What a way to start a decade. One day I went to school, excited about my news. I seldom had news, so this was a big day. Boy was I right! I told my school yard chums of my dream the night before. I was walking the street when some friends asked me if I had ever seen the inside of the big house around the corner. I knew the house, it was big all right, and had a forboding look to it, fair to midlin' scary to a 7 year old.
"No,: I said, "but wouldn't it be great to get in there?" No sooner had I said it than it came true! This was a dream, after all. I wandered around looking at all the neat things in every room. Just then the owners came home and we ran out the back door laughing about our "adventure".
Some of my chums were whispering behind cupped hands. I thought little of it until an hour later when the principal came to my classroom door. "Roy, I want to talk to you in my office," his voice reverberating off the walls making my bladder weaker with every word. I had never been summoned by the principal, I didn't he even know who he was or what he did... he was just the big kahuna you never hear from unless it was serious.
When I arrived at the office the principal introduced me to DETECTIVE blah blah. As soon as I heard the word "detective" my ears closed and a cold sweat came out of each pore on my skin simultaneously. This was a day for firsts, I had never seen a detective, only heard about how they defeated bad guys every time. "You told some of your friends about breaking into a house yesterday, we want to know the whole story," detective number 1 grilled. Grilled was too mild, it sounded like an ultimatum. Looking back - the detective was dealing with a kid, I'm sure he was polite and gentle, but from inside my 7 year old head he wasn't. I was ready to break. I spewed everything as fast as I could, over and over (it seemed), just let me live! Fifteen minutes of "grilling" and I cried. I was so nervous, every fiber in me said they didn't believe I was relating a dream.
The car ride home was nerve racking. Did the "squad car" have windows? I can't remember. Was the siren blaring? I can't recall. Was I in handcuffs? I believed they thought I should have been bound, gagged and thrown in the dungeon.
Ah, mothers know things. The detectives told her what they knew and asked her to recall the day so she could convict me too. My mother, as organized as a bank, got out her journal, flipped through the pages, pressing a finger on a blot of ink that represented "that day". "He was inside the house all day" she said conclusively. The detectives wanted to know if those were the exact words in the journal. "No," she said, "the exact words are, shoes are at the repair shop, windy and rainy day." I only had one pair of shoes and they were being reborn for another winter. I was a big baby, too. There was no way I was going outside and get my feet icky on the wet streets, besides, I wasn't allowed to go anywhere unshod, good rule Mom.
The facts were out. I was off the hook... for now. The detective number 1 told me to be careful who I tell my dreams to, I could get into trouble again. Lesson learned, from that day on friends found out my opinion of the current weather conditions and not much else.
A big day came one spring, we were moving. The bird cage, with budgie enclosed, was wrapped for the plane ride to Toronto, Ontario. Yes, we were moving to another part of the country, and wow, going by train all the way! We left Vancouver heading for Stirling, Cape Breton in 1951. We had to stop in Toronto for about 6 months to a year so my father could help design the mill at the new mine they were opening up in Nova Scotia. The train ride was very exciting. My brother and I spent much of the time sitting and running around the open air cars. Yup, open air, no windows or walls. The Rocky Mountains came right to our seat. Of course, the smoke from the engine headed straight for the occupants of the open air seats, but a little soot and train smoke never bothered an outdoor trainsman! When we arrived in Toronto 4 days later the baggage handler transferred our luggage to a porter's cart, placing the bird cage on the top. The budgie spent the entire trip two cars away, trembling it's little feathers off with fear. My mother was furious. She gave the porter a large part of her mind as a tip!
We lived on the border of West Hill and Scarborough for the summer. How exciting, I thought, living in a motel wandering around seeing new things, meeting new friends and just having lots of fun for the entire stay. Well, that's the way a young mind plans the future, it turned out to be really boring, I was the only little kid from horizon to horizon. The only excitement I had was my brother pushing me in the deep water of Lake Ontario and watching me go down for the third time before slowly inching me to the shore, laughing at my feeble attempt to survive. Brothers can sometimes take their amusement all the way from fun to resentment.
For a short while we lived right in Toronto. I had the measles during the move, couldn't let light get to my eyes so I was part of the luggage, wrapped and carried. Divadale Street held little excitement for me, we were transients and everyone knew that. Milk was delivered by a nice man driving a horse and wagon. A couple of mornings he would invite me to go along. The horse knew the way, the man knew his customers. I cannot remember the milkman ever saying go or stop to the horse. As soon as he stepped into the wagon the horse moved to the next node of the journey. I broke a couple of bottles of milk on my last ride. I guess that's why it was my last.
Finally, the day arrived, it was back onto a train for the trip to Nova Scotia. St. Peters, Cape Breton was our home for the winter. We managed to get a small place right on the highway overlooking the water, a stone's throw away from the train, I tested that distance myself! Outdoor plumbing was great until November when the wind whistled up the cracks in the outhouse right to my cheeks. We lived next door to an older gentleman who let us play with his garage. Yes, "with", rather than just "in" his garage. He had a gadget in his garage unlike anything I had seen before. Our neighbour had a turntable inside his garage to turn his car around! I turned that car so many times it didn't know West from North.
That winter I went to school, went home, nothing much happened. I had two fights and lost both. The first fight was just after a snow fall. I was shovelling the driveway when I looked up to a beautiful sight. The provincial snowplow was hurling a wonderous wave of snow off the road. But wait, he is on my side of the road, heading right for me! He isn't slowing down! He doesn't see...Whump! I was buried in tons of snow. I dug myself out, looking around for the teasing that was inevitable from an older brother. But he wasn't around. I did it! I only embarrassed myself and that's easy to take!
