Tag: life

A timeline of things

Here is a time line that I am putting together.

This is just the rough outline at the moment, I will try to fill in more details as time goes by.

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  • 1923

    • June – My paternal grandmother is born in the Athabasca region of Alberta.

  • 1935

    • October – As she is Swampy Cree, grandma is enrolled in an Indian Residential School named Holy Angels located at Fort Chipewyan, AB.

  • 1938

    • March – Grandma leaves Residential School

  • 1941

    • – Uncle Norman born

  • 1946

    • June – Richard Gill (my father) born in Peterborough, Ontario

    • December – Marie Annette Jacqueline Dagenais (my mother) born in Hull, Quebec

    • My father’s father leaves the family. Unsure of the details.

    • Grandma relocates her family back to Fort McMurray, Alberta

  • 1963

    • Richard joins the Royal Canadian Navy with a grade 9 education

  • 1967

    • – Richard and Marie married

    • Marie had met Richard via her brother Al. Al and Richard served in the navy together.

  • 1968

    • Unification of the Canadian Forces, Richard remusters into the Air Force.

  • 1969

    • July –

      Richard is photographed as a member of the Sea Kings on HMCS Ottawa, the first ship of the Canadian Forces where French is the primary language spoken.

    • October 29th –

      The HMCS Ottawa was amongst the ships that were returning from the United Kingdom as part of exercises. The HMCS Kootenay suffered a major explosion in the engine room due to faulty maintenance. 9 members killed, including three that had been my father’s drinking buddies when he was in the Royal Canadian Navy before unification. As Richard was attached to the Sea Kings he would have been involved with the rescue flights flown to evacuate crew members from the HMCS Kootenay.

    • According to Bill Parker my father’s personality changed for the worse in the aftermath of the Kootenay. He was no longer pleasant to be around. He was very moody, very withdrawn, and his drinking was getting the better of him.

  • 1971

    • I was born in Halifax, Nova Scotia

    • moved into my first military PMQ – 23 Seafire Ave on Canadian Forces Base Shearwater

    • moved into my second military PMQ – 14 Fulmar Ave on Canadian Forces Base Shearwater.

  • 1974

    • – Scott born in Halifax Nova Scotia

    • Captain Father Angus McRae investigated and charged for committing “Acts of Homosexuality” at Canadian Forces Base Kingston / Royal Military College Kingston. It would appear that McRae’s commanding officer did not approve of the charges.

  • 1971 to 1976

    – My mother made frequent use of what was called “The Battered Wives Club” on CFB Shearwater. This was a loose knit group of military families that would often take in the wives and their children from abusive military households as the military at that time didn’t consider domestic issues to be a concern of theirs.

  • 1976 –

    • My frequent visits and lodgings at the IWK Children’s Hospital in Halifax prompt medical staff to ponder about getting social services involved as the medical staff have concerns about my father and my mother.

    • My first posting. My father was posted to Canadian Forces Base Summerside on Prince Edward Island. We lived at 353 High St in the town of Summerside. This housing development had been built for the Canadian Armed Forces for housing families of military members. As such the Defence Establishment Trespass Regulations applied to all civilians living in this housing.

  • 1977

    • January –

      my father arrested for domestic assault and battery. He had apparently gotten into a fist fight with his own mother / my grandmother when she had come out to visit us over the ’76 Xmas holidays. Both were apparently quite intoxicated while this was going on.

      My father’s drinking increases exponentially. He is more angry than ever and often breaks things or smashes things. Fights between my mother and my father increase with my mother often taking my brother and I to go stay with “relatives” that weren’t our relatives.

    • Spring –

      My mother suddenly left just before the summer of 1977. My father would explain that my mother was a slut and a whore that ran off with a guy named Gus from the P.P.C.L.I.

      It turns out that my father used the Defence Establishment Trespass Regulations to have my mother ejected from the PMQ. This was a common practice that was documented in a document called “Canadian Forces Response to Spousal Abuse in Military Families” which was a report that was commissioned by the Canadian Armed Forces.

    • Summer –

      My grandmother arrives from Edmonton, Alberta to raise my brother and I. I get chucked into Sunday School.

  • 1978

    • June –

      Grandma returns to Edmonton

    • July –

      I’m hospitalized after an incident on my bicycle. No next of kin listed on my admission records.
      Note on my admission records state “Father in Iceland with Airforce, will return this evening”. Iceland hosts an airfield that is used by NATO countries. Also, prior to 2006, the United States leased land and ran an Airforce base there.

    • August

      • Captain Father Angus McRae arrives at Canadian Forces Base Namao after having been transferred there from Canadian Forces Station Holberg on Vancouver Island.

        Scuttlebutt on one of the Facebook groups for base brats indicate that Captain Father Angus McRae was transferred to Edmonton as a result of an interaction that he had with a teenaged boy on CFS Holberg.

      • My family arrives on Canadian Forces Base Namao after my father had obtain a compassionate posting from the Eastern Command social worker.

    • September

      • Grandma and her husband Roy (Andy) William Anderson move into the PMQ on Canadian Forces Base Namao to raise my brother and I. My father would claim that “training exercises” kept him away from home for 6 to 8 week stretches at a time

        Grandma starts taking Scott and I to Sunday service at the base chapel.

    • November

      • After a night of heavy drinking with grandma, Andy decides to take a shower to help him sober up. Andy slips in the bathtub and cracks his skull on the rim on the bathtub.

      • My grandmother didn’t have a driver’s licence. Captain Father Angus McRae, the base chaplain, would occasionally give her rides into Edmonton to see Andy at the Misericordia 

      • During these visits we were looked after by a male teenaged babysitter who would later be revealed to be an altar boy of the chaplain. This babysitter would also be described as a pedophile as a result of molesting children across Canada.

    • 1979

      • My father meets a woman named Vicki whom lives in Wetaskiwin. My father frequently stays at her place until they break up.

      • My father meets a new girlfriend whom would end up becoming his second wife. My father met this woman through his half-sisters who attended highschool with this woman in Oshawa, Ontario.

      • My father would live off base with his girlfriends as he didn’t want to bring them home to meet his mother as grandma was adamant that Richard must get back together with Marie. Grandma would tell me to not believe anything Richard had said about Marie and that the truth would come out one day

    • Over the course of 1979 and into 1980 the abuse at the hands of the babysitter increases at a marked rate. The babysitter is becoming more aggressive with his abuse and even begins to demand penetration.

    • There are a few times where the babysitter would find me on base and escort me over to the chapel. Once in the chapel we’d go into the rectory where the father was. We’d have wafers, watch TV, listen to music. The father had a collection of magazines that looked like the ones my uncle had, so I never thought anything bad about them. And besides up at 447 squadron in the canteen they also had the same magazines and some of the centrefolds on the walls. After looking at the magazines or listening to music the father would give me a tumbler full of a “sickly sweet grape juice”. I never remember going home after these visits.

  • 1980

    • April

      The babysitter had me over to his family’s PMQ and was buggering me in his bedroom. His younger brother walked in and caught the babysitter in the act of buggering me. This younger brother notified numerous other kids on the base.

      A group of about 10 to 12 older teens gathered on the lawn of babysitter’s PMQ and started throwing rocks and yelling homophobic taunts up at the window.

      When I was leaving the babysitter’s PMQ to go home I was attacked by a group of teens and beat up in the middle of 12th Street.

      My life on base became a living hell after that. I was no longer allowed to play with the other kids. I was no longer allowed to go to the base pool. I was no longer allowed to go to the “kid’s disco” at the Lamplighter Pub on Saturdays.

    • May

      The babysitter is investigated by the base military police based upon numerous reports received from the parents of military families on base that the babysitter had been molesting their children.

      As a result of the investigation of the babysitter the military police became aware of Captain Father Angus McRae’s involvement with molesting children on the base.

      A decision is made by the base chain of command to not call in the Morinville RCMP to handle the babysitter. The National Defence Act states that military dependents are only subject to the Code of Service Discipline when accompanying their serving parent anywhere outside of Canada. Why the Canadian Forces thought that it had any power to withhold the babysitter’s crimes from the RCMP is unknown. It was claimed that the babysitter was only 12 years old in 1980. The babysitter has been confirmed to have been born on June 23rd, 1965.

