Health issues

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Installment 5 of “Jake, Little Jimmy and Big Louie,” a Children’s Chapter Book

We apologize for the long delay in posting the next installment of Ian’s children’s chapter book, “Jake, Little Jimmy and Big Louie.” Our excuse is that we have been otherwise occupied for most of January and the first days of February because Gayle finally had a surgery date of February 7th for a total hip replacement on the left side. She has had both her right knee and right hip replaced in the past – the knee in 2000 and the hip in 2011. Now she is truly a bionic woman on both sides!

Ian is still trying to adjust to a number of changes in his medications and couldn’t be left completely alone while Gayle was in hospital, so we had to arrange for some home care and a LifeLine installation for him. That is going well and we’ve been able to count on the home care attendant to help both of us for a short time after Gayle was discharged on February 9th. Thank goodness for our Canadian health system. So far we have had little additional expenses other than the low LifeLine costs, our pharmacy expenses until the yearly supplement kicks in and our regular monthly BC health payments.

Ian and Jimmy, the cockatiel, circa 1999.

Ian and Jimmy, the cockatiel, circa 1999.

Today we are sharing a photo taken about 1999 of Ian schmoozing with his cockatiel Jimmy, who was the inspiration for this present story about a budgie named Jimmy. We hope you’ll enjoy it and the next chapter of “Jake, Little Jimmy and Big Louie.” If you remember the last chapter, Jimmy had been lost and just as the chapter ends Jake had received the good news that Jimmy had been found and would be returned by the police.

“JAKE, LITTLE JIMMY AND BIG LOUIE”

by Ian Moore-Morrans

edited by Gayle Moore-Morrans

Copyright © 2012

CHAPTER FIVE

Jimmy Returns and “Thing” Arrives

The following day, the police were at Jake’s house with Jimmy safely in his cage. Jake was in orbit over the news that Jimmy had been found, for he had hardly slept that whole week while Jimmy was missing. Lying awake in his bed at night, he had prayed that Jimmy would be kept safe, wherever he was, and that Jimmy would come home soon. He promised to love Jimmy and always try to take very good care of him. This promise had kept him certain that Jimmy would be found, so when Jake’s father told him the good news, he sort of expected it.  ‘Well’ he thought, ‘it got Jimmy back to me.’

(The rest of the chapter’s content has been deleted prior to publication.)

Picture suggestions:

Jake smiling and holding little Jimmy, just as Ian is holding Jimmy the cockatiel in the photo at the beginning of this posting

Jimmy sitting on Jake’s shoulder.

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Crisis Situations – Am I Happy With the Way I React? No and Yes!

Thanks to Francis Guenette on her blog, “disappearing in plain sight, writing about writing” for drawing our attention to Word Press’ “Daily Prompt: In a Crisis” for January 17th. In it Michelle W. poses the challenge: “Honestly evaluate the way you respond to crisis situations. Are you happy with the way you react?” The challenge was interesting enough to encourage Gayle to respond by answering both “no” and “yes,” giving the following examples:

Thirty years ago I was living in Frankfurt, Germany with my late husband Gus and our two children, a daughter (6) and a son (1). I was a stay-at-home mom at the time. Gus came home from work every noon for a hot meal – our dinnertime. We had just finished eating dinner in the kitchen and were still sitting around the table when Gus put our little espresso pot onto the stove to make us some coffee. Now this was the old-fashioned kind of pot into which you put water in the bottom piece, espresso powder into the holed metal basket, added a rubber sealing ring around the top edge of the bottom piece and screwed the empty top piece onto the bottom piece to form a little espresso pot. With the pot on a heating element, the boiling action should have forced the water up through the coffee powder basket and into the top area. Voila – espresso. Unfortunately Gus had neglected to put the sealing ring into place, causing the coffee pot to “explode”! Our one-year-old was trapped in his highchair. Our six-year-old sat frozen to her chair. Gus jumped into action to take the part of the pot still on the element off the burner and turn off the stove. What did I do? Well, obviously without thinking, I got the heck out of the room! I just ran out and left my kids sitting there, never giving them a thought! Was I ever disgusted with myself – and embarrassed. Luckily no one was hurt from the explosion. My kitchen, however, was another story. After hugs all around, Gus took the kids into the bathroom to clean up the three of them. I got busy doing my “penance.” First stripping down to my underwear, I grabbed a stepladder and bucket to wash off the ceiling; put curtains, towels, tablecloth and our clothes into the washing machine and dishes into the dishwasher; applied heaps of elbow grease to clean up the wet and grainy dark brown mess dripping from cupboards, stove, fridge, table, chairs, window, etc. and finally mopped the floor. I’m still embarrassed about my cowardly reaction. What a protective mother I was—not!

