The Squirrel Whisperer © by adrian Episode two: Peanuts Part 1 of 2

I get on the subway car, sit down and put my hand into my jacket pocket. Just another kid, really. I’m almost thirteen years old and no one has even noticed me come into the car. Not yet, anyway. I reach further into my pocket and scoop my hand underneath the warm little fur ball I find there. I pull it out of my pocket and the ball of fur I’m now holding in my hand begins to stir. The little grey squirrel I’ve named Peanuts, who accompanies me almost everywhere, drowsily looks up at me and yawns.

We met a year and a half ago, and have been inseparable ever since.

I'm playing on my porch one day in early Spring, and across the street from me I hear a commotion and know something is definitely wrong in the local animal kingdom. Just down the street I locate the cause of the ruckus.

Three baby squirrels are huddled together in the corner of a porch roof, and a large grey squirrel with huge teats is fighting with a fourth baby squirrel. She's chasing him off the roof, squawking and being very aggressive towards him. He crawls back up, wailing all the while, and she attacks him again. It seems that she's trying to kill him.

If you have read my story titled, "My Mother, the Sister", you will understand how easy it was for me to immediately identify with this baby squirrel. What I saw happening was not a mystery to me. This squirrel's mother, for whatever reason, did not want the little fellow around anymore. The others were obviously not being threatened by her right now, this was exclusively between him and her, and the others knew it. After his fourth time of being chased and thrown from the roof by his mother, I intervened. I went over and hesitantly picked him up off the ground. I had no idea if he would bite me, or if the mother would attack me now. She was in a hysterical rage, and I realized very unpredictable. Well, the mother instantly stopped squawking, calmly walked over to the remaining litter, called at them, and they followed her around the corner of the roof, and out of sight. The little guy just stared at me. I didn't know if he was frightened or not, but at the time I felt he definitely knew that whatever was going to happen, was going to be a hell of a lot better than what had just happened.

I decided immediately that he would be my pet, we would be motherless buddies together. From this moment on, it was going to be him and me behind the tree. I would teach him to be strong, and he would teach me the squirrels' secret ways. He would show me the proper way to bury and hoard, so that everywhere we went all we would need to do is scratch the ground and there would be the possibility of discovering buried treasure under our feet. We would fly from tree to tree together, and take on the world...

Then I remembered I was late for dinner.

This realization presented itself rather urgently, because with that thought, I remembered that I also had a set of parents. I knew it would be pretty hard to sneak to the dinner table without someone noticing this new addition, and that they were probably going to play a figural role in any possibility of my being able to keep and care for this guy. There was something else I couldn't quite put my finger on, and then it dawned on me. I already had a pet. I was currently responsible for a five year old beagle dog named Towser whose full time hobby, (I'm sure he thought of it as a vocation,) was chasing squirrels.

I figured through stealth, cajoling, or promising to put out the coal furnace ashes for a month next winter, I might be able to sway the parents. I did, however, have some misgiving about my ability to convince Towser that this squirrel was not to be chased, and would be living in the house, just like him. I felt that no matter how upbeat and positively I tried to explain that to him, it was going to be a tough sell. I foresaw that I had a long night ahead of me.

As soon as I entered the house, Towser knew my secret. He ran towards me and jumped up, gaily barking. He knew I had brought him a treat that was better than anything I had ever given him before. Finally, he would have his very own squirrel to maul. He knew the other dogs on the block would be so envious of him.

I held my new ward above my head and called for someone to help pull Towser off me. One of my sisters rushed to my aid and pulled Towser back. The hallway we were in quickly filled, because added to this mix of dog, sister, squirrel and me, the parents rushed into the hallway to see what the commotion was. Their hysterical yelling along with the barking of the dog was quite a combination. I had single handedly pulled off the biggest family shit disturb of this month, and I wondered if the little fellow I was still holding above my head was reconsidering his options.

It didn't come about easily, but eventually the parents forgo their determined resistance and agree to let me try to look after him. We acknowledge that Towser will be a huge disadvantage to the squirrels well being, but I convince them I will be able to train him to look the other way when the squirrel is around.

I am the youngest in the family, but because I am a boy and must be kept away from my three older sisters as much as possible in order to protect my morals, I have always had my own bedroom. It's negotiated that as long as I keep my bedroom door closed whenever I'm at school or not at home, the squirrel can live in my room with me until he is old enough to fend for himself and be set free.

