Chapter XII 1967,Continued.

The road to my grandparents house from Moncton was improving,it seemed,but there was still a long drive and there was a lot of construction above Fredricton while they built the roads higher up, as part of the dam construction that was going on.For a lot of children,I guess it could have been a really boring ride.Usually my sister would go to sleep in the backseat.Sleeping in the car was something that never really appealed to me that much.As far as I was concerned, there was just so much to see.

I never liked to sit in the back seat.Never! And I sometimes got into arguments with my parents about that.But usually I was allowed to sit up front,in the middle between my mother and my father, at least when we had a car with bench seats.In those days nobody ever used a booster seat, and not all cars had seat belts either.In those that did, they were usually shoved down behind the seats, because nobody I knew back then used them.My mother once told me though, that it would be better for me to be in the backseat in the event that we were ever in an accident. Usually it was an argument that she did not win.I refused to believe we would ever be in an accident.My father was simply too good a driver to ever let that happen.And,as I said,there was a lot to see,and I was convinced I could never see it as well in the back. And even though the view didn't change that much over time,the sights still fascinated me:  Animal Land the bridges at Cole Island, The lake,at Youngs Cove, the high,arching bridge at Jemseg,Army trucks near Gagetown-sometimes you could hear artillery far off on the opposite side of the river,trees growing up right out of the water and cows grazing on little islands in the middle of the river. A huge Potato by the roadside.The river far below as we crossed the Princess Margaret Bridge,ant the skyline of Fredricton, most notably Christ Church Cathedral.Then the machines cutting back the hills above the river, leaving sheer rock faces that soon became covered with graffiti.The blue river below,and high, verdant hills and pastures on the far side.There was a road over there too, and I always wanted to take that road,just to see what was there.But we almost never took that road. Then there was Crowhill and the last leg of the trip into Canterbury.

When we would get bored,my parents would sometimes invent games for us to play.We played "I Spy".A game in which you said"I spy,with my little eye,something that is red." or"Something that begins with T." Usually we went by color, because I didn't know what everything I spied started with.Then my parents would try to guess that the thing that you saw that was green was a tree, without being too obvious that they already knew. After all, what else could it be.Central New Brunswick certainly had a few interesting trees, and in some places, not much else. My father used to tell us to count the red lights on poles along the roadside at night, saying that they were jackrabbits.For some reason he had the urgent need to know how many jackrabbits there were.It was integral to having a safe trip, in some way I've yet to understand. So count jackrabbits we did, until I was old enough to realize that no rabbits ever climbed trees.And, every time we spotted a field full of cows,we would quickly roll down the window and moo at them.Later on we would count Volkswagen beetles, or,as my father called them,bugs.Much later, that evolved into a game called "punch buggy."

Sometimes we would have to stop to use the washroom.If it was daytime we would scurry off into the trees.There was always plenty of cover. But sometimes at night, we would just go right beside the car.Like most little boys, the thought of peeing along the roadside was a source of great amusement to me, a treat of sorts, like doing something you really weren't supposed to but knowing that you were going to get away with it.So sometimes I'd be standing there in the dark and peeing right on the cars tires, because the brake pads were hot, and they would hiss softly and release steam.It would always make me laugh, and became part of the ritual of a road trip.

There was one thing that I never liked about road trips though.Never goy used to it, not even to this day. My father was a smoker.I had no idea then if he smoked a lot, because I had no idea what a lot was. He wasn't like our babysitter who would sometimes be smoking a cigarette while another one was burning down in the ashtray. But he smoked quite a number of them on a road trip of any length.So, on a trip to Canterbury,he might smoke something like six or eight cigarettes. My mother would sometimes have a smoke too.Not because she really wanted a smoke, but because she saw it as uncivil to refuse if one were offered, even from her husband.But she would never have more than one per road trip, so far as I can recall. The thing was, they would never let us roll down our windows, so the smoke just kept building up in the car.Sometimes I had to sit there and try very hard not to get sick, because all that smoke really did nauseate me. Occasionally I could convince my father to open the vent window-cars back then, for the most part had these little triangular vent windows located just ahead of the front window. But opening the vent window really didn't take much smoke away.It just allowed a rush of air into the car and blew the smoke around,while offering relatively little fresh air. Sometimes, along with the vent, he would crack the side window a bit and that would evacuate some of the smoke. But we were not permitted to roll down the rear windows.In 1967, both my sister and I were still sufficiently small that we might have fallen out a car window, and for my mother, I think she truly did fear this. More so for my little sister perhaps. But I would stick my hands outside too, and I always caught the devil for that.

