Soon after that third summer camp I left the Air Cadets, lied about my age again, and joined the town’s militia unit, a squadron of the Royal Canadian Engineers. I was now wearing the same uniform as my father, and following my first parade I was promoted to lance-corporal! I wish I could say that my rapid advancement to the first rung on the leadership ladder was the result of demonstrating skills in that regard, but I have to admit that it was strictly due to my height. The unit was scheduled to compete in a militia drill competition to be held in Vancouver in two months, and during my first night with the unit I was assigned to the team. As the tallest member I had to be the “right marker”—that is, the individual the other team members align themselves with when they form up—and the right marker had to be a lance-corporal, in accordance with the rules of the competition. During my next thirty-seven years in Her Majesty’s uniform, the criteria for subsequent promotions would prove to be somewhat more demanding.
During my four years in the Chilliwack area, I witnessed racism directed against yet another segment of Canadian society. In Truro, the victim was the black community; in Chilliwack, it was the Native population. There was a reserve (today the progressive Soowahlie First Nation) between Cultus Lake and Vedder Crossing, and every morning our bus picked up Native students at the reserve stop on the main highway on the way to school. Although there was no open hostility to the Natives, sarcasm directed their way clearly separated us into two distinct groups. The segregation was more evident when we got to the school, with its relatively large urban population. The self-imposed segregation and derogatory comments came from a small group of ignorant underachievers. Nevertheless, the way they treated the Native students reminded me of my year in Truro. Making friends with the Native students seemed like a good idea.
One of them, Leonard Fisher, was better than I was in just about every sport we played, and the two of us spent hours every day practising one or two sports, depending on the season. We became close friends. I became welcome on the reserve and, thanks to Leonard, played a few games as goalie for the Tzeachten all-Indian team in the Fraser Valley adult soccer league. Leonard and I had a falling-out over some minor issue just before my dad was posted back to Nova Scotia in 1956. It bothered me that we never crossed paths again for over thirty years. In 1993, when I was invited to pay a nostalgia visit to Chilliwack High, I was delighted to see my old friend Leonard looking so well. He had served in the navy for a period, and after he left he took on a cook’s position at my dad’s old base in Vedder Crossing.
My four years in Cultus Lake were also made enjoyable by teenage romances, each one in its infancy publicly declared to be “the one and only.” Being a jock made it easier for me to convince the opposite sex to give me a chance, and my friends and I thought we were pretty cool, jumping from one intense relationship to another. But my final romance in the area was to have a pretty significant influence on my life two years hence. Pat Spears was the daughter of the local ranking RCMP officer in the region. Pat was tall, slim, beautiful, athletic, smart—and uninterested in me. I was of course determined to change her mind, but in the midst of my campaign Dad advised us that he was being posted to Halifax and that we would be leaving in two weeks. I was devastated. I had never seriously considered moving anywhere again until it was time for me to leave home for good. So, leaving my friends, in general, and Pat, in particular, three thousand miles behind was a definitely a low point in my life.
On the plus side, my father advised me that we would be driving to Halifax in our new Vauxhall Viva Deluxe. By now, you must be starting to question my father’s taste in automobiles. The Vauxhall was maroon in colour, with two massive and totally non-functional chrome strips on each side of the hood; however, it was a new car, and the transmission was undoubtedly in better shape to take on an extended trip than the one I had “christened” in the Anglia. We would traverse the continent by following Route 2, which winds along the top of the northern United States through Washington state, Idaho, Montana, North Dakota, Minnesota, Wisconsin and Michigan. In the northeast corner of Michigan, we would cross over the border to Sault Ste. Marie and carry on through Ontario, Quebec and New Brunswick to Nova Scotia—and according to Dad, I would drive the whole way! I thought I’d died and gone to heaven for a second time.
