On the second day of March,1965,I celebrated my fourth birthday.We did all the normal things like eating cake and ice cream.The cake had four candles,which seemed like more than I would ever be able to blow out by myself.But blow them out I did.
The clearest memory I have of that birthday is that I had a party.It was the first party of any kind I ever recall going to.There were a few other children there,but in fact I only really recall who two of those children were.One,of course was my sister,who still seemed really small to me and was not much of a conversationalist.A year and four months difference in age is still quite signifigant at that point in life.
The second party guest that I recall is a little girl who lived across the street and one house up from us,in the house the Carters live in now.When we first moved to Moncton,it seemed as though people moved in and out of that house a couple of times in what had to have been a very short period of time.I can recall that my father refered to a man they saw coming and going to that house as "Mr.Hale."But I'm uncertain as to whether or not that girl was his daughter.As far as I knew,and as far as I can recall today,her name was Marlene,and she lived there for only a short period of time.If I played with her at all,outside of the party,of course,I don't recall it.To the best of my mermory she was a chubby little girl with curly brown hair.
We played games at my party.There were prizes to,and my mother tried to make certain that no child left without a prize.I had little clue as to what a party was supposed to be like or how you played organized games.But for weeks before my father explained that a party is when your friends come to your house and help you to celebrate your birthday.I wasn't at all certain I wanted to have a party.My father also said we could play Pin The Tail On The Donkey.The object of this game was just what it's name implied.Inside the box that the game came in was a large poster of a donkey,complete with a bunch of pin on tails,each of which had a number.The object of the game was to pin the missing tail on the donkey,as close as possible to where a tail would actually be on a real donkey.But first,you were blindfolded and turned around in a circle three times,so you were a bit dizzy as well.Then my mother would lead the blindfolded person up to the donkey and they would place their tail on the unfortunate beast.By the time a half dozen or so of us had finished,the donkey had an abnormal number of tails and not one of them was placed in what could be called the appropriate place.It was a great game...tons of fun.I've only ever played that game once,but I've always remembered it fondly.Perhaps,though it's not fair to say I only ever played it once,as that experiance seemed to serve me well later in life,especially during the reign of Premier Ralph Klien in Alberta,and more recently during the time in Toronto when Rob Ford became mayor.By then of course,I'd started writing,so naturally,if you give a person a tail,everything starts to look like a donkey.That party I'm certain was my very first lesson in being an iconoclast,and if anyone had known that at the time,they would have been appaled.
On the night of my birthday,we all got into the family car and headed up the coast to visit my Uncle Bill,who worked for The Royal Canadian Mounted Police in a small town in Northern New Brunswick.I must have fallen asleep on the way there,because I was tired from the party and I don't recall that trip.I do recall getting there though.Uncle Bill lived in the police station,which included living quarters for the policemen and their famlies.Uncle Bills family,at that time would have included just him and his wife Doris and his two girls Janice and Shawna.Shawna must have been just a baby,and Janice,as I recall was using crutches for some reason.
Uncle Bills house was a very exciting place for a young boy,because ,well,it was a police station.There was a police car parked out front and in the garage there was a very fast looking boat and a snow mobile too,all painted uplike police cars.And of course,I got to sit in the police car and turn on the siren.
After we visited Uncle Bill,and I got to sleep in the police station,we headed back home.It was a long drive and we started at night.It's very dark in that part of New Brunswick as the towns are quite small and far apart.There is a lot of woods about and really not much to see at night,unless of course you are looking up.Our car had a radio too,and I remember that two songs seemed to play over and over as we drove home.One was "Counting Flowers On The Wall."by The Statler Brothers.The other was called "These Boots"by Nancy Sinatra.I never liked either of them,except on that particulr car trip.I guess commercial radio back then is pretty much like it is now.Total crap.
In any event,I was amazed at the fact thatthere were people in the radio who could speak and sing.But I couldnt really figure out how that worked.My mother explained that the people were at a radio station and they spoke into a machine which took their voice and threw it into the sky.The car had another machine in it that caught that voice and allowed us to hear it.This story fascinated me as I sat on the seat between my mother and father.If it were true there were wonderous things in the air.All the things that were ever on the radio.Singers and voices.Cowboys and Indians too.How could all those things be at the radio station and come flying out into our car.And,in addition to all that the sky just outside our car was filled with dancing lights of green and blue and more stars than I could count.I was beginning to get a sense of wonder about the world.
