Wednesday, July 10, 2024
It was a complete shock to hear of Patty’s passing last week. She has been in my life for 57 years and I still can’t believe she is gone. I met Patty in 1966 in Leysin Switzerland at The Club Vagabond. I was 20 and she was 22. We hit it off right away and have been friends ever since. We decided we would travel around Europe together in her van. However she had to first teach me how to drive a standard shift. One of the many things she has taught me over the years. We travelled all around Europe and the Middle East and unfortunately got caught in Jordon when the 7 day war broke out. Two young blond women, alone in a van was not ideal. We were lucky to be sheltered in Amman by the Americans for the duration in as were two other young men from Canada who were also stuck. As we were four Patty decided to teach me to play bridge. We were finally evacuated, now refugees, to Tehran in Iran, in a parachute plane that came from Vietnam. From there the British sent a plane to take us to Cyprus not London as we wanted to get the van back from the American compound in Amman. We had many other adventures along the way, we had to sleepin a huge parking lot in Paris, on luggage racks on a train on our way back to Jordon and in a Turkish bath house in Istanbul. We hitchhiked from Athens to Istanbul and went to a bowling alley in East Berlin. We were together for 6 months before we sailed back to Montreal just in time to catch the end of Expo 67. The years passed, we got married, had children but managed to kept in touch. Patty was there to listen, help and encourage. I can hear her now with her “don’t ya know”.
I will miss her terribly and she will always hold a special place in my heart.
The world will be a little less bright without her in it.
