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EPISODE 124 JUST WHAT THE DOCTOR ORDERED

EPISODE 124      JUST WHAT THE DOCTOR ORDERED


alan and marjorie skeoch
Sept. 2020

INTUBATION EQUIPMENT FOR EMERGENCY USE AT HOME?



Strange things happen when we live in isolation.  And a lot 
of the novel happenings are related to Covid 19…

Take yesterday morning for example.  Marjorie found
some complicated medical stuff on a chair under the dining room
table.

“Alan, what is this equipment from the doctor.”
“I don’t remember…maybe something sent along
from the hospital.  (where I had my gall bladder removed)
“This could be important, Alan.”
“Suppose so.”

We thought it was an emergency kit for intubation. There
was a shiny new funnel, a length of clear plastic hose and some
kind of filters… and a Stainless steel pipe with handle.  All wrapped in clear plastic and sealed.
Inside were the instructions.  We had read that intubation hurts
and requires sedation so this stuff made sense to us.

Opening the bag we discovered they were the
new parts for putting gas in our lawn mower.

Take A look.   Would you assume medical paraphernalia
for self intubation?  Tube to the lungs in other words.
Post surgery emergency kit?



alan and marjorie skeoch
Sept. 2020





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EPISODE 123 VIOLENCE FOOTBALL…A BROKEN LITTLE FINGER CHANGED MY LIFE (part one)

A  NOTE:  IF you did not receive Episode 122 there is a reason.  I felt it was just too brutal for your tender ears.
A subjective decision.  The topic includes  a letter from my good friend Robert Root who was forced to visit
the hog killing floor at the St. Clair slaughter house when he was about my age.  It is awful reading.  So I applied
censorship.  If you want the story, let me know.

This Episode (#123) continues the violent theme but is terribly self centred for which I apologize.  Hope a few of
you are left handed and therefore more understanding.

alan


EPISODE 123   VIOLENCE   A BROKEN LITTLE FINGER CHANGED MY LIFE…FOOTBALL IS VIOLENT (part one)



alan skeoch
Sept. 2020




Take a close look at this LEFT HAND.  See the little finger.  Look closely and you will see it is  crooked.  When that finger was wired
back together my whole life changed.   Big changes happen often from small events.  Keep that finger in mind.
(Now I know you will not believe this.  I asked Marjorie to proof read the story and she broke out laughing reading the first
sentence.  I had photographed my right hand…not my left.  I still do not know the difference.)

“Did Someone say turn left?”  Take a look at my hands…I am touching my left little finger…and that
is what this story is all about.   You may not realize that until the very end of Part One.

There, among the miscellany of our children’s old room,…there rests the team picture from 1954.  I checked today and notice
it is gone.  (Sept. 20, 2020)

Hidden away in our cellar are the trophies that were once so important in my life but are now forgotten.  Take the Wildman Trophy
for instance.  I was very proud of this award. That was once a huge trophy in Humberside C.I., sat in the front hall all on its own.  
Now gone somewhere.  Chuck Wildman was killed at Queen’s University in his first year when doing a prank climbing an electric 
pole to the transformer.  His father was an organizer of our annual football dinner…father and sons.



“OH, ALAN, I know these boys from Lawrence Park Collegiate,”  I asked Marjorie to proof read this story and it turns out she knows the enemies
very well.  She had a bad crush on one of them.   I think she could have done better looking over our guys at Humberside.


\
Take a close look.  Look at faded #7, Roger Pugh, the boy who took a kick in the face to prevent a kicker from booting the ball downfield.
That’s coach Burford on the left…beside him in plain clothes is Jim Romaniuk, my friend, and beside Jim I am crouched.   See # 13  That
is Rich Mermer the best Athlete i have ever seen.  And a nice guy as  well. On his right is co captain,  Gord Nicholls #12, who along with Gary Logan (left of 
#13) organizes our annual luncheons … yes, some of us still meet even though now in our 80’s.  Like Garth Spencer in front of Jim Romaniuk. That’s
Ken Takasaki behind Rich Mermer who I suspect was the son of a Canadian Japanese family pushed out of British Columbia in World
War II…their fishing boats confiscated.  Maybe so.  And look at #54 on the right, that’s “Jarring Jack Osmond”, suspended from school
a year later for bringing beer in s violin cast to a night football game.  Rob Wildman, top row #25, whose brother was electrocuted by accident and
whose family donated the Wildman trophy in Chuck’s honour.  And Jeff Scott with whom I share emails each week.  So many freinds.
On the far right is our principal, W. E. Taylor who had to contend with
the anti-football lobby of teachers at Humberside.  Not everyone loved the game..


Here is a document from the 1956 season with all the boys names.  Why would you be interested?  1) Because your name might be there  2) Because the lists reveal just how deep the football culture
of the 1950’s had penetrated the high school culture.  Today only a fragment of that culture remains. Most schools do not play football any more.


Football may seem to have little to do with violence … I mean nasty violence.  
I feel, however, that this short football story might find a few interested readers.

Football scared me at first.  Not the violence although that was a little frightening.

LEFT HANDED HANDICAP…BIG TIME 

In Grade 9 I nearly joined the Bantam football team at Humberside Collegiate but was rather
startled by the knowledge base required.  And also by the fact that football used 
words like ’left’ and ’right’ a lot more than I  could handle.  I am left handed.  No big
deal to most of you and even to most left handers.  My problem is that I do not know
the difference between left and right.  Really.   If someone asks  me to turn left I
immediately move my fingers to touch my broken baby finger on my left hand. I know
that is left.  The finger was broken and operated on when I was a senior student
at Humberside.   That BABY FINGER CHANGED MY LIFE.

Why do I have this trouble?   Back in elementary school at Kent Public School there
was a concerted effort to ‘break’ left handed kids.  To make them right handed.
For their own good because they must live in s world where 90% are right handed.
Tools, for instance, are made for right handed people.  Scissors, stoves, washing machines,
watches, car controls (i.e. signals, headlights) are made for right handed people.

So it was a noble plan to make left handers in right handers.  Maybe it was Grade 4
where the attempt was made at first.  That made me feel like I was some kind of 
freak.  Then the policy was changed.  It suddenly all right to be left handed if I might
say it this way.  (i.e. the right means correct…if that is so then what does  the word
left mean?  Left is sinister…wrong, dangerous, threatening, odd, etc.)

Sports were for right handed people I came to believe.  In baseball I was usually
assigned to centre field and feared when the ball was hit my way.  “Please do
not hit a high fly to me,” I prayed.   When that happened I had to try and
catch the ball with my left handed mitt…then transfer the ball to my right hand…
then throw off the right handed mitt…then transfer the ball to my left hand…then
throw the ball .  By that time the runner was heading for third base and even
home plate.  

If choosing players for a team, I would  not be chosen…at least not  chosen
first.   Maybe alone at the last.  

In Grade Ten, things changed.   I did join the junior football team at high school.
Why?  My brother, right handed, had joined the Bantams was one reason.  The
other reason was that I came to believe that girls like football.  And I liked girls a lot.
I know now that
this chauvinistic  belief was false.  Girls do not give a sweet goddamn about football.
They do however like boys, especially when boys reach Grade Ten and are not longer
considered fools.  The best way to see and  meet boys was to cheer the football team.
Well that is an overstatement but is something i came to believe.

Our coach, Fred Burford, was a born leader of men.  He was tough and knew where 
each  man (boy) could serve the team best.  What would he do with me?

“Skeoch, you will be a left guard.”
(Perfect, he knows my handicap).
“Second String left guard.:
(Perfect, I will sit on the bench sidelines for the game but still be on the team.)

Every game we played that year I was nervous.  Afraid that coach Burford would
send me forward into the offensive huddle.   Afraid i would fail him in some way
or other.   I was not alone on the second string bench.  Jim Romaniuk, my good
friend, set beside me.  He was the second or third string quartrerback and also
fine on the bench.  