      On May 12th, 1980 Captain David Pilling requests that Canadian Forces Special Investigations Unit acting section commander Warrant Officer Fredrick Cunningham initiate an investigation into Captain Father Angus McRae for having committed “acts of homosexuality” with teenaged boys on the base.

      Over the course of the investigation Warrant Officer Cunningham meets with Base Commander Colonel Daniel Edward Munro. At one of these meetings Cunningham requests that Munro confine McRae to his quarters so that McRae is unable to interfere with the CFSIU investigation by using his command authority as a captain to intimidate ranks lower than his and enlisted parents.

    • June

      Prior to June 20th, The CFNIS have numerous charges against Captain McRae related to the abuse of numerous children, but the brass orders the number of charges brought against Captain McRae to be reduced to only those related to the charges involving the babysitter.

      Prior to 1998 it was the commanding officer of the accused, and not the provincial crown prosecutor, that would recommend for or against charges and then cause these charges to flow to either summary trial, courts martial, or even to the civilian courts.

      One of the other boys took great offence and blamed the babysitter for the charges relating to their abuse not going forward. This other boy was noted by Fred Cunningham to be a “prolific pyromaniac”. Canadian Forces fire marshal records would verify that this boy had lit fires in his own PMQ in an attempt to “play the hero” by discovering the fires and calling for help.

      June 20th – Fire at PMQ #26. This is the babysitter’s PMQ. The babysitter was not home at the time. The babysitter’s mother had noticed the faint smell of natural gas in the morning and had called the Base Construction engineers to take a look at the leak. The babysitter’s sister was in the shower having a shower.

      The babysitter’s mother was in the kitchen watching the construction engineer looking for a gas leak. As the engineer was moving the stove back into place, the gas line ruptured.

      The gas ignited into a “torch” and started a fire that engulfed the kitchen and started to spread into the dining room.

      In an attempt to shut the gas off, the construction engineer ran into the basement where he collapsed and died from a heart attack. The mother had to rescue her daughter from the PMQ. Total damage to the PMQ was $56k in 1980 dollars. The PMQ was worth $70k in 1980 dollars.

      Base Commander Colonel Daniel Edward Munro was satisfied with the military fire marshal’s report that it was obviously just a defective gas line on the stove and that calling in the provincial fire marshal to conduct their own investigation was not required.

      It should be pointed out that the gas stove was located just inside the back door of the PMQ. The back door of the PMQ faced the roadway and the front doors faced a common area lawn. To give the hose a slight tug to cause a small leak wouldn’t have been that hard to do.

      June 28th – Captain McRae officially arrested and charged with the service offences of Gross Indecency, Indecent Assault, and Buggery.

      Captain McRae requests a military courts martial.

    • July

      15th through 18th Captain McRae’s Courts Martial.

      The babysitter and his family were living on Canadian Forces Base Petawawa in Ontario when the Canadian Forces requested the babysitter return on his own to testify against Captain McRae. The babysitter’s father objects to this and the Canadian Forces relent and allow the babysitter’s father to return to Edmonton with his 15 year old son. The father is barred by the Canadian Forces from entering the courts martial.

      During the courts martial, the courts martial panel hears that Captain McRae admitted during his ecclesiastical trial with the catholic church to having molested numerous boys for years.

      Entered into evidence is that the investigation discovered that Captain McRae had been receiving the children of service members in the rectory of the base chapel and had been giving these children alcohol and then taking them into the bedroom to “fool around” with them.

      After hearing the evidence against him as well as the babysitter’s testimony, Captain McRae changes his plea from innocent to guilty.

      Captain McRae sentenced to 4 years which was reduced numerous times over the next few months. Captain McRae ended up serving a sentence of 10 months.

      Minister of National Defence Gilles LaMontagne approves of the sentence applied by the courts martial panel.

      The media catches wind of this event, but the Canadian Armed Forces quickly throw a “wall of secrecy” around the courts martial and permanently seal all of the documents and evidence.

    • August

      My father moves back into the PMQ with his new girlfriend. He had been living off base with her.

    • September

      • During the start of the school year at McArthur school, the school on base for military dependents, I am frequently beat up and teased for being the babysitter’s “girlfriend” and/or “wife”. This is my introduction to slurs like “homo”, “faggot”, “queer”, and “cocksucker”

        Towards the end of September my family was moved from CFB Namao to CFB Griesbach. These two bases we 10km apart from each other

    • October

      • My brother and I are brought to the attention of Canadian Forces military social worker Captain Terry Totzke by our respective teachers and principal at Major General Griesbach School, the school on base for the children of military families.

    • November

      My family is interviewed on separate occasions by a psychiatrist.

      • My father is found to accept no responsibility for his family, he likes to play the victim, he feels like everyone is attacking him, he blames others for his problems, he expects others to solve his problems for him.

      • I am found to be suffering from major depression, severe anxiety, haphephobia, have extremely low self esteem. I am also found to be very poorly informed about sex. I mention that I am terrified of my father and that I expect him to drown me in the toilet. I also remark that “my brain tells me that I’m going to kill myself if granny doesn’t leave the house”.

      • My brother is found to be a very quiet, lonely, and isolated child.

  • 1980 – 1983

    • During the course of my involvement with Captain Terry Totzke he would often come to school to talk with me in the office. Other times he would come and pick me up at the school and drive me over to base headquarters where he had an office. Other time my father would take me to see Captain Totzke.

    • As I had never seen Captain Terry Totzke in uniform I would never realize until 2011 that Terry was a member of the Canadian Armed Forces and that he held the rank of captain.

    • Terry knew about what had happened on Canadian Forces Base Namao.

      Terry was concerned that I was exhibiting signs of a mental illness called homosexuality as I had been known to be having sex with the babysitter.

      Terry was concerned that I had allowed the babysitter to molest my younger brother.

      Terry had mentioned to me that he had asked the base military police to keep an eye on me and that if I ever tried to kiss or touch another boy that I would be off to the Alberta Psychiatric Hospital for treatment.

      Terry said that I should avoid situations where I would see other boys naked as that would awaken my desires to touch them. This resulted in me not playing sports anymore or being allowed to go swimming anymore.

    • Once Alberta Social Services became involved with my family, Terry and my father would both inform me that I had to be very careful with what I told Pat and Wayne as Pat and Wayne would twist my words and use my words against me.

  • 1981

    During the summer of 1981 Grandma moves out of the PMQ.

    After Grandma moves out Sue promises my brother and I that if we never want to go to church again that we don’t have to.

    November – Due to the inaction of Captain Terry Totzke with my brother and I, our respective teachers and our principal notify Alberta Social Services. As the PMQ that I lived in and the school I was attending were on a Defence Establishment, Alberta Social Services pretty well required Totzke’s permission for their dealings with me.

  • 1982

    • Richard and Sue are still having great difficulty in their relationship.

    • Social Services note that Richard and Sue refuse to talk to each other or even acknowledge each other during the counselling sessions and instead Richard uses me to communicate with Sue and Sue uses Scott to communicate with Richard.

    • Richard informs Scott and I that if Sue leaves him, he’s going to put our dead bodies into a duffle bag and that no one will ever find the either of us and that he’ll just go live in the barracks. This isn’t the first time that Richard has sworn that he would kill Scott and I, but this is the most memorable.

    • Richard and Sue get married in a private ceremony in the PMQ on base. My brother and I are given $50 each and told to go away for the day and to not come back until close to bed time.

    • In the spring of 1982 I am formally admitted into the Westfield Program for emotionally disturbed children until a psychiatric bed can be located. My father signs the paperwork surrendering me to the Westfield Receiving Home for Children. Neither Richard nor Captain Totzke seem to realize that by signing this paperwork Richard has placed me into the foster care system.

    • Both my father and Terry tell me that my involvement with this program is due to my attraction to boys and that this program would help me get over my homosexuality.

    • During various meetings with Alberta Social Services my father claims that my issues are due to his mother “who was extremely cruel to his children, especially when she was intoxicated, which was frequently”, he explained to Alberta Social Services that he had brought his mother into the house to raise his children after his wife “abandoned” him. He further explains that his mother is an alcoholic who refuses to seek treatment for her drinking issues.

    • The babysitter is arrested and convicted for molesting a young boy in a small town just north of Canadian Forces Base Petawawa in Ontario.

