From The Vault

1966 was a big year for me.

My family had moved to another city, Dartmouth, 

which is across the harbour from Halifax.

I attended a private Catholic high school there for my grade 12

which was my last year before university.

My mother was in an almost fatal car accident in August of that year.

My sister Jo-Ann was driving the car

and my little sister Mim was in the front seat with my Mom.

My mother had the worse injuries of all.....her head and face were badly injured

and she remained in hospital for a few months.

The photo below was taken just before my high school graduation ceremony.

My mother was in the hospital so Nana, my grandmother, said she would go

along with my best friends Mike and John and my sister Jo-Ann.

I think I grew up that year.

I was attending a new school and didn't know a soul;

my mother was hanging on for her life;

I was about to embark on my university career;

lots to process for a 17 year old.

In the photo below I see the people with whom I was very close.....

left to right in back...Mike, we lived in same neighbourhood and street.

Nana, lived with my family for about 15 years till her death in 1972.

Nana was a quiet, kind and sweet-hearted woman whom we all loved very much.

Me on the right in the corner before I let my hair grow...and grow....

front left......John, in the same classes in elementary school and inseparable

till university. John died in 1995 of AIDS....he insisted that his obituary

included this fact. He was not ashamed of this and in his own small way

helped extinguish the terrible stigma that gay people had at that time.

front right.....my sister Jo-Ann. We are the closest in age in my family,

she was born in 1947 and I in 1948. 

We were inseparable and very close growing up.

She got married two years after this photo was taken.

Isn't it interesting what a photo will bring back.

1966 may have been a scary year in some ways

but it was also an exciting one for me.