Dana Allen attended Cartierville Elementary School from kindergarten (Mrs. Carpenter) to grade 6 (1957-1963)
I am pleased to share with you (with Dana’s permission) the following message from Dana Allen:
I attended Cartierville Elementary School from kindergarten (Mrs. Carpenter) to grade 6 (1957 – 1963). My father also attended the school. He passed away 10 years ago at the age of 83. I grew up on Somerset Road.
I have a number of great memories of the school from “beaners” that were dealt out after having your hair cut to flipping cards against the outside wall (knock down leaners and furthies), baseball on the front lawn, and British bulldog.
Cartierville School, May 2015. Scott Munro photo. Click on the photo to enlarge it; click again to enlarge it further.
One episode you may find amusing was this. The night before I went to school I had a dream I could fly. I was in kindergarten at that time and I am sure everyone can remember the cement stairs that lead into the classroom from the outside. I was so convinced I could fly that I convinced a classmate (Andy Fyon) to get on my back. He did, I jumped, but did not fly. I just couldn’t understand why it had not worked!!
Dana Allen
[End of text]
Click here for previous posts about Cartierville School >
Comment from Jaan Pill:
Wonderful to read your message Dana!
I love that flying through the air story. I remember a time in high school I was convinced that the bar for the high jump (at a track and field competition) would not be able to be set up high enough, for the incredible jump I was going to make. Then came the actual day and I realized that I was not the most awesome high jumper in the world after all! What a shock that was, after all my imaginings.
[End of text]
Update
In the Comments below, we have a discussion about the Buck Buck game. I didn’t know what the game was about until Heather Anne Liddell let me know of the Buck Buck videos that are available on YouTube. The following video provides a good depiction of the game:
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That’s remarkable, Dana, that your father also attended the school. That fact reminds me of how long the school had already been around, by the time the 1950s and 1960s came around. I remember it as a delightful school. The Grade 4 year that I spent at the school in the 1950s had a lasting and positive impact on me. It was a school that I remember particularly well, of all of my elementary school years.
Dana,
I really enjoyed reading your story and recognized your family name as one my father talked about as I believe he knew your Dad, (if his name was Frankie) as I remember when we were in the IGA on Keller one day when I was visiting Montreal, we ran into him and my Dad and yours had a nice chat. This might have been in 2002 or 2003 as my Dad had been diagnosed with lung cancer, and was telling him about it. My Dad was also a warden at the Church of the Good Shepherd. I attended Cartierville school in 1957-8, for only kindergarten in the afternoons, I believe, also in Mrs. Carpenter’s class. Some of my classmates were: Derek Wong, Craig & Neil Booth, Janet Jones, and Paul Vinet. The only one I am still in contact with is Derek Wong.
Some of the things I do remember from kindergarten was playing the triangle in the little musical band, and having a great deal of trouble mastering my timing, also, at the end of the year, making our little graduation caps out of sky blue construction paper with a little a yellow tassle, also from yellow construction paper. I missed quite a bit of school that year as I had many colds and infections and eventually had my tonsils and adnoids out, which also caused an extended absence.
I remember very well those cement stairs to the classroom, truly enjoyed your dream of flying over those stairs.
I believe my father also attended the school as he grew up on Cousineau, which used to be called Lefebre, back in the day. My Dad’s name was Clifford Scott Liddell, he also paddled at the Cartierville Boating Club where we were members until I graduated from MCHS.
I was then enrolled into a French Boarding school, and lost touch with many of my Cartierville school friends until many years later when I attended Malcom Campbell High School until graduation in 1970.
Sadly, my Dad passed on October 5, 2003 at 82 years of age. I have been residing in Etobicoke, Ontario since 1978.
Heather Anne Liddell
Heather
You and I must have been classmates in kindergarten. My father’s name was Frank and my brother was called Frankie. My brother could often be seen sitting in his wheelchair at the front of our home.
Other names that I remember from elementary school are Andy Fyon, Eugene Hoyano, Janet Jones, Chris Wade, Neil Booth, Cyril Michaelson, Hazel Seale, Dawn Carpenter, Derek Wong, Ronnie Birkens, Gary Wagner, Bruce MacLean and Gary Lambertz. I have lost touch with most of them.
