Tuesday, February 16, 2021
A Song in My Heart – A Tribute to Auntie Maggie & My Cousins
By Billy Tovell
Along with the songs of a generation, the songs declaring love, peace and protest was also a song of a magical dragon. This was one of my favourite songs of the time. It filled my young consciousness with a magical time.
Now I look at that time and I’m filled with a flood of childhood and happy memories of endless days playing with my cousins Rob, Ron and Doug. Our land of Honah Lee, was the house that my Auntie Maggie and Uncle Dave built. So many recollections of those wonderful times. Auntie Maggie bought us the balsa wooden airplanes that were powered by rubber bands that flew in the bright blue skies. She constructed by hand for us the wooden stockades from popsicle sticks that held our mini plastic cowboys sitting atop their fast running steeds. Wooden hand crafted guns she built that had a spring loaded trigger that shot bark trimmed Caragana bush plugs. These wooden styled guns came with her stern warning about safety and not shooting at each other. The smell of homemade cookies made of oatmeal, raisins, chocolate chips and love was always in the air. The cookie jar on the kitchen counter was never empty even though our tummies were filled up just right with her yummy treats. She taught and encouraged us to play all the board games in the winter that made us forget our thoughts of summer. It was so much fun growing up at Auntie Maggie’s house.
All of sudden the music stopped but the songs continued to play. Before I knew it, the line from the popular folk song was speaking to me "A dragon lives forever but not so little boys”. Coming of age and becoming a teenager gave me new friends and different things to do in the summer heat and during the winter cold.
However, I will never forget my wondrous days as a kid at Auntie Maggie's house and her big and inclusive ❤heart!
