Ch 14: A fresh start in Owen Sound

       I felt more confident when I went to the Manpower office in Toronto. My first job interview was with Consumer Gas and I was hired right away as a piping draftsman. It turned out to be an awful job. I would spend the whole day making schematic drawings of piping layouts for new houses and subdivisions that were being built around Toronto. But the worst part of the day happened at ten and three o’clock when our office staff, four men and three women, went to the lunch room for a coffee break. We all sat down and tried to make a small talk. Or rather they did. They talked about their kids, school projects, last night’s soap opera, or a hockey game. I knew nothing about these subjects and felt completely left out. When I tried to join the conversation, they would all look at me. Did I say it wrong? Did they understand me? Was my English bad? Ideas like that would go through my head so most of the time I just sat there, pretending I was interested in their gossip.  

        My neighbours in the rooming house were pensioners who spent time in their rooms, and I saw them only in the small kitchen we shared. One was a lonely, talkative man and sometimes it was hard to get away from him. Many weekends I would have nobody to talk to and would pass the time in the new Toronto Library. I tried to save every penny and after a couple of months I had enough money to buy a car. It was a slightly rusted, well-used Volkswagen Beetle. My horizons now expanded immensely and I spent many weekends exploring places outside Toronto. Somehow I managed to sleep in the back seat.

Owen Sound

One day the talkative neighbour brought me a newspaper. “Here is a job just for you” he told me.  Pittsburgh Plate Glass Company (PPG) had opened a new glass plant in Owen Sound, and was looking for mechanical draftsman. I got out the map. Wow, Owen Sound was on the shore of Georgian Bay, north of Toronto!    It looked like a nice place. The job looked interesting. In my old country I had graduated from a College of Glass Technology and later worked in a glass plant as a draftsman. Suddenly everything seemed to be falling into place. My neighbour helped me write a résumé, I mailed it right away and within a week I was invited for an interview. Three weeks later I was standing behind the drafting board in a new office, looking out at Owen Sound’s landscape. The new plant had teething problems, some equipment had to be modified or redesigned, and I was busy making new drawings. Most employees were hired recently and were friendly and easy to work with.

         I found a family that offered room and board in their house. The landlady was cross-eyed and I had trouble talking to her, not knowing where she was looking, but I got used to it. She had two kids: a seven year old cheeky daughter Lori and a fifteen-years-old son who was in a reform school. Lori and I became friends. I understood her school English and I could speak with her without any inhibitions. She could care less about my accent and if she didn’t understand she would ask me to repeat myself. Sometimes I would help her with her school work; her mother didn’t seem to be around much.

One day her friend Lesley came to see the new boarder in the house. She lived just around the corner and they would often visit each other. The three of us got along well. They decided to teach me how to speak “proper” English and every time I made a mistake they would pounce on it. Sometimes they would mock my accent to the consternation of Lorry’s mother, who thought it bad manners, but we thought it was fun. Some weekends I would take them for a drive around Owen Sound in my VW Beetle.

       One day Lesley told me that her mother would like me to come over for a dinner, probably to check me out. Jill Chalmers, the mother, was British through and through, with her accent, manners and thinking. She also had a son Steven, my age, and a nice looking seventeen-year old daughter Margo. Her husband Don was a drug salesman and was away from home most of the time. I got along well with the family and was often invited to come for a visit.

Jill understood my feelings, the apprehensions of a newcomer to Canada. She came to Canada as a war bride; Don had been a Canadian soldier.  They met and married while he was stationed in England.

“Don painted life in Saskatchewan, where his family lived on a farm, in very rosy colours. The reality was quite different. The farm didn’t even have indoor plumbing and used an outhouse for a bathroom.  A huge shock for a girl from London.”

Chalmers hobby farm

The Chalmers had a hobby farm near Port Elgin. I spent many weekends there, helping to fix a fence or windows. Many times their neighbour Alistair dropped in. He was a sheep farmer who lived alone on a nearby farm. Over the years he became a member of the Chalmers family, giving advices on how to farm, spinning yarns, talking local politics and gossiping.                               

        One day Jill told me her neighbour Margaret had a vacancy in her boarding house. “You should go and have a look. It is a much better place than where you are staying now.” I didn’t need much persuasion. My landlady was a lousy cook, sometimes Lori cooked supper because her mother got all dressed up and went out. (Later I heard rumours that my landlady was a part-time hooker. Maybe that’s why people at work raised their eyebrows when I told them where I was living.)

         Margaret was an old spinster and people staying at her place became part of her family. She was an excellent cook and very tolerant of a young man’s behaviour. She was a church-goer and teetotaller who would not allow drinking or even beer in her house and tipsy  roomer had to tiptoe (or tried) at night to his room.    I didn’t have much in common with my roommates even though we were the similar age. During the week they mostly watched TV and on weekends the main entertainment in Owen Sound seemed to be driving endlessly through the main street, pack of beer on the back seat, shouting at other cruisers and at friends on the sidewalk. When it got dark they went to a drive-in movie, the lucky ones curling up in the back seat with a girl friend.

Alistar and the Chalmers family 

Owen Sound was a dry town; restaurants didn’t sell any alcoholic beverages. To have a beer, it was necessary to drive 15 km to a hotel in Chatsworth. Nobody would drive that far to have one beer so customers were going home in various stages of intoxication. Every two years there was a referendum on whether the town should stay dry and the radio waves and newspapers were full of intimidating ads.

“There will be drunkards in streets, tourists will avoid the town, schoolchildren will be bothered by drunks, some church goers will skip the service and go to a bar…blah, blah, blah.” A small scandal erupted when it was revealed that a big contributor to the Dry side was the hotel in Chatsworth.

       A year went by and my vacation was coming up. Where should I go? We were talking about it in the office. I mentioned Miami Beach; it was in the news the night before. It just happened that Nick, a burly Dutch foreman of a construction crew working in the plant came to the office. He liked to tease me, always looking for mistakes in my drawings.

“You will never make it to Miami Beach with that piece of junk you are driving. I bet you fifty bucks,“ he yelled at me. Nick had hurt my feelings. My Volkswagen was old, but not a piece of junk. I took good care of it. It ran like a clock. Suddenly I had a purpose and challenge to my trip. “OK, it is a bet” I told him and we shook hands.   

Leslie is polishing my VW