A Time Before Facebook

By Jimmy James Jr.

The first book in a series about a young boy named Jimmy growing up in Northern Idaho and Southeastern British Columbia at a time when computers, email and social networking were unheard of. His father was from the USA and his mother was from across the border in Canada. The stories are true, but some persons and events have been fictionalized where necessary. This is the author's first work, and although it is primarily targeted toward adults, it is written from a young boy's perspective, and thus may also be appropriate and entertaining for teenagers.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Jimmy James Jr.
• Release date: Dec 11, 2013
• ISBN: 9781311613134

Jimmy James Jr.

Jimmy James Jr. was born on August 27, 1952 in Creston, BC (British Columbia), Canada. He is the oldest of three brothers born to James Sr. (deceased), and his wife Marlene. Their other two children were Donny (deceased) and Mikey. After his father was killed in 1957, Jimmy Jr's. mother remarried Jerry Lee from Washington State, and they had four more children; Kelly, Connie, Patricia and Mark.Although Jimmy Jr. had always wanted to write during his younger years, the necessities of life always seemed to get into the way. Between managing a career and playing bass guitar in various bands, there just never seemed to be the time to write. He was married twice, and after the two divorces, he spent much of his time working and raising his three children. His oldest son Paul’s mother was Nancy, and was Jim’s hometown sweetheart. His second son Jesse’s mother, Janice, was a singer who Jim met in Courtenay, BC when he was the bass player in a local country band.It was not until 2011, after almost 33 years working in Government, that he retired and was finally able to find adequate time to begin his new career - writing. His daughter Harmonie graduated from high school the same month that he retired, and left to begin her new life at University.This first book and the following volumes are biographical stories about a young boy growing up in Bonners Ferry, a small town in Northern Idaho. They begin with his first memories of his family and friends, and continue through his high school years when the family moved north across the border to Creston, BC.He would like to thank his mother, Marlene, for assisting with the primary editing and his dear friend Linka for doing the intensive editing. Also Kasey for her fantastic book cover artwork.Jimmy is currently living the winter months in Mexico and nearby warmer climates; and the summer months on his boat in British Columbia.

Book preview

A Time Before Facebook -

Ghosts and Skeletons

By Jimmy James Jr.

Copyright 2014 Jimmy James Jr.

Smashwords Edition

This eBook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This eBook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

CHAPTER, TITLE

INTRODUCTION

Chapter 1, ALFIE

Chapter 2, THE COUNTY FAIR

Chapter 3, THE NORTHSIDE STORE

Chapter 4, THE METERMAN

Chapter 5, SNOW CRICK

Chapter 6, GHOST AND SKELETON TRAILS

Chapter 7, PLAY GUNS AND FIRECRACKERS

Chapter 8, FRISBEES

Chapter 9, LENIS SLAGE

Chapter 10, WILD DUCKS

Chapter 11, THE DEAD ROBIN

Chapter 12, I LOVE BOATS

Chapter 13, GOODBYE BLACKIE

Chapter 14, THE BEEHIVE

Chapter 15, BB GUNS

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

*****

Ghosts and Skeletons

*****

INTRODUCTION

I am writing these books so my children can get a small glimpse of the lives of some of their relatives whom they were never able to meet. I can’t give them direct memories, but at least I can give them some idea of what these amazing people were like, and the affect that they had on my life while I was growing up.

I was so young when I visited my great-grandparents that my memories of them are vague, at best, and I wish that I had a clearer recollection of their lives to pass on to my children and grandchildren. My daughter only briefly met her Great Grandpa Bicca on one occasion, and by that time, all of her great-grandparents had already passed away before she could get to know them even a little bit.

Thanks to my daughter for naming this series of books. Also, thank you to my mother for her valuable input and clarification of story accuracy, and my dear friend Linka for her work with the final editing. The cover of this book was again designed by Kasey, whom I consider a very talented artist. More of her work is now available for viewing at:

Kasey D - Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Kasey-D-ART/448556778608388

Although the stories in these books are all interconnected, they come from memories of my distant childhood, and I must apologize for bouncing back and forth in time periodically. All of the people, places and events in this book are real. However, some of the names have been changed out of respect for people’s right to privacy.