I find this posting quite interesting. I would never have thought someone might initiate it, but I am glad Jaan did.
I’m really pleased that you got in touch with us Dana as a result of previous posts that were in place, regarding Cartierville School. I so much like the fact that we are able to re-establish connections, as a result of stories that people have shared online. Such re-connecting is a wonderful thing; we owe thanks to each person who continues to make such re-connecting possible.
I have just found this entry from Dana Allen and thought he would be interested to know that as a teenager I regularly babysat for his brother on Somerset Road. I have often wondered what eventually happened to him. I would love to hear from Dana.
Sadly my brother passed away in 1990 (age 40). He had numerous health issues that ultimately caught up with him.
I went to Cartierville School and grew up on Somerset Street as well..I remember playing four square at recess..I do not remember the years I attended. However, I do remember in Grade One I completed a math test before everyone else and I had nothing to do so I drew a boat on the corner of the test. When the teacher saw this she sent me to the corner!! I am still dramatized 54 years later! MCHS was my high school until I graduated in 1979. Memories of school dances and Baby Duck!
Dana,
Your story about flight reminds me of many stories regarding flight. One of the stories that comes to mind is from a book about an American cartoonist, whose contribution to the history of storytelling is highlighted in a book entitled: Will Eisner: Champion of the Graphic Novel (2015).
Eisner’s early work reflects stereotypical attitudes, toward people of colour as well as toward women, that were prevalent in the dominant society when he began his career as a cartoonist. That said, we can add that Eisner had a strong influence in the initiation of the form of storytelling that we now speak of as the graphic novel, a format that applies to both fiction and non-fiction. I have a strong interest in this form of storytelling; for example I have been recently reading graphic storytelling by Darryl Cunningham and Marjane Satrapi.
A blurb for the above-noted study of Eisner’s work notes that “Will Eisner (1917-2005) is universally considered the master of comics storytelling, best known for The Spirit, his iconic newspaper comic strip, and A Contract With God, the first significant graphic novel.”
As the above-mentioned study of Eisner’s life notes, “The Story of Gerhard Schnobble,” The Spirit no. 432, Sept. 5, 1948, was Eisner’s favourite of the Spirit tales. Gerhard Schnobble was a character who discovered, on his eighth birthday, that he could fly. That is, he slipped and fell off a roof – and, “In mid-air,” as the tale notes, “he twisted and turned in an effort to save himself – Suddenly – ‘Hey, Ma .. Looka me … I’m flyin’!’ … instead of falling, he flew gracefully to Earth.”
The book notes (p. 74) that the tale “was perhaps a metaphor for Eisner’s own frustrations, as his work ‘flew’ but achieved little recognition outside the comics community.”
I’m reminded of another story about flying.
The following quote is from a June 4, 2016 Guardian article by Thomas Hauser entitled: “The man behind the towering social and political icon – Muhammad Ali.”
The subhead reads: “The late boxer’s biographer recalls getting to know a deeply spiritual and intelligent man with endless tales, no regrets and a passion for life that never diminished, even as his condition did.”
The quote reads:
Shortly thereafter, we attended a tribute to Muhammad at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington D.C. I made some opening remarks and referred to an incident that had occurred years earlier when Ali took a flight from Washington to New York. As the flight crew readied for take-off, an attendant instructed, “Mr Ali; please buckle your seatbelt.”
“Superman don’t need no seatbelt,” Ali informed her.
“Mr Ali,” the flight attendant said sweetly. “Superman don’t need no plane.”
When I retold that story, Muhammad’s face lit up and he laughed as hard as anyone in the audience.
[End of excerpt]
So, another quote involving Muhammad Ali comes to mind from a June 4, 2016 Guardian article by Thomas Hauser entitled: “Muhammad Ali: the man behind the icon: The late boxer’s biographer recalls getting to know a deeply spiritual and intelligent man with endless tales, no regrets and a passion for life that never diminished, even as his condition did.”
The quote reads:
We were in Seattle once to attend a dinner where Ali was honoured as “The Fighter of the Century.” The festivities included a fight card at The Kingdome. Meeting Muhammad, the undercard fighters were in awe. One of them, a lightweight with a losing record in a handful of professional bouts, went so far as to confess, “Mr Ali, I just want you to know; when I’m going to the ring for a fight, I get real nervous. So I say to myself, ‘I’m Muhammad Ali. I’m the greatest fighter of all time, and no one can beat me.’”
