Welcome to the way back machine, step right in.
Here is a story promised to not be told. But, enough time
has passed, and now it can be.
And, so we go back to visit 1967.
A student, I was working mornings carrying and delivering
The Province newspaper in Vancouver. The newspaper had a contest, selling new subscriptions
door to door. The prize was a paid trip to Expo 67, the worlds’ fair in
Montreal, followed by a trip to the Pan American Games in Winnipeg, on the way
back home.
Myself and three other boys won. We were 15 and 16 years
old, and were chaperoned by a manager from The Province circulation department.
Just how this man was selected was never really clear, he
had a reputation of being a rabble rouser. I’m not going to use his real name
here, though I’m pretty sure he’s gone on to his great reward in the afterlife
by now.
I’ll call him Mark.
The worlds’ fair part of the trip went smoothly, Expo was
fantastic--so we flew out of Montreal to Winnipeg. The Pan Am games were great,
the four boys had a wonderful time, the newspaper paid for everything all was well, until the last night.
We were in a stadium watching a baseball game, the United
States vs Cuba, a real rivalry.
Sitting next to us were two guys from the Barbados, with big
pearly grins, and carrying a huge bottle of rum. Now our man Mark, could have
closed out this tour without a scratch---except for that rum.
The men drank, and drank, and drank. There was a rain delay—so
more drink. Then a second rain delay. Well , you can imagine these men were by
then wetter on the inside than the outside, and it was well past midnight.
Mark just couldn’t get enough, so then we were off to find
another bottle of rum and head over to the apartment of the Barbados guys to
continue, four boys along for the ride, wondering how we were going to get out
of this and board the train home.
Around 4:30 in the morning all of the men were pretty much
incapacitated. Our train was to leave at 6:30. So what to do?
It was time for a teenage revolution, so we took over this
sorry looking slobbery mess of a man.
We picked his pockets, took his wallet, his cash, and the
train tickets, called a taxi, bid goodbye to our hosts, and headed off to the
train station.
The train station in Winnipeg was a big cavern of a place,
with thick wooden benches. We deposited Mark on a bench. He slowly slid off it.
We perched him back onto the bench, and this time we jammed something
underneath him to keep him there.
Watching all of this was an elderly train porter who switched
between laughing and shaking his head. He came over and asked what was going
on. He really broke into laughter then and asked, “ So you boys are talking care
of this full grown man and you need to get him back to Vancouver? Well that’s something”
He helped us get onto the train, and we stuffed Mark into
bed in one of those private compartments where you get your own pull down bed. We each had compartments of our own nearby.
I think we were a couple of hours out of Winnipeg heading
west when Mark showed the slightest hint of life. We’d been checking on him to
make sure he was still alive. But at this point four boys have just about had
enough, so we agreed upon two things. We would scare the hell out of Mark, and
then we wouldn’t tell about it
So it was a badly hung over man awoke to the clattering
sound of a train, a pounding head, and no sign of the four boys he was assigned
to protect.
We’d gone to hide. Mark was running up and down the train, out of
his mind from worry, and couldn’t find us. We let this go on for about a half
an hour, and then popped out and surprised him.
He begged us to not tell about this, he would have been
fired instantly, no doubt about it.
But since he’s likely made the last train stop of life long
before now, we’ll just blow the whistle, laugh, and shake our heads.
