Our Fathers Who Lived on Coleridge

All of the kids on Coleridge were baby boomers, a legacy to the end of World War II. As I noted earlier, there were 72 children on our block of Coleridge alone and virtually all of us played together in a very cohesive group.

After talking to several of the "boys" I grew up with, one thing seemed to keep popping up and that was the fact that virtually every one of our fathers drank alcohol, most of them to excess. Along with the drinking came many other things - like violence, absenteeism, humiliation at our expense and much more. The more we thought about the abuse of alcohol, one thing seemed to become very clear to us and that was the fact that none of our fathers ever talked about the horrors of what they experienced during the war. I am darn sure they suffered from what we now know as Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. In those days, the men (and some women) would drown their painful memories in a bottle of booze.

They were all very hard workers and I think they believed they deserved to be able to do whatever they wanted to do when they were finished work for the day or on weekends. I guess it was a habit most of them picked up when they were serving overseas. Booze was one of the perks the Canadian Government would give the men so that they could drown their sorrow. Boy, did they drown them!

I use to think my Dad was the only one who drank to excess but I was very wrong! The more I talk to the "kids" I grew up with, it seems the same story emerged of alcohol abuse followed by physical and emotional abuse. In my house, my Dad would work very hard all day as a mechanic in a gas station for at least 12 hours then he would have a very long trip home on the TTC, which, in those days, was very much in its infancy. My Dad would no sooner walk into the door and my mother would be on his case for one thing or another. Now that I am an adult, I can see much more clearly that my mother was the true abuser and catalyst for violence. She was very vicious, and I have such vivid memories of her throwing a boiling hot pot of coffee on my Dad, heaving heavy glass ashtrays from across the room, aiming at his head and much more. The funny thing was that people thought she was the victim but she was the instigator in every blowout there was.

After talking with some of my friends from the street, I also found out that there was a lot going on behind closed doors that most of us never knew about. More than one of us left home at an early age because of our family situations. I knew that anything would be better than the constant belittling and put downs from my mother and her rages that seemed to come out of left field. I was just terrified to tell her anything all all. I remember one time when I was about 8 years old and the man with the pony came down Coleridge to take photos with the local children. I was so thrilled to see the pony and went up to pet it. The pony bit me on the chest and left a horrible bruise. I was terrified to tell my mother and it was only when the bruise grew up and over my top that she noticed. Of course, I got in trouble for instigating it with the pony, even though I was just standing there. I can still remember my mother taking the wooden spoon to my little brother, Roy, when he was only about 2 years old. She hit him so hard that it left a raised impression of the spoon on his little bottom that was completely black and blue. It took ages for that bruise to go away. My Dad was loud but he never really hurt me physically. He did take a lot out on my brother because Roy preferred to tinker around with building things rather than playing sports with most of the boys.

I really believe that our fathers bore the horrors of the war and it was buried deep within their souls. There were no methods of coping with their feelings in those days - they simply had to "take it like a man", even though they were crying on the inside. They were little more than teenagers when they left for war and were faced with horrific living conditions, battles that left them scarred beyond belief and memories of seeing some of their best buddies blown up before their eyes. No wonder they drank when they returned from war!

These days, if our men and women go off to conflicts around the globe, they are helped through the awful ordeal with post traumatic stress counselling and it is considered an illness now, which is treated, not ignored as in our fathers' cases. Our fathers were off to war for years, not simply months, as is now the case. Back in the Great War, the clothes they wore were often threadbare and they relied on family members to send along home made socks just to keep their feet from frostbite.

I can't excuse the behaviour of our fathers but I do understand that these men were fundamentally changed because of what they went through. I do know that they worked hard for very little money in those days and they really did try their best for the families that grew far too quickly in the post-war era. They left a legacy of bruised and battered children of my era that had far too much to overcome. Thankfully, the people I have reunited with have overcome so much of the brutality they faced and have learned the lessons so as not to repeat the same mistakes. I know that it took a long time for me to overcome the instinct to hit and yell before thinking things out. I am a much wiser, calmer adult now, thank God!

