If you have read my blog entitled Snakes! Snakes! Snakes! on my
Saskatchewan Farm Boy site, you will know that I have a deeply instilled
dread of meeting a snake unexpectedly! Once the initial contact has
been made, I can actually look at and admire, and in rare cases, even
handle a snake. That's once my heart retreats back from my throat and my
spine achieves normal feeling again and my snake sensors relax
somewhat. So that you know, I hate the unexpected meeting-up with a
snake of any kind.
The Red River Exhibition used to set up for 10 days at the end of June and sometimes into July. It situated its midway in a horse shoe shape around the north end of the recently razed Winnipeg Football Stadium. It was always well attended in the 1960's because it was the start of summer and school was almost finished and people were ready for a little excitement. There were exhibits in the Winnipeg Arena and there were nightly shows inside the football stadium. There were many great acts that appeared here during the Ex.
The last night of the Ex was usually quite frenzied as people tried to squeeze the last bit of excitement out of the Ex that they could. The workers were also more lax and anxious because once the midway closed its gates and the last customers were out, they had to tear down and stow away their ride or exhibit or concession. It was a chaotic looking event if you were a casual observer, but there was method in their madness and by noon of the day after the Ex closed, the whole midway was gone in a convoy of trucks on to the next city to set up and start all over again. This midway usually headed to Calgary next to take part in the Stampede. Left behind was a mountain of trash and garbage. That's where I come into the picture.
My brother and his partner owned Cardinal Construction, a young start-up company whose chief claim to fame in their as yet brief history was construction of Bison Dragways off the Trans-Canada Highway east of Winnipeg. They had bid on the job of cleaning up after the Ex left and had won the right to clean up. This meant collecting and hauling all the garbage off the grounds and then filling in all the holes in the pavement left by tent pegs and machinery groundings.
My brother recruited about 6 of us plus a few trucks to haul away the waste. We were being paid $10 an hour provided we finished by 8:00 p.m., the deadline stipulated by Winnipeg Enterprises. $10 an hour was a high rate of pay. The minimum wage in Manitoba in the city at that time was $0.85/hour. This was indeed incentive to work hard! And we did. Picking up and loading bags and boxes of garbage onto the back of a truck, while harder on the back, was easier than the boring job of filling in the holes in the pavement with sand, pouring in tar, and tamping everything down to make the pavement uniform in its smoothness.
We started right after the last midway truck had left. We worked from the east side of the stadium, around the north end of the stands, and on to the west side. By 3:00 p.m. we were nearing the end of our garbage cycle. As I made my way to one of the last piles of bags and boxes, I was glad that we were almost finished as the work was hard and the day was hot. I reached down for a cardboard box that had been taped shut and I hoisted it up onto my shoulder preparatory to heaving it into the back of the truck. As I was hoisting it, I realized the bottom was all soggy and it might tear apart. It did!
Out of the bottom of the box slithered 2 large boa constrictors! They poured out onto my face and neck, one down my front, and one down my back and ended up entangled in my feet and legs. My co-workers told me they were sure that the scream/yell I let out could be heard all the way to the airport. As they rushed to me to see what had happened, they pulled up short when they saw the snakes around my feet. By this time I had regained some of my faculties and I realized that these two snakes would not harm me, or for that matter, anyone ever! Why? Because I saw that their heads had been almost completely severed from their bodies.
Near where we were now standing, I now remembered, had been the site of a sideshow exhibiting snakes They had been disposed of by the owners for whatever reason before they left for the next city. Perhaps the snakes had died and the cut heads were to make sure of their deaths. Or perhaps they couldn't afford their upkeep. Whatever the reason it was, I know that they were almost responsible for one more death - mine from fright!
My co-workers, seeing there was nothing to fear, stretched the snakes out to see how big they really were. To me they were huge but in reality each was about 2 metres long. After much teasing and suggestions that I could go home and change my underwear(to be honest they weren't far from the truth), they put the dead snakes into a garbage bag and threw them onto the truck. I was glad this was the last pile as I honestly didn't have the stomach to hoist any more bags or boxes.
