Blythwood Memories

I've been inspired by reading other people's" Memories" to write down a few of my many wonderful Blythwood memories. I left after Grade 6 so I missed those sophisticated years of Grades 7 & 8 there.

GENERAL-LATE 50'S & EARLY 60'S

Skipping songs:

On the mountain stands a lady
Who she is, I do not know.
All she wears is gold and silver,
All she needs is a fine young man,
So I call in .......dear,......dear,.......dear,
So I call in .......dear,
While I go out to play.
----
Engine engine number nine,
Going down Chicago line,
If the train should jump the track,
Will I get my money back?
[HOT PEPPER; REPEAT WORDS BELOW UNTIL JUMPER MISSES]
Yes, no, maybe so.
----
Down the Mississippi where the boats go PUSH!
[Jumpers would form a line to jump in one by one while someone else jumped out.]
----
Girl Guide,Girl Guide, dressed in blue
These are the actions you must do
Salute to the Captain, bow to the Queen
And turn your back on the dirty submarine.
----
Apples.Peaches,Pears and Plums
----
Teddy Bear, Teddy Bear
----
Blue Bells, cockle shells,easy ivy over
----

Hoola hoops came in to great fanfare. People would use them around their waists, their necks, and one leg in the air. I recall the sound of the sand in the hoops swishing around.

Alleys( or marbles) only lasted for my first few years at school, but I remember playing against the walls on either side of the kindergarten stairs. As Joanne Abraham Farrell mentions, the Crown Royal soft bags were essential. I remember that I did not like to play " for keeps".

At one point ball "games" using a wall were big. I think both boys and girls played "Seven Up" against the walls with various sizes and types of balls (see Jerome Pascaris' Memories for superballs). Girls started playing with balls inside the toes of nylon stockings. While singing various songs, you would swing the ball in the nylon against the wall on either side of you, above you, and below you between your legs. Two songs that I recall are:

(To the tune of "Take me out to the Ballgame")
Take me out to the hospital
Take me up to my room
Give me some needles and I don't care
I'm in lo-ove with Dr. Kildare
So it's boo,boo.boo for Ben Casey
Rah, rah, rah for Kildare
And it's one, two, three needles out
At the old hospital,al,al,al!
------
A sailor went to sea, sea,sea
To see what he could see,see,see
And all that he could see,see,see
Was the bottom of the deep blue sea,sea,sea.
------

At various times, yo-yo's, yogi ("Yogi on the Kaiser" rings a bell), hopscotch, British Bulldogs, and" Squish" were popular (see Joanne Abraham Farrell Memories). When I was first told that adults played squash at clubs, I was sure that squash and squish were the same game and I couldn't believe that there would actually be a place for adults to play "Squish"! This was also the time of pogo sticks, stilts, scooters and rollerskates, but I don't remember these being brought to school.

After school Drama with Janet Mcphee was terrific. To this day I think of her whenever I pronounce the word "Tuesday". It had to be "tewsday" not "toosday". We were forever pronouncing words correctly as we warmed up for play practices. We had several plays written for children by Marie Gordon.

The Badminton Club at the bottom of Strathgowan Avenue was a wonderful place for kids to learn and play badminton. We had "ladders" of players and kept playing against one another. The cough drops available from the snack bar were to die for.

"Step on a crack, Break your mother's back"
was what we often recited as we walked west along Blythwood Rd from Blyth Hill Rd on our way to school as we leapt from one square of sidewalk to the next not daring to hit the line in between.

Choir with Miss Cressman was my only chance to have contact this wonderful teacher. All my siblings had her as a teacher at one time and I've only ever heard great stories about her.

I always felt a little nervous when we had Air Raid Siren Practices. We would all go quietly to the basement on the Girls side. I used to carry the small severed arm of my crocheted Humpty Dumpty in my pocket for comfort on days that I thought we'd be having an Air Raid Practice.

I loved taking swimming lessons at Sunnyview School. A strong smell of chlorine hit you as soon as you walked into the changeroom. Getting your WIDTH and LENGTH badges meant a great deal. The badges were sewn onto your favourite bathing suit.

Girls and boys would enter the school after recess or lunch using the entrance door closest to their classroom- either using the door on the Boys side or on the Girls side. It felt like a big thing in September if you had to go in a different door from the one you used in the previous year.

I have so many memories of LPPA baseball, Brownies, practising for weeks for the three-legged race on Field Day, skating, playing "Crack the Whip", sliding down ice slides, basket collecting," Crabby Appleton" or "Crabapple" (see Peter Meech Memories), the Good Humour man (see Richard Meech Memories), the popcorn man, and running down the well-worn path of the hillside at the SE corner of the Girls side to reach the corner of Strathgowan and Blythwood on my way home.

When I was quite young, my brother Richard and I sometimes joined the "big kids" in Grades 7 & 8 in a classroom in the basement for French classes from M. and Mme. Paichoux (who both went on to become longtime French teachers at UCC). We knew M. and Mme. Paichoux because they had taught us very basic French at private classes arranged by the Gaitskill family and held in their house on Saturdays.

A few memories specific to a certain class:

When I was in Kindergarten, one girl stuck her tongue on the metal bannister of the railing of the kindergarten stairs one winter morning. Was it Rosie Moore? We all gathered around fascinated to see her stuck and to watch a teacher try to release her tongue. Isn't incredible which memories stick with you? I can still recall the colours and texture of the little mat (rug) that I used to lie on during rest time.
In Gr 2, Mrs. Spring gave me my start in a lifelong love of Math, by making me an Arithmetic helper along with Lee Kelner and someone else and by giving me the Arithmetic Prize. She also taught me to print so lightly in pencil that my parents sometimes could barely read my projects.
In Grade3/4, I had Miss Parker for half the year and Miss Shore for the other half. Miss Parker left to take care of her mother and everyone felt it was a big loss for Blythwood students. I saw her again when I was a teenager when my parents asked her to be a tutor for me so that I could keep excelling at Math. She was a terrific tutor and I felt so lucky to have the chance to spend time with her again.

It was in this class that I lost the spelling bee to Bill Watson. We had the classic final few moments that seemed to go on forever when we were the only students still standing and the teacher kept giving us each a different word to spell and we went back and forth several times. I told myself then that I would never forget the word that I had misspelled. Of course, now I can't recall it!

One of Miss Shore's talents was teaching songs. A few that I will never forget are:
- I'se the B'y That Builds the Boat
- Old Black Joe
- The Streets of Laredo
- Loch Lomond
- Molly Malone
- An Irish Lullaby
Mrs. Bates encouraged me in my love of poetry and literature in Grade 5. My confidence in writing lyrics now still comes partly from my Grade 5 experience.
In Gr 6, Mr. Kennedy gave me a love of mental arithmetic. We seemed to be doing it constantly. When John F. Kennedy was assassinated , I knew I would never forget that,when I heard about it, I was in Mr. John Kennedy's class.

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