Port Alberni 1964 – Every kid should have a year like this

The Thirteen Biggest Events of 1964

Everything in Port Alberni, according to Albernians, is a little bigger, a little worse, a little more, a little less, a little better, a little longer ….  I was an Albernian.  Even at a young age I could be heard saying things like “It rains more here than anywhere in BC”, “This is the hottest place in BC in the summer”, “The tsunami that hit us in ’64 was the biggest ever”.  (We called it a tidal wave back then).  The year was 1964, and Port Alberni was the centre of the world.  For me.

Lots happened in 1964:

Events of 1964

Take a moment or two and peruse the above link after you read my entry.

To this nine-year-old boy, living in Port Alberni, there were, clearly, thirteen major events of 1964, listed below in chronological order, not in order of importance.

January 11          Surgeon General links smoking to health concerns

It was the fourth straight day of snow, Alberni snow, biggest flakes you’ve ever seen, Dad home for the season.  School closed, stores closed, even lots of roads closed.  Two days before, the US Surgeon General’s Report was on the CBC news.  It seemed that tobacco had negative health effects.  Mom looked at Dad.  Dad looked at mom and threw his cigarette into the Acorn stove radiating heat into our living room.

“We have to quit,” he said.

“You don’t have the nerve to quit,” she replied.

Dad stared at her and said nothing.

Two days later.

Mom was out of tobacco.  She had already done what smoker did (and do).  She had gathered up bits and butts from ashtrays and rerolled.  She was out and demanded her husband, who had recently quit smoking, go get her some tobacco.

“Joe, get in the car.”

Jack’s Store (now called Jax Store) at the end of Morgan Crescent and around the corner?  It was closed.

The snow was still coming down.  At the end of Ian Avenue was another store.  We will try that one.  The road was slippery and the wipers weren’t doing a good job clearing the windows.  We neared Johnston and Ian and you could tell.  Lights outs, orange and black sign on the door window.

“Dammit,” said Dad.  I always felt more grown up when he felt comfortable to swear in front of me.  “I guess we’ve got to go to the Chinaman.” He looked at the floorboards.  “I don’t like those tires in this mess.”

The “Chinaman” was a store we never went to.  It was way across town in South Port up on Third Avenue.  I am pretty sure the name of the store was not “The Chinaman”.  “We have to down Johnston Hill, left on Gertrude, angle onto Stamp and then up the GD hill at 3^rd.”  I knew he was talking to himself, but I liked to think I was being consulted.  He looked at me.  “We’re going to have to take a hell of a run at that hill.”

We took several runs at that hill, some times getting farther up , sometimes not so much, sometimes we seemed to slide backwards even as the car was going up the hill.  Dad asked me to get out and push.  Then he told me to stay in the car.  I cursed the slippery smooth soles of my shoes, they’d let us down. I climbed back into the front seat, the navigator’s perch.

Eventually, we made the hill.  I knew Dad would beat that hill.  He was Dad.  He made things work.  He went into the Chinaman’s (“I knew that guy would be open”) and came out with a can of Export A tobacco.  The ride home was silent, slippery but silent.

Dad went in first.  I knew not to rush past him, no matter how cold my feet were.  Mom came around from the living room into the kitchen, eyebrows lifted.  “Did you get it?”

“Here’s your g** d***  tobacco,” he replied as he kicked the can off the wall above the table.

January 25          Robbie Burns Day, Feast of St Paul, My Birthday

Best gifts – several Hardy Boys Books that I hadn’t read yet.  Outstanding!

I never ate haggis until I was well into my forties.

February 9          Beatles on Ed Sullivan

I had no idea I could hold my breath that long.  I had no idea I could be quiet that long.  My head spun for days afterwards.  My sister described the event beautifully in a previous blog : https://ogmundsonstories.wordpress.com/2013/11/25/moments/

March 27             Great Alaska Earthquake

Being an Albernian, the earthquake clearly hit us harder than anywhere else.

