Young fun

“Where were you in ‘62?” That was the ad for the movie American Graffiti. I was seven or eight years younger than those sixties kids in the movie. My story starts in the fall of that year, but it takes flight in 1963.

The place was Burlington, Ontario, known then as a bedroom community for the steel town Hamilton, across the bay, which is where almost all our fathers worked. For me the feature was The Brant Inn, a roadhouse that was the closest you could get to a night club, maybe like a night club with a roof deck.

The Inn drew big acts and big crowds. Ella Fitzgerald, Johnny Mathis, Andy Williams, Benny Goodman all performed there. Goodman and his band had several engagements. On Saturday nights the music was broadcast on the radio across North America, “Live from the Brant Inn on the Shores of Lake Ontario!”

I had a Hitachi transistor radio with an earphone. While most of my friends were listening to “Hockey Night in Canada,” I was catching the music at the Inn. The rooftop was called the Sky Club and later the Lido Club, and couples danced there. If you were tall enough (I was) you could pick a spot on the abandoned railway tracks and get a pretty good view of it all while you were listening.

Gav Morton conducted the backup band, and he owned a clothing store with husky sizes. I shopped there.

But I’m getting ahead of myself. A bunch of us rode the school bus together for grades 5 to 8, and got to know each other well. We played cards (bridge for the intellectuals, strip poker in the back for the more adventurous!), and sometimes in the winter some of us packed snow in our lunch boxes and threw miniature snowballs on the bus. Once a softball got loose and ended up under the driver’s brake pedal. She had to pull out the ignition to stop the bus. She should have been sainted.

There were two classes of us. G lived on my street and rode the bus with me. Actually we went to grades 3 to 9 together and we’re close friends now. I can’t tell you more than that without blowing his identity, not that he has anything to be embarrassed about…

I think the best place to start the story is one day in the fall. The boys in my class were the despair of the shop teacher, Mr. R. We made a mess with the drill press. I probably scared him half to death making a triangular cut with the band saw. He didn’t have a big budget for materials and we all wanted to make costly things. So one day he made us all sit up on work benches and he gave us a talking to. He told us we were lazy, irresponsible ingrates who would never hold a job. He said once he gave a student the silent treatment, made him sit on the work bench and do nothing. At first the student laughed, then he was serious, then he begged to be allowed to work in the class. He asked if there were any of us who did not want to take shop. If there were he would let us take something else.

I think most of us thought that was a trick question. No one held up a hand. “Well then, get to work,” he ordered, and we did.

In the hallway G, who was politically and organizationally quite savvy, asked, “Why didn’t you get out of the class? I wanted out. I was just waiting for you to say. We could take double history.”

G liked history, but wanted me to take the risk. Nevertheless, I said, “You want out? Come with me.”

We walked back to Mr. R’s class. He wasn’t too happy to see us. I said, “If you’re not upset about it, we would rather take Home Economics so we can help around the house.” It was hard for a young boy to tell, but I think there was a bit of a sneer. He agreed instantly, getting rid of two students who were useless to him, and not masculine in his way of measuring.

“Why did you do that?” G asked. “I said history.”

“Don’t you like girls?” I asked.

“Of course,” G answered.

“Well,” I said, “Girls take Home Ec. Put it all together.” He beamed with the dawning realization.

So we spent those periods making menus and onion rings and chatting up the girls. The Home Economics teacher was delighted to have boys in the class. It was a sign of things to come, she said. My aunt approved heartily. My father wasn’t so sure. We were talked about. We spent time with the girls. Actually we got no ribbing from the other boys. They didn’t really like shop and they thought we were smart for what we had done. We learned that lots of girls didn’t like Home Ec.

The local newspaper got wind of us, so they did a story on our class. They took a photo of the students, and wrote the caption, “Miss D and her Home Economics boys.” My aunt gave me five dollars. My father wasn’t so sure.