Then one game…A real game against another high school…there was a need
for a second string left guard.  The coach turned around.  Jim Romaiuk pointed at me…
Coach Burford said, “You Skeoch, get on the field”   God, I wished  I had not
been chosen as I flip flopped my way to the huddle.  Flip flopped because my
football shoes (called Spikes, because they had aluminum stubs on the soles…spikes)
..my football shoes were the last handed out.  The worst in other words.  Split in
half between heel and sole.  

Once in the huddle I hope and prayed the fullback would dive into the right side
of the line.  And most often he did.  Right wins more than left.  Thankfully.

I know this is all Greek to those of you who have never played football. Let me
just point out that the boys (men) on the line have a job to do.  They must
use their strength  to punch a hole in the line that the ball carrier can run
through…usually squeeze through…before the defensive players can bring him
down to ground like a wild steer at a rodeo.

Yes, football is a violent game.  Boys and men flinging themselves at each other.
Force against force.  A victor and a loser.  

“Your job is to delay the attackers…give the halfback or fullback a chance to 
make some yardage.   That means putting your body in between the ball carrier
and the attacking team.  Now, listen closely, this is what you must do.”

And coach Burford had precise instructions which I remember now clearly
nearly 70 years later.

Marjorie has set aside a football corner in our farm house…in jeopardy of being taken over
by hats.



1) Drop into a three point stance.  Hand in front, both legs bent.
Legs must be bent to give you the force necessary.  Straight legs
are useless.  No leverage.
2) When  ball is snapped you launch your body.  Raise your hand to
your chest so that your shoulder is as large as possible. Do that fast.
So doing increases the impact.
3) Point your head into the hole.  Very important to do this.  Your 
head should be in the hole.  Less chance of attacker getting around you.
4) Keep legs bent … use short choppy steps to get as much force
as possible.   
5) Do not grab the attacker.  No holding.  But try to push him aside.
6) Spearing!  Do not spear with your head.   That also applies to
tackling when you play defence.  Never hit with your head.  Use
your head.

The coach spent more time with the backfield and particularly the
quarterback who was the brain central of the team. But everyone
had a role.   Even the lowly left guard like me.  I was part of the 
team.  My task was clear.  I was on the left.  My job was to knock
people down or, at the very least, stop them from getting our
quarterback, fullback or halfback.

My brother became a right end.  He could race down the field and
possibly receive a pass from the quarterback.  He had one of the
glory positions.  To any observer I was likely invisible.  Part of the
great pileup of bodies that happened on every play.  Fine by me.
I was part of the team.  I had a team sweater….#55 for my whole
career.

PUTTING ME IN MY PLACE…NEAR THE BOTTOM

A crisis developed at one game.  The quarterback had forgotten 
his spikes…his football shoes.  Coach Bruford called us all together.
“Boys, I need a volunteer, a person to give up his spikes so our
quarterback can play.”  For the good  of the  team I raised my hand.
“Not yours, Skeoch, they are split in two.”  A grand gesture, spurned.

And on another occasion when I was very nervous I began to whistle.
“Who is whistling?” asked the Coach.  I raised my hand.  “Come over here and stand up
on the bench.”  He pointed at me standing there.  “This boy was whistling.
He was showing overconfidence. That is how we could lose games.
There will be no whistling on this team.”  I was mortified…humiliated in
front of all the boys.  Later, when I got to know Coach Bruford well
I realized he was looking for a way to get the team pepped up for the game.
My whistling was the way.  Not a good experience for me.  I still
whistle when in trouble.

MY BEST FRIENDS 

Most of my best friends through life have been members of the
various football teams to which I belonged.  Most of them were
linemen like me.  Here I think of Russ Vanstone, Eddie Jackman,
Gord Sanford, Jim Romaniuk.   The glory boys of the early teams
did not even know our names.  But we knew each other.

By Grades 11, 12 and 13,  I made first string left guard.
In high school I was  nervous before each game.  I wondered
how the other boys felt.  Most seemed confident…free from nerves.
Nervousness was not a bad thing.  I took the games very 
seriously lest i let Coach Burford down.  Not that I was sure
he noticed me…or even knew my first name.  I was Skeoch, Left Guard.

THE STORY OF ‘WRONG WAY CUSH’

Tension was part of the game.   But there was always humour as  well such
as the case of ‘Wrong way Cush’.  He got that nickname for a reason.
Cush intercepted a pass from the enemy quarterback which should have
made him into a hero.  Had Cush run the right way…i.e. towards the other
team’s goal posts, he would have been cheered.  But he did not.  He got confused
and ran towards  our goal posts.  “Wrong Way Cush” could have scored  a 
touchdown against his own team.  Everyone on the bench screamed  “Wrong
Way, Cush!” as loud as they could.  He thought they were cheering.  I don’t 
remember how he was  stopped…perhaps tackled to the ground by our own
players.  He got that nickname, however, and that name stuck.’Wrong Way
Cush’.  Wouldn’t it be nice if he read this story.  Still famous  after 65 years.
 
BOYS DO GET HURT…BADLY

DON PHILLIPS…CONCUSSION

Players  get hurt in the game.  Some injuries do not surface until
later in life.  Some surface right away.  Like the concussion that
caused Don Phillips to suddenly go into convulsions one lunch hour
while we were in a team chalk talk with coach Burford.  During football
season the team met every launch hour in Coach Burford’s room
to plan our attacks on other schools.  Very intense meetings.  Piles
of special mimeographed plays studied  such as the famous ‘double reverse’.

When Don Phillips started to pound his desk I turned around
shocked that he would interrupt Coach Burford.   What I saw was
shocking.  His body was twitching.  His mouth foaming and head rolling.
Involuntary muscles working at cross purposes.  

“Stand back, boys”, and Coach Burford put a ruler across Donnie’s
mouth so he would not bite his tongue i reasoned.   We never 
saw Don again.  Word was spread that the fit was caused by
a pre-existing condition.  I never really believed that..  Don used
his head in tackling practice I seemed to remember.

There was a tendency not to blame the sport for the injuries. Shy?
Reflected poorly on the game.

ERIC SKEOCH…MUD SPIKE IN CALF MUSCLE

Another injury that upset me was when we were playing s game
in the mud in the east end.  To get better purchase on muddy ground
some boys changed their spikes.  Unscrewed the  nubs of aluminum
and replaced them with longer stiletto spikes.  That gave them more purchase
in the mud.   Mud spikes  became illegal later
but not until after Eric, my brother, got spiked at Millen Stadium.
I remember that gruesome spike hole in his calf filled to the top
with mud.   Actually made me feel weak.  Rather than revenge I
wanted to sit down.  We finished the game.  No one knew how bad
Eric was hurt until Dr. Greenaway cleaned out the hole that 
evening.  The wound was so serious that the doctor gave me instrictions

“Take this needle.  If Eric goes into a spell tonight then ram
in the needle.”  It was a huge thing.  And I would have to face 
the thing and ram it in then push the valve.  Never had to do it
though.  Eric did not get a serous infection and a couple of
weeks later he was back with the  team battling our way to 
the championship.

ROGER PUGH…KICK IN THE FACE

Roger Pugh did something I found problematic.  He took the full force
of the enemy kicker full in his face.  Part of our job on defence was to try
and get the kicker before he got the kick away.  Roger did this by placing
his face in direct line with the ascending foot of the kicker.  He got a
kick in the face.  And he got a reward.  Coach Burford congratulated Roger
as if he was a war hero placing his life in jeopardy for the sake of his country.
I thought this was more an accident than deliberate.  Coach Burford
praised it as a deliberate act that we might try to replicate.  If I got a kick in the
face it would certainly be an accident.  Then, a year or so later, I  pulled a
‘Roger Pugh’ by making an excellent shoe string tackle with one hand in
a cast and my finger held together by wire and pins.  Coach Burford was
as surprised as I was.  He gave me a compliment.  “Nice Tackle, Skeoch’.
Why was I even on the field in such condition?  Because I wanted to be there
with the team.  Why did Coach Burford allow me on the field?  Because he did not’
know about my operation.  But he also knew that heroics
 burned very deep in the teen-age mind.  I guess.
I really hoped a couple of girls were watching.  They were not.

