommy... Daddy..." at the top of the stairs, while Erika and I were down in bed, flattened by a late night spent with baby. It wasn't a bad night, just one of punctuated rather than continous sleep. So I crept painfully upstairs and helped to get Vanessa dressed, came downstairs and made myself a strong cup of tea.

I remembered that I had suggested that I head to the St. Lawrence Market this morning with Vanessa, primarily to get some much needed real bagels from the St. Urbain bagelry there. So after my much-needed second (or was it third?) cup of tea, I made my way out the door with Vanessa. After getting some spending money from the bank machine at the end of the road, we walked down to Queen and Kingston Rd. We saw that a local church was having a bake and rumage sale, so we dropped by. Not much of interest to either of us, though Vanessa played with a doll's house with a young girl her age or younger from Guatamala who had been a recent adoptee, as her new mother told me. I came away with an interesting-looking book for 50 cents, and Vanessa came away with a cookie.

We got to the market around 10:30am or so, which is a late time to get to the market on a Saturday. Crowds of people, thronging through the stalls and aisles of the place. Usually I wander much of the market, showing things to Vanessa. This was more of a "surgical srike": got 4 dozen bagels, sirloin stake and some turkey burgers, and a chocolate cake Vanessa picked out from Future Bakery, and headed out -- though not after a slight diversion to visit the lobsters in the lobster tank at Mike's Fish, which Vanessa likes to see.

Got back just before noon, and with cake in hand, we visited Owen L., a sound-recorder that Erika has worked with for years. He fed us a veritable feast of ribs, drumsticks, Corona beer and sausage. We then spent a good part of the rest of the day swimming in his swimming pool. Or at least, Vanessa and I did, as Erika spent much of her time instead chatting with Owen about "the biz" and feeding a hungry Annie when necessary. Owen has a sizable pool, and thankfully there was a shallow end where Vanessa could play -- though she was often very tentative, especially after slipping into the deep end a couple of times, ad I had to pull her up and out into the deep end. I came away with sunburn on my back, though not too bad for once. Had a great time at the pool, and we're invited back to use it anytime we want, even if Owen is away at work during the day. Think we might just have to take him up on that sometime... ;-) Owen, a father of two sons, seemed to really relish his time with little Annie, and spent a good part of the afternoon with her cradled in his arms. An enjoyable afternoon.