My Hip Parade
A True Tale of Mystery, Music & Murder
Early Hours
“He is not expected to survive”, whispered one of the Sisters in St. Joseph’s Hospital near the frozen shores of Lake Superior in Port Arthur Ontario Canada. (Port Arthur merged with sister City Fort William to become Thunder Bay in 1970)
This was not welcome news to the anxious new parents in the maternity ward.
Their son was born near the start of a new year and almost two months ahead of his expected arrival.
The attending physician, Dr. Stephen Morton kept watch over the tiny infant’s incubator all night. His pediatrician partner Dr. David Burnford attended the child’s birth, but did not join Dr. Morton in the overnight vigil with the newborn.
Somewhere in the hospital, echoes of Bill Haley’s recent hit , “Rock Around the Clock” mingled with the sounds of sirens to silence sleep as Dr. Morton monitored the minutes of the baby’s survival.
Dr. Morton’s diligence saved the infant’s life but he could not save himself from his dreadful demise seven years later. His partner, Dr. Burnford perished in a gruesome way almost twenty three years after Dr. Morton died.
Both doctors would die by the gun.
Five hours after his son’s arrival, the father looked out a window of the hospital toward the frozen shores of Lake Superior and wondered if his first born would still be alive when he finished his shift at the Port Arthur Shipyards. A missed shift was untenable and unaffordable even in this situation.
As you may have surmised dear reader, I was the aforementioned premature baby.
My mother used to say my birth was the only time I arrived early for anything.
The day after my birth, if I could have, I would have sung,
“That’s all Right Mama” by Elvis Presley to calm my anxious mother.
Except I was not all right .
Emergency surgery had to be performed on my obstructed bowel.
Then it was discovered that I had hip dysplasia, an affliction more prevalent in winter births and in certain breeds of dogs.
I had to stay in hospital for another six weeks.
Several months later, I required a spica body cast from my waist, down both legs with a bar across the bottom to try to stabilize my hips. I had to endure the cast for two years.
I eventually learned to ambulate by attending our local Crippled Children’s Clinics in Fort William where locum doctors came up from Toronto to assess our progression. Some of the other children could not even walk, so I considered myself lucky that I only had a pronounced limp.
(My mother and later my godfather commented that I rarely if ever complained about my disability. My answer was that I had witnessed people with problems much worse than mine).
School Daze
My first foray into formal education did not go well.
In Kindergarten, I had a problem with rules.
I remember colouring a picture of a robin’s breast blue and furiously defying the borders of the drawing by straying outside the lines.
(I still sometimes ‘colour outside the lines” by challenging current conventions).
Another time, a kid was crawling up the small slide we had in our classroom while I was proceeding to slide down. I warned him that he was going the wrong way. He continued coming up, I slid down. The expected collision of my feet against his head occurred. I was reprimended.
I was summarily dismissed from kindergarten until the beginning of the next school year for both not following and following rules.
The one thing I did learn in kindergarten was that I played a mean triangle during music time. This was a lasting lesson that would serve me well later in life.
As reward for not being expelled from my second attempt to attend school the following year, I recall going to the movies with my mother.
In our town, we called going to the movies going to “the show.”
My Ma told me the first time I entered a movie theatre, I hobbled down the center aisle, pointed at the big screen and yelled, “Big TV, Mommy, Big TV”.
Being a northern boy, I loved the song which shared the name of my first movie I saw on the big screen, ‘North to Alaska” sung by Johnny Horton.
Little did I know then was that I would appear on a small screen as a young teenager.
During my time at C.D. Howe public school most people accepted my disability without provocation. They treated me normally, which I really appreciated.
However, a few of the kids at school were bullies.
Since flight wasn’t my strong suit in confrontations, I usually tried being funny- but I also occasionally had to fight.
One winter at the outdoor skating rinks near our house, a small freckled faced kid I knew from school came up to me and started punching me.
I was amazed at the speed of his furious fists flying up toward my face.
He reminded me of a boxing kangaroo with head held back taking pot shots at a male rival. As I drew my arm back to stop him, I was hit in the back of my head by something hard.
