Everybody seems to make a point of noting this is the year when they can read ‘1961’ right side up and upside-down.
SPRING
I participate in a first aid exhibition at a Boy Scout and Girl Guide Rally on the base.
JUNE
I pass Grade 8 at Lorraine Senior High School.
SUMMER
At the base cinema, I watch Parent Trap starring Hayley Mills, and I develop a schoolboy crush on her.
SEPTEMBER
I enter Grade 9 at Lorraine Senior High School. Glen Pinch is my home room teacher.
On Sundays, my parents make me attend Sunday School at a Department of National Defence elementary school opposite our ‘cage’. The teacher is Mrs MacDonald, who is also a friend of the family.
At the base PX , I discover Marvel Comics for the first time, and, over the next few years, I will lose myself in the worlds of The Amazing Spider-Man, The Mighty Thor, Fantastic Four, Dr Strange, Sgt Fury and His Howling Commandos and other Stan Lee / Jack Kirby / Steve Ditko creations.
Honestly, it’s hard to describe the thirst I had for the next issues of many of Marvel’s comics in those days. I found the stories and art so compelling that, even though I received a small allowance, I managed to get a job selling women’s magazines from door-to-door in A Block so I could buy the comics I wanted. I soon started what would become an extensive comic book collection. Later, in 1973, you’ll learn what eventually happened to that collection.
31 OCTOBER
Tuesday
Influenced by the comics I’ve read, I dress up as a somewhat emaciated ‘Thor’ for Hallowe’en.
