Pictures of my Mum for Mother’s day

This is my all-time favourite. Mum didn’t learn to swim until we moved to the city and she was in her fifty’s. She and Dad learned at the U of M pool together. Dad a little less interested, but game. Once the water at the U of M got too cold they would swim at the Margaret Grant Pool (incidentally where Kelly Jo Burke’s mom was a lifeguard). They did get out to see my sister and brother-in-law at Half-moon Bay, which is where this picture was taken. I’ll post Dad’s picture with the catch of the day on the same beach on Father’s Day. Lynn and I both enjoy the water, and we had a swim at the Sargent Park (Cindy Klassen) pool, this morning.

Buffalo Creek was one of her happy places, which she revisited often. She taped the soundscape, mostly of frogs, played often  during the winters after we moved to the city.

Below, I believe is the first portrait she had taken, and was wallet sized.

Mum thought there were two things she needed for her independence. An education, and a car. She will have been one of the first 20 year-old women owning and driving her own car in southern Manitoba, purchased with her earnings as a teacher. She gave Dad a ride home, his bicycle in  the rumble seat, after his Sunday visit and vaspa. She bought the  cars  in the family, owning one until the day she died.

And here I am as Mama’s boy, 8 years younger than my brother and 10 years younger than my sister who spent many an hour of her early teens looking after me. The photo is frontispiece for my poetry collection boy (Hagios, 2012) available from McNally Robinson.

Mama’s boy, 1958