My father wasn't well.He pretended to be well.He went on with life as usual,being a father,driving eighty miles to work every day,and looking after his children during the hours our mother was working and he wasn't. He was very engaged on these occasions,unless he'd just worked a midnight shift,then he would sleep for a few hours while we watched television. Often in the afternoon we would go somewhere,usually the park.One time,he took some time to build a kite out of newspaper and sticks and we were off to fly it in the park.It didn't fly very well,but we still had a fun day.At the entrance to the park,there was an old stem locomotive,and in those days you could climb on it,and we did.But sometime in 1967,there came to be another exhibit at the entrance to the park.It was a sleek looking jet fighter that was suspended on a pedestal not far off the ground.So my father would put us up on his shoulders and we would try to touch the underside of that plane,even though we never could.Later, we'd go off to the playground and play on the swings and slides.When the weather got warmer that year,my father would take us to the wading pool,and that is where we would spend the afternoon.Later that year,our park was given a new name. Centennial Park.It was called that,my father said because our country was one hundred years old. But my father wasn't well.And he wasn't anywhere near one hundred years old. He was getting to the point where there were a lot of things he couldn't or didn't want to eat.Sometimes he would throw up.And his teeth were bothering him too.Still,he played the game.He would take us off to the park and, very much the air force man that he was, he would stand looking up at that plane and say how it was a shame that such planes were being "retired",and how the military in our country was all going to hell.He only looked slightly diminished compared to the time a year before when he'd stood across the street from our house talking to our babysitter.He was still young,just thirty three.But if you watched him long enough and hard enough, even if you were just a clild,as I was, you could tell that he had already lost a step.
Saturday 10 November 2018
Monday 22 October 2018
Chapter XII,1967,continued.
School.It was nearly becoming an obsession with me.While it was still spring,and the kids kept passing in front of our place on the way to school, I was being driven nearly crazy because I couldn't go.Not yet. school was a right of passage,and what I knew about rights of passage was that they marked you off as being very grown up, much more so than the other kids who,had to wait another year.
My parents talked about school all the time.They asked me if I was ready."Yes",I would reply,pretending it was no big deal."I'm ready". My education at home continued on a little chalk board.I learned,along with my sister,how to spell new words whenever my father was home from work:cat,rat,hat,bat,car,hen,dog pig,and a bunch of others as well.I also learned other small words like it,and,if ,or.Learning those words didn't seem to make sense to me,because I had no idea what they were.Of course,while I could speak,I had no real idea how the language actually worked,and I tended to think of every word as being a noun.So,while I Knew what a dog was,what in the world was an "and"? There was still a lot to learn.I recall the first two syllable word I learned too.My father said that it was a big,hard word,but that he knew I could manage it,so we started at the chalkboard.B-A-R,start with that.So I did.I wrote down every letter,then my father helped me sound them out.Not so difficult.But this word had another part.B-E-R.So I wrote it and sounded it out,then learned that I was to put the two words together.B-A-R-B-E-R. My father had another motive in presenting this word.We were off to the barber shop just down the street.So gradually I came to see words as conveying actual ideas.
I also learned a much more difficult lesson.At least it seemed hard at the time.Not every six year old,and certainly not any five year old could do it . But it was a task required before I could go to school.Since I don't ever recall there being velcro back then,I had to learn to tie my shoes. It seemed very difficult,crossing the laces and tucking one under the other then, pulling and making a bow. I worked at it everyday over and over,and at first I just couldn't get it right.I never really got frustrated at it,but I wondered what would happen if I didn't know how to do it by the time school started.Would I not be allowed to go to school? It seemed like school was such a short time away,so this worried me somewhat.But gradually I was able to do it.My parents liked to brag a bit,so every time we had a visitor,or anytime we went to visit someone I had to show them how clever I was by tying my shoe for them. This would always get me a lot of praise.People would say how very grown-up I was.My grandmother ,in particular would always make a big deal out of it.The first time I showed her I could do it,she gave me a dollar bill.She was not an educated woman,but she seemed like the biggest fan of our education.She also kept a big box of letters that she cut out with scissors, so that when we came to her house,we could all sit and play at making words. She made the biggest deal out of my being almost ready for school. In no way could you ever not realize that she was very proud of her grandchildren.
