I remember! I remember and feel the need to share with my children, now both in their 30s, things from my childhood, that some may hear and say that my family was poor or that we had it pretty hard. I don’t think we had it any different than anyone else and I’ll bet there are people who will read this and remember some of these experiences the way that I do.

I remember eating bread and gravy. Just plain bread and gravy. I was born just after the Second World War when times were tight and not everyone had large portions of meat but it always seemed like there was plenty of gravy so when the meat ran out you simply put a big old piece of home-made bread on your plate and covered it with gravy. It was a treat actually! No really - try it sometime!

I remember eating bread and milk. We had almost no boxed cereal when I was growing up. We had oatmeal, Sunny Boy and Cream of Wheat. If you wanted something cold or were in a hurry or just wanted a treat you tore up big pieces of bread, put them in a bowl, covered the pieces with milk and sprinkled the whole thing with refined white sugar. For an extra treat you could toast the bread, butter it, sprinkle a bit of cinnamon on it and then cover it with milk and refined sugar. Yum!

We called our elders Mr. Mrs. or Miss. There was no Ms. then, and definitely we did not call elders by their first name.

We ate together, at the dinner table, no exception. That was the time when we had a chance to talk about our day, and share our experiences. There was no opportunity to keep things from your parents because you were with them all the time. I don’t ever remember having a babysitter. Our parents wanted children, and spent their time with us proving that. As a result we learned about commitment and what it truly means to be loved.

I remember listening to music on the old radio that was attached to the battery and learning to waltz with my dad in our living room.

We didn’t have many school outings but I remember going on a field trip to Milum’s Dairy and at the end Mr. Milum gave us each a Dixie Cup with a wooden spoon to eat our sweet treat.

What about Dick and Jane? And “new math”? And Freshy!

I remember having “air raid” drills where we learned how to get under our desk or in the hallway on the floor with our heads and necks covered.

I remember trying to get to town for Christmas shopping with my parents. We only lived 12 miles south of Golden but dad had an old flat deck truck and once we got to Mount Rouney at Nicholson we would spend half the day pulling other shoppers over the top so they could get to town too. And I remember that there was always a treat in our shopping box from Casey’s Dry Goods.

I remember having a town imposed curfew when I was in high school. Everyone had to be off the streets by 10 pm and if the RCMP saw you out they gave you a ride home - and then you had to explain to your parents what you were doing out past curfew!

We had a dress code that had to be observed. Girls didn’t were pants to school unless it was really cold out and then you had to take them off before entering the classroom. Skirts could not be above the knee.

 I never knew a latch key kid when I was going to school. When you left in the morning mom was there making sure you had everything and when you got home at night mom was there with a snack and you sat down at the table to do your homework. A few moms worked, like Mrs. King, but she was a teacher with the same hours as her children.

There was no such thing as social promotion. If you couldn’t do the work you were held back until you could. But there wasn’t even a lot of “failing” because most of our teachers were really good and any problems we had were caught when we were young and dealt with right away. You couldn’t get to the 7th grade and not know how to read.

I spent the first three years of school going to Lady Grey in Golden. In the third grade we had Mrs. Mansfield as our teacher and we attended classes in the old annex. That year we took on an experimental learning system called SRA. The labs were large boxes filled with colour-coded cardboard sheets. Each sheet included a reading exercise for students. The student would then follow up with multiple choice questions . As the child moved ahead, he would advance in difficulty. It meant that we could all move at our own pace which for some was snail. Didn’t like it - no classroom instruction or participation. Could say that about online learning today I guess.

 We finally got power at our house in 1961 when my brother Jim was born. Shortly after that we got a record player/TV combination. We had to sit way across the room so that the TV didn’t “ruin” our eyes and the programming didn’t contain any situations unsuitable for children.