Mining school. What was I thinking? I wasn’t, apparently.
The
facts as I knew them. Timmins was/is a mining town. So, I was very aware of
mining as an employable industry, with thousands of jobs in the district. My
neighbour, George Miller, worked for Texas Gulf (the anomalous copper mine in a
gold camp) for as long as I knew him, so did his brother, so did most of his
friends. Marc Aube, my future ex-brother-in-law, had gone off to the college to
take Mining Engineering Technology at Northern College’s Haileybury School of
Mines campus. Aside from that, I was utterly clueless about mining. I had never
been particularly good at math or physics, so why did I choose that as a career
path? I have no idea, not a one. But I had enrolled, was accepted, they took my
money, and I was on my way. Glory be.
College
began in the usual way, as I’d learn in the coming years. I packed the
essentials, not knowing what said essentials might actually be. Dishes,
cutlery, clothing. Most everything I owned was still at home, only two and a
half hours away, so all was not lost should I discover I’d forgotten that
crucial this or that. But I did pack what I thought I would need for the year,
including winter gear.
I
need not have packed winter gear yet. I was a young 18 and travelled home every
weekend that first year, regardless what might be happening in Haileybury. All
my friends were still in Timmins, still in high school, where, I believe now, I
should still have been, too. Water under the bridge.
Did
I enjoy that first year? Yeah, I suppose I did. I’m of mixed opinion about
that. Did I really enjoy where I was, what I was doing, who I was living with,
who I was meeting and hanging around with that first year. No, I did not, not
particularly. There were some guys I liked or I wouldn’t have stuck it out, I
suppose. But I was persistent. I was tenacious. I was stubborn.
I
packed everything I/we thought I needed into the trunk of my parent’s car and
we drove the two and a half hours to Haileybury in a talkative state. I was
nervous, new chapter in life and all that, the knot in my gut tighter with
every kilometer. We arrived, piled out of the car, and were greeted by my
landlady, Shirley. I’d opted to live in the same rooming house as Marc, the
same place he’d lived in the year before, 680(?) Lakeshore Rd. S, on the corner
of Georgina Street (Georgina is little more than a laneway).
Shirley’s
rooming house was a two-story house, with a converted attic. We students were
crowded in, five to the 2nd floor, with the potential for four more on
the 3rd. Marc said the rooming house was full the year before, but I
don’t recall there being boarders on the 3rd that year. My room was
a long, narrow closet overtop the porch roof, hanging off the front of the
house and exposed to Lake Temiskaming. Its floor sloped away from the center of
the house in two directions. I would discover it cold and drafty in the coming
months, the space heater within running 24-7 just to keep the icy winds that
blew off the lake at bay. Winds howled off its walls, traffic sounds rattling
them as clear as day, despite its paper-thin insulation. Dan Seguin shared my
precarious perch across the hall to the north. He had the worst of it; he awoke
one morning to discover a snow drift laid over his scalp. The one phone
available to all tenants was set between us. Cream coloured, rotary dial, as
heavy as a brick; remember that? My mother was probably horrified of the
prospect of leaving me there for a year, but she handed over the postdated
cheques, all the same. We left the house, drove up to the school at the top of
the hill, went inside, and looked around for a few minutes. There wasn’t much
to take in. It was an old school, two stories, two hallways, one stacked atop
the other, and no more. The expected graduating class photos lined the halls,
between classroom doors. Peering through windows revealed an amphitheater,
labs, classes, much like any school, but with higher ceilings than most. Lots
of aged oak. There was a gym, a library. With that, the tour was complete. We
found a restaurant, ate, and then there were hugs and kisses all around, and
with me holding back my tears and fear of abandonment, I watched my parents
drive away.
That’s
when the drinking began. Marc took me in hand, so to speak, and the house
dragged me to the Matabanick Hotel to initiate me.
The
Matabanick was a dilapidated, somewhat tumbledown, hole in the wall, even then.
God knows what it looks like now, if it still exists (I’ve seen its exterior on
Google Maps, so I suppose it still does). We tumbled in and I saw tables
wrapped around its thrust bar, a stage near the entrance on its north wall,
washrooms and jukebox on the west, pool tables to the east, beyond which, I
remember, was an enclosed porch where the shuffleboard table lived. There were
fellow students already in attendance when we arrived, some already three
sheets to the wind.
Rounds
were bought, and I immediately fell behind. I didn’t have the year or more of
their future 12 step program under my belt. The night flew by, and then dragged
by. Towards its end, there were five opened, untouched blurry beers floating on
the table awaiting me. But I could not drink anymore. I was so drunk that my
body refused to swallow more than a drop at a time before my throat closed to
it. I heard coaxing from some distant fuzzy voices, and what I suspect mockery
from others. There was mockery. Given time, given proximity, exposure, and
familiarity with these people, I began to recognize from which voices each
came. I began to wonder if I’d made a mistake coming there.
We
stumbled back to the house, and I was introduced to the 680 Lakeshore 1 am
tradition: after-hour’s spaghetti and Bravo sauce and about a litre of choked
back water.
School
began the next day under the cloud of the worst hangover of my life. No
classes, thankfully, just the expected hazing. We wore togas for the occasion,
much as I did for O’Gorman’s now distant prep rally induction.
There
were activities the whole week, usually scavenger hunts and the like, usually
involving more beer and rye and vodka and shots. Sign-ups for clubs, to which I
chose archery, thinking that might be the coolest club I’d ever heard of, or
imagined. And classes. I met new people, those who I’d be spending the next
year with. Hangovers every morning. Comas interrupted by the incessant blare of
the fire engine red Big Ben wind-up alarm clock that would accompany my entire
post-secondary career.
Then
came Friday, the first weekend of college. I bought a ticket on the Northlander
bus to Timmins, to get home and dry out for two days before beginning the
process all over again.
I
was so happy to see my friends. They missed me. They pounced on me. They buried
me with questions. I filled their heads with stories and expectations of what
for them was yet to come.
Thus
ended my first week of college. I’m surprised that I remember anything at all.
