A Death in The Neighbourhood, Life of Regret

TWO CHUMS DIED BUT ONE WAS SPARED - THE WRITER, AND THE GUILT HAS NEVER DIMINISHED

THE DIFFERENCE A MOTHER'S INTUITION CAN MAKE ON A YOUNG LIFE

IF THERE WAS ONE EVENT IN LIFE THAT CHANGED MY OWN COURSE OF HISTORY, IT WAS WHEN I FOR ONCE, LISTENED TO MY MOTHER. I WASN'T HABITUALLY INSUBORDINATE, JUST A YOUNG LAD WHO FOUND DISCRETIONARY PRIVILEGE A GOOD WAY OF CREATING LOOPHOLES. AUTHORITY FIGURES HAVE ALWAYS FOUND THIS WITH ME, AND I USED TO DRIVE PUBLISHERS NUTS. IT'S NOT THAT I DON'T RESPECT PROTOCOLS, JUST NOT STUPID ONES. MY MOTHER MERLE WAS A WORRY-WORT UNTIL I GOT MARRIED. IT WAS LIKE SHE FOBBED-OFF RESPONSIBILITY FOR ME ONTO MY YOUNG BRIDE. I BET SHE HAD A TWINKLE IN HER EYE TOO, AS SHE ESTIMATED HOW MANY THOUSAND TIMES I WOULD RAZZLE-DAZZLE SUZANNE, TO GET AND GO WHERE I WANTED TO, AT THAT PRECISE MOMENT. TRUTHFULLY SUZANNE HAS LEARNED ALL MY TRICKS. I MAY HAVE A FEW COVERT SITUATIONS I'M GOING TO KEEP UNDER RAPS FOR NOW, SO PLEASE DON'T SNITCH ON ME.

BUT AS I'VE BEEN WRITING ABOUT ANGELS, GHOSTS AND THE PARANORMAL, LATELY, THERE IS ONE STORY THAT I'VE BRUSHED BY MANY TIMES, AND WRITTEN ABOUT ONLY ONCE OR TWICE IN THE PAST FORTY OR SO YEARS. IT WAS A TRAGIC OCCASION, SOON AFTER OUR FAMILY MOVED TO BRACEBRIDGE, BACK IN 1966. THE REASON IT WAS TRAGIC FOR MY FAMILY, IS THAT I HAD SOME SORT OF INNER SENSE OF DANGER, SUCH THAT WHEN MY MOTHER REFUSED TO LET ME VISIT CHUMS, I WILLINGLY SUCCUMBED TO STAYING HOME THAT DAY. MY MOTHER USED TO CALL ME "HOUDINI," AFTER THE GREAT ESCAPE ARTIST HARRY HOUDINI, AS I COULD SLIP FROM INCARCERATION WITH STEALTH AND GREAT EASE. USUALLY. COMMONLY. BUT NOT ON THIS DAY, AND I CAN STILL RECALL HER HAND DIGGING INTO MY SHOULDER, TO SHOW HER DETERMINATION TO KEEP ME FROM HARM'S WAY.

I WON'T USE ANY FAMILY NAMES BECAUSE EVEN AFTER ALL THESE YEARS, THE TRAGEDY STILL RESONATES, BECAUSE IT WAS PREVENTABLE. AND BECAUSE IT COULD HAVE INVOLVED MANY MORE YOUNGSTERS THAT DAY, AND EXTENDED THE PAIN AND SUFFERING THROUGH MORE NEIGHBORHOODS AND MULTI-CHILD FAMILIES.

WHILE ATTENDING BRACEBRIDGE PUBLIC SCHOOL, I HAD MET A CLASSMATE WHO SHARED MY INTEREST IN MILITARY SET-UPS, SUCH AS CREATING ELABORATE BATTLEFIELDS WITH PLASTIC ARMY-MEN. I WAS ASKED IF I COULD COME OVER TO THIS HOUSE, AFTER SCHOOL, TO HELP SET-UP ONE OF THESE MILITARY CAMPAIGNS, WHICH I BELIEVE HE WAS WORKING ON, IN THE PORCH AREA OF THEIR OLD HOUSE. I DID GO, AND WE PLAYED RIGHT UP TO AND PAST THE DINNER HOUR. HE WAS A SMART LAD BUT WAS SERIOUSLY DEVOTED TO ACCURACY. HE KNEW ABOUT BATTLE-ENGAGEMENTS, AND THE PLACEMENT OF ARTILLERY TO INFLICT THE GREATEST CASUALTIES. I REALLY DIDN'T HAVE CLUE ABOUT THE REALITIES OF WORLD WAR II AT THAT AGE, WHICH MUST HAVE BEEN GRADE SIX. THIS WAS ON A THURSDAY NIGHT IN THE FALL OF THE YEAR, IF MEMORY SERVES. THE NEXT DAY AT SCHOOL, MY NEW CHUM ASKED WHETHER I COULD COME ON SATURDAY, TO A VACANT RAVINE LOT, NEAR THE RAIL LINE, WHICH WAS ABOUT ONE BLOCK FROM BASS ROCK, THE RAPIDS ON THE MUSKOKA RIVER. HE WAS PUTTING FORTH SOME OF THE MILITARY ENTHUSIASM, HE HAD, TO CREATE A LARGER WAR GAMES, WITH OTHER KIDS HE KNEW AT SCHOOL. IT WAS SUPPOSED TO BE A LARGE GROUP, TO TAKE UP SIDES IN HIS PLANNED MILITARY OFFENSIVE. FIRST THERE WAS A JOB TO DO, AND HE ASKED US TO BRING SHOVELS.

