In 1963, our family moved into the Campbellton area. This was in Campbell River, on the north side of town, but somehow it felt like a community of its own. We leased an old farmhouse with about half an acre of land and a fruit tree orchard. It was the remains of a much larger farm that had been hewed from the forest at the turn of the century. The house was pretty old and was poorly electrified with only 30 amps, and it had wood heat in the form of a fireplace. It had been built in 1898. The island highway ran right through Campbellton, and we had our own bank and overwaitea store grocery store. Just down the road toward Campbell River was the Terminal Cafe, where I would go for donuts and pie.
Our house was across the road from the shores of the river. Our orchard was full of apple, plum and cherry trees. I would spend hours out there eating whatever fruit was in season. I would climb high into the trees in pursuit of this feast. One late afternoon, I was going up an apple tree when I managed to get my left knee stuck in the crotch of the tree. I could not get it loose. I was in the farthest apple tree in our yard and not visible from the house. I struggled to get loose, as well as calling for help for more than an hour. No one heard me. No one missed me. Finally, Mom noticed that it had turned into night, and I was not home yet. She came out on the porch and began to call for me. I called back to say that I was stuck in a tree. It was taking forever for Mom and Dad to try to get me free, and it finally took the help of two of my older siblings to free me. When I was eventually pulled free, my knee was twice its normal size. That knee has given me trouble since that day.
Being across the road from the river meant riverbank access, which allowed us kids to fish whenever we wanted. The fishing was great in the river. You were guaranteed to catch a fish just about anywhere you dropped a line. Sometimes we would fish off the logging bridge, where we could access both shores. Good fishing there, but when those fatboy trucks crossed the bridge, you had to run like hell to get off. So we mostly fished from the Silver Bridge. It was hard to get the fish up to the bridge, with plenty of them shaking loose on the journey up. So I got this grand idea that if I tied one end of a long rope to the bridge and the other to a big inner tube, I could float out right into the middle of the river. I had not thought this through very well, but as I was only 8, it’s understandable. One thought should have been, how in the hell would I get back to shore? The next thought should have been just where the tube would end up; it seems it happened to be right in a set of rapids, and as the tube reached the end of the rope, it started to dive under, then shoot up over and over with me going underwater each time. I could not let go of the tube as I did not know how to swim. My tackle box and rod were gone, and I was screaming for help. It took the Campbell River Fire Department to save my ass. Sometimes my stupidity amazed even me. My dad would always say that one day I would wind up dead from my crazy-ass foolishness. I have had many close calls, but I always seem to squeak through. I always think of my dad’s words in times like that; he would say, “dammit, boy, you’ve got to think things through”.
Our neighbourhood was a great place for kids to grow up. There were school-age children in most of the homes found along our street. I had many friends here. There was one oversized, loud mouthed, obnoxious kid who was a bully. I always had to be on the lookout for him. He had discovered that if he punched me in the bread basket, I would not be able to catch my breath. I would wind up on the ground, gasping for air. He took great pleasure in this. The first day we moved here, he did this. He threatened to beat me up if I went into a yard and got him a container of raspberries. When I brought them to him, he gave me a black eye and left me lying on the ground. He told me that if he ever caught me stealing berries from his cousin’s place again, it would be worse. I was 8. Years later, in a camp up the coast, I ran into him. When he realized who I was, he tried to bully me again. He was not successful this time, and he found himself lying on the ground with a black eye and a bleeding nose. He left camp the next day.