Prompt # 30 – First Day of School

Prompt # 30 - First Day of School

When I started school I was five years eight and one-half months old and I was SO ready. I couldn't wait to learn to read. I was the oldest. I was the first to go. Even my best friends, the twins across the road, were born four months after me so they had to wait another year before they could start. That meant that when I got there, to the Grade One and Two room in Oak River Elementary School in Manitoba (this was before kindergarten was invented) I only knew one other person in the room, my cousin Ken who was in Grade Two, and maybe Brian and Gerald whose parents were friends of my parents.

I don't remember what I wore but I would have carried a book bag filled with all the supplies which had been on the list given out in August-pencils, sharpener, erasers, Hilroy scribblers, ruler. And I would have carried the beautiful wine-coloured enameled tin lunch box with the picture of the new Queen Elizabeth II wearing a blue dress and diamond crown. The lunch kit was a gift from my BC grandmother. I remember my Dad asked me when I got home “Did you sing God Save the King?” and I answered, “No, silly, God Save the Queen (and O Canada).”

The school van would have picked me up at our front door at 8:25 am and driven us into town. School must have started at 9 but there were other stops on the way of the four mile trip. Private cars were contracted as school vans, different drivers each year, from someone along our route-Blacks, Brays, Burts, Haggertys, Bridgemans, Browns, Powers, Thompsons, and sometime others, usually those with fathers who worked at the military base ten miles away and their families were renting empty farmhouses along our road. We were often nine or ten children in the car with the driver, the little ones sitting on the knees of the older ones. This was also before seatbelts were invented. In twelve years I never heard of one school van accident. The vans picked us up again at the school at 3:30 and we were home by 3:55.

My first day of school was a day of happy surprises. The school used to invite future Grade Ones to attend one day of school in the spring, so that we could observe the classroom routine, find out where the washrooms were, meet the teachers. I was thrilled by the Grade One teacher who hosted me on my prep day. She was beautiful-Miss B-and she charmed me by telling me her name was Joan too, the same as mine. I was so sad over the summer when I learned that my Grade One teacher in September was going to be Mrs S. But when I got there, who could believe my good luck! Mrs S was Miss B. She had just married over the summer, but her name was still Joan. It was my lucky day.

Mrs S is in our class picture for that first year, but you can tell, she didn't come back for my Grade Two year. The photo also tells me what I wore. I forgot that we wore tunic uniforms that first year. Navy blue, with a white blouse. Of all the kids in this photo, I can still name each one. Of the ten Grade Ones, only four graduated with me twelve years later, along with some of the Grade Twos and others from Cardale, a nearby smaller town. Walter, Ricky, Ken, Carol, and Gordon moved away. Their fathers worked in town jobs—municipal clerk, hotel operator, construction, garage operator, mechanic. John and Harriet, centre row, L1 and L3, only spoke Dutch when they arrived that year. The tallest boy, Pond, was sixteen years old and had just arrived from China. He was only in our room for a short while, until he learned enough English to move to the next grades. This was before ESL was invented too, but Pond did get English immersion. He finished school and was working in Brandon before the rest of us finished Grade Twelve.

To the best of my knowledge, all these kids are still alive, but I don't hear a lot of news from Oak River as I have no family still living there, and none of us stayed. We left for post-secondary education or employment opportunities. Only about two still live in the district. The farms are bigger than they used to be, but they require fewer workers, fewer farm families. The old elementary school is gone now. The kids go to school in the “new” high school building, opened in 1961. The high school kids are bused to Rivers. The town is smaller too, so small that when I try to list it as my hometown, Facebook won't even accept it, as if it no longer exists. But I know it's still there. Also, note to genealogists. The date on this photograph is incorrect. My first day of school was in September 1954 and the photo was taken in May 1955. Honest. I am sitting front row L5, with the centre part. 

Prompt # 29 - Carry All - What's In Your Bag?

Prompt # 29 - Carry All - What's In Your Bag?

