By John Moore, Columnist
I was recently reminded of the escapades of my youth by a visit from a dear friend whom I had not seen for at least 35 years. This friend now resides in Alberta, but he and his wife decided to come east for a tour of Nova Scotia and its fine eating establishments. Their main aim was to look up old friends along the way. From start to finish, it was a laugh a minute as we relived our memories of those precious days, we lived at 12 A Gordon Avenue in Fairview way back in the early 70’s.
We lived in a basement apartment starting out with four lads and then reduced to three. There were always coming and goings and good humored banter to get us through the day. We lived in a triplex in which there were the girls who lived above us always ready for a good party and beside them the family from Sheet Harbour and their three fun loving adult children who were never without a dull moment. There were the young families around us on the street whose children loved to wake us up at 7:30 am on a Saturday morning, not realizing we might be recovering from the night before, for a game of toss and catch football. We used to drive their parents crazy with our devil may care attitude.
Our neighborhood was a melting pot for good old fashioned neighborly love followed by reckless abandon. When I think about how we survived those days often living on Kentucky fried chicken from the outlet below on Main Ave. and kraft dinner it was a miracle. We always managed to actively participate in the downtown Halifax scene despite our monetary troubles. We used to say we had our priorities right as misguided as they may have appeared.
There was the time we went to see the last game of the 1972 Canada Russia hockey series which happened to be hosted by well-known Fairview resident Donnie Edwards who lived down the street from us. It was Thanksgiving weekend as I recall and after the game, we decided to drive to Quebec to our hometown to surprise our parents. Boy, were they surprised as we also brought home our dirty laundry for our mothers to do. You really cannot make this stuff up.
There were many incidents that we laughed about with my good friend from Calgary but one of the best was the missing case of beer. Hard to believe but in our last residence, which was across the street from 12a Gordon, we did not have a fridge. Why bother when there was a car port roof off one of the bedrooms to keep things cool? On a Friday afternoon, my roommate decided it was time for a break from Law School and time to party. He bought a case of beer and put it on the car port roof to cool. When he felt it should be cold enough, he went out to get it only to find out it was gone . Some ingenious person had beaten him to it by shimmying up the post and helping themselves. Oh well, it just meant the Red Fox tavern down the road gained a few more patrons that evening.
The visit with my good friend was all too short but it made me realize how fortunate we were to have had the fun and experiences we had when we lived together in Fairview all those years ago. We all got along, and we always seemed to work out any differences we had. This held us in good stead in future years as we all went on to lead successful personal and business lives with all these fond memories of Fairview days to anchor us. Thank you, Fairview, for letting us live our youth in such a wonderful and meaningful way. A big thank you to all those residents who tolerated our many mischievous short comings . Happy June!
By Awmcphee – Own work, CC0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=50113142
