boyhood sketch 14. FLIGHT OR FIGHT

Clifford Long was a bully. Some kids are wired that way. I learned that the behaviour can be adjusted but I wasn't cerebral enough when I was eleven. I was scared. Clifford intimidated all of us. It wasn’t that he was taller than the rest of us. It was assumed that he was stronger. His aggressive language and demands worked for him. Mostly we managed to coexist, play together, but every kid his age had run-ins with Clifford. Something would tick him off and he would punch us in the chest or arms or whack at our heads. I had a couple of such brush-ups with him and I remember that it hurt. I cannot remember what I did that ticked him off the last time - that is, the last time he picked on me. It was after school and after supper. A bunch of us were in the schoolyard which was only minutes from my house. It was growing dark at about eight o'clock. He was angry and he chased me but I was faster, far faster, faster than anybody that I knew. In a blink I was out of the schoolyard, down Church Street, then in a panic bounded up on somebody's house porch. Behind a small waist high porch wall I hid. Clifford came calling my name, getting closer, closer. What could I do? What would I do? Then he was near my hiding spot. I leaped out and bounded down the steps and in mid-flight punched him hard in the gut, and I ran. He cried out, doubled over on the sidewalk with hands to his stomach but I was gone, home. Next day at school, I was worried he would be after me again. Nope. No problem. He stayed his distance. Days later he spoke with me, just about harmless stuff as if nothing was different, but it was. He respected me.  

boyhood sketch 13. SPITBALLS - CIRCUMSTANTIAL EVIDENCE & A WRONG CONCLUSION

Miss Laidlaw was my Grade 5 homeroom teacher. That's when it happened. Our classes rotated from homeroom to other classrooms for different subjects. It puzzled me then and puzzles me still, why adults could not take this into consideration when assessing blame for the spitballs that appeared one day on the wall of my homeroom. The spitballs were conspicuously stuck around the large wall clock in our homeroom. Miss Laidlaw fancied herself a super sloth, a Sherlock Holmes I surmise because when no one admitted to the deed, she required all of us to remove papers from our homeroom desks. She removed one spitball from the wall, unfolded the spitball and now came to each student's desk with this torn piece of paper. To my horror, upon removing papers from my desk drawer, a page had a corner ripped away. At my desk Miss Laidlaw matched her spitball to my paper. I stalwartly claimed innocence for an inordinately long period of public interrogation. Other students sat at my desk during the day I protested. We were all sent home for lunch but I was told that upon return I must confess my guilt and make an apology to my class for wasting their time. Over the lunch hour I struggled with this allegation and that afternoon to my everlasting regret I yielded to the pressure and complied with Miss Laidlaw’s demands, though I am still innocent to this day, scarred, needing therapy that will surely come too late.

boyhood sketch 12. MY NOSE JOB

later remodelled structure

Grades four through six were at Robertson Public School on Church Street, just a five-minute walk from our home, so a left turn on to Clark Street to Church Street ,to the right and just past the First United Church. Or, we could leave home and jog to the right to Daniel Street, hang a short left and enter the large school playground of dust and dirt. 

original design with tower & bell

In grade four, during recess I did a belly slide down an icy schoolyard hill in winter and took out the legs of a boy at the bottom who promptly sat on my head flattening my nose into the ice. I was taken to the doctor whose remedy was to stick his baby finger in each side of my nose straightening the soft cartilage and back to school I went. Over several days I proudly wore a nose with several shades of purple. I like purple.

We played ball hockey on the school property after hours. An asphalt area was perfect near the main building. Often a couple of us would take turns, one in net and one shooting the tennis ball. We were good, fast, accurate, in goal or out of goal, just like our favourite St. Catharines Teepees (later called Black Hawks), like Elmer (Moose) Vasco, Bobby Hull, Stan Mikita, Pierre Pilote, Phil Esposito, Roger Crozier and scores more. Other times several of us would play teams, three on three. Carefree, joyful, exuberant days of boyhood.   

boyhood sketch 9. BOYS ON TOP FIRST UNITED CHURCH ROOF

To the left of our house at 10 Clark Street, and at the top of a slight hill First United Church and its manse were located. The Reverend Barr was the Minister who lived there. He had two sons, Ronnie and Jerry. We played with them too, nice boys. On this particular day, they were not included. Two other friends accompanied me on this one. My friends were nervous. I had to coax them, lead them, show them how to do it. Eleven-year-old lithe and light bodies lift their weight easily up brick walls using window edges and brick ledges and down spouts, up past first and second stories, higher, higher, until we reached the slate tiles of the roof on the far side of this image. From there we could see above the flat roofline of Robertson Public School that we attended, and every other structure along Church Street. Rubber soled with simple sneakers we climbed the steep, summery hot tiles to a contour on the roof, in which we could actually sit leaning against the next rise in the roof. It was foolish, dangerous, but we didn't think that way. I didn't. It was a challenge, something to accomplish. We were sovereigns of the steeple.