Memoirs of a Worldly Guy
Ray Fairbairn was the CMFIC (if you can't figure out what that means it's probably just as well) of the old YMCA building on the southeast corner of Ninth Avenue and First Street East. It was built of the old sandstone blocks that formed most of downtown Calgary during the twenties and thirties. I must have been twelve or thirteen years old when I first visited the building. It was one of the few facilities devoted to useful activity for young kids in those days.
The main floor was used for basketball and similar activities and there was a suspended running track that encircled the hall at an elevation of about twelve feet.
The big event of the year in our estimation was the annual Gymkhana. There were various gymnastic displays, wrestling and demonstrations of Indian club derring-do, all of which would draw little more than large yawns from the children of today. But we were allowed only one movie a week and there was no television so for us it was hot stuff.
On one occasion they included a dog show, and a group of us went together with Bob Robertson's English setter as a potential prize winner. He was a beautiful big dog and Bob felt confident that he was a prize winner. Laddie hadn't been neutered, however, and required constant supervision. One day there was a group of us standing on the boulevard in front of our house talking about various important things. One of our neighbors was there with his young brother who was about four of five years old and Bob had brought along his dog. Neither was being properly supervised. We were alerted by cries of protest from Don's young brother. Laddie had knocked him down and was enthusiastically humping him. So much for constant supervision!
At the 'Y' the dogs were arranged in a circle of about twenty around the edge of the floor. The judges began doing the things that judges do at dog shows about fifteen dogs away from where Bob was crouched beside Laddie awaiting his turn. They were about four dogs away from Laddie when, as luck would have it, a young friend of the dog owner next to Bob walked up eating an ice cream cone. The ice cream was melting and the boy was licking it from the sides of the cone with long, voluptuous strokes.
I never gave it a second thought until I saw Bob whip out a linen handkerchief and begin wiping the saliva away from the dog's mouth. Laddie was a big-time slobberer! Bob would try to turn the dog's head away from the ice cream cone eater but it would swivel its head around and begin to salivate copiously at the first opportunity. The young lad continued to lick the cone in a most lascivious manner until Bob finally stood up and led his reluctant animal from the ring. Apparently 'slobbering' was not considered to be 'de rigeur' for show dogs!
I was not a regular attendant at the 'Y' but have vignettes of memory of the building and its residents. One of the latter was 'Punchy' Murphy, a classic movie version of a punch-drunk prize fighter who worked out daily and was a paradigm of physical fitness. He had taken one blow too many to the head, however, and as a result could hear a telephone ringing when none of the rest of us could do so. But he could skip rope unremittingly for at least an hour at a time and that was always impressive as far as we were concerned.
Several members of the Delta Rho fraternity were 'Y' members also and my visits there increased as a result. One of the highlights of the 'Y' year was the series of 'Sex Lectures' given by Dr. E.P. Scarlett. Naturally the lectures were over-subscribed which is understandable when you consider that the attendees were primarily comprised of youths who had grown up in staid quasi-Victorian homes where the word 'sex' was never spoken.
Dr. Scarlett, to the immense relief of his audience of potentially blushing, pimply-faced adolescents had a custom of passing a bowl around toward the end of each lecture into which anonymous questions could be dropped. Guess what 90% of the questions dealt with? Give up? Well, wonder of wonders, it was 'masturbation'!
'Was it true that you could go blind from doing 'it' too much?'
"Did girls do 'it'?
"Could you get a venereal disease from doing 'it'?
Dr. Scarlett must have been hard put to keep from laughing aloud at the naïveté of some of the questions he received but he maintained a business-like attitude and talked about sex in a casual manner that put everyone at ease. He was filling an educational gap that had existed for well over a hundred years.
I seem to remember that it was Dawse Lindsay who told me that Ray Fairbairn wanted four or five of us to go down to his office so he could tell us of an opportunity we couldn't afford to miss. A couple of days later Dawse, Jack Tempest, Bill Stemp, a lad called Rockley from the North Hill and I were sitting in Ray's office listening to him extol the wonders of Camp Chief Hector.
