“Your father and the priest have been working on fixing his door for months,” Mom would say the year Dad and the priest would get together in his basement every weekend and spend hours ‘jawwing’. Dad wasn’t a religious man. He drove mom to the Baptist Church a half hour away in Fort Rouge every Sunday. Asked, he’d say, “I”m a member of the round church, the one where the devil can’t catch me in the corners.” Another friend of his was a Catholic priest.
Dad was a good man and a deep man. He expressed his love with his hands. Mom was the church woman through and through. Prudish by contemporary standards, judgemental for sure, highly moral, and a thoroughly good lady, but she did like her gossip. She was Irish too and held onto resentments. Red haired, she had a fiery temper.
Years later, looking at the black and white photos of her and my father, before the children came, it’s so apparent the love and passion literally jump off the page. My sister in law said, “Your mother loved her husband.” Her sister said, “Jean and Johnny were the most in love couple we knew.” They’d all been young at the end of the war. Later, the love and friendship, youth and industry are so apparent with Dad and his cars and work and mom, her house and garden and babies.
Our other neighbour was out of work a lot of years.I think he’d managed a car dealership and had been laid off. He’d eventually get a government job. He read books and didn’t do much more. His wife was loved by all the children and could be seen always busy. The kids were our friends but out of sync by grades. The daughter more my brother’s age. The son younger than me. We’d all play ball together though when the kids used the adjacent front lawns on North Drive for epic football games. The dogs were always involved in those games. Running to and fro to catch the ball meant dodging about masses of dog shit. “Ahhhhh” would be a great cry with laughter following when someone slipped in the shit or ball landed in it.
The neighbour next over was a pilot. He’d been in the RCAF too. Dad and he had many a back lane conversation. He hunted ducks as did Dad. The mothers didn’t get along, friendly but nothing in common. She was more a socialite and had two beautiful daughters she dolted on. Mom had sons. When I was older but still not older enough to date I’d love to watch the neighbour daughters all gussied up going on a their dates. The neighbour’s daughters were hotties by today’s standard’s. The Guess Who would come by in a large white boat like convertible with lots of shouting and laughter. The girls would out to jump in. Only a few years before these same three beauties had been slipping in dog shit with the rest of us.
When years later the Monkeys came on television, a show about a band with guys mostly dancing and chasing girls, I’d grown up beside that scene vicariously living it with the neighbour girls who were the favourites of rock stars. The Guess Who were just one of the bands that came by to pick up one of the three girls in the two houses next to us. Our immediate neighbour sexiest and the most fun with the two daughters of the pilot and his wife, more aloof sophisticated and stunning. I watched them as a pre teen and dreamed.
The next house over was the judge. He was a drunk. He and his wife didn’t have any children we knew of. My greatest memory of him was his driving braille home Friday nights. A weekly binger, most likely a black out. I remember more than one Saturday morning with a shouting match between him and someone’s whose car had been mauled by his passage. Dad and the other neighbours didn’t park on the front street on Fridays. The victims were mostly visitting th Badminton Club.
“I never hit your car!” The red nosed judge would be shouting.
The other fellow would be saying,”It’s your car’s paint on my door.”
“You’ll have to prove that in court,” the judge would say
Other’s knew better than to argue with the judge. He had a fiery temper. His wife was a quiet mouse like creature who smiled weakly at us kids. Mom just said, “she has a hard life.”
The one time I remember my dad afraid was when I hit the baseball through the judges window. He took me over immediately after school,
“Now apologize Billy,”
“I’m sorry sir for breaking the window.”
“Don’t worry Judge I’ll fix it myself and be sure it’s better than new. When could I do that for you?” My father grovelled. I felt so bad I’d done this. Dad took the window home and fixed it that night returning it later in the evening.
The judge never gave me back my baseball. He didn’t say anything but nodded.
“That will be okay John. Make sure your son learns his lesson.”
“Yes sir.” He said as he dragged me home holding on to the sleeve of my shirt. I’d been spanked and then grounded for a week .
I think I got my first baseball glove when I was seven. I remember feeling and smelling the leather. My brother already had his glove. We’d toss ball back and forth endlessly. Dad would join in weekends and holidays. He was working installing Matthew Conveyor Systems in the city. Blue prints would often be laid out on the kitchen table with Dad cursing the architects and engineers for sending parts that didnt fit or having to jury rig an extension around a wiring column which was conveniently left out of the blue print. As kids we did’t understand what he was saying but Mom would listen patiently and say, “you’re figure it out John, you always do.”
Years later when I’d work for my Dad as a “millwright’s helper’ I’d hear all these greats stories about how smart my Dad was. He was in charge of hundreds of men on these large projects, always in coveralls, always hands on. My brother was disappointed he never wore a suit at work. “He could have worn a suit and he should have, “ my brother maintained. Dad dint like suits except when he went out with Mom.“He always talks with pride about his boys,” we’d hear from others but he wasn’t one to praise us directly. As a child,I just knew him as a man who came and went during the week, was really tired in the evening, often falling asleep after dinner and only able to play with us on the weekend. On holidays camping and fishing he was the greatest father ever. Adventures, Stories.Laughter.
