The Great Smelt fishing expedition

One nice day in early April, the suns out the snow is melting and our anxiety and Cabin Fever is getting the better of us Aubrey R and I discussed going smelt fishing to Parry Sound about 200 miles north of Toronto. In Parry sound the Seguin River runs into Georgian Bay and in early April the smelt start to migrate up the river in great schools.
By the time we decide to go that night we have Allan M. not myself Ralph G. Aubrey R. Luigi G and myself going.
We rush home after work to pick up the equipment net, poles, and liquor. and head for Parry Sound in my 67 Pontiac, so this would have been about 1970 or 71.
We get to Parry Sound and it's still light out and the smelt don't start running until after dark so we scout the area for a place to eat.
The area was still unspoiled in that there were no burger joints, McDonald's Wendie's there yet, so we had to be satisfied with a traditional restaurant.
When it got dark we headed to the river and assembled the net and poles to start fishing.
We were fishing for a while but were not doing to good until we decided to move up the river to a Marina where they had some floating boat slips in the river.
Whether it was the move or they just started to run, they were coming in gangbusters and in fact the hauls were so heavy we had to tip some out of the net so we could haul it in, and in fact each guy got tired of hauling them in.
When it's Ralph G's turn to start with the 4by4 net at the end of some hollow aluminum poles he goes out to the end of the slip and by this time another guy who had been fishing without much success decided to follow Ralph out on the slip to see how he was doing.
The guy that follows Ralph out was not with us, just some other curious fisherman, who wasn't getting anything.
Ralph makes a big dip in the river and raises the net, and with it water in the hollow pole, which is aimed at the guy's rubber boot who had followed him out.
I happened to be watching and saw Ralph fill the guys rubber boot with extremely cold water, as the river still had ice floating in it, it was dark but I could see the expression on the guys face as he was wondering what the hell was happening how was his foot getting so cold and wet, and judging buy the expression on his face he wanted to punch Ralph in the head, the trouble being Ralph is about 6ft 4in and looks like Paul Bunyan beard and all, Ralph even sensed the guys dilemma, and said well you shouldn't have been standing so close. We all started laughing so much the guy skulks off somewhere to lick his wounds, or at least try to dry his foot and we continue on, all the while the guys are having a few nips to banish the cold as it was getting, as it does in these northern climes at this time of year.
We head back with 3 or 4 bushels of smelts in the trunk, the cars rear end almost dragging on the ground, having to watch for bad bumps because of the frost coming through the road.
I don't nor have ever drank, but each of the other guys did and each had a bottle, and by the time they had gotten down to the half way point on each of their bottles started to try each others bottle, so they all had a little of each others bottle which can and was a dangerous combination.
All was going well until we made a turn onto hiway 9 going in towards Newmarket when Allan M says pull over I think I am going to be sick, so I pull over in the dark, and All darts out of the car and just as fast dissappearas from view.
We all get our to see what had happened and there is Al at the bottom of a very steep bank up against a fence on the ground wretching his guts up, with all of us laughing at the top of the hill.
We give Al a little room until clear of the mess he made, and had to help him up the hill and into the car, and continued on our way, my dropping them all of at home with some fish.
I cleaned smelt half the night and gave the rest away the next day.
The stupid part of this story is that I don't even like fish, but everyone else in the house does.
The good part of the story is that it made for some good stories for the next few days at work.
Allan

Lakeview Army Base

In 1953 while working at Mimico I had bought a 125cc Francis Barnett motorcycle and used to go to work on it. While at work one day I was asked to drive it to the Army Base that was at the present location of the Hearn generating plant and call a guy they couldn't get in touch with. I said no problem, but it would be nice if someone who knew the place could go along with me to show me how to find the guy. We went and called the guy and were on our way back, driving down Lakeshore Road about 35MPH, near the present site of Marie Curtis Park when a guy in a small car an Austin I believe pulls up on the inside of me with his head out the window saying is that only as fast as I can go. All of a sudden the guy disappears at the same time as a loud crash and as I turn around to see what had happened, the gut had smashed into a parked car. There were some fresh fruit stands in the area and a family had just made a purchase, and when I turned and went back to see if everyone was OK an old woman was getting out of the car saying Jesus Christ just when we were eating our strawberries. Everyone was OK in that car and when I went back to check on the other guy he was getting out of the car, which had several empty beer bottles rolling around on the floor. He seemed to be OK so I said to my mate, they will figure out quite fast what went wrong here as the guy was obviously drunk, and if we stayed could be there after our cut out time, so we returned to work with the story.

