Victor Calvin Barr Part 1

Calgary, Alberta, Canada is a city nestled in the foothills of the Canadian Rockies. I lived the better part of thirty-six years in the city by the Bow. I still love Calgary and it will forever own a piece of my heart. It was home sweet home.

Until I escaped.

Nineteen-seventy was an epic year – I was born! So I think that was a pretty epic year in the life of Victor Calvin Barr. The average cost of a new house was $23,450.00, the average income was $9,400.00 per year and a gallon of gas cost 36 cents. Numbers always are a part of our world, even to this day.

Too bad I hate math.

April 3rd. was a day that was both a good day and a very bad one. My mother Louise and father Don never even got to say hello to me.

Or goodbye

I had the vast fortune to be adopted by Blair and Mary-Ann Barr. They had struggled for years trying to have children of their own. They decided to adopt a girl they named Gail. Then to my fortune, they chose me.

One of my earliest memories of being a small child is being handed off to my Opa and Oma when we were in the Netherlands. My parents went to Norway by train and we stayed in Holland. I was two – I have a glimpse of a memory of the time.

On the whole, I know I had a really great childhood, yet strangely my memories are not all roses and sunshine.

Most of my memories as a small child are not happy ones. I remember my friend’s brother crushed my favourite car with a rock. I remember when I set the fence on fire playing with matches. That was the first time I ever got the belt from my Dad. I guess the traumatic memories are what stick with us the most. In my heart and in my soul I know I was loved.

I hated school.

I was good at it and I got good grades, but I totally hated it. Too bad getting good grades can lead to getting picked on. My Dad was a pacifist and he never believed in using your fists to make a point.

By the time I was fourteen the song Coward of The County by Kenney Rogers really resonated with me and I pictured myself fighting back all the bullies that haunted me throughout my childhood.

In my first week of high school, I did just that. I’d had enough and fought back.

I struck back at one of my tormentors in the hallway of Lord Beaverbrook High School. On a break between classes, he pushed me and called me a faggot. I snapped! By the time it was done a few minutes later a teacher had me by the arms and Trent Walker was on the ground. That was the beginning of my dubious career in high school. Suspended that first week of grade ten it sort of set the tone for the next three years.

In the spring of Grade nine, I met a girl. Sherry was sweet and pretty and we fell for each other. In the tent in the backyard, we had a connection that was awkward, tender, and amazing. When school ended she suddenly moved away with her father. When she moved to Whitehorse I was saddened and felt like I had lost someone special.

The last week of summer I got the letter. Sherry was pregnant. I was devastated. I offered to get on my motorcycle and ride to the Yukon to come to see her and help her out. She refused and told me to stay away. I started high school thinking I had a baby on the way.

It was a heavy load on my heart.

I never told my Dad until many years later when we cleaned out my bedroom. We found Sherry’s letter, I never said anything I merely let him read the letter. I got subsequent letters from her and the timing started to get suspect and I thought maybe she was faking the whole thing. I will never know if I have a child or where they may be.

Two years later Sherry met me in Calgary; she had no pictures of a child, never told me if it was a boy or girl, and refused to say what happened. I dropped her off downtown and she walked out of my life forever.

I will always regret that day.

Life is full of regret.

My best memories of growing up revolved around summers at Kootenay Lake. Fishing with my Dad, camping, and water-skiing. Mom and Gail would be waiting for us at the campsite after an early morning fishing. We spent a month every summer at Schroeder Creek Resort located 9 miles north of Kaslo. Sometimes we would all go out on the boat and haul in our limit of Kokanee. We would spend many days canning our harvest. I loved eating kokanee sandwiches all winter. I try to recreate summer camping with my daughter but times have changed and fishing with her dad is not on the list of things she wants to do. When I was young we never had cell phones or any other technology. We had books and I loved to read. Nothing will ever replace those days on Kootenay Lake fishing with my Dad.

Dad also coached my hockey teams and there were some good times as well. I was a decent player who could put the puck in the net and I was never afraid to mix it up. Off the ice I would never fight, on the ice, I was one of our team’s tough guys that would sometimes lose my cool and pick fights. My Mom stopped coming to my games when I was fifteen because I was in too many fights. Eventually, I got kicked out of hockey for fighting; not one of my proudest moments.

In grade nine I finished with good marks, good enough to get into all the matriculation classes and my plan was to get into university to pursue a career as a journalist. Grade ten started. I found myself hanging out with the headbangers and skipping classes. Smoking pot at lunch seemed like a fun thing to do and my grades started to plummet. I didn’t really care about grades anymore and I started to really clash with my parents. I got caught with weed by my Dad and my Mom started to get pretty worried.

I always regret that my mom died before she saw me become successful. In my heart I feel she has been watching over me and sees the life I have created, I think she would be proud.

I have always been a businessman and from a young age I figured out how to make money. I delivered newspapers and worked after school. I also was pretty good at turning weed and magic mushrooms into a tidy profit. My parents of course were very stressed by my business activities and I regret the trauma I put them through. Especially after Dad had his heart surgery. Dad had a valve replaced when I was fifteen and it was pretty tough on my mother and father watching me rebel. By the time I was eighteen, I barely graduated high school and I had more absences than most of the other kids in my class combined. Despite my lack of attendance, I had the highest mark in grade 12 on the social studies diploma exam.

I met many friends in the last year of Highschool and many of them I am still friends with to this day. I became more of a man as my eighteenth summer was upon us. My parents gave me 700 dollars and then showed me the door. The seven hundred dollars was an inheritance from my Dutch grandparents and it was enough for damage deposit and first months’ rent in shared accommodation in south Calgary. It was the best thing they could have done for me.

After graduation, I started cleaning windows for a company that I had been working for in the evening as a janitor. One year later I started my own window cleaning business and a career that would take me until now, thirty years later. When I first started cleaning windows I asked my friend how you could make a career out of cleaning windows. I provided the answer to that myself.