I name my new companion Peanuts.

The Squirrel Whisperer © by adrian Episode two: Peanuts Part 2 of 2

Checking at the library determines that Peanuts is probably between six to eight weeks old. He did have his fur, but not a full coat yet. He still didn't know what to do with solid food, (nuts or whatever,) so I mostly fed him from an eyedropper or gave him mashed up food or peanut butter I would spread on the end of my finger. He would lick it off, or gently nibble my finger to get at it. I got a huge box and placed tree branches, bits of cloth and hamster wood shavings in it so that he would have a room of his own. After a few days he dismissed the idea of his own area and decided to always get on the bed with me whenever I was in my room. I would put him in his box at night when it was time for lights out, but in a few minutes I would feel him crawling up the side of the bed and then he would snuggle up to me. He quickly got into the habit of curling up at my neck and sleeping in bed with me every night.

After a few weeks, we started to stumble through a form of semi satisfactory communication. Peanuts would make little grunting or what sounded like chirping noises when he wanted or needed any attention, and he started to come to me when I called him. Towser, of course was not amused by any of this. Amazingly though, Towser did quickly soften to Peanut's presence. Sometimes when Towser would go and lie down on his doggie bed Peanuts would march over to him and curl up on Towser's stomach and go to sleep. If Towser had ever been able to learn how to use a can opener, so that he could feed himself, I'm sure he would never have put up with such indignity. Peanuts simply became part of the household.

I soon started to take Peanuts outside to the backyard. He was still too young to look after himself, but I wanted him to at least have a sense of the outdoors. I never had any intention of keeping him permanently as an indoor pet, and felt he would go free as soon as he was more mature. I always assumed that when he was free to roam, he would drop by for visits on occasion if he felt like it.

About a month after I started living with him, he had his first attack. I realized he was sick, and at the time, I thought he was dying. Perhaps this explained why his mother had been trying to get rid of him.

Some squirrels have an illness with symptoms that seem to be similar to epilepsy. They occasionally have seizures where they go completely rigid and/or tremble, and stay in that state for a few minutes whenever this occurs. Peanuts was afflicted with this illness.

The Secord Animal Clinic was near Ramsden Park on Yonge Street in Toronto, close to where I lived. The doctor's name was Alan Secord, and over time I became very indebted to him. I took Peanuts there right after his first attack. Naturally I was scared and had no idea what was wrong with him. Because I was eleven years old, I had no money. When I explained that to Dr. Alan, as he became known to me, he said it didn't matter, and he would do what he could to help. I don't remember if he gave Peanuts any medication, but he certainly gave me hope that Peanuts was generally healthy, except for this flaw. During the year and a half that Peanuts and I were together, he had about six more seizures, and Dr. Alan ministered to him without ever charging me a penny.

Back on the home front, on one of our ventures in the back yard, his mother came into the yard. Of course, I had no idea what to expect (that seems to be a constant theme in my life, even back then).

If you don't know much about squirrels, you might find it hard to believe they are individually identifiable, but they definitely are. In a city environment as they run frantically about, that fact might be hard to accept, but they all do have their very own discernable personality traits. Apart from looks they definitely interact with the world as individuals. The way they forage, approach, squawk or even flick their tail, makes them easy to identify.

I offered his mother a nut and she came closer to us. She totally ignored Peanuts, and he ignored her. Of course I was relieved. When I first saw her I thought she would either attack him again, or he would go off with her. Over the next few months, whenever she came by, I would stand in the middle of the yard with Peanuts on my shoulder, and I trained her to jump from the fence to my other shoulder to get a treat. She would sit there and eat it and then the two of them would run up and down my back and around my torso and sort of play with each other. In those interludes, I was their scratching post and tree trunk.

At various times during the next year and a half I would leave Peanuts alone in the yard in the belief that he was ready to go out on his own. He would run and play in the trees, sometimes even with his mother and then when he had enough, he would come to the back door and lie down or just sit there until I let him in. He would scamper in, and run past me up to our room. Towser would watch, and I'm sure he wondered how everything could have gone so wrong in his life.

If I took him to the park and put him down, he would follow along, just like we were going for a walk together. When he got tired, he would squawk and I would wait for him to jump up on my leg and then I would pick him up and put him in my jacket pocket where he would curl up and go to sleep.

