I’ve lived in Hamilton for most of my life.  I grew up in the east end, in the Rosedale neighbourhood.  I could see the escarpment from our dining room window.  It was a few blocks and many houses away, but there it was, a towering wall of ever-changing foliage to the mark the passage of the seasons.  Nature’s calendar.

King’s Forest park, now a golf course, lay to the south, and the Red Hill Valley ran down the east side of our neighbourhood.  I think we were pretty tight as a community when I was a kid.  There were lots of kids, like there were everywhere in the 60s and 70s.  There were 2 grade schools, one a Separate school, the other public.  I went to both during my time in the neighbourhood.  My picture, along with the rest of my 1967 classmates, still hangs in the hall outside the principal’s office in Rosedale Public School.  I had the good fortune to be able to send my children there.  It was neat that they could see me when I was their age smiling down from the wall.

I went away for a while, out to Calgary where the streets, they promised, where paved with gold.  That lasted about a year before it all went bust in the early 80s.  By then I was married and with a young daughter.  We stayed until the Olympics came, then hightailed it out of town when I transferred to a job in Toronto.

I was homesick, no doubt.  I missed my family, my parents, and I wanted them to see their grandchild.  Calgary, when I lived there, was a cold and heartless place.  The disparity between those that had and those that didn’t was painful to witness.  I wanted to move home.  I found a way to do it and I haven’t left Hamilton since, except for the odd vacation here and there.

I have two children, now grown and on their own, although I still like to think that they need me from time to time.  I have two dogs, standard poodles, Butch and Sundance.  They still live at home.  And I have three cats, Cleopatra, Marley and Osiris.

I share my home with my partner, Ray.  I’ll talk about him, too.  He’s a manufacturing entrepreneur – he has a cathouse business (not that kind!), Feline’s Fantasy that produces a variety of cathouses and scratchposts for your feline friends.  He’s also a Qabbala master.  He would deny the appellation “master”, but that’s just humility.  He takes it to the streets, literally.  He talks to everyone, a kind word, a hello, to everyone he passes.  And it’s true, you get what you give.  When we walk through the neighbourhood, everyone says hi to him.

I work at one of Hamilton’s largest employers, McMaster University.  It’s good work that I do, in the field of education, although I’m not a teacher.  I’m an administrator, a project coordinator.  There’s lots of variety in my job and I like that.

I am working on two diploma programs, one in public relations, which I have one more course to complete, and one for a certified clinical research associate.  I have a couple more to go for that one.  My interest is in communication and in knowledge translation, that is, getting the results of research out into the public and in use.  There isn’t a program for that yet, so I made up my own.  Public relations and clinical research.  I think I’ll work on some marketing courses next.

I sit on the Board for a community agency, Contact Hamilton, that serves as the gateway agency for people who need support with development issues and children’s mental health.  And let me tell you, there isn’t enough support for people in need.

That’s enough of an introduction I think.  You’ll find out more as you read through the blog entries.

I hope you enjoy reading this blog.  I look forward to hearing your comments.