G and I were news hounds. So were a lot of our class mates. Every school day started with current events. The city had a weekly paper, The Post, there was the Globe and Mail in the morning, and the Hamilton Spectator in the evening. I delivered The Post. G delivered the TV Guide. G’s oldest brother worked for the Post loading the papers to be dropped off. Both our families got the other two newspapers. There was plenty of time to walk the dog, read the morning paper, and have breakfast before catching the bus. In my spare time I sold greeting cards door to door.

And we were in Scouts. Knot tying seemed to be the fixation of our troop that winter. I managed to learn the difference between a Granny knot and a Reef knot, even tied a passable Sheet Bend. The Bowline eluded me. This held back my progress. I wasn’t the only one; that is a tricky knot! One week a visitor came to the meeting with a dramatic story. I think it was originally a Lord Baden Powell tale. A boy went walking on the ice just above Niagara Falls. His piece of the ice broke away, and started floating down the river. People saw him, and at the bridges they were alarmed and shouted. “Can’t someone throw a rope to him to save him?” people screamed.

Finally a rope was dangled down. The boy caught it, but instead of a bowline, the person tied a simple reef knot. The rope gave way, and of course the boy went over the falls and died. The moral of that story? We lived just a few miles from the falls, so we were supposed to learn the bowline to save someone from going over on an ice floe. It was a good story, but don’t look at me. I think you start by saying something like, “The rabbit comes up his hole…” That’s right, isn’t it?

Times seemed to be changing at the Brant Inn. The big bands that were featured in the 1950s were long out of fashion. The management brought in some local groups to perform Beatles songs, and they did well. Newer acts were sought out.

One day there was a special announcement. The Inn had hired Jayne Mansfield to come. No need for cards on the bus that day. All the boys were preoccupied with Miss Mansfield. The girls were remarking that she didn’t have much of a voice. What was she doing singing at the Brant Inn?

What indeed? It was reported that she would take a boat ride, then enter town in an open car. It was expected that the route past city hall to the Inn would be lined with pedestrians. No one’s parents were going to let any of us near that. My mother wouldn’t say that Jayne was immoral, but propriety …. “I hope none of you boys are thinking of watching that motorcade or trying to peer at her act from the railway tracks,” she said pointedly.

G and I schemed over ways we could get close to her car. G suggested pretending it was Apple Day and standing in our Scout uniforms with baskets of apples in front of City Hall while the car rolled by. “Bad idea,” I said. “It won’t be Apple Day and everyone will know that.”

We thought about catching her at the marina, maybe offering to help the boat dock, but G pointed out that we couldn’t tie a bowline.

Then it hit me. “I haven’t tried selling greeting cards downtown,” I said. “What’s more, maybe I could use your help.”

G didn’t get it at first. “Nobody lives downtown. That makes no sense.”

“Well I won’t know until I try,” I explained. “But you don’t need to come along.”

“Oh,” he said, understanding, “We’re downtown selling cards and we just happen to be in front of City Hall when her card drives by. Good thinking.” We had a plan.

When the day came, it was hard to concentrate in school. I was partner with F in Home Ec, making an omelette, which I almost burned, whether because of being close to F or thinking about Jayne, I find it hard to know to this day. “Do you think Jayne Mansfield is pretty?” F asked.

“In a celebrity sort of way,” I answered lamely, thinking I was clever. “But when I look at what’s in front of me …” be bold or go home, I thought. This could make it easier to invite F to the prom.

“When you look at what’s in front of you?” F pressed.

“Well F, just look in the mirror,” I answered, and she blushed. I rescued the omelette, just before it was officially ‘burnt.’

Miss D came by to inspect, and nodded approvingly, “That was a good idea to caramelize the dish,” she said to me. “These are the sorts of things that boys think of and do well.”

After what seemed days, it was 4 o’clock and G and I headed downtown. The car was late. “Maybe they were held up at the marina,” G suggested. “Maybe her driver fainted,” I offered.

