35 Northcote Ave 1952-53
Max & Anne onFrancis Barnet with Austin A30 in background, and Allan and Max . While going to school I tried to find some cheap entertainment, and my mother told me of the radio programs where they would let you in to the broadcast and sometimes, take audience members as contestants for the broadcast. I told a school chum, my fellow Tuba player and we went off to see "Adam's take a chance" at CFRB on Bloor St. near Bay, Hosted by Roy Ward Dickson, who used to Host " The Fun Parade " where they would get contestants to do all sorts of crazy things. To get contestants and get the audience warmed up they would ask, the audience a preliminary set of questions, the audience members who could answer the questions could possibly be a contestant. One of the questions one time was, What is the capital of Bulgaria, and absolutely no one in the audience knew the answer, but there I was with my arm wildly waving to get their attention because I knew that one, as my father was Bulgarian, and if I never learned any thing else I knew that. They obviously didn't want a 15 year old kid on the show, but finally had to recognize me, Sofia I shout, and they acknowledge that, and my tuba playing chum was dumbfounded. They actually took more contestants than they would need as a back up, in case things went faster than they thought it would, so they could discriminate to a certain extent who could get on the show, it goes without saying that I was not chosen, but as a consolation prize I think I got a package of Adam's chewing gum. Roy Ward Dickson was actually a great speller, and could supposedly spell anything, and was ultimately turned down to be on the $64,000.00 question for spelling, and I could not say I felt bad for him, but when at the program warming up, he asked the audience to try and stump him. I got up and ask him how to spell so, and he said what one, and I said, all of them, and started, the farmer will....., his crop, and he says SOW, then I said, his wife will... his pants because they are ripped, and he says SEW, then I say so, SO, they both..................... he looks dumbfounded, and says he can't, and I stump him, thanks to Mr Dunsmore my grade 7 teacher, I have a great memory for the damnedest things. A few weeks after coming to Toronto, the Childrens Aid society comes to the house as a result of a complaint by my father, asking did I want to stay or go back, and as I believed there was no going back I decided to stay, and there was no further contact with my father for some time.
My stepfather George was a garbage man for, The City of Toronto, and while at school every now and then, if they wanted to finish their beat fast, they would ask me to drive the truck so the three of them could throw the garbage on the truck. I had never driven anything in my life so, there I was driving a big garbage truck down narrow streets with cars parked on both sides , thinking I better get a drivers licence.
A short time after leaving school in March 1953, my mother told me, I was going to have to get a job, which I had every intention of doing anyway. I was looking in the ads. in the papers to see what there was available. I also made enquiries about apprentices, for either motor mechanics, or electrician which I also liked, but it seemed you had to have an in to get one or know someone. I noticed an ad in the paper for a delivery boy for Posen & Furrie dental labs, at Brunswick Ave, and College St. and applied for the job, one reason being they said they would teach me about the actuall work of making the teeth. I was a very naive 15 year old and took them at their word, so there I was earning $25.00 per week and turning $15.00 over to my mother for board. I went all over the city with my Raleigh 3 speed, delivering false teeth to dentist's offices, for a couple months, with absolutely no indication they were going to teach me anything, maybe I was a little impatient. I kept my eyes open, and started looking for another job. The only thing of note that happened while I was working at Posen & Furrie, was when I was delivering some false teeth to a dentist's office at College and Yonge St. I bumped into Barbara Ann Scott. One of the presents given to my sister Rosemary by my mother was a Barbara Ann Scott Doll, every girl at the time wanted one.
My mother had her faults, and they were many, but one thing no one could say about her was that she was lazy. She was perhaps one of the most ambitious person I ever knew, and if her personal choices would have been better she could have been a millionaire. Mother baby sat children, and did homework, which consisted of gathering up pieces of glider aircraft, and putting them in little envelopes for Gregg Model Aircraft. She also would insert the strings in kites, and roll them up with 2 sticks for the same firm. Mother also worked for Copp Clarke Publishing, getting big boxes of Christmas seals and putting a variety in little packages, for sale at Christmas time. Mother was always doing something to make a buck. As ambitious as my mother was, George my stepfather was the opposite, he was one of the laziest people I have ever met in my life. George was also a boozer an alcoholic, and a drunk. When I first met him and for a while he was on his best behavior, so I never saw this side of him for a while, until when he fell off the wagon. George would also from time to time tell me of the hard time my mother got from the Nuns, at St Michael's Hospital where she had, had Heather my half sister, and I would wonder why is he telling me this stuff.