The trip was surprisingly uneventful, and the Vauxhall’s reliability, if not its comfort, exceeded everyone’s expectations. I got my fill of driving but never tired of the enjoyment associated with finding my way from one coast to the other. However, what we were to do when we reached our destination was still unclear. There was a possibility that Dad’s posting to Halifax would be temporary and that he might be assigned to Sydney, Cape Breton, in a few months. It was decided that Mum and I would bunk in with my sister, who following her marriage to Donnie Chisholm in Cultus Lake had moved to Old Barns, his home near Truro. Dad would commute from Halifax on weekends until his employment was confirmed.
For some obscure reason, kids from Old Barns and the surrounding rural areas attended Brookfield Rural High. Athough Colchester County Academy in Truro was only five miles away, the powers that be decided that those of us in the country would benefit from the fifteen-mile school bus ride to Brookfield. To my considerable surprise, they were right! Brookfield was a village that produced some of the best sports teams in the province and, more than once, in the nation. It was famous for its fastball, baseball and hockey teams, which dominated any league they entered. A good deal of the credit for the teams’ success was attributable to the efforts and athletic skills of the local Henderson family. All seven of the Henderson kids were outstanding athletes, as their father had been before them. The son closest to my age was Ned, who on graduation chose a career in the Canadian Forces instead of an offer from the Boston Bruins of the National Hockey League. Ned became one of Canada’s all-time top fighter pilots, but tragically he was killed just before he was to be promoted to the rank of general.
Shortly after I started grade eleven in Brookfield, Dad was posted to Sydney, as we had anticipated. I was able to convince my parents to leave me behind at my sister’s for a few months so that I could finish the soccer season with our school team. We were leading the Nova Scotia Headmaster’s Provincial Championship, and with Ned and me working together as right outside and centre forward, respectively, we were piling up the goals. We went on to win the championship—ironically, against a team from Cape Breton, my new home.
2: Welcome to Cape Breton
“MacKenzie, you score thirty-five points a game for our basketball team, and we don’t care what you are!”
MONSIGNOR MACLENNAN, PRESIDENT, XAVIER JUNIOR COLLEGE
ARRIVING IN THE city of Sydney in the early winter of 1956 was a bit of a shock. It was much larger than any place I had ever lived, and its high school, Sydney Academy, was old, big and intimidating. The city was dominated in more ways than one by its single large business, the DOSCO steel plant, whose smelter constantly spewed an impressive cloud of red iron-ore dust. On some days, if you stood still for too long outdoors you would be blanketed with a thin film of dust, just like everything else was. But after a few days you stopped noticing it—though I doubt that the same could be said for the folks who actually worked at the coke ovens.
My parents rented a small apartment only a stone’s throw from the school, and I started the second term of grade eleven. It was immediately obvious that this school was different from the ones I was familiar with. The student body seemed to be segregated into more self-created groups. They didn’t qualify as gangs, in the current pejorative meaning of the term, but there was definitely a pecking order. Fortunately, it was relatively easy for me to fit in because the basketball season was just starting, and the skills I’d learned in Chillwack allowed me to hold my own with the best players.
There was so much new and enjoyable for me to do in Sydney that I studied only enough to get by. I have to say that the superior performance of the teachers at Brookfield during my first term in
grade eleven prepared me very well for the rest of the school year. So, in spite of the seductions of city life, I managed to maintain a good grade average.
Some three decades later, when I worked for a year in the military’s personnel directorate, I was concerned about the absence of “roots” for soldiers’ kids as a result of their families’ constant moves. The sons and daughters of Canadian Forces personnel undergo more turbulence and disruption while pursuing their education than any other group I can think of. My challenge of dealing with a mere five schools was modest compared with the number of schools that soldiers’ kids have to deal with today. For example, my daughter Kimm attended eight schools in four countries and three provinces, and her experience was, regrettably, closer to the current norm. Our Personnel Directorate conducted some surveys and discovered that for the rest of their lives, the majority of soldiers’ kids call the place where they went to high school “home.” I can relate to these results, because the friends I made in Sydney in the three years I was there were as close as any I made over the next forty-five years.