All that spring,we spent a lot of time home with my father.Sometimes he would sleep after working the midnight shift,then driving the eighty miles home.Usually he would go to bed around nine O'Clock.In those days,there used to be a show on the radio,that he liked to catch before he went to bed.The show played in the morning for fifteen minutes,either right before the news,or right after,I don't really recall which.The show was a Gospel radio show, and back then some of the radio stations still carried them.So my father would sit quietly in his big green armchair and listen.The shows were usually of men harmonizing,and were really strikingly beautiful to hear.Usually these shows had a sponsor who would advertise some product between songs. It was all wonderful to listen to.But I wondered why my father liked these shows so much,since they were all about Jesus and God.Because he would still sometimes talk to us about our souls or spirits, and kept talking to us about Heaven or Hell,which we were still not allowed to mention by name, but he would rarely ,if ever accompany us to church.
After my father went to sleep,we were allowed to watch television.mostly it was the CBC,which ran children's programs for most of the morning.The Friendly Giant, whom I still believed was truly a giant, and wasn't sure could really be friendly, since the only other giant I'd ever heard of was the one from Jack And The Beanstalk, and he wasn't at all friendly.After the Friendly Giant, Mr.Dressup came on,and we would watch that too,along with several other shows.Television was our babysitter for a lot of days,but it was a much safer world back then, so my father could catch the sleep he needed.About the only thing that I can ever recall happening while my father was sleeping was that one day I got a nosebleed.This didn't disturb me much, because when I was a preschooler,these things happened.I'd had several, maybe even a lot of nosebleeds,and it was never regarded as serious.One of my parents would just hand me some wet Kleenex to hold over my nose and eventually the bleeding would stop.No big deal.But on this one occasion,while my father was asleep and we were watching The Friendly Giant,or some such thing,I sprung a big leak that seemed to take a long time to stop.And the Kleenex was up out of reach,on top of the refrigerator where I couldn't reach it.So I started using the pages of a coloring book to stem the flow, but of course it wasn't wet,so the bleeding wouldn't stop.Finally,I asked my little sister to go wake up our father.I still wasn't worried much about the bleeding,but it was getting to be quite a mess. So I asked my sister to go to the bedroom and wake my father.I didn't really want to do it myself.Sometimes my father was grouchy right after waking up.Often,he wasn't really easy to wake either, and my sister either couldn't wake him,or was afraid to try. But on the way back,she stopped and grabbed some toilet paper,which immediately struck me as a great idea, because It had never really occurred to me that you could use anything but Kleenex for a nose bleed.But I soaked it in cold water,and managed to stop the bleeding.But there was still a big mess when my father woke and my mother came home for lunch.So my father asked me why we didn't wake him.
Sometimes,if the weather was good,we were allowed to play outside too.Or at least I was.It's hard to believe that I went out and around with such little supervision, but those were different days.What I didn't really realize was that my parents knew most everyone in the neighborhood, so I was getting a lot of supervision I wasn't seeing.Most of the time I went two blocks down the street to my friend Kenny"s place, and my parents had no problem with that at all.I would spend the whole morning or afternoon there and come home in time for meals.We were always well supervised, and Kenny's mother would always let me know just when to come home.
