Carl Green. Design Guy.

I remember…a wedding. It was a good wedding. An enjoyable one. One where I took my children before they were old enough to drink, smoke, or tell me to do anything physically impossible with myself.

At this event, son Paul was encouraged by friends and family to show us his best Michael Jackson. He did, and it was good. Very, very good. His natural shyness (If you don’t know he is shy, you don’t know Paul) was overcome by the several beers he still thinks I don’t know about and he moon-danced his way into many hearts that day, earning a standing ovation from many. He was a fan when it wasn’t a crime to like Mr. Jackson, and he did it very well. I was proud. Always have been but don’t tell him I said so. Shh.

At the same event, daughter Lisa was ready to Rock ‘n Roll. Or rather, Dirty Dance. That was the film of the summer and everybody loved it. As soon as the words “I’ve had the Time of my Life’ rolled across the floor 100 people leaped to their feet, and Lisa pulled me along for the ride. We went through all the moves very well and were getting some positive noises from the nearby tables, right up until the point in the song where Baby does the dip. Lisa says I was out. I say she was. I had been drinking, but that is irrelevant, as a parent I am always right. She dipped. I didn’t. She launched herself backwards across two tables full of drinks, skidded across the floor and disappeared under an elderly relatives seat. I stood there with outstretched hand, waiting for the spin. I remember saying “What did you do that for?” In hindsight, it may not have been the best thing to say. Lisa, love her, recovered gracefully. After several stammered apologies and a round of replacement drinks, everything returned to normality and the event continued. But I will always remember the look in Lisas’ eye. She never asked me to dance again, and I am glad.

Young girls with eyes like potatoes, indeed.

In my twenties I lived with my family at the top of a steep hill, roughly 400-500 feet long. Narrow street, cars parked both sides of the road, tight packed snow turning to ice on a 35 degree slope. Perfect.

Driven by nothing more than adrenalin, my friends Alan and Steve and I decided to stage our own Winter Olympics. We started with plastic sheeting as a communal vehicle, moving in ever faster circles, bouncing off cars with our heads and hands all the way to the bottom, pinball fashion. Ouch. It was funny if it was not YOUR head that hit.

The kids came out to see what the noise was. We were rolling around in tears of laughter. The kids naturally wanted some of this action, so they joined in with whatever they could find: Oil drum and garbage can lids, planks, grocery bags and chopping boards, washing up bowls…then the neighbours joined in. Their table was never the same again, but the legs gave some purchase and a semblance of steering, and it could hold four. By this time, there were more than a dozen of us and climbing. Neighbours from further down the hill were coming out of their houses and instead of getting angry, laughed and joined in with whatever they could grab. Winter wonderland. Magical.

My wife drew the line when I started dismantling the stove. I reasoned that the enamelled side panel would go faster than anything. While arguing and laughing about this, we turned in time to see Alan head down the hill on a three wheel kiddies tricycle. That was one of the bravest things I ever saw and one of the weirdest noises I ever heard… part laugh, part Ninja and part Gibbering Idiot. He somehow made the bottom of the hill and glided gracefully to a halt. A little stick Alan stood up, bowed, waved, turned, and went home. Pedalling. He brought it back the next day, which was good because the owner came looking for it. The bike was about 8 inches high. Alan is 6’2″

That was one of many, many good days.

September 6, 1981

My mom’s birthday. My twin girls, Donna and Dawn, are scheduled for their first day at school. Mom is heavily pregnant. Her waters broke later that day and she gave birth on the 7th. No way were these girls missing day one: Mom needed a break!

There is snow on the ground and the twins are up to their 4 year old hips in it. Great to play in, but no way can they walk the mile to school through it. Enter Carl, who at that time was a little bit buff.

One on each shoulder, we three travelers slogged through the snow, laughing and singing all the way there. And back. That was the first time I heard the phrase ‘snow day’. Bugger.

I am for some reason reminded of an event shortly after my daughter Vicky was born. I was 18, she was three months old. We took her to the doctors during the day for an examination. She was off colour, had a temperature and could not swallow easily. The doctor told us it was just a cold. Gave us an aspirin and told us to go home. We did.

Around 6pm that night, she stopped breathing. And went blue. I ran to a neighbours’ phone and called an ambulance. My feet didn’t touch the ground. When I got back, my wife had taken the not recommended step of flipping her upside down and bouncing her, nothing else having worked (this was her fifth, she knew her way around kids). A horrible sound heralded the returning breath and wide eyed panic of the terrified baby. The parents were not much better, it has to be said.

When the ambulance arrived, they took one look and tubed her on the spot before putting her and the mother into the ambulance and heading off with sirens. Only one passenger allowed: I ran to the hospital, 4 miles away. I found my baby in an oxygen tent. She had an abscess on her epiglottis which blocked her throat. The doctor, somehow, missed it. Bouncing the upside down baby actually saved her life by popping that sucker right back up out of her throat. The prompt tubing by the ambulance crew stopped it flopping back.

The doctors lanced it, baby stayed there for three days until the antibiotics killed the infection and she could come home.

That was the first time I helped save a family life. It was not the last.

In my home town, growing up, it often seemed that everything was black, including the kids, laundry drying on the line, buildings and the school dinners. I think that last one was more about the way they had of cooking, leading to the standing joke: “What’s for dinner?” “‘Something grey”. Speaking of colour…

There were four skin colours in my childhood. Coal black, loofer pink, mud grey and blood red. I cannot tell you how many black or yellow faces were in my school. We weren’t counting. If you could stand up after a Watneys Party Pack (8 pints of beer in one can), outrun the school in the annual marathon (I came ninth) or take down a teacher during rugby practice, you were a hero regardless of who your parents were. I liked that world. I still live there. Join me.