Between grade 9 and 10 we moved back to Scarborough from Agincourt. I’m a student at Winston Churchill High School, apparently rated as the drug capital for teenagers! Guess they never went to Agincourt High where in the first few months mind-numbing offerings were available. I didn’t partake.
My boyfriend is back at Agincourt High flaming his jealousy of me and my new cohorts. We break up fairly quickly into the new school year. I make a new female friend who is my height (I’ve also always been the tallest in the class) and a little older (I was usually the youngest in any classroom albeit December born children) who introduces me to her friends. This gang, for lack of a better description, are mostly mid twenties and well out of high school peppered with a few of us teenagers. Not sure how she met this bunch but I fit in pretty well, I guess.
M.F., who is a part of this group of misfits, is 6′ 6″, formerly a Paradise Rider, a convicted felon who has done his time and is perfect for my almost 6′ frame and becomes my boyfriend. First time anyone has towered over me. I go to their parties and hang out. His mom reiterates that I’m too good for him on a regular basis.
At a party, I headed for the washroom and there was a woman sitting on the toilet with something wrapped around her arm and a needle in her other hand. She asked me to “tie her off” which I did but was totally freaked out by the whole idea of injecting anything (usually speed or heroin). UGH!
I stay away from the whole drug scene. As grade 10 progresses I, somehow, drop Typing (aka keyboarding for you younger folk) and start skipping classes Shorthand in particular. When transitioning from grade school to high school I wanted to go into Arts and Sciences but my “intelligence” sent me to the only other option “Business”.
I hated Typing and Shorthand but absolutely loved Accounting, Business Math and Business Machines, which included our very own keypunch machine (look it up). Make sure you number those punch cards so when you drop them, and you will drop them, you can put them back in order! LOL
I spent most of the latter part of Grade 10 behind the portables drinking lemon gin (yuck) or across the street at the local licensed restaurant where they’d serve me cuz I looked a lot older. Didn’t hurt that the boyfriend and the rest of the misfits frequented same so easy for bartender (Danny) to believe I was 18 which was the legal drinking age at the time.
When the Grade 10 report card hit the homestead you can believe a mighty roar was heard. Father intimated that I, a female, won’t be able to get a job, read secretary, without typing and shorthand. To this day I don’t know if I forged his signature, or got him to sign unknowingly the drop form for Typing. Either way, the result was, “if you’re not going to go to school you can get a job” and see how you like them apples.
My stepmother came to me after the ruckus was quieted and asked me if I would be interested in going to trade school. I had expressed an interest in becoming a hairdresser. I replied “yes” and she started communicating with the high school re: transfer to trade school. It was a well-known fact that only the “dummies” went to Bendale, the trade school. When she broached the subject the people she spoke to told her they wouldn’t transfer me as I was too smart for trade school. This, after foster parents and bio-Dad were told in about Grade 2 that I would never grasp the simplest concepts and should be groomed for domestic service. Not sure those were the exact words, but definitely the feel.
Stepmother tries to reason with Father who in turn discusses me with his barber, eh voila, I’m hired as the hair salon’s dogsbody to shampoo ladies in for their weekly “set” and sweep floors, tidy up, etc. I understand I’m apprenticing to be a hairdresser. Twelve hour days, less than minimum wage and I get to pay room and board at home. Father has also written the government requesting permission for me to leave high school which is granted as I am 15 and under the legal age limit for leaving academia.
Sometime that summer, Father, stepmom and stepbrother head to the cottage for a week vacation. The cottage belongs to my stepmom’s family and is close to Pointe Au Baril.
While they’re away I play hooky from work for the entire week, as I hate it there! All those blue-hairs. When the family returns, Father is notified by his barber that I’ve been missing. Father presumes I must be taking drugs, and what the hell am I doin?. I have yet to even think about experimenting, never even crossed my mind. Much hullabaloo about nothing. Stepmom comes to me later when the fires have cooled a bit to ask if I’m telling the truth. I am. She assures me that she will talk to my father.
I get a job at United Trust on St. Clair Avenue in Toronto checking that account cards for clients are balanced and if not, figure out where the error is. These were long, skinny, yellow (or maybe green) ledger cards with account number, name and looked something the picture below. You’d get a box of cards and check them one-by-one. I learned stuff, like if you’re out of balance and you can evenly divide the offending number by 9 look for a transposed number. For example, if you’re out by 18 cents, 18 is evenly divided by 9 so look for a number that was transposed such as; 78 should be 87, 87-78 = 9 / 9 = 1 therefore transposition.
Starting at the beginning of what would have been Grade 11, stepmom received calls from the high school daily to find out “where’s D****e” (nobody calls me that!). “D****e was working at United Trust”, cuz you wouldn’t let her transfer to a trade school!!!