anybody else feel like their father deserves the electric chair

this is what riverdale is about (part 4)

part 1

part 2

part 3

i’m back, to continue from where we left off. obnoxiously, i’m going to take a minute to plug my patreon, which is primarily for my webcomic but i also do movie reviews and talk about bad books i find so if you like these posts, you’ll probably like those as well. all i ask....is one dollar a month.

anyway fuck that let’s get back into this.

images are from the riverdale wiki

SEASON ONE (PART 2):

the last picture show: immediately this show reveals that our beloved jughead has been living in a nearly abandoned drive-in that he also works at. too bad for him, because it’s closing down. hilariously, literally nobody in his circle of friends cares and call his make-shift house a crack den. owned. its revealed an anonymous buyer purchased it from the town and the mayor decided to sell it to whoever.

archie brings flowers to his teacher-girlfriend’s recital and when he and grundy (and his dad) head to pop’s for a good ol malt or whatever, betty confronts him about his relationship. betty is hurt when he says grundy believed in him when no one else did and goes home with renewed purpose: take grundy down.

veronica’s mom is caught having a heated argument with a member of the southside serpents gang next to a dumpster by cheryl who, as she delights in misery and disaster, captures it all on camera. she shows veronica, who confronts her mother who brushes her off.

betty lures grundy into a fake interview for her school paper instead of going to the police. betty seems to be determining all of this based on the fact that she didnt have any social media until a year ago, which really makes me question betty’s journalistic bonefides. its framed like this means she didn’t exist before she got a twitter or whatever. its really weird. more relevant is that the only record of a geraldine grundy.....WAS AN OLD WOMAN WHO DIED 7 YEARS AGO!!!!! she takes this information to archie as well, who doesn’t care at all. he’s way too horny to care.

betty breaks into grundy’s vw bug and finds a gun and her real i.d. with her real name. archie is still too horny to care, even though betty (again, really overstepping her journalistic bounds) says that grundy might have killed jason (BASED ON THE EXISTENCE OF A GUN BETTY!!! COME ON). archie finally asks grundy straight up what the fuck is going on and she cops to trying to escape from an abusive husband, hence the gun and fake names.

jughead finds out that archie’s dad’s construction company won the bid to destroy the drive-in. its a bad time to be jughead. he tries to ask archie’s dad not to tear down the drive-in. through this convo we learn that jughead’s dad was fired from andrews construction several years ago for theft. a scene after this reveals that veronica’s mom is facilitating the purchase of the drive-in with the mayor pn behalf of her incarcerated husband.

i’m so glad the wiki reminded me of this line, word for word: everyone (and i mean literally everyone in town) goes to the drive-in for one last hurrah, where the southside serpents are guffawing up a storm. veronica somehow silences them by saying “You know what happens to a snake when a Louboutin heel steps on it? Shut the hell up or you’ll find out.“ it sucks so bad. veronica then witnesses her mother having an encounter with the same gang member who she is revealed to be paying to drive down the value of the drive-in property so hiram lodge can buy it for cheap.

archie and grundy are caught in a passionate embrace after betty’s mom reads her diary and goes on the warpath, rightfully telling her to get the fuck out of town or she’ll reveal her to be a child molester. grundy agrees to leave and archie is heartbroken. the last show of geraldine this season is her ogling two teen boys. horrible. leave, woman.

jughead leaves his shitty home and on his way out is accosted by the same gang member who was talking to hermoine lodge and is revealed to be....JUGHEADS DAD!!!!!!!!!! whatever.

heart of darkness: the town is abuzz with jason’s upcoming funeral and the teens of riverdale are fighting over who gets to take the dead kids spot as captain of the football team in a really normal and not at all super ghoulish way. archie is working his heart out now that his favorite teacher/pedophile has fled town. he has his time wasted by a member of the pussycats, valerie, who nets him a meeting with a music songwriter who tells archie he doesn’t have time for his shit. its a weird and totally pointless scene in the long run. it doesnt matter because archie’s music thing never comes to anything. the guy tells archie later, when he returns with sheet music, that his songs suck shit and he hates his music and to get out of his office.

jason and polly’s (betty’s sister) relationship seems to be at the center of whatever happened to jason, so betty starts asking around town about her sister, by using dates as a cover to ask probing questions to members of the football team. she also tries asking her father, who explains that polly and jason had a fight, polly tried to kill herself and so was shipped off to a mental institution. learning about jason’s death fucked her up again so they shan’t be exposing her to more sordid info about the events. the only information they get is that jason was selling drugs to raise money to leave town.

