The curious part was the editor bullshitted me that they liked the story below, that the paper didn't have anyone to write stories of Cobourg in yore, so this was to be the first. Sure. Right. Yep. Bullshit. The paper has no writers or columnists who grew up in Cobourg and know it that intimately. It is a pity that the local paper has no writer with roots in Cobourg, who knows the landscape and/or zeitgeist of the 50s & 60s in Cobourg. Obviously the local papers have no interest in caring about the older demographic who no longer see themselves reflected in the local paper. So today, I returned the money the editor had paid, and lo and behold, the first serial rights belong to me.
For some privileged reason, the story was found to be unworthy of publication. Perhaps it is without any redeeming merit, that is to say, my writing is mediocre. Perhaps the story is boring and will have no interest for Cobourgers to read and so does not deserve any wide distribution. Anyway, I believe the story has some small entertainment value, at least for the four or five people I personally know. If anyone else would have enjoyed this story, I'll never know. We know only that the editor of Northumberland Today did not consider this sort of story, or this sort of writing worthy of their readership.
For a time we were the Sewer Brats, meeting every Saturday afternoon at the Midtown Restaurant, to debrief ourselves on our illicit adventure of the day.
We were boys of single digit age. The dam holding back the accumulating reservoir of raging hormones was yet to come to spillover crisis. To a boy, we had our distinctive club cologne -- Scent of Sewage. We hadn’t a clue why seagulls circled so low around us as we walked up from the harbour. Really, not a clue.
Our kid kommittee sat in the restaurant booth, all filthy fingernails, dirty hands, scruffed clothing, disheveled hair, grimy-grinned, and wide-eyed, vulturing a shared plate of fries and Cokes all ‘round. Oh, and our toes morphed into cute raisins inside our waterswamped shoes.
We had just emerged from the subterranean depths of Cobourg’s Midtown Creek culvert and King Street storm sewer system. The portal was on Covert Street.
Yes, that was our playground one summer in the late 50‘s.
It became a favourite hangout for two or three “gangs” of hormoneless boys. Indeed, one of our Sewer Brat members, with an entrepreneurial bent, later charged fees to other boys who wanted a tour of the system. But back to the origin of this boyish tale.
We had outgrown trikes, red wagons, shoot-em-up-cowboys, our Daniel Boone rubber bowie knives dull as newspaper editorials and Davey Crock… was just that -- Disneyness for mere children.
We were ripe for unofficial anything that was outside the reach of some well-meaning adult armed to the smile with white-toothed idealism and bearing a binder of government-committee-approved activities which invariably resulted in unskinned knees and soft-soled feet. All the little trained seals who answered the call of the mild, returned home, clean-faced, to the silent applause of Parental Control Centre. “Houston, we have no problem”.
CLEAN-FACED! This was a crime against grime. Any boy without the honour of bearing a grass-stain skid-mark was doomed to Dorktown holding a Ward Cleaver Award of Pleasantville insignificance.
The Sewer Brats heeded only the call of the wild, something without cub scout badge merit. We were restless, not riskless. The conditions of our play had to be dirty, smelly and dangerous because we were most emphatically NOT GIRLS!
The First Amendment of the Constitution of the Democrazy Republic of Boy held for all wrong-living bad boys -- Amendment 1: No Girls allowed. Amendment 2: No girls allowed. What could be more girl-free than culverts and sewers. Life was gloriously wild and free. Danger and victory went hand in hand. Defiance before compliance. We were meeting the probationary conditions for manhood.
Our initial exploration of the Midtown Creek waterway was the culvert under the Catholic School yard. It was only a block-long. We could see indirectly the light coming in from both ends. This afforded us an achievable goal with a sense of safety, a training-wheel trial. But it also encouraged us to take the bait of bigger better things -- the culvert that went for blocks underneath the downtown.
On the first attempt, we entered as far as the light permitted us. Our umbilical cord to safety was stretched to the limit when darkness began to embrace us a bit too completely and we saw no light at the end of the tunnel. We didn’t emerge from the womb to end in a tomb, so we backed out.