After working at Posen and Furrie for a few months I started getting impatient because there was no indication the were ever going to teach me anything all they wanted out of me was to be a good delivery boy. One day I noticed an ad in the paper for a delivery boy, who would like to learn the printing trade, so I applied, and got the job working for The University of Toronto Press. I was earning the same money but with hopes of learning something new. I was delivering manuscripts, and a variety of printing related materials around the University, the advantage I guess was that I didn't have to go far. After being there a few months I started getting impatient again, and complaining at home because there was no indication they were going to teach me anything. Mother said why don't you go and apply for a job with the CPR, where your Great Uncle works. John Fayle, my grandmother's brother was a carman for the CPR at the Parkdale Yard. I went down to Union Station and applied a couple times to no avail. While delivering something to the Museum on Avenue Rd. one day I bumped into my old English teacher from Central Tech. outside the Museum, on the steps, he looks at me and says, what happened to you, I give him the readers digest version and he says that's to bad, you were my best student, I'm thinking this is the first time anyone had ever said anything like that to me. In the mean time its July or August and my mother is asking me, why don't I go to Waterloo and get my brother and sister, which I agree was probably a good idea. I head off to Waterloo to get Max and Rosemary, and when I get there Max is gone to Camp at Paradise Lake, and Rosemary is preparing to go when Max comes back. I tell Rosemary to go and pack all the things she cares about, and that we will go to Toronto to live from now on, if she likes, and off we go, my knowing full well that the Childrens Aid Society will be visiting her and asking the same questions the had asked me.
A short time later I went down to Union Station to see if there was anything going on at the CPR, which there wasn't, and I noticed that the CNR Employment Office was across the hall so I decided to try there. The CNR guys asked me if I had a bicycle, which I said I did, and they said they needed a Call Boy and told me what the position required, and that I would be working at 18th St in Mimico, at $35.00 per week already a ten dollar increase, so I didn't hesitate, I said I would take it, not realizing, that I would be there for 40 years, and started the job on Sept 15/1953. I loved the job from day 1 and felt totally at ease there. A hell of a lot of stuff happened to me, and because of me, while I was with the CNR, and as an aside, I started a Blog about mostly funny stuff, that happened on the CNR, the site being http://cnr-and-assorted-funnies.blodspot.com/ so I won't go into a lot of detail about my time with the CNR, because I have already done it on that Blog, but I will mention the CNR from time to time, to try and put things in some sort of context. It turned out that I didn't really need a bicycle and could walk everywhere, and If I had I would have been tired out by the time I got to Mimico. I worked the Call Boy job for a couple of months, and while doing so had many people advise me to take a T.V. and I wondered what the hell they were talking about, and it took a month for me to find out that a T.V. was a temporary vacancy, when someone went on holidays or was on some other T.V. I had thought they were somehow referring to television, after a few months as a Call Boy I bid in and got an afternoon Car Checker job with another ten dollar a week raise, I thought I was sailing. Almost no one had television at that time but it seemed shortly after that television broke out, and it seemed like everyone on the street got one at the same time. The T.V.s were sold by the Hardware Store at the corner of Northcote and Queen St's. were 17 inch RCA, for $475.00, plus $35.00, for the antenna to be installed on the roof. The house was an old house with herds of cockroaches, and every time we put powder down for them they seemed to move next door, and when he got tired of them and put something down, they would move back.
It was early September when they moved in and it turned out George knew, or seemed to know nothing about coal furnaces, so because of my experience with furnaces was elected to take care of it in the winter time. What I found surprising, was that the coal had to be carried through the house to the basement in 100 lbs bags, there was no coal chute as there had been in the house I took care of the furnace for.