I would have had no inkling, none whatsoever, that there was any more danger related to what this friend was concocting, of a modern day battlefront, than my usual play with buddies up on Hunt's Hill, on the other side of the Muskoka River. We'd have great recreational outings in both The Grove and in Bamford's Woods, and then up in the sand pit that Wayne Weber owned, behind the Alice Street apartments. It was in a high corner of the hillside sand pit, that we had carved out a substantial cave, in the exposed bank of the hollowed landscape. My mother watched us playing there and never said a word, other than when lunch or dinner was being served. By the fifth time she called, which was then more of a yodel than a loud voice, I arrived at the door covered in sand. She hated sand, and made me strip to my underwear, because she believed the sand would break her vacuum. It was always the occasion one of the girls in the apartment, would make it to the third floor on a lark, and find Teddy exposed. "Awe Mom," I'd cry-out while scampering for cover. The sand pit is important to understand, as a sort of parallel to what else was happening around town. I can't remember why it was a big deal, or if a television show had planted the idea, but a lot of the local rapscallions were digging tunnels. Including my friend Charles.

I remember that Saturday morning, all excited to be going to help Charles excavate his tunnel. When Merle asked me bluntly where I was going, hat in hand, out the door, I was honest that day….no deceit, no run-around, or fog-of-war tricks to get what I wanted. "I'm going to help Charles dig a tunnel, so we can play war games." A look came across her face, as if just then, God had slapped her. Her eyes got dark, and she scrunched up her face, and grabbed me by the shoulder, saying, "You are staying home. Take your boots and coat off, and find something to do in the apartment." I remember walking back to my room, feeling mildly dejected, but when I looked at the rain hitting the front window, it was the kind of day, well, you wanted to stay indoors. It was rare, let me tell you, that I backed down so easily, without any significant come-back to change her mind. I had a sense of something impending that day, but it wasn't so imposing, that it stopped me from playing with my hockey game, or reading comics on the bed. It was in the early afternoon, that Merle came to me, and suggested we go downtown, and that for my agreement to stay home, she would spot me the treat of my choice. I wanted to go to Waites Bakery that's for sure, because their chelsea buns were spectacular. Their hot chocolate, heavenly, with marshmallows.

I can so clearly recall getting to the bottom of Hunts Hill, just about to cross the bridge, when we heard the loud blare of the main fire siren from the fire hall, on Dominion Street. By time we got to the former Muskoka Trading building, opposite the Downtown Garage, all hell was breaking loose. There were racing police cars, ambulances, and volunteer firemen racing to somewhere in the town. I remember seeing people running along the main street, and hearing yelling off in the distance, much as if there was a major fire raging just beyond our view. By time we made it to Manitoba Street, we saw my father Ed, racing toward us in the car, coming around the corner at Thomas Street. He waved my mother over, and was telling her something, I assumed, about the incident occurring. There was a look of fear on his face I'd never seen before, and as he was an old salt, having served in the North Atlantic, he didn't show emotion very often. When Merle came to me, she was crying, and took a hard grasp of my shoulder, and looking me straight in the eye, asked, "Who else was supposed to be digging that tunnel today Teddy?" I didn't have that many friends who also knew Charles, so I wasn't of much help. My Hunt's Hill cronies didn't even know him. "My God, My God," she kept saying, over and over, as she pulled me back toward home, only saying, 'We've got to go back home right now…..until we find out more about what's going on." She was dragging me home. Finally at the top of Hunt's Hill, and being out of breath, I demanded she tell me why I was being punished for knowing Charles. She stood there, at the crest of the hill, looking down onto the main street, and all the flashing red lights, with the sirens echoing through the hollow, and said, "There's been a cave-in of the tunnel, and there are boys trapped inside."

