Alan Skeoch

Author: terraviva

  • Addition to Episode 124: How to apply Intubation



    Begin forwarded message:


    From: ALAN SKEOCH <alan.skeoch@rogers.com>
    Subject: Intubation
    Date: September 22, 2020 at 10:15:55 AM EDT
    To: Alan Skeoch <alan.skeoch@rogers.com>, Marjorie Skeoch <marjorieskeoch@gmail.com>, John Wardle <john.t.wardle@gmail.com>






    Sent from my iPhone


  • 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





  • 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) 

  • 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






  • 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.