1955
17 FEBRUARY
Thursday
Dad [38] joins the 2nd Battalion of the Royal Canadian Army Medical Corps.
Dad makes me join the Cubs.
JUNE
I pass Grade 2 at Wellesley Public School.
I go to see the movie, This Island Earth, and although a few parts frighten me, I find some of the other science-fiction elements fascinating.
1955 Carlton St United Church picnic
AUGUST
I attend a parade for the 8th World Scout Jamboree that's held at Niagara-on-the-Lake.
1955 Lord Rowallan, Chief Scout of the British Commonwealth and Empire at the 8th World Scout Jamboree
One weekend, on a hike with other cub campers and leaders, something distracts my attention and I linger behind. I manage to get lost and can’t out where they’ve gone to, and I can’t find my way back. I remember crossing what seemed to be a large gorge, but I can’t recall where it is. Terrified, I scream and scream for help. When someone finally hears and locates me, I’m sobbing heavily and have a blistering headache. Once back in camp, the nurse puts a cool cloth on my head, gives me a painkiller, and puts me to bed.
This incident also had a long-term effect on my life: it began what would be a series of migraine headaches whenever I found myself in [to me] stressful situations. This lasted until 2004 when, following what my doctor thought might be an ischemic attack [but was probably just a visual migraine where I experienced double-vision for about two hours], he put me on Nadolol medication for high blood pressure. One of the side effects is, apparently, a lessening of migraines, which did happen. I’ve not had a serious headache since.
One other thing I discovered later was the fact that I took so many Aspirin® to fight off migraines and headaches as a youngster that by the time I was in my 30s, I had grown immune to its pain-relieving effects.
SEPTEMBER
I enter Grade 3 at Wellesley Public School.
OCTOBER
Someone takes me to one of the services during the Billy Graham Greater Toronto Evangelistic Crusade at the Maple Leaf Gardens [September 18 - October 16]. Although I don’t understand a lot of what’s going on, I still enjoy the hymn music and the 'theatricality' of it all.
17 OCTOBER
Monday
For reasons unknown to me—but perhaps because he isn’t making enough money to support the family—Dad decides to join the Royal Canadian Air Force [R.C.A.F.]. At the recruiting office, the clerk turns out to be dad’s nephew(!), the son of Ernest Woodhead, one of dad’s elder stepbrothers whom he’s never seen, and who came to Canada to live in Quebec some time earlier before dad was born. Once in the R.C.A.F., dad goes for training on various bases while mum, my sister, and I continue to live in Toronto. Dad comes home for visits on the weekends.
My sister and I would always look forward to his weekend returns because he always brought something for us—a toy, a comic, a chocolate bar, etc.
25 - 29 NOVEMBER
Friday – Tuesday
I'm admitted to the Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto “…for investigation of a defect in vision which was not correctable by refraction”. After four days of tests—including a spinal tap—they can find “…no serious physical disorder” so they discharge me.
What this diagnosis means in terms of my vision is that whenever I look at things, it's like peering through a slightly out-of-focus lens. I can see everything, but not sharply and, apparently, I can never get 20/20 vision even with glasses.
I still recall getting the spinal tap, although the thing I remember most is a nurse and orderly rubbing [what I think were] a variety of antiseptic liquids and/or powders on my back before they gave me the needle. Just lately, I read an article on how an area of the brain at the back of the head is responsible for our vision, and I'm wondering if the blow to that part of my head when I was four years old had anything to do with the anomaly.
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