Growing up, I heard the worst things said of my birthplace, Windsor, Ontario, and the surrounding county. I remember hearing “the Armpit of Canada” and “Lunch Bucket Town”, the latter referring to the industries that made factory workers solidly middle class because they paid so well. I also remember killer sinus infections because those same industries caused rampant air pollution. I happily moved to Waterloo – for cleaner air, higher ed, and a fresh start after family troubles.
Like so many families in the late 1940s and early 1950s, ours suffered serious trauma. We did not endure unhealed WWII terrors that precipitated alcoholism and domestic violence. Nor were we affected by the systemic racism and poverty of those pre-civil rights times. Medical isolation and divorce led to our family’s dissolution.
Continue reading When Place Becomes Parent – A New Kind of Mother’s Day Celebration