GET OUT OF JAIL FREE

As with most kids growing up, I have a few places, that I played near, that have made lasting memories.
The Jail being one. We lived kitty corner from the 1911 Queens County Jail and had a great time there. I spent a lot of time in jail as a kid. This was the early fifties and the Island was going through changes that we were not aware were talking place.
The Ice Man. Enterprising men would go to lakes in the winter and cut out blocks of ice, take them to an ice shed and cover them with sawdust and wait for summer. Winters during this period were difficult for seasonal workers,
no Employment Insurance meant no money to live on. When Employment Insurance first arrived , it was called Unemployment Insurance. When you were hired for a jobb you were given a small book about 4inches by 6 inches. Each week when you were paid, inside the pay packet was a stamp. You would take the stamp and paste in in your book. When you had enough stamps and were unemployed you went to The Federal Building Showed your book and then were able to draw on this insurance. It is interesting how the phrase "enough stamps" has continued to be used by a generation who have no concept as to what it means.
There were many corner stores and each one had a number of customers who charged their groceries over the winter and pay up in the spring when they found work. There were still a few places around our home that still used an icebox to keep things cold. The ice was placed in a covered storage unit on top and milk and other perishables were placed below it. As the ice melted it drew heat out of the unit. As kids we did not have money either to buy a treat on a hot summers day.
So we would walk around , hoping to spot the iceman and his horse drawn wagon and follow him.
There was one family that lived above Walter Burhoe’s White Rose that still used an ice box. We would follow the iceman and wait for him to stop and to make a delivery. He would jump to the ground come around to the back and lift a heavy tarp to get at the ice. He would take the ice tongs and grab hold of the ice block with great force to carry it up the stairs. If we were really lucky , on a hot August day, a piece of ice would break loose and fall to the ground into the dirt. We would dive for it , pick it up , wipe it on our pants and then sit on the curb and enjoy it. I can’t tell you how lovely and cool it was on a hot day. We would slurp it and savour it , hoping it would last forever.
There was also a chick hatchery just below the dairy. It too was fascinating. There were always chicks being hatched, all day. The ones that were weak and probably not going to live were dumped into a barrel outside. The hatchery would mail boxes of chicks to people around the Island. The box, about the size of a Strawberry crate, would be packed with live chicks, covered with a top with air holes and sent by mail. It was not unusual to go to the post office during chick mailing days and hear the sound of 100's of chicks chirping in their boxes.
Sometimes we would find a good chick in the barrel take it out and go home with it. We would put the cute little chick in the cage with the canary. It would stay there till dad got home. We kept chickens in a barn in our yard, so I’ll assume Dad put the chick in there. We usually had a chicken for Sunday dinner , Dad would go to the hen house on Saturday , grab a plump hen and do the deed. Sunday as we ate dinner we would try to guess which hen we were eating. We as kids always picked a chicken as our pet and hope he would not get the axe. When Dad sold the hen house to Joe MacDonald , a man came to buy all the hens. Joe was not going to use it as a hen house but as a barn.
Vernon Duck , who worked with dad at Maritime Electric, arrived with a Chrysler product called a Power Wagon. This was a World War Two truck that the company used to get around in the winter. It was four wheel drive, very high and a winch on front.
We were watching as the man, loaded all the birds into his crates, our pet birds included. All of a sudden one of the birds escaped. Which one??? It was Brenda's Benny The Rooster!!! As he ran around the yard Brenda was yelling "Run Benny Run". Brenda did he escape??
In the early fifties the jail was not very security conscious. We had easy access to it at any time of the day or night. Friday nights were always fun as it was fight night. We would watch the jail to see when the police cars came with some guys arrested for drinking and fighting and the run across the street to watch. Now the police knew it would be struggle to put these guys in the drunk tank with out getting into a fight with them and ending up with a black eye. This is where we came to the rescue. We knew most of the guys arrested so we would take them by the hand and put them in the cells, they would never hit a kid. We would stay till things calmed down and then with the keys in our pocket we would go home for the night. We would return in the morning to let them out for breakfast .During the summer months the prisoners would get us to run over to the store for them, smokes and Ale. Smokes came in two size packages, 20 and 25 cigs, priced at 36 ct. and 40ct.
The stores at this time sold a drink called Town Ale. I don’t know how they did it but there it was , it cost 25 ct. a bottle. So we would run over to the store buy a bottle, but we were told to hide it under our shirts, and run back .
It probably tasted as cool and good to the men as the ice chip did to us. As I grew older I still talked with these men and traded stories about their time there. As they grew older I visted them in nursing homes and hospitals. As I think about it I was a Pall Bearer for two of them at their funerals.
But back to the story.
There was a man in jail for murder!. At the time, we were told that he wanted to marry a girl but was not allowed due to a difference in religion. The story has it that the girl's grandmother was most opposed to the marriage.
She was shot dead by the man through window. The story is embellished today to where she was on her knees praying with the Rosary. The point is she was shot and Joe went to jail. I was of the understanding that he was held on what was then called “A Lieutenant Governors Warrant” This was an open ended sentence and you were held at the pleasure of the Crown.
We were very young when Joe came to jail as a prisoner. The Jail keeper liked him and he soon became a trustee and had access to most of the jail.
Now my friends and I called him “Joe The Murder” and he never seemed to mind.
Joe the Murder was kind to us and looked out for us. I loved getting up early running over to the jail, check the box at the gate, this is where meat and fish were left for the meals. I’d run in with it, go down stairs to the lower level and start to cook. I leaned how to light that big coal stove and coal furnace and start cooking for a bunch of men. I leaned to make large amounts of porridge, coffee, potatoes and all the other jail house fare.
The Jail keeper had two daughters and we played with them, always reenacting the last hanging that took place there, Phillips & Lund. One day we were playing house in the wood shed, Soupy , me and the girls, we were only about years old. Joe came in and lectured us on proper behaviour with girls.
Joe also built us an out door rink in the winter and kept it flooded and put up some lights so we could skate in the evening. He would tie our skates tight so we would not go over on our ankels.
One day Joe disappeared and we never saw him again, we heard he went to B.C. and started a new life.
I recall with fondness his kindness to us. My mother always enjoyed this story , especially this part.
When I’d be going out the back door,
Mother would ask: “Where are you going?”
I’d rely: “I’m going over to the jail to play with Joe The Murder”
She would call out as I was leaving: “Be careful crossing the road”