MOM…ELSIE SKEOCH…TOLD ERIC’S HEAD WAS NOW LOBSIDED

We, Eric and I, developed a kind of sick humour playing football.
Like the time we came home from a game with Russ Vanstone driving
his father’s magnificent 1954 Chevrolet.  

Normally a  football helmet is perfectly round.  Designed to cradle a human skull.  A face mask
it attached to prevent facial injuries.


Now imagine this helmet split in two … only held together by the face mask.  Think of yourself as our mother, Elsie Skeoch, 
when she was told  Eric had been hurt in a football game.  Would you scream?   A bad joke.



“Let’s have some fun with Mom, Eric. You come upstairs later than me.”
“How was the game, boys?” mom greeted me.
“Eric had an accident.”
Whereupon I rolled his smashed helmet across the stair landing…it was cracked
open and oblong rather than smooth and round.  Russ had backed his car
over Eric’s helmet after the game.

“OH, DEAR”  mom screamed.  Which we thought was hilarious.  Of course, mom
could have had a heart attack.  That would not be funny.   Unlikely though, mom
had a tough constitution and expected some rough spots in life.  After all, she loved
a husband who was unpredictable at the best of times.  Sometimes truth was difficult
to ascertain.  Her boys had that same tendency.

THIS LEADS TO THE INJURY THAT CHANGED MY LIFE…MY LITTLE FINGER

Coach Burford taught all the lineman another way to take out an attacker.  It was
called the ‘cross body block’ which involved throwing your body at right angles
to an outside corner backer who was about to tackle your ball carrying half back.
The block amounted to nearly six feet of a lineman’s body blunting the attack by
a corner backer.  Very effective.  I enjoyed doing cross body blocks and got very
good at it.  Always got close enough that it was my hip that knocked down the corner 
linebacker.  Great fun.  

Then things went terribly wrong.  Such a silly injury but bad enough to change my life
irrevocably.  When  throwing a cross body block I always landed spread eagled on the
ground.  No problem, we were padded from head to toe.  Except for our hands.
On that particular day I landed, perhaps in pile with the outside corner backer.
My hand was on the ground and our own fullback ran over it.  Crushed it sort of.

The tip of my little left finger was broken.  

To those of you reading this story that injury must seem minor, especially after
reading about Donnie Phillips concussion and Eric Skeoch’s torn and mud filled
calf muscle.  Or Roger Pugh’s kick in the face. Or even the horror story we told mother about Eric’s imaginary 
head injury.

Minor Indeed!   That ilttle finger injury changed my life in so many ways
which I will describe in Part Two.  

Suffice to say that I could now know the difference between right ant left.
When someone says “Look over on your left” or “Turn left here” or “look
at that girl over on the left side of the street”.    i immediately touch my
little broken finger.  That is my left.  There is still a bit of a time lag but nothing
like there used to be.


This is  my left hand.  I know that now because I can touch where it was broken.

alan skeoch
Sept. 2020





 (Alan Skeoch — alan.skeoch@rogers.com) 
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EPISODE 121 VIOLENCE THEME: PRINCE OF DARKNESS : WHY I HATE GUNS

EPISODE 121   VIOLENCE THEME:   PRINCE OF DARKNESS

(why I hate guns)

alan skeoch
Sept. 2020




Dad Startled us one Christmas when I was  15 and Eric 14.   He bought us a Red Ryder  BB gun.
That was the only Christmas present he had ever bought us and he used the usual scam…i..e He put
a dollar downpayment and left the rest to us.  Or, rather, to mom since I do not remember how the financing
was resolved.

The gun had a very short life…one day and it died ignominiously smashed against the Manitoba Maple in our back yard.
That one day still embarrasses me now that I am 82.  What an asshole I could be at times.  If you judge my seeming Voltaire
like innocence as some kind of fairy tale Prince of Light marvelling at the world around him.  Then you are not getting
the true picture.  I am also a Prince of Darkness who has  done things of which I am not around.  The BB gun caper is my best example.




Dad set himself up as an example of proper BB gun behaviour that Christmas Eve, 1954.  We opened  the paper bag 
and found the new gun.  Mom frowned.  She loved her husband but could not always control him.  She had no idea
he bought this ‘dollar down’ Red Ryder special.  Mom disliked guns.  “Give me one god reason why we should
have a gun,” she said.

Dad took the gun right away and set himself up as a sniper in our little second floor kitchen.  “Leave the goddamn light out.”
The window was small.  Just enough room for mom to hang out the clothes to dry on the revolving clothes line.  There was
a clothespin pocket on the line where mom forced dad to keep his Limburger cheese.  Strong stuff.  Maybe his cigars as
well…White Owl Invincibles that he could only smoke outside the house.  Best lit boldly at the racetrack. Lit at home slyly
in the back yard only.   So dad was familiar
with the little window located high above the back fence.  Perfect sniper eyrie.

Our cat Tinker was a bit of a loose woman, so to speak.  She had lots of lovers when she came in heat.  Other families
had their pets ‘fixed’, something we could not afford or, more accurately, something of which Tinker disapproved.
A couple of Tom Cats made the mistake of serenading Tinker that evening.  They got a stinging BB for their efforts.
IF he even hit one.  Long distance from kitchen window to back fence.

Christmas Day 1954 or  might have been1955.  That day we went to the farm likely by Gray Coach bus since we did
not have a car.  Uncle Frank met us at the Fifth line  with his team of horses and the big bob sleigh or with his well used
Model A Ford that smelled of cattle dung.

Eric and  I took turns carrying the BB Gun … as if it was some kind of sacred artifact.  As the oldest I got the  first
shot out between the house and the barn.

“Eric, walk about fifty feet away and keep you bum facing me. We’ll see if
a BB can sting you through your breeks”

“Yow!  That hurt, Alan.”

  I think that act of stupidity was the moment Eric lost confidence  in  me as  an older brother…as  a mentor…
as someone worthy of admiration .

About that time our cousin Ted Freeman arrived in a decrepit Model T Ford that George Johnson had got working.
Not a top of the line model.  More like a car en route to the scrap yard but out for one more time.
Eric and I hopped in the back.  I had the gun.   

Here  is how  I used it.

1) As we drove down the Fifth line I took pot shots at drive shed and barn stable windows.   
Seemed like fun.  George and  Ted must have been flabbergasted.   Word went up snd down
the line afterward and I did pay for a few windows I think.  Not sure because I tried to wipe the
memory.

2) Walking back to Grandma snd Granddad’s farm after George headed home I was pleased to
see Angus McEchern passing  by with his red half ton. “Watch this, Eric!”  I raised the gun
and  took one shot at the back window of the truck.  Angus put on the brakes. Got out.
Looked at the little round hole in his window.   He did not say a word.

How could I be so stupid?   The amazing part was that I was forgiven.  Some of the 
talk on the line  must have gone like this,  “Did  you hear what that city boy Skeoch
did on Christmas Day.  City people  don’t know any better, they live in a jungle.”

That night, when we caught the Gray Coach Bus back to Toronto the BB gun
met its demise.  Smashed  against our Manitoba Maple.

Eric came out of the adventure as pure  and honest as the driven  snow.
…with a little red mark on his bum.   I had to do a lot of apologizing
…but I was forgiven.   Dad?  No one snitched on him.   Payment?
I think mom put up the rest of the money owed on the gun.

alan skeoch
Sept/   2020






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VIOLENCE THEME: SHORT PERIOD OF PURE TERROR AT 120 MPH

EPISODE 121    SHORT PERIOD OF PURE TERROR AT 120 MPH


(120 mph is a guesstimate)

alan skeoch
Sept. 2020

BELOW are three 1954 pictures of the Oldsmobile 88.  The first picture was included
because of the girl.   Sexy.   Bill’s Olds 88 was black as I remember.












