EPISODE 185 HISTORY DEPARTMENT PARKDALE COLLEGIATE INSTITUTE CIRCA 1980
alan skeoch
dec. 2020
left to right, back row: Gerry Wagner, Frank Bitonti, Susan Gilmour, Sam Markou, Terry Wickstrom
front row left to right: John Maize, Lynne Roddick, Alan Skeoch, Phil Sharp
(picture taken at Centre Island fun park for kids)
When I was hired as a history teacher at Parkdale Collegiate Institute there were two great educators involved…John Ricker and Evan Cruickshank.
Both of them said the same thing. “Alan, if you take the job at Parkdale you will never leave.” It seemed strange since both of these people
did not know each other well. …both heads of history departments and both eventually teachers of teachers
at the Faculty of Education. My thought? “These guys must know what they are talking about.”
So I took the job and never looked back. No other job in education appealed to me. The students at Parkdale were family.
The kind that punched you on the shoulder and said “Good morning, sir”
I think this photograph says it all. We loved teaching. We loved each other. We loved Parkdale. And let me add with pride
…I think we did a good job with our kids.
Especially when we came to school dressed like the picture above. (not true)
Each face is a story. But let me tell one story about a teacher that could have been ignored. Gerry Wagner, with the
Coonskin Cap. His family once owned a factory in, I believe, Czechslovakia. World War II intervened and the factory was
seized. Somehow the Wagners escaped. Gerry ultimately got a job at Parkdale. A quiet man. We called him ‘the Wag’.
He was a great poker player. Bob Marshall and George Stavropoulos (not in picture) tried to bluff Gerry in a game we called
East York #$%$ Gerry took their money. The poker game was so silly that it is worth describing. Each player took a
card face down and put the card on his forehead. Then the betting began to force others out of the game. Bob and George were
determined to make Gerry fold (even though Gerry held a king or an ace)…they upped the anti, again and again. Gerry took
all them money. And he grinned…a quiet grin. Any man that had escaped Nazi Germany could not be bluffed. We played
that poker game in our old farm house. Some beer may have been involved. Good times. Nickel dime poker…no one loses much.
Sounds silly? Each of these people could be a story as silly as the story about Gerry. Let the good times roll, as they say. Before Gerry died he bought me a
wooden fish from Mexico. It sits above my head right now.
So I owe much to John Ricker and Evan Cruickshank…and to Parkdale.
alan skeoch
Dec. 2020