ALFIE

After my father died, my mother was left to raise me and my two younger brothers, Donny and Mikey. I wasn’t yet five years old. I'm sure it was very difficult for Mom, but as for me, I have only a few distinct memories during that period of my life. Sure I remember some of the major incidents, but I’m not sure whether they are my real memories, or those implanted by my relatives through later conversations.

For example, I can plainly picture myself lying on the table after being bathed by my Grandma Bicca. She is rubbing baby oil all over me, and as she reaches my tummy, I start peeing all over her and directly into her mouth. I know that I really don't remember this because I was under a year old at the time, but I've heard the story so many times that I think of it as my own memory. Grandma laughed about this story for years and loved to tell it, particularly in front of me.

My most vivid memory about my life before the age of seven, which I know is my own because I have never told a soul about it until now, occurred sometime after my father's death. I don't know how long it took me, but I had finally grasped a child’s understanding of the fact that Dad was never coming back. I can remember that the realization struck me one particular night, sometime after Dad's funeral, while I was lying in bed trying unsuccessfully to fall asleep. I began crying, I thought for no particular reason.

Maybe this was the first time that I had cried for someone other than for my own needs or desires, or what the hell, maybe I was crying for the emptiness my dad had left in the family when he died. I don't know. I do know that I didn't want to wake anyone else, so I pulled the covers off and crawled quietly underneath my bed. I curled up into a ball and cried myself to sleep. It created quite a stir the next morning when Mom couldn't find me anywhere in the house.

She asked me why on earth I was sleeping underneath the bed, and I replied I miss Daddy. I don't believe that she knew that I had cried myself to sleep, and had been under the bed all night, but perhaps this incident guided my mother in future parenting decisions regarding her ‘three boys’. Maybe not. All I know is she was always extremely protective of us after that, and did her best to keep us away from any more tragedy.

Before continuing with my story, I would like to give you a brief family history which will, hopefully, bring you up to date on my life until the present. It should only be about a page long, and it would be a good page to take note of because it will establish a foundation for this entire series of books.

As I have previously mentioned, my father's immediate family consisted of Grandpa (Henry Raymond) and Grandma (Anna Elizabeth) Sparling, and Dad’s five brothers and two sisters, Uncle Bob, Frank, Don, Ray and Bill, and Aunt Beth and Eunice. Grandpa was born in Missouri and Grandma in Copeland, Idaho. Before they were married, Grandpa lived in Montana throughout the 1940’s.

There he met some very interesting characters while he was working as a cowhand, but soon he moved to Idaho, married Grandma, and they began thinking about a family. Grandpa decided that he needed a more reliable profession, and they finally decided that the lumber business was becoming prosperous in northern Idaho. Maybe they should start a business and family there.

He took his last month’s pay in horses, packed up his few precious belongings and headed west to Bonners Ferry, Idaho. There they began what was to become one of the more productive logging and sawmill operations in Boundary County -- and the family they created wasn't bad either. I think you might describe Grandpa as a bit of an eccentric, because he was the only person I knew of that had built a special garage behind his house for his four logging trucks. It was even heated with a woodstove for god’s sake.

All of his sons participated in the family business. They either worked in the bush, drove logging trucks, or did various jobs in the sawmill downtown. Dad became Grandpa’s right-hand man by managing all of the sawmill operations -- from production to sales and shipping. Dad was given this job because he was a genius at remembering numbers and customer order information. He was still working at the mill, but had just joined the army, when he met my mother.

As previously mentioned, Mom was born and raised in Creston, B.C. A small town located about 30 miles north of Bonners Ferry, in Canada. Mom and Dad met in 1949 and were engaged in 1950 and married in 1951, and then I came along in 1952. I’m sure that those were four pretty darn exciting years in their lives. Dad had been stationed in Greenland during mom’s pregnancy, so Mom was staying with Grandma and Grandpa Bicca in Creston, where I was born, while he was overseas.

In 1954, my brother Donny (Donald Raymond) was born in Bonners Ferry, and in 1956 my youngest brother Mikey (Michael Blaine) was also born there. Dad was killed in 1957. I don't really remember much about him, but there was a lot of controversy surrounding his death. My family to this day still believes he was murdered. He had been working undercover with the Idaho Border Patrol trying to stop the flow of drugs between Canada and the United States.

