Early on: In Jerseyville
The Strawberry Socials
Every summer at Jerseyville United church, they held the 'Strawberry Social'. I think it was $2 or less to get in for the supper. All you could eat turkey, potato salad, mini-marshmallows In jello etc...and huge amounts of Strawberry shortcake with whip cream for dessert. There were games, hayrides and Mr. Calder, my school friend's father, would fire up his old steam tractor to pull a hay-wagon for us kids around the village and up Fields road. Behind the church was a grassy hill, which led down to Jerseyville creek. Therefore, we called it Jerseyville hill, which we would toboggan down in the winter. There were some minor mishaps along the way each winter while we were tobogganing. None too serious, but my older brother got his jaw broken while sliding down the hill on a 'Crazy Carpet' . It happened when our next door neighbor's boy, Josh, who was quite a bit younger than us, plowed into the side of his face with a wooden sled. He was riding solo on a 5 person solid wood toboggan. I remember visiting my brother in the hospital, where he had his jaw wired shut to heal. The nurses had clipped a pair of wire cutters to his shirt front. So that in case he were to get sick and vomit, he could snip the wires inside his mouth, so as not to choke on his barf. Pretty serious indeed. The creek at the bottom of Jerseyville hill ran through the field, up and under Jerseyville road. If the snow were good and you had a good run on a crazy carpet, or maybe one of those GT-Sno Racers, (you know the ones with 3 skiis?) You could slide down Jerseyville hill towards the creek, which was exciting, because you never knew if this time, you just might hit the creek. Extremely rare, never happened. A good run would bring you within feet of it, but not quite in the drink. The deepest spots would be iced over. Except one time. After a perfect snowfall of a few feet of soft snow. A school friend of ours, Ronnie, who lived outside the village and up Field's road a bit, grabbed his brand new 'Crazy Carpet' and walked down to meet us. It was Christmas holidays, so it was chaos on the hill. Everybody was out with their sleds and toboggans and crazy carpets, all trying to find the best spot on the hill, which of course was right down the middle. You kinda had to time your run, or you'd take somebody's legs out. Usually a little kid's, cuz they were slow gettin' up the hill. You have people dodging each other, wiping out in the snow on purpose to hopefully avoid collisions, and all of us are trying to stay clear of Josh and his six foot long, solid oak, 'battle toboggan'. Ronnie had gotten a brand new 'Crazy carpet' for Christmas. Blue plastic with the cut out handles at the front. Those handles were important, on a good hill, if you caught air, gripping those handles was the only thing between a nice jump or a mouthful of snow. The new crazy carpets are especially apt at going the distance...So when Ronnie saw an opening, he took it. A nice running dive, with his carpet in front of him, gripping the handles. My brother and I and a few others of us watched him go. Jerseyville hill wasn't all that tall, or grand but it was good and steep and just long enough to give you that tingle in your gut and the smile on your face. Ronnie had some good speed and caught a little air over a jump someone had made. He was looking good and the brand new plastic of the crazy carpet on the fresh snow helped sustain his speed. At the bottom of the hill, where most of us would've slowed to a stop, he kept going. He leveled out at the bottom, not losing much speed at all and went on ploughing through dry weeds and tall, brittle golden rod. "Oh my god he's gonna hit the creek!" My brother cried. I just stood there laughing. Surely he's going to bail instead of going into the creek. He clearly had speed to make it and more but still not enough required to try and jump the creek. Jumping the creek was not an option, you'd have to have a ramp...and probably a snowmobile... Surely he'll 'bail'...As we watched Ronnie go, I tried to gauge where the creek would be. We couldn't see it from where we were, the plain was just white with snow and all looked the same. None of the features of the creek were visible. . . And then he just disappeared! Poof! Like that. We ran downhill, towards the creek to help Ronnie. Confident that he was fine, but still slightly terrified that the creek might be running uncharacteristically strong. Three of us got there at the same time and we fell through the ice too, just a couple feet down onto our butts. It was only a lip of some really thin ice, covered in thick soft snow. The creek was just a trickle and where we sat out of breath, was actually on the grassy bank of the creek. Ronnie was still lying on his belly, on his crazy carpet, gripping those handles and laughing so hard his face was red. We were starting to laugh too, as more kids collected behind us, we stared at him with disbelief, and Ronnie was just laughing his ass off now, it was contagious. It was kind of surreal, almost Alice in wonderland weird. Ronnie still lay there, in his snowsuit, on his crazy carpet, and the creek, that was probably a foot deep and maybe two feet wide, chuckled happily away beneath him. We gave him a hand up and helped each other out of the little snow chasm. Ronnie's clothes were still dry underneath his snowsuit, those snowsuits are awesome! That meant he was still good to go and so were we. So we did. But no more creek that day. We tried, over and over to get a similar run. I guess once was enough. He'd set the bar and that was the fun of it now...hit the creek, or get a broken jaw trying.
Nam
Nam Summer of 1982, Jerseyville, Ontario. Prosser's Pond.
