ADVENTURES GOT ME IN A LOT OF TROUBLE - BUT IT WAS WORTH IT
I WATCHED THE HISTORY OF A SMALL TOWN COME AND GO!
ALL MY TEACHERS, ALL THE NEIGHBORS ON ALICE STREET, MY HOCKEY AND BASEBALL BUDDIES, AND MEMBERS OF THE HUNT'S HILL GANG, WOULD HAVE, AND MAY HAVE LAUGHED IN MY MOTHER'S FACE, IF SHE HAD SAID, IN MY DEFENSE REGARDING SOME MISDEMEANOR, "OH, TEDDY IS SUCH A SHY, GENTLE CHILD." THEY KNEW BETTER. I MIGHT HAVE GIVEN THAT IMPRESSION AT HOME, BUT ONCE POUNDING THE BEAT, I WAS ANYTHING BUT SHY OR GENTLE ABOUT ANYTHING. I JUST WAS A LITTLE FASTER, SLIGHTLY LESS VISIBLE, AND MORE STRATEGIC WHEN IT CAME TO MESSING-ABOUT. WHEN I WANTED SOMETHING, I WAS PARTICULARLY PERSUASIVE, AND I'D KEEP NATTERING ABOUT IT, AND LOOKING FOR LOOPHOLES, TO REACH A PARTICULAR OBJECTIVE. IF I SWIPED A PIE COOLING ON A WINDOW LEDGE, I COULD HAVE IT CONSUMED AND ENJOYED BEFORE MY PARTNERS HAD LEFT THE CRIME SCENE. THEY ALWAYS GOT CAUGHT. MY MOTHER MIGHT HAVE QUESTIONED THE BLUEBERRY STAIN ON MY SHIRT, BUT I COULD FOB THAT OFF BY SUGGESTING IT WAS A ROGUE BLACKBALL THAT FELL OUT OF MY MOUTH…..HITTING MY SHIRT, AND ROLLING ALL THE WAY DOWN TO MY WHITE RUNNING SHOES…..WHERE A BLUEBERRY CHUNK HAD ALSO HIT. I USED TO GRAB RIPE TOMATOES OFF THE VINE BUT NOT TO EAT. LET'S JUST SAY SOMEONE I DIDN'T LIKE, GOT A BIG WET SURPRISE IN THE MIDDLE OF THEIR BACK. I WAS A BAD BUGGER AND A MILLION MILES FROM BEING SHY ABOUT ANYTHING.
I COULD BE TOLD A THOUSAND TIMES, NOT TO THROW LITTLE GREEN APPLES AT THE HOUSES IN OUR NEIGHBORHOOD. I DON'T KNOW WHAT IT WAS ABOUT THOSE APPLES. YOU COULDN'T EAT ALL YOU PICKED, BECAUSE THE STOMACH ACHE WOULD DOUBLE-YOU-UP IN PAIN. THEN THERE WERE THE MAD DASHES FOR THE WASHROOMS, WITH CLENCHED BUTT CHEEKS. SOMETIMES YOU JUST DISEMBARKED THE BIKES IN FLIGHT, THE PAIN AND URGENCY CAME ON SO FAST.
SO INSTEAD OF WASTING THE REMAINDER, OF THE LITTLE GREEN APPLES (WORMS WERE A BONUS) WELL SIR, THOSE TIN ROOVES ON SOME OF THE OLDER NEIGHBORHOOD HOUSES, RATTLED BEAUTIFULLY WITH A BARRAGE OF APPLES FROM THREE OR FOUR ASSAILANTS. THE FOLKS WOULD COME RUNNING OUT OF THEIR HOUSES THINKING IT WAS A METEOR SHOWER HITTING EARTH. GREEN APPLES MADE US CRAZY. I DON'T KNOW HOW MANY TIMES WE GOT CAUGHT UP SOMEONE'S TREES, SCOFFING THE FRUIT OFF THE VINE. ONE OLD GIRL HAD A LONG POLE SHE USED TO KNOCK THE APPLES DOWN, TO MAKE JELLY, AND THAT WORKED ON KIDS AS WELL. I CAME AROUND THE CORNER, ON RICHARD STREET ONE MORNING, AND SAW HER STANDING THERE WHACKING THE TREE, OVER AND OVER AGAIN, WITH THE LONG STICK. THESE APPLES HOWEVER, WERE YELLING "HELP." SHE HAD FOUND ONE OF MY CHUMS UP THE TREE AND WAS BEATING HIS BEHIND AS HE DARTED FROM BRANCH TO BRANCH. I WAS ABLE TO DISTRACT HER LONG ENOUGH SO HE COULD JUMP DOWN, AND MAKE A RUN FOR IT. CRIPES SHE CHASED HIM FOR ABOUT A BLOCK. I HAD MY BIKE SO I SPED OFF. SHE WAS PRETTY TICKED OFF. WE ONLY VISITED HER TREE AFTER THAT, DURING AFTER SUNSET, AS HER VISION WASN'T ALL THAT GOOD. SHE'D JUST THINK IT WAS RACOONS OR SOMETHING, AND CURSE OUT THE WINDOW WHEN SHE HEARD THE LEAVES RUSTLING. WE JUST MADE RACOON SOUNDS TO KEEP HER HAPPY.
