Who the heck is Suzi May Blackfly?

I grew up in a very tiny closed Northern Ontario community "Abibiti Canyon" whose people served Johnny Hydro (aka Ontario Hydro). It was a horse-shoe shaped town which, at the time I lived there, comprised approximately 100 families and a few single men housed in the staff house. Thanks to the muddy brown Abitibi River coursing through the dam, our product was electricity. Our role? Feed that electricity to Ontario, and anyone else willing to buy it, e.g., the States.

Before a road was built connecting us to the real world, we were connected by rail -- a spur line at Fraserdale abutting the main line of the Ontario Northland Railway, also known as the (misleading) Polar Bear Express, that connected Cochrane to Moosonee on the shores of James Bay. In other words, we were smack-dab in the middle of northern scrub bush, on top of our portion of the pre-Cambrian Shield. Yup, we're as Canadian as moose.

My dad was an operator at the dam; my mom a stay-at-home, keep-it-all-together-at-any-cost woman supporting her man and her family. My family were 6 other siblings, 3 boys, 3 girls and a numerous assortment of animals, domestic and/or wild depending on my brothers' adventures: dogs, cats, crows, flying squirrels, snakes, crayfish and even, yes, even a baby bear. But that's a story for another time.

I was only 4 or 5 and there was no kindergarten at that time, so I occupied myself then as children do, outside the kitchen door, in a sandbox where mom could keep an eye on me. My biggest problem in life was thinking up a response to Mr. Vern Riddell who sauntered by me daily, swinging his lunchpail, greeting me with a big smile and a "How are ya today, Suzi May Blackfly?" It drove me nuts. First of all, my name is not Suzi May Blackfly, and second, I didn't have the ingenuity or vocabulary to give him the verbal blast I so ardently wished. I was a very frustrated kid. At that age, you're pretty much limited to calling someone a boogey-man or some such inadequate insult that certainly didn't do justice to what Mr. Riddell was calling me!

In hindsight, I view little old Suzi May Blackfly with great affection. She's a little piece of the "Canyon" who still occupies my being. I think of her and I think of the Wade Hemsworth's Black Fly song which Miss Glendinning taught us in public school. I think of the black fly hats mom made me wear which consisted of making two knots in either corner of dad's handkerchief, slipping it on my head and tying the other two ends under my chin. The blackflies made a feast of any exposed skin!

I'm still gullible, easily non-plussed and never have the right vocabulary at hand when I most need it. Hence the change to my blog name...I'm reverting to type. Or maybe it's simply regression.