betty and jughead trace this thread to find out why jason would want to leave town but veronica is already finding out firsthand after she is invited to the blossom mansion for the world’s worst sleepover before the memorial (cool timing): the blossoms are all insane. they make their money on maple syrup, using the funds to build riverdale as we know it. veronica and cheryl bond over their awful parents and versonic encourages cheryl to act out at jason’s memorial FOR SOME REASON. KNOWING FULL WELL WHO CHERYL IS.

demonstrating extremely normal judgement, betty and jughead plan to raid jason’s room during the memorial to find clues. cheryl goes full hamlet, throwing herself on the coffin and weeping during her eulogy. they use this as cover to sneak away and go commit the worst social faux-pax you truly can do. however, they are interrupted by cherly’s senile grandmother, nana rose, who mistakes her for polly and reveals polly and jason were engaged. 

betty takes this information to her father who reveals he already knows but forbid the arrangement because the blossoms and the coopers have been trying to kill each other for decades over the whole maple syrup empire thing. betty and jughead later suspect her dad broke into the sheriff's office to steal his files related to uhhh everything i guess; a hunch which turns out to be correct.

meanwhile veronica’s mom is sent a live snake by the serpent gang, calls big strong fred andrews to come save her and then asks him for a job.

faster pussycats! kill! kill!: first of all fuck, the name of this ep.

archie, for some reason because i guess he doesn’t know what embarrassment is, decides he’s going to play an original song he wrote for the school talent show. he immediately gets stage fright at the try-outs and wusses out. veronica goes behind his back to sign him up anyway. thanks, asshole!

valerie, from the last ep, quits the pussycats because josie is slightly more stressed than usual about uhhh the talent show. also because she has a crush on archie for some reason.

hermoine, while acting as fred andrews’ new secretary, realizes he’s fucking BROKE. why’d he hire her? who knows. too late now. she suggests firing some people (for example............her, maybe, fred) but fred cant bear it...and is hoping to be saved by the newest construction job he doesn’t know that hermoine is manipulating under the table. much like his son, fred is now too horny to care and they make out while veronica watches awkwardly.

the remaining pussycats try to figure out what to do about their missing member problem. josie’s mom helpfully lays out that they need a strong woman of color, but not one prettier or more talented than josie. enter...VERONICA!!! who is miffed because archie replaced her with valerie in the talent show duet. veronica is now scientifically less pretty and talented than josie by show standards, which just rules because i love thinking that there are teen power rankings in riverdale.

betty and jughead make their way to visit polly at The Sisters Of Quiet Mercy which is literally the best name for a goth cover band in the world. surprise! polly is pregnant with jason’s baby. polly reveals she and jason planned to run away together, but she was caught by her parents and sent away. she then awkwardly asks how jason is and someone has to break the news to her.

josie’s dad makes a brief appearance, which i absolutely do not remember at all. i thought he only showed up in season 3 which makes mayor mccoys character arc way more awkward. anyway, the mccoy family, the andrews and the lodges all have dinner together to discuss business and its awkward as all hell. no one at the table likes the andrews.

betty straight up asks her dad if he killed jason and her mom laughs her ass off at the idea of betty’s soft white suburban ham shank looking dad being able to kill a weed much less a human. keep that in mind.

veronica’s mom forges veronica signature on a form allowing andrews construction to move ahead with the job.

jughead and betty kiss after talking about how they arent their parents. keep that in mind. anyway, betty takes jughead to a car polly mentioned that full of EVIDENCE. they take picture of it and leave the car to go tell the sheriff because i guess suddenly no one has cellphones.  jughead and betty return with the sheriff later to find the car has been light up by an unknown person. almost immediately after, bughead tries to rescue polly at the institution only to find she’s already bailed. welp.

josie and valerie make up and all four pussycats perform. josie’s dad walks out on her performance? harsh. cool dad moves.

archie sings and the crowd loves it. who gives a shit.

a kid died, guys. come on.

