sassykg • July 9, 2022

It was 1982 on an unbearably cold January day in Edmonton when I first met a beautiful early 30s woman named Peggy. That day the wintery streets were slick with black ice and I was nervous navigating the winding road to my destination. The bottom of my used car hit the snow windrows left by the snowplough that had cleared the streets in the wee hours of the morning. Well before high tech navigation aids were available, I relied on a city map to find my way to the family sports club we had recently joined.

I dropped off Noah, my oldest son, at his new French immersion school. My almost two year old son, Matthew was well secured in his car seat in the back of my red Plymouth Cricket. I had bought the car in my hometown of Winnipeg from a family friend whose father owned a car dealership. To say that it was a lemon is giving it much more credit than it was due. I crossed my fingers that the two of us would arrive safely and on time.

The club had a babysitting service which meant I could brave the well below minus temperature and go for an outdoor run. I was scheduled to meet the new sports coordinator, Linda, who told me she would introduce me to some fellow runners. I was eager to get oriented to our new club and perhaps connect with a regular running group.

After a short but tearful goodbye to Matthew at the babysitting room, I headed to meet Linda. For some reason the gathering place for the running group was in the ladies locker room which was drab with tall metal lockers fitted with combination locks. The well worn carpet showed of understandable abuse from food spills and some toddlers’ missed opportunity to make it to the bathroom.

Linda arrived right on time for our 9:15 am appointment. She was a fit and wiry woman in her twenties and to me she seemed a well-suited fitness professional. New to her job, she was enthusiastic and greeted me with a wide smile and firm handshake. She filled me in on the makeup of the running group which she believed had been together for at least two years and varied from 5-6 women.

It seems that freezing January day was too daunting for most of the running crew. The usual meeting time was 9:30 but by 9:40 no one had appeared. Shortly after that one member arrived. Linda broke into a grin and welcomed her. And so I met Peggy!

Peggy was a fashionable runner. Her blonde locks fell beneath the Fila touque she had pulled down over her forehead. A black and and grey scarf was tied around her neck that was embossed with alternating upright and inverted capital Gs. A quilted ski jacket topped her black running pants and her runners were black with a white Nike emblem on the side. She wore bright white sunglasses with a logo that I did not recognize.

After brief introductions we headed out the front door of the building, turning left across the parking lot and up a steep hill behind the club. Peggy was a relaxed runner compared to my more antsy style. We chatted amiably and traded the usual getting to know you information. Born and raised in Edmonton, Peggy was married to Roger and had two young girls who were attending the same school as Noah. It was the first coincidence we shared. I told her the address of the new home my husband and I had just purchased. Peggy’s face took on a surprised expression. The house we bought was Peg’s family home and where she had fond memories of growing up. It was the second coincidence we had in common.

As January turned into February I began to meet the other runners in the group. Some had spent the past month in Hawaii and others had various different commitments. The gang knew each other well and routinely ended the run with coffee in the cafeteria. At the time I was not sure what they shared in common besides running. But I did know one thing. They all wore those white sunglasses. But that’s another story for another day.

Joining the running group was the beginning of many happy years and memories in Edmonton that involved Peggy. We were a tight group and we often had days when a birthday lunch stretched into late night shenanigans. We were young and almost always ready to party but were still able to rally the next day and share a “dusty” run.

Our running group had it’s moment of fame one gorgeous day in 1983 when fall was inching toward winter. It was the one day when for some reason, only three runners showed up. Peg and two others were jogging on one of our regular routes in the river valley. An Edmonton Journal photographer captured them on film. The beautiful picture “made the paper’. The rest of were choked that the one day we missed was the day the three became celebrities. It has been a bone of contention ever since!

Eleanor was one of the friends I met through running and we hit it off so well that we decided to host a joint party. We held it at my home and invited about 60 people. Those were the days before we hired caterers so Eleanor and I researched recipes, shopped for ingredients and prepared the dishes.

