School Days, by M-E-N.

Prelude from M-B-C, i thought maybe i'd post this later, but i choose instead to get it out of the way before my SHOWS. (Daily Show, and Colbert Report). I'm just glad i can't feel the nasty steam burn anymore, i got today at work, from the pressure steamer. It's worse than deep fryer burn. Almost like holes in your mouth. Not really though.

laters.


SCHOOL DAYS

So what was it like back in the olden days? Here’s my take on it….I started school in September of 1930, just before I turned 6 years of age. In an Alberta town called Tofield, where my father had delusions of making a go of a gas station there, didn’t last very long, a matter of a few summer months, but long enough for me to be enrolled in Grade 1 (the first grade, Camille). I can remember nothing of it, except the first day I was there, I fell off a teeter-totter and suffered a massive nose-bleed, and had to be sent home to recuperate…..the height of embarrassment for the new kid on the block. I’m sure I didn’t mind when we left Tofield shortly after this incident, not that it triggered the move or anything like that! My dad and my uncle Hughie got together in a joint venture in a gas station with minor repairs and tire products available, at the corner of 11th Avenue and Kingsway in New Westminster, B.C. I suppose the advantage of this establishment was that there were living quarters attached to the garage, and there we lived, in all our glory, crammed altogether … Millie, my cousin, too. She ran the tiny confectionery attached to the garage building, the one where Sandy baby bit the heads off of every chocolate jelly bear in the showcase. So much for sales that day, Millie (16) was somewhat incensed.
But I’m getting off the track here….the school’s name escapes me, but it was up a long hill and surrounded by a very bushy area, unused by most law-abiding citizens, the woods being famous for containing the makeshift residence of an escaped murderer named Bagley. This happened during the time I went to that school, and parents, teachers and kids were scared to death….percentage of fright probably in that order. Eventually the cops caught him. Anyway, I went there for that school term, and must have been fairly bright, as they shuffled me through two grades in that one year….so, when I was about to turn 7, I found myself in Grade 3 (the third grade, Camille). And moved back to Alberta to our farm, 22 miles from Vermilion, Alberta. Actually for the first couple of months after we got back (Model A Ford car, crammed to the gunwales with stuff, 2 kids and a toddler with curly blonde hair, AND a Scotch terrier pup, indomitable Tightwad Tibby), we lived with our Wilson grandparents at their home in the Wildmere district until the lease was up on our farm and the guy moved out. For those months, Jack and I went to Preston school, named after the old location of the Wilsons in Preston Pans, Haddington, in Scotland. About Preston school I remember ZIPPO so it must not have created much excitement in my youthful self.
So we’re back at the “Cummings Place”, where we mix-farmed until I graduated from Grade 9; going to a school named Paradise Valley (not to be confused with the town Paradise Valley which was far, far away), I even remember the number of the school, it was #1750. One-roomed, with a huge big-bellied, oil- burning stove in one corner, 2 cloakrooms at the back, one for boys, one for girls. Teacher’s desk at the front, several rows of small desks for the kids, mapcases and a picture of the reigning sovereign on the walls. Blackboard at the front, too….never called a chalk-board in those days. Made much use of by both teacher and students, as there wasn’t much of any other sort of visual aids, maybe a world globe, if I remember right. And a piano (oh, blessed piano, it kept me company when I chose to stay in the school at recess and lunch-time and pick out the songs I listened to on the radio at home). The teacher was qualified to teach all 12 grades, and did….this was probably a huge advantage for kids like me, who was inclined to sweep through my own grade work, and listen in when the teacher was working with the top grades. My two classmates were both boys, tiresome boys, Henry Eyben and Bill Titus, who often persisted in leaving me behind in the dust simply because my little short-legged Danny –horse couldn’t keep up to their long-legged, powerful steeds. They were just trying to humiliate me for beating their school marks into the ground. (Succeeded, too, guess you can’t win ‘em all). Anyway, in class I reigned supreme! In the Morrison home, it was not allowed to be relegated to second place in scholastics, and the teacher’s word was LAW! Woe betide the kid that brought home a less than successful report card, my father’s rage was unpleasant to see and had to be avoided at all costs.
An enormous surprise to everybody in the family, including me, the recipient, happened when I graduated from Grade 9. A package came in the mail one day addressed to Marion E. Morrison, accompanied by a letter of congratulations from the erstwhile Premier of Alberta, William Aberhart….very official –looking stuff, and upon opening it with trembling fingers, I discovered the Governor General’s medal for proficiency in Grade 9 for the huge Vegreville district. The medals were commissioned by Lord Tweedsmuir, the Governor General of Canada, and awarded each year to the highest marks in each of the provinces. And I didn’t even have a chance to lord it over my two classmates, Henry and Bill, because we were already in the throes of moving to another farm, a cool 17 miles closer to Vermilion. That farm we rented on a 3-year lease from Uncle Ernie Wright, proprietor of the Vermilion Hotel, and married to my Dad’s sister, Christina.
The local school there was called Bowtell, named after Harry Bowtell, an influential early pioneer of the area. My mother was so happy to be closer to town…..what, seven miles away? After 6 years of virtual isolation in a sparsely settled district, it was heaven for all of us to be able to go to town every Saturday, shop, take in a movie, hang out with friends in the Boston Café. I attended Bowtell school for the whole of Grade 10; not really as an official student of the school, but to do my correspondence lessons. Yes, I took Grade 10 by correspondence; the lessons were mailed out to me every week by the Dept of Education for the province, and I worked hard at them. My art teacher was especially delighted, I remember, often penning remarks like “Shows great promise” blahblahblah, which was encouraging to me, but in later years, did not come to light until I started putting together my photojournals.
After Grade 10, and because the province was phasing out the country schools and arranging bussing for rural children in to the nearest towns, I was enrolled in Grade 11 in the little town of Kitscoty, Alberta, where the Dept of Education had taken over an old CIBC bank building, converted the offices upstairs into living quarters for a house-master and his wife and son, and two dormitory-type rooms for about a dozen girls. Maybe there were more, I suppose I could count them in some of the pictures I still have, but no matter….I loved my high school days.I became quite active in student affairs, president of the Students’ Union, played in the HS band (accordeon), editor of the year book, all sorts of extra-curricular activities. And still maintained my marks pretty well; we had supervised study downstairs on the main floor of the old bank building, every school night for two hours. Sadly, I was NEVER a sports lover…couldn’t stand basketball, hockey and baseball both rubbed off on me a bit, probably because my brothers were huge fans and participants. Soccer was unheard of in those days, no such thing, nor was football a much-recognized sport. Mostly games were played in the country school yards…..Prisoners’ Base, Anti-I-Over, Pum-Pum-Pullaway, marbles, Hop-scotch. Here again, I did not participate as much as some of the kids; until the teacher got sick and tired of listening to Home on the Range on the piano and I was ejected in favour of the games.
After Grade 12, I was shipped up to Edmonton to begin a business course at McTavish business college, a one-year enterprise that resulted in skills in typing, shorthand, and bookkeeping. And off to the BUSINESS WORLD! But that’s another story!