Their crimes ranged from shoplifting to embezzlement to murder. Some of them molested kids and downloaded child pornography. Others beat their wives, girlfriends or children. The one thing they had in common: a badge. Thousands of California law enforcement officers have been convicted of a crime in the past decade, according to records released by a public agency that sets standards for officers in the Golden State. The revelations are alarming, but the state’s top cop says Californians don’t have a right to see them. In fact, Attorney General Xavier Becerra warned two Berkeley-based reporters that simply possessing this never-before-publicly-released list of convicted cops is a violation of the law. The California Commission on Peace Officer Standards and Training — known as POST — provided the information last month in response to routine Public Records Act requests from reporters for the Investigative Reporting Program at UC Berkeley and its production arm, Investigative Studios. California Attorney General Xavier Becerra responds to questions from the Bay Area News Group’s Opinion and Editorial Board during an interview at the San Jose Mercury News office on Monday, April 16, 2018. Becerra is seeking re-election to the Attorney General’s office. (Michael Malone/Bay Area News Group) (Michael Malone/Bay Area News Group) But when Becerra’s office learned about the disclosure, it threatened the reporters with legal action unless they destroyed the records, insisting they are confidential under state law and were released inadvertently. The two journalism organizations have rejected Becerra’s demands. “It’s disheartening and ominous that the highest law enforcement officer in the state is threatening legal action over something the First Amendment makes clear can’t give rise to criminal action against a reporter,” said David Snyder, executive director of the First Amendment Coalition, a San Rafael-based nonprofit that advocates for free speech and open records. The documents provide a rare glimpse at the volume of officer misconduct at a time of heightened interest over police accountability. The list includes cops who trafficked drugs, cops who stole money from their departments and even one who robbed a bank wearing a fake beard. Some sexually assaulted suspects. Others took bribes, filed false reports and committed perjury. A large number drove under the influence of drugs and alcohol — sometimes killing people on the road. The Berkeley journalists chose not to publish the entire list until they could spend more time reporting to avoid misidentifying people among the nearly 12,000 names in the documents, said John Temple, director of the Investigative Reporting Program. Still, the details are stunning in a state where officials have fought for years to keep virtually any record of police misconduct a secret. And they come amid a larger battle playing out in courtrooms throughout the state over California’s new police transparency law, Senate Bill 1421. Law enforcement groups have sued to limit the impact of that law, claiming it shouldn’t expose police disciplinary records created before the law took effect on Jan. 1. Becerra himself has rejected public records requests from his own agency, and he is now being sued by a prominent First Amendment group for failing to comply. Many other agencies in California have followed the attorney general’s lead. “Once you disclose a document that’s confidential and private, you can’t take it back,” Becerra told reporters earlier this month. ”You don’t get a second chance to get it right, you got to get it right the first time.” While that law has garnered the most attention and a public fight over police disciplinary records, it was another law that took effect Jan. 1 that led to the disclosure of the convictions of thousands of law enforcement officers and applicants. The secret list Tucked into a public safety omnibus bill last year was a provision allowing the state’s Commission on Peace Officer Standards and Training to keep information in its records showing when a current or former law enforcement officer is convicted of a felony or other crime that would disqualify them from being a cop. Police departments often check POST’s records as part of the routine background check process when hiring new officers. But until the law changed, POST only labeled someone as being disqualified from serving in law enforcement when the person was convicted and had exhausted all appeals — which could take years and was difficult to track. The new law allows them to disqualify someone after a conviction, according to a POST spokesman. So at the start of this year, Becerra’s office provided POST for the first time a list of what the agency says are convictions of current and former law enforcement officers and people who at one time had tried to become a cop. POST provided 10 years’ worth of convictions — nearly 12,000 names in all — to the Berkeley-based investigative reporting organizations in early January in response to a public records request. Three weeks later the AG’s office sent a letter saying the records were “inadvertently” released and were considered confidential. Attorney General Becerra’s office did not respond to multiple requests for comment. Nic Marais, an attorney with Keker, Van Nest & Peters representing Investigative Studios, said the state’s assertions that the documents had been released “inadvertently” was hard to believe given that POST spent four weeks weighing the reporters’ request. In a letter to the AG, Marais wrote that because the documents appear to be a summary of public records, the disclosure exemptions cited by POST and Attorney General Becerra’s Office do not apply. Finally, he wrote that state law exempts reporters from prosecution for receiving records. Snyder, of the First Amendment Coalition, argued the underlying records are in the public interest. “Police officers are vested by the public with extraordinary power,” he said. “In order to monitor the use of that power, the public needs to know when they are over the line.” But attorney Mike Rains, who represents police officers, questions why they should be singled out by such a list. “To the extent the public wants that to be public record, I can understand that,” said Rains, who is leading a legal fight to block the release of officer disciplinary records under the new law. “Why don’t we make that known for everybody?” Rains said of convictions, pointing out there’s no broad disclosure for lawyers, doctors, teachers and other trusted professionals. What the conviction list reveals Many of the indiscretions in the new documents released last month to the Berkeley investigative reporting organizations have never been revealed publicly until now. Some of the officers were fired from the force only after an arrest. Others remain on the job despite a criminal conviction. About 3,500 names on the list appear to match the names of police officers in state personnel databases, and about 2,250 of those have been on the force within the last five years. But without more information, the exact breakdown of which individuals were in law enforcement as opposed to applicants to become an officer is still unclear. Phil Caporale, a spokesman for POST, said his agency is using the list to check if active officers have committed crimes that should prevent them from working in law enforcement. Get breaking news and alerts with our free mobile app. Get it from the Apple app store or the Google Play store. “There’s that potential. That’s what we’re trying to eliminate … to make sure no one out there is a peace officer today who shouldn’t be,” Caporale said. The agency also is on the lookout for former cops with convictions who try to get back into law enforcement, he said. “We want to make sure those folks don’t slip through the cracks.” Greg Jeong is on the list. He was an Emeryville police officer for a few months but failed his field training program. So he went to work as a dispatcher for the department. In August 2017, Jeong claimed to be a cop in order to buy a gun and three high capacity magazines in San Jose, according to court records. He was ultimately convicted of impersonating a police officer. Jeong declined to comment for this story. Related Articles Opinion: How public safety bill can make California safer for all DA releases records from lurid East Bay police sexual misconduct cases California use-of-force bill advances East Bay town manager admits to calling ‘bull—-‘ but not assaulting cop Public Defender wants review of all cases touched by East Bay cop who filed false reports Hayward police officer Joshua Cannon also is on the list. In October 2010, Cannon was arrested for driving drunk in Alameda County with blood alcohol nearly twice the legal limit. A CHP officer clocked him going 92 mph, and when the officer tried to pull him over, Cannon quickly pulled off the highway and down a sidestreet, court records show. Cannon eventually stopped and told the CHP officer that he was a cop and carrying an off-duty weapon. According to the CHP officer, Cannon “started asking me for a ‘break,’” the report said. “He also asked me that if I was in his situation what would I do.” Cannon was convicted of misdemeanor driving under the influence — and remains on the force. He declined to comment for this story, citing department rules against talking to the media. The list also included a new revelation about a San Francisco police sergeant who had been the subject of numerous media reports for use-of-force complaints and shootings. View this document on Scribd In 2014, Sgt. John Haggett was accused of helping a girlfriend dig up dirt on tenants. Internal Affairs started investigating after one of them claimed Haggett’s girlfriend made a disturbing threat: “My boyfriend is a police officer and will take care of you.” Haggett, who is now retired, pleaded guilty in 2015 to a misdemeanor for accessing the confidential information. He did not respond to an interview request. The San Francisco Police Department did not respond to a request for comment.