Back in the Subway car, I put Peanuts on the window sill behind us and he romps back and forth while a crowd gathers around. Not surprisingly, people are excited, amazed, and have many questions. When we arrive near our stop I call him to come to me and pick him up and slip him back in my pocket. He will quickly nod off to sleep, and I leave the car full of childhood feelings of importance.

About a year and a half after I rescued him, Peanuts had a final seizure and died. I was devastated, but I had always known that sooner or later he would be gone. It's the price you have to pay if you befriend animals from the wild. We had a wondrous and magical time together, and I learned almost all the secrets of the squirrels from him. Little did I know then that I would need to call on those secrets later on as other squirrels passed through my life.

Your Memoirs

Dear Allyson,
It's Monday morning, and the first thing I did was to get on your blog. I do have problem with getting into your program but
with Walt's help I manage. Waiting for your response to my note.
Jane

My Birthday. 2007.

My Birthday.


This year my birthday claimed world wide attention. It appeared to me that every time I read a newspaper, turned on the radio or the television, someone was talking about it. They were referring to the fact, that throughout most of the universe, this date was revered and cherished.

Well, if it is such a momentous and lucky date, why wasn’t anybody happy when I arrived, and, as far as I can understand, my birth was treated as a disaster by the my whole family?

Over the years my mother never tired of telling me, that when she gave birth to my sister - several years previously - she had suffered through such a terrible pregnancy, extreme nausea for the entire nine months and several days of dreadful labour, so she had decided she never wanted to repeat this agony. It was only after incessant pleading letters from her mother, in England, - my parents were living in South Africa at that time - begging her not to have an only child, she eventually, reluctantly agreed. Carrying me, she once more suffered the indignities of a horrendous nine months of vomiting, and an even worse delivery - so she definitely wasn’t happy. Also, to make things worse, (I am just repeating what was told to me ) there was a fairground outside the hospital, and the carousel played, non-stop of course - Happy Days are Here Again.

Things were no better for my father as he had set his heart on a son, so after he took one disappointed look at me, described as dark and wrinkled and noticed that I didn’t have the required appendage, he sent off a cable (these were the days of very difficult international telephonic communication) to the families in England saying Another Bloody Girl. My parents used to repeat these stories to me often, with obviously no concern for my young psyche.

The only other member of this family was my afore-mentioned sister. She too had an auspicious birthday, she was a New Year’s Day baby, and as far as she was concerned, my arrival was definitely not good news. She had been the adored, pampered, precocious spoiled apple of our parents collective eyes, - the only grandchild and niece for my mother’s large enthusiastic family, and was the only granddaughter on the paternal side. She always knew how to use her feminine wiles and charming personality to get exactly what she wanted. She was smart enough not to voice her displeasure when I moved in, however, and it took a while for my parents to figure out that, when she cooed and leant over my cot or crib and said “What a lovely baby, my dear little sister”, and I would scream in agony or terror, she was actually busy pinching or scratching me. But eventually the bruises, marks and scars would reveal that it wasn’t just that I was a cranky infant - I was suffering at the hands of my sister.

So this year my birthday ,the 7th day of the 7th month - regarded by most cultures as a very fortuitous sign -and was selected by millions of brides around the world as the happiest day to get married that is because this year was 07/07/07 - it was quite momentous for me, too, as this year I turned 77!!

.

Another Christmas, Hurrah

Another Christmas, Hurrah

I’m about to embark on another Christmas with Mr. Wonderful and his seasonal joy. For the next few weeks I’ll hear his annual protestations:

Why are you buying the grandkids so many gifts? You give them stuff all year long.
Not shortbread again! Do you realize how many calories they have?
You’re not decorating the stair rail, are you? It takes forever to put that stuff away after Christmas.
Oh no, please not the Santa collection. How many do you have now, about three hundred?
I don’t think we need a tree this year. The kids are getting pretty old and it’s so much work for such a short time.

When he complained about the problems involved with cutting the bottom off a fresh tree and how the holder leaked water and Tree Fresh on the carpet I gave in and bought a huge artificial one with lights already wound around the metal branches and silver sparkle dust glued on the greenery. It comes apart in three sections but John keeps it set up in the basement all year round. I try to hide its hulking form under bed sheets so there will be an element of surprise in December.