Some witnesses said that he lost control of his car on a corner and rolled over an embankment and was killed instantly. Others said that he had tried to run them off of the road. Still others said that when they arrived, his car was upside down on the side of the road and he was sitting there holding his head. They asked if he needed help, and some men that were with him said that they would see that he was taken to the hospital. No one will ever know what really happened.

Many times I have driven by the small white cross on the side of the road in Montana which marks the spot where he died. Grandpa and Grandma Sparling used to take us three kids on Sunday drives there a lot too. Dad actually died from his injuries in the hospital in Libby, Montana, but the white cross is placed along the highway where the accident took place.

Anyway, after Dad’s death, Mom, Donny, Mikey and I all moved up to Creston where I began my first year of school -- kindergarten. Half-way through, Mom re-married and that summer we moved back to Bonners Ferry, only this time with a new dad. To this day I’m not sure if Mom married for love, or was thinking of the best interests of her three children.

While Mom was dating this new man, I refused to acknowledge the fact that he could someday become our new ‘dad’. But by the wedding day, I had completely discarded this childish attitude, and he has been my dad ever since. For me he was a fantastic father to us kids during this period in our lives.

He was a mechanic, and not only that, he was a race car driver who had the most beautiful stock car I had ever seen. He stored it in the garage and we kids used to play race driver in it whenever we got the chance. I don’t ever remember seeing him drive that car in a race, because after marrying Mom, he decided to enter into a more stable trade and a few years later the car was sold. He was soon working at a local car dealership as a mechanic, and then a few years later, decided to try the trucking and then the logging business.

Our new dad was divorced from his previous wife, and he had two children, Doug and Guy Lee, who were living in La Grande, Oregon. Doug came to visit us during many summer vacations, but Guy Lee hardly ever got to come and visit, and my relationship with them was somewhat less amiable than Dad had hoped for. Anyway, it takes a special man to take on the responsibility of raising someone else's children and I will never forget him for that.

When we moved back to Bonners Ferry we stayed in a motel for a few months while Dad and Mom enlarged our old house that we had previously lived in on the Northside. The motel was located in the centre of town right next to the river and the living space left a lot to be desired. But our stay was short. We finally were able to move back into our old house across the river on the Northside of town. It was shortly before this move to the new house that I first met Alfie. I was almost six years old and had seen him before with Roy and Donny, but never actually talked to him.

One day as I was hanging out with my dog, Blackie, catching grasshoppers on the embankment between the motel and the dike road, I saw him riding with determination towards me on his bicycle. It was a sunny July day and I had finished Kindergarten in Canada a couple of weeks before. The thrill of my first summer vacation and the fact we were back in Idaho was finally starting to take effect. I cautiously watched him approach me and noticed his concentration, and can you believe the luck, just before he got to me his bike chain slipped off the front sprocket. I decided that my almost six years of experience could possibly be of some help to him so I started climbing up the bank towards him as he got off his bike.

Kids are not very good at judging ages and I placed Alfie’s age at pretty old. He was as big as Dad anyway. He was wearing a white short sleeved T-shirt, gray coveralls and an old green Army coat. His top teeth had gaps between them and were covered with brown stains, and it looked like he hadn't shaved in at least a couple of days. Even though he wasn't much to look at, his eyes quickly told you that he was a friend. As I analyzed him I noticed that possibly he wasn’t quite as old as I thought at first glance. His bicycle wasn't an eighteen-speed or a racing bike, it was an old rusty red bicycle of the late 1950's with wide handle bars and a wire basket on the front. It might have even been a Schwinn under all the rust. The color reminded me of the wagon Donny and I had found a few days ago.

As I walked up to him, he had already bent over and was inspecting the chain. He had one hand on the handle bars and the other on the seat and was facing the opposite direction from me.

Hi, is your bike broke? I asked cautiously.

He slowly straightened up, turned around to face me. The chain came off, he said shaking and then scratching his head.

Can you fix it? I asked.

Yeah, it always comes off, he replied, in what I thought sounded like a southern drawl.

