THINGS WERE DIFFERENT THEN….1955…INNOCENCE
(Camping trip … Easter Break 1955)
“What’s up?”
“Easter Break coming…”
“Let’s go on a camping trip…the three of us.”
“Where?”
“Etobicoke Creek is nice and wild…abandoned farms.”
“How?”
“Well, we could hitch hike part of the way, as usual.”
“Hey Al, remember the potato farmer last summer?”
“You guys just laughed at me…I was in the front seat…you two in the back… laughing.”
“He wanted to know your sex life…”
“What sex life?”
“Precisely.”
“Hitch hiking is interesting…that time we hitch hiked up to Lake Simcoe..”
“Got rides right away…only odd character was that potato farmer.”
“Sort of sad guy when I think about it.”
“You should have invented a sex life, Al…told him what he wanted to hear.”
“Actually I felt sorry for him…and embarrassed.”
Those were the days, mid 1950’s, when the small world in which we lived was quite innocent even though
just ten years earlier the world had been ravaged by a war that tore the innocence away from many people.
Canada had changed. Lots of jobs…wealth increasing. Also massive immigration of people from
Europe including the former enemy nations of Germany and Italy…and Eastern Europe. We lived in
a nation which had been shielded from the blood letting. Teen agers in Canada felt free and safe.
“So let’s pack up and head for Etobicoke…three or four nights under the stars.”
“Food?”
“Maybe try a steak first night…then Kraft dinner for rest of trip.”
“Just pile our gear beside the highway.,,stick out your thumbs Russ and Jim…”
“My Humberside football jacket should help.”
“Jesus, the first car stopped.”
“Hi, boys, where you going?”
“Etobicoke …west of Highway 27 along Burnhamthorpe Road.”
“Pile your stuff in the back…I can get you outside the city.”
“We want to camp along the Creek.”
“Lots of empty spots there now…nobody to bother you.”
“Why are so many of those farms abandoned?”
“Not abandoned…soon be a different forest of new houses….Toronto is changing big time.”
“We love exploring the empty farm barns…”
“Cold nights boys…frost.”
“But feels like everything is about to burst into life…smells wonderful.”
“How old are you guys?”
“Sixteen or so.”
“Lucky generation…everything is going to fall your way…jobs, marriage, homes,..you will
have your own cars even.”
“Not so sure abut that.”
“Just you wait and see…”
And so the three of us took off for the wilds of Etobicoke. Russ Vanstone, Jim Romaniuk and Alan Skeoch. 1955. Explorers of a sort.
Ready to face the brave new world. Breaking free. Carrying what we needed. Except for one mistake that camping trip. We did
pack three ‘minute steaks’ but forgot to bring knives, forks and spoons. Eating with our hands was OK though…and we had
our Boy Scout knives.
“Hey Russ, there’s water in the well.”
“Use that stick as a pump handle…”
“Should we drink the water?”
“Sure…those little chunks are just fleck of rotten wood…skim them.”
“Shouldn’t we use the Creek water?”
“We could…although remember when we were diving
off the old iron bridge last summer and someone said
the muck below the water was sewage.”
“Didn’t kill us.”
“Let’s trust this pump.”
“Cold night.”
“But sun is out now…swim is possible.”
“Bragging rights…did you know we swam across a
raging river on our Easter Break.”
“Make it sound big.”
Exporers
The Campsite…all kinds of stuff floating in the river that we could use.
Along with our gear we even packed a few books. No flies to bother us in March of 1955. Flies wild come later in the year.
“Hey Al, Look over here…dead horse floating in the Creek.”
“Sure enough.”
“Must have died over the winter.”
“Or worse…maybe shot by one of the farmers as he
left the farm.”
“Glad we didn’t drink the water.”
Alan Skeoch, cooking. Jim Romaniuk drying himself off after swimming across the raging Etobicoke Creek.
TEST: Compose a list of our camping gear using this picture asa guide.
NOTE: RUSS Vanstones Humberside Football jacket . All three of us were on the team, none of us
in exalted postions. That would come in time.
CONCLUSION
On a clear day in January 2018, I drove west along Burnhamthorpe Road from Highway 427…a trip I had avoided for decades because
I wanted the memory of this camping trip in 1955 to never be wiped out. Feared that the place would be covered in houses…the barns all
gone…the dead horse now a skeleton somewhere out on the bottom of Lake Ontario. But I was surprised. This spot where we
camped is unchanged. It became a park. And the raging river looks much like it does in these pictures.
WHY GO CAMPING?
We went for the joy of it. Not because there was nothing else to do. We played football, basketball…were members of the Presbyterian
Young Peoples Society, Boy Scouts, Drama Society…and we were very interested in girls even though they were less interested in us.
Camping was, however, a top priority. Why? Because of the challenge of the raging river. We swam across that river often…It was so
dangerous that we took along an inflated air mattress just in case the river swept us down to Lake Ontario.
alan skeoch
Feb. 2019