Summer Jobs

My first Summer Job, 1965

I vaguely remember the time frame, but it must have been before going to Bagotville when I was 16 and just old enough to work.

I got a job in an office in downtown Ottawa as an assistant to a secretary, a file clerk I believe was my title.  I was pretty naive and faced my new job with a Pollyanna type enthusiasm.  I adored my boss. I did everything she asked as best I could and thought I was doing okay. 

One day after my break, all the secretaries got together to have a coffee in the staff room.  I thought I was staff too, so I meekly joined them.  This mistake was akin to murder, I guess as my boss then turned into a red demon, with horns and a pitch fork  and fire coming out of her mouth as she hurled verbal vitriol at me.

I was crushed.  This experience convinced me never to take an office job.  I thought secretaries were all catty and mean and I wanted no part of it.  This affected me for the rest of my life.

Summer Job, 1966

Art’s father landed me a job in the Laurentians in Quebec at ‘Far Hills Inn’.  It was a beautiful resort. I was working at the reception desk. There were about ten other students working there as well.

That summer there was an international conference on microbiology.  I thought the direction of my life changed as biochemistry fascinated me. I would sit close by whenever I could to listen in on the lectures.  But that was not to be as my life took on other directions.

I remember the creepy circumstances surrounding my departure from this job.

To get to the staff quarters, we had to go to a cabin in the woods.  This was cool.  I didn’t mind walking there after my shift.  But the kids started to terrorize me on the walk home, scaring me in the dark. I had a feeling this was not going to last.  The day they chased me around the kitchen with a butcher knife did it.  I called my parents and they came and got me.  That was the end of that summer job.  

I wasn’t confident in my choices of summer employment.  I could only hope that things would improve.

Summer Job, 1967

Things were starting to look up.

The customs officials at Gananoque Ontario found taking advantage of the cheap alcohol and cigarettes across the border in the States, just a little too tempting. When their stockpiles were discovered in the basement of their office at the border crossing, they were suspended. The government looked to University students to fill the positions for the summer.

This was a fun job.  Everything was done by hand in those days… forms for everything: cars, busses, vans, trailers, boats, RV’s…. , etc. A couple of years later I learned they had a hard time reading one of the student’s handwriting. It turned out to be me. Oops!

One day this big bossy guy started to ask me a lot of questions.  I thought it inappropriate and wondered who the heck did he think he was?   My fellow students later told me he owned the bridge.

One of the highlights of this summer was my spell of constipation.  I should never have told my mother, because after about a week, she started insisting I go to the hospital. Well, I just couldn’t see myself going to emergency for that! After two weeks she was beside herself.  I thought I better get serious about this and I took the necessary measures with more commitment.

The birth was imminent and, apparently, inevitable the following day when I went to work. Yes indeed, the problem seemed to have been solved early in my shift.  The humiliating part was immediately after I left the WC.  A plumbing truck pulled up and two big guys trudged into the washroom.  After quite a few minutes, they come out carrying the toilet.  Their timing was impeccable. I turned my eyes away bashfully, hoping my activities had nothing to do with the problem, whatever it was. I just really didn’t want to know.

That summer I rented a room in the home of a man who was a prison guard.  He was working at the prison where Steven Truscott was serving time for murder of a young girl. Steven was convicted when he was 14.  I read the book on his story and I was convinced he was innocent.  I always hoped I could go to the prison to meet him, but the opportunity never arose.

The couple I stayed with had no children. There were just the two of them, he and his wife.  They were weird.  One night I was out until 10:00. They apparently thought this was too late, and they locked the door on me.  I slept in their car in the driveway.  When I look back on it, I think this was just a terrible thing to do to a young girl.

Summer job, 1968

I got a job at Carleton University in the kitchen.  The guys there were fun and we laughed a lot.

The students would do tricks like loosening the tops of the salt shakers and putting them back on the tables, or doing the same with the ketchup bottles. 

Since I ate cafeteria food for the whole year, I grew to love the taste of it.  To this day I love overcooked macaroni with hamburger, soaked in tomatoes.

