L’En Fer and the Singing Nun

It was a bright Saturday morning and there I was, a corduroyed butterball, warbling away in the back seat, my lazy eye lost in the middle distance of incipient stardom. Dad and I drove along Tecumseh Road to Ajax Lumber, parking next to the totem pole. Then it dawned on me: I was being kidnapped, sold into slavery or worse, sent to Mémé’s house in Vanier. That pole was the port-key, one touch of its bogus eagle-beak and a life of incessant embroidery, rosary recitations and unilingual servitude awaited me. Hell’s demons had nothing on grandma and Peanut, her Chihuahua.

Image by Roy Schulze