Fast forward a couple of years, and the Brute [Johnny Brunelle] who owned a boat at this time were going from The Toronto Sail and Canoe Club to the Port Credit Yacht Club for some do or other that was going on at that location, and were sailing past the Lakeview Army Base in his boat when he noticed the base. We were about a half mile out from shore when he asked me if they still used the Base and I said I didn't think so as it was turned over to the Ontario Hydro for the new coal fired Generating Station that was going to be built there. I no sooner got the words out of my mouth when firing breaks out and bullets are landing all around us, and not knowing what to do just kept sailing and cursing, and at the same time saw a guy with a flag trying to stop the firing, which he did, after scaring the shit out of us. It was a miracle we didn't have our railroad career brought to an end that day, so we went on to other antics along the way.

The picture is Johnny Brunelle sitting and Danny McDonald standing, at the Bathurst St. Yard Office cica 1956. Danny McDonald was the General Yardmaster, a great guy, and was the Silver Medal winner at Greco Roman Wrestling in the 1932 Olympics, held in San Franciso.

Allan

Allan

Australia Trip 2003 Feb 24 2003 arrived at the Airport for the start of our flight to Perth West Australia which Anne had booked up with stop offs at Hong Kong, Cairns, on the Great Barrier Reef for a few days, then on to Alice Springs, and then to Ayr's Rock, or as they now call it Uluru, back to Alice Springs then on to Perth. The trouble was that on the way to the airport it starts to snow heavy and was quite cold about minus 20 F , when we got there and lined up for the tickets a guy walks over to me and wants to inspect the bags before we even get to the ticket counter, I say OK and he starts to do so right in the lineup. Its difficult to get the stuff back in the bad under those condition's, and seems to be an omen of things to come. We check our bags in and the guy at the counter tells us that the flight has been delayed until 2.30AM, at which we begin to bide our time, bide out time until the next announcement a hour later when the announcement comes that the flight is delayed until the same time next day, but that they will pay for a taxi to get us home and back the next day. When we get home, quite late, after midnight, with no keys, we have to ring the bell to get in which causes Carter, the dog to howl, and scare Amanda who is now in the house by herself wondering who wants in now. Amanda lets us in at which time we explain the situation and go to bed. We are picked up at 3.00 PM next day for our flight which will take off at 10.00PM bound for Anchorage Alaska for our first refuel on our way, which is a 6.30 minute flight. Jetting through the starlit skies Little dipper in view all the way Listening to the snores and sighs, Children murmuring,babies crys What a bum breaking ride, and, Not because it's bumpy, just so long to sit in one position, tends to make one grumpy. We get to Anchorage more or less on time and expect to be off the plane for 45 minutes, at which time we send a post card home to the girls, and get back on the plane, and have to wait another 45 minutes because of a security risk, until they find out what was the matter, that Omen feeling is starting to creep in again. Got to Hong Kong 7AM local time what a long flight and got a hotel room to rest up for the next leg of the journey. We went to the room and find out that someone is still in it so we have to go back and explain that to them at which time they give us another. When we finally get in the room we find that the key will not work the lights properly so we had to have a guy come and fix the problem. After a relaxing shower and rest we go back to the terminal for the next lap and check in and ask about our flight to Cairns and are told we are not going to Cairns, but to Sydney, but we have one hour to make connections to Cairns, which is from a different section of the Airport, at which we told them we didn't think we could make it in time, what with having to go through Customs, and they said that the plane would be held for us if there was a slight problem. This is a real piss off because to get to Sydney we have to fly right over Cairns and on 2000 miles, then we have to get on another plane and fly back, not only this we have hotels booked up at Cairns, Alice Spring's and Ayrs Rock, and will lose a day along the way. It seems because of the original delay we couldn't stop off at Cairns because the plane only flys there every other day. We get to Sydney and meet an obnoxious Customs Officer who was worried about the food we were smuggling in, and when he asked us for the keys so that he could open the bags, wed couldn't find them right away, and thinking the delay would cause us to miss the next flight we told him to break the locks. They brought a pair of bolt cutters and they wouldn't work on the Mickey Mouse lock that we had put on the bags, and had to send for another pair, which finally allowed them to open the bag. He kept asking us about the food we were bringing in to Australia, and we told him we weren't bringing any food to Australia, and when he asked us why we were not bringing food to Australia I told him we were hoping, above hope that they had enough. The Customs man only opened the one bag and went through it but couldn't find any food. I was glad he never opened the other bag which was full of Egg Salad Sandwiches, and peanut butter sandwiches we had brought for the starving teeming thousands,of Australia, and I was worried the Egg Salad ones would go off in the Australian heat, and can you imagine egg salad sandwiches going off on the plane over Queensland somewhere, The Humanity. Needless to say we missed the next flight they never held it for us and the next flight after that was filled up so we couldn't get on that either, so we were given the OK to use the VIP lounge until the flight we could take would go a few hours later. Needless to say by this time I'm completely pissed off so I just sat and sulked, while Anne had a shower and a meal from the great buffet they provided. We got to Cairns a day late and had to rejig the whole schedule because of that, and as I said I was totally pissed of promises had been made and not kept so we lost a second day of our vacation if not needlessly, at least because the Airline never kept their promise. After getting to Cairns everything went along swimmingly, we enjoyed our stay there and at Alice Springs, and Ayr's Rock, back to Alice Springs and on to Perth, the remotest big city in the world. Talk about Murphy's Law it broke out with a vengence. Allan

