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Happy as the Grass was Green

by Catherine McColl

385 pages; quality trade paperback (softcover); catalogue #03-1499; ISBN 1-4120-1120-5; US$30.50, C$35.00, EUR25.00, £17.50

This humorous personal memoir recounts events in the life of a young girl growing up with her family of homesick British immigrants in the southwest Ontario village of Brussels during WWII.

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about the book      about the author      sample excerpts      catalogue info

About the Book

Happy as the Grass was Green is a celebration of childhood, a delightful look at growing up in a small Ontario community in the 1940's and '50's. Wide green lawns and overarching trees gave a sense of cosy togetherness to a village that provided far more freedom than privacy. The tale begins when the author is two, on intimate terms with table legs and adult knees, the younger of two children, raised through the uncertainties of a far away war by her homesick British parents. Growing up was a time of firsts. First pets, first responsibilities, first day of school, first feelings of love, loss, and fear, and first encounters with vice as well as with virtue - none of it life threatening, all of it life affirming. The unforgettable village characters and amusing events from the author's childhood with her extended family may seem so familiar you will think you are reliving you own, or wishing you could. In April 2003, an excerpt from Happy as the Grass was Green was read on CBC Radio's "Fresh Air" with Jeff Goods. "...a story as warm and charming as a fireside chat... ...a touching tribute to a family, an era and a place." - The Blyth-Brussels Citizen, Blyth, Ontario. "Beginning in 1942...'Happy as the Grass Was Green' is an engaging chronicle of a village childhood." - CKNX Television, Wingham, Ontario. "Happy as the Grass was Green is a sweet book, a series of tales about life in a gentler time, in a pleasant and safe place... Anyone who grew up in a small, rural town will enjoy this book." - Wingham Advance-Times, Wingham, Ontario.

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About the Author Catherine McColl was raised from the age of two in the southwest Ontario village of Brussels. She is married with two grown daughters and is presently living in Waterloo, Ontario with her husband Steve. This is her first book.

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Sample Excerpts

Cheap at Twice the Price

I remember Uncle Hughie as a small, round man with laughing brown eyes, a fringe of greying hair and a Scots brogue that edged dangerously toward complete indecipherability. Because his visits to our house were rare, it took my brother and myself several painstaking days to get used to his broad Scottish accent. On one of his visits he greeted us at the front door with an enormous bear hug each and a string of Glessca patter that didn't come anywhere near the English language.

"Och aye! Ma tae brrraw bairrrns. Ayrrr ye guid the dee or didya nae moo the coo?" (Or something just as impenetrable.) Then he peered at us through his bushy eyebrows expecting a response. We were struck dumb. He could have been speaking Norwegian for all we knew. Uncle Hughie tried again--this time louder.

No Place Like Home

The living room had two large bay windows, one facing an expanse of lawn and flower garden, the other facing the lane and open fields beyond. We heated this room with a tall round coal stove, its stateliness enhanced by bright accents of chrome. The slender stovepipe meandered a few feet across the ceiling before disappearing to warm my parents' second floor bedroom on its way to the chimney. Warm is a relative term. In winter, even with storm windows in place, ice formed inside most of those twenty windows, though frostbite was rare.

Hanging on the only wall in the living room that did not have a window, a picture of Highland cattle wandered the bonnie hills of Scotland, the entire scene rendered in various shades of green. Not only had I never seen cattle with hair covering their eyes, I had never seen cattle in this or any other shade of green. They seemed too exotic even for Scotland. Mother gazed lovingly at this picture, saying it reminded her of home. For too long I figured Scotland was completely green. Grass, hills, sky, cattle, bagpipes, haggis, people, every bit of it green. And then I thought about children playing in the grass and getting lost and not being able to find their way home because everything around them was green. I loved that picture more than any other in the house.

Aunts in the Cottage

Saturday morning found me stuffed into an overcrowded car with assorted relatives heading to Kintail, a modest collection of vacation cottages on the shores of Lake Huron. Eight of us rode in Uncle Bill's postwar sedan, loaded to the roof with enough provisions for a lengthy siege. Crowded as we were in the stifling heat, the car grew smaller with each passing mile, until by the end of the trip it felt about the size of a tuna tin.

Because the Scottish side of my family has always had an unusual attachment to water, it seemed only natural that these vacations should be spent at a cottage by a lake. Lake Huron seemed about the right size. At the end of the first week a few more pale faces arrived from the city, and the same number of pink ones packed to return home. The little cottage could hold just so many people, no matter how related we were.

Getting Plastered

Despite Mother's best efforts to prevent it, I managed to contract a cold at least once each winter. This meant packing me off to bed with a piece of wet silk around my throat and a hot toddy in my hand. I remember that famous Scottish drink as a vile concoction of honey, lemon, hot water and a shot of whatever was left over from New Year's Eve-like a cup of tea that had gone terribly wrong.

I remember my bed floating around the room in a fog and the wallpaper melting like water, but little else until morning. By then, if the hot toddy had not killed me, perhaps it had cured me. And if neither had been accomplished, she pulled out all the stops, promising a mustard plaster would do the job. Maybe I wasn't sick at all. Maybe I was just hung over from the hot toddy.

God's in His Heaven

There had not yet been time in my life to mull over the intricacies of death, with its unthinkable finality. But of this I was certain. For the loved ones left behind, there was nothing like a death in the family to perk up an appetite. What followed the funeral can only be described as a potluck feast. Mother baked an angel food cake-which I considered fitting under the circumstances-though the kitchen bulged with everything from plates heaped with sandwiches to casseroles, hams and fancy cup cakes-all donated by friends and neighbours. The smaller the community, the bigger the spread.This must have been the origin of comfort food.

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Catalogue Information

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