Our Exhibition: a highlight of every kid's summer

When I was growing up in Chatham, New Brunswick, the Exhibition was the highlight of the summer. It usually fell conveniently right around the end of August, just before Labour Day although I do remember a couple of times when it was held in early September, after school started. How awful it was for us kids to have to sit in hot classrooms, windows wide open, and hear the tempting sounds of the carnival — the music, the carney announcements, the general hubbub. We could hardly wait for the bell to ring so we could get over there.

The Exhibition was divided into three distinct parts: the building, the midway and the barns. Even as young people, we felt some responsibility to survey the exhibits in the building when we first arrived. This was quite mature of us as the building was mostly commercial exhibits, farm machinery, appliances, lots and lots of raffle tickets — which we mostly left for our parents to buy. There were also baked goods, pickles and preserves to be judged and there was a wall-full of local art.

The building was a landmark in Chatham, on a hill behind a large grassy expanse that was used for parking. Later, there were paved lanes in between the grassy parking areas but in my earlier memories, there were unpaved tracks and I remember it as being quite haphazard.

This building was built in 1937 and it burned down in a spectacular fire in 1993. It's since been replaced.

After our dutiful turn around the building, downstairs and up, we were free to head out to the midway with clear consciences. In those days, it was always the Bill Lynch Show and like it or not, the Exhibition was judged on how good the midway was that year. Some years, the rides and the sideshows were scant; people complained and threatened to write letters. The problem was, Bill Lynch could supply a certain number of carnivals at the same time but some years, it became clear, the carnival contents were stretched too thin and all you could do was hope that the following year, schedules would be staggered and we'd get our fair share.

You can tell this photo is taken in Chatham because you can see the famous steeple of St. Michael's Basilica in the lower left.

We would usually wait until we were out on the grounds before we started eating although I remember one of the service clubs — the Lions, I think — served fresh buttered corn on the cob, right inside the main entrance. It was so good, it probably didn't occur to us that we were making a healthy choice to begin our feasting — and maybe with all that butter dripping down our chins, it wasn't all that healthy.

I don't know whether it was a widespread habit or just in my circles but we never got our fries from that first truck on the midway, the high truck on the left. It was always said that he charged more and gave fewer fries per serving — taking advantage of his position.

Right across from that fry truck was the Bingo tent which we had no occasion to enter, not being Bingo players. I think there was an age restriction anyway. I suppose it was considered gambling — but weren't all the games? The back wall of that tent was covered with prizes. I remember table lamps — dozens of table lamps. I remember seeing lots of people over the course of an evening carrying those lamps off too. I'm sure it was an appreciated prize.

The gaming booths didn't hold a lot of attraction for me. I remember as a very small girl, Dad giving me a handful of dimes for the duck pond, which I loved. The prizes were always a long slender flexible stick with some kind of cheap-o toy attached to the end. I can still see the keeper of the duck pond reaching up for another of those prizes which would last about a day.

Much later, my boyfriend during my last summer just after high school was a ballplayer with a good arm. I definitely took home a prize stuffed animal every night of Exhibition Week that year. There's teenage status, of course, connected to walking around the midway carrying a big teddy bear and I enjoyed it while it lasted.

When it came to rides, I was strictly a ferris wheel and merry-go-round (after the little kids had been taken home) kind of girl. As a small child, I'd been taken on the tilt-a-whirl and I screamed so loud and disturbingly, the carnie had to stop the ride and let me off. I promptly went around behind the ride and threw up. That was it for me. Ever since, I've avoided rides that go up and down and spin around.

I do remember another ride that I got on. I think it only came to our Exhibition once although I could be wrong. This ride was called The Caterpillar.

It was a small roller coaster. You were fastened in to your seat and the ride started up and did a few revolutions in the open air. A few minutes in, the green covering started to emerge from the centre. It rose straight up, like the convertible cover of a car and then it gradually folded over and covered the seats and you finished your ride in darkness. Quite interesting now that I think about it. I'm guessing that it's not commonly found on midways today.

Back beyond the games and the rides was another phenomenon that has faded away. This is the side-show — including what was commonly called the "freak" show (The Wild Man of Borneo, The Fat/Bearded/Tattooed Lady, The Armless/Legless/Torsoless Man) and those showmen of particular talents who ate swords and fire and cavorted with snakes.