Most car rides were pleasant enough.I was never really bored, and looked on car trips as an adventure.The smoke though turned into a bit of an ordeal, and it was a part of family trips that I came to dislike more and more as time went by.In fact, I came to be a bit militant about always having the window up.It's likely the biggest reason that I never acquired a taste for cigarettes, or any other kind of tobacco.In fact, by the time I was in grade one, I'd pretty much set my mind that I was never going to smoke.

Chapter XII,1967,Countiued.

Home was not the only place that was concerned with preparing me for school.My mother's mother,in far off Canterbury was doing her part as well,every time we visited. My grandmother was not an educated woman, so far as I know,yet she greatly respected the concept of learning, and realized that for the latest generation of her family, it was the key to the future.I think she clearly understood that her grandchildren would not be tied to the land as her and her family had been.Consequently, she jumped in with both feet when it came to mine, and my sisters pre-school learning.

By 1967,my grandparents were settled into their retirement for the most part, though I do recall that on occasion my grandfather still went to work, though he was nearly eighty. They were settled into a little two story house about two thirds of the way up Orchard Street,at the top of the first hill in Canterbury.The house was not big at all, but I thought it to be larger than our own simply because it had an upper floor,while ours did not.My grandmother, being hyper kinetic also gave the impression,that were she not on the move from sunup until past dark, all of her housework would never get done, though that would have been an exaggeration.So,sometime in the time we were not visiting her,she took the time to cut out all of the letters of the alphabet,using old cereal or cookie boxes, or the boxes from any other product that she used.Then,when we came to visit she would bring out a box containing all of those letters, and help us make words, just like we were doing on the chalkboard at home.I would sit for a long time spelling out the words that I already knew,and I was learning to spell my name as well, which was likely harder than any of the simple one syllable words I was being taught. I used the M from a box of Catelli macaroni, and was somewhat jealous that my sister got to use the biggest letter in the box to start her name-the capital K from the box of Special K.

My grandmother also had a small collection of books that she read to us whenever we visited.The only two that I really remember was this thin,hard covered book about a rather precocious black and white puppy,that liked to hide in a laundry basket, and a book about a red hen who tried to get all the other animals to help her make bread.They wouldn't help her make the bread, but they were there as soon as the bread was ready to eat.To me,the stories were just fun, quality time with my grandmother, but I think that both my parents and grandparents understood that reading to children was important in helping us to develop language skills.

By now, my grandparents were not the only people we knew who had moved into town.The farmland out in Dead Creek was for the most part,the rural equivalent of a ghost town.My mothers brother and his wife had moved on into Fredricton around this time, and her sister, my Aunt Ruby and her husband,Ernie, and bought a service station at the top of the second hill in Canterbury, just before you go out of town towards the lakes,and eventually the American border. Their house,at the time was a small shack like building with a full porch in front, and the ubiquitous red asphalt shingles.It was more than one room, but so small that when you were inside, you were more or less aware of the presence of every other person in the house.Sitting in the front room,you could hear anyone in any of the bedrooms if they happened to be snoring.This seemed to suit Ernie and Ruby quite well,because,although they had a large family, most of them were not still living at home.Later,someone else came to occupy the house,and Ernie and Ruby moved a green and white mobile home onto the lot.It was still just a short few steps to the garage for them when it was time to go to work.By the time I was four or five, I used to like to hang out at the garage and watch Ernie repair tires,or scurry about in the grease pit,fixing some part that I couldn't see on a car.The next house down the hill, and the third to last house in town belonged to my grandmother's sister, Anna English and her husband Fred.Fred was a very old man,or at least it seemed that way to me,by the time they had moved to town.He was a tall, austere,thin looking man that rather reminded me of Vincent Price.And, he smoked cigars-a lot of them.A decade and a half later, after he had been gone a few years, I could still smell the cigar smoke when I walked into his house. My aunt,Anna English,whom everyone called Annie was old too, but very spry and lively, and she adored children.Many of the neighbors children would drop by to see her when we were there, and she was always kind to them.She was a God fearing,religious woman,though not severe in any way that I could tell. Being around her was, until the day she passed, one of my favorite places to be.  