Australia Trip 2003


Feb 24 2003 arrived at the Airport for the start of our flight to Perth West Australia which Anne had booked up with stop offs at Hong Kong, Cairns, on the Great Barrier Reef for a few days, then on to Alice Springs, and then to Ayr's Rock, or as they now call it Uluru, back to Alice Springs then on to Perth.
The trouble was that on the way to the airport it starts to snow heavy and was quite cold about minus 20 F , when we got there and lined up for the tickets a guy walks over to me and wants to inspect the bags before we even get to the ticket counter, I say OK and he starts to do so right in the lineup. Its difficult to get the stuff back in the bad under those condition's, and seems to be an omen of things to come.
We check our bags in and the guy at the counter tells us that the flight has been delayed until 2.30AM, at which we begin to bide our time, bide out time until the next announcement a hour later when the announcement comes that the flight is delayed until the same time next day, but that they will pay for a taxi to get us home and back the next day.
When we get home, quite late, after midnight, with no keys, we have to ring the bell to get in which causes Carter, the dog to howl, and scare Amanda who is now in the house by herself wondering who wants in now.
Amanda lets us in at which time we explain the situation and go to bed. We are picked up at 3.00 PM next day for our flight which will take off at 10.00PM bound for Anchorage Alaska for our first refuel on our way, which is a 6.30 minute flight.

Jetting through the starlit skies
Little dipper in view all the way
Listening to the snores and sighs,
Children murmuring,babies crys

What a bum breaking ride, and,
Not because it's bumpy, just
so long to sit in one position,
tends to make one grumpy.

We get to Anchorage more or less on time and expect to be off the plane for 45 minutes, at which time we send a post card home to the girls, and get back on the plane, and have to wait another 45 minutes because of a security risk, until they find out what was the matter, that Omen feeling is starting to creep in again.

Got to Hong Kong 7AM local time what a long flight and got a hotel room to rest up for the next leg of the journey.
We went to the room and find out that someone is still in it so we have to go back and explain that to them at which time they give us another.
When we finally get in the room we find that the key will not work the lights properly so we had to have a guy come and fix the problem.
After a relaxing shower and rest we go back to the terminal for the next lap and check in and ask about our flight to Cairns and are told we are not going to Cairns, but to Sydney, but we have one hour to make connections to Cairns, which is from a different section of the Airport, at which we told them we didn't think we could make it in time, what with having to go through Customs, and they said that the plane would be held for us if there was a slight problem.
This is a real piss off because to get to Sydney we have to fly right over Cairns and on 2000 miles, then we have to get on another plane and fly back, not only this we have hotels booked up at Cairns, Alice Spring's and Ayrs Rock, and will lose a day along the way.
It seems because of the original delay we couldn't stop off at Cairns because the plane only flys there every other day.
We get to Sydney and meet an obnoxious Customs Officer who was worried about the food we were smuggling in, and when he asked us for the keys so that he could open the bags, wed couldn't find them right away, and thinking the delay would cause us to miss the next flight we told him to break the locks.
They brought a pair of bolt cutters and they wouldn't work on the Mickey Mouse lock that we had put on the bags, and had to send for another pair, which finally allowed them to open the bag.
He kept asking us about the food we were bringing in to Australia, and we told him we weren't bringing any food to Australia, and when he asked us why we were not bringing food to Australia I told him we were hoping, above hope that they had enough.
The Customs man only opened the one bag and went through it but couldn't find any food.
I was glad he never opened the other bag which was full of Egg Salad Sandwiches, and peanut butter sandwiches we had brought for the starving teeming thousands,of Australia, and I was worried the Egg Salad ones would go off in the Australian heat, and can you imagine egg salad sandwiches going off on the plane over Queensland somewhere, The Humanity.
Needless to say we missed the next flight they never held it for us and the next flight after that was filled up so we couldn't get on that either, so we were given the OK to use the VIP lounge until the flight we could take would go a few hours later.
Needless to say by this time I'm completely pissed off so I just sat and sulked, while Anne had a shower and a meal from the great buffet they provided.
We got to Cairns a day late and had to rejig the whole schedule because of that, and as I said I was totally pissed of promises had been made and not kept so we lost a second day of our vacation if not needlessly, at least because the Airline never kept their promise.
After getting to Cairns everything went along swimmingly, we enjoyed our stay there and at Alice Springs, and Ayr's Rock, back to Alice Springs and on to Perth, the remotest big city in the world.
Talk about Murphy's Law it broke out with a vengence.
Allan

