RON AND THE GREAT CAR WRECK OF DOUGLASDALE (and other things in her teens)

I will skip ahead a bit, in the time, after our arrival back in Canada, to a point where Ron had now reached about 17 years old. She was deep into her second year of High School at Lord Beaverbrook in SW Calgary. It was not horribly far from home, but far enough to make riding the bus, a little annoying. The time had arrived and there was only one solution to the transport issue. Ron needed a car. I heard things like, “clear the streets”, “get her a tank”, “phone us when she’s going out on the road” and many other encouraging words from her brothers, sisters, cousins, aunts and uncles.

It was enough to make a normal kid paranoid. Not Ron though, she was like, “where’s my car, let me out there”. I was her first driving instructor. I remember driving around our neighbourhood in the evenings, being very careful to not say anything negative. Not only was her Mom pushing me around, but by then Ron was also abusing me. I was just so patient, something like a saint. Anyway she spent a few evenings with me, and then traded me in for a Sears driving instructor. And low and behold, a few short weeks later she has a license and is qualified to drive. Geezus! We bought her a little blue Datsun car. It had lots of miles on it, but was generally in good nick.

The part Ron loved about it was that it had a major Boom Box, located in the trunk. It came with speakers that would have made a heavy metal band, proud. She could load it up with her favourite Boys band music, when she left home, and have tunes blasting away all day long. You always knew when Ron was on her way home, you could hear her coming from blocks away. Occasionally her and her Mom would go out for some driving practice. I could always tell how their sessions went by watching them come up the driveway. If they were both staring out of opposite side windows, then I knew better than to ask “howwazzit?” I think you get the idea. Ron soon had the hang of it and was “free” to buzz about in her little blue car.

A few short months later, winter sets in and I must say it was a particularly snowy one. For a few months our street had two grooves in the packed snow on each side. Seems like the City of Calgary ran out of snow clearing budget, long before they got to us. Ange and I valiantly shovelled snow that winter, but had a hard time keeping up.

Then on one fateful Saturday, while I was at the office, catching up on work. And while Ange was digging her way from the front door out to the driveway. Deysi headed for the garage to get her car out and bring lunch to me. In her rearview mirrors, she saw the huge pile of snow in the driveway. She decided, that with enough horsepower she could bust thru and out onto the street. Zzzzzoooooommmm, she went, and came flying out of the garage, in her burgundy Explorer. Right into the snowbank and right into Ron’s car which was buried under the snow. Cccrrraaassshhh!

She had found Ron’s car underneath the snow pile. Ange was delighted and ran inside to inform Ron, that Mom had crashed into her car. Deysi was beside herself, Ron went out, very timidly, to investigate, fearing that somehow this accident was her fault and that she was in for a pile of abuse. Deysi was in good shape, however her pride was bruised, after having her very first accident. When she called me to report, Deysi said that she did not see anything behind her except for a pile of snow. You just knew that she was looking for whoever caused this accident. She settled on me as the primary reason for her accident, and I think Ron agreed with her.

It appears that Ron always parked on the right side of the driveway, but this particular time, because I needed to go to work the next day had decided to park on the other side. This put her behind mom’s car, but allowed me to get out in the morning. All without waking her, to move her car. It then snowed hard all night and completely covered Ron’s car, making it invisible to her Mom. What this had to do with me was beyond my comprehension. But I just bit down and muttered bad words to myself. Ange had not had so much fun for a long time. Ron immediately called all her friends to tell them that her Mom had piled into her car. And her Dad was to blame.

I immediately rushed home and carefully cleared the huge drift from around the front of Ron’s car, in order to inspect the damage.Luckily there was not much damage at all, since the snow had formed a large protective barricade around it. The front bumper was a little bent, the hood had a bend in it, there were some other bumps and bruises in the front end of her car, but on the whole it turned out to be relatively minor. Ron was able to continue using it until I took it in for some minor bodywork and paint, thereby rendering her car “new” again. Deysi’s car suffered not one scratch! I am not sure if either of them ever forgave me for causing this accident! I never brought it up again until now. Geezus.

This post is going to be a doubleheader featuring another of Ron’s exploits during our times in Calgary. Although the crashing of her car was not necessarily her fault, it was more her’s than mine, even though I got blamed for it. This next little incident was 100% Ron. I did not find out about it until years after.

Deysi knew that if she told me, I was going to flip out and rain down some harsh punishment on this kid. It took place during a transition period between Calgary and Scotland in early 1998. This at a time, when I was faced with unrelenting pressure by my main client to join them and give them all of my focus. At the outset, I still wanted to maintain my independence, but the offer of another chance to go overseas, together, was tempting. Ron was halfway thru year one at the University of Calgary and it would have been very difficult for us to move her and waste the previous few month’s work.

She was also growing very strong willed and set in her decisions of how to run her life. After all she was a full “adult”, in her mind, and basically had a firm grasp on everything she needed to know to get by in the world. She had decided that if her Mom and I fed her enough cash, kept our house paid for, let her use one of our vehicles and didn’t ask her too many questions, then she could survive quite well while we went off to get settled in Scotland. Somehow she talked Mom into this idea. I did not quite ever figure out how this happened. It was completely out of character for Deysi, who had kept a pretty tight rein on her oldest girl. So, somehow, very surprising to me, Deysi left her in Calgary and came to join me in Edinburgh, Scotland.

At this time Ron had made a tight bond with a friend, we’ll call “Krusty”, who went to the same school, lived relatively close to the hood and had become inseparable from Ron. They were both very pretty, had major attitudes and together formed a solid front against parenthood. Little did we know, but these girls were a lot more devious than we thought possible. Deysi still considered Ron her little girl! So we are overseas, Ron has a huge house in Calgary, all on her own, money, transport and freedom to do whatever she wanted. Aaaahhhh! What a life. On my own part, I was never comfortable with this situation. I needed her close!

In any event Ron and Krusty spent all of their time together and soon took on each other’s characteristics and lingo. What happened at some point, when Mom would call Ron, was that if Ron was busy with anything else, or just not in the mood to be interrogated by her Mom, then she would just pass the phone to Krusty and let her have the conversation, as if it had been Ron speaking, the whole time. Apparently Krusty did not have a problem with interrogation. Her and Mom had many a meaningful conversation or so I understand.

I can just picture Ron in the background, snickering and making gestures all the while. Lord knows how many times they did this and whether or not Ron was also speaking with Krusty’s mom in her place, but soon Deysi was noticing a change in her little girl. It took Deysi a couple of months to figure out what was going on, and why her little girl had changed so much, but eventually realization set in. Was she pissed? You think? She was beside herself, but couldn’t, yet, tell me, as she knew that I was going to have a major shit-fit.

We would have been out of Scotland and home that same day, never to let Ron out again until after her 25th birthday and a couple years in a convent! These two fools, Ron and Krusty must have thought they were very funny, however I can assure you Deysi did not see the humour in any of their antics. And like I said earlier, Deysi kept this too herself for years before she told me; the whole time she quietly “seethed” by herself. Ron’s period of freedom was short lived and soon, her butt was headed for Scotland and her Mom took charge once again. Krusty stayed behind, but I do think their friendship has survived to this day, a couple of decades later.

I am not sure how this disclosure will go over with Ron, however it is the honest truth as I see it. I will allow Deysi to add anything else “that I may NOT have had, a need to know” at the time!