I have deliberately left many names out of this blog entry just to protect my friends. I have, however, used my family as an example and make no excuses for it. Nobody should ever go through what I did as a child and I hope this teaches a good lesson for those reading this blog spot.

Thank you and your feedback is very welcome.

DO YOU REMEMBER THE BOOGIE MAN DOWN BY THE LANE?

I'm wondering how many of us remember the scariest man on earth - the Boogie Man who lived in the very creepy house beside the laneway on Milverton Avenue, at the foot of Coleridge Ave.? I remember so vividly when we were children that we were totally terrified of this spindly little man and we were sure he was going to capture us and do terrible things to us if we even walked near his house! Many of us believed that he would kill us and probably eat our bodies too. He would stand on his front porch and point his knarled, discoloured, wrinkly finger at us when we tried to go past his place. We knew that it meant that we would be next to die and go into his soup pot!!!

Tony Banner reminded me that the Boogie Man had a son who was much older than us kids and he had been terribly abused by the Boogie Man as a child. The son would come over occasionally and have it out with the old man. There were many violent confrontations between them. I wonder how he escaped the pot?

I remember being so terrified of the Boogey Man that I refused to walk anywhere near his house. I would stay on the other side of the street, even though I was also scared of Steven Bishop's father too, but Steven's father seemed to be the lesser of the two evils. As soon as I would walk close to the corner of Coleridge and Milverton, I would run like heck to the corner store just to avoid being killed and eaten! We were convinced that the old man ate kids like us.

I wish I had a photo of him because everyone would agree with the impression we had as kids. This man was really, really scary. I'm sure the house he lived in was haunted too. It was so decrepid, void of any hint of paint and many windows were missing. The few curtains that did exist in the windows were literally in threads. If that house wasn't haunted then, I'm darn sure it is haunted now because the Boogie Man is long since dead. Thankfully, none of us kids were the cause of that!

A Few More Memories from Coleridge Avenue

After talking with Peter O'Donnell, he reminded me of the Cubitts who lived just a couple of doors down from the O'Donnells. The Cubitts were devout Salvation Army people but as they aged, it was not possible for them to make the trip to attend church services at the Salvlation Army on Cedarvale and Danforth Avenues. So, every Sunday morning, the Salvation Army band would come to play in from of the Cubitts house. I really looked forward to hearing the band because it was so unique.

Next door to to the Cubitts lived Mr. and Mrs. Mulholland and Mrs. Mulholland's elderly and very ill mother, Mrs. Turner. Every Spring, I would collect Lilly of the Valley flowers and take them to Mrs. Turner just to brighten up her room and so that she could enjoy the amazing fragrance of Lilly of the Valley. To this day, it is one of my favourite flowers and I have them planted in my garden.

When I think of how politically incorrect we were back in the day, it makes my hair curl. Next door to Barrie Wilkinson, a family moved and we all called their little son, Johnnie the Greek. I'm not even sure if the family was Greek but that was his nickname and it stuck.

Who could forget Mrs. Brown and her brother, Mr. Pritchard, who lived at 93 Coleridge Avenue, right next door to the Archibalds. Mrs. Brown and Mr. Pritchard were ancient to us and crabby as old get out. They owned a vicious Chow dog and every time we tried to walk down the side walkway of the Archibald's house, the Chow would try to attack us! We were absolutely terrified of both the dog and the owners. Of course, we did things to deliberately annoy them simply because we could.

And there was the time when there was a party at the McDonald's house and one of the Fitzpatrick boys was stabbed. Thankfully, there were no serious injuries. All of that took place after I left Coleridge.

All in all, Coleridge was your basic post war community. There were so many kids because we were all baby boomers which made it great for growing up together. It just amazing to have so many of our old friends reuniting again too. The list just keeps growing and hopefully, we won't see an end to it any time soon.

