Now I’m just having trouble remembering these early years. I miss my family because I could have called them up and asked. What was the name of our Gr. 2 teacher? I expect one of my friends could tell me but I’m sitting here wondering if it’s Mrs. Murray or Mrs. Glover. Those are the two early elementary school teachers names that stick in my head. It think they’re Gr 3 and 4. Yet for a year I used those names daily. I talked about my teachers hundreds of times over the last years. I even remember when those of us on the Fort Garry page of Facebook tried to remember all the Viscount and Vincent Massey teachers. I suppose I wasn’t shocked by how few each person remembered. Together we got the list. My memory has been ‘rated’ as better than most. Still I miss it at these times like one misses an old friend.
The Thought police are at it again. Dementia isn’t forgetting things. It’s forgetting the meaning of things. The best little book on head injury was the “man who mistook his wife for a hat’. It gave some sense of the field. When I forget what a car is for I’ve got dementia. Forgetting where I parked it is a whole bunch of other things.
Now I’m trying to sort out Gr. 2 and Gr.3. Age 6,7,8, 9. When I’m a teen it begins to coalesce well. But these good years kind of run together.
Every Sunday Dad drove us to Trinity Baptist Church in Fort Rouge. I didn’t like the minister, nor did Dad but my brother and sister in law liked him. We had an actual pool behind curtains by the altar. Full immersion baptism. As a kid I was fascinated by that. But I really was thankful when we got to leave the old people and go down to the church basement. This was where we had Sunday School. We did colouring of church comic books and had quizzes. We prayed together and sang songs.
I remember one particular Sunday school memory that stayed with me. It was a sacred moment. I’ve had these Sychronistic incidences since childhood though they were much more common back then.
A missionary lady, lovely motherly like woman, had come from India to talk to us children about her Indian mission. I really believe it was near Bombay but that’s probably just conjecture. She had slides of the people and the places. Lots of smiling brown kids. I liked that monkeys, chickens and cows were there walking around the peoples’ yards. She told of us of the work they were doing among the ‘heathen’ . The terms used for ‘non christian’ weren’t that very purjorative as they are commonly translated by those on the receiving end. Terms such as ‘unwashed’, were said more in ‘sadness’ though ,of course in a distinctly superior sense. Like a person might refer to a friend who does’t have a car. In ignorant political dialogue and of course in times of war these terms lose the sense of sadness that goes with them.
The missionary lady referred to one such heathen Hindu as a lovely man but so sad that he had not found Jesus. There was this smiling man in white cloth clothing looking out at us from the black and white slide projected on the white screen pulled down from the ceiling. We kids were all sitting in rows on folding grey metal chairs. The Hindu Holy man’s lawn was a profusion of life size pictures of all the saints and leaders of different religions. There must have been 20 or thirty such pictures like political signs during campaigns. He, looking like Gandhi, dressed in white cloth, was standing in the middle beside a picture of Jesus . I simply never forgot him.
“The Hindu’s are polytheistic, “ the missionary told us. “Christians are monotheistic’. As little kids we then tried pronouncing these big words. Polytheists believe there are many Gods but Christians know there is only one God.’ She said. That smiling Hindu man who ‘accepted’ all religions and had the generosity to display the gods of all the religions on his lawn really captured me.
It was a white light moment.
I was very young and ideas of ‘manifestations’ of God, or the Trinity, three person’s in one, three god’s in one God, the story of the wise men and the camel, all this would have to wait until much later for me to sort out. But I remember that day really liking that motherly missionary lady and really liking the picture of the Holy man who looked like Gandhi. I also liked the monkeys. These people were also like my uncles who’d disagree but still be friends. I was taken at a very young age with the idea of two people being right but that one might be more right.
Year’s later I’d learn that ‘psychological mindedness’ was the ‘ability to tolerate the tension of opposites’ and that it was a relatively rare trait in humans. I happened to be blessed or cursed with it. That occasion in Sunday School that day is my first memory of my being able to hold two ‘truths’ because I believe both the Holy Man of India and Missionary Lady were both right. I’d have to study C.S. Lewis and Piaget years later before I could understand this.
My Jewish friend, the son of the policeman, was going to Jewish school on Saturday while we were out playing and the rest of the kids were playing while the Christians and Catholics were going to church on Sunday’s. Looking back I think that ‘extra’ education explained our subsequent success in school and society. In the ‘negligent nuclear family’ society with few siblings and parents away or tired from working , there was a breakdown of community and family. Certainly Marx and Engles designed the destruction of the family so that there would be no other gods but the State. The greatest threat to State authority has always been ‘blood’. Blood more often than not ‘trumps’ ideology as the Civil War in the states broke up families but made it nearly impossible for people to fight their own. The Romans long before knew that to put down rebellions they had to bring in outsiders. Scab labour wasn’t drawn from blood relations but rather from outsiders.
