Debts and Dads

As spring of 1967 rolled around we were swimming in debt. In addition to consumer loans for the furnishings, piano and TV we had credit cards from Eatons and The Bay (2 major dept store chains) that were usually maxed out. The income from mom's advertising job at the paper wasn't nearly enough to cover it all so mom was routinely hitting Vesti up for money (using a variety of sob stories).

Now - mere truth was never dramatic enough for mom. I remember one of the many times we were behind on our phone bill. We had just gotten a check from Vesti but it was going to take a few weeks to clear... Mom was about to call the phone company to buy some time and asked Karina and I for suggestions on what to tell them. Now - being the simple minded type I contributed this gem: "We've gotten a foreign check and it will take a few weeks to clear"... Yeah - there was no way mom was going to tell them that ridiculous story ... Instead, she ended up claiming that a wealthy relative had passed away and we were just a few weeks away from receiving a sizable distribution on our inheritance. That was so much more believable :-)

Here's a picture mom had taken back in Winnipeg. I think this is the one she sent out with her resumé:

Gee, do you reckon she was posing? (And where's the cigarette??)

Imagine my surprise when I started hanging out with Peter Paolucci and discovered that his family never borrowed money for anything. They had just saved up enough to pay cash for their first house. I was stunned... I remember going with Peter and his Dad (and brothers?) to buy a new washing machine. Turns out there was an old warehouse north of Portage near downtown where they sold "freight damaged" goods. I'd never heard of such a thing. We had always bought brand name stuff for retail - on credit of course :-)
I always enjoyed spending time with the Paoluccis. It was a refreshing bit of normalcy in my otherwise chaotic existence. Of course, as early psychiatrist Alfred Adler observed "The only normal people are the ones you don't know very well". I found out years later that Peter's family had its own interesting little quirks. But that's his life story, not mine :-) Regardless - I very much enjoyed being around his parents (and according to Peter it was mutual).

Now - I haven't mentioned my dad for a while. That's because we were telling everyone he had died :-) But eventually we did make contact again (mostly to ask for money).

As it turned out, around the time we were leaving Germany dad met the future Mrs. Galambos at a party in Paris. Here's the story (I just found this out very recently):
Dad had an old war buddy who ended up moving to Eugene where he met and married a young French woman studying at the University of Oregon. The marriage didn't last long and the woman went back to France and married a Swedish businessman who had a couple of daughters. The future Mrs. Galambos (Ragnhild) was the younger of the daughters - I think she was 19 or 20 when dad first met her. So dad's 2nd wife was the stepdaughter of his oldest friend's ex-wife...

Of course, dad was still married to mom - but that story is yet to come...