One of my favourite photos of Bridge Street that I found one day in the archives of the Carleton Place and Beckwith Heritage Museum
Norma Ford Parking both sides of street. If you could drive Bridge Street in Carleton Place, you could drive anywhere and I mean anywhere. I also remember the stunt driving back in the day with our Police Chief Herbie Cornell, the best. He was so patient with the younger crowd, had compassion until you stepped over the line. Those were good days, if only the kids had these memories, the world would be a much better place.
Brian Crawford Not only park on both sides of the street but the cars were huge…
DCI GIRLS JR. BASKETBALL TEAM 1958 – LANARK COUNTY FINALISTS
Front row, left to right; Martha Church, Pat Stewart, Jackie Mast, June Greer, Beth McPhail, Barb Philips, Barb Saunders. Back row, left to right; Mr. Youngs (principal), Helen Enis, Marilyn Barber, Ivy Moore, Norma Devlin, Eleanor Erwin, Lois McConnell, Mrs. Biewarld (coach).
I put this photo here as it was impossible to come up with the 1929 gals and I just loved this photo
The following is excerpted from an actual 1950’s high school Home Economics textbook: ADVANCE: How to be a Good Wife HAVE DINNER READY: Plan ahead, even the night before, to have a delicious meal–on time. This is a way to let him know that you have been thinking about him and are concerned with his needs. Most men are hungry when they come home, and having a good meal ready is part of the warm welcome that is needed. PREPARE YOURSELF: Take fifteen minutes to rest so that you will be refreshed when he arrives. He has just been with a lot of work-weary people. Be a little gay and a little more interesting. His boring day may need a lift. Greet him with a smile. CLEAR AWAY THE CLUTTER: Make one last trip though the main part of the house just before your husband arrives, gathering up children’s books and toys, papers, etc. Then run a dust cloth over the tables. Your husband will feel he has reached a haven of rest and order, and it will give you lift too. PREPARE THE CHILDREN: If they are small, wash their hands and faces and comb their hair. They are his little treasures and he would like to see them playing the part. MINIMIZE ALL NOISE: At the time of his arrival, eliminate all noise from the washer, dryer, or vacuum. Encourage the children to be quiet. SOME “DO NOT’S”: Don’t greet him with problems and complaints. Don’t complain if he is late for dinner. Count this as a minor problem compared to what he might have gone through that day. MAKE HIM COMFORTABLE: Have a cool or warm drink ready for him. Have him lean back in a comfortable chair or suggest that he lie down in the bedroom. Arrange his pillow and offer to take off his shoes. Speak in a low, soothing voice. Allow him to relax and unwind. LISTEN TO HIM: You may have a dozen things to tell him, but the moment of his arrival is not the time. Let him talk first. MAKE THE EVENING HIS: Never complain if he doesn’t take you to dinner or to other entertainment. Instead, try to understand his world of strain and pressure and his need to unwind and relax. THE GOAL: TO MAKE YOUR HOME A PLACE OF PEACE AND ORDER WHERE YOUR HUSBAND CAN RELAX IN BODY AND SPIRIT.
Join us and learn about the history under your feet! This year’s St. James Cemetery Walk will take place Thursday October 19th and october 21– Museum Curator Jennfer Irwin will lead you through the gravestones and introduce you to some of our most memorable lost souls!
Be ready for a few surprises along the way….
This walk takes place in the dark on uneven ground. Please wear proper footwear and bring a small flashlight if you like.
Tickets available at the Museum, 267 Edmund Street. Two dates!!! https://www.facebook.com/events/1211329495678960/
October 28th The Occomores Valley Grante and Tile Event–730pm-1am Carleton Place arena-Stop by and pick up your tickets for our fundraiser dance for LAWS. They also have tickets for Hometown Hearts event at the Grand Hotel fundraiser
DIFFICULT RECORD TO BEAT – These three Carleton Place pupils can boast an all-time record for school attendance. They are, left to right, Clinton, Marlene and Elwood Drader, children of Mr. and Mrs. Clinton Drader. Clinton has four years to his credit, while Marlene completed nine and Elwood (Joe) has seven straight years. In all, they have 20 consecutive years of perfect attendance to their credit. White attending high school Marlene was an outstanding track star, while Joe’s hockey ability is attracting attention from several junior coaches in Ontario- September 7, 1953.