The 'camp' was on Indian land across the old Banff Coach Highway opposite Yam Nuska mountain and faced a shallow 'lake' covering fifty or sixty acres. Bill Friendly was the only one of our immediate group who went to the camp on a yearly basis and I've had to consult with him for details of the day to day life of a camp youth. Bill tends to deny most of the mischief I attribute to him but, in this case at least, I'm sure that he was the only possible genesis of the tales about Camp Chief Hector.
Bill says that he attended camp every year for 13 years beginning when he was eight years old. (I think his arithmetic is faulty there!). When I mentioned the old 'camp song', (which he admits he had forgotten), he responded by telling me about the camp acronym 'KYBO' which stood for 'Keep Your Bowels Open', an admonition for all the children to take the time each day for that important function. That reminded me of a tale he had told us many years ago.
A few of the older, jaded and more mischievous campers who were looked up to by the eight and nine year olds were notorious for their wicked pranks. I first heard about 'snipe-hunting' from Bill Love. The older boys would cleverly manoeuvre the conversation around to the subject of snipe-hunting during the 'campfire' gathering held in front of each teepee nightly before 'lights out'. They would tell of previous campers who had made legendary snipe baggings on good moonlight lights. Naturally, it was only a matter of time before at least one volunteer from each camp was enthusiastically awaitng the next full moon.
When the time was right each of the keen young hunters was sent out into the woods with the required gear; a cotton bag and a couple of smooth round stones about the size of apples. The technique was simple; by banging the stones together the snipe would be affected in some unexplained sexual way and drawn inevitably to the stones. A quick grab by the hunter and the bird would be in the bag!
After two or three hours the leaders would go out into the trees and gather up each of the patient hunters and lead the sleepyheads back to camp, all the while commenting on 'the unusual shortage of snipe this season'.
There were about a half dozen four-hole privies lined up for the convenience of the 'KYBO' crew. Third or fourth year 'wise guys' would go by the kitchen and swipe a spoonful of peanut butter and apply it to the tips of their forefinger and middle finger; they would then cruise along the line of privies looking for one with a single available 'hole'. Having found one they would occupy the unused seat and simulate a major bowel movement. Scorning the toilet paper offered by their neighbor, they would reach under their rear end and continue the simulation. Then they brought out their hand and held up the peanut butter covered fingers to the sound of gasps from the juniors. Gasps became sounds of disgust as the senior began to lick the butter covered fingers like a popsicle.
'Oh, no! I think I'm gonna puke!' would exclaim a pudgy boy at the far end of the privy. The boy sitting next to the senior would suddenly bolt from the privy with his pants around his ankles. The other two sat frozen in place, eyes as big as saucers, staring at the senior as he licked his fingers clean.
'Hmm' he would say pensively as he stood, pulled up his drawers and buckled his belt, 'Not as good as yesterday's, but quite tasty nevertheless!' And he would leave the privy, with a couple of juniors virtually frozen in place, eyes wide and mouths agape.
Strangely enough, in spite of the many years Bill spent at Camp Chief Hector he admits that he forgets a number of things he should remember. For instance, when I asked him if he remembered the 'camp song', the one that was presumably sung around the campfire each night he said he couldn't clearly remember the words. I remember him patiently teaching us the words all those years ago:
Keemo kymo derra wa,
Mahee maho,
My rump side pumma diddle
Nimcat noom cat
Sing song siddy
Won't you kymee oh?
Not too hard to remember, when you think about it!
So, having given you this somewhat scrambled background summary of the 'Y' and its history, it brings us back to Ray Fairbairn's office where we had been told he had an interesting offer to make to us. Basically, he was offering us a 'free' holiday for a week or ten days while we did a few chores necessary to prepare the camp for the annual influx of fifty or sixty mostly prepubescent youths consigned to the camp for up to a month by their worn-out parents.
Ray touched only briefly on the 'few chores' aspect of his proposal but emphasized in a travel agent's way the splendour of the view, the fresh mountain air, the quiet freedom of working at our own pace for a couple of hours a day, the three nutritious meals a day and so on. We were all sucked in.
The supervisor on the project was a stocky full-time employee of the YMCA by the name of 'Cec' Riddle. It became obvious to us all after a couple of days that we had not had the same briefing as 'Cec' had received. Our secondary cabin was still not ready for us so we spent the first night in the main lodge which was used during the camp days as the main dining room for the campers. It was very dark and very cavernous and we were treated to the sound of the local mice running down a shelf and jumping onto the lid of a garbage can somewhere in the region of the kitchen.