I think we got Sonny that year. He was a liver coloured Springer Spaniel who loved my dad 100% and hung out with me because I was part of the pack. We were best of friends. He comforted me a lot. Always keen to go on a walk or explore new places. A constant companion when Dad wasn’t around. I’d feed him and forget so Mom mostly cared for him. He loved Mom too. He loved us all and was one of the family. There were so many funny stories he was apart of over the years. Dad would later repeat these tales and we’d all laugh before he got half way started. Stealing the drunken hunters game bag and bringing us a half dozen ducks. Diving in to catch the fish before we could get it into the boat. Stealing mom’s home made apple pie. He was a character, his own personality. When I cried he sat close beside me. Whenever I was jumping up and down he was jumping up and down with me. A great hunting dog. A great family dog. We all cried when he died so many years later. We loved when Dad brought him home.
The Carters lived across the street. Keith would become a friend in the YMCA going on to be an Olympic star. He competed in gymnastics as a Canadian champion and later on the Olympic team. His sisters were beautiful and one was a friend of my brother’s. Keith figured in a lot of tales later but I didn’t really know him till I joined the YMCA. Though he lived a few doors down and we went to the same school, it was only in the gym we all became friends.
Kirk lived in the house across the back lane. I think their street was Somerset. Lyons street headed up the road running parallel to the river. Bill Giles, son of the famous and hilarious cartoonist lived up the street, his daughter a friend of my brother’s. Bill and I would become friends years later in Vancouver. Garth whose father was a commercial pilot lived across Lyon street one over from Kirk.
Kirk’s immediate neighbours were the ‘maiden aunts’. We’d later learn they were probably Lesbian. The women’s voices usuaully became a whisper when they spoke of the two who kept much to themselves. Further along Kirk’s street was the veterinarian. I can’t be sure about this. They had Siamese cats which were so exotic and their son became a doctor ahead of me. A studious quiet boy who’d later be a dissapointment when he left clinical medicine and the university to become a bureaucrat. I’d always thought he’d be a scientist as he’d pass our house loaded down with books, always reading and talking about science.
The Red River was there. It began behind the badminton courts. Our lane ended there and the trail that ran through the woods along the river began. As boys Kirk and Garth and I roamed up and down that trail. We’d find golf balls from the golf course. We’d throw rocks in the river. We’d watch ducks and geese go by. We’d make spears and throw those. We’d walk all the way over to Wildwood where the Private Boys School was. It was a hike for us little tykes and of course our parents didn’t know we would go that far away. We weren’t supposed to play by the river.
Once I looked up and a bob cat was in the tree overhanging the river trail. I stared at him eye to eye. He was not more than three feet above my face before backing away. Dad had taught us young never to turn our back on wild animals. He hissed. I backed away. When I got home I told my parents about the bobcat as a curiosity. Mom phoned the police. There was a search but he wasn’t found. They did find the tracks so no one thought I made up the story. Mostly in those days adults thought all stories us kids told that were unusual were probably made up. Obviously some were. Kids have a great fantasy life. I’d see the bobcat a couple of times after that but never so close.
Alaska joined the US that year. Fidel Castro and Che Quevara entered Havana Cuba. The Soviets recognized Cuba. De Gaulle was inaugurated president of French Fifth Republic. Musicians Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens and Gyles Perry died in a plane crash, ‘the day the music died.”.
The Canadian government cancelled the Avro Interceptor jet contract. Miles Davis recorded Kind of Blues. The Marx Brothers appeared on television. Martel put out its first Barbie doll. The Dalia Lama escaped to India from Tibet where the barbaric Chinese Imperialists were continuing to enslave,rape and murder. Queen Elizabeth II and President Eisenhower opened the St. Lawrence Seaway.Two monkeys were launched into space from Cape Canaveral and recovered on return. Lewis and Mary Leakey found the first skull of Austhrolipicus in the Oldavai Gorge of Tanzania. Explorer 6 sent the first picture of earth from space. Rod Serling’s Twilight Zone premiered on TV. In New York the Guggenheim Museum designed by Frank Lloyd Wright opened. Luna 2 crashedon the moon. Rwanda “winds of destruction” begins. Martial law was declared in Laos. MGM released Ben Hur with Carleton Heston. The Daytona International Speedway was completed. Erving Goffman, sociologist, published the ‘The Presentation of the Self in Everyday Life.” Panty hose, or sheer tights were first sold. Steven Harper, later Canadian Prime Minister was born. Sheena Easton Scottish singer wasborn. Hugh Laurie, British Actor and Kevin Spacey American Actor were born. Bryan Adams, Canadian rock star was born Cecile de Mille,American Film Director died. Raymond Chandler, novelist, died. Ethel Barrymore, actress and Errol Flynn, Australian actor died. Billie Halliday, American singer, died.
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