If there’s to be a funeral service for Ernie, I won’t be able to attend. But if I were able, and if I were allowed to say a few words about Ernie, this is what I would say ...
Ernie and I became “buddies” right off the bat when we first met in grade 6. It happened quite naturally for 11-year-olds when he told me that his real name was - “George Ernest Parkes - the Third.” “George, eh?” And that was it - “buddies forever! “The Third?” Yup! Ernie told me that his family had a tradition that started with Ernie’s paternal grandfather, of naming the first boy “George Ernest Parkes” and alternating generations between “George” and “Ernie”. And so he became - “Ernie - the Third!”
Ernie and I chummed around for the rest of elementary school and into high school. At the time in St. Thomas, Ontari-ari-o (St T), which had a population of some 22,000 in the 60s, there were only two high schools to choose from. Arthur Voden (aka “Teck”), which went to grade 12, was for those heading for a trade or what was then called a “community college”; and Central Elgin Collegiate Institute (CECI, aka “Central”), which went to grade 13 and which was required for entrance to any university in Ontario. The ‘junior high school’ concept was only found in larger cities, like Toronto back then. High school meant grades 9 to 13 and five full years of continuous friendship.
Since Ernie and I had ‘great plans’ for our future, we went to Central. And we ended up in the same ‘home room’ for the full five years. It’s hard to believe we looked so young and naïve back in our grades 9 and 11 yearbook photos.
High school presented us with choices both academic as well as athletic.
Ernie and I both wanted to learn to play a musical instrument and CECI had a music program led by music teacher Mr. John DiZazzo. I chose the trumpet and Ernie, already a master of the ‘kazoo’ and the harmonica, chose the trombone.
We had great times playing in the band all through our five years at Central.
Unlike me, who could trip over his own two feet, Ernie was a natural athlete. And he joined the football team, a sure way to impress the ‘chicks’! My tall, skinny architecture drew me to the job of ‘equipment manager’ for the football team. As such I was responsible for ensuring that the players had all the equipment they needed. My duties required that I attended all the practices and games. I also had to get (and cut up into four sections) oranges for the players to suck on at the half-time break when Mr. Paul Loucks and Mr. Bill Imire would coach the team into the second half. The fact that the legal driving age was 16, and that I was a bit of a ‘risk-taker’ back then, didn’t deter me from taking advantage of how my height made me look older than my 14 years, and allowed me to get one of the football players to give me the keys to their car so I could drive to the local grocery store to get the oranges. Ernie used to laugh like hell over the many escapades I regaled him with that that situation took me into ... fodder for another story.
During one game, Ernie dislocated his shoulder, an exceedingly painful injury that required a trip to the hospital. And off we took to the hospital. Despite that the hospital was only a few blocks away, poor Ernie expressed his state of excruciating pain with every bump along the way. I stayed with him at the Emergency Room (where my mum was the receptionist) until Ernie’s mum arrived to assume the role of worrier! I think it was almost as harrowing an experience for me as it was for Ernie!
My most memorable time with Ernie occurred in February 1970, when we were in grade 13. At the time the legal drinking age was 21 in Ontario, but it was only 18 or 19 in Niagara Falls, New York. A bunch of us guys decided to take the Greyhound Bus, which had a stop in St T, go to Niagara Falls, Ontario, walk across the border into Niagara Falls, New York, and get totally blasted drunk. Sounded like a good idea at the time, but by the time came to actually buy a bus ticket, there were only three of us left. Kim Kipp (who passed away in 2015), Ernie, and me (the three of us were buddies, in the music program, and in the same class all through CECI).
I don't remember what kind of lies we three amigos told our parents, but somehow, we managed to get their ok and, on a cold, snowy day in February, we boarded a Greyhound bus, and off we took to Niagara Falls.