"The Bowling Tournament"

One day someone gets the bright idea to start a Bowling League for the afternoon shift at Bathurst St. For the most part it was the Car Department and Office Staff that participated. I was never a great bowler and my brother was so strong he seemed to knock the pins into the adjoining alley as much as his own, but his accuracy was not much either. This was 5 pins and before the advent of automatic pin setters, so we were always afraid of Max killing some pin boy. As is usual I guess we charged a little extra so that at the end of the season, they could have a Tournament where prizes could be handed out to the best bowlers. The end of the season came and the prizes would be handed out to the best individual bowlers, and it would be three turkeys to the three best bowlers. Well because it was the end of the season most of the guys brought Mickeys with them, or fifths, to those Americans who might read this. Some of the guys had started drinking early, and were already half hammered when they got there, so this did a great deal for my accuracy, or more correctly, their inaccuracy this day. I got a turkey for first prize, Max got a turkey for second prize and Cecil S. got one for third prize, Cecil being another non drinker, William D got 4th prize, William working in the office with us, who drank but watched himself. By the time we were ready to go to work I became very worried about these guys who were all smashed but had their cars to drive to work. What could we do. We all headed out and went to work. The Car Department guys started straggling in and staggering across the tracks, it was a sad picture, one guy stumbled and fell across the main line with the GYM watching shaking his head as Max and I rushed out to help the guy up and into the Car Department. The almost whole crew of the eight or ten guys were smashed and staggering across the tracks. We were wondering how anything was going to get done that night. There was a bit of a Jog on Front St. and one on the Carmen never made the jog and got into a head on and wound up in jail for the night. We had to take up a collection to bail him out. I guess that very little got really checked that night for at least four hours anyway. I guess the only funny part to this story was watching the GYM, Elmer H. with the stunned look on his face wondering how he was going to get through the night with almost the entire Car Department hammered.
They did and no one was injured, even in the collision.

Spreading Pornography

George Gray my stepfather worked for the DSC Department of Street Cleaning for the City of Toronto, and in the course of performing his duties of Garbage Man they would pick up Playboy, and Penthouse magazines, as well as many others. When everyone at home had read them I would take them to work and distribute them even further afield. The CNR had their own internal mail system, so I would bring them to work and send them anonymously out across the country mostly to the inaccessible regions where there were no roads, so some guy when opening his mail at Churchill Man. or Moosonee Ont. would open his railroad mail to find a spicy magazine in it not knowing where it came from or why. I sent out hundreds of these out over the years, and in fact other ones that I thought would be of interest, and unavailable to individuals in many remote areas. My only hope is that some one would enjoy them from time to time. I had read an article in the paper one day that said when sending out a cheque, or an income tax return, send a little joke with it, and also an article that mentioned reading material in the remote ares was hard to come by, so I just took it the next step forward.

"Vending Machines"

We have all had problems with vending machines, and one day one of my members from the Diesel Shop came into the office looking for me and asked for me to come out to the cafeteria with him so he could tell me of his problem. He started to tell me of his marital problems, and how his wife was divorcing him and trying to get custody of their children, and how he was not in a very good mood that day. I thought to myself why is he telling me this stuff anyway, I'm not a marriage counsellor, but he goes on to say, he put his money into the machine for a drink, and the drink never came out. He then pressed the button to give him back his money, but the machine refused. Coincidentally he had a Ball Peen hammer in his hand because of some job he was doing, and took it out on the machine, effectively wrecking the machine. I had a pretty good relationship with Ron P. the Shop Foreman, and called him up wondering what to expect. He said don't worry about it they would take a statement and asses the guy 10 demerit points, and pay for repairs or replacement of the machine out of the money the Company got for allowing the machines to be there, which would normally go to the employees recreation fund. I thought it was almost to easy. I was sorry to see Ron P. go.