I wish I could hide my Christmas shopping bills from him but it’s no use. He tracks me with his own brand of radar. Every day he sits in his office in front of the computer and it’s tuned into VISA Central. He can see every store I’ve been in and Ka-ching…how much I have spent.

We used to have an annual Christmas Open House a week before the twenty-fifth but he was never happy about it. While I baked special treats and delicious dips he sulked around the house, not speaking unless it was to complain about why we were inviting certain people. “We haven’t spoken to them for a couple of years. Why are they coming? You know he drinks like a fish.” One year a guest took off with John’s toe rubbers and left a pair, two sizes smaller. It took John about fifteen minutes of struggling to get his size eleven brogues in a size nine before he realized what must have happened.

That wasn’t a great party because when he wasn’t bar tending he was jockeying cars around in the driveway to let the early arrivers out before the late comers were ready to leave. One lady had us go through the pile of coats on our bed looking for her cashmere lined leather gloves. We never did find them but she kept saying they would probably show up the next day. I swore to myself that if they did, I’d run them through the garburator.

I’ve had to give up our Open House since the fire. I was toasting almonds under the broiler and the oil in them ignited and burst into flame. I called John to help but he just stood there and told me the fire would go out itself, so I called the fire department. I stressed to them that there was no emergency but my oven was on fire. I asked if they thought the fire could burn through the back of the stove and set the kitchen aflame. When I think about it now, I realize that no sensible fire fighter is going to sit on the phone and debate the likelihood of my house burning down or not. The line went dead and in five minutes we heard sirens on the street. John glared at me and said, “Now you’ve done it. Those guys are going to come in here with their big boots on.” I said, “Well you can’t ask fire fighters to take off their boots.” Sure enough, they came in and dragged our stove outside where a small crowd of curious neighbours gathered to watch as the appliance smoldered away in our driveway. Then we had to figure out how to get it back inside before the evening festivities.

I’ve given up a lot of things for John:
He thought the artificial snow on the windows was too messy.
No outdoor holiday lights for us. It’s too cold to hang them and half the bulbs are broken anyway. That’s okay though. He was so frugal about the electricity, he set the timer to come on at 9pm and off at 10pm. One year I didn’t make it out in that hour and missed the cheery display altogether.

By now I’m sure you can guess how he feels about a showy, crimson poinsettia plant. “It’ll be dead in a month. Why get one?”

Last December I saw a display of real live mistletoe in a flower shop window. I couldn’t resist buying some. That night when John came home from work I tried to kiss him. He looked up at the doorframe and said, “What did that set you back?”

I celebrate Christmas as best as I can but it’s not easy with my husband. He’s sure no Jimmy Stewart. If you ever hear a bell ring in our house on Christmas Eve, you can be sure it’s not an angel getting his wings; it’s only our doorbell.

Mr. Wonderful does have “wonderful” qualities at other times of the year but
honestly, I don’t know how a Christmas loving girl, got stuck with a man who runs stiff competition with Ebenezer Scrooge in December.

Special note:
In case you are moved to tears for my eccetric husband and his complaining wife, I'd like to say that he is not upset and really enjoyed being the star of my story.

From Austerity to a Different World, by Sonia Goodman

It all started because my sister had a boyfriend that they didn’t like. There were constant arguments in the family on this topic. My father thought there was only one way in life - his way - and my mother had learned to go along with this, but my sister, recently demobbed from the Wrens, had lived an independent and dangerous life, installing RADAR on ships, and felt that she was old enough, and wise enough, to make her own choices.

Along came a solution, at least to temporarily let some of the steam out of the pressure cooker of family tensions, in the form of my father’s sister, Aunt Becky, who was living in South Africa. “Send Riva over to stay with me for a few weeks, it will be a lovely holiday for her, and my two sons have tons of friends, she will have a good time, and hopefully she will ‘get over’ this man,” she said. My sister was less than pleased but she eventually begrudgingly agreed to go, “But I will soon be back, and I will lead my own life.”

My mother always told me that Riva left without saying goodbye - but my sister denies this - anyway she did leave, destination Durban, in a flying-boat! This was in 1946, just after the armistice, and the austerity and deprivations were even more stringent than during wartime. This was a really difficult time in Britain as the spirit that had kept everyone buoyed up and patriotic in the war years had gone, and the reality was that food was even scarcer, people were trying to get jobs and attempting to find their place in this new society, and the families, confused and strangers to each other, were trying to settle down and learn to live together again. So this trip to a foreign country, one more or less untouched by conflict, sounded amazingly exciting to me, but I wasn’t really consulted in this drama - too young I suppose - so I was just an interested onlooker.

