some mother was missing a box of clothespins

Growing up in Chilliwack.............1952

We lived on Fletcher St. South ...across from Keltone Cleaners...in fact mum worked at the cleaners for a few years....I would be 11, 12 and 13 at that home........It was a neat little house.....with an upstairs that was accessed by trellised covered stairs going up the side of the house...there were 2 garages....one for storage and one very good one...with a pit (for servicing a vehicle)...it was well built and had a slight ramp up to the door.. ....For a while dad operated a shop there and did mechanical work from it...Uncle Gordon (Barber) lived down the lane a block and a lot of other kids were in the Neighborhood...there was an huge empty lot across the road before Margaret ave. came through it in the 50s...the old guy who owned it only had a neat little garage that he kept his seldom driven 36 Plymouth in...my, that car was in perfect shape...anyway it was safe from us and we used the lot as a war field and a grounds for sword fighting, etc....the playing of good guys and bad guys with guns was down to a fine art....the bickering about who got shot was solved....we invented an elastic gun that was fairly powerful..a accuracy range of 25 or 30 ft....we made long barreled pistols out of wood with a clothespin fastened to the back of the handle....we found by trial and error that red motorcycle tubes (yep some were red) were the best...we cut em off the tube about 3/8 inch thick..stretch them onto the barrel, stick the end in the bite of the clothespin..now we had a weapon that could actually hit a person and proved you had a hit...no more arguing...then we each took 3 clothespins and clipped them on our collars...when the war was started..if you were hit you had to give a clothespin to the shooter...the one with the most pins when supper was called was the winner...some mother was missing a box of clothespins...another rather dangerous one was the canons....we took a 30-30 metal shell casing (the kind hunters shoot big game with) and drilled a hole in the top of the end...then nailed it down, curving the nails and securing the shell to a block of 2"x4" about 9 inches long..........At Halloween we could buy all kinds of fireworks...we took the gunpowder out of the red firecrackers ...we could break them and squeeze it out...then pour it into the shell casing (how much depending how far you wanted to go looking for your canon)..then stuff a bit of toilet paper in the barrel.......then a ballbearing ..then more toilet paper....put a fuse in the hole....then line up the canon to a target...usually a board...light the fuse...stand back...BANG....look and see how far the ball went into the wood...then run how far you wanted to go looking for your canon..they went about 50 ft. or so....a ballbearing would bury completely into the wooden board.....

The first year we moved there I started grade 7.....The school was bursting at the seams and a new Sr. High School was being built across the road......for a while grade 7 to 13 went on shifts ......... 7 to 11 am for grades 10, 11, 12 and 13.......12 - 4 pm for 7, 8, 9 and 10...It worked fine ........when we went into grade 8 the new school was complete and the 9 -13s moved over......

I had a little 2 month old black white spaniel dog named Pepper...He was a good little guy and the whole family enjoyed having and teaching him ...he was about 6 months old...I came home for lunch at noon and as usual called for the mutt...no dog...hmmm....I knew it was bad news when I seen how sad mum looked.....she had to me tell Pepper was run over by a car in front of the cleaners...oh...what a bummer ......over the years there was other bummers ..it just happens if you have pets...anyway....I went out to the garage kind of thinking that would be where he was... it had just happened a few hours ago...sure enough I found my dog in a cardboard box....I told my pals...Bill Maxwell and Bob ----- the sad news and they agreed to help with a funeral for my dog....after school that day I painted a sign.."PEPPER" while the boys prepared a hole at the back of the property....we did the deed and put rocks around the grave..it was all a solemn occasion...there was no crying ..just a quite service..then we broke it up and got on with some cool games..main while I found out later mum was watching out the kitchen window and I reckon there was a flood in there...

This is what the house looked like in 1952 (right) but painted better...some how over time it must have been resurveyed...I guess we were lucky to have the garage and driveway...that is a stairway on the left side of that house...it was closed in later by extending the house..that's why the window is not centre in house 1 (right)