Chapter XII,1967,Continued.

As our country was turning one hundred, I was turning six years old.And as our country was changing almost daily, there seemed to be a lot of change in my life, and in our family life as well.

In fall I would start school, walk through the doors of that building up the street, that building that my father so admired and was so proud of.But that was a few months off, and the early months of the year continued much as before, in a kind of carefree routine of going to the babysitters some days, and staying home when my father was off work. War movies and cowboys and Indians in the afternoons, never mind that those movies were not providing me with especially good ideas or attitudes about some of my fellow human beings. Then, in the spring, there was time to ride around my neighborhood-I was still on a tricycle, and play with my friends Kenny and Johnny Bast...I mean Johnny Basterache, when he wasn't in school.

At home, a lot of what was going on was directed at getting me prepared for school.At Christmas, one of the gifts that we received was a small blackboard with colored chalk.My father showed us how,if you drew on the board, you could later take anything you had written on it, and wipe it away with a cloth, or an eraser that was made for just that purpose.That kind of amazed me at the time, because I was used to thinking that once something was written down, it was written down for good. So we drew pictures in chalk-sort of.I tried to draw stick men, but the efforts looked rather Neanderthal. My sister drew as well, but between the two of us it was mostly just scribbles.But then, when my father was home from work, he would show us how to make words.The first word that I can ever recall making on the blackboard was C_A_T. Cat! And then several words that rhymed wit cat.Hat, Rat, mat and a few others.Then he taught us dog as well.And pig.And big.Big Pig! Then car and far and more.Before the snow left the ground I was even spelling really hard words like fish. There was a line of letters at the top of the  blackboard too.The alphabet.So I learned all of the letters and how they sounded. Then I learned numbers up to ten, and the fact that one and one makes two,two and two makes four, or, a bit harder,two and three makes five. I would not be going off to school totally unprepared or ignorant.My parents wouldn't have that.

Along with all the new words and numbers, my parents prepared me for the etiquette of attending school,well in advance.In school,you were not to talk unless the teacher asked you a question.No talking with the other students.You were not allowed to eat or chew gum.That didn't seem like much of a problem, as we were not used to eating between meals, and I didn't even like gum.If you went to school, you needed to be able to tie your own shoes, because you couldn't ask the teacher.So my father started teaching me.It seemed to take a long time getting it right, and I practiced all the time.Even our babysitter helped me with that. You had to line up when you were going in and out of the school. but at home there was only my sister and I .so there wasn't much way to practice that.Two kids hardly make a decent lineup.

There were a lot of other things to do to get ready for school as well.I had to go to the doctor, for a routine medical check up.And to the eye doctor to find out if I needed glasses.And then the dentist to have my teeth checked.And in those days,everyone had to go get a needle, called a vaccination before you could start school.It was a sort of rite of passage.

One day, while we were talking about school, and what it would be like, my father said,"You'll likely have a girlfriend when you are in school.Most boys do." I wasn't certain at all that I liked that idea. What good were girls, I thought.They didn't play with trucks or guns, and just stayed with each other and did their own thing,like playing with dolls.That was something that I had no idea how it was even done.The only girl I really knew, aside from my sister was Karen, who lived across the street.We played together a lot, but she wasn't a girlfriend, though she seemed agreeable enough to me. No,I thought, by girlfriend, my father had something ekse altogether in mind, but I wasn't certain what.I had a lot to learn about going to school, before I could actually go. 

Chapter XII 1967,Continued.

