Waterloo (Ottawa): 1984-1987

ongoing grief notes

In May, 1984, Ron and I moved from Toronto to Waterloo and this was the beginning of what I like to think of as our halcyon days. In September, I would be starting my third year at the University of Waterloo’s French Studies Department. Ron was alternating between school and his co-op work. In order to stay in Waterloo for his work terms, he started working at the Civil Engineering Department in the Fatigue Lab. We lived in the Married Student Apartments which were directly across from the University. In Toronto our apartment on Old Dundas was a furnished apartment with a fold-out gold couch. In Waterloo, we also had a furnished apartment with a big green couch reminiscent of the 70s.

In the summer, I got various jobs, starting with factory work. I worked for a while at a circuit board manufacturing company. I thought factory jobs would be higher paying because when I worked at an office supplies factory for two summers in Mississauga during my first two years of university, I made good money at a union shop. The factories that hired me were not union, so the money was poor. Eventually I ended up getting a job on campus, typing in work term reports and essays on a Xerox 860 Word Processor. It had slots for system disk and a data disk, and no hard drive. The screen looked like a piece of paper. It had a touch pad called a “cat” (instead of a mouse). The job went from evening until early in the morning. Ron often accompanied me and slept on the couch while I typed in poorly written essays and failed marketing schemes for “Camp Needmore.” We used to laugh over how terrible these reports were, even making slogans out of some of the repeated cliches.

Ron introduced me to dim sum, which was available at Wah Ming, a great Chinese restaurant across the street from our apartment. It also had dinner specials where two people could eat dinner for $11 (one meat, one vegetable and one rice). We ate there a lot and chatted with the owner, Mabel. I loved the food, especially dim sum

It was at this mall across from our apartment building where I had Indian food for the first time. I loved it. It was like coming home somehow. With Ron I was being introduced to so many fascinating things, especially food. I grew up in a British household. We didn’t even have garlic. We ate roast beef and yorkshire pudding every Sunday.

In Waterloo, Ron and I walked through the park to the grocery store. There was a petting zoo with goats, and for some reason, a bear, which was not a creature we petted.

We withdrew money weekly from a banking machine, and these were new at the time, and put it in an envelope for the week. We had to be careful with our money, but enjoyed a few treats, such as our trips to Cafe Mozart where we had delicious coffee and pastries.

I enjoyed going to school at the University of Waterloo much more than I did at U of T (the University of Terror). The profs were not trying to get rid of students and bell curving marks down. The classes, with the exception of Psychology 101, were small.

Every morning, Ron and I walked over to the Engineering C & D (coffee and donut) stand and had breakfast. There was a big fried Polish dumpling filled with meat, that was delicious and cheap. We did ok financially. In 4th year I had a job as a correspondence marker in the French Department. Not having to move back and forth between Toronto and Waterloo helped our finances a lot.

I joined the French club. There was an Earth Ball tournament one year. I suggested to Ron that it would be fun if we took part. We made up a team from the French club and his engineering class. It was crazy. The other teams were into tackling and were rough. I think I tried to distract them by tickling the players. We lost, but had a ridiculous amount of fun.

One of the students in Ron’s class got married and invited us to the wedding. The priest was a jerk who made misogynistic jokes. At the reception, we drank a lot of champagne and danced. It was a lot of silly and lighthearted fun.

In 4th year, Ron’s class was in its own study room, where there were pinball and video games. The class did the cryptic crossword puzzle in that room as well. At one point, there was a potluck dinner there. Ron thought we should take our electric frying pan and make won tons on the spot. It seemed like a very impractical idea to me, and I was worried about the hot oil, but it worked out well. The won tons were delicious and popular. Ron always had ideas that went against the status quo.

At the end of our bachelors degrees, we moved to Ottawa to try it out, to see if that’s where we wanted to live and work. If we liked it, I would apply to do my translation degree at the University of Ottawa, after we both completed one-year masters degrees at the University of Waterloo, and Ron would try to get work. He got a workterm at Bell Northern Research. We lived in a small apartment on Navaho Drive near Baseline. It wasn’t a good experience in many ways. Ron didn’t enjoy being a BNR cog, as he put it. I tried to find work and did some temping. The apartment was in a location not close to anything and taking the bus was a pain. We missed Waterloo. At one point, someone climbed over our balcony railing from the next apartment. This was when my parents were visiting, so that made a great impression. While we didn’t like the building or the work we were doing, we still thought Ottawa was a lovely city, and planned to move there after our masters.

In August 1986, we got married in a civil ceremony in the Bramalea Courthouse. We had to line up behind people paying their parking tickets. Once we were in the judge’s quarters, everything became less bureaucratic and impersonal seeming and more ritualistic and beautiful, surprisingly. It was a lovely wedding. Both our families were there.

For our honeymoon we camped at Grand Bend at the Pinery. My parents loaned us all their camping equipment. The first night was great fun as we built a fire, ate our wedding cake and drank champagne. Then it got really cold, and we decided to go to a hotel on the main street. We admired the black lacquer polished furniture. The room was above a bar, so it was quite loud. We spent a lot of time playing old style pinball games. It was one of my best memories of our time together.

We went back to Waterloo to do our masters in one year. It was a lot of work for both of us, but Ron had taken some graduate courses in 4th year so was able to make good head way. We had a few friends there too, and I became very interested in my studies, finally enjoying university.

We hung out at the Grad Club, playing darts, drinking pitchers of beer that cost only $5 and eating chips with hot sauce on them. Life was pretty easy and peaceful. We both had jobs as teaching assistants and Ron had a scholarship.

At the end of our masters degrees, we rented a U-haul truck and moved to Ottawa where we would live from 1987 until now. I will continue to share the history of my time with Ron. It’s helping me. If you are grieving and would like to share stories about your loved one, please reach out.