Halcyon Daze - Growing up Canadian

by N. A. Dalbec

  There were no computers being used in those days. Once a class list was filled, you were out of luck for that time slot unless your name was on the list, or even on the reserve list. So during the first three days I attended every possible class in every possible time slot, in every possible subject that I was tempted to take during the course of the year. I would stay just long enough to write my name on the list of students, and I'd look at the prof to see if I liked his or her face, and I'd have a quick look around to see if there were any nice looking chicks, and then I'd leave. When it came time to select the courses and times, I was already on every class list that you could imagine. So what if I was taking sixty or so classes a week. When I handed my final selection form, the person behind the glass just rubber stamped it and I had the schedule that I wanted. As the weeks went on, my name would automatically be removed from the other fifty-four classes as a no-show. Brilliant.

  I knew from that point on that I was going to like university a lot. I wasn't there to just fool around. I had done enough of that in high school, and I was out to prove some of my former high school teachers wrong. which I did. This is not to say that I didn't do my share of partying in university. I did, and with gusto. I had a policy though, and that was to party only after the work that had to be completed, was completed. Another policy to which I adhered was to go to class. The third policy was, to listen and take notes. The discipline worked, and I succeeded.

  Hard Body

  The teen years are difficult on your ego. It's like an ongoing joke, and you're the butt of it. First you start getting into puberty, and the hair starts to come out everywhere. That's the good part. But then your nose pores start to fill up with blackheads, and inevitably, the zits start to mushroom, feeding on the oil cartel that set up shop on your face. Then your arms and legs start to grow, and your torso decides to stay the same size. However your feet and hands decide to go along with your arms and legs, and you're looking a little disproportional, and oily. The girls you want to date are your age, but they have taken the express elevator, and are now towering threateningly over your slick little head. You asked for a little bit of facial and body hair, and look what you got.

  We all went through that painful period, but there was one thing you could do when you got out of it. You could breathe a sigh of relief. I was now eighteen, and finishing up my first year of university. I had grown to a respectable height, but as I looked in the mirror, I didn't really like what I saw. There was an inordinate amount of flab on me. I wasn't in bad shape cardio-vascularly speaking, but I had no shape to speak of. I was sort of tall and shapeless.

  When the opportunity to work for a construction company came up, I jumped at it. Actually, I had to bug my eldest brother to get me an opportunity. He was managing crews at the time and knew how difficult the work could be. The pay was good though. Four dollars and twenty-seven cents an hour, with plenty of available overtime. That worked out to at least one hundred and sixty dollars a week, and the opportunity to develop that body.

  My brother was very good to me. He got me a job as a supply driver for the different crews. That paid a little less, three-fifty an hour, but it was a hell of a lot better than being at the end of a shovel, or carrying five gallon pails of hot tar all over the place. I actually started my career working in cement, with an evil-eyed, but golden-hearted cement finisher. He was an artist, and he taught me to mix the finishing cement just right. It was like finding the grain in wood.

  From cement apprentice to site supplier I became. I had an old green Chev three-quarter ton small box pick-up with six-bolt wheels and a bull gear that would pull a house away from its foundation. With it I delivered tall propane tanks, cartons and barrels of tar, barrels of toluene and xylene, and an array of other stuff that was needed by the crews. I also towed tar-melting kettles to construction sites.

  Well, I got my wish. The grunt work started at seven in the morning, and sometimes finished at eleven at night. I remember being so tired some nights that I'd just go to bed with my work clothes on and not bother washing. I was only five or six hours from getting all dirty again. There were times when I thought I was going to get crushed by one of the seven hundred and fifty pound barrels of tar. I had to roll these suckers up into the back of the pick up truck using four by fours as a ramp. Did I mention the forty-five gallon barrels of water? One of the thrilling parts of the job was walking up twenty flights of stairs to the rooftop of a building to let the crew know that I had their supplies.

  On hot days, I could easily go through two large chocolate milk shakes, about a gallon of water, and four or five Cokes. The stuff just went in and back out through your pores like your bladder had been disconnected.

  By the end of the summer I was no longer flabby. My legs turned to rock and my shoulders went wide. No getting sucked in by those Charles Atlas ads. No sir.

  I don't think I ever worked so hard in my life, physically of course, and I enjoyed it to a point. I even considered skipping a year of school to make some big bucks. I’m glad my brother changed my mind.

  Better the Second Time Around

  I was making big bucks now, and working my butt off for them. I was quickly finding out that working on construction was a process of hardening oneself. The transformation from flab to firm was less romantic now. In the first days of work I would come home and just be exhausted. In the morning I would ache all over until I got myself going for an hour or so.