I never leave the house without my bag, even if I'm just going for a walk. I have several, which I change for the seasons. Always a shoulder bag. Often received as gifts. The winter black, from Molly. The feathered blue, from Candace. The striped blue, from Karen. The gold one I found at a garage sale. I prefer fabric or leather.

I carry a shoulder bag in order to keep all the things I need together and accessible. My keys for house, car, mailboxes are in an outside pocket or attached to the handle by a safety hook. My billfold wallet with cash, drivers licence, ID, health card, bank cards, credit cards, business cards, numbers, etc. My blue beaded heart change purse found at a garage sale. Cell phone. Calendar. Pen and note pad. Hairbrush and comb. Cough drops and/or breath mints. Lip balm. A flashdrive. Can't remember if it is my trip pics or my CanLit presentation. My digital camera. Extra batteries and memory card. My tablet which I use mainly for taking photos. (There is free wi-fi up town.) Each of these in pink paisley quilted cases made by my friend Joyce. Gloves. Toque or beret. Sunglasses. Sun screen. Umbrella. This is BC. We have “Irish” weather, when it is not snowing. On longer trips, I'll include a thermos of water, and a skinny pocket book to read if I have to wait (or I can download books on my tablet). On Thursdays, my Scrabble dictionary. A quick check reveals: car insurance documents, coupons, shopping lists, map, and a metal art trading card case. Forgot about that. It did cause some concern the last time I went through the airport scanner.

I do hate having to dig around in the dark trying to retrieve something in the bottom of the bag. But, as an exercise in personal archaeology, what does this inventory reveal? Lifestyle and concerns. Security. Transportation. Communication. A sense of identity—who I am, what interests me. Words. Images. Ideas. Travel. And a circle of generous friends. I've said this before too. I am blessed.

Prompt # 28 - Parents

Prompt # 28 – Parents

My father, Donald Albert Bridgeman, was born in Brandon, Manitoba, June 24, 1920, and grew up on his parents' farm near Bradwardine, MB, the third of fourteen children. Although he liked school, when he finished Grade 8 he had to go out to work, usually for other local farmers. It was the Depression so he and friends including his brother Jim took the train to BC looking for better prospects. He was hired on at the Harpur Ranch in Rock Creek. He loved working there and forever after called Mrs. Harpur “Mum” which was a shock to me, that he would call another woman besides Grandma “Mum.” Although they didn't get together until after the war, Dad met my mother on the Harpur Ranch when he was eighteen and she was thirteen. A group of teens were at the swimming hole. Mum was there with her sister Betty who was closer to Dad's age. Mum wrote about the day in her journal. Mum's mother and Mrs. Harpur were the best of friends.

Dad joined up in 1940 in Brandon, spent many long months training in England, and then went with Canadian forces on the invasion of Italy. At the end of fighting, he was wounded in Italy and spent a couple of weeks in hospital, joining a different group for the final weeks of the war in Europe. He returned home in November, 1945. He bought a farm with the assistance of the Veterans Land Act. His farm, in Oak River district, the old Henderson place, was three miles from his parents' farm. He had asked to buy land in BC but was told that the economy was too depressed and Manitoba would be a better prospect. He farmed for approximately thirty years before selling the land and retiring back to BC. In Manitoba, his pastimes included curling in the winter, fishing in the summer, and poker every week. When he retired, he continued these activities and added lawn bowling and bridge. He would play any card game if there was a nickel riding on it, but bridge and poker were his passions. He died of cancer in Vernon on May 16,1984.

Dad was always called Don. His nickname in the army was Dinty, it think, not sure why. When he used to manage my brothers' baseball and hockey teams, I heard others call him “Chief” but I think that was because he used to stand tall and walk proud as soldiers are trained to do. Once when my little brother was about four, I watched him and Dad walk from the woodpile to the house. They marched in perfect step, arms swinging, and my little brother's right shoulder was sloped down at the exact angle in imitation of my Dad's, a result of the damage to the neck and shoulder muscle he sustained when wounded.

