Coming Home to East Clifton

It felt good to be home. Moving into that old house on Clifton Road during the summer of 63 gave me that feeling of coming home. I had heard it said many times before that “home is where you hang your hat” but for me, it has always been “home is where your heart is”. My heart, as I was growing up in different cities across Canada, was always in the Eastern Townships of Quebec. As an Army brat up until the age of 11, I had spent each summer on my grandparent’s farm in Bury Quebec.  It had left me with a yearning to be part of an enduring community. The rolling hills east of Sherbrooke, that stretched to the borders of New Hampshire, Vermont and Maine were now the backdrop to my new home in East Clifton.

East Clifton consisted of a church, a cemetery, and several farms scattered over a wide area at one of the highest elevations between the east of Sherbrooke and the White Mountains of New Hampshire. I was always curious why it was called East Clifton because I could never find a West Clifton. I was told that my great grandfather Cairns had helped to build the church. Several generations of Cairns can be found in the cemetery today. The Cairns family farm was mostly hayfields and maple woods surrounding the church and cemetery on both sides of the road. There was a large woodlot to the west beyond the hayfields. My grandfather Cairns was the next generation to run the farm. He died when my father was quite young. Dad and his brothers quit school and ran the farm to keep food on the table. My uncle Gordon stayed on and farmed there till he passed on in 2007. There was a small community centre and general store at one time. I think the Shaughnessys lived there before the new road came through. When the new road was built in the 50s most houses and buildings that were too close were torn down and only the church remained. My grandmother’s house and barn were also demolished and new ones were built farther back from the road. It was often said that if you lived in East Clifton you were either going up or down to get anywhere because everything was on the side of a hill. It was also a repeated tale that during the sprong stone clearing season on any farm you just had to get the stones started and they would roll down the hill on their own.

My Dad and I were alone in Clifton that first season. My mother and younger brother Tim had remained in Western Ontario. It was pretty much “sink or swim” for me that first summer. I was thrown into the “deep end” of country life at 12 years of age. It was tough with a new challenge each day but it was the stuff memories are made of and I wouldn’t have changed a thing about it. I loved every minute.  The house and the hills around it had a warm and inviting character that left me with a sense of truly belonging there. It’s like my ancestors had beckoned me back through their spirits that I could feel but not see.

That first summer was a challenging one. The house was in bad need of repair. The roof leaked, the stone foundation was caving in on one side and there was no running water because the water pump housing had cracked. My uncle Gordon had a spare pump that needed some work so I learned how to pack and prime a pump and after many hours I finally got it running…….and coincidentally I learned how to swear in french.  There was a wood furnace and kitchen stove that hadn’t been used in a while. The second thing I had to do was to split some wood for the kitchen stove. I soon discovered that green wood doesn’t burn well and fires don’t start without good dry kindling wood. Not long after that, I learned what a damper was. Thank goodness we were on a party-line, the first form of 911, and our neighbours across the road quickly came to the rescue before calling for a fire truck. They didn’t teach me this stuff in school so you might say I was homeschooling before it became a thing.

The house was on 14 acres, facing a valley that stretched for a few miles in front of us. St. Isadore d’Aukland was on the opposite face of the wide valley and had only two streets. The house lights of the tiny village at night resembled a cross from my bedroom window. You could also see the top of Mount Megantic on a clear day, almost 40 miles away. There was a creek just below the barn that was fed by several natural springs in the woods behind.  In the years that followed Bob Blair and I would dam the creek and create our own skating rink. On the opposite side of the house, there was some open area that had once been a large garden and pasture beyond that. Farther up the hill towards Clifton there was some woods with a mix of hardwood, spruce and apple trees. Those apple trees became famous in the fall for apple fights on horseback. Stewart Willard usually got the worst of it. Bob Blair, Keith Lowry and I would plan it that way.

The garage/woodshed, and barn were all connected to the house so you could get to the stable without ever going outside. Like the house, the barn needed a lot of work. The previous owner, Hazie Blair had sold lock, stock, and barrel to my father so there were many interesting things to discover in the garage and barn. Everything was covered with old sheets and a layer of dust. Under some of these sheets, I found a Fargo pickup, a Ford 8n tractor, and a British Morris Minor that my father said would be good projects for me to learn mechanics. Over the next few months, we were able to get them all running and I learned to drive the Fargo on the flatter part of the pasture. I was soon spinning tires and doing donuts with the Fargo until I rolled it over during a skid on the side of a hill. Bob Blair helped me get it back upright with his tractor.  The Morris Minor was easy to get running, just needed a little gas and a push to get it started. The Ford 8n had water in the gas line so I washed that out and with the help of some haywire and bailer twine it ran like a charm…..for a while.

No doubt that first year was a tough one. I had to learn new skills that only kids growing up on a farm in those days would need to know. Using sawdust to insulate the stone foundation around the house was something I had never done or even thought about before moving there.  Cutting enough firewood to last the winter and storing it in the woodshed was not something you learned from living in an apartment building in the city. Trial by error and trial by fire were the guiding principles of getting anything done. There were no manuals and I probably wouldn’t have followed them anyway. The days were long and there was always another new challenge waiting for the next day. The old Ford 8n tractor was close to retirement age and needed to be treated nicely to get her started but she would seldom let us down. Sometimes the crank was the only way to get her going but once that first cylinder fired she would sputter and smoke a bit but tried her best not to fail us when we needed her most. The water pump only worked when it felt like it and often needed some coaxing. There was air in the pipe to the well so the pump needed to be primed often. The spring water in the well froze that first winter so I would often have to carry water from the well. The wiring was old and would blow fuses just about the time that you thought you were OK to take a quick rest. Most of the time that first summer, fall and winter was spent just keeping things running. Gone were the days of flipping a switch for heat and turning on a tap and expecting water to flow.

