The school my mother taught in was the first school I'd ever been in.I was way too young to be going to school,but my mother took me to the school once.Like everything else in Redmondville it was made out of wood,and it looked a bit like a church from the outside.It was a rough,old looking building and the trees grew right up to it,so that in the back it was dense bush.There really wasn't any sort of a schoolyard either as the building was right up on the road.There was a big woodpile outside and a wood burning stove inside.My father always used to say that we eventually moved from Redmondville because there were better schools in the city,That was no doubt true,because going to school here would have likely been rather dangerous with the sort of shape the building was in,the woods right behind and a busy highway coming almost up to the door,not to mention a hot stove inside.
Years later,my mother used to say that some of the older boys used to bring beer to school and hide it out in the trees behind the building.Most of her pupils,she said came from our neighbors,the Mormon family who lived almost right across the road from the school.
The army base where my father worked was the greenest place for miles around.There was a patch of neatly trimmed grass right by a guard house by the road.You were supposed to stop there and show identification,but that almost never happened.Usually if was the same guard on duty and he must have known everyone who worked there and he would just wave us through.
Inside,the base was neat and orderly with expansive well tended lawns.Part of the base was set aside as living quarters,and those properties were all well maintained too.Often we would visit someone at one of those houses.We would also go to the base store for groceries,and we visited the barber shop,and the snack bar,which were all in the same building.In the snack bar,I was fascinated by the machine that made milkshakes.I wasn't sure I actually liked milkshakes,and I don't recall ever having one,but I loved to watch the machine,and listen to the powerful whirring noise it made.Usually when we went to the snack bar we would eat french fries.
The place where my father worked had a lot of machines too.It was in a big building,more or less in the center of the base.The building was long and had a lot of big overhead doors.Unlike the other buildings around,this one seemed to be made mostly of metal.There was no wood around here,except for a few trees that were planted about the base.
You could see the building where my father worked for quite a ways around.For one thing it was the biggest building in the area.And it was topped off by what we always referred to as giant golf balls-two or three huge white domes.The base housed a radar installation and a power generating station.My father worked in the generation station.
Once or twice my father took me to work with him,not when he was working,but maybe when he went in to pick up his pay or something like that.When you walked into that building it was always humming,noisy and vibrating.You could sense the power from the generators,it just seemed to move right through you,and you had a sense of being very small.The building was very large in scale as well.There was every kind of tool you could imagine in that building too.Wrenches of all sizes,from tiny,to things almost as long as my fathers leg or arm.Thousands and thousands of tools.There were lights and switches and a control panel of some sort with hundreds of buttons.My father would always warn me not to touch anything in the building.He needn't have worried,because the building made me vaguely uncomfortable with it's noise and vibration.I wasn't about to touch anything.Once when we went inside there was someone there using a torch,and I was really rather frightened of all the sparks,but I didn't say anything.I never did,but I always felt relieved when we left that building.
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Years later,my mother used to say that some of the older boys used to bring beer to school and hide it out in the trees behind the building.Most of her pupils,she said came from our neighbors,the Mormon family who lived almost right across the road from the school.
The army base where my father worked was the greenest place for miles around.There was a patch of neatly trimmed grass right by a guard house by the road.You were supposed to stop there and show identification,but that almost never happened.Usually if was the same guard on duty and he must have known everyone who worked there and he would just wave us through.
Inside,the base was neat and orderly with expansive well tended lawns.Part of the base was set aside as living quarters,and those properties were all well maintained too.Often we would visit someone at one of those houses.We would also go to the base store for groceries,and we visited the barber shop,and the snack bar,which were all in the same building.In the snack bar,I was fascinated by the machine that made milkshakes.I wasn't sure I actually liked milkshakes,and I don't recall ever having one,but I loved to watch the machine,and listen to the powerful whirring noise it made.Usually when we went to the snack bar we would eat french fries.
The place where my father worked had a lot of machines too.It was in a big building,more or less in the center of the base.The building was long and had a lot of big overhead doors.Unlike the other buildings around,this one seemed to be made mostly of metal.There was no wood around here,except for a few trees that were planted about the base.
You could see the building where my father worked for quite a ways around.For one thing it was the biggest building in the area.And it was topped off by what we always referred to as giant golf balls-two or three huge white domes.The base housed a radar installation and a power generating station.My father worked in the generation station.
Once or twice my father took me to work with him,not when he was working,but maybe when he went in to pick up his pay or something like that.When you walked into that building it was always humming,noisy and vibrating.You could sense the power from the generators,it just seemed to move right through you,and you had a sense of being very small.The building was very large in scale as well.There was every kind of tool you could imagine in that building too.Wrenches of all sizes,from tiny,to things almost as long as my fathers leg or arm.Thousands and thousands of tools.There were lights and switches and a control panel of some sort with hundreds of buttons.My father would always warn me not to touch anything in the building.He needn't have worried,because the building made me vaguely uncomfortable with it's noise and vibration.I wasn't about to touch anything.Once when we went inside there was someone there using a torch,and I was really rather frightened of all the sparks,but I didn't say anything.I never did,but I always felt relieved when we left that building.
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