The second fight happened in the school yard. The local bully shoved me over the coal scuttle while I was sharpening my pencil. I neglected to apologize to the goon so he said he would see me after school. I knew he wouldn't leave me a note, he was too stupid to hold a pencil. I waited inside the school front door until I was sure the coast was clear. I flung open the door, ran with all my might for the fence. With a giant leap I flung my body over the fence, into the waiting arms of, you guessed it, the town bully. Smack! "That'll teach you to get out of my way!"
Of course I knew he could only punch little kids who were 4 or 5 years younger than him. He was known as a bully and a coward. But that didn't make the pain go away in my eye. It swelled and turned black and blue, just like the text book says it should. My brother and his friends who were 4 years older than the bully got their revenge later that day. A little retribution helps heal a black eye.
Next spring, our house was ready at Stirling. We had the corner house of 5 staff houses with an unobstructed view of Stirling Lake. The house was a comfortable 2 story, three bedroom with a full basement, asbestos siding, coal furnace and slanted ceiling in the upstairs bedrooms. I like slanted ceilings, they add character to a bedroom. The furnace needed a constant supply of coal. Black dusty stuff that was dumped in the yard, 5 tons at a time, and required shovelling into the basement. I would sometimes break the asbestos siding while shovelling. The siding was the size of linoleum tiles and as hard as a counter top. The trouble was it was brittle, "accidently nudging" it with a shovel full of coal broke some tiles. A reason for scolding and, of course, the dreaded wooden spoon. I got the wooden spoon once in a while, accompanied with the usual yelling. My mother was never so mad as when she found out, during one spanking, that I had filled my pants with newspaper. What she never found out was this was the second time, I got away with it the previous week.
I was one of the few youth type persons who enjoyed looking at nice views. I would spend hours watching the clouds reflected in the lake and listen to the birds in the nearby trees. Our front window overlooked the farm of John G. MacLeod. Our first encounter with the MacLeods was that summer. My parents planted flowers in the front yard... lots of flowers, and veggies, peas, carrots, radishes and more, surrounded by chicken wire, an attempt to keep the locaI animals away. When the flowers reached full prettyness the MacLeod cow community came calling. They ate every flower in the garden, consumed every peapod and munched away the radishes, carrots and tomatoes.
An unhappy gardener confronted the cow owner resulting in little or no action. My father was up to the challenge though. Next year he planted poppies around the perimeter of the garden and dispensed with the fence. When the flowers were in full bloom we watched from inside the house one night as the cows slowly approached in their stealth position (as close to a crouch as a cow can do), sniffed the poppies and moved on to the next house. It worked... poppies deflected the cows into another's territory, a cause for celebration.
I was one of the good kids who did as I was told when cutting through John G.'s yard to go to school. I was sometimes invited inside the front sunroom for cookies, a rest stop on the journey home from classes. Occasionally, the invitor would grace us with a tune on the organ. I had never seen anything that old, the organ I mean. It had ornate designs weathered by time, yellowed labels for the pull out things that changed the tone, the mood and the smile of the organist.
Stirling was probably my best home. I had my own tree, the tallest around. I could see the ocean from the top. I suppose no one else wanted this oversized tree because it was a jump up to the bottom limb, there were vast distances between branches and it was scary when you climbed right to the top. From the top, through the bramble of smaller branches, I would look out over the forest below, the tops of all the other trees were layed out in a sea of green. I loved it, I visited my tree often. As I got older I smoked my first joint on that tree. No, I did not take drugs. The trees in this forest had a green hanging moss, the stuff that made boys think they were adults. The procedure was to find brown wrapping paper, preferably without gum or ink, harvest the moss and crush it into the palm of your hand. Then it was like a roll-your-own, wrap the brown paper around the "tobacco" and smoke 'em if you got 'em.
It was an absolutely dreadful initiation into the smoker's realm. Tears would blind my eyes as I struggled to take another puff from the stogie. The tears were a result of the previous puff, it burned my throat, then removed all the air from my lungs. I could hardly wait to exhale and get some smokeless air! What I did to my body just to say I did it, I smoked a tree!
There were about 25 kids in the neighbourhood that grouped together, no lack of companionship if I had wanted it. I was a bit of a loner, spending a lot of time on my bike enjoying the freedom of riding the ruts all over town. Sometimes I would pretend I was a bus driver letting people on and off my two wheeled bus. The bolt holding the handle bars to the frame became the door opening mechanism. I spent hour after hour in the public service, ferrying people from house to house. I remember clearly that I didn't strike up a conversation with any of the passengers during my entire bus driving career.
I remember going to the restaurant and playing songs for a nickle. Five feet high and Risin', by Johnny Cash and we could get Coke for a nickle too and penny gum... three or four big chunks of gum for 1 penny. My brother and I collected beer bottles, took them home, cleaned, sorted (pints and quarts) and packed them in cases, ready for the parents to fill the car and take them to Sydney for refund. We never lacked for spending money.
The theater showed serials, snippets of a continuous story played each week, just like the soaps of today. Nothing much happened, but you just had to be there. The film projectionist had this thing about westerns, though. I must have seen every western made. After the show let out my friends and I would race through the streets, around buildings and cars, shooting each other with our pointing finger and watching the bad guy die slowly and noisily. We all had our turn at being bad guy and out dieing each other.
During the summer a few of my friends and I would sit under the cookhouse, the long building that was used three times a day to feed the resident miners. We would eat shredded coconut out of 50 pound sacks, or whatever else was handy. Usually once a month, we would stop at the entrance to the bunkhouse. Just inside the door there was a Coke machine. On the top of the machine was a glass filled to the half way mark with Coke (half full? half empty?). The story was told to us each time how one of the miners dropped his razor blade in the Coke and it never came out, the Coke disintegrated it! A scary story for an imaginative 12 year old. I could dream similar scenarios for weeks using that theme. I would throw the St. Peters bully into a vat of Coke and rid the town of its violent offender.