Canada was celebrating it's one hundredth birthday in 1967.Instead of a birthday cake with a hundred candles, a flame was lit in front of the Parliament Buildings in Ottawa. It was lit on the first of January, with the idea that it would be extinguished at the end of the year long celebration, but, due to popular demand, it was left to burn, and burns there still, coming up out of the water in a fountain that has the Centennial symbol, and coats of arms of the various provinces and territories.

Canada had it's beginnings as a nation in 1867, and at the time consisted of only four provinces.Our home province of New Brunswick was one of those, along with Ontario, Quebec and Nova Scotia. Actually, though, what was to become the one hundred year old nation of Canada in 1967, was the result of the world wide conflicts of two European nations, England and France, as they tried to carve up the "New World " between themselves, forgetting,for the most part that there was a world here long before they stumbled across it. So,the world that was brought together politically in 1867 reflected these tensions, as it did on it's one hundred birthday and beyond.

In it's first hundred years as a nation, Canada had grown from four provinces to ten,that spanned the North American continent from The Atlantic to the Pacific Oceans.It had managed to unite itself geographically by rail, and to fill in the empty territory between it's eastern and western most parts with Eastern European immigrants and others, so that it was not absorbed by America.It had fought two world wars, and survived a Great Depression and a dust bowl that threatened to blow it away.It participated in the Korean War,and had become a respected member of the world community.In 1967,Canada was a nation of nearly twenty million people, most of whom lived rather close to the nation immediately to our south.

1967 was a year of great celebration in Canada, as it should have been.It was a year of building and artistic performances.Money was spent on heritage buildings across the country,so as to leave lasting infrastructure. The center piece of the building, the celebration was, of course Expo 67,the World Exposition held in Montreal between April and October.All through that year, it's all anyone seemed to talk about in Moncton."Are you going to Expo?" And many people did. We did not.

Expo was built for the most part on some man made islands, and one existing island in the Saint Lawrence River.It got off to a rather rough start, and it was questionable as to whether it could all be brought about on schedule,but it was.It went on to be a very successful exposition, with about fifty million visitors,or more than twice the population of the country at the time. Some of the structures built for the exposition are still standing, most notably the geodesic dome that housed Man and His World, and a development called Habitat, a housing complex that resembled, more than anything else, a scattering of Lego blocks, stacked one on top of another.My father took an look at Habitat in the newspaper, and pronounced it a monstrosity.

The most noticeable sign of the celebration in Moncton was the Centennial symbol, a maple leaf composed of eleven different colored triangles representing the ten provinces, and the Northwest Territories.All over town people were painting the symbol on houses, and even on buildings.There was one house on Crandall Street that had the symbol painted on a recently paved driveway.The symbol was seen on flags as well.The Park we would to go too, in Moncton's west end was now called Centennial Park. There had always been an old Canadian National Railway steam locomotive displayed at the park entrance.In 1967,it was joined by a silver fighter jet,erected on a big cement pedestal, the later, by a tank. A line of flags was erected as well, one for each of the provinces, a centennial flag,the new Canadian flag, and perhaps even a holdover older style Canadian flag, variously referred to as The Union Jack or the Red Ensign.

The celebration was rather muted at our house.It's not that my parents were not proud Canadians.But celebrating was just not a really big deal.My father still hadn't really gotten used to our new flag, and sometimes called it"Pearson's bastard flag." There was a lot of sentiment among some of our neighbors too,that we should still be flying the old flag, that the new flag was a slight of tradition, that tradition being essentially British. Our driveway was newly paved-sort of- but there was no though of painting the Centennial Symbol, And, as for going to Expo, that was too far away, and to expensive, hard to have small children sit in a car for that length of time just to view something that we were thought to be too young to have any real appreciation of anyhow.My father was more interested in his own building projects anyway, thinking them to be more important in enhancing our lifestyle.The money was better spent at home, so we came to see Expo through the stories and pictures of our neighbors who had gone.