One morning,though,I didn't go to Kenny's.Instead,I set out on an adventure of my own.It never really occurred to me that I might get into trouble if I was caught, but I never really got caught. The issue of getting into trouble had to do with crossing the street.I was allowed to cross Willett Street,on my way to Kenny's, and sometimes I could cross over to Karen"s directly across the street, if my parents were watching.Really,my family and Karen"s were more like one big family most of the time,with people coming and going to and from both houses. So the way I got around the problem of crossing the street was to cross right in front of our house.I was off to the school.I wanted to see what actually happened there.Often we would walk past the school,and even look into it's windows, but this was different.This was when there were actually kids at the school.I wanted to see what they did.So I thought I might follow that kid who had burned up the ant that I'd met long before.Only I couldn't find him. I was still driving a tricycle then, but the school wasn't much farther away than Kenny"s house, so off I went. I pedaled up the street, but when I got there,there were no kids anywhere about.Getting right to the schoolyard required me to cross another street,and this one was a street I wasn't familiar with, so I stayed across from the school, where I couldn't see a thing.After awhile,I just turned around and went home disappointed. On the way I stopped for a better look at the fire call box on the pole.When I got home,I wasn't in trouble. Nobody even knew that I'd been gone.
My parents talked about school all the time.They asked me if I was ready."Yes",I would reply,pretending it was no big deal."I'm ready". My education at home continued on a little chalk board.I learned,along with my sister,how to spell new words whenever my father was home from work:cat,rat,hat,bat,car,hen,dog pig,and a bunch of others as well.I also learned other small words like it,and,if ,or.Learning those words didn't seem to make sense to me,because I had no idea what they were.Of course,while I could speak,I had no real idea how the language actually worked,and I tended to think of every word as being a noun.So,while I Knew what a dog was,what in the world was an "and"? There was still a lot to learn.I recall the first two syllable word I learned too.My father said that it was a big,hard word,but that he knew I could manage it,so we started at the chalkboard.B-A-R,start with that.So I did.I wrote down every letter,then my father helped me sound them out.Not so difficult.But this word had another part.B-E-R.So I wrote it and sounded it out,then learned that I was to put the two words together.B-A-R-B-E-R. My father had another motive in presenting this word.We were off to the barber shop just down the street.So gradually I came to see words as conveying actual ideas.
I also learned a much more difficult lesson.At least it seemed hard at the time.Not every six year old,and certainly not any five year old could do it . But it was a task required before I could go to school.Since I don't ever recall there being velcro back then,I had to learn to tie my shoes. It seemed very difficult,crossing the laces and tucking one under the other then, pulling and making a bow. I worked at it everyday over and over,and at first I just couldn't get it right.I never really got frustrated at it,but I wondered what would happen if I didn't know how to do it by the time school started.Would I not be allowed to go to school? It seemed like school was such a short time away,so this worried me somewhat.But gradually I was able to do it.My parents liked to brag a bit,so every time we had a visitor,or anytime we went to visit someone I had to show them how clever I was by tying my shoe for them. This would always get me a lot of praise.People would say how very grown-up I was.My grandmother ,in particular would always make a big deal out of it.The first time I showed her I could do it,she gave me a dollar bill.She was not an educated woman,but she seemed like the biggest fan of our education.She also kept a big box of letters that she cut out with scissors, so that when we came to her house,we could all sit and play at making words. She made the biggest deal out of my being almost ready for school. In no way could you ever not realize that she was very proud of her grandchildren.
All that spring,we spent a lot of time home with my father.Sometimes he would sleep after working the midnight shift,then driving the eighty miles home.Usually he would go to bed around nine O'Clock.In those days,there used to be a show on the radio,that he liked to catch before he went to bed.The show played in the morning for fifteen minutes,either right before the news,or right after,I don't really recall which.The show was a Gospel radio show, and back then some of the radio stations still carried them.So my father would sit quietly in his big green armchair and listen.The shows were usually of men harmonizing,and were really strikingly beautiful to hear.Usually these shows had a sponsor who would advertise some product between songs. It was all wonderful to listen to.But I wondered why my father liked these shows so much,since they were all about Jesus and God.Because he would still sometimes talk to us about our souls or spirits, and kept talking to us about Heaven or Hell,which we were still not allowed to mention by name, but he would rarely ,if ever accompany us to church.