I always felt bad about the day the big burly butcher popped out behind the freezer door and startled me, causing me to let out this blood curdling shriek. Everybody ran to the rescue.  He looked so helpless.  He didn’t know what to say. I realized they thought he had done something untoward to me and I quickly explained that was not the case. He would sort of tip toe around me after that.

Summer job, 1969

I remember being in Timmins, Ontario, standing in the street looking into a store window at a large TV.  Men, looking like relatives of the Micheline man, were walking on the moon! This event made my job with the Commission of Biculturalism and Bilingualism seem rather insignificant.

However, that was what I was doing this summer of ’69, travelling in Northern Ontario studying the assimilation, or lack of, of residence  of non-English Canadian origin.

We generally found everyone assimilated.  This was not good news for the French Canadians, as their language and culture were disappearing.  After this study, things turned around completely and more focus was put on developing their French culture. You could say they saved it in the nick of time.

Chapter 6

Goose Bay Summer '65

Goose Bay Summer ’65

This summer, I was 17.  This time my trip to Goose Bay left from Montreal.

My father drove me from Ottawa, where I was living with Pat and Shaun, to Montreal to catch the scheduled military flight to Goose Bay. The only trouble with the plan was that we went a day early, which gave him lots of time to catch up with his drinking buddies, his cousins, whom he visited often, in Westmount.

The night before, I had gone to bed early, having total confidence that my father would set his alarm and wake me up to get to the flight at six a.m. This was pretty important to me, so when I woke up in the mid-morning light to find him sleeping in the living room in an arm chair still in his suit, I was livid.

Not thinking of the outcome of my actions, as if by reflex, I got a glass of ice water and pitched it at him.  Needless to say, he woke up. Looking at his face with that shocked expression, I wasn’t sure what would happen next.  Was he going to ‘knock me into next week?’ as he so often promised, or would it just be, ‘I’ll knock your block off’?

It was a great reprieve for me that he did neither.  He felt quite guilty about sleeping in  actually.  My Uncle Jeff ameliorated the situation by taking me with him that day on a business trip to New York City.  That’s a trip I’ll never forget, as we went on every means of transportation available at the time: an airplane, a hydrofoil, a helicopter, a train, a subway, a taxi.  Whoosh!  

That evening when we got back, my heels had cooled considerably and my father had booked another flight to Goose Bay for the next day. He was redeemed.

The summer was to solidify my ties with Deirdre which would softened up over the years.

Bell High School, Ottawa, 1965-66

Bell High School, Ottawa 1965-66

I had finished grade 11 in Quebec in Bagotville. This was equivalent to grade 12 in Ontario.  Being the last year of school in Quebec, I was headed back to Ottawa that fall to finish grade 13 at Bell High School, and to live with my dad’s brother and his wife, Shaun and Pat and their little ones, Brett and Judson. Pat and Shaun were wonderful parents. My IQ went up 20 points just living with them and getting away from my punitive father.   

Judson was on the shy side of two and he had an admirable set of chompers. He was going through a biting stage, unfortunately for him.  One day I was sitting reading him a story.  He was all curled up on my lap and we were cuddling away when all of a sudden he caught sight of my arm that apparently was a little to close to his choppers. He couldn’t resist the temptation to sink them into my arm. It hurt! Without thinking I swiftly bit into his soft, smooth, tender forearm.  He was speechless and breathless until he could let the scream out.  I did feel rather bad, biting a baby, but I didn’t have much time to assess the situation. It was a crime of passion. Even though it cured him of biting, I was forever sorry.

Around Christmas I remember the principal calling me to his office to discuss my courses.  The 36 in physics must have been a clue that I was in over my head taking sciences: biology, chemistry, physics, languages, English and French.  All this changing schools and provinces didn’t help.

I left his office with a new course outline: Latin, French, Biology and English, each worth 2 credits.  If I could pull this off, I’d get to University. I suspect Pat and Shaun were behind this change.  I had to work hard but I did it.

And, I got to see more of Art.

We wanted to get married at the end of high school but my father wouldn’t hear of it. I had to get educated.  Ironically, as I found out years later, they always thought Karen would be the one to go on to University. They were actually quite surprised when it was me. So their argument was hollow.  