In 1967,not a lot had changed in regards to the historical tensions that defined the part of North America now called Canada. Everyone was proud to be Canadian, but tensions still existed from the past.Certainly in our hometown there were tensions between French and English.And, as much as we'd heard stories about how our country was discovered, and created some of the stories were not being told. We got to hear about the building of the railroad, for instance, but not about the many Chinese who were instrumental in building it.Or we would hear about the settlement of the west, but not about the displacement of native people from their land.We knew about places like Toronto, and Montreal, because they were large, world class cities, and because much of Canada's affairs took place there, while our region had nothing comparable, and people sometimes had to leave to scratch out a living. But our parents were right.At the time, neither my sister or I had much of a concept of, or appreciation for Canadian History.

Chapter XII 1967

The final days of 1966 were a bur.There were visitors to the house,and we all enjoyed the season.There were all the new clothes to wear and new toys to occupy ourselves with.There were turkey sandwiches everyday,the New Years day rolled around, and there was a roast ham,and everyone was getting dressed up in their finest clothes and going pout somewhere to ring in the New Year.My sister and I were both too young to even know what that meant, so we stayed at home, went to bed early as usual,and when we awoke,it was 1967.We went to bed thinking how odd it was to say"good-night,see you next year." Then,in the morning,we took down the Christmas Tree,put away the strings of lights,that now looked not bright,but forlorn.We put the tree outside for the trash collectors to take, and the season was over.

Nineteen Sixty Seven was in some ways like the one  one,or the ones that had come before it.There were still race riots, Americans and Soviets were still trying to outdo one another in space, and in testing the latest weaponry closer to home.It was surprising how few days went by without some news of the space program, and the more and more powerful bombs that were being tested, and such things occupied a much more prominent place in the minds of everyone, even children than they do today.

In 1967,the Boeing 737 made it's maiden flight.The first Super Bowl was played,and The Green Bay Packers defeated the Kansas City Chiefs 35-10. May 2nd was a day like none since,because on that day, the Toronto Maple Leafs beat the Montreal Canadiens four games to two to win The Stanley Cup. The draft board refused to grant a draft exemption to Mohammad Ali,and later in the year he was drafted, then stripped of his title for refusing to serve.

On January 12th,Dr.James Bedford was the first ever person to be frozen, in the hopes that he would someday be resuscitated.To the best of my knowledge, he's still waiting patiently.1967 also saw the first heart transplant preformed in South Africa,though it's recipient only lived a short time.The late, great John F. Kennedy's body was moved from a temporary grave, to a permanent memorial, but nobody was entertaining thoughts of his resuscitation,because his body was likely not in the best of shape, missing a brain,as it was reputed to be.Two days before, on January 10th,Edward W. Brooke was sworn in to represent the state of Massachusetts in the Senate.He was the first African American to be elected to that office.January tenth also saw the inception of PBS.

In June,what is now known as the Six Day War began between Israel and Egypt,Jordan and Syria.On the twenty eighth of the month,Israel annexed East Jerusalem.A day before that saw the first ATM installed,in England.On the last day of the month,Robert Henry Lawrence Jr. was named the first African American astronaut.In December,he was killed in a training accident.

Racial events were making news, if not always progress in other ways in 1967 as well.Early in June, the United States Supreme Court voted unanimously to end laws against interracial marriage.Speaking of the Supreme Court,1967 was also the year that justice Thurogood Marshall was appointed and confirmed, another first for an African America.That,at least was progress,America beginning to move out of it's dark ages,called Jim Crow. In December,someone attempted to assassinated singer Bob Marley at a concert rehearsal.

Born in 1967 were runner Donovan Bailey,singer Kurt Cobain,and actors Nicole Kidman,Julia Roberts and Jimmy Kimmel.

Jack Ruby died in prison in 1967. Physicist Robert Oppenheimer, one of those responsible for building the atomic bomb,left the world such as it had become in part because of his work.Musician John Coltrane died of cancer,actress Vivien  Leigh of tuberculosis, and revolutionary Che Guevara was executed in Bolivia.

In 1967,monthly rent was about one hundred twenty five dollars and the average cost of a new home was about fourteen thousand dollars, or roughly two full years salary for the average person.A gallon of gas was about thirty three cents.Yearly inflation was 2.7% in America, and on the first of November, silver hit a record in London.One dollar,ninety-five per ounce.