As I got older I ventured further from Stirling. I went to Sydney with my parents and other families, we ate in the basement cafeteria in the Isle Royal Hotel, what a thrill. Every trip my father would recount his days in the thirties when there would be a Sydney lottery every spring. Someone would put a vehicle on the ice and sell tickets for the day and time of its sinking. We shopped in stores along George street in the "big" city. Every weekend the whole family would pile into the car, drive to where you catch the ferry to the mainland and see the progress of the Canso causeway being constructed, the marvel of the times.
Boys are sure stupid, or should I say their thoughts make them seem invulnerable. Stupid trick #1, It was common for us boys to hold live firecrackers in our hand and watch them go boom. Stupid trick #2, Body surfing in 30 foot waves. I didn't but the next group of boys older than us did. Stupid trick #3, attaching ourselves to the back bumper of a car and slide on the ice. Stupid trick #4, fill up a half full bottle of coke with pee, shake well and drink. I never understood this one, no matter how I thought about it the whole thing was disgusting. Stupid trick #5, throwing the ball over the roof of the school, over and over and over and crash! through a window. Why didn't we pick a building with fewer windows? Stupid trick #6, float around the lake on two logs and a board, we called it a raft. One of our kind died on it after falling into the water just far enough away from help to be deadly. Stupid trick #7, when we reached teenagerhood, we used B-B guns with real B-Bs to play our war games. I never understood this one either and became a distant spectator.
As I got older, I moved from my favourite tree to a group of trees where a bunch of us would climb these said trees, swing back and forth until we got up pretty good swaying motion, then leap to the next tree. I never missed. Those who did usually quit this game and went back to their war games with their snow forts and snow balls.
I remember giving up my bedroom to the local minister who had to have a place to stay. I got my brother's room, with a view of Stirling Lake, when he was shipped off to King's College in Windsor. We went to church every Sunday morning. The school room where I spent 5 days last week was now the church. Tomorrow it would be my classroom again. I never understood why we couldn't hold church in the recreation hall at the mine site, 1 block away.
In the summer of '54 my parents took a trip to Vancouver by car. I was told to get in the back seat while my brother was told to stay home and cut trees for the winter wood (no one says parents' decisions are always fair). What a thrill. I saw the Angus L. McDonald bridge in Halifax, went to New York where I was interviewed on color television in the RCA buillding. Rode the Pennsylvania Turnpike, there are 7 tunnels you know. Rode, slept, rode, slept. Almost got sick in Nebraska, I could not take another day of corn fields. Somewhere west of Nebraska we drove to the top of the Beartooth Mountains, 10,942 feet and played in the snow in July. I took pictures of the Mormon Church in Salt Lake City, the Grand Coolee Dam further west, finally arriving in Vancouver... to visit Grandma! She didn't like children, remember! She didn't like children even more now, so I spent the week glued to the back step, out of ear shot and out of shouting range.
I remember some nights, instead of laying in bed I would lay on the floor with my ear on the ventilation grate, the shortest route to the living room. From this vantage point I could hear the radio, I heard The Lone Ranger Rides Again, The Hornet, The Jack Benny Show and many others. They all made my imagination come alive. I would see the scene they were describing just as if I was there.
One fall, without warning, a small truck backed up to our side door. A box was removed from the back and placed in the middle of the living room. The box was marked Philco, Philco Television. We got our first TV! My father tipped the box on its side and slowly removed the TV, a console model with a light brown wood box and an antenna stuck on the top, at the back. The first click! we waited, all staring at the box. Thirty seconds later - sound, someone was talking, then the front of the box displayed a picture, 
a really poor picture. Somewhere in those black and white dots there was an outline of a person. My father turned off the box, went to the basement and assembled an antenna. He hung it from the ceiling and turned it toward Sydney, strung the attached wire into the grate leading upstairs. We went upstairs and attached the wire to the back of the TV. What a difference a bunch of tubing and a little wire made. The picture was great, I was glued to the front of this box for the next couple of weeks. It sounds like I watched a lot of TV at that time but, I was not allowed to turn it on so I watched what my parents wanted to see.
Eventually, the mine ran out of resource and it was time to move away. It was a sad day for me, probably one of the saddest. I didn't think about missing the other kids, I was going to miss Stirling, my tree, the MacLeod's farm, Stirling Lake, body surfing at Framboise Cove, standing on the edge of the Glory Hole and throwing rocks over the edge, timing them until they hit the bottom. The Glory Hole was a big pit, about 200 feet across by 400 feet long and really deep. A war wound, so to speak, of the mine that died in the '30s. I was already missing my home, my own room, the snow caves I made every winter, I would even miss shovelling coal into the bin in the basement, 5 tons at a time, breaking asbestos shingles. I didn't like all the work but I did like the satisfaction of seeing all that black in the basement. I would miss McLean's Lake, on the other side of the ball field, where I removed every blood sucker the lake had from my legs at least once. I would miss the fireflys, the beacons of the insect world, that lighted my way many summer nights in the previous 5 years.
I would miss the three room school house where in grade 7 I would mispell words in the spelling bee so I could stand beside Faye, miss laying on my back, propelling myself down a slight hill with a push from my feet just after a freezing rain. And yes, I would miss the people. Everyone without exception treated me with respect. My father was famous for miles around for opening our house to one-on-one AA sessions with local men, part of my father's mandate to his own future health.
The movers came, they loaded, they left. I felt my heart holding back the boxes and barrels from being carried onto the van. But, it was over and I was not given a say, a choice or even allowed to express an opinion. "We are moving to Geraldton, Ontario", my father told me after the van took away my last hope. Geraldton, you say? The birthplace of the esteemed, me! Well, that's not too bad then. I was returning to oversee my subjects in my rightful birthplace. That thought kept me going for the next few days as we drove to Northern Ontario, via Toronto.
