One of my earliest memories occurred when I was about two years old.    My family lived near the town of Port Elgin, a small tourist destination on the shore of Lake Huron, in a two-story apartment. The apartment comprised the front half of an old farmhouse, typical of those one finds throughout southern Ontario, Canada.  The farmhouse apartment had a stairway from the kitchen to the second floor. There were two steps to a small landing and about eight more steps leading to three small bedrooms and a bathroom on the second floor. A window at the top of the