Did Coleridge Avenue SHRINK?

When Peter O'Donnell and I talked the other day, we both commented on our recent trips down Coleridge Avenue for nostalgia purposes. My youngest son, Ryan, had never seen the place where I had grown up, so we decided to take a drive down the street and, like Peter, I was shocked at how much smaller the street looked. When we were kids, Coleridge was huge! There were wide open spaces on the road for playing hockey, buzz off, riding our bikes and playing "Giant Step". Now, Coleridge is completely full of cars and there is little, if any, space to play. Of course, in our day it really wasn't a hazard to play out on the street because there were few cars that travelled down our street, let alone park there.

We had so much fun on the street! All the kids loved to play together and I can never really remember any arguments or worse, fights. Sure, sometimes we changed our "best friends" but we never let go of our old friends. There were very few people who moved away from Coleridge too. It seemed a curosity when someone actually moved into a house. I remember when Julie Silver moved in to 109 Coleridge. She was so shy that first day when she started school and thankfully, she was in my class. Not knowing she was my neighbour, I introduced myself to her and we walked home together. After that, we were simply inseparable.

I remember always being the first kid to get out of the house in the morning. Everyone else was allowed to sleep in during the summer and the weekends but my mother made me get up at 10:20am every morning, whether I needed it or not. What a strange time - not 10:00 or 10:30 - it was 10:20! I would sit on the curb of the street until the other kids started drifting out closer to noon.

I remember too, going to Linda and Yvonne Archibald's house in the mornings. Their beautiful mom, Margo (or Aunt Margo as I called her) would make them coffee and toast. I can still remember the smell of that coffee! I also remember Aunt Margo teaching us some French. She had come to Canada from Belgium just after World War 2 where she met and married George Archibald. Margo Archibald had been a beauty queen in her native Belgium and I could totally understand why because she was a stunning beauty.

It was a horrible shock when Margot Archibald was misdiagnosed by our family doctor, Dr. Bill Henderson, who told her she was pregnant. In fact, she had a tumor and died of cancer some time later. She was so young to die such a horrific death. Linda and Yvonne were very young too, just 17 and 11 respectively. Not long after Margo's death, George died too, leaving the girls without any parents at all. Yvonne went to live with relatives and Linda tried to make it on her own as a newlywed and with a baby to take care of. She did her best but couldn't manage to hold on to the house.

Dr. Bill Henderson was the same doctor who prescribed an overdose of medication to little Christine Archibald which killed her. We had all been led to believe Chrissy had choked to death during the night but I could never believe it for some reason. A couple of years ago, I contacted the Aunt of the girls and she was the one who told me that Chrissy was basically murdered with an overdose.

This is the same family doctor that I had as a child too. I can't believe it when I think back to when I was the same age as Chrissy when she died, just 5 years old, because Dr. Henderson actually removed my tonsils at my home on the kitchen table! I think now that he must have had a few screws loose to do what he did to Chrissy and my Aunt Margo, then to operate on me in the far from sterile surroundings of my kitchen! He never would have been allowed to practice medicine in this day and age.

Coleridge - how big it seemed back then and oh, how it has shrunk in size now. At least the memories of Coleridge remain large in my mind.

Reconnecting with Old Friends

This is a photo of Peter O'Donnell, his wife, Jan and standing beside the conciererge is Diane, Peter's younger sister which was taken in British Columbia in 2006..



The past week has been wonderful just catching up with some of my old friends from Coleridge. I swear Tony and Penny Banner are on a roll finding so many of our friends in such a short time.

