Land Ho!
-Kris Robinson Staveley

Exciting news! We have land! After 5 years of searching, we have land! Let the bells ring out and the banners fly!

The land is in the City of Peterborough and is around 1.5 acres. We have a conditional offer on the site and are in the process of a feasibility study to see if it will work for us. This is a huge step! We’ll share the location and more details about the site once feasibility has been determined - stay tuned!

Conquering our Tribe
The Conquistadors (previously known as Nugget and Bean)
-As told to Erika Steinhubl

We've been planning this foray for the past nine months, each month adding more details and getting closer to our goal. We tossed and turned in our cave as we passed ideas back and forth. We crept silently from the darkness uttering gleeful cries of "Victory" on Monday February 20th at 4pm. A crowd of onlookers and meddlers gathered round to champion our cause. We let our presence be known in NO uncertain terms. We knew what we wanted and we wanted it NOW.

Everyone appeared to let us have our way, picking us up to cradle us every time we bellowed that we wanted something. Some had their own agendas; calling vital signs every 4 hours whether we were asleep or awake, or poking us to make us bleed for their own nefarious gratification. And then there were those ones who thought they could get in our good graces by snuggling us in their zippered sweaters while they worked on their computers from midnight to 3AM, so the battle-weary members of the tribe could get some much-needed sleep. Our lusty wail kept our tribe awake and on their feet all day and night both in hospital and at home.

Our tribe took a long time to learn our language, even when we came home from the hospital; still guessing what it was we were demanding, what would make us content conquistadors. We had to teach them how to stretch, really stretch; how to gaze at our faces in adoration to hypnotize them either as we looked around our conquered territory or slept peacefully carried in their embrace. They guess at the meaning of the furrowed brow, the coy smile, the sudden uplifted arm salute struggling through the swaddling clothes. Thus have we subdued our tribe. But they are of a pacific nature and easily won over by our reasonable demands. They have even bestowed on us new names. The queen is Amarra aka Nugget and the king is Azure aka Bean. Our adventure in the land of human beans commences.

I’d Rather Eat than Skate Anyway

-Lyn Miller & Erika Steinhubl

A slightly belated Valentines gathering of KCC friends happened on Feb 15th – the idea was to eat breakfast, then go skating. We met at Fork It, a great little restaurant on Charlotte Street in downtown Peterborough, surrounded with Valentine decorations! Fork It has a varied menu with reasonable prices, and serves breakfast and lunch. Twelve KCCers were there for the event. All arrived masked and servers masked also. What an amazing brunch it was!

We enjoyed our breakfast, and we were delighted to be in each other’s company; it was just so nice to see people in the flesh. We soon got caught up in catching up with others we haven't seen in several months. The conversation went in many directions including the upcoming book club selection, the health and welfare of some in our number, and the beginning of sap collecting at the Slavin’s farm – the earliest ever! Excitement bubbled over when Al produced the signed Purchase Agreement and we each got a chance to hold and look at it. Conversation developed about how our relationships will be further enriched once we are all neighbours. We imagined this is what life in our own MURB will be like when we can get together more often.

There were those who brought their skates, but rain prevented people from skating after the meal. Oh well, another time, perhaps. We look forward to many other opportunities to get together!

Equity Member Interview… Peter Cook

Peter was born in 1948 in Stockton on Tees in NE England, across the river from Middlesbrough, Yorkshire. His father was a mechanical draftsman in England. During the war, his mother worked for the Army Technical Service. Peter can legitimately say his mother was a computer… before the invention of digital computers, people who performed calculations by hand were called "computers". Given this background, it is perhaps not surprising that school was easy for him. He is the oldest child and has 2 younger sisters. They moved to Canada when Peter was 9 years old, to Sault Ste. Marie. Peter has a fair facility for languages and lost his accent pretty quickly. When he said his last name, it sounded like “kook” to Canadian ears – maybe that helped.

They lived in the Soo for 6 years until the family moved to Dundas, Ontario. Peter went to high school there and on to McMaster to study Engineering Physics for 2 years. He switched to Industrial Engineering at the University of Toronto and graduated in 1969. In university, he had a girlfriend from Marseilles, from whom he learned French. After graduation, she wanted to travel the world but he wanted to begin his career, so off she went and they lost touch. He got a job with Ontario Hydro and lived at Rochdale College on the 14th Floor Commune.

