Chapter XII,1967,Continued.

When spring came around in 1967,I was back to doing all the things I'd been doing in the warm weather months for as long as we'd moved to Moncton. We were still splitting our time between home and the babysitters place through the days. I went to the place on Crandall Street where the anthill had been, because I was still fascinated with ants.I'd had my mother check out books about ants out of the bookmobile several more times, and had been waiting for them to make a reappearance.Only they didn't. They were gone.There were still ants around, but not in the old spot where I used to play. I saw the kid who had stopped by and incinerated the ant with a magnifying glass back in the fall too, but he never even bothered to say hello.

The other constant in the neighborhood were fire trucks.They still came racing up Crandall Street to the corner of Snow Avenue where the fire box was.Often it happened over the noon hour,and was almost certainly a false alarm turned in by some of the kids going back to the school. Fire trucks still fascinated me.They were about the most exciting thing that ever happened in our neighborhood.

My father took me up to see the fire box one time, because he wanted to point something out to me.It was likely a part of getting me prepared for first grade, but I didn't really see it that way.He pointed out the box, a bit too high up on the pole for me to reach, and explained to me how it worked. There was a handle on the box,and if you pulled it, an alarm went off in the firehouse and trucks were sent out. Even though I was not big enough, he wanted me to know that I should pull the handle on the box if I ever saw a fire. But only if I saw a fire. Never at any other time. He explained that when people pulled the alarm and there was no fire, it was possible that there would be a fire somewhere else while the firemen were busy at the false alarm, and that could cause someone to be burned or even to die.Even though I'd not developed a full appreciation of death,I knew that I did not want to be responsible for someone being hurt or killed.And my father told me in no uncertain terms that were that to happen, I would be responsible. Also,in my mind the idea of fire was still closely related to the idea of Hell, so that was a big part of why I never pulled the alarm.

Sometimes we would take short car trips in the afternoons on the days we stayed home with our father and when our mother was working.Late in the afternoon we would go pick her up, but sometimes we would go somewhere else first.The park,or the garden center, or the hardware store. One afternoon, we went to the fire station out on McLaughlin Drive.I had no idea that you could actually visit the fire station, but it was a great little field trip. Very exciting for two children four and six years old.

We were met by a fireman who welcomed us into the station house.He was not dressed like the firemen I'd seen that came to the firebox.He had on a neat white shirt with a number of patches on it, and a crisp pair of dark pants with a razor like crease in their legs.I got the impression that my father knew the fireman, which would not have been unusual, as Moncton was a really small town back then.We'd been to visit a man my father had called "Junior" and he'd always said the man was a fireman.But he was not at the station on the day we visited. This man took us for a walk through the fire station, showing us the firetrucks which were brilliant red,and as shiny as anything I'd ever seen.I could look into the red paint and see my reflection.The fireman explained that since there were not a lot of fires, the men got a lot of time to shine up the trucks, and he seemed very proud of the equipment.Along with all of the red fire trucks there was also a white one, something I'd never seen before.And it was just as bright as the red ones. For a while,the fireman stood around talking to my father about all the things the fire trucks could do: how much water it could pump, how many ladders it had and how long they were. How many axes they had.He showed us a really big chainsaw as well, something he said was for cutting metal.I was surprised at the array of equipment on the truck:so many different sorts of tools. Then, he let my sister and I sit up in the cab of one of the fire engines, and I was in seventh heaven.Nothing in the world could be better that being a fireman, I thought.They got to drive around in a big truck with a lot of flashing lights and sirens, and they got to put out fires so nobody would get burned or killed.Sometimes they even got to rescue people, and that seemed very exciting.So, immediately I wanted to be a fireman when I grew up. The first thing I though I could do,once I became a fireman,was go to Springhill and put out that stinking pile of burning coal slag.

Before we left the fire station, the fireman showed us some of the things that they were doing that was not really about fighting fires at all. In those days firemen and fire departments were closely associated with fighting Muscular Dystrophy. They raised money for the cause, and advertised the fact on both television and radio.There were posters all about Muscular Dystrophy all over the firehouse.I had no idea what Muscular Dystrophy was except that it was like having a kind of sickness that killed you when you were really young.So I liked the idea of fighting that kind of disease almost as much as fighting fires.

