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My ‘Kids’ on my 70th.

I am fortunate to have reached a milestone. 70 years is a long time to be around. One of the best things I ever did was to become a dad. Best gig ever. Even the toughest times weren’t all that bad. We love each other. I am blessed. My daughters are Ema Jean and Nicola. Tepper is my son-in-law and the violinist is my BFF Jeff. The ‘kids’ prepared three lovely songs appropriate for such an occasion. I transcribed Nic’s “Eulogy”


“I had a small speech that I had written down, but I don’t really feel like reading it. A lot of you know my dad as a big jokester, but he was also a really great dad, and particularly when we were especially little.

He shone not only in the big moments but a lot of the small moments just running errands, you know: in the car; going to the hardware store; listening to The Debaters and Vinyl Tap on CBC radio… and the thing that is special about my dad is: we’d go along and a lot of kids would be bored but we wouldn’t because we had such imagination because that is something he really instilled in us and in the students that he taught over decades.

Sometimes our imagination’d got the better of us and we would be playing in the grocery store, we’d have all these little games going on and we’d lose track of him and we were never scared because all we had to do was listen…. And we would hear …without fail … somebody laughing , three aisles down… in the milk department and we would just go over there and he would be just making a stranger’s day and they would throw their head back with abandon and laugh.

Beyond that, another moment he really shone, was that, most kids grow up dreading their bedtime and I never thought I really had a bedtime, but looking back on it I realize that we did, but it was really more of a three act show. It would start on my parents’ bed, Ema and I flanking my mom, and she would read us library books while my dad was doing the dishes, and then he would come and give us each a shoulder ride to our beds and when we were there he would take requests for jazz standards and just play the most ridiculously beautiful complex music …”Daddy could you play ‘Just Fwiends’? It didn’t stop there, because after that he would tell the most creative stories that would put all of your streaming services to shame… and not only that, they would be stories that had recurring characters, it was like a series that we would tune into every single night and you know he spent the whole day entertaining a whole bunch of kids and he still took that time and did that for us.

Sometimes he’d fall asleep and we would say “daddy you’re drifting” because we knew that the story wasn’t over, and he would finish every single story the same way. He’d say “and THAT’s the end of the story!” So, I celebrate you dad, today and every day, and I’m proud to be your daughter. Happy Birthday!”

I am kind of proud that I have such wonderful children who appreciate what they have and who they are.

Posted on by Ian Hanchet · 1 Comment

Refuge

I was driving home the other night after dark, but not yet night. I was looking in the windows of the homes in Montreal West we were passing through. The houses were probably built between the two world wars or perhaps even earlier as Montreal’s suburbs were expanding. 

I was reminded of my own home growing up in Town of Mount Royal which was of the same vintage. Both neighbourhoods at the time were inhabited by middle class professionals in a society that was more nine to five and regimented. Churches were active and important back then. Children joined Boy Scouts or Girl Guides and on our street most moms were educated but could afford to stay home and raise their children. 

Bliminal spaces like this have always interested and attracted me. I was struck by the soft yellowish low watt lighting in empty dens, living rooms, front hallways. Lit for the inhabitants not yet home. I was comforted by this idea of refuge. Imagining walking in the door and being greeted by a warm living space with unmoving air from cast iron radiators.

As a youth, When I would return home from choir practice I would walk several blocks from the downtown commuter train (now part of the REM) and see similar homes waiting, dimly lit by perhaps a wall sconce or a table lamp. Perhaps the invisible kitchen was a hive of activity, someone preparing dinner in a brightly lit aromatic back room, but the rest of the house just waiting. Houses I would probably never enter, but I recognized the feeling, recognized the layout. Refuge. A quiet place to shake off the day and perhaps relax in an easy chair with the paper and a sherry or vermouth (like my dad did). 

I have been in many older homes in TMR, Montreal West, NDG and Westmount and I recognize the vibe. Clean, orderly, filled with loved objects and favourite books in neat bookshelves. Different homes with a sameness about them. These glimpses in passing are comforting to me. 

