Going home again
The older I get, the more I remember the past with clarity. By the time I went to kindergarten, I could read on my own. My father had nightly read to me and listened while I read from a range of books including those by Thornton W. Burgess. I can vividly remember pronouncing “gnaw” in The Adventures of Danny Meadow Mouse with a hard “g” as if it had two syllables – g-naw – and being corrected.
As a result of his fine tutelage I became an early and avid reader at the Carnegie Library in Guelph. The children’s books were downstairs through a separate entrance at the back. By the time I was twelve, I had read everything on those shelves and was allowed to mount the front steps, past the columns, under the dome, and into the inner sanctum of the adult library.
All the librarians knew me which was both a help and a hindrance. When I tried to check out By Love Possessed by James Gould Cozzens, Miss Metcalfe took it off the counter, saying, “I don’t think your mother would want you to read that.”
My 1950 kindergarten graduation included a rhythm band and a musical playlet, called “If We Had Wings.” Carol Anne Matthews, Leanne Dodge and Donald Kantel were ducks. Ruth Yeates and Dorothy Wells were butterflies. I was something less lyrical, a crow. My role consisted of singing, as rhythmically as I could: “C-Caw-Caw-Caw, C-Caw-Caw-Caw.” I’ve been singing for my supper ever since.
When I was eight, I wanted my own bike. My parents told me to save up and pay for it myself. My allowance at the time was $1 a week. That winter I did all my chores without prodding, including making my bed, shovelling snow, and helping my father take out the cinders from the coal furnace.
By spring, I had enough money, $30 as I recall, to go to Brown’s Bicycle on Quebec Street and buy a new red CCM. One speed only; nothing fancy in those days. I also bought a bell that was attached to the handlebars and an odometer for the front wheel hub. That first day of ownership I went far and wide, 28 miles in all.
What a feeling, not only to have the capacity to jump on a bike and go wherever you wanted, but also to have paid for it yourself. It’s a lesson every kid should learn.
Hi there, Rod, and (almost) Happy Birthday!
I’m famous! I’m famous! I’ve been mentioned on the internet!
I, too, remember Miss Metcalfe, but not Donald Kantel. I remember Miss Coulson often wore a smock in class. I remember carrying my Kindergarten chair in front of me to sit in a circle. I remember having to go upstairs for assemblies and gym. I remember calling for Martha Wilson on Lemon Street each morning and that family had a grandfather clock just inside the front door. Her mother was often still braiding Martha’s hair and was still in her housecoat.
I also had to save money for my first two-wheeler, but I used Christmas and birthday money gifts. I needed $40 and my parents paid the other $8. It was blue, but no odometer, just a bell. I rode that bike constantly, but I wasn’t allowed to cross Eramosa Road.
Thanks for the memories!
Leanne
This is a wonderful and evocative story Rod.
Us four children were individually excited when our mother walked us to our very small town library on our 7th birthdays to ‘officially’ join it. How special and important we felt, proudly walking home with our first three books and a very distinguished-looking library card with our name tidily printed on it, in ink no less. Dad was an author and a librettist, Mum a classical pianist, so we felt all grown up when admiring our precious loans in company with his gleaming Remington on the dining room table and her tottering piles of sheet music. After supper us four piled onto our rumpled chesterfield to listen, once again, to Dad read aloud ‘my copy’ of “Madeline”.
The game was on! Thank you for celebrating libraries and reading. (If schools taught nothing else…)