The Mustang

Do you remember your first bike? Not the trike, and not the little one with training wheels, either; the first real bike that allowed exploring your world possible? That thing of beauty that you may or may not have nicknamed Rocker, or Speed, or some such. That vehicle of freedom! I did not name mine. It's not that I was lacking in imagination, far from it, I was spilling over with it; it's that I was, and still am, a pragmatic soul. It was a thing, regardless how stirring mounting it was. Mine was a green CCM Mustang.

Not me, but that's the very image of my CCM Mustang

Banana seat. High back bar. Chopper handle bars. It had streamers trailing from the handlebar grips when I got it. It was the epitome of cool in its time, much like the BMX that replaced it would be the go-to bike that everybody owned afterwards.

I hit a parked car on my first solo ride with it. Years later I ended up in the hospital from a concussion while riding it (but that's another story that will follow in due course), but in between I hit the roads and trails behind Pinecrest School, behind and below where TDH, the Timmins District Hospital, now stands, if it didn't then. There were streams and what we thought of as lakes back there, not to mention hastily erected forts and cut trails, later expropriated and widened by the Mattagami Region Conservation Society, and still in use today (I still walk that trail today). We scampered over Scout and the much further Cherry Rock. They were tall and had precariously perched boulders atop them that made narrow caves that we imagined bears slept in. We waded in those streams, caught minnows, or tried to anyways, chased frogs, searched for snakes, and a little later, stole our first kisses on those trails. Pecks then, certainly, nothing like those that would soon follow. First steps.

Learning to Ride

I think we all learn to ride a bike in the same way: trike first, then when we graduate to two wheels, we do so with training wheels for a while. When the training wheels come off, someone helps you maintain balance by hanging on to the back of the seat, until they let you go and before you know it you’ve been riding unassisted, if somewhat wobbly, all on your own. Simple. So long as you maintain balance. And steer.

I learned as you did. The day came that the wheels came off. My father was guiding my ride, running alongside, his hand on the seat. He let go, and off I went. The bike was still a little tall for me, even with the seat lowered as far as it would go. I was sure that I would never get my feet off the pedals and onto the ground before I would fall if I applied brakes. I usually didn’t use the brakes, though. I usually just put my feet on the ground and skid to a halt. I didn’t think about stopping then, though. I was so proud. I was riding my bike. By myself! Like a big kid! I was a little scared, too. A whole lot scared. I was sure I would topple over. I didn’t. But I wasn’t too confident yet, so I didn’t go too far. I only rode halfway up the street, did a shaky turn and headed for home. Unfortunately, the ride home was on a shallow downhill slope. I gathered speed. Too much speed, to my mind. Too fast to apply my brakes. And the seat was too high to do anything but put the tip of my toe on the ground. So I wasn’t going to stop that way, either. I panicked. I locked up. And crashed into a parked car, the only one on the street.

The Cottage

My parents built a cottage on Rancourt Lake, just outside of Cochrane. Some of my earliest memories are there. I imagine it quite large in memory, but I’ve seen it since growing up and it’s quite small in reality. My first memories of it were from before we moved to Timmins, so, I was very young, then. I remember being bathed by my mother in the lake, rainy days spent indoors, my parents playing card with my Uncle Jerry and Aunt Hazel at what seemed at the time an enormous oak table, the TV displaying more snow than picture, yet issuing what might as well have been a radio play for all we could see.

We returned often those first years after moving. We invariably visited my uncle and aunt there. I recall playing with Keith along the shore. The Owens two cottages down. Their kids Darryl and Ronnie. My parents spent a lot of time with the Owens, so Karen and I spent a lot of time with Darryl and Robbie.

I remember one day at the Owens’ cottage quite well, or should I say I remember a particular incident quite well: I was lounging in an inner tube out on the water, not too far from shore. My mother was on shore with Mrs. Owen, talking, having a drink, maybe. I slipped through the hole, becoming all but stuck. Yes, I almost drowned. The water was not deep, no more than a couple feet deep, but my circumstances weren’t ideal. I could not, for the life of me, get out of the inner tube hole and back on top of it. I’d try to drag myself up and out, but I kept falling back in and below the waterline until I could slip no more, fully stuck, the water lapping at my mouth and nose. But while I was still struggling to release myself, I saw a progression with each crest of my struggle: my mother in the lawn chair, my mother leaping out of the chair, my mother running, my mother sailing into the water, and finally hauling me out of the inner tube and carrying me back to shore where I was no longer allowed near the water, definitely nowhere near an inner tube, in or out of the water. I can’t say I wanted to, not then anyway, not for about ten minutes, anyway. I felt like I was being punished after that.