1967 saw the launch of Rolling Stone Magazine.Popular films that year included Dirty Dozen,In The Heat Of The Night and Guess Who's Coming To Dinner which seemed very apt in light of all the progress on other fronts.Popular television shows of that year were The Monkees,Star Trek(also especially appropriate),Peyton Place,I Dream Of Jeannie,Bewitched and Hogans Heroes(just to prove that there was still a race of people who we could still ridicule).

Almost four hundred words were cited for the first time in The Oxford English Dictionary.They included MOOG,referring to an electronic synthesizer invented the previous year,no-fault,referring to auto insurance that pays regardless of who was at fault,and microburst, which was originally a term applied to radio transmissions.The word "hoagie" was also first cited.It referred to a submarine sandwich,and the reference was originally a term local to the city of Philadelphia.The word bummer referred, to a bad experience, and the word interface was first used to describe what computers do. Tae Kwon Do was first used to describe a Korean form of martial arts.The words Ibuprofen and Jihadist also appeared for the first time.Scratch and sniff also made it's debut,and the word scumbag first appeared to refer to an undesirable or despicable person.That word seems almost prophetic, given that Nixon was about to run for president the following year,to say nothing of all the clowns to follow,in both high and low places. Scumbags were becoming fashionable as the years moved forward,from 1967,even up until the present day.

World leaders of the day were Lyndon Johnson in America,Leonid Brezhnev in Russia,Harold Wilson in Great Britain and Indira Gandhi in India.In Canada,Lester B.Pearson was Prime Minister,until he retired from politics in December, ushering in the first Trudeau era.But not before Canada celebrated with a huge birthday party.

                                                                                                        Continued

Chapter XI,1966,The Later Months,Continued.

1966 is the first time I distinctly remember Halloween, as far as what it's purpose was.And for us, being Protestant,it was a completely secular purpose.The day was like so many of those days in the fall of that year, golden and warm, but not too hot.A lot of sunshine, and very comfortable outside in only a light jacket, or perhaps just shirt sleeves.

All our Halloween costumes consisted of that year were just a mask, of some scary creature or other.But we couldn't wait to hit the streets.By supper time the light was fading and the sun was low in the sky.It's also the first time in my life when I'd began to notice that days were shorter at some times of the year than at others.In summer we played outside until nearly bedtime, but by Halloween,there was hardly any time to play outside after the evening meal. Before we ate, there were people at our house trick or treating, and I was in a hurry to get going.But we had to wait for my mother to get home,and we had to eat all of our supper.Only then could we put on our masks and head out.

In those days,there was no talk of anyone trying to harm children on Halloween.It must be true,though, at least that year,that my parents went out with us, and it's unlikely that we went to more than just the houses on our street,and maybe a few others here and there.We went to my friend Kenny's house at number 59 Watson Avenue, but my parents wouldn't let us near Johnny Bastards...I mean Johnny Basterache's house, being as it was, run down and out in the middle of the field. But.even so, it was great fun, running up to each house and yelling "trick or treat." And of course, I'd never seen so much chips and candy in my life.I enjoyed all of the other kid's costumes too, especially the ghosts.Back then there were literally hundreds of children out and about on Halloween.The sidewalks were just lined with kids from one end to the other, or so it seemed.When we got home,we were allowed to eat a small part of our candy, then we helped my parents pass out treats to all of the other children.That was nearly as fun as our own excursion, and I wished it could be Halloween every day.My grandfather,as near as I can recall was still with us on Halloween.I recall being out in the front yard with him before dinner, but while we were passing pout treats, he stayed off in the background somewhere.

The weather stayed on the warm side after Halloween too for a bit.I can recall the last house on our block being built, and the people who lived there.The house was actually on Willett Street,but just across our backyard.There were a lot of trees about on that property, and one day I saw a man out in what would have been his back yard, cutting bushes with an ax.This vaguely disturbed me, because my mother still read us stories like Little Red Riding Hood,all the time, likely at least once a week or so.The version she always told was one that ended with the Big Bad Wolf getting his head lopped off by a woodsman.The guy outside cutting bushes certainly looked the part of a woodsman,with a red and black checkered jacket, and a hat something like the one Elmer Fudd wore on the cartoons.There were still a few stray dogs around too, so the ending to Red Riding Hood seemed kind of plausible,in the sense of it playing out in our neighborhood.Well, I guess you really had to be there, and had to be five years old for it to have made any sense, but it made a kind of sense to me.In the end, I didn't know if the man I was looking at was good or bad. A few days later, I actually met the man,and his sons, both of whom were older than I was.I couldn't help looking around nervously for the ax.But he turned out to be a decent enough guy.

