CHAPTER TWO

I was eight and headed for Grade Three in 1957 when Mom and Dad bought a house for $850 and moved us—six children and one on the way—from the busy paved streets of Sydney to a dusty dirt road in the country. It was our “new” home, a fifty-year-old, two-storey hay barn, partly made over and just about what you’d expect for $850.

We had running water, heat, electricity, an outhouse, a kitchen, a living room, and three slanted-roof bedrooms upstairs: one for Mom, Dad, and the newest baby that year; one for the four girls; and a third bedroom for the two little Christers. It got even more crowded upstairs when babies eight and nine arrived.

Some of the walls in the house were papered in newsprint and even I could see the outside through the cracks. There were little snakes under the floorboards, a forest in the back yard, a farm up the road, and lakes all around for swimming and fishing. For Earl and me, it was free range, one big back yard to explore and conquer. The forest was ours to forage and, no matter the season, it became our second home.

Each year, in the Catholic way, a new sibling was added to the family and, before long, there were nine of us, a baseball team. My two older sisters, Lillian and Eva, arrived first, in that order, with me next and then Earl, Gwennie, Shirley, Inez, Brian, and Darlene.

Sisters Gwen and Shirley were old enough to enjoy the open space and fresh air of the country. Lillian, being all of thirteen, probably thought she was being punished for something she hadn’t done, and Eva: she never talks about the house or antics in the country without a good laugh, and Lillian likewise.

It wasn’t long before Dad converted the hay barn into a proper home with new and used everything from the basement up. The outhouse gave way to a chemical toilet and then a real one later on. There was always work to be done and we all pitched in.

We laugh about the day Mom cooked supper for the Queen who was scheduled to pass by our house one afternoon. “What if her car breaks down,” Mom would defend herself, “I can’t not offer her a bite to eat.” Or the day Earl tripped down the stairs with the chemical toilet, and Mom trying to sweep it up as the insurance man was ambling up the lane to collect his twenty-five-cent monthly premium.

If there wasn’t a pile of wood for Earl and me to saw and chop, there was coal to shovel into the basement or earth to sieve for the garden. I used the saw, the sledgehammer, the little axe, and the big one. I was told to be careful more times than needed but, apart from that, it was full steam ahead.

We all worked at something and, before long, we got to like the house that Dad built—with everyone’s help and all kinds of stuff left over at the steel plant where he worked. We weren’t the Waltons, for sure, but we had our share of fun in those days and in that old house; memories of it are rerun like movies whenever the family gathers.

The move to the country, however, didn’t do much for my self-esteem. The teasing at the new school, St. Augustine, was no less hurtful than at the old one. On a typical walk to school, some of the kids couldn’t let me by without name-calling. I found the days in school to be longer than weeks, and the blackboard just as blurry as the one at St. Joseph’s. The only thing worse for me than time in the classroom was recess on the playground.

I could see well enough for some of the games—most of them played by the girls, like skipping rope and hopscotch. But I was too shy to play with the girls and too slow and awkward for the boys. Instead, I watched and cringed whenever anyone came near. There were times when the teacher would make me join in, a pigeon among the cats, and that was worse still.

It was hard for kids not to notice that the iris in both my eyes was deformed and the pupils off-centre. What they didn’t see were the more serious problems hidden well inside and behind the eyes. It was called Coloboma, a defect in prenatal growth of one or more parts of the eye. There was some talk of an operation, just after birth, but it was too risky for what little good it might have done. Fortunately, my parents chose instead to leave well enough alone and take me home as I was.

In any case, the damage was widespread, affecting the irises, the pupils, both lenses, both retinas, and, not to be left out, the optic nerve, the all-important transmitter. Thankfully, my brain learned at an early age, and all by itself, to fill in the gaps and see beyond the blurry pictures.

And maybe that’s why I could see well enough as a child to read print close-up with the good eye and colours well enough to stay inside the lines. I could see faces—but without features; not much of anything across the street; and less still when facing the sun.

And if that wasn’t enough to draw attention, I walked to school with my head down because I could see better that way, shielded from the sun and nearer the ground. And that silly “sticks-and-stones” rhyme about names never hurting: don’t believe it.

I didn’t know, back then, but I was my own worst enemy, too shy and tentative, too timid and afraid of my own shadow. It was like everyone at school was looking at me, all the time. I didn’t see them do it but the thought of it was in my head, as real as it gets.

In hindsight, I might have coped a lot better if I wasn’t so bothered about what the other kids thought, or at least what I thought they were thinking. If only I’d had the nerve, back in the day, to speak up and stand up for myself. It shouldn’t have been that difficult but, simply speaking, it just wasn’t me.

My parents might have seen lower marks on term report cards that year, but nothing was ever written about the more serious problems on the playground. They saw me as I was at home, not the way I was at school. And even then, what could they have done? There was no extra help at local schools for those who couldn’t see the blackboard and no arms outstretched to guide their parents either.

In the case of my parents, no one came to the rescue, at least not at first. They did their best, which should have been enough, but it wasn’t. I doubt if anyone tried to help them at the hospital when I was born. I can only imagine what it was like for them when the nurse came in with the newborn followed by the doctor with the bad news. What a worrisome, stressful day that must have been, full of sadness, confusion, grief, and probably fear of what was to come.