Jim Thomson

Mr. Rudolph

My favourite teacher was Mr. Rudolph. He was ahead of his time when it came to teaching skills. He used peer tutoring and group problem solving before it became mainstream. He was very open to admitting that he didn’t understand a student’s question. He would often say, “ I am not certain that I understand that question. Does anyone think they can help and rephrase that question?” He treated every student with respect and we in turn returned that respect. No one ever thought about acting out in his class. He could walk that fine line between using humour without trying to be everyone’s friend. I remember being with a group of friends in the hallway at the end of the lunch hour on a beautiful spring day. Mr. Rudolph was walking down the hall still wearing his sunglasses. I believe that it was Brian Jagger who said, “Look, it’s Rock Hudson!” Mr. Rudolph whipped off his grasses and replied, “Sorry boys, it’s only me!” Not only was he a great math teacher but he knew how to interact with teens.

Glen Porter

I remember Mr. Rudolph as a wonderful math teacher. But my stand-out memory of him is him scoring a basket (in a teacher-student game, I think) shooting blindly over his shoulder, with his back to the basket.

Glenna Little (Gervan)

I was in Mr. Rudolph's class when president Kennedy was shot.  When the announcement came over the PA, Mr. Rudolph had a full peice of chalk in his hand. As we all sat in stunned silence, Mr. Rudolph pegged the chalk across the room and it smashed into the chalk board.  He then left the classroom, walked outside around the school, came back in, picked up a new peice of chalk and started teaching again.  I'll never forget that!!

Lewis Beck

Yes, Mr. Rudolph--I'll never forget him.   I recall the first day of Math 10 when he bustled into the classroom, saying 'yes, yes, yes!"   He taught with humour and wisdom; a wonderful man and excellent teacher whom we all loved and respected.  God bless the man--well, his soul now as undoubtedly he has "Graduated".

Jim Thomson

I am sorry that I will be unable to attend the reunion. I would like to thank the organizing committee for all their efforts to bring to life this website and to make the reunion happen. I am certain it will be a huge success. If anyone would care to contact me I can be reached at,  jandjthomson@shaw.ca

Dave Slader

Great stuff Jim...very sorry you can't make it. I'm surprised nobody has mentioned Mike Elliot's awesome jacket at the grad ceremonies. I SURE don't remember going to the Arms at lunch!!

Does Magee still have recess?

Barbara Borthwick

Hi Everyone,  I'm not responding to anything specific but in general.  Man do you all look old. What the hell happened - it's only been 50 years.  lol  (do you know what that means?) Two of my favorite friends are gone (Ken Palmer and George Porter) so I'm sad they aren't still with us.  On the lighter side (which I am not - more of me to love) , I didn't post any photos because I want you all to say "you look fabulous"  If you want to hear more about my life, please approach me, tell me who you are (I'm still blind in one eye) and we can chat. 

I can't wait and i'm SO glad the committee got formed - thanks to each of you.

Ta Ta for now and see you next Friday  :)

Marion Adams (McCullough)

Barb: You're still as funny as ever. I'm so pleased that you are coming. See you Friday.

Cheers, Marion

Barbara Borthwick

Mr. Miller did the one arm pushup in my class !  Do any of you remember he always threatened (some of us) to get a "U" in work habits.  Well once he threatened me ONCE too often and i stood up, pounded my fist on my hand like he did and threatened to give him a "U" for being a bad teacher.  I didn't get a detention. He didn't know what to say.  Ahh the stories we all have............I don't think I'll be able to talk on May 2nd cause I know I won't shut up on May 1st.  Be prepared, I'm not as shy as I was then especially with my brothers nearby  :)

Many Vaartnou

Hey Barb. On Aug 24th, you were the first to respond to me, so you might as well be the last. See you on Friday, after I thrash Eric Thomson, Bill Crockett & John Armstrong at pitch & putt golf on Thursday (with ET paying for after game drinks at my pub in Richmond). Cheers, Many V

Rena Schipizky (Willson)

YAHOO! Hi there, fellow Albertan! You make us all laugh as usual, looking forward to visiting with you....5 more sleeps!  GIVE US AN 'M'

Barbara Borthwick

Who sleeps anymore ??  Unless it's from 2:00 a.m. to whenever my cat wants to be fed???  Apparently I get 5 more.  Give me an OMG.

Barbara Borthwick

So apparently Greig Soohen's first kiss was with me !  I had so many boys after me in those years - who remembers.  But I do remember yours Greig you were so cute and my brothers weren't nearby to beat the xxxx out of you.   

