The Transfer

My mother wanted my sister and I to go to O’Gorman High School, part of the English Catholic Separate School Board, so, my sister Karen and I being 23 months apart, I had to transfer to St. Theresa (now O’Gorman Intermediate) when she entered O’Gorman High School (it’s a taxes thing). I was not pleased to leave all my friends behind (I imagine was my sister wasn’t too keen, either), but we weren’t given much of a choice. My mother was also under the impression that O’Gorman gave a better education than the public school, Timmins High; a lot of parents were under that impression, but as all school boards had to teach the same curriculum that was mandated by the Province, I can’t see how going to one school of the other made much of a difference, but hindsight is 20-20. I don’t regret going there. I enjoyed going there, for the most part.

I was nervous that first day; I was going to another new school, after all, and I didn’t know a soul (you’d think I would have this new class/new friends thing down by now, having moved from Cochrane at 4, and then held back in Grade 2; see earlier posted memories).

Karen and I walked together as far as St. Theresa, then she continued on her way to O’Gorman. I didn’t mind the walk; I’ve never taken a school bus (I always lived within the bus limit), and we gave one another moral support. But once she’d left to face her own first day in a new school, I was on my own. I recall milling about, leaning against the school walls, trying to appear cool in such a way as to attract the right new friends, trying not to appear envious that others were already grouped together. They at least, were not alone; they were already friends, having spent the last seven years of school together. The bell rang, teachers emerged to group us by grade, and my new school year amongst strangers began. I expect Karen’s experience was similar.

I met two boys fairly early on. The first was Garry Martin, a largely hyperactive boy who was drafted to take me under his wing, so to speak. Thank God for that, and thank God it was Garry. He and I became close friends and would soon share about a decade’s worth of life experiences together. The second was Gord Disley. We found ourselves at the back of a class together, and we began chatting. It was a comfortable chat. Then came introductions, but there was a sight change to the usual exercise where the teacher would just get each student to stand and tell something about themselves. In this case, we were to write something about ourselves, place the papers in a hat, and then as the teacher read each in turn the rest of the class would try to guess who that person was. I was clueless to all these clues, of course. But the girls were actually giddy about the game. When each was guessed or not, each of us then stood up in turn to introduce ourselves and tell the class what we wanted to do when we grew up. No one guessed mine (understandable, considering no one know who I was); I can’t even remember what I wrote, or what I said. But I’ll always remember what Gord said when his turn came: “I’m Gord Disley, and I want to be a Rock Star!”

True to his word, at 18, Gord packed his bags and moved to Toronto, guitar over his shoulder. He never looked back.

Did he become a rock star? No. But he did become a professional musician for a time, which is very much the same thing, I expect. He worked in restaurants to pay the bills while he waited for the expected to happen, which never did. Did he become famous? He did, somewhat. He became a stand-up comedian. He’s been on TV. He never became famous, but he did something few others ever did: He took a shot at it.

Muskoka

We didn’t venture out on vacations often. My father spent much of his time on the road, such is the life of a salesman, so he wasn’t thrilled about the prospect of spending more time on a highway when he was on vacation. We went on a few, though. I recall Sudbury. I recall Niagara Falls and Clifton Street. And I recall visiting my mother’s cousin in Muskoka.

