Covering the story about West Nipissing school bus drivers reminded me of the days I first came in contact with Northway Bus Lines.
That’s one of the sister companies of Alouette Bus Lines, which is owned by Sinton-Landmark. It’s the Alouette drivers who threatened to walk off the job if they didn’t get the same wage of Northway drivers in Sudbury. They cancelled the walkout when the brass appeared willing to offer a bit more but I don’t think we’ve heard the last of this issue.
When I lived in Capreol during Grades 7 to 11 (1977 to 1982), I had the fortune of being one of the many teenagers with multiple jobs. Those were great times. Between shifts, most every day and night was spent outside having fun or looking for trouble (often the same thing). We only had a couple of channels on the television back then and only one set per household, so the parents hogged the screen time at night.
My favourite job was doing yard and building maintenance chores at the seniors’ complex. I was working for Edna and John Mudry, who were the official caretakers of the place but they couldn’t do a lot of the physical stuff. Mostly I was cutting grass and blowing snow while also cleaning the rooms after residents moved on to a better place.
They paid me $5 an hour, which was almost twice the minimum wage for teenagers at the time. My friend gifted me the position after he got on with CN and he always gave me crap for taking so long to get things done. I thought he was an idiot for rushing.
Edna was great. I wish I had gone back to visit her over the years. I didn’t realize she lived to 98 years old and didn’t pass away until 2015. Sometimes I’d just drop by and play cards with her and the ladies.
My other job was at the Texaco owned by Jim McBane, who either owned Northway or had some kind of affiliation. I pumped gas and cleaned both the school buses and the ones used for charters. It was interesting. Unfortunately, most of the stories present me in an unflattering light while the rest make others look bad so we’ll just keep those for the comedy routines.
The buses were rented out to hockey teams like the Capreol Hawks. Times were different then. Getting pissed up after a roadie was normal. Cleaning up the vomit made me wish I was a hockey player instead. Especially if I spent my Saturday night at a pit party. It made Sunday mornings long and I certainly earned the $2.65 an hour I was getting paid.
One day, Jim caught me napping in the back of a bus he needed cleaned for a run. Usually, I could hear him opening the door and I had enough time to pretend I was reaching under a seat to pick off some gum.
Anyway, that’s how far I got in the bus business.
My favourite feature last week was about Francie Desormeau being the first woman to be the Town of Mattawa's CAO/Treasurer. She's earned it and offers a great role model for anyone who is willing to work hard to achieve a goal.
West Nipissing council meetings aren’t much fun for anybody right now. I hope things settle down and they find a way to fill that vacant Verner seat soon.
My interview with Don Curry is still being crafted into a feature story with full audio recording, the first of a planned series. In the meantime, here’s an audio clip of us discussing West Nipissing council. Curry, it turns out, was a consultant with TWG when West Nipissing was looking for its slogan, Joie de vivre – which seems a bit ironic for the community right now.
I received some bad news on Friday. My friend Bryan Manson passed away not long after arriving at the Nipissing Serenity Hospice.
We only met about a year and a half ago but it seemed like longer. He liked reading my columns in the Nugget, especially my coverage of city council and the personal stuff I shared. After seeing my so-called ‘retirement’ interview with Peter Handley on Cogeco, he asked me to help write his biography.
We had a half dozen interview sessions that lasted a couple hours each and then met many times after that to go over the chapters. It was a gift he wanted to leave behind for his grandchildren to keep the memories alive.
Manson, 81, was well-known in North Bay, starting out as a ‘Morning Man’ at CFCH before moving into ad sales. He was involved in the community in many ways and pivoted to investment planning in the early 1980s. He was very proud of working with his son and granddaughter, The Manson Team.
Interestingly, he bought a table-worth of tickets for the hospice fundraiser I did last September. My last visit was a couple of weeks ago.
I hope to write more about him when the time is right, but for now, here’s a couple of clips from our interviews (with permission from his family). The first was about him leaving Niagara Falls to be a radio star and landing in Kirkland Lake when just 17 years old and the second is about one of his first impressions of North Bay.