My friends and I, doing our official rounds of the midway, would stand throughout the barker's sales job as he did his level best to entice people into the tent. He would bring out "samples" and use them as part of his selling point. He was loud and seductive and I can still hear that almost-hypnotic persuasion. I was never inside, of course. People in those days didn't routinely carry ID as far as I know but the barker knew who to let in and we kids all knew we weren't going in.

I grew up, interestingly enough, with a rather warm and affectionate memory of the "girlie shows." I think it's because one day, my friends and I were coming back to the midway from the barns and we somehow got in behind the sideshow tents but still inside the midway fence. There were two or three little trailers there and people milling about. There were women on chaise longues getting some sun, chatting with each other, doing their nails. And there were small children running around playing! We suddenly realized that we had stumbled into the living area of the stars of the girlie show and maybe some of the other sideshows as well. They were families and this was the way they were spending the summer.

It seemed so charming and natural that all sense of titillation was lost on me. I suppose that's why they were tucked out of sight back behind the tent stages.

In an unusual twist, one of the memories that comes back to me about the Exhibition is of something that I didn't personally witness. Twice a day — 5:00 p.m. and 11:00 p.m. — the high-wire aerialist climbed the tower and began his act. (I know my photo is of a female but as I remember the high-wire acts, they were usually male.)

It was always scary, a lot of breath-holding and gasping and occasional exclamations. Those towers were high — often more than 100 feet — and there was always great relief when the aerialist came down.

One day — I'm pretty sure it was the afternoon show — my friends and I had just left the grounds and were out in the area in front of the building. We could hear the sounds that always accompanied the high-wire act and suddenly, there was a sound that was so different, it's impossible for me to describe it properly. It was a scream of fear and horror and disbelief. We didn't know until later what had happened. The aerialist had — working "without a net" as it was always advertised — plunged to the ground. My memory fails me here although I think he was taken to the hospital (which was nearby) and he may have remained alive for a couple of days but I can't say that for sure.

That event haunts me still. I can hardly bear to think about it. I can't imagine how it must feel to someone who was there.

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Years later, I was back living in Chatham and I was editor of the newspaper, the Miramichi Press. By then, the Exhibition — while still fun — was an event to be covered in the paper. Our job was to find new stories about the Exhibition — or to find new angles on old stories.

One hot afternoon, I was wandering around the midway and I thought it might be a good idea to see if I could get an interview with the high-wire aerialist/acrobat. I went and knocked on the door of the trailer that was next to the tower. I knocked several times, in fact, and finally, the door was opened a couple of inches. It was a woman and when I told her why I was there, she said no interview, not under any circumstances. She said he was resting. I honestly can't remember the conversation but after a bit of back and forth, she did let me in. I think maybe he heard the conversation and gave his assent.

(I don't remember their names. I'll call them Paul and Marie. Who knows? Maybe those are their names.)

It was nice in the trailer. There was a fan running and it was dim. Paul was sitting at the table. He was wearing a tank top and sweat pants. His upper body was heavily muscled which I guess is not surprising. Marie was heavily made up and wearing what was obviously a wig. They both smoked a lot. They seemed older than I thought they would be.

We chatted. It wasn't so much an interview as it was people sitting around on a hot afternoon, exchanging life stories. I can't remember where they were from or how they got into the high-wire act business — it was probably something as ordinary as people who were working with the carnival gravitating toward the tower and practicing until they knew how to do it. It was a job to them and they didn't seem to find it any more unusual than anyone would find their job. I think they told me they would finish the circuit in Atlantic Canada and then head for Florida where they would spend the winter.

I sensed at one point that they had become quite suggestive and it was clear that they were interested in me as something other than a local reporter. I made a casual reference to my husband and they reacted quite positively to that mention and wondered if I could get him over to join us. I thought maybe it was time for me to go and I made a graceful exit. I thanked them for their time and wished them all the very best.

I came back later to watch the act with Marie. She didn't go up the tower but she had a crucial role on the ground, co-ordinating the act, adjusting the guy-wires, timing his moves to get him down safely. There was no conversation. She was working. The whole experience — watching him go through those dangerous moves after having spent a couple of hours together — was very tense for me. When he was safely on the ground, I waved and slipped away. They disappeared into the trailer.