My brother Jason and I, being the same age and all, had also been best friends from as far back as when we were only four years old. This meant too, that throughout school we shared the same friends and certainly the ones in Jerseyville, where we were ALL friends...for the most part. The core of Jerseyville friends was a solid one and there's nothing I STILL wouldn't do for ANY of my friends from the village... 'cept maybe one person. We did plenty of things, all of us together, but Jason and I also did things together as brothers. We fished together, hiked together, adventured together... We did a LOT of fishing together. Ever since we'd moved to Jerseyville from Burris street in Hamilton, we'd been steadily finding new places to try our luck. Our favorite 'go to', would have been 'Prosser's Pond'...'Prosser's Pond' was a Bass hole Deluxe. Full of Sunfish, Large mouth Bass and a handful of other fishy friends...the odd killer Catfish, a few Perch. The Bass in the pond were so greedy by midsummer, that Jason and I could pop a Dandelion head on our hook, flick it out 10ft and land a Largemouth almost every time...digging up a container of worms from the garden just made it silly. We had a riot, fishing at Prosser's, for many years. Prosser himself, was one John Prosser Robinson. A very old farmer who owned some fields in Jerseyville and brought produce down to Hamilton market. He grew lots of green beans, cucumbers, peas I think...He hired only girls from Jerseyville to work his fields . Just teenagers, "Stupid girls." He'd call them. Right to their face. I just remember some of these girls from the area, washing bushel after bushel full of green beans every summer evening, at the head of the tractor path back to the pond. They'd have metal tubs full of water, that they pumped from the hand well situated beside the low lying barn. Hand washing the sandy soil from the beans. That hand pump would pour with cold well water if you pumped it hard enough and long enough to flush the rust from it's pipes. One person would pump it, while the other leaned on the spout, drinking fresh, cold water directly from the flow. The girls, for their hard earned pay, would have to be in the field by 8am, crawling on their hands and knees in the dirt all day, swiftly picking beans, or strawberries, whatever the crop may be. The faster you picked, the more money you made, so you'd better pick fast, because there's no sense in suffering for nothin'. The bushels of green beans were the days take, everything the girls had picked in the field for the day. They'd have been home for dinner already and were back again in the evening to wash the dirt off the beans. Jason and I knew most of them, so we would smile and say hi as we went back to the pond, to go fishing for the second time that day. Poor girls would be worn out, scratched up, dirty and getting eaten alive by mosquitos, washing handful after handful of green beans, all evening until dark ... sheesh, strong character! "Stupid girls." Prosser was a dick, we all knew that, but he didn't mind Jason and I fishing in his pond, as long as we respected it and kept things neat. We spent a lot of time at Prosser's pond, Jason and I. When we ran out of worms, we'd improvise. There were a lot of grasshoppers around back then, not so many now. Grasshoppers and whatever lived in the weeds floating in the scum at the edge of the pond. I'd put one foot in the water and scoop up a big armful of weed and plop it in the dirt. We'd pick out tadpoles, or dragonfly nymph and push the rest of everything in the weeds back in. There's our bait for a while. We'd smoke cigarettes and fish, talk about stuff, joke about everything and have a great time. Everytime. We spent so much time there that summer, I even suggested we set up our old canvas tent from family camping. That way we could spend the occasional night out there, if Prosser didn't mind. Getting around Prosser wasn't the worry, it was getting around our parents. I didn't think it would be THAT big of a deal, I mean we were safe, it was summertime and we were close to home. When I told my mom that Jason and I wanted to set up the tent at Prosser's so we could camp in it, she asked me, "For how long?" "For how long, what?" I replied. She asked, "How long are you and Jason going to camp there?"I pushed it. "A few days ... or more.""What does Prosser think of it?" She said, "Have you asked him yet?""Yeah. He's fine with it." Which he was, as long as we didn't leave a mess."Well I certainly hope you're careful." she says, which was also one of her favorite things to add, after giving permission for us to do something. "I certainly hope you are careful."She's a good mother and gave Jason and I lots of freedom. I did most of the heavy lifting though, when it came to asking for permission to do something that included Jason. At least they were getting the 'straight dirt', from 'the horse's mouth'. Not that Jason wasn't truthful, which he wasn't entirely. But if something were to go wrong, I was willing to take responsibility for whatever that may be. Be fully accountable and take any punishment, or deal with any consequences arising from said agreement. In other words, that's why it might be best, to hear it from, 'the horse's mouth'. Me. My mom set down a few ground rules then, to apply during our camp out. In order to sleep in the tent out at Prosser's pond, Jason and I had to be home for breakfast, lunch and dinner... lunch was flexible. But absolutely, we had to report in, every morning for breakfast and every evening for dinner. Otherwise, there was no camping overnight at the pond. That was it. That was a pretty fair deal huh? I agreed, hell, we'd be hungry anyway. So of course we're going to come home for breakfast and dinner...lunch being flexible. Jason and I dug the big canvas tent out of the old, wooden two car garage. I love that mildewy smell of oiled canvas for some reason. Just love it. We carried the canvas tent and it's poles back to Prosser's that night, passing the girls washing beans along the way. Either they didn't see what we were carrying, or were too exhausted, sore