WHAT FOLLOWS IS A BOOK - COMPLETELY UNEDITED-- TO READ THE EARLIEST ENTRIES GO TO THE OLDEST BLOGS © Dr Linda Murray “I to you will open the book of a black sin deep printed in me my disease lies in my soul” . . . Thomas Decker in The Noble Spanish Soldier. . .   Book, “The Silkworm” - Robert Galbrath Grade ‘3' Saying ‘3'-----When I left Scotland in December 1963, 1 was half way through grade 3. Desmond was in grade 2 and Kevin was struggling in day care. When we reached Winnipeg my father had us enrolled in a Catholic school with nuns in habit teaching. In our appropriate grade levels as they were in Scotland. This turned out not to be as smooth as he thought it would be. I remember a very bad day at the hands of these nuns. They could be brutal. All of us had clear Scottish accents and the teacher was having a tough time understanding me. On one of these occasions, I was reciting numbers and she kept stopping me at the number '3'. She made a big deal out of my pronunciation. Three had an ‘R’ in it so I obviously rolled my Rs and she kept trying to correct me. She made a huge deal out of this in front of class. Desmond was also having trouble with his accent. These nuns were cruel and called my father to talk. According to the nuns, we were not as emotionally developed as the other children in the grades we were in and we were having language problems because of our accents. We were possibly a little more needy than our classmates but given our experiences during the last three years it wouldn't be a big surprise. In my opinion some TLC would have helped us out instead we were demoted a grade. Where the nuns said we should be because of our ages. Then my father moved and we went to a different school. Near the end of this school year and my father got married we moved into our house in Fort Gary and another grade three class. I spent time in four grade three classes in a one year time frame “For darkness restores what cannot be repaired.” . . . Joseph Brodsky M-I-C-K-E-Y  M-O-U-S-E-----I have a very clear memories of watching the Mickey Mouse Club on TV when I was 8 or 9 years old. I liked the show because I remembered it from being younger in Scotland. Watching just made me feel better somehow. Like I was still connected to my old home. The home my mother lived in. It's funny I did not think of this connection till recently. We were also allowed to watch Disney on Sunday nights while eating dinner. I wanted to belong to that Club but I never told anyone until much later when our neighbours boys were in my life. It is funny though. When I won a trip to Orlando Florida I insisted that we spend I day in Disney, more on this later. Sick From Soup------My father was lousy cook. But he had to make lunch for us before he got married and after he let the nanny go. He had a blender and he was too cheap to pay for canned soups. This was a known fact even to me at the time dried Chicken soup existed then. His blender was the blender from hell. He used to try to create soup for us for lunch. You would not believe the stuff he threw into that blender in the name of soup. I was usually the first person to try the soup he would ‘cook’. Some of them I could tolerate and I ate but the boys were not as receptive. One day, I tried his latest concoction but it was brutal. Even I couldn't eat it nor could I keep it down. The boys were not forced to eat it that day like on most other days he cooked. If I wouldn’t eat it must be bad because. I would eat almost anything he cooked. At the time I did not want to hurt his feelings. Once again I became my father’s keeper. I felt responsible for his problems his needs and the needs of my brothers. Sharing Skis------One day I remember going up to the Highlands of Scotland with my father and his friends. We were skiing. I clearly remember skiing on the back of my fathers skis. I loved to ski even though I had not done so on my own. There was just something about the sport. I guess it could have been because I was alone on the skis with my father. Whether it was the sport itself or the good memories with my father I am not sure. Sometime near when my father and stepmonster married we actually went to a ski hill and tried skiing. This was the first time I remember having a recreational day with my father in a very long time. My father was not one to waste money, especially on children. I remember he rented one set of boots and skis for Desmond and I to share. Talk about cheap. We had to trade off approximately every half hour. I loved skiing and took to it very quickly. I was learning how to bob up and down on the bunny hill. What a rush. But I would just get started and I would have to give the skis to my brother. I think he liked it too but we both hated having to share the set of skis. I am not sure why this was such a problem for the two of us. But it is possibly because we were also having to get used to sharing our father with her. Its funny when I go back and think through these memories as an adult. I still love skiing and there will be more on this later. 