Where a house once stood...

See that house there? I lived there from the time I was 4 until I was 7. It wasn't that house of course. When I lived there on that property on 26th Street West and the 100 block, across from where the Kinsmen Water Slide now stands, there stood a big, old, drafty two-storey house with no running water and an oil furnace. We moved there from the little house on 29th Street, when my mom was expecting my younger brother. We needed more room.

That old house hold many memories for me and that big spruce tree standing there, was there when I was little. It's branches used to brush up against the walls of the house making a swishing sound. My dad would hold my little brother in his arms and I would stand beside him looking up at the lovely green tree outside the living room window. The snow would cover it in winter and in the summer it's branches would give us morning shade. I loved that tree, I think because my dad loved it too, and whenever he would rock little Dale back and forth to get him to stop crying, he would stand by the window and look at that tree and sing to him. That comforted me too.

Then I remember in the summer I was playing outside in the front yard (no grass, just potatoes) and mom came running from inside the house and grabbed me by the arm and rushed me into the house. There had been an escape from the men's jail just down the street and two men were headed our way. My uncle worked at the jail and must have called mom to let her know. I remember staying inside for quite a time on that hot summer morning, when usually I'd be outside for most of the day.

I learned to skate when I lived in that house too. There was a girl named Sharon Matts who lived behind us. Her dad brought us her used skates for me to wear. They had dirty patches of rabbit fur around the ankles and were a bit scuffed but they were all I had. It was totally exciting. I remember putting on my ski pants, wool coat, hat, scarf and mitts and the skates. She had a little square patch of ice in her back yard where we could skate. But never skating before in my life, I was determined to have fun. Off I went walking on those skates in the snow, past our outhouse, over the back alley and into her yard. There I spent the first day skating on my ankles and being more horizontal than vertical. I walked home again on my ankles and I recall my feet being so cold I cried, they hurt so badly. But I got to skate....the fact they were used skates were of no importance whatsoever.

I started school too, while living there in that little shack. Grade one. I had to walk from there to Queen Elizabeth school - 21 Street and 5th Avenue West. My older brother must have walked with me, I don't remember. I just remember it being a very long way...especially in the winter. But no one had two vehicles in those days. My mother didn't even drive! So no one knew any differently. Everyone walked.....even when one is 5 years old! I remember my route too. I walked right past the very house we now live in! Imagine. Fifty-six years later and here I am, right where I started. I remember the day the old water tower burned to the ground. We were walking home from school at lunch time (no lunches at school in those days) and I remember walking right past it with smoke coming out of the top of it....on the corner of 2nd Avenue and 22nd Street West, the southeast corner. To me, that was scary I think because I remember the sound of the fire engines coming and my mother was no where in sight!!!

Winters were wicked in that house. I remember my mother putting hot water bottles in our beds and we slept with sweaters over our pyjamas and socks on our feet. You could actually see little bits of the outside through the cracks in the walls. My little brother caught pneumonia there and the doctor had wanted him to be hospitalized but mother would have none of that. She nursed him back to health herself.

We had no running water there, so it would be the old Saturday night bath in the big wash basin mom used for rising the laundry after it was washed. Even with no running water, the house was spotless. I remember Christmases there with family and friends and everyone being happy and being fed - on the table set up in the living room. Nights were spent playing marbles on the living room rug or having my brothers train set up and running there, round and round on the tracks, the big steam engine followed by the coal car with other cars trailing behind with the caboose bringing up the rear.

Saturday nights everyone would gather in the living room to listen to Foster Hewitt announce the Leafs vs Canadiennes hockey games. "He shoots.....he SCORES!!!" Oh, ya...go Leafs!!! Funny how everyone did things together those days. No one had their own room really. We all gathered in the living room to play, sing, dance, listen to music or radio. No television in every room or computers we could sit in front of or video/wii games to take our individual time and attention. No. We did everything together as a family.

Every Sunday evening we would spend beside the big radio listening to "Hawaii Calls" with the sounds of the steel guitar and waves washing up on the beach with the evening breezes cooling all of us who sat and listened......"Aaaaalohaaaaa"...I remember them singing so beautifully...........and there was "Edgar Bergen and Charlie McCarthy Show" too. Edgar was a ventriloquist and Charlie was the dummy. I remember laughing long and hard!

We moved out of that old creaky, leaky house October 31, 1954 to a brand new house on 6th Street East. It was demolished not long after we moved out of it and I'm not surprised. But my parents made it a home for us, a home with love and laughter and memories....memories to share with all of you.

Happy Earth Hour......hmmmmm....I'm not supposed to be using any electricity for this hour.

bye........