The second night we moved into a smaller cabin and were able to sleep comfortably until six o'clock the following morning at which time 'Cec' pounded on the door and shouted 'Wakie, wakie!' Our 'honeymoon' breakfast consisted of oatmeal porridge and over-done toast, during which 'Cec' mentioned a few of the things that needed to be done during our 'holiday'. There were window shutters to be removed and stacked and teepee poles to be stacked in location and their cover canvasses pulled out of storage and laid in place.
The main lodge was situated on raised ground about twelve feet above the lake level and was reached by a series of skinned log steps. The logs had seen too many seasons of happy campers and a decision had finally been made to replace them. We had the good fortune to be "vacationing" at the camp that year. The steps were about ten feet wide and made up of three logs each to give them a width of a foot and a half.
Our first chore was to remove the rotting logs in place and move them off to one side at the top level. This generally required two of us at each end of a log. 'Cec' supervised. After a series of grumblings he grudgingly agreed to our lunch break which in this case was comprised of white bread sandwiches filled either with sandwich spread or peanut butter and jam. Milk was at a premium. Bully!
By the time we had finished the job we had been at work for close to twelve hours! Some holiday! At dinner (canned beef stew) that evening I had the cheek to ask 'Cec' a question.
'Hey, 'Cec', are you getting paid for overtime on this job?'
'Whatta you mean by that remark?' he virtually snarled.
'Well, Ray Fairbairn painted a beautiful picture for us of a virtual holiday, a few hours a day of casual labour followed by boating, hiking, sunbathing and so on. If we're working twelve hours a day for nothing, does that mean we get to look at the scenery free for an extra four hours or so every day?'
'Don't be smart!' 'Cec' barked crankily. 'Today was an exception; it won't always be like that!'
'Well, I guess maybe we could sleep in tomorrow morning to make up for it,' I said, 'of course we would make no charge for that either!'
'I'm not enjoying your attitude!' he said.
'Trust me, it's mutual,' I said.
That night when we had retired to our sleeping cabin we had a little discussion, the upshot of which was that we would sleep in the following morning and ignore the 'master's' demands. Sure enough, 'Cec' commenced his routine pounding on the door promptly at 6 a.m. There were a few groans but no one stirred. 'Cec'was presumably astonished at the minor revolution that was taking place. He was outraged when someone shouted 'Fuck Off!' when he pounded on the door again at 10 a.m. We straggled out at about 10:30 a.m. and although 'Cec' was obviously seething he seemed to know better than to say something for fear the 'strike' would escalate. Nevertheless, he was substantially less tyrannical for the remainder of our 'holiday.
It was still wartime and the government had built a prisoner of war camp at Seebe (pronounced 'See-bee') only a few miles from Camp Chief Hector. The Calgary to Banff bus dropped off a newspaper at the front gate each day and there was great excitement the day we picked up a paper with headlines describing the great escape at Seebe. We naturally expected to be raided by desperate escaped Nazis foraging for food but we spent a couple of sleepless nights uneventfully before deciding that we were not going to be attacked. It was eventually established that the daily body count at the camp had indicated only three prisoners were missing and two of them were rounded up within a couple of days. Nevertheless it had rated as a high-grade 'cause celebre' amongst the 'holidayers'.
I should probably comment on the boating that was a part of the tempting 'holiday' we had been promised. Since I became aware that nothing had been organized in that respect I decided to to organize my own boating excursion. I commandeered one of the camp canoes one day and paddled out into the centre of the lake. It was midday and cloudless and the hot sun soon worked its langorous wonders. I stretched out and fell asleep and since I remained so for the better part of an hour and was wearing only brief swim trunks I was virtually incapacitated from sunburn. I spent the next few evenings with my feet in a bucket of very strong tea. I would dip a towel into the solution then drape it over my legs until it heated up then repeat the process. It gave me some relief. Following my adventure I never felt excluded when my colleagues spoke reminiscently of Camp Chief Hector.
© Copyright 2002, Ron M. Helmer. All Rights Reserved.
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