185  Osborne Street----When we were living the Osborne Village long before it was trendy we had to cross Osborne Street to get to our school. We also walked on Osborne Street for a few blocks. On this street there was what you called a five and dime store. They carried candies and children's stuff much like the Dollar Stores do today. I started going into the store. There was a ‘nice’ old man who owned the store and he lived in the rooms behind the store front. Having spent so much time in my gran's store I felt safe and it helped me get over some of the loss and loneliness I was feeling. The old man used to give me candy. You all know where this is going now. I was a prime target for this paedofile. I look back and I realized that he capitalized on his being my grandfather’s age and candy like in my gran’s store. The store door even had a bell on it like my gran's store. His interactions with me started off pretty harmless but within a few weeks he was used to me coming in and sitting on his lap eating candy. Then he had me come into the back rooms to show me something. I cant remember what now. But, then he became a lot bolder getting me to lie with him on the bed then he moved on top of me. Before I knew it he had me pinned on the bed and was forcing himself inside me. I kept saying no but he wouldn't listen. Suddenly that bell went from the front door. Someone came into the shop. I was saved by the bell on the door. He had to get up. And I ran out of the store. Never to return. I never told anyone about this till I told my psychologist in the late 1990s. I never did anything about this until the late 1990s. More on this later. Stealing----Shortly after being molested, when we were still living on Stradbrook I started to hang around with another Kim and her friend. One day we were outside the drug store on Osborne street, the store with the big rounded window in the front, and we had no money for candy.  The company now in the building was “The Cheese Cake Factory”. I am not sure how I was the one to go into the store but I was. They wanted me to steal some candy. OK! I was going to try this. I felt fearless. I figured in the sphere of all that has happened to me, this was nothing. So in I went and the salesperson started to talk to me. So I backed up into the rack of candies and with my hands behind my back I grabbed a bag of toffees and stuffed them into the back of my clothing. I did this while I was talking to the sales girl no less. I wasn't a bad kid or anything. I knew it was wrong. I knew what the consequences would be if I was caught and I did it anyway. I needed to impress these kids more than I was afraid of the belt when my father found out. I left the store sick to my stomach but I had the bag of toffee. The kids were amazed that I could do that while I was talking to the salesperson. So was I. I did not steal anything else until I had no money to eat, later on in life. This was also the last time I would do something I knew was wrong to make friends. Cleaning With The Nanny-----When my father decided to leave Scotland for Canada he hired a nanny to take care of us kids. He brought her to Canada with him. The local newspaper ran a story on us in November 1962 and in the story, under our pictures, he advertized for a live in nanny to go to Canada with us. He told us later that he picked a nanny that he was not the least bit attracted to so there was no chance he would land up with this uneducated person. I learned that my father was an education snob. For her, it was an opportunity to become a landed immigrant. She would not have had this opportunity because of her lack of education. She took care of us whenever we were out of school and my father was at work and took care of the apartment. I am not sure of her last name but her first name was Jean Niven? She had to share a room with me. My father said she was lazy. I remember that when we moved into the apartment we found a box of make up in the porch and we were excited to play with all of it. Somehow she thought that this was a bad idea and she took custody of the useable makeup. I have some very positive memories of her. Whenever she waxed the floors. Especially in the hallway. She would tie rags around our bare feet and we would race down the hall cleaning the waxed floor. We were normally not allowed to run in the apartment. But she said if we didn't tell, our father didn't need to know. This nanny also taught us how to make plaster-of-Paris maracas with old light bulbs. This was great fun. I wonder how we would have faired if she had stayed with us instead of stepmonster. My father thought that she was lazy and let her go shortly before he remarried. I think that we would have had a much better life with her in it, rather than the stepmonster. At least she was never nasty to us and tried to ameliorate my fathers strictness. I often wonder what happened to her. If you are out there Jean get in touch I would love to get your perspective on the way things were. Shirley and Sheila----When I was about nine years old my father met Shirley and Sheila F. They were twins and they were both working as nurses in the Misericordia Hospital. They also lived together. Dad started dating Shirley, soon to be the ‘stepmonster’.  