Sidney Street - 1971 - 1973

1971 - 1973 (St. Mary's Catholic School)
I mentioned my neighbour friends, "Sonny" and "Tammy". I was baby-sat by some friends of my mother's, and also made friends with some of their children, including "Thomasina" and (I forget his name now). I often wonder what became of them. I also became friends with "Julie" and her little sister "Angie" at this time, as their father was also a teacher. Their family lived just up the hill from my little house, until they moved to Frankford. Their parents were friends of my parents, so we stayed friends until highschool age. Elize and Harold were South-African's, and Harold was a teacher with my father, so we also spent a lot of time with them. I played with their children, particularly Harold Jr., at their big house just west of Trenton on Highway 2. The referred to themselves as "coloured", which was better than being "black" if you lived in South Africa, but I didn't really understand what they ment... but either way, I really liked the entire family and I loved visiting them.

When I was five, I started taking the bus to St. Mary's Catholic school in Trenton. I clearly remember my mother dressing me in something I did not like, although now I do not remember what it was she was dressing me in. I was sitting on the edge of a table or dresser and I remember her telling me I looked fine as she put my shoes on... but I was not happy about it.

I remember quite clearly going to kindergarden. Naps, practicing printing letters on those pages with the pink lines between the green ones, learning to tie my shoelaces... and best of all, playtime with the plasticine. I remember making rockets and jet planes that looked remarkably like rockets. I also remember a kid named Jonny. My first time using a public bathroom... I had to pee so I stood at a urinal (the ceramic kind that went all the way to the floor), pulled my pants down and peed. Jonny came in, walked past me, and slapped my on my bottom! He also make some smart remark, but I only remember the smirk on his face. That was the day I learned why pants have a fly.

I remember first grade more clearly. The school throught I was "special needs", so I had a separate phonics class (which I quite enjoyed) and more free time than my classmates. I also was introduced to the joys of outdoor recess! We played in the front yard at St. Mary's, and I lived inside the monkeybars. My friends and I invented a game called "worms", where we couldn't touch the ground without getting infected. I also explored the mysterious back yard where the older kids played. It was deep, with a bit of woods and a swampy pond, and the back of several factories along one side. 

I remember seeing several movies at school, including such 70s gems as "Babe's in Toyland", which I saw both years at St. Mary's. Strangely, I have a clear memory of helping some older students clean a classroom once... I was using the foaming spray and wiping it off with a rag to polish desks. I have no idea why, now, but it is a good memory... I still like that foamy spray.

My bus stop was up the hill and a few blocks away from my home, and I remember taking my time walking both ways. In the winter, there was a flooded field by out bus stop that froze over enough for us to walk on, but was thin enough that we could see through the ice and watch leaves move as we walked around. I also remember looking at the sun long enough to get black spots, once or twice. The actual ride on the bus is completely gone... I don't remember a thing.

About this time, when my sister was a year and a half or two years old, I started to realize I was having reoccuring dreams. One dream, having to do with a wooden box over the outdoor access to the crawlspace, I had frequently. I don't remember much about the dream now, but I *do* remember realizing I had been having it for a long time when I was only six years old. I also had a reoccuring nightmare, probably based on my seeing "House on Haunted Hill".

In my nightmare, my friends and I are in an old mansion. There is an immense entry hall, with rows of doors at the back, under a balcony, a central staircase up to the second floor, and more doors up there. I don't remember all the details anymore, but basically all of my friends vanish... one at a time.. leaving me cowering in that front hall, behind an over stuffed chair. I actually had this nightmare frequently for years, then occasionally until the last time I remember having it was while at a cottage my parents rented when visiting me up at CFTA Meaford, twenty-some years later.


We had a stray cat show up for a while, but I don't remember much about it now. I remember playing with my sister in the backyard, at the base of the steep (and unstable) slope we had. Iron pyrrite, or fools gold, was something I always looked for to give to my little sister.

I used to make cushion forts in the living room to watch TV, and I remember watching first-run Star Trek and a few horror movies (probably on saturdays). I remember playing with my sister quite a bit in the living room with the forts. I also remember the old B&W console TV breaking down a couple times. It might seem strange in this day of disposable everything, but back then a TV could be repaired. I remember the TV repair man coming to the house, and I remember accompanying my father to a hardware store to use a tube tester (yes, you read that right... our TV used vacuum tubes).

I don't think it happened too often, but Sonny and Tammy were older and we occasionally walked down the road to a store to buy candy. I remember avoiding cracks in the sidewalk, and I remember visiting a house that had a cave in the cellar. I think a friend of Sonny's lived there, but I don't recall. What I do remember is how spooky the cellar was and how dark the hole in the stone wall was. They told me about bats and rabies, but I wasn't afraid.

Sidney St. was near the Number One dam on the Trent river, and the ruins of an old munitions plant. I LOVED visiting it with my father the few times we went there to fish. I also used to love going with my father on his excursions to hunt for partridge. We would go in the white station wagon, and I remember it always had confetti coming out of vents and the broken rear speaker covers. I remember going to A&W in that car, with my sister, and the women in their uniforms would come out and clip a tray to the window when they brought our orders. Just like in the Flintstones. I remember being admonished not to spill food or make a mess.

My father was a teacher, and my mother an O.R. nurse, so they had a wide range of of friends. They used to throw "wine and cheese" parties at our home, which I remember, and we sometimes were invited to family events at other homes. I swam ar Dr. Bonn's house a few times.

We visited my grandparents, uncles, and aunts frequently in those years, and I have far too many memories of those trips to cover them in detail here. I used to get car sick on the way to Ardoch on the old one-and-a-half lane road before they redid it. I had the drive to Peterborough memorized by the time I was seven. My sister and I would play under a pile of coats, or under the dining room table in Peterborough, and we would want to play by the creek when we were in Ardoch. Before my grandparents had the well put in, we used to go to a spring to collect drinking water. Before they added the chemical toilet in the laundry room, there was only the out-house in Ardoch.

I remember the day my sister fell off our camp-trailor. It was in the driveway at our little house on Sidney St, and she smasher her upper teeth. I'll never forget the horror I felt, or the helplessness, and I will never forget her dead, grey tooth. It is hard to see someone you love in pain, which is as true at six years old as it is fourty years later.

My first taste of loss occured when my beloved great-gandmother "Granma Boil" died. I remember her kitchen, playing on the floor with one of those activity boards, and I remember her soft voice. When she died, I was left behind because my parents felt I was too young for the funeral. They were probably right, but I never really got over that. Even now, I can't help but tear up as I remember her.

I had other relatives in Oshawa and Peterborough, as well as on the way to Ardoch, and we visited them often in our white station wagon.

I remember the excitement of waiting for a new season of television, mainly because of the promise of a new season of Scooby Doo. I remember seeing commercials and discussing it at length with friends.

Towards the end of my time on Sidney St, I learned to love thunderstorms. I was told that I would go blind if I looked at a lightning strike, but when that didn't happen I gained a confidence and a willingness to ignore advice that has served me well through my entire life. There was also a tornado, that hit the nearby town of Brighton and pelted us with hail.

When I was seven years old, well not quite seven because my birthday is in July, we moved. I was devestated, we left a newer house for an older one (spooky sounds, stains in the sinks) and I lost my closest friends. After we moved, I think I saw Sonny and Tammy exactly once, when I spent a day with them at their cottage.