Ali leaned toward the fighter and whispered, “When I was boxing and got nervous before a fight, I said the same thing.”
[End of excerpt]
Alas! I have no tales about flying – or even falling down stairs. But I have two, brief ones related to Cartierville school.
One concerns a young man well known to Jaan Pill and to the class of 63 who drove me crazy one day. It was shortly before I entered teaching, and I was running a Y programme at Cartierville school. And this young man of 10 or so kept yelling in ear that he wanted to play buck-buck, whatever the hell that is.
The other is that my elementary school was identical to the original Cartierville school. (The original was only four rooms.) My school was Crystal Springs (named after springs north of Jarry Park that existed until about a century ago). The school was on Mistral St., just north of Jarry St.
While Cartierville was enlarged and somewhat modernized, Crystal Springs remained at four rooms. There were two sets of concrete steps, each in an external structure painted green.
There were four teachers, with the teacher of grade four being principal. There was no kindergarten.
Heat was provided by a big, pot-belly stove in the centre of each room. The great thrill was to be told by the teacher to fill a bucket of coal, and pour it into the stove.
On the first day, I slunk in to take a seat at the back. Within minutes, the teacher, Miss Rose, called me forward to sit right in front of her desk. Many years later, I was speaking at a church – and she introduced herself to me. I asked, “Why did you call me to sit at the front?”
“Well, that was a tough district, and we had a class of very tough-looking boys. And you looked so delicate sitting at the back….”
Then there was Miss Glazebrooke. She was very proud of her nineteen year old brother who was in the air force. It was a thrill to meet him. He was sent to Malta as a fighter pilot just a few months later. When she got letters from him, she shared them with the class and, oh, we were thrilled.
One day, there was a knock at the classroom door. Miss Glazebrooke went to the door, and took a piece of paper from somebody. She returned to stand at her desk and read it. Then she sank, ever so slowly, into her chair.
The girl beside me turned to me with eyes wide with fear.
“She’s crying. Miss Glazebrooke is crying.”
graeme
That is a poignant, and saddening, story about the loss of Miss Glazebrooke’s brother the fighter pilot. As you note, nineteen years old. I am reminded of the song, Where Have All the Flowers Gone?
The mutual friend who was keen about the buck-buck game has shared with me – at one of our coffee get togethers, at which time for the past two meetings we’ve discussed the details of the history of Saraguay – a story about the buck-buck game, that he was so enthused about at the age of 10. Because of a learning disability, as he has noted, it would take him a while to determine what the answer would be to a question that somebody had asked him.
In this case, with 10-year-old students at Cartierville School at the Y programme, you would have asked, “What games would you like to play?” Or some question along those lines. Then the conversation would go on for some time, about who knows what topic, and suddenly the answer to the question, that you had asked, would at last emerge in the mind of the 10-year-old student in question. The answer, of course, was “Buck buck!” He wanted to make sure you heard him right, so he would keep on repeating it, for your benefit.
I’ve had my own disability to deal with and spent many years as well as a special education teacher, before switching to the regular classroom. For that reason, the buck-buck story is of particular value and interest to me. I’ve learned so many things in the course of my life, sometimes through unusual circumstances, that are so helpful now in making sense of the buck-buck story and many other great stories.
Okay, so no one remembers Buck Buck but Graeme Decarie. But, did he ever play it? No! It was a boys’ game and we loved to play it. One has to wonder if anyone else remembers having played it as a young boy. It was fun for us and not the boring classroom where a visual learner could not understand what the books said or what the teacher was talking about.
Today, learning disabilities are quickly identified and there are numerous methods in place to deal with them. They are no fun. Intelligence has nothing to do with learning disabilities but that is something nobody seemed to understand 60 years ago. Along the way, a few teachers recognized my problems and gave me tools to use. They are remembered.
Mrs. Shields was one in Grade 4 (?). Another was a French teacher from France who recognized that I had problems and gave me an oral exam in place of a written one while she was on hall duty at MCHS. Then there was the teacher who turned up at the [2000] reunion who failed me in Grade nine to teach me a lesson even though I had sufficent marks to go to summer school. I finally came to a closure with this teacher by not saying hello at the 40th Anniversary school reunion.
