THE BOOK OF STEVE … the missing chapters
As Barb and I read these entries we were impressed about how ‘spot on’ they are. Yup that’s Steve alright! But it is falling to us to substantially fill in the B.C. years (before Carolyn). So here goes.
Steve literally arrived in Oakville with a bang. We were in the process of driving to our new home on Dorland Road when we were hit by a truck that ignored a red light. We were all unhurt but Steve was only three weeks old.
Ten years later we moved to Nipigon Dr. and by this time he was developing the Joie de Vivre that is so evident throughout these entries. We sent him off to summer camp (Muskoka Woods is a virtual Club Med for youngsters). Like all youngsters Steve told his parents nothing. But this was a key highlight for Steve at this time of his life. He made friends that were still friends twenty five years later. That is a recurring theme throughout his life … Steve made friends everywhere.
Skiing at Glen Eden was a favourite for Steve, every weekend all winter long. All summer long he crewed on The Goose. The Goose was an extremely successful racing sail boat that was famous all around Lake Ontario, the skipper being a well known tyrant. Years later Steve was in somebody’s office and he recognized a framed photo of The Goose. It seems that person was also a racing skipper and he took that picture after he actually beat Goose for the only time after years of trying.
So Steve starts grade nine at White Oaks H.S. Naturally he tells us nothing about what was going on. But we got a clue from his cousin Jane who was several grades ahead of him. She told us that she saw Steve sitting on a hall floor in front of his locker, surrounded by his grade nine classmates (female of course). Oops, was this a sign of what’s to come? Well yes it was.
A couple of weeks later he brought home his first report card. Disaster!!! All F's and a lone C. Barb and I were beside ourselves, Steve was just having too much fun. Anyway I got a effective piece of advice from my business partner; try naked bribery. So we did. I think it was $100 for every A and so on. Well I don’t think that this was the only factor as this is when Sara came on the scene. (Don’t forget that this was B.C.) Sara studied and this rubbed off on Steve. Whatever, from that time on we were paying!
I suspect that most teenagers would loved to have the same high school experiences as Steve; I know I certainly was envious as I think back about my own H.S. years. Steve thrived in high school. He was popular and he was cool, we used to joke that Steve and my father (a lot of Steve’s genes came from that gene pool) knew just about everybody in Oakville. As he worked through high school he was everywhere: a major participant in student government and in grade 11 he was selected as Halton Region’s representative to a Canada wide conference in Ottawa designed to foster Canadian unity. I think that conference was part of P.E.T.’s legacy. As with Muskoka Woods, Steve kept in contact with other attendees for decades.
Steve’s favourite subject seemed to be chemistry; his mother holds a master’s degree in Chemistry from U of T. Steve only asked for Barb’s help once with his chemistry homework problems. According to his teacher, his answers were all wrong. Never again did he ask!
Steve never had to look hard for a summer job when in high school … he simply worked for me as a delivery truck helper carrying ‘the other end of the desk’. However Steve was the only one on his truck who could speak English and who understood the paperwork. So from the perspective of the customer we had a 17 year old kid in charge with a 40 something year old driver from eastern Europe helping with the heavy lifting. My favourite little story from this time was when Steve and his ‘helper’ had to do a small repo.(Some customers just didn’t pay). And so the call came from the customer complaining about my goons. And no, I didn’t tell him that one of the goons was my son.
Steve seemed to have more than his fair on adventures, good and bad, with cars. Mainly bad. And that’s just what his mother and I know about. There is still a missing tree at the corner of River Oaks Blvd. and Trafalgar Road in Oakville. It seems that he and Sara were out in MY CAR when he used the tree to help him stop. Incredibly he hit the tree with my front license plate, no damage to the car but the tree was totaled. The cops couldn’t understand how it really happened, they were very suspicious of how Steve must have been driving. But he did dodge that bullet.
A couple of years later he was in a work term in Fort McMurray. This time he was using Barb’s mid life crisis car, a Nissan 240SX. It was cool. Anyway he was 2nd in line, stopped at a red light when he was crunched from behind by a 16 year old kid in a 16 year old pickup truck, driving Steve’s car forward into the 1st car in line. Steve was slightly hurt and Barb’s car was totaled. The kid had no insurance (oh hum this is Alberta after all) but Barb’s Nissan was fully insured.
There was one positive Steve car story. Barb had decided that we were going to have a garage sale and do I ever hate garage sales. So there we were with the old hand me down Camry that Steve and Doug shared parked on one side of the driveway and all our ‘treasures’ on the other side. A young woman with a young child walked in and asked if this was were Steve lived. Oh! We were puzzled, what did he do now? Well nothing bad,. A couple of days earlier he and Sara were driving in the ‘hood through a heavy downpour when they spied the woman and child standing the the rain waiting for a bus. So the two teenagers stopped and loaded woman and child into the Camry and drove them to their home. The woman was extremely grateful.
But I think that the hardest thing we had to deal with was telling Barb's mother that he used the money she gave him for Christmas to buy a nipple ring.
But high school comes to to an end for everyone and Steve was off to Waterloo.
And with Waterloo came Carolyn.