THE POINT IS, AT THIS TIME OF MY LIFE, THAT I DO LOVE TO RECALL, I WAS NEVER SHY ABOUT OPPORTUNITY. I WANTED TO EXPERIENCE THINGS, GO PLACES, UNDERSTAND WHAT WAS GOING ON AROUND ME. I WANTED TO LEARN BY IMMERSION, AND YOU KNOW, IT MOST CERTAINLY WAS WHAT LED TO MY FASCINATION TODAY, WITH THE EVER-DYNAMIC REALM OF "THE NOSTALGIC." IT WAS MY WORLD. I PLAYED WITH THIS STUFF, LIVED AMONGST IT, PAID ATTENTION TO ITS INTEGRITY THEN, AND KNEW THAT ONE DAY, IT WAS GOING TO BE RETIRED AND REMOVED FROM MY DAY TO DAY ADVENTURES. LIKE THE VINTAGE GAS PUMPS AT ALL THE LOCAL SERVICE CENTRES IN THE TOWN OF BRACEBRIDGE. THEY WERE NOSTALGIA IN THE 1960'S, BECAUSE THEY WERE PROBABLY TWENTY OR MORE YEARS OLD AT THE TIME. AS MY PARENTS TRAVELLED ALOT, I STUDIED THE PUMPS AT GAS STATIONS ALL THE WAY TO AND FROM FLORIDA, NUMEROUS TIMES, AND I KNEW WHAT WAS BEING USED AT HOME WAS LONG PAST PRIME FOR THE MODERN-ERA GAS STATIONS. WELL, THEY WEREN'T MODERN BUILDINGS AND THE PUMPS SUITED THE BUILDINGS PERFECTLY.
My two best buddies, Al "Weasel" Hillman, and his brother Rick, used to take me into the murky, gas and oil scented inner sanctum of Bracebridge's Downtown Garage, across from Muskoka Trading. The garage was run by their father, Seth, and his partner Art Crockford, two of the most interesting chaps a young lad could chat with on a slow Saturday afternoon. We'd drop in and see them if we had a particular need for a go-cart axle or wheels, and honestly, we'd try to stay in there as long as possible….because it was a fabulous treat for the senses; even though it was in the late 1960's, the automotive repair shop was right out of the 1930's 40's. The long counter was covered with "geasy-fingered" service manuals, and the old oak cupboards behind, were loaded with thousands of tins and boxes, and off the top hooks, were fan belts and wiring and rubber seals and many odd chains. I loved standing on the edge of the grease pit, looking down into the place where the mechanics performed their delicate surgeries. The place was always dark, except for these trouble lights, three or four illuminated, hanging near the service area, with only several overhead lights switched on……which meant you had to spend some time in the dark to allow your eyes to adjust. We watched all kinds of repairs being made, but if it got busy Seth ushered us back out into the open air. You know, if someone told you that they found the scent of oil, grease and gas kind of alluring……almost a cologne they'd be attracted to, I'd know exactly what they were talking about. I'm the most non-mechanical person to ever write about loving the interior ambience, and permeating aroma of an old-time garage. It dates back to those brief forays into the Downtown Garage to see what Seth and Art were up to. We'd sometimes just stand at the counter and listen to them spin yards with other garage hangers-on, who had no particular place to be….or go, and the conversation was always hale and hardy, and the politics conservative. I found the garage fascinating, just as I felt about the people who worked there.