    • Christmas ’82. We fly out from Edmonton to stay with Richard’s father in Oshawa, ON.

    • Richard and his father do not appear to be in friendly terms. Even though we moved to Canadian Forces Base Downsview in April of 1983 and would frequently go visit Sue’s parents in Oshawa, we never again ever saw Richard’s father even though he lived about 10 blocks away from Sue’s parents.

  • 1983

    • January

      26th – Captain Totzke instructed by my civilian case worker and my two child care workers that he is to inform my father and my father’s commanding officer that my father is to start attending all family counselling sessions or I am to be removed from the house and placed into either residential care or foster care.

      28th – Captain Totzke informs my civilian social workers that my father has just been transferred from Alberta to Ontario effective immediately and that the move will occur in April.

      Sometime between January 1983 and April 1983 my father keeps me home from the Westfield Program. He tells me that I was expelled from the program because I wouldn’t stop kissing and touching other boys.

    • April

      a moving truck arrives one day without notice. The majority of my belongings are piled up at the curb to be disposed of. Later that day we are loaded up in the Datsun B210 for the trip to Ontario. When we cross the Saskatchewan border I asked my father why we had to move. His reply was that because I was still showing signs of being attracted to boys that the counsellors wanted to give me drugs to stop this attraction but that he didn’t want me to take those drugs and that I had to understand that he was saving me.

      • Alberta Social Services gave Children’s Aid Society of Toronto a heads-up about the imminent arrival of my family. Children’s Aid tried to contact my father via the Canadian Armed Forces. The Canadian Armed Forces stonewalled C.A.S.T.. C.A.S.T. ended up tracking my brother and I down through the public school system.

      • My father and Captain Totzke had given Alberta Social Services assurances that I would be placed in a psychiatric hospital to receive treatment upon our arrival at Canadian Forces Base Downsview in Ontario.

        I was instead enrolled at Sheppard Public School as CFB Downsview did not have its own school for military dependents.

    • October

      Roy (Andy) William Anderson dies at the age of 58 after having spent the last 5 years in hospitals and nursing homes having never recovered from the slip in the bathtub in the PMQ on Canadian Forces Base Namao.

    • My father almost succeeded in conning Children’s Aid into believing that there was no reason for Alberta Social Services to be involved with his family and that Pat and Wayne had blown everything out of proportion.

  • 1984

    • Children’s Aid and the North York Board of Education come to realize that there is intense sibling rivalry between my brother and I, and both agencies comes to the realization that Scott and I can never be at the same school.

    • Richard sent my brother and I up to Edmonton to spend the summer with our grandmother. Grandma’s drinking has peaked, probably due to the death of her husband in October of ’83.

    • Scott mentioned something to grandma about the babysitter. This sent grandma in to a rage and fury. Grandma wanted to know if I knew what the babysitter had done to Scott. I managed to escape the apartment and made my way up to CFB Namao. Once at Namao I tried to report the babysitter to the military police. The Military Police said that as the babysitter was a military dependent he had to be dealt with by the civilian police. So I went back to Edmonton and this time went to the Edmonton Police Service. This did not work out at all.

    • Grandma gave me my first beers to drink after she caught me sipping the foam off a pair of bottles that she asked me to open for her and her friend Hazel.

      During the summer of ’84 grandma takes Scott and I out to Terrace, BC to see her first son, our uncle Norman. Unlike my father and my uncle Doug who were only metis, Uncle Norman was full blood. Uncle Norman was about 6 to 8 years older than my father. My father was born when my grandmother was 23.

    • In October of 1984 a fellow base brat from CFB Downsview and I were in the same behavioural therapy program at Elia Jr. High and Dellcrest. He convinced me that I should join Sea Cadets over at the Dennison Armouries.

  • My babysitter was convicted in 1984 for molesting an 8 year old boy in Manitoba.

    A search of newspaper records indicate that in 1982 a 17 year old male babysitter had molested numerous children in a neighbourhood directly adjacent to Canadian Forces Base Winnipeg. The mother of some of the molested children was upset that the 17 year old babysitter had never been charged due to the young age of the victims

    My babysitter would have been 17 years old in 1982

    Even though his family had been residing on CFB Petawawa in 1982, his family may have been posted to CFB Winnipeg to get away from CFB Petawawa. Posting problems to other bases was a known phenomenon back in the day.

  • Late 1984 – Early 1985

    Scott has his first Grand Mal seizure.

    Richard had discovered Scott, called the ambulance, and went to North York General with Scott.

    I had been out of the house all day, but when I arrived home Sue told me to get straight up to my room. She mentioned nothing about Scott. She just said that Richard wanted me waiting in my room when he got home.

    When Richard came home he was slamming doors. Richard and Sue started yelling at each other.

    Richard stormed up the stairs and into my room. Before saying anything he gave me a massive backhand across my face that drew blood and knocked me to the floor. Richard then started demanding to know where the drugs were that I gave to Scott. I kept asking “what drugs?” which only made him more furious. He started tearing my room apart stating that if and when he found the drugs he was going to make the next beating even worse than this one.

    A few days later when Scott was released from the hospital all Richard would say is that I was goddamn lucky that Scott had Gran Mal Epilepsy and that I hadn’t given Scott any drugs.

    What has always been perplexing about this is that Richard knew that Marie’s mother had died of an epileptic seizure and that one of Marie’s brothers had epilepsy.

  • 1985

    • The babysitter’s family arrives back on Canadian Forces Base Namao.

    • In May the babysitter is found molesting a 9 year old boy that lives on the base. He is charged by the civilian police for this matter.

      The babysitter is ordered off the base by the Canadian Armed Forces. The babysitter’s father rents him an apartment in the West End of Edmonton.

    • In June the babysitter is arrested and charged for molesting a 13 year old newspaper carrier. The babysitter lures the newspaper carrier to his apartment with video games.

    • In August the babysitter is convicted in court of the charges relating to the boy from CFB Namao and the newspaper carrier. The Alberta crown prosecutor specifically mentions that the babysitter is a danger to children and informs the court of the babysitter’s conviction in Manitoba in 1984 for molesting a young child.

    • July

      Richard sends Scott and I to spend another summer with grandma.

      Somewhere between the summer of ’84 and this summer, grandma has “found jesus” again. She’s given up drinking. She frequently drags my brother and I to church service at St. Joseph’s Basilica on Sundays. She had even joined AA and appears to have stopped drinking. This is a new experience as I had never really seen grandma sober.

      Sober grandma was not as pleasant as intoxicated grandma.

    • August

      My father and my mother finalize their divorce. Somehow Sue discovers this and there is a massive domestic disturbance in the PMQ on Canadian Forces Base Downsview that results in my father being detained by the base military police.

      During the investigation, the military police hear disturbing things from the neighbours about how my father treats my brother and I. As the military police can’t find us, they ask Richard where we are. Richard tells them we’re in Edmonton with our grandmother. The CFB Downsview military police contact the Edmonton Police Service and ask the EPS to do a welfare check on my brother and I.

    • Upon our return to Toronto after having spent the summer in Edmonton the base military police had to speak to my brother and I about concerns they had for our safety living with our father. A couple of recommendation from the military police. Get out of the house if my father starts raging out. Jump from the second story window if necessary. Call for help from inside someone else’s PMQ. Never call 9-1-1, call the base military police instead as the civilian police can’t just respond to calls from on the base.

    • I was after this visit by the military police that I had my first inkling about the HMCS Kootenay. Bill didn’t name the ship, but he said that my father had been at sea and he had lost some very close friends in an “engine room explosion” and that Richard was never the same after that day. Bill said that he knew my father had a temper and that my father was prone to violence and that he had been hitting my brother and I, but Bill said that I had to forgive my father. Bill said that he really wished I knew my father before the “engine room explosion” as he was a much different guy. Bill said that much like on Shearwater, my brother and I were always welcome to come stay in his PMQ when my father was out of control and we needed a place to stay for a while.

    • September

      My father surprises me with a small birthday cake and a card with $20 inside. He apologized for not remembering my birthday for the last few years (since 1977 to be exact). Promises that he will never forget again. This would be the last birthday acknowledgement that I ever had from him.