I was old enough to forge out on a canoe alone with Joe, son of Doreen, a cousin on my mother’s side, which would mean that I was probably 12 or 14, or around there. Joe and I stuck out to explore the lake. It was a sweltering day, the sky was blue, the air calm. Joe knew the lake by heart, whereas I’d never seen it before. I’d also hardly spent any time paddling a canoe. It had been years since we’d moved to Timmins and sold the Rancourt cottage, years since my father had taken up travelling for a living, so travelling while on holiday was not a priority to him. We had that summer, spending a short while at Pat and Doreen’s cottage on a Muskoka peninsula. I was bored. I didn’t really know Joe that well, and he seemed a lot older than me at the time. Our parents were sitting about chatting. That’s when Joe suggested the canoe. I was game, but a little nervous. I told him I had little experience in one, but he set me at ease, saying that he’d do all the steering, and that we’d be fine, so long as I didn’t flip us mid-lake. He laughed. I tried to. We stayed close to shore.
We were some ways out, about a half-hour or so, likely more, when the wind picked up some. Joe looked to the sky. Shrugged. We kept on. But, in no time at all, clouds resolved in an empty sky, grew dark, and piled high, one on top of another, as high as I could see. Joe stopped, surveyed the sky again, and thought it best that we head back. The wind began to whip us. We paddled hard. Rain began to fall, then pummel us. The boat rocked and pitched and I began to get very worried, and tired. My scrawny adolescent arms were spent, but fear kept me keeping on. Owing to Joe’s silence and his laboured breathing behind me, he too was worried. He too was tired.
That was when I saw a motor boat racing towards us. Pat was at the wheel, my father with him. I felt a wave of salvation. They slowed, motored past and swung around alongside. Joe climbed aboard while my father reeled me in. Pat ordered Joe to tie a line to the canoe. And we were off, the storm in our faces, the cottage still some way away despite our speed. The boat bucked and leaped through the chop, landing hard, jarring my jaw and impressing me to hang on with all my worth to my seat. I watched the canoe weave and jump on its line, as though trying to throw its hook. Lightning cut the sky, and I thought on how I’d always been told that one should never be on the water during a thunderstorm. I wondered what would happen if the boat was hit, what would happen if the lightning struck the lake.
Safe back at the cottage, dried off and changed and sipping instant hot chocolate, I watched it lash at the lake. I’ve always loved storms. I’d never once seen a storm rush in that quickly before.

Hockey Night in Canada, and Beyond

I remember my father watchin

g Hockey Night in Canada on Saturday nights when I was growing up. There wasn’t much choice then, as very early on we only had two channels, English and French CBC, both of which televised the hockey game, Leafs and Habs, respectively. But that's not entirely true, either. My mother tells me my father’s interest in hockey began to wane when the league expanded, from the original six to God knows how many (not that he ever lost interest; that would be a silly thing to say, if you know my father; but his obsession certainly waned). I think the league expanded to about twenty teams in a very short time. What I do remember is the whole family anticipating watching TVO on Saturday nights, once the field of viewing began to open up in the mid-70s (first with TVO and CTV, then with Global and the American Big Three at about ‘78). Doctor Who aired at 7:30 pm, then Saturday Night at the Movies with Elwy Yost. We used to donate to TVO back then, just so that my father and I could get the SNatM season guide. We’d get the full season’s upcoming movies, with far more detailed descriptions of the week’s theme and movie blurbs, not just the name and year that was in the Daily Press TV guide pullout. 1975 kicked off a lifetime love of Doctor Who and B&W classic film.

Christmas, Part 3, Sweater Hell!

Skipping forward a bit, and it’s more a snapshot than a tale. After toys, in the era I refer to as sweater hell; you know, that zone where you are too old for childish things like toys, yet not old enough to require those practical gifts that are more for a house than for you. You remember those years in spent in limbo, don’t you? It’s a memory set after the completion of the extension onto the back of the Hart Street house, and many years before Alzheimer’s began to creep into my Nanny’s life. I’m a teen, not a child.

It was Christmas morning. We were opening gifts. Mom wanted Dad and me to open specific gifts together, gifts wrapped in boxes of identical size and shape. I was a little nervous about that, but I opened mine the same time my father opened his. And there it is, the terrycloth robe I’d asked for. I can’t remember if I asked for a specific colour, although I imagine I was thinking white, simple basic white, like in hotels. It was not plain white, it was striped, red and blue on white; the same as the one my Dad was holding up.

We were prompted to put them on and stand together to have our picture taken. Remember, I was a teen. I’d rather die. But of course, I had my picture taken with my Dad.

He was so happy that we had matching robes.

I got over my embarrassment. I got to like my robe, over time. It broke in. It was soft. It was warm. And I got over the fact that my dad had the same robe as I did.