Jim Thomson

These are memories based on my experience, but do you remember:

   - Ice boxes on your porch and block ice being delivered by Morrow Ice and Cold Storage
   - Coal and sawdust being delivered for home heating
   - 4x Bakery home deliveries
   - Bi-planes towing a long banner advertising Sunbeam Bread
   - Home milk delivery with glass bottles and cardboard tops (ours was Jersey Farms)
   - The triangles on your radio dial to indicate Civil Defence stations that you were supposed to turn to for instructions in case of an emergency
   - Having blackout drills when the emergency sirens went off. Our siren was located on the fire station on Carnarvon Street behind Allan’s Confectionary Store, close to the homes of Wendy Errett and David Pacey
   - Running through the sprinklers on hot summer days
   - Crazes: Davey Crockett coonskin caps, hula hoops, pet rocks, and “swords” (worn on sweaters) made with pins, coloured beads, and bits of plastic strips (that were also braided to make pulls to attach to zippers)
   - Laurie Nordan delivering orders from Dunbar Fish and Chips on his bike. I know many kids also did bike deliveries from drug stores
   - Meeting at the “paper shack” to get and roll our papers before putting them in our paper sacks and heading out to deliver them
   - Clip on roller skates tightened with a key
   - Baseball cards anchored with a clothes peg that made that distinctive noise in moving bike spokes
   - Playing ‘500’ in baseball season with the neighbourhood kids
   - Stores: Ivor Wynn’s Sporting Goods, The Jolly Roger Cafe, Moore’s Bakery, The Kerrisdale Theatre, Kerrisdale Bootery, Dominion Stores, Windmill Toys, Chow’s Jewelry, Fraser Electric (where we bought our records), Super Valu (on the McDonalds site), the old Safeway at 41st and Yew, the bowling alley (with students setting the pins) on the north side of 41st between the Blvd and Maple, The Economy Barber Shop, Peter’s Ice Cream on Broadway and later at Cambie and 40th
   - Corner stores where we bought penny candies; jawbreakers, licorice babies, wax coke bottles, and gob balls, pop was sold in metal chests filled with ice water (often next to a similar refrigerated chest that contained ice cream, Drumsticks and Popsicles
   - Mary’s Confectionary where Point Grey students went at lunchtime to buy frozen sherbet in a cup. A wooden spoon was frozen into the sherbet. If you got a spoon with a hole drilled in it you got a free one.
- Watching lunchtime movies in the auditorium at Point Grey
   - The freedom to ride our bikes to virtually anywhere as long as we were home for dinner on time. We had a tree fort in the “woods” on Balaclava Street and played there without our parents being fearful that something awful would happen to us without their supervision
   - The Woodward’s Knothole Club that provided students with free admission to the 3rd base bleachers for Vancouver Mounties baseball games at Capilano stadium (Nat Bailey Stadium)
   - Sitting on the hill in Little Mountain overlooking Capilano Stadium watching the Mounties and listening to Jim Robson and Bill Stephenson calling the game on CKWX. My cousin, Bill Crockett’s dad, was kind enough to take us
   - Dean Izzy’s Kerrisdale Billiards upstairs on 41st and the well known money games, featuring Alf Cameron on Table One
   - Leaving Kerrisdale Billiards in time to see the 3rd period (it was free) of Vancouver Burrard’s lacrosse games. The 3rd period always included the best fights. GREAT TIMES!

I hope that many of you will add your memories to the list!

Carolyn Gamble (Wright)

Many, I just saw your comment on the Message Forum about Eric T driving a "real" Jag, not an XKE. I must take issue with that, as a very proud owner of an XKE in those years. It took me and my husband to California and we happily burned our faces with the top down (and sucked in those noxious fumes, alas!) I drove that car as the family vehicle even after I had 2 children. Picture a baby in a bassinet in the back who eventually graduated to a first-ever booster seat and seat belt in the passenger seat. And lo, they lived!! It was a truly sad parting when I said goodbye to my dear XKE. Hasn't been a car like it, for me, since then.

Eric Thomson

Carolyn! An XKE, really? Not fair! I would still sell my soul ( if I had one ) for an XKE. '65 or 66, British racing green with a black or tan leather interior. Bring some pics! 

Many Vaartnou

Serious golf for the reunion is soon to start. After scoring 38 (par 27) on my local pitch/putt course; can now play with my opponents, Eric T, Bill C and John A. By playing (first time in 27 yrs) was encouraging - so should be able to reduce by 3 per round before Thurs - that will get me to a decent 29 before I meet my foes. (Rick, pity to miss you, I think you couid handle the opposition),. MV

Many Vaartnou

Hi Greig & Barb (some misquoting here),

As Bogey said, why did you walk into my gin joint? Greig replied " We'll always have Kerrisdale Elementary School". MV