In the back of the firehouse the firemen had another project going on.There was a big room back there and it was all filled up with piles and piles of toys that were broken, or just old. The firemen in Moncton at that time collected old and broken toys and repaired what they could, then donated them to what my father called "under privileged children" so that they could receive Christmas gifts as well.I didn't really know what under privileged meant, but later my mother said in meant poor.So I though that it was a really great thing for the firemen to be doing, along with fighting both disease and fires, and reminding people not to smoke in bed, and fire fighters began to take on a status next to deity in my mind.  

Chapter XII,1967,Continued.

When we went on vacation in 1966,I had no idea that the place we'd gone would become a second home to us.But,in the spring of 1967, my father began the first step in returning for a second year in a row.He was a natural born beach person who loved the sun and warmth of summer.He loved sand and salt water,and I don't think there was ever a time I've seen him happier than when he was at Fox Harbour,on Nova Scotia's north shore.His friend Art,his mentor in life really, had a cottage there,just two doors down from the cottage we'd rented the year before, and all of his friends and acquaintances from Springhill could drop by after just a short drive.My grandmother was nearby too,still living in Shubenacadie,in the central part of the province,about half way between Truro and Halifax. So Fox Harbour was the ideal setting for building a cottage.It really was peaceful and rather secluded.

Sometime in the spring,on an absolutely glorious day,we all piled into the family car and started off for my grandparents place in Canterbury.But this was not to be a straight forward trip.Instead of it being point A to point B, this time we turned off the highway at Sussex,and headed down toward Saint John.I don't think I'd ever been to Saint John before, so I thought it wound be a bit of an adventure.I just wasn't really clear on why we were going. As it turned out,my father was looking at finding temporary quarters for us to live in at the lot he'd purchased in Fox Harbour. In the form of a trailer. I guess he'd already checked out all the lots in Moncton and decided he needed to do some more shopping around. So off we went to Saint John.

So what I clearly recall about that trip is this: first,it was a beautiful day, among the nicest days I've ever seen.It was warm but not hot and there was very little wind.And it was at just that point in springtime that the first green leaves were coming out on the trees.There were apple and cherry blossoms all along the way too. Once we passed through Sussex,we headed down this river valley,and there were hundreds of ducks and geese about.This was not the Saint John River,like we used to drive past of the way to Canterbury.It was the Kennebacasis River,and it was not nearly so wide as the Saint John.It cut down toward the southwest from Sussex,through a really pretty part of the province, clothed in luminous new green and scattered with white churches and farm houses and old grey barns.It's the first real time that I remember looking out at the land of my home province and considering how beautiful it was.It's the first time in memory where I considered myself connected to a particular place, and I decided then that I wanted to live by that river when I grew up and left home.

After what seemed like the longest time,we arrived at this place on the outskirts of Saint John. It was a lot where there seemed to be used cars and trailers both.So we all went into a small office,and a man in a suit met us and showed us out to the lot where all the trailers were. The only trailers I'd ever really noticed before were the old Airstream ones, because my father liked them and would point them out any time he saw one out on the road. They were all bare metal on the outside, and would just about knock your eyes out if the sun was shining.But the trailers the man showed us were not Airstreams. They were much smaller than that and the metal on the outside was painted.

We looked at a few different trailers.In each one the man showed us all of the features of the trailer.They all had a brand new upholstery smell. Finally he led us to this little blue and white trailer and opened up the door.He showed us how the seats the table could be folded down to make two beds.The table was located just inside the door.At the very back of the trailer,it was a bit like a couch,and that could be extended into a bed as well. In the middle was a fridge of sorts-it was really an icebox, and a propane stove. and a toilet too. There was also a clean water storage tank on the outside, and another tank for not so clean water.So,while the salesman tried selling the trailer to my father, he was busy trying to sell the idea to my mother.She wasn't saying much,other than that she didn't like the smell of gas that seemed to come from the stove. But it was clear that she would eventually find herself in agreement with her husband. So my father went back into the office,while we waited in the car. It seemed a long wait.Both my sister and I were a little edgy because it had already been  a long day,and we were not even half way to my grandparents house. So we really wanted to get out and run around.For a while,I was happy to sit and consider the trailer. I could count to four,and indeed it had four beds, but I was not really convinced that all of us would fit inside, because the whole trailer seemed like it would fit into any one of the rooms in our house if you could just get it through the door. And I wondered about the icebox.Where would we get ice? And surely it would run out all over the floor.So I had some reservations about living in a trailer, even at that age.

