THE GREAT INFERNO AS REMEMBERED FROM A FOUR YEAR OLD’s MIND – 1950’s

As I lay here flipping thru the worn and wrinkled pages of my mind, I am struck by the fact that I can still pull out memories that are now reaching 67 years old. When I say that out loud, it seems surreal. In some ways, there are memories of events that happened back then, which are more clear than things that only took place one or two years ago. Although I do not remember seeing my Dad ride a bucking bronc, I remember my mom calling him an “old fool” for doing so. He must have been all the way into his thirties by then.

I remember riding with him on the school bus as he picked up a load of the kids from the school and delivered them to their homes in the surrounding countryside. These were some of the best times of my life. Sitting up front in that bus and watching the “big” kids pile on, laughing and talking, full of excitement and loud banter, was a proud moment for me. I felt like a big shot. My Dad was driving! To me it was as if he was flying an airplane. The bus seemed so huge and he was in complete command of it.

Or, images, of my Mom sitting with me reading a book and pointing out each word, often stopping to tell me the sound each letter made. Books were a magic kingdom to me. I believe it was at this time where I developed, a lifelong love of the magic of the printed word and of stories. My favorite were of adventure and mystery. I was probably 4 or so but a rousing session of “Cock Robin” had the juices flowing. The picture of that hated “sparrow” with his little bow and arrow, was enough to put me in a melancholy mood. My favorite version was when they hung the little devil. My Mom was a pacifist and could not abide the thought of capital punishment even for the sparrow, so I did not get this version often. I couldn’t read, so she may have been making up her own ending where there was no punishment, mentioned, for Cock Robin’s passing. It was one of my “go to” stories. Mom sat with each one of us kids individually, each day. She also started us on a gaming path, and had games with us each and every day.

Another event sticks clearly in my mind. It was of the night that my Dad’s welding shop caught fire and burned to the ground. In our town, all of the businesses were located on one street, in basically, a one block area. Our village had one store, and a magnificent place it was. You could get anything a young person would ever dream of, including a haircut from the owner Dick Benz. I sat in that huge haircutting chair, holding on for dear life, as he spun me around as if on a merry-go-round. How that name, and that chair, stick in my mind as clear as if it was just yesterday, is beyond me?

I suspect it was because, he was the dispenser of all things magic for a young boy. He had the best “jawbreakers”, ice cream in a cone, jellybeans and liquorice in the world. I remember him giving me a bag loaded with my favourites, in return for one small coin, that my Mom gave me (might have been a “nickel”). You could also buy a set of cowboy guns if you had unlimited resources. I used to go in and look at that set of toy guns and dream. His was a place that held the answer to all of my dreams. Dad’s welding shop was two doors down from the general store. It was also straight up the alley from our house, about 6 lots away. In there he hammered, banged, sawed and otherwise imposed his will on huge pieces of iron and steel.

Almost everything he did was for the surrounding farming community. Occasionally a trucker, or some other type of customer came by. Whatever the farmers could not do with their own equipment, at home, they brought into Dad or had Dad go out to their place. He was moderately busy and along with the school bus gig, seemed to be making a go. However, what would I know, I was barely out of the wet diaper stage and would have cared less about things like that. In the middle of one summer’s night, our world came crashing down.

After a loud pounding on our door and lots of loud voices, I became aware that something was happening at Dad’s shop. Mom immediately swung into action, corralling us and helping dad get out the door. What I remember, dimly was my older brother and sister talking about a “fire”. Mom was soon making food and coffee and ferrying it up the alley to the fire with my big brother. I still didn’t have an awareness of what was going on, but remember the sense of “excitement” in the air. As it turned out Dad’s shop burned to the ground but they managed to contain it to his shop only.

This pretty much finished our time in the little town of Rosalind, Alberta, population (now 6 less)at 150 persons. Dad’s tools, equipment, shop and supplies were gone. Sadness permeated our home, but with it came an undercurrent of excitement. Soon, at least that’s how my memory worked, we were packed up and off to live in the big city. Dad had accepted work in the metropolis. It wasn’t the Big Apple, it just seemed like it to us. Red Deer, Alberta at that time had 10,000 people and at my age, could have been 10,000,000. We were about to start some new adventures.