Monday, August 01, 2016

Now this is an interesting Facebook memory.

I  remember this day very well.  Ian and Janet (his wife at the time) helped us move.  Jim and Ian got on the ferry right away because they had a truck.  Janet and I were in our car and had to wait four hours.  Janet was a sweet person but a bit of an airhead and she talked non stop for the waiting time,  while on the ferry,  and the drive in to our apartment on Fern Street.   I was just about ready to go out of my mind.  Victoria seemed like the absolute end of the earth and I was heartbroken to leave my beloved Vancouver.  There wasn't even one Italian restaurant in town at the time!  So, Jim will get his wish today to have dinner at Ciao Bella...only seems fitting.

 Although I was lucky to have gotten a teaching job since jobs were very scarce at the time...to the point that my colleagues in the Delta  School District  where I had been teaching  (my first year teaching)  gave me a cookbook as a going away present since they didn't think I'd get a job.  The job was teaching English,  Social Studies,  French,  P.E. and Guidance.  I didn't speak French at the time and had no qualifications for anything except English.   There were 45 students in the P.E. and Guidance classes.  The regular P.E. teacher was going deaf so they gave her classes of 20 and Dave Cutler and I took up that slack.   Dave and I shared the small gym at Shoreline with 90 grade 8's.  He was wonderful and probably was why I didn't go completely bonkers that year.  He was really hesitant to leave his teaching job and take the opportunity to be the kicker for the Edmonton Eskimos.  He had a wonderful career in football.

The next year I got all English classes.  It was certainly a year of "Paying your dues".