Gold Must be Tried by Fire – Part 22
More exciting tales!
Category: personal story
Gold Must be Tried by Fire – PART 21
Part 21 of Gold Must be Tried by Fire
Alcohol abuse, violence, old drive-in theaters and scary movies from the ’50s. What more could you ask for?
North Burnaby: bewildered student. 1959-1960
After staying a few months at the Sunset Auto Court, we moved to North Burnaby, BC. We rented the lower portion of a house for fifty dollars a month. Upstairs were some people named Hurraide. The house was next to the Lougheed Highway on a dirt road named Greenwood. It was farmland back then, and we had a barn with some chickens, geese, and a wood stove. I’ve been back to try to find it, but it is all so built up that I can’t even recognize the place. I can only make out the slight rise, or hill, on which the old house stood. Down the Lougheed Highway, toward Vancouver, there was the Lougheed Drive-In Theatre, which is long gone now. The Dairyland Milk Company put up a large plant on the property and now that is even gone. Going East on Lougheed, toward…
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PART 20
Gold Must be Tried by Fire – Part 20
The heartache of a broken family.
INTO THE FIRE: 1958-1970
VANCOUVER: bewildered student. 1958
I was still clueless, but eventually it dawned on me that Ernest McQuary was now going to be my father. He moved us all into the Sunset Auto Court located approximately near the corner of the Grandview Highway and Boundary Road, right on the border of Vancouver and Burnaby. Across the expanse of the big city, a sea of houses, I could see the Roller Coaster at Playland on Hastings Street. Those first few weeks are just a blur to me now. I was so confused and lonely. I don’t know why, but both Sherry and I were given the strap by Ernest. We did something wrong, I guess, I really can’t remember what it was. Sherry was furious.
“He has no right to hit us! He is not our dad.”
“Yes, he does, I answered. He does have the right.”
I…
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PART 18
Gold Must be Tried by Fire – Part 18
At some point, after getting her driver’s licence, mom began to experience new freedom. We took several trips, just her and us children. One trip was to Alberta where we visited old friends of the Wilsons. Their name was Hurd, and they sang very well together in harmony. One original composition was of a professional quality, and the name of the tune is “This Great Caravan” Dad liked it because it had lots of accidental chords.
This Great Caravan
We are traveling on a trail that is winding
over mountains and through the valleys below
Bubbling springs of pure living water we’re finding
this great caravan keeps on rolling along
Dangers all around lurking in the deep shadows
we will never fear, Christ is always along
He will never refuse to captain our battles
This great caravan keeps on rolling along.
“We will never fear…” ha ha! But I…
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PART 17
Those childhood years in Trail seem so far off. They almost belong to some other dimension as though maybe I had died and since then, I have come back as another person. That’s my right brain at work, then my left brain kicks in and says, uh uh, buddy, here are the pictures, check ‘em out, it’s you alright. There you are are at five, there you are at fifteen, there you are at twenty, there you are at thirty, forty and fifty. Now go look in the mirror. Okay, okay, I’m convinced already. Still, it freaks me out a little. I can only imagine what it will be like to be eighty or ninety if I make it there…must get worse!
As I said, my friends were Kenny Del Puppo and Bruce Callendar. I wasn’t an angel, by any means and here are some stupid things that I did…
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PART 16
Gold Must be Tried by Fire Part 16……….kids sleigh riding and swimming in the Columbia River. People let their kids do risky stuff back then.
I learned to water ski at Evans Lake, Washington. This was nothing more than a wide spot in the Columbia river in Washington state. I got up on my first try at the age of seven years old. I mentioned Christina Lake and Deer Park, but we also enjoyed Champion Lake. In the summer, we went down to Gyro Park Beach on the Columbia River in Trail. Uncle Gerald Wilson,, mom’s brother lived out that direction in the area known as Sunningdale. It was a ‘cut above’ Shavers Bench and was considered to be a higher class place. When I look at the place today, I can hardly imagine why.We never ever saw Gerald and Isabelle Wilson. They had three children, Lynn, Danny, Heather. Holly and Robby came along later. I admired Danny as he was older, and since I hardly got to see him, one day I walked all…
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PART 15
Stories from the Kootenay valley in BC
My earliest recollection of Ernest McQuary is in a car. My mother picked him up from his mother’s house, I think, and he was chewing on a chicken bone. My mom introduced me to him and he smiled. I don’t remember him saying anything to me, but maybe he was too busy doing justice to the chicken. When he had stripped the bone clean, he flung it out the car window. Probably, he had eaten chicken dinner at his mother’s house and he took a piece “to go.” My mom had met Mrs. McQuary at the Trail Pentecostal Church. Mrs McQuary was a widow. At some point I remember that Ernest was working for Mr. Wallace, making concrete blocks next door to our home on Seventh Avenue. It was summer time, I think, or else a Saturday, and with my mother’s encouragement, I went out to watch Ernest making the…
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PART 13
Some more B.C. history……Dewdney Trail, Cascades Summit and more.
Life in Trail wasn’t all bullies and bad times. We had good times alongside the struggles. Sleigh riding was fantastic, swimming, fishing, and water skiing in the summer were awesome. Everyone went to Christina Lake in the summer and Trail residents still do, except now, it only takes them about an hour. When we made the trip in the 1950’s it took all day over the “Cascades Summit” as we called it. Beginning a few miles south of Rossland, this primitive, winding road was the old Dewdney Trail. The Greyhound bus could not travel that route as the hairpin switchbacks were simply too sharp to negotiate in a reasonable amount of time. Instead, the bus out of Trail went to Rossland, then crossed the border at North Port, Washington. Turning West, if going to Vancouver, the Greyhound proceeded to the crossing at Grand Forks and re-enter Canada at that point…
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Blogging 101: Being Inspired by the Community – 5 reasons we chose to learn Spanish in Espana
I’m reblogging this post in response to the Blogging 101 assignment: Being Inspired by the Community. I was inspired by my friend Marigold over at Versus Blurb where she posted a great haiku on her experience in Spain. This post isn’t exactly linked to what she wrote, but I would add a sixth reason to why we studied Spanish in Spain and that was for how inexpensive you could go for a drink there. Being a Canadian it was a pleasant change!
First, it’s the motherland of the language. Back when Christopher Columbus landed, the Spanish language did too and it spread throughout the land. Now it’s arguably second only to English for most widely spoken languages in the world. We also kind of liked the ‘th’ pronunciation of c and z. So we booked three months attendance at a language school in Malaga, Spain. I didn’t even know how to say hello in Spanish when I went there. That, it turns out, is not really the best way to take advantage of a language school, but it worked out pretty well anyway. We chose Malaga because it was pretty much the most southern part of Spain we could get and it was right on the Mediterranean.
Sand, sea, sky and ships
The main promenade in Malaga
City Hall
Second, it’s the setting for two of our favourite books by James Michener:…
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Blogging 101 – My Dream Reader
My dream reader is anyone who needs encouragement. I think that could mean pretty much this whole world at some time or other. I just want you to know that you are so loved by One Person more than any other person on this earth. He even died for you. I hope that everything I write on this blog is pleasing to him. This blog will be mostly about my story because it’s HIStory.
This photo is from the God is Real website
Here’s what God said to me today:
My fire burns up everything that keeps you from my love. I love you too much to leave you in a place where you can’t experience all of what I have for you. I have a plan for you. Be patient to wait for things to unfold as they should according to My timing.
I know the plans I have for you. Plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you a hope and a future. (Jeremiah 29:11)
Love burns like a blazing fire, like a mighty flame………..(Song of Solomon 8:6)
Lighten up, Brighten up 