Up to the Midtown Restaurant, the kid kommittee held a power lunch of chips deep-dipped in Heinz. All belched up on Coke, we resolved that next Saturday we would bring candles to better penetrate deeper into the dank heart of darkness -- the storied light at the end of the tunnel would be ours.
The second Saturday we were well positioned to emerge at the harbour exit. Barry got the matches, Ray got the candles, a whole full box of candles, birthday cake candles. Man, we knew what we were doing. Yep. We were boys. Yep. So in we went, leaving-it-to-beaver town behind us.
We received a quick on-site tutorial that a single birthday candle provided insufficient light to guide four boys slouching towards bethlebedlam, so the solution was for each of us to have a candle; after all, we had a “whole full box”.
We received another on-site tutorial about skinny little pink and blue birthday candles having a best-before-date of mere minutes of illumination for the unenlightened.
The impromptu education continued unabated when Barry, the match holder, stumbled on a pipe hidden under the water, and went down like a casualty in a bad western movie. Without seeing the light at the end of the tunnel, we turned back, lighting one candle from the other, hoping, oh man we were hoping, silent within ourselves, because we couldn’t admit fear. It would be a violation of the primary policy of boyhoodlum.
Once again, over a power lunch, the Sewer Brats autopsied the misadventure and once again resolutely resolved to make it to the light at the end of the tunnel next Saturday, come heck or hell water. Multi-tasking was the disorder du jour, so in parallel simultaneity with our resolute resolving, we did the usual autopsy on the cadaver of chips bloodied with Heinz in a hygiene-free zone. Man, it was good to be a guy!
The third Saturday saw us armed with a flashlight and two tall Christmas candles, blazing red. What could stop us now? We made it all the way to stumble bummer site which compelled us to back out the previous week. It was there that the flashlight revealed to the Sewer Brats that they were not the first to enter into this Domain of Darkness -- stage-right, chalk-scrawled on the wall was “BUMP”.
In a few more minutes we were to find that we were not the only ones in that culvert. Light does not bend around corners to illuminate niches and nooks. Furthermore, innocence prevented us from imagining human predators lurking in the dark. But a mouth came out of nowhere, blew out the candle, pushed us into the water and submerged our flashlight.
The sound of fleeing feet sloshing into the darkness echoed back to exacerbate our humiliation. The spears of our epithets failed to penetrate the armour of their whooping laughter. For a seeming eternity our hands brailled the wall back to Covert Street and the Midtown meet.
Who was it? Barry suggested it was the Depot Deadheads. Jim said it was the Burnham Bullies. Our name, the Sewer Brats, was at stake. The boy policy of SHOW-NO-FEAR camouflaging REAL FEAR prevailed. Next Saturday we would go full membership: five all-wet warriors.
Each of us had candles, each had matches, and two flashlights to cinch our fragile bravery. When we reached the site of the previous week’s humiliation, we found the niche that had concealed the predators. It was eerily illuminated with subdued lighting emanating from above.
A round shaft fit-for-one led up to a storm sewer grill on the King Street curb outside Cortesis’ Billiard Academy. Once in a while someone stepped over the grill to jay-walk. Oh, what could be more fun than needlessly exciting idiot adults by hollering up the shaft.
So on we slouched and sloshed, around a slight bend and behold, there it was: the light at the end of the tunnel we had been striving so tenaciously to reach. We arrived at our goal, stepped out of the creek and scaled a 20-foot mountain of coal to shout our victory against the forces of darkness.
Off we paraded to the Midtown Restaurant to formally dissolve the Sewer Brats Club. Well-anointed in Scent of Sewage, we looked to the heavens and, in our freshly-minting minds, we saw that our achievement had earned us an entourage of circling seagulls.
It was a great day to be a boy.
We were boys of single digit age. The dam holding back the accumulating reservoir of raging hormones was yet to come to spillover crisis. To a boy, we had our distinctive club cologne -- Scent of Sewage. We hadn’t a clue why seagulls circled so low around us as we walked up from the harbour. Really, not a clue.