There was an empty house waiting for us this time, no temporary lodging, we were moving right in. What a nice little house, narrow, but long, with a bedroom behind the kitchen, beyond the back door... and it was mine! My own little kingdom, away from the hustle and bustle of parents. The first day I walked around, every road, looked at every building, every puddle. Boy, it was big compared to Stirling. There were dozens of houses, the Trans Canada Highway just over there, and paved roads everywhere. We weren't in the backwoods now, we were mainstream people! I decided I was going to like it here. After all, I was a native son, probably one of the few to return, maybe there weren't any others and I would be crowned king. My thoughts often blew up in my face and this thought was going down that road.
My small town hick attitude combined with my returning king complex would get me into trouble during the first week of school. I found out early that just about everyone at the school was born there! Rats, nothing special about me, in fact, I soon learned that the "new kid on the block" had to be tested, time and time again. At Stirling everyone was new, it was a new town, there was no new kid... we were all new kids at that time. This was the first time I experienced this rejection, this probing into my private space, this violation of my dignity! At the end of the first week one of the bigger kids took a liking to me and we became friends. I guess giving him my daily Pepsi, my cheese, my apple and my dessert helped a little.
I spent the month of June hanging around grade 7 students. I had passed at the middle of May into grade 8 in Stirling. My parents didn't know what to do with me for the last month of school so they made me get up every morning and take the 3 mile bus ride (standing, the new kid stands) into Geraldton so I could build up a portfolio of heckling, pushing and shoving and general humiliation. But, I survived and began my fun when summer holidays finally were declared official. Our house backed onto the local 9 hole golf course. I had never golfed before but it looked like fun so I borrowed my mothers clubs and headed out the back door. Over the summer I learned a lot about golf. I practiced very hard, threw a club or two, and smiled from ear to ear when it all went right. During the summer I birdied every hole, just not all during the same round.
That summer I entered as many golf contests as I could and won most of them. Near the end of the summer I was in this one particular tournament. It was an 18 hole playoff for the northern Ontario championship. On hole number 14, with a big lead I defaulted to my opponent due to an internal body temperature of 104 degrees. I was rather ill. The significance of that loss never meant much to me. When I tell others I was almost northern Ontario junior golf champion, they are impressed. But, because of the absense of the competitive gene in my pool, I say "so, big deal, let's move on".
I had my first date that winter. What a nice girl. None of the macho (a term unknown in the '50s) guys would give her a second look. Girls that age were developing upper body strength, obvious by their protruding pectoral muscles. My girl friend must not have worked out in the same gym because her chest looked like mine. But it didn't matter, she was a great friend. We would go to the shows together, the weekly teen dances and walk around a lot. Hokey, right? Pretty nice when you're that age though.
This was the summer my current wife, Jo-Anne, was born. I was out schmoozing the locals while in Regina, Saskatchewan, Anne and Frank Uhl were giving birth. I didn't realize the impact of this birth... Jo-Anne says there was probably a small rip in the space time continuum, but I didn't feel it.
The winter was cold. How cold was it? I froze my ears many a morning, walking from the school bus to the school door. The first time it was that cold the principal, Mr. Parker stood at the entrance to the school holding up his "stop" hand in front of my face. I stopped, he moved his hand forward to touch my nose saying, "Don't move or it will fall off!" I was a teenager, what is the "it" that will fall off? I soon realized he meant my nose. It warmed, I followed it into my classroom.
Mr. Parker was the principal but taught us half days. Every morning I would enjoy going to class and listening to his reading, his instruction, his insight into more than I could fathom. I had trouble with English. I could not understand the difference between a verb, a noun, an adverb or an adjective. Mr. Parker took me aside and offered to teach me the basics of English Grammar in the evenings. I shouted yes!, yes, I'll be there. But, "being there" meant I had to "get there", I did not plan that part. Knowing they would be too busy and with head hung low, I asked my parents if they would be so kind as to grant me one of my three wishes in this life. They said, to my surprise, one of them would drive me to the school each night. There was only one night they didn't show up and I started walking into town. My mother picked me up about a mile from the school.
I learned so much from that man. Everything fell into place instantly. I wrote sentences, simple ones, compound ones, run on ones (just for fun), paragraphs, stories, essays and more. I owe much of my broadcasting career success (see the '70s) to Mr. Parker. I achieved a mark of 99 in English that year, I forgot a lousy period at the end of an essay. Everyone knew the sentence had ended, there weren't any more words. Why couldn't they forgive me one little period? English was a breeze from that time on. Thank you Mr. Parker, may you rest in peace.
Grade 8 was over, I was free... free to hit the links, dive into water, explore the forest and have a wonderful summer. My father was preoccupied a lot in the evenings of July that year. Both parents would talk in riddles, whispers and quiet nodding. One particular evening I was scolded for putting my priceless collection of 78 RPM records on a chair while I moved stuff around on the counter. So I put the records on the counter again. The phone rang, it was for Dad, he said hello, smiled, sat on the counter and broke every last record from my collection. Not even an "I'm sorry". Parents today lead such complicated lives compared to the '50s. Back then parents were king and queen and the serfs (children) were to be tolerated, barely. Nowadays, kids have a life, a personality and a few rights and privileges.
It was only a month later that the moving van stopped at our house. Now what? The reply was, "We are moving to Worthington." No explanation, no warning, no idea where Worthington was. I headed for the atlas, just before the movers packed it. Worthington, near Sudbury... still in Ontario. Maybe they'll have a school and I won't have to bus it.
