COPING

Hearing of my seven, people often commented they would have gone crazy with so many children. I would smile and think.... maybe I did and didn't realize it..

There were plenty of times when I didn't have control and others when mothering instincts were stretched to the limit. But there was never an option. Situations would follow so fast on one another, no time was left for contemplation. Now people compliment me on my family and I think... how much did I have I to do with it?

Books were my escape. One winter, there was a mouse in my house. He had migrated in from the cold. At night, when all was still and my feet were on the couch,he would come out and feast on the crumbs on the floor around the high chair. Then he would move along the wall under the couch to the window. I watched the curtain move as he climbed to the sill. He was heading for the place where the kids regularly removed the knobs from the sliders and air came through unimpeded. After a while, he would go back the way he came It was his regular routine until Spring came and he took himself outside again. Years later, I discovered he had lived on top of the generator under the fridge.

Sometimes I would read until daylight. Then I 'd regret finishing the book so quickly. But the story would continue to fill my mind through countless laundries , dish-washings and bed-making. There had to be time between tales or they would blend into one another and become indistinct.

I had catholic taste. . I read Exodus in hospital. My brother Terry brought it to me. Leon Uris did great research and created entirely believable characters. Arthur Hailey employed a team of researchers but his characters weren't worth a damn. I felt he was writing screen plays not stories.

Morris Shepherd, like others who write for a living, wrote one story but many books. He simply relocated the plot to a different culture and country. His yarns were about politics and international intrigue. His romantic element always ended precipitately. His characters were credible. He would build the situation to the point of intimacy. Then it seemed there were pages missing or stuck together. I would check the numbers in exasperation. I concluded he'd been educated by a celibate order. I later learned he had indeed been taught by the Christian Brothers.

Michener's books were packed with history. I l flipped pages of description until the story resumed. I think he must have been paid by weight for his books. But the research was authentic .I never lost interest in how people survive.

Allen Drury was a Washington journalist who wrote about politics during the Kennedy era. He had a regular cast of characters. I've come across one of them more than once in Aurora. He is short and skinny. Full of righteous indignation and conviction that he alone holds the Secret of the Holy Grail.He spews out vitriol and is entirely without humour. His reputation is built on battling the corruption and incompetence he finds everywhere. His rapid fire speech rises to a hysterical scream to indicate the depth of his passion.

Senator Joseph McCarthy was such a personality.He may have been the model. The harm he caused will probably never be calculated. He ended in madness and ignominy but not before he had ruined hundreds, maybe thousands of lives. All accomplished with the authority of elected office in the Cradle of Democracy which guarantees its citizens the pursuit of Life, Liberty and Happiness. There is more than one form of terrorism. In politics as in life, contradictions abound.

Modern political memoirs are a let down. Pierre Trudeau's book reads like the transcript of a taped interview. Jean Chretien's reveals a shallow personality. His reputation would have fared better had he never revealed it.

Brian Mulroney's was a bigger book but I couldn't get past the first few pages. At Christmas, I had a similar problem with Barack Obama's . The beginning was clearly contrived but as the story unfolded, it revealed varied experience. It is not all American but no doubt it will be an asset and highly relevant in the job he now holds.

I read three books over the holiday A work of fiction, Obama's memoir and Malcolm Gladwell's "Outliers". Heather Sisman reads all the time. Keeps passing her books to me. I've tried a couple. I think there's a fashion in fiction writing and my taste may well be dated..Substance in the modern novel is often replaced with technically horrifying, sometimes disgusting for-the-sake-of-it detail In movies, camera work can be spectacularly beautiful but writing gets short shrift. Dialogue is totally predictable and boring.

At this moment, we are living through pulsing and vibrant history with a magnificent cast of characters. The plot is no doubt unfolding as it should. Dear Lord, let the end of this chapter not be predictable.. Books and movies can never compete with reality but it will be documented as history and made into movies . These are our times. We are the living witnesses. We can pass it on first hand to our children and grand-children because we were here.

It is ours to embrace