Page 28 - Forest Grove Years 17 Feb

Shorty and I shared an upstairs front bedroom facing the remains of the store. We also
shared various chores including the wood box and sawdust buckets. I am not sure ex-
actly how long this was for, but after I went away to boarding school our lives went off
in different directions. I can even remember where he sat in the grade 8 classroom
which was in the row along the window about fourth from the front. Shorty had an ob-
noxious cousin, whose name I have forgotten, who took it upon himself to harass me
one day as we were walking home from school.

I was a little older by this time and my memories are a little clearer. I know that we
nearly lost another of our buildings to fire on two occasions. The first was, because of a
lightning strike on one of our power poles. The bolt of lighting traveled along the wires
and into the building where there was a ground on a water pipe. A small fire was start-
ed but brought under control without difficulty. The second event was of a more serious
nature. I had been picked up on my way home from school by Bob Parkin and on arri-
val at the house he had instructed me to go into the kitchen and start the fire. He indi-
cated that he was going to go and start our Lister diesel electric lighting plant which
provided the power for all of the buildings we owned. I was busy at my task when there
was a loud explosion. Some of the windowpanes of the kitchen window that faced the
room housing the “light plant” shattered and I was completely bewildered. I ran outside
to see Madelene enter the room which housed the Lister diesel. She walked into a solid
wall of fire and came out dragging Bob who had been severely burned. For some rea-
son there had been an electrical short and the fumes in the room had been ignited.
There followed a great deal of confusion as Bob was the only qualified “first aid” man in
the area and in his terribly injured state had to give directions to those who were trying
to preserve his life. The nearest hospital was in Williams Lake and he was loaded into
the back of a truck and delivered there as rapidly as possible. He survived his burns but
it took a year or more for him to make a full recovery. This included a long stay at a
Workman’s Compensation Rehabilitation Centre.
School in Forest Grove

I had begun school in Forest Grove in September of 1947 when I was five years old but
about to turn six. The old original schoolhouse where we should have been installed
had burned down the previous summer so grades one to five were established in an old
bunk house directly across the road from the current school building. This building
eventually became Ruth Sellers’ coffeeshop, an extremely popular enterprise. There
were only three of us in grade one that year under the tutelage of a Mrs. Forbes. There
was me, Phillip Wilcox and Sheila Redpath. My recollection of this period is very hazy
but think that I sat on an apple box and had another apple box with a piece of plywood
attached for my desk. I am sure that I already had learned to read so was unimpressed
by “Dick and Jane” in the grade one reader. It was from this time that I established a
close friendship with Phil Wilcox, and we spent many happy hours together over the
years in Forest Grove and subsequently at UBC where we both joined the UNTD pro-
gram but that is another story.

Our school came equipped with barn stalls for students who came to school on horse-
back. I had by the time I began school been taught to ride but only bareback with no
saddle. I even had a horse that was designated mine by the name of Molly. We lived
close enough to the school that walking was a better option than arriving on horseback.
So I did not as a matter of course take Molly to school. By the time I was in grade 3