      I wouldn’t discover until 2011 that we were under the supervision of the Children’s Aid Society of Toronto and that he was just buttering me up incase CAST was to find out about the massive domestic dispute that had occurred over the summer of ’85.

  • 1986

    • Attended cadet camp at RMC Kingston

    • 1 week prior to the end of summer training camp we were to call our parents to see if they were going to attend the graduating ceremonies and then drive us home after. That’s when I discovered that my father had signed my brother out of juvenile detention and he was going to take my brother and our stepmother to Washington, DC for a vacation and that I would have to take the bus from Kingston to Toronto.

  • 1987

    • February – Over the protests of the executive officer of my sea cadet corp., my father enrols my brother in the sea cadet corp that I am a member of. This XO worked with at-risk-youth involved in the criminal justice system. This XO had informed me that my brother had been giving the police my name and my DOB whenever he had been arrested. The XO did not want my brother in the corp as he couldn’t trust my brother.

    • May – After the disastrous cadet weekend at Canadian Forces Base Borden, I quit cadets. The XO ‘knew’ that my brother had joined in with some of the troublemakers from a different cadet corp that were staying in the same barracks as we were and had snuck over to the female’s side of the barracks. I highly suspected that Scott had done what he was accused of, but if I would have told the XO that my brother did do what he was accused of my father would have beaten the shit out of me for “not looking out for” my younger brother and allowing him to get into trouble.

    • My brother by this point had been in and out of group homes and juvie. He was hanging out with a group of small time thugs and would engage in strong armed robbery, B&E into hotel rooms and houses, stealing cars, etc.

    • August – Grandma dies.

    • September – picked up all of the forms and all of the paperwork required to allow me to get my learner’s permit and sign up for the Young Driver’s of Canada program. My father explains that I cannot have my driver’s licence as long as I live under his roof as this will make his insurance rates go up. If I want my licence I need to move out.

    • Fall –

      Scott had stolen our stepmother’s Chevrolet Chevette and went for a joyride with his the guys he hung out with. They nearly didn’t make it off the base as Scott lost control of the Chevette on the circular road for the PMQs and nearly struck a utility pole. Numerous people reported him to the military police, but he had gotten off base by the time the MPs arrived.

      I was asleep in my bed in my bedroom in the basement as I often slept in due to chronic fatigue due to my depression.

      Richard had come home from grocery shopping with Sue when they both noticed that the Chevette wasn’t in the parking space.

      Richard grabbed me by the ankle and yanked me out of bed. My head hit the concrete floor. Richard started punching me and kicking me demanding to know what I did with the Chevette. As I was trying to crawl under my bed to get away from him he’d just pull me back out. I kept telling him that I didn’t know what he was talking about as I was asleep. He then started ranting about how I wasn’t raising Scott right, that I didn’t protect Scott from the babysitter, that Scott was acting out the way he was because I let the babysitter molest him.

    • November – dropped out of school and moved out of the house shortly there after. My father’s anger was getting out of control and my father had lost complete control of my brother. Even my father was afraid of my younger brother.

      Started working full time and started renting a room in a house just off base. The house was a PMQ in the LDH housing that was off base but was adjacent to where I worked. It was rented by a member of the Canadian Forces who had just split up with his wife. His wife took the kids. As the wife was civilian she had to move out. This member did not want to move out of military housing and he did not want to move into the barracks, so he kept renting this PMQ and had decided to rent two of the three bedrooms out.

  • 1988

    Worked. Worked a lot.

  • 1989

    One of the owners of the company that I worked for had a friend in Timmins, Ontario that needed some help with servicing their amusement machines, so I was asked if I would like to spend a few weeks up north. I went up north and spent most of my time servicing video games, pinball machines, and jukeboxes that had been provided by this company to the various community centres on the Indian reservations on the shores of James Bay.

    When I returned to Toronto that summer, I found out rather abruptly that the Canadian Forces forbade the renting of rooms in the PMQs and that I had to find a new place to live. So I moved into my car at the base auto club carefully sleeping in the back and sneaking on and off base to get to my car.

    One day while heading to work I encountered Mr. Bowles, my former science teacher from Pierre Laporte. He implored me that I had to finish school, that I had way too much potential to waste. He said that if I was willing, he would get my other favourite teachers like Mr. Ford and Mr. Atkinson to write letters to a school program called A.I.S.P., the Alternative and Independent Study Program. He said that A.I.S.P. was ideal for kid who didn’t fit into the typical school programs or structures.

    I was accepted into A.I.S.P.

    As I needed a place to stay, I went back to Richard and asked him if it was possible to stay at his place until I finished A.I.S.P.. I explained to him that I intended to take grades 9 and grade 10 in the first year, and grade 11 and 12 in the second year. He accepted.

    A.I.S.P. was is a unique program that placed heavy emphasis on the Independent portion of its name. At the time is was run from the second floor of a former elementary school. At the time the school was running only kindergarten and a few of the first grades on the lower floor. A.I.S.P. had the second floor. There was definitely not enough room in this school to house the resources that grades 7 through 12 would require. And there definitely wasn’t enough room to accommodate all of the students if the students were to all show up at the same time.

    This is where the “independent” portion of the name came into play. Any branch of the North York Public Library or any library from any of the local junior high or high schools were available to us for study or for research. If we wanted to drop in on a subject being taught we could just show up at a local junior high or high school and sit in on their class. Our physical education programs took advantage of the various locals school. Yes, the teachers at A.I.S.P. ran classes but it was more like “here’s your assignment for the next week, hand in your work when you’ve completed it”

    I was walking from A.I.S.P. to the North York public library main branch which was just north of Yonge and Sheppard in North York. My father also worked in the government of Canada federal building at 4900 Yonge Street, which was right across from the library. I don’t know where Richard was going to, but he saw me and the kids I were with. In typical Richard dramatic fashion he floored his Mustang GT, pulled a u-turn in the intersection of Yonge and Sheppard, raced up beside us, and then jumped on the brakes. He got out of the car in and in a profanity laced tirade wanted to know what the fuck I was doing out of school, did I take him for a fucking idiot? How fucking long did I think that I was going to be able to pull this shit off for.

    When I got home that night, Richard was ranting again about A.I.S.P. and that he wanted me to”the fuck out of that fucking school and back into a normal fucking school” and that all I had to do was “sit the fuck down, look at the fucking blackboard, and mind my own fucking business” he even suggested that I just “take some fucking basket weaving courses” to get my grade twelve.

    Things did not get any better over the next couple of weeks. I ended up dropping out of school again and I got a job

  • 1991

  • 1992

    • Moved to Vancouver in February of 1992

  • 1993

  • 1994 –

    • Arrived back in Vancouver from Toronto.

      End up with a room at the Sally Anne on Dunsmuir street. EI took a couple of weeks to reroute from Toronto to Vancouver. Received BC social service assistance which was to be paid back.

    • It was becoming painfully self evident that only those with supportive parents met success in life and that I was destined to forever be wasting my life making welfare wages.

    • I had been eying up the Lions Gate Bridge for a couple of weeks. Knew that I wouldn’t be able to simply jump off, but that I would have to drink some liquid courage but doing so would put me at risk of being discovered.

    • Saturday June 11th made my way to the Lions Gate Bridge.

  • 1995

  • 1996

  • 1997 – As a result of the finding of the Somalia Inquiry, the Canadian Forces Special Investigations Unit is disbanded and replaced by the Canadian Forces National investigation Unit. The Provost Marshal is stood up for the first time since the ’60s. All military police are placed under the command of the Provost Marshal and are in theory removed from the local chain of command, but the changes in the National Defence Act fall critically short of placing members of the base military police and the CFNIS outside of the overall chain of command, and thus investigators with the base military police and the CFNIS must still obey the lawful commands of anyone with a superior rank.

  • 1998

    Bill C-25(1998) “An Act to Make Amendments to the National Defence Act” passed in the House of Commons.

    There are two key sections to this bill.

    The first is the removal of the 3-year-time-bar from the National Defence Act and the application of the relevant Criminal Code “statute of limitations” for Service Offences that are Criminal Code in nature.

    The second is the removal of the requirement for the commanding officer to conduct a summary review of the investigation. Also removed are the commanding officer’s ability to summarily dismiss charges brought against their subordinate. Charges will now be reviewed by a military prosecutor.