I am also reminded of a similar feeling I have driving on older highways and looking in windows of rural homes. My family used to travel between Montreal and Ottawa frequently. I had grandparents and aunts and uncles and cousins in Ottawa. This is before the 417 was completed. The 417 bypasses everything and could be any highway anywhere with few landmarks or personality. The older highway took longer, but it passed real places where people lived.

Returning from Ottawa on a Sunday night the route offered glimpses into lives different from mine. I enjoyed the cold blue light from fluorescent lights in kitchens. I could imagine the hum from the fridge and the swish swish of a dishwasher in the after supper hour. The glow of a TV in another room, the scrubbed kids in their pjs staying up to watch Ed Sullivan. Some of the houses seemed plunked there randomly like a monopoly house dropped on a carpet.  There didn’t seem to be any reason for a house to to be there unlike the rambling farm houses which were large and had many out buildings.

Sometimes the route passed abandoned homes. Each former refuge transformed by life stories and hardships unknown to me, the casual observer, and lost in time.

As I write this in my comfy office I imagine someone walking their dog on the street glancing in here and seeing my computer screen and the back of my body as I sit here typing. Perhaps one day they will write about their impressions of this, my refuge.

Posted on by Ian Hanchet

Pioneers

Yesterday Sharon and I attended a celebration of life for the father of a friend of ours. The eulogies were lovingly inspirational and painted pictures of a truly remarkable man. Remarkable as a scholar, a professor, author, athlete, progressive thinker and father. 

My friend had prerecorded herself reading the letter her dad had sent to the members of his Jewish family in the 1950’s announcing his intention of marriage to an African American woman and his hope that the family will accept her as readily as anyone else. 

The power of his (and her) “damn the torpedoes” attitude in the age of McCarthyism was brave and admirable and got me to thinking about other marriages of people I know or knew from diverse backgrounds. 

Today is the third anniversary of the death of my father in law. After attending the celebration of life, we went and laid flowers on my father in law’s grave. My father in law was a man whose love for a woman crossed the huge racial divide as well. A Sikh man in love with a white Welsh woman in Birmingham was a radical and sometimes dangerous departure from the norm. 

My thoughts turned next to my late friend, a prominent Jazz musician,  who met his future wife in rural Quebec (also in the 1950’s). Constance was forced to choose between him and her own family. Her heart won out and eventually her family softened and accepted him and the grand children their marriage produced. 

I think of the hundreds of mixed marriages of famous musicians in the fifties and sixties that used to raise eyebrows and controversy and overt racist difficulties. 

Venus and Mars are the usual barriers in marriage, but throwing in the cultural biases and visible otherness required other skills and strengths that I can only imagine. 

Times have changed. Or have they? In my own immediate family my siblings all married people although not visibly different, from outside the expected, My older brother’s father in law had been a doctor in the Luftwaffe. My dad flew for the RCAF. My sister married an American, Catholic divorcée. Three strikes according to my grandfather who declined to attend their wedding. My younger brother married an American as well whose family is Jewish. My first marriage was to someone from the same town, same background, same denomination as mine. Worked for a while and then didn’t. My second marriage is to a woman born in India with mixed Indian and Welsh heritage. Sharon was accepted easily into the fold, as was I into her family.

The mild, insignificant to nonexistent misgivings to each of our unions is in sharp contrast to the obstacles overcome by the pioneers of the fifties. 

The next generation in my extended family have an even more diverse and seemingly normalized differences. I have nephews and nieces from the US, Cuba, Mexico, Rwanda, Brazil. We have gay and trans family members breaking their own barriers bravely. 

Despite the severe downturn in civility and tolerance the world is experiencing at present,  Our families are maintaining a progressive trend. The unions that once would have been considered daring and counter culture are now commonplace and unremarkable. 

We need to maintain vigilance over society’s regression and maintain our own core values (mine are aligned with Dr. King) and wrestle the Shire back from the Orcs.

Sid and Doris, Paul and Jennie, Charlie and Connie I salute you.