Blue Moon by James King

Globe
dubbed Hamilton the “ambitious” city; the
Hamilton Spectator
promptly castigated Toronto as ostentatiously vulgar: “we cannot display here the paraphernalia of red coats and dashing equipages, but in all that betokens enterprise, public spirit, and future greatness, Hamilton will hold its own … let us hope that as we walk ahead of our rivals, we shall not imitate their example, and look down with contempt on all who have the misfortune to exist beyond the prescribed limits of Canadian cockney gentility!”

    Incessantly, Mother complained that she had moved to a country where pharmacies had replaced chemists, airy pubs had given way to dark bars. “A country of smoke shops is what the Dominion of Canada has become. Not really a country at all. Just a big, hulking colony.” She did approve of Mackenzie King, however. But not because the prime minister fostered independence from Britain. Superstition ridden, he believed in the spirit world, often consulting his dead mother on crucial matters of state. “A dutiful son, he is, to his departed Mama.”
    My earliest memories go back to about 1925, when I was five years old. I remember playing on the lawn in front of our house. I cradle a small doll, who is being a bit fretful. I am trying to comfort her, but I am fighting a losing battle because my mother and father inside the house are screaming at each other. I assure “Nell” that everything will soon settle down. I say this without any assurance I am speaking the truth, for I know that the battles between my parents can go on for hours at a time. Eventually, Nell and I fall asleep by the door. Next, my mother shakes me awake. “You horrible little girl,” she shrieks. “I thought you were in your room. I had the fright of my life when you weren’t there.” I mumbled an apology.
    I remember riding up and down the James Street Incline Railway, a seventy-two second ride up or down the face of the escarpment. Sometimes, my mother and I would take the train at the Mountain View Hotel and then descend to the middle of the city. I was puzzled that a city could have a mountain where people lived. My mother scoffed: “They call it a mountain, darling, but it’s really more of a hill plopped down in the middle of the city.”
    Then there was the elaborate, ornate, magnificent fountain in the middle of Gore Park a short walk away from Eaton’s. Once—I must have been 6—when my mother was less vigilant than usual, I escaped from her and managed to slip through the iron railing on the periphery of the fountain. Of course I returned soaked to the bone and received a severe dressing-down.
    I have a vague recollection of being taken to the Sunken Gardens in front of McMaster University on Main Street. Fascinated by the huge lily pads floating in the long concrete reflecting pool, I considered the possibility of wading in to pluck one of the huge pinkflowers but, weighing the consequences carefully, decided not to. I remember being dragged along in August 1930 to the British Empire Games (the first ever) at the Civic Stadium; there, in the pouring rain, I had to sit through a dozen or so foot races. Despite the awful weather, my mother purred delight: “This city is linked as never before with the Imperial family—the best family in the world.”
    Then there was the Farmer’s Market where I can still see a pyramid of gleaming russet apples, a small hill of bright orange pumpkins, and hundreds of pur pie-flower ing autumn cabbages. My mother was shocked when she took me to see the new Rock Garden made from what had once been a gravel pit. On the day we visited only a small sprinkling of tiny Alpines had established themselves. “In the United Kingdom, we have real gardens with real flowers, Evelyn. Never has the term ’Rock Garden’ been more appropriately used to describe a rubbish pile.” Almost out of control, she