    Unfortunately there is no language in the Act to apply these changes retroactively.

  • 1999

  • 2000

    • The babysitter attempts suicide

  • 2001

    • March 2001 – As a result of the previous year’s suicide attempt, the babysitter hires an Edmonton based lawyer and initiates a $4.5 million dollar civil action in the Alberta Court of Queen’s Bench against Angus McRae, the Archdiocese of Edmonton, the Canadian Armed Forces, and the Department of National Defence.

    • The Department of Justice represents the CAF and the DND.

  • 2005

  • 2006

    • August – made contact with Richard via voice mail.

      Let Richard know that I was sick and tired of being blamed for what had happened on CFB Namao and that I was sick and tired of always being blamed for having “fucked” with his military career. I was sick and tired of always hearing from Scott of all of the things that Richard had done for him. I told him that I was seriously considering going to the police with a complaint against the babysitter.

    • Richard called me back the next morning, his voice was shaking.

      He wanted to know why I just didn’t simply move on.

      He said that everyone made choices back in 1980 and that there was no undoing the past.

      Richard told me that I had to understand something about the babysitter. He said that it was his mother who hired the babysitter, not him. He said that he told grandma that he found the babysitter to be creepy and not very trustworthy, but that grandma wasn’t going to listen to him. Richard had no problem recalling the babysitter’s name.

    • For the next couple of weeks Richard would call me on a daily basis to see how I was and to have small talk that sounded very forced.

      The calls stopped after a few weeks.

      I never spoke to Richard again after that.

  • 2008

    • I decide to make a change in my life to escape the past. I start looking into legally changing my name.

    • May of 2008 my name is officially changed to Bobbie Garnet Bees.

    • Department of Justice communicates with the babysitter’s lawyer and signals their intentions to pay a settlement

    • Cheque issued to babysitter. Amount paid unknown.

  • 2011

    • In March of 2011 I decide to finally go after the babysitter. I figured that if I could get the babysitter to admit to what he had done that Richard would finally stop blaming me.

    • March 4th, 2011 I sent an email off to the Edmonton Police Service asking how I would go about pressing charges against my former babysitter.

    • The Edmonton Police Service forwards my query off to the Alberta Serious Incident Response Team and asks ASIRT who’s jurisdiction my complaint belongs to. ASIRT in turn forwards my complaint off to the Canadian Forces National Investigation Service at Edmonton Garrison.

  • 2012

  • 2013

  • 2015

  • 2016

  • 2018

  • 2020

Vacation time

Well, it’s vacation time yet again.

Nothing planned as usual, just vegging out.

Two more weeks of this and then I’ll be back at work.

Sleep, sleep, and more sleep……..

I know that I need to take vacation time, but vacation time is so unproductive.

I’ve never had much in the way of hobbies or interests. Travelling was never a big thing for me. I don’t have anything that I want to go see. I’m not really concerned with experiencing other cultures or customs.

Right now I’m sitting in a coffee shop in Nanaimo. Just spent a few days here. I come here periodically just to get away from the noise of Vancouver. I’ll be heading back in a few hours.

I’ve never been able to enjoy vacations.

Especially in my younger days my life derived so much of its meaning from work. I never felt comfortable not working or being away from work. It wasn’t that I was worried about being replaced. It’s just the my life is so empty that without work I feel even more empty.

Trust me, this isn’t what I wanted. But as I’ve alluded to previously, acceptance and respect were never found in my father’s house.

Actually, come to think about it. I don’t ever remember Richard taking any type of vacation time. The only time I can remember him taking time off was when he took Sue to Banff after they were married in 1982. And yes, even back in the days that I was growing up on the bases in Canada, members of the regular forces were entitled to annual vacation leave.

Makes me wonder now how many times he went on annual vacation, but called it a “training exercise” and just left Scott and I with Sue or grandma while he fucked off outta town. ‘Cause I certainly don’t ever remember him taking time off from the military for vacation.

One thing that I did notice in the current 2024 Canadian Forces Leave Policy Manual is a little blurb that members of the forces who are taking courses are recommended to take their vacation prior to the commencement of their courses due to the inability to take vacation during their course. I wonder how many of Richard’s 6 or 8 week courses at CFB Wainwright were actually 4 week or less courses, but he tacked on his vacation prior to the course so that he could get out of town and go hang out with his drinking buddies while leaving his kids at home for the women in his life to look after.

Anyways, yeah, there were no family vacations as kids. No travelling. No trips to the zoo. No trips to the museum. Nothing. Even when we lived on Canadian Forces Base Downsview in Ontario there weren’t even trips down to the States.

Well, time to go get something to eat before wandering over to catch the ferry back to Vancouver.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!

I wonder if the Chief of Defence Staff and the Vice-Chief of Defence Staff
stop by for the birthday festivities.

Well, today marks my babysitter’s 60th birthday!

Happy birthday!

I don’t honestly know what he looks like now.

His younger brother and his older sister sure look happy for him though, eh?

And there’s the Canadian Armed Forces, still handling things for him all these years later.

I don’t know where his father is.

I wonder if the Vice Chief of Defence Staff or even the Chief of Defence Staff have sent him cards for his birthday.

Handling things for the babysitter and sealing the deal with a weird handshake
and a pat on the bum

If I sound a little sarcastic or a little bitter, that’s ’cause I am.

Not a word of a lie, but I had no birthday parties from the time my mother was ejected from the PMQ on CFB Summerside by my father in 1977 until my birthday in 1985. And that one was so that my father could butter my ass up just in case civilian social services found out about his destructive blow-out in the PMQ in August of 1985.

He promised that he would never ever forget my birthday again.

There was no birthday in 1986.

1987 was going to be my 16th birthday. He promised that he was going to sign me up for and help me with paying for driving classes with Young Driver’s of Canada. Nope. Changed his mind. Whose car would I be driving? Sure as fuck wasn’t going to drive his ’83 Mustang. If I thought that he was going to buy me a car I had another fucking thing coming. I should go speak to that cheap bitch mother of mine and she could pay for the driving lessons and then buy me a fucking car, what has she ever paid.

He sent me a $100.00 gift card for the Old Spaghetti Factory in September of 2006. This was due to the fact that I had chewed him out in August of 2006 for all of the shit related to CFB Namao and the aftermath of CFB Namao.

So yeah, from 1977 until the asshole’s death in 2017 I had 2 birthday acknowledgments and one attack on my mother. That 2 years out of 40.

Meanwhile the babysitter’s father loves him. Blames the military for the way his son turned out.

The babysitter’s sister lied for him.

The babysitter’s younger brother lied for him.

Fuck, even the Canadian Armed Forces were handling things for the babysitter.

But what the hell, it’s his birthday, Happy Birthday!

The Impersonator

It was back in the winter of 1987 when I had learnt that Scott had impersonated me for the first time.

I had been a member of the Royal Canadian Sea Cadets at the Dennison Armouries on Dufferin and Wilson since the fall of 1984. I had achieved the rank of leading cadet, and with the exception of the ongoing issues involving Mr. Stevens, everything was looking up.

This was a Wednesday night parade night when the executive officer A/Slt John Potter pulled me aside and told me that my father wanted my brother Scott to join my corp. Mr. Potter said that he didn’t want my brother anywhere near the cadet corp.

I told Mr. Potter that there wasn’t anything that I would be able to do. If Richard wanted Scott in cadets, then Scott was going to be in cadets. And I knew better than to ask Richard to not let Scott join my corp. If Richard thought that I wasn’t sticking up for Scott then I was in for one fuck of a beating when I got back on base.

Don’t forget, in the fall of 1983, the North York Board of Education had to separate my brother and I and send us to separate schools due to “intense sibling rivalry”.

By the time 1987 rolled around, that “rivalry” only got much worse. Both Richard and Sue had washed their hands of any responsibility for Scott, and anytime that Scott got in trouble with the Toronto Police Service it was my fault for not looking after him.

Mr. Potter took me outside of the armouries and let me have a smoke.

“Bob, do you understand the trouble that your brother gets in to?”

All I could do is sigh. Nobody knew about CFB Namao. All I needed was for Mr. Potter to find out the truth about CFB Namao and myself, that I was some crazed homosexual that made the babysitter abuse his younger brother. And to make matters even worse were the ongoing events with Mr. Stevens, which would have surely cemented my status as a perverted homosexual.