Mr Pellish, Superintendent MacMillan Yard

Mr Pellish, and I don't know his first name, or if that is how his last name was spelled because he didn't seem to stay around for a long time, called me into his office one day for a chat while I was the Local Chairman, or in other parlance the Grievance Officer, of Local 216 CBRT&GW. I had worked out a deal with the Office Assistant at the yard whereby Jessie H. would be trained for another job after her job was cancelled. The guy who I worked out the deal with Ted N, reneged on the deal. As the Company was always in violation of the Collective Agreement 5.1 in one way or another, because the violations were relatively minor we tended to turn a blind eye to them, until that is we considered ourselves screwed by the Company in some way or another. Then I felt it was time to put voice to these violations in the form of a grievance. I had been thinking of one grievance, and whether to put it in or not, and that was that I f a person was promoted to a non scheduled position but remained on the same job they would lose their seniority in the group they had been. The reason was as far as I was concerned that they took their job with them and no other member of the bargaining unit would be eligible to get that job. The action of the company made my mind up for me, so I put in a grievance for that violation as well as about ten others. Mr. Pellish Superintendent calls me into his office and tells me he feels sorry for me, having to spend a lot of time writing out these grievances. I told him he should not worry about that. He goes on to say that my writing these grievances must take time, that I would be able to devote to my family. I told him that my members were my family, but over and above that, many of the people I worked with went out and enjoyed themselves by bowling, playing hockey, playing cards, and going to the show. I told him I enjoyed writing out grievances and the challenges they provided. Mr. Pellish's jaw sort of drops, and he says that I was the most cynical person that he had ever met. I then told him I considered that a complement, and he says it wasn't meant that way. I told him I knew that, and it didn't matter. I walked out of the office and the main grievance went on to be thrashed out for many years. The Union lost the grievance eventually because of tardiness on their part, but the Company and Union spent much more time and money on it than was really necessary. I never spoke with Mr. Pellish again

" H "


H. was of Ukrainian decent, had a name that couldn't be pronounced, and worked as a Carman, at Bathurst St in the early 1960s. "H" fancied himself a practical joker, and he was of course, as were most others on the Railroad to a varying degree. I was in the East End, North side shanty at the bottom of the hill that leads to Simcoe St. Shed, where the switchtender who operated the puzzle switch was located. I was preparing to phone in an update of a train being made up, and when I put the phone to my ear I felt something funny. When I put my hand to my ear to see what it was, I was surprised that it came back covered in black goo. Someone had doctored the phone with thick black grease, that I got all around the side of my head not to mention inside my ear. I had to go back to the office to clean the side of my head off, and my ear our, which was difficult as this grease went right into my ear. This pissed me off more than it would have if this was directed at me, just the random nature of the deed made me mad. Anyone could have gotten caught this way, and it just happened to be me. I had to go back to the North Side and went into the Car Dept. first as this was the most likely place this type of grease would come from. I questioned a few Carmen, and deduced that it was "H" and when I found out I cooled off, figuring I will get him in the future some time.

The next day I was date stamping the Bills for a train that I had just processed, when "H" comes into the office with a coffee and two packaged doughnuts he had just bought from the coffee man who had just came, and lays the coffee and doughnuts beside the bills I was date stamping. As I am date stamping he says, I guess I got you good yesterday, and as soon as he said that I saw red, and he could tell because he started to move, but not fast enough. I stamped his doughnuts squashing them, and then the coffee, sending it flying all over the office at the same time I was calling him a few choice names at the top of my lungs, everyone in the office looking up to see everything in motion, as well as "H" who by this time was heading for the door, but again not fast enough, as he was going through my boot caught him, on his way out. O f course a lot of the people in the office never knew about the grease in my ear especially the main line Brakemen who were waiting for their Bills. People were asking me what had just happened, and I told them. I never saw "H" the rest of the day. The next day I go into the Car Department and there is "H" with his legs up on the table leaning back, exposing his leg which was all black and blue. I asked him what happened to his leg and he says that's where you kicked me yesterday. I thought good, but said oh that's to bad, I didn't mean for that to happen, and he thinks LIAR, LIAR, and he would have been right.