I spent the rest of the afternoon filling in the hundreds of holes left in the pavement my the midway people. As I slammed down my tamping rod to pack the holes tightly, I envisaged the face of a midway worker or snake-handler with each thrust. I told you I hate coming on snakes unexpectedly!
The Red River Exhibition used to set up for 10 days at the end of June and sometimes into July. It situated its midway in a horse shoe shape around the north end of the recently razed Winnipeg Football Stadium. It was always well attended in the 1960's because it was the start of summer and school was almost finished and people were ready for a little excitement. There were exhibits in the Winnipeg Arena and there were nightly shows inside the football stadium. There were many great acts that appeared here during the Ex.
The last night of the Ex was usually quite frenzied as people tried to squeeze the last bit of excitement out of the Ex that they could. The workers were also more lax and anxious because once the midway closed its gates and the last customers were out, they had to tear down and stow away their ride or exhibit or concession. It was a chaotic looking event if you were a casual observer, but there was method in their madness and by noon of the day after the Ex closed, the whole midway was gone in a convoy of trucks on to the next city to set up and start all over again. This midway usually headed to Calgary next to take part in the Stampede. Left behind was a mountain of trash and garbage. That's where I come into the picture.
My brother and his partner owned Cardinal Construction, a young start-up company whose chief claim to fame in their as yet brief history was construction of Bison Dragways off the Trans-Canada Highway east of Winnipeg. They had bid on the job of cleaning up after the Ex left and had won the right to clean up. This meant collecting and hauling all the garbage off the grounds and then filling in all the holes in the pavement left by tent pegs and machinery groundings.
My brother recruited about 6 of us plus a few trucks to haul away the waste. We were being paid $10 an hour provided we finished by 8:00 p.m., the deadline stipulated by Winnipeg Enterprises. $10 an hour was a high rate of pay. The minimum wage in Manitoba in the city at that time was $0.85/hour. This was indeed incentive to work hard! And we did. Picking up and loading bags and boxes of garbage onto the back of a truck, while harder on the back, was easier than the boring job of filling in the holes in the pavement with sand, pouring in tar, and tamping everything down to make the pavement uniform in its smoothness.
We started right after the last midway truck had left. We worked from the east side of the stadium, around the north end of the stands, and on to the west side. By 3:00 p.m. we were nearing the end of our garbage cycle. As I made my way to one of the last piles of bags and boxes, I was glad that we were almost finished as the work was hard and the day was hot. I reached down for a cardboard box that had been taped shut and I hoisted it up onto my shoulder preparatory to heaving it into the back of the truck. As I was hoisting it, I realized the bottom was all soggy and it might tear apart. It did!
Out of the bottom of the box slithered 2 large boa constrictors! They poured out onto my face and neck, one down my front, and one down my back and ended up entangled in my feet and legs. My co-workers told me they were sure that the scream/yell I let out could be heard all the way to the airport. As they rushed to me to see what had happened, they pulled up short when they saw the snakes around my feet. By this time I had regained some of my faculties and I realized that these two snakes would not harm me, or for that matter, anyone ever! Why? Because I saw that their heads had been almost completely severed from their bodies.
Near where we were now standing, I now remembered, had been the site of a sideshow exhibiting snakes They had been disposed of by the owners for whatever reason before they left for the next city. Perhaps the snakes had died and the cut heads were to make sure of their deaths. Or perhaps they couldn't afford their upkeep. Whatever the reason it was, I know that they were almost responsible for one more death - mine from fright!
My co-workers, seeing there was nothing to fear, stretched the snakes out to see how big they really were. To me they were huge but in reality each was about 2 metres long. After much teasing and suggestions that I could go home and change my underwear(to be honest they weren't far from the truth), they put the dead snakes into a garbage bag and threw them onto the truck. I was glad this was the last pile as I honestly didn't have the stomach to hoist any more bags or boxes.
I spent the rest of the afternoon filling in the hundreds of holes left in the pavement my the midway people. As I slammed down my tamping rod to pack the holes tightly, I envisaged the face of a midway worker or snake-handler with each thrust. I told you I hate coming on snakes unexpectedly!
No comments:
Post a Comment