My sister’s journey was supposed to start in Southampton, but a large Victory Parade was going on in London at that time, and it was doubtful that she could have got down to the coast in time. So she was able to board a plane to Cairo, almost totally filled with young RAF men who were being sent to train as pilots in Rhodesia (Zimbabwe today). There was some delay with the plane so they were ‘billeted’ in the famous Shepherd’s Hotel in Cairo and she spent 3 days in unaccustomed luxury there, visiting the country clubs and generally being feted, before finally boarding the flying-boat. Many stopovers were necessary as the fuel tanks were small, and one day she landed on Lake Victoria. The plane had to fly very low so game-watching was a delightful pastime, and the contrast to the life left behind was overwhelming.

Over in South Africa my aunt was busy making plans, looking over all her sons’ friends and deciding which one would be most suitable to distract a young woman from her love, and perhaps offer her another choice. Many of these young men had volunteered and served in the forces, army, air force and navy, they, too, were recently demobbed and ready to begin a new life, presumably with a new wife! My cousins, Cyril and Leon, were both very popular and their small home was always packed with these handsome young men, full of life, good health and testosterone. A reluctant Cyril, being the elder son and one year older than my sister, was told that he had to travel to Durban by train to meet her and bring her back, and then his obligations would be over. He was not looking forward to the journey down, but he was even more displeased about having to spend several days staying with family friends and then travelling back with a stranger. (Well, not a complete stranger as they had played as children when we still lived in South Africa - I think Riva was 6 and Cyril 7 the last time they had seen each other. At that time they used to go to the bioscope (cinema) to see cowboy and Indian serial films, and when reenacting these, Riva was always the heroine. Cyril made sure he was the handsome cowboy and therefore his younger brother Leon had to take the part of the villain. The perks of this arrangement were that the hero always saved the girl, and was rewarded with a thank-you kiss!) She was, Cyril decided on the way to Durban, obviously going to be grumpy and bad-tempered and longing for her boyfriend back in London, and worse, Cyril had to leave his current girlfriend behind whilst off on this family mission, so he was not very happy with this arrangement.

Back in London my parents and I were waiting anxiously to hear how things were going, my aunt telling us about a series of parties she was planning to throw to give Riva a good time, and to introduce her to Johannesburg’s finest young men. Well, it didn’t quite work out that way! Since I wasn’t there and don’t know what happened, I can only report that by the time that Cyril brought Riva back to his home, they had fallen madly in love, and he had no intention of letting anyone else even meet her!

Within a few days there was talk of marriage and my parents were bewildered and stunned - “Who would ever marry a first cousin? And how did this all happen, so fast?” Hurried talks were scheduled with doctors, who assured them that there was nothing wrong with first cousins marrying, as long as there wasn’t any major hereditary illness, and also it was safer if they weren’t sisters’ children. And then it seemed that everyone we knew had married their first cousin - our neighbours, my parents' friends - the list grew every day.

So now the wedding was scheduled for 10th November 1946, and, naturally, my parents and I were expected to be there. My father’s business was with Government surplus goods, e.g., coats, uniforms, boots and in fact anything that was no longer required. He had a factory that mended, remade and did whatever was necessary to these items, and they were then shipped out all over the world. It was very difficult to find any transport at that time, so my father had to use all his contacts and connections to find a way to convey us over to Johannesburg - but he was eventually successful, my mother and I would fly and he would follow, just before the wedding. There was a flurry of activity, my mother begging her siblings, or anyone she knew, for clothing coupons for me, as I had just left school and grown alarmingly tall, and literally had nothing to wear. Eventually she had enough to buy me two austerity dresses, and I thought I was a princess! The excitement grew - we were leaving cold, dark (we were always having power cuts), depressed London and we were off on this wonderful adventure. The plane we left on was a converted York bomber, seating 12, and as these planes could only fly during the day because they didn’t have landing equipment for night-time flying and they then had to refuel for the next leg of the flight, the journey was incredibly long, 5 days. We were scheduled to stop at Marseilles, Cairo, Khartoum, Salisbury and finally land at Palmietfontein airport, just outside Johannesburg.

