My grandfather has to deal with his old country experiences and his children's new country differences.

Scene one: an Ottawa summer in the1880's. Ottawa, is located at  the northern end of the Rideau canal lock system. The locks were originally built for military logistical needs by the British Army Engineer Colonel By. Although Ottawa began it's early life as a  malaria infested swamp, called Bytown, it has long since been  replaced with a twenty first century infrastructure needed to support a diverse population of over a million residents. But, it's summer days have retained their original hot humid swamp like texture.  

There were no air conditioners in the 1880's. Roads had not been paved. Walking and horses provided the only means of transportation. When it rained on the streets of Ottawa, mud and horse-shit formed  into a filthy mix. That mix later  dried under the hot sun into a sunburnt cake,  that powered into airborne dust under the relentless pounding of horses hooves.  
 

For decades the lungs of humans, horses, dogs, cats, etc., struggled to extract what bits of oxygen remained mixed in with the gruel of dust particles that included  airborne horse-shit, . The summer brought with it exponential growth in the fly and mosquitoes populations, forcing  the residents to see themselves as just another link in mother nature's great food chain. 

It was not like his original home in  Ireland but it was to be where my great-grandfather, after a long journey from  Wexford,  would settle in the  late1840's.  It wasn't too long before he bought property and built double house numbered 168 and 170 Water St., (decades later to be renamed Bruyere St.). He rented one side provided a modest income to act as a pension in his declining years.  

Half way down Water Street, at the corner of Dalhousie, he rented space for his shoe maker's shop with it's front door, right on the corner. I should point out that my great-grandfather, unlike today, made shoes, much like a tailor makes clothes, as well as repairing them. 

In the 1940's my great-grandfather's shoe-repair-shop, with it's corner door,  was still being used as a shoe-repair shop. Down deep, a part of me still, relishes in the stimulating  smells of leather and oil that greeted my nose,  every time I entered the shop. 

 I remember on one occasion being in the shop with my father, when the shoe-repair-man declared my father's shoes to be beyond repair. 

My father preceded to instruct the shoe-repair-man, on how his grandfather, in that very shop,  would have repaired his shoes. I watched as the shoe-repair-man was learning how to do the impossible-shoe-repair  from my father. 

My great-grandfather, with his shoe-repair-shop, just down the street from his home, married  fellow immigrant by the same surname as his,  Bridget O'Connor, born 1838, in a stone-walled, thatch-roofed- hut on the stormy coast of Ireland,  just north of Wexford, and settled down to raise his family, spacing the birth of each of his six children,  two years apart. I mention the spacing of his children's birth because it does say something of his character, in an age without contraceptives. My paternal grandmother always spoke highly of my great-grandfather's soft-spoken mild-mannered kindness of heart.  

The uneventful  years passed quietly, business was steady,  his children grew up in a small town atmosphere played, went to school, enjoyed life, until, one summer day, in late afternoon tea time, my grandfather and his brother, marched down the road in their new British Army Uniforms. 

 They had joined the Colonial Auxiliary Forces, and were hoping to surprise their father with how grown-up they looked in their new red coats, black trousers white hats and shinny black boots. Feeling quite proud of themselves and hoping to be accepted as new mature men by their father, they marched in step like British regulars towards home,   where they knew, that at this time of day,  their father would sitting on the verandah. 

My great-grandfather, as expected, sat on his verandah in his rocking chair , trying, by shear back and forth movement of his rocking , to  create a breeze against his sweat soaked body.  "Maybe", he thought to himself, " if I am lucky, a little cool wandering breeze will come my way".  He was tired of swatting the endless hot summer flies and mosquitoes, only  to be followed by freezing  winters.  He missed the more temperate climate of his old home in Ireland. 

It was the two red jackets that first caught my great-grandfather's eye. The red jackets kept marching towards him. But, there was something familiar about the body movements of the marching two. 

He suddenly knew who they were.  He had told his children nothing of his life in Ireland, but, as his two sons, smiling, puffing themselves up with pride marched  well within earshot, my grandfather growled, in a voice that continued to get louder, as he enunciated each word, 

 " I  -  never  -   want  -   to  -   see  -  either  -   of  -   you  -   two  -   in  -   those  -   uniforms  -   ever !".  

That authoritative powerful voice coming from their kindly soft spoken father struck like a  jagged bolt of lightning, ripping deep down into their very bowls. 

Twitching and jumping  nervously like two frightened squirrels they quickly vanished from my great-grandfathers sight, each hoping,  that somehow their disappearance would magically erase this moment from their father's memory.  

I like to think, that deep down, my great-grandfather, chuckled a little, upon seeing the reaction of his two cubs, and their quick comedian like bumbling exodus from his sight. 

They made there way to my great-aunt's house. Once there, they  changed from their uniforms into their regular clothes.  This ritual, of going to my great-aunts house, putting on their uniforms,  returning to her house after an evening at the armory, removing  their uniforms, putting on their regular clothes,  then, going home, was a ritual that continued for many years. My grandfather during his twenty years of service  in the Colonial Auxiliary Forces rose to the level of a master bandsman.