For the love of cursive

Written by Ted Barris on December 12th, 2024December 15th, 2024. Leave a comment

Sergeant medic Alex Barris in Czechoslovakia, 1945.

It was April 1945. The Second World War was just days from ending in Europe. My father’s medical battalion had received a few days’ leave in the then Allied-occupied German city of Düsseldorf.

There, Alex and his comrades enjoyed hot meals, hot showers, and billets with beds and clean sheets. Somewhere in the chaos, somehow in the uncertainty, my father found a place and some time to sit down and compose a letter.

“Dear Koula,” he wrote to a pen pal in New York City. “We have known each other so long, yet I never saw you very often after I finished school.”

Koula Kontozoglus, a pen pal worth writing to,

The words spoke to me deeply because Dad was expressing emotion in a war zone that allowed little room for feelings. He was admitting frailty – delinquency for not writing often enough. And his words flowed because they were written cursively. (more…)

Escape to the cottage? Yes and no.

Written by Ted Barris on July 18th, 2024July 27th, 2024. Leave a comment

A rustic cottage – thin walls, stove, up on stilts, fish flies on the screens.

They’ve been packing up for weeks. RVs all loaded. Trailers full of motorboats, Sea-doos, kayaks, flotation devices and other water paraphernalia. Oh, and they’ve got plenty of camping gear too, with food coolers and bug repellent crammed into every nook and cranny of their cars and trucks.

I asked one of my neighbours, heading out of town, how long he’d been getting ready for this summer’s great escape to the cottage.

“Since we got home from the cottage last year,” he said.

Recently, I’ve been thinking about all my friends dashing off to cottages each summer. (more…)

An international day for aunts too

Written by Ted Barris on March 4th, 2021March 4th, 2021. Leave a comment

Mary Kontozoglus with her grandchildren, Christmas 2020.

The family had gathered from all over the continent. Some from Maryland. Others from New York and Florida. We had travelled from Toronto to Allentown, Pennsylvania, where my mother’s “baby brother” George was getting married to his fiancée Mary. But I had a problem.

“The battery in my camera’s dead,” I moaned. “And I want to take pictures of the wedding tomorrow.”

Since we were all foreigners to Allentown, except Mary, my future aunt, none of us knew where to buy replacement batteries except for her.

“I can help,” Mary said. Remember, this is the eve of her wedding to the family’s favourite uncle. So, no doubt, she had a million things on her mind. (more…)

Worrying is worrying our kids sick

Written by Ted Barris on April 26th, 2018April 30th, 2018. Leave a comment

The topic came up rather suddenly. My son-in-law had dropped by to pick up his children. He sat on the step. We got caught up on the day. Then, he explained that he had been talking to his eldest daughter – that she was getting to the right age – about walking home from school with a friend rather than being picked up every day by her dad or her grandparents.

“We want to help give her a sense of independence,” he said. (more…)

One man’s gift to his family

Written by Ted Barris on July 25th, 2017August 7th, 2017. 2 Comments

I close my eyes and all of it comes back to me. Richard Nixon had just won the U.S. Presidency, for a second term. The family gathered – either later that fall of 1972, or the following summer – from Toronto, from Maryland, New Jersey and Florida. Then, usually after the first meal together, dessert was finished, a few drinks consumed, and it was time to talk. It wouldn’t take long before current events, politics and Nixon became the focus. Within minutes there was a storm brewing.

“How could he possibly get re-elected?” my father would say.

“He’s good for business,” a couple of my American relatives would say. “He’s gonna end the war in Vietnam.”

“He’s a crook!” my father would say, looking for a verbal fight.

“He’s our president,” came the retort.

And, well, it escalated from there. (more…)

Home for Christmas

Written by Ted Barris on December 16th, 2015December 16th, 2015. 1 Comment

I walked up the front walk in the darkness of the early evening. I quietly put my luggage down on the front step of my parents’ Los Angeles home and knocked on the door. This was a plan my dad and I had hatched weeks before. It was finally coming to pass. He knew I had flown in from Toronto. My mother didn’t know. And this night – just before Dec. 25 – my mom opened the front door. I was the last person she expected.

“What are you doing here?” she shrieked.

“It’s a surprise Dad and I’ve been working on for weeks,” I said, as I hugged her for the first time since the summer. “I just wanted to be home for Christmas.” (more…)

Of guns and goodness

Written by Ted Barris on December 8th, 2015December 8th, 2015. Leave a comment

A few weeks ago, I found myself in a line of American travellers moving through an airport security area. We were all rushing to get to a flight bound for New York City. We had all removed our coats, belts and shoes, and were waiting to be cleared to the gate. That’s when a fellow passenger struck up a conversation with me.

“Going home?” a guy asked.

“No,” I said. “Home’s in Canada.”

“Kind of the same,” he smiled. “Except you Canadians all say, ‘aboot.’”

I buttoned my lip, preferring to leave well enough alone. Fortunately, I didn’t end up sitting next to him on the plane, so I didn’t have to endure any more of his mistaken perceptions about the similarities between Americans and Canadians. (more…)

Tipping point

Written by Ted Barris on December 3rd, 2015December 5th, 2015. Leave a comment

A Friday or two ago, after my wife and I had each endured a long, tough week, the two of us decided we needed a break. We chose not to eat in, but to treat ourselves. We dropped by the Hobby Horse, a local pub in Uxbridge, to enjoy a favourite beverage and meal and some relaxing down time. Of course, part of the experience of treating ourselves included enjoying one of the best servers in town – B.J. Byers.

“Hey, how are two of my favourite regulars?” B.J. said as we walked in.

“Great… now,” I responded. (more…)

We are all Syrians

Written by Ted Barris on September 9th, 2015September 9th, 2015. Leave a comment

Greek Line S.S. Olympia — Greek Line T.S.S. Olympia in service from 1953 to 1974.

My sister and I made it our business to arrive in the theatre aboard the ship before most other passengers. We loved the idea – especially on rainy days during our Atlantic crossing – of getting the best seats from which to watch the Hollywood movie screened that afternoon, a new one every day.

But this day, when we got to the theatre, most seats were filled with other passengers. The Greek Line ship on which we were sailing – the Olympia, bound from Athens to New York City in the summer of 1964 – had recently stopped at Naples. A large number of Italian passengers – we sensed they were immigrants – had come aboard. Anyway, when my sister and I entered the theatre this day the woman in charge of ship orientation was scolding some noisy children among the immigrant passengers.

“Be quiet!” she scolded with a thick Greek accent. “If you do not behave, I will throw you away!” (more…)

Stitch in time…

Written by Ted Barris on February 19th, 2013February 20th, 2013. Leave a comment

ALEX_HONDISCHARGE_SEWING_E — My father was born in 1922, raised in New York City, N.Y. and (as his U.S. Army Honorable Discharge paper said) was last employed before entering the army as a “sewing machine operator.”

I saw my mother do it. I saw my grandmother do it even more. It wasn’t something my grandfather ever did. And I never saw my father do it. Although, after he died in 2004, we did find some of my father’s military papers from the Second World War when he served a sergeant in the army medical corps. And those papers suggested he knew how to do it. On his Honorable Discharge papers when he left the U.S. Army in December 1945, his attestation revealed that he had done it.

“Civilian occupation,” the discharge papers revealed, “Sewing machine operator.” (more…)

Ted Barris

author | journalist

Posts with the New York City tag