Much later in time Sheila also married a widower with three kids. And she managed to isolate the man from his children also just like our stepmonster managed to do with us three. Even worse in our case we did not have Mike as our father. I loved this man, he was so gentle, he clearly loved his children, and even more he was not the authoritarian my father was.  Unfortunately, even Mike could not save his children. Luckily they had their mother much longer than we had. Dad, Shirley, and Sheila were fairly heavy smokers. More on this later. Our First Cigarette-----Our first cigarette was provided from out stepmonster to be. We were in hers and Sheila’s apartment when my brother Desmond took interest in her cigarettes. I was 9, Desy 8, and Kevin was 5. She took a cigarette out for each of us and lit them for us. She told us how to smoke it and laughed as we choked on the smoke. I was so sick. I felt like puking. I didn't touch one of those things for a very long time. I never became a smoker either. Both of my brothers did take up smoking in their teens. It is interesting that this first experience smoking cigarettes was so negative. I was so sick and this was a real red flag for what was to follow. As I grew, I constantly ragged on them for smoking. It made sense later that I often was sick with colds and sore throats and I later became so allergic to tobacco smoke. The Perm----When I was about nine and we were getting ready for my father's marriage to 'step monster' to be. I had to have my hair done. All I remembered was sitting in the chair a long time with her and we both got perms done. Much later she told me later that it was me who wanted the prerm in my hair. Not her. But I don't remember that. What I do remember is the mess my hair turned out to be. It was fried, a big ball of static fizz, a tangled mass that was next to impossible to get a brush or comb through. What I know now is that you cant use an adult perm on a child’s very fine hair. They must have known even then by the outcomes that the adult perm would damage a child’s hair. I remember standing on the couch in the living room of the apartment and looking at the friz ball that was my hair. Nothing worked to control it we just had to cut it out as my hair grew. For the wedding my hair was sprayed and back combed. It took forever, and it hurt. I still hate to go to a hairdresser and opt for a really short cut. Sleepwalking on Stradbrook-----Before the ‘marriage’ my brothers and I were living with my dad and brothers and a nanny on Stradbrook street. I still had a problem wetting my bed at night. Although we did not know at the time we  know now that this was another early sign of a serious depression problem. Anyway, the routine was that either the nanny or my dad would get me up at about 11 P.M. or 12 A.M. and take me to the bathroom. Most of the time I would not remember this happening. It was like I was in a fog. One night the nanny placed me on the toilet and was called away for some reason. All I remember of the night was her asking me if I would be O.K. on my own to go back to bed. I can hear myself telling her I would be fine. I remember the actual configuration of the bathroom and that it was right across from my bedroom. Apparently, when she went to check on me she found me missing and the search was on. The finally found me wandering around on Stradbrook Street in my pajamas. I had left the bathroom, unlocked the apartment doors, walked down one or two sets of stairs and let myself out of the locked apartment block. In most areas of town this would not have been too bad, but Stradbrook street is near Osbourne Street. It was in the middle of the Osbourne Street Village and there was a rough bar on the comer. The area was in very rough shape. It was not ‘The Village’ as it is known now. The Yellow Dress----When my father was to marry the step monster I was supposed to be a flower girl along with the step monsters young sister Francine. The bridesmaids were dressed in pink so were to have pink dresses. I remember always hating pink. I am not sure where this dislike of pink came from but it was intense. As it turned out, there was not enough pink material to make both the flower girls dresses to match the bridesmaids so one of the flower girls dresses would have to be made out of yellow. I begged to be given the yellow dress but I was forced to wear the pink and Francine was given the yellow dress. Francine teased me about it mercilessly. It was such a simple request ‘let me wear the yellow dress’. But step monster said that Francine looked better in the yellow and I looked better in the pink. This is one of the many pink battles I would have to fight. And, to this day, I still don’t like pink. I also still do not know why. Twisting at the Wedding-----I have some ‘positive’ memories about my fathers wedding. I loved to hear bagpipes and there was a piper. I also remember dancing at the wedding. I was doing the twist and I was on a stage of some sort from what I remember of the event. I cant remember much else for some reason or another. I also remember my father and step monster leaving for their honeymoon. But I am not sure who took care of us. I think it was a family friend ‘Curley’ and her boys. It is interesting some of the things you remember while other things you cant remember.