We were clearly getting bored sitting in the car,waiting and waiting.Then my mother noticed something really strange.On this big chain link fence by where all the trailers were parked,there was a box with a telephone in it.She pointed it out to us and asked us to watch it to see if anyone ever actually used it. It was just a ploy to keep us amused after the long car trip,but it worked for just long enough.At some point the phone started ringing and a man came running from halfway across the lot to answer it.He talked for a bit,then hung up. But before he got more than about ten feet away,it rang again.For maybe half an hour or so,all he seemed to be able to do was run back and forth to the phone. The whole thing struck me as really funny in a ridiculous sort of way.I'd seen phone booths before,but this was just a phone hanging on the fence.I wondered why anyone would want to have one.To me,it seemed as silly as bringing a phone booth into our front room,and I laughed at the thought of it.

 Eventually my father returned and got back into the car.He pulled up behind the blue and white trailer that we'd been looking at.Then he and the salesman hitched the trailer up to the car, and we were off, pulling our summer home to be behind us. We pulled it all the way to Canterbury,where my father showed it off to all of my mothers family.The, when we were finished visiting, it trailed behind us all the way back to Moncton.

Chapter XII,1967,Continued.

It never really occurred to me when I was very young that my parents may have been wearing armor of one sort or another all along. They both seemed invincible to me,bringing anything about as a simple act of will.My father could get us across the whole province of New Brunswick in a car in just a few hours,and that alone seemed amazing to me,even though I had no real clue as to all of the things that could go wrong. My mother would go out to work, come home and prepare our meals, knowing how to do so in a way that was both pleasing to us,and assured that we got the nourishment we needed to grow,and this was equally amazing,if for no other reason than that it seemed to be working so well. But,by some time in 1967, my fathers armor was showing some telltale cracks.Still,I had to grow some more, then turn and look back on it all to know this.I did have some understanding of it at the time, but the fact was that we lived in a sort of world that was manufactured for us, so it was somewhat more than slightly askew.

Years later,in my thirties most likely,I encountered the rhetorical idea, that we may not be able to determine truth or reality because it was possible that a malevolent deity was deceiving us,contriving what we experience to that sole end.I found that idea troubling,for any number of reasons.But there was a chord of truth in it that seemed to apply to my growing up, and perhaps to the way things were for a great many of the children of the 1960s.  Only it didn't involve a malevolent deity at all.In fact, if it involved any sort of Deity, it seemed to do so only in a second hand way,by way of the church,and whatever influence it had on my mother. Or perhaps my father too, but such was not easily seen, as he seldom attended church. My point,though is that we lived in a world where unpleasant things were vanquished as a matter of routine. So, as I'm always quick to argue, if you propose deception, why stop at the idea of malevolence. Couldn't a benevolent god deceive as well? At least in looking back that seems to be exactly what was happening.

Imagine,for instance death. By 1967, I knew that people and animals died,that they would not be with us forever.We had lost a pet to traumatic death after all. And while I knew this, I never really knew anyone who had died, so it was a remote sort of thing to me. I knew that I had grandparents, and that grandparents were older people, and eventually,older people died.That's because I was told this one day when I asked my mother where her grandparents were. Didn't she have any? Well,yes she did,she said, but they died before she ever came to know them. People died because they got old, and when you got old, you got sick, and then you died. Or,you could die if you had an accident and were badly hurt. The kind of accident that most worried my parents was getting hit by a car.That's what happened to our cat,and the thought of it happening to us was likely unimaginably traumatic for my parents. If you did that, you died, or so we were told. And all of that, as true as it may have been didn't mean that as a five year old that I could connect all of these dots in a perfectly logical fashion.And that,from time to time caused me some insecurity. Because the fact was that sometimes I got sick.It never really occurred to me that there were degrees of sickness, so it was easy to reason that if I got sick, I might die.