I thought that he seemed interesting, but sounded a little funny. I knew that up until that time the only people I had seen riding bikes were kids. And here was a full-grown man riding a bicycle, and it was just a little bit bigger than the ones I had been looking at at Western Auto. As I thought about this, I began to feel that this person seemed pretty darn amazing to me. I didn’t know it then, but local adults always called him slow, handicapped and even retarded.

Can I help? I asked, with obvious enthusiasm in my voice.

Sure can, he said, wait till I get the chain ready. He looped the chain around the back sprocket and started looping it over the front sprocket by the pedals. I noticed that there didn't seem to be enough chain to go all the way around the front sprocket.

Okay, when I say so, grab the seat and lift up the back of the bike until the tire comes off the ground, he said, looking at me for confirmation that I understood.

Okay, I said.

Go, Alfie quickly said.

I was caught a little off guard, but then put all of my strength into lifting the seat to get that back tire off of the ground. When it had barely lifted an inch, Alfie started to slowly turn the pedal in the direction he would as if he was riding the bike. The chain neatly slipped onto the front sprocket. The sweat was starting to trickle into my eyes and I asked, Can I put it down now?

Sure, he said, and I let the bike drop like a ton of bricks.

What a neat trick. I would have to remember how we did that, just in case the same thing ever happened to me one day when I got a bike. As I started to walk around to the front of the bike an object in the basket caught my attention. It looked like a piece of a branch of a tree about a foot long and about an inch thick. The strange thing I noticed was that about half way along the branch it was no longer a branch, but looked more like a metal chain.

What's that? I asked, pointing into the basket.

A wood chain, he said, glancing in the direction of the basket.

Where'd you get it? I asked.

Made it, he replied.

Really?

Yup.

How? I asked.

With this, he said, reaching into his pocket and pulling out a small black pocket knife. That's one of the things I liked about Alfie, he always answered every one of my questions, no matter how ridiculous they may have seemed.

Can I look at it? I asked, glancing towards the bike basket.

Sure, he answered.

I gently picked it up, holding it on the stick end with the chain end dangling down, and swinging back and forth. I couldn't believe that anyone could carve a chain out of an ordinary piece of wood. I looked at it totally stunned and then swung it back and forth a couple of times. I regret to this day that I never asked Alfie for one of his chains ‘cause he was always making them.

Alfie swung his leg over the bike and sat straddling it and looked at me. I handed him back his partially completed chain and he threw it back into the basket.

Still looking at the basket, and probably still appearing somewhat dumfounded, I asked, What's your name?

Alfie, he said, What's yours?

Jimmy, I replied.

Thanks, Jimmy, he said, and he began to pedal off down the dike road. He looked back over his shoulder and said, See ya.

Bye Alfie, I hollered after him.

He pedalled off into the distance and I watched him as if in a trance until he finally went around a slight bend in the river. I didn't know when, but I knew that someday I would see him again. I couldn't wait.

Later that night I told Dad about Alfie. He said that he knew who I was talking about and told me a story that he had once heard about Alfie. Alfie lived on the other side of the river along the Northside Dike Road, over by our Northside house that we were going to move back into. It seems that one day before he owned a bike, he decided that he wanted to go to town. It was about a mile walk to the Black Bridge, so Alfie decided that it would be easier and faster to just swim across the river -- the water was warm. When Dad told me this, I shivered, thinking about what Mom had told us about currents and drowning.

Alfie put his clothes into a plastic bag so that they would be dry when he reached the other side and slid down into the river just in front of his house. He started swimming across and the current slowly took him down river as he swam. About three quarters of the way across he began to get very tired and started to think that maybe he couldn't make it all the way across. So he turned around and swam back. Then he walked to town.

Dad thought that this was pretty funny and laughed so loud I could see the gap where he had lost one of his teeth. I didn’t get the joke because my first thought was that Alfie must be a really good swimmer. That river must be at least a mile across (kids have big imaginations). I sure wouldn’t want to try it. Now why was that story so darned funny?

Anyway, over the next few weeks, I saw Alfie many times but was never able to talk to him because he was usually riding his bike and I was in the car with Dad or Mom. But on one of these occasions I was riding with Dad to the dump and I finally got to meet Alfie again. The dump was located about two miles up-river along the same dike road where our motel was located -- in other words, on the other side of the river from Alfie’s house.