I wrote my story and it was published later that week.

Several weeks later, a letter arrived, hand-written in bold black ink. It was from Paul. They were on their way back to Florida. He had seen the story and wanted to thank me. He said he usually avoided reporters because, in his experience, they never got it right but he thought I "got it" and he liked my story. He said Marie sent her regards.

I hope they both lived to a ripe old age and retired in their trailer to a nice Florida beach.

Blue lights, bubble lights, revolving trees — it's Christmas!

A few days ago, I told Dan I had come up with a new slogan that I hoped would catch on: "Christmas. It's all about change!"

I was reacting — immaturely, I suppose — to some annoyingly sweet reference to Christmas being all about love and family and tradition and doing it in such an over-sentimentalized, tear-jerking, exploitative way that it just rubbed me the wrong way. It was trying to take you back to where it thinks your childhood Christmas is lurking.

But I guess they're right. Christmas isn't about change. It's about doing things over and over and over, every year, in exactly the same way. Isn't it? Isn't it?

You can see that I made myself think.

In fact, every year, I look at the Canadian Tire catalogue and all the flyers and brochures from the hardware stores and the department stores and I see page after page of "new" Christmas stuff — new-style trees and wreaths and lights and ornaments — and I always wonder who's buying it? There's way too much simply to supply a young generation of people just starting out and buying their Christmas stuff. But doesn't everyone else already have all their stuff? And don't they use it making the same Christmas year after year?

It so happens that we went the other night to David Myles' Christmas show with Symphony Nova Scotia. David does put on a good show. He has so much personality and he’s funny — not to mention a good singer/musician. He sang a lot of the old familiars and some of his own Christmas compositions which turned out to be nice also.

One of the songs he sang was one I didn't know: Buck Owens' Blue Christmas Lights.

(Excuse me, Miss, but do you have any...)

Blue Christmas lights for my Christmas tree?

I want some blue Christmas lights just as blue as me

The one I love has set me free, but I still got her memory

Give me blue Christmas lights for my Christmas tree. . .

It wasn't a great song, not particularly memorable, but there must have been something evocative about it because right there, in the middle of the concert, I began to think back to my childhood and the very first tree I ever saw that was covered completely with blue lights.

In the '50s, in Chatham, NB, I lived in the NB Power Commission houses — commonly called the "hydro houses" — right on the edge of town. I often remind people that the Welcome to Chatham sign was in our backyard.

There were six houses, three on each side of the small cul-de-sac, each one across from its own mirror image. On our side, our house was closest to the road. In the middle was the Calabrese family, and next to them, the Parks family.

The Parks two oldest girls were almost my age — Edith (Edie) a little bit older, Lynn a little bit younger — and we spent a lot of childhood time together. It was always a little bit of an adventure for me because their family was very different from mine. It was a big family, four kids then, five later, and much more raucous than mine. Five kids! My family would probably be considered reserved.

When I look back now, I think the Parks parents, Anna and Howard, were very young — maybe barely out of their 20s. They were from up-river. Anna was from Whitneyville and Howard from (I'm pretty sure) Sunny Corner. Howard was robust and a great kidder.

They took great enjoyment out of life and Christmas was a time of year that they leaped into with gusto. They had spectacular decorations and it was there that I first saw a tree that was completely lit with blue lights. And now that I think about it, the blue-lit tree was only one of their Christmas trees that I remember. One year, Howard had the tree on a revolving platform that turned at the flick of an electric switch.

Of course, the tree had to be placed out into the room, away from the walls, and it had to be decorated all the way around, not just on the part that faced the room. I may be embellishing it in my own memory but I think there was music involved too. I think Christmas melodies played while the tree was revolving. It was quite a neighbourhood attraction.

Another year, the Parks' tree had these lights. Do you remember these?

I'm not sure they ever caught on in a big way. I've probably seen them a few times since that year at the Parks but I think I remember reading or hearing that they weren't very reliable and maybe were more trouble than they were worth.

Our family pretty much had these and we had them as long as I can remember.

Every year, they came out of the box and Dad would untangle them and plug them in and replace the ones that weren't lit. The only new bulbs that ever got bought at our house were the little packages of replacement bulbs.

