What can I say, the devil made me do it. On impulse, as the train emerged from the north side of the bridge, I let the orange go — right down the smokestack.
One of the challenges of working almost all day, every day (I’m not exaggerating, honest), is trying to keep up with items in the current news that have an historical resonance.
The past few months of getting my latest book to press and working several jobs have resulted in a backlog of great items that have/had contemporary relevance. So, for today, a bit of a hodge-podge as I try to catch up with my steadily growing clipping file…
The first is an article, “Cowichan students drop everything and read,” that appeared in the Citizen at the end of October. It’s actually about Valley students learning French.
I took, from a glance at the headline, that it was about literacy in general and it set me to thinking about a man I knew in Victoria in the 1960s. I first came to know of Victor through my brother who shared his interest in country music.
Long before I actually met Victor, I overhead my brother playing tapes he’d recorded of the golden oldies of country music. Now Victor didn’t just copy songs onto his reel-to-reel recorder, he delivered them with as professional and as entertaining an introduction and patter as ever I’d heard on any commercial radio station. Victor didn’t just love country music, he lived and breathed it and his passion came across on the tapes my brother borrowed.
Which, effectively, was as much as I knew about Victor until the day I met him at his home where we’d been invited for the evening. There, I learned that his day job was as a swamper on a Municipality of Esquimalt garbage truck, he having to be content with his love of music as a hobby.
Why didn’t he seek a job with a radio station, you might ask. So did I. To be told, by my brother, that Victor could never even hope to be a DJ, he’d probably always have to work as a manual labourer.
Why? Because Victor couldn’t read or write.
I don’t think I’d ever met anyone before who I knew to be all but illiterate. At first I was astounded. But as the cold hard truth sank in, it made me think of the unknown thousands of men and women who were similarly handicapped. Reading and writing had come naturally to me in grade school, as it likely does for most Canadian students.
But not for Victor and those like him. I consider reading to be one of the greatest joys of life and I shudder when I hear someone actually brag they haven’t read a book in years. How sad. For them, ignorance is by choice. For Victor…
The recent municipal elections triggered another memory, this one about giving an oath to the Queen. As a high school student, I really resented having to stand at attention in the gym and being expected to sing ‘God Save the Queen.’ I wasn’t British, I was Canadian and I didn’t owe her allegiance! So I thought at the time, anyway.
But ideology is one thing, action is another. I, like every other student, stood straight and, at the very least, lip-synched the words. It remained for classmate Dave Napper to actually take a stand. Came a day when he simply refused to stand during ‘God Save the Queen.’ Our English teacher (by birth and profession) was almost apoplectic, his normally ruddy face brighter than a stop light as he ordered Dave to at least stand to attention.
But Dave remained in his seat, the song ended, the rest of us sat down and Mr. M., really powerless in this rare case, simply choked down his rage. Much to the delight of most of the students, myself included.
I was reminded of Dave when I joined the militia shortly after leaving school. The oath of allegiance was to Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth and it choked me (I hadn’t changed my views on being a Canadian vs. a vassal of the British royal family). But, unlike Dave, I sucked it up. There’d be no joining the Service Corps otherwise, I knew, so I swallowed my resentment and life went on.
Just for the record, over the years, I’ve come to have a higher respect and appreciation for HRH Queen Elizabeth and for the value of the historical bonds between Canada, the UK and the Commonwealth. One of the failings of old age, I guess.
Which brings me to another childhood memory, this one prompted by Citizen columnist Robert Barron’s October piece, “Glad straps no longer used in school.” Ah, yes, the strap, I remember it well. Robert refers to the strap of his school days as being of hard leather, about one-half inch thick and a foot long.
He was lucky. That one was for wimps. When I was a boy, and in trouble, the strap was also of hard leather, perhaps a quarter of an inch thick, but a full two feet long. That extra length allowed the invariably male teacher administering the punishment (sometimes the principal but usually the aggrieved teacher) to vent his spleen by bringing the strap down across an outstretched palm with his full strength. I’ll come back to this in a moment…
My first encounter with the strap (a ruler across the palm in grade school doesn’t count) was in Grade 6 while attending Tolmie School on Boleskine Road, in Saanich. I mention the address because, half a block from the school, Boleskine Road crosses over the CNR tracks.
Back when I attended Tolmie, the trains still ran and, because the CNR’s Island subdivision was the last to convert to diesel, they were still running steam engines. To us kids, hissing, smoking, whistling steam locomotives were little less than wonderful and we’d never miss a chance, at recess or lunch, to gather down in the school’s lower field to watch the freight train shunt cars to and from Ellison’s Grainery.
Came a Friday afternoon, a bunch of us had just left school for home, walking along Boleskine, when a northbound train approached. We’d long enjoyed standing on the old wooden bridge as a train passed underneath and the steam and smoke streamed through the cracks of its deck. This time, it just so happened that I hadn’t eaten my orange at lunch; it was in my hand as the train approached.
What can I say, the devil made me do it. On impulse, as the train emerged from the north side of the bridge, I let the orange go — right down the smokestack.
Moments later it emerged, black as a cinder. I and my mates all had a good laugh and we went home. End of story, I thought. But not so. On Monday, while walking to school, I noticed that many of my fellow students were looking at me, then saying something to each other.
I had no idea what was up until I got to my classroom, to be told to report to the principal’s office. Now, finally, it began to register. Sure enough, Mr. Jarvis had had a complaint of my having dropped an orange down the locomotive’s smokestack. Someone had squealed!
Out came the strap, but I must say he did it mercifully quickly. Down it came — once, twice, thrice. Boy, did it hurt!
But life went on. Until Grade 8 when Mr. Sims had had enough of my shenanigans and ordered me to the principal’s office. It was empty when I arrived and I had to wait for Mr. Sims to disengage himself from class. Then out came, as I described above, the strap. Mr. Sims took careful hold of one end, stepped back three paces then charged. On the third step he was in position and the strap came down. Ouch!
Again, a second time. But there was no third time. On his third charge I dropped my hand and, with all his strength, the strap came down on his shin. Ouch!
It must have really hurt because he dropped the strap, clutched his leg and, in a cry of rage, ordered me back to class.
Thanks, Robert Barron, for the memories!