Both the town of Springhill and the village of Canterbury were shrinking,their time was passing.Their industries were drying up,and were dependent,in the best of times on the prices people were willing to pay for the things they produced.In both cases,the towns really only produced one thing.Canterbury in particular seemed to be a village of older people.There were a few young families with children too,but mostly it was an elderly group of towns people.
Moncton,by contrast was growing.Our neighborhood was still unfinished.there were still dirt streets when construction ceased at the end of the 1964 building season.In those days there was not a lot of year round building.But when the spring of 1965 rolled around,our neighborhood was crawling with men and construction equipment again.
In 1964,there was a lot of digging.but now there was a lot of finishing up what was started,and the area really started to come together.Most of the curbs had been put in,so cars wouldn't drive into the open trenches in the snow,but not all of the sidewalks were in place,and there was a lot of unpaved roadway.So the spring,summer and autumn of 1965 was all about finishing up,and when it was done,the area was essentially finished,little different than the way it is today.
There was an impressive array of equipment out on the roads,and I still loved to sit and watch the men build.Most of the equipment was quite different than what had been there the year before.There were still dump trucks though.Some of them dumped gravel,and some of them brought pavement:asphalt,soft,smoking and sticky.It was very hot too,and we were warned not to touch the stuff,like we had done when we got into the tar.As much as I was interested in the paving and thought the machines interesting-I could watch them for hours-touching them,or the asphalt was about the farthest thing from my mind.Think back to my early religious upbringing.According to what I'd been told,I thought I knew enough about Hell,to suspect that it might have been in the road right out back of our house.There certainly was enough heat,and stink and smoke around.the machine that spread out the asphalt even had a big fire coming out of the bottom of it,and I'd been told bedtime stories about dragons.That machine was the closest thing I could imagine to a dragon.One night,after they parked the paving machine,it even caught fire,and the fire department had to come.It wasn't much of a blaze,just a bit of asphalt left in the hopper,but it was a fire nonetheless.By the time I'd turned four,I guess my sense of danger was a bit more developed,and I knew fire wasn't good.
Aside from all the paving,there were a couple of other big projects going on close to home.When we first moved in,there was not a lot on the other side of Mountain Road.We were not allowed to venture that far because it was not in sight of the house or yard,and we certainly were not allowed cross.There was no point in crossing anyway,because all that was there was a big open field.
Sometime around 1965,it was announced that Moncton was going to get a KMart,and everyone was really excited about it.There really wasn't much in the way of shopping facilities near our house,and we were likely the fastest growing part of town at that time.So a shopping center had been promised,and the machines began ripping that field apart.
I didn't get to watch them build the shopping center the way I might have liked to,but occasionally we would walk by there,when we went down to the barber school to get our hair cut,or to a small supermarket right across from the building site.The site was the biggest hole in the ground I'd ever seen and there was a huge amount of dirt being moved around.The machines and trucks crawled around as though it was a big anthill.Before long the skeleton of the building was up.We would watch them pounding beams into the ground,and cranes would swing steel beams into place.Men would walk about on the buildings frame,and I wondered how they did that without falling off.The site seemed to stretch on for as far as I could see,but really,it wasn't that big,Not like shopping centers today,but about the biggest thing happening in Moncton at the time.
Up the street,the other way,there was a big building project going on too.On Ayer Avenue,such as it was at the time,they had started building a school,between Crandall Street and the newer part of Birchmount Drive.The school was really why we moved to that area to begin with,why we moved to Moncton. Having a school just a couple of blocks from home was something like The Holy Grail in my fathers mind.It meant not only that we would not have to go to school,and live in one of the provinces poorer areas,but we would not even have to cross Mountain Road,which was very busy and dangerous.My father had not really experienced good schools-ever. He once told me a story about school in Springhill,and I was shocked by that story.But it's a tale for another time.My mother too,had gone to school in a tiny school,way out in the country,again,in a very poor area.So.in their eyes,living in Moncton,with a modern school was worth the sacrifice of moving,and having to commute so far to work everyday.
Both the school and the shopping center began to take form.You couldn't see either from our yard,but we did keep an eye on how each was progressing.The shopping center was coming along quick. Every time we walked down to the barber school,it was looking more and more finished.We would walk by the school too,usually two or three times a week.At first there wasn't a lot there,just a few big skids of different colored bricks.But once they started building,it went up quickly.both the KMart and Birchmount Elementary and Junior High School took about a year to build,and opened in 1966.