Our kid kommittee sat in the restaurant booth, all filthy fingernails, dirty hands, scruffed clothing, disheveled hair, grimy-grinned, and wide-eyed, vulturing a shared plate of fries and Cokes all ‘round. Oh, and our toes morphed into cute raisins inside our waterswamped shoes.
We had just emerged from the subterranean depths of Cobourg’s Midtown Creek culvert and King Street storm sewer system. The portal was on Covert Street.
Yes, that was our playground one summer in the late 50‘s.
It became a favourite hangout for two or three “gangs” of hormoneless boys. Indeed, one of our Sewer Brat members, with an entrepreneurial bent, later charged fees to other boys who wanted a tour of the system. But back to the origin of this boyish tale.
We had outgrown trikes, red wagons, shoot-em-up-cowboys, our Daniel Boone rubber bowie knives dull as newspaper editorials and Davey Crock… was just that -- Disneyness for mere children.
We were ripe for unofficial anything that was outside the reach of some well-meaning adult armed to the smile with white-toothed idealism and bearing a binder of government-committee-approved activities which invariably resulted in unskinned knees and soft-soled feet. All the little trained seals who answered the call of the mild, returned home, clean-faced, to the silent applause of Parental Control Centre. “Houston, we have no problem”.
CLEAN-FACED! This was a crime against grime. Any boy without the honour of bearing a grass-stain skid-mark was doomed to Dorktown holding a Ward Cleaver Award of Pleasantville insignificance.
The Sewer Brats heeded only the call of the wild, something without cub scout badge merit. We were restless, not riskless. The conditions of our play had to be dirty, smelly and dangerous because we were most emphatically NOT GIRLS!
The First Amendment of the Constitution of the Democrazy Republic of Boy held for all wrong-living bad boys -- Amendment 1: No Girls allowed. Amendment 2: No girls allowed. What could be more girl-free than culverts and sewers. Life was gloriously wild and free. Danger and victory went hand in hand. Defiance before compliance. We were meeting the probationary conditions for manhood.
Our initial exploration of the Midtown Creek waterway was the culvert under the Catholic School yard. It was only a block-long. We could see indirectly the light coming in from both ends. This afforded us an achievable goal with a sense of safety, a training-wheel trial. But it also encouraged us to take the bait of bigger better things -- the culvert that went for blocks underneath the downtown.
On the first attempt, we entered as far as the light permitted us. Our umbilical cord to safety was stretched to the limit when darkness began to embrace us a bit too completely and we saw no light at the end of the tunnel. We didn’t emerge from the womb to end in a tomb, so we backed out.
Up to the Midtown Restaurant, the kid kommittee held a power lunch of chips deep-dipped in Heinz. All belched up on Coke, we resolved that next Saturday we would bring candles to better penetrate deeper into the dank heart of darkness -- the storied light at the end of the tunnel would be ours.
The second Saturday we were well positioned to emerge at the harbour exit. Barry got the matches, Ray got the candles, a whole full box of candles, birthday cake candles. Man, we knew what we were doing. Yep. We were boys. Yep. So in we went, leaving-it-to-beaver town behind us.
We received a quick on-site tutorial that a single birthday candle provided insufficient light to guide four boys slouching towards bethlebedlam, so the solution was for each of us to have a candle; after all, we had a “whole full box”.
We received another on-site tutorial about skinny little pink and blue birthday candles having a best-before-date of mere minutes of illumination for the unenlightened.
The impromptu education continued unabated when Barry, the match holder, stumbled on a pipe hidden under the water, and went down like a casualty in a bad western movie. Without seeing the light at the end of the tunnel, we turned back, lighting one candle from the other, hoping, oh man we were hoping, silent within ourselves, because we couldn’t admit fear. It would be a violation of the primary policy of boyhoodlum.
