It was hard not to take it personally.

It was hard not to take it personally. A hammer blow to the head is a very personal experience. Sure, he claims that it was an accident. That it slipped out of his hand. But Amos has a way of making everything go away with words. You become immune to his defences once you get beneath the good boy surface and see how he can use words like a shield.

Maybe I don’t totally blame him. I do have a way of bringing down beatings on myself. At least, my older brothers seem perfectly rational in their explanations “It’s his own fault Dad.” And my parents tend to accept their explanations and tell us to just work it out. “Working things out” with my two older, smarter, meaner brothers means another pummeling for me.

A beating from Dad, on the other hand, would be a welcome relief. The words that come from him cut hot like a knife through butter. It’s like he can reach right in to my heart and give it a twist – sometimes it’s just the way he says my name. “Elliot” like it’s a curse word. Other times, he patiently explains my mistakes in a way that says “I’m wasting my time on an idiot”. My brothers are working on these techniques but still resort to their fists when I fail to shut up or squirm sufficiently from the power of their words.

What made it hurt even more was that the blow came from Amos. All summer long we were together like a pair of chipmunks scurrying all over the woods and shores and swimming and getting lost in the long summer days. I was three months older and had an edge of authority on him even though we were both 12, I was a grade ahead because I was born at the end of a year and him at the beginning.

Amos was usually ready to go along with my lead – pretty easy going that way. Too easy going for my pace and getting more so all the time. Most mornings I’m up and dressed, breakfast with my Dad if I’m early enough, and out the door. I’ll check on the boats, bail them if they need it.
I just have to stay clear of the Cabin where Dad’s doing his studying, writing, working on his words. He goes in there and bangs away on his typewriter like King Arthur’s blacksmith fashioning swords for the great Christian World Mission.

That’s more like Amos to think up something like that out of a book. After I’ve been up a while I can go to his cottage bedroom window and find him in the top bunk by the window reading a book. He pulls back the curtain and greets me like a turtle poking out of his shell. Another day begun.

He’ll follow my lead most days. But these days, when I suggest we go and watch Mr. Ziegler work on his new cottage, help out if we can, listen to him talk with my oldest brother about important things, he just wants to climb up into the fields like we used to and pretend we’re Spies or Robin Hood or Army men in a battle. That’s kids stuff I tell him. So we’ll compromise and go climb up in the tree fort.

That is unless one of the big kids finds us there. We’ve got a whole bunch of older cousins who claim that the whole world belongs to them just cause they got here first. We get kicked out of that treefort on a regular basis – which is kinda what makes it fun in my mind – at least they’re not just ignoring us.

But Amos gets mad. He fights back and yells and always ends up crying and yelling and stomping away. It takes a swim or begging a snack from his mom before he cools off.
It was his Dad that first suggested we build our own tree fort. Uncle Dan has got lots of imagination. He tells ghost stories that scare even the big kids down at campfires at the lake on special evenings. Anyway, one day when we were snacking and Amos was whining about the big kids, Uncle Dan says why don’t you two boys build your own fort? You should have seen Amos’s eyes light up. It was like he was just told he could take the motor boat out by himself.

Uncle Dan took us underneath the cottage and started pulling out pieces of lumber from his stash. Early mornings Uncle Dan would troll around the lake and tow back parts of docks and driftwood he’d find around the lake. He took us down to the shore and showed us his latest prize. It was a six foot section of old dock that he told us was “all yours”. He gave us an old hammer and showed us how to pry the boards loose and bang out the nails. Then, he showed us how to straighten out the nails and gave us a tin can to put them in. It took us all afternoon to get that dock apart.

Banging those nails straight was as tricky as catching frogs. My Dad would never think of spending the time doing something that would save only a few cents – but he would never give us his wood or nails or tools either.

I wasn’t so sure about this whole plan. I was hoping that by the next morning Amos would have dropped the idea. He would probably be bored with it and want to go off pretending some game in the woods. I didn’t know why we would want our own fort? The big kids would just leave us alone and what was the fun of that? But when I went to get him the next morning, Amos was already up and dressed and still just as excited about the idea. I could tell that he would do it with me or without me.

I went along with it because Uncle Dan was just as enthusiastic about the idea as Amos. You’d think it was his fort we were building. He grabbed his big ladder from under the cottage and loaded us each up with boards to carry.

Uncle Dan had found a couple of trees out behind the hydro slash that he said we could use. He helped us get the first long board in place. It was a prized ten footer from his collection. He went up the ladder and got it nailed between two trees – getting us to tell him whether it was level or not. The other base board was really a pole. It didn’t look too strong to me, but Uncle Dan said It’d be good. He ran it from the first branch on the one tree - which was way up high – higher than even the big kids fort – and then over to join the first board on the other tree to make a triangle.

