cont'd from "Tales From the Crypt"  by Wilma Robinson

We lived on, what was called at the time, Hinch Road Since then it has been called 9th
avenue and then 225th St.. Lord only knows what it's called now! There was an open
ditch along the East side of the paved road and a wooden sidewalk along the West side. I
remember my brother and his friends soldering a nail to one side of a large penny (there
were large ones and small ones at that time) and hammering it into the wooden sidewalk,
laughing hilariously as passers-by tried in vain to pick it up! Nowadays who would even
stoop for a nickel?
Hinch Road ran between the Dewdney Trunk and North Street. From North Street on
South and down the hill towards the brickyard it became (to us ) "China Hill". Why we
called it that, I have no idea! I didn't know of any Chinese living there but maybe they
worked in the brickyard or the lumber mill. Anyway,, it was a wonderful sleigh-riding
hill in the winter! We would fly down the hill on our "steel-runner"sleighs, ending up at
the bottom in front of the brickyard. With chattering teeth we headed for the warm kilns
inside the building. If they were loading the kilns, so much the better, it was warmer that
way. Then, toasty warm, we would head back up the snowy hill to the top and do it all
again.
In those days I guess our parents couldn't afford warm boots for us all, so, as a result
most of us suffered from chilblains. Which is not surprising considering a lot of us wore
rubber boots up to our knees. The thin rubber seemed to attract the cold and before we
had made our way to the top of the hills our feet were icy cold. Coming home and
sticking our freezing feet into a hot oven didn't help, either! I can remember running
outside in bare feet to dance around in the snow, trying to get the pain out of my burning
hot chilblainy feet! Didn't work, of course , and as there were no remedies for it at that
time, we just had to endure it. as best we could. Nowadays you never even hear of such
things as chilblains and I say "good riddance to them"!-
I can remember years when we had a lot of snow. Like one year when school was in
session, which makes it probably early Spring, I would think., because it wasn't very
cold, when we had a snowfall of about three feet overnight! We weren't very old at that
time and three feet seemed very deep. As we lived right next to the school at Haney
Central we were, of course expected to go regardless of the weather. It was great fun
pushing our way through chest-deep snow, getting sopping wet because it had started to
rain. We kids who made it to school had a great time but one of our women teachers (I
forget which one but I think it was Miss Veinotte) had worn a pair of slacks to school to
help her make her way through the snow. The principal, Ed Longton, took exception to
this and sent her home with his pompous disapproval! We were all very upset with him
but, later we too were sent home , which we really wanted, anyway! So we spent the rest
of the day getting soaked enjoying the heavy fall of snow!

There were times, too, when we had very little snow at Christmas. I
remember one Christmas when it was sunny and quite warm! That was the
winter when most of us younger kids got scooter-skates for Christmas. These
were little metal platforms with one wheel at the front and two in the back,
and about twice the length of a foot. There was a bit of a cap in front to keep
our foot from sliding off and we used them like a scooter without a handle to
hold on with, Like a small snowboard. Anywhere there was a hill with a
smooth surface we would pedal these things , kicking along with one foot till
we got going, then with both feet onboard we would whiz down the hill to
the bottom! Or if it was just a level sidewalk we would just kick and coast
our way along. Trouble was, most of our sidewalks were wooden slats and to
whiz along them resulted in chattering teeth!
Anyway, to get back to the weather, everybody was wearing short sleeves
and running shoes, That was how we knew it was warm because our running
shoes were worn ONLY in the summer months and put away in drydock for
the winter. The first sign of summer and out they came again!