JUNE AND I

June & I


It must have been about 1953 when I first remember meeting my cousin, June Kendrick. We were both just five years old and starting school together at Hibbard's Brook School. It was a one-room schoolhouse and our Primary teacher's name was Mrs. Hurd.

My seatmate was Connie Coffin, a girl from Coffinscroft. At recess, June and Connie and I would laugh and talk and play games. June always wore her black hair in ringlets or curls and she had laughing black eyes. Oftentimes, we'd get her in trouble by wading through the mudflaps alonside the water on our way home. Her nice shoes would be ruined!

I remember always trying to catch up with her in our grades as she was very smart and made the best grades of anyone. We were all very involved with our annual Christmas concert and I recall June's lovely singing voice.

June's parents weren't rich as no-one in our community was but they did have a vehicle so to me, they seemed rich. She had a brother and although he was younger than us, we all played together. Clifford was very cute, funny and exceptionally smart.

June and I were always in the same class as we were the same age. We used to try to sit next to one another but inevitably, our teachers would separate us. We had Faye Brannen, Miss Smith, Brenda Newell, Louise Perry, Doris Shatford as some of our elementary teachers. I had a crush on Peter Atwood; she liked all the boys and they liked her, especially Glenn Ryer.

After school and on weekends, my brother Junior and I would walk up to June's house or she and Cliff would come to ours. If it was bad weather outside, we'd sit inside and play card games like Muggins, Crazy 8's or we'd play croconole, checkers & Blind Man's Bluff.

Winter months, we'd all go to Arthur Doane's hill to slide down on our sleds and toboggans or flying saucers. Sometimes after supper we'd all walk up to the river to ice-skate. Our other girlfriends, Joyce fisher, Ellen Roberts & Linda Crowell would often accompany us. There, we'd meet up with Patti Scott & others.

When I first met Johnny Watt, I developed a crush but it was quite obvious he preferred June's company. We were growing up! June's dad drove us in to Shelburne where we'd sit to eat inside the brightly lit Ritz restaurant. When older, we'd go to the local dances in Shelburne and Grafton, her dad, would sit in his car with her mum, Helen, and wait patiently for us. I can still see his handsome face sitting behind the wheel, smiling and smoking. Our favourites were the street dances!

Sometimes, June and I were bored and so we'd play silly games like dressing up to pretend we wanted to go on the bus that traveled thru our village en route to the big city. It would stop, we'd run and then explode in laughter.

Before we developed properly and were impatient, waiting, we borrowed my sister's bra's and stuffed them with toilet paper. Then we'd don a sweater to accentuate our full bustline and prance up and down the roads. We were thrilled when cars would honk at us!

Junior, Clifford, June and I used to peep in neighbor's windows and help ourselves to radishes from Wilford Watt's garden. One day, we were munching away when his housekeeper, Mrs. Firth from Lockeport, stepped off the bus. We had to lay low and hold our breaths so as not to be detected! She walked right past us and when she went inside, we scurried home.

At Halloween we all had such fun and played harmless pranks on people like Ken Wilson and Nina Turner. In the summers, we would go down behind my house to sun and swim in the Ocean. Mum would fix us vinegar drink and cucumber sandwiches. I remember June called her "Aunt Lena"; I liked that.

June and I would walk five miles to see a show at the Goudy Theatre, sometimes meeting Carol Christy there and all sitting together. One time, June suggested we hitch-hike home and a man in a big car picked us up. He warned us that it was dangerous and made us promise we would not do that again; we didn't.

One thing we did almost every day was to walk to get the mail from the Post Office. Our Box # was 11. I remember June's phone number was 69 while ours was 75. We used to sit and listen to the radio, the only station we received was from Boston, "WMEX". We fell in love with the records of the Everly Brothers, the Beach Boys, Roy Orberson, Connie Francis, Brenda Lee, Johnny Tillotson and of course, Elvis Presley. We did not even know what any of them looked like for a very long time.

My oldest brother brought a black & white Zenith television home with him from California and we all sat around it's round, snowy screen to watch. There was the Roy Rogers Show, the Mickey Mouse Club, The Lone Ranger, Bonanza, The Rifleman, etc. We even sat and watched each and every commercial and stayed in front of the set watching Test Pattern, waiting to see if by some miracle, it would show another episode of Rescue 8 or the Ed Sullivan Show. We were addicted!

Winter spent sledding and building snowmen or snowangels, summer spent playing baseball or swimming, spring spent watching the boys kiacking or shedding our jackets for a sweater, autumn spent at Beaver Dam or planning our Halloween outfits.........what joy, what fun, what great times we had.

Our parents weren't rich but were always there for us; we never had to be separated from them; they gave us love and support and encouragement, introduced us to Church and God. We had wonderful grandparents, neighbors and friends, we wanted for nothing. We felt safe and protected in our small community, we excelled in school, we were happy & healthy!

One day, June offered me a cigarette and as I was too embarressed to tell her I had never smoked at the ripe old age of 13, I inhaled and threw up all the way home from Stan Kenney's garage!

Soon, we grew up. June and I traveled in different directions and chose our individual paths. I lost my Mum & then we both lost our dads in the mid 90's and our brothers in the early 2000's. We each have a son and a daughter, none of whom have yet married.

Life has been both good and bad; we have made mistakes; we have learned lessons and we have been blessed. The future lies ahead and is unknown as we continue on our journey through life. I have always felt lucky to have June as my cousin and my friend.

We do not forget where we began because "memory is one gift of God that time cannot destroy."