Babies floated on mattresses down the street in front of the Super Valu.  Entire parts of town were under water.  The mills had to shut down until everything dried out.  Boom logs got chucked up onto the hills like Lincoln Logs.  People were using boats instead of cars.

Some of that might have been true.  In our family the big news was that my sister’s house was picked up and tossed hundreds of feet back.  She was not in it at the time, nor were any of her family.  But we did see the house and it did indeed get moved.  And the town did suffer a flood.

Great Alaska Earthquake 1964

April 25                 Leafs beat Detroit to win the Stanley Cup.

My dislike of the Leafs was growing.  It was rare in our house to like anything associated with Toronto.  It was rarer to hear our Dad utter the word “Toronto” without it being preceded by “God-Damn” as in GD Toronto bankers, GD Toronto politicians, GD Toronto Maple Leafs, etc.  I extended the GD Toronto rule in my life to include GD Toronto Argonauts, GD Toronto Metros-Croatia (look it up), and GD Toronto Raptors, although I have taken a softer  approach to the Raptors in the years leading up to their NBA Championship year.

My team was les Canadiens de Montreal.  Our dear Aunt Lil lived there and secured for me an autographed photo of Henri Richard, best player on earth, who wrote “to my friend Joe” on his 3×5.  My hands shook as I read the script.

Who were these GD Toronto guys thinking they were better?  1964 became a wasted year in hockey.

May 24                 Beatles on Ed Sullivan again!

Incredible.  Twice.  Only Topo Gigio or Wayne & Schuster were ever on that much.

Beatles interview with Ed Sullivan May 24, 1964

June 1                   I meet Joe Kapp in person and he shakes my hand.

Tenth Avenue Ballpark, I was pitching in the third inning of a league game.  It was a lovely spring day.  I was thinking that if I threw just under the batter’s elbow he would have a hard time hitting it.  My teacher, Mrs. Bjornson, had come to watch our game.  It was a special day.

To my left I could see a convoy of fancy long dark cars rolling up near our field.  Several men began walking the small rise of grass towards our game.  The coaches called time out.  This was unusual.  I turned towards the men and as they came closer my heart stopped.  It was Joe Kapp.  What was the quarterback of the BC Lions doing coming to watch me pitch in a Port Alberni minor baseball game?  Would he remember me?

We had met before.  The Lions practiced in Courtenay in a park near my Grandmother’s house.  People could sit on the hill and watch the Lions work out.  Grandma suggested I might like to go watch for a few hours.  I found a spot on the hill and watched the players run, pass kick and grunt through training camp.

The hill was between the park and the Courtenay Hotel where they stayed.  On my second day watching, after lunch, as the team made its way back to the field, the incredible happened.  Sonny Homer, and Joe Kapp were chatting as they headed back to the field.  Sonny Homer rubbed my head, “Hey kid.”  “Hey kid” echoed the great Joe Kapp.  I couldn’t take my eyes off them the rest of the afternoon.  And now, about a year later, Joe Kapp was coming to my game.

We gathered around and took a knee.  Joe Kapp took a knee.  His speech went something like this;

“Men, my name is Joe Kapp, and I play quarterback for the BC Lions.  We should have won the Grey Cup last year” (I silently cursed Angelo Mosca on his behalf) “but if we get a little luck, and with your support I can tell you we are going to win it this year in Toronto.”

“In the meantime, I have a little something for each of you.”

He got up and went down the line and spoke to each of us as he shook our hands.  The other men gave us a small container of Squirrel Peanut Butter.  Random guys also got a plastic football shaped container of French Maid Bleach “to take home to our moms”.  I didn’t get one.  Not sure the peanut butter made it home either.

Every team I played on I tried to get uniform number 22 or 16.

August                  Civil Rights Workers found dead

This news story gripped everyone, especially Mom.  She was genuinely shaken by the news so it became important to us as well.  A lot was happening down south.  It was over there, but it felt like it was getting closer to here.

