First of all it may seem that I'm playing the poor little me story which I try to avoid. My optimistic outlook is on my main page. I spent about 8 years as a child with my Grandparents who taught me stability and love. My main focus in life is to take the best of life's experiences and discard the garbage. I loved my Stepfather (only 15 years senior to me) and accepted my blood Father. We are all much more than just an accumulation of our worst days. So here it is. From the pessimistic side.
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My Father, Alfie's Grandfather, was the Black sheep of the Stanley (Smith) Family. We have used William as a first name so as not to offend others. He used Smith as at least one of his aliases to escape whatever demons were chasing him, sometime around 1939. He abandoned his family and moved to many places one of which was at my Uncle Werner's farm where he was a migrant farm worker. He met my Mother on this farm. His alias at that time was Bill Smith. They soon fell in love and got married and had a relatively large family wedding. At least the Wilson and Vogt side of the family were present in the photos. The last time I aparently saw him was when he threw me violently (his 1 year old baby) across the room to land onto a sofa and bounced onto the floor from there.
There is other parts of the song that will be explained in greater detail later but for now a quick review.
He did get married at least 3 times. He never ever had a divorce.
I know I have at least one, 1/2 brother and a step sister from one of these other marriages. I have never met any of these people. I have talked on the phone to my 1/2 brother who at last contact was living in Edmonton. He is 15 years junior to me. I hope to meet him sometime before I depart this life.
My Mother, 8 years after "Bill's" trip west fell in love again and applied to get a divorce to enable her to legally marry my stepfather. She found out "Bill's" real last name was Stanley and that he had remarried again without divorcing her. I'm not sure if the previous marriage under an alias makes the second marriage invalid ? If so are we all illegitimate ?
My mother was told that she need not apply for a divorce because her first husband was a bigamist.
Until my mother remarried I was using Wilson (Mother's Maiden Name) and without a father, looked everywhere for someone who might be him. I remember as a child I was always the last one to leave the movie theater because I would look at every one of the names on the credits wondering if that one was my father ?
When my Mother remarried i was so happy ! I had a Daddy ! Just like everyone else. I started to use Walton my new Daddy's name. My parents were very much in love but their worst arguments were about the severe corporal punishment that my stepfather would apply to me. I didn't mind cause it was my Daddy giving me the beatings. My stepfather finally settled these arguments with my Mother. He bought 2 sets of boxing gloves and from now on my punishments would be trial by ordeal. If God knew that I was in the right then I would win. We were at Sudbury in a basement apartment and all the kids from blocks around would gather at our livingroom window to look down and see Cliff get his beating. I got to body building at age 11 and by age 12 was able to administer the worst beating that my Stepfather ever had. After this we could only find 3 boxing gloves and neither my stepdad or me would agree to using only 1 glove. My dear wife MaryEv just asked me why it didn't occur for us to use 1 glove each ? I was never the brightest light on the tree.
At about 13 years old I was kind of unhappy with this relationship with my Stepfather and wanted to find my real Father. I had heard family gossip that my real Father's home was in Saskatchewan ? I didn't even know what name or town to look for. I was just going to find my Dad. I jumped onto a freight train in Sudbury and was caught by the railway police in Chapleau. This policeman was so kind to me and kept me in the station. I was allowed to sleep by the coal fire in the waiting room. I would not reveal to him my name or home address. I guess I had something in common with my real Father ? No one at home had reported me missing for fear of embarrassment so the policeman could not find out what to do with me. On the 5th day he told me that if I revealed my name and address to him he would give me a job on the railway when I became 16.
I knew that it was just a line but it gave me the excuse to go back to the home I missed so much.
At age 15 dropped out of school and by age 17 had decided to join the Canadian Army I needed my birth certificate. My Mother had to explain an issue she had long withheld from me about my birthname being Smith. In my books, that makes Cliff Smith as the first person in my family tree to legally use the name Smith. So I'm actually not illegitimate any more. (8D
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My Son suprised me with this song of part of our history.
To hear more of Alfie's music
Alfie
