Some people may wish to see some pictures which will be added to on a regular basis - either before or after reading some deatils of my life. You may do so by clicking here.
I was born in Ottawa Ontario Canada July 20, 1943. I lived for four years in Ottawa and learned to fish out at the cottage on the Rideau River (the cottage was right near the modern Uplands Airport) and at that time in history, planes were few. When I land at Uplands Airport now (Ottawa's major airport), it has become something quite different than in those days.
When I was four, my father went to Windsor to practice law and of course the family moved with him. I lived in Riverside until I was 13 (Riverside is now part of Windsor but at that time was a separate municipality). I was a cub scout, active in Sunday School and attended Edith Cavell and Princess Elizabeth elementary schools. I also started secondary school at Riverside High School. It was in Riverside that I met Ron W. my closest friend of all time as he lived next door to me and I often spent part of the summer at his cottage or my family rented a cottage in that area.
>During Grade 9, my family moved about 20 miles south of Detroit (yes, if you go straight south from Detroit you are in Canada) to a town named Amherstburg where a great deal of the War of 1812 was fought (Fort Malden). It was also an outlet for the underground railway and indeed, the last little log cabin from the underground (where the ex-slaves crossed the river) fell down from lack of repair while I was in high school (it was about 1/2 mile from our house which was further south on the river and I used to ride past it on my bike while going to town).
While in Amherstburg, I attended General Amherst High School which was a good experience. I was active in teaching Sunday School, cub leader, on the Church Official Board and building committee, and in young peoples, including Presbytery executive. During secondary school, I Kept score for the basketball teams and went with them to the Ontario championships. I also lived in Amherstburg while attending the University of Windsor.
At University I became active in politics, serving on the National Executive of the Progressive Conservative Party and being President and Candidate for Prime Minister in model parliament. I remained in church activities during University.
I cut lawns from the time I was in Grade 9 to Grade 13 when I got a summer job in Saskatchewan running a chip stand at Katepwa Beach. Before, I had my first employment when I was a carry-out boy at Dominion Store at $0.75 an hour. I had the summer job in Katepwa for two years. Then, I worked for Canada Customs for two summers registering small craft and the big Boblo boats into Canada. I love boats and water and miss it immensely.
While I was in Saskatchewan the new health care plan came into being. I was working at Katepwa Beach which in those days was a haven for medical doctors from Regina and we had the only phone in the community. You can imagine how close I was then to the situation there. I wrote my first newspaper article for the Amherstburg Echo on the doctors strike while I was in the west - something which led to me writing newspaper articles later in my life much more frequently.
After finishing my undergraduate University education, I asked Lucille to marry me and then took off to do my master's degree in England. My year in England was perhaps the most exciting year I have ever had for I got to visit France, Italy, and the Netherlands as well as many parts of the British Isles while trying to study hard and I was one of those who passed and graduated (forty-four percent of the class did not).
I enjoyed some of the extra-curricular activities while in London too. I joined the National Theatre and saw every play that winter, including one time when Jacqueline Kennedy and John Kenneth Galbraith and Lee Radziwell attended a play.
I swam once a week at least (and would not admit then why I did that but it was to be with young men). My roommate and I tried to go to a different country's restaurant every Saturday. We particularly liked a Hungarian place which was on an alley where you took your own wine and sat at community tables.
I married Catherine Lucille H (she uses the name Lucille) September 3, 1966 and moved immediately to Edmonton Alberta where I started my doctoral program and my wife started her education diploma. We decided at the end of the school year that she would not teach but that we would start our family. In October 1968, Bryan was born. We adopted him and actually picked him up at a Woolco Store (predecessor to Wal-mart stores in Canada on December 4, 1968 two months to the day after his birth)
While in Edmonton, we got into a young couples group where many of the couples were just starting families. That was our first Sunday at Church. I served on the official board, was an elder, was Chair of the CE Committee and generally enjoyed our three years in the west. Lucille was sick much of the time and we were ignorant of what humidity and dryness can do to one's health.
The three of us moved to Kitchener in July 1969. We left Edmonton the day of the first moon landing, my birthday. Our biggest adventure on arrival was buying a house in Kitchener without my first pay cheque and without any down payment. The banks were kind.