After my father went to sleep,we were allowed to watch television.mostly it was the CBC,which ran children's programs for most of the morning.The Friendly Giant, whom I still believed was truly a giant, and wasn't sure could really be friendly, since the only other giant I'd ever heard of was the one from Jack And The Beanstalk, and he wasn't at all friendly.After the Friendly Giant, Mr.Dressup came on,and we would watch that too,along with several other shows.Television was our babysitter for a lot of days,but it was a much safer world back then, so my father could catch the sleep he needed.About the only thing that I can ever recall happening while my father was sleeping was that one day I got a nosebleed.This didn't disturb me much, because when I was a preschooler,these things happened.I'd had several, maybe even a lot of nosebleeds,and it was never regarded as serious.One of my parents would just hand me some wet Kleenex to hold over my nose and eventually the bleeding would stop.No big deal.But on this one occasion,while my father was asleep and we were watching The Friendly Giant,or some such thing,I sprung a big leak that seemed to take a long time to stop.And the Kleenex was up out of reach,on top of the refrigerator where I couldn't reach it.So I started using the pages of a coloring book to stem the flow, but of course it wasn't wet,so the bleeding wouldn't stop.Finally,I asked my little sister to go wake up our father.I still wasn't worried much about the bleeding,but it was getting to be quite a mess. So I asked my sister to go to the bedroom and wake my father.I didn't really want to do it myself.Sometimes my father was grouchy right after waking up.Often,he wasn't really easy to wake either, and my sister either couldn't wake him,or was afraid to try. But on the way back,she stopped and grabbed some toilet paper,which immediately struck me as a great idea, because It had never really occurred to me that you could use anything but Kleenex for a nose bleed.But I soaked it in cold water,and managed to stop the bleeding.But there was still a big mess when my father woke and my mother came home for lunch.So my father asked me why we didn't wake him.
Sometimes,if the weather was good,we were allowed to play outside too.Or at least I was.It's hard to believe that I went out and around with such little supervision, but those were different days.What I didn't really realize was that my parents knew most everyone in the neighborhood, so I was getting a lot of supervision I wasn't seeing.Most of the time I went two blocks down the street to my friend Kenny"s place, and my parents had no problem with that at all.I would spend the whole morning or afternoon there and come home in time for meals.We were always well supervised, and Kenny's mother would always let me know just when to come home.
One morning,though,I didn't go to Kenny's.Instead,I set out on an adventure of my own.It never really occurred to me that I might get into trouble if I was caught, but I never really got caught. The issue of getting into trouble had to do with crossing the street.I was allowed to cross Willett Street,on my way to Kenny's, and sometimes I could cross over to Karen"s directly across the street, if my parents were watching.Really,my family and Karen"s were more like one big family most of the time,with people coming and going to and from both houses. So the way I got around the problem of crossing the street was to cross right in front of our house.I was off to the school.I wanted to see what actually happened there.Often we would walk past the school,and even look into it's windows, but this was different.This was when there were actually kids at the school.I wanted to see what they did.So I thought I might follow that kid who had burned up the ant that I'd met long before.Only I couldn't find him. I was still driving a tricycle then, but the school wasn't much farther away than Kenny"s house, so off I went. I pedaled up the street, but when I got there,there were no kids anywhere about.Getting right to the schoolyard required me to cross another street,and this one was a street I wasn't familiar with, so I stayed across from the school, where I couldn't see a thing.After awhile,I just turned around and went home disappointed. On the way I stopped for a better look at the fire call box on the pole.When I got home,I wasn't in trouble. Nobody even knew that I'd been gone.
Wednesday 10 January 2018
Chapter XII,1967, Continued.
During the spring of 1967, we seemed to be staying home with my father more and more.But at times we still went up the road to the babysitters. Being at the babysitters was , in truth getting to be a bit of a drag for me.Usually I was allowed to watch movies in the afternoon while my sister, and the lady's younger son slept, and I rather liked that.In truth, her kid was a bit of a pain, and being away from him for a couple of hours was alright with me. He was younger, and I considered him to be a baby, someone who couldn't really play and talk and interact at my level.By noon I was usually tired of his nonsense.
