The pop songs of 1967- 1970. ‘Crimson and Clover’, ‘Hey Jude’ or as I referred to it as “Na na nah, nah, nah, na, na nah”, ‘Age of Aquarius’ and of course, ‘Hey Hey We’re the Monkees!’ and how the older teen girls would talk about music and the cute musicians. Those were good years with many great memories, and back then I thought about how amazing everything was and how the future would hold endless possibilities and hopefully one of them will include a bulldozer. Amongst these memories and music of the day, perhaps the song I loved the most was the Hawaii 5-0 theme song. My favourite television shows were The Banana Splits, Rat Patrol, The Monkees and Land of the Giants.
It was 1968, and my Uncle Dick bought LPs for my sister Kathe and I. She received The Monkees ‘ Pisces, Aquarius, Capricorn and Jones Ltd’ and I received ‘Luke The Drifter’, which I assume was a folk artist. I recall my mother berating him for giving me something with such depressing song titles as ‘The Funeral’. It’s funny how after all these years, I can recall that song title and yet, the record was never played once. However, The Monkees was played all the time and once my sister moved into her teens when this music was uncool, I took the album that I still have to this day. ‘Pleasant Valley Sunday’ painted an image in my head and I yearned to understand what it was doing that to my subconscious and more importantly, why.
We had moved away from North Bay to a farm near Guelph. My father was pursuing his dream of being a harness horse breeder and race horse driver. So, despite this great little life we had in our little post war A-frame style house on Burns St. with all our friends and family, we were uprooted and moved out to the middle of Wellington County, miles from nowhere. On the very next day, a local farmer that my father had contracted to cut the fields of hay arrived. He would be operating a machine called a swather, and as I would always do, I would stand out in that field, until he would finally stop, I am sure with a sigh and wave me over to ride along. I was persistent if not pathetic. I spent more hours standing beside Mr. Smith while he operated the fields than I likely ever spent with my own father. The smell of diesel, sometimes the black smoke would be choke me as I would jump off and around to lift and hold the wagon hitch as Mr. Smith would back the tractor into place and I would insert the drop pin and be the hero of the moment. For all the loneliness and seclusion of being way out in the country, there was always farm machinery for me to watch and pester my way to assist.