With Uncle Dan’s help we nailed boards on the one big tree trunk to make a ladder up to the wide side of the fort. Then he helped us get the first two longest boards nailed down to make a floor for our fort. Then he said “you’re on your own now boys” and went back to down towards the cottage to whatever it was that he was doing.

That’s when I started trying to reason with Amos. He was perched up on those first boards and I was looking up at him from the ground.
“Wouldn’t you like to go see what the big kids are doing?”
“Nope. Hand me up that long board there Elliot.” His voice was firm and resolved and he was taking the upper hand with me which I didn’t like. I tried to appease him. Giving up on the fort had to be his idea. I didn’t want Uncle Dan to think I was a quitter.
“How about going up to the field and playing Army?”
“Nope. Hand me that hammer up here will ya.” His face turned kinda red and he was glaring at me. I was getting desperate in the face of this unseen-before-resolve.
“Well, I’m getting hot, why don’t we go swimming?”
“Nope. I just need some nails now. Throw me up a couple of those big nails will ya?” And so I threw them up to him and as Amos reached out to grab them it happened. He says he lost his balance and when he grabbed the board to catch himself he knocked it off. But I think his temper blew and he was trying to shut me up. Whatever the reason, his hammer fell down off the fort and hit me right on the top of the head. They tell me I was lucky it didn’t get me right between the eyes, but I wasn’t feeling very lucky right then. I was mad! Mad as hell! The pain hadn’t come yet, but the knock on the head was like an insult.

I’d tried to talk sense into him. I’d tried to make him see that doing this on our own was a big mistake – we were way over our heads – messing with the order of things – we were the little kids and meant to follow and be chased but not make things happen ourselves - and now God’s judgement had struck – right on my head! Figures that I’d take the punishment for his stubbornness!

I ran for our cottage as the pain started searing into my skull. Running in the door, my Mom panicked a little –my crying was nothing new but the blood in my hair got her going. But her inner nurse took over and she got some ice. My Dad came in to see what the commotion was all about. He looked into my eyes and asked me a bunch of questions. I guess I passed the test because the next thing I knew we were marching up the hill towards the disaster site. Amos was still perched up on the boards. He had three boards down now and was working on the fourth.

My Dad ordered him to come down. He didn’t move.
“It was an accident. I didn’t do it on purpose.” he said quietly.
“Yes, well, we don’t want any more accidents to happen Amos. So you come down here right now.” He still didn’t move. I was surprised. I hadn’t seen such defiance in the face of my father’s orders before. Amos’ bottom lip was trembling and I could see the water coming up in his eyes, but he gripped the floorboards tight and sat still. I was beginning to see the value of having a fort that high up in a tree.

That’s when Uncle Dan and Aunt Grace showed up. They must have heard my crying and seen us parade up the hill towards the fort. My parents explained what had happened. Grace is my Dad’s sister and she spoke first.
“Well it was just an accident. Amos wouldn’t do anything like that on purpose.” she pleaded for me in her best placating voice. Then Uncle Dan jumped in while my Dad was still gathering his breath to blow her house down.
“Listen, this was all my idea. I thought the boys were old enough to take on a project themselves. This accident was really unfortunate but these are smart boys and they’re going to learn from this and I know that they’re going to be much more careful from now on. Aren’t you boys?”

As mad as I was at Amos, I couldn’t cross Uncle Dan’s trust in me. I saw that he was as much in trouble as Amos over this. I also heard him building me up in front of my parents. I could see them looking at me -their little boy – with some new respect. You could tell they were trying to see what Uncle Dan saw. My Dad asked me
“Elliot, do you want to keep building this fort?”
“Only if I get to hammer.” I stammered.
“It’s my Dad’s hammer” Amos shot down defiantly. This perch up above the grown ups was really going to his head and he was pushing it. There was an uneasy silence. Grace and Dan were looking at my parents. I was amazed at how they were standing up for their kid.
“Elliot, I’ll give you a hammer and then you boys can both hammer. How about that?” I couldn’t believe my ears. My Dad was offering to let me use his hammer. I was beginning to wonder if maybe he’d had a knock on the head too. This was an honour and an opportunity I couldn’t pass up.
“Yeah, thanks Dad. That’d be great. Then we can both hammer.”

And we did. Amos nailed down one side and I nailed down the other. It took us the rest of the afternoon but when we were done, we had a fort that we’d built together. It was my idea to put some sides on it. I think he didn’t want to admit it, but even Amos was more than a little nervous sitting on the edge of the platform with legs hanging down. It was really high up.
There was one final test to really make it ours. We went and got the girls. There were only two cousins younger than us and they were girls. We brought them over and invited them to climb up to the fort. When they climbed up with ease, Amos got them back down on the ground again and pulled every other board off the tree ladder. “Now try” he challenged them. When they tried and failed, he was satisfied. What good was having a fort that you couldn’t keep someone out of?
I was right about the big kids. They took no interest in our fort. “Forts are for little kids” they said. And since we no longer wanted to climb in their fort, they didn’t seem to care about it either. The old fort up in the woods became forgotten. No big kid would show an interest in a fort lower to the ground than a little kid fort.