Bill Mashtalar was the biggest boy in our Grade 8 class picture.  I never knew him
really well but did consider him one of my friends.  His parents were Polish and
lived in a grand home a few blocks away.  They must have had good jobs
because the bought a big brand new Oldsmobile 88 about the time Bill and
I were in Grade Eleven.

“Alan, do you want to go for a ride?”
‘In your new car?”
“Of course, just got my licence…we could go down
to High Park and see what’s happening at night.”
“How?”
“The Oldsmobile has a search light on it…we can sneak up on
lovers and catch them in the sudden beam…should be fun.”
“Dangerous?”
“Nah!  They’ll think we’re cops.”

Now the idea did not particularly appeal to me at the time
but I was reticent to refuse since this was a big moment for
Bill…getting his licence and all.   So away we went in the
darkness of a fall evening.  Maybe ten o’clock.  About the
right time for sexual activity to be at a peak.

Bill drove slowly.  Low beams.  Until he spotted a car
pulled off the roadway in High Park.  Well off the roadway
and therefore a likely candidate for the spotlight beam.

Bill slowed down, switched off his low beams…crept up to
where the target had left the road and then BOOM…
on came the hand held searchlight…soon focused
on the suspect.

Not lovers.  A bunch of guys drinking.

“What the fuck!  You bastards!”…A string of solid obscenities
direct our way.
These guys did not think we were cops.
“Quick, let’s get the bastards!”…and  four or five guys leapt
into their car and slammed it into reverse.

They wanted to get us…and it was our fault.  If caught,
the result would not be pretty.

The chase was on.  Bill switched on the lights and
accelerated as much as was possible on the High
Park road. Down by Howard  House with its cannon aimed
out at imaginary invaders.  Hard right turn onto the Queensway
then a left fn right onto Lakeshore.


The QEW was open at night…clear running…and the Olds 88 was opened up full throttle.  This pictures shows
the QEW at rush hour in 1954.   



“We’ll get on the QEW.  Speed up…”
“They are right behind us.”
“Pray we have green lights to the QEW…we cannot stop.”

We were lucky…all green.  We sped up he QEW ramp…accelerating.
No traffic.  “Where are they now?”
“Right behind us…catching up.”
“I’ll open her up…”   Speeding…90…100…110…heading
for 120 mph.  Fast and getting faster.

“Where are they now?”
“Dropping back…Lucky we have this Olds.”
“Where will we go?”
“Beyond Highway 27…maybe as far as Highway 10, Port Credit.”

“How will we get home?”
“Slow…Lakeshoe Road and side streets “
“Maybe up to Bloor…then home.”

Tail between our legs…
We got home.  Exhausted.  Not much to say to each
other.  Really embarrassed and lucky.

So I have always had a softs spot for those Oldsmobile’s…88’s
and 98’s.  

Now long gone.

alan skeoch
Sept. 2020

P.S. There were others in the car but I cannot remember who
they were.  We were all shaken.  We were not fighters.




Posted on

EPISODE 120 VIOLENCE THEME: SOMEONE WANTED TO BEAT THE SHIT OUT OF ME. WHY? REMAINS A MYSTERY

EPISODE 120   VIOLENCE THEME:     SOMEONE WANTED TO BEAT THE SHIT OUT OF ME.  WHY?  REMAINS A MYSTERY 


VIOLENCE:  CAN FRIENDS BECOME ENEMIES?


OUR Graduation class from Runnymede Public School in 1952.   Wow, were the girls every pretty.  I began to notice them
in Grade 6 which may have been a little early.  See Joan McReynolds (third left). I liked her but never said so or even acted
interested.  I am third right, back row. That’s our grade 8 teacher, Mr. Hambly, who invited us all to his home
on a beautiful June afternoon.   Some of us felt a little guilty about firing paper caps into his prize wasp nest when his
back was turned.  He was a very nice person.   The big guy is Bill Mashtalar (story coming…close call violence years 
later).

My student ID card from 1954…it was three years  earlier that the threats came.   Why would anyone want to beat me up?
Should I go to WESTERN Tech or just pretend the threat never came?



My three years at Runnymede  Public school were happy years.  Grades 6,7 and 8. Non-violent years
except
for the trick jump into Roger Pughs back yard. But that only worked  once.  When we 
did a vault over the board fence there was a drop of eight or nine feet that we could
not see.  Nasty drop.  Fun to persuade a novice to “:Follow us”.Good joke.  Unprepared
follower went into a free fall with no parachute.  We knew the trick and  landed on our
feet. Potentially violent I suppose.

My first few months  at Humberside Collegiate were not great.  Culminated in
a potentially violent fight that I was destined to lose.  Someone knew my locker
number.  One day my text books were loaded with indelible ink obscenities like
“Fuck Off” “Asshole”, etc.  I was devastated because I did not know I was hated
by someone until that moment.  The only person knowing my combination lock number was one of my
good friends.  We shared the locker.   He was the only possible source.  Why would he do that?  Later that week
there was a scribbled note in my shared locker. “Come  over to Western Tech
after school.  Someone wants to fight you.”  I know this note does not sound like
much of  a threat but put yourself in the shoes of a non violent kid, in a brand new 
school, suddenly confronting anonymous enemies that wanted to beat the shit out
of him for no discernible reason.   I still do not know who hated me that much.
Nor why.
That’s a laugh.  But it will affect your lungs…left unsaid.


It was  possible the cigarette incident triggered the hatred.  But that is a  stretch.
The First week at Humberside I walked to school with Bill Rankin and Bob Taylor.
Friends.  They stopped at the Ravine Gardens hockey rink to light up cigarettes
before school.  “Try it, Alan…get some cigarettes”  So  I stole three Craven A
cigarettes from Fran’s pack at Hertell’s drug store where I was a clerk earning
35 cents an hour.  Fran would not care but I did not want anyone to know i was
starting to smoke.  So next day I lit up the Craven A with Bob and Bill.  I remember
the moment so  clearly.  As I dragged the smoke in my lungs I thought, “What the
hell am I doing this for?”  And I threw away the cigarette then gave my extra 
stollen cigarettes to Bob and Bill.  We did  not share much after that.  They both
left high school in Grade Ten.  Our friendship evaporated with the smoke.
Maybe Bill resented me for some reason.  He was also my locker partner.

Did I go over to Wetsern Tech to get the shit beaten out of me?  Get serious.
I stayed put.  Never found out who had been ticketed to beat the shit out
of me  but suspected several erstwhile friends.  Maybe not Bill as he said
he others knew our combination.  Odd Comment though. There was no follow up to the threat.
And I began looking for new friends.  Found them.  Russ Vanstone,
Gord Sanford and Jim  Romaniuk.   Friends for life.  

alan skeoch
Sept. 2020

Posted on

EPISODE 119 PORCUPINE AND LAST SHOT OF THE 22 CALIBRE RIFLE

EPISODES 119  PORCUPINE AND LAST SHOT OF THE 22 CALIBRE RIFLE.

alan skeoch
Sept 2020
I know this is a summertime picture.  Imagine no leaves and an icy day in
midwinter.


The older I got the more guns I saw. Especially on visits to the farm.
It seemed every teen ager used guns and  loved hunting just for
the thrill of the kill.  Groundhogs were the most common  target because
there were so many digging up farm fields. Now there are hardly any.  None
on our farm.  None on the fields of the fifth line.  In  1950 they were as common
as hen’s teeth and therefore worth killing it seemed.   

Porcpines, however, were rare.  And I thought they were protected. i.e. not to
be shot.