No such luck. Worthington, as far as I could understand, had a store. No people, just a store. After driving two or three miles up this poor excuse for a road, we arrived at the mine. Well, not a real mine, a future mine, someday it hoped to grow up and be a real mine. The camp consisted of 7 houses arranged in a circle. Our house was the first on the right. School, where is the school? My parents hummed and hawed a lot for the next couple of weeks. One day, without warning again... my goodness that "without warning" happened a lot didn't it, we were off on another car ride. "We're going to check out a boarding school in North Bay." I was told. Boarding school! I got very nervous for the rest of the trip. We drove for more than a couple of hours. We went through Sudbury and kept on driving east. Just after lunch we drove up to a stately old stone building. What a beautiful front it had. Inside the wood trim was walnut or something expensive looking. A priest greeted us just inside the door. Now I found this to be very strange since I was a Protestant. "Welcome to your new home," he said. New home? Not with you buddy. I live in Worthington... going to take the bus into Sudbury to go to school. All I heard was, buzzz... wrong! You are going to reside in Scollard Hall for the rest of your natural life or longer if it can be made so.
Back in Worthington, what an absolutely boring existence. Nothing to do, no where to go, no one to see. There was one guy my age but he was a certified nut case. All he talked about was girls and what he was going to do to every one of them as soon as he got a chance. He is probably in jail for unspeakable acts, I couldn't believe how twisted his mind was. There was a girl in the camp, my age, pretty, rather experienced compared to me. I carved her initials into a tree one day. Thought it would impress her. It did... for about 5 minutes, then she moved on to other things. I guess my nerdness was blooming that year.
One event was significant that year. My parents were doing the dishes one evening when my father shouted, "Look at that", pointing through the kitchen window at the southern horizon. I looked and saw a ball of light just hanging around. It was a long way away. Slowly, it moved toward us, then, in an instant, swooped off toward Sudbury and disappeared into the evening sky. I don't know what it was but thousands of people saw it.
I drove my first vehicle that summer. It was an old half ton truck with two gears working, two gears unable to work and an unending supply of blue smoke which it blasted out the tail pipe. Having trouble seeing through the cracked windshield I tried to stay on the road as long as possible. In another vehicle, that summer, I got the scare of my young life (to this point). I was totally bored with the lack of, well everything, I made friends with a truck driver who was hauling rock to upgrade the road into the camp. One morning with me as co-pilot he backed the truck up to the edge of the road they were filling and started to dump his load. I looked around and realized we were quite high up... it would take a lot of rock to fill that valley. All of a sudden the load dumped and the cab of the truck started to go up as well! I panicked, saw a glimpse of my short life, thought of crossing myself, after all I was going to Catholic boarding school soon, and hung on for dear life. Just before the truck made a complete 360 the driver managed to stop the somersault, bringing the cab back to normal attitude. My attitude changed quickly. I jumped out of the truck and ran back to camp as fast as I could. I didn't like the devil-may-care attitude of that driver, that was a dangerous time that could have killed us both.
I moved into the dormitory. Fifty beds in the same room. Fifty, count them, 50, and no partitions or curtains between the beds, just one big room and 50 beds. I liked 1 room - 1 bed, not 1 room - 2 beds or 1 room - 50 beds. There were two dorms, one for the seasoned veterans and us, the dweebs of high school. There was no such thing as junior and senior high, high school consisted of grades 9 to 12. We each had a locker the size of a cigarette pack where all of our personal belongings were inspected by the veterans whenever they wanted, because they had seniority. Don't get me wrong this was a strict school, it's just that the priests couldn't be there all the time. When their backs were turned the veterans took every opportunity to harrass us. I began smoking commercial cigarettes that year. I guess I thought with every puff a little weebness would disappear. I was wrong, but now I was hooked on the weed.
During football season I gained a little respect from the team. I did not play the game, but I did arm wrestle. I was long, 6.3", and lanky, 125 lbs., with arms like rifle barrels, .22 calibre. The members of the football team were short, compared to me, with arms like shot guns, sawed off. They would laugh and laugh at the notion that stick boy was willing to arm wrestle. I am sure they were thinking, "I'll twist his arm off and hang it on the wall." None of these football types knew how to spell physics so, the long and short of it, I challenged each of them to an arm wrestle and beat at least 90% of them. Sometimes I heard, "How did the stick beat me?" It sure is nice to be accepted.
I went out for baskeball that year, didn't make the team, Too tall, I guess. Thanksgiving, my parents drove up and stayed for an hour or two. I went home (Worthington) for Christmas. My brother was home too. He bought me a record that year that I cherished for many years, Bye, Bye Love - The Everly Brothers.
Back at school, I endured the dorm life, but just barely. I got hit with a flashlight a few times for making noise. Trouble was I never said a word. I found out later from a Brother (a priest wanna be?) that both priests who looked after the dorms loved to hit the rotestants. I was treated unfairly during that first year but everything they did obviously had the blessing of God so it was all right. I fought the good fight by lobbying to be able to attend the church of my choice. At the end of the year I won and became the first non-catholic to be allowed out on Sunday to attend another church.
We could watch 1 TV show a week, Hockey Night in Canada. I played the hockey pool along with everyone else, but never won, like almost everyone else. Almost every Saturday this one guy would lay on a table, taking up at least 4 spots, and fall asleep. One hockey night this rude member of the "veterans" fell asleep, with his hand out in mid air. A fellow dweeb member got a glass of warm water and brought it back to the TV room. Slowly he raised the glass of warm water so it surrounded the dangling hand. You know, it's true, your bladder does let go when your hand is in warm water.
