• Walking to school without parents -- from kindergarten onward.

 
• Hiding behind snowsuits in Mrs. McQueens' cloakroom after wetting my pants.

 
• Wearing breeches and knee-socks in the winter, shorts in the spring and fall.

 
• Packing dark blue cloth "ditty bags" for the sailors.

 
• Never using the main entrance to the school.

 
• Falling during recess and grinding sharp-edged gravel into my knees on a regular basis.

 
• "One two three a'Laura, four five six a'Laura, seven eight nine a'Laura ten a'Laura Secord."

 
• Taking home newsletters during the war exhorting us to ration everything, for example, not to put on shoes with laces tied for fear of breaking down their leather backs.

 
• Biking to school and leaving our bikes in the rack under the tree, without locks.

 
• Buying popcorn from the popcorn man's push cart, the whistle from the heater beckoning us. Watching intently as he poured the oil on our bag. Two sizes: 5 or ten cents. Peanuts in their shells 5 cents, Taffy Apples 10 cents.

 
• "Autumn leaves are now falling, red and yellow and brown, Autumn leaves are now falling, see them tumbling down".

 
• After school, heading over to Blythwood Road east of Mt. Pleasant, where men and steamrollers were paving the way to Sunnybrook. Charlie Gunn and I took orders from the workers and biked to Mason's Drug Store for cold bottles of milk -- and popsicles for ourselves.

 
• Watching the recording of the radio quiz program "Did I Say That" in the auditorium, probably at a Home and School evening meeting.

 
• Skating on the outdoor rinks, and getting a drink of ice cold water across the street at the neighbour's outdoor tap, from a tin cup on a chain. (Whose house was that?)

 
• Collecting and trading buttons: Sportsman's League fishing flies with exotic names like Royal Coachman, Grey Bivisible and Parmachene Belle. There were also the Kellogg's Pep cartoon buttons featuring Skeezix, Uncle Willie, Lord Plushbottom and Minnie Pearl. A more local collection was the circular cardboard caps from the milk and cream bottles of Toronto dairies such as Silverwoods and Uplands.

 
• Were there also Hockey cards with the likes of Syl Apps and Turk Broda?

 
• Playing marbles after school on the girls' side. "Hit 'em and you get 'em with your own ally back!" (That is how I remember it Lorna.) I also remember that if we offered up a button for the alley shooters to aim at, we always took its pin off and flattened it out first, and tried to place it in a slight depression in the cement in the hope that accurate alleys would roll over it without moving it.

 
• Playing volleyball endlessly, and shinnying up the cold net poles to show off.

 
• Stopping in our tracks in response to the bell that ended recess. Then another bell, and we filed in.

 
• Straight pens, with inkwells sunk into the desks. (As a leftie, I spattered ink gloriously as the nib drove into the paper in the relentless drive from the left side of the page to the right.) And then, towards the end of public school, the miracle of the ball point pen!

 
• Tobogganing at Sherwood Park, and fireworks on the 24th of May.

 
• The Bronze medal after four years, and then the silver after eight.

 
• Playing hockey at night under the lights, freezing cold, proudly sporting woolen NHL sweaters, flirting with the girls from the pleasure rink. Being shooed off the rink by the man who came to flood it. Peeking into his dark shack with its coal-fired stove.

 
• Being kissed awake in a Grade Five play by Diane Wilson. (She missed, intentionally, I think.)

 
• Listening to the man from the Gideon society in school assembly. He caught our attention by encouraging one kid to come forward and receive a dollar. Then we all got a copy of the New Testament with soft maroon plastic covers.

 
• Friday night Community Centre and Square Dancing, with Miss Allen as caller and the lady pianist who sat knitting between sets. Then the round dancing, and later in the evening, some cheek to cheek contact with the lights down low, to Artie Shaw's "Dancing in the Dark". Down in the basement, buffing plastic on a wheel to make lamps -- the strong and not unpleasant smell of it stays with me.

 
• The threat of the strap, and the badge of bearing it bravely.

 
• The stigma (or honour) borne by kids who lived in "The County" where there were no sidewalks.

 
• Walking home through the glorious ravine. Testing the ice on its creek and getting a soaker. Riding our bikes madly on its paths. Meeting a flasher once on a class outing.

 
• Waving our flags at Princess Elizabeth and Prince Phillip as they were driven up Bayview to Sunnybrook Hospital.

 
• Fire Drills: the loud repeated ringing of the bells in sets of three, lining up and walking out to the playground in orderly fashion under the observant eye of a fire chief. (Didn't Rae Cowan ring the bells most of the time?)

 
• The Capitol and Circle movie theatres, and later, the Fairlawn, with its Saturday Odeon O program for kids.

 
• Triple Trio with Mr. Winter, an inspired music teacher: "When you walk through a storm, keep your head up high�"

 
• Remembrance Day assemblies and tears from kids who had lost brothers or fathers in the wars.

 
• Miss Farley's choir: "Now is the month of Maying, where merry lads are playing, fa la la la la la la la la , fa la la la la la la." Also "He that hath a pleasant face, and can join in catch or glee, he shall have a pleasant place, in our goodly company"

 
• Meeting the salesman after school who persuaded you to take a bag stuffed with ten copies of a magazine, sell them and make some money. (As I recall, homeowners were highy resistant to my sales pitch, having heard it many times before.)

 
• Showing my tricks to the yo-yo representative, and winning a silver yo-yo for my efforts. He even carved the outline of a sailboat into the side. (I never got the gold one though.)

 
• John Hutchinson's newspaper "The Sentinel", sub-titled "Blythwood's First and Last Paper". The Neighbourhood News in the September 24 edition included the follow: "There are so many starlings around Pote Ave. that the city officials have had to chop down several trees and fire Roman Candles at them to get rid of them."

 
• Buying school supplies at the stationer's shop on Yonge Street, under the severe watchful eye of the owner (what was his name?)

 
• Going over to John Ross Robertson for Manual Training. Sometimes we walked through the ravine to Yonge Street and then, rather than climb up to the road, we squeezed between the bars of the storm sewer and made our way in the dark under Yonge Street.

 
• Baseball with Mr. Lawson: "John Buchan at bat, Peter Hancock on deck, Johnnie Mueller In the hole, Pete Norris shovelling coal".

 
• The controversy over the building of the Strathgowan Badminton Club in the ravine. Many of us eventually joined, and played badminton Saturday mornings. While waiting for a court, we ate vanilla ice cream cones served up by a jovial Mrs. Lawson, and watched Howdy Doody and Buffalo Bob in the glassed-in TV room.

 
• Switching from the St. Clement's library to the spanking new George Locke Library at Lawrence and Yonge. (That is where I discovered my favourite fiction author: Arthur Ransome and his "Swallows and Amazons" series.)

 
• Singing hymns at the opening of Sunnyview School.

 
• Spring evenings, after supper, heading up to Wanless Park to watch the fastball games and check out who was there. Afterwards, milk shakes at Hall's Dairy and then a fast bike ride home to meet Dad's curfew.

Hey, class of '52, Doug has a quiz for you.