Age 7
JUNE
I pass Grade 1 at Wellesley Public School.
SEPTEMBER
I enter Grade 2 at Wellesley Public School.
For many years, I always thought I had skipped Grade 2. Grade 1 has a children’s block in it that reads ‘1’; but in the class photo for Grade 2, it reads ‘1-1’.
8 SEPTEMBER
Friday
I watch a TV live broadcast of Marilyn Bell swimming across Lake Ontario.
15 OCTOBER
Friday
Hurricane Hazel rips through southern Ontario. At first, when it starts raining, mum lets me run up and down the street at night in my bathing trunks. After I go to bed and awaken the next morning, dozens of broken trees and branches lie disjointedly across the street. It's a scene of destruction the likes of which I've never seen before.
One day at school, I'm called down to the principal's office. Apparently, some of the teachers have been complaining about a foul odor coming from my mouth. Under the principal's cross-examination, I tearfully explain that I got a pencil eraser stuck up my nose several days earlier and couldn't get it out. In that time, the principal surmises, it has started to decompose. He finds that very amusing, but with the help of a pair of tweezers, he removes the offending muck.
I still wonder how, and why, I got it struck up there in the first place.
DECEMBER
At the Carlton Street United Church, I act and sing the part of ’The Page' in the Christmas presentation, Good King Wenceslaus.
