Jacques Choc LeBloque...BlackJack Shellac.

There are so many little things that Clint and I can come up with to parallel our lives to one another...from a young age even. It's just how the universe aligned to bring the two of us together. And to even share our memories before our memories were even personally linked. I don't know if I am even making much sense...I make sense to me. I always make sense to me. Let me make more sense of what I am thinking to myself...ha ha haha!

Westwood/Unicity Winnipeg. Clint was born in 1971 and was brought home from the hospital to his house on Doran Bay. My Omi and Opi had recently moved to Freemont Bay...3 years later I was born. You can see on the inserted map how close these Bays are to one another. There even was a little walkway between two homes on Fairlane Ave that brought you to Doran Bay. But, by the time I was born, Clint and his family had moved away from that home. Although, he still ended up in the same neighbourhood...just across Portage Avenue. I can remember walking or biking over to Doran Bay because of the walk way. It's a little parallel life match there. He remembers the back lane behind Omi & Opi's house. It took you right to the doors of Unicity Mall. Us kids (my bro, sis and later on my cousins) would walk there often when having sleepovers at Omi & Opi's...fun times. ;o)

Growing up, we spent a lot of our time out at Lake Nutimik. Our church was affiliated with Lake Nutimik Baptist Camp. We would go to Family Camp weekends, Church picnics, camp clean-up weekends...of course I would spend a week each summer at camp there too. I loved the lake so very much. My cousins even had a trailer out there. Such an awesome place to spend time. Clint also spent much of his younger years out there. His family had a cabin at Dorothy Lake. Which was just up the highway from Nutimik. You pass Dorothy Lake on the highway and drive about 10 minutes further to get to Nutimik. I am sure we must have passed each other at least once in all of those years...either going to the museum where the big old stuffed black bear loomed over everyone in the tiny cabin or to Blueberry Hill for yummy blueberries or to enjoy some rigorous cliff jumping...maybe even passs each other at the candy aisle at the corner store in Opapiskwa. Either way, it's fun to reminisce together with him about that area...we both have so many fond memories. Oh yeah...driving to the dump to watch the black bears too!! ha ha ha!

Clint used to be a driver for Pepsi...for like years. He would say for EVER. Well, it was 11 years of his life...so that can seem like a very long time when it is a truly and incredibly labour intensive job. He can tell you a story or two...and you can see him once in a while pushing his stool/walker when his back goes out. Because of his memories of parts of the job, I can say without doubt, that you do NOT want to see the back rooms of most stores or restaurants. Don't even think about it! Yeeeesh. Anyhow, he pretty much covered places all over Winnipeg. He would do deliveries to the Redi-Mart...that was the little corner store beside my High School. The place we would go at breaks and lunch time...lunch for my 99 cent pizza pop! I remember seeing Pepsi and Coke trucks parked out front of the store making delieveries...maybe once we passed each other. I probably would have thought he was a hottie and giggled to my girlfriends about it. Had I been who I am today, I surely would have said something directly to him. Like "hey...you are cute!" Not super thrilling...but I was 15 years old...didn't know how to lure them in yet. But I was a shy gal back then...well shy to the guys...for the most part. ;op He also would have delivered to all of the restaurants I ever worked at in Winnipeg...maybe even while I was in the building. I was the morning hostess, coming in first thing for opening duties for over a year at Grapes Pier 7. :o) Possibly could have seen his gorgeous face then too.

Anyways...there are so many things that him and I discuss and realize we have crossed paths thousands of times before we actually met one another. Concerts, the beach, the park...yadda yadda yadda. Back to Jacques and BlackJack. My dad is a pretty silly fellow. A guy who likes to have fun and laugh and just enjoy life...thanks for handing some of that down to me Daddy'o! ;o) We used to go for Sunday drives at least once a month. We would drive out to Kenora, ON or go to St. Norbert to he big park or go check out the open show homes in a newly developed neighbourhood (I actually loved doing this...my mom would obviously be dreaming about new things to do in our home and I could imagine living in my own grand home...just like my Barbie doll). lol Didn't matter what we did or where we went...we always had an adventure. Singing to the 50's, 60's and 70's Reader's Digest tapes...telling funny stories and dad making us all laugh. He would sometimes talk in a French accent would call himeself the name Jacques Choc LeBloque. It was just a made up name. I used to say it all of the time too...it sounds best when you say it with a thick heavy as good as you can do French accent. Anyhow...the funny part about that is...Clint's dad made up the name BlackJack Shellac!! It's like almost the same name...sooooo close! When we realized that, it was just too much. We truly are meant for one another! lol I do believe that statement to be true no matter how paralleled our lives can seem. He is the one for me...and I surely am the one for him. Hallelujah! All I can say is that I am a happy woman with an amazing man by my side.

Jacques Choc & BlackJack together forever!! This is how I imagine BlackJack to look like. Clint had 2 cowboy "dolls"...like the GI Joe dolls. He had a beard and was dressed in black. So he named him BlackJack Shellac. I'm sure it made his dad proud! ;op


Cheers to Jacques Choc and BlackJack! hee hee!