GOIN’ TO THE CORNER

Matthews. Matthews captained the local winning softball team and tried to start a

community choir. I first noticed girls were nice in Elmsdale. I sold the Halifax Her- ald, skated in the frozen hollow on Basil Rennie’s farm, coasted on the hills around Eddie Will Johnston’s mill pond, turned the freezer for Jack Adams, who dispensed hair cuts and ice cream in his shop on the corner where the church parking lot is

now. I even helped grade potatoes in the basement of Art Rennie’s store. We had

bareback horse races in the spring, and I took my first spill from a galloping horse up the Dock Road in Elmsdale.

The railroad was big in Elmsdale. We climbed up into the engine cab while the trains were performing their “flying shunts” on to the sidings, allowed by the friendly engineer. Bill and Ethel Matthews lived a few feet from the railroad track, but slept through when the 1:00 am. jitney blew its horn for the crossing. The winter snows were a problem for the railroad, clogging the train wheels. The banks were far above the telegraph wires between Elmsdale and Piusville, calling for every local man and his shovel, as well as the great ro- tary plow from Charlottetown.

Local names remembered in addition to those mentioned were: the Wells fam- ily, (Art, Harry, Mary, and Susan), Max Cameron, Mr. Callahan, merchant, Basil MacNeill, the jolly egg man, Adams, the postmaster, Barnetts, Mr. Sinclair, former teacher, who had a famous ap- ple orchard near the school where I was caught stealing apples one day (and I was in trouble), Peter Burke, the Forsythes, the O’Briens (Eleanor and I stood against each other as representa— Rev- Roland StanfordColl- tives of the Protestant and Catholic life- Rev. Roland Stanford

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