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I made a mistake on the way to RCAF Station Sioux Lookout. The train I was on stopped for half an hour, for a break, at a little northern Ontario town called Swastica. I walked out onto the train depot platform, and took a deep breath. It was instantly as if a thousand knives hit my throat! I learned right then how to breathe in the northern winter, and quickly got back on the train. That was my introduction to winter in northern Ontario.
The first day I went into town, a couple of buddies and I were walking on the sidewalk and an Indian woman was walking towards us. She and her children stepped off into the muddy street to let us pass. Something was very wrong about that! There were two restaurants in town. They each had lots of coffee and juke box remotes. With little else to do, we’d spend hours just sitting, drinking coffee, and feeding quarters int the juke box. I would sit in one of them for hours, drinking I don’t know how many cups of coffee – there wasn’t much else to do. In the summer, all three weeks of it, we would go down to the lake, where a single engine Beaver was all loaded and ready to take off. I would watch as they tied her down the pilot would gun the engine. Then the man with an axe would chop the rope and the plane would take off. A motor boat would go back and forth to make waves, and that together with the rather unique rope trick launch, would get the seaplane up off the lake, just. In 1962, that lake in Sioux Lookout, was the busiest airport in the world! That summer, I encountered deer flies, no-seeums, blackflies, etc., with a vengeance! They just wouldn’t leave me alone! However, when the next summer arrived – nothing. It seems I was immune to all manner of insects! I was due in court on a charge for a prank I and a couple of buddies played. We let the air out of all four tires of a Police car. We got to the hall where the district court was sitting in Dryden, for 9:00 AM. We sat through case after case, waiting for ours to come up. We waited until almost three o’clock, and then the Judge threw our case out because no one showed up from the police. Every time an Indian was on trial, the Judge gave that person a jail sentence. Every time a non-Indian was on trial, the Judge either sentenced that person to a fine, or a slap on the wrist! Wow! That really stayed with me! Well, that was what it was like in the RCAF in 1963. Please be careful . . . Stay safe, stay well, remember your mask, stay physically distanced, wash your hands frequently, get some fresh air if you can, and keep smiling . . . Hang in there – the Pandemic won’t last forever . . . ‘til we meet again . . .
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The 1960’s were truly remarkable to me – they were easily some of the best years, and some of the worst years of my life.
I was down, just about as low as you can go, when I got a job as a labourer in Stokley’s canning factory in Essex, that lasted as long as there were tomatoes to can. I was paid weekly, at 87.5 cents an hour. It was September, 1961, and a month later, I was on a train, bound for Montreal and basic training in the RCAF. My life just got better and better. Most of the guys in my Flight were very young, 17 or 18 years old, and I was 23, with a new nickname – Pops. I was the second oldest guy in the group, at 23! (The oldest guy a year older than me. He had done 5 years in the Navy.) We had a blast! I can remember climbing up a rope and learning how to do it comfortably – with my feet. And, getting a weekend pass – wow, Montreal! I was ‘awarded’ light duties after breaking a big toe (It happened when we all were horsing around and someone slid a ‘skidder’ across the room, and it landed on my foot.) Well, I made it through Basic, and we were on a train, this time to RCAF Clinton, for trades training. There were so many young recruits, that we had to wait several months, on what was called ‘contact training’. Every two weeks, even through basic, two busloads, 120 young men and 120 young women, would get into the RCAF and require training. I was assigned guard duty in the guard house. One of the optional courses I took was a UASF course called ‘Extra-Sensory-Perception’. We were taught self hypnosis so that we could fall asleep anywhere, under any conditions. We had a numbered checker board in the guard house and we would play a game while we were on guard duty. One person would go outside and the rest of us would all concentrate on the same number. That person would come back into the guard house and would try to guess that number. They would get it right almost all the time! When my time was almost up, I got a job as a ‘Radcian’ on the DEW Line, complete with an appointment for training at USAF Streeter, Illinois, and a letter to pay my way out of the RCAF with six months to go. I had a meeting with my RCAF boss, the STelO, who promptly informed me that the RCAF had recently changed its policy on early release, and that I wasn’t going anywhere. I was an LAC, Com Ground in the RCAF. Upon my release, I got a ride with Pete, my friend who was released at the same time as I was, and we got as far as Ottawa, and decided to stay there. (That was after seeing the girls come out of the Metropolitan Life Building at quitting time.) Well, on that note, I’ll say goodbye . . . Please be careful . . . Stay safe, stay well, remember your mask, stay physically distance, wash your hands frequently, get some fresh air if you can, and keep smiling . . . ‘til we meet again . . . Last time I wrote about my life in the 1940’s, so I think I should tell you about me in the 1950’s. In 1950, I was twelve years old, not quite a teenager, but starting to think like one. About then, my mother had a spare room, so she took in a boarder – a single Mom with a daughter. The daughter was also 12 years old. That was among the early times that I ventured into electronics. I rigged a pair of doorbell buzzers and pushbuttons between my room and hers and proceeded to teach her Morse code so we could communicate back and forth.
