I'm on a roll. I found a little story I wrote some time ago in a creative writing class. I'll publish it here for all to see and critique. A little rough but gives a small incite into a child growing up in the 60's in the poor, middle class, north-end of Winnipeg.

Bannerman Avenue

It's quiet, my room is my sanctuary, my time temporarily, my own. Breakfast is done and my mother is doing laundry downstairs. I know that eventually I will be called on to help her and I savor the moments of quiet I have claimed for my own.

She calls up to me "Make sure you've got all your school clothes down to the wash!" "Yes Mom I answer" not that we have many. My little black tunic is already hanging up freshly pressed and is only one of two that I own. The other is already washed and on the clothes line outside along with my white cotton shirts. Black stockings and shoes complete our uniforms and squelch any impression of individuality we show. I hated those uniforms but they were a blessing really because no one sees how poor we really were. Our outdated, hand - me-downs were saved for our play times at home.

If you climb the stairs to our bedrooms you come to a landing dividing the two rooms where us kids slept. My dad, I think, built bookshelves on this landing and it became a home for an ancient set of The Book of Knowledge we received from one fo the brothers in our church. Tucked in amongst an assortment of folded sheets and towels, old drapes and boxes of magazines; it was promptly stored on the shelves on our stair landing and forgotten. Only my sister Aleta and I seemed to have discovered the mysteries in these books. Sadly modern days and the internet have made these volumes obsolete. Upon occasion I have come across these same books in second hand stores and flea markets where they still reside.

For the moment I've done my chores and my sisters are playing together in another part of the house. I retreat to my bed, it's cold outside and sitting there I am fascinated with the icy patterns of Jack Frost that coat the inside of my bedroom window. The frosty leaves and swirls weave together in a masterpiece of nature and never fail to amaze me with their delicacy and perfection. It is as though god came with a paint brush and painted each leaf and frond individually.

I could not find a better way to spend a sunday afternoon than gathering up a volume and gazing out the window of my bedroom. I would imagine the places I discovered in those musty and yellowed pages. Worn leather binding with loose threads barely holding the pages together. These books were my escape and took me to places that I had never seen and could only imagine. Even the pages were different than most books I usually read. Smooth, shiny paper with a yellowy tinge. Far more interesting than the average schoolbook.

What would it be today? A visit to the pyramids? An african safari? Or my favourite the last days of Pompeii. I would read the stories of the eruption of vesuvius and be fascinated and saddened by the pictures of statues of frozen people lying clasped in each others arms. They did not seem real or believable as corpses coated in a casing of lava. I tried to imagine living in this time. I felt very sad for the people who died in this tragedy. Volcanoes still hold a fascination for me, or a terror, that something of this magnitude could happen so quicky and catch people unaware in its grasp.

But not today, today I would read Aesops Fables. The little stories of hares and hounds were a lighter fae and much more suited to the afternoon at hand. I can hear my sisters arguing over some imagined slight and sigh deeply. I know this idyllic moment can not last much longer and the sounds of the old wringer washer chugging away interrupts my concentration.

I scratch my leg. The Hudsons Bay wool blanket that covers my bed tickles my legs and is normally covered by a chenille bedspread but today my mom is doing laundry. She finally clumps up the stairs with a stak of folded sheets, poking her head around my bedroom door.

"I need you downstairs" she says "come down and rinse the next load so we can get them hung up on the line." I laugh to myself. It's a weekly ritual in winter. The sheets will freeze like boards outside on the line and then we will have to bring them in to stand like frozen ghosts in our bathtub. Once they thaw they sit in soggy heaps in the tub and then we hang them up in the kitchen to dry. It never made sense to me but my Mom insisted that the process was followed. I have to admit the house always smelled so fresh laundry day, so I guess there was a reason for this madness. No spray cans of air freshener were ever needed in our home if there had been any available in this day and age.....

I close my book reluctantly and head downstairs. I know that Pompeii and the Pyramids will be waiting for me when next I visit. My book returns to it's home on the shelves and I return to my world at 768 Bannerman Avenue.