We used to drag-race that big old chevy of her Dad's along the straight stretch of road between Tatamagouche and River John; most times we were racing with the
young Mountie who was the only law enforcement in the village. We experimented with cigarettes and we went to the really wicked
dances that were held "out the country", where bootleg moonshine was the order of the day. Neither of us were interested in
drinking; we just wanted to dance and would go to any lengths to get to these dances.
I remember my Grandmother Jean meeting at me the door, broom in hand, in the wee small hours one morning
as I was trying to sneak into the house after one of those dances. The broom? she whacked my backside
until I couldn't sit down, that's what for!
Coralee and I were banned from seeing each other for a while. Both sets of parents blamed the other
for being a "bad example". But when they didn't know, we'd sneak around and meet each other in secret.
That was probably the same summer that we learned our lesson the hard way about the drag-racing. There was a
sweet young couple, Marilyn and Kenny, who were engaged to be married. They were only a year ahead of me at school, but
they were what everyone called the perfect couple, had been together since grade school, the type
of clean-cut kids they used to make movies about. One early evening, they were coming along the outskirts
to the village when a van, going far too fast, roared out of a side road without stopping. It ploughed into them and they were both
killed instantly. The most horrific part of it was that the driver of the van was Marilyn's Dad. He got drunk that
night and as far as I know, I never saw him sober again. He and his wife separated not long after.
I had my first real boyfriend(s) when I lived there. Somehow Coralee had met two fellows
from Truro and introduced me to one of them. We wrote back and forth for a while, and when
the senior prom was coming up, I asked Bob if he'd like to be my date. (Talk about nerve!).
He was a tall, skinny fellow with a nice sense of humor and a huge nose. We were so unkind; we used
to call him "Le Nez". He was also an Air Cadet officer and agreed he'd wear his uniform (aren't girls awful...
always a sucker for a uniform!) to the dance. I had my first semi-formal dress (white and gold) and
a borrowed pair of Jean's high-heel shoes (dyed red). I practiced walking in them for days before the dance.
When the big night arrived, I was so nervous I thought I'd be sick. Mum, Dad, Jean and the boys were all sitting
around the living room, telling me how great I looked, and waiting for Bob to arrive. Well, an hour went by, then two, and
he was really late. I was getting more nervous by the moment. Finally, I heard a motor in the driveway and when
I looked out the window, it wasn't his car (a great blue job with fins), nope, it was a muddy old half-ton truck.
His car had broken down enroute and he'd borrowed the truck. So off we went to the dance.
When we pulled up in front, he said he'd let me out and then go and park, and just as I
stepped out, my foot hit a patch of ice and I went "whump" and disappeared underneath the side door.
Bob gallantly got out and dragged me out by the feet.
Oh, I'm not finished with this story yet....the best was yet to come. The dance was in the school gymn, with the guys lined up
on one side, girls on the other, except for the couples. There were streamers and balloons floating from the ceiling
and rock'n roll playing from the stereo system (no live band) but nobody was dancing yet. Bob gallantly declared we should be
the couple to start it off and whisked me into the centre of the floor. I wanted to die with embarrassment but I was too shy to object.
Not only had we never danced together before, we'd never even really had a proper face-to-face conversation at this point.
As the music swirled around us, Bob whirled me around in what I suppose should have been a grand imitation of something he'd
seen on Ed Sullivan. Suddenly I felt something give way - it was the elastic in the waistband of my crinoline.
Piles of starched white lace fell around my feet. Bob stopped short so fast I almost fell over him. By the time I recovered my feet,
he'd disappeared; he left the floor so
fast you could almost see smoke. And I was left by myself out on the gymn floor to step out of my crinoline, gather it
in my arms, and race to the girl's washroom. That relationship ended abruptly. I think the most embarrassing part was
having to tell my family about it and Coralee, who didn't go to the dance. We giggled a lot about that for a long time.
We giggled a lot, anyway. We had one particular singing rhyme that we chanted as we strolled up and down the
main street with our arms linked. It went like this:
"I'm a little acorn, brown, lying on the dusty ground;
Everybody steps on me, that is why I'm cracked, you see...
I'm a nut; I'm a nut"
"I love myself, I think I'm grand, I go to the movies and I hold my hand;
I put my arms around my waist, and if I get fresh I slap my face.
I'm a nut; I'm a nut"
Yegods! the things you remember...
The other "boyfriend" was truly a male friend. His name was Lawrence Cole and he lived with his
grandparents. He was the first person I'd ever known who didn't have any parents and who was what I thought of as "truly poor".
Nobody had a lot of anything even in the 50s, but the Coles had even less. Lawrence used to come and hang out
at the hotel when I'd be on my own on the weekends; we'd do homework together, although he cut more classes than he ever attended.
I remember he had hair the color of butterscotch and wore a yellow/beige leather jacket with fringe on it and I thought it was just
the most macho thing in the world. One year he gave me a teddy bear for my birthday...I was probably 15 ...it was a "used" teddy bear and I guess
I must have had a puzzled expression on my face when he handed it to me. I didn't say anything, and he said "It's the
only thing I have that my Mother gave me and I'd like you to have it".
Lawrence Cole (1957)
Coralee and I stayed in touch for many years. She joined a travelling theatre company
and came to New Glasgow one winter in the play, "The Glass Menagerie". I remember borrowing
my Grandmother's black seal fur coat to wear to the play, just so I'd impress Coralee. As it turned out,
she was actually working as a dresser backstage and didn't even have an on-stage, speaking part.
None of that mattered ...she was still "in the theatre". She eventually married a CBC television producer, and the last I heard, many many years ago,
she had about six kids and was living in the U.K.
Isn't the human mind the most involved, complex mystery? Here I sit, remembering stuff that
happened a whole lifetime ago, while I have a problem finding stuff I filed yesterday.