Mother was short and heavy.Religious.Father was slim,neither tall nor short.Emaciated in his later years.Everyone called Mrs.West,"old Granny"She taught sixth grade and ruled with an iron hand.She used the strap a lot.Kenny lived down the street at house #59.The first best friend I remember.He moved to Lewisville before we started school..I met the girl across the street by having a rock fight with her.Her name was Karen.She had an older brother and a huge doberman named Brandy.We used to ride Her dog like a pony."Grandpa was a carpenter,he built house stores and bank..."And he said he built ships.He also built an outhouse with as much care as it took to build any house.Howard was a large boy and his father a large man.A policeman.Uncle Bill was a mountie.Peter was the first new boy I met in grade one.His head looked like an egg.Robin was a toddler when he threw a whole room full of toys out the window and into a snow drift.His father drove an eighteen wheeler.Randy Hopper was a Sunday School teacher.He had a very red face.Mr.Wiseman was another Sunday school teacher,who was nearly blind.They called Patrick"Rabbits."He lived down the street and had a lot of brothers and sisters "Because they were Catholic"His sister and another girl were hit by a car one night.The other girl died.Ann and Pierre,and later their twin brothers lived across the street next to Karen's house.Mr.Duffy lived on the other side of Karen.Sometimes he would use an arc welder in his garage and light up the whole street.Robin lived on street over and was what was then called "retarded"We were not allowed to say"retarded."My parents knew a couple called Don and Linda.They had two older kids and lived in the West End.They were divorced,then Don died in a fire.Uncle Ernie ran an Esso station and store at the top of the hill in Canterbury.No one called Randy retarded,but he was never quite right.Big as a rhino,mean as a snake.He could be your friend,but he turned on a dime.Patricia was a ten year old flirt with long blond hair.Mrs.Johnson was a nasty old woman who treasured her own misery..The Clarks lived beside us and owned a store on St.George Street.Their kids were Suzanne,Nancy and Danny,all older than me.There were some tough kids who lived on the other side of Mountain Road who stole kids lunch money at school.Grandmother Davis was short and had a very sharp tongue.Mrs.Sherwood lived on our street and taught school.Everyone said she was nasty.My sister said she was sweet.Mr.Cormier lived beside us.He fixed televisions and worked long hours in his garden.Mr.Brooks was the church pastor.He was old,tall and very kind.Brad lived behind my grandmother Graham.We played together when we were small.He bit me on the hand once.He was there when I fell down the steps at his house and split my head open.There was a lunatic who lived near my grandmother,but no one called her that,until I got older.Laura was a cousin who opened a store in downtown Canterbury.I didn't like her children when we were small.Mr,McMillian was a school vice principal.We never saw eye to eye.His wife was a teacher and school librarian.My grandfather Davis lived in a large rooming house in Pugwash.There was an old woman there who could imitate bird songs and crow like a rooster.Art lived in Springhill,and taught me how to play golf.His wife was Eileen and her father was Ed.He liked to watch the ocean.Mr.Grant lived in a summer cottage close to ours.He once told me he'd seen a UFO.Aunt Roseanna moved around a lot.From Nova Scotia to Alberta and back.Her husband was a loud little Dutchman.My Grandmothers brother married Americans and lived in Maine.Uncle Clifford and his wife lived in Fredricton on Charlotte Street.He worked at the university.My great aunt was Anna English and her husband was Fred.She had TB when I was small and lived in a sanatorium.I asked her a question about God once.Her and Fred were religious and loved children.My grandmother may have had ADHD.She never stopped moving.The red headed kid was a pervert.A man with a fiddle came to our house every Saturday night.His name was Don Messer and he came via the TV.Uncle Fred Davis lived in Germany for a while.I never knew his family well.There were many barbers at the barber school,but they all looked alike.I looked like them too after they cut my hair.There was an old security guard who tried to chase me away from the hospital.Jeannie was a border at our house.She married a man called Ray who worked at the CNR shops.Her father was murdered by a man named Alan Legere.Old Jimmy ran a candy store in Springhill.He was Greek and loved seeing my father.I visited a barber in Springhill once too.We stayed at Mrs.Bantings house when my mother worked.I was standing with her in the driveway once and saw some ball lightening.Her children swore a lot and she fought with her husband and got angry when her son Robin threw toys out the window into the snow.Another neighbour,David was a bully.There were a lot of bullies about but I don't remember most of them.Father McKee was my hockey coach.The bullies would be mean to Robin,the "retarded"boy,but many kids were nice to him too.Dana was a gunsmith.My father was best man at his wedding.Anthony liked guns too.He was french and maybe even part Indian,though people never said so.My father brought people home from work for a meal sometimes.Sometimes even hitch hikers.One of them stole his car and abducted my sister once.Susan got a bad head injury the year before I met her.Her family owns a hardware store.The Harris family moved into Karen's old house.Their son Dick fixed furnaces.An art teacher once kicked me out of class and,to this day I don't know why.Ted was a friend of my father and he could fly planes.We went up for a spin with him one time.I met a couple of Rabbis once in Montreal.They asked me if I believed in God.My father bought a red trailer from an old French couple when I was small.The old woman spoke no English,but gave us some cookies.Mrs.Banting died when I was in grade one.Mr.Baxter was my teacher in grade two,then Mrs.Cale in grade three.She was tall and wore an enormous bee hive.In grade six my teacher was Mrs.West.She was fierce,but I liked her.Mr.Cohen was my seventh grade teacher and he was a bit of a buffoon.He gave me a hard time when I missed a day for my grandfathers funeral.In grade eight I had a notorious teacher.Malcom Ross.Thats the same year the pervert started hanging around.And the policemen were killed,and their killers sentenced to die,then had their sentences commuted.Then a little girl named Michelle disappeared and was never seen again.Everyone thought we were going to Hell in a hand basket.I searched for her with a man named Ray who lived across the street from us.Ray was a brute of a man.Holly was a girl I walked home with sometimes at noon.She was a plain girl who worried about older kids sneaking up behind us and mashing peanut butter sandwiches in our hair.We would play kick the can on the way home.Mrs.Foster worked at the bank with my mother.So did a woman named Rita.She had a beautiful samoyed dog that I liked to go play with.There was an old man who delivered milk in an old,old green truck.Old Charlie ran the Co-op in Fox Harbour.Norman Murray sold cars and my father worked for him for a while.Grandfather Graham was thin and almost stone deaf without his hearing aid.He smoked a pipe,chewed tobacco,and read Western novels and detective magazines.He hardly ever spoke.And there was more than one lunatic that lived on their street.My friend Steven was a Jehovah's Witness.A kind,decent kid but so very different.Never hung out with anyone from school when school was out.And there was a little girl that used to walk past our house on the way to school.When I first saw her my heart skipped a bit.She was wearing pigtails and that was in 1967.And when I last saw her,well,my heart skipped another beat.
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