Last night, I had a wonderful and very long conversation with Peter O'Donnell who lived directly across the street from me with his parents and sister, Diane. He was able to fill me in on many of the details that I had missed since I left home at 17. Unfortunately, Peter's mom died when he was just a teenager and he said it best when he told me that he lost his best friend when she died. I remember Mrs. O'Donnell as being a happy, cheerful and sweet woman and her death at such a young age was a horrible tragedy. Peter and I also shared so many laughs and talked about some of the tragedies that befell what seems like an extraordinarily large number of our friends. Some of our friends who died at very young ages are Neil Osborne who was adored by absolutely everyone he met, including me, then there was Dougie McVeigh who died at the very young age of 34 of a heart problem, Margaret Wagner who suffered such torment, not only by other kids but also her own mind, also died but I don't have the details yet, and my next door neighbours on either side, Bobby Major who was apparently knifed at a bar and died as a result and Arlene Binns who I babysat as a little baby. I simply can't imagine Arlene being dead.

Peter and I laughed at many of the incidents that happened on Coleridge too and one of them involved his next door neighbour. A room was being rented to a very buxom blonde and her man. Every night when it got dark, their lights would flash on and the drapes would be wide open. Then, we waited for the show to begin! Linda Archibald and I would sit on the cement retaining wall in front of my place, while Peter and Bobby Major sat on Bobby's veranda while the two lovers stripped right down to the buff and put on quite a show for us kids. I was only about 11 or 12, Linda a year older and Peter and Bobby were a year older again. None of us had ever seen anything like it before and it was amazingly entertaining. Surely, this was our first taste of sex education! Thank goodness for that too because my mother's take on sex was that it was all an act on the part of the woman to endure and pretend it was good.

I think the most fun we had as kids was playing street hockey. We had 2 areas where we played - one in front of Barrie Wilkinson's place going north to the Osborne's and the other one was up in front of Dougie Hutton's place. Tony Banner's father absolutely hated us playing hockey in front of his place because he was one of the only ones who had a car. He got so mad at the boys one day that he got in his car and ran over all of the hockey sticks! Thank goodness my hockey stick was spared. I used my allowance to buy my stick and it never left my side.

The other thing we adored doing every night (when we weren't watching the sex show) was to play buzz off. We had virtually every kid on the block playing it with us. We literally played buzz off for hours and hours and drove some of the neighbours crazy with our hiding spots. Every child got along with the next and we had hours and hours of crazy fun together. Oh, how I miss those days! And how I miss those kids too!!!

It has been great to find and fill in the gaps of so many years with the friends that we have been able to find. Recently, Tony found Peter Goodale and his sister Lois, who has been living in Nova Scota. She will be returning to Toronto soon and I'm looking forward to meeting with them both. Peter didn't go far from home, as he bought a house on Woodbine Avenue. The same goes for me - except for my time in Cuba, I have always lived in East York - the little town in the big city. East York will always have that small town feel to it and it is a testament to the people who live here. I feel very lucky to live in East York. I feel even more lucky to have found my old friends again!

If you are one of Coleridge Gang, please get in touch with me at forevereastyork@yahoo.ca or wavynavy@gmail.com.

Memories of Coleridge

Here is a photo of my Dad which was taken a few years before he passed away. Thankfully, he mellowed alot before his time on this earth was up because he was a very excitable man, to put it mildly! This photo was taken on St. Patrick's Day, 1984, on the very last outing he ever had. I took him out for lunch to Eglinton Square and then we went to the Legion at Woodbine and Kingston Road which was his old hangout. He had such a fun time that day and it is one of the best memories I have of him.

Coleridge Avenue - the street was the haven for so many of the kids on our street. I remember one night counting all of the kids we had on the street - there were 72! I guess counting kids was better than counting sheep. Our street kids also hung out with many kids from the surrounding areas, such as Jerry Wild, Denise Hill, Tommy and Kenny Beck, Big Angelo from King Edward Ave., and so many more kids who use to come over and play street hockey with us.

Our street hockey team was amazing! We played at every opportunity we had and I'm so glad the boys included me in their teams - mostly because I was good. I was so small compared to the bigger boys and I could deek around most of them so quickly that they rarely saw me. I absolutely loved hockey and the boys were ok too. I wish we had taken more photos of all of us playing hockey on the street because the memories were priceless.

