The big move
My view of life has been one that puts location before all other aspects. Where do you live? In my case, I have a list.
The decision to change provinces wasn’t one that my family took lightly, I hope. As a junior member of the team, my input was minimal. When it came to pack the boxes, a lot of choices were already off the table. And so, close to the end of Grade 4, we put the boxes in the boxcar. Literally.
As a railway man, my father had certain privileges. Getting a 40-foot boxcar “spotted” just outside the door was seen as normal, although I doubt that many other people had that particular perk. I remember my father constructed the interior bulkheads, as our stuff didn’t fill the available space. I wasn’t old enough to be much use with the heavy lifting, but I remember being part of the solution rather than the problem. And. after the house was emptied, we went to town to stay with family friends for a day or so.
At a guess, it was springtime; I was enrolled in a much larger school, where my class was limited to one grade. We took an apartment in a large, older building. My social circle suddenly expanded; from three others in my Grade 4 row, to a probable thirty. I had my first playground fight, as I tried to create my niche. Got the strap from the teacher, as a consequence. And with that, we had moved. Over the next four years (more or less), we moved to four different addresses, added a couple more siblings and learned so many new skills. Basic Latin, among them.