One winter  day, however, I ran breathlessly back to my Grandparents farm house.
“Granddad there’s a porcupine in the big pine deep in the back swamp.”
His response startled and unsettled me.  “Wait until I get the gun. Then we
will go back to the bush and get him.”   I did not want to do that.  I loved
the discovery of a live creature high in a tree.   

Granddad was old by then and  had to walk with help of a crutch.  He did
not get out of the farm house much in the winter unless they needed firewood
from the pile back near the pump.  So this was exciting for him.  Not for me.
We hobbled our way to the back bush.   I hoped the porcupine had moved off
but it was still there.  High up.  “Have you used a rifle before, Alan?”
“No.”  “Well this is a chance to learn…aim and shoot.” (22 calibre  single shot rifle)
I aimed and deliberately missed a couple of shots.  Granddad would not give 
up so my third sot was a killer shot.  “You hit him…but he’s not dead…you will
have to climb the tree to get him down.”




What an ordeal.  I climbed the tree easily but as I got close to the porcupine
blood began dripping onto me.  Felt terrible.  With a stick I tried to knock him
out of the tree but no luck.  Some Porcupine quills fell on me as well as the blood.
No luck.  Left him there and we hobbled back through the snow
to the farm house.  Defeated.  I think he was disappointed in me.  

The next week there was word goiing up and down the farm line about dogs
getting into tussles with porcupines.   Quills stuck in their muzzles.   Both Granddad
and I kept our mouths shut.  This was no doubt my porcupine who finally died
in the tree and  fell to the ground.   I felt a lot of guilt.

After granddad  died the 22 rifle was  part of  our inheritance.  Mom hid it.
When she died the rifle was supposed to go to our boys, Kevin and Andrew. 
Instead  Marjorie insisted we give it to the OPP for destruction.  End  of the rifle

Posted on

EPISODE 118 VIOLENCE IN MY LIFE, PART TWO. THE KILLING FLOOR

Note:  Another warning…do not read if sensitive like I was (and am)


EPISODE 118   VIOLENCE IN MY LIFE, PART TWO:   THE KILLING FLOOR


alan skeoch
Sept 2020

My brother Eric with old Betsy, our shared woman’s bicycle…taken just before we moved
from 18 Sylvan Avenue



Mom really feared my brother and  I would be drawn into the mini gang climate
of Dufferin Park in the late 1940’s.   We, my brother Eric and I, knew that was very
unlikely.   We lived in our own world of make believe and found that very satisfying.
Especially when we found the barrels.  

Some importer on Dufferin Street was shipped his goods from the far east in huge 
hand made wooden barrels  with wooden hoops.  Once emptied they were free for
the taking so we rolled several…two or three..across  the park to the tin clad garage
at the back of our rented flat at 18 Sylvan Avenue.  Our landlady, Mrs. Southwick, did
not seem to care that we were creating a make believe world in that garage.

We set the barrels up vertically then cut holes in the sides so that a one room barrel
hideout became a three room barrel hideout.  Inside we put treasures found nearby
like the wooden parts of old pianos from the piano factory or, better still, the so called
weapons of gang warfare…pipes, knives, clubs.   Two throwaway items were not
collected.  Used safes, by then  we knew what they were.  And broken beer bottles with’
long necks.  These beer bottles with long shard necks for hand grips and  shards of
lethal glass ready  for action.  An easy weapon.  just smash a long necked beer bottle
on a rock.  Presto!  A weapon.  

As mentioned earlier I knew this weapon intimately having fallen on one that
had been discarded in the park when Eric, mom and  I were playing Blind Man’s
Bluff.  I still have the stitched up scar on my instep to prove it.

Our fort was grand until discovered by boys of  a rougher nature.  First some 
took a shit in the fort.  Then they braced us once just outside the fort as mentioned
in Part One of this story.   Remember  The incident when I learned my brother
could  be very brave when faced with trouble. That incident was so disgusting that
I will say no more other than to give Eric credit.

Mom decided we must move.  Neither Eric, Dad nor I wanted to move.  We had the huge
park  as our playground.  Dad had Dufferin racetrack across the road.  Convenient
for the three of us.  But mom did not like what was happening. And she was the
leader of our family  The supporter most of the time.  The money earner.   Dad 
was a skilled and  well paid  tire builder but he spent every dime he earned at various
racetracks.  

One day mom’s friend Joyce
Bannon phoned.

“Elsie, the house next door just came up for sale.  It is cheap…$6,000…might
be just what you wanted.”  Low downpayment.  So we  became house owners.  The house was ours.  We lived
upstairs …3 rooms and a tiny kitchen.  Eric and I shared the bedroom with Dad
when he was on night shift…we slept at night, dad slept on days.  Mom slept
on the couch in the middle room with her purse as a pillow to inhibit Dad’s need
for cash at the racetrack.  Imagine, or own house.  A duplex of sorts.

Mr. and Mrs Douglas lived downstairs.  He was a bartender at Spadina and Bloor.
She was a retired prostitute according to whispers.  Wonderful pair of people.
Mrs.  Douglas loved having boys around since she never had any children. They
were quite poor.  Chain smokers because when they died  the walls of the little
duplex were a sticky sickly yellowish brown.  Awful. But good people.

So mom bought 455 Annette Street by putting a small down payment and monthly
mortgage payments of perhaps $100,   I do not know how she did it on the money
earned as a garment sweatshop worker.  She was smart. That’s for sure.

HALCYON DAYS…NEW HOUSE

For Eric  and I these months and years at our own home were our halcyon years.
Yes, we joined or formed a gang.  We patrolled the streets of our territory
down Gilmour Avenue to Runnymede Public School.  A gang!  Did I say
a gang?  We were a bunch of pansies.   Instead of fighting we sang.  What a 
bunch  of losers.  A gang that sang.   “Heart of  My Heart,  Lazy River, etc.”
Not a minute of violence.   

I suspect readers would rather hear about violence rather than sweetness and light.
So suffice it to say we had good things happen to us most of the time at our
new home.  Cub scouts, Boy Scouts, Rover Scouts, Presbyterian Youth, even
a short stint in a choir for me.  A longer stint for Eric whose voice must have been
more angelic.  All that and  more.

THEN ONE VERY DARK DAY :  VIOLENCE ON THE KILLING FLOOR

STOP READING HERE…IF YOU ARE SENSITIVE





Violence came though.  From a most unexpected source.  So violent that it was
almost wiped out of my memory until I began writing this story.

The  worst violence came from a kind of  do gooder from the YMCA.  Mom registered
me with the High Park summer outdoor program in the summer of 1950.  Seemed OK but not
great.  I could put up with it.  Until..until…until…the horror day arrived.   My do gooder
leader, probably just a teen ager, ran out of things to do with his assigned boys
so he got imaginative.

“How would you like to go on a field trip to the slaughter house?”
“Where?”
“St. Clair and  Keele…Canada  Packers.”
“Raise your hands if you would like to go.”
(Hands must have been raised…not mine…I did not like the word ‘slaughter’
and was confused by the word ‘packers’.  What is an abattoir? All the other boys were excited 
by the idea.   Yes,  I mean all.  So away we went.)

Right away we were led to the gallery above the cattle killing floor.  High up
so we could see the whole process.
If I had been hit by  a ten ton truck I think I would have been more shocked.

“The cattle are led up the ramp by a Judas goat. See it there.”  (seems the 
traitorous creature was a goat in my memory but it could have been a cow.)

“The lead cattle are stunned by a bolt action hammer…breaks their skulls…maybe
kills them.  Then a chain is wrapped  around their back feet and up they go on
the moving line.  First the throats  are cut that’s why the killing floor is covered
in blood…the twitching is just nerves, the animals are dead…”

I was so horrified by what I saw  that this is the first time in my life I have ever
spoken or written about it.   I am not sure readers could take the full story.  I
moved to the back of the boys. Most of them crowded along the rail actually
enjoying what they were seeing.  Perhaps some were faking.   I hope some 
were faking.  It was hell.  I knew  at that moment what hell must look like even
though I did not believe in hell.  