One of the collective memories of so many of us from Coleridge was when we use to play "buzz off" (hide and go seek) absolutely every night. I remember one time I had such a good hiding spot that they never found me all night and I just stayed there and waited! The whole gang of us got together and it was so much fun. I'm sure we must have driven some of the neighbours nuts but we didn't care because we were having so much fun. Of course, as soon as the street lights came on, we gad to go in and spoil all of our fun.

One of the things I remember so vividly was the lack of cars on the street. In those days, there were very few people who had enough money to buy cars, which gave us the luxury of running all over the street without ever being concerned for getting run over. Mind you, when I was a very little girl, just 5 years old, my dear sweet Nana was visiting us from Los Angeles to celebrate the birth of my little brother, Roy. I guess I was feeling a little left out, so I went to sit on the curb of the sidewalk. Along came a St. Clair Ice truck and not only ran over my feet once but the second set of wheels ran over my feet again. I thought my Nana was going to have a heart attack when she witnessed it happen. I was very lucky that I had no damage to my feet.

Another dumb thing that happened to me on Coleridge was when the pony was on the street for families to have their pictures taken with the pony. Well, the pony was much more like a horse and I desperately wanted to have my picture taken with it but wasn't allowed (typical for my mother). I decided to at least hang around with the horse anyways who, to show his gratitude, bit my boob and left the nastiest bruise you have ever seen with the imprint of his teeth and all!

We had a wonderful neighbour - the LaChapelles - and Mr. LaChapelle use to keep a virtual zoo in his place. He raised monkeys, chickens, roosters, ducks, as well as the usual cats and dogs. One dog I just loved was Skippy who just disappeared one day and my heart was broken. I still think of Skippy to this day.

One of the saddest things that happened in my entire life was the totally unexpected death of my best friend, Christine (Chrissy) Archibald on September 30, 1954, just days before Hurricane Hazel. Chrissy and I were inseparable - we even had the same family doctor! Chrissy got a bad cold and her mom, Margo Archibald, took her to see Dr. Henderson who, in turn, gave her an antibiotic. It turns out that the medication was given in an adult dosage and Chrissy died through the night. I can remember everyone crying but nobody told me what had happened. All I knew is that Chrissy had disappeared and was apparently never coming back. A few years later, Chrissy's older sister, Linda, and I went to St. John of Norway Cemetery where we visited the grave but I still didn't comprehend what had happened to my sweet, wonderful friend. The weird thing was that as I grew up, I couldn't seem to shake the feeling that something was wrong about the death of Chrissy. I had finally been told that she died in her sleep of a cold but after some investigation on my part, I found out that she had died of an overdose. Even the truth came out many years after the death of my special friend, Chrissy, I'm glad I finally found out. To this day, I still go and visit her grave. I clean it up all of the time because it seems that nobody else ever visits.

As soon as I get some pics scanned of all of us when we were small, I will get them posted here.

Coleridge Avenue - did you live on our street?

OK, everyone, above is my photo from Kindergarten at Danforth Park Public School 1955 (which became Oak Park Junior High and finally D.A. Morrison Middle School). I can name at least 12 of the little angels in this photo, including me, of course. In case you are curious, I am the cute blonde in the 2nd row, third from the left. My teacher was Miss Branch and the Principle was Mr. Coulter (ahhh - what a memory!).

Hi Everyone ..... if you lived on Coleridge Avenue in the 1950's, 1960's or even beyond, please get in touch with me at wavynavy@gmail.com or forevereastyork@yahoo.ca because we are trying to connect with all of our old friends that meant so much to us when we were growing up.

So far, I have been lucky to meet with Tony Banner and his incredible wife, Penny, Julie (nee Silver) Mule and her super hubby, Sam and Barrie Wilkinson and his lovely wife, Irene. Tony Banner has really been a driving force in pushing forward with the search, mostly through the www.classmates.com site. Yet, there are so many people that we are desperate to find, such as Linda and Yvonne Archibald.