One of those friends in my group was Gerry MacNeil, tall, slim and a gifted athlete. He was the academy’s “girl magnet,” so he was a good guy to know: the spillover effect ensured that all his friends had dates. He and I were forwards on the basketball team and usually accounted for most of the points our team scored. Gerry spent a career with the Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development, ultimately retiring in Ottawa.
Leo Wall was the character of our group. Blessed with tight-curly blond hair and an infectious smile, Leo was totally unpredictable and got us into more hot water with authorities than we thought was possible. Leo wasn’t a great basketball player, but what he lacked in natural ability he made up for in semi-controlled energy. Not surprisingly, he was much better at hockey. You sure didn’t want to get in his way once he reached top speed. Leo later went into teaching and retired in Sydney.
Gordie Morrison was the “grandfather” to us all, in that he was a good two years older than the rest of us. (When you’re only sixteen, that’s a big gap!) Fortunately, his advanced age brought some much-needed maturity to the group, not that it trumped our Leo-led antics. He also contributed some steadiness on the basketball court and contributed badly needed outside shooting skills. Gordie became a pharmacist, and when I last spoke with him, he was living in Mississauga.
Our “gang” had the (exaggerated) reputation of being the wildest collection of characters, so we worked hard to live up to it. Although our social lives revolved around the basketball schedule, our after-game activities became the genesis of legends. In spite of our tender age, we all drank—some more than others, we were to find out. We were too young to fake our way into the liquor store, so we approached the most popular bootlegger in the part of Sydney known as the Pier. Once we had accumulated enough cash to make the purchase and one of us had convinced his father, usually by using his mother as an intermediary, to give us the family car for the night, we would strike out for the Pier. We would make our purchase, find a back street or park overlooking Sydney’s infamous “tar ponds” and commence to drink.
For the first few months of this Friday night routine, we removed the brown paper bag before passing the bottle around. That way, we could see how much each of us consumed—the logic being that no one would take more than his share. The bottle’s contents were usually gone in about five minutes. But following one such purchase midway through the school year, someone suggested that we leave the paper bag on the bottle. To our amazement, the bottle was passed around at least twice as many times as usual before it was declared a dead soldier. Obviously, there were some among us who did not want to drink as much as the rest, and with the bag hiding the contents of the bottle we could fake drinking and get away with it. I wish I could report that the person who proposed the change to our routine went on to become a renowned psychologist, but this was not the case. Following the appropriate dose of Dutch courage, we routinely ventured into an unsuspecting Sydney. I’m relieved to report that our exploits never harmed anyone outside our own group.
There are very few unbending straight segments of highway in Cape Breton. One of the longest is a one-mile straightaway, dubbed the Yazar Stretch, on the main highway between Sydney and the town of Louisbourg, some eighteen miles down the coast and, since 1960, the site of the megaproject that reconstructed the eighteenth-century French fortress. We would regularly drive to the beginning of the stretch and play our own version of “over the top.” The rules were simple: As the driver accelerated onto the straight and brought the car to sixty miles per hour, the challenge would be to exit through one rear side window and slide across the roof of the car, re-entering through the window on the opposite side. Getting out of the car and onto the roof was relatively straightforward. Sliding along the roof, however, presented some unique challenges if you were short because you had to release your grip on one side before grasping the other. I, fortunately, was able to maintain at least a one-hand grip during the exercise.
The serious problem arose when re-entering the vehicle. This phase of the undertaking usually occurred when the approaching corner at the end of the straight seemed only a few yards away and was rapidly closing in. This impression, coupled with the all-too-frequent closing of both side windows by the car’s occupants just as the hapless victim was attempting to gain entry, elevated the level of hilarity for those safely inside. Cars approaching from the opposite direction flashed their lights as if to tell the driver of our car that he unknowingly had a passenger on the roof. Everyone managed to survive, but a few of us have permanent scars from landing in the ditch on the outside of that corner, fortunately a lefthander, at the end of the stretch. Looking back now, I think the patron saint of idiots was watching over us.