I went on to Carleton and Art went away to Western and our relationship disintegrated. I was to miss him for years, even after I got married.

Goose Bay '64

Goose Bay Summer ’64

The summer of ’64 was the first summer I was to go to the air force base at Goose Bay to visit my friend Deirdre.  I flew up there on an airforce scheduled flight from Ottawa, for free.  You just had to buy your lunch for ten dollars and everyone was happy.

Deirdre’s Dad was in the military and held a high position on the base.  Her parents, Joey and Eric Kenny, were good friends of my parents.  I believe they sailed through the post war years playing bridge and drinking Scotch. As I mentioned, Eric was my god father.

Deirdre and I went to the pool in exactly the same bathing suits.  It was totally serendipitous, but no one believed us. It is hard to believe, actually. 

Deirdre had a couple of friends who had a little motor boat and one day they took us out on the ocean.  A storm came up and since we had no way to communicate with those on shore, we were considered missing.  Well, we did make it back to shore and home. When we walked in the front door, Deirdre’s mother said, ‘It’s so nice to see your smiling face.’  I’m standing there feeling invisible and thinking, ‘Shouldn’t that be ‘faces’?’

They had  fighter jets on the Base that would take off and break the sound barrier.  ‘BOOM’! The earth would tremble; the walls would shake and things would fall onto the floor.  Windows would even shatter.  In later years it became illegal to fly that fast.

Once attaining a good speed, these fighter jets would come back at a low level and shoot their after burners. These gave the jets an extra boost but they sounded like canons blasting through your bedroom or living room.  They scared the b-jezus out of me. I thought a war had started.   By the time I left Goose, in a couple of weeks, I got so used to them, I hardly paid any attention.  That’s hard to believe too, but its true.

That was the year I noticed Deirdre’s brother, Dixon. He was really smart and going somewhere in this life. I really admired him.  He was studying at the Royal Military College in Kingston.  When I was going to Carleton we saw a bit of each other. But, as much as our parents would have liked it, it didn’t work out.  

That summer in Goose Bay I also met a fellow named Garry Gibson. He became a life long friend. 

Garry and I went window shopping one day in Ottawa.  We passed a men’s store and there were shiny black shoes in the window.  I said I didn’t like shiny black shoes on men.  Well, there was Garry all decked out in a handsome outfit, wearing those exact shiny black shoes. We stayed friends in spite of my insult.

He married a pretty French Canadian girl, Nicky.  His mother won the lotto, so Garry and Nicky always had beautiful homes.

Bagotville

Bagotville, 1964-65

The best thing about Bagotville was Chicoutimi.  This was a small town that was a fashion tryout centre for the big clothing companies.  The sales were phenomenal.  We had fun with Mom going shopping and stocking up on everything that wasn’t on our list.  It didn’t matter how we prepared ourselves, or how dressed up we got, we always felt like country bumpkins compared to those gorgeous French girls in Chicoutimi. Mom bought some cute mini dresses and she, however, looked like a million dollars in them. She was so beautiful.

Leaving Ottawa

Leaving Ottawa

At the end of grade 11 we were packing up and leaving for Saguenay Valley to Bagotville.  As my father called it, ‘Bag Town’ and we were going to go to ‘Sag High’. It did not install confidence that this would be a fun posting. My mother’s attitude was a bit contagious as she saw postings as a new adventure.  But the moves were wearing thin as, this time, I was leaving too much behind.

The last night before our move, Art came over to say goodbye.  I had a curfew at midnight which I always respected but I did think  this situation called for some lee way. We were talking under the back porch light and the clock was ticking towards the midnight hour.

My father bade me to say goodnight to Art and I decided not to listen to him.  He was being unreasonable.  It would do no harm for us to have a little longer visit this night so I brazenly defied him and suggested to Art that we go for a walk.  He complied, against his better judgement.

It was late and the streets were quiet but well lit.  Soon we heard a car roll up behind us. My father told me to get in.  I said no, I would walk home.  But Art, afraid of my father, was nudging me, “Get in, get in.”  So I did. I never forgave my father for that because I could never understand why he would be so cold and not understand how important this night was for me. He was insufferable.