High School and Beyond

         My friendship with Gordon had begun at the Montreal High School, when we entered grade eight.  My hopes for an academic career dimmed when my science teacher looked over the first few pages of my laboratory notes.  Mr. Wallace told me my future as a science researcher looked problematical.  My hopes further dimmed every time my English literature teacher rested his muscular arm on my desk and invited me to feel his biceps.  Physical Education was mandatory, and I quickly learned to hate it due to the unending bullying of Franky Eddols, a very large and aggressive classmate.  He constantly distracted those of us who sat near him in French by surreptitiously displaying his erectile prowess.  Why Madame never caught him at it we never knew, but it provided us with a great discussion topic!

         To my surprise I was promoted at the end of the school year.  In grade nine my grades and interest declined at about the same rate.  Soon after Christmas I told my father I was ready to leave school.  He was not surprised.  “What will you do?” he asked.  I told him I would get a job, that there were lots of jobs going for boys with bicycles.  My father played his card.  “You don’t have a decent bike.”  I trumped him with my ace of hearts.  “Buy me one, Dad.  I’ll repay you with a dollar every payday.  I’ll even give a dollar to Mom towards my keep.”  He said he would think about it.

         A week passed, then two.  I decided he was dithering.  On impulse, I withdrew my life savings of seventeen dollars from the bank and caught a bus to Ottawa.  By dark I had rented a room for a week and a newspaper.  Reading the classifieds over the cheapest meal I could buy, I learned no one in that city seemed to have a need for my services.  

         After a sleepless night I packed my few belongings in my knapsack and started walking home.  Coming to a village I found a bus bound for Montreal.  I gave the driver my remaining money, about four dollars, and asked him to take me as close to Montreal as possible.  That kind-hearted driver looked at me and nodded towards the seats, and later woke me in the Montreal depot.  A student trolley took me home.  I stood at my parents’ door not knowing how they would receive me.  Would they be angry, scornful, or just abandon me completely?  My father answered the doorbell, and he put his hand on my shoulder, drawing me into the hallway.  He called to my mother, “Let him be, Jeannie, he’s tired.”

         A week later I had a brand-new CCM bicycle and City of Montreal license plate.  My mother took me to school and helped me become an official high school dropout.  And now, in debt to my parents for twenty-nine dollars I was about to be set loose on an economically depressed city, in the early spring of 1935.