But you can't run a consumer society on a family like ours, who used all the same Christmas stuff year after year. (I still have some of it — not the lights but the treasured old glass ornaments.) Today, Howard would have the time of his life at the Canadian Tire, changing it up every Christmas and delighting little neighbour kids with theme trees, coloured trees, and trees of all sizes for all occasions — tasteful, tacky and otherwise.

Howard would have a ball.

A sweet romance in the summer of '61

When I was telling you about William leaving home to go to university, it made me think about my own experience leaving home.

The summer before I left for Montreal was the last full summer I lived at my parents' house in Chatham, NB. I had decided to go into nursing and I knew that my life was changing course and there would be no turning back. I would be leaving early in September.

My boyfriend that summer was someone I had known for years but had never thought of in a romantic way. My mother had known him since he was a small boy. She was never able to become comfortable with the eccentric young man he had become.

When we started to "go around" together I, unlike my mother, enjoyed the person he had become. It's fair to say that he was not like anyone else in our small town; he had no desire to be and although he was not oblivious to what people thought of him, he didn't care. He was tall and skinny and wore thick glasses. He was very smart and more than capable of carrying on an intelligent and informed conversation but mostly, he didn't see the point.

He had a few friends whose interests were not unlike his. They engaged in intellectual pursuits — they read, played chess, invented things.

Today, they'd be called nerds or geeks. Or both.

We were the same age — 18 — but I had graduated a year before him because I had skipped grade two. We went to his graduation prom together. I wore a new prom dress although I didn't try to outshine the graduating girls. He wore a dark suit with a white shirt and tie and looked quite lovely. We had a sweet and memorable evening together and after that, we were pretty much inseparable as the summer days — and nights — wore on.

He wasn't interested in talking to many people but he talked to me. He also wrote — poetry and songs and stories. He was enigmatic — genuinely so. He wasn't faking. It wasn't always easy to know what he was talking about but it was an interesting challenge to listen to him or to read his latest work.

We spent hours together every day, taking long walks, sitting on the beach, reading, swimming. Often in the early evening, we'd go down and board the ferry that crossed the Miramichi from Chatham to Ferry Road.

(Photo courtesy of Our Miramichi Heritage Facebook group)

We would climb up to the upper deck and settle in next to the bridge. The Captain never seemed to mind because we'd often sit there for a few hours, several trips back and forth, enjoying the weather, each other's company, the legendary River.

Fred (Coonie) Smith, a well-known fellow in Chatham, had opened a burger joint/diner on Water St. at the bottom of King St. We often went there when we got off the ferry and sat at the counter. Fred was always glad to see us and we had some great conversations. He loved to talk and tell stories and he couldn't have found a better audience than we were.

We would walk home slowly after our visit with Fred and we would part company reluctantly.

Many times after we'd said our loving good-nights, I'd be lying in my bed and I'd hear the sweet sounds of his ukulele as he serenaded me under my bedroom window. He would sing his own songs, not always comprehensible, but I always loved them. I think — I hope — my mother was usually asleep when this happened. I would get up very quietly, sneak past their door and out through the kitchen and the back door and I'd meet him under my bedroom window.

One horrible night, I went out to meet him and it was cool and rainy so we came into the house. We went as quiet as two mice into the living room and settled happily on to the couch for a little more time together. At 4:30 in the morning, the phone rang loud and shrill in the quiet middle-of-the-night house. Mum answered; it was his mother who had got up in the night and discovered that he wasn't there. No, he wasn't. He was sound asleep on our couch with his arms innocently around me. I was also asleep, of course.

I guess I could say it hit the fan that night. I resented it — I think I still resent it — because it was such a beautiful and wholly innocent relationship and the parental reaction to it took some of the pure glow away from us. They were so angry they tried to forbid us from seeing each other — as if we were 12 — but we stood our ground and we remained two-against-the-cruel-world even though our time was running out.

The day I was leaving for Montreal, he wanted to come to the station and I insisted that he should against my mother's wishes. We sat sadly in the back seat of the car, holding hands, at a loss for words.

When we reached the station and were on the platform, he said he had to run an errand and he'd be right back. Now the Newcastle train station is on a street that runs across the top of the town — it's not really near to any shops. But those long legs were put to good use and he was back shortly before I was to board. He had picked up a magazine for me, said he knew I liked to have plenty to read when I travelled.

