dbd33

Made a reasonable job of it. Probably wouldn’t do it again.

By the numbers, some approximated:

40 - years resident
36 - years of citizenship
4 wives - Swiss, Newfie, American, Irish (no more than 2 concurrently)
3 children - two grew up and emigrated, one’s in Vancouver, all have the same mother
3 grandchildren - all in Vancouver, francophone, all have the same parents
1 - child, completely handicapped, non-verbal, aged out of government support in Canada, moved on
4 - cars, two convertibles
3 - horses
2 - dogs
2 - cats
10 - chickens
48 - States worked in
2 - employers in Canada, last one in 1985
1 - firings in Canada. Oddly, from the first employer, not the second
A few - Regrets

Lesson learned: the key to affluence is domestic stability

BristolUK

Wow, I didn't know it had been that long

Siouxie

Wow! You must have been a spring chicken when you moved across!
Congrats on 40 years of being an ex-pat (some in the US?)

dbd33

I hadn't been born when I emigrated!

Always tax resident in Canada. There were a string of years when I wasn't OHIP resident but that was just due to volume of work outside the country.

scilly

Congratulations on 40 years here!

dbd33

Thank you. I view it as an achievement, of sorts.

not2old

on the OP @dbd33 congratulations

^^^ what does this mean?

dbd33

It is a joke.

Siouxie commented, kindly, "You must have been a spring chicken when you moved across" suggesting that, in order to be the youthful, vibrant, figure that I am now and to have been here for forty years, I couldn't have been very old when I moved.

Milking that, I suggested, in jest, that in fact I emigrated before being born. If I emigrated at a negative age the I could have been here for forty years and still be in prime of life. It's a joke because one cannot actually emigrate, or do very much at all, before being born and because "youthful and vibrant" is a very generous interpretation of the state of me.

not2old

" a joke", I was slow off the mark, its early.

on the timeline/age thing (connecting the dots) I was wondering if that was why you were fired from your first job.

BTW, how old are you?

dbd33

I was fired from my first job, 14 weeks in the country, aged 24, flat broke, pregnant wife. difficult circumstances, for, allegedly, parking on the grass.

I was working in one of those light industrial estates, Sheriden Park, where the buildings are widely spaced with grass between them. The radiator in my car (73 Olds 98 Regency Brougham, green like an avocado bath tub) was leaking. I’d run the car up to the kitchen window and someone inside was passing me buckets of water to fill it up. A man in a suit walked up and commented that I was parked on the grass. I explained the circumstances and he cited the page in the employee manual prohibiting parking on the grass. I again attempted to explain and, at some point in the conversation asked “who the **** are you then, the superintendent of grass?”. He was not the superintendent of grass but something very pompous and that was the end of me.



A colleague set me up with an interview at the CIBC somewhere near Union Station. It was one of those set ups where the candidate sits on a tall stool and the panel glares from the dark. I was suitably intimidated and concerned about explaining the firing. The lead interview opened with “Mr. Dbd. This is a downtown location, there is no grass here”. For that, I wanted their job but, in the end, I went where the money was.

ann m

Many congrats, this is remarkable achievement of numbers, lives and wives. May your next 40 be rewarding. 😁

BEVS

No ducks ? What sort of dbd33 are you.
40 years could have seen you with your ducklings , ducklings ducklings.

Congrats and commiserations all at the same time.

Your vintage is exceptional . May it continue to age well , bring much warmth and enjoyment and never ever pong.

dbd33

Thank you but I fear another 40 wives is an unreasonably ambitious target.

dbd33

Ah. Last century, when chatrooms took off, I joined the Guardian talkboard using my name. Two posts in I realized that my actual political positions, particularly a willingness to deal with foreigners, were incompatible with the workplace ethos in Toronto. I needed a pseudonym. At the time I was arguing on the phone with the mother of my children saying I would not pay for the opinion of a second aromatherapist, the first one not having fixed the autism, A child looked up at me and said "you're such a deadbeat Dad". The address dbd at hotmail was taken so I kept going until I found a free one, dbd33.

I never much cared for ducks. Chickens create as much shit but offer better eggs.

scrubbedexpat091

Impressive to only have 2 employers in that time frame..

Anyhow congrats.

40 years ago, I was 2.