Page 3 - Friday october 7 1955

October 7, 1955
As a twelve year old boy, I was very excited when I woke up on that Friday morning in 1955, because my family was going on a big bus to the big city of Toronto. I had never been on a bus before, nor had I ever been to any big city. We lived in a small village in the country that had a one
room country school with about thirty students ranging
from grade one to grade eight. Our little village included
a gas station, a postoffice that operated out of a house
next to the school, and a tiny grocery store that was also
part of someone’s house. A trip to Toronto sounded
exciting to me. To add to the excitement, most of my
school friends were going as well; however, the most exciting thing to me was the fact that my Dad was going to go with us.
Our home was anything but a happy home. Dad would go to the hotel every night after work with his drinking buddies. He would get drunk, and then come home and argue with my Mother. Our home was in shambles. I remember Dad getting so upset with Mom that he threw his plate of food at her. I can still see that spaghetti sliding down the wall in the dining room.
Before leaving for school on October 7, 1955, at about 8:45 a.m., I noticed my mother had placed a suit on their bed that my dad would wear on our special trip to Toronto. I was so happy! I could only recall one other time when we went out together as a family and that was to a restaurant for supper. Before the meal came, Dad got into an argument with Mom and we left without eating.
As I left for school that October morning, I removed the handlebar grips from my bike to be sure the two cigarettes I had stolen from my Dad’s pack were safely hid in the handlebars where they would not be found and then I went on my way hoping the day would pass quickly so we could go on our family adventure. At school, I would anxiously wait for recess when I would hide behind the school and smoke those cigarettes with my friends. Some kids brought in beer to drink; however, I determined never to touch that stuff because of
what it was doing to our family.

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