Sometimes, though I was made to take a nap too, and this really never sat well with me. One of these times was, of course, the time I got the smallpox vaccination.I didn't feel sick, there was no reason at all for me to slow down and rest, or to eat that nasty aspirin without the benefit of water.So I just lay down on a bed in one of the bedrooms, and looked at the ceiling, because I couldn't sleep. Another time,we were going to pick up my father where he worked, then we were heading onward to my grandparents place in Canterbury.This, for us was a very long trip.Almost eighty miles to start with, before we even picked up my father. So the babysitter decided I needed to have a nap, because I'd surely be tired by the time my day was over, deep into the night. So off I went to the bedroom, right after lunch. Again, I was not happy.First, I was not a little kid and didn't need to sleep.Secondly, I'd come to see being sent to my room as being a kind of punishment for misbehavior, and I had no idea what it was I'd done to warrant punishment. But off I went.On this particular day, lunch had been a bit of a testy affair between the babysitter and her oldest girl, and there had been a yelling match. The longer we stayed at the sitters house angrier she seemed to get, so I wasn't eager to to try her patience about having a nap. I lay down on the bed for a bit, then I heard here tell her oldest son to come and check if I was sleeping.There was no need to check on the other kids because she knew they'd be out like a light. So her kid comes into the room and asks "Are you asleep?" I wasn't, but my eyes were closed tightly and I was pretending, so I answered "Yes." He went back out into the kitchen and said to his mother"He says he's asleep." There was a lot of laughter at that, then I heard the screen door slam and her three oldest kids were off to school.
I don't recall just how my father came to be at work without a car, or how he got there, but the idea was that my mother would drive up and get him.For some reason she'd needed the car in the city, or maybe he'd caught a ride up to work with someone else.We didn't have two cars then, and sometimes my father would even talk about hitchhiking to work.He may have done that a time or two, but I don't really recall it for certain. In any event, my mother picked us up at the sitters by mid afternoon, and we were off to pick up my father. I hadn't slept much at all. In fact, I'd given some thought to crawling out the bedroom window and playing in the yard, but I couldn't think of how I'd get back into the house without being noticed.So I stayed put.
In those days, there was no double lane road up the east side of New Brunswick. First you took the road out towards Shediac, but, before you got there, you came to a tee in the road and turned left.Then you were off up along the coast, right along the water for the most part. Every few miles you would pass through a town, so getting anywhere fast was not happening.Still, there was a lot to see.It seemed that there were signs and billboards everywhere that had lobsters painted on them.There were even houses that had lobsters painted on them, and sometimes other sorts of things, like fish or clams too. In one of the towns along the way there was an old anti-aircraft gun in a park right along side of the road, and I always wanted to stop and have a look at it.But it was many years before we did. Another of the towns had a building, a church maybe, that was completely round, and that fascinated me because it was the only round building I'd ever seen. Once, as were were passing by my father said something about confusing someone by "Putting him in a round building and telling him to go piss in a corner."My mother shot him a hard look, and he never said anything about that building again. Somewhere along one of those little towns, my uncle worked as a Mountie, but I can't remember exactly which town it was.Still, I knew that they lived in the police station, so I would come to recognize it as a landmark along the route to where my father worked.
My father was getting off work that day at four o'clock, so we must have started off from Moncton at about two o'clock.We got there a few minutes early, and, even though it was on a military base, we were allowed to drive right into the place, after stopping at the main gate, and sometimes being asked for identification.Usually, though we were just waved through, as the man at the gate knew my mother, as well as my father.