“Bob, you know that I work with troubled youth, right?”

I didn’t pay much attention other than I was trying to hold back the tears. I loved cadets, but here was Richard trying to fuck me over. I was envisioning Scott joining cadets and fucking up and getting into trouble and then Richard blaming me for not looking after Scott.

“Bob, two weeks ago I was dealing with a couple of teens from a group home that had been arrested for B&Es when I overheard that my star cadet had been arrested for theft of a car.”

You think that I stole a car?

“No Bob. It was your brother. When I heard that ‘you’ had stolen a car I had to go see this for myself. I didn’t recognize the kid in the interview room. So I asked the officer what the kid’s name was. The officer gave me your full name, your social insurance number, and your date of birth”

Oh, don’t worry, my father will say that it was my fault that he stole the car.

“Your brother wasn’t too happy with me when I told the investigator that I knew who that name and D.O.B. belonged to”

How did you find out that it was Scott. I know at least 3 of his friends that would give false names if they were arrested.

“When your father came to pick him up. Your father seemed very reluctant to give the police your brother’s name. Your father didn’t seem too concerned about what Scott had done in either stealing the car or using your name”

I lit up a second smoke. And you think that I can tell my father to not let Scott join my corp. Scott’s the little angel that can’t do anything wrong. No matter what the fuck he does, Richard and Sue blame me.

“I don’t mind working with kids that get into trouble Bob. Kids fuck up. Kids need help. But, your brother is different. He won’t admit that he’s done wrong”

Welcome to my life Mr. Potter. Anything that he’s done is my fault. Richard said that it’s my fault for not looking after him.

“Then it’s settled, just tell your father that you don’t feel comfortable with your brother in the corp. Ask your father to send your brother to another cadet corp. Preferably at a different location.”

He wasn’t listening. Just alike all of the other adults in my life up to that point in time. Just in one ear and out the other.

I went back in to the armouries, got my stuff, and left even through classes were about to begin.

I showed up the next week and got a demerit for leaving without permission the week before.

And the following week my brother showed up as a new entry.

Not too long later the CFB Borden event occurred.

And then between home life on Canadian Forces Base Downsview, the ongoing matter with Mr. Stevens, and Mr. Potter’s misdirected displeasure for not dissuading my father from making Scott join my corp., I quit cadets.

How many other times in my life did Scott impersonate me? I don’t know. Sure, finger printing should have easily cleared up any criminal investigation. But there are many types of investigations that wouldn’t necessarily result in finger prints being taken but that would tag my name and D.O.B. in these investigations.

I know that on New Year’s Eve 2000 in Vancouver, my brother gave my name and my D.O.B. when he was found riding without a fare on the Skytrain.

I only know this because the fine for this went to collections in 2006.

I get a call from a collections agency asking when I wanted to resolve the $40 fine.

I asked them for a copy of the ticket, so they sent me a copy of the ticket that was issued

It was my D.O.B. and my full complete name. The address was fake, but the postal code for the area of the address had the address actually existed was correct. The box on the ticket that said “ID Produced” was checked “N” meaning that the person giving my name didn’t produce any ID. There was a second piece of paper signed by another fare inspector stating that they witnessed the person using my name refuse to sign the fare evasion ticket.

As ICBC was responsible for the ticket in the first place, I had to go through their dispute process. They asked me why they should believe me that this wasn’t my fare evasion ticket.

Simple.

I was working from 22:00 on December 31st, 1999 until 06:00 January 1st, 2000 for a property management company downtown Vancouver as we had to be on standby for the much overblown “Y2K” bug that was expected to plunge the world into chaos. We had to be in the buildings to ensure that the automation systems didn’t crash.

And I lived in the West End of Vancouver, so being on the Skytrain heading out to Surrey at 00:30 made no sense.

“That might work for your name, but how did they get your social insurance number?”

I had been mugged in Vancouver in July of 1995. My wallet was stolen. Maybe whoever stole it used my SIN?

The collections was cancelled. But I get the sense that ICBC and Translink have a folder on hand with my name in it waiting for me to pull another fare evasion so they can jump up and down screaming “We knew you lied!!!!”.

Prior to September 11th, 2001 I had frequently crossed into the United States. I’d driven down from Vancouver. I’d taken the bus down from Vancouver. I’d even walked across land crossings numerous times.

But after 9/11 when crossing the border placed one under extreme scrutiny I didn’t dare cross. Even though I knew in 2006 that it was probably Scott that had used my name, I couldn’t prove it so I didn’t push it. But outside of Mr. Potter, other people had told me at various times that Scott had claimed to be me.

And no matter how much I wanted to drop down to Portland or Seattle for a weekend, I didn’t want to run the risk that Scott had used my name and got into some sort of trouble that would have made crossing the border impossible at the least or a criminal affair at the most.

I had my passport since 2010. But I still didn’t try to cross the border.

I wouldn’t cross the border until 2013 when I was in Ottawa Ontario to drop off a letter at National Defence Headquarters. A childhood friend of mine from CFB Shearwater lived in Ottawa at the time. She wanted to meet up while I was in Ottawa. She planned a day trip for us and her sister to go to Boldt Island in New York State. Fuck was I ever nervous at the border crossing.

Nothing strikes fear into me like “Have you ever been arrested”. This doesn’t mean arrested and charged, or arrested and convicted. This means just arrested. And this also includes “has there ever been an arrest warrant issued for you”, meaning has there ever been an arrest warrant issued in your name.

Border agents don’t often have hours to sit down and listen to 40 years of a fucked up life.

I have no fucking idea of where Scott used my name.

I know that he used my name back in 1987 related to car theft charges.

I know that he used my name on January 1st, 2000 for a fare evasion ticket.

Where the fuck else has he used my identity?

Do I blame Scott for using my identity?

Not really.

Richard and Sue taught Scott that he really wasn’t responsible for anything, that everything was all my fault. So it only follows that he would take the next step and not just blame me but transfer the trouble to me.

Hit me up with the Midazolam, propofol, rocuronium, and bupivacaine. It’s been an interesting life, but I’m tired of all of this horseshit.

Yep.

Daily writing prompt
Have you ever broken a bone?
View all responses

Broke my right wrist and sprained my left wrist.

Back around the end of June in ’82 my father had borrowed a pickup truck with a camper in the bed from one of his buddies at 447 Sqn. so that he and his new wife, my stepmother, could go to Banff for their honeymoon.

Slide-in camper / Demountable camper.

They had no intention of taking Scott and I with them. We got unceremoniously dropped of with out mother in Calgary, AB. Yeah, the same mother that he told Alberta Social Services that had abandoned the family and that the same mother that he had told Alberta Social Services that he had no idea of how to contact.

When Richard and Sue were finished with their honeymoon they swung back through Calgary to pick Scott and I up. We drove back up to CFB Griesbach in Edmonton.

The truck was parked on the street in front of the PMQ.

Richard had gone somewhere and it was just Sue at home.

Scott got on top of the camper and stuffed the vents with leaves.

Just before Richard was due home Scott found me and told me that Richard was going to be pissed off with me for “me” having put the leaves into the vent on the camper.

I didn’t know what the fuck he was talking about, so I went to check out the camper.

I looked at the camper from the outside and I couldn’t figure out what he was talking about, but once I opened the back door and climbed inside the camper I saw what he was talking about. The wind-up vent was plugged full of leaves. There was no way that Richard wasn’t going to notice this.

So, up on the roof I went.

Tim’s truck was a raised 4X4 with proper off road tires. With the camper on the back the roof had to be about 3 metres off the ground.

I got all of the leaves cleared out. It was spick and span.

I went to climb down the ladder and I lost my footing.

I landed on the ground flat on my back.

I had the wind knocked out of me and all I could see was stars.

It took so much effort to start to breathe again.

One of the locals came over and helped me up and walked me back to the PMQ where Sue was.

Sue sent me up to my room with the warning that Richard was not going to be happy when he got home.

When Richard got home he was none too pleased to find what had happened. The fact that I did something stupid that could get him in trouble with his commanding officer showed that I didn’t care about his military career.

The fact that I allowed Scott out of my sight meant that Scott could have fallen off the roof of the camper.