Peter had some problems with depression and procrastination that started around this time. The procrastination was possibly explained by a later diagnosis of Adult ADD, though the ADD was probably there when he was growing up. He discovered a book titled, “You Mean I’m Not Lazy, Stupid or Crazy?” This explained a lot of what he had heard as a child.

He worked at Ontario Hydro for 2 years. He registered for Teacher’s College in ’72, but quit after 6 weeks. He drove a cab and gave driving lessons until ‘76 when he went back to Teacher’s College at U. of T. and got his certificate. He started teaching as a supply teacher, sometimes substituting for a whole term.

Peter went to a union organizing meeting of supply teachers and met Mary, an American from Pittsburgh. She had emigrated to Toronto after not getting in the Peace Corp. They dated for 4 years and got married in ’86. She got a job at the Rhode Island School of Design, and they moved to Providence. He got a full-time job in a Catholic School in New Bedford MA, then got his RI teaching certificate and taught for the Providence School department for 17 years until 2006. He enjoyed the people in RI, who were generally easy to get on with, and the school system was much less regimented than in Ontario, which was a mixed blessing.

Their son Brian was born in ’92. At the time they were living in a neighbourhood with mixed housing – some nice, some not. When Brian was 3, he looked out their window and asked, “Dad, what’s that policeman doing to that guy?”, who was spread-eagled on their chain-link fence. They moved to Barrington, a fairly well-off bedroom suburb. Mary still lives in that same house.

Peter suffered from burnout at work and resigned his position. He did some private math tutoring for 3 years and found that suited him better “than herding cats in a classroom”. He also worked for a couple of years with H&R Block during tax season. He and Mary separated in 2007. When their son finished high school, Brian chose to go to McGill because he was a Canadian citizen and the tuition was lower. In 2010, Peter moved back to Canada.

His father had died in ’96 from bladder cancer. His mother was ready to sell the cottage near Buckhorn, but neither he nor his sisters were ready to give it up, so he offered to live with her there and help so that they could keep the cottage. They lived at the cottage for 6 months of the year and in Toronto at his brother-in-law’s house for the other 6 months. In 2015, his mother decided to sell the cottage, meaning that Peter would be living in Toronto full-time. He had enjoyed living in Toronto when he was younger, but no longer felt that way. His mother moved to a retirement home in Burlington, and Peter looked around for a less urban place between there and Peterborough. His mother died in 2019.

Peter found a place in a 3-apartment house in the country on the road to Lakefield. Peter really likes living in a rural setting; looking out his window at a farmed field and a big block of trees across the way. He bought a VW Westfalia camper van, named Ursula, and makes a couple of trips in it each year.

He had joined the Unitarian Fellowship in Peterborough, but doesn’t attend regularly anymore. For Peter, all living things are related since they developed from cells which formed billions of years ago; he gets a charge out of thinking that all living things are our cousins. He met Margaree Edwards at a book club at the Unitarian Fellowship. They became close friends.

Peter speaks French and Spanish functionally. He spent a total of 6 months in Mexico on 3 different visits. The first was with CIASP (like CUSO) in ’69, next the Experiment in International Living where he lived with a family in Leon in ’71 and a 6-week trip around Mexico in ’84.

Peter gets by with his own cooking, but when his son visits, Brian always cooks up something tasty. Peter used to enjoy canoeing, bicycling and cross-country skiing, but has developed heart issues. He was diagnosed 30 years ago with cardiomyopathy and more recently developed congestive heart failure. Two years ago, he got a pacemaker, which keeps his pulse at a steady 60 beats/minute, but will not allow it to go faster. After walking 50-100 yards, he is usually “knackered”.

His son married 2 years ago and lives in Kingston. They have no children, but do have 2 cats; Peter’s grandcats. [During the interview, I misheard him saying that he had no children yet and I thought, “Better get a move on there, Peter!”]

He used to spend hours on his computer recording and classifying chess games. He is an avid reader – usually reading in the areas of science, environment/ecology and detective mysteries. He loves learning about evolution. He follows several people who build and sail yachts on YouTube, enjoys history and watches a couple of cooking shows.

Peter had been interested in cooperative living and attended an open KCC meeting at the Mount in the spring of ‘18. He is hoping to get a studio apartment in KCC. He is impressed with all the work that the Governance Circle has had to do. Now that we have an agreement on a property, it seems that our plans may well come to fruition!

Wise words

He who laughs at himself, never runs out of things to laugh at.
-Epictetus