One thing that people used to do back then was to burn leaves in their back yard.They never really did that for very long, before it was outlawed, but back then they used to do it.It was an easy, if somewhat risky way to get rid of leaves.It tended to stink up the whole street too, and people would complain about it.One Saturday after we watched morning cartoons, I went outside and noticed that our neighbor, the woodsman had a small fire going in the his backyard, so I went down to take a look.He was raking up leaves and piling them onto the flames.They were damp, so there was no real danger of the fire getting out of control.Still,eventually the leaves would dry out and burn.But leaves were not the only thing he was burning.All about his yard, there were scraps of construction material,and these too went onto the fire.And something else too.Remember, the year is 1966, and to the best of my knowledge the word"Tree Hugger" had not yet been invented, or at least was not in common usage, and David Suzuki hadn't emerged on the scene either.That must of been the reason that the woodsmen did something that you would never do today.He slung a couple of old tires onto the fire, and they got going really good.They also stunk like nothing I'd ever smelled, not even the turpentine my grandfather had spilled.It must have covered my jacket as well,because in the afternoon my parents called me home,and we drove downtown to Woolworths. My father asked where I'd been and I told him I was watching the woodsman burn leaves...and tires. This got my father upset, and he said people shouldn't burn tires in their yards.He mumbled something about complaining to the city.When we got home an hour or so later, the whole neighborhood had a low cloud of smoke, and you could smell the burning rubber from our house.

Sometime before Christmas, but perhaps not much before, it turned cold, and there was snow.We went out and cut down a Christmas tree that year.The trip took a whole day, and I don't really recall where we went, but it couldn't really have been that far away from Moncton. There is a lot of woods everywhere around there, and that's all I remember.That we cut the tree down in the woods, and there was not a lot of snow.

My grandfather resurfaced for a short time too.All of an afternoon to be exact.By this time my fathers sister and her brood of kids had moved up to Pleasant Street in Springhill, up near the hospital.It was not a very nice house, but better than the one they lived in out by the prison.It was at the end of the street, and there were trees around and it was quite dark.The older kids always told us not to go outside there, because there were bats that would get into your hair.But one day, we'd made a roadtrip to visit my aunt and her kids.At some point my grandfather came by.I have no real idea of where he came from.He might have even lived there, but Springhill was small, so he wasn't that far away.But when he got there, he and my father left, and were gone for a few hours.I didn't like being at my aunt's house at the best of times, those being the occasions when both of my parents were around, so I'd started to put up a bit of a fuss.My aunt came into this room, with an old stove in it, and got this idea that she would help me write a letter to Santa Claus.When we were finished, she opened up the top of the stove, the part where you feed in the coal, and put my letter in.I was appalled, afraid Santa Claus would never get it.But she explained that that is how it got to the north pole,that it turned into smoke, then, when it reached it's destination, it turned back into a letter.It sounded kind of silly to me,but I didn't say anything.I was just anxious to have my father return so we could leave.I seemed to have had a bit of an attitude about being around my aunt, for as long as I can remember.Later, back in Moncton, I told the babysitter' oldest daughter, the one with the mouth, all about the letter.She just said"Your aunt is so full of shit'" I knew I would have to try hard not to repeat that.

Eventually Christmas arrived, and gifts were piled high under the tree we had decorated a few days before.Guns and toy soldiers were the theme that Christmas, and for my sister there was a doll, and coloring books and new books for the both of us.We ate a big breakfast of bacon and eggs, then a Turkey for supper.Both of my parents were home, we were all together, and the season was bountiful.A week later, 1966 disappeared into memory and history book.For me, it had seemed a long and eventful year.