We moved to Waterloo in August 1973, the year I successfully defended my dissertation, and the year I was promoted to Associate Professor. By then we had Mark with us (born April 10, 1971) and Trevor was born a year (Nov. 21, 1974) after we moved to Waterloo.
In 1986 I was promoted to Full Professor and wrote my first commercial book which was published by Butterworth's in 1984.
Our boys moved out starting in 1988. Indeed, my wife kicked our oldest boy out that summer but he already planned on going as far away as he could within the province to go to school at Lakehead University. Those were trying times for me.
In 1994, Mark finished University and started a job the next day in Toronto so he moved out. Trevor moved to Chicago that August to attend Moody Bible Institute. My wife and I went for long walks and enjoyed that fall thoroughly.
In January 1995, the problems started. My wife got sick while we were in Wshington DC. I left the conference I was attending after only half a day. Then in February 1995, my father had his first heart attack, I had a book which was a complete manuscript cancelled at the last minute for lack of market (it was a new editor who made the decision). Then one night while there was a Church cell group meeting in our house real problems started for me. My wife unexpectedly became violent with me.
In July 1996, I moved my material goods out of the house BUT two days later moved them back into the house. It was a symbol of what was going on in my life as after the boys left, things deteriorated badly. February and March 1995 were disastrous and by the summer of 1996 I had gotten so frustrated at what had happened that I moved out. However, I still loved my wife and could not bear to break up our marriage.
In 1997, Lucille's sister and my father died and we moved to Maryland Heights MO (St. Louis) where I was doing a sabbatical at Washington University and became invloved in the startup of a new University - Greenleaf. It was the happiest year of my post-empty-nest life as a married man. We had a former MBA student and his family live in our house as he was just starting a new job as an assistant pastor and mission's director for Vision 2000. That was a blessing to us.
We tried to sell our house twice after we came back. It was like an albatross to me. I had too much to do and it was too large for just the two of us. Indeed, it was my responsibility to do ALL but the cooking and laundry and it seemed there was constant picking up even once we moved. In June 1999, we sold it and moved back to Kitchener to a town house in August 1999.
There is one little additional piece of information to put in here. I moved out again in October 1999 to my own apartment. My wife had gotten up and left counselling sessions on more than one occassion which indicated to me she was unwilling to TRY to put our marriage back on an even keel. However, her erratic behaviour got to the point where I thought I could calm it by moving back into the town house temporarily (March 2000). It did not work.
When I had moved back into the town house temporarily, I came extremely close one night to ending it all - if it had not been for one of the men listed in my list of friends and the intervention of God.
On November 2, 2000, I moved into my own apartment out-of-town so I have to commute. However, I have not ever been so happy. I have made contact with my siblings and my sons and all have been wonderfully accepting. It hurts me that my wife is not so happy. BUT ALL the counselors thought I had to do this or as one put it I would die physically or emotionally. To understand the reasons, you might wish to read the reasons.
In 2000 I met a most wonderful man who became my first real love in my whole life. He also had left his wife in 2000. We had some wonderful conversations. Bob was able to educate me on all sorts of topics about which I had no knowledge (he had been in the arts, music world while I had been in the practical world of business and economics). His play on words thrilled me. Unfortunately, he was diagnosed with cancer in July of 2001 and died in August of the same year.
The day after Bob died, I kept my first email from a new member of HOW. By the end of August, Alexander and I were exchanging details about our lives, particularly about adoption, since my oldest boy is adopted and Alexander had recently found his birth parents. By October, we had met for dinner and on that first meeting talked for over three hours. By May 2002 we had become deep soul mates. In so many ways Alexander has the same characteristics as Bob did while being younger, and vibrantly different. A trip in early June 2002 meant 30 hours of non-stop talk (even though we had planned to listen to music etc.). Moreover, he encourages me to be myself. Clearly, one ought to be able to pick up my feelings of admiration, caring, and LOVE for this wonderful man who is NOT my partner BUT he is my BEST friend. As of September 1, 2002, we were living together in a two-bedroom apartment in Toronto.
It is important to make clear that Alexnader and I are not partners. We are BEST FRIENDS and I mean that sincerely. We both date and explore independent lives but we seem to understand each other and assist each other in all we do. I am not sure that one has the right word to describe our relationship since society can not fathom how much love there can be between two men who are not tied to each other.
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