Bus #79/80 : Acadia / Oakridge

Sunday, November 12, 2017

Bus Routes #79/80 : Acadia / Oakridge

Serving: Heritage Station, Acadia, Willow Park, Family Leisure Centre, Southcentre Shopping Centre, Southland Station, Southland Leisure Centre, Braeside, Cedarbrae, Oakridge, Palliser, Haysboro, South Glenmore Park, Bayview.

Monday, November 20, 2017

Do you know that the Irish are very superstitious people?  Well, they are. Did you know that both my dear Mother and my dear Father were  born in Ireland to Irish Parents? They were.  I think that makes me Double/Double Irish! ! ! (I have documents to substantiate ‘all of the above’, and I give you my word on it I am VERY, VERY SUPERSTITIOUS.)  We Irish say “Things go wrong in threes.”    When I was a little kid, if I accidentally broke a  glass or a cup…  my Mother would tell me to get two matches (our matches were wooden at the time)  then she would tell me to break them in two.  That put an end to the “things go wrong in threes” . . .  At least until the next time ! ! !    And it wasn’t  just the Irish.  Shakespeare, whom I do not believe to have been Irish, wrote  “Sorrows come not single spy but in battalions”!

Whatever, I’m Irish, I’m superstitious, and I have felt ‘jinked’ for the past week.  I feel that for the past week I have been a walking proof of  MURPHY’S LAW  24/7. 

MURPHY’S LAW :  If anything can go wrong it is going to go wrong and it is going to go way worse than you ever expected.

Besides being VERY, VERY SUPERSTITIOUS I have a VERY, VERY BAD HABIT of taking myself VERY, VERY SERIOUSLY.

I have not posted a blog since November 12th, not because I haven’t written one, not because I haven’t ridden my buses but, among other things, my internet (supplied by Shaw) keeps going missing.  One day I was on the phone 45 minutes  with some IT whiz-kid in a   country I didn’t even know existed!  When that happens the only thing I can do is hit the off switch and curl up in Theo’s recliner with my music and coloring book.

There have been other things too, SIGNIFICANT, SIGNIFICANT  LOSSES  top of the list being my dear, dear Friend Theresa’s move to Manitoba.

Theresa is not just my friend, Theresa is a ‘bus-er extraordinaire, Theresa is a champion of  CANADA 150 BUS,  Theresa is my biggest fan.  I cannot tell you how often I have stepped onto a bus to have the driver say to me “Oh! I know who you are.”  “You do?”  “Theresa told me to watch out for you and your CANADA 150 BUS”.  Missing you, Missing you Theresa!

I wanted to go to the airport to see Theresa off and I knew exactly which bus would take me there.  But I could not go because the time of departure coincided with the Celebration of the Life and Death of Sister Mary Shea f.c.J at Sacred Heart Convent.  We go away back. As Sister Mary Magdalene, Mary was my Social Studies Teacher at St. Mary’s Girls School in 1946.  WWII had just ended.

Among the unsung heroes/heroines of the war are the young talented Grade 12 graduates taken straight from the classroom to halls of learning such as Calgary’s  “Normal School” (now Heritage Hall on the SAIT campus).  For the two summer months they received their “teachers’ training” and went into the classroom in September.  When the war broke out every able body man and woman signed up and the next generation had to step up to the plate and become the heads of families,  the heads of schools, the heads of hospitals . . .

Many of our veterans came home afflicted with “shell shock”, incapable of picking up their pre-war careers.  The young teachers who had “kept the home fires burning”  weren’t given scholarships and sabbaticals to pursue the studies  they had put “on hold”. They  continued to teach 10 months of the year and to work towards their degree in ‘Summer School’.  That was how Sr. Mary embarked on her life dedicated to the education of our young people.

In 1951 the F.c.j’s opened a convent in Toronto and three young  F.c.j’s  enrolled at St. Michael’s College U of T.  I was one of the three.  The following year Sr. Mary joined us and for three years  we studied side by side.  LOTS AND LOTS of memories—deep feelings of loss.

Theo knew Sr. Mary, she visited our home and came to Theo’s birthday parties.  Sr. Mary was three years younger than Theo.  They both lived long, beautiful, dedicated lives.  They both lived the Peace Prayer of St. Francis

Oh divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console;

to be understood as to understand;

to be loved as to love.

 For it is in giving that we receive; it is in pardoning that we are pardoned; and

IT IS IN DYING THAT WE ARE BORN TO ETERNAL LIFE.