Held Back

It’s hard starting over. Twice in three years was a bit much, to my mind.

I really don’t remember too much about my first two years at Pinecrest School, or even those kids I spent those years of school with. Which is odd. They were there with me for the next four years, but we invest in the kids we share our classes with, not those who are in separate rooms.

Why didn’t I spend my grade school years with them? Because I was held back. I was young and struggling to keep up those first years. I remember being small, smaller than all my classmates, but that stands to reason, considering that I was a December baby, and most of my classmates had a full year development on me. I do remember struggling. I felt stupid most of the time. I’d never felt stupid before, but I suppose there’s a first time for everything.

The principal, Richard Litchfield, recognized that I was struggling and advised my parents that I should be held back. My mother tells me that it was a difficult decision to undertake, but in the end, they did what he advised.

I was too young to understand. The kids I spent the next four years with told me that I failed Grade 2, which was why I was repeating it. It must have seemed the only explanation, to them, regardless my explaining that I was held back and that was not the same as failing (I didn’t understand it, myself, so I had a difficult time convincing others). They didn’t understand why anyone would do that, and must have thought I was lying to save face. Dave failed Grade 2; simple; easy to understand. The year passed and I suppose it slipped from everyone’s mind; they knew me by then; I was one of their friends by then and it didn’t really matter anymore. But I never forgot that feeling of failure as I walked into Grade 2 for the second time. I guess those early traumas leave deep scars.

Timmins, First Impressions

We moved to Timmins in the summer of 1970, just after I had completed kindergarten. My father actually preceded us by a year, beginning work there in 1969 and commuting. I suspect we waited a year so that my sister and I could finish our school year.

Timmins was huge by my reckoning, boasting about 26,000 residents (about 40,000 after amalgamation), compared with Cochrane’s 5,000. Most of it had been built in the ‘20s and ‘30s, the newest bits in the ‘50s. And it towered above Cochrane, its downtown core reaching up three stories. (I always referred to the downtown core as uptown, as we had to travel uphill to get there.)

I found the core to be a riot of activity whenever my mother brought me there. There were streetlights, traffic was dense and continuous. People bustled here and there, the sidewalks thick with them. Buildings crowded one another, with barely a hand span between them, unlike in Cochrane where you could usually drive a truck between them. It was all spectacular to me, but the most spectacular place downtown was Bucovetsky’s. It was the only building in town with an elevator. Enormous by even today’s reckoning, it was most definitely a service elevator fitted for public use, its walls draped with canvas. I would insist we use it whenever we went there. Although the stairwell was fascinating, too. There were photographs lining the walls, most black and white (most photographs were black and white, then), all chronicling the history of the store: there were pictures of car give-a-ways, fur coats, bridal dresses, pictures of Christmas displays, Christmas windows, Christmas floats, ribbon cuttings. There were newspaper clippings, and a few sales advertisements thrown in for good measure. But what always caught the eye in the stairwell was the huge painting of 3^rd Ave between the 1^st and 2^nd floor, painted when Timmins was still just a bush camp mining town, its few permanent buildings just log cabins.

The 101 Mall was still to come, with its elevator and its central gallery, its artificial Christmas tree hung from the ceiling and spanning three stories.

Woolworths’ hadn’t opened yet, either, but when it did, it had an escalator. That revolving staircase frightened me when I first saw it. I was terrified that my foot or my clothing would be caught in its teeth whenever I stepped on or off of it.

Like I said, I was quite young when we first came to Timmins.

Moving Day

We moved from Cochrane to Timmins in the summer of 1970. It was the most important day of my life, up to then.

I was four and a half, so moving from the only place I’d ever known to some place I'd never heard of seemed like moving to another planet. I was concerned, unsure what to expect. I’d no idea what was going to happen. I was also profoundly sad when the day came. I recall wanting to linger, to play with my friends for just five minutes more when my parents called for me to come, telling me it was time to leave. I kicked stones. I ran. I can’t say for certain what I did because I remember doing both, and both can’t be true. I had nightmares of similar leavings for years afterwards. I’d be told it was time to leave in my dream, and I’d pull at dandelion heads and kick at stones to delay the even. I’d wake in a cold sweat upon the completion of a countdown in my head (probably a side-effect of years of NASA countdowns), just as the moment arrived.

