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12

CANADIAN TRIP
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In the late summer, we took our ten-day Canadian trip with Barbara and Charlie Reed, leaving Erie August 24th and returning Labor Day, September 3rd. I kept a diary of the trip and although it consisted of only one 3 1/4 x 5 1/2 inch page a day, it covered a lot by a very minimal use of words--to such an extent, in fact, that I found it very helpful to have a two-hour session with Barbara and Charlie recently to get their help in explaining just what some of the brief references, some of which were one word, referred to. Charlie particularly has a remarkably good memory. Also helping preserve the trip is a set of excellent photographs which Charlie took and which are included here. We left the children in charge of either Mrs. Kahler or Mrs. Pope, two middle-aged women who did that sort of work for us at that time. It was our first "carefree" vacation since the first year we were married and we enjoyed it thoroughly. My diary sums it up as follows: "---wonderful trip---Saguenay the best of all but, all in all, about best trip ever took---Rog and Bab worth coming back for."
It was a cool, cloudy Friday afternoon when we set out from Erie about 4:30 in our new buff-colored Plymouth two-door sedan and headed east. We had dinner in the Statler in Buffalo. The minimal diary has a note: "St.Lawrence in Statler." This fairly obviously does not refer to the river but apparently to John St. Lawrence, the Assistant Works Manager at Erie who had inadvertently cost us considerable financial dislocation in 1929 by postponing my raise six months. After dinner, we continued our journey toward our objective of the night, which was Oswego. At that time, the New York Thruway wasn't even a gleam in anybody's eye as yet and we proceeded on what are now 5 and 33 to Rochester, where we paused briefly for a beer on a business street in a rather unprepossessing neighborhood en route through town. Nearby was a men's clothing store run by someone named Wildman and on the exterior of his store was a large sign which drew attention to WILDMAN'S PANTS. There seemed to be some sort of subtle appeal in this for us and we made a good deal of it as we proceeded on our way. But our merriment over Wildman's Pants was offset to some extent by worries, for the new Plymouth was not functioning quite normally all the time. For one thing, the clutch was acting up a abit, presumably slipping and smelling as a result. Also we had a slow leak in one of our tires, causing the car to want to wander a little. However, we were able to continue despite our troubles, proceeding toward Oswego on what is now 104 which parallels but is back a few miles from the shore of Lake Ontario. The towns we traversed were tiny and we didn't feel too comfortable easing along so late at night in a balky car but in 1934, such was not overly unusual. We passed over many railroad grade crossings and as we did so, Charlie would intone "Bow Down" and this has come down intact over these many years whenever we see railroad tracks; the only embellish-