George Hamilton Gray

When my mother called me in 1952 and asked me to leave the orphanage she was living with George in 1401 Queen St West,Toronto, in Parkdale at Lansdowne and Queen. I thought that they were married but they weren't, because they got married some time later. I came down to Toronto and they took me to the CNE, Canadian National Exhibition, something every school kid in Ontario wanted to do. It was very exciting, what with all that was going on. There were many freebees at the Food Building, and a great show on the waterfront. Diving, water skiing, and most exciting an Air Show where they strafed targets in the lake and bombed targets in the lake, all very noisy, and jets flew very low over the crowd. Mother and George spent $50.00 that day and reeled me right in. I went back to the orphanage saying that I would think about coming back, thinking all the while I would, but wanting to give it a little more though. George seemed like a nice enough guy, and, I thought, I would have to be thinking of a job pretty soon, and I couldn't think of anything I could be doing in Kitchener Waterloo, so I made the move. As I have said George turned out to be a drunk and an alcoholic, every now and then going on the wagon, and when I first met him for a few months he was on the wagon. George had lost his drivers license as a result of an accident where he ran his car into his brother inlaw's car because he had no insurance, and the unsatisfied judgement fund had to pay $1000.00 towards the repairs to his brother inlaws car. As a result he could not get his license back until he paid back the $1000.00 with interest, which he eventually did, then got his drivers job back with the Department of Street Cleaning. When his crew wanted to get done with their beat early if I had nothing to do they would call on me to drive the truck, so they could all throw the garbage on the truck, so there was I driving the garbage truck down narrow streets, with cars parked on both sides without a drivers license. Whenever they got a lamp they would tear the cord off it and stuff it in an old burlap sack, and when they got an aluminum pot they would run over it with the truck and stuff that in another sack, and when Teflon frying pans came out everyone was throwing out the old cast iron pans, and when they got them George just kept them. He must have had fifty of them at one time or another. Many of them eventually made it to the cottage and we gave them away to anyone that wanted them, that weren't to thrilled with Teflon. Another thing they would get was Porno magazines like Playboy. We wold look at them and after we tired of them I would take them to work, and send them anonymously all over Canada in the CNR mail so guys in Northern BC or Northern Ontario, or the rural prairie towns would get a magazine in their mail and wonder why it had come to them. George's Brother Robert was a sheriff in Toronto, and at that time the only way people could get a divorce was on the grounds of adultery. The adultery had to be witnessed by someone, and the sheriff was the best person. There became a scandal in the city where sheriffs were swearing to witness adultery where none occurred, and Robert was caught up in that scandal, and was discharged. This was basically a stupid rule, why keep people together, who hated each other, or force them to go through this charade. Robert was eventually cleared, or the case was overthrown, and he was able to get paid for his lost time, but He had gotten a job as a chauffeur for a Vice President of Sears, and didn't want to give the job up.
When I decided to buy a piece of Crown Land George went in on it with me. When it came to registering the property George ask me how to do it. George already had a lawyer and we thought he could do it. I told George to register it, so that if he died, I would get the property, and that if died he would get it, and as it happened, the legalese was " Joint Tenants" which I wasn't aware of at the time. George went to the Lawyer, who I believe was a shyster, and the lawyer tells him to register it as "Tenants in Common" which meant that if he died, his share would go to his estate, and if I died my share would go to my estate, which would have been my mother in all likelihood. This eventually came back to bite me in the ass, when George died several years later. After mother died George was diagnosed with Cancer of the esophagus, and lasted for about 18 months until he died, at which time we actually got to see his and mothers will, which was a shock to us all. Mother and George had been total Pricks when writing this Will and their lawyer should have been disbarred for it as well. The only reason I saw the will was that when the Lawyer was handling the estate and was instructed to turn the property over to me, he over charged me for doing it, so I taxed the lawyer and had to get a copy of the Will to show the succession, and how it got to me.