Mom was very connected to the world events surrounding the civil rights movement.  Her interest kept it real for me.  Somehow it felt like a struggle we all we all had a part in and we needed to win.  This story terrifies me to this day.

Civil Rights Workers deaths 1964

September         Beatles’ movie A Hard Days Night – we got to go see it!!!

And – The Last Ogmundson sib was born on September 20.

October  14              Martin Luther King announced as Nobel Prize winner

This event struck my mother, and members of our church, as a profoundly important event.  It mattered on a world scale to my mother, so it mattered to me.  It felt as if the good guys were starting to win.

October 15          Cardinals beat the Yankees in the World Series

Not a big deal but something I kept track of.  I found myself rooting for the underdogs in games where my team was not involved.  I still do.  Mickey Mantle was a big deal.  Bob Gibson was a big scary deal.  A fearless pitcher who practically growled at hitters.  The most competitive person ever.

October 25         Rolling Stones on Ed Sullivan

I would wager that I am not the only person watching that night who felt I was witnessing something a bit naughty.  Are you Beatles or are you Stones?

November 3       Johnson beats Goldwater and it meant we weren’t going to get blown up

I didn’t have a clear understanding of American politics, but from what I could gather by listening to my Dad talk to others, there was a clearly good side, and another side that would get us all blown up if they won.  The good side won and it was as much a relief as a celebration.

November 28    BC Lions beat Hamilton 34-24 in GD Toronto to win the Grey Cup.

Joe Kapp was right.

December           Father Brazeau says mass….. in English!

It took a long time to get my head around the fact that the priest was facing us and talking to us in words we could understand.  I could not imagine that one day we would be singing along to guitars in church.

Pax vobiscum.

My Mom’s Dodge Charger 440 “Magnum”

 

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The air had that warm wet smell of April.  The Safeway parking lot was about half full,  Looking out the tiny back window, head lightly scraping the interior roof I could see all eyes were on the beautiful blue Dodge Charger rounding the Kipp Avenue access and lurching into the parking lot.  The engine growled and purred.

There was a new car in town – and a hot one at that.  I could see it in their faces.  “Who owned this beast?”

Mom gathered herself and stepped out of the driver’s side.  I smiled as the effects of cognitive dissonance gripped the onlookers like mass hypnosis.

Mom smiled as she made her way into the store.  I followed and tried through body language and facial expression to give the unspoken impression that I had let my mom drive my car.  Deep down I knew they probably weren’t buying it, but I carried on the ruse inside my own head.

“I’ve had people walk right up to me with cash offering to buy that car,” Dad told me when I relayed the story of the parking lot.  “A lot of money.”  He sipped his tea and smiled.

I never asked Mom if she liked to drive the Dodge.  I know Dad liked it – a lot.   He loved to haul his “Barney improved” tent trailer behind it.   “That car has a big motor.”  Indeed it did.  A 440 Magnum.  Here’s what car aficionados said about it:

The 440 was the quintessential street piece and had been markedly improved for ’68, what with a new Carter AVS jug replacing 1967’s smallish AFB. The Hemi had been tuned-up, as well, for ’68, receiving a warmer bumpstick grind. What could Chrysler possibly do for an encore?

The planners apparently had one mid-year trick up their sleeves: a special street racer option package for the 440 B-cars. What’d they do? Simple. They went to California and ordered a mess of Edelbrock hi-rise aluminum intakes cast for triple-deuce carburetion. They ordered a trio of Holley’s best centerhung-float 2300 deuces, totaling 1,200 cfm. In the best Chrysler tradition, the whole setup was, of course, properly engineered. The carbs were each equidistant from their respective ports, so no cylinders were in danger of going lean. This permitted center-carb jetting, which, if driven sanely (but who could?), might even have delivered passable gas mileage.

                        –https://www.allpar.com/mopar/440.html      

Did you understand any of that?

No.

Of course not.

