Sundays at CCIW

Oliver and I have come to the office this Sunday morning to get out of Catherine’s hair while she puts down a couple of dozen cobs of corn for the winter. We stopped at Timothy’s on our way in for a bagel with swiss and tomato, a cup of tea and a glass of orange juice. And as I type Oliver is out front in the lounge playing with the mysterious Lego that appeared there this spring. And I am blogging, at least for this minute.

And suddenly I’m flooded with memories of CCIW, where my Dad worked for more than 30 years, and visits there with him on Sundays. I remember signing in with the Commissionaire at the front desk, the “sciencey” smell of the place, getting to draw with pencils and pens on reams of old line printer paper (with lines and lines of discarded sedimentological data on the other side), and taking a walk down to the hydraulics lab to see the giant water tanks.

And, if the moon was in the right place, getting to stop at Tim Horton Donuts on the way home for a Dutchie.

Comments

Cyn's picture
Cyn on September 11, 2005 - 16:55 Permalink

What was it about going to work with Dad? I never once felt like Mom was relieved to see us go, but now I know she must have thought she had died and gone to heaven (even if she was home sewing).

I remember opening the door to the store (King Sports in Moncton) and running to the secretary’s desk and fighting over the typewriter with my brother. I could spend hours typing and using whiteout. And how I loved watching the Telex machine. (I think my fixation with office supplies began here.)

Ahhhh…and the smells! Leather goalie pads, rubber basketballs, boxes and boxes of boots and sneakers, wool curling sweaters, wooden badminton racquets…they don’t make smells like they used to.