Just before the dump, a dirt road went off to the right and then down beside the river. Where these two roads met someone had built a little lean-to in the bushes just off the road. Dad and I went past this little road and continued up a small hill that circled up above the river, and at the top on our right was the place for trucks to park and dump their garbage. We had to be careful because the dump was located in a gully way below us and as we backed up I could see it was a long way down to the garbage. I asked Dad who the lean-to that we passed earlier belonged to and he said Alfie. Neat.

It was really scary up on the hill above the dump. When I looked down at all of the garbage it was like being on top of a huge cliff like at Grandpa Sparling’s. I stood by the back of the truck and looked down and couldn't believe what I saw there. Alfie was down below searching through the garbage. He looked like he was looking for something he lost.

Blackie took off down this little path that led to the bottom of the dump ravine. I didn’t know it then, but Alfie spent many days at the dump living in his lean-to and searching for discarded and maybe valuable articles that people had thrown away.

Hey Dad, there's Alfie, I said.

Yep, he replied looking quite bored.

What's he doing? I asked.

Scavenging, he replied.

What's scabbaging? I asked.

Looking for junk to take home, Dad said.

Can I go down and help him look? I asked.

Okay the trail is over there but be careful going down. I'll call you when we're ready to go, he said, all in one mouthful. Blackie was already almost next to Alfie by now.

I scurried down the embankment along this really dusty trail, sliding half of the way down on my bum, and finally reached the bottom in a cloud of dust. I brushed off my butt and started running in Alfie’s direction dodging piles of garbage along the way. When I finally reached him I stopped, and, still puffing said, Hi Alfie, remember me?

Hi Jimmy. Sure I do, he replied, giving me his stained teeth smile. Is this your dog?

Yep, his name’s Blackie, I replied proudly.

What you guys doin’ here? he asked seriously. I think he may have been worried that we might steal some of his garbage.

Nothin’, I said, I'm just helping Dad dump the garbage. What are you doin’?

I'm lookin’ for good stuff to sell, he said.

Can I help? I asked.

Sure.

We walked through the piles of garbage slowly. Alfie was very serious in his search, stopping often and kicking over garbage to see what was underneath, and sometimes bending over to examine some priceless article more closely. I didn't have any idea what he was looking for, but I followed behind him trying to figure out exactly what he thought was valuable.

Is that your lean-to back at the bottom of the hill? I asked.

Yup, he said, not paying much attention to me at all.

Do you live there? I asked.

Nope, he replied, I live with my mom on the other side of the river.

How come you have a lean-to here if you have a house too? I asked. He just kept working and answering all my questions.

Sometimes I stay overnight here at the dump when I find good stuff, he said, or if it gets too late to go home.

Oh, I said.

A voice from the top of the hill reached my ears about that time, and before I could find out what exactly we were looking for, I had to say my goodbyes to Alfie. I worked my way through the garbage pile to the bank and clawed my way back up the hill to Dad and the truck. On the way home I didn't talk much because I was thinking about Alfie and his mother and the lean-to. What a neat life he had living with his mom across the river, plus having a little house at the dump and being able to stay overnight by himself. Wow, that was neat. Alfie sure was lucky.

Kids will sometimes meet someone in their small worlds that really impresses them, and if they’re not careful, they can forget who the really important people in their lives are. It’s not like the new person is better or anything, just something different and interesting. That’s kind of the way I felt about Alfie. He could whittle wooden chains out of a stick, he could ride a bike like the wind and he could live all by himself overnight in a lean-to at the dump. He could also talk to kids just like a kid, even though he was a full-grown man.

One day, not too long after one of these 'dump' excursions, I went to my tiny cottage room that I shared with Donny and laid down feeling like I was trapped in this place, like it was a tiny dark cave. Maybe that was because I had been grounded after Donny’s popcorn seed incident. I still couldn’t believe he had actually eaten ‘Drano’, thinking it was popcorn kernels. He was lucky to be alive, and I was lucky to have only been grounded for a few days.

I started daydreaming and thought about all the open space at the dump and the fun Blackie and I could have there. It was still a nice afternoon outside, and, as I looked out our window at the dike, I thought, boy it would sure be nice to live in a cool lean-to at the dump rather than this little shack of a home.

