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Slave To The Farm: True Tales of Truancy
Slave To The Farm: True Tales of Truancy & Incarceration
This book has taken me years to write, and now that it is done, I sometimes pick it up and find it hard to believe it’s my story. From this vantage point, it certainly feels like it happened to someone else in another lifetime. The stories that follow are remembered and re-remembered from decades ago. Time has misted my memories till the edges are no longer sharp, but there are those snapshots, so crystal clear I can still smell the smells, and taste the tastes. I guess those are a big part of why I wanted to write this book in the first place. If I remember them, then others will too.
As I went over my own stories in my head, I wondered about all the other Shawbridge kids that have passed through The Farm. Thousands of them, going all the way back to the turn of the century. Where are their stories? I started looking and found nothing. I thought, he can’t be. There are quite possibly eighty-ninety-one-hundred-year-old former Shawbridge clients still living today, but no stories?
I went to McGill University in Montreal hoping to read everything I could about Shawbridge. McGill has supplied graduates after graduation to numerous institutions that make up the Quebec juvenile system* with Shawbridge (now Batshaw) being one of its oldest juvenile placements. I was shocked when I could only find a grand total of three books about the one hundred year old institution: two of them in the rare book section printed before 1940, and the third one, I’d already read, Normal Bad Boys, Public Policies, Institutions, and the Politics of Client Recruitment, written by Prue Rains and Eli Teram. How tragic that what happened to us there wasn’t being preserved or documented in any way.
I didn’t have a high school graduation class to identify with, so I chose to identify with Shawbridge kids and started calling them, Grads, adding all of us to The Farm alumni. I took interviews of all the grads I could find, and I realized that despite some nail-curling stories, we all had positive stories, too. Many, in fact.
We missed it in this strange way. There was this undeniable trauma bonding that had gone on among the people in each unit and all of us on The Farm. I heard more than once about this feeling of community that was present on The Farm and that many grads were still trying to replace as adults.
In the end, I came to believe very strongly that it’s important for stories like mine to be told. Not only because it may encourage more like it, but because I wanted to start a dialogue that seems to be missing from the juvenile justice discussion.
There are many stories/books/articles about clients/patients/inmates in all kinds of institutions, but these stories are rarely from the client’s point of view. The history most often preserved is by the policy makers, professionals, and industries that benefit from having more and more control over the lives of the people who live in these places. These histories are written by the winners, so to speak, and are lacking in the areas of human experience.
I’m hoping my book speaks to that human experience and reminds history that we were PEOPLE in those institutions and not statistics, or blacked out names in documents.
Slave To The Farm: True Tales of Truancy book isn’t warm and fuzzy, but remind yourself that I’m actually one of the lucky ones. I made it through somewhat scarred but I found healing. Some kids aren’t so lucky. Some just graduate to the adult system, pretty much believing they were destined for it all along.
Erika Tafel
November 2012
“Go Back Jack” Comes to Life With Music
“Go Back Jack”, a new book published in 2018, contains original song lyrics that have been written, recorded and performed by the author. “Ten Miles West of New Orleans” is one of these songs.
Torres
My name is Andres Manzano, I am a professional concept artist and Illustrator. I graduated top of my class from Algonquin college and was rewarded a book publishing opportunity which I have successfully completed above and beyond the college’s expectations. I currently freelance online completing multiple paid projects from website graphics, logo design, banner creation, to content creation and much more. I keep in touch with book publishers, other freelance artists and companies who will and do happily contact me when in need of my services again. I love what I do, I have an incredible work ethic that motivates me to complete projects with high quality results while maintaining well within the deadlines that have been set. I am fantastic in a team setting, I have shown on multiple occasions that I excel as a lead project director by being optimistic, teaching time management and aiding others in whatever they may struggle with in regards to completing the project. I also take direction very well, add my unique out of the box perspective to any situation to inspire creativity and, stay within the lines of the task I am given with little or no supervision.
The Marshmallow Box
These word hadn’t surfaced from the depths of my memory for decades so why should they slip into my thoughts now? It had been forty-five years since those spoken words had haunted my mind.
My wandering thoughts hesitated. I got up and grabbed the remote for the Bose stereo, slipped in an “Electric Ladyland” CD and drifted back in time, letting Jimi take me there. He brought me to tears, as he always could. Time didn’t seem to matter. Today, tomorrow, yesterday. How long had it been since I had seen him in a dream or felt the power of his love?
