All through the spring of 1966 we hauled things around in that little red trailer.Dirt for the lawn and for a garden,gravel for the driveway,whatever needed hauling.As it turned out,my father had an ambitious improvement plan for our house and yard,now that we'd been there nearly two years.It started when he hitched up the trailer and brought three trees home from the nursery.We planted them in the back yard,about two thirds of the way to the property line,in a nice neat,evenly spaced row.One was a pair tree,one plum and one apple.They were small.and my father said that it would take a few years before anything grew on them.As it turned out,nothing ever did grow on them,and after a few years,they all died off.The apple tree,in the middle lasted the longest.
That summer was spent working in the garden.Once we got enough loam hauled in,our neighbor came over with a big rototiller and ground it into a patch that ran from the corner of the house back to the property line.My mother planted beans,peas,carrots,radishes and a few other things there.And it must have been about that time that someone got the idea for the willow hedge too.As long as the weather was decent,we were out digging in the garden,and later harvesting vegetables.But,of course,the weather wasn't always agreeable.
That whole summer and spring just seemed like a great time to be outside,the weather seemed glorious.But it rained some of the time,and when it did we were housebound.My father never minded the rain back then,or cool air.He would just cheerfully explain that it had to rain sometimes,or nothing at all would grow.Later he came to detest weather that was wet,or much cooler than eighty degrees.
Sometime it would rain if we were out at the park.And then we would have to run home.There were lightening storms too,and every time that happened ,someone would run and unplug the television.But we were never obsessive about that,like my grandmother was,running to pull every plug on every appliance out of the wall,then double and triple checking to be certain that not a single thing remained plugged in.
At five years of age I was familiar with thunder and lightening.I was never really afraid of it,but I could be uneasy about it at times.Usually it was about two or three times a week in the summer that we would get an electrical storm,so we were very used to them.My sister really didn't like thunder much,and could start to get restless.When that happened,one of my parents would gather her up and urge her to go to sleep,and usually she would.I,however,would not.Because as uneasy as the lightening could make me,I did enjoy the light show and the low echoing boom of the thunder.
One night,though,my parents were unable to get my sister to go to sleep in an electrical storm.I don't recall that it was an especially bad storm at all.There was a bit of rain and it seemed to go on for a long time,but it never seemed to be directly overhead.Just a very average summer storm.But the reason that my sister was not able to sleep through it was that she had wandered off.
We had been visiting that night over in the city's West End,over near Jones Lake,between St. George Street and West Main Street.I have no idea who the person we were visiting was,but I do think that they were someone my father knew from the military,perhaps someone from Goose Bay.We had been at Centennial Park earlier in the day,and afterward went to this person house,which was really only a few blocks from the park.I think it only occurred to my father to visit these people as we were leaving the park,and the thunderstorm was getting started.
Not all of my parents friends were the most interesting people in the world.Some of them had no children to play with,and,as I recall,these particular people were like that.There was not a lot to do,and nobody really paid either of us much attention.What they did have in their house though was an old guitar,and it wasn't long before I was looking it over.One of the adults asked me if I knew how to play it,and took it down,laid it on the floor and told me to go ahead.I must have looked at him like he just came in from Pluto or some such place.The very idea that he would think I knew how to play a guitar.
Things must have been really boring for my sister there.I can't think of any other reason she would have wandered away,but after we'd been there for some time,we noticed that she was missing,and began to look all around for her.It didn't take long before a lot of the neighbors were out looking for her,and a police car came along too,and the cop was talking to my parents.Eventually we found her,down across the street from the entrance to the park,where there used to be a Volkswagen dealership.It really wasn't that far away,but it wasn't right on the way either.You would have had to have made a couple of turns to end up there from the house we were visiting.But I remember going down there and picking her up.It was summertime,and not quite dark out,even though it was already late.I guess she must have been noticed by someone at the dealership,and maybe they called the police.But in any event,we were soon reunited with her.My sister seemed scared,maybe of the thunder or lightening.She said though,that she was afraid of the noise in the service department of the dealership,where she was when we found her.The storm,even though it was not a really bad one was still going on.The road was wet,every now and again there would be a flash of lightening and some thunder.Like a storm that was moving away slowly.Still,to a girl not quite four years old,it must have seemed frightening.
