poked the line down a hole

Growing up in Chilliwack.......1945

I took a picture of this house a few months ago...quite a house huh........it is on Fletcher St...the Street beside the Post Office...running north south....the red arrows are where it was taken ...the long one indicates where we were facing..(Towards the P.O. but a that time my dad worked in a big garage..... A Plymouth dealership called Johnson Palmer Motors...right where the P.O. is ...he did not have far to go to work..and I did not have far to go to visit him or ask for six cents for a orange popsicle . There was a Red And White grocery store across the street from the garage...Oh yeah...we lived practically in town and close to Central School.........It was a nice clean little place at that time...but no porch (orange arrow) and a railed landing with a cover over it...I learned to ride a bike and fell at that red dot ...on my sister's bike..it was blue... The big trees were not there...but a Lilac tree was on the left side.....Mum and Dad paid 13 dollars a month rent..Mr. Weeden came once a month to collect the rent and I remember thinking that was cheap....but I don't know if it was are not......the little garage was for sawdust storage... most heating was coal-wood or sawdust and of course a duty was to get pails of sawdust if we were big enough...it was fun to play in...this is where my mother's great story came from about my friend (Gary Hogg) and I eating chicken mash and trying to lay eggs in scooped out nests in the sawdust.....we were serious, and I told mum that when she came in to get a pail of sawdust....she passed that story everyone who would listen......Gary and I jumped off the roof lots of times with towels around our necks like Superman..it hurt like the devil...that was a long jump.....Dad kept half a dozen chickens in a pen at back of the sawdust garage......(the white arrow indicates a back porch area.....actually a back storage room (a good size).......with entry and then house entry.......We caught a rat in there with some cheese on a hook...poked the line down a hole in the floor.....got a bite....ran in the yard dangling this wiggling rat ....mum was outside with some company she had ...we were delirious .......bursting with excitement, yahoos and yippees......that was a sight .....what you have pictured in your mind and more......I can't remember what happened with the rat..or the discipline action......mum was kinda mad ....but it was sure exciting to that point......I always thought that was a cool idea and it worked.....the house had wood shingles like the front upper part in the picture...there was picket fence .......the road was gravel, the sidewalk a path......and a grass boulevard that shows in the picture....I was not quite 5 years old in this picture and lived there until I was 7 or so...maybe 8....
It is so decrepit now....yep...I would love to see inside it.....I wonder who lives there now.......There are a lot of stories from that house...the Auction barn..(a big deal in rural Chilliwack) was located where the parking lot between Nowell and Young St. is..only a block over from that house...there was lots of activity there every Saturday...a great place for a kid to investigate...we always looked in the pet pens first, there was usually a few puppies, some cats and maybe a few rabbits....Occasionly there was a pony,I am sure the other kids nagged thier folks to buy it, I know I sure did.........why could'nt we keep a pony in the yard. I had three friends on Fletcher Street...Billy, Gary and Bertie ........neighbors......we had a great time...

yup it's troo


My sister, Faye read the journal and sent this back in a letter....

Now look at the picture of the house...it wasn't always a wreck.....It was yellow with white trim, same for the garage....a white fence out front......The house had an open veranda with ivy growing and covering the right front and side....like a shady room. That's where I slept and we had a dog named Teddy (black brown with a curly tail.) A good watch dog and very smart.....The first window a living room, the second a kitchen.....an attached shed at back where you caught rats with a fishing rod......the Garage where you tried to lay an egg after eating chicken mash....O god....my fingers won't keep up with my mind right now.............across from the living room was a small bedroom...it became yours...upstairs was finished nicely...I was in the front section of the attic...mum and dad in middle.....that was one weird house.... the steps for the upstairs were in the huge bathroom...it was like Grand Central Station.........memories