Mum told me she could read lips...

Cawley's Grocery Store

Growing up in Chilliwack.............1944
Mr. and Mrs. Lawnmower lived next door to us at south Fletcher St....She was very old and really nice to me,I never seen much of Mr.Lawnmower...he was even older and didn't come out much....She was the neighbor that could always be counted on for a couple of eggs or a cup of sugar.....and I was usually the one who was sent over to take or pick up something...I also ran errands to the store for Mrs. Lawnmower...Cauley's Grocery was only one short block on Nowell Street behind Auld Phillips... the unique thing about Mrs. Lawnmower was ....she was deaf.....like really deaf...I asked mum how could she always know what I was saying....Mum told me she could read lips...like watch my lips move..and she would know exactly what I said....well...that blew me away....how could she do that?...so one day when she was in her yard tending the flowers.....I ran over to the fence to see her....She said something like ....hello Gary.....and I came back with a greeting and Whatcha doin...waterin your flowers?...only I just moved my lips...try it ...it feels kinda silly....anyway sure enough......she answers ....oh yes ...they do need a drink now and then.....hey...that is so neat and she never said what? or eh? or pardon me?....like most old people ....so after that I always talked to her in lips..but good lips..you have look right at her and move them properly and not when anyone was around...that was my own secret....I always wondered if Mrs. Lawnmower could tell what I was doing ...if she could, she never let on..........



Chocolate bars were always 6 cents.....it seemed like a reasonable price...but then the candy people raised the price to 8 cents.....some kids in the city made a fuss the word got out via newspapers and radio...then kids all over took up the cause....Don't buy 8 cent bars....we wrote it on everything we could lay our hands on...Gary Hogg and I went to work penciling that slogan on
all the discarded paper and pads we could lay our hands on...then we put them on car windshields and also stuck them on windows .....it was an exciting battle for a while but it soon pooped out as kids could not endure cold turkey for very long....soon it was completely forgotten .I guess I revived it for a bit with this journal...I thought of it when I mentioned Cauley's old Grocery store that also sold bones, jawbreakers, torpedoes along with 8 cent chocolate bars.


The house on the north side and corner belonged to the Stonehouses it was on a neatly kept large lot....their house was stucco with glass...colored glass...you could put you hand on it and cut yourself if you rubbed hard.....I always thought that was a strange thing to put on a house but it was popular....a lot of houses had that on them...it must have been a fad from the 1920s..the houses have a reddish look from a distance....the Martins lived across the road ...P.J. Martin and Dolly
......then another boy, Bob.... then Phil ,Thelma and Billy. Billy was a bigger boy 2 years older than me...We played together and Faye chummed with Thelma...Thelma looked pretty good to me even if I was only 7....but I was already in love with my teacher...Miss Patriken..... I could cut through the back of Martins to my music lesson...at Mr. Drinkwater's house....he taught piano.....that was
about it....a music lesson , I only took one ...or two....not many....I didn't get it ....he asked me...Gary, why can't you get it...I told him I was stupid... (my mother told me that years later.) So that finished that....I cut my wrist on a broken bottle cutting through the back of his yard...the scar is a beauty...another job for Dr. Patten....