Welcome To The Jungle.

*This memory is a continuation of the 'Byng Avenue Willowdale' memory.

It was back in the spring of 1969 when my mother was told that an apartment, our apartment would be soon available. I was just finishing grade three and I knew for the following year I would be attending grade four at a new school.

I never had any close friends at Finch Avenue School anyway so I wasn’t too sad about not seeing my classmates again. My mother kept promising me that I would have so many new friends once we moved later that summer. More than anything else I was sad about leaving my dog Art behind. My mother assured me that we would still be visiting Art and grandma at least once a month.

I am sure my grandmother had mixed emotions about us leaving, but she knew the day would eventually come. She had become very close to both my brother and me. However, my mother made it difficult for her to be the typical doting grandmother. My grandmother was not allowed to give us any Christmas presents or birthday gifts. We couldn’t celebrate Halloween or even eat a hot cross bun at Easter because of our mother’s religious beliefs. She wasn't allowed to read us bible stories or ever take us to her church. I do however remember her always giving me a shiny silver dollar as a reward for passing after each school year.

I guess my mother was ok with that annual gesture of kindness.

I knew my mother was very happy that we were finally getting our own place because it was going be a fresh start for the three of us. It had been almost four years, our wait for subsidized housing had been a long one. Back then when a family in Toronto was offered an apartment they did have a choice whether to accept or reject it. If they for whatever reason rejected an apartment then they went back to the bottom of the list and their wait would start all over.

We had been waiting four long years so when an apartment, any apartment became available to us there was no doubt my mother would be accepting it. Our new apartment would be vacant in mid-July and during the week before we moved in it would be repainted. It would also allow some time for any repairs that needed to be done to the unit. My mother would also need to drop by the rental office and sign some papers and pick up the keys during that week. She was also allowed one visit to do any measuring before we moved in. I was just about to turn nine years old and I vividly remember every detail of my first visit to our new apartment.

It was a sunny afternoon when my mother and I first ventured over to Flemington Road. I remember my mother buying me a bag of bar-b-que potato chips to eat on the bus. I assume my brother was being watched by my grandmother because he was not with us. It had taken us three bus rides; the final bus had taken us right to our building. Our building was four floors high and there were many other buildings that all looked exactly the same in the area.

I remember being excited as we walked up to our apartment on the second floor. Our door had the number 204 on the front. It was also the first time I had ever seen a peephole on a door before. My mother told me I was never allowed to open the door to anyone until I looked through the peephole to see who it was. There were a couple of phone books in the apartment and I remember standing on them while looking through the peephole at my mother who had gone back out into the hallway. I thought having a peephole on our front door was pretty cool.

Our apartment was a small two bedroom with mine and my brother’s bedroom being slightly larger than my mother's. Both of the bedroom windows faced east and each bedroom had a small closet. Both of the closets were each bigger than the one the three of us had all been sharing. The bathroom was also small and very bright. The living room was probably the same size, if not a bit bigger as our house on Byng. There was also a small eating area for a kitchen table. Bright afternoon sunlight flooded both the living room and eating area through the south facing windows.

It would be the kitchen that I would remember the most on that day. The kitchen seemed dark and not as bright so my mother turned on the light. She gasped loudly after she saw a cockroach on the counter. The cockroach scurried very quickly along the counter and disappeared behind the stove. I had never seen a cockroach before and I just thought it was a small bug. My mother was mortified and would be requesting the apartment be sprayed before we moved in.

Once we left the apartment, we headed back over to my grandmother’s house on the bus. There would be lots of time to explore our new neighborhood in the following weeks. I don’t remember my mother doing any measuring on that first visit. Even at nine years of age I knew we had nothing so what would she need to measure?

I do remember how happy she was and her always thanking Jehovah for our new apartment. Jehovah was the God the three of us prayed to when we knelt down beside our bed and said our nightly prayers. Little did I know on that day just how big all this Jehovah stuff was about to become in my young life.

Sunday July 20th, 1969 was a 'one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind' day. This historic day would be one of the biggest most monumental days in the history of the human race. On that day Neil Armstrong became the first man to walk on the moon. It was also our moving day and not only would this day be a monumental day for mankind. It would also turn out to be a monumental day for me also.

We were moving on a Sunday because it was the only day that my Uncle Nick was able to borrow a pick-up truck with a small trailer. We didn’t have very much stuff to move and I vaguely remember Richard also helping us move out that day. He most likely couldn’t wait to see the end of us and finally moving out of the house for good. By the end of the morning we were on our way. All of our belongings were on that first and only load. I remember giving Art one last Milk-Bone and a big hug just before we left.

Once we arrived at our apartment, I remember the first thing we had to do was open all the windows. Our apartment had just been freshly painted and the pesticide company had also sprayed. The bug spray coupled with the strong oil based paint fumes made the air toxic and unbreathable. By mid-afternoon everything was inside our apartment.

Someone who my Uncle Nick knew and was also a Jehovah's Witness delivered brand new larger bunk beds with two new dressers for me and my brother. They were given to us free of charge, but I do think my uncle had bought them for us. All my mother had to do was paint them.

We had a kitchen table with a big colourful vinyl tablecloth. The tablecloth reminded me of a Twister mat, but instead of circles there were vibrant bright colour drawings of various foods. Under each drawing was written the number of calories per serving. The tablecloth must have been brand new because I remember it had a very strong vinyl smell that permeated the whole kitchen area. Our kitchen table to this day I still have no idea where it came from. The only furniture we had was what was in our small bedroom back at my grandmother’s house and there was never a kitchen table in our bedroom.