I could not move.  Closed my eyes.  Behaved  like a pansy I suppose.  Would
we ever leave this insane place?

Who are those men with the long knives on the killing floor?  I mean who would
take such  a job?  (There is an easy answer to that.  Most we’re New Canadians…immigrants)

Men Sloshing through the blood. ..cutting, carving.  Will it never end.  Must i keep
my eyes open?

“Next we will go to the hog slaughter floor.  that is  done a little differently. Follow
me.”

“Did our councillor say ‘Next’?  What could be worse than what I am seeing
below me.  Stop! Now! I must close my eyes….must get out of here…
run, Alan, run…”


I am  not sure how I escaped.  I never got to the hog killing horror.  Somehow I
got out of the place.  Exit signs ,,, fear of a wrong turn. Somehow  I walked home.  Stunned. Trying to block  out
what I had just seen.  I sm shaking now, in September 2020, just recalling that
moment in 1950.

Ever since that moment I have had trouble eating meat.  In The immediate aftermath
I  ate no meat.  For months and months.  I never told mom much  about what
I had  seen.  Not sure I even told  Eric.  That was a horror I have saved for my
82nd  year…2020.  And even now I cannot tell the full story of those cattle moving
along the chain hung from giant hooks as their bodies  were dismembered.  There
I said  it.  At last.


There has never  been violence in my life that comes near in comparison  to the
St. Clair slaughter house…Canada Packers or Swift’s … not sure which.
In later years I came to understand  why one farm family I knew ate lots of peanut
butter and no meat.  They knew what happens to their animals eventually.  Or 
maybe they just liked peanut butter as  I did from that moment on.

Mom’s meals were  often things I would rather not think about like pork hocks and
Head Cheese.  The names disguised the food somewhat.  Mom did not have
a lot of money so she made do with cheaper lines of  meat.  I must have saved
her some money when I  stopped eating meat.  

Stopping was not so easy.  Meat was a staple…part of most meals and
sometimes hard to resist.  I loved meat pies for instance even though
a look at the contents below the crust was disquieting.  Chunks of meat…perhaps
not the nicest cuts.   



Time was a great cure.  It was  possible to relegate the memory of that killing floor
to the back burner of my brain.  The older I got the less I thought about it.
This is the first time I have put in words that horrible experience.  Even now
that is not an easy thing to do.   I have spared my  readers by not going into
the detail of what I saw with those long knives.



Gutless, some of you are saying no doubt.  And it was true.  I was gutless…scared…and  scarred for life.

alan skeoch
Sept 2020

P>S>  When Dad retired he took a short job st the St. Claire stock yards organizing the cattle unloaded  daily from farm
stock yard truck, one of which was driven by Bob Root’s father strangely enough.  Dad’ stock yard
job did not last long.  He had to climb s stock yard pen fast when an animal went mad and charged him.
He got another part time job in a liquor store afterwards.

My good friend  in High school, Jim Romaniuk, had a father who spoke only broken English and fluent Ukrainian.  He worked in one of
the slaughter house at St. Clair and Keele, perhaps on the killing floor although I doubt it as he was such a gentle kind of msn.  Then
again he had trouble with English and had to take whatever jobs he could find.



P.S. The stock yards peaked in 1977 and began a rapid decline thereafter until it closed February 10, 1994. Redevelopment began with Home Depot, the first of the “big box” stores to locate on the stock yards site and the CPR shops. A new stock yard was established near Cookstown a small community north of Toronto without any rail service which was no longer required. Following a corporate takeover, Canada Packers closed, the property was levelled and eventually redeveloped with housing. (D/R Macdonald, The Stockyard  Story)


COMING EPISODE 119  VIOLENCE IN MY LIFE, PART 3   WHEN FRIENDS BECOME ENEMIES

EPISODE 120  VIOLENCE IN MY LIFE, PART 4    FOOTBALL CHANGED EVERYTHING



Posted on

Fwd: EPISODE 117 tracked by a snapping turtle

Error…story should bee 117


Begin forwarded message:


From: ALAN SKEOCH <alan.skeoch@rogers.com>
Subject: EPISODE 117 tracked by a snapping turtle
Date: September 13, 2020 at 11:10:23 PM EDT
To: Alan Skeoch <alan.skeoch@rogers.com>, Marybeth Skeoch <northerndiva5@yahoo.com>, John Wardle <jwardle@rogers.com>


EPISODE  117   TRACKED BY  A SNAPPING TURTLE


alan skeoch
Sept. 2020

There is much to be  said  about that sixth sense we have on occasions.
I was binding soybeans plants into sheaves for possible movie
decor  when I got the feeling there was something behind me. Really.
So I turned around.  Nothing.  I was all alone.

But wait.  What is that black dot on the trail.  That dot was not there
five minutes ago for that was the trail  I had just used.  Black dot?





Yep.  I was being followed by this big snapping turtle.  Or maybe I was  just in his or her way.
The snapper had no intention of hiding or escaping.  The turtle stayed on the path and expected
me to move.  Which I did.


Many scientists believe we are in the midst of the sixth great extinction of life on earth.  There have been five before ours. (if ours is true).
The snapping turtles have survived extinctions in the past and they may survive  this sixth extinction.  We may not.

The sixth extinction, by the way, has been caused by us….not by a meteor or a sudden volcanic explosion.  We are doing it.
Maybe we can stop it but we have to change our behaviour.  



Meanwhile back at base camp #1, Marjorie was harvesting weeds…keeping
the place ship shape.  And  Woody was with her….



Woody was in the swamp.  He never  goes over his head.





I think these bundles of soybeans will be good decor for a movie set once the leaves
fall off.  


My plan is to reorganize the green house…make it accessible.  After the soybean sheaves have dried.  And  before movie set material
…carts, work benches, stools, tobacco, flax…etc. etc….before all that stuff comes back.

alan skeoch
Sept 2020


Posted on

EPISODE 116 tracked by a snapping turtle

EPISODE  116   TRACKED BY  A SNAPPING TURTLE


alan skeoch
Sept. 2020

There is much to be  said  about that sixth sense we have on occasions.
I was binding soybeans plants into sheaves for possible movie
decor  when I got the feeling there was something behind me. Really.
So I turned around.  Nothing.  I was all alone.

But wait.  What is that black dot on the trail.  That dot was not there
five minutes ago for that was the trail  I had just used.  Black dot?





Yep.  I was being followed by this big snapping turtle.  Or maybe I was  just in his or her way.
The snapper had no intention of hiding or escaping.  The turtle stayed on the path and expected
me to move.  Which I did.


Many scientists believe we are in the midst of the sixth great extinction of life on earth.  There have been five before ours. (if ours is true).
The snapping turtles have survived extinctions in the past and they may survive  this sixth extinction.  We may not.

The sixth extinction, by the way, has been caused by us….not by a meteor or a sudden volcanic explosion.  We are doing it.
Maybe we can stop it but we have to change our behaviour.  



Meanwhile back at base camp #1, Marjorie was harvesting weeds…keeping
the place ship shape.  And  Woody was with her….



Woody was in the swamp.  He never  goes over his head.





I think these bundles of soybeans will be good decor for a movie set once the leaves
fall off.  


My plan is to reorganize the green house…make it accessible.  After the soybean sheaves have dried.  And  before movie set material
…carts, work benches, stools, tobacco, flax…etc. etc….before all that stuff comes back.

alan skeoch
Sept 2020
Posted on

episode 116 VIOLENCE IN MY LIFE

Note:  You may be sick of this biography.  Fine.  Don’t read it.  Simple.  


