This story is part of the November 3 edition of Sunday Life. See all 12 stories . Mark Lizotte is a musician best known for his band Johnny Diesel & the Injectors.
Here, the 58-year-old talks about growing up in the US, his sudden “heartthrob” status, and meeting his now-wife. In LA when the epiphany hit: “I thought, ‘Nothing will make me happier than spending my life with Jep’.” Credit: My paternal grandmother , Fabiola Bazinette, lived in Somerset, Massachusetts and babysat me as a young child.
She raised her children as a single mum. Her husband wasn’t around much and, when he was, he was drunk and abusive. He even stole money from my father, Hank, when he was 12.
Grandma was a devout Catholic who went to her local priest and asked for a divorce from her husband. The priest told her he couldn’t do that, but if she wanted to live with a “friend” that she could. That’s when Norman moved in – they had separate bedrooms.
He looked like Lennie from John Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men , would play drums while Grandma played the organ, and they’d go around and entertain “old people” well into their 70s. I have a book of her song notes in my studio; her handwriting reminds me of my dad’s. We’d scrapbook together for hours, and being with her felt like the safest place in the world.
My maternal grandmother , Rita Morin, ran a convenience store in the US with her husband. He was an alcoholic. They lived above the store and raised my mum, Theresa Rita.