The outside of the building that my father worked in was crowned with these structures that looked like giant golf balls, and these housed radar scanners.Also, inside the building there were a bunch of motors that turned over day and night to produce power.My father called them "Turbines." or "Diesels", which were not the same thing, but I didn't know what the difference between them was. Either way, each of them, and there were three or four of them, were as big as a house, and they not only made a lot of noise, but they set the whole building to vibrating.That was something I wasn't sure I liked , but I did rather like being where my father worked.There were a lot of tools there too.My father had some tools at home, by the variety and size of the tools here was something like I'd never seen.He even showed us a wrench that was nearly as big as I was at the time.I couldn't imagine what that wrench would ever be used on.
One of the things that happened on that trip, that I though was kid of cool at the time was that we got to eat in the mess hall on base.There were soldiers coming and going all of the time, and the food was really good, and I could eat as much of it as I wanted.After dinner, we were all herded into the car, and started off towards Newcastle, where we would catch the road going down to Fredricton and on to Canterbury.But, before we got there, my father decided it would be a good idea to stop along the roadside to let us blow off some steam, to get us tired out, so we would go to sleep. So he pulled off beside this field and we all got out and went off for a bit of a walk.Before long, my father noticed something in the grass, and motioned to our mother to bring us over to where he was standing. There in the tall grass there was a bundle of snakes, all curled up together in a big knot, all slithering around with tongues darting in and out of their mouths. I'd knew about snakes.Well, sort of. My entire knowledge of them at that time came from the story of Adam and Eve, so I really didn't have a great view towards them.Some of the older kids said that snakes were poisonous, and that if one bit you, you would die.So I really wanted to get out of there. But my father said that these were just grass snakes, and, just babies.They wouldn't bite anyone.He reached down and picked one up in his hands and let it crawl around a bit before putting it back in the grass with the others.That was the first time I'd ever seen a live snake, and, at the time it was happening, I was glad when we got back into the car.I wasn't planning on sleeping on the way to my grandparents place.I still liked listening to the radio at night, I still liked watching the stars in the front windshield.It all gave the impression of there being a world that was much bigger than myself to wonder about.But hours later I was being aroused out of a deep sleep as our car came to a stop.My mother was knocking on the front door of my grandfather's house.The porch windows rattled loudly and there were moths flying as my grandmother opened up the door.Then I was asleep again.
Sometimes, though I was made to take a nap too, and this really never sat well with me. One of these times was, of course, the time I got the smallpox vaccination.I didn't feel sick, there was no reason at all for me to slow down and rest, or to eat that nasty aspirin without the benefit of water.So I just lay down on a bed in one of the bedrooms, and looked at the ceiling, because I couldn't sleep. Another time,we were going to pick up my father where he worked, then we were heading onward to my grandparents place in Canterbury.This, for us was a very long trip.Almost eighty miles to start with, before we even picked up my father. So the babysitter decided I needed to have a nap, because I'd surely be tired by the time my day was over, deep into the night. So off I went to the bedroom, right after lunch. Again, I was not happy.First, I was not a little kid and didn't need to sleep.Secondly, I'd come to see being sent to my room as being a kind of punishment for misbehavior, and I had no idea what it was I'd done to warrant punishment. But off I went.On this particular day, lunch had been a bit of a testy affair between the babysitter and her oldest girl, and there had been a yelling match. The longer we stayed at the sitters house angrier she seemed to get, so I wasn't eager to to try her patience about having a nap. I lay down on the bed for a bit, then I heard here tell her oldest son to come and check if I was sleeping.There was no need to check on the other kids because she knew they'd be out like a light. So her kid comes into the room and asks "Are you asleep?" I wasn't, but my eyes were closed tightly and I was pretending, so I answered "Yes." He went back out into the kitchen and said to his mother"He says he's asleep." There was a lot of laughter at that, then I heard the screen door slam and her three oldest kids were off to school.
I don't recall just how my father came to be at work without a car, or how he got there, but the idea was that my mother would drive up and get him.For some reason she'd needed the car in the city, or maybe he'd caught a ride up to work with someone else.We didn't have two cars then, and sometimes my father would even talk about hitchhiking to work.He may have done that a time or two, but I don't really recall it for certain. In any event, my mother picked us up at the sitters by mid afternoon, and we were off to pick up my father. I hadn't slept much at all. In fact, I'd given some thought to crawling out the bedroom window and playing in the yard, but I couldn't think of how I'd get back into the house without being noticed.So I stayed put.