So, if you want to get together with us soon, let us know because we are working on an out of town trip to visit Peter O'Donnell and his wife, plus some summer BBQ's - and I'm sure you don't want to miss them!

Looking forward to hearing from you soon!

Sandra "Lynne" Granahan-Espinosa

Ryan John Dimitri Granahan-Espinosa

This is my very handsome and tall son, Ryan, who is the light of my life. He is here with a friend's niece, practicing for the wedding they were taking part in.

Ryan is just a wonderful son and all round great person. He is an excellent student, studying advanced computer technologies and also advanced academics. Even though he is only half way through Grade 11, he has already received a scholarship from the University of Toronto which will completely pay for the first 2-3 years of schooling.

Ryan is a superb athlete, excelling at anything he tries. Absolutely everyone who meets Ryan just loves him because of his good nature, ability to really care about people, animals and the environment. Ryan has a wonderful girlfriend, Natasha and they have been together for over 2 years now.

My Babies : Pooki and Misha

Here are my 2 adorable babies, Pooki and Misha who are the 2 white fluffy dogs on the left of the photo, enjoying a visit from their friend, a Jack Russell.

Pooki and Misha were adopted from the Toronto Humane Society, Pooki in 1997 and Misha in 2003. Misha has really had a difficult time because she spent the first 6 years of her life in a puppy mill, continuously breeding litters of puppies. When she became ill, the poor little girl was literally kicked to the curb. When Ryan and I saw her on the Humane Society site, Ryan said "Mom, we have to go and get her!" We did and the rest is history. It has taken a long time for her to moderately get over her chronic chest infection but she is a sweet, loving and wonderful addition to our family.

Pooki is the boss! Even when we are puppy sitting very large dogs, Pooki is the one organizing everyone and ordering them around. She is such an adorable girl and smart as a whip. I taught her how to say "I love you" and the kids down the hall have taught her how to jump through hoops and do other tricks.

Where did the Coleridge Avenue Gang of Kids GO?

April 11, 2007

Here is a photo of me, Sandra Lynne Granahan-Espinosa, which was taken in 2006. I've changed since I lived on Coleridge Avenue, thank God!

The reason I have decided to connect with some of the other "kids" that I grew up with on Coleridge is because they were an absolutely amazing group of kids and we were really close. Absolutely every night, we would play "buzz off", our version of hide and seek, street hockey (Neil Osborne dubbed me Davey because of my love of Dave Keon), we shot cards, made soap box cars and so much. For many of us who had not very good home lives, the street was our haven and the kids meant so much to us because they accepted us without question.

So far, I have been able to connect with Julie Silver, my best friend at the time, Tony Banner and his lovely wife Penny, Barrie Wilkonson, Peter O'Donnell and his sister Diane, Peter Goodale and his sister, Lois - and we are hoping to keep adding to this list as time goes by.

We have learned about some sad events too - like the tragic passing of Neil Osborne who was married to Sharon Hawkshaw, both of them had lived across the street from me, and apparently, the passing also of Bob Major but to date we have been unable to confirm the latter Bob's death. Dougie McVeigh passed away at the young age of 34 due to a heart condition.

On our list of people we are desperate to find:

Linda Archibald (possible married name is Holmes) and her sister
Yvonne Archibald who apparently is a nurse
Dougie Hutton
Johnnie Osborne
Ronnie Hawkshaw who is a lawyer and I recently discovered he is living in Ajax
Rory Clancy
Margaret Wagner (I have learned that Margaret has passed away)
John and Dale Murray
The Fitzpatricks
Larry, Jackie and Jerry Snider
Sherry Binns (more sad news - Sherry's younger sister, Arlene, has passed away)

If anyone knows there whereabouts of any of the above, please do not hesitate to contact me.