That fall, of 1953 Rosemary started school at Alexander Muir Public School on Gladstone Ave. not far away, and later on in early winter I went back to Waterloo to get my brother Max, and when I arrived at the home was told that he didn't live there any more that my father had anticipated just that sort of thing and took him to Kitchener to live with him in his room. I ask one of the kids if he knew the school that Max was attending and he told me Victoria School, and seeing it was lunch time and the school was not far from the CNR station I decided to go to the school for the afternoon recess, and see if he wanted to come back with me. I went to Victoria School and found him at recess and told him if he wanted he could come back with me, but that it would have to be right now. Max agreed that it was best he come with me and off we went, him not going back into class after recess.
I guess I should say that any time we were with our father, and spoke of her, mother was to blame for all our troubles, and any time we were with our mother, father was to blame for all our problems, but I knew instinctively that we would be better off with our mother, although in retrospect, not much. My mother was constantly making bad choices, and decisions, and as it would later turn out, was really exploiting us, and not that we were physically abused by her, we weren't but, she wanted us to get out and get a job and start paying room and board, and the value of an education meant nothing to her, or our father, or stepfather.
......................................................................................................................................................................
I worked out at Mimico for about 10 months, and saw an afternoon car checker job come up for bid at Bathurst St. and bid it in. I was the successful applicant for the 4:30 PM to 12:30 AM Car Checker job, and people started telling me you'll be sorry, and asked if I ever worked with Bobby May which I had, because he was on midnights at Mimico, and again I wondered what the hell that had to do with anything. Bathurst St was a lot closer, and it would take only 30 minutes on the streetcar if I had good connections. When I got to Bathurst St. I found out what the guys were talking about when they referred to Bobby May, Bobby May at Bathurst St. was 55 years old and the uncle of the Bobby May at Mimico. Bobby May at Bathurst St was a little off putting at first, because he was leery of new guys, but I was a fast learner down there, and grew to consider all of the Bathurst St guys my friends. Bathurst St was actually the main hub of Toronto proper and was a very busy place, what with the Coach Yard making up passenger trains. Passenger trains coming from and going to Union Station, the CPR running trains to their shed, all kinds of Transfers running around, as well as main line lifts, going through the yard.
A while after starting Central Technical School, Max decided that he wanted to quit school, and got a job as a Telegraph Boy, with the CNR Telegraph, but in his spare time he would come down to Bathurst St with me, and I taught him the job of Car Checker. Max subsequently asked to be transferred to Transportation in Toronto and became a Car Checker. One day my mother is talking about us getting a new sibling, and for a while I wonder what she is saying, and after a while I get to the bottom of it. It seems the daughter of one of her friends in Cobourg is pregnant and about to become an unwed mother, and the girl's mother ask my mother if she would like the child. My mother agrees, and the two mothers agree that the girl can come and live with my mother, until the baby is to be born, and then she can check into the hospital, using my mothers name and have the child, and when she comes out, rest a few days, then leave the baby, and go back to Cobourg. I'm thinking there is something wrong here, but am in no place to do anything about it. The girl comes down from Cobourg, checks into the Hospital under the name of Edith Gray, and has a bouncing baby girl, who is about to be called Heather.
My mother from time to time in one of her melancholy moods would reminisce, about the triplets she had lost at childbirth, but I was beginning to figure out, that my mother never let the truth get in the way of a good story, so I took this stuff with a grain of salt. Eventually when my sister Rosemary reached 17 years old she was encouraged to quit school and get a job. Rosemary got a pretty good job as a Book Binder at Bryant Press near Spadina and Adelaide St's. and stayed there her whole working life retiring from that job.