I am almost 72 years old now and living on one kidney operating at 28%. It took me 8 years and 3 high schools for me to finally graduate and achieve marks high enough to get into university. Today I have 4 degrees and a FICB designation from the banking industry.
Having failed four time in high school and finally self-identifying my learning disabilities in my 50s, I came to understand it was another one of those things I inherited in my life along with a malforned kidney. My paternal grandmother died at age 54 when her remaining kidney failed in 1946 after her being bedridden for most of WWII.
I lived a life of operations, had a broken neck in 1960, fought to get an education, was molested by a Catholic Priest I delivered a newpaper to, a taxi driver, and another man who picked me up while I was hitch hiking.
We did not have a car for about 7 years after the war and so hitching hiking was our only solution. I endured a life of things like being hit by a car, having a concussion, a major kidney removal in 1961 and 2500 CCs of liquid in my lung as a complication of the operation.
I loved to run but it came with side aches until my kidney was removed when I was almost 16. I had suffered with side aches for almost 15 years. It seems the malformed kidney had been building up a good supply of kidney stones for years. I have also been sick for the past 20 years as my body deteriorated.
A scoped knee to remove cartilage, two hip replacements and a genetic build that I can identify as a family trait that has affect a number of us, no matter what we do to try and stay in shape. I have a photo of my great grandfather taken in 1961. under the bench he is sitting on are his crutches that were part of his life for at least 10 to 20 of his last years. He died at age 87 in 1943.
Several of his nephews ended up with the same build and suffered in the same way. While I try to get exercise when I can, I also cannot deal with summer as I have a large winter body and prefer the ice and snow. It probably comes from my Swedish-Finnish roots on my mother’s side along with arthritis and diabetes.
Genetically, I track my family back to Carswells mentioned as landowners in the First Statistical Account of 1791 in Scotland but my family names go back to the dark ages when the Border Reiver families existed between Robert the Bruce and the Scottish king that united the British Isles in the early 1600s and outlawed the practice of Border reiving that had been going on for 450 years as a way of life.
I have often said of my family genetics that if there was something they would pass down to the next generation, I got it all. I cannot explain why it happened that way but maybe I was a test because someone up there decided to find out if I could survive.
I have had a great many successes in my life but also a number of failures. I have written the better part of 20 books and published a dozen as ebooks. I am a student of Arthur Lismer of the Group of Seven Canadian Artists and related to Lucy Maud Montgomery and Sir Walter Scott through marriage so that answers my love of writing.
However, without a trained editor my ebooks contain a lot of mistakes. But such is life. Today, I hope to make it through a few more years except that my body is telling me that there will be more problems ahead as I deteriorate further. I have been lucky to last this long and I think it has always been my positive attitude that has carried me along.
I have buried a great many friends over the years and there is no answer as to why I seem to continue along so I just appreciate that fact and carry on. I am scheduled for an MRI sometime soon, also xrays of my hip replacements and one seems to be giving me problems. Then there is the pinched nerve the doctor has identified and some of the things happening in my legs these days are not too exciting. Nevertheless, we will continue down that old dusty road. My journey is not over yet. Jaan, it’s your turn to buy the coffee.
It’s great to have the reminder, Bob. The next coffee is on me. Unless I write it down, I do not always do a great job of remembering such details.
Our triumphs and our challenges are a key part of our lives; it’s a great thing to be able to compare notes, even as the clicking of the clock speeds up as appears to happen as the years go by.
The one big question remains: Exactly how was Buck Buck played? I remember, when I worked at an elementary school in Mississauga around the late 1900s, early 2000s, the Peel District School Board had a recess program in place, in the course of which schoolyard games from ages ago were all re-instituted.
There used to be games that school kids everywhere knew how to play. For some reason, the knowledge of those games had largely disappeared. But some people remembered the games, and the decision was made to bring them back. That was a brilliant move, and meant more fun for everybody, including for the kids who would otherwise be bullied more often than would be the case, if elementary students are not familiar with the standard schoolyard games of ages ago.