After I kissed my parents, he held me and whispered sweet nothings in my ear and told me how much he was going to miss me. I couldn't speak and I simply turned and boarded the train.

When we were about half-way to Bathurst, I pulled out the magazine he'd bought and began to leaf through it. I came across a small scrap of paper that said "I love you." As I flipped through the pages, I found more and more little notes. All of them said, "I love you." I was so sad.

Of course we kept in touch — he even came to Montreal and visited me in my residence — but our lives were very different. He went to university, I was living with a lot of pressure and I think, in the end, we just grew apart. His own life took some bizarre turns, at one point bordering on the tragic. Our paths crossed years later and he was still enigmatic and was living outside the strict rules of society but I think it was working for him.

Wherever he is, I hope if he ever thinks of the summer of 1961, it makes him smile and just for a few minutes, remember what it felt like to ride that ferry back and forth across the Miramichi on a soft summer evening.

A father's life: seeing where he came from and who he was

William Johnston — Willy in his youth, Bill when he got older — was my father. He was born on a farm in Barney's River, Nova Scotia, the youngest child and he helped the family on the farm and went to school until he was a young teen. Then he was off to work in the coal mines, across northern Nova Scotia and into Cape Breton.

Years later, when we used to go on road trips, he would always point to the signs of the towns where he'd lived over the years that he worked in the mines: River Hebert, Debert, Joggins (which he always called The Joggins), Springhill, Stellarton, Thorburn, Merigomish.

I think in those days, young men stayed in boarding houses. In some cases, he was fortunate enough to have relatives — close or distant — whom he could board with. I remember him pointing out a big house in Thorburn where a cousin lived and where he had stayed for awhile.

In those coal-mining days, he played baseball in a senior league in Nova Scotia. I believe he was very good. They called him Wee Willy — he was a short-stop. He was small but he was smart and fast. He was handsome too, as you can see in this team picture. He and his brother Fred are second and third from the right in the front row.

Dad used to speak of the African Nova Scotians (no, that isn't what he called them) on his ball teams. After all those years, he remained shocked and somewhat ashamed that his black team-mates could not go into the restaurants with the white team members. They had to go around back to the kitchen door where they would be handed a sandwich. Dad said he often went round with them — he said he'd just as soon have a sandwich anyway but I'd like to think he went round back to offer support and show solidarity.

I've often wondered if the reason there are no black team members in this photo is simply because of the segregated lives they led.

The coal mines in Nova Scotia are among the deepest mines in the world, some of them two to three miles deep. Dad hated coal mining. I don't know that any miners really liked it although, as with anything one does long enough, some people got to feel they belonged there. Dad never did. He once said he was afraid every single time he went down a mine shaft.

It must have been an easy decision for him then when his older brother, J.J. Johnston — my Uncle Jack — who held a management position at the Avon Coal Co. at Grand Lake, New Brunswick, offered him a job. The coal was not deep in New Brunswick and they did strip mining — a great eyesore but for Dad, a dream come true. Coal mining and you didn't have to go underground!

This isn't Grand Lake but it looked something like this. I actually remember the strip mines and the drag-lines.

Dad met my mother after he moved to New Brunswick. Mum's sister lived in Newcastle Creek on Grand Lake and Mum was a single girl, teaching school. I don't know too much about their courtship although I know she used to go to all his ballgames — yes, he still played ball — and they used to go fishing together. We have a photo of them, in their fishing gear, looking very flirtatious.

This was the depression-era and at some point during these years, Dad went to Pittsburgh to work in the factories. I think maybe they were engaged by then and maybe he wanted a nest-egg to prepare for marriage. When he came back, he began to work for the New Brunswick Power Commission at the big thermal generating plant in Newcastle Creek. That's where he worked when I was born in one of the plant houses, just a stone's throw from the plant. My sister was born four years earlier; she was more sophisticated than I was, having been born in the Saint John General Hospital.

Dad suffered a terrible electric shock at the plant when he somehow touched a live wire of some sort. He was knocked unconscious and I believe it was a very scary incident for everyone. He survived — he had three very large scars on his back where the electricity had exited his body. When he regained consciousness, his hands were in a clenched position and there was some worry that he'd never be able to use them in the same way. Apparently, people who watched him over the next several months were amazed at his bravery and his determination as he worked his hands to force them open and regain their former strength.