Ah spring! Thoughts of -- the girl's college, 5 miles away. Nope, too far to walk just for rejection. Now that was a positive attitude. I walked the streets of North Bay, enjoying the fact that a lot of people lived there. I guess I was tired of living in mining camps. I wanted to be around and see man made buildings, cars, technological marvels like TV.
School ended in early June, time to go home. I packed all of my belongings into a suitcase and was told to take the train north. North? I lived west in Worthington, right? No, you live in Matachewan now, get off the train in Swastika. A suitable name for the way I was moved around from town to town. A forty mile drive along a boring stetch of road to the thriving metropolis of Matachewan, Ontario, 40 miles west of Kirkland Lake... smack dab in the middle of nowhere. My father was running a research initiative defining the parameters of removing Molybdenum from rock.
We lived in a very, very small apartment for a short while. It was in the same building as the telephone exchange. I made friends with two people in that town, one person was my age and we would sit and listen to US radio stations or go for a walk. I left the house a lot that summer, I smoked, my parents didn't know. The other person I got to know was the day telephone operator. I sat with her for hours watching technology flourish. She had this vertical console with "flaps" all over it, organized into rows and columns. Each flap represented a rural telephone line. When it opened a person was wishing to make a call. A plug was inserted into the hole underneath the flap and she would say, "Number, please?" Then take another plug and insert it into another hole and wind the crank to activate the bells at another person's home. I got to do this for a while, until I got bored with the gossip. This woman knew everyone and everything and spread the news. At home, when I made a call, I could hear, click, click, click as each neighbour lifted their receiver to listen in on my conversation. Why couldn't they get a life of their own?
I returned to boarding school that fall with a badge of honour. I was allowed to have a semi-private room, 1 room - 2 beds... although they were stacked vertically. Having less seniority than the roommate I got the top bunk. I used to go up to the dorm and talk with the first year dweebs, yes the cycle continues, except I made friends with some of them and they spent a lot of time in my room. Speaking of spending time in someone's room, I could never understand why the two small boys would spend all Saturday afternoon and evening with one of the priests. Or why one of the students would spend the entire night with a priest in their private quarters, they had some friendship going. Then there was this other student who would hang around a specific priest day and night. I didn't question it then because it didn't directlly affect me and was none of my business.
The school administration made an all out effort to convert me that year. I was invited to mass, morning prayers, evening prayers. I was told if I did not go to my church on Sunday, I was going to theirs. I went for about a month but couldn't stomach any more. I would sit in the back and observe the ritual that played out every morning. Not the ritual of the mass or prayers, which bothered me too, but the ritual of the older students who went to church every morning, spending the entire time taking the Lord's name in vain... in a church!. It happened every time I attended, usually for the entire mass. I asked questions about religion and never received answers, the fathers would skirt the issue, settling on their doctine as a valid conversion device. I believed (and still do) contrary to the way the priests think, religion starts in the soul. A person can have his own "religious house" in order and not have to participate in an organized church. The boys who constantly swore in church were a good example of people learning to have little or no respect for others. This was not a team that I would join.
I made the basketball team! I never was very good, I was deformed, born without the competitive gene, remember. I thought about training to jump higher so I could dunk the ball more often, but I never found the time... had to go out for a smoke. My crowning glory was to get 6 baskets in a row one game (12 points). We were playing midget high and I stood under the basket six times. My name was in the paper, wow. Why would the tallest person in the league not be a scoring star? It all comes down to that competitive gene again, next life I'm gonna get me some. That winter the sports priest made me join greco wrestling. I was so gangly no one could turn me, so I won a few matches just by hanging around for the time limit.
Another school year went by and I headed for Matachewan, yes, my parents were still there. What a boring summer. We lived in a house this time, two long and a short on the telephone. A tourist from the US came north for the fishing, and somehow found us. He removed all of the boredom for three weeks by taking me with him on his travels, in fact, he let me drive his VW beetle. What a thrill, spending days driving him from place to place. But the summer ended and I headed back to boarding school for yet another term.
This year I was one of the veterans and had a private room. 1 room - 1 bed! A lock on the door and I looked out the front of the building, wow! I never went near the dorm that semester. I found a 12" speaker, made a hole in a big cardboard box and had a hi-fi to rival the local theater (I thought). School started with a bang. The first day, the french teacher said, "Well, this year we are going to learn all 32 tenses of every verb in the language." 32 tenses, I wanted to speak the language not write their law books. The mental block placed itself between me and french.
Last year I flunked history... I got 2.... out of 100. The arrogant teacher (no one in the entire student body liked him at all) put one question on the final exam, Write everything you know about ................... ( a certain period of ancient history). I fumed. I knew, even then, that this tactic was probably the poorest method of course evaluation possible. I placed my name on the top right corner of the first page, waited for 1-1/2 hours and handed it in. Well, this, the third year, I got the same teacher, teaching the same course. This year he was the vice principal too. He said to me the first day, "You better put some effort into this course this year." I said right back, "You better put some fairness in your exams this year." We agreed to hate each other for the year.
A couple of incidents deeply disturbed me that fall. The tyranical Latin teacher would give huge homework assignments, I mean huge. "Write 18 pages of this Latin book as punishment for not conjugating that verb correctly," the teacher would demand... that kind of huge. I found Latin relatively easy so I avoided the dreaded writing exercise. A couple of others just couldn't get their head around this foreign language and failed to complete their homework assignment. The next day the amount of homework was doubled for the offenders. And the next day it was doubled again, for those poor buggers who couldn't do the impossible. We didn't have much free time, what with mandatory sports, evening mass, 2-hour study hall and lights out early. After a week of this doubling the offending students were called into the office of that Latin teacher. He yelled for quite a while then started hitting them. Not just hitting but taking full swings with his closed hand. One student was hit in the face so hard his glasses went flying across the room, out the door across the hall and smashed against the far wall. Others were given body shots that would be hard to take in a boxing ring. Oh yes, this "priest" was the boxing coach as well, so he knew full well how hard he was hitting these boys. During the year he hit me a few times on the head with his Latin text, to the point I would see funny shapes in the ceiling and many stars to light my way. And I was a good Latin student!