Constantly “fiddling” with sadistic tools and equipment was immediately challenging for a city kid but what I found even more difficult was learning how to adjust to being around people that didn’t seem to want something from you. I found it hard to trust anyone after having fought my way through many new schools and constantly making new friends only to lose them at the next new posting. I just couldn’t understand why everyone was so nice. What did they want? Neighbours would stop by and ask if we needed any help. Garden vegetables would show up on the front porch.  People waved as they drove by. They seemed to know me but I didn’t know them. It was so different than I had been used to, after having to be so independent and tough, fighting my way into each new community and school. If I were outside my arm would get tired from waving at everyone that waved at me as they went by.

It didn’t take me long to learn that this community was a mosaic of names like Blair, Montgomery, Hodge, St. Onge, Lowry, Bolduc, Morrison, Dougherty, Waldron, Dodier, French, Graham, Bain, Grapes, Veilleux, Forgrave, Perron, Rand, Statton, Buck, McConnell, Boutin, Dillon, Houle, McBurney, Lassenba, Rowell, Vachon, Bells, Ellis, Cairns and many more.  These families and many others forged this sense of community for me. There were frequent and diverse social gatherings that served as the catalyst. There was always something going on that gave people a reason to get out and get together. A Saturday night dance wasn’t hard to find somewhere in the area each weekend. Families and friends would get together for card games (you had to be a card-carrying member of a 500 club to be fully recognized in any small town or hamlet). It wasn’t unusual back then to have someone just drop in and stay for a meal, gossip and play cards on a Saturday night. On warm summer Saturday nights, an impromptu “Hootenanny” would happen at a local pond. Guitar music could be heard for miles across the valley well into the next morning until all the beer ran out or the boys had milking to do. Church dinners were popular. Farm and cattle auctions were not only an important part of the local economy but served as one of the biggest forms of social gatherings. Depending on your age, interests, or needs any one of these could keep you busy, but the two things that you didn’t want to miss were the Cookshire Fair and the Bury 1st of July parade and all-day event. I can still hear the Bennett boys singing “He’s Got the Whole  World in His Hands” on center stage just before the fireworks that lasted for an hour. And…..beyond all of these social events, if you needed something with more structure there were several organizations for boys and girls of all ages. 4H, High School Sports, Busy Bees, the Women’s Institute, CGIT,  and church dinners to name a few.

Some of the bigger events mentioned above generated and catered to a much larger community of communities. Places like Cookshire, Bury, Johnville, St. Mathias, Sawyerville, Randboro, Island Brook, Scotstown, Brookbury, Bishopton, High Forest and many more may or may not always show up on a map but there was a thriving social system where just about everyone knew everyone else for miles around. Hard-working farmers made up the majority of the area east of Sherbrooke. These events not only provided much-needed fun and entertainment but also served as a way to share news, gossip, tales, and stories. “Those poor boys are getting cut down in Vietnam” “Did you know that Malcolm sold that prize-winning bull at the auction for $800? What’s he going to do with all that money?” “I heard that Mary was not a bit well. Last time I saw her she looked really grey.” “Did you hear those Clifton boys roaring around town on Saturday night?”

Over that first summer, I was able to make new friends and meet family members I never really knew till moving to East Clifton. Families would stop by for a visit on weekends and while the older generation caught up on stories over a coffee or a beer the kids would introduce me to some homemade fun like fishing for brook trout in the creek or exploring the beaver dams behind the farm. Reacting to the warmth of these neighbours and relatives in a way I had never experienced before was difficult at first because feeling a sense of trust and belonging was a new and unfamiliar experience for me. Most of those friends are still my friends today, although scattered across the country. For those that did stay like Keith Lowry, Tom Statton, and others we still remain friends after all these years but we don’t play in the creek or get in trouble quite as much as we used to. Like the song says “All my rowdy friends have settled down”.

Despite becoming more comfortable in my new surroundings that first summer I would occasionally have memories of what I had left behind. Wandering the streets of Angus and Camp Borden with a couple of friends who liked to get in trouble as much as I did. Disregarding the warning signs and climbing the fences into the Army training area where the tanks traveled fast on sand roads was one of our favorite pastimes. Not getting caught was the overall goal but we did get caught and the MPs brought us home only for us to do it all over again. Fighting with the Air Force brats from the other side of the base usually landed us in the back of a Military Police van. Playing hooky from school so we could hitchhike up to Wasaga Beach was another favourite pastime that also didn’t turn out well. My best friend Bruce Stevens and I were well on our way to reform school. One day the MPs took the two of us on a tour of the “detention centre” as their last effort to convince us to change our ways.  The image of being behind that 10-foot fence remains an indelible memory even today.

Gradually I was able to put most of those thoughts aside, although not forgotten. Each new day was another positive experience. Most nights I would collapse into a deep sleep from the good tired feeling you would get from fresh air and a hard day’s work and play. The next morning always started with new things to do and explore. The early morning sunlight from the east-facing curtainless window would always wake me early. It usually took me a few minutes to bring me back to the warm feeling of belonging and that sense of optimism. I would get dressed to the sweet smell of bacon and eggs to start that new day. I had heard many times before that home is where the heart is, and for the first time I actually found out what it really meant. I finally knew I was home.