Christmas, Part 2

One year I was enthralled with a racetrack toy I’d seen on TV. I’d watched as the cars rounded corners at breakneck speed, and knew I had to have one; I don’t know why, I’d never owned a tracked set of any sort, trains or otherwise. I must have harassed my parents about it, because they bought it for me. I have no clue how expensive it was. It couldn’t have been cheap. Christmas morning came, I dug into my gifts, and there it was, that same racetrack set I’d seen on TV. I couldn’t wait to play with it. My father helped me set it up in the rec room. I recall thinking it was much smaller than I thought it would be. There was a controller for each car, with only a speed lever on each. Thumb off, stop, thumb pressed full on, full blast. Simple. We made a trial run, and both tracks, both cars worked. Then I pushed my car to its speed limit and it flew off the track as it rounded its first corner. I reset it and it flew off again. My father’s car went happily round and round, if at a much slower pace. Dad told me to control my speed, but I wanted the cars to fly around the track like they did on the commercial. I thought his track might be better, so we switched. His new car, my old car, went happily round and round, so did mine, until I pushed my lever to the end, and my car hit his, taking both off the track. I was an impatient child, I threw a fit, and stormed away from the set, never to play with it again. I’m thinking I was a bit of a brat. But I did learn an important lesson that day: sometimes commercials do not present things as they truly are.

Christmas

Every Christmas morning after we left Cochrane for Timmins, we’d wake up to my father rushing about the house, hammering on doors, declaring that Santa had been here! We’d leap or drag ourselves out of bed, depending on the year, leap at young ages, drag later. We’d eat a hasty breakfast, despite our ogling the feast of presents about the tree, open our gifts and be left to play with the toys for a time; not too long though. There was preparations to be made: every year for 10ish years after leaving Cochrane, we were to return to the homeland for celebrations with the family, eat an early lunch, pack up the car with the gifts to be given, and pile in, Cookie at my mothers’ feet in the front. I can’t recall if Piper, our next dog, ever made the pilgrimage with us, if she had, she'd have been in the space at the back window (that’s where she loved to lounge for the hour-long trip).

I recall many such long commutes back to Cochrane, getting car sick, puking into the ditch despite tripping on Gravol. I was not a good traveller then.

We’d arrive at Nanny’s (my mother’s mother’s) house, where we’d open gifts, then be herded back into the car for the short drive to Gramma’s (my father’s mother’s) with Nanny in tow (my mother’s parents were always invited if I recall properly, certainly my Nanny after Poppa passed away), where we opened gifts again. Those gifts were packed away in the trunk of the car before my uncles, aunts, and cousins arrived.

Gramma’s house already smelled like dinner when we arrived. There was a great deal of cooking to be done in such a small galley kitchen. Food was piled high on the dinner table, arranged in depth, buffet style. Only Grandpa sat at the table, holding court on how much anyone might take, even though there was enough food for three times our number (about 30ish people in what I would describe as a wartime house). Turkey, ham, mashed potatoes, pickles and beets and Lord knows what else, my memory fails me. There were six types of pie: apple, cherry, raisin, mince, pecan (?) and sugar (?), one for each son’s preference. They each had to have their favourite. And they’d have been disappointed had their personal favourite not been there. Family politics. Enough said.

Grandpa would always call me over, draw me in and hug me, and slip a two-dollar bill into my pocket.

There wasn’t enough room at the table for everyone. Obviously. And with thirty people in attendance, seating was an issue. Families sort things out, and by the time I came along, a system had long since been adopted. The adults ate in the living room, with paper plates in wicker baskets on their laps. We cousins were arranged on the stairs, each to his own riser, Keith and I sharing a small bi-fold table at the base.

Gramma never ate until everyone else had. And by then the Great Clean-up was in full swing, the food and dishes tackled by the women, teens and adults alike; but not by Gramma, though, she was eating.

The men congregated in the living room, the chairs and stools arranged, years of Daily Press Carol booklets laid out, one to a seat. Once the Great Clean-up was complete, we sang, we soloed. I most certainly soloed. I was expected to sing “Rudolph, The Red-nosed Reindeer” every year. Tradition, you know how it goes. There was no accompaniment though: I don’t know if anyone could play anything portable. Karen could play piano, but there was none present. Gramma played fiddle, but I don’t remember it ever being brought out. I recall French songs being sung after the carols were complete. Beer flowed. There were chips and snacks and such, because that’s what we all needed, more food.

We kids took that as our queue to retreat downstairs where there was tabletop hockey and an absence of adults and alcohol and demands by our elders to bring them more. I think the elder cousins may have played street hockey out front or may have just slipped away to party with friends.
If they did, Keith and I were oblivious to it all, having lost interest in all things adult, even all things teen. Later still, Karen and I were packed up by our parents to go back to Nanny's for the night. Over the next few days, we visited...everyone. It was exhausting, fun, but exhausting. Christmas would never be as exciting as it was then.