EPISODE 116   VIOLENCE IN MY LIFE  Part One


Sometimes  my imagination takes over in my life.  Memory can be faulty but always contains
a kernel of truth or perhaps some events are so shocking that they get locked into our brains
and are easy  to recall.  In this picture I must be eight years old.  Visiting our grandparents
farm which was a very safe place to be in the turbulent 1940’s.


What you see here is  not remotely connected to my real world.  This picture was taken in 
western Alaska  in 1959 when an  American Mining company armed  our crew with 30-06
rifles in case we were attacked by Kodiak  bears.  We never carried the rifles  Just stacked
them where the helicopter dropped us.  There was no need for violence against the bears…
their guts were stuffed  with dead  or dying salmon.  Playing guns  as  a child had no 
connection  with playing guns as an  adult.  Two different worlds that did  not cross.



alan skeoch
sept  2020

Violence is something I have tried to avoid all my life.  I just thought about that
this morning while wrapped around Marjorie in our bed.  There are people that
admire violence and try to replicate it in their daily life.  I know that. I have seen
that.  I have been the receiver of violence on a few rare occasions.  Most of  the
time I have found ways to avoid violence.  Like running although I cannot find
a  memory of running away from violence.  I just try to avoid violence whenever
such a situation arrives.  ‘Chicken shit’, was once the term.

What in hell’s half acre ever made me think of that this morning?  I have no answer.
But one violent incident came to mind.  Perhaps the incident should be left to the
end of this story.  But I am going to put it at the first.  

University life offered so many things to do other than sit in the library and try
to become an intellectual like Emmanuel Kant.   Or a writer
like Hemingway or Steinbeck.   Or even a poet of folk life like Robert Frost.
Lots  more things to do than read  books in other words.  Best thing was to chase
after Marjorie.  Not the only thing though.

So one day I joined a make up basketball team at Hart House.  Victoria college
boys against University College boys.  Just for fun.  I was  not a basketball star…
can’t even remember ever getting any points in that career.  

We were playing fast.  Running up and  down the floor.  Offence then defence. For some
strange reason a UC kid took offence at one of our players and he hit him with
his  fist.  Our player hit back.  The two of them tumbled and wrestled with lots of
expletives like “You son of a bitch” and “bastard” between blows.  It was not nice
so for some reason I  cannot explain I decided to break up the fight.  To pry them
apart.  To be the peacemaker, a role I admired in the larger world of the United Nations.

Peacemaking did not work.  Instead the UC guy turned on me.  He grabbed  me
by the throat with both hands and began to strangle me.  I remember so clearly
falling to the floor and looking up at  his face.  I knew him.  At least I knew ‘of him’
because his family were famous  lawyers in Toronto.  His face seemed joyful.

He kept pressing on my throat.  Choking me.  For no reason other than the
love of  violence.  How to survive?   I think I faked  passing out…or maybe
I did pass out for a moment.  

I know that memory may seem trivial to any person reading this story but
it was not trivial to me.  What I saw in his face was  a love of violence.
He liked beating people up  That was why he played  basketball on that
winter afternoon at Hart House.  The bible says something about “Blessed
are the peacemakers for they shall inherit’…something or other.  Not true
I realized that day

So this story is going to be about my confrontations with violence in my
82 years of life on this earth.

I have avoided violence all my life except maybe in kindergarten.  Seems I dimly
remember getting pushed  on the stairs at Kent Public School and pushing back
at some other five year old.  A very misty memory.  Reinforced by the fact the
teacher commented the fact to my mother.  A tale I find hard to believe.  My 
only sharp memory of kindergarten was the teacher saying. “All fright children,
time  for your nap, everyone put your heads on the desk.”  And that is hardly
a violent memory.  Seemed stupid to go to school and then fall asleep with my
head  on the desk.  I may have resisted  But I did not rebel.  

Violence was all around me as a youngster.   The larger world of incredible
violence  was World  War II of which my brother and I were largely unaware.
We lived in a climate of  make believe violence for we loved playing ‘guns’
together.   In the winter of 1944 we built a big snow fort on the front lawn of 
18 Sylvan Avenue and then defended imaginary attackers with guns made out
of broomsticks.    This  was not violence nor was it training for violence.  This
was imagination and fun.   Mom took us to the movies regularly where we watched
Slip Mahoney and the Bowery Boys act out silliness.  Then walking home in
the dark on Fall or winter evenings  Eric and I would play ‘guns’ without even
thinking of the deeper meaning of  that foolishness.  I remember being shot
by Eric on one of those nights…imaginary bullet hit me…and I died in a
great dramatic sprawl through a pile of leaves ready to be burned. Lucky
I did not land on some dog turds.  But the drama was great.  Made greater
by a woman  passing by who  really thought I was hurt badly or dead.
Until mom came along saying, “Just the boys playing guns”
We  lived  in a cocoon of non violence at home.  Protected and  secure
and loving.  Made so mostly by mom but reinforced by Dad when the horses
were not running at Dufferin  Racetrack across the park from our house.


Mom  and dad seemed pleased  with having a  baby around.   So they wove a cocoon around me…and later around Eric.


Mom made all our clothes.   She also enriched our imaginations.  Dad was a gambler and the kind of  father
I wished most children could have had.  Eric  and I remember them both with great affection. They protected us.


Eric and I loved playing guns.   It was  an  imaginary world for us.  Occasionally the two worlds  collided  as in this picture taken
at the cannon that protects Howard House in High Park from American invaders.  We  were around  10 or 11 years  old.


Outside the cocoon there was violence.  The real world scared me.  People 
did nasty things to each other in that real world.
It was easy to separate the two  worlds by the way.   Some psychological
whizz bangs will say I am wrong.   Will believe that imagination can be
a learning ground for violence.  Bull shit!

Comfort…security…non-violence.  Encouraged by Grandma and Grandpa Freeman who provided an escape from
the gang warfare we  witnessed in Dufferin Park in the postwar years of the 1940’s


At Kent Public School I could have gotten the shit knocked out of me
were it not for my friend Karl Slalberg.  Karl and his mom lived in a
tiny apartment…two rooms I think…in a house on a street north of Bloor
St.   I know that because his mom had  me over a couple of times.
Karl got into some kind of trouble.  “Juvenile  Delinquent” was the term
used I think.   That mystified  me because he was such a nice kid.  No father
around.   But Karl protected me.  Funny because he must have  been the
same age  as me.  Perhaps Grades 3 or 4 when we were 8 or 9  years old.

“Alan, we could earn a lot of marbles with this cigar box.”
“How?”
“Cut little pieces out … some big, some small…all holes in
which a marble could get through with difficulty.”

“Oh, that game.  The big boys play it every day at recess…lots of
cigar boxes put against the wall.  Get the  marble through the hole
and  win  “Two  for  One” for the big hole or “Five for One” for the little 
hole.  Miss the holes and lose your marble.  Most of us lose our marbles.”

“Right.  So let’s set up our own cigar box.  Win lots of marbles.”

So we did.  Karl got the cigar box ready…cut the holes, wrote numbers
above the holes.  We took our place against the school wall and invited
marble gamblers to take chance.  Big payoff…maybe five to one or higher.
Karl left me in charge of the cigar box often.  One particular time, however,
got ground into my memory.  I stood beside the box and a big guy..maybe
a kid as ancient as ten or eleven years old…this big guy rolled his marble
right into the big pay off hole.  I owed him ten marbles.  Ten marbles!
I had no marbles.  We expected to earn marbles.  We expected  marble
gamblers to lose most of the time.  We expected  to build  up our capital
starting at zero.

“OK, kid, you owe me ten marbles.”
“I can’t.  I have no marbles.”  I said weakly, my knees trembling.
“Pay up!”  he  demanded.  

Then things got really nasty.  Other boys gathered around.  I was about to
be punched when Karl arrived.  He was a great fighter.  An even better threatener.
Nothing happened.   Maybe Karl said he would pay tomorrow or just Karl’s
presence defused  the situation.   I learned a big lesson that day.  A couple of big 
lessons.  First, do not make promises you cannot deliver.  Second, violence
is easy to trigger…harder to reduce.