Last year when I was visiting my daughter, son-in-law and two grandsons (ages 1 and newborn) in Norway, I was proud and relieved to find out that my reaction to a crisis had changed from “flight” to “fight.” I was holding my 13-day-old grandson Ben at the breakfast table as we were discussing returning to the hospital with him as he was not looking or reacting well. All of a sudden he stopped breathing. I screamed, “He’s not breathing!” My son-in-law and I sprang into action and did CPR on him until the ambulance arrived and the emergency medical personnel took over. Soon a helicopter ambulance flew in carrying a pediatric cardiologist and finally the baby and doctor flew off for a hospital in Oslo with my daughter and son-in-law following in the auto ambulance. I stayed behind to care for the 13-month-old and two dogs. A few hours later my son-in-law called to tell me that Ben was dead and had been baptized at the hospital. I can’t even try to describe how heartsick we all were, still are, and perhaps always will be over the loss of Benjamin. I’ve always heard that the hardest loss is one of a child and now I know how true that is. An autopsy determined that Ben had a previously undetected heart problem which led to his death. Instead of the planned baptism, we began to prepare for a funeral. With God’s help, we all got through it somehow, and found comfort in being together. Considering that our CPR did little to prevent Ben’s death, I was still thankful I had taken a refresher CPR course the previous year and that I had realized instinctively that my best reaction in this particular situation was “fight.”

Gayle Moore-Morrans

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Celebrating the Adoption of our Doggie “Misty” plus Installment 2 of “Jake, Little Jimmy & Big Louie,” a Children’s Chapter Book

Wouldn’t my fictional character Jake be a bit jealous of me today? Gayle and I drove about 40 minutes north to the town of Salmon Arm, British Columbia, checked in at the SPCA and adopted a dog whom we’ve named Misty. Misty is a very lovely senior lady – a Shih Tzu cross with soft black and gray fur highlighted by a white chest and front paws and, of course, the distinctive Shih Tzu fanned tail. We fell in love with her immediately and she seems to be enamored with us as well. I’ll add a photo of Misty and me here as we got acquainted at home in Vernon this evening. Misty and Ian-first day

This shouldn’t take anything away from the story of Jake and Little Jimmy, though, as I think Jake was just as smitten with Jimmy as we are with Misty. So — here is the second chapter of my children’s chapter book “Jake, Little Jimmy and Big Louie.” I hope readers of this blog will like the story well enough that you will check “follow” and begin to get updates to the story as we post it. Enjoy!

“JAKE, LITTLE JIMMY AND BIG LOUIE”

by Ian Moore-Morrans

edited by Gayle Moore-Morrans

Copyright © 2012

CHAPTER TWO – Jake Meets Jimmy

A few minutes later as Jake and his dad were in the car and heading for Bill’s Budgie Barn, Jake was surprised to realize he could not wait to get there, impatient to see “hundreds, maybe thousands” of little birds all in one place. Soon they turned into the driveway of Bill’s place, parking the car behind an old red half-ton truck.

(The rest of the chapter’s content has been deleted prior to publication.)

 

* ~ * ~ *

Picture suggestions: Lots of birds perched and flying around in cages.

Jake kneeling down to view Jimmy.

Bill talking with Jake who is holding Jimmy.

Some of the bird care items Bill gives Jake.

