Letters From Down South

WORDS BY DENNIS ALLEN

Winters nowadays sure are not like when I was growing up. Even for a young pup like me. I remember we used to have to wear our parkies from end of October right up until middle of March. And I didn’t have a zipper parky until Grade 7. I always had to use pullover. I was pretty proud when I got my first zipper parky.

As cold as it was, we were used to it. We always had to play out after school while my mom cooked supper. She didn’t need us kids bugging her while she was cooking. We had no TV anyway, so we had nothing better to do. There was always a hill to slide down or a street hockey game going on. Boy, getting a slapshot in the shin with a frozen puck is no fun either. But we always entertained ourselves. You try to kick kids out nowadays, you damned near get sued. Back in our day, your mom’s word was the final say. Not even RCMP could have more power. So when your mom yelled at you to play out, you had no choice.

One good thing about our house was my brother Gerry had dogs. We used to have dog races in the middle road of Co-op Hill. We would each take one dog and let him pull us. Only my sister Judy had a little sled. I had a kicker hood, and your Uncle Ebun had a piece of cardboard. Only thing about kids, they could make fun out of anything.

One of my jobs was to pick up the table scraps from Grollier Hall, where my mom worked as a cook. Then I would feed the scraps to Gerry’s dogs. But mixed in the scraps was garbage: tin cans, cardboard and coffee grounds. They must have been pretty damned hungry ‘cause they used to eat tins cans and all.

There was a field across our house where all us kids on Co-op Hill would go sliding. I remember one time Foster Arey dragged his dad’s 12-foot toboggan from his house and all us kids piled into it. There must have been 20 kids in there ‘cause once we got going we couldn’t stop. I remember Foster was standing on the brake and yelling, “Whoa!” When we got going so fast that his toque flew off, he bailed on us and we took off down the hill and hit a big rock at the bottom. I don’t know how come it didn’t bust up his dad’s sled ‘cause we hit it so hard that the kids in the back flew over everybody and landed about 10 feet in front. I don’t remember who was in front but they got the wind knocked out of them and they were walking around trying to catch their breath. All I remember is Foster laughing so hard he couldn’t even stand up. I didn’t trust him after that. Still don’t.

But my main job was sawing firewood with a Swede saw. Every day after school, I would suck somebody into coming with me to our house and then I would have a partner to cut wood. Timothy Gordon, Patrick Dick, Peter Lennie, Timothy Allen and your Uncle Ebun were my best friends in them days. After we filled the wood box, my brother Gerry would lend us his skidoo. But the only stipulation was that we had to start it ourselves. And when you weigh less than a sack of flour, it was hard to pull on the skidoo, and it would take two of us. Except Patrick, whom we used to call Sasquatch.

I remember it used to be dark and cold on the way to school in the morning. We used to stop at Grollier Hall and buy penny candy from Father Reyant: Black Babies, Jujubes, caramels, Pep Chew, Double Bubble, all for a penny a piece. My aganakan Peter Smith showed us how to stick your hand up the pop machine and get free pop.

But once we got caught, the gig was up.

And we never used to have “cold days,” when they shut down the school ‘cause it’s too cold. I remember we always had to play out at recess, no matter how cold it was. I remember one time John Keevik told me to stick my tongue on the iron railing, so I did. I don’t know how the hell they got my tongue off but I just remember being stuck there for quite a while. So if John is ever looking for votes, ask him what he used to do to kids.

Even when we got to be teenagers, we used to try to be tough and just use little jackets and no long-johns to go uptown. One time we came back from uptown and my legs were blue. It was about the same time Patrick bought a brand-new down jacket. But it must have been made with pretty cheap material ‘cause when he went to bend his arm to pull his pack of Export A out of his jacket, his jacket broke.

Yeah, you can’t even get kids to go to the store to buy toilet paper anymore. They want a ride to go everywhere. Boy, we were damned lucky to even go for a taxi ride.

Anyway, enough bitching about the old days. I’m sure our parents used to complain about how soft us kids were compared to their days. I’m getting soft in my old age. I just ran out of pipe tobacco and I just drove half a block to buy Borkum Riff. Anyway, take care and hope to see you fullas soon.