The clearest memory I have of that birthday is that I had a party.It was the first party of any kind I ever recall going to.There were a few other children there,but in fact I only really recall who two of those children were.One,of course was my sister,who still seemed really small to me and was not much of a conversationalist.A year and four months difference in age is still quite signifigant at that point in life.
The second party guest that I recall is a little girl who lived across the street and one house up from us,in the house the Carters live in now.When we first moved to Moncton,it seemed as though people moved in and out of that house a couple of times in what had to have been a very short period of time.I can recall that my father refered to a man they saw coming and going to that house as "Mr.Hale."But I'm uncertain as to whether or not that girl was his daughter.As far as I knew,and as far as I can recall today,her name was Marlene,and she lived there for only a short period of time.If I played with her at all,outside of the party,of course,I don't recall it.To the best of my mermory she was a chubby little girl with curly brown hair.
We played games at my party.There were prizes to,and my mother tried to make certain that no child left without a prize.I had little clue as to what a party was supposed to be like or how you played organized games.But for weeks before my father explained that a party is when your friends come to your house and help you to celebrate your birthday.I wasn't at all certain I wanted to have a party.My father also said we could play Pin The Tail On The Donkey.The object of this game was just what it's name implied.Inside the box that the game came in was a large poster of a donkey,complete with a bunch of pin on tails,each of which had a number.The object of the game was to pin the missing tail on the donkey,as close as possible to where a tail would actually be on a real donkey.But first,you were blindfolded and turned around in a circle three times,so you were a bit dizzy as well.Then my mother would lead the blindfolded person up to the donkey and they would place their tail on the unfortunate beast.By the time a half dozen or so of us had finished,the donkey had an abnormal number of tails and not one of them was placed in what could be called the appropriate place.It was a great game...tons of fun.I've only ever played that game once,but I've always remembered it fondly.Perhaps,though it's not fair to say I only ever played it once,as that experiance seemed to serve me well later in life,especially during the reign of Premier Ralph Klien in Alberta,and more recently during the time in Toronto when Rob Ford became mayor.By then of course,I'd started writing,so naturally,if you give a person a tail,everything starts to look like a donkey.That party I'm certain was my very first lesson in being an iconoclast,and if anyone had known that at the time,they would have been appaled.
On the night of my birthday,we all got into the family car and headed up the coast to visit my Uncle Bill,who worked for The Royal Canadian Mounted Police in a small town in Northern New Brunswick.I must have fallen asleep on the way there,because I was tired from the party and I don't recall that trip.I do recall getting there though.Uncle Bill lived in the police station,which included living quarters for the policemen and their famlies.Uncle Bills family,at that time would have included just him and his wife Doris and his two girls Janice and Shawna.Shawna must have been just a baby,and Janice,as I recall was using crutches for some reason.
Uncle Bills house was a very exciting place for a young boy,because ,well,it was a police station.There was a police car parked out front and in the garage there was a very fast looking boat and a snow mobile too,all painted uplike police cars.And of course,I got to sit in the police car and turn on the siren.
After we visited Uncle Bill,and I got to sleep in the police station,we headed back home.It was a long drive and we started at night.It's very dark in that part of New Brunswick as the towns are quite small and far apart.There is a lot of woods about and really not much to see at night,unless of course you are looking up.Our car had a radio too,and I remember that two songs seemed to play over and over as we drove home.One was "Counting Flowers On The Wall."by The Statler Brothers.The other was called "These Boots"by Nancy Sinatra.I never liked either of them,except on that particulr car trip.I guess commercial radio back then is pretty much like it is now.Total crap.
In any event,I was amazed at the fact thatthere were people in the radio who could speak and sing.But I couldnt really figure out how that worked.My mother explained that the people were at a radio station and they spoke into a machine which took their voice and threw it into the sky.The car had another machine in it that caught that voice and allowed us to hear it.This story fascinated me as I sat on the seat between my mother and father.If it were true there were wonderous things in the air.All the things that were ever on the radio.Singers and voices.Cowboys and Indians too.How could all those things be at the radio station and come flying out into our car.And,in addition to all that the sky just outside our car was filled with dancing lights of green and blue and more stars than I could count.I was beginning to get a sense of wonder about the world.
