Halcyon Daze - Growing up Canadian

by N. A. Dalbec

  The strange part in all of this is that after grade four, which my friend and I both passed with flying colors, we were shipped off to the all boys’ school from grade five to grade eight, and then again through four years of high school. It had become a feast or famine thing, with the timing being all off. Rather nightmarish when you think of it.

  I can't believe they used to have segregated schools. It never made sense then, and it wouldn't make sense now. They were creating a phenomenon that only occurs in prisons, where all the men are together, and all the women are together. Society just doesn't work that way. I'm fully aware of the reasons for trying to separate boys and girls during the hormonal explosion, but I'm amazed that we made it through those schools without going weird. How did they ever expect men and women to understand and get along with each other if they didn't have a clue on how each other behaved?

  It's a miracle that men and women can interact at all, after going through a school system like that.

  Grad Dance

  The school year was coming to an end. We were wrapping up elementary school, and getting ready for the big step into high school. The graduation dance was to be held in the Congregation Hall of the local church. The hall doubled as an auditorium, which meant that the floor was slanted. The event was a cooperative one between our school and the girls' school. The graduation dance was to be one of the first and last events of our grade school lives that would involve members of more than one sex. Yes, we did go to Lent masses with the girls, but can that really be considered a social event?

  The idea was to find yourself an escort for this dance. That would make dancing somewhat easier. I knew a good number of the girls from the girls' school, but for one reason or another, I didn't ask anyone in particular to the event. As a matter of fact, I may even have had thoughts of not attending the dance at all, and may have been convinced into going at the last minute, thus being too late in booking a date.

  The big night arrived, and off I went to the church hall. I even had a tie on. In those days, kids were pretty straight at our age, so there was no question of drinking, or smoking, and drugs had not been invented yet. You could say it was a cold turkey sort of affair. I entered the hall and saw my classmates. Everyone was looking good, although it was unusual to see all the guys wearing ties. The girls looked really good. They always made more of an effort at these things.

  The evening began with a formal address by the principals of the two schools, and one of the parish priests who was heavily involved in kids activities. Once that was over, they presented a few awards, and the party was on. We had learned our social skills from movies, and so there was a mishmash of protocolS being used that bore its roots in everything from Elvis movies, to Bob Hope movies. to cowboy movies. You could actually cut in on someone's dance, and not get an argument. This somewhat formal environment allowed for a variety of feelings to be unearthed and simultaneously stifled. No one liked to be cut in on, but they were left with no choice.

  I sort of liked this system. Having no escort of my own, I was left to play the field. I'm sure some girl must have asked me to dance first, because I was always a little shy at the beginning of events such as these. As the evening wore on though, I began to ask some girls to dance. I was having a much better time than I had anticipated. One of my dance steps was somewhat unorthodox and I remember the heel of my shoes sometimes glancing other people's legs. Nonetheless, people seemed to be having a good time, and everyone was bumping into one another at one time or another.

  The evening came to a close, and I made my way home, having had a whale of a time. When I got to school the next day, I discovered to my dismay that I had created some jealousies among some of my peers during the previous evening's activities. I was even more dismayed to discover that I was being threatened with being beaten up in the fall at the high school that we were scheduled to attend. I found all of this rather disconcerting and unfounded. I was not one to get into fights, and I cherished having my body remain intact. Now, all of a sudden, the fun from the previous evening disappeared. My emotions had gone from not wanting to go to the dance at all, to discovering that I had a great time by going, and then feeling cheated out of a good memory by some insecure peers whose dates I had danced with. I couldn't believe what was happening.

  I must have been just too awfully sensitive in those days. I was also not well versed in psychology. It turned out that I spent an entire summer worrying about the first day of high school that was coming up in September, instead of just enjoying the time off. I even went to another high school to try to get enrolled before September. My parents wouldn't hear of this change, and I dared not mention the real reason for not wanting to go to the high school where they had scheduled me to go.

  September rolled around, and I was about to face something that I really didn't want to face, but I had no choice. So I got on the bus, and I made my way to the high school. It was a warm day. I had my sports coat on, and a tie. You had to wear a tie and jacket at this school. There was a big lump in my throat and the butterflies were ready to come out of my mouth. Clusters of kids were standing on the terrace in front of the school, and as I walked up to it, I searched for a friendly face and out of the corner of my eye kept a look out for those who had threatened me in June.

  To my utter surprise, not a threatening glance nor threatening comment was thrown my way. As a matter of fact warm smiles and inquisitive faces were all that I saw. Those whom I feared were asking me how my summer was and where I had been. It was then that I discovered that people didn't stay angry as long as I thought they did, and time can be a great healer. I also learned that I was too sensitive to situations, and not sensitive enough to people.

  Move it Again, Sam

  It was the fall of '67. My parents decided to move, again. We had been at our present address for some seven years, and I, being somewhat typically sedentary as a child, was not crazy about a move. I knew that it involved eventually losing touch with established friends, and setting out to make new friends.