  I'm surprised that I didn't grow shorter that summer. The recipe went like this. Tote two five gallon pails of water from inside the building to a barrel. Fill the forty-five gallon drum with water; you can figure out the math. Take a four by eight sheet of plywood, throw some sand on it, throw some Portland cement on the sand, trowel in, make a little volcano, add water, but not too much, add a little bit of latex to it, and trowel till mixture is ready. Shovel mixture into wheelbarrow, and cart to John, the cement finisher who is located somewhere along the foundation of the building. Lesson time. Cement is the product with which you make concrete. Don't make the mixture too liquidy, and don't make it too dry. It was always a challenge getting the stuff to stay in the wheelbarrow as you maneuvered through construction site terrain.

  If I wasn't mixing cement for John, I was helping Kurt find leaks on rooftops. Kurt had a second sense for figuring out exactly where a leak was located. He was a well-wisher of sorts, and a fine political scientist. He had it right. The Minister of Health should be a doctor, the Minister of Justice should be a judge, and so on.

  All these dollars were burning a hole in my pocket. I was making adult dollars that summer, and I wanted some adult toys. One of my brothers had a '68 Austin Mini 1000. It was royal blue with gray interior. It ran pretty well, but the body had been modified drastically by another car. The entire right rear section from the B pillar back had been pushed in. Two of my brothers had fabricated a sheet metal cycle fender to cover the right rear wheel, otherwise the poor thing would have stuck out naked, seeing the body was now compacted some eight inches towards the inside of the car. The fix worked, and the ownership papers were able to change hands between my brother and me for the sum of two hundred and fifty dollars. That was about a week and a half's pay, after taxes.

  This was my second British car, and I was hoping that this time I would get a little more use out of it than my first car. I put in some Austin America seats that were extremely comfortable, and I put in a grille made of mesh that you pour concrete over. The larger seats made it impossible for the rear passengers to put their feet on the floor of the car, and I remember splitting a gut looking at three people sitting in the back seat, like little chipmunks waiting for a treat. Yes the pneumatic suspension could handle five adult passengers. I wouldn't want to hit anything with that many people in the car.

  The little sucker was quite a car. It rode on ten inch wheels. I remember buying some brand new snow tires at the store, for the thing, at a cost of ten dollars apiece, plus tax. The car had a high compre
ssion engine and it was recommendable to use high-test gasoline. The five gallon tank would cost less than two dollars and fifty cents to fill, and would move the car around for two hundred and fifty miles, on the highway. These, by the way, are all pre-oil crisis statistics.

  The Mini was great in the snow. If you did happen to get hung up on something, you just had to pull on the throttle button, put the car in gear, and get out and push. The only time I remember getting stuck with it was in the spring, not in the winter. I remember going parking with a young lady in a tree nursery, late at night. We must have been there for quite a while because the car had a chance to sink down to the axles in mud.

  The car was not without its problems, but all in all it served me well. I and others had tons of fun going places in it, and its unique bodywork is probably still part of many a motorist's memories.

  You’re a Scorpio, aren’t you?

  The play-offs were on, my first year of university was coming to an end, exams were coming up, spring was in the air, and I didn't feel like watching the play-offs.

  It was a beautiful spring evening and I decided to go for a ride in the Mini. I figured I'd just cruise the main streets of the city, and just take in whatever was happening. In our city, you were pretty well guaranteed that nothing much was happening on a weeknight.

  At one point, I found myself driving along one of the streets near the university. It was a street that had a few good bars on it. As I approached an intersection, I spotted a young couple hitchhiking. So I decided;" What the hell, let's give them a lift". They weren't going far, and as a matter of fact they were hitching a ride to their pick-up truck which was parked some eight blocks away. In the conversation, they asked me what I was doing. I told them that I wasn't up to very much. So they asked me if I wanted to hop in with them, so that I could show them where a certain place was. They were not familiar with the city, and they had to meet some friends at this particular place. Then they were off to a bar not far from where I had picked them up. So I said okay to the offer.

  I parked my car in the spot where the truck had been, and we drove off to the meeting place, which was not too far away. Once we got there, a bunch of people got in the truck and a few of us got relegated to the open back. It was a little cool back there, but these people had some smokables, and the drive to the bar was not a long one. A little frozen and medicated, we parked the truck and proceeded to an upstairs bar that I'd heard a lot about from one of my out of town cousins who was studying at the same university.

  I walked up the stairs with the others, and into the warmth of the bar. There was a folk singer playing, and the smoke in the place made me want to have a cigarette. I also wanted a beer. At one point between the going up the stairs and the going into the bar, I lost track of the people that I had come to the bar with. I remember just standing there, minding my own business, taking in the place, and thinking once again about having that beer. All of a sudden, this little finger poked me in the ribs. The little finger was attached to a rather attractive young lady with big bazoobees. As her finger poked me she said: “You’re a Scorpio, aren't you?" I said yes.