The fact that I wasn’t responsible enough to look after my brother meant thatI should take this as a lesson and learn from this.

My left wrist was burning. My right hand was swollen, numb, and immovable. But neither were anything compared to the headache and vomiting.

My father gave me some of his 222s to help me sleep.

Two days went by and then he took me to the Charles Camsell hospital in Edmonton to get my wrists looked at.

That’s when it was discovered that I wasn’t faking anything.

A couple of the larger bones in my right wrist were fractured. My left wrist had hairline fractures and was sprained.

The headaches and the vomiting had stopped by this point so I don’t think that Richard had mentioned anything to the doctors.

I can’t remember what Richard told the doctors, but I know he didn’t mention anything about falling off campers.

My left wrist got wrapped in a tensor. My right arm was set in a cast.

For illustrative purposes only

Did you know that it’s almost impossible to wipe your own ass when your dominant hand is set in an arm cast? My left arm wasn’t much use either. Hairlines are really super sensitive to force.

I wasn’t Sue’s kid, so that was out of the question. After Richard and Sue got married Sue wasted no time in telling Scott and I that we were to address her as Sue only that we were never to call her “mom” or refer to her as our “mother”. So yeah, wiping my ass wasn’t on her list of agreed upon tasks.

Richard only kept my brother and I because “it was cheaper than paying child support”. Wiping my ass was not very high on his list of priorities.

And as much as I feared my grandmother, she had moved out of the PMQ back in the spring of 1981. Walking from the PMQ at 10215 – 138 Ave over to my grandmother’s apartment at 10611 – 111th St. to get my butt wiped wasn’t in the cards.

Many creative ways were tried and tested to wipe my ass that didn’t involve using my hands.

The cast was only supposed to stay on my right arm for six weeks, but it ended up staying on for the entire summer as Richard insisted that this was the best way to teach me to not fuck around.

Nothing.

Daily writing prompt
Describe something you learned in high school.
View all responses

What did I learn in high school?

Absolutely nothing……

I dropped out of school at the start of grade 9. That’s junior high school. I never made it as far as high school.

Had to get out of the PMQ.

1987 was the start of the grade 9 school year for me.

September of 1987 was also two years removed from the summer of 1985.

The summer of 1985 was the last summer that my brother and I spent with our grandmother.

The summer of 1985 was also the summer that my father went on a rampage in the PMQ on CFB Downsview. He did some very significant damage to the PMQ. It took three military police officers to subdue him.

When my brother and I arrived back in Toronto from Edmonton my father was required to notify the base military police of our arrival so that they could come speak with us. When they did come to speak with us they told us that during their investigation they grew very concerned when they couldn’t find us so they started talking to the neighbours and that’s when they started hearing about Richard’s yelling and screaming and his physical abuse. The military police said that if my father ever lost his temper again that we were to flee the house before calling the base switchboard to ask for the military police.

In September of 1985, my father bought me a birthday cake. This blew my fucking socks off as he had never acknowledged a single birthday of mine since 1976, the year before my mother left. Even though he promised to never forget my birthday again, he never acknowledged my birthday again thereafter.

And his temper started to get out of control again by the spring of 1986. He just knew how to hide his outbursts better as he was under supervision of the military.

By the summer of 1987 my brother had graduated to credit card theft, B&Es, and car theft. He had also grown significantly larger than me and he was even physically larger than Richard. Richard could no longer control Scott. And Scott was now running with a group of thugs. Kids who had been in and out of the juvie system.

As Richard had given up on trying to control Scott, he instead turned to lashing out at me for allowing Scott t have been molested by the babysitter on CFB Namao and this is why Scott was acting as violent as he was.

So yeah, by the time September of 1987 rolled around, I had to get the fuck out of the house.

What would really piss me the fuck off is that in the summer of 2011, when I obtained my social service records from across Canada, I would learn that my family was actually under the supervision of the Children’s Aid Society of Toronto from the time we arrived in CFB Downsview in the spring of 1983.

This pissed me off because when I moved out I had to take my employment from part time to full time so that I could afford to rent a place to live.

Had I known about my family having been under the supervision of the Children’s Aid Society of Toronto, I could have applied to CAST for emergency accommodation. I could have even arranged for the courts to make it mandatory for my father to pick up my bills until age 18. Either of these would have allowed me to finish off school while living in a safe environment.

One of my pet peeves.

One of my pet peeves is when people who don’t have a single emotional scar, let alone a single emotional scratch tell me that I just have to think happy thoughts and that everything will fine.

That all I have to do is apply myself and I can be anything that I want.

What these people will often not admit is that they practically had everything in life handed to them on a silver platter

And these people are usually the first to shit all over me.

They’re usually the ones who are still in close contact with their parents.

Even when mine were alive, one resented me for having “fucked with his military career”, and the other moved on to a new life and wrote me off.

Their parents almost always took an active interest in them when they were young and their parents ensured that they never fell behind in school.

My father would rage out at school teachers when they’d suggest that he participate in activities with my brother and I.

Their parents would have moved heaven and earth to get them treatment if they had endured any type of event that would have caused them psychological harm.

My father obeyed his orders from my military social worker and basically denied me any treatment for the events from CFB Namao.

Their parents provided them with housing and shelter and funds while they went to college, or university, or trade school.

My father was more than convinced that grade 9 was more education than anyone needed and that all I had to do was to get a job and work my way up.

They didn’t have to live on the streets and couch surf for the first few years of their working life.

I was working for a company in West Vancouver in 1993 that had to close down. The regional manager liked me and liked my work, so he arranged for the branch in Mississauga to hire me. The branch manager liked me, but my immediate supervisor Don didn’t. He was always ranting about “No one from the West Coast was going to tell him who the fuck he had to hire”. Plus, he knew I was queer. So out the door I went. EI did a little investigation and my claim was re-opened, but it was going to take about 4 to 6 weeks for my original claim from British Columbia to be redirected to Toronto. I knew better than to call my father. And it wasn’t out of shame. It’s just I knew that there would be absolutely no help.

My father was a piece of work.

When he received his final posting to Alberta in 1990 he invited me to move back with him. He said that “we could try to be a family again”. I think he had found out that I had just finished a 6 month contract job with a company called Canshare Cabling and I had about $30k in the bank. I paid for most of the expenses for the move, plus I also paid for a bunch of new furnishing for his computer area. As I was 18 at the time, I didn’t have an understanding that he could claim these expenses from the Canadian Forces and that he would be reimbursed.

My brother Scott didn’t move with us at the time as he was finishing his jail sentence at the Uxbridge Training School for Boys in Uxbridge, Ontario.

When my father bought his retirement house in Morniville two months after we arrived back in Edmonton, I moved with him into the house, but I only lasted about 2 weeks there before my stepmother got me booted.

My brother didn’t fare much better.

When he was released from jail he was sent to Alberta by the Ontario government. He lived in Morinville with my father and Sue for a couple of weeks before my father unceremoniously dumped Scott off at my apartment. Scott ate through all of my groceries in three days. Everything was gone. Fridge, freezer, cupboards. Everything.

I called up my father and asked him if he could help out with groceries and if he had any idea of how long Scott was going to stay with me before he went back to Morinville. Richard laughed. He said that he was done with paying for my brother and I, that he had paid enough for us when we were kids, and that maybe it was time for that “bitch mother” of mine to start paying some of the bills.

I was able to get hold of Marie, she came into town and picked Scott up and took him to the acreage she lived on with her husband Art. She bought me groceries.

Richard quickly took Scott back to Morinville when Marie reminded him that Scott was under 18 and if she took him in, she was expecting child support payments from our father.

Richard’s attitude was not unexpected and it didn’t shock me as all. He did tell an airforce buddy of his around 1986 that the only reason he kept my brother and I instead of dumping us with our mother is that if we lived under his roof he could control the costs, but if we went to live with her that he’d have to sign his paycheques over to “that bitch” and that sure as fuck wasn’t going to happen.

So no, there was no fatherly love or motivation for a higher education.

But, let’s dial this back into common day.

I’m currently 53 going on 54.

The position that I’m in has no requirement for secondary qualifications.

But if it did have requirements for secondary qualification these secondary qualifications would be red seal Trade Qualifications.