  The big house full of boarders had been sold. The move was on. We were not buying another house; we were going to be renting a place near the university. A strange thing happened, though. We moved into the house, only to move back out a few days later. Why? Nobody liked the house, and another one was available on a nicer street, just a few blocks away. So we moved twice.

  The new place was to be a temporary measure. My parents were looking for something else but for the time being, the rental place downtown would be, home. The house was a half-double on a corner, facing a park in the downtown area. It was about a quarter of the size of our old place, and I really didn't get off on it. The one plus was that I was getting my own bedroom, and the bedroom was above ground. No more basements, thank goodness. On the down side, the room was about the size of a closet, and may very well have been used for that purpose at one time.

  We had only moved about a mile from the old place, but the environment was totally different. However, my older brothers and sister seemed to love the area. It was a lot closer to the action, with restaurants, bars, and cinemas just blocks away. I was old enough to easily ride my bike to the older neighborhood to see my friends, and did so quite regularly. They, in turn would come to the new place regularly also. Strangely enough though, in the nine months that we spent there, I never made a close friend, even though there were lots of kids in the area. There was something about the kids that was different, and my attitude towards them probably didn't help. I just didn't feel any warmth coming off of anyone my age. I even got a paper route to try and fit in with the local kids. It somehow didn't work. I'm happy that my friends from the old neighborhood stayed in touch, otherwise I would have had a lonely stay while we lived downtown.

  We ended up staying one winter at the place downtown, and in the spring, we moved away to another part of the city that was about a mile from where we were, and up the river from where the big old house was. You could draw a triangle between the th
ree places, but you could never draw parallels between the neighborhoods. The new place was right on the river, in a very nice part of the city. The new place was also, new.

  This time I enjoyed the move, and the adjustment was easy. I liked the place, and hoped that this would be the last move for the family.

  Opportunity Knocks

  It was early spring, everything was melting, and we already had our bikes out. We weren't up to anything in particular, just enjoying the fact that it was getting warmer outside. That itself was cause for celebration. As a kid, you always had more freedom if you could get outdoors.

  A friend and I were ambling along the canal. From a distance we could see some kids milling about, just near one of the downtown bridges. The canal was still in winter mode, in that it was not full of water. We got closer to the kids that we had spotted. It turned out that we knew them. There were more bikes than kids, and we thought that someone may have fallen into the canal. As it turned out, this was not the case. The kids had found a bicycle at the bottom of the canal. It was a CCM with an in-hub two-speed. They were all the rage at that time. I think I was more excited about the find than the kids who actually found the bike. We started to theorize about the origins of the bike, and its icy demise. We concluded that it either spent the winter at the bottom of the canal, or had been thrown in recently. The bike was in pretty good shape considering the abuse of the elements. It needed a new rim and a seat. To my amazement, nobody wanted it, so I offered to give it a home. In the back of my head, dollar signs were flashing. I knew that these bikes fetched a pretty good price at bike shops, and in-hub two-speeds were fairly recent models.

  I took the orphaned bike home, showed it to my parents, and gave it a good wash. My parents suggested that I call the police to let them know that I had found what could possibly have been a stolen bicycle. The police didn't have time for that type of nonsense, and so I found myself owning the bicycle by default. I located a rim and a seat for the bike, and installed the pieces. Before that I painted the frame. My paint job wasn't the greatest, but all in all, it wasn't too bad. The bike was now looking and running well. I really had no need for it, so I decided to sell it. I asked my parents if they would finance an ad in the local newspaper, and they agreed. Before placing the ad in the paper, I checked to see what the market was like, and priced my bike accordingly. The response was phenomenal. In no time at all I had people coming over to see the bike. The paint job, as I anticipated, made the bike look suspect. I simply explained that the most important thing was that the bike ran well, and that I was a lousy painter. I ended up selling the bike for a little less than I had anticipated, but I recouped my investment in time, effort, and money.

  The whole experience turned out to be a lot of fun, as well as being profitable. It had not been my first entrepreneurial venture, and as time told, it certainly did not turn out to be my last.

  First Racer

  So far, I hadn't done so well on the bicycle scene. Most of my friends had had at least one new bike in their lives, and I had not. On the plus side, I'd always had a bike, and I suppose some kids could not boast of the same. Nonetheless, it was difficult not to envy other kids, especially when they got a Mustang bike, or a ten-speed. These were the new machines that everyone wanted. Mustang bikes were very tipsy from the back, and they have probably contributed to the well-being of many chiropractors still trying to fix what got damaged some thirty years ago. Ten speeds were very nice machines, but you had to be careful not to de-nut yourself on one as the derailleurs had a tendency of letting the chain slip off the sprocket. Speaking of bikes, I'll always remember what happened to one friend of mine, who found himself flying over a car door that a driver had opened, right in front of him as he rode down the street. The bike became part of the car's door upholstery, and my friend became a flying object. Fortunately, he was not hurt.