That fall, a couple of the Protestant students were accused of serious breaches of protocol on the weekends, leaving without permission, not going to church like directed and not attending mass when told. They were not guilty and I was a witness, but I was told to shut up and stay out of it. I didn't. From my vantage point I saw the administration wanting these people expelled for trumped up charges. I fought the religious war with my buddies. They stayed, but did we win or lose, I seemed to get hit more that fall by more priests than usual.
My parents sent me a letter saying they had moved. The envelope was exotic looking, air mail, thin, onion skin paper, the stamps.... I squint to see R-O-S-I-T-A, N-I-C-A-R-A-G-U-A. They had moved out of the country and left me behind! I spent the fall getting heart sick. I was, for the first time, getting home sick. I realized this was not just a train ride now, this was almost another dimension. What about Thanksgiving? There was no place to go so I confined myself to my room. What about Christmas? The school wouldn't let me stay. I was given a train ticket to Geraldton to spend that family time with friends of my parents. I remember one 10 minute period of that train ride. We stopped half way to fix a broken train part. The conductor said, "Cold out there. The station thermometer says -64 degrees F." Great, my parents are sitting in their lawn chairs looking out over the jungle while I freeze yet unused body parts in the middle of nowhere.
I spent a pleasant Christmas with my foster family. They were both teachers and spent their days correcting exams and talking teacher gibberish. They lived in three rooms of the old abandoned school house in Little Long Lac (outskirts of Geraldton). I went for a lot of walks to pass the time.
Back at school, during one particularly nasty blizzard, I wrote the letter of my life. I poured out my heart, pleading for Mom and Dad to send me home, home to Nicaragua. They did! Thank you Mr. Parker, your English Grammar classes came through again! I flew out of North Bay on a cold miserable, windy, snowy day. In Toronto I changed planes and headed for Tampa, then Miami where I would overnight. I had my winter clothes hiding me from the elements when I stepped off the plane in 75 degree F. weather. Boy was I hot when the taxi arrived at the hotel. Up the next morning at 4:00 AM... the flight left for Nicaragua at 6:00 AM. I thought it was hot in Florida, that was nothing to what greeted me at 12 degrees of latitude, Nicaragua. I left most of my clothes strewn around the airport, and had to go back to clean up the mess after passing through security.
People in Canada lived a boring life. There was no flair, no pizzazz. I walked into the Grand Hotel in Managua and looked over a pool attached to the lobby. Our room overlooked the pool. It also overlooked the sloth, the macaw, and various other bird characters that kept me amused. The next morning we boarded a DC3 and headed west over the jungle. Landing at La Luz opened up a paradise for my eyes. Lush green trees, plants, flowers, grass. People greeting us with big smiles. The runway was no more than a clearing and a gravel road wide enough for the plane. Rosita was an hour away by narrow road deeper into the jungle past trees and growth that prevented me from seeing more than 2 feet into the jungle.
The camp was a series of clearings in the jungle. There was a clearing for the houses for the gringos (us), a clearing for the process plant and support buildings and a clearing for the huts of the local people who worked at the mine. Heaven forbid we should all live in the same clearing, we were management after all. It took a while to adjust to the heat. Every night the temperature would drop to 80 degrees F. Every afternoon it would rain so hard the house next door disappeared, but came visible again when the rain cloud moved on.
My mother sucked salt pills as if they were breath mints. I hung a soaking wet bed sheet in the door frame in the evening with a fan blowing the coolness into my room. I took more baths that first month than I would in a year. Many times a day I would clear the bugs from the tub and run cold water for the soaking. I visited the recreation hall every day, drank Pepsi with ice cubes every chance I got. One day I was introduced, closeup, to a tarantula. It was resting on the shoulder of a patron as he entered the recreation hall. It looked like his pet, nestled against the collar of his right shoulder. It saw the bartender, the bartender saw it. He grabbed a broom and the race was on. The spider won. My goodness they can run faster than a broom carrying human.
When at home I would kill a large bug type creature in the middle of a room. Before I could sweep it into the garbage an army of small insects came out of all corners of the room, devoured the edible portions of the insect, and then scurried back into the walls. I made an attempt to chemically remove these scavengers but they walked through everything I could lay down in their path. Our Macaw liked bugs, we had a Macaw at the back step with a can of corn near his perch. I looked inside that can one day and the whole thing was moving, protein - meat and veggies in one sitting.
I had a chance to go to the west coast of the country, Blue Fields. We passed by areas known to be frequented by rebels who were banding together to make an offensive against President Somoza. We saw black panthers (the animal variety, not the Los Angeles type) flashing across our headlight beams. Tapirs, trudging wherever they wanted to go. Snakes, six feet and longer were caught and displayed regularly. There was one bug that proved most interesting. The local people called it the rhinocersos bug. It was about 6 inches long with a head that resembled that of a rhino, the two horn like spikes stood proudly on the top of their heads. Once a year they would climb the tallest trees and sprout their wings, gliding toward any light source. The mine provided lots of light sources, the bugs were everywhere. Many times the heads would snap off on impact at the end of their flight. My father put one head on his desk and placed a pencil in the spikes. The bug dutifully held the pencil in that position until it was taken away, used for a while and replaced in its insect holder. This went on for a about a month before the spikes could pinch no more. This was a longer life than the Energizer Bunny.