I climbed into the car. I cried a little, chocking back what I could. We were leaving my home, my grandparents, my uncles, aunts, my cousins, my whole life behind forever, as far as I could tell.

The hour it took to travel to Timmins felt like an eternity. The furthest I’d ever travelled was to the cottage, and that was only ten minutes from our house on 16^th Ave. The eternity passed. Probably not well, either. I was prone to car sickness and was usually doped up on Gravol so that I wouldn’t get car sick. They tried rubber strips, too, the theory being that it grounded the static electricity from the car. None of that worked. I’d almost always get sick. Sometimes we’d stop in time and I’d throw up into the ditch. Sometimes I threw up in the car. I have no memory of getting car sick on that ride, even though I probably did.

We arrived.

We pulled onto Hart Street and rolled down the hill towards Brouseau Avenue. There it was, 560 Hart, the new house, a yellow brick split level, two lots up from the Avenue. An empty lot separated us from the tall two-story on the corner. An undeveloped field lay across the street, the brush higher than my head.

Our new home was bigger than our house in Cochrane. Stairs up to the bath and beds. I ran up and down them, then downstairs, discovering that the basement was a work in progress, then back outside.

The movers followed shortly, and that inevitably brought every kid in the neighborhood out to watch. I discovered our new neighborhood was flush with kids my age. We were shy at first, me especially. But we were kids, and I was NEW, so we were playing in no time, before the furniture was even fully unloaded. It was like I’d lived there my whole life. I doubt that Cochrane crossed my mind at all.

That’s what kids do, they meet someone their own age and they’re best friends within ten minutes.

Kids adapt.

It’s so cool how they do that with so little effort.

It can leave a mark, though.

Driving Lessons

Not mine, obviously. My grandmother’s. She learned to drive late in life, sometime in her 50s. Probably not the best time to learn, but her husband’s health had begun to fail, so she decided that she had best learn. She asked my mother to teach her.

She did. And Gramma became a driver. She was probably not a very good one. But she was good enough to negotiate the streets of Cochrane.

I remember Gramma driving Keith and me. I believe she was driving us to school. It was in the winter, anyway. Regardless where and why, she was driving us somewhere. Keith was in the front with her. I was in the back, hanging off the back of the front seat. None of us were wearing seatbelts. Car seats and rules about how tall you had to be to sit in the front weren’t a consideration then. Not really. Kids sat in people’s laps then. I don’t think seatbelts were installed in cars then.

If she was driving us to school, it would have been in the winter of 69-70. I’d have been about four years old then, and in kindergarten.

We were driving up 7th Ave hill, approaching Transfiguration Church, and halfway up when the tires began to spin.

Gramma stopped and backed down the hill. That must have been frightening for her. Terrifying, in fact. Had the car begun to slide, she probably wouldn’t have had the skill to correct. So, she must have had a white-knuckle grip on the steering wheel as we inched back down the hill. She tried again to the same affect. On her third attempt, as we were nearing the top, the tires burning on the ice, Keith and I began to yell, “Don’t stop, Gramma!” She persisted, she hammered the fuel pedal to the floor, tires spinning like mad the whole way. We made it that time. Much to Gramma’s relief.

Cookie

Cookie was my first dog, or more accurately, she was my parents’ dog, even more accurately, she was my father’s dog. My mother could call for her until she was blue in the face without result. She’d give up, my father would open the door, call out for her once, and Cookie would be at the door in minutes. She was a corgi, a very popular breed then, as the Queen had a kennel full of them.

Cookie may have been the runt of her litter, but she was a giant in my eyes. She was my first companion. Loving, protective, always present. She followed me everywhere. And like I said, she helped me out from time to time while I learned to keep my balance.

When I began attending school, she was waiting in the window for my return. My mother tells me Cookie would just rise and go to the window about five minutes before I returned. (I've witnessed Hunter do the same, Piper, Sassy, Jasper too; dogs must be very aware of their internal clock.)

Cookie was smart. She could be cunning, too. There was this kid on the street that used to taunt her. She’d end up choking herself at the end of her rope as the kid wound her up, time and again, laughing at her; until the day she pretended not to reach, only advancing halfway up the extent of her rope. The taunting kid neglected to notice Cookie’s slack rope and entered her range. And then she rushed him. The kid was so surprised, he staggered back, falling on his ass.

Cookie was with us for some years after we moved to Timmins. Then she got cancer. And she died. Her passing was likely the first taste of intense grief I had ever experienced.

But that was still years away.