The Highlands district was near the Eastern boundary of the city of Edmonton and butted against the town of Beverly. When Edmonton expanded it's boundaries, it drew Beverly into the expanding metropolis.
On the Western side of Edmonton there is a bridge that passes above a deep canyon with a street running through it. Crossing over the bridge will take you to Jasper Place. To the East of the bridge is a district called Oliver.
After we left Sicamous we lived in both areas within a period of one year and I don't remember which area we lived in first.
I have phoned my mother a couple of times and asked her some questions but she turned ninety this summer and her memory is getting hazy.
Now I recall, we lived in the Oliver District first, I'll let you see if you can figure out why I assume this.
(Photo `04) Built in 1928 Oliver School 10227 118 St. I don't recall this school at all.
The house in the Oliver District didn't have a basement. After school and on weekends I would carry five gallon pails, not full, of earth, up a set of earthen stairs and dump them in the back yard, my father probably carried most of them. In this manner we dug a basement.
In this house I took up smoking again, at least I don't remember smoking in Sicamous. I do remember where I got the cigarettes when I lived in Edmonton before.
When I lived in Strathcona children needed to have a note from their parents to purchase cigarettes but at my tender age no one would have guessed they were for me so I was never asked. I would collect pop bottles and take them to the drug store at the end of the street.
Cigarettes came in thin flat metal containers. Black Cat, Export, Players. Not many brands in those days and certainly not a large selection. There was no such thing as mild or filter tips. When we hid under the bridge in the West end we smoked Vogues, man, were they strong.
I remember when
Black Cat came out with their No. 7. They weren't filter but they were cork tip, so your lip wouldn't stick to the cigarette. Only smokers of plain end know the joy of pulling a cigarette out of their mouth and taking a chunk of lip with it, of course one soon learned to wet their lip with their tongue before removing the cigarette, but that trick was usually learned the painful way.
I was paid an allowance of fifteen cents a week which I would save up. Every second Saturday I would have enough to go to the theatre for a matinee and jaw breakers. As I grew older I graduated to popcorn, can't watch a movie without it. I think I have spent half my life and half of my income in the dentist chair, just went in this week for another crown,
but I will not give up popcorn.
The Oliver District is also where I was introduced to french fries. The paper boy that I was helping would take me to a cafe. I didn't like the vinegar but the salt was good. Since then I have taken to smothering them with ketchup, I like a few fries with my ketchup.
When we moved to the Highlands district in the East end we got our first television. It sat on the mantle of the fireplace where we couldn't reach it. In those days electronics such as TV's, radios, stereos, whoops, didn't have stereo then, they had what was called Hi Fi or high fidelity, were not for little children to play with.
When we had lived in Strathcona our family would be invited across the alley on Saturday nights to watch the `Lawrence Welk Show' on TV.
On Saturday afternoons my sister and I would sometimes visit an old lady, when you are seven, everyone over ten is old, down the block and watch `Disneyland'. Sometimes after school one of my classmates would invite me over to watch `The Lone Ranger'.
In the Highlands end we lived not far from my aunt in Beverly. We were also not far from the North Saskatchewan River, at least horizontally. Vertically was another story. The houses in that part of the city are far above the water. Just under the lip of the bank my cousin had a small cave where she hid her cigarettes and matches. We would go there to smoke.
I don't recall any chores, or jobs, in the Highlands but I got an allowance of twenty-five cents a week. I saved my allowance for several weeks and bought a plastic model airplane.
A yellow navy trainer. A two seater. An invitation to the wrath of my father, "How dare you waste your hard earned money on junk like that", I still had to buy the glue yet. It was the first of many and I guess my father finally got used to it. My room, over the years, became filled with planes, and tanks, anything military.
Years later, when I was interested in photography, I took my models out in the snow, turned some on their side or upside down and placed little figures around them.
Img L -4 
These black and white photos were taken with a small box camera
that my mother gave me for my birthday when we were holidaying in Ont.
It got baked and warped from the sun while in the rear window of the car.
It fell down a rock wall into a river. And it still took nice pictures.
I put spots of lighter fluid here and there, in the snow and on the models, and set fire to the little patches. Standing on top of the stairs I took pictures of the scene. I later showed the pictures to my friends and told them they were aerial photos of a war. They were very realistic.
Years later I got into model trucks and better cameras. In my photo album I have pictures that I tell people were my first trucks. A few people notice how shiny the tires are but others accept my deception. My photo album is a collection of pictures I have taken of truck accidents I have seen along the highways of North America.
For realism I actually took my lowbed, carrying a D 8 Caterpillar tractor splattered with real mud, pulled by a Mack conventional complete with scratch built sleeper, to the side of a road to get a gravel road look.
The tractor is a kit but the sleeper is scratch built.
I
still haven't
taken the gloss off the tires and I am not going to put the trailer
back the
way it was. For one thing I don't have the parts anymore and secondly I have never pulled a three axle lowbed. I have however, pulled a tandem with a D 8 on it. I got stopped at the scales in Pouce Coupe, B. C. and they made me take the `C' frame off. They said I was too wide even though I had a pilot car.
Nowadays, they not only leave the `C' frame on, they leave the blade on.
If I had left the blade on I would have been charged with dangerous driving.
Not much else of consequence happened while we lived in the Highlands area of Edmonton. In the mornings I would leave home in the wrong direction, meet a young lady who lived down the street, and carry her books to school.
(Photo `04) Built in 1951 Mount Royal School 11303 55 St.
While visiting in Beverly, three blocks away, one night, my aunt asked me to go to the store for her, I got chased by some geese. On the street, at the end of the block, some people had some big farm geese, much bigger than the wild Canada Goose, and much meaner.
A lot of farmers use farm geese as watch dogs.
I found that I could run faster scared than they could mad. When I came back from the store I chose a different route.
A
few years ago while visiting Stanley Park, in Vancouver, I saw a small child approach a gosling, baby goose, and the mother goose chased the boy away. The boy's mother berated the goose for scaring her son. I shook my head in wonder. Here was a supposedly intelligent animal talking to an animal that obviously didn't understand English and just as obviously had been protecting it's young.
Instead of chastising the goose the lady should have been explaining to her child that wild animals are wild and potentially harmful and should be viewed from a distance. Though not as large as a farm goose a Canada goose could quite easily remove one of her child's fingers with one snap of it's beak and would do so if he
was to harm one of her offspring.
I may be wrong about the (above) chronological order. * Apparently we lived in the East first. I'm told that the work on the basement of the house in the West was done on evenings and weekends to prepare it for us to live in, while we were living near Beverly.
* ATMS (According To My Sister.)
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