“I’ll always touch you.” How could he have known? Like a puppet at the end of a string. “I’ll do anything for you darling, jump through hoops, travel the world.”
“Please lay flowers on my grave, my sweet lady of life.”
I sat there, tears streaming down my face and once again wondered. How could someone I’d never met before have such a hold on me? No one could understand in the silence of the night, miracles that could not be forgotten.
I was bedlam in the Kellar household. Brady and Dave, a couple of hormone driven teenagers chomping at the bit, wild and restless, playing rowdy ball games on the front lawn with my equally crazy sister Kate. In the kitchen, drinking homemade chokecherry wine and reminiscing about post World War 2, mother, father and the boy’s parents, Harry and Ruby.
Giggles, laughter and a cloud of cigarette smoke drifting down the hallway, everyone was on board for the ride except me. I’d just had an argument with my boyfriend Chris, and was mending a broken heart.
The falling leaves outside seemed to mingle with the damp earth of autumn acrid smell of woodsmoke from the chimney. Time was slipping away towards winter. The waves of Mud Lake slapped the shore in the close distance and our rambling country house at the end of a deserted dirt road seemed strategically vulnerable in it’s isolation. Visitors would cheer us up and help us forget the impending natural changes, this silent preparation for the hibernation of winter, but they couldn’t prevent the loss of a relationship that I knew, was on the verge of collapse.
After two years of struggling with my conscience, I’d surrendered to the fact that my boyfriend belonged with his wife and child and I was an unholy interference that never should have been. I escaped to the sunporch on the isolated south side of the house and curled up on the couch with my silver tabby to watch a bit of TV, alone with my thoughts.
I heard the boys thumping in through the front entrance, loud and full of boisterous spirits and seventeen year old hyperactivity, my thirteen year old sister Kate lagging not far behind in worshipful adoration.
The thought crossed my mind. What if, what if we all got together and had a seance? I was Minnie, AKA the white witch, fascinated with all things dead and invisible. I just might be able to persuade the others to go along with it – a gag, a piece of evening entertainment. I put forth the idea. Kate was enthusiastic, the boys less so, being more the jock type than paranormal seekers, but hey, anything for a lark – why not! I turned on the old cassette tape player that was plugged in and ready. My constant companion. I carried it everywhere, recording radio songs, my own piano playing, lyrics and melodies that came to me as I sat at my grandmother’s old upright piano singing “Pennies From Heaven”, my own thoughts, everything.
We gathered in a circle, sitting down on the linoleum floor on pillows, sandwiched in-between the sandstone brick wall and the picture windows lining the length of the sunporch, overlooking the back lawn. I adjusted the bamboo blinds for darkness. Still a bit of dusty sunlight filtered through the wooden slats, but it was quiet here. Beyond, a view of trees and manicured lawn sloping down to horse pasture. I heard strains of “Witchy Woman” drifting from the radio in the dining room where the party was still going on. I lit a candle and a stick of incense, which I positioned in the middle of the circle on the floor. We all joined hands.
Tousled blonde-haired Dave, who always looked like he was half asleep, took position at the head of the circle. Brady, who might have been more comfortable in a change room slipping on hockey gear right about now, retreated to the side, looking vaguely ill at ease.
“I’ll be the medium,” Dave volunteered.
“Sure, you’re a Cancer,” I muttered, “they’re always mediumistic. But let me be the guide. I’m a Scorpio and we dig the world of the dead. Who should we call?”
“How about Jimi Hendrix, the rock star,” Kate suggested, “he’s only been dead two years.”
“ONLY,” I parroted back. I wasn’t keen on the idea. I’d never been a fan and didn’t have any of his records.
“Yeah, he died of a drug overdose”, Brady snickered, “he was always stoned.”
“Well, okay,” I agreed reluctantly. This was rural Ontario – nowhere land, a teenager’s nightmare, total social isolation. Without a car you were nothing. Even if you did have one you had to be home in time to milk the cows. We’d been left in the dust as far as the hippie scene was concerned. It had passed us by, leaving a few scattered headlines in the newspapers about LSD, Vietnam war protests and rock festivals in the U.S.A. but in August 1970, a month before Jimi died, at the age of 27, I’d run away from home, a rebellious and adventurous 17 year old, to experience the Strawberry Fields Rock Festival in Mosport, Ontario.