When I regained consciousness, my attacker was gone. A clear plastic bag full of chunks of ice lay beside me on the snow.
I later learned that it was the freckled kid’s girl friend, who hit me from behind with her improvised weapon of winter.
Another public bullying incident I clearly recall was a group of boys surrounding me in school hurling insults at me.
One called me, “A limping lump”. The hurt from this incident stayed with me a long time. In my experience, psychological pain can linger much longer than physical pain.
(Despite being stung by the aforementioned slur, part of me appreciated its alliteration. Many years later, after I completed the Myers-Briggs psychology test, the instructor told me my test results indicated that I possessed a rare ability to see different sides of a situation).
When I recall these northern bugged by thugs moments, the song
“Wooly Bully” by Sam the Sham and the Pharaohs comes to mind.
As time marched on, I started to notice that my hip history and love of music were starting to be part of a parade of peculiar events. In hip hop vernacular, you might say that the state of my gait would help determine my fate - in my own “Hip Parade”.
Shock and Awe
Geographically & culturally Canada is literally attached at the hip to our neighbour to the south. The year John F Kennedy became the thirty fifth President of the United States the “Freedom Riders” for the Civil Rights Movement, the start of the Peace Corp. and Kennedy’s announced goal of putting a man on the moon in a decade, were all shared news stories between both countries.
On a smaller personal scale, some major events also revolved in my personal sphere that year.
My brother Mark was born in the spring. I was no longer an only child.
Then in late summer, we heard the shocking news that Dr. Stephen Morton, the man who literally ensured my survival after birth had been murdered — shot in the head in his bed beside his sleeping wife.
His wife Prue, apparently dialled the police with her bloodied finger.
From newspaper reports, Dr. Morton’s murder appeared to be an arranged “hit” as their children were at camp and even their dog was not present. The murder was never solved. I remember bugging my mother to go to Dr. Morton’s funeral.
I recall Dr. Morton as being kindly, wearing a worn tweed suit jacket and making house calls with his classic black medical bag. My mother said he was very dedicated and humble and his shoes were worn.
His widow Prue and I would cross paths years later in life.
As mentioned earlier, Dr. Morton’s medical partner was Dr. David Burnford.
They shared an office in a small building across from the Port Arthur Collegiate Institute.
I remember Dr. Burnford as being imposing with dark bushy eyebrows. He had an interesting history. Among other activities, he apparently was a rower who competed for Britain in the 1936 Olympics.
Dr. Burford’s wife Sheila, wrote the novel “The Incredible Journey” which was published the same year as Dr. Morton’s murder. The novel was made into a Disney movie two years later.
Dr. Burnford’s shocking demise after his own incredible journey of crime will be told as this story unfolds.
As a sound track for the second year of the sixties, two tunes by Patsy Cline seem appropriate:
“Crazy” and “I Fall To Pieces.”
Operation Hip Transformation
When I was in grade five, my left hip became progressively worse to the point where I needed a major operation. A Salter Osteotomy was to be performed, which involved a bone graft at St. Joseph’s hospital where I was born. I was asked if I wanted a human cadaver bone or pig bone for the graft. I chose the cadaver although I have nothing against pigs.
Dr. Salter, the inventor of his namesake hip procedure was my locum Dr. from Toronto when I attended the Crippled Children’s Clinic in Fort William ON Canada.
He once told me I should take up cross country skiing because my hips lacked mobility.
During another visit, I told him that on the previous New Year’s Eve I dislocated my left knee while playing floor football on my knees with my friends. (Not smart , I know).
My family Doc. showed up drunk with his party hat still on cocked at a jaunty angle.
The attending nurse asked my Dr. if I should have an anesthetic.
My Dr. slurred, ”He won’t need one”.
“Hold on to the metal headboard of the bed”, the Doc. commanded me.
After the Dr. re set my leg I turned around. I had bent one of the metal rungs on the headboard of the hospital bed by holding on so tightly.
After I told Dr. Salter this story he looked at me with a deadpan expression and proclaimed, “In Port Arthur, “Every night is Saturday Night and Saturday Night is New Year’s Eve”.
