Childhood Recollections

My childhood may differ from yours ~ due to the fact I was born and raised in a country environment.The only outside rural activities were basically offered through the village's Public and High School. And not all these, were my sister and I permitted to participate...

due to our parents' religious convictions.
A few activities I have previously written about in my writings, when suitable to the topic.

Life has several stages from the toddler through to childhood ...then the 'teen' who enters into the young adult...testing skills, knowledge...whatever he/she can accomplish....and those in which they erred! The bonus factors determine the development of one's personality.

The Birthday Cake: My earliest memory was a celebration of my March birthday. My favourite Aunt Inez (after whom I was named (Merle Inez) had never married and had no children ~ living in Hamilton, she'd ride the TH&B railway train to the nearest station to our farm near Vanessa. To her, my older sister and I were her favourite children. Always she brought us small gifts...especially boxes of chocolate covered maple buds which she always purchased at ' Laura Secord' in Hamilton.

On this, my birthday, Mother had baked a wonderful cake...iced it...placing little animals on top and coloured coconut along the sides. She set the cake precariously along the edge of the kitchen table among other table treats for my Birthday Dinner. Accidentally, at my my young age, I backed into it with Auntie at my side...and not realizing at my young age of 4...when I stepped back, the head of my hair marred the beauty of Mom's icing masterpiece made especially for me. Desperately upset, Mother had to repair the damage that I had created! This incident I've never forgotten!

Visit of Queen Elizabeth and King George: I do recall when young, that the royal couple arrived in Brantford for a brief visit. Dad, too busy with farm activity, asked Uncle Jim (his brother whose farm was directly across the road) to take my sister and me to See the King and Queen of England, With the usual crowd attending this royal event, Uncle Jim lifted me to his shoulders so I could see them!    All I recall is the huge cheering crowd and the royalty garb and crowns they wore!

Garter Snakes Alive: How I Feared Them! Our several acred farm with its red-brick homestead, barns and sheds, was located near a swamp. Occasionally garter snakes would slither onto our grassy lawns. My uncles considered it great joy to chase my sister and me...chase and catch us...and put these creepy 'garters' down our necks!!! We deplored our uncles about their horrid teasing and fun. As a result, all my life I have feared and hated snakes to such an extent, that even in teen-age continuing to today I detest and have years suffered from a dreadful phobia about snakes. For many years, I could not even face magazines or books that displayed colour photos of these reptiles!!!

Waiting for the Toilet: In those days, farm houses had no indoor bathroom or toilet. Every farm home had an outhouse. So, when you had to go we each had to go outside to the outhouse...winter, summer... wind, snow or rain. At night-time, we had a pot beside the bed,having to empty it each morning.One time, when 5 or 6 years of age, I had to go...but Dad was in the toilet!

Standing along the side of our red brick home and waiting for Dad to leave, ,no longer could I wait...in desperation, I peed in my panties, dribbling onto the walkway beside the wall.

Finally, he exited the toilet, telling me I could use it...but seeing the puddle I'd created beside the house,HE WAS ANGRY and admonished me for my actions...and I burst into tears.

One day, when walking home from school, we had to pass the swamp before reaching our farm home. There on the gravel road, sunning itself lay a striped healthy-looking garter snake.

Terrified I could not walk past it...so my sister had to go home to get Mom

who came and with a stick, forcing the reptile back into its swamp habitat.

Manure Spreading: Betcha didn't know about this! Morning and night, the cows had to be milked by hand until milking machines could be purchased to attach to the cows' udders. Always content to be summoned into the barn, the Jerseys and Holsteins had tasty hay in their mangers while being milked.
Behind each standing cow, was a trench into which their body waste went. Daily, Dad shoveled this waste into a wheel barrow and deposited this smelly waste onto his outside building manure pile. You may wonder why! In the spring, with the sowing of grains and seed, the best fertilizer for these young growing seedlings...guess what! Manure, the best even at that time, money could buy!!! With his manure spreading machine pulled by horses or tractor, his crops successfully and richly matured.

Several years later,when teen-aged, I was driving the red McCormick Deering tractor which was pulling a wagon upon which hay was loaded from the hay-loader and this in turn, was tine-grasping the cured hay lying in rows in the field. The cut hay had been lying in the sun to cure before it was gathered to place in the barn loft for winter feeding of his cows and pair of horses. Two men on the wagon gathering this hay...one of them found a garter snake that had been a-rest in the hay...he picked it up...flung at me driving the tractor...said snake landing on my shoulder...then flopped to my lap!

So terrified was I of this action...I stopped the tractor...put it in gear..and fled the scene from fright!!!  Of course, my Dad was angry with me for disrupting this 'hay-gathering procedure.!

Unfortunately, for years, I've had this phobia about snakes!!!

One time while in college in Toronto, I attended a Bridal Shower for one of my college friends. Games we played. a gift we each were given...as a conversation piece about we each would converse.Being a shower, we each had a cup of tea on our laps.When my turn, I opened the ribbon tied box...took off the lid and guess what was inside! A stuffed artificial snake. So terrified was I...tossing the box and its content on the floor, I also upset the cup, breaking it and the saucer!

Finding a 5-Dollar Bill: When walking home one day from school,...and passing the Print Shop, on the sidewalk was a crisp 5-Dollar Bill. Believing it may have been dropped by a customer, I asked the Print Shop owner if one of his customers had returned to find his lost bill. With arms folded at his counter ~ and with smiling eyes, he said: Finders! Keepers! Oh! What Joy! What would a 5-dollar bill be worth today??? In early May, my sister and I bought a Mother's Day gift for her!

Whiteman's Creek: On the outskirts of our village, Burford, was this fast flowing stream with a large swimming area in the centre of it. All kids learned to swim in Whiteman's Creek!!! Because neither my parents had learned to swim, we were not allowed to go there! (After arriving in Toronto for post- secondary education, I joined a nearby gym, and learned to swim!

Happy Times: At local fall fairs, we submitted items to be judged. We had music lessons in voice and piano...We belonged to the 4-H club for farm children...we had items to wear that Mother crafted on her Singer Sewing Machine. One day Dad took me to a Brantford Red Sox baseball game where from my program's lucky number, I won a case of gingerale and movie tickets (the latter, I could not use. because theatre movies we were not permitted to attend.)

For many years, I'd believed my Dad would have preferred I had been a son. Yet, often when boasting about his family, he'd state: I'l soon have to sit on the front porch with my shotgun!

Assembled by Merle Baird-Kerr...March 27, 2020
Comments I appreciate...mbairdkerr@cogeco.ca