Reg's Story

Reggie was the youngest of three boys.  He was born in Souris Hospital on June 25, 1966. His two brothers were both about six feet tall, but Reggie was about 5’8”.  Mike and Art were both good in school but Reggie they tell me was brilliant.  There were a few things we always wondered that might have had an influence on the way that Reggie was. 

In 1970, my father and Reggie’s namesake and best friend started to have serious heart troubles.  Dad’s nephew, Vernon Dubois, who was living in Boston, came down for the summer.  He had a Cadillac with air conditioning [which was impressive for the time].  Dad, Reggie and the dog Jasper were always together.  It was the same in 1971 until October, then everything changed, when on a Tuesday Jasper died, on Friday Dad died and was buried on Monday and then Vernon died on Wednesday and was buried on Friday.  Reggie said to me, “Why does everyone I like have to die?”  From then onward, Reggie never wanted to go over home [to his grandfathers house].

In 1979, Reggie’s best friend, Bernie McIntosh was killed in an unsolved hit and run accident.  Reggie seemed to go into a shell after this.  He found his salvation in the world of drugs.

my family

I was born like most other babies, in a hospital way back in 1966.  I don’t recall much about this incident but I’m told it was a happy event and I was a very cute baby.  This hospital was in Souris, a nice little town in the eastern end of Prince Edward Island.  It’s a slow town but not a bad place to grow up.  I had a mother, a father, two older brothers and a dog.  His name was Wagmore, but all his friends called him Waggie.  We had several cats too but they all got run over.  I don’t recall much about any particular one but I’m sure they were nice cats.  We had some turtles too, Pop Top and Captain Kid, but they died.  Everything dies invariably and eventually.

My father was and still is a fisherman – he caught lobsters.  One of my brothers, Art, is a lobster fisherman now.  He and my father, I would say are “fish-titutionallized”, which means they are obsessed with fish.  They spend the better part of their time talking about and thinking about fish.

My oldest brother, Mike, lives in San Francisco now.  He’s an engineer.  I always thought I was the smartest one but he’s making more money than I am right now.

And my mother, she’s a nurse, ironically, she works in a drug treatment center.  I must be somewhat of an embarrassment to her when all the other nurses talk about their kids, but I’m happy.

I was named after my grandfather on my father’s side.  He was a rum-runner.  In my opinion that’s like being a drug dealer, but rum-runners are sort of like folk heroes. We drug dealers don’t get the respect that they get, except from some of our peers.  My grandfather died when I was young which is too bad and kinda sad, but that’s life.

The history of me

1966 - Born in Souris Hospital. 2 brothers, 1 mother, 1 dog.
1967 - cried and slept a lot
1968 - don't remember much about this year. Probably much like the year before.
1969 - started hippie movement, changed the world.
1970 - played with toys
1971 - went to kindergarten
1972 - went to school. grandfather died.
1973 - continued my education in Grade 2
1974 - Dog died. Friend died. Run over by drunk driver.
1975 - Father quit drinking. Went to Chit Chat.
1976 - Mother (nurse) stopped working at hospital and took job at Detox in Souris.
1977 - Uneventful year
1978 - Got drunk for the first time on a Friday night. I got beer several days before, hid it, planned to drink it, had first couple beer by myself, and had a blackout, so I might have been an alcoholic even before I had a drink.
1979 - tried mushrooms for the first time. wow.

Some Stats - Visitors from over 115 countries!

Every now and then, I am asked about how many people are reading Reggie's story, so with the help of Google, I can answer that question.  As you can see above, we have visitors from around the world, but the majority are from North America, as would be expected with this type of story.  The overall number of visitors is not high by web standards, but for a non-commercial human interest story, it is pretty good.

What is impressive about these stats is the average time on the site - almost 12 minutes!  How many websites do you visit where you spend 12 minutes?  This shows that people are reading the stories.