Sunday school gave us more contact with adults and with adult learning.
The Trinity Baptist Church Basement was also where I attended Cub Scouts. “Akela I will dib dib dib!” My father would take my brother and I to Trinity Baptist Church so we could join all these other kids learning outdoor lore of Baden Powell. My father’s best friend in the church was Murray who convinced him to help. Murray was a city guy who had 4 girls and finally one little boy. He was a great guy with a beautiful wife. The type of Christian man you’d wish we all were. He volunteered to lead the Cub Scouts and Boy Scouts then convinced my Dad who was a real outdoorsman to help him. Dad wasn’t one to take on ‘leadership roles’ or ‘responsible positions’ outside of work. I think he got enough of that at work. But he’d been in the RCAF and he certainly knew all that the Scouts wanted to teach boys. He was a consummate outdoorsman who today would be considered a great ‘survivalist’. In those days the country kids were all like this. They knew ‘stuff’. The city kids were rapidly losing ‘competence’ and becoming increasingly dependent on the ‘hive’.
Lieutenant General Robert Stephenson Smith Baden-Powell, 1st Baron Baden-Powell, OM, GCMG,GCVO, KCB, DL was a British Army Officer who was founder of the worldwide Scout movement. His sister Agnes founded the world wide Girl Guide movement. He was a national hero during the Boer War of 1899-1900. He wrote a Guide to Scouting in 1903 which became a best seller. He wrote it for the military but aimed it at young boys with a view to giving them more ‘meaning’ in life. His father was a Church of England priest. The first scouting camp was in 1907 followed by the first National Scout Rally at Crystal Palace.
On his retirement from the Scouting Movement in 1937 he wrote:
“I have had a most happy life and I want each of you to have a happy life too. I believe that God put us in this jolly world to be happy and enjoy life. Happiness does not come from being rich, nor merely being successful in your career, nor by self indulgence.’
“The most worthwhile thing is to try to put happiness into the lives of others’.
His wife was Olive St. Clare Soames. She was 23. He was 55. Married in 1912 they went on to have 3 children. He was deeply anti communist and Nazi Germany banned the scouts listing them as a ‘dangerous spy organization.”
In 2007 there were 38 million Scouts and Guides in over 216 countries.
“Try and leave the world a little better than you found it and when your turn comes to die, you can die happy in feeling that at any rate you have not wasted your time but have done your best. “Be prepared” in this way, to live happy and die happy - stick to your Scout Promise always - even after you have ceased to be a boy - and God help you do it.” Baden Powell
The Scout Promise
On my honour
I promise to do my best
To love and serve God
My Queen, my country and my fellowmen
And to live by the Scout Law.
Mom sewed the badges on my green shirt when I passed a test. I can’t remember all the ‘proficiency’ badges, some in the woods, some cooking and sewing. I loved passing the proficiency tests and having those badges. Years later when I was a middle aged man and she was really quite old she gave me a green blanket in which she’d sewn those badges she’d kept from my shirts, long after I’d forgotten what became of those shirts. On that blanket she also had pins and ribbons I won as a child.
It’s not surprising to day to understand why some kids are successful and others are not. My mother didn’t push me or demand that I succeed in activities but she appreciated it and remembered. She really was there for me always and I so often just took it for granted. As a child I was about as smart about relationship as my dog is with me. Food, play,clothes, Doctors all appear magically and only if they’re not there does my dog notice.
As a child my life was pretty amazing. We loved the cubs and scouts Each year we’d go to the Scout Camp for days or a week. Dad would go along with Murray and keep us flock of kids from getting killed in the woods.
I remember wilderness camping at Camp Alloway on the Big Whiteshell. One day we were learning canoeing, a line of boats following the leader like ducklings after a mother goose. A freak wind came up and it was truly a nightmare with the wind coming at us little kids paddling for our lives. The leader and my father and brother were shooting back and forth among us rallying us. My brother Ron, 4 years old was a Boy Scout when I was a Cub Scout at this time. He was really incredible. A regular Baden Powel. The best of the best. And dad was like Davey Crocker or Daniel Boone. Us kids were terrified. Two of us little kids and these great waves crashing over the side of our canoes. We were only off the shore a hundred yards or two but we were trying to stay off the reeds and make it back to the dock. It must have only been 15 minutes of all out paddling after a lovely paddle early along the shore on a sunny day.
We were all so thankful to make it back. It was also amazing to us that my Dad and brother could turn their canoes around ‘in that storm’ and come back and ride along side us and rally the stragglers at the back. Murray lead the ‘expedition’ and we all arrived safe to later enjoy hot chocolate around a fire telling the story over and over again. Today there are probably adults still telling the tale of their surviving the tsunami waves and winds of the Big Whiteshell.