When I was five, our family moved to Chatham, NB. It didn't take very long for both Mum and Dad to begin to think of Chatham as their true home and they knew they would never leave. Dad worked at the power plant, Mum taught school. They were both active in the United Church, Dad was a Mason, they enjoyed friends and neighbours.

Dad was a funny guy. He really did always have a twinkle in his eye and he enjoyed being a bit of a tease. The women at the church all loved it — and loved him. He was one of the very dependable fellows — for driving people, for running errands, for coming through with solutions. The women at the church were all, "Isn't Marion lucky to have you?" and I'm sure he enjoyed that.

Mum didn't find him that funny. Marilyn and I always thought she was a little hard on him but in retrospect we can see that maybe his humour played better in places that weren't so close to home. This is probably not uncommon.

He was a good father. From the time we were little, he took us to games — mostly baseball which we love, to this day — and he tried as patiently as he could to help me learn to skate. Which I hated. He took us to hockey games and always made sure we understood the game. Every long May 24th weekend, he took us upriver to the Dungarvon — a beautiful tributary of the Miramichi — and taught us how to fish trout, including baiting the hook and removing the poor little fish. We all loved the delicious pan-fried trout and we'd have them for breakfast.

His gentle temperament did not extend to teaching me to drive. He had to turn that job over to Marilyn, my sister, who accomplished it patiently and kindly and never yelled at me once. He always let me drive his cars though, including that red one, a Mercury, I think.

He retired from NBEPC when he was 65 but he didn't stay retired long. He couldn't. He went to work at Burchill's Mill up in Nelson and enjoyed a few more years of gainful employment.

When he wasn't working, he was a putterer. He did have the legendary workbench in the basement with all the tools, and he always had a garden. He loved being a grandfather and his tiny grandchildren couldn't have had a sweeter Grampy — or Bampi, as Lisa (below) named him.

He wasn't a man of high culture — he probably had gone to the equivalent of grade seven or eight — but he knew a lot of things that mattered. He did like to read "western" paperbacks or Ellery Queen or Mickey Spillane. He was sentimental enough to enjoy listening to the record of The Mills Brothers singing Daddy's Little Girl. Possibly because it annoyed my mother, he liked to sing Little Brown Jug — "She loved gin and I loved rum. . ." This didn't amuse a teetotalling Methodist.

Maybe to make up for it, every now and then, he'd sit down at the piano and pick out with one finger the old hymn Shall We Gather At The River. It was a favourite of his mother's and he knew all the words.

I'm sure he'd enjoy Burl Ives' rendition.

Sure, I wish I'd practiced more . . .

I took music lessons – piano – for several years, beginning when I was quite young, probably seven or eight years old.

My music lessons were given in St. Andrew's Hall which was attached to the United Church at the back and which fronted on Henderson St. in Chatham, NB. You can see a bit of it on the far right in this picture:

Just inside the door were the minister's office and the choir room where the gowns were kept and where members of the choir gathered before each service.

The hall itself was used as a meeting place for youth groups and as a gym – non-regulation size – and kids played basketball, volleyball and badminton there.

On the right-hand side of the hall was an open stairway that led up to a balcony/mezzanine. I remember that whole area – which was in two sections – being used as a storage area for extra chairs and boxes of books.

Through another door at the back of this balcony was a long narrow room with two pianos. This is where the half-hour once-a-week music lessons happened.

In looking back, I can't imagine children today being sent up those stairs into a closed room to spend half an hour alone with the music teacher.

Each of the music teachers – besides doing the private lessons – was organist and choir director at the United Church and also taught music at Chatham Grammar School.

My teachers were, in this order: Pauline Whitman, Jack Armstrong, Vera Zwicker and Professor Moir (who was the younger brother of the legendary Irene Moir, award-winning choir director and voice teacher at St. Michael's Academy.) I think I may be missing a teacher, a less serious, more frivolous young woman who didn't meet with the approval of the ladies of the United Church choir. Or maybe I'm imagining her.

I liked the teachers. Miss Whitman was sweet and appealing. She was very much respected as a musician and the choir ladies loved her. It was hard to take Mr. Armstrong as seriously because he was relaxed and laid-back and didn't seem to take himself very seriously. I'm pretty sure he was also an accomplished musician.