There, at the height of an LSD trip on purple microdot, I’d briefly caught a glimpse of what it was really all about. Ostracized by the family, I’d had my car keys taken away and was grounded for weeks.
“Okay, we all need to breathe slowly and concentrate on the candle flame. Empty our minds.”
Dave was already breathing heavily with his eyes closed, his head dropped. I glanced at him worriedly. He didn’t seem to be with us.
“Our Father….who art in Heaven….”
The prayer was followed by a series of inhales and exhales and more focusing on the flickering flame. Dave was starting to mutter something that I didn’t quite understand.
“Purple, purple.”
“What? What are you saying Dave?”
“Purple waves… so many purple waves.” Dave’s voice was caught up in a choking sob. “It’s so dark in here.” His voice faltered. We were losing him.
“What the hell!” I was momentarily confused.
“Who are you?” I ordered Dave in a tone of voice that I didn’t recognize as my own.
“Juh,Juh… Dave wet his lips and swallowed hard, pushing the words out, one at a time, “JIMI HENDRIX”.
I was stunned. This whole thing had taken me for a loop. I was struggling to regroup. This wasn’t what I had expected.
“Where are you?”
“I don’t know. Please help me.”
………………………………………………………………………….
“The Marshmallow Box”, based upon a true story, written by Maureen Kellar-Kirby, has been adapted to movie script format and has been entered in the Nicholl Fellowship Contest, Page Awards contest and the Los Angeles Scriptwriting Contest 2018. The book manuscript is presently underway. A song from the proposed music soundtrack for the film “Astral Wife” recorded at Bowtown Music Studios in Calgary, Alberta in 2017, has been entered in the International Songwriting Competition in 2018. Maureen Kellar-Kirby has recently published her first book “Go Back Jack” with Total Recall Publication in January 2018. It is available on Amazon and Kindle. The movie script adaptation of the book successfully reached the Semi-Finals with the Story Pros Scriptwriting Contest.
Menard
Christine Ménard is an illustrator from Ontario, Canada.
She also illustrated the picture books “Kenneth’s Feathers” and “For the Love of Hockey”
Tafel
Erika Tafel was born in La Tuque Quebec, and now lives in the Souther Interior of British Columbia. She has been homesteading off-grid for fifteen years and is in the process of building an underground house with her husband.
Share a fun filled mouse adventure with your young one
Nancy Higham tells wonderful adventures about Murray Mouse in her School Mice Series.
I am glad to have found a book I can enjoy reading again and again.
Since childhood I have enjoyed reading the fantasy/adventure genre: ‘Robinson Caruso’, being my favorite. In my adult years, I have added historical novels to my reading pleasure, especially the hefty tomes authored by James Michener, among others. ‘Emerald’ has offered me an exciting, adventurous story linked to history without the long, sometimes boring chapters found in so-called, great novels. When I began reading ‘Emerald ‘ I found I couldn’t wait to get to the next chapter. The curiosity generated by the storyline, the danger, the mysterious, true-to-life characters, the intrigue, the romance, the conflict between good and evil—all are elements of a superbly crafted plot created by an extraordinarily talented author.
The good feelings I experienced at the end of ‘Emerald ‘ were because I like to see a happy ending where good triumphs over evil. I have certainly discovered a book I can enjoy reading again.
ANNOUNCING RELEASE OF A NEW MOUSE GATE BOOK, ‘The Legend of The Captain’s Daughter’
In order to soften the news of a family move across the country away from all her friends, Macey’s parents surprise her with a trip to Walt Disney World. At Blizzard Beach she zooms down a giant water slide and pops up hundreds of miles away in the Atlantic Ocean a long way from shore. Moments later she is joined by Luke, who finds himself in the same situation. With the help of a very special amulet, together they are transported to the shore of a secluded island where an ethereal and very mysterious woman introduces them to the legend of White Island. The teens hear the engaging and courageous story of Martha Herring who was forced into a marriage with a notorious pirate, and abandoned on the island to guard his pirate treasure. This is a recounting of all her adventures and the challenges she and all those in her life endured over many years. It is also the story of how the bonds of strong friendships can impact our lives and sustain us during difficult times.
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