Snow Train was another great Scout outing. In the middle of Winnipeg a whole bunch of us children loaded up with our winter camping and scouting gear said our good byes to our tearful mothers and families. It really was a major ta do. Such excitement. You’d think we were headed off to war. The train would pull away from the station and all us kids would be watching our parents left behind. My Dad and brother were with me. We’d said good bye to Mom and the dog at home before loading into Dad’s green ford pick up truck and heading out to the CNR train station.
The train couldn’t have gone more than a half hour or so before it stopped and let us all climb out into the middle of nowhere. As kids we thought we were on the moon or in the arctic. Endless untouched unblemished wind blown snow in great drifts, some bushes and the occasion spruce tree. Not a touch of civilization around.
The train having left us, quite terrified and alone, we geared up, the older scouts helping us younger boys. We tput on our snow shoes and put our packs on our backs and followed our leaders off to the camp site. I think there was canvas tent set up for us. But on the way one of us slipped into the stream we were walking beside getting thoroughly wet and creating quite the crisis for the leadership .This was Manitoba in winter and hypothermia a very real thing. I would think Murray and Dad were as worried about helping the child as explaining to the parents why a kid’s leg was amputated for hypothermia on a scout camp outing.
I’ve always admired the volunteers who work with kids knowing how awful some parents can be and their kids not much better. The kid survived. Dad started a fire and got the kid in dry clothes and did all the right things. That was Dad and I know Murray thanked him over and over again in the years to come for coming with the scouts. Murray would have been beside himself with this but Dad lived on snowshoes as a kid and saw much worse in the RCAF.
We made forts of snow out there. The job was to capture the other guys flag. We stumbled about on snowshoes bigger than ourselves following the bigger kids, maybe 6 to a group and 10 groups. I just remember trying to stay warm and loving the break for hot chocolate by the big fire the adults had made.
We didn’t stay over night. It was just a day outing.
The train picked up us at dusk and we were back in the city at the train station with our families and a host of memories that would serve us for life. I remember doing Snow Train a couple of years with the Scouts and it remains such a fond memory. Losing our flag and stealing a flag and flogging through snows awkwardly on snowshoes. We’d get a patch for Snow Train and wear it on our jersey.
I attended Scout Rallies and we’d trade our local patches for the patches of other guys and also scout rings and other paraphernalia. I had an American scout ring I got in a trade that I was so proud of. Trading was a thing for little boys. Baseball cards and other things like scout patches. Not the proficiency patches but patches of a general nature. Years later I’d do the same with my Harley Vest and look around at a group of Hell’s Angels and Gospel Riders and think probably all of them had started out in cub scouts. Kids will be kids.
(Camp Alloway - I just remembered another Camp Alloway story. I think it happened when I was 8 or 9. We were all camping by the lake in tents, tall brown canvas tents with wooden centre poles. They slept 4 or 6 boys each. I remember that year we’d had problems with black bears in the camp and the Park Ranger had been called. My brother Ron had hooked up with him to track a particular black bear that was coming into the camp and frightening the boys. I was in the out house, ‘doing my business’ when I heard all the screaming “Bear! Bear!.” A kid had actually climbed on the roof of the outhouse above me while I quickly wiped to be able to get out and see the bear. “Bear Bear”.
So I burst out of the outhouse with at least a half dozen boys shouting ‘bear bear’ around me. I was suddenly bowled over by this big black bear. He’d been running away from the boys shouting looking over his shoulder when he collided full on with me. I was knocked to the ground and the big bear stood up above me. I was lying on my back looking up at this bear in that classic bear pose, arms up, huge claws on his hands, head back, great white teeth roaring. I was scared. I’d have probably shit and wet myself if I hadn’t just come from the outhouse I can see that moment vividly in my mind today. There was the kid on top of the outhouse wide eyed , looking down, another two boys standing on the trail the bear had come from
The Park Ranger was there too about 100 yards away towards the lake. I only saw him after my brother and he shouted ‘Don’t move. Don’t move Billy.” He had his rifle up pointed at the bear. My brother was beside the ranger. I just lay there on my back unable to move looking up at the bear standing so far above me swaying from side to side. It really did last a long time. He then dropped down to all fours and ran away down the trail to the left crashing through the woods where there were no humans.
Everyone ran up to see if I was okay. I was except for a little bruising on my back where his head hit my like a truck. The ranger was saying he couldn’t shoot because of all the boys around but would have if the bear had attacked me. He’d have known as I do today the bear was more scared than I was and just looking for an exit. I think at the time I knew the bear was scared and looking for an exit too.
I sure was the hero of the camp that year for being ‘mauled’ by a bear. I certainly wasn’t going to argue with the story but kind of swaggered in the glory of a boy who’d survived a bear attack. )
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