Just before we had to leave for dinner, the open car appeared. Jayne was sitting on top of the back seat, waving at everyone. Flashbulbs started popping. The Post had photographers on both sides of the street.

Precisely when the car pulled up opposite us, it happened. The modern term is ‘wardrobe malfunction.’ It’s a silly term. The costume functioned just as intended, and two boys got the thrill of their young lives. Chaos ensued. Police surrounded the car, and Jayne was whisked away along another route.

Of course it was all over the radio, and everyone commented. “I hope the police find her,” my mother said. “What if there had been children present?” I got very interested in my carrots at that point.

It was all the buzz on the bus. The students were divided between disbelief and awe. “What do you think?” someone asked G. “Did she flash her breast or not?”

G measured his words. “I don’t know, but that would have been quite a sight!” Did I mention that G was a big success in the corporate world?

That evening G came to see me urgently. “You know The Post comes out tomorrow,” he began.

“Of course. Your brother drops the paper off in the middle of the night.”

“Well he’s seen the front cover, and we’re on it.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean the front page story is about Mansfield and the photo has you and me with our mouths wide open. The caption says “Home Ec boys go gaga over Mansfield’s wardrobe slipup.”

“Geez,” I said, “Mom’s going to flip out. I said I wouldn’t go near that car.”

“My mom too,” G agreed. “We’re dead meat.”

Then I got an idea. “Okay, here’s what we’ll do. The papers get dropped off in my driveway at about 4 a.m. At 4:30 bring scissors and meet me here. We’ll cut the photos out before I deliver the papers.”

“Don’t you think folks will notice part of the front page is missing?” G objected.

“You have a better idea? Out with it!” I challenged. He did not.

It was hard to sleep. I watched my clock closely. Just after 4 I snuck into the sewing room and, without turning the light on, took a pair of scissors from the bench. The dog followed me outside to where the pile of papers had been left. G joined me in a minute, and we started cutting the front pages as quickly as we could.

Within an hour we finished the stack. G took the photos to the trash, keeping one for a “scrap book,” he said, and I started out with the dog on my route. My father was leaving this house just as I got back.

“You’re back a bit early, aren’t you son?” he asked.

“I woke up early,” I said, “so I thought I’d get an early start.”

“It’s the early bird that gets the worm,” he said with a wink, and drove off.

Talk on the bus had moved on to other matters. Card games resumed. I sat beside F and we talked about class.

The Hamilton Spectator had not sent a reporter to cover Jayne Mansfield because the publisher considered it inappropriate and not in the public interest to do so. It ran the perplexing story of copies of The Post having been cut with pinking sheers. The Spectator’s theory was that some morally minded citizen took offence at the infringement on the sensibilities of unnamed young persons, innocently caught up in the event, and that the public would be better served if celebrities who indulged in such behaviour would be ignored instead of splashed all over the front page.

My mother got her wish in part. Miss Mansfield was compelled to explain herself to the police, who warned her not to pull such stunts in the future. My mother cancelled our subscription to The Post and told me to quit my route. She said no newspaper that exploited children in that manner deserved her patronage or my work. G’s mother thought similarly, and so did many other parents. I said a silent prayer, giving thanks that my lie was not yet found out, and promising not to pull a Pinocchio again.

My father came home from work, and ate dinner with nonchalance. When my mother asked him how his day had been, he said it had gone well and, glancing at me to make sure I was listening, added, “Every once in a while, you’re in a pickle, and it just seems to straighten itself out. But you can’t count on that, because usually it doesn’t happen that way. Pass the potatoes please,” he spoke to me.

The next day in Home Ec class we were cutting fabric to match a pattern. Miss D asked me to cut with the pinking shears. “Boys make good use of pinking shears,” she said.

In a quiet moment, F asked me, “What was she like?”

I hesitated for a second, then asked her, “Would you go to the prom with me?”