Miss Zwicker was eccentric. She was not comfortable in her own skin and although I don't think anyone ever doubted her musical abilities, she was not as much appreciated as teacher/director because it was hard to feel comfortable with her.

Professor Moir, as far as I know, was taken seriously by everyone, himself included. I remember him as kind of a fussy fellow, almost a caricature of a music teacher. I may be wrong though. I was pretty young.

There was one more teacher. One year – I'm not sure why – I was sent up to St. Michael's Academy, then a Catholic school.

The door nearest to downtown led me into a front hall that passed the auditorium on the left and offices on the right. Straight ahead was another door that led into a long corridor with windows looking into the auditorium on one side and a series of small music rooms – furnished with pianos and other instruments – on the other side.

It was in one of those small rooms where I met Sister Dionne, hands properly out of sight, tucked into the wide sleeves of the full habit of the school's founders, the Religious Hospitallers of St. Joseph. Looking a little like this:

I was a little afraid of Sister Dionne although she was very kind to me. She was a very accomplished musician – she played the piano for me a couple of times – and she could be five feet away with her back to me and "hear" that I was using the wrong fingering for my pieces. If she was near me and my fingering was wrong, she cracked her slender little hard-wood pointer across my knuckles which, I have to say, hurt like hell.

She held my face in her hands and called me her Rose of Sharon. I expect she prayed for me to become Catholic but that was still many years in the future.

I have fairly neutral memories about my music lessons. They didn't make me particularly happy – or unhappy. Like most children, I didn't enjoy practicing and I thought there was entirely too much emphasis placed on scales. I liked some of the work that was more like school-work. I remember a project which involved cutting out information and pictures and putting together little bound booklets on several of the great composers – the story of their lives and families, and how their lives in music developed: Mozart, Beethoven, Tchaikovsky and others. It was a very enjoyable project.

I didn't enjoy the little pieces I had to play over and over. I envied those people who could play "by ear" and I entertained fantasies of playing sing-able songs and being the life of the party. I loved the Mammoth Book and I played some of the songs from it.

I remember playing Aura Lee -- which I was delighted to discover was the same tune as the Elvis Presley hit, Love Me Tender – Silver Threads Among the Gold, Beautiful Dreamer, Down by the Old Mill Stream, When You and I Were Young, Maggie.

I loved music from olden times. I still do.

The focus of all those music lessons was preparing for the annual Miramichi Music Festival. It went on for several days with events held at different schools in both Chatham and Newcastle. Some years, depending on how my birthday related to the festival's dates, I played in more than one age category. For example, when I was nine, I played in both the 10-and-under and the 12-and-under. Most years, I played one or two solo numbers and a duet. I usually played duets with Betty Cameron and at least once, I played with Dawn Williston.

The pianists and vocalists always knew one thing: if we were in the same age category as Doreen Bryenton from Newcastle, we were pretty much aiming for second place, having conceded top spot to her. She was an excellent musician; fortunately, she was a little older than I so I wasn't always up against her in competition. I think maybe I did come out ahead of her one year although I can't remember the details now.

One thing I do remember is that if our competition was in Newcastle, we would be taken there early in the day and have to sit through several other categories, listening to innumerable singers, all singing the same song, of course. To this day, I can hear Who is Sylvia? being sung in my head in many different voices. This one is Dame Janet Baker and I must say, it's lovely.

If you won your category, you got to perform at the Final Concert. One year, when Betty and I won the duet category, the concert was recorded by the local radio station and someone there made each performance into a 78 rpm vinyl record. Yes, I still have it.

While I was growing up, our family had a big upright piano. When we moved to a smaller house, my mother got rid of it and bought a much smaller one – what she always called an "apartment-sized piano." It has one less octave than a regular piano – four keys missing on either end of the keyboard.

The little piano is mine now and many years later, I was living in Ottawa and had a piano tuner come in to take care of it. He was a taciturn fellow but he played it nicely when he was finished – it sounded lovely – and I said, "It's a nice little piano, isn't it?"

"This is not a piano," he muttered. "This is a spinnet."

Well, fancy that. A spinnet. (I borrowed this photo from the Internet but this is the exact model.)

You learn something new every day.