Our first meal at our kitchen table on that first day was poached eggs on toast for supper.

Over the next few weeks, we began to slowly settle into our new environment in the Lawrence Heights neighborhood. Lawrence Heights was one of the newest subsidized housing projects within the city of Toronto having been completed in 1962. The neighborhood is referred to by residents, outsiders and the police as the Jungle and people who live in the Jungle are known as Jungle bunnies.

The Jungle encompasses a very large area made up of mostly townhouses and low rise apartment buildings. Flemington Road, Varna Drive and Ranee Avenue all make up the 2 km loop that encircles the Jungle. There are many individual courts, each housing a few dozen families living within multiple rows of townhouses. As well there were quite a few apartment buildings; the largest ones all being exactly like the four-story one I was now living in. The Allen Road ran right through the center of the Jungle and we lived on the west side. The three of us were now westside Jungle bunnies.

The Jehovah’s Witnesses Canadian headquarters also known as Bethel was located at 150 Bridgeland Avenue. It was a massive operation where all of the Witnesses biblical publications are printed. The most common of which were two bi-weekly magazines, The Watchtower and Awake. Dozens of volunteers who lived within the Bethel are known as Bethelites. The complete operation is financed by donations from Witnesses who attend Kingdom Hall’s right across Canada. Within the Bethel, there also was a Kingdom Hall. This would be the location for the Yorkdale congregation to congregate for their twice weekly meetings. The Yorkdale congregation included anyone living within the boundaries of the Jungle.

The Bethel Kingdom Hall would now become our new Kingdom Hall.

We moved to the Jungle not knowing anyone. Within a couple weeks it seemed like we had so many new Witness friends all eagerly welcoming us and helping us to get settled. Both our new congregation and Kingdom Hall were much larger than the one we attended back in Newtonbrook. Most importantly for me, there were now quite a few kids around my age at our meetings.

Everyone seemed so friendly; I began making many new friends. It was so nice to discover many of my newfound friends also lived in the Jungle and went to the same school I would be attending in just a few weeks. It had already been a month or so since we moved out of my grandmother’s house and I already knew I was in a much better, happier place. Things were looking up for the three of us and I was looking forward to what the future would hold.

On Tuesday, September 2nd, 1969 I started grade four at Flemington Road Public School. The school was less than a five minute walk across the bridge over the Allen Road. My teacher was Mrs. Gold and I had thirty classmates that first year.

I was called 'patches' by many kids in my school because my pants always had big iron-on patches on both knees. I remember many kids laughing and poking fun at me during that first year. I was one of the tallest kids in my class and my pants were always a tad too short. I couldn’t even guess how many times a kid said to me "the floods over" during grade four. My mother would always let the hem out of my pants, but to no avail I was simply growing too fast.

I didn’t have very many clothes during that first year living in the Jungle, but whatever clothes I did have they were always clean. There was a laundry room in the basement of our building; I remember it cost a dime for each wash load and to save money my mother hardly ever used the dryers. She always hung up the damp laundry on racks in our bedroom.

My mother took great pride in her sons always wearing clean clothes.

I felt like my life was now so much better at my new school than it had been the previous few years at my old school. There were so many Witness families living in the Jungle and their kids all went to the same school as me. I now had many friends I was allowed to associate with. However, almost right away my mother set limitations as to who my new friends could be once we moved into the Jungle. Both me and my brother could only play with other Jehovah’s Witness kids who went to our Kingdom Hall. Everyone else was considered 'worldly' and bad association.

There were easily a couple hundred kids, both boys and girls who lived in the Jungle and were within a couple years of my age. My mother because of her religious beliefs had limited my potential friends to about a couple dozen or so. This would be the first of what would become a decade of constant trials and tribulations while living under my mother’s roof. Although having a couple dozen friends I could now play with was still a couple dozen more than I had while living at my grandmother’s house.

As the decade of the 60's began to wind down my mother became more and more entrenched in the Jehovah’s Witness way of life. It didn't take too long before I was getting so fed up with all her fanatical religious bible shit that she was always cramming down my throat. It just seemed to be non-stop, but it was a trade off for me.

It was simple, if I played by her rules I would be able to play road hockey with my new Witness friends. It was still very early days, but hockey was slowly becoming my escape from both my mother and the Kingdom Hall.

I closed out the 60's decade with what is still one of the fondest memories I have with my mother and brother.

Every New Year’s Eve the TTC (Toronto Transit Commission) had free rides on the complete bus and subway system. This was an annual event sponsored by a distillery to discourage people from driving their cars after having too much to drink at parties.

On that night the three of us took two free bus rides to a movie theater at Kipling and Finch Avenues to see Oliver. It was such a memorable, fun night and I will never forget it. To this day I still love watching Oliver. I have seen it well over a dozen times and I even own a copy of the Oscar winning movie.

As I write this story I still find it pretty sad while attempting to recall my happiest times spent with my mother. The truth is they could probably all be counted on both my hands. Watching a silly musical about an orphan back on that New Year’s Eve was one of them.

It was well after midnight when the three of us got back to our apartment. The 70's decade was already a couple hours old. Little did I know then just how much the new decade would drastically begin to shape my young life.

More than any other decade, I have absolutely no doubt the 70's decade made me the person who I am today.