Gus Now and Then and Sparky: Chapter Nine

I took this picture of Gus, our pet xylaria polymorpha this morning:

I took this picture in 2012:

It's true. Things just aren't what they used to be.

Sparky's Funtime Summertime Murder Mystery
Chapter Nine 

Sparky here. This is Chapter Nine of my story about how Gerry Ringbold met his untimely end. The story starts here.

I think we were all surprised - me, my beleaguered foster parents, my guilt-ridden and grieving aunt and uncle. None of us could have guessed how well I would take to retail.

2005 was the worst year of my life. I had all these people looking out for me and they all saw me going in the same direction. Straight down. 

What brought about my transformation was not a stroke of genius or even a last desperate attempt. Just one day my foster dad said I needed to come with him to the small electronics and appliance store he and my foster mom ran. They had been focused on keeping me at school and making new friends, so they had never got me involved in the store. But that day he needed me to go, so I went.

He showed me the files of product information he kept to help him make snappy sales pitches. They needed to be sorted and filed. After about an hour of him futzing around in the front of the store and me going over the documents in the back, I said, "You know, I could sell this stuff."

So began my brilliant career in retail. I stopped being the poor little thing who had lost her whole family in the Boxing Day Tsunami. I became the poised young woman who could tell anyone everything they needed to know about Samsung and Bissell ... and who could sell anything to anyone. 

I know it sounds kind of stupid, but helping consumers make informed decisions about vacuum cleaners and portable sound systems gave me a foothold. And it raised me some serious cash. 

I worked in the store after school and on weekends. After I finished high school, I worked for another year - after I had reached the age of majority and was no longer in need of foster parents - to earn my own living and save for university.

My money situation for all my retail success was still a bit precarious. My parents had planned on living to collect their pensions. The house was mortgaged to the max and they had a lot of credit card debt. My aunt was the executrix of my parents' estate and, after all the debts were paid, she put the left over money into a trust for me that I could have when I turned 18.

It wasn't a lot.  

So long as my former foster parents had their shop, I had a place to work. But, they sold the business in 2012, just when I'd finished J-school. All those people who had been looking out for me were still looking out for me. They made some calls and helped me get an interview for a summer job for 2013 as a washroom attendant at the Thompson Gardens.

The pay wasn't going to be as good as working on commission, but I was ready for a change.

I was a journalist after all, and my first big story was going to be about something ... I just didn't know what until that cop walked into the lady's washroom.

You can read Chapter Ten here.

Marauding Innocents and Sparky: Chapter Eight

I was getting ready to go to work on Monday morning when Bruce called me and said I should look in the back yard. I did. And I saw first one, and then two and then three raccoons, all young, all bumbling in my garden, all on their own. I turned the hose on them to not much effect (not enough water pressure) and then one of my neighbours came along with his little terrier. The dog encouraged them up the tree in the yard next door.

These young scallawags are the cause of all the damage in our yard. But here's the thing. They're too young to be out without adult supervision. They don't know what they can eat. They don't know how to stay out of trouble. Something must have happened to their mother.

On Tuesday, we saw that one of them had been hit by a car and killed on Gerrard Street.

Poor little guy.

Sparky's Funtime Summertime Murder Mystery
Chapter Eight 

Sparky here. This is Chapter Eight of my story about how Gerry Ringbold met his untimely end. The story starts here.

Now that I've introduced you to Pea and Gerry, it’s time I told the tragic tale of how it came to be that I of all people landed this cushy summer job, getting paid $24 an hour to sit on my ass and watch people come in and out of the lady’s washroom at the Thompson Gardens.

Right up to the very moment when everything changed forever, I had a pretty normal life. I had two siblings. My brother was the eldest and my sister was the middle child. Mom and dad were both teachers. My childhood was an endless reel of fun family summers and trips for the Christmas holidays.

When I was sixteen years old, I roller skated my way to three broken ankle bones two days before we were scheduled to leave for what was going to be the best Christmas trip of our lives. It was 2004. We were going to Thailand.