When I read one of my friend’s essays last night I felt the pain in every single word she wrote. Looking back at her life she felt she was never one of the cool kids in school and sadly I felt the same way.
I got blacklisted in grade one when Mrs. Dougherty told the class that if they had been quiet like Linda, they would not have missed recess. It was the ultimate kiss of death for most of my elementary school years and I never lived it down. After that when the teacher asked who was talking while she was writing on the board I raised my hand thinking it might change my reputation if I took the blame.
I was the kid that came to school on time, did not talk much in class, and smiled at everyone like a rabid beaver. I sat in my seat worshiping the cool kids, the smart kids, and the ones I lusted to be.
Some of us could never be pretty like Jill Smith who got all A’s on her report card. As much as I tried I knew I would never speak with million dollar words like Bobby Piers. Dragging a personal large caboose I would never excel in sports like Marianne Trent. Linda would forever be labeled as the one that almost failed gym.
Average in school, except for writing, I failed math every single year after my mother died in grade seven. One year it was so bad, I only got twenty nine out of two hundred and my father queried if they also gave me marks for neatness.
All I wanted to do was hang out in the cool kids group, but instead I was an oddball, and the older I got, the stranger I became. I began wearing my clothing designs at the age of thirteen and hung around with the French Canadian kids after school. The latter was enough to spread rumours through church that some girls in the parish were ‘loose’ and hanging around with the wrong kind.
After deciding early on I was going to become a fashion designer, I was ridiculed by my peers. They told me the only occupations women could achieve were teachers or nurses. Thinking possibly about joining an up and coming occupation called, “a stewardess” they also mentioned I might be too large to fit in the aisles of a TCA plane.
At the school dances even the Buddy Holly look alike who was ten years older than everyone else would not even ask me to dance. In grade ten I had enough, left school, and dropped seventy five pounds. All of a sudden High School guys who had never shown interest in me wanted to date. I refused, solely on the premises that they had been bullies to me and my friends in school.
I went to Montreal after I left school and studied to become a fashion designer. Proudly working at the very first Le Chateau store on St. Catherine Street I even tried to hang out with “their” cool kids. Still not good enough for them either because I would not wear pants that dragged on the ground and smoke pot I became annoyed. Who were these people who continued to think that they were better than everyone else? Then and there I stopped desiring to be a cool kid and decided just to be myself. I followed that rule for the rest of my life and never looked back.
Twenty years ago I was invited to go back to a reunion at Cowansville High School. I decided that life had been difficult enough in school that there was no sense in dragging it back into adulthood. My late sister did go, and came home early, quite annoyed. When I asked her why she was so flustered she looked at me straight in the face and said,
“Linda, no one wanted to hear what I was doing. Everyone kept asking me whereyouwere, and whatyouwere doing! They drove me nuts with their chatter, so I came home.”
I started to laugh and began to wonder if maybe all of uswere really cool kids in schooland we just never figured it out. In the end maybe it was a good thing, because we learned to love ourselves and realized we did not need the acceptance of others to get by.
Notes from the Peanut Gallery:
I hear you! When I joined Facebook, I reveled in the fact that no one is looking for me.
Every afternoon at 4 pm I danced my heart away while watching American Bandstand and wished I could go “stroll down the avenue” with Dick Clark. One day Clark introduced Chubby Checker and I attempted to twist while my mother did circles in her wheel chair. For the next month my father would recite every accident known to man which was caused by The Twist. By this time I had every move down pat and was ready to try my moves at the Grade 5-8 dance in the Cowansville High School gym. My mother had made me a soft royal blue jersey dress with a fake fur collar and I had on my broken-in Mary Jane shoes ready to go.