On the night of the party people were enjoying themselves, eating drinking and sharing the latest local rumours. It was well past midnight and the event was still going strong. I was in the kitchen sitting around the table laughing and sharing stories with Peg and a few others. Roger came in and signaled to Peggy that it was time to go home. Peg did not look like she was about to head out anytime soon. Roger sensed this and said “Peg we told the kids we would be home by midnight.” Our witty Peggy cocked her head, narrowed her eyes and retorted “So we lied to the kids!”

Peggy was a determined and focused person and nothing personifies it better than her decision to go back to university. Having her girls at a young age meant Peggy had not completed an undergraduate degree. At some point in the 1980s Peg went back to university and continued on to earn a law degree in 1989. She practiced real estate and estate law for many years and was known to have met clients in parking lots to sign papers that needed immediate attention. Peg could get things done no matter how inconvenient.

I cannot recall exactly what celebration we were commemorating when this next story took place. It may well have been Peggy’s birthday. Again there was a big gathering this time at Roger and Peg’s elegant home in a well-established Edmonton neighborhood. The next part of the tale is one that I am a little embarrassed to admit. I had the bright idea to hire a male stripper to surprise Peggy. And certainly it was a surprise. The “performer” was very thin and ill-dressed in not so clean clothes and he wore fingerless leather gloves. Accompanied by sketchy music from a boom box it was apparent he was not a graduate of the Fred Astair dance studio. The nervousness in the room was palpable. No one was quite sure where to look. Typically, Peggy rose to the occasion. She somehow kept eye contact with the “entertainer” and with her usual class and grace she managed to dissipate a very awkward situation. She applauded and that was the end of that!

True love

Roger and Peg were childhood sweethearts who met and fell in love in high school. Their long marriage was admired by many and emulated by few. Meeting as teenagers when Peg was in Grade 10 they travelled together to Europe after Peggy graduated from high school. They married and raised two wonderful daughters together. It was their strong bond that supported their journey through Peg’s brave battle against cancer. The love they shared and the love of her family and friends helps to make our loss a little more bearable.

Peggy was a classy, elegant, composed and extremely well-liked woman. Her infectious smile and sly sense of humor were her trademarks, her unflappable demeanor her forte and her integrity her long suit. The memories Peg created will live on. We miss you my friend.