Time passed and before I knew it, I was in High School – still a child but on my way to becoming a man. I still remember Grade Nine and my first dance. Like most boys, at least at that time, I did not know how to dance. Not to worry, I soon learned how. About two weeks before the day of the dance, a group of Senior girls taught us how. I remember how shy I was – I mean, holding a real live girl! I went to Patterson CI. In Grade 10, I volunteered for the local Army Cadet Corps and started as a Private. The summer that I was sixteen years old, I went to camp Iperwash for the princely sum of 100 dollars. The following year, I was a cadet WO2 in the big parade. I was OK in school and up to Grade 12 my marks were great. Then one night I went to a dance, and discovered girls! Next year, my marks plummeted in Grade 13. That was the year I turned seventeen. It was also the year that my Dad died. (That was why, I think, that my marks were just high enough for me to squeak through Grade 13, courtesy my teachers.) I began tuba lessons, and nothing would do but my music teacher, took me out to the St Luke Road Barracks, and talked me into the RCEME Army Reserves. I think that he did all the talking. The immediate benefit was that I took home an Army horn, a superb Boosey and Hawk E-Flat Tuba! I became a decent player and I think that I marched in every marching band in Windsor, playing the Tuba. (I don’t think that I ever played in the Windsor Regiment band.) I went to Teachers College in Toronto, the summer that I graduated from Grade 13. I got a job, teaching at Sandwich East Public School, but got laid off at Christmas, because the Township ran out of money. I still remember my first car – a 1950 boat tail Pontiac, 4 doors. When I was out of work, I took the back seat out to make more room for the baskets. I then sold dried manure for 2 dollars a bushel, to make some money! Needless to say, my girlfriend was not impressed with my new enterprise. That was me in the 1950’s. Please be careful . . . Stay safe, stay well, remember your mask, stay physically distance, wash your hands frequently, get some fresh air if you can, and keep smiling . . . ‘til we meet again . . . Well, if you’ve been reading my blog lately, you know that I’m a proponent of opening up, business, personally, et al, albeit, carefully. I’ve shared my plan with you, and fine tuned it ‘til I’m blue in the face, but now it’s time for something new, time to move on.
I don’t know what to write about, but I do know that I will have to know the details. So, I know what I’ll do. I’ll write about me and my life. In the beginning, I was taught to hate. It was early in the 1940’s, and everyone on our side new what a good German was. My two brothers and two sisters were still at home. My older brother joined the Canadian Army, in 1943, in January, right after his seventieth birthday. And then he was gone – off to war. I remember Mom getting a wire and a wire recorder, and we all sat around and listened to the sound of Ken’s voice – again and again. I can remember sending soldered top Crisco cans, full of fresh eggs, to my aunt in Scotland, during the war. We would save all sorts of fat in the empty Crisco cans and when they were almost full, we would bury fresh eggs into the fat. Then we would give the completed cans to my Father who would then solder on the top. We would then attach an address label and mail the can to Scotland. In her letters, my aunt told us that the eggs arrived safely and were cooked perfectly. My other brother, Jim was still too young for service, and I was just a toddler, so he and I were still in school. There was seven years between my brother; Jim and myself. My younger sister, Bette worked at a drug company, and my older sister, Rosemary, told me that Bette was a part time ambulance driver, too. In 1944, Rosemary, who worked in Ford’s office, married another Ford employee. I must have got a toy drum for my birthday or Christmas, because, when the big day finally arrived, I got all dressed up in a sailor suit and proudly played my drum, on the platform at the old Windsor Train Depot, as Ken stepped down from the train that brought him home – home from the army and the war. I think the year was 1946, and I was 8 years old. Ken got a job with the Bell Telephone Company, and drove home in a dark green Fargo. I remember that truck, because I was convinced that it was meant to go far. Well, that’s about all I can remember about my life in the 1940’s. Please be careful . . . Stay safe, stay well, remember your mask, stay physically distance, wash your hands frequently, get some fresh air if you can, and keep smiling . . . ‘til we meet again . . . |
AuthorLarry Skinner - Webmaster for South Windsor Seniors Archives
January 2021
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