EPISODE 780
alan skeochOct 6, 2023
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This was ‘MINNIE’S in the 1920;s
EPISODE 880 :”GET IN THE POLICE CAR, SON, WE ARE GOING FOR A RIDE”
“Have you ever sat in the back seat of a police car?”
In an earlier episode i asked if you had ever been strapped. That got quite a response. John Morton said he ws strapped often in elementary
school which explains his attitude to authorities. Bob Root said he ws strapped by the best teacher he ever had in public school. The strapping
did not change his mind. “She was wonderful!’. Erin Furlong said she was strapped at home often along with her siblings.
“You were never strapped, Alan.” commented my brother. But the strapping seem so real. The wooden chair in the Principals’s
office….the drawerwhere he kept the strap…the caution lest I pull my hand away….the sound as the strap hit his knee…
“Never happened, Alan, .” Is Eric right? Or was I just too ashamed to tell him and mom? Afraid Dad would
high tait down to Runnymede PS. to straighten out the man with the sore knee. “Never happpened, Alan!” God, Eric can be a
spoillsport. And truth is so hard to pin down. I could concede….Eric might be right. But listen up…Eric witnessed this one.
“Remember the police car, Eric?”
“Now that was a fact…you got arrested.”
“Do you remember why?”
“The key…Minnies swimming pool…”
See the jumping tower on the left….and the pool below…jumping was dangerous….
Here is Minnies Tower….pool far below….pic taken about 1954…do not take a running jump…
might land on har 1953 Ford Meteor or the fence.
We had been swimming at Minnies, more properly known as the Mineral Baths across Bloor street from High Park. A rather run down swimming pool whose main feature was a high
wooden tower designed only for the brave.
“Never take a running leap from the top tower, boys.”
“why not?”
“You will impale yourself on the iron fence along the south edge of the pool, Do it
if you favour easy suicide.”
It was a rough place built way back in the 1920’s.The male changing room had banks of wooden cabinets. Gray and dingy’ It was the lockers that got me into
very serious trouble. Police trouble.
I was putting on my pants when the idea came to me.
“Hey Eric. I bet you dollars to doughnuts these keys are all the same. One key
can open any locker. They’re just skeleton keys.”
Then I made the big mistake.
“Watch this, Eric, and I stood on the bench and slipped my locker key into different locker. Were all keys the same? I never found out. The moment
I put the key in the locker next to me, one of the locker room boys peeped around the corner and started to yell.
“GOT HIM! Come quick, I just caught some son of a bitch breaking into the lockers.”
Before i could say Jack Robinson, a bunch of muscle guys had pinned me to the floor.
“Got him. Hold him down while we call the police”.The police?
Oh God, no, not the cops. What could I do? Who in tarnation would believe my key idea.
sounds like a stupid excuse.
“I was only testing the key…thought all keys were the same.” No one in their right mind would believe
that story.
As the muscle boys were shouldering me into Minnie’s office I got a look at Eric. He was dumbfounded. Jaw dropped. Maybe thinking how he could
help his big brother….He was just a year younger than me. I said noting but noticed him heading for the bike rack. He would get the bikes home.
I needed dad but he was fast asleep from night shift at Dunlop Tire Company. Not sure I wanted him,,. Afraid he would start
World War Three on Bloor Street. Dad was a ‘those are my boys right or wrong’… kind of parent. And he was tough. Slapping huge chunks of vulcanized rubber
on to spinning wheels was a big man’s work. He could take care of the muscle boys. But there must be a better way.
They had me pinned to a stool in Minnie’s office.
“How many lockers have you rifled?”
“None”
“Bull shit kid…The cops will get the truth out of your”
“Any minute now,.. here comes the cruiser.”
A big guy in blue levered himself from his car. Carried a revolver. “So you are the kid who breaks into lockers. A thief?”
“I was only trying to see if the key was the same….” His eyes looked amused. I was not crying. Wanted to but just could not do it.
I knew my career as a Humberside student was done for…
What would Cruickshank, Green, Burford, Schroeder, Charlesworth…. think of me? .and the principal W.E. Taylor who rescued Ted Puccini and me from
a local poo hall. Maybe W.E. would expel me…. worse still what about the girls of the Runnymede Presbyterian Youth Club?
Girls would look at me with disdain, I was on the road to purgatory.
The cop looked at me in a funny way. He did not call me a son of bitch. Quite the reverse .
“Come along with me son, I’ll drive you home..”
Did he call me ‘son’? Was I hearing right? “I’ll take the boy home, He won’t do that again.”
So I escaped and crawled into the back seat of the cruiser. “Son, get in the front
seat with me.” Did he call me ‘son’ again. Was this a trick…bad cop – good cop scenario?
And away we went. I never went back to Minnies again. But new worries surfaced.
What would the neighbours think if a squad car pulled up to our door? What would Grandma think? She was living with us for a while and
loved us. Sh liked sitting on the verandah watching the Annette Street trolley stop where smokers often discarded cigarette butts. She liked to chew tobacco.
She was dying…perhaps a month to live. She knew it. Granddad had died a few months e earlier. A 19th century woman. Over 90.
“Officer…sir?”
“Yes”
“Could you drop me off around the corner on Gilmour?
“Suppose I could, why?”
“My grandmother loves me and she might be sitting on the porch and….”
“And she might form a different opinion, right?”
….I’ll pull up out of sight , don’t worry but do not do that key trick again, son.”’
he called me son again as he let me out. I have liked police ever since and rarely use the term cop which is a put down word.
I never mentioned that Dad was asleep in the bed room. Dad would believe my story…I think.
So that is my story about getting into the back seat of police car as a suspected criminal. Even a nice guy like the policeman would not
believe the truth about the key. Would you? Never went back to Minnies so I have no idea if it was a ‘one key fits all’ locker room.
Minnies was demolished a few yeas later…lockers gone’
Maybe you have had
a similar experience.in a police car
alan
P.S. A s some readers know Dad said “I have two sons, one is a gutsy bugger and the other is as stupid as Joe’s dog.”
Sounds stupid I know but believe it or not the terms had meaning. Dare not tell you the meaning in this story. They were
terms of endearment. Dad expressed affection in odd ways.