Kilts in December-----My father decided to leave Scotland in 1963 just after/before Christmas. I was eight and a half, Desmond was seven, and Kevin was four. He had a number of reasons to leave. There was opportunity, a fresh start, and there was escape from my grandmother. The two of them never got along. He was an authoritarian rebel ex-Catholic bully and my grandmother was a meddling narrow minded Protestant. He hated my mother’s family. I think that he blamed them for my mother’s death while they blamed him. As it often is in life there are three versions of reality, his, theirs, and the reality of depression. My mother had been dead for three years now and he saw little future for us in Scotland. I did not know much about why my father took us away from the only family and support we had, I was to find out about the reasons much later in life. I realized much later in life that my father was a coward who ran away from his problems instead of dealing with them. I do know that my grandmother’s heart was broken and he didn’t care. We were her only grandchildren, and all she had left of her eldest daughter Joy our dead mother. In preparation for the trip my grandmother wanted to buy us new clothes to make the trip in, she dressed both Desmond and I in a kilt made from the Murray tartan and royal blue sweaters. I cant remember what Kevin was dressed in he was too young for a kilt. She also sent each of us off with a bible with an inscription. Mine read "Linda Murray is my name, Scotland is my nation, Canada is my dwelling place but Christ is my salvation"....Johan Latimer (my maternal gandmother). I still have both the kilt and the bible. Unfortunately for us, we arrived in Winnipeg Manitoba in late December. There was snow everywhere. The snow in Winnipeg can be six feet deep at this time of the year. The air was so cold and there was no walkway from the plane to the airport gate. We had to walk down the stairs with uncovered legs. My gran and my dad didn't have a clue what to expect. It was cold, Damn cold.