Rick Elger - My Days
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Some of us looked older then than we do now!
This is what it was like in my days.
The boys marched down to the dining room, floor by
floor. The dining room was in the basement on the girls side. The duty
prefect stood in the middle of the hall like a traffic cop. His job was
to prevent chaos and to check the boys uniforms.
"Hands out of your pockets, Smith! Wakey wakey, French. No
talking, Black. Keep it moving, keep it moving. Where's your tie Barton-Slaytor?"
The dining room shone of polished wood floors
and sunlight. The boys went to their appointed seats and stood waiting
for grace to be said. The girls were already in place and standing. They
stared at the boys. the boys stared back.
A few table prefects had already served the eight
plates and passed the now empty serving dishes to the "slavey" at the opposite
end of the tables. the "slavey" poured out the eight glasses of milk and
eight cups of coffee and were all ready to head off for "seconds" as soon
as grace was said.
Uncle Stevie, the headmaster, plodded over
to his place at head table beside Lucy, the dean of girls, after the last
boy had taken his place. He rang the huge iron ships bell he had installed
on the wall behind him for noise control. There was a hush.
"God bless this food to our use and us to thy
service, for Christ's sake, amen."
Chairs scraped, dishes clattered. breakfast began.
From the tables already served by the hungry prefects, slavies quickly
walked to the kitchen with their empty plates. It was a case of first come,
first serve - supply and demand. A good prefect-slavy combination at your
table could add twenty pounds to your body weight over the term.
If you were unlucky enough to get stuck at a
table with a teacher at the head of it, it could mean starvation.
In the kitchen, between the boy and girl slavies, notes were passed
like pollen. The chef, Mr. lacombe, didn't care. He was concerned with
satisfying their instinct for survival, not guarding against any other
urges.
; Most of the meals were surprisingly adequate,
although there were always those who complained. But one dish I remember
still because I have never seen it before or since. On Sunday lunch we
had our roast beef dinner, but on Sunday night we had a left-over melange
that consisted of old toast, eggs and peas, smothered in a mushroom sauce.
I also remember the way we would reheat our cold
toast by putting it on top of our cup of hot coffee. This would steam the
toast, making it warm, but soggy. A long time before the microwave.
After all the food had been consumed, the duty
prefect dismissed the tables one by one. The boys clomped up the stairs,
eying the girls as they left. the girls looked back.
During the period between breakfast and chapel
it was clean up time. First the boys had to clean up their own rooms until
they satisfied the floor prefect. This meant sometimes, for those unlucky
enough to be on the floor of a power mad dictator, submitting to a white-glove-along-the-ledge
dust examination. If there any darkness showed up on the glove, you had
to clean it again.
Also, a job list had been made up by the head
prefect and posted every month. Each boy was assigned a specific section
of the school to clean. But not all jobs were equal. For instance, sweeping
and dusting the main hall was a good job. Whereas mopping and scrubbing
the 3rd main bathroom was not.
The entire school was checked by a clipboard carrying duty prefect
during chapel. Shoddy work resulted in detention. For instance, mopping
and scrubbing the entire gymnasium during the recreation half of a half
holiday.