Some of the red seal trades that can be attached to a power engineering certificate are Electrician, Millwright, Refrigeration Mechanic, Welder, Pipe Fitter, Steam Fitter, etc. These are all four year full-time apprentice programs. These all require a very heavy investment for tools and materials.

But, it must always be remembered that I didn’t become a power engineer because I wanted to, or because I thought that it was a career path with potential, I got into power engineering because it was the easiest way for me to keep a roof over my head and to keep my bills paid.

Going through life with diagnosed but intreated mental illnesses has always meant that I’ve just taken whatever work I can.

I don’t fit in anywhere.

I am a misfit.

I am accepted at work because I bring skills that are typically far outside the skill requirements for the positions that I occupy.

But I never have the opportunity to get official “qualifications” for these extra skills which means that I am always at loggerheads with others who do have the official qualifications.

And even if I were offered the opportunity to take these course the depression would surely destroy my every attempt.

But I can hear the choruses of the unblemished already.

Bobbie, think happy thoughts!

Bobbie, are you eating properly?

Bobbie, more sleep will cure depression!

Bobbie, you should find god!

Bobbie, you should volunteer!

Bobbie, I know what you’re going through, my cat died when I was 14 and I still miss Pepper, but I soldier on and so can you!

My depression has cost me dearly in life.

T- 722 days and counting

Well, it’s 722 days between now and March 17th, 2027.

March 17th, 2027 is of course when MAiD MD-SUMC is supposed to become legal in Canada.

MAiD MD-SUMC was supposed to have been legalized on March 17th, 2023, and then again on March 17th, 2024, so I’m not exactly holding my breath for this date.

The one things that these dates do give me is a bit of relief.

This relief is the same relief that you feel when you’ve worked a double overtime shift, or you’re on an extremely long flight, and you’re near the end and you get the little kick of energy that perks you up a little to get you through.

These dates also give me a bit of hope.

A bit of hope that if I hold on for just a little bit long that I can end my life with a humane procedure under the care of a licensed medical practitioner as opposed to risking failure through a self administered procedure.

Yes, I fully understand that by ending my life via M.A.i.D. I will be giving the Government of Canada, the Department of Justice, and the Department of National Defence everything that they could possibly hope for.

However, I think I can now die knowing that I at least tried to take on the Canadian Armed Forces and that while I wasn’t successful, I did at least make some people in the DOJ and the DND extremely uncomfortable.

However, I am fucking burnt out and my depression is not ever going to get any better.

I hate the fact that I am able to somewhat function with major depression.

Bobbie, you’re an asshole!

Bobbie, you’re not a team player!

Bobbie, you’re a jerk!

Bobbie, you think you’re better than everyone else!

Having high functioning depression is a fucking curse.

Not having the events from Canadian Forces Base Namao acknowledged in even the slightest really doesn’t help.

I really hope that M.A.i.D. MD-SUMC is approved this time around.

The hospital that I am currently at is slated to transfer the acute care operations to the new site in early 2027.

Even if M.A.i.D. MD-SUMC is approved in March of 2027, there will be an evaluation process that I will have to navigate as well as a cooling-off period that I will have to sit through.

The current site will still be in operation until about 2030 as it will have to support the research programs until the new research facility has been built adjacent to the new hospital.

I have no interest in going to the new site.

I consulted on the new site, and I was a member of the committee overseeing the design of the new site.

I wish I could say that this was a highlight of my life, but it wasn’t.

It was just more proof that my depression and my baggage from the past prove to be easy targets for those who sense these vulnerabilities.

My management team is well aware of my plans to not go to the new site.

So, I get to be the captain of a sinking ship.

And believe me, there are reasons why myself and this current site fit together like hand in glove. If M.A.i.D. MD-SUMC does some to pass in March of 2027 and if I am approved to undergo the procedure I will probably explain why the current site and I both share a lot of things in common and why I think we were made for each other.

Another writing prompt.

Daily writing prompt
What activities do you lose yourself in?
View all responses

I don’t really have any activities that I lose myself in.

I’ve tried over the years to pick up hobbies and interests, but outside of work I really don’t care about anything in particular.

It’s hard to explain to people, and it’s hard for people to understand.

But there isn’t anything in this world that calls to me.

The household that I grew up in was not one that encouraged curiosity or rewarded ingenuity.

Any interest in any subject was seen as stupid, childish, immature.

This is hard for people to understand.

I honestly will never understand why people refuse to believe how toxic some people can be as parents.

My father was a piss tank alcoholic with anger issues.

Worst off, we lived on military bases across Canada. An environment that didn’t concern itself with what went on behind closed doors.

So there aren’t any activities that I lose myself in.

I keep trying different things, but nothing lights that flame.

Dabbled in cars when I was younger. But never really was bitten by the car bug.

Even the time I spent at the base auto club of CFB Downsview gave me the skills for working on cars, but I never had a spark to work on cars.

Got into motorcycle in my 20s. Just never got bitten by the motorcycling bug.

I loved ice skating as a kid. And I frequently skated until the events of CFB Namao. I didn’t skate from 1980 until 2006. In 2006 I was off on a journey, but I happened to pass by the West End community centre. Can’t explain why, but I rented a pair of skates and went for a skate. It was like I had never stopped skating. Skating lasted for about 6 years before depression and dealing with the Canadian Armed Forces made skating impossible.

Over the years I’ve tried to pick up a musical instrument. I can play music mechanically, but it doesn’t evoke anything within. When I play keyboard I have about as much passion as a MIDI sequencer or a roll playing piano.

Computers and electronics. Again, I can work with ’em. I just don’t find anything to like with them.

My dream home

Daily writing prompt
Write about your dream home.
View all responses

What would my dream home be like?

I don’t know.

I never lived in a place that I would call a “home”.

And I never lived in any place that I would call a “dream home”.

The houses I lived in were all fucking traumatizing nightmares, and I don’t mean that they all had the same fucking paint scheme no matter which base they were located on. Living in an abusive dysfunctional family in military housing on military bases was the traumatizing nightmare.

I grew up living in Private Married Quarters on Canadian Forces Bases.

And with my rage prone alcohol fuelled father, these weren’t homes.

They were houses.

It’s where I kept my shit.

It’s where I slept at night.

It’s where I was absolutely terrified to ask my father for help with school homework as that would launch him into a rage and fury.

From the time my mother left in 1977 until September of 1985, I never had a birthday. In 1985, no doubt due to my father’s rampage in the PMQ during the summer of 1985, I had a “birthday” of sorts. A small cake and a $20 bill. And a promise that he would never forget my birthday again. That was the last birthday of mine that he ever acknowledged. I guess once he realized that the base military police were not going to inform the Children’s Aid Society of Toronto about his massive meltdown in the PMQ in the summer of ’85 he didn’t have to pretend to give a shit about me any longer.

My alcoholic grandmother living in the PMQs and raising my brother and I didn’t make things any easier. If I had to take a wild guess, I think that my father got his mental issues from her. As much as he would claim that she was an alcoholic that was cruel to his children, he was the exact same.

When my father received his final posting in June of 1990 to go back to CFB Edmonton in anticipation of his retirement, he and my stepmother bought a house in Morinville, AB.

I lived in an actual house for the first time in my entire life. Not a military PMQ. Not a rooming house where I rented a room after I moved out of the PMQ on CFB Downsview when I was 16. An actual house, with walls that you could hang pictures on without fear of pissing off the base construction engineers.

Yeah, my stepmother had me booted out within a week of us moving from CFB Griesbach to Morinville.

She apparently did the same with my brother when he finished his sentence at the St. John’s Training School for Boys in Uxbridge, Ontario and moved to AB to stay with our father as Scott was still only 16 when he was released.

So yeah, never really did live in a real home as a kid.

I’m happy with my bachelor apartment.

It’s not too big.

Growing up in my father’s house it was either “go the fuck outside and stay the fuck outside until the lights come on” or ” get the fuck up to your bedroom and stay there” or “get the fuck to school”. There were no weekend nights playing boardgames or watching Disney on TV or any other family style of activities.

And that’s why I like my apartment.

I’m either sleeping all day, or I’m at work, or I’m out and about trying to keep my brain from ruminating over and over about what I could have done differently in life.

My apartment, just like the PMQs, is just a place where I store my shit, and go to sleep.