The pace was slower in North Bay, but there was always lots to do.  Unlike Toronto, you got to know and to play with all the kids on the block .... Gary & Linda Thompson; Emmeline, Peter & Stella McCool; David & Donald Jacobs; Clifford Collins; David Lascelle; Walter Woodruff; Judy Landry; Ronny Boyer, Lynn Ordage, Marcel & Monica Frechette; Joyce & Barbara Lindsay; Karen Plause,  and our cousins Don, Anne & Billy McGinnis. 

We would ride our bikes all around town; play street hockey and baseball in the centre of the road and  hide & seek and tag in the neighbour's yards.  During the summer and fall months, there were potato, weiner and corn roasts in the evenings, and we would catch lightening bugs in Mason Jars.  Sometimes we would pitch tents in the back yard. and have a sleep-out.

There were the neighbourhood gangs and rivalry between the Protestants and the Catholics (McPhail & St Rita's schools).  At least once a month there would be an argument that led to a fight, but you could always count on your buddies to come along and bail you out of trouble.

Silverwood's Dairy would come around early every morning with their horse and buggy to deliver milk, and the horse would trot along without the driver to tell him when or where to stop.  You could always hear the milk bottles rattling in the metal basket that the milkman used to carry from house to house.  We used to put the milk tickets and sometimes change inside of the empty milk bottle that was left just outside the front door for the milkman to pick up and replace with our daily order.  If the bottle had been washed out and not quite dry when it was placed outside in the cold weather, the tickets and money would freeze inside the bottom of the bottle, and the milkman would be upset.  In the very cold weather, the cream on top of the milk would freeze and swell up so that it would push the cap off of the top of the bottle.   There were always a lot of cats in the neighbourhood, and they would walk from house to house licking the cream that protruded from the top of the milk bottles.

In the afternoons, the bakery would make their rounds with fresh bread, buns, pies and cakes.  Like the milkman, they also delivered their goods with a horse and buggy.   In the wintertime, they used a horse-drawn sled instead of the buggy to carry their goods, and us kids used to hang onto the back of the sled to catch a free slide up the street.

We didn't have a refrigerator for several years, but we did have an ice-box.  The iceman would make his rounds and during the summer months, all the kids on the block would follow him from house to house, to collect the ice chips that would be on the back of his truck.

We had a double lot, and so each spring we would plant a huge garden of potatoes, beans, peas, carrots and cucumbers.   That always meant there a lot of weeding, hoeing, watering  and maintenance for us kids to do on a regular basis.....one thing we soon learned is that you would never say that you were bored, or else you would find yourself out rooting around the garden for weeds . Thanks to the horses, there was always a supply of manure for the plants......and in the winter time, great hockey pucks.  In the early summer, we had to pick the potato bugs off the plants before they ate the flowers, otherwise there would be no potatoes to dig up in the fall.  We would sometimes pick a hundred or more of these little striped bugs at a time from the plants.  In the fall, we would gather up the beans for mom to pickle and dig up the potatoes.  Mom would collect six-quart baskets from the grocery store whenever she could, and then in the fall, Betty, Larry and I would go from house to house selling the fresh potatoes to neighbours. 

The mailman in those days used to make his rounds six days a week, and rarely passed by our home without stopping to leave a handful of Christmas cards and mail.  There were always parcels from relatives and friends in England and Holland and that of course meant that we would have to shop and sent off cards and parcels to their homes as well.

A couple of weeks before Christmas, Dad would get a tree for our living room.  Sometimes he would cut it himself and other times he would pick it out from one of the corner lots where trees were being sold.  Usually, he would pick out a spruce or a pine tree that was about eight feet tall.  After bringing the tree into the home so that it could thaw out, he would make a stand for it and set it up in a corner so that he could secure it with a bit of twine so that it wouldn't topple over.  Then out would come the treasured Christmas bulbs, lights, garland and icicles from previous years....yes, we used to carefully remove and save the icicles each year so that they could be re-used.  

About that same time each year, I would be handed seventy-five cents with instructions that I was to go to Harris Drug Store and either pick up a package of Margarita Cigars or a pack of Pic-a-Pac Pipe Tobacco for Dad.

Dad would drag a kitchen chair into the living room to stand on while he carefully placed the star on top of our tree, and he would then place the lights on the tree just so.   Once the lights had been placed on the tree and tested, Dad would sit in his armchair to watch Mom and us kids place the balls and icicles (one at a time) on the tree.

Delivery trucks from Eaton's and Simpson's would drop huge boxes off, but they would mysteriously disappear without any trace, and Mom and Grandma would be busy making Christmas cakes, cookies and plum puddings.

On Christmas Eve, we would each take one of Dad's socks (because his were the largest), pin our name on it, and then place it at the end of our bed to be filled by Santa when he visited our home.  

In the morning we would always find our sock filled to the brim with an apple, an orange, a bundle of nuts, some candy and a small toy.  We would lie quietly in bed munching on the treats while we waited to be called down to the living room so that we could open our presents.   This usually happened around 5:00 am. 

On weekends, us kids would sit watching the test pattern from sign-on,  until broadcasting began at around noon hour.  The first program we watched on the new television was Wild Bill Hickock.  Dad set the television up in the kitchen and placed rows of chairs so that we could watch the program together. 

When the television was relocated to the living room, we would all sit around each evening watching the programs until sign-off at midnight.  My cousin Billy used to join us almost every evening.  He would sit beside me and we would get so wrapped discussing the program at times that we would be told to either be quiet, or leave the room .

While with the Imperial Life Assurance Company, I complete their Life Office Management and Sales Underwriting study courses and then enrolled at the University of Toronto where I studied Economics and Human Resources Management .

Imperial Life was a great place to work.   They had a very beautiful dining room for employees, complete with white linen table cloths, napkins and silverware.  Each week, they sold employees lunch tickets - 5 for $1.00, and served full course meals.  Helga, the waitress who was assigned to my table used to always save me an extra meal so that I could take it home after work for dinner.