  The conversation continued from there. It turned out that she was working at that bar part-time. She was also an artist. She liked reading Tarot cards. I had no idea what Tarot cards were. I sort of knew what art was, academically speaking. One of my courses that year was a History of Art course. What I couldn't figure out though, was how she knew I was a Scorpio, and why this would have any bearing on anything.

  She had a really pretty face and nice teeth. I've always had a thing for nice teeth. She was also a lot of fun to talk to, although she never explained why she approached me with that rather knowing line. We took a table, and drank, and talked, and smoked cigarettes. As the place emptied out, people would leave half-finished bottles of wine on their tables. so we'd grab them up, and drink them down. I guess she had a pretty casual working arrangement because she was able to spend most of the evening with me.

  I drove her home that night, and asked her if she wanted to get together again. She did, but she had to work the next night. So we decided to make it a date while she worked at the bar, and I saw her the following night, and many nights after that. She had a small apartment on top of a store in the middle of the city. I remember staying there one night and staying in bed late the next morning only to realize that I was missing my History of Art exam. The prof really didn't like me because I hadn't taken his course seriously during the year. His revenge was to make me write a capsule paper on the course that I had just taken, in lieu of the missed exam. He failed me anyway. Thank goodness it was just a fluff course.

  I continued to see the mysterious young lady, but it never developed into anything serious. I remember being in bed one night with her. We were on our way back east for totally different reasons. She was going to an art school and I was going to visit some friends. As we lay in bed she looked at me and told me something rather disturbing. She told me she was in love. Unfortunately, she was in love with a girl.

  I was not disappointed that she wasn't in love with me. I'd only known her for a short time. I was probably more disappointed that she didn't feel like swinging both ways any more, because she was a really good lover.

  Anyway, I'll always remember the girl who asked me if I was a Scorpio.

  Cream Between

  I was firm now, thank you. I had worked my butt off during the previous summer in order to build up my body. I got to where I wanted to go with that, and although the money was good, it was time to move on.

  So I went to the student employment office, and found something that appealed to me. Driver, flexible hours. I got the referral and went to see what the job entailed.

  I was greeted by a guy who looked like a young Viking. He had blonde, blonde hair, and fair, very fair skin. He was tall, quite tall. An impressive person. He spoke with an accent, and I later found out that he was not a Viking, but a Dutch person. He owned and ran an ice cream business. You've seen something like it. Kids with three wheelers selling ice cream on the street. He needed someone to drive the bicycles to the kids that would sell the ice cream, and then pick up the bicycles in the evening. The best part of all of this was that the van to do all this work was a souped-up sand colored Ford van with side exhausts and American mags shod with fat, fat B.F. Goodrich tires. There was also a very good sound system in the truck. I was sold if he was, and he was.

  The day didn't start too awfully early, but ran till about ten in the evening. There was a break in the best part of the day, the afternoon. There were kids hired to fill the bikes up in the morning, and to unload them at night. They had to wear parkas to go into the freezers. If you needed to cool off on a hot July day, you just had to walk into the freezer for a few minutes. If you happened to bring a warm Coke in with you, and decided to leave it there, you could go back in five minutes later to find it frozen.

  The van was a blast to drive, especially when you had a few bikes to bring back to the warehouse. If the bikes were fastened to the very back section of the hauling trailer, it would make the back end of the van very light. You could go down the road at just about any speed, and lay rubber at your heart's desire. I was just at the right age for stuff like that. One of the hazards of pulling one of those huge trailers was that it would sometimes start to swing like a giant pendulum if you tried to stop to fast. There was nothing more unnerving than to watch a trailer's sides show up alternately in your side mirrors. I never lost a trailer, but some of the other drivers did.

  One thing happened that did bug the hell out of me. One day the young boss asked me to drop off his gorgeous girlfriend at home on the way back from a run. It was a pleasure to do so. She was a well endowed girl with a very pretty face, and nice teeth. I couldn't drop her off right at the house because the trailer was too big. So I dropped her off on one of the main streets near her house. I was full of good thoughts as I was pulling away. It was a nice morning, everything was fine, then, ban
g! The whole truck stopped suddenly. The freezer that was bolted to the floor of the van was now pushing up the back of the driver's seat. The tape deck which used to live under the driver's seat was now at my feet.

  What the hell had happened? I looked into the rear-view mirrors. There was a telephone pole where the trailer was supposed to be. The trailer was about three feet wider than the van, and in that part of the city, the streets had been widened, leaving the telephone poles out in the street. I had not noticed that as I was pulling up to drop off the young boss' girlfriend. I did, however notice it on the way out.

  I still had not seen the damage to the outside parts, so I went to look. You could have sworn that I'd been going a lot faster, when in fact I had been just pulling out. The trailer was bent. the trailer hitch was pulled out, the bumper was pulled out. What, a, mess!

  I was able to get back to the warehouse. I wasn't looking forward to it. When I got there I went into the office and explained what happened. What could he say? People get very philosophical in moments like that. I know I felt really bad.