The bomber wasn’t pressurised, had very hard seats, with no room for my long skinny legs, and a vent directed hot air onto my neck. So this wonderful trip to paradise turned to hell - I was horribly air-sick before we had even reached our first destination, and from then on everything was a blur. I remember beseeching my mother to leave me behind at every stop as I retched for the whole journey. There were no pills or remedies in those days, and I grew weaker and weaker. The nights were blessed relief, staying in hotels in these exotic stops, but it still felt as if we were flying and I was absolutely miserable (on reflection, it couldn’t have been much fun for my mother either!). In Cairo we were taken in open trucks, like the ones used for cattle, and there was such anti-British feeling at that time that everyone passing would spit at us and throw stones. I have vague memories of the pyramids and the Sphinkies (I remember that is how they referred to the Sphinx) and the red-fezzed men with their white long coats and red sashes - I think in Khartoum - but after what seemed like an eternity we arrived in South Africa into the arms of our waiting family.

All I wanted was to lie still, and did so for about 2 weeks, with my aunt trying to tempt my non-existent appetite with grapes, lichis, and various tropical delicacies that I had never heard of, and definitely never seen. When I finally mustered enough strength to look outside I was nearly blinded! The sky was the brightest blue I had ever seen, the sun was pouring down, the trees were covered in blossoms - the marvellous jacarandas with their huge purple/mauve flowers. My whole world was now in Techicolor and the contrast from the grey, dreary, sad world I had left just days ago to this paradise was almost too much for this sheltered teenager to comprehend. It had the same wonderment that happens when you paint those special colouring books with water, and all the different colours emerge.

And all these gorgeous young men . . . I had just spent 5 years in a private British girls' school, with no boys in our lives, other than the one that lived next door and used to gather his chums and they would cheekily stare into one of our three bathrooms - all, conveniently for them, facing onto his house. I had noticed them doing this one day, rallied all the 36 girls in our house, and on a count of 3 we all covered our 3 bathroom windows with screaming, annoyed and spirited faces - and that was the end of the boys' cheap thrills! But now I was fascinated by studying this species up close. They were so different from us and it was an incredible education for this naive schoolgirl. The house next door was quite close to my aunt’s, and my cousin (not the engaged one, of course) and his buddies spent quite a lot of time looking out the window and admiring the beautiful girl next door. She had a stunning figure, wore very short shorts that showed off her perfect pair of legs, and seemed amazingly sexy. She lived there with her "mother and father and brother" - they were recent immigrants from England, the parents both hairdressers. The goddess had been left an orphan by a bombing raid and was taken into this family as their daughter - she was about 18, I think, and the boy of the family about 11. So they had opened a beauty salon nearby, and were re-establishing themselves. The mother was a typical British housewife, a little dumpy, very pleasant but ordinary, and the father was youthful looking and slim, and seemed several years his wife’s junior. The "boys" at my establishment marvelled that the husband seemed quite content with his wife, whilst living under the same roof with this object of their lust! Some weeks later my aunt saw this lady on the street, and while they were chatting about nothing in particular, she told my aunt, “Oh, by the way, my husband and I are getting divorced.” When Aunt Becky relayed this news to us all, no-one was surprised, and the ‘boys’ were vindicated in their evaluations! They assumed that the husband and the siren were finally going to team up. However, it was not quite like that - the charmer picked the frumpy mother as her partner! What a surprise and shock!

I realised then how innocent and unworldly I still was, and how much growing up was ahead of me.

(A short note: My sister married our cousin - they have 4 wonderful children, eight incredible grandchildren and recently welcomed their first great-grandson into the family. And on 10th November 2007, they celebrated their 61st wedding anniversary.)

Of Nomads and Amazons © by adrian Part 1 of 2

I want you to know right off, I'm about 5 feet 9½ inches tall, I have no idea what that translates to in those other measurement number thingies that Prime Minister Trudeau bequeathed to us Canadians, but let's just say, I'm average height. I've pretty well stayed that height since my teens. When I bend over I'm a bit shorter, but when I stand up straight, I don't get any taller. I have a slim build, and since my teens I've weighed in at about 150 pounds. When I bend over, my weight doesn't change a bit.

