The schoolroom incident took place a few months before the end of the First World War. Aside from the paper route and errand boy activities, I managed to spend some time at drawing.

In one of my swapping transactions I had acquired a used book titled A Show at Showcards. It not only helped me in lettering but also provided captions for showcards which led to my first sale. Borrowing the book’s phrase “Try us: Even a criminal deserves a fair trial,” on a full sheet of Bristol board 20” x 22” I made a drawing of a tough looking fellow looking through the iron bars of a jail.

The lettering was the sort that should have been on a chocolate box – not in a window card – but my father’s barber gave me thirty-one cents for it. Although I had spent every night for a week making it, I felt well repaid.It remained a window feature in that barbershop for several years.

My only other art memory of this period was at the war’s end, an art student friend and I made signs we carried and marched along the main streets among the jubilant crowds.

He had a drawing of the crown prince and my card showed a ferocious Kaiser – the headings on both cards were the same “To Hell with Germany”. In those days that was profanity at its best – certainly for thirteen-year old kids. By the time 1919 rolled around I had only one thought in mind – I would be fourteen and could leave school. The happy day occurred around Easter time. I was in the final class at public school and examinations would be in May. Those who succeeded would go on to High School. A great dream and hope for many.

My interests were to escape from school as soon as possible – I never tried the “entrance exams” as they were called – never went to High School.  On my fourteenth birthday, I bought a newspaper and started looking for a job.

My ambition was to become an apprentice in an art studio but at the time there were no such places, judging by the classified ads. But someone loaned me a directory that listed all the Toronto art studios – I can’t recall but it was probably a listing like the Yellow Pages of the telephone company.

I believe I walked several miles – up many stairs and through many questionable looking buildings - in my search for art but the result ended in nothing promising. One company, Grip Limited, agreed to take me if I would pay them $5.00 a week. Not only was this an impossible proposition, from my point of view – but $5.00 was what I was hoping for as a weekly wage.

It was evident that there was no visible opening in the art world so I decided to answer several ads for messenger boy requests. My physical appearance determined that I couldn’t lug cartons or barrels and I ended up as a messenger for the British Colonial Press.

The salary was the $5.00 a week I had hoped for and the job consisted of delivering packages – some quite heavy – to many of the newspaper and publishing houses as well as to many printers.

As it turned out, this was not a printing establishment but a photo engraving firm that also ran a press service providing the halftone plates and biographies of well-known Canadians.

Aside from photoengraving, there was a stereotype and matrix department. Stereotypes were the cast metal plates made from a matrix (paper backed blotter combination). These were inexpensive metal copies of the more costly photo-engraved original.

I should mention that this operation was carried out at 67 Adelaide St. West now the site of the very attractive Canada Place Mall and offices. It was on the third floor.

My deliveries were made from a hand pulled wagon that at the end of each day, I had to pull up the 3 flights and take it down in the morning.  There was a freight elevator but I never had an opportunity of using it more than half a dozen times – one of which created enough terror to, eventually, be cancelled from my list of reliable conveyances. On that one occasion it didn’t stop after reaching the third floor but headed skyward.

My yells brought someone who managed to stop the heavenward climb and there was considerable argument with building officials and engravers. Some further structural work was added but I was always convinced it was unreliable and used the stairs at all times.

While, basically, I was a messenger, there were times when packages were not ready but those in charge always found something for me to do.

These extra fill-in occupations consisted of assisting the matrix making by holding the tissue sheets for pasting – sweeping the floor in the shipping department – looking after the mail in the front office and at noon hour, taking over the, somewhat primitive, switchboard. When phone calls slowed down I managed to keep out of mischief by affixing stamps to the ever-growing pile of envelopes that appeared on an adjoining desk.

In this way I managed to save quite a few streetcar tickets. One outlet for these tickets was an old blind coloured fellow who played a banjo – near the railway tracks where people travelled to visit the Islands in Toronto Bay.

He was known as Old Tom, according to the sign he displayed and we had become quite friendly. I had helped him adjust his stool one day when he was having a little difficulty, due to wind, papers and dust that were creating a little havoc.

He thanked me, asked my name and, as I was in that area, or managed to be, almost daily, whenever I’d say, “Morning Tom” he’d reply with a zing on his banjo and a “Well, if it isn’t Sid.”

This was a pleasant friendship that lasted a couple of years. I kept him pretty well supplied with streetcar tickets, thus saving him digging into his meagre hat full of nickels and coppers.

Although I often questioned him about his background and blindness he was always evasive. I never found out where he lived or where he cam from. Then one day he wasn’t there. Just as sudden as that, the few people in the area whom I questioned could throw no light on what had happened.

It was a happening that impressed me at the time – the meeting – the friendship and then the disappearance.

I supposed it had an Alger storybook touch that, at the time, impressed me and I thought about it a great deal.

It seems such a minor incident now but whenever I walk down that part of Toronto – now filled with modern streetcars and overhead highways – I still recall those very pleasant sessions with Old Tom so many years ago.