The doctor said there was no way on earth I could travel. The pain I was in persuaded my parents that he was probably right. So, my folks arranged for me to stay with my mom’s sister, who lived in the east end of town. My aunt had always been a big part of my life, so, as disappointed as I was that I had to stay behind, it was OK to spend Christmas with her, my uncle and my cousins.

My mom had set up a Hotmail account. Just before she and the rest of my immediate family left for the airport, she promised me she would send a message from the hotel every day.

Her last e-mail came the day after Christmas. At 10:07 a.m. Thailand time, she wrote me and said everyone was going to take a quick dip in the pool and then head out on the water for some recreational boating.

The tsunami came a half hour later.

My family was staying at the Phi Phi Island Cabana resort. They were among the 96 people who died there that day. The wave cracked the pool in two.

Thailand’s almost half a day ahead. My aunt heard the news reports before I looked at my e-mail and for a few moments we both thought the e-mail meant my family was OK. Then we realized our mistake.

My aunt and uncle went into full crisis mode, phoning embassies and consulates, ministries and relief agencies. They wouldn’t let me watch the news. My cousins were not allowed to have friends over. We all shut down and waited.

Six days into the dark and terrible condition of not knowing anything, the phone rang. I heard my aunt’s voice, and then she came into the room I was sharing with my youngest cousin.

She didn’t have to tell me anything. And when she tried to speak she couldn’t. My uncle came in, saw us locked in our shared stunned silence and put his arms around us both. I remember the scratchy wool of his sweater sleeves and the softness of my aunt’s cheek against my forehead. We all cried. We were a three-part meat statue of misery.

I don’t remember the next six months well.

By the time I started being able to put memories together again sometime in mid 2005, I was officially orphaned, my aunt was my guardian, I had somehow managed to complete my school year and I was being put into a foster home. My aunt and uncle had given it their best try, but they didn’t have room in their house for a sixteen-year-old rage machine. Consultations with a child psychiatrist and ministrations from Children’s Aid led them to the conclusion that I was probably best off in a place where I wasn’t constantly reminded of my loss but supported so that I could take the shattered remnants of my life and start again.

My foster parents specialized in tough cases like me. They were members of an extended and devout religious community. These kind-hearted souls were going to get me back on my feet if it was the last thing they did. And, for the second half of 2005, I think I gave them every reason to believe that Hurricane Sparky would be their final project.

You can read Chapter Nine here.

Arms Up! and Sparky: Chapter Seven

Readers know I enjoy the visual arts, both establishment and guerrilla. Here are two examples, showing a mix of both schools, found just south of Carlton Street and across Church Street from one another. 

The bottom one - which I call "The Drag Queen Did It" - commemorates the bath house raids in the early 80's in Toronto. The one on top is the artist's view from a rain puddle of a helmeted woman throwing her umbrella at an unseen assailant who has just stolen her pants. 

Sparky's Funtime Summertime Murder Mystery
Chapter Seven 

Sparky here. This is Chapter Seven of my story about how Gerry Ringbold met his untimely end. The story starts here.

The ink on the final judgment throwing Gerry's frivolous lawsuit out of court had barely dried when Gerry put his name forward for election as a city councillor. Municipal politics is just the place for a guy like Gerry. Ringbold's was the only recognizable name on the ballot in a ward where 17% of eligible voters showed up at the polls. He began his career as a city councillor with a jaw dropping 764 votes.

Ringbold wasn't representing his clients anymore, but he was still at war with Pea. From his seat on council he fought everything that had anything to do with the Peony MacDonald Chester Foundation for the Public Enjoyment of the Thompson Gardens. When council had to consider the nominations of members of the Foundation board, Bob Harrison - the reporter who followed Ringbold like a stalker - quoted Ringbold verbatim in the news: “Taxpayers throughout this great city should shudder at the waste, the excess, and the needless appointment of these parasites to this useless board.”