  Digressions aside, those Mustangs and ten-speeds were the bikes to own. I had two bikes at the time of this particular trend. One was a single-speed girl's bike that I had purchased for two dollars from a girl I knew. I used the bike for trashing around. The other was a bike that my older cousin gave to me. It was a Raleigh three-speed racer that I had to buy a front wheel for. It took a long time for my cousin to remember to bring the bike back with him on one of his trips to our city. It was worth the wait, though, once I put a new front wheel on the thing. The bike had been well taken care of, and I continued the trend,

  This still didn't supply me with a Mustang bike or a ten-speed. So I went to the bike shop and bought a pair of Mustang bars. I would interchange the bars from the old girl's bicycle to the three-speed, and go back to the stock bars when I grew weary of the novelty. The Mustang bars were very tall, and they looked sort of funny on the Raleigh. The bars were so tall that I had to place the shift and brake levers on, about halfway up the bars. The bike's geometry was all screwed up but my imagination helped me pretend that I had a Mustang bike. I eventually got over this silliness and put the racing bars on the bike. That's what the bike was really meant for.

  I never did get a Mustang bike, nor a ten-speed. I was about twenty-six years old when I finally got my first new bike. It was a deferred gift that I made to myself. As a matter of fact, I ended up having as many new motorcycles as I did bicycles. I think I even got a new car before I got a new bicycle. I even got a Mustang car, but not a Mustang bike. I guess new bicycles were just not meant to be part of my childhood and teenage years.

  Oh, Those Influences

  Being the youngest in the family was a bit of a mixed blessing. Yes, I got spoiled to a certain extent, but by the same token, there was extra pressure to perform. I had no excuses. I, in theory had learned from my older siblings' experiences, and should have been able to avoid any of the usual pitfalls. On the other hand, there was a wealth of influences ready to bombard my growing mind. My older brothers and sister were discovering their own passions for material things, and I would inevitably live those passions vicariously, and inevitably be influenced by them. Sometimes the reverse would happen, and the influence would convince me that I wanted no part in something.

  A negative influence that I can think of was the pool table that two of my brothers saved up for. They were really avid players for a while and I would sometimes have a game with them. But I never got the urge to buy a pool table, nor did I develop a passion for the game.

  Motorcycles and sports cars, on the other hand, were things that my brothers loved and the influence stuck to me like glue. I remember the two first motorcycles that adorned the family driveway. One of them was a green Honda 50, and the other was an Italian-made 250 Harley single. The two bikes were totally different, and so were the brothers who owned them, but they were nearly the same age, and did a lot of things together. They bought pool tables together, and they bought motorcycles at the same time. My sister and oldest brother learned to ride on these bikes, but did not succumb to the temptation of buying their own at the time. The Honda was a little tamer and more reliable. The Harley was wilder and not reliable at all. When the Harley ran, you knew about it. I remember going for rides on both bikes, and I loved the thrill. In those days, helmets were not required. but my brothers made me wear a leather football helmet. The Harley, even though it was not a big bike, sounded big, fast, and was downright scary to go on with my brother. He was not one to spare the throttle. After a few rides with my brothers I became hooked on motorcycles. It would be years before I could ride one legally, but I knew I would have a motorcycle. As a matter of fact I became the motorcycle junkie of the family and hold the honor for most motorcycles owned.

  The motorcycle thing went beyond logic, as passions often do. My sister had burned her leg badly in one spot, from contact with the muffler on the Honda. One of my brothers took a flip on the Honda and walked around feeling sore all over for a while. Come to think of it, just about everyone I know who has owned or ridden a motorcycle has taken a spill at one point or another. If it wasn't a spill, it was a speedin
g ticket, or a noise infraction that was dampening spirits. Nonetheless the passion overcame, and the influence remained.

  No less powerful was the influence of cars that went through my brother's and sister's hands. My sister was the first to rent cars. It was virtually impossible for young men to rent cars in those days, but young women could get really nice cars at great rates. So my sister would arrive at the house with these often new sleds from the mid-sixties that were just beautiful to look at, and fun to drive in. The cars were usually loaded, and had big engines. Ah! the sixties. My brothers bought cars, all kinds of cars, from fifties Buicks to sixties Austin Minis. to Studebaker Hawks, Chevy Biscaynes, Volkswagen Beetles, and so on. The better stuff came in the late sixties with things like Corvettes, Austin-Healeys, Camaros and the like. All of this made me crazy for cars, and motorcycles. These were influences that were so strong, that they defied logic.

  And so, as I grew old enough to make these passions mine, I went on to relentlessly pursue them. And my passions became the influences for those younger than I. And as they grow, they will transform the influences into passions of their own.

  It’s a Job

  Two of my older brothers had done this sort of thing before me, and I was well versed in the mechanics of the trade, so to speak. One of my brothers had done an afternoon run, and the other had done an early morning run. They both had delivered newspapers. I had helped out on occasion, mostly with the afternoon run, and on a couple of occasions I had to do the whole thing. I wasn't very big at the time, and my father ended up helping me out.