GOOD OLD HANDSWORTH!

School and crafts seemed to go well together. Monday through Friday I looked forward to my Art Classes with Miss Clay and on the weekends, I sold my product.
The Lonsdale shop kept the upstairs space for crafters for one year and then decided to expand its floor space and took over the top floor space which meant us poor crafters had to find another venue where we could sell our product. There were really no "craft fairs" as yet in Vancouver so the Handsworth Girls (as we liked to call ourselves) built ourselves a cart, bought a peddlar's license, and proceeded to set up shop on the streets of Gastown in downtown Vancouver.

I had a friend who owned a building and also sold leather hides and other crafty items from the top floor. Donna was her name and if anyone personified the 1960s, Donna did. Female, a woman all for liberation and a property entrepreneur to boot, she taught me a lot about retail, wholesale and how to find the best suppliers. Donna was a mentor, a tutor and someone I still admire to this day. She's still in Vancouver, selling real estate now, and we do talk to each other from time to time She tells me she is still sitting on lots of products from "the old days" and boy, I sure would like to get my hands on some of it - she really did have an eye for the good stuff!
Gastown in the late 60s was a great place to be. There were peddlars all over the streets, great restaurants and crowds of people. Sales were not always good as there were so many vendors to choose from, but every now and then, one of Us Girls had a great day! We kept the cart for 2 summers and then sold it to another gentleman who sold leather belts. We got a fair price for it and managed to exit the business with profit for all. I then went into a babysitting job that was steady and paid $12 per weekend so I had money in my pocket most of the time and could experiment with anything new by way of crafting that came along. Let's just say I didn't expect love to come along quite so soon.
My parents had decided to split and my sister went with my mother while I and my brother stayed with my father. What I hadn't really prepared myself for was that my father still wanted a full time cook, housekeeper and companion and I just wasn't prepared to do it.
The situation took its toll. My grades went downward and I dropped out of all sports teams. The school counselors wondered what was happening and when they found out, the daily "counseling talks" started and I really was at my wits end. With the babysitting on weekends, cooking for my Dad and brother - I was at the point of having a nervous breakdown. Finally, my father saw what was happening and from then on, he started helping out a little more with meals and cleaning. Things got a little better.
The start of my 1969 school term was hard. I was still having trouble keeping my grades up but about 2 months into it, I pulled up my socks and managed to raise them to a respectable level. After all, I thought, University was just around the corner and the Grade Point Average of Grade 11 and Grade 12 counted for entrance. About the 4th month into the school term I finally had my first crush on a boy in one of my classes. The feeling was decidedly NOT reciprocal but I managed to get him to come around eventually. And then when he finally started pursuing me, I changed my attentions to someone else - my high school English teacher! Fickle are females!

Well, to save time in this blog, I sort of fell for the guy. I had the biggest crush on Dick Cavett at the time and my English teacher was the spitting image of the gent. I just couldn't help it, you'd think I had fallen for a movie star. Anyway, by the end of Grade 11, we had a good rapport and I fully expected to see him at the start of Grade 12. I didn't. He actually had to move 500 miles north of Vancouver to find a job in the interior of BC. And I had to find all this out from someone who worked in the school office. Angry, I wrote a letter to the gent and for 1 full school term we corresponded and during the holidays, when he was in Vancouver, we spent time together. Now I know what you are thinking but believe me, nothing happened! I was pretty naive about everything! At the end of the 1971 school term, we saw each other every day for about 1-1/2 month getting the feel of whether or not we would be compatible. Then in August, we got married. I moved further inland and another chapter in my life began. That of wife.
Experience has now taught me that NO ONE should get married at 18. You really don't know your own mind. In my first year of married life I learned to cook, clean and generally keep my husband happy. My second year, becoming bored with staying at home, I worked at the local disco as a cocktail waitress. Them, the next 5 years were spent at the Bank of Montreal starting as a teller and ending my tenure as the mortgage loans clerk. In 1978, with my husband constantly nagging me to have children (which I didn't want), I struck a bargain with him; if we could go on a grand tour of Europe, I would come home and get pregnant. 1977 was still a year in which you could do Europe on Frommer's $10 a day rate and I must admit he was right. We did 2 months in Europe on $2,000 plus a $500 letter of credit. Amazing!
Europe was fun but it did spell the end of my marriage. I found I was wanting my independence, I didn't like being tied down to one cite and one man. I made the most of my European trip by buying all sorts of beads from the different countries I visited. Denmark was the best place and I bought so many that one duffel bag was filled to the brim with just what I had purchased. After a spell lugging the bag around I realized I had to mail it back to Canada. And the postage seemed to be MORE than what I paid for the beads!
When I got back home I knew the marriage was over but I needed time to formulate a plan and to put some money aside for when I actually left. I started doing craft shows, actually running them myself, and doing pretty good. It was only when my husband decided to garnish all my earnings that I realized I had to start hiding the money in order to keep it. And once deceit creeps into a marriage it really is over!

1978 saw me leaving my husband and moving in with my father in Vancouver. He was still single but dating a much younger lady. When I got my separation settlement from my husband I decided to take a cruise from Los Angeles. The AFI was sponsoring one that featured celebrities and I decided to join that particular sailing. Oh, it was wonderful! Charlton Heston (and his wife) hosted the champagne send-off and Old Hollywood was present on the voyage. Dana Andrews, Loretta Young (and her daughter), Bea Arthur and Rouben Mamoulian were on board and each night the small AFI group sat at one of their tables. The stories were fascinating and each night, Miss Young looked as ravishingly beautiful as she did on the screen.

When I returned to Vancouver from the cruise, I was ready to make a move out of my father's place but to where? The girl I roomed with on the cruise suggested where she lived - San Diego. But I wasn't ready quite yet. I took a silversmithing course at the Vancouver School of Jewelry and after a sudden appearance by my ex at my fathers apartment, I decided it really was time to leave Dodge City. My ex was starting to scare me and I had to disappear completely. I couldn't stay in Vancouver so I decided to move to the States. But I wanted to move to Los Angeles and not San Diego but I figured a girl on her own ought to have a roommate so San Diego it was. The main hurdle had already been taken care of via my mother. I was already an American citizen, my mother having to register me with the U.S. Government upon birth. Oh the benefits of having an American mother married to a Canadian father! So into my car went all my clothes, supplies and anything else I could think of. Kissing my father good-bye I headed toward the border and to my new life in the States. The month was September. The year was 1978. And new adventures lay in wait. But I'll continue the balance in another blog.
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