On to Assiniboia

In 1954 there weren’t enough students to justify keeping Milton School open and I was bussed to Limerick for my grade three year. For six weeks I took the bus to Limerick. I was a bit of a runt and got picked on a bit on the bus. For about a week, the bus didn’t come out to our farm because of heavy rain. Dad drove me to Limerick where I lived with his uncle Bill and aunt Eleanor. Uncle Bill was a barber and had a pool hall attached to his barber shop. There was something very exotic and almost sinful about a pool hall. In the musical Music Man, we were warned about the dangers of pool. “We have trouble, right here in River City. It starts with T and it rhymes with P and that stands for Pool.” What was that trouble? When I finally was able to start playing pool after turning 16, I was somewhat disappointed.

In October of that year my mom and dad made the momentous decision to move off the farm to the huge metropolis of Assiniboia. We bought a house at 406 4^th Ave. West. It was October 19, 1954, the day after my 8^th birthday. My mom walked me to school. Straight east on 4^th Ave till we reached Main Street then south to 7^th Avenue and the school. My mother made me memorize the route home. Walk on Main Street till I reached the Olympia Theater, then turn left, and walk for 4 blocks and I would find our house. I was already practicing and honing my worrying skills, but everything turned out just the way mom said they would, and I made it home for lunch.

I had a very traumatic event about this time. I was taken for my first dental appointment. Now, I’d had teeth loosen and fall out, but I had never been to a dentist. He was the most evil looking man I had ever seen. He would have made Adolph Hitler look like a Sunday school teacher. Probably a little over the top there, but he had to extract a tooth and it was very painful. To this day, I have a fear of visiting a dentist, but I do it twice a year. I still shut my eyes tight, before the hygienist begins cleaning my teeth.

I fell in love in that grade 3 class. She was the most beautiful woman I had ever seen. Her name was Miss Kroshus and she had fabulous blonde hair. Every day at the end of the school day she would kiss each of the children as we left the class. I was positive that she kissed the other children to cover her special love for me. Then she did the unthinkable – she got married without even consulting me! My first heart break.

We moved to Assiniboia just before class pictures were taken. I had had my picture taken in Limerick and my mother wasn’t pleased. My two front teeth were missed and I presented a big gap-toothed smile to the camera. When pictures were taken in Assiniboia, I made up my mind not to repeat my previous error. My teeth hadn’t grown in yet, so I presented a close-mouthed smile to the camera.

I found grade three fairly easy and in June was told I wouldn’t have to write any exams to pass into grade 4. I’d been given a full recommendation! Yowza! My first summer in Assiniboia.

Perhaps a brief description of our home would be in order. We didn’t have indoor plumbing and only a cold-water line coming into the house. Friday nights were bath night. Water would be heated up on the stove and poured into a galvanized tub and we took our turns to have a bath. After my Bunica (Romanian for Grandma) moved into Assiniboia, she lived in a house with indoor plumbing and hot water. What a treat it was to go to her house for our weekly bath. I loved those baths.

Remember, no indoor plumbing. Under the sink was a slop pail that caught the water we used in the sink and then thrown out on the garden when it was full. Maybe it was that slop water that gave us the yields in our garden. I have never seen more cucumbers in my life! The other problem was what do about our more personal bathroom needs. We didn’t have a real basement, just a dirt cellar. It housed a coal fired furnace, a coal bin and a chemical toilet. Not sure where that name came from, but it just pail with a toilet seat above it. Once a week dad would haul the pail out to the back alley, and the “honey wagon” came by to pick up our sewage.

My dad’s first job was delivering coal to the other home heated in the same way our was. He late got a job with Mathhew’s John Deere as a mechanic. He spent the rest of his working life in that job. We still had the farm and vacation times were spent with dad first seeding, then summer fallowing and then harvesting in the fall. Only once did we take a family vacation. Our neighbours lent us a tent and we went to Regina Beach with my Uncle John and Aunt Alice.

In the summers my brother Lloyd and I would leave home after breakfast and hang out with friends till we heard the noon siren and off we’d go home for lunch. So much fun and so many adventures.