During the period I was hospitalized for my first major hip operation, a kind family neighbour paid for a TV set rental for my hospital room. Someone gave me a butterfly collection and I also received a signed picture of famed Canadian skier Nancy Greene. My parents gave me a transistor radio.
The local surgeon who performed my operation, Dr. Evans put a silver dollar under my pillow. He told me it was for my bravery.
One of my relatives said that this meant I had “SISU” which roughly translates from Finnish to mean, “Courage in the face of adversity”.
Although I appreciated all of my gifts of goodwill, I didn’t realize that my operation would yield an even bigger reward in a few years’ time.
After a lot of rehab., I was able to walk with crutches. Once, when I was walking too fast outside with my crutches, one of them hit a crack in a sidewalk and I landed on the concrete face down. I somehow got up and carried on.
Two songs sung by members of the Sinatra family reflected my feelings back then: “That’s Life” and ‘These Boots are Made for Walkin.”
Now that I think about it, I did a lot of walking during stints in various jobs in my younger years as a : dog walker, door to door salesman at different times for Fuller Brush, Sooter Photo. & Lawn Lights for Peterson Electric, paper boy, tree planter & mailman for Canada Post.
Easter Parade
About three years after my hip operation, my parents received a letter from The Port Arthur-Fort William Kiwanis Club. My mother read the letter several times before telling me that I had been chosen as a‘ Timmy” for their Easter Seals Campaign.
I had no idea what to expect, but I was not too worried as it appeared that there would be more than one Easter Seals Timmy according to the letter we received from the organizers.
It turned out there were only two of us representing Easter Seals children, a “Timmy” and a “Tammy.”
I was not prepared for what came next. I had to learn to improvise and think on my shaking feet- real fast.
At a posh dinner at The Prince Arthur Hotel in Port Arthur to kick off the campaign, I met the mayors of both Lakehead Cities, gave an impromptu speech and had my picture taken for the newspapers with my respective “Tammy”, a girl named Maryann from Fort William.
A few days later, I was asked to do an interview at the CKPR local television station. There I met Gordie Tap who at the time starred in CBC TV’s “Country Hoedown” and later in the States on the show “Hee Haw.” I can confirm that he did have a million dollar smile as was often said/written of him.
When I returned to school after the TV interview, I walked into my classroom to a round of applause. A television was on a stand in the corner. The class had watched my interview on TV. I was embarrassed and pleased at the same time. I viewed it as doing my part in the Easter Seals parade of events.
The Easter Seals experience forced a shy little guy like me to speak publicly which provided me with the confidence to later perform on a multitude of stages at different stages of my life.
Here is a link to a vid. I made 43 yrs. later about my Easter Seals Experience. It won 3rd prize in a contest about personal Easter Seals experiences. (Only 3 of us entered so I had a good chance of winning)
In Sept. 2022, Easter Seals Ontario interviewed me and posted a story on their website about my experience with Easter Seals as part of their centennial celebrations.
https://www.easterseals.org/glenn-niemis-story/
In the fall of that Easter Seals Event year, I bought the 45rpm single of “Hey Jude” by the Beatles from Kresge’s store in whose entranceway I had stood to watch many parades pass by.
I still have that 45 of “Hey Jude.”
I also listened a lot back then to “Abraham, Martin and John” by Dion, mourning with millions the untimely passing of the song’s heroes.
Musical Moments
Three years later, my musical pursuits of percussion had finally progressed from jamming with my friends on bongo like Ogilvie Oat boxes when my parents bought me a set of drums for Christmas.
The next week my mother bought me the record Have Fun!!! Play Drums!!! by drumming icon Hal Blaine for my birthday. I copied Hal’s beats the best I could.
Drums were a good instrument for me because I didn’t have to stand for long periods of time. Money from my drumming gigs paid for most of my Post- Secondary education.
I mainly played in bands fronted by my crooning cousin, Kevin Waara.
I accompanied Kevin on one of his recording sessions in Nashville where I met Brenda Lee at Woodland Sound Studios. She was very down to earth, knitting away while listening to playbacks of newly recorded songs.
