ROUND ROUND GET AROUND I GET AROUND

April 8th and a late winter storm is hitting the Island . I’m STORMSTAYED. I’m thinking back to how much we enjoyed storms as kids and the excitement they would bring.
One of our favourite winter sports was “hooking on cars”. This expression covers both cars and trucks. There is a learning curve to acquiring this skill. In my case it began with sleighs. Our next door neighbour Art MacKinnon had a farm over in Rocky Point and travelled there daily. In the summer he used a horse and wagon and winter a horse and sleigh. In the 1950's and earlier we were not obsessed with bare roads, in fact bare pavement was not good for travel.
From an early age we leaned how to slide on our feet with rubber boots on. Art would come home each noon time for dinner and a snooze. It was possible in those days to drive across the ice. The reasons being, all oil products came by rail and so no ships broke up the ice, most people had septic tanks and not hooked up to a central system that dumped hot stuff into the river.
After lunch we would jump the fence and go to the barn and harness the horse to the sleigh and wait for Art to make the return trip to Rocky Point. We would jump into the sleigh as we left home but as soon as we were out of sight we would hop over the back and start to slide. There were always ropes attached so you could grab on and get towed. We would stay on till we reached the ice and then let go and fall into the snow. We would get up , dump the snow from our rubber boots and start to walk back.
We then had a problem, not enough time, if we walked , we would be late. So ,now with the art of standing on your feet and sliding behind a moving sleigh mastered, it was time to move on up.
As I said the roads usually had a layer of snow or ice on them, the roads were not salted or sanded so it was fairly smooth sliding.
We would walk up to an intersection and wait for a vehicle to slow down and appear to be heading our way and grab on to the bumper.
Cars in this era had great bumpers, big and chrome and sticking out from the body of the car. To hook on unnoticed, you merely walked behind the car dropped down to a squat , grab the bumper and away you go. A kid had to have a good knowledge of the streets and know them by looking down between your legs as it sped under you. WARNING, never hook on a chrome bumper without mitts, remember Ralphie’s tongue on the flag pole in Christmas Story.

Trucks we much better to hook on as you could stand up and do some fancy foot work, and if you were lucky , and the driver was a young buck you might get a super ride. Some truck drivers would pick up speed and slide around corners, either to give a thrill or to knock you off.
WARNING, never put your arm through the tail gate chain, although the chain allowed you greater control and the older guys would do fancy footwork, if you lost your balance you could not let go.
When we were kids we would always be up at Barry’s mostly to stand out side and watch as we would not have money for anything to eat. The older guys had a good system, one of them would stand out on the highway in front of Barry’s to slow down a truck, if you remember the nearest stop would of been back at Longworth and Euston the way out of townand the next stop would probably be lands end at East Point.
So one of the guys would make the truck slow down and a few others would run out from Mr. Driscoll’s fence , grab the tail gate and go for a slide. The object to this was to see who could hang on the longest. The down side of this was getting back to Barry’s as most evening traffic was out bound. Most guys dropped off up by Fred Hickox’s Texaco, the really brave might make it to Frank Mackay’s turn. One night we watched in amazement as David O’brien grabbed on to a chain and lost his balance as he disappeared into the darkness, his arm caught in the chain and not able to get back on his feet. According to lore he was taken as far as Wright’s Creek before the truck stopped. He had to walk back to Barry’s.

Summer was as much fun as winter for getting around, sliding was out but there were still wagons and cars and trucks had running boards.
Jerome Dorion worked and lived at the farm behind the present day Mount St Mary’s. He always seemed old to us and unchanging. He would take the horse and wagon into the city a few days a week, down Mount Edward Road into the city to The Monastery of The Precious Blood on Sydney Street. His wagon had steel wheels and you could hear him coming from a long distance. Jumping on his wagon required skill, you had to use stealth, it was like sneaking up on a sleeping cat. His head was always hanging down as if asleep ,nodding with the movement of the wagon and the rhythm of the horses hooves.
We would pretend to be walking and let them pass us and them we would canter up behind the and gently climb on the wagon being careful not to make the wagon move so as to wake him. We would sit on the back our feet hanging down, usually Knees and I, feeling smug and ready to enjoy the ride into the city. There are two things worth noting, one Mr. Dorion carried a whip in his right hand and maybe he wasn’t asleep. Just as we though we had it made he would awaken and snap the whip at you. Zorro was never this good with a whip, Jerome could hit you on the back of the hand in a flash and YEOW, we would jump off . As we walked we would try to plan our next attempt. I don’t ever remember getting to town or back out him.

As we got older we got braver and graduated up to getting on the running boards of cars . The problem here was getting the car to stop or slow down enough to jump on and as I said earlier there were few stop signs. There was one stop sign close to our house, for cars coming down Mt Edward Road connecting to Longworth Avenue. The only problem here was the type of driver that you could jump on with was not one who obeyed such things as stop signs.
Watson “Moose “ Higgins was a retired Deputy Chief Of Police and he lived on Gower Street he drove a tan 1938 Chev with running boards , ideal for getting on. He always drove with the window down so if you could get on you could hold on to the door post. Moose did not like us doing this.
When we would see him coming down the road , even if we went going anywhere, we would run over to the intersection and hope that he would at least slow down at the stop sign. We would run along side jump on the running board grab the door post and hang on , Moose some times would try to knock you off by opening the door and swinging it out, if you were holding on right you just lifted your feet and swing with the door and wait for it to swing back and not jamb your fingers.
Moose never stopped for the one traffic signal or anything else. When he arrived at his destination he left the car in the middle of the street and did his business.
Another good ride was Mr Newson. He owned the fox ranch where Parkdale School was built. He had a great orchard with apples , pears, grapes, plums and probably more. I was never in the orchard during the day only after it was dark. Mmmmmmmm Forbidden Fruit.
I think he owned a Model B, Bob or Deryck would know. Legend has it that he had a ball on a cord hanging from the middle of the door frame. When he would come home he would line up the Rad ornament with the ball and drive in. On halloween the older guys ( Bob) would move the ball a few inches off to the side, causing Mr Newson to scrape the side.
Anyway, Mr. Newson didn’t heed signals either and was a very poor driver, jumping on his running board was easy , he never knew you were there but he sure had a lot of close calls. We didn’t jump on his running board too often, we were very cautious and didn’t like to do dangerous stuff.
I tried to get pictures of these men but to no avail, maybe someone has one they can send me.