We regarded schoolwork as a constant interference in our social lives, but since we needed to maintain decent marks to remain on the academy’s sports teams, we all did just enough studying to get by. In spite of coming from another school, and before that, another province, I managed to maintain an eighty-five per cent average with relatively little effort. I was pleased to get by with dedicating so little time to my studies. It was only many, perhaps too many, years later that I realized I’d probably wasted a golden opportunity to grow intellectually. There was certainly no shortage of teachers expressing the common opinion: “Lewis, you are not working up to your potential!” But at the time, doing so would have seriously impaired my lifestyle, including my basketball playing.
Our basketball team was loaded with talent, and we were dominating the Cape Breton league. Occasionally we would play a couple of very good adult teams from Sydney and New Waterford to help elevate the level of our play. They would frequently beat us, but our level of fitness allowed us still to be competitive. Mind you, my first game playing for Sydney Academy provided me with a rude awakening.
Our high school league got off to its start in 1956, with our team making the fifteen-mile trek to Glace Bay to play St. Anne’s High. Their school gym was in the lower level of a hall, and as we ran onto the floor to start our warmup, something didn’t seem right. But I was unaware of what it was—until I attempted my first layup. The backboards for the baskets were virtually bolted to the wall, with no space for a player to land after taking off for a layup. If you approached the basket in a conventional manner at a running pace, you could find yourself splattered against the wall after releasing the ball. Having learnt the game in British Columbia, which was renowned for its basketball teams, I thought I was pretty hot stuff and proceeded to hot dog it more than was required by the game. Gerry and I worked well together up front, and with Gordie feeding the two of us passes at just the right times, we dominated the game. I was warned by our guys that Cape Breton basketball could be a bit rough, but the few elbows that were thrown my way were no different from what I was used to and I managed to give as good as I got.
When the final whistle had gone, confirming our win by a substantial margin,
the spectators came onto the floor. One diminutive lady approached me at a brisk walking pace. I didn’t recognize her and assumed that she must be from Glace Bay and wanted to congratulate me on an outstanding game. Turning to face her, I held out my hand to acknowledge her approach. By now she was getting closer to me and accelerating. With one fluid motion, she drew back her right arm—which I now noticed had a death grip on a large leather purse—and swung it, with amazing accuracy, at the side of my head. I could have used a couple of stitches to close the wound, but I opted for tape instead. As it was being applied, I could hear that madwoman screaming as her purse rocketed towards my ear: “Don’t you ever elbow my son again, you British Columbia smartass!” As we left for the team bus, Gerry greeted me with: “Welcome to Cape Breton basketball, Lew.” And all along, I thought they meant the opposing players would be rough!
After completing grade eleven at the academy, I assumed that come autumn I’d return for grade twelve. Since the next year’s education was never a general subject of conversation for me, it came as a surprise midway through the summer when I discovered that most of my friends would be taking their senior matriculation at Xavier Junior College (now Cape Breton University) in Sydney, then an extension of St. Francis Xavier University in Antigonish, on the Nova Scotia mainland. Gerry, Leo and a few others encouraged me to make the move to the college with them. But there were two problems. First, you had to pay tuition to attend the college. At that time it was somewhere close to three hundred dollars, not a small amount for my father, who was probably clearing in the neighbourhood of three hundred dollars a month. The second hurdle was more sensitive. At the time, universities in the Maritimes were segregated along religious lines. St. Francis Xavier, and St. Mary’s in Halifax, were bastions of Roman Catholic education in Nova Scotia, whereas Acadia in Wolfville appealed to those of the Baptist faith—and so it went on throughout the three Maritime provinces. Xavier Junior College was a Catholic institution and I was a Protestant—not that I knew what that really meant. I had attended the United Church and Sunday school during my early years in Princeport and Cultus Lake, but it never occurred to me that religion would ever influence my education or my choice of friends.
Soldiers Made Me Look Good Page 4