Lewis Beck

Golly yes, Jim; I recall a lot of those things you mentioned: those glass milk bottles with the cardboard tops, for example--remember how, on cold winter mornings you'd see those tops pushed 'way out of the bottles on a column of frozen cream?  In fact I can remember 'way 'way back a horse-drawn milk delivery cart--can anyone top that lol?!  I can also remember sawdust trucks delivering their product--our home was so heated before we upgraded to oil--up and down our back alleys and the ungodly, banshee-like howl they made as they blew the sawdust into the bins in each home.  I remember making my own homemade sword and scabbard out of scrap wood and proudly wearing it around the neighbourhood--I was a kid at the time.  Clip-on roller skates: had a few pairs of them too--a far cry from the high tech jobbies on roller bearings available nowadays, eh?  All those restaurants you mentioned on 41st. Ave--had my first restaurant meal at one of them as a kid going to Maple Grove.  I believe it was Ivor Williams Sporting Goods, by the way.  Kerrisdale Theatre where you could gain admission and buy a chocolate bar, all for $0.25!  Don't forget Kerrisdale Pool!

Jim Thomson

You are so right Lewis. It was Ivor Williams. I got his store confused with the  home of the Hamilton Tiger Cats. Just a product of old age I guess!

Dave Slader

I remember standing in line for Beach Boy tickets in the ticket office in The Bay very early in the morning to ensure we bought the whole front row..again and again. I remember foundly dances on The Lady Alex moured in front of the Bayshore. I remember John Kennedy's gorgeous 1940 ?? blue Buick convertible, How about Kelowna regatta, Brian Jagger and I had a room one year and when we woke up it seemed like 27 other people had crashed there, including Phil Hager who climbed up the outside of the building after security locked the hotel front door...we actually had a empty cash register in the room which we had " liberated" from somewhere??

Barb kissed Greg Soohen too ???  what a minx she was! she kissed me too

Ron Harrison

Jim, you covered many memories, most of which I shared, including when Province paper switched to morning and we stuffed fillers at the shack in almost total darkness!  The worst route was down in the Flats of Blenheim - Dave Bennett's neighbourhood, where it seemed everyone had very large dogs.  The ice box on the porch: our dog really hated the ice delivery guy, perhaps it was the sack on the shoulder with the tongs, and the sound of the ice block hitting the bottom of the box.  

Dunbar Theatre, like Kerrisdale, had really cheap matinees too on Saturday, where you could stay for hours on a quarter.  I delivered on a no-gear bicycle for Jay's Pharmacy, then worked part-time for some years at Barer's Delicatessen nr. Yew and 41st.  Also in the Mounties'Knothole Club at Cap Stadium.

Re the noon hour movies at Pt. Grey: I took the Bell and Howell Course and the School Board exam; the certificate was never signed by the teacher-sponsor (Mr. Hattrick, known in the school as "Hatrack").  Just a few years ago, I found the certificate in a pile of old memorabilia; knowing I was visiting Mr. Hattrick's church in n.e. Vancouver later in the week on official business, I took the certificate with me, and routinely asked him if he would mind signing it some 50 years after the fact?  He was bowled over, but signed it happily.  Movies we showed included Breakfast at Tiffany's, Around the World in 80 Days and many other popular movies.  Boos and hisses when the movie jammed, melted or otherwise went snafu!

Lewis Beck

Hi, Ron;

How's everything?   Weren't you in sea cadets back in Pt. Grey days? 

I remember Mr. Hatrick (Hatrack lol). He used to make misbehaving students stand between the rows of desks, lean forward with a hand on either desk while he would smack you with the flat of his large hand.  I recall David Hanuse, a native student from Alert Bay who refused to submit to this and was subsequently kicked out.  My last memory of David was his nonchalant shrug as he exited.  I tried looking him up when mly wife and I went to Alert Bay this summer but were unsuccessful.  Ah--memories!

Jim Thomson

Thanks for the memories. How about the Avenue Grill, Lawson Oates Motors at 42nd and West Blvd, and The Blue Moon Confectionary at 40th and Dunbar. Elementary school games such Jacks, Marbles (does anybody remember what "No Hunkers" meant?) Neighbourhood games such as, Knocky Knocky 9 Doors or Kick The Can. Can anybody help me out with the lyrics to skipping songs? I am enjoying your posts!

Moira Carpenter (Carlson)

I am in awe of how much you all remember from those days. I have been reading the comments and it reminds me of things I haven't thought about in years. OK, it is only fair to contribute. For movies, do you remember "On The Waterfront" with Marlon Brando ("I coulda been a contendah.")?  For neighbourhood games, let me add "Run Sheep Run" although I can't remember the rules or how it differed from "Kick The Can". Does anyone remember during the cowboy craze that there was a man who would come around the neighbourhood with a couple of shetland ponies and enough cowboy duds that you (if your parents were willing to splash out the money) could sit on the horse and get your picture taken?