Sliding at Pinecrest

Everyone in my neighborhood used to slide down Pinecrest hill; this was before the school erected a fence around its front perimeter, probably prompted by insurance companies to protect the school from lawsuits. Probably for good reason. There were two points of departure, one terribly steep, where one would take off like a bullet but still remain on the school property; the other slightly less steep with a terrace in the middle, less terrifying, but also ending in a phalanx of trees with only two gaps one had to aim for, one barely wide enough for a sled to pass, the other about four sleds wide. We aimed for the larger; it was safer in terms of potential impacts, but it also allowed us to slide clear across Toke Street. Cars would round the bend from Brouseau, wait for a gap in the sliders, then proceed up the hill. We in turn would delay once we saw the car. Common sense prevailed, and adults never complained about our sliding there, as far as we knew.

Maybe common sense didn’t prevail as often as it ought to. We were daredevils then, waxing the bottom of our toboggans, occasionally standing up on the toboggan while sliding downhill (I would never try that on the steep slope: too scary). There were a lot of spills, the occasional ditch if we saw ourselves about to collide with a tree. Sometimes not. Sometimes we just held on and screamed as we closed with those thin gaps in the trees. Impacts were hard. Kids were hurled from their sleds. Tubes bounced off. But their occupants were thrown forward, regardless where that tube might be headed.

One didn’t have to hit those trees to have an accident. Once could be hit while climbing the hill. I was. I was exhausted after so many climbs to the top and not paying as close attention to where I was going as I ought to have. I was staring at my feet with each step. I’d strayed from the dedicated lane we’d formed to regain the hilltop.

“Dave,” someone called out to me. “Look out!”

“What?” I thought, twisting about and trying to see beyond my pulled-low and snow-crusted toque to see who was calling out to me.

It was at that exact moment that a slider took my legs out from under me. My legs flew out and I landed hard enough to take my breath away. Once I could breathe again, I thought it pretty funny. I felt like I’d spun 360 degrees before landing, although I had just been laid flat.

It wasn’t always that dangerous. Sometimes it was just cold. Bitterly cold. Deathly cold. On those days there were few kids on the hill, if any. Dave and I were. And on one day, so was a younger girl and her friend. No one else. Were we cold? No. We were bundled up and climbing the hill repeatedly had toasted us nicely. Steam must have risen from us.

But in the course of the day, the young girl spilled from her slide, losing her boot in the process. It flew off as she tumbled. Try as we might, we couldn’t get that boot back on. Her laces were a tightly frozen knot, and our fingers froze trying, each of us in turn. We finally gave up, jammed her boot on as high up as we could get it, and ran, dragging her home behind us on her sled, her personal team of horses. As we arrived at her house at the lower end of Patricia, if I remember correctly (not far, but it seemed an endless run), her mother must have seen us coming, because she was waiting at the door. She thanked us, we blushed, and we went home.
That was enough sliding for one day.

The Schumacher Pool

Almost all of my swimming lessons took place at the Schumacher Lions Club Swimming Pool. I loved that old building, despite its faults. Built by the MacIntyre Mine, it was originally intended as an open-air pool, the metal frame building that rose above it was an afterthought. I will always remember the almost deafening drumming on the roof whenever there was a storm. And I seem to recall our having to clear the pool whenever there was lightning. Whistle blows echoed off those corrugated metal walls, sounding shriller, by far.

It was poured concrete (rumour had it that after all the mining underfoot, 10,000 gallons poured through the cracks in the floor every day; I doubt that, but we all said it and we were all convinced of the fact then), the change rooms, showers and offices cinderblock shells. There were always pools of water scattered about the floor where there was poor drainage, and we all hated the feel of them, believing them to not only be slimy to the touch (they were), but toxic. They smelled of must and mildew so why wouldn’t they not be toxic to the touch. It afforded neither heat nor air conditioning, and was never intended to operate year-round. And it didn’t, so all swimming lessons then were held only in the summer. It goes without saying, the Schumacher Pool was always humid, always a little musty.

