Yesterday afternoon

I got onto my bus to Clairview station as Anne was home doing the laundry. It wasn’t bad out there. Very pleasant. No wind. So I found a seat and began to read a couple of pages of Icewind Dale. I read again at my dialer a couple more pages and even as the shift was underway I read in between calls. I must have got 3 days reading done in the first half of the shift. In the 2nd half we had the Indiana at Tennessee football game. It was me vs. JT in the pool since there was no Oiler game on except PPV. When I left the office at 9pm (with 4 CC’s and top total for $765 not quite line hour for the bonus) the game was tied at 14 in the 3rd quarter. I’m really starting to enjoy the NFL. It’s a better product then the CFL. I’ll still watch the Eskimos. We can barely get 35,000 fans at a CFL game here and that’s even in the summer. Moe said I’d be better off watching high school football then the Eskimos. He might be right. The way they’ve been playing this year? Even in US College football they can get 70.000 fans out each game. To be fair this is all proportionate to the density of population. I don’t have a favorite NFL team and the closet one to us here would be Seattle.

Moving along here, I got in about 9:30pm. I had a good night reading my book, getting top total making money for me and the company and watching almost a 3rd of the football game. When I got home I watched Monday night Raw. Good show and Anne made me a nice lunch of enchiladas. Not quite as good as mom used to make them.

After Raw and catching some of the entertainment news I went off to do some research finding out information of a school I attended I think in the early 1960’s: I used Google Earth before and I have a pretty good idea where the school is located: Austin Ave and Schoolhouse road in Coquitlam BC. When I got using Google Earth when it first came out (I guess that’s what most of us did. Look for old schools and our house we used to live in.) Austin Heights school was one of my first Google Earth destinations. I was shocked to learn the school wasn’t there. What happened? For years later I had no idea what happened to the school. Reports from nice people giving me sales on my job that lived in the area hinted it was torn down but that’s about all I got. No details.

Over the years since using Google I tried various search terms but came up empty. I only attended Austin Heights 1 year. In that year (as we lived on Reagan and Hailey) the school was at the end of the 1300 block of Austin Ave. A Google Earth glance of Coquitlam from where I used to live for those 10 years in the 1960’s and where I had to go to school was pretty significant for an 8 year old or so kid. Since we only had one car in the family dad used it to go to work, I had to use my bike to school. We had no bus service in Coquitlam in the 1960’s. I was considered to be a slow learner at the time and placed in what was called Occupational studies. We were low on the food chain as far as kids go in public schools. The other kids in the family went to Porter street in the public school system. Growing up in the 1960’s in Coquitlam I went to 4 Occupational public classes either because those schools closed down the Occupational program due to low enrollment or some other factor I wasn’t aware of.

It wasn’t like I had fond memories of Austin Heights because I’m not even sure what year it was I attended. So today I’m going to use the phones at work to call long distance to the school district office and see if I can get a complete transcript of the schools and grades I completed from when I first went to school I believe was Mountain View 1960. Maybe I can get class photos of each year. If I can actually speak to somebody.

Okay to wrap this long topic up, early this morning I tried a different search term: Austin Heights elementary. Sure enough I was lead to a Facebook page from people that went there. Still no specific details but one commentator said he watched it being torn down and retrieved a couple of bricks from the school as mementos. He said it was torn down in the early 1980’s. That’s a little bit of closure for me.

Most of my childhood growing up in the 1960’s was somewhat murky. I can recall specific events of course but not things that played out season by season. One thing that struck me odd was that where we lived there were no major sidewalks. It’s amazing anyone of us weren’t hit by a car on the way and back from school. The main streets had sidewalks like Blue Mountain and Como lake road. Even today from Google Earth there are no sidewalks on Regan Ave.

On the Facebook page they talked about a little diner that used to be there on the corner of Schoolhouse and Austin Ave. I recall in the early 1970’s Gord, Dave and Bob and I would go there occasionally. I forgot the name but it was called the “Luxury freeze” I think. I recall they had great fries and milk shakes.

I’m onto my first coffee. Anne’s sleeping away. I’m almost in the middle of Icewind Dale. I came across a lot of nice colorful phrasing in the story last night and throughout the book itself. I’m impressed with the writing.
Next Oiler game is Thursday in Nashville as the boys are on a 7 game road trip. Rolly was in goal last night and he has yet to give his team a win in this season.

Hey I just realized I missed Star Wars Clone Wars Sunday night. Damn, what was I thinking?

Ok so for today it’s off to work. Put my 4 hours in. come home and relax out the rest of the evening. Other then that not much going on.

Another big game comes out today “Fallout 3” I’m not really into these kinds of games. They don’t do anything for me. Give me good old D&D any time.

Anyway Bloggers, that‘s all for now

e. Jim