A couple of days ago I found a book that I had borrowed from Sandra on one of our visits last summer. The book was called Blackbird and it was of course about Paul McCartney. It reminded me that it was time to write a short memory story about one of my favorite sisters. Sandra was the sister nearest to my age and I guess we were always close friends for that reason. We grew up together in the fifties and sixties and so it was inevitable that we would share the same interests, one of which was pop music and of course - The Beatles.

Sandra was the sister who also introduced me to the larger world around me. We went from playing games to learning more about the world around us. It was a time of social change and political action and Sandra shared stories with me about wild college parties and people from faraway places. It wasn't all fun and games though and Sandra was frequently in trouble on the home front due to her new social experiences and political leanings. I tended to go along with her as we expressed our new found interests at home. Sandra was a huge Trudeau fan, not Justin but Pierre (the REAL Trudeau) and of course this caused some upheaval at home as Dad was a staunch card carrying Progressive Conservative supporter. Of course this situation was exacerbated by Sandra hanging a huge poster of Pierre Trudeau in the family living room which we had just recently painted a bright shade of pink. Come to think of it, Dad must have been more tolerant than I thought...

Another thing we shared was the time we both went on "vegetarian" diets which was quite radical in those days, once again annoying Dad when we refused to eat any turkey at Christmas dinner. I remember him being furious because he blamed it on those hippies and drugs from UNB. But we stuck to our guns and topped it off by breaking tradition and going to see Andy Warhol's Frankenstein at the theatre on Boxing Day. Poor Dad...

But time moves on and we eventually grew up but we still shared some common interests, in particular the Royal family. We saw the Queen several times and at one time Sandra even shook hands with King Charles who we would later meet again along with Camilla when they checked into The Delta Hotel. Another shared activity was being travelling sale reps - me with Cabot Shipping and Sandra with QSP. She was more dedicated than me and travelled a lot more but we were able to meet up on the road sometimes and that was always special. We were also both avid readers and shared many books with each other over the years - I'll miss that.

But of all the things we did together I think the highlight was our trip to Quebec City to see Paul McCartney. Sandra wanted to be down front so we ran ahead of the crowd little realizing that we would be trapped there, shoulder to shoulder for the next 7 hours! It was exhausting but thrilling and I wouldn't change that memory for the world!

Now there is a new book by Sir Paul (she always called him "Sir Paul") so I am ordering a copy today and I will read it for both of us.  One more thing - Sandra took after Mom in that she did not like posing for pictures so if you are wondering about the picture at the top of this page, it was taken by me at - you guessed it, the Paul McCartney concert.