Our cars included a sensible Chev Bel Air,

a Ford station wagon that Dad painted with a roller in the driveway in New West,

a huge black parade float Cadillac that he bought down in Bellingham

(“it was such a good deal!”) but this?  Nothing matched the sheer incongruousness of Mom and Dad driving a Dodge Charger 440 Magnum.

The only phrase in the technical description above that rang true for me was “, if driven sanely (but who could?).  The answer is nobody.  People who understood muscle cars drove them as they were intended, others, like Mom, attempted to drive with a lighter touch, to feather the gas pedal with mixed results.  This fine-tuned machine would lurch and bolt at the mere suggestion of gasoline fumes.  Mom’s passengers learned to brace themselves for her “blast and brake” driving style.  Especially those in the back seat where the sloping roof scraped the top of even an Ogmundson head.

So how did we come to own such an unusual car?  What was the back story?

Here’s my version, told with the hope that readers will correct and revise….

Dad had a mate on one of his boats. Fish packer? DFO? Not sure, but the mate, we’ll call him “K”, was the owner of a fine blue Charger and a taste for poker.

He approached Dad one morning – clearly one morning after – with a story and a proposition.  A sure thing the night before had encouraged him to put up his beloved Charger as his side of a large pot.  The sure thing went south and the winner wanted to collect,  He agreed to take cash over the car, even less than the car was really worth, but K was cash strapped.  If Dad could see his way clear to take the car, and give him some cash, he could pay off his debt and work to save enough money to buy the car back at some date in the future.  Dad figured it was an easy decision; either get the free use of a vehicle for a temporary period or have a car worth considerably more than he paid for it if K could not save up the money to pay him back.

And that is what happened.

One day K showed up, with cash, plus a little extra for Dad (“for your troubles”) and drove off with his baby , reunited.

I don’t think I saw the car again.

Worse, I never got to drive it.

Mothers and Moments

Nothing would be better than a visit with her mother. It had to be today.

Goodness knows she could use a break.

Mother lived a couple of hours away, the kids would surely get on her nerves being cooped up in the car for that long. Six kids – one adult. Luckily, the road to Courtenay could be broken into sections, she thought. If I get them into the car early they could probably stay calm at least past the “Hump” and be too full to squawk about ice cream in Whiskey Creek. “It’s too early for ice cream,” she’d tell them, hoping that they’d forget that she’d said it when they returned home late the day after.

It was too cold for a spring swim at Parksville or Qualicum Beach, but she could let them out and blow off some steam for a bit in Qualicum. From there it was an hour’s run up the highway to Courtenay.

Courtenay. Her home. Where she was born, where her first two children were born. Courtenay was where the air smelled right, fresh, and not full of pulp and paper fumes from a mill. Where Jersey cows meandered the lush grassy fields of Sandwick, and made milk and butter taste just a little better. Where she felt safe and welcomed, pampered even, by her loving mother who adored her children.

She could see it in her mind; a happy trip along the Island Highway, a happy stop at Qualicum to stretch and play, the final part of the journey past Bowser, the huge shell mountain at Fanny Bay, through tiny Union Bay and finally Royston, the village that would tell her she was close, maybe ten minutes from the tiny home where her mother lived in Sandwick. She could smell the air, she could see the smiles on the children, she could hear the sing songs in the car, she could feel the hearty hugs all around.  It was going to be a happy trip worth taking.

“Boys in the back,” she said as they scrambled at, on, and around the 1954 Monarch. Back seats were big. Front seats were benches, plenty of room for the two girls and the driver. Seat belts were not an issue; space was an issue, in particular, the space one declared was “mine” was immediately susceptible to encroachment.

“You can’t touch this part of the seat,” “I get to sit here if I want,” “I want to sit by the window,” “You always get to sit by the window,” and so on.

“I just need to tune them out,” she thought, then suddenly found herself saying”Hush! Ssshhh!! Enough! Be good.”