My relatives were real characters, and bare to be told about. My Grandfather, retired and disabled because of a mustard gas attack in WW1, was an alcoholic and a drunk, and used to go around the house reciting The Charge of the light Brigade, in truth his problems in part probably stemmed from his wartime experience, but to a young kid who, he seemed to be always mean to, that was no excuse. My Grandmother was a non drinker, and non smoker and thought the Sun rose and set on me, but was always overshadowed by my Grandfather. I had 4 uncles 3 of whom saw action in WW11, two of whom were wounded, all of whom were alcoholics, , and one got out unscathed, physically at least. Uncle John was the oldest of the brothers, and was wounded in Italy. Uncle Mark was the youngest and wounded in Belgium. Uncle Charlie got through unscathed, and Uncle Allan William Bentley Burgess, couldn't get in the army because he had flat feet. I often wonder if the reason he couldn't get in the army for to 2nd war was the reason he was such a mean drunk. When Benny[ Bentley] was sober he was the most gentlemanly character you would meet, and the best looking Burgess, a real ladies man. He was married to my Aunt Pearl, a living doll, and one of those women you see from time to time who in her 80's, still looks great. Sadly she had to divorce him because of his alcoholism. Uncle Charlie was killed in a car accident on his way to visit his mother in Port Hope, he had made it through the war and was killed on the 401, on his way to port Hope Ont. Uncle Charlie was married to Ruth Hartleib from Waterloo Ont. and her brother Dennis went to school with us, and was about a year younger. Dennis went most of the way through school with us and was our friend without our realizing he was actually related to us. We did find out eventually because we went to his house across the street from the school, and his parents told us.
My stepfather George was a garbage man for, The City of Toronto, and while at school every now and then, if they wanted to finish their beat fast, they would ask me to drive the truck so the three of them could throw the garbage on the truck. I had never driven anything in my life so, there I was driving a big garbage truck down narrow streets with cars parked on both sides , thinking I better get a drivers licence.
A short time after leaving school in March 1953, my mother told me, I was going to have to get a job, which I had every intention of doing anyway. I was looking in the ads. in the papers to see what there was available. I also made enquiries about apprentices, for either motor mechanics, or electrician which I also liked, but it seemed you had to have an in to get one or know someone. I noticed an ad in the paper for a delivery boy for Posen & Furrie dental labs, at Brunswick Ave, and College St. and applied for the job, one reason being they said they would teach me about the actuall work of making the teeth. I was a very naive 15 year old and took them at their word, so there I was earning $25.00 per week and turning $15.00 over to my mother for board. I went all over the city with my Raleigh 3 speed, delivering false teeth to dentist's offices, for a couple months, with absolutely no indication they were going to teach me anything, maybe I was a little impatient. I kept my eyes open, and started looking for another job. The only thing of note that happened while I was working at Posen & Furrie, was when I was delivering some false teeth to a dentist's office at College and Yonge St. I bumped into Barbara Ann Scott. One of the presents given to my sister Rosemary by my mother was a Barbara Ann Scott Doll, every girl at the time wanted one.
My mother had her faults, and they were many, but one thing no one could say about her was that she was lazy. She was perhaps one of the most ambitious person I ever knew, and if her personal choices would have been better she could have been a millionaire. Mother baby sat children, and did homework, which consisted of gathering up pieces of glider aircraft, and putting them in little envelopes for Gregg Model Aircraft. She also would insert the strings in kites, and roll them up with 2 sticks for the same firm. Mother also worked for Copp Clarke Publishing, getting big boxes of Christmas seals and putting a variety in little packages, for sale at Christmas time. Mother was always doing something to make a buck. As ambitious as my mother was, George my stepfather was the opposite, he was one of the laziest people I have ever met in my life. George was also a boozer an alcoholic, and a drunk. When I first met him and for a while he was on his best behavior, so I never saw this side of him for a while, until when he fell off the wagon. George would also from time to time tell me of the hard time my mother got from the Nuns, at St Michael's Hospital where she had, had Heather my half sister, and I would wonder why is he telling me this stuff.