In those days, there was no double lane road up the east side of New Brunswick. First you took the road out towards Shediac, but, before you got there, you came to a tee in the road and turned left.Then you were off up along the coast, right along the water for the most part. Every few miles you would pass through a town, so getting anywhere fast was not happening.Still, there was a lot to see.It seemed that there were signs and billboards everywhere that had lobsters painted on them.There were even houses that had lobsters painted on them, and sometimes other sorts of things, like fish or clams too. In one of the towns along the way there was an old anti-aircraft gun in a park right along side of the road, and I always wanted to stop and have a look at it.But it was many years before we did. Another of the towns had a building, a church maybe, that was completely round, and that fascinated me because it was the only round building I'd ever seen. Once, as were were passing by my father said something about confusing someone by "Putting him in a round building and telling him to go piss in a corner."My mother shot him a hard look, and he never said anything about that building again. Somewhere along one of those little towns, my uncle worked as a Mountie, but I can't remember exactly which town it was.Still, I knew that they lived in the police station, so I would come to recognize it as a landmark along the route to where my father worked.
My father was getting off work that day at four o'clock, so we must have started off from Moncton at about two o'clock.We got there a few minutes early, and, even though it was on a military base, we were allowed to drive right into the place, after stopping at the main gate, and sometimes being asked for identification.Usually, though we were just waved through, as the man at the gate knew my mother, as well as my father.
The outside of the building that my father worked in was crowned with these structures that looked like giant golf balls, and these housed radar scanners.Also, inside the building there were a bunch of motors that turned over day and night to produce power.My father called them "Turbines." or "Diesels", which were not the same thing, but I didn't know what the difference between them was. Either way, each of them, and there were three or four of them, were as big as a house, and they not only made a lot of noise, but they set the whole building to vibrating.That was something I wasn't sure I liked , but I did rather like being where my father worked.There were a lot of tools there too.My father had some tools at home, by the variety and size of the tools here was something like I'd never seen.He even showed us a wrench that was nearly as big as I was at the time.I couldn't imagine what that wrench would ever be used on.
One of the things that happened on that trip, that I though was kid of cool at the time was that we got to eat in the mess hall on base.There were soldiers coming and going all of the time, and the food was really good, and I could eat as much of it as I wanted.After dinner, we were all herded into the car, and started off towards Newcastle, where we would catch the road going down to Fredricton and on to Canterbury.But, before we got there, my father decided it would be a good idea to stop along the roadside to let us blow off some steam, to get us tired out, so we would go to sleep. So he pulled off beside this field and we all got out and went off for a bit of a walk.Before long, my father noticed something in the grass, and motioned to our mother to bring us over to where he was standing. There in the tall grass there was a bundle of snakes, all curled up together in a big knot, all slithering around with tongues darting in and out of their mouths. I'd knew about snakes.Well, sort of. My entire knowledge of them at that time came from the story of Adam and Eve, so I really didn't have a great view towards them.Some of the older kids said that snakes were poisonous, and that if one bit you, you would die.So I really wanted to get out of there. But my father said that these were just grass snakes, and, just babies.They wouldn't bite anyone.He reached down and picked one up in his hands and let it crawl around a bit before putting it back in the grass with the others.That was the first time I'd ever seen a live snake, and, at the time it was happening, I was glad when we got back into the car.I wasn't planning on sleeping on the way to my grandparents place.I still liked listening to the radio at night, I still liked watching the stars in the front windshield.It all gave the impression of there being a world that was much bigger than myself to wonder about.But hours later I was being aroused out of a deep sleep as our car came to a stop.My mother was knocking on the front door of my grandfather's house.The porch windows rattled loudly and there were moths flying as my grandmother opened up the door.Then I was asleep again.
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