That summer was spent working in the garden.Once we got enough loam hauled in,our neighbor came over with a big rototiller and ground it into a patch that ran from the corner of the house back to the property line.My mother planted beans,peas,carrots,radishes and a few other things there.And it must have been about that time that someone got the idea for the willow hedge too.As long as the weather was decent,we were out digging in the garden,and later harvesting vegetables.But,of course,the weather wasn't always agreeable.
That whole summer and spring just seemed like a great time to be outside,the weather seemed glorious.But it rained some of the time,and when it did we were housebound.My father never minded the rain back then,or cool air.He would just cheerfully explain that it had to rain sometimes,or nothing at all would grow.Later he came to detest weather that was wet,or much cooler than eighty degrees.
Sometime it would rain if we were out at the park.And then we would have to run home.There were lightening storms too,and every time that happened ,someone would run and unplug the television.But we were never obsessive about that,like my grandmother was,running to pull every plug on every appliance out of the wall,then double and triple checking to be certain that not a single thing remained plugged in.
At five years of age I was familiar with thunder and lightening.I was never really afraid of it,but I could be uneasy about it at times.Usually it was about two or three times a week in the summer that we would get an electrical storm,so we were very used to them.My sister really didn't like thunder much,and could start to get restless.When that happened,one of my parents would gather her up and urge her to go to sleep,and usually she would.I,however,would not.Because as uneasy as the lightening could make me,I did enjoy the light show and the low echoing boom of the thunder.
One night,though,my parents were unable to get my sister to go to sleep in an electrical storm.I don't recall that it was an especially bad storm at all.There was a bit of rain and it seemed to go on for a long time,but it never seemed to be directly overhead.Just a very average summer storm.But the reason that my sister was not able to sleep through it was that she had wandered off.
We had been visiting that night over in the city's West End,over near Jones Lake,between St. George Street and West Main Street.I have no idea who the person we were visiting was,but I do think that they were someone my father knew from the military,perhaps someone from Goose Bay.We had been at Centennial Park earlier in the day,and afterward went to this person house,which was really only a few blocks from the park.I think it only occurred to my father to visit these people as we were leaving the park,and the thunderstorm was getting started.
Not all of my parents friends were the most interesting people in the world.Some of them had no children to play with,and,as I recall,these particular people were like that.There was not a lot to do,and nobody really paid either of us much attention.What they did have in their house though was an old guitar,and it wasn't long before I was looking it over.One of the adults asked me if I knew how to play it,and took it down,laid it on the floor and told me to go ahead.I must have looked at him like he just came in from Pluto or some such place.The very idea that he would think I knew how to play a guitar.
Things must have been really boring for my sister there.I can't think of any other reason she would have wandered away,but after we'd been there for some time,we noticed that she was missing,and began to look all around for her.It didn't take long before a lot of the neighbors were out looking for her,and a police car came along too,and the cop was talking to my parents.Eventually we found her,down across the street from the entrance to the park,where there used to be a Volkswagen dealership.It really wasn't that far away,but it wasn't right on the way either.You would have had to have made a couple of turns to end up there from the house we were visiting.But I remember going down there and picking her up.It was summertime,and not quite dark out,even though it was already late.I guess she must have been noticed by someone at the dealership,and maybe they called the police.But in any event,we were soon reunited with her.My sister seemed scared,maybe of the thunder or lightening.She said though,that she was afraid of the noise in the service department of the dealership,where she was when we found her.The storm,even though it was not a really bad one was still going on.The road was wet,every now and again there would be a flash of lightening and some thunder.Like a storm that was moving away slowly.Still,to a girl not quite four years old,it must have seemed frightening.
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