There's something else I need to explain, but I want your help on this. You don't need to get up or anything, I'll get it myself, but I need you to believe me on this one (if not, for the sake of my story, just pretend you do). Women in general, are taller now than they used to be. In the fifties, sixties and seventies, if a woman was tall, she often stooped to minimize the impact of her height. It was rare indeed to find a woman who carried herself with the full grandeur her height would allow.

Damn, I just remembered something else. Cigarette Girls. If you're older, you might remember them. Some of you young whippersnappers might know them from old movies, or even parties. They became quite campy a few years back, so you may have seen them, or at least pictures of them. These women did tend to be a little taller than average, and often wore brightly coloured tight tunics with black fishnet stockings. Inevitably, high heeled spike shoes were added for more effect. They carried, and balanced in front of them, huge trays of cigarettes and cigars that hung from large straps that went around their necks and came down to their waists. They were hired to walk around in fancier bars selling, you guessed it, cigars and cigarettes.

When I was a puppy, I used to hang around in a bar called The Regency Towers, on Avenue Road near Bloor Street in Toronto. The legal drinking age in Ontario was twenty-one at the time. I was only twenty, but as long as you acted civilized no one ever questioned you or asked for ID in classy joints. This was a classy joint.

At that time, I was going out with my former brother-in-law's housemate. I met her when he invited me to a party at their place. She had a voracious sexual appetite and was driving him crazy with what he felt were unreasonable sexual demands. He reasoned that she might find me attractive, and I probably wouldn't think her enormous sexual appetite was something that needed to be avoided. Well, he got that right on both counts. She lived across the street from the Regency Towers and was fifteen years older than me. There is no question that lady was certainly a great experience in my life, but this is not her story. This is the story of me and my first wife, the beautiful nomadic Amazon I married.

I was sitting at a table in the Regency waiting for my girlfriend, when from behind my chair I heard a young lady walking towards me with the familiar chant of "Cigars? Cigarettes?", "Cigars? Cigarettes?".

I turned around in my chair to buy a pack (yes, I did smoke back then), and all I could see were legs. Above my head and obstructing my view of the rest of her, was the tray full of cigarettes. I could see nothing else, just legs and thighs. Unbelievably long legs, in black fishnet stockings and high heels, asking me if I wanted to buy any cigars or cigarettes. Now, I want you to know, I was a leg man back then, a true connoisseur of legs. I favour rear ends now, but at that time, I thought legs were the most beautiful body part that any women had (that was before I understood about minds). My present wife, Linda, occasionally reminds me that she doubts I've ever met a female body part I didn't think was my favourite. She does have a valid point. This though, was the most spectacular set of legs and thighs I had ever seen; lord forgive me, we called them "gams" in those days.

I remember asking those legs if they could step back a bit so I could have the pleasure of meeting their owner, and they did. She was gorgeous! Fine lovely features, slim, with long hair flowing almost to her waist, and she was about my age. I fell instantly in lust. If you have read any of my previous ruminations, you may have noticed I don't have much hesitation in being direct, and didn't back then either.

I told her I was in lust with her, that I would like to marry her, but if she couldn't make up her mind right away, then maybe we could do something else in the meantime. She said she was sorry, but she didn't go out with her customers, and if she ever did, the bar would fire her. So I explained that if that was the case, then I would never buy any cigarettes from her. I didn't, and we left it at that.

Over the next few months while we flirted with each other in the bar, I learned quite a bit about her and we became playfully friendly with each other. I discovered she was single, and didn't often have much success with men. You see, she was six feet three and one half inches tall, and also extremely independent. Most men, even the tall ones, were intimidated by her height. It seemed that everybody she met didn't quite know how to treat her. Female independence was not usually enjoyed or encouraged in days of yore either.

I have always been a great fan of strong, independent women. Among other things, it's always seemed obvious to me that if I was with a capable women, on the occasions that my brain stops working (which it does from time to time) my capable companion could guide our ship for us. I'm also fearless and not prone to intimidation. I don't mean to give you the impression that my thoughts were pure though. My god, when I was twenty I couldn't possibly ignore how good it would look on my resume if I was able to bed the tallest chick on the block. Well, I didn't bed her, but the flirting continued.

One day when I dropped into the bar she announced she was going to Europe in a few days. She planned on buying a scooter when she got there, and was going to travel around the country for a year or so. She gave me a forwarding address to write her if I wanted, and I gave her my address. We kissed each other goodbye hesitantly. This was our first kiss, and I don't think either of us thought we would ever see the other again.