wonderful world out there

Growing up in Chilliwack

Well, I guess I will write about my first hiking experience....It was in 1944.....Billy Martin ...eight years old ...definitely a man of the world at that age...I was six....Billy decides we should go on a hike to the Fraser River...Billy is old and wise....now that seems like a great idea...he said it is not far..we will back in no time...okay.....wow.... great.....we just had lunch,so we don't even need to take anything.... I called to my dog Teddy...and off we went...We walked through and out of town....Wellington Avenue became a gravel road....then not much of a road at all.......gee, it seemed like a long ways...and finally we did get to the river....Billy was quite proud of that fact...he knew it was down this way....the river was huge and we threw a few rocks in it and played around in the woods near the shore for a while......well, it seemed like a short time...wow this was great....to go to a place like this..what a wonderful world there is out here.....it was getting on, we decided we better get going home......at about the half way mark ....an old, old lady about forty or fifty years old came out from her yard and met us on the road....she was quite alarmed about us being there and was babbling about it as we ran away from her....not to worry....Billy would get us home.....as we approached the last corner to home we could see a police car and our parents in front of the my house..."there they are" and then our mothers rushed to find out if we were okay.....I guess we had them in a bit of a panic ...yipes....oh man, I guess we did a dumb thing.....kids.....the police were scary and we promised not to do that again as out mothers looked on nodding...I can remember how glad mom was to see me and I was confused when in a very short while I was getting the dickens for doing something I was not supposed to do (I can't remember what) anyway I asked why I was so popular 20 minutes ago and now I am back to my old status...hmmm confusing...
She remembered that part of the incident forever and told that story to most of the western world.....