So, it became mine. It was a place to go when I got bruised. When I was chased away and hurt bad enough to make me stop trying. When my parents stopped listening and got cross at me for no good reason. When I was mad and hurt and needed a place that was just for me. And it was Amos who was the only one who would come looking for me. And as many word hammers as I would throw at him, he would talk me down and make me laugh, and get me playing some stupid kid game.

We were kids after all.

First Lessons at School

My first day at Fairmount Public School on Slowly Road running between Kingston Road and the Scarborough Bluffs was quite memorable. I walked the mile, winding through the suburban neighbourhood streets under the guidance of big brother Bill. We had just moved and in the confusion I had somehow missed the first week of school by hiding amidst the empty boxes. I was now captured and being introduced to the institution where I’d serve my sentence for being a child. Bill was going into grade 4 and I was entering Grade 1. He ditched me at the schoolyard entrance – not wanting to be seen with such a squirt – and I made my way into the yard full of children. Everyone seemed to know each other and I felt as lost as I do today walking into a roomful of strangers. When the bell rang I took off at a run for my assigned the doors.
“STOP RIGHT THERE! WHAT DO YOU THINK YOU’RE DOING?” screamed a teacher’s voice. While every eye in the schoolyard pierced through my back, I instinctively kept running until she screamed again “STAND STILL”. I started to walk over to the teacher to explain that at King Edward Public School in Kingston we ran with enthusiasm to the doors when we heard the bell.
“ I SAID STAND STILL!” hollered the teacher glaring at me with a look of outrage. Until now, no one had ever screamed and glared at me outside of my loving family. When the whistle was blown and everyone started slowly walking towards the school, I waited until that teacher had turned her back before I ventured forth. Looking back I now know that I was traumatized by this event. I am still recovering – diagnosed by people more learned than myself as something to do with an “authority issue”. Personally, I think they’re full of it.
I found the classroom that I’d been assigned to and was told to find a desk to sit at. The chairs were attached to the desks by a metal pole running from the right side of the seat to the desk. I slipped into one in the middle of the class but found that my legs were too long to fit. My knees wouldn’t straighten up without lifting the desk up off the floor. I tried another desk and another until I figured out that they were all exactly the same. The teacher was pretty friendly about it and encouraged me just to live with it until he could find a desk to fit me. Talk about not fitting in.
At recess the kids accused me of failing a grade because I was so big. I wasn’t yet street smart enough to agree with them – not perceiving that this would give me a tougher edge with bullies, I virulently defended the truth of my innocent age and status. Recovering from this conflict, some other boys and I engaged in a friendly game of throwing stones at each other.
“STOP THAT RIGHT NOW! COME HERE YOU BOYS!” screamed the same teacher at me. The other boys had the good sense to run off while I walked up to the teacher and smiled at her. I assumed that my simple explanation of our little game would calm her right down. It was in the Principal’s office that Mr. Cantrell gently explained to me about the safety issues of stone throwing for the other children in the yard.
By lunch time, my classroom teacher had figured out that I could already read simple books while the rest of the class was struggling through the ABC’s. Before they could even bring in a proper sized desk for me, I found myself walking down the hall to a new classroom. In those days they had classes with different course material for children of different abilities. They would name the classes with very subtle and clever labels. So, I was moved from the Turtles class to the Rabbits class hopping right over the Guinea Pigs.
In this room there were two large desks. They were at the very back corner of the classroom right by the door. At one desk sat a very tough looking red-headed freckle-faced kid with meaty arms and hands. In fact his whole body was meaty. Bobby Winkle it turned out was feared by everyone in Grade One and had the respect of most of the kids in Grades 2 and 3 as well. Bobby and I got along just fine. I helped him through the Rabbit lessons and he made sure I didn’t get pummeled by bullies in the school yard. In fact, we hit it off so well that first day, that I had yet another encounter with authority.
It was really a big misunderstanding because I was just explaining something to Bobby about the test we were working on, when I was interrupted and told to go stand in the hallway with my face to the wall. I wasn’t out there five minutes when who should walk by but my new friend Mr. Cantrell. When I explained it all to him, he asked me “Your Father’s a Minister isn’t he?” When I nodded my assent, he just nodded right along with me. “Right” he said his nodding turning into a shaking head as he carried on down the hallway.
I served seven years in that institution earning one year off for good marks and pretty good behaviour (from my point of view). I was the class Valedictorian. I never won a single ribbon for sports let alone a trophy. That first day taught me that my running and throwing abilities only got me in trouble. Booksmarts would get me ahead and being able to talk my way through, when authority had the ears to hear, could definitely come in handy.