Then one night around five o'clock we were headed home from the baby sitters, straight down Sumner Street, when my sister got hit by a car.In my mind, it was a taxi, and it had been backing out of a driveway on our right hand side. By this time, we were allowed to walk the short distance home by ourselves, after my mother arrived home and phoned for us to come.So we were walking down the street and this taxi backed into my sister and knocked her over. And she didn't die.In fact, I don't even recall that she was badly hurt.She was just walking, then she got knocked down,and there were a few people around her making a bit of a fuss.I don't even recall that the police ever came, and after just a short time we were home.* So death didn't seem to be a natural product of getting hit by cars.It was good advice on my parents part, but part of the manufactured world.

Then there were people who got sick and did die, and were struck by cars that ended their lives.It was all a matter of degrees, of terrible potential.But how do you explain that to young children? In a sense,you're just better off moving to the natural extreme.It does insure obedience,but it also brings about a kind of psychological tension too. Then,at some point it occurs to me: if my parents really were invincible, then why does the possibility even exist,that I could get sick and die, or get hit by a car? It's kind of like the question of why does a god who loves us allow bad things to happen, only on a much smaller scale. The answer was,of course obvious once we were a bit older.Our parents were not invincible. If they were,then why even bother with church and God? But that's not always clear to five or six year old children.

My father always seemed so upright and sturdy to me.He was not big, but he was strong and well muscled.He walked with good posture and a confident stride,whether he was going into the bank to pay his mortgage or the city hall to pay taxes, or to the ice cream store. He drove a long way to work, put in a full day, then drove home. This was the picture of my father as a young man,a man in the prime of his life.But it started changing,almost imperceptibly at first.

In the first year or two that my mother grew her garden, there were onions planted.Not many, not like the long rows of them in my grandmother's garden.But they were there.Then they disappeared.Usually they had appeared in the Shepherds Pie that my mother made from time to time.Then they just stopped. I never really knew why, or at least never gave a lot of thought to it.Then one day in the spring of 1967,my father was home early in the morning, and he fried some green tomatoes for breakfast.Fried green tomatoes were something my grandfather made, when he had stayed with us the year before.What he would do is dump a whole bunch of butter into a very hot frying pan,then dump in the green tomatoes. These he didn't simply cook, or fry.They were burned until they were blacker than a lump of coal, the house was full of blue haze, and they smelled dreadful.Almost like having that burning pile of coal from Springhill right in the kitchen. My father swore he liked the ghastly things, but on this occasion, they made him sick. And not just like we would get sick on the odd occasion. A few hours later, he was spewing all over the bathroom.By the time my mother was home, it was all over and he was feeling better.But what became of it was that there came to be a growing list of things that he couldn't eat. It wasn't the last time he got sick either, but I was reasonably certain he wasn't about to die. But the thing to remember was, that we were living in a manufactured world.One where sickness wasn't really supposed to come.Only it did, and thus there was the need for propaganda to reasonably explain it's presence.For my mother,the propaganda seemed to be all about denying anything unpleasant. For my father,it was about maintaining a confident facade, so that our world wasn't disrupted.

Up the road, at our babysitters house,things seemed unpleasant too, and we were not shielded it from that at all. Our babysitter was in fact a visibly neurotic chain smoker, often sitting at the kitchen table with more than one cigarette burning away.She seemed on edge all the time, especially when her husband was at home, but also when the older kids came home from school. She would yell and scream a lot,at the top of her voice, then later be apologetic for having done so.And despite seeming a bundle of nerves most of the time, she still loved children, but was having trouble expressing it in a way that was very obvious even to me. One day a girlfriend of hers came over to the house,and we all piled into the car and drove down to the hospital.While we were driving, she complained about her "lungs." The hospital was not far away, and when we got there, my sister and I and her youngest son stayed in the car with her friend while she went inside. It took likely something close to a hour for her to come back, and when she did, she was talking about having a "blood count." I didn't know what a blood count was anymore that I knew what lungs were. Then, a short time later, we went back to the hospital again for another blood count.

Already things had changed noticeably from the year before when her and my father had met at the corner of Crandall and Sumner.Then, they were the picture of health. A year later,she seemed smaller and was irritable and nervy and he was having trouble keeping food down.



* I would like to invite my sister to comment on this situation if she would,as I'm not certain how accurately I'm recalling it.