When the parks department submitted a joint report to council proposing a long term management plan for the trees in the gardens, Gerry said: "Ice storms and wind storms turn trees into instruments of destruction. Cut them down and save the taxpayer the costs that are guaranteed to come from these trees." 

You might be able to guess what Gerry had to say about the children's playground.

Some people ate this stuff up. There were letters to the editor, tweets, some guy even had a "Stuff Gerry Says" blog for a while, all rooting for Ringbold as the champion of the little guy. 

Gerry's fans got a special treat when their gladiator took up the battle over the public washrooms. Pea insisted in the conditions of the endowment that proper washrooms be made available 24/7 in the park. All that needed to happen was for someone to find a spot to put them.

This time, Ringbold wasn't alone. If you read all the deputations made to the parks committee you would think that there was not a single square inch of the park that was not sacred, historic or endangered in some way and no building, least of all a public washroom, could possibly be built there. 

Lots of people warned that public washrooms would lure the homeless and other undesirable elements to a location already too heavily populated with the scum of the earth. 

Here’s an excerpt from Ringbold's contribution to the debate, his speech before the committee when deputations had already been heard for more than eight hours:

“The despotic heirs of the MacDonald Chester estate have conspired to bring a blight upon the face of this fair city. They will not rest, with the creation of this foundation and the evil that it stands for, until every vermin on two legs has found a nesting space in the Thompson Gardens. People who should be in jail; people who should be forcibly put to work, will find comfort and accommodation in the corrupt, vile, rotten vision of the future as imagined by the MacDonald Chester consortium.”

This speech went on for almost an hour. 

Gerry never won any of these battles, by the way. His poor grasp of the facts -- made obvious in the battle for the will -- always came back to bite him on the ass. For example, his constant harping about taxpayer's dollars was just dumb. No taxpayer money was ever involved in any of the Thompson Garden projects brought to council. The park was still public property, so the Foundation had to share its plans with council, but the city never paid for any of them. It’s a testament to the appeal of performance artists like Ringbold that his ardent fans were as unconcerned about the facts as he was.

True to form, Gerry was the only combatant who was completely ignored in the battle of the washroom. Just about everybody else got their wish. For the environmentalists, the Foundation agreed to build the washrooms to something called LEED Platinum standards. For the historians, archeologists swooped into the first cut holes to check for artifacts. Hydrogeologists inspected for ground water. Entomologists from universities and the local museum peered at ants, sow bugs, spiders, worms, wasps, bees, earwigs and millipedes in case there was something undiscovered that might be lost forever with the laid foundation of the washroom. 

The facade from the crappy old asbestos-ridden former public washroom - unusable because of the asbestos and the fact that it was not wheelchair accessible - was lovingly preserved as a "rare example of late nineteenth century public architecture" as the rest of the building was demolished.

You can imagine how much time all this took. Between Gerry's tactics at council - where he never stopped anything but delayed just about everything - and the painstaking attention to every conceivable detail by the Foundation, building the public washroom took almost five years.

The last concession made to the dozens of deputations to come into play was that there would be attendants in the washroom 24/7. 

And this is about where I came in. I started my first summer on the job just after construction was complete and after about a hundred and fifty people, including a fat, puffy and obviously enraged Gerry Ringbold, witnessed the opening ceremonies to the beautifully restored Thompson Gardens.

You can read Chapter Eight here.

Roo's Busy Morning and Sparky: Chapter Six

Friday morning, from the prospect of my dining room, I was looking out the window assessing what further damage had been done to what I call my garden and the squirrels call their salad bar. 

I could see my neighbour Grant's three cats in the courtyard. Chester (or Pester) was lurking under a bush; Tigger, an amply proportioned orange male fraidy cat was ambling on the path in front of the back row of townhouses and Roo, a pretty, slim, grey tabby female was sitting on the step in front of Grant's door, which was open.  

I saw some movement on the path. It was a raccoon! I wondered how the cats would react and called Bruce so he could watch too. I explained the situation to him as he came into the dining room but I had lost sight of the raccoon by then. Bruce found him.