After working at Posen and Furrie for a few months I started getting impatient because there was no indication the were ever going to teach me anything all they wanted out of me was to be a good delivery boy. One day I noticed an ad in the paper for a delivery boy, who would like to learn the printing trade, so I applied, and got the job working for The University of Toronto Press. I was earning the same money but with hopes of learning something new. I was delivering manuscripts, and a variety of printing related materials around the University, the advantage I guess was that I didn't have to go far. After being there a few months I started getting impatient again, and complaining at home because there was no indication they were going to teach me anything. Mother said why don't you go and apply for a job with the CPR, where your Great Uncle works. John Fayle, my grandmother's brother was a carman for the CPR at the Parkdale Yard. I went down to Union Station and applied a couple times to no avail. While delivering something to the Museum on Avenue Rd. one day I bumped into my old English teacher from Central Tech. outside the Museum, on the steps, he looks at me and says, what happened to you, I give him the readers digest version and he says that's to bad, you were my best student, I'm thinking this is the first time anyone had ever said anything like that to me. In the mean time its July or August and my mother is asking me, why don't I go to Waterloo and get my brother and sister, which I agree was probably a good idea. I head off to Waterloo to get Max and Rosemary, and when I get there Max is gone to Camp at Paradise Lake, and Rosemary is preparing to go when Max comes back. I tell Rosemary to go and pack all the things she cares about, and that we will go to Toronto to live from now on, if she likes, and off we go, my knowing full well that the Childrens Aid Society will be visiting her and asking the same questions the had asked me.
A short time later I went down to Union Station to see if there was anything going on at the CPR, which there wasn't, and I noticed that the CNR Employment Office was across the hall so I decided to try there. The CNR guys asked me if I had a bicycle, which I said I did, and they said they needed a Call Boy and told me what the position required, and that I would be working at 18th St in Mimico, at $35.00 per week already a ten dollar increase, so I didn't hesitate, I said I would take it, not realizing, that I would be there for 40 years, and started the job on Sept 15/1953. I loved the job from day 1 and felt totally at ease there. A hell of a lot of stuff happened to me, and because of me, while I was with the CNR, and as an aside, I started a Blog about mostly funny stuff, that happened on the CNR, the site being http://cnr-and-assorted-funnies.blodspot.com/ so I won't go into a lot of detail about my time with the CNR, because I have already done it on that Blog, but I will mention the CNR from time to time, to try and put things in some sort of context. It turned out that I didn't really need a bicycle and could walk everywhere, and If I had I would have been tired out by the time I got to Mimico. I worked the Call Boy job for a couple of months, and while doing so had many people advise me to take a T.V. and I wondered what the hell they were talking about, and it took a month for me to find out that a T.V. was a temporary vacancy, when someone went on holidays or was on some other T.V. I had thought they were somehow referring to television, after a few months as a Call Boy I bid in and got an afternoon Car Checker job with another ten dollar a week raise, I thought I was sailing. Almost no one had television at that time but it seemed shortly after that television broke out, and it seemed like everyone on the street got one at the same time. The T.V.s were sold by the Hardware Store at the corner of Northcote and Queen St's. were 17 inch RCA, for $475.00, plus $35.00, for the antenna to be installed on the roof. The house was an old house with herds of cockroaches, and every time we put powder down for them they seemed to move next door, and when he got tired of them and put something down, they would move back.
It was early September when they moved in and it turned out George knew, or seemed to know nothing about coal furnaces, so because of my experience with furnaces was elected to take care of it in the winter time. What I found surprising, was that the coal had to be carried through the house to the basement in 100 lbs bags, there was no coal chute as there had been in the house I took care of the furnace for.
That fall, of 1953 Rosemary started school at Alexander Muir Public School on Gladstone Ave. not far away, and later on in early winter I went back to Waterloo to get my brother Max, and when I arrived at the home was told that he didn't live there any more that my father had anticipated just that sort of thing and took him to Kitchener to live with him in his room. I ask one of the kids if he knew the school that Max was attending and he told me Victoria School, and seeing it was lunch time and the school was not far from the CNR station I decided to go to the school for the afternoon recess, and see if he wanted to come back with me. I went to Victoria School and found him at recess and told him if he wanted he could come back with me, but that it would have to be right now. Max agreed that it was best he come with me and off we went, him not going back into class after recess.
I guess I should say that any time we were with our father, and spoke of her, mother was to blame for all our troubles, and any time we were with our mother, father was to blame for all our problems, but I knew instinctively that we would be better off with our mother, although in retrospect, not much. My mother was constantly making bad choices, and decisions, and as it would later turn out, was really exploiting us, and not that we were physically abused by her, we weren't but, she wanted us to get out and get a job and start paying room and board, and the value of an education meant nothing to her, or our father, or stepfather.
......................................................................................................................................................................