It worked for a while. Mt. Arrowsmith watched over them from the right as they climbed the passage known locally as “the Hump”. Trouble began with a rustle, as subtle and isistant as the wind through the cedars as she motored through Cathedral Grove. Squabbling and poking and occasional yelps were coming from the back seat. Trouble was rearing its childish head, not lurking like “Cammie”, the legendary lake monster of Cameron Lake, known but unseen.  This trouble was in full display and rolling and wrestling in the seat behind her.

“Look at Cameron Lake. Did you know they say it is as deep as the mountain behind it is high?” Some discussion about lakes and depths from the older ones followed, then, ultimately, more poking and silliness as the car passed Little Qualicum Falls. She debated in her mind the idea of stopping, giving them a run up to the falls, poop them out a bit, but just as quickly rejected it. It would delay the trip and make it longer than planned.  Then they would be getting hungry, too.  She pressed down on the accelerator.

By Whiskey Creek the noise was getting distracting. Giggling, shrieking, story telling, wrestling, and general nonsense poured from the back seat. “At least the girls aren’t being silly,” she thought, “they seem to be pretty good at ignoring their brothers. Why do they have to be so silly, so noisy?” She concentrated on her driving and tried again to shut out the noise.

“Let’s play a game,” she said suddenly.

“What kind of game? OK. What? Stupid. I’m not stupid,” came the simultaneous reply, mostly from behind her.

“Watch the first number of the license plates of the cars going by. Let’s see if we can count all the way to “9”.

The road through to Coombs suddenly got very quiet on the other side . Despite the watchful gazes from the 12 peering eyes, some standing on the seat to look out the window, the first few cars passed and the number “1” was not in play. The game began to die.

“Look at the goats on the roof. Did you know the people who own those goats used to live near us?”

Shriek giggle giggle

Shriek giggle giggle

“Stop that! I’m trying to drive.”

Silence as everyone held their breath. Inevitably, as the boys began to make eye contact, the giggling returned, slowly but more surely as each powerful burst of air blasted past each set of quivering little boy lips.

Shriek giggle giggle

Shriek giggle giggle

What else could she do?

She needed to teach them a lesson. Start with the oldest – no – the two oldest.

“Joe. Bill. Get out.”

“What?”

“You heard me. Get out.”

For the first time since Bishop Avenue in Port Alberni they were quiet. All of them. She had their attention now, she needed to follow through.

“This road is highway 4. Walk straight down this road towards the water. When you get to the island highway turn left. Walk on the left side of the road and keep the water on your right. Keep walking on that road and you will come to Sandwick Road where Grandma lives.”

Every eye in the car was wide, every ear in the car was tuned to her voice, every mouth was silent. “Good,” she thought. “Impact.”

In her rear view mirror she could see her boys walking as she pulled away. She ignored the loud protests of the remaining boys in the back. “Not yet” she thought. ” They have to know I’m serious. Besides, it’s actually almost pleasant in here now.”

She allowed herself to be “convinced” by the budding lawyers in the car that she needed to double back and pick the boys up. The conversation lasted long enough for the boys to have walked more than a few blocks and were farther ahead that she had expected.

“Your brothers convinced me that I should come back to get you. Get in the car.”

She ignored the smirky looks on their faces, pretended to not hear the bravado, “We were okay, we knew how to find Grandma’s house.” She looked away and had to suppress a laugh when she caught the younger boys conspiratorial glances at their older sibs, and the brotherly smiles they shared.

She knew instantly that their version of this story, if any of them remembered it, would be vastly different from her own. No matter. What mattered is that they had shared a moment, the kind of moment that makes the bond of brothers stronger, more solid, even if none of them could explain why.

“That’s what mothers do,” she thought as she passed the oyster shell mountain at Fanny Bay, “we create moments, teachable moments.”

By the time the Monarch hit Union Bay the car was quiet. She was thinking about seeing her mother. The kids were probably wondering what was for lunch.

“I hope we have cake and berries,” said someone. The others dreamed of cake and berries.