From what little I have heard, Buck Buck wasn’t necessarily a safe schoolyard game but clearly it was a source of enjoyment. I would be interested in learning details about what the game entailed. I would be interested in descriptions of other games. For example, Red Rover is a game I recall, vaguely. I’ve also heard of a game called British Bulldog. If anybody can fill us in on the details, or knows of academic resources where these games are described, please let us know.
Of course, the schoolyard games that entail bullying have been productively studied by academics, and that is research I’ve become acquainted with, as the topic of kids and bullying – and the implications as they relate to the behaviour of adults – has long been a source of interest to me. Some previous posts that deal with this topic include, by way of illustration:
Video-based analysis of bullying and violence: Marjorie Harness Goodwin (2006) and Randall Collins (2008)
Goodwin (2006), Bartra (2014), and Filion (2015) offer insights of relevance to community self-organizing
Aside from bullying, Marjorie H. Goodwin (2006) focuses on collaboration and political agency
Marjorie Harness Goodwin (2006) argues that more longitudinal studies are needed regarding gender differences in bullying
Oh, Bob. And you wanted me to let you play buck-buck?
Anyway, through it all you did bloody good, kid.
I had already deteriorated before becoming a teacher, but kept it a stable sort of body decay until the last year or so. Now, when tying shoe laces, I notice the floor is farther away than it used to be. Yesterday, I walked for an hour and a half in a vast marsh by the river. I do it because I was told it’s good for me. So how come I don’t feel any gooder?
And you’re not the only one with distinguished family inheritances. My grandfather in highland Scotland was the illegitimate son of a farm servant who married a woman from a Glasgow slum called The Gorbals, in its time, notorious as the foulest and most dangerous slum in Europe. And, on the French side, I had a distant cousin who was deputy fuhrer of the Nazi party in Quebec.
Graeme
And it’s good to hear from you, Bob. You can’t go on just wasting your time by talking to people like Jaan.
I agree 100 percent about the last comment; not only are you wasting your time talking with him, Bob, but sometimes you also have to waste your money buying Jaan a coffee.
I’ve written about Muhammad Ali in previous comments at this post and at another post. I’ll add one more dialogue featuring Mr. Ali below.
I’ve been reading the first third of a book by James M. Cain, Double Indemnity, and watching the first third of a DVD of a film with the same title. My interest stems from reading that Will Eisner, who has been called “champion of the graphic novel,” was influenced by the latter movie, at a particular stage in Eisner’s career.
When it comes to reading a book or viewing a DVD, I often stick to the first third of the work and then move on to other books and DVDs. I like to figure out the structure of a work and then move on. Occasionally, of course, I read the whole book and watch the entire DVD. Each of us has our own way of accessing entertainment or informational products, whether fiction or non-fiction.
In Chapter 1 of Double Indemnity, the narrator gives a colleague a “dead pan” and it occurred to me that I should look up the word so I know the exact definition, as I’m aware of the value of a dead pan, which can go by other names or may have no name at all, depending on the circumstances.
The Merriam-Webster website had a good definition of dead pan – also written as deadpan – and I also noticed that the website features word lookups that are trending on a given day.
Truculent
One of the words that was trending on June 6, 2016 at the Merrian-Webster website was truculent; the following text – and the photo on the left – is from the link accessible at the sentence you are now reading:
Lookups for truculent spiked on June 4, 2016, following the news that Muhammad Ali had died. Since he was known almost as much for his verbal sparring as for his agile boxing style, many colorful quotations accompanied remembrances of the great man, including this one, an exchange with Howard Cosell:
Cosell: Are you taking Zora Folley too lightly?
Ali: Why would you say that?
Cosell: Because every indication has been that you’re confident that you can beat Zora.
Ali: I’m confident I can whup ’em all. This ain’t nothin’ new. My image has been confident. What you tryin’ to make it look like something new for? I’m always confident. I’ll whup all of ’em.
Cosell: You’re being extremely truculent.
Ali: Whatever truculent means, if that’s good, I’m that.
[End of excerpt]
Interesting as it is, Buck-Buck was around in the 1500s and probably earlier as depicted in a painting shown on Wikipedia. I have no idea where we learned it but I suspect it came from older classmates at Cartierville School who had been playing it for decades. The second tree from the school entrance off Somerset Road was our favourite backstop for this lunchtime game.
