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Ba-ba-oo
Aunt Trudy is the second of Ma-ma-oo’s and Ba-ba-oo’s daughters; sister to Aunt Erica, Uncle Mick, and Dad; mother to Tab; and aunt to Lisa, Jimmy, and Erica. Ma-ma-oo sent Trudy and Mick to residential school when they were young, and Aunt Trudy never recovered from the trauma of that experience. As an adult, she parties and drinks and proves to be an inconsistent mother to her daughter, Tab. However, she also takes Lisa under her wing at certain points. Aunt Trudy is involved in an on-again, off-again relationship with Josh.
Aunt Trudy Quotes in Monkey Beach
The Monkey Beach quotes below are all either spoken by Aunt Trudy or refer to Aunt Trudy. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
).
Chapter 1: Love Like the Ocean
Quotes
Ba-ba-oo had lost his arm in the Second World War, at Verrières Ridge. When he came home, he couldn’t get the money he thought he should get form Veterans Affairs because they said Indian Affairs were taking care of him. Indian Affairs said if he wanted the same benefits as a white vet, he should move off reserve and give up his status. If he did that, they’d lose their house and by this time, they had three children and my dad, Albert, was on the way.
“Geordie and Edith helped as much as they could,” Mick had told me […] “But they had their own family. My father worked hard all his life, and now he would say things like, ‘Agnes, I’m useless.’ She didn’t know what to do.”
Related Characters:
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Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 2: The Song of Your Breath
Quotes
“Cookie got kicked out of three residential schools. At the last one—guess she was fourteen then—this nun kept picking on her, trying to make her act like a lady. Cookie finally got sick of it and started shouting, ‘You honkies want women to be like cookies, all sweet and dainty and easy to eat. But I’m fry bread, bitch, and I’m proud of it.’” He laughed and shook his head “She always had to be right. When I was losing an argument and wanted to piss her off, I’d call her Cookie and it stuck.”
Erica’s eyes were shiny with tears. Her face was scrunched up and beet red. She blinked quickly then looked out the window, and her friends turned away and started whispering again. Making her mad had been fun, but making her cry made me feel like crap. It wouldn’t do any good to say sorry. Erica would be more embarrassed and probably wouldn’t believe it, coming from me. She shouldn’t dish it out, I thought piously, if she couldn’t take it. Erica got off at the stop before mine, punching my shoulder as she went by. I sighed.
Chapter 3: In Search of the Elusive Sasquatch
Quotes
“Alberni? Really? There’s a treatment centre where the residential school used to be?” one of the women said to Aunt Trudy.
Another woman laughed, then said, “Hey, how many priests does it take to screw in a lightbulb?”
“How many?”
“Three. One to screw it, one to beat it for being screwed and one to tell the lawyers that no screwing took place.”
“That’s not funny,” Josh said.
“That’s the point,” the woman said.
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Aunt Trudy Quotes in Monkey Beach
The Monkey Beach quotes below are all either spoken by Aunt Trudy or refer to Aunt Trudy. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
).
Chapter 1: Love Like the Ocean
Quotes
Ba-ba-oo had lost his arm in the Second World War, at Verrières Ridge. When he came home, he couldn’t get the money he thought he should get form Veterans Affairs because they said Indian Affairs were taking care of him. Indian Affairs said if he wanted the same benefits as a white vet, he should move off reserve and give up his status. If he did that, they’d lose their house and by this time, they had three children and my dad, Albert, was on the way.
“Geordie and Edith helped as much as they could,” Mick had told me […] “But they had their own family. My father worked hard all his life, and now he would say things like, ‘Agnes, I’m useless.’ She didn’t know what to do.”
Related Characters:
Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 2: The Song of Your Breath
Quotes
“Cookie got kicked out of three residential schools. At the last one—guess she was fourteen then—this nun kept picking on her, trying to make her act like a lady. Cookie finally got sick of it and started shouting, ‘You honkies want women to be like cookies, all sweet and dainty and easy to eat. But I’m fry bread, bitch, and I’m proud of it.’” He laughed and shook his head “She always had to be right. When I was losing an argument and wanted to piss her off, I’d call her Cookie and it stuck.”
Erica’s eyes were shiny with tears. Her face was scrunched up and beet red. She blinked quickly then looked out the window, and her friends turned away and started whispering again. Making her mad had been fun, but making her cry made me feel like crap. It wouldn’t do any good to say sorry. Erica would be more embarrassed and probably wouldn’t believe it, coming from me. She shouldn’t dish it out, I thought piously, if she couldn’t take it. Erica got off at the stop before mine, punching my shoulder as she went by. I sighed.
Chapter 3: In Search of the Elusive Sasquatch
Quotes
“Alberni? Really? There’s a treatment centre where the residential school used to be?” one of the women said to Aunt Trudy.
Another woman laughed, then said, “Hey, how many priests does it take to screw in a lightbulb?”
“How many?”
“Three. One to screw it, one to beat it for being screwed and one to tell the lawyers that no screwing took place.”
“That’s not funny,” Josh said.
“That’s the point,” the woman said.
