Barely Remembering Elizabeth

This was me in grade six, in early 1977:

Not much to look at, right? Just some dorky little kid.

At the end of 1976, just at the break for Christmas and New Years, my family moved from the suburbs of Nepean to the rural isolation of the Gatineau Hills. We moved from Borden Farm to Kirk's Ferry midway through the school year.

I went from the comfort of Century Public School, where I had lots of friends, to Chelsea Elementary, where I knew absolutely no one. It was tough when someone who went through the entire system of one school, with teachers and fellow students were so familiar, where we had grown up together, to be dropped into a classroom with students who had grown up with everyone else and suddenly been exposed to the new kid.

And I was the new kid.

It was really tough to find my place amongst the virtual strangers, to figure out how things ran and who was who in the pecking order of people. I felt as though I had to start all over again.

I did make one friend right away. His name was Doug Rawson and to me, he seemed wiser than his young age should have been. He was smart and had wit. He made great observations. And best of all, he didn't take crap from the other students.

There was a girl, Janet MacLeod, who also took to me. She had a crush on me and let me know it. I liked her, too, and as we got to know one another more (we also lived a short walk from one another), we'd hold hands and kiss. That summer, at the Gatineau River Yacht Club, she let me put my hands under her swimsuit as we soaked in the river.

In return, I let her put a hand down my Speedo swim trunks.

That fall, now in the seventh grade, we attended a middle school in Hull (before it was incorporated into the City of Gatineau) and I found myself on a level playing ground with the people from Chelsea Elementary. All of us encountered new faces, new teachers, and new classrooms.

Doug and I remained friends, though we also made new friends, but Janet and I grew further apart, mostly because we were in different homerooms and we'd be in different classes. She made friends with new people, including a girl named Elizabeth.

I didn't really know Elizabeth at all because, as I said, we were in different classes; but one day, Janet approached me to tell me that Elizabeth had a crush on me and wanted to go steady with me. I found it odd that Janet, who had had a crush on me only a few months earlier, would want to set me up with her new friend.

I'll redirect you to the photo at the beginning of this post. There's a really goofy looking kid who doesn't seem comfortable in his own skin. Yet, for the second time in 1977, there was someone who had a crush on him.

Because I'm trying to remember things from almost 50 years ago, there's a lot of fog from that time. Only parts of it have come back, all because DW, our Paddlefolk, and I kayaked on the Ottawa River the other weekend, and we paddled between Templeton—a village which has also since been incorporated into the City of Gatineau—and Kettle Island.

Elizabeth lived in Templeton, on a street just south of Highway 148, near the CIP factory. From her street, you could see a mountain of logs towering over the entire neighbourhood. There was a funny smell from the paper mill that followed you into her house.

Again, I forget a lot of the details but Elizabeth had invited to her home, after school. We took a city bus from our school, in Hull, to Templeton. My father would pick me up on his way home from work.

(Or it could have been my mom, who worked at a law firm in downtown Ottawa.)

I remember Elizabeth's mom making us a snack and then leaving us alone, at which Elizabeth asked me to kiss her. I obliged, though the kiss was something like what you'd give to your grandmother.

A dry peck.

As soon as Elizabeth told me that I could feel her up, I knew that Janet had been talking to her about the summer. Janet must have said that she took the lead, told me what to do. If Elizabeth offered herself for me to touch, I would comply.

I looked at Elizabeth and could see that she was nervous, not quite sure of what was supposed to happen. In that moment, she looked younger than she already was.

Younger than we both were.

"No thanks," I said, or words to that effect.

I don't remember what we did after that. We may have done homework or we may have watched TV. But I remember feeling really awkward and I couldn't wait for my parent to pick me up, be it my father or my mother.

I also remember that the next day, Janet confronted me, saying that I had made Elizabeth cry. At that age, I lacked the emotional maturity to apologize to Elizabeth directly, and I know that I went out of my way to avoid her until she eventually told me that she hated me.

For that, I have regrets. I should have been upfront and told Elizabeth that I wasn't into her. I shouldn't have just given her the cold shoulder.

But I think that by the time we were halfway through grade seven, we had both moved on. Elizabeth and Janet remained friends and I didn't have to hide.

I made other close friends: Dave, Sandra, and Christine. In fact I developed a big crush on Christine, but it was unrequited.

Oh well, young love.

I never told DW about Elizabeth because, in truth, I had all but forgotten about her. By grade eight, I was in another school with Dave, Sandra, and Christine, and I met Joy, my first 'real' girlfriend.

Summer, 1978: even dorkier as I prepared for grade eight.

As I said, I recently kayaked just off the shore of Templeton and the memory of the paper mill reminded me of my one time in that neighbourhood, and Elizabeth.

I hope she's doing well. But I hope she doesn't remember me.