Thanks to Heather Anne Liddell I was reaquainted with the game that, back then, was nothing more than a schoolyard bit of roughhousing for the boys. Interesting how it has evolved in the various video clips to include mixed teams and all girl teams. Graeme, that was about 62 years ago and you should have listened to me, I knew that game would last. I wonder if we can find a couple dozen fit 80-year olds and add a seniors’ version to all the other clips from around the world. Have a great day.
A Buck Buck video featuring MCHS teachers and students in their 70s and 80s would have a lot of followers on YouTube. We can, if it occurs to us, set up a Buck Buck game for the next MCHS ’60s reunion, which I hear from varied sources will – assuming, that is, that the concept of a future reunion proceeds from idea to reality – be in Montreal. We’ll have a few stretchers ready on the side, of course, just in case. Maybe a good idea to have a few ambulances on standby as well, just in case.
As a former phys ed teacher (many elementary teachers tend to be gym teachers as well as classroom teachers), I would add that such a game would naturally require careful and extensive planning – and modifications taking into account the age of participants. What occurs to me is the following draft framework:
* Limit the number of players – when a conglomeration of 30 players collapses, the 70 and 80-year-old at the bottom of the heap may not be able to withstand the rigours of the experience.
* Rather than having the conglomeration of players collapse as is the practice with 10-year-olds, for 70 and 80-year-olds it’s probably better to pry them off from the conglomeration one by one, once a given number of players has landed on the heap.
* Each player should be physically fit – say, as a result of regular 90-minute marches in the marshes, as is the fitness practice of Graeme Decarie – and also a long-time follower of a strength training program, to ensure that her or his bone density is in first-rate shape so as to minimize the possibility of stress fractures.
* The team of players should also have a history of practising the game together, under the direction a competent Buck Buck coach, so that all of the steps and procedures are clear in each player’s mind.
* Each player would be required to sign a liability of waiver form acknowledging their awareness of the risks associated with the game.
Those are some initial thoughts that occur to me. The photo above features Soryl Rosenberg (Phys Ed teacher) and Graeme Decarie (History teacher) at a get-together in Montreal in May 2016. Both Soryl and Graeme taught at Malcolm Campbell High School in the 1960s. Photo source: Soryl Rosenberg. Click on the photo to enlarge it.
I would like to say hello to Dana Allan and can’t find him on facebook! Is there someone out there that can get me in touch with him?
I will help you, Gary, to get in touch with Dana Allen.
I can’t believe there is not a Facebook page for the old English elementary schools of the western English elementary schools of the PSBGM !
I went to Carterville school between 1965 and 1969
My best childhood memories are from living on Somerset and playing in the old grounds of the Marlboro golf course . Could it be that Dana’s mother was the school secretary Mrs. Allan?
and a Brother who played for MONTREAL Allouettes, Barkley?
Mrs. Boothroyd was principal at that time and the teachers I remember or Mrs. Hoar, Mrs. Mitchell Miss McBaine/Mrs.Wood, M. Bush.
I went to the church across the street the church of the good shepherd where the rector’s name was Recd. James A McLean. His 3 kids were like second family too me…. Heather, Wendy & Christopher.
We played Buck Buck, Red Rover , and British Bulldog.
We had also found a way up onto the roof of the school !
… something that was never disclosed to parents good grief they would have had heart failure !
The abandoned clubhouse on the golf course was turned down shortly after I moved into the area it was a grand building but the golf course served as a beautiful backdrop to my childhood. We would play , hide and seek, go pond waiting in the water features, climbed trees, build forts even had cook outs in the middle of winter !
There was no Keller Boulevard in those days but there was a well-worn path from the end of Somerset and Barnes all the way to Noel park swimming pool just off Toupin. We would ride our bikes pay our 10 cents, get our locker key and spend the entire day at the pool.
After supper we would go out in the circle crescent for a huge game of hide and seek lasting well into the darkness until we were called home.
I remember family names on the street Walters, May, Tatarchuck, Tom, Levitt, Kiwie, Baranoff, Nosko, ,Stouchestyke, Killingsworth, Wade, Tranter, Booth, Brown , Jeanotte, Warren, MacLean & Cockbain.
Janet
The secretary was my aunt. She also lived on Somerset Road. Her son Barclay played for the Montreal Alouettes.
Dana