My mother, Margaret Norah Bubar, was born in Greenwood, BC, December 26, 1925, the fourth of six children. She grew up on her parents' ranch in Kettle Valley, BC. Her nickname was Bunty, given to her when she arrived home from hospital all bundled up and her three-year-old brother George said “bye, baby Bunting,” a popular English nursery rhyme. She was called Bunty all her life by family and close friends. To newer acquaintances, she was Marg. She and Dad married in Kettle Valley, BC, on Easter Monday,1948. Their honeymoon trip was the drive home to Dad's farm in Manitoba, from buttercups to mountains of snow.

Although she was a great housekeeper and loved knitting, most of Mum's favourite activities were outdoors. She was an avid swimmer, having learned from her mother in the Kettle River. She could beat most men who were foolish enough to accept the challenge of a race. She also lived for baseball and later took up curling and bowling. She pressured her children for grandchildren so that she would be eligible to curl in the Granny bonspeil. Luckily, the younger of my two brothers complied. Mum had walls of trophys. She also loved to fish and to play bingo. In their retirement years, they enjoyed travelling to visit family and to places like Reno and Las Vegas. As a widow, she travelled with a friend on a cruise to Australia. When she was diagnosed with Parkinsons, most of her pleasures were no longer attainable. She died in Vernon, BC, August 8, 1993.

Prompt # 27 - Cars

Prompt # 27 - Cars


We lived on a farm so we always had to have our own transportation. My parents drove home to Manitoba from BC on their honeymoon in an old model-T type car which I have only seen in photos. In winter we still used horses as the road into the house was not built until the year I started school. So I came home from the nursing home/hospital where I was born in Rivers, MB, in December, in a horse-drawn wagon across fields drifted with snow. Very romantic, but I don't remember anything except the white sparkle of sunshine on snow. I remember Dad had a really old grain truck with a long stick shift in front of the bench seat and holes in the floorboards where you could watch the road go by underneath. The first family car I remember was the new white 1952 Pontiac, licence number Manitoba 1P 719. My favourite was the new 1957 Pontiac because it was turquoise and white.

Although I knew how to drive the tractor to pull the stoneboat or the hayrack, my mother taught me how to drive the car. She said she never had any gray hair before then. I failed my first test so then I took some lessons from an instructor in Brandon who seemed to give his directions by hand movements along my thigh. I didn't go back. I remembered this later when one of my students went for her driver test and she wrote the big letters R and L on her jeans so she could remember which was Right and which was Left on her test. When the instructor asked her what the letters meant, she said they were her boyfriend's initials. 

I bought my first car the second year I was teaching, when I just had my learner's licence. I had to get permission to leave school, walk down to where the testing was done, where I had left my car earlier that morning, and take the test with the sixteen-year-old kids. Thank goodness, I passed, as when I got back, all the kids in class sang to me “Happy birthday, Sweet Sixteen.” I bought that car, a blue Pontiac Ventura, from my dad's dealer friend, and when I went to trade it in, he said he wouldn't have it back in his district. It had all that newfangled pollution prevention equipment on it and because of that, it got about four miles to the gallon. (See, that was so long ago, it was before metric conversion.)

In a car I look for value, environmental friendliness, and function, never for status or for national pride. I still like to think that it should have features which will allow me to sleep in it if necessary (camping, forest fires, homelessness.) After that first car, I switched to Toyota. I kept my first Corolla, gold, more than ten years, so long that the driver-side floorboard wore out and the gas pedal dropped off. I took it to my brother's mechanic to fix. He called it “my Flintstone car,” you know, the ones they wear, with their feet pedalling out the bottom. After my second, blue, Toyota died a natural death, I switched to Hyundai. I had my black Hyundai for seventeen years. Can't complain. Since then I just buy old cars, good enough to get me around town, and I take the bus if I have to go into the city, or bus and taxi to get to the airport. My next move will be to some place I can live without owning a car. Haven't figured out where that will be yet. Because I love my house and where I live right now. I've said this before. I am so lucky.