I can remember being out for a drive with my parents one night, and coming around the corner of Manitoba Street, onto what was then known as Thomas Street (corner of the Patterson Hotel), and seeing the local garage gang, sitting beside the gas pumps, with their chairs balanced on two legs, and their backs up against the wall. Now an oddity of this gas station, is that it was on an angle that put one corner of it precariously close to the road that wound down the hillside. The pump sat as close to the tarmac as you could get without actually being on the travelled portion of the roadway. When a car pulled off the road to get gas, it was still pretty much on the road. So the old-timers, as they had been doing for decades, would sit out front, in their tipped back chairs, waiting for end-of-the-day customers to pull off "part of the road" for a few gallons of gas. My dad said, "I bet they hate it when someone comes to get gas…..and disturbs them." He also added, "Another tough day for these guys," meaning that he assumed they did this pretty much the whole day…..which just wasn't true. I said that, and my mother was aghast. "I've told you to stay away from that place," she said. "You could get hurt in there…..God knows what they might have laying around you could cut yourself on." Geez, I could cut myself in our own apartment, and I did so many times. The Downtown Garage was an entirely safe place for a kid to watch and learn, and both Seth and Art were both sensible in a professional capacity, and fatherly to us stray kids, looking in wonder at what automobile mechanics was all about. They both had a lot of experience to share, and you know, I never remember them raising their voices once, to smarten us up, about something we were touching or a place in the shop we weren't supposed to be visiting. Sure there were sage warnings but they didn't chase us out of the shop with any exotic fear mongering, about the danger of putting our eyes out, or getting cut on the jagged metal that was piled about. They never once told us not to get grease on our clothes. I respected that, and as I knew how angry Merle would have been, if I'd come home wearing a black smear on my pants, I just watched where I walked and stood, so I wouldn't have to explain a single thing about my whereabouts…..to my own Sherlock Holmes. Tell you what. I never, ever left the Downtown Garage, that I hadn't learned something or other about automobiles, and what can break down, and can be repaired…..and what repair has to be improvised. Bet you don't hear about that too much in this day of computer technology dictating everything about repairs except when to go to the bathroom, or have lunch. These old-timers made lots of parts, to help in a crunch, get these customers mobile again. They were alchemists of their industry. This was the kind of classroom I wanted to be in…..not because I planned to be a mechanic in later years…..but because it fascinated me, and compelled me to learn things I otherwise would never have been exposed. My mother wouldn't allow me to take a shop class at school for fear I'd cut my hand off. So I became a writer /historian, and I still cut myself on can lids and pieces of paper. But at least I got a chance to see what it was like in the automobile repair business of the 1960's and 70's, thanks to Rick and Al, and of course Seth and Art, to find gents of gas station legend and lore.
When I'm traveling about the antique circuit, and pop into shops that have automobile and service station memorabilia, I always pause for a few moments, and think back to the days Al, Rick, Don (another chum) and I, had the privilege of hanging-out amidst motor vehicle history. It might not have been called a museum, but it was in fact, a place that should have been frozen in time……or at least when Art and Seth sold it off, preserved for posterity. It's a Hock Shop today, and I can't pass through that door, without re-visiting those tantalizing visuals and scents of automotive heritage. I still come around that same corner, as I did with my father, and wonder, if those three old timers that I used to see, sitting beside the gas pump(s), are still there……in spirit-form, leaning back in their chair against the building, watching the mortal world of this new century, pass by. I know they're still there, so I wave each time I go by…..no fooling.
I'm glad I wasn't so shy as a youngster, as my mother supposed, that I missed these opportunities to visit the industries and shops that operated in our town, back in the mid 1960's onward, because it was all about to change so dramatically even before I hit twenty……and I think I witnessed, up close and personal, those wind-up years where progress and urban renewal became the nostalgia lovers' nightmare. I was afforded a rare adventure in these places, including many visits to the Uptown Garage operated by Ted Smith, on the top of Manitoba Street's, "Queen's Hill," to visit my school mate Ross "Hoss" Smith (Ted's son), who was the service centre gas jockey. He'd pump your gas, sell you a chocolate bar, clean your windows, take your payment, and say "thank you very much," when you complimented the landscape painting, he was working on in the lobby. We also had a painting pharmacist, and a barber artist in our town at the same time. But you won't find that in any history book…..unless I write it…..and I haven't yet.
I do regret one thing about our dealings with Seth Hillman. If we came into the garage looking for old wheels and axles, it was undoubtedly for our go-cart we were constructing. If we didn't find what we needed to scavenge, at the Downtown Garage, dollars to donuts we knew where else to look. I can't tell you how many times Seth came home at night, and when planning to cut the lawn on their Toronto Street property, found his mower to be missing its wheels. He'd just come out of that garage shaking his head, mumbling about "damned kids," and never say another word. We probably got four of his old mowers the same way, and this isn't to suggest Rick and Al didn't get scolded about the wheel-removals, but he never said a cross word as long as I knew the man. God knows he put up with a lot of kid interventions. I don't think he was too happy when we got a hold of some of this cherished dandelion wine, in the basement, and had a wee party of our own. Teddy Currie shy? I don't think so. If it wasn't bolted to the floor, it was finders keepers. Hey, it worked the same in our house, as long as Merle and Ed weren't in at the time. We didn't have a lawnmower to scavenge from anyway. We just raided the fridge for those happenstance sandwiches to give us strength to carry on our neighborhood mischief.
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