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UNUSUAL HOLIDAY FLAVOURED PASSAGES FROM MY MEMOIR

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The holiday season has once again returned to our house. Gayle and I are planning two more book readings before the end of the year. She chose this coming Thursday, December 13th, which just happens to be St. Lucia Day, the start of Christmas celebrations in Sweden. Since her family heritage is mostly Swedish-American, she likes to do the day up big and invite friends in for some good Swedish Christmas baking. She’s been baking and decorating for over a week. We’ll be combining her Swedish Christmas atmosphere with two book readings for friends, acquaintances and the public at our home: one at 2 p.m. and another at 7:30 p.m. In contrast to her candle and ornament laden decorating and entertaining, Gayle has chosen and assigned me several readings that have to do with my unique and unusual memories of the holidays. My memoir, “From Poverty to Poverty: A Scotsman Encounters Canada” which was published this year doesn’t contain the usual fond and nostalgic accounts of Christmases past or holidays celebrated up big and fancy in the midst of large family gatherings. (I leave that to my wife/editor for her writings on her childhood memories.) One probably notices from the title of my memoir, that an impoverished childhood and a Scottish upbringing puts a certain slant onto many of my reminiscences.

Gayle, Ian and Christmas tree

From Chapter One, “The Cold and Hungry Years,” – (My Non-Event Christmases of Childhood)

“Speaking of winter, that brings up Christmas. Ah, Christmas! That time of year was a “non-event” for us. The day would come and go—and I didn’t know a thing about it for years! Then I found out that there were kids who would get a toy cowboy outfit that had a cowboy hat, a belt with a holster for the shiny revolver and maybe spurs. The poorer folks would share the things among the family members. Using the above for an example, one would maybe get the hat, another, the gun-belt, another would get the gun and the spurs and then they had to take turns with them!

“I was about six or seven when I learned that there was a man dressed in a red suit who would come and give good children a present and I wondered why it was that I didn’t get anything as I didn’t do anything bad. Gradually I learned that the man in the red suit was only a story—a farce—a great big lie. Then I didn’t feel so bad. It’s no wonder that I still don’t have a great deal of love towards the occasion, or Santa Claus, for I know there are still lots of kids around today who get the very same as I got back then–nothing!

” Today, my heart goes out (not really!) to people reminiscing about Christmases long ago and proudly stating how they didn’t get very much compared to the kids of today, that they only got a little doll, or they only got a children’s bake oven or something simple like that—or maybe that their parents could only afford a chicken for the Christmas dinner as a turkey would have cost too much. (I don’t think I knew what a chicken was at that age and if I did, I would probably have thought it was food for a king!) If I can remember right, my first Christmas present was an orange—and that was from the Salvation Army Sunday school when I was eight or nine years of age! Yep, some people didn’t know they had it so good!”

From CHAPTER SIX, “Back to ‘Dear Old Blighty'” (This chapter told of my return to Britain after serving in the Royal Air Force in the Suez Canal Zone, 1951-3. I married my penpal Mary and we eventually had two daughters. This New Year’s Eve story tells of my youngest daughter’s birth and how her life was saved by a bottle of Scotch whisky.

“Two years later our second daughter, Shirley Christina Morrans, was born. She wasn’t due until February 1959 but decided that she couldn’t wait and so arrived at around five-o’clock in the morning of the 31st of December, 1958—seven weeks early. She was born at home, as this is what Mary and I decided (we could do that—our choice) after the carry-on we had at Motherwell Maternity Hospital during Audrey’s birth. At that time, technology wasn’t anywhere nearly as good as it is today, and apparently it was dangerous for a baby to be that premature.

“It was fortunate Shirley chose the 31st of December which is New Year’s Eve, called Hogmanay in Scotland. Hogmanay is about the most important holiday for us Scots. It was tradition for everyone to have a bottle of Scotch in the house at that time of year so as to be able to offer a ‘wee dram’ to any ‘first footers’ who may appear at the door to wish us a ‘Happy New Year.’ If it had been any other time of the year I wouldn’t have had any whisky in the house as I didn’t normally drink the stuff then!