The circumstances that day, were the same for many young families in Bracebridge. It was at a time of day when lots of kids were on the loose, doing all kinds of crazy adventure stuff. There were at least five to eight more kids that had been invited to help dig the tunnel, on that particular Saturday morning. Only one other mother that I know of, insisted her son not go to the lot, where Charles and a close friend were digging some inter-connecting tunnels. As it turned out, most of the kids who were going there, to engage some mild war games, had simply been distracted by other recreation that morning, and never showed up to dig in the mud. The problem with this, is that when the cave-in was first noticed, and word spread fast around the community, a lot of kids were out and about but couldn't be located easily. So there was unbelievable panic, as parents couldn't find their kids, and the speculation raged, that many more bodies may have been buried in the side of that collapsed hill.

When a neighbor casually glanced over to the vacant lot, where the boys had been digging, all that was visible at that point, were two legs sticking out of the side of the hill. There was no longer a tunnel opening, just a wall of earth and a victim stuck in the middle. There was no way of knowing for sure, how many were in the tunnel when the ground gave way. Neighbors and parents, who couldn't immediately find their kids, could be seen running with shovels, ready to help with the rescue. It was pandemonium. There were greatly exaggerated claims about the number of children buried in the tunnels. There was a pall that dropped over that day, I will never forget. While there was no good news that afternoon, because two young chaps had suffocated in the collapsed tunnel. But many more lives were spared by circumstance. A lot of school mates who didn't show up, just didn't want to dig out in the rain. So they stayed away. A few of us listened to our mothers.

On Sunday, when the tragedy had sunk in, and the potential losses examined, volunteers in numerous neighborhoods, went to other properties they'd heard had similar bunkers, caves and tunnels, and started collapsing them all, including the one we had in the sand bank of the pit behind our apartment. I watched the men pounding their spades into the embankment to remove any overhang that might also have collapsed on us. You know, I've played this over and over in my mind for decades, when at times I pass by the property where the two boys perished. I can't get it out of my mind, how easily, that morning, I surrendered to my mother, who must have thought it odd, her son didn't muster more than the traditional retort, "Awe Mom! It's Saturday!" It's as if there had been another act of divine intervention to spare my young life, because I would have been there, and in that tunnel without question……because I'd been the mastermind of the cave in the sand pit.

When we lived on Harris Crescent in Burlington, I was always defying my mother, and I was three years younger. I'd trundle my way along the shore of Ramble Creek, and make it as far as the deep water, that pooled under the bridge of Lakeshore Blvd, that eventually emptied into Lake Ontario. I was forbidden to go near that bridge. The water of Ramble Creek was quite shallow, but at this point, the water was just over my head. She could tell if I'd made it that far along, because the closer to the lake, the more I smelled like Lake Ontario fish. That's usually how I got busted. Why did I go, when I was warned against? Call it femme fatale, I think it's called. There was a magnificent little creature named Angela, with a porcelain white face, sparkling blue eyes, and soft warm hands, who I was madly in love with, who coincidently, used to invite me to play on the swings in her backyard; which, if I remember correctly, backed onto Ramble Creek, a whisker from the deep water under the Lakeshore bridge. I wasn't old enough to even know what a crush was, but she was a most compelling, lovely, delicate creature, who used to hold my hand as we stood on the bank of the creek, watching water spiders darting on the mirroring surface. She'd cry when I had to leave, and that made me feel wretched, and forced me to return time and again, against my mother's wishes. I was weak when it came to the coaxing of friends and significant others. I was a good friend who would come when asked, even if it meant I was going to get in trouble at home. On the day I was supposed to help Charles, it took only a minor effort, to convince me that it wasn't a good idea…..at least at that time, on that day of my life. Truth is, it was probably the only time I paid attention to my mother's warnings, and it's the reason I'm typing this blog today. God Rest Her Soul.

What really stopped me from out-mustering, and manipulating my mother, that day, as I had on a hundred other occasions, to play where I wanted to, and with whomever I chose? What did Merle know that day, almost instinctively, that she took a major general's rank, and ordered me out of commission? I had a message. I didn't feel like arguing with my mother. I surrendered without a fight. And I lived because of it! My mates weren't so fortunate.

Why was I spared, and not them? I couldn't understand a God that would take two innocent kids just playing around on a school year Saturday. I pondered the negligence of an angel that would allow something like this happen. What I did learn from that experience, was to live my life for those lads as well. You see, many of us kids, wondered silently, into our own adulthood, about the very real possibility, had we been there on that day with our chums, that we could have pulled them free ourselves, saving their lives with a quick response. These are just thoughts. Those haunting "what ifs" we must all deal with in life.