and itchy to even care. We both walked down the lane to the pond. Jason and I cleared a good sized campsite from grass and all the dead branches that fell from the big tall Pear trees running the length on the north side of the pond. We camped out under those old pear trees, listening to the crickets and the occasional thud, as another ripe pear would fall to the ground. With a big area of grass cleared from sticks, we went about putting up the tent. Fitting poles together and tying yellow nylon cord to trees around us, making sure it didn't sag, or lean. We stood back to admire the job. It was ugly and blue. Maybe more grey in color actually. It was kinda hard to tell, it was just very drab and old, as if it had seen a couple tours in Vietnam. So we called it that. "Nam." We called our tent out at Prosser's pond, Nam. Anytime we mentioned going back to the tent, we called it "Heading back to Nam." After Jason and I set up the smelly old tent, making sure the guidelines were twangy tight, we went home to grab our sleeping bags and pillows. I took an old mason jar and went to the liquor cabinet and poured a shot and a half from every open bottle into the mason jar. We called this concoction, 'Jungle juice', for our Nam. I screwed the metal lid back onto the jar, wrinkling my nose at the fumes. This was for night time, after we'd built a good fire, I'd open the jar of jungle juice and we'd take belts from the mixed liquor. Passing the mason jar back and forth until it was empty. It would get us pretty tipsy, not outright drunk and we didn't do it all the time, just the first night at Nam. Then we'd each have a smoke, watching the fire as it burned, crackling and popping sparks into the night sky. The crickets would buzz all around us, stars shining overhead...this is exactly why it was so appealing. I wouldn't trade those days for anything. We began sleeping in it, waking up and coming home for breakfast every morning. It was great. Which also gave us time to do other things, than spend each minute of our lives back Prosser's lane. We had our tent there, so we could fish anytime we liked. I saw the control of Jerseyville United church change hands a couple of times, while living in Jerseyville. That summer, the minister in charge and his wife went away on holiday for a couple of weeks, leaving their near adult sons at home to look after the house. I have heard it said, that the children of the church minister are always the worst behaved kids. I haven't known enough church minister's kids myself to say whether this is true or not, but Herman and Rick were clearly not little angels. I knew that they both smoked and drank liquor. I don't remember how I found out that they were looking after themselves while their folks were away. I delivered the paper to them, so maybe that's how. Being a local paperboy is a great way to learn about the denizens of your neighborhood. You might be surprised at what I learned from delivering the paper, but then again, maybe not...Either way, it gave something for Jason and I to do for a few nights while we slept at Nam. We'd go by their house in the evening after dinner and sit around drinking and smoking with them. Then we'd head back to the tent to sleep. One night we brought our friend from down the road with us to the minister's son's house. After a few shots of liquor we were getting pretty buzzed. They wanted to drive into town before the beer store closed to get a case. We were all going to pile into the car together, but Jason and I decided to stay instead and wait for them to get back. We sat there watching TV, smoking and waiting. After about an hour of waiting, we started to get impatient and tired. We waited for another hour for them to get back and gave up. Confused as to why they didn't return, Jason and I turned off the TV and left the minister's house to go back to Nam. We left then and walked through the quiet summer night along Field's road, in the direction of Union street where Prosser's tractor lane started. As we crossed Jerseyville road we saw our friend's Dad reverse his little white Civic out of the driveway. Spitting gravel, his Dad rushed right past Jason and I, probably didn't even see us. That was when we knew something was up. The only thing we could think of was that they'd been stopped for drinking and driving. We found out the next day, however, they'd been in a really bad accident instead. After they'd gotten the case of beer, they'd returned, driving back along Shaver's road, to where it met up with Jerseyville road near our highschool. Coming over a hill at high speed on Shaver's road they'd rear ended a car parked at the bottom of the hill. They had no chance to stop. Our friend who'd been sitting in the back without his seatbelt on, had put the top of his head into the car radio. It cost him upwards of twenty stitches to close his scalp. All three of them had gotten badly hurt in the car accident. Jason and I having dodged a bullet, were glad we'd opted to stay back. It could have cost us our lives. Needless to say, that concluded our evening visits with the minister's sons. From then on, we were good boys and would retire to Nam at bedtime without the booze. Waking in the morning to fresh cool air, and walking through wet dewy grass first thing to pee in the brambles. A few days of camping gradually turned into a few weeks. Nobody bothered us and the weather remained good. One morning I awoke and had to pee badly. I quickly pulled the tent zipper up and crawling out of the tent, stood up to dash off into the weeds to pee. That's when I saw the girls picking beans for Prosser, whether they'd seen me emerge from the tent, I couldn't tell. They were on their hands and knees, crawling down their individual rows picking away. None of them looked in my direction. I wasn't sure what to think. It certainly wasn't what I expected to see first thing upon waking up. The neighborhood girls were in shorts and halter tops on their hands and
Impressum
Verlag: BookRix GmbH & Co. KG
Tag der Veröffentlichung: 13.02.2022
ISBN: 978-3-7554-0771-3
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