I worked that summer in the electrical shop, removing gunk from motors, replacing bushings, windings, brushes and other motor stuff. I earned 1.25 Cordobas, about 17 cents American per hour (something like our Canadian dollar now, right?). At the end of the experience I earned just enough to pay my rec. hall bar bill. I was a late sleeper by habit, trying my best to be late for work every morning. My father had a very annoying method of getting me up. He would reach into my room and place his index finger on my nose until I got mad, then he left.
At the end of the summer (May) it was time for me to go to school, and that was in the capital city. I packed my belongings into a suitcase and headed for the plane. There was no passenger service this week, the plane was undergoing maintenance. We flew in a DC3 without seats. My father took the jump seat behind the pilot and I wandered around this empty shell waiting for take off. The pilot yelled, "Grab hold of something!" I did. The take off was swift and decisive. We left the ground and headed almost straight for the clouds. This was not a passenger plane, cargo never complains of rapid ascents and descents. The air pockets were the most fun. I found myself flung to the ceiling of the fuselage, only to be returned to the floor even faster. I quickly learned to spread my feet on the floor, my hands on the ceiling and stay that way for the hour and a half remaining.
I lived with a Spanish speaking family in a nice neighbourhood of Managua, the capital city. My bedroom was shared with two other people. 1 room - 3 beds, oh well. Meal time was challenging. The food consisted of many items I couldn't quite place. The preparation used methods that made the food taste, well, different. I quickly adjusted. The main problem was they wouldn't feed me unless I was polite enough to ask for items in spanish. Again, I adjusted quickly. The school was out of town in a peaceful valley. It was called the American School, since all Americans and me went there. Classes began at 6:00 AM and ended just before the heat of the day 1:00 PM. I was tutored through eight years of spanish texts in the first two weeks, got 100. That gave me a beginning to the real learning of a language, speaking it on the streets. Near the end of the school year I was speaking to just about anybody about anything. My best course was American history. They have such a way of presenting it. It was interesting. Our history was presented as a text book reading experience rather than a discussion of the times.
I was a freak of nature in Nicaragua. The tallest indigenous person would be about 5' 11", I was 6' 4". I joined the basketball league. They had the hoops lowered 1 foot to compensate for the shorter players. This made me a star. Most plays had a similar theme, run to the defending basket, hold up my hands to prevent any access, run to the offensive basket, receive the ball, drop it into the hoop. We won every game. Most days I sat in the bar at the Grand Hotel drinking Pepsi and crushed ice. I hung around with the Americans. They were beer drinkers, I wasn't. I tried a bottle of Tequila once, just once. I used it as drain cleaner after that first sip. One of the Americans sat one night and chugged 1/2 bottle of Vodka, may he rest in peace. I learned from that experience.
There were two types of theaters in Managua, sit down and stand up. The sit down type showed the latest Brigette Bardot movies. If she asked me I would have married her. The price was 7 cordobas or about 1 dollar American. The other theaters were walk-in and stand around. You pay 35 centavos, stand on the dirt floor, crushed up against the hundreds of patrons all straining to watch the movie. If a fire marshall existed the place would have been shut down for overcrowding. The movies were in Spanish and barely heard over the din of conversation all around.
On the weekends we would head for the lake just out of Managua that had fresh water sharks. They were trapped hundreds of years ago and managed to keep reproducing. I never saw one. Back in the city Saturday morning, I was wakened by the bed shaking. We were experiencing an earthquake. What a helpless feeling, no matter where you go the world shakes. The stewardess who lived in the next room came running into my room, minus her dress. That vision calmed the room right away. I don't know when the earthquake ended.
One morning in the fall I was awakened by gunfire. I ran to the front of the house only to see an armoured car complete with machine gun spraying the streets with bullets. I asked the landlord what was going on. He said rebels from the Blue Fields region were taking a stand against Somoza, burning cars, trying to find Americans to kill and making a nuisance of themselves. I ran out of town on foot, avoiding the gun people and took refuge in an American house just outside the city. I was Canadian, but I'm sure I would have difficulty explaining the difference to a rebel. The trouble lasted a few days and I returned to the city.
Even though I was inocculated for everything bad when I left Canada, I managed to contract a case of Dyptheria. I passed out very quickly, waking up days later in the hospital. Somebody had the good sense to get me to the emergency room in time. Thank you somebody!
Near the end of the school term I got a call from a friend of my parents. My mother had taken ill and had to leave the country. Well, no wonder she was sick, she ran every store in the country out of salt pills and wondered why she was having side effects. Dropsy, push the skin in and it stays there for a few minutes. She had that among other things. They decided I would take her to Vancouver. So we left that wonderful time, that wonderful family, the wonderful weather. I remember the temperature dropping to 67 degrees F. one night and we almost froze. I felt like Nicaragua could be home.
We landed in Mexico City at 6:41 PM, there was a clock for all to see beside the runway. You would think rush hour would be over. Nope, there were cars everywhere, the organized lanes of traffic became one lane, many cars wide. It was a rush for first place, anyway you can get there. I looked around some of the shops but didn't have time to do any sight seeing. The next day it was off to Vancouver, to stay with, oh no, Grandma! She still hated kids, even though I was shaped like an adult now, she slotted me in with the kindergarden set. "Turn that radio down," she yelled. "It isn't on Grandma." I had turned it off about 10 minutes previous. I wanted to hear the latest music, Nicaragua stations played their own music. The first song I heard upon my return was Roy Orbison - Blue Angel, impressing me to the point of tears, I missed music. "Stop making those noises out there," she bellowed from the other room. "It's the neighbour mowing the lawn, Grandma." What a pleasant stay. We took an apartment on 8th Ave. just off Granville, with an uneventful stay. That summer I walked everywhere, all my old haunts, Kitsilano Beach, Second Beach, Spanish Banks, Stanley Park... everywhere.