Every
once in a while, you hear a song on the radio that brings you back to a
place in time. Though long
ago recorded, the images and sounds of yesterday are instantly retrieved
from the vault of your memories, and you see and hear them now as you saw
and heard them back then. There
is a song playing on the radio now, and that song is “Life In A Northern
Town”, performed by “The Dream Academy”, more or less of a one-hit
wonder from the mid-1980s. The
song might as well have been called “Life In A Northern Town Called
Hanmer”, because to me that is what the song is all about.
It was
the spring of 1986 when I heard the song for the first time on the 105.3
FM radio station. The smell
of spring was in the air. The
vacant lot beside our house was still covered with snow, but I swear I
heard it melting because the air was so warm.
That is what I first remember when I hear that song, and soon
after, all the memories from my childhood come flowing through the
corridors of my brain.
I have
fond memories of the years I spent growing up in Hanmer. My father, working for Transport Canada, had been transferred
to the Sudbury airport from Timmins in 1979.
After staying in various temporary residences in Sudbury, our
family moved in to the yellow house on the corner of Dennie Street and
Maurice Street (4532 Dennie Street) in July 1979.
I was five years old at the time.
My childhood was just beginning.
The lot on the corner of Dennie and Maurice Streets was vacant and
in the summer of 1979, a small patch of sunflowers grew there.
My fascination with sunflowers continues to this day 25 years
later!
The
years that followed saw me grow up and live my life pretty much according
to Roch Carrier’s passage on the back of the current five dollar bill:
“The winters of my childhood were long, long seasons.
We lived in three places – the school, the church and the skating
rink – but our real life was on the skating rink.”
My childhood revolved around being a student at École Notre-Dame,
attending Sunday mass at the Église St-Jacques and skating at the
Centennial arena and sliding down its hills.
Though I did not play hockey, which is the life on the skating rink
that Roch Carrier alluded to, I probably should have with a name like
mine.
Hanmer was a fun place to grow up
as a kid. I enjoyed my
childhood to the perennial rhythm of the seasons. The schedule for each year looked something like this.
It’s time for me to stop
rambling on, the performers are about to sing.
Let’s listen to the words, shall we, I mean really listen.
Don’t just hear them, listen to them.
A
Salvation Army Band played
And
children drank lemonade
And
the morning lasted all day,
All
day
This
reminds me of the Valley East Days parade in September.
I remember standing in the crowd at the Centennial Arena watching
the parade go by. People were
drinking various refreshments, lemonade included.
The days just seemed to be longer back then. I guess when you’re a kid, there is nothing else to do but
have fun. The “Theory of
Fun” goes like this: the more fun you can pack into a day, the longer it
will seem.
And
through an open window came
Like
Sinatra in a younger day,
Pushing
the town away
Ah-
Memories
of summer, when the windows are open and you can hear music playing on the
radio from inside the house. I’m
sure I heard Sinatra playing on the radio back then, but I didn’t know
who he was at the time. And I
do remember hearing The Beach Boys. There
is something more to the sight of the town on a summer day when the
soundtrack that accompanies the image has a nostalgic feeling to it.
The song has been tested and it stood the test of time.
(chant)
Ah
hey ma ma ma
Life
in a northern town.
This is the chorus of the song.
Quite simple, really, but that is really the point of life in a
northern town. It is simple
and exempt from the worries that accompany life in a big city like
Toronto.
They
sat on the stoney ground
And
he took a cigarette out
And
everyone else came down
To
listen.
I was
part of the 13th St-Jacques Cub Pack and camping expeditions
were part of the curriculum. I
remember this one particular leader who smoked a lot and always made us
sit around in a circle while he sat in the middle and dispensed his
wisdom. The wisdom he was dispensing was lost on me, but I do
remember the ground being stoney! That’s
par for the course living in the Sudbury area.
He
said "In winter 1963
It
felt like the world would freeze
With
John F. Kennedy
And
The Beatles."
I
remember a little bit of a panic in 1983.
The world was supposed to end in 1984, or something like that.
Credit goes to George Orwell for that little bit of drama.
I think that was more of a scare that existed only in the world of
children, for I doubt that adults would have really believed that the
world would end in 1984. But
when you’re a kid, Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny and the Tooth Fairy are
all real, so why not the concept of the world ending in 1984?
For a while, it really did seem like the world froze, but in 1983
it would have been with Ronald Reagan and Michael Jackson.
(Chant)
Ah-
hey ma ma ma
Life
in a northern town.
Ah
hey ma ma ma
All
the work shut down.
With so
many people being employed by Inco or Falconbridge, when the miners went
on strike, it really did seem like all the work had shut down.
The
evening had turned to rain
Watch
the water roll down the drain,
As
we followed him down
To
the station
And
though he never would wave goodbye,
You
could see it written in his eyes
As
the train pulled out of sight
Bye-bye
This
does not bring back a memory in particular but speaks to the phenomenon of
exodus from the small town. The
sun sets on a childhood and it is time to face the worry-laden life of an
adult. The sunshine gives way
to rain, the smile gives way to tears.
Younger friends follow the eldest to the train station to bid him
farewell. The eldest does not
want to leave but he knows he has no choice.
In his heart he wants to stay but in his mind he knows he has to
leave. When the heart and the
mind are in opposition, teary eyes are the result.
Then finally it really is goodbye as the train to adulthood
disappears into the horizon.
(Chant)
Ah
hey ma ma ma
Life
in a northern town.
Ah
hey ma ma ma
Life
in a northern town.
Another one has gone but life in a
northern town continues.
Would I ever like to live in
Hanmer again? In a heartbeat.
But then, as it always does, money rears its ugly head and shatters
that dream like a broken mirror. The
problem is how to pay for a house and all the bills that go along with it
when gainful employment is hard to find?
That has been the subject of a great many number of articles about
the mass exodus of young people from the smaller northern towns to the
urban sprawl of southern Ontario. The
pattern seems to be that once you grow up, you pretty much have to head
south in order to make a life for yourself and your family like the life
that your parents made for theirs.
In
1989, my father was transferred to the North Bay airport and I
finished my high school years at École Secondaire Algonquin.
Then in 1993, I left North Bay to attend York University in
Toronto. I wanted to go into the computer programming field, and there
just was not enough demand for this career in
the north. And so I remain in
the south, working in my chosen field, and realizing that in all
probability, as things currently stand, that this is where I’ll stay
because my livelihood depends on it.
Maybe that is part of the quandary.
If the economic engine of the north mirrored that of the urban
south, I wouldn’t be writing about growing up as a kid in the north the
way I did throughout this article. The
song would then have to be “Life In A Southern City”.
If
you would like to send Marc an email, his address is:
mdt38@rogers.com