I was an urban children who grew up in a rural setting.
The city spread in front of me if I looked out of our southern windows, nestled down there in the valley, a city of 25,000 when I was born.
If I walked down to the street car which ran along fifth avenue, I could ride to the centre of Calgary for a 5 cent bus ticket.
Our house was on the edge of the city in a new development called Hounsfield Heights.
My father built there after my sister, Bonnie, had been hit by a car when we lived over on 4A St.
Behind our new house was a field full of crocuses in the spring, shooting stars and fireflies in the summer, bunches of willows where we could build forts in the fall, and in the winter, a fabulous sledding hill started just where our backyard ended.
My father tethered a Shetland pony in the field behind us in the summer time.
Comet was the horse’s name. The pony belonged to my brother, Earl, though I curried the coat of that horse as though the pony belonged to me. Now that I think of it, I could also put the blanket on the pony’s back, put a saddle on it, and then ride up to the riding Academy which was also out of the city.
There was prairie all around our house. We got the morning milk from a farm that was four blocks away. Earl would ride the pony and I would hold the milk steady in the wagon that was hitched behind it. I don’t know how the division of labour ended up that way, but it did.
In retrospect I have learned that I was a freer child than most of my cohort who lived in the city. After my Saturday’s work was done, I was free to walk down to the Plaza theatre for the cowboy matinee.
Later I graduated to going downtown, sometimes for a double feature: one show at the Grand and another down at the Hitchin’ Post. I am not sure that my mother knew where I had gone or when I would be back, except that it was usually before dark.
So that is about it for the second day of memories of my childhood, experiences I would not have wanted to miss on my way to my eighties: lots of Roy Rodgers and Gene Autrey B movies and a pony in our backyard.
Arta
The city spread in front of me if I looked out of our southern windows, nestled down there in the valley, a city of 25,000 when I was born.
If I walked down to the street car which ran along fifth avenue, I could ride to the centre of Calgary for a 5 cent bus ticket.
Our house was on the edge of the city in a new development called Hounsfield Heights.
My father built there after my sister, Bonnie, had been hit by a car when we lived over on 4A St.
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| ... shooting stars ... Latin: Dodecatheon jeffreyi Image courtesy: http://elib.cs.berkeley.edu/photos/flora/ |
My father tethered a Shetland pony in the field behind us in the summer time.
Comet was the horse’s name. The pony belonged to my brother, Earl, though I curried the coat of that horse as though the pony belonged to me. Now that I think of it, I could also put the blanket on the pony’s back, put a saddle on it, and then ride up to the riding Academy which was also out of the city.
There was prairie all around our house. We got the morning milk from a farm that was four blocks away. Earl would ride the pony and I would hold the milk steady in the wagon that was hitched behind it. I don’t know how the division of labour ended up that way, but it did.
In retrospect I have learned that I was a freer child than most of my cohort who lived in the city. After my Saturday’s work was done, I was free to walk down to the Plaza theatre for the cowboy matinee.
Later I graduated to going downtown, sometimes for a double feature: one show at the Grand and another down at the Hitchin’ Post. I am not sure that my mother knew where I had gone or when I would be back, except that it was usually before dark.
So that is about it for the second day of memories of my childhood, experiences I would not have wanted to miss on my way to my eighties: lots of Roy Rodgers and Gene Autrey B movies and a pony in our backyard.
Arta
I love my memories of that house as well. And the willow tree in the front yard. The billiard table is also a strong memory.
ReplyDeleteThanks for remembering that willow tree. My mother always wanted to have a weeping willow. It was planted as a small sapling and I never saw it take its full growth as she would have liked it to-- tall with those hanging branches and shade for us to sit under for a picnic.
ReplyDeleteAs to the pool table, there was a time it was for sale and I remember you begging me to buy it. The thought went through my head that perhaps I should. You were willing to give up all of the basement space to have that pool table. The price was just a little out of my reach.
Didn't you even have your own pool cue at that time.
Tell me, do you still have that pool cue or is it, too, only a distant memory?
There are a lot of stories around that pool table, Mary. One comes to mind which I shall try to tell and remain neutral. My mother and dad were having an evening dinner and had invited many couples. The men went downstairs and started playing pool. The dinner was waiting, waiting, waiting for the game to finish. It must have gone on interminably for finally one woman went downstairs, just picked up a ball off the table and then gave it a fling so that its trajectory ruined the game.
The men came upstairs. This would have been about in the late 1940's. I think it was Helen Pitcher who broke up the game. I didn't see this happen. I only heard my father tell the story. Each time he did, I felt the unsaid rule, women should not change the course of a man's game of pool.
OK. Lots of other pool table memories. It covered with sheets and then trays of dipped chocolates stitting on it.
The same covering over its felt and then loads of laundry laid out on it to fold.
How about droves of teen-age boys coming together to play pool here
My gosh, I even remember a debate, I think one of the LeBaron boys wondering if playing pool is breaking the Sabbath day.
Hey, I have to get out of here before thoughts about the pool table take up the whole day.
It seems like a bus ride and an ice cream cone were the same price, adds Joaquim. He wonders how you chose one over the other.
ReplyDeleteI have to think about the relative cost of a bus ride today and an ice cream cone. I think a bus ticket in Calgary is $3.25 and an ice cream cone can be five dollars (of course we are getting a double decker one with a waffle cone). Still, to go back to the question about how to choose one over the other? I think it is a slam dunk. I would walk half way across Calgary if it were an either or situation. I say, ice cream first ... then start walking.
ReplyDeleteThe pool table. I dont' think I ever actually played pool with the cues, but I do remember playing another game where you would just launch the balls at each other and try to hit them into the pockets. I loved putting them all together in the triangle rack and lining them up. I was never very good at pool.
ReplyDeleteI only ever knew that house as grandpas house since grandma died before I was born. I remember him teaching me to throw the discuss in the field behind the house. The discuss always seemed to travel further there than on the track field. I guess throwing downhill will do that for you. I think Grandpa also taught me hot to shotput there. Weird but nice memory.
ReplyDelete