Moncton,by contrast was growing.Our neighborhood was still unfinished.there were still dirt streets when construction ceased at the end of the 1964 building season.In those days there was not a lot of year round building.But when the spring of 1965 rolled around,our neighborhood was crawling with men and construction equipment again.
In 1964,there was a lot of digging.but now there was a lot of finishing up what was started,and the area really started to come together.Most of the curbs had been put in,so cars wouldn't drive into the open trenches in the snow,but not all of the sidewalks were in place,and there was a lot of unpaved roadway.So the spring,summer and autumn of 1965 was all about finishing up,and when it was done,the area was essentially finished,little different than the way it is today.
There was an impressive array of equipment out on the roads,and I still loved to sit and watch the men build.Most of the equipment was quite different than what had been there the year before.There were still dump trucks though.Some of them dumped gravel,and some of them brought pavement:asphalt,soft,smoking and sticky.It was very hot too,and we were warned not to touch the stuff,like we had done when we got into the tar.As much as I was interested in the paving and thought the machines interesting-I could watch them for hours-touching them,or the asphalt was about the farthest thing from my mind.Think back to my early religious upbringing.According to what I'd been told,I thought I knew enough about Hell,to suspect that it might have been in the road right out back of our house.There certainly was enough heat,and stink and smoke around.the machine that spread out the asphalt even had a big fire coming out of the bottom of it,and I'd been told bedtime stories about dragons.That machine was the closest thing I could imagine to a dragon.One night,after they parked the paving machine,it even caught fire,and the fire department had to come.It wasn't much of a blaze,just a bit of asphalt left in the hopper,but it was a fire nonetheless.By the time I'd turned four,I guess my sense of danger was a bit more developed,and I knew fire wasn't good.
Aside from all the paving,there were a couple of other big projects going on close to home.When we first moved in,there was not a lot on the other side of Mountain Road.We were not allowed to venture that far because it was not in sight of the house or yard,and we certainly were not allowed cross.There was no point in crossing anyway,because all that was there was a big open field.
Sometime around 1965,it was announced that Moncton was going to get a KMart,and everyone was really excited about it.There really wasn't much in the way of shopping facilities near our house,and we were likely the fastest growing part of town at that time.So a shopping center had been promised,and the machines began ripping that field apart.
I didn't get to watch them build the shopping center the way I might have liked to,but occasionally we would walk by there,when we went down to the barber school to get our hair cut,or to a small supermarket right across from the building site.The site was the biggest hole in the ground I'd ever seen and there was a huge amount of dirt being moved around.The machines and trucks crawled around as though it was a big anthill.Before long the skeleton of the building was up.We would watch them pounding beams into the ground,and cranes would swing steel beams into place.Men would walk about on the buildings frame,and I wondered how they did that without falling off.The site seemed to stretch on for as far as I could see,but really,it wasn't that big,Not like shopping centers today,but about the biggest thing happening in Moncton at the time.
Up the street,the other way,there was a big building project going on too.On Ayer Avenue,such as it was at the time,they had started building a school,between Crandall Street and the newer part of Birchmount Drive.The school was really why we moved to that area to begin with,why we moved to Moncton. Having a school just a couple of blocks from home was something like The Holy Grail in my fathers mind.It meant not only that we would not have to go to school,and live in one of the provinces poorer areas,but we would not even have to cross Mountain Road,which was very busy and dangerous.My father had not really experienced good schools-ever. He once told me a story about school in Springhill,and I was shocked by that story.But it's a tale for another time.My mother too,had gone to school in a tiny school,way out in the country,again,in a very poor area.So.in their eyes,living in Moncton,with a modern school was worth the sacrifice of moving,and having to commute so far to work everyday.
Both the school and the shopping center began to take form.You couldn't see either from our yard,but we did keep an eye on how each was progressing.The shopping center was coming along quick. Every time we walked down to the barber school,it was looking more and more finished.We would walk by the school too,usually two or three times a week.At first there wasn't a lot there,just a few big skids of different colored bricks.But once they started building,it went up quickly.both the KMart and Birchmount Elementary and Junior High School took about a year to build,and opened in 1966.
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