A TRAUMATIC STORY ABOUT A HAPPENING WHILE I WAS A CHILD.

                                             email me      maqcgeo2345@hotmail.com
                                     Read my blogs     http:/macgeo1234.blogspot.com
     

     When I was eight years old, things were a whole lot different in my home town of Fernie, B.C. Canada than they are today. This event took place during the ration book era of World war 2.
     It was 1944, and Canada was deeply embedded in the war. We weren't even really out of the Great Depression because of the demand that was made on the Nation to supply it's troops overseas with food and supplies needed to repel the enemy onslaught on our Allies in Europe.
     Canada hadn't even begun to feel the benefits of prosperity due to that added demand.
     The good thing about it was the coal mines were operating around the clock, 24 hrs. a day, 7 days a week to supply the coal demanded to produce the byproducts needed to fight the war.  
     We still had to keep the home fires burning with the coal fired stoves and furnaces.  
     The coke ovens were also going full steam to bake the coke (carbon) required for the strengthening and production of steel.
    It was an era when Canada refined their own raw materials and provided finished products to the rest of the world in need. That's not the case today unfortunately, for the United States or Canada.
    Instead of reaping the profits from all those finished products as we used to, the raw materials are principally shipped to other countries, bypassing the chances of any profits or employment to be created here in North America. 
      At the present, these nations have no production employment to go back to even when things do get better in the world. It doesn't take a genius to figure it out.
    But back to those days in 1944, it was the era also of ration books for sugar,butter and a lot of necessary staples required to get by on.
     Whenever our mother sent us to the store for groceries, the ration books would almost certainly be needed to go along too.
     Our main general store was a large building  in those day's standards called Trites Woods Co.
    The grocery dept. was the busiest and most popular part where the operation by both employees and customers were totally different from the way they are now, in a small town at least.
    when we entered the store the first thing we did was walk over to the counter with the list and hand it to the clerk behind the counter. Kind of like you see in the old western movies. We would then be expected to wait while the grocer would travel quickly around the store, gathering the stuff on the list.
      It was usually a case of where there were 2 or 3 clerks travelling around, waiting on different customers.
     I had noticed several times before when customers ahead of me were waiting for their clerk, they would reach over to the gum rack standing next to the counter, grab a package or two, and place them on the counter along with their other gathered goods. It was happening in front of me this day as well, so since my mother told me I could have a package of gum for running the errand, I decided to follow suit.
     Unaware of anyone standing behind me, I reached for the gum and chose one. Before I could even reach to place it on the counter a large hand reached over my shoulder and grabbed my wrist! I realized it was the meat cutter from a different part of the store. "What do you think you're doing?" he demanded. Before I could answer, he continued. "You were going to steal the gum, weren't you??" All the while he kept squeezing my wrist. I wasn't given the chance to respond as he continued scolding me and threatening to call the police.        
      Finally another loud voice hollered "Let go of him NOW!!" There stood a big man named Rollie Crisaffio, a friend of our family's. He looked even bigger in his Army uniform. He had just gotten back from overseas and was home on leave. The meat cutter immediately let go. At that point, the clerk, who also knew my family, arrived back to  defend me by assuring the meat-cutter I wouldn't be stealing anything.
     I remember crying on the way home while chewing the gum that Rollie bought me, as well as giving me a quarter. What a hero he was to me!!
    The meat cutter, whom I won't name, eventually was fired some years later for stealing meat from the same company. It takes a while sometimes, but I firmly believe "What goes around comes around."
    Just sayin'.