I started having these same thoughts of Alfie and the dump the next day when Blackie and I were exploring in the junk pile. I climbed up the bank of the dike and looked off way to my right. I could see the Water Meter Shack on the dike near the corner of the Dike Road and the Silver Bridge. My best friend, Roy, and I always liked to walk to the Water Meter Shack with our two dogs, Blackie and Moochie, and peek at the gauge inside that told how deep the river was.

It was a beautiful afternoon, and Donny was still a little sick from his popcorn seed episode, so he stayed inside. Sometimes when you are exploring and looking at interesting stuff, you kind of lose track of the time and when my stomach started rumbling for lunch, Blackie and I started to climb down the bank.

When we came through the back door, Mom wasn’t there, and neither were Donny and Mikey. Dad must still be at work. I wasn’t sure why they had left me by myself but our tiny cottage was completely empty. I felt totally abandoned and alone. I looked in the front yard for them just to be sure they hadn’t really deserted me, and no one was there and the car was gone. Well if my family had left me, I guess I better find a new place to live. Now what is the first place that came to my mind? Alfie’s lean-to at the dump, of course.

I looked around inside the motel for stuff I might need but then decided that I probably wouldn’t need to take anything because Alfie would already have all kinds of stuff at the lean-to. Blackie and I slipped out the back door and climbed up the bank to the Dike Road and started heading for the dump. I was feeling pretty good about my decision and was smiling to myself as Blackie and I walked slowly towards the dump. But as I thought some more, and walked farther, my mood slowly started to change.

I looked way up ahead of me and couldn’t believe it. The hill at the dump where Alfie lived sure did look a long ways away. It seemed so much closer when Dad and I drove there in the truck the other day. As Blackie and I walked along I thought to myself, why did Mom and Dad leave me? I had been good and hadn’t caused much trouble. I hadn’t even complained once about the tiny little room we were living in at the motel or being grounded. It would have been nice if they would have told me that they were leaving me all by myself.

Maybe they just had to go somewhere with Donny and Mikey and forgot to tell me. That could be it. Maybe they just couldn’t find me and had to go somewhere fast, but that was crazy. Blackie and I were just up on the dike playing. If they wanted to tell me they were going they could have just yelled out the back door to me. Hey, if they were going to yell out the back door, why not just come and get me. Besides, they shouldn’t leave a little kid like me all alone and drive off somewhere anyway.

They must be trying to get rid of me. As I walked along thinking all of these thoughts I started to get a little sad. I must have done something that I didn’t know about to get them so upset that they didn’t want me anymore. I actually started to cry a little then feeling totally abandoned and unloved, and as we walked farther along the road, I knew my decision to live with Alfie was the right one. I’m sure he would take care of me, and not leave me alone without telling me.

I looked up into the sky, and the sun was just getting ready to hit the mountain top up ahead of me. We only had a couple more hours of light, and I had better pick up the pace if I wanted to reach Alfie’s lean-to before dark. I definitely didn’t want to be walking along this road after dark. I might not be able to find his lean-to if it was pitch black outside.

As we got to about the half-way point between our little motel shack and the dump, I heard a vehicle coming up behind us. We moved over to the edge of the dirt road, and I continued walking along thinking of how terrible my parents had treated me. The vehicle behind me slowed down as it got close to us, just like all cars did when I was walking along this narrow dirt road. Then it pulled to a stop right beside Blackie and me. That’s when I noticed it was Dad in the truck, and he already had his window rolled down.

Where are you and Blackie heading? he asked seriously.

We’re going to Alfie’s at the dump, I said with tears in my eyes, why did you and Mom leave us?

I could see that Dad was now upset about something, and he said, Your mom had to take Donny to the doctor’s because he wasn’t feeling good. It was something to do with the poison he ate the other day I think.

I breathed a huge sigh of relief. Mom hadn’t deserted me and Blackie, and only had to rush Donny to the doctors’ office. She probably didn’t have time to come looking for me and had to quickly leave before she could tell me. Now I felt a little better and said, Oh, okay, sniffling.

Do you and Blackie want to jump in the truck and go home for supper? Dad continued.