“He’s going through Grant’s door.”

“Omigod!” I said, “I better call Grant.”

Roo was already on the job. Chester stayed resolutely under his bush and Tigger had fled for all I could tell, but Roo engaged the raccoon and it was quite a fight. I was worried that Roo might have taken on more than she could handle. I called Grant. The phone rang once and he answered. “There’s a raccoon in your house!” I said.

Grant had been in his kitchen, right by the door, so he was instantly there with the phone in his hand to watch as Roo chased the raccoon down the path and off the north edge of the property.

You go girl.

Sparky's Funtime Summertime Murder Mystery
Chapter Six 

Sparky here. This is Chapter Six of my story about how Gerry Ringbold met his untimely end. The story starts here.

Before the court case about Pea's will, there were no media mentions of Gerry Ringbold anywhere. And then, suddenly, he was everywhere.

In the early days of the battle, Ringbold was a fresh-faced, skinny lawyer, recently called to the bar. He was representing two second cousins who had not been remembered in the will. 

The pictures printed along with the stories show an incredible transformation. Ringbold started skinny, but had a bulge over his belt before the first year passed. His head grew fat faster than his middle and by two years into the court battle, he looked like a half-inflated parade balloon. Close to the end of the case, he looked fully inflated, red-faced, with a neck like a bowling ball and almost egg-bald.   

Ringbold kept up a steady barrage of statements for the media while he fought for the two cousins. In 2002 when he filed his clients' papers with the court he said, “My clients are concerned about untoward influence on a vulnerable victim.” A month later, when lawyers for Pea’s estate asked to dismiss the case because it was stupid (not their exact words, but the meaning was there), Ringbold, with what looked like tears in his eyes, said his clients “were hurt by this callous treatment by their family.”

In October 2003 when he asked the court to make a decision about evidence he claimed the other side was withholding, he said, “The records show a pattern of interference, even a malignant intention. Mark my words, there is a dark underbelly here and my clients will fight to bring it into the plain sight of the law.” 

In February 2004, when the court ruled that Ringbold's request in October the previous year really was stupid: “My clients have proven that there was a clear family conspiracy to direct the hand of a woman who had lost any personal capacity to made decisions of her own. With malice, with foresight, with cunning and skill these people have usurped the mind of their hapless victim and brought justice to its knees.” 

In June 2006 after a judge finally threw the case out of court: “Today’s decision is a travesty and proof that the court system is corrupt beyond all imagining, that no one is safe from the machinations of fraud artists and everyone should fear that their true intentions will not live after they have died. My clients will appeal this grotesque miscarriage of justice.”

The battle over Pea's will provides proof, in case anyone needs it, that you can keep anything alive in the courts if you have enough money. His clients' money was all Ringbold had apparently, because, over and over again, in response to his raving allegations, Pea’s lawyers said one thing: “the impugned statement is not in the will.”

By the way, even if the phrase had been in the will, it couldn't be used as evidence that someone was forcing Pea to do something against her will or that Pea wasn't mentally sharp. One motions court judge put it this way: "expressing compassion for those struggling with addiction is more sane than is this application."

The statement that kept Gerry Ringbold busy for five years was actually in the trust documents that Pea set up on her 60th birthday. That’s where it says, basically, that the city will get the money so long as it continues to allow free access to everyone to the park. 

In the end, Ringbold's clients did not appeal. They had got nothing for their trouble except a court order to pay a large chunk of the legal fees of Pea’s estate.

I suppose you have to admire someone who manages, as Ringbold did, to dig in and fight for five years, sacrificing youth, ethics and conscience for the sake of a couple of million dollars – which was all the cousins wanted. 

As for the cousins, when I searched their names I found one of them had actually died before the court case was finished. The two second cousins – they were twins – were in their 80's and lived in assisted living facilities in upstate New York when the court case started. The surviving cousin is still there, vastly old, as I write this. I wondered how Ringbold came to represent them.

You can read Chapter Seven here.