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Faith, Found and Misplaced

By K Grieve • May 12, 2025
My mother Marjorie ensured I grew up Catholic - deeply, thoroughly, unmistakably Catholic. The kind of Catholic that meant school uniforms, fish on Fridays, and Mass every Sunday whether you wanted to be there or not. But more than rituals and doctrine, what stayed with me - even now, when I’m no longer a practicing Catholic - is the former Pope Francis’s heartfelt call to justice, unity and looking out for the persecuted and forgotten. Those are still part of me, even if my church attendance record would suggest otherwise. I went to an all girls Catholic school, and as I recall, it was in grade 11 that I first ran afoul of my faith. Sister Agatha (pseudonym) taught us religious studies that year and she gave us an assignment to present an aspect of faith to the class. Now I can’t claim that I was a regular reader of Time magazine. But somehow I came across that publication that posed the question “Is God Dead?” on its cover. Perhaps I saw the cover of Time on a newspaper stand in the grocery store. Whatever! I somehow managed to notice the publication’s headline asking “Is God Dead?”. That sounded unabashedly provocative and at that stage of my life , I was steadfastly taking any opportunity to provoke. In light of that, I asked myself: “Why not give a talk that caused a bit of a stir? My topic was solidified: “Is God Dead?” I was naive not expect it to spark recrimination, not to mention bigger questions about change, meaning and permanence. I spoke to the class confidently and with determination, as if I really understood the topic. Waxing poetic, I somehow managed to mention some well known Jesuit priests, the Berrigan brothers, Daniel and Phillip who were antiwar activists and who came to to be part of a Catholic movement know as liberation theologians. (There is much more the the Berrigan brothers’ story. If interested read “Disarmed and Dangerous:The Radical Life and Times of Daniel and Phillip Berrigan, Brothers in Religious Faith and Disobedience”) To say the least, Sister Agatha did not think I was being clever. She was outraged. The next day she approached me in the hallway. Menacingly wagging her finger in my face, she declared I was in deep danger of losing my faith. She followed up with a phone call to my mother reiterating her concern. I was straying from the path. I might be forever lost. My mother - actually to my surprise - rose to my defense and stood up for me. She told Sister Agatha that I was thinking, questioning and engaging. “Isn’t that what faith should be?” she pronounced. “If belief can’t survive a teenager asking questions, maybe the problem isn’t the teenager. WOW!!Thanks Mom. That moment has stuck with me my whole life — not because of the challenging repercussions but because I learned what it is like to hold both tradition and curiosity in the same hand. To cherish where you came from, even as you dispute some parts of it. And despite all my doubt, despite my distance from the Church, there is one Catholic habit I have never shaken: Praying to St. Anthony. You may have heard of him? St. Anthony. He is the patron saint of lost things. You lose your keys, your wallet, a ring, an earring - you pray to St. Anthony. “Tony, Tony, look around, something’s lost and must be found.” I have endless stories of how praying to St Anthony for lost objects has mysteriously recovered the misplaced. The most recent incident involves my husband who for three days could not find his passport. Searching everywhere, retracing his steps, Ross was stymied. He carries what I call a “murse” aka a man purse. Consumed with retrieving his passport, Ross called everywhere he could remember where he had been with his passport. Interspersed with that, he kept rechecking his murse - like about 4 times. At this point I intervened. Pray to St. Anthony I told him. And I insisted he promise to donate money to a charity of his choice. Failure to pay up results in St. Anthony striking you from his “list”. “ So I was thinking $25.00” Ross said. “No way,” I replied. “A passport is worth at least $200.” It was not long after this conversation that Ross took one last dive into his murse. He came to me with an Cheshire Cat on his face. The passport was found! I have no logical explanation for this phenomena. But I have story after story where I swore I had looked everywhere, given up hope - and then, sometimes minutes or even months after that whispered prayer, the lost object was found. A necklace under a rug. A set of keys in a pocket I’d checked five times. A photo wedged between pages. Coincidence? Maybe. But I keep praying. And things keep showing up. That’s faith, in a way I think. Or maybe it’s just hope expressed differently. Either way, I find it comforting. So no, I don’t go to Mass every week. I don’t memorize encyclicals or make religious retreats. (Although I can, to this day, recite almost all of the Baltimore catechism-including listing the seven gifts of the Holy Ghost). But I do believe in social justice. I believe in community. I believe in standing up when someone tries to shut you down. I believe in mystery, and ritual, and that strange feeling when something lost is found again. And I still reach out to St. Anthony when I’ve misplaced my car keys. Some things, it seems, you never really lose.

A Burger Joint With A Story

By K Grieve • April 22, 2025
Winnipeg: A Burger Joint With A Story You can’t ever underestimate the influence of where and when you grew up. Childhood memories and experiences help shape our world view and create a blueprint for life. My childhood time in my hometown of Winnipeg Manitoba is certainly no exception! It is filled with positive nostalgia and yes, more than a few regrets. But this story is about fond moments and lasting impressions. Nested in the heart of Canada’s prairies, Winnipeg has recently been called one of our country’s best kept secrets (Winnipeg: A Hidden Gem in the Heart of Canada). At its center lies The Forks, an historic meeting place at the confluence of the Red and Assiniboine rivers. This vibrant area is alive with multiple family-friendly features from a children’s museum to funky boutiques and the Winnipeg Goldeyes baseball stadium. A focal feature of the Forks is the Canadian Museum for Human Rights.
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