“The midwife was sent for shortly after midnight. She arrived, checked things and left again, saying that she would be back in two hours. She returned exactly as she promised. The midwife then worked with Mary while I did all the hard work (again!) of walking the floor downstairs! When Shirley finally arrived, she was blue—and that was not good. The midwife asked me if I had any whisky in the house. I said “yes,” that I had a bottle. She ordered it and a basin, too. When I had brought her both, she laid the baby in the basin, opened the bottle of Scotch and poured all of it over the baby, massaged her with it. The midwife then told me I had to rush to the phone to call for an ambulance and oxygen immediately.

“It was a one-minute run to the nearest phone kiosk (call box). There I found a button that could be pushed in case of an emergency. A male voice answered and asked me what I wanted. I told him I needed an ambulance and oxygen immediately for a premature birth as the baby was struggling for life. This idiot told me to go and find a policeman to verify my story. Well, I think I called that bloke everything under the sun and told him that if my daughter died I would hold him personally responsible!

” The ambulance arrived at the house, took the baby away—not to Motherwell Maternity but to Bellshill Hospital, where she was put into an incubator. Mary was fine, as the afterbirth came away just before the ambulance arrived. Shirley came home after two weeks in the hospital and remained in excellent health.

“(For many years I kidded Shirley about owing me a bottle of Scotch.) One day—maybe around 1995—she and her family were spending a vacation with us when Shirley came to me with a bottle of Ballantyne’s. I asked her what that was for. She gave me a nice wee kiss and laughingly told me, “This is the bottle of Scotch I owe you, Dad.”

“Well, I gladly accepted it, not only because I didn’t want to hurt her feelings but also because I had learned to appreciate a good whisky by then!”

Copyright © 2012 Ian Moore-Morrans

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A Scotsman Shares His Story

This article appeared in our local newspaper, the Vernon Morning Star on Wednesday, December 5, 2012. Thanks, Katherine Mortimer, Lifestyles Editor, for coming over to interview us and for an excellent article. The only correction we’d make is in the quote from me “that’s it for Scotland for me. I’m never going back.” Though I guess I did say that, I really meant that I’m never going back to Scotland to live. I was last there in 2000 and found it too expensive. Besides that, Canada is now home for me. Actually, I can’t even go out of Canada at the moment, as I no longer qualify for travel health insurance – too many health concerns. We hope that restriction can be lifted sometime in the future – time will tell. Hope you enjoy the article, we did!

A Scotsman shares his story                                                                       Okanagan's Mr Scotland and His Bonnie Lassie

By Katherine Mortimer – Vernon Morning Star

Published: December 05, 2012

 

Gayle and Ian Moore-Morrans (Okanagan’s Mr. Scotland and his Bonnie Lassie) in full regalia for a performance of song. Ian’s book, ‘From Poverty to Poverty: A Scotsman Encounters Canada, has just been published.

 

 

When Ian Moore-Morrans looks back on his childhood on the coast of Scotland, it isn’t with what could be called affection.

 

But the cold, the damp, the constant hunger and life of poverty have made for a fascinating life story, which forms the basis for the Vernon author’s memoir, From Poverty to Poverty: A Scotsman Encounters Canada.

 

Moore-Morrans sets the stage from the first chapter, The Cold and Hungry Early Years:

 

“Thinking back on my early childhood, the most miserable overall time was when it was evening, dark outside, middle of winter, clothes damp and cold from the rain, no oil for the lamp, no candles either, which meant no light of any kind in the dump we lived in, no fire to warm me a wee bit and no food.”

 

Sipping a cup of hot coffee while sitting in the cozy — and warm — Vernon home he shares with his wife, Gayle Moore-Morrans, Ian explains that he was bitten by the writing bug at the age of 60.

 

His first novel, Beyond the Phantom Battle: Mystery at Lock Ashie, was published in 2010.

 

The idea for a memoir began when, as a recent immigrant to Canada, his late wife, Mary, used to send him to the grocery store.

 

“As I was going through the checkout, my Scottish accent always gave me away and inevitably one of the girls would tell me their grandfather was Scottish but they never knew anything about him.