Once again, over a power lunch, the Sewer Brats autopsied the misadventure and once again resolutely resolved to make it to the light at the end of the tunnel next Saturday, come heck or hell water. Multi-tasking was the disorder du jour, so in parallel simultaneity with our resolute resolving, we did the usual autopsy on the cadaver of chips bloodied with Heinz in a hygiene-free zone. Man, it was good to be a guy!
The third Saturday saw us armed with a flashlight and two tall Christmas candles, blazing red. What could stop us now? We made it all the way to stumble bummer site which compelled us to back out the previous week. It was there that the flashlight revealed to the Sewer Brats that they were not the first to enter into this Domain of Darkness -- stage-right, chalk-scrawled on the wall was “BUMP”.
In a few more minutes we were to find that we were not the only ones in that culvert. Light does not bend around corners to illuminate niches and nooks. Furthermore, innocence prevented us from imagining human predators lurking in the dark. But a mouth came out of nowhere, blew out the candle, pushed us into the water and submerged our flashlight.
The sound of fleeing feet sloshing into the darkness echoed back to exacerbate our humiliation. The spears of our epithets failed to penetrate the armour of their whooping laughter. For a seeming eternity our hands brailled the wall back to Covert Street and the Midtown meet.
Who was it? Barry suggested it was the Depot Deadheads. Jim said it was the Burnham Bullies. Our name, the Sewer Brats, was at stake. The boy policy of SHOW-NO-FEAR camouflaging REAL FEAR prevailed. Next Saturday we would go full membership: five all-wet warriors.
Each of us had candles, each had matches, and two flashlights to cinch our fragile bravery. When we reached the site of the previous week’s humiliation, we found the niche that had concealed the predators. It was eerily illuminated with subdued lighting emanating from above.
A round shaft fit-for-one led up to a storm sewer grill on the King Street curb outside Cortesis’ Billiard Academy. Once in a while someone stepped over the grill to jay-walk. Oh, what could be more fun than needlessly exciting idiot adults by hollering up the shaft.
Sadly no one took notice. Our mischief evaporated into a mild cuss. We was shafted.HELP! HELP! I’M BEING HELD HOSTAGE BY BOOGER BULLIES OF BURNHAM STREET!
SAVE ME! PLEASE, SAVE ME FROM SCHOOL RETENTION!
So on we slouched and sloshed, around a slight bend and behold, there it was: the light at the end of the tunnel we had been striving so tenaciously to reach. We arrived at our goal, stepped out of the creek and scaled a 20-foot mountain of coal to shout our victory against the forces of darkness.
Off we paraded to the Midtown Restaurant to formally dissolve the Sewer Brats Club. Well-anointed in Scent of Sewage, we looked to the heavens and, in our freshly-minting minds, we saw that our achievement had earned us an entourage of circling seagulls.
It was a great day to be a boy.
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6 comments:
What fun! What bravery! Let's hear another episode of Growing Up in Cobourg.
Enjoyed this very much and hope you do more of them, regardless of Northumberland Today's lack of interest.
Northumberland News' publication Sideroads might be more suitable for this kind of longer story, or do it right here.
Better yet, invite some of us other old timers to join in too.
By the way, I'm still waiting for your much anticipated Starling Story.
Wally, I loved this story. I was laughing as I remembered some of the stuff us GIRLS got into up on Burnham Street. Our fun was walking along the tracks, over the bridge on Factory Creek and down through the sewage factory. I hate to say this (I said I never would), but "those were the days!"
Jorgie D.
Frink those coal piles !
Thank you all for your positive comments. I have also received a number of kudos by email.
This is encouraging, and I will write some other new stories. Eg. hippies in Victoria Park building a pyramid of picnic tables, 8 tables high.
The great snowball fight along James Street between Division and Central School -- 20-30 kids involved. Principal gave good scold.
The Starling Story: Cobourg Sentinel Star headline; 1200 starlings shot on Chapel Street; Deputy-Reeve, Lenah Fisher offers free dinner to the man with the most kills.
Big pot party at midnight at the lighthouse.
A busload of Cobourg hippies heading to Woodstock.
ETC.
Loved the story Wally..made for very interesting reading and humorous also. Keep up the good work....
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