Avon soaps & davey keon

It’s my first day in Grade 2 at Suddaby Public School in Kitchener, Ontario.

Our family moved over the summer and on this early morning – let’s just say – I’m less than enthusiastic.

I take a plastic bag (as big as I am) from the cupboard and fill my bowl with puffed wheat. A few weightless particles float in the air until static electricity pulls them to my sweater – where they will spend the remainder of the day.

I fold the Sports section from the previous day’s paper to dissect game summaries. That the Leafs lost an exhibition game to the Red Wings doesn’t help my mood, but it’s okay I suppose, game doesn’t count, and my hero, Davey Keon, wasn’t even dressed.

I look up at Mother and sigh.

“Am I going to know anyone at all in my class?”

She sits at the head of the kitchen nook, lights her du Maurier, scoops out a heaping teaspoon of sugar and adds an ounce or two of Carnation to her mug. Cigarettes and evaporated milk are her essentials I regularly purchase at Fisher’s Variety. Mother doesn’t process much dialogue before the first cup so I must repeat my lament.

“You’ll make friends,” she says.

Since the move, we have driven past the school several times and, from my perch in the back seat of the Bel Air, I have already drawn my conclusion. “Suddaby looks like a prison.”

…looks like a prison

Mother gets up from her perch at the nook, puts on her glasses, pulls a wad of Kleenex from her sleeve, spits, and wipes a remnant of powdered milk from my cheek. She reminds me: “Mackenzie King, Canada’s longest-serving Prime Minister, attended Suddaby.”

At least her expectations are clear.

Puffed wheat on my left shoulder…

Suddaby is a bit of a hike from our home on Indiana Street. Upon arrival, students (inmates) gather in the school (prison) yard where the Principal (warden) – a humongous, broad-shouldered man – knowingly nods at his teachers who herd us like sheep destined for the abattoir. We enter the school and shuffle to the far end of a creaky, dimly lit hardwood hallway to the grade two classroom.

Positioned near the head of the line, I’m pretty sure I’m the first to lay eyes upon her – and I’m mesmerised.

Miss Gillard has shoulder length auburn hair feathered down each side and a smile to melt the hardest heart.

This prison guard is definitely not what I imagined. My first day of school is a carnival of new feelings and experiences. Miss Gillard is full of compassion – and when I speak, she pays complete attention.

Upon arriving home, I query Mother.

“How old do you have to be to get married?”

“Eighteen.”

Okay, that’s doable. My reluctance for Suddaby is replaced by an earnest project – to win her heart. I acknowledge that 11 years of courtship will be a challenge – but, for Miss Gillard, it may be worth it.

Up to this point in my life, my affections are limited to the Toronto Maple Leafs and, more specifically, their Captain, Davey Keon, but Miss Gillard stirs in me a passion to rival my Buds obsession.

There’s a spring in my step as I walk to school each morning. Seeking ways to spend some one-on-one time, I observe that classmates who repeatedly misspell words are requested to stay after class to write lines on the blackboard.

And I instantly forget how to spell ‘VERY’ – inserting an ‘A.’

Miss Gillard smiles, shakes her head, and announces the details of our first date – this afternoon at 3:45 pm. I’m VARY happy.

During the glorious detention, Miss Gillard asks about my interests and I confess to her my love of the Leafs and of Davey Keon. I describe my hockey card collection – how I almost have the cards of the entire 1971-72 Maple Leafs team – I’m only missing that of the Captain himself.

I figure we’re growing closer when Miss Gillard shares some of her personal information. She’s not a shinny fan, more into The Beatles – especially the ‘dreamy’ Paul McCartney (UGH!). I tell her about the box of Beatles collector cards that sits right beside the hockey cards on the shelf at Fisher’s Variety. She’s impressed.

Miss Gillard sparks my seven-year-old imagination because she’s so different. Apart from my hostile sisters, most women I know are from my mother’s side of the family – Great Aunties, Grandmothers, Great-grandmothers – the kind of women who long for tragedy (in any of its forms) to strike just so they can rise to the occasion. They’re resourceful, highly judgemental – and pay little attention to me except to periodically identify familial origins of my oddities and assign ambitious career objectives that may one day bring the family positive notoriety.

Miss Gillard asks me questions, listens to my answers, is into hippy music, and she’s got that smile.

My obsession grows. While staying after class writing lines for a vary long time, I spy a book of poetry on the shelf. How it came to be in a grade two classroom, I’ve no idea, but to me it screams opportunity.

I open the book, scan the pages, and spot a few familiar words of devotion.

Grabbing my pencil and a sheet of paper, I rapidly transcribe two stanzas and position my handiwork on the corner of Miss Gillard’s desk.

She glances at the transcription and is over-the-top with enthusiasm. I immediately sense that I may be overplaying my hand. At her insistence, we hurry down the creaky hardwood hallway to the (really big) Principal’s office. He studies the sheet and repeats the question first posed by Miss Gillard: “Did YOU write this?”

I know I’m skating on thin ice. Feeling pressure, I explain that I DID write it out – without being its original composer. 

Our heads down, we’re sent back to the grade two classroom. Miss Gillard is embarrassed that her child prodigy is revealed as a precocious plagiarizer. I worry that my recklessness may negatively affect my longer-term goals.

Fall turns to winter, the Christmas break nears, my fever has yet to break. I finish a creative writing assignment before my other classmates and daydream of Miss Gillard. Almost subconsciously, I begin to doodle… sketching on the margins of my assignment what lies in my heart.

“What are you drawing, Ted?”

The voice startles me. It comes from above and a wave of terror flows through me.

I look up, see her, and try to hide the sheet with my hands.

Miss Gillard gently grasps the edge of the assignment, takes it from my desk, and returns to hers. At the end of the day, the school bell rings and the class empties, but Miss Gillard asks me to stay.

I shuffle up to the front of the class where the damning evidence lies before her. She points at my sketch with her pencil.

“Do you know what these are called, Ted?”

I turn the sheet upside down. “They’re ice cream cones – with cherries.”

Miss Gillard looks at me. “No, Ted. They’re breasts. These are called breasts.”

With those words – I am light-headed and slip into a front row desk.

In what I can only describe as an act of betrayal, she sends me home with a note requiring Mother’s signature. Her vague description of my transgression likely saves me from the worst possible punishments.

It’s only a few days before Christmas. The entire school gathers in the gymnasium to sing carols. Students bring gifts to Miss Gillard: Avon soaps, coffee mugs, and fruit baskets.

After school, I lie on the floor of the living room reading the paper. Mother counts coins on the kitchen table while Father drinks Five Star whisky (the plastic logo doubles as Sheriff star that I will find in my stocking on Christmas morning). He plays Perry Como on the Electrohome stereo.

Mother sweeps the change from the kitchen table and passes the pile to me. It weighs down the pocket of my corduroys. I tighten my belt a notch and head off for Fisher’s Variety to place the standing order: “One large Du maurier Regular, one small Du maurier King, one can of Carnation.”

Each pack is 75 cents, the condensed milk, 43 cents. There’s a dime left over and that’s all I need!

I look up at the shelf where the trading cards are found. Beside the hockey cards is the box of Beatles collector cards. Miss Gillard would surely be impressed.

And I have a decision to make.

All’s fair in love and war.

The next morning, I place the Christmas gift on her desk.

My waiting is over.

11 years is a long time.

Miss Gillard gets the box of Avon butterfly soaps that Mother bought, and Davey Keon is finally mine.

Merry Christmas Miss Gillard!