The teachers lined up the boys on one side and the girls faced them not knowing who they were going to get as a dance partner. I looked at this tall lanky boy with a tight suit with high water pants and screamed at him,
“Hey you! I hope you know how to dance!”
He nodded and actually looked afraid of me after I yelled at him, which he probably should have been. The Twist music started and the both of us were just like the dancers on American Bandstand. How two people ages 10 and 11 who had never met each other before danced like professionals is beyond me.
After 20 minutes there were just three couples left in the finals and we were one of them. Ten minutes later after some fancy jumps and spins we won the contest and were each awarded a Cadbury’s Snack Bar. Billy, being the gentleman he was, carefully put the candy bars in his pocket and we danced the rest of the night away.
Later I found my friend Sheila and asked her how she thought we did. She promptly told me that the reason we probably won was that my fast dance movements kept spinning my skirt around and I was constantly flashing my underpants. She deemed it a hands down “underpants’ win. Mortified that the whole school knew I had on pink underpants I found Billy so I could retrieve my prize from his pocket. Because of the heat in the gym those two Snack Bars were now liquid poop in a wrapper and we quickly threw them out.
Two weeks later at a church dance the girls were once again lined up on one side, and the boys on the other side were instructed to choose their partners. Like a rushing tsunami Billy ran half way, dropping to his knees and slid across the floor to my feet. It was now official – I was now Billy’s dancing partner.
I don’t think boys have any idea what’s coming after they give a “shout out” and a wink of the eye to a young girl. Do they honestly know that within 24 hours the female knows every last personal detail and uses it to rope them in like cattle? Every day I used to ride my bike past his father’s business in Sweetsburg and then glance up the hill to see if he was outside. Twice a day I would call him and then hang up quickly when he answered the phone. Billy, if you still have doubts where those phone calls were coming from, your gut feeling was right.
As fast as he danced into my life, Billy “Peppermint Twisted” out of it just as quickly. And so for the next two long years the “Campaign for Billy” continued. By this time my mother had died and I had eaten my way up a few sizes from grief. When they announced the first school dance of the year and Grade 7 was allowed to attend I figured the last battle for Billy was going to be fought that night.
When I now think of this “last battle” I shake my head in embarrassment. With the conviction of William Wallace from Braveheart I had it all planned down to the last “T”. I was positive I was going to twist Billy back into my life that very night. Sitting in the hairdressers chair that very afternoon I instructed her to keep teasing and spraying my hair up as far as it would go. Gray box pleated skirt that the zipper would no longer go up was topped by a longish great athletic sweatshirt to cover up the safety pins.
As I spotted him in the far corner of the room surrounded by friends I slowly walked across the gym as they announced Ladies Choice. Each step held my foot like glue and drops of sweat trailed me as I saw the look of fear in his eyes. Billy knew what was going to happen and his friends were trying to stifle their laughter. It was inevitable that Orca the Killer Whale with the sticky unmoving hair was going to ask him to dance.
I stood humbly in front of him, smiled and asked if he wanted to dance. He looked down at his feet and mumbled a few kind words of how I must be happy they allowed the younger grades to come. Then there was dead silence and as he spoke the next few words I knew they would echo in my head for days, weeks or maybe even a lifetime. He said in a very polite hushed tone,
“No thank you!”
And with that I ran out of the gym to the downstairs girls’ washroom and cried my alcohol based eyeliner off. That was the end of my campaign for the love of one Billy Jones. Had it been puppy love or something else?
Years later as I heard Twist music on a 60’s night in some forlorn corner in Sept-Iles it brought everything 360. With no one wanting to dance I just went out by myself in the middle of the dance floor and twisted solo for three songs. Maybe I was never really in love with Billy or was I? Maybe all I really wanted to do was dance.
What is really funny is– that today I write about Lanark County history and my twisting dance partner is a historian with the The Brome County Historical Society LOL
lindaseccaspina 