Sure, I said, as I ran around to the passenger side of the truck. Dad reached over and opened the door for Blackie and me, and we both jumped in. Now, of course, we had to drive all the way to the hill at the dump to turn around. As we got to the bottom of the hill where Alfie’s lean-to was located, we noticed that he wasn’t even there. I would have walked all that way just to find out that he was at home on the other side of the river today.

You know Jimmy, your mom and I would never leave you kids alone, even for a minute, unless it was an emergency, Dad said as we drove along the road.

Okay, Dad, I thought you had got tired of me or something, I replied sadly.

We’d never get tired of you Jimmy, and we’re sorry you thought that, he continued, but your mom really couldn’t find you, and she had to get Donny to the doctor’s right away.

Okay I said, and the matter seemed to be resolved.

But next time you go off with Blackie, try to stay a little closer to the house so we can find you, okay? he said, looking at me seriously.

We will, I replied, hoping the discussion was finally over.

I decided that I would have to give leaving home a little more thought the next time and only go to places where I knew someone would be. Like maybe Grandpa and Grandma Sparling’s or Rosanna’s house. It would have been really scary to get to Alfie’s lean-to at dark and find no one there, and have to spend the night in the dark with only Blackie to keep me company.

We turned around and headed back along the Dike Road towards our little motel cottage. I looked behind us and saw a plume of dust rising up from the road behind us. I couldn’t even see the hill and the dump behind us now. But I sure could see the river better sitting up here in the truck. The Kootenay River sure was a dirty river. The water looked more like mud than water. We got to our little road that went down from the dike beside our motel, and pulled up to our cottage. It was nice to be home again.

It was a few weeks later, after we had moved into our house on the Northside, that my best friend, Roy, and I decided to walk into town for some crazy reason. For someone our ages this would be quite a journey to make alone. To get to town from my new house we had to walk down a long hill beside a dirt road which eventually led up a smaller hill and ended at the north side Dike Road. From there we had to walk about a mile down-river to reach the Silver Bridge. We called it the Silver Bridge because it was made of steel and was painted, what else, silver. This bridge was built for car traffic and also had a walkway on one side for pedestrian use.

About three quarters to the Silver Bridge the Dike Road veered off just before the railway tracks. At the railway tracks was another bridge that went across the river. We called it the Railway Bridge or the Black Bridge. The Railway Bridge was made of big black sticky wooden beams, not steel like the Silver Bridge. Way before the Railway Bridge was Alfie’s house.

Roy and I were almost to the Railway Bridge when we heard the sound of a bicycle bell ringing behind us. We turned around and there was Alfie closing in on us. A small cloud of dust was billowing up behind him. Alfie knew us pretty good now and whenever he saw us, which was a lot now I was back on the Northside, he would stop to talk and show us any new neat stuff he had found. He always had something cool in his bike basket.

Today all he had was a few pieces of wood that he had started carving chains out of. I wondered what he did with all the wooden chains that he whittled. He always seemed to be making one of these chains and I betcha he must have a hundred of them at home. I secretly wished that he would one day give me one of his chains. But that never did happen. Too bad.

Alfie stopped his bike beside us and today he was only wearing his coveralls and no shirt. It was a hot day and I didn’t blame him for not wearing his shirt. He smiled at Roy and Blackie and Moochie and me and said, Hi Jimmy, hi Roy, whatcha doin?

We’re going downtown for a while, Roy said.

Me too, Alfie said calmly, Do you wanna come with me?

Sure, Roy and I both said together excitedly.

We were about 100 feet from the Black Bridge and we all headed towards the train tracks together, Alfie walking his bike now. Blackie and Moochie ran up ahead and explored on both sides of the Dike Road. It was funny but there were Dike Roads on both sides of the river and we all called them both the Dike Road. You could get them mixed up once in a while if you didn’t know what you were talking about. We got to the place where the Dike Road veered away from the riverbank, and Alfie started to wander over to the side of the road closest to the river.

Within about a minute he suddenly went over the bank and disappeared. What the heck, was he going to swim across the river or something? Roy and I wandered across the road behind him and peered down the bank to see what he was doing. He had gone down the bank about 20 feet along a small path and there he had hidden his bike behind some bushes. Oh,