I worked out at Mimico for about 10 months, and saw an afternoon car checker job come up for bid at Bathurst St. and bid it in. I was the successful applicant for the 4:30 PM to 12:30 AM Car Checker job, and people started telling me you'll be sorry, and asked if I ever worked with Bobby May which I had, because he was on midnights at Mimico, and again I wondered what the hell that had to do with anything. Bathurst St was a lot closer, and it would take only 30 minutes on the streetcar if I had good connections. When I got to Bathurst St. I found out what the guys were talking about when they referred to Bobby May, Bobby May at Bathurst St. was 55 years old and the uncle of the Bobby May at Mimico. Bobby May at Bathurst St was a little off putting at first, because he was leery of new guys, but I was a fast learner down there, and grew to consider all of the Bathurst St guys my friends. Bathurst St was actually the main hub of Toronto proper and was a very busy place, what with the Coach Yard making up passenger trains. Passenger trains coming from and going to Union Station, the CPR running trains to their shed, all kinds of Transfers running around, as well as main line lifts, going through the yard.
A while after starting Central Technical School, Max decided that he wanted to quit school, and got a job as a Telegraph Boy, with the CNR Telegraph, but in his spare time he would come down to Bathurst St with me, and I taught him the job of Car Checker. Max subsequently asked to be transferred to Transportation in Toronto and became a Car Checker. One day my mother is talking about us getting a new sibling, and for a while I wonder what she is saying, and after a while I get to the bottom of it. It seems the daughter of one of her friends in Cobourg is pregnant and about to become an unwed mother, and the girl's mother ask my mother if she would like the child. My mother agrees, and the two mothers agree that the girl can come and live with my mother, until the baby is to be born, and then she can check into the hospital, using my mothers name and have the child, and when she comes out, rest a few days, then leave the baby, and go back to Cobourg. I'm thinking there is something wrong here, but am in no place to do anything about it. The girl comes down from Cobourg, checks into the Hospital under the name of Edith Gray, and has a bouncing baby girl, who is about to be called Heather.
My mother from time to time in one of her melancholy moods would reminisce, about the triplets she had lost at childbirth, but I was beginning to figure out, that my mother never let the truth get in the way of a good story, so I took this stuff with a grain of salt. Eventually when my sister Rosemary reached 17 years old she was encouraged to quit school and get a job. Rosemary got a pretty good job as a Book Binder at Bryant Press near Spadina and Adelaide St's. and stayed there her whole working life retiring from that job.
My relatives were real characters, and bare to be told about. My Grandfather, retired and disabled because of a mustard gas attack in WW1, was an alcoholic and a drunk, and used to go around the house reciting The Charge of the light Brigade, in truth his problems in part probably stemmed from his wartime experience, but to a young kid who, he seemed to be always mean to, that was no excuse. My Grandmother was a non drinker, and non smoker and thought the Sun rose and set on me, but was always overshadowed by my Grandfather. I had 4 uncles 3 of whom saw action in WW11, two of whom were wounded, all of whom were alcoholics, , and one got out unscathed, physically at least. Uncle John was the oldest of the brothers, and was wounded in Italy. Uncle Mark was the youngest and wounded in Belgium. Uncle Charlie got through unscathed, and Uncle Allan William Bentley Burgess, couldn't get in the army because he had flat feet. I often wonder if the reason he couldn't get in the army for to 2nd war was the reason he was such a mean drunk. When Benny[ Bentley] was sober he was the most gentlemanly character you would meet, and the best looking Burgess, a real ladies man. He was married to my Aunt Pearl, a living doll, and one of those women you see from time to time who in her 80's, still looks great. Sadly she had to divorce him because of his alcoholism. Uncle Charlie was killed in a car accident on his way to visit his mother in Port Hope, he had made it through the war and was killed on the 401, on his way to port Hope Ont. Uncle Charlie was married to Ruth Hartleib from Waterloo Ont. and her brother Dennis went to school with us, and was about a year younger. Dennis went most of the way through school with us and was our friend without our realizing he was actually related to us. We did find out eventually because we went to his house across the street from the school, and his parents told us.
posted by Allan at 5:19 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home