I'm the 'Baby Champ"

I lived with my grandparents and mother in Montreal while Dad was overseas with the occupation troops in Europe. My uncle was also still living at home and he and I had great times together. 

We had a running joke about who was the baby champ. Of course I was the baby champ and he would always tell me that's right. I would stand up on the table, wave my hands in the air as a boxer would do after winning a fight. Those were very good times, some of the best of times.

I sometimes wondered as an adult where 'I'm the baby champ' originated, I guessed it was just a family nickname for me, I had no idea it actually had a meaning. 


Many years later in the states my mother is rehabbing after breaking her hip. We began speaking of the past, we somehow got to talking about that saying, 'I'm the baby champ'

Not long before I was born, Northern Electric came out with an affordable radio called, Baby Champ. There was one in the house on Rivard Street and between my grandparents, my uncle, and my mother who asked me who is the baby champ? I would say, I am!

We left Montreal for the states in December of 1952. My uncle married and moved away. My grandmother died in 1955. 

We were a family back then, a real family, with a grandmother and grandfather that loved me unconditionally, and I them. I was their 'baby champ' and I loved them so.