The Spirit of ‘76

Fule for Thought

 

My purposes for these columns were that I wanted people to smile, maybe laugh, and possibly be affected by some of my experiences. I’ve always felt that it’s important to be able to laugh at myself, and to not take myself too seriously. That’s why I’ve been trusting you with some of my most embarrassing moments! That brings me to the Summer of 1976!

That Summer, I had gotten a job with my friend Dave, as a caretaker at the Banff Centre. There were many cleaning jobs, conference set-ups, and heavy furniture moving. 

The afternoon of our first day on the job was a scorcher. It was sunny, hot, and Dave and I were given an outside job. We were to take two buckets of hot water mixed with vinegar, a razor blade device, and scrape all the paint spots off the outer window of an Art Studio window. All the way to this studio, Dave and I grumbled about what a crappy job we got stuck with, and how we’d be out in the blistering sun ALL afternoon! We got to the deck outside the studio with our gear and began to scrape. After about two minutes, Dave turned to me and said, “do you see what I see?”  

I said I did, and we began to feel grateful to our boss … what a good guy he was … thoughtful.  

To our surprise we were scraping paint spots off a window to a studio, with nude female models!! Now, when you’re a 16 year-old-boy, THIS is good news!

We worked hard all afternoon, and thought we were being discreet. However, the head of the Art Faculty did come out a couple of times to ask if we really worked there! At the end of our shift, we cleaned up the supplies and headed back to the caretakers’ office.  

Our boss was smiling, and asked if our afternoon went well! We all had a laugh, and I never forgot that first day on the job (I don’t think the Art instructor did either … probably not his models, as well)!

Later that same summer, Dave and I were given the job of getting five large, wooden bulletin boards up to the sixth floor of one of the buildings. Now you know me by now, I was sure there was an easier way to get these monstrosities up to that floor. Then, a flash of brilliance hit me (or it was the cafeteria chili?).  

I thought, instead of carrying each and muscling them in the elevator, why not just go on the balcony with a rope, and PULL them up, one by one? It seemed smart, so we got rope and tied our first bulletin board by one its “legs.”  

We began the process of pulling it up to the balcony. You know those old Bugs Bunny cartoons, where (again) the coyote does something similar, and of course, the rope frays and unwinds? Funny thing, but that’s what happened to Dave and me! We looked at the unwinding rope, then each other, back to the rope, until it final came undone! We had gotten it to about the fourth floor when it unravelled. We looked down over the balcony railing to see the wooden bulletin board hit the ground. It smashed, and splintered, and one of its legs went through a ground-level window! Again, Dave and I looked at each other, then down, in time to see our boss walking up the road to check on us! He was smoking … it looked like he almost swallowed the cigarette! But, after a pause, we could see that he was laughing and shaking his head. We weren’t going to be fired after all! From then on, we made sure we did things HIS way!

By the end of summer, I had bought my first car, a little two door Toyota. On the Labour Day weekend, I took a date ( yes, she was alive, and no … she WASN’T inflatable!) to the old “Cinema Park Drive-In.”  

Now for those of you youngsters out there, a drive-in was where you took your car to an outside theatre, hooked up a crappy speaker to the window, and MAYBE watched the movie. Near the end of the date, we were ready to leave. You know those happy, little cartoons they used to play, about the concession, and rules for the Drive-in? Well, I had watched one about making sure to hang up the speaker on its pole before leaving. As we pulled away, there was a huge “BANG” noise! I looked all around, and then to my horror, realized I had still had the speaker on my window! The window and car were fine, but I had killed that poor, innocent car speaker. Embarrassed, I hung it back up, and drove slowly away … I don’t think we ever had a second date … I’ve always wondered why.

Later that Halloween, Dave and I were in a car accident in that same Toyota. We had minor injuries, but the car was demolished. My parents took me out of school the next day to drive them to Calgary for Christmas shopping. I was so mad, I had just had a frightening accident, and they were making me drive in Calgary?  My dad said that I was not going to be scared to drive, and I had to get RIGHT back behind the wheel. It was a tough lesson, and I was mad, but it was a smart thing to do. I got over the fear of the accident, and (knock on wood) haven’t been in one SINCE 1976! Parents DO have a way of teaching us kids, after all. So, 1976 was a strange year, with laughter, embarrassment, and a near-death experience. It was definitely a memorable year!

(“Fule for Thought” is a slice of life humourous column that will appear in the Strathmore Times, written by long-time resident, town councillor, high school teacher, coach, husband and father of two – Pat Fule. If you would like to get in touch with Pat, you can send him an e-mail at Pat.fule@shaw.ca)