my family

I was born like most other babies, in a hospital way back in 1966.  I don’t recall much about this incident but I’m told it was a happy event and I was a very cute baby.  This hospital was in Souris, a nice little town in the eastern end of Prince Edward Island.  It’s a slow town but not a bad place to grow up.  I had a mother, a father, two older brothers and a dog.  His name was Wagmore, but all his friends called him Waggie.  We had several cats too but they all got run over.  I don’t recall much about any particular one but I’m sure they were nice cats.  We had some turtles too, Pop Top and Captain Kid, but they died.  Everything dies invariably and eventually.

My father was and still is a fisherman – he caught lobsters.  One of my brothers, Art, is a lobster fisherman now.  He and my father, I would say are “fish-titutionallized”, which means they are obsessed with fish.  They spend the better part of their time talking about and thinking about fish.

My oldest brother, Mike, lives in San Francisco now.  He’s an engineer.  I always thought I was the smartest one but he’s making more money than I am right now.

And my mother, she’s a nurse, ironically, she works in a drug treatment center.  I must be somewhat of an embarrassment to her when all the other nurses talk about their kids, but I’m happy.

I was named after my grandfather on my father’s side.  He was a rum-runner.  In my opinion that’s like being a drug dealer, but rum-runners are sort of like folk heroes. We drug dealers don’t get the respect that they get, except from some of our peers.  My grandfather died when I was young which is too bad and kinda sad, but that’s life.

 

Reg's dad:

Reggie was the youngest of three boys.  He was born in Souris Hospital on June 25, 1966. His two brothers were both about six feet tall, but Reggie was about 5’8”.  Mike and Art were both good in school but Reggie they tell me was brilliant.  There were a few things we always wondered that might have had an influence on the way that Reggie was. 

In 1970, my father and Reggie’s namesake and best friend started to have serious heart troubles.  Dad’s nephew, Vernon Dubois, who was living in Boston, came down for the summer.  He had a Cadillac with air conditioning [which was impressive for the time].  Dad, Reggie and the dog Jasper were always together.  It was the same in 1971 until October, then everything changed, when on a Tuesday Jasper died, on Friday Dad died and was buried on Monday and then Vernon died on Wednesday and was buried on Friday.  Reggie said to me, “Why does everyone I like have to die?”  From then onward, Reggie never wanted to go over home [to his grandfathers house].

In 1979, Reggie’s best friend, Bernie McIntosh was killed in an unsolved hit and run accident.  Reggie seemed to go into a shell after this.  He found his salvation in the world of drugs.