I know this sounds silly but the memory is clear…75 years after the fact.

I had an even earlier memory of violence.  A memory that today I find hard
to believe.  Did this really happen?  Grade one maybe.  Six or seven years old.
Our nice teacher  gave all of us a cucumber from his  garden.  Male teacher I
seem to recall although that does not matter.  A cucumber.  Small one.  What a
prize.  But how can I get it home for mom?   

Getting home each day was difficult because I had to cross through Dufferin
Park.  That meant crossing the ravine that ran  at right angles blocking the route to our house
In 1944 or 1945.  Our house at 18 Sylvan Avenue was  almost right inside the
park.  It has been demolished now sadly.   Crossing that ravine was like crossing
no man’s land in our imaginary world of cops  and robbers or cowboys  and Indians.
Only this ravine was real and the boys hiding there were very real.

Often They frisked  me to see what they could steal.  Getting the cucumber home
was going to be very difficult.  I  seem to remember even being stripped in these
no man’s land  confrontations.  Could  I get the cucumber home for mom?
How?   Then a solution came to me.  My shoe!   I hid the cucumber in my shoe
and managed to get it home.  It must have been a small cucumber but it was a
great victory.   The violence .. potential violence .. in that ravine remains a
powerful memory even today.   

Must be true because the City Parks sent a crew to cut down the bushes and
trees in that ravine.  Today  it is just a dip in the grass of Dufferin Park.  Some’
of the ravine has been in filled with subsoil to make a skating rink.  Did the
city do this because of the dangers.  Or is that just my imagination.  Did  any of
this really happen?  It must have.  How big was that cucumber in my shoe?  Did
I walk with a fake limp?  Would mom make us a cucumber sandwich?

Dad made a lot of mistakes in his life…some of which I have told in earlier
Episodes.  Most of them were funny in retrospect.  But one that I remember
was anything but funny.

“Red, can you babysit the boys tonight”
“What?”
“I  will be working late.”
“OK…Harumph”

Dad did not play games with us.  He treated us as miniature adults
really or as interlopers who got between him and the horses racing
at Dufferin Racetrack.  He would have preferred to take us to the racetrack
but no horses were running at night.

That particular night he decided to fill in the time by taking us to a
movie at the Doric theatre down at College and  Dufferin.  Dad  was not
a motion picture movie buff.  He  did not even look at what was
playing.  Mom, on the other hand, pre selected our movies as
mentioned earlier.

I will never forget that Doric movie. It scarred me for life  I came out
terrified.  I wanted to run out before it ended but Dad  made me stay.
I think he was half asleep.   

This memory is graphic.   Not imaginary.  I can see in my mind the time
and the place.  The dark night .  The Doric  theatre which was a run down 
movie house.   What I remember clearest however was the horror of that film.
Some sinister people operated a dual business.   They performed civil
marriages … couples in love tying the knot.  Loving  couples.  Especially
couples with no kinfolk to get in the way.  After the marriage ceremony
the couples were murdered.  Their bodies kept in a dark place at the 
back of the business.  Why murdered?  So they could  be robbed I think.

The murders terrified me so  much that for weeks, months afterward
I would not go to a movie theatre.  Not even a silly Bowery Boys movie.
I had nightmares about the movie and  still do.  

I think Dad thought I was a bit touched in the head.  He did not
see the movie.  Mom wondered what had  happened as I was  white
in the face and trembling.  Gutless some of you might say.  I did  not
like violence.

We saw lots of violence.  Eric and I.  It was all centred  in Dufferin Park
where groups of ‘big guys and  big girls”  congregated.   
Dufferin Park was  Beanery Gang territory.  Lots of things happened
there.  Seems I remember being under a forsythia bush in the ravine 
watching two people tossing around each other in sexual paradise.
That memory must be close to reality as well since Eric and I collected
used  safes at one point.  (Sheiks was the brand name as I remember).

“Mom, they make great balloons.”
“Don’t touch those dirty old things.”
“But mom!”
“Garbage..put them in the garbage now.”

The jumping around under the forsythia bushes did  not seem that violent.

The violence came when the Junction gang invaded  Beanery Gang territory.
Gangs fought viciously.   Gang fights?  Was it plural…i.e many gang fights.
Or was it just one  gang fight that we saw.  Likely just one which my  imagination
has pluralized.  

It was very violent.  Weapons were involved Knives and lead pipes….perhaps
baseball bats.  Which memories  are most graphic.  Which memories are likely real
in other words.   One stands out.  A gang member was trying to protect his girlfriend
…fighting some guy face on when another guy came up from behind and hit him
over the head with a lead pipe.  He dropped to the ground.   Another incident
occurred near our house on Sylvan Avenue when a police officer caught one of the
gang members and  had him spread eagled on the squad  car hood.

How true was this?   The strange thing is that I cannot find written records
of these gang fights.   Seems  they would be big news.   Are they only in my mind.

So graphic to me.  Just down Gladstone Avenue was the home of the Simmons
family whose boys were gang members as I remember.  Toenails Simmons was
in jail I think.   His brother showed Eric and  I how to make a knuckle duster
out of a  sharpened roofing nail and some white  medical tape.  

“Just hone the nail to a sharp point with a file…needle point…then
put the flat part of the nail on your finger.  Bind it there  by winding 
white tape around it.  Make sure the tape covers the sharpened 
point.  If a fight happens then your fist becomes a  better weapon . one 
blow with the fist and the nail pops through and cuts the other guy.”

Mom feared Eric  and  I would  get drawn into the gangs.  That 
was why we moved  to 455 Annette Street in 1948 or 1949.
How she managed to do that is one of the wonders of our lives.
She did it …bought a small rather begraggled house in a very nice
neighbourhood.

END PART ONE:  VIOLENCE IN MY LIFE

P>S.   I nearly forgot the Robertson’s Candy Truck heist.  That was also 
a lesson in violence.  Rather a lesson in how to avoid violence.  Eric  and
I witnessed  a bunch of boys stealing boxes  of candy bars from the
back  of the Robertson Candy truck.  They got a few boxes and then ran
like hell down Dufferin.   We knew who they were.  We saw  what happened.

A policeman came and asked for witnesses and  Eric and  I did the 
right thing.  Or the wrong thing.  

“Any witnesses?” said the cop
“We saw what happened”
“Did you see who stole the the candy?”
“Yes.”
“Do you know where they live?”
“Yes.”
“Will you take me there?”
“Yyyyes.”  (less confident voice)

So he  drove us down to the thieves house on Dufferin just
below College St.  The policeman knocked on the door and
a woman answered.  

“Do you have boys?”
“I do.”
“Can I see them for a moment?”
(two boys came to the door)
“Are these the boys that stole the boxes candy?”

That was when I became aware that Eric and i had
made a big mistake.  We were snitching big time.  
We were also inviting violence if these boys decided
to get even.  We were scared.    Nothing bad really
happened.  We were not punched out as I remember
but we were scared.  We deserved to be punched out
I thought. 

Since then I believe that policeman was not thinking
straight by putting Eric and I in  danger.

P.P.S.   In another disgusting moment of potential  violence
I became  aware of the courage of my brother.  We had
been surrounded  in the park by a group of tough kids.
We knew them but did not associate with them.  I think I
best not tell the full story however.  Suffice it to say they
had disgusting plans for us.  First they picked on Eric and
he Refused their orders no matter what.  And he
was prepared to fight even if outnumbered and likely to lose…
even with my help.  I had thought the wiser course was to
run away but that would  have been difficult.   They backed
down eventually so nothing really happened except I was proud
of my brother.  These same boys  had broken into a fort
we had made out of wooden barrels and scrap  lumber.
They used the fort as a toilet.