The Wandering Few

If you go to Google Maps .. type in Saint John, NB .. and then zoom in on the west side .. look for Martello Tower ... you will see that it is basically a peninsula ... bounded on three sides by the harbour to the east .. Partridge Island and and the Digby Ferry to the southeast and Bay Shore/Bay of Fundy to the south.

As a kid .. and whoever I was hanging with at the time until about 12 or 13 years of age .. this was our stomping grounds .. we roamed far and wide across this area on foot .. on tricycle.. and on bike. Back in the day the harbor and the sheds were not fenced in ... we could roam freely on the docks .. and we did ... before the ferry terminal for the Digby Ferry was built in the west side .. you can access that area of water and walk along to the causeway going to Partridge Island .. and just above the last section of beach before the causeway were old gunnery placements from the war ... and above that a gravel pit where there was an old road that ran down to the that area of Bay Shore beach before the beach became almost impossible to walk through because of scattered large rock rock ... but you could access the other side of the beach from Sea Street ...

We were everywhere .. there were no restrictions ... I remember one time being down on the docks with my tricycle with some other kids and Joe Lundy .. who was part of the harbour police .. seeing me and telling me to get the christ home before I killed myself. Today everything is fenced in and restricted ... as it should be ... the only way now to get down to Bay Shore now is via Sea Street ... there is the remains of an locomotive roundhouse just adjacent to Sea Street .. we used to play in there .. we used to walk out on the breakwater .. we roamed through the gun emplacements ... there was no place we couldn't go .. we walked the tracks .. we never hitched a ride .. I am not sure why we didn't ... 

In that day and age .. when I left the house .. I never knew where we would be going or what we would be doing ... I was game for anything ... whoever had an idea I was all for it .. never thought of the consequences or how far were roaming afield ... consequences came after the fact .. not as a forethought ... there are many times we flirted with life threatening disaster ... and didn't realize it until you thought back on it years later ... 

Can you imagine in 2020 .. letting your kids onto the streets .. and not knowing who they were with and what they were going to be up to .. it was a different time ... we were like nomads ... a pack of outcasts ... all of us rejected by kids who were 'normal' ... we were this group of today what would be called nerds I guess .. who found company in our own strangeness ... until one by one .. .we drifted apart ... while we were active ... we covered every street in the west side ... and when I go back there ... I take time to retrace those old pathways ... some of our handiwork still remains ... the rest is just a memory of wandering aimlessly ... with no direction home ... 


Phil - 23 December 2020 - San Patricio de Melaque - 9:16 PM)


Krome Koan - 'Not all who wander are lost; not all those who stop are rescued'




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