Karen and I used to ride our bikes to it for public swims when the weather was good, lock them up to the rows of bike racks out front. Sometimes we went with neighbours, mostly by ourselves. We always knew we’d meet up with kids we knew, we and they having spent years of lessons there. And that was why we swam there, despite Gilles Lake being half the distance from our house. Then again, you couldn’t swim in Gilles in August unless you brought an extra suit or a change of clothes with you or else you'd get swimmers’ itch, cercarial dermatitis, inflicting hive-like welts wherever the damp cloth rested on your skin (there were nasty little parasites in the water back then, at least until the city dredged the lake). I didn’t want to get swimmer’s itch. Not ever. Every welt raised was automatically assumed to be another bout of hives. Panic inevitably arose from the sight of them.

Another reason to go to the pool: we never had to pay, free admission was the perk of taking lessons there. We’d show our lesson card and be waved within. We’d collect our change baskets, jam out street clothes into them, and pin our stainless-steel tag to our suit, then return the baskets to their racks for the duration. I can't say I ever lost anything from the baskets, and they never misplaced one, not ever; the kids working at the pool kept a keen eye on our stuff while we were having our fun.

We’d wait at the change room doors, piled up against each other from the door back into the showers waiting for the swim bell. Swim caps were the rule. We all had to wear them for the sake of the filters. And most fetching they were! Sleek speedos, loud floral frescos, a riot of colours that always clashed with the loudly coloured suits of the day. The bell always took forever to ring. Those lucky enough to be at the door would watch the seconds tick by on the clock. Loud, it rang like a fire bell klaxon.

The guards would yell at us every swim to slow down and walk. We would, we did, but in the most comical quick half-run shuffle.

Swimming Lessons

The Schumacher Pool before the walls went up.

My first swimming lessons were held at the Schumacher pool, the only pool we had in Timmins at the time. It had once been an open-air pool that had been covered years later with a metal shell, good enough for shelter from rain, but not good enough to insulate us from the dead of winter, so we only had lessons in the summer.

Judy Miller was always at the cash when we climbed the stairs at the entrance. I was scared of her at first, a big lady with fiery red hair and the temper to match, always a little shrill and cross (she was actually only raising her voice to be heard through the glass, but I didn’t know that, then), but as the years passed I grew to love her. We all did. She became our mother hen.

Anyway, back to the pool: It was a deep pool, with only a very small area beyond the buoy line where one could stand up, whatever one’s age. As only Novice was held in the shallow area, we were expected to be able to swim the width of the pool by the time we began Beginners, quite a leap of skill from Novice to Beginners. We had better be able to, as no one our age could touch the bottom anywhere where Beginners was taught. As you might expect, there was a lot of hanging off the water spout pipe along the edge. Swimming one width was not enough, though. We were also expected to swim at least two, as we were expected to return to where we began, after all. Back to where the class was held. And we were expected to repeat that, too, making the expected laps four and not two.

I was not a particularly strong swimmer then, not like the fish I was to become. So, those laps were exhausting.

Point in case: I was swimming widths, getting more tired with each in turn; then on the fourth, I got half way across and found that I could barely lift my arms above water. Then I couldn’t. I slipped below the surface, crawled up for air, and then slipped under further still the next time, then barely back up again to gasp for air. Not surprisingly, I was rather panicked.

There was hope on the horizon, so to speak. With each surfaced gasp for air, I first saw the instructor being flagged down by a fellow swimmer, then the instructor diving into the pool in my direction. It was a clean dive. A rapid dive. A dive I could never pull off, not then, anyways.

He’s coming, I thought. I’m saved. I’m not going to drown.

He reached me in only a few strokes. He took hold of me, lifted me to the surface, and then hauled me back to the edge. All in all, it was much the same sort of experience as when I was trapped in the inner tube at Rancourt.

I shook for some time after that. But I always shivered back then. The water was cold and I was a skinny kid with precious little thermal protection. But I was probably in shock, too. I was embarrassed, too. No one else had to be rescued, after all.

“What happened,” they asked.

“I just got tired,” I said. “I couldn’t make it across.” What else was there to say?

I wasn’t the only one panicked. My mother almost broke the glass of the observation deck when she saw me struggling to stay on top of the water and failing. She hammered it, yelling, “Hey!” repeatedly, trying in vain to get the instructor’s attention. She didn’t, though. Not on deck, anyways. She most assuredly got the attention of everyone on the observation deck, though.

Rest assured, I became a strong swimmer as the years passed, becoming a lifeguard and instructor myself.