 

“So I told my wife I was going to write my life story so my grandchildren and two daughters would know about their roots — I think they need to know where I come from.”

 

A retired machinist, the Scottish-Canadian grew up in Campbeltown on the Kintyre Peninsula, Argyll, Scotland.

 

Ian and his brother were raised by their single mother during the Depression of the ‘30s and subsequent years of the Second World War.

 

“We had no bread winner and of course there was nothing in the way of social services in those days. I used to put cardboard in my shoes after the soles wore out.

 

“It was a pretty bleak childhood, with all of us living in the attic, just 10 feet by 10 feet, with a table, a bed and a dresser. All four of us slept in one bed: me, my brother, my mother and my grandmother.”

 

Ian has lived in various places all over Canada since emigrating from Scotland in 1965.

 

“I was doing well in Scotland by this point but I had itchy feet.

 

“I wanted to go to Australia, but an unscrupulous government agent encouraged me to select Canada and told me all of the good things about it, that there was no crime in Toronto, that you could buy a house for $200, and that there were no slums.”

 

With a job lined up for him as a machinist, Ian brought his wife and young daughters across the Atlantic only to discover the job had fallen through. Living in Ontario, he worked a series of short-term jobs, including a stint as a Wonderbread salesman.

 

“In Scotland, I had a nice council house and I wasn’t one for going to the pub and spending my money, so it was difficult to give up the life we had there.”

 

Told with honesty and plenty of humour, From Poverty to Poverty has been compared to Frank McCourt’s acclaimed memoir, Angela’s Ashes.

 

Like the late Irish author, Ian has an uncanny ability to recall conversations and specific details, from his childhood, to his time in the Royal Air Force, from raising children with Mary, to coming to Canada and the subsequent poverty in which they lived for the first few years.

 

With Gayle as his editor, Ian began working on his book a number of years ago, writing down everything he remembered.

 

“I had no outline, no notes, I just kept on writing as it came to me. It was painful at times to look back and I get emotional. The last time I went back I told my late wife, ‘that’s it for Scotland for me. I’m never going back [here to live].’”

 

Published by Friesen Press in Victoria, From Poverty to Poverty is filled with photos detailing Ian’s life, but only from a certain stage.

 

“He has no photos of his childhood, the first one was taken when he was 14 and in the Salvation Army band,” said Gayle.

 

Besides writing, Ian specializes in singing Scottish ballads while outfitted in full-kilt regalia. He and Gayle, a retired editor, sing, write, edit and relax in Vernon since moving here from Mexico in 2008.

 

In addition to his novel and memoir, Ian has also published a how-to eBook, Metal Machining Made Easy, in 2002.

 

The second volume of his memoir, Came to Canada, Eh? is now under way.

 

Ian and Gayle were both widowed when they met in 2003 in Winnipeg.

 

“When we were courting, he showed me the book, which was then just stacks of paper, rather than an actual book. And I thought it was wonderful, but he needed an editor as he wrote in a sort of ‘stream-of-consciousness’ style.”

 

They were married three months after their first meeting and Gayle, a magazine editor, took an early retirement in 2004. After selling their house, they bought a motor home and left Winnipeg to explore retirement in Mexico, eventually settling on the shores of Lake Chapala, a large community of English-speaking ex-patriots. Joining the Lake Chapala Society Writers’ Group, they met writers from around the world.

 

Returning to Canada in 2007, the couple spent a year in Penticton before moving to Vernon.

 

The public is invited to readings for From Poverty to Poverty: A Scotsman Encounters Canada at the Moore-Morrans residence, Lakepointe, #69, 6688 Tronson Rd. (just west of the airport) Dec. 13, at 2 p.m. and again at 7:30 p.m. Please RSVP to 250-275-1446 or gayleian@gmail.com. Signed books will be for sale. Since Dec. 13 is St. Lucia Day (the beginning of the Christmas season in Sweden) and Gayle’s heritage is Swedish, St. Lucia baking, some Scottish goodies, coffee and tea will be served.

 

The book is available online through Chapters, Amazon, Barnes and Noble and can be ordered through booksellers or directly from the author.