At the time you only needed a driver’s license to cross the US border (a passport wasn’t necessary, as they are today) and we all had driver’s licences by then. We walked in the freezing cold through the ice and snow and across the border. There was no internet back then but we reasoned that there would most likely be a cheap motel close to the border station. And we were right. We only had to walk a few blocks to find one. The three of us checked into one room. We didn’t plan to sleep much so there being only two beds didn’t matter. And then we headed for a local liquour store. Back then Canada only had the ‘red label’ 80 percent proof Smirnoff vodka, but the US had the higher 100 percent proof ‘blue label’. We believed the fallacy that you can’t smell the alcohol a person drinks if they drink vodka, so we each bought a ‘mickey’ of the ‘Blue Label’ Smirnoff. We went back to the room, watched American TV, and drank ourselves silly. Along about midnight one of us got the bright idea that we wanted to see “The Falls”. So off we took. in the dark and cold, on a walk to the lookout point, which turned out to be an observation deck specifically designed to observe the falls. It was rather like a small bridge that extended out over the edge of the cliff. It had a 20 to 25 cm (10 to 12 inch) wooden ledge on the top of a fence-like railing. At one point Kim (the most athletic of us) decided he wanted to walk along the ledge, like balancing on a balance beam. On the ground side a fall would have been about two to three metres (10 to 12 feet) and perhaps a few broken bones, however, on the overhanging edge, it was a drop of some 200 metres (600 feet) and certain death! To make matters worse, it was covered with a couple centimetres (an inch or so) of slushy snow and ice! But being 18, totally drunk, fearless, and invincible - onto the ledge Kim pounced! And Ernie - not to be outdone - joined him. Me, being a natural scaredy-cat and having enough trouble just staying upright on terra firma, started screaming at them to stop and to get down. Of course they both ignored me until Kim, who had made it about half way around the outer edge, had a bit of a slip and decided to get down. And Ernie quickly followed. Whew!! Calamity averted!
At least, for the moment! But then it was my turn to get stupid.
As we were heading back to our room, I announced that I was going to actually touch the water in the falls! I climbed over a fence that had warning signs plastered all over it not to enter due to the danger, etc. I then made my way literally to the edge of the water. Despite the tremendous noise of the water falls, I recall Ernie and Kim screaming at me to stop being so stupid, but also being 18, totally drunk, fearless, and invincible - I grabbed onto a small bush, stretched as far as I could, and put my hand into the rushing water! Man - was it ever cold!! Somehow, I managed to pull myself out of the falls, make my way back through the ice and snow to the boys and we made our way back to the room.
And then morning broke and we had to get up and make our way back to the bus station in time for the one and only bus back to St T. We were so hung over. I was barfing so badly I just wanted my time on earth to end right then and there! But back to the bus station we dragged ourselves. Greyhound bus engines run on diesel fuel and the station greeted us with an intense blast of diesel fuel – not a good aroma when yer hung over! All I remember from the trip home was how warm the bus was and how quickly I fell asleep and then woke up in St T!
The three of us have done a lot of stupid things in our day, but I think that bus trip takes first prize!!
And then we graduated high school and, as millions of others over the years have done, Kim, Ernie and I went our separate ways. It was a time before the internet, email, or Facebook, and the only means of communication was a land-line telephone call or a snail-mail letter, both of which were not much subscribed to by teenagers.
Fast forward some 34 years and I somehow managed to get in touch with a person who was using the ‘new’, and miraculous, invention called - “e-mail” - to arrange a CECI - 50th Anniversary reunion in Union (just south of St T) in July 2004. I was very happy to re-acquaint with many fellow 1970 CECI grads at the reunion, one of whom was another ‘buddy’ from grade 7, Larry (aka Laurence) Grant. Over the next few years, Larry very generously managed to arrange two further CECI 1970 Grad reunions at his Bed & Breakfast (Lumley & Co., B&B) in Iona Station, just west of St T. By this time Ernie had married Kathleen and they lived in Florida and I had married Ann and we lived in Edmonton. Ernie and I were both able to stