Beverly has been called Poochie by her family that her father occasionally forgets her real name. She grew up in Nairn Centre, Ontario, a small community where everyone knew almost everything going on in everyone else's household. Even so, she still managed to have secrets. In this memoir, she tells the story of her youth, from her childhood through her teenage years. She shares her wealth of exciting and embarrassing moments from her life as a child, trying to learn how to be herself in a constantly changing world. She was a child obsessively dependent on her mother, to the point of having suicidal thoughts when she believes she has lost her mother's respect. With an open and honest mind, Poochie shares each childhood turmoil as it gets conquered and turned into a stepping stone for the next adventure in Poochie's Changing Daze-a story of the love and strength that a family gets from having each other.

Poochie's Changing Daze

By BEVERLY ANN MARCOUX JOHNSTON

iUniverse, Inc.

Copyright © 2012 Beverly Ann Marcoux Johnston.
All right reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4697-7387-2

Contents

Chapter 1: The Beginning of Baby Who?.......................1Chapter 2: Grade 1..........................................3Chapter 3: Chocolate Cake...................................5Chapter 4: Three Tiny Lives.................................7Chapter 5: Biting and Chewing...............................9Chapter 6: Flannelette and Ringlets.........................11Chapter 7: Clicking Teeth...................................15Chapter 8: Sundays..........................................17Chapter 9: Drunken Ears and Scary Tales.....................19Chapter 10: Lord of the Things..............................23Chapter 11: Spaghetti and Canning...........................27Chapter 12: Fire Fries......................................30Chapter 13: Hanging Tex Star................................32Chapter 14: Homesick and Accused............................35Chapter 15: Feeling Good with Sherry........................37Chapter 16: Star Dazed......................................39Chapter 17: Christmas.......................................44Chapter 18: Scrooge.........................................47Chapter 19: The Canvas Shack................................49Chapter 20: The Pro Fisher..................................55Chapter 21: Mom's Guest.....................................58Chapter 22: Uncle Ray.......................................62Chapter 23: Cousins.........................................65Chapter 24: Headquarters....................................71Chapter 25: The Wrath of Pat................................78Chapter 26: The Living Room.................................82Chapter 27: A Trip to the Park..............................86Chapter 28: Shot in the Head................................89Chapter 29: Brenda..........................................93Chapter 30: Brian...........................................95Chapter 31: Brenda's Wedding................................100Chapter 32: Poetry..........................................102Chapter 33: Port Elgin......................................105Chapter 34: Returned to Sender..............................110Chapter 35: Ms. Lachance....................................113Chapter 36: More Bad News...................................116Chapter 37: A Summer Job....................................123Chapter 38: Broken Vows.....................................125Chapter 39: Elders..........................................127Chapter 40: Godparents......................................133Chapter 41: Frozen in the Ice...............................137Chapter 42: Pouring at Niagara..............................143Chapter 43: Gaining Control.................................147Chapter 44: Billy...........................................149Chapter 45: Grade 9.........................................153Chapter 46: Under Where.....................................155Chapter 47: New Friends.....................................158Chapter 48: Driving and Hitchhiking.........................165Chapter 49: Awestruck.......................................168Chapter 50: First Date......................................171Chapter 51: Love Hurts......................................175Chapter 52: Foul Play.......................................179Chapter 53: Relationship Arrested...........................185Chapter 54: Mom's Guest Again...............................190

Chapter One

THE BEGINNING OF BABY WHO?

"Why did you call me Poochie?" I asked my mom. It really bugged me that I didn't have a normal name.

Mom told me that after she had given birth to me, on December 5, 1962, she was in the hospital and a nurse came into her room. The nurse needed to know what the baby's name was going to be so she could put it on the birth certificate.

Mom said that she and Dad were not really set on a name yet.

When choosing names, my parents had one rule: to call all their children a name that started with a B. I had a brother, Brian, who was six years older, and a sister, Brenda, who was nine years older.

Mom and Dad had a few names—Bunny, Bonny, Barbara—rolling around in their minds, but they weren't terribly fond of any of those.

They figured that, when the time came, the proper name would just come to them. But there I was, in their arms, and they still didn't feel like they had a B name that they wanted to call me.

My mother had spent the last few hours in the hospital with a poor old lady in the bed beside her. Mom knew her from a long time ago when they were children. The lady was terribly ill and dying of cancer. She mentioned to my mom that she loved the name Beverly.

Mom and Dad had never heard of the name Beverly. They liked the sound of it and decided that it was a suitable name for me.

They brought me home from the hospital. Dad would be talking to me, and he couldn't remember the name they had given me. Mom found she was having a hard time remembering it too. So in their haste to give me a name they could remember, Poochie Pooh—Dad's pet name for me—was shortened to Poochie, and that's the name I was stuck with.

The name Beverly eventually got completely forgotten in our household.

When people would ask who I was, Mom, Brenda, Brian and Dad would all reply that my name was Poochie.

I can recall many times when they would look at each other, bewildered, waiting to see who would remember my real name. My dad never did.

Of course, my brother, Brian, had his own version of the story. Brian told me that Mom and Dad had really wanted a puppy. They were on their way to get a dog and Mom found herself pregnant with me, so they never got the dog because they couldn't afford a dog and a baby. I became a substitute for the dog they never had, and they called me Pooch instead.

"Everyone knew that you were a real disappointment and that Mom and Dad really wanted a dog," Brian exclaimed.

Chapter Two

GRADE 1

It was 1967 and I was lying on the red-and-white linoleum-tiled kitchen floor. It was a hot summer day and the floor was cold. Mom was beside me baking something scrumptious for dessert.

My feet were on the fridge, and I was swaying my body back and forth to feel the coolness of the floor against my back.

Suddenly, Mom was talking to me and telling me that I would soon have to start school. "Won't that be nice?" she said.

"I don't want to go to school!" I cried. "I want to stay here with you."

"No, no, no, there is no choice in the matter, Poochie," Mom said. "You have to go to school."

I would cry and pout whenever she would remind me. I hoped that all my tears would make some sort of a difference in her decision to make me go or not.

The day came when I had to go to school. Mom took me by the hand and walked me 25 steps from the front door of our house to the Nairn Public School, where I began my Grade 1 education.

Mom was holding on to me tightly by the arm because I wanted to run back home and stay there with her forever. I was not happy about having my life change from the way it was.

Papers had to be filled out, pictures had to be taken and immunizations had to be poked into me before they would even let me into a classroom. The process itself made me believe that school was going to be a horrible place that Mom was committing me to. I was going to have to stay there forever.

I wondered why Mom was punishing me. Why was I going to have to go to this place every single day for the rest of my life? Was Mom tired of me?

I thought to myself, Why is she putting me here, and what will she do at home, the whole day, without me? We'll both just be lonely. I will get no time off to play, except when the people at the school say that I can! I couldn't figure out what I did that was so wrong—wrong enough to make Mom want to leave me there all alone.

I was afraid I would become a clone, like all the other boys and girls who entered and left the place each day whenever the bell rang to say it was time to do so.

I cried and cried, and they had to pull my mother from me.

From the public school's Grade 1 window, I could see my house and my mother standing in the kitchen window doing dishes, cooking and baking, all by herself, without me.

Every now and then I would see Mom drive out of the driveway in our car. I would run to the classroom window, disturbed and distressed, and wonder where she was going without me.

If Mom was home when the recess bell rang, I would run home immediately and demand to know where she had been. This kind of behaviour got Mom's panties in a knot, and she had to give me a good talking to a few times.

I was not very happy for that first year, having to watch my mom come and go from our house. My dad started coming home early on occasion too. There was always something going on over there that I was missing out on.

The fact that I had my Grade 1 classroom on the side of the school that faced my house proved to be a real problem for my mother.

Somehow I got through the year, and with the other 30 kids who were in my Grade 1 class, I moved on to Grade 2. I got a new classroom, and it was on the other side of the school.

I forgot about the view of my house from the Grade 1 window. I stopped wondering what I might be missing out on at home.

I was better able to learn and function on the other side of the school. It was much easier to get through the day without the distraction of Mom and our house.

Chapter Three

CHOCOLATE CAKE

One day we had a rummage sale at school. Most families donated things they didn't need or want at home anymore. There was a bake sale too, and all the moms baked and donated homemade goodies. My mom baked and brought stuff over the day before the event while I was in class.

During lunchtime on the day of the sale, my mom popped over and bought a bunch of Harlequin Romance pocketbooks. I was just coming out for recess and saw her, and before she left, she gave me some money to shop at the sale. After school, all the kids would have an opportunity to shop and buy things themselves.

I loved having money and going shopping. I went through the stuff at the rummage sale. It reminded me of when I was at the dump with Dad.

I bought some cookies and a Tupperware cake plate with a cover on it. I was so happy to see that I had just enough money left for it. I thought Mom could use it to store all the cakes and things she baked. It could sit on the counter and make a nice display with all of her handiwork.

Mom baked squares that were the best around, but her cakes were always kind of weird. I never really liked her chocolate cakes. They were always so dry we'd have to cover them with Carnation milk from a can to be able to eat them without choking.

When Brian and Dad and I would eat the chocolate cake, we would just gradually pour milk onto it, a little at a time, when Mom wasn't looking. We wanted to save Mom's feelings from being hurt. We didn't want her thinking that we did not appreciate her hard work.

Eventually, even she admitted her chocolate cakes were a little dry. After that, we'd just mush the cake up with a fork and drown it with milk. Sometimes she would laugh and do the same, and sometimes she did not think it was very funny at all.

I brought the Tupperware cake plate home for Mom. I brought it into the house and kept it hidden behind me. I told her I had a great surprise for her, pulled the plate out from behind me and handed it to her.

She shrugged and looked at the cake plate like it was an old enemy that I never knew about. "I just gave that to the school yesterday for their rummage sale. I don't understand. Why would you go and buy it back?"

I was sad that she didn't like my gift, but I had no idea that it had been ours. I'd never even seen the plate before. I guess Mom never liked it, which was why she never used it.

I suppose it went into the dump after that, for some other treasure hunters to find.

Mom said that she did appreciate my thinking of her, and there was nothing lost and nothing gained from the sale.

Chapter Four

THREE TINY LIVES

"Dad puts all those kittens into a paper bag and holds them against the exhaust pipe of the car," Brian said, trying to make me believe. "It kills them all by suffocating them with the gas fumes. You can hear them screaming and crying. When the kittens are all dead, he flushes them down the toilet." With an evil grin, he continued, "Dad has to get rid of them because they are going to grow up and be a nuisance. Menew will be next."

I sat on the floor looking down into the bloody box that Menew was lying in. Her kittens were gone.

"No ... you're lying," I cried. "Dad doesn't kill them ... he couldn't."

Our cat, Menew, had kittens in the middle of the night in my brother's room, in a cardboard box. I loved Menew, and I was pretty sure Brian did too. Brian often said things just to get my goat. I was sure this was one of those times.

I thought Brian was just being mean because he was tired and grumpy. The cat had kept him awake all night, crying through the birth of her kittens.

When I got up in the morning there were three of them—tiny, wet and sticky with blood, like little mice with kitten faces, crying and nuzzling beside their mom. They were all so adorable. I couldn't wait to get home from school to hold them, snuggle them and maybe wash them. I thought about them all day.

But where were they now? I ran to Dad.

"Brian's lying, right, Daddy? You did not kill the kittens, you couldn't, could you?"

Dad looked at Mom, Mom looked at me, and Dad walked out of the room without answering my question.

"Mom, no, it's not true, right?" I asked.

"Poochie, Brian is just saying that to bug you," she said as she shot Brian an angry look.

"Well, where are they then?" Brian opened his hands out in front of him, tapping his foot and directing his question at Mom.

Mom paused for a long time, looking at Brian like he had two heads or something, and then said, "Your dad and I brought them to the pound to get them adopted."

"You took them to the pound already? I never even got to see them or play with them," I cried.

"Dad and I didn't want Menew getting too attached to them. They had to go. We couldn't keep them all!" Mom explained.

"Couldn't we have kept just one of them?" I cried.

Mom hesitated. "Poochie, it's just the way things are, that's all!

There's one too many cats here with Menew already." Mom didn't like cats, but I didn't believe she would lie to me.

Mom continued stirring the pot of boiling pasta that she was making for dinner. I walked away on that note. My brother was looking at me with a shit-eating grin on his face.

I hate Brian, I thought.

Chapter Five

BITING AND CHEWING

I sat down in the living room on the green shag-carpeted floor in front of the TV. My hands would just seem to rise up all by themselves. They would come up to my mouth, and I would start chewing the dry skin around my fingernails. By the time I'd realize how much I had eaten, my fingers were red and bleeding.

I asked everyone to try to help me stop biting my nails.

My mom bought me this yucky-tasting stuff—Stop and Grow, it was called. Mom would paint it on what was left of my nails, and it would make them taste bitter and awful. Everything that I touched that went into my mouth, including my food, ended up tasting like it too. I just became accustomed to it. I wondered if I should ask Mom for more when it had worn off and my food started tasting good again.

I couldn't stop biting. I'd start with the torn pieces of skin called hangnails. I felt I had to bite them off because the sharp edges would get caught on my clothes, sheets or towels. It hurt me when they got pulled. When I had bitten all the sharp little edges off, I would bite off all of the skin that was not smooth around my nail.

I figured that when all of the jagged skin pieces were gone, my fingers would stop hurting and they would be all smooth again. I suppose sometimes I got carried away.

My fingers would be raw and hurt really bad. It felt as though my skin was pulling away from the ends of my fingers, like the skin on each of my fingers were getting stretched too tightly.

I had everyone in the house remind me if I was biting my nails. But it got really annoying having them all after me and watching me all the time. I felt like I had to go and hide to do it so they wouldn't bug me anymore.

My brother was happy to help, offering to smack me every time he caught me biting. I thought maybe it would be a good way to make me stop, so I took Brian up on it. However, I soon realized he thought it was just a license to hit me. I almost had to find something to bribe him with to make him quit hitting me and pretending he was doing me a favour. Finally Mom told him to leave me alone.

I watched Menew cleaning her fur, licking and biting little things out of it. I figured that whatever was bugging her enough to bite them out of her fur like that must have been a real blessing to get rid of. I just concluded that my hangnails were the same for me.

I would distract myself from biting my nails by picking things—sometimes lint off clothes, little wool balls off my sweaters, little scratches on my skin. But never my nose like the dirty kids in town, and I never ate my scabs either. Yuck.

Chapter Six

FLANNELETTE AND RINGLETS

In the evening after my bath, Mom always had me wear flannelette pyjamas. Sometimes the PJs had feet in them, which I hated because they made me feel claustrophobic and hot.

Mom always had the first bath in the evening, and then I would have mine. We didn't have a lot of water, so I would use her bathwater when she was done. Brenda and Brian would get their own water because they were bigger and dirtier, I guess. Our water came from a well that we shared with the neighbours. We had to try not to use too much at a time, or the well would run dry and the neighbours would complain.

(Continues...

Excerpted from Poochie's Changing Dazeby BEVERLY ANN MARCOUX JOHNSTON Copyright © 2012 by Beverly Ann Marcoux Johnston.. Excerpted by permission of iUniverse, Inc.. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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