Five years later, I tried my hand at song writing penning a tune called
“Life is What You Make It”, based on the resilience of some of my clients when I was a Social Worker. Kevin recorded that song at CKPR studios for a local TV musical variety show.
I also co-wrote some tunes with Kevin and Thunder Bay based musician Ken Moore who had performed with artists ranging from Bobby Curtola and Chuck Berry to the Walt Disney Band and The Tommy Banks Orchestra.
One of the songs we wrote was, “Let’s All Stand — A Song for Canada.” It was a unity tune written just before the second Quebec Referendum.
Four years later, I produced a video of “Let’s All Stand” and presented it to open the Joint Conference of The Ontario Community Support Association (OCSA) and The Ontario Association of Non-Profit Homes and Services for Seniors (OANHSS) in Toronto.
Another song, I co-wrote,
“Makin’ Music on Mercier” was about a rented musicians’ frat house in Thunder Bay. That tune was included on Kevin’s album “HorsePlay.” It was also played on the CBC National Radio Show “Basic Black” hosted by humourist Arthur Black.
Blasts from the Past
In the second year of the third millennium, a strange meeting occurred between myself and a celebrity and someone from my past.
I was at a Pierre Burton book signing in Thunder Bay where the renowned author penned his signature for me on a copy ofhis book “Marching as to War.”
As he signed his name, I told him I was a bit of a budding writer and had won the name the millennium decade contest on Arthur Black’s National CBC Radio Show.
(I called the decade the 000s (pron. ooze) after a story I wrote about putting my licence sticker on in Dec. with frozen fingers).
Mr. Burton looked up at me and said, “Con-grat-u-lay-shuns!!”
(At the time, and I say this with the utmost respect, Mr. Burton looked like Fozzy Bear from the Muppets with a big bow tie).
Time seemed to stop.
When I regained a grasp on reality, a voice from behind with a slight English accent said, ”Would you mind terribly giving me a lift home”?
It was Prue Morton, the widow of Dr. Morton who had saved my life.
I knew Prue through her extensive volunteer work in the Community when I was a Supervisor of various Community Support Programs with The City of Thunder Bay.
Prue rode her bike (or asked for rides) everywhere, even in the winter.
After we pulled up to her house , the same family home where Dr. Morton was murdered, I told her that her husband had saved my life when I was born.
She thanked me for telling her that.
She then cocked her head and said, “Would you like to come in for tea”.
Much as I wanted to agree out of curiosity, the expression on her face sent a shudder of trepidation through my body as I glimpsed a glint of ominous secrets in her eyes.
I kindly declined her invitation.
She died four years later without revealing her secrets. She left a substantial amount to charity.
The number one song that year was “How You Remind Me” by Nickelback.
Epilogue
On the leap year day of the second month of a new decade, I have survived two recent hip replacements with the love and support of my wife Linda of over thirty six years. We are listening to, “I’m Still Standing” by Elton John.
On a sad note, I recently discovered that Dr. Burnford had committed suicide almost thirty years after I was born. He apparently got caught with a car trunk full of cocaine in Colorado and blew his head off with a shot gun.
Here is a story I wrote in 2022 providing more details about my Doctors’ demise from gun violence.
https://medium.com/@talefinn/two-of-my-doctors-who-died-by-the-gun-1993c518b0c0
Now in the middle of December in this year of the great COVID-19 pandemic, we must carry on until we conquer the scourge and hope for a better life next year.
May the SISU be in situ for us all.
I dedicate my story to my mother Lisa who passed away on New Year’s Eve Dec. 31, 2008.
December 2020
Updated March 2022
Since I wrote this article, the pandemic continues, there is war in Ukraine and misinformation abounds. SISU is even more important than it was two years ago.
Updated August 2022
I have been diagnosed with prostate cancer which is hopefully treatable. Again I will have to call upon all the SISU I can muster to beat this buster.
Updated December 2023
I am now sans prostate as of April this year and my cancer is not detectable at this time. I will have to continue having blood work done to check if the cancer returns for 10 years. I have many writing projects I hope to finish.
