The Invisible Man

I can look at these photos now and laugh, with 33 years having passed since the wedding that set all this off. In fact, I can't stop laughing...

Back in 1979, when I was 15, my mother married her second husband. Let's call him Smelly Feet, because hey, that's one of the more charitable names I have for him, and he really did have very smelly feet. 

I knew things weren't going to go well with this marriage, because my mother informed me before the wedding that she did not love Smelly Feet, and was marrying him merely for financial security. 

Let me just say that my mother had been doing just fine supporting herself as a single mother. We were living in  the four-bedroom house my Dad had bought us, with a car, food and even vacations, not to mention private clarinet lessons for me. But apparently Mum's  definition of "financial security" included lots of jewellery, Caribbean vacations, a Mercedes and a Triumph Spitfire convertible. And did I mention jewellery?

I thought she was crazy marrying someone she didn't love, and told her so, but she didn't listen to the teenager. So it was not surprising when, in 1986, the pair of them split up in a messy and acrimonious fashion. It was a long, drawn-out,nasty divorce.

Sometime thereafter, my mother cut Smelly Feet out of her life. Literally. She went through her entire photo collection and excised him with a pair of scissors. And so, I have a pile of perforated photos I inherited from Mum that feature my stepfather, aka Smelly Feet, turned into a ghostly white memory...

Smelly Feet patting our English Setter, Blue Jay.

This one kills me: my mother cutting the wedding cake, apparently all by herself!

And here's me and Mum on the wedding day, with Smelly Feets'  hands (God, that's awkward!) on our shoulders. They got hitched at Toronto City Hall, then came back to our house for the reception.

My mother had  a lot of knickknacks, including the Hercules figure slaying a lion. That's the thing on top of the hutch, bookended by a couple of hideous ceramic pheasants.

Of course, after the wedding, Mum and Smelly Feet had a nice honeymoon in Europe! Mum took many photos...

WTF? Why, why, WHY did she keep this? I can sort of understand the ones with other people in them, but this?? 

And how about the Invisible Man reaching out to a bovine...

Smelly Feet obviously liked Swiss Cows. Actually, he  kind of looks like the Invisible Penguin in profile.

 And who can forget...

...Christmas 1979. Me, my mother, and a giant white thing. Oh wait, that's Smelly Feet again. Ah, sweet memories. Good times! 

I have thought about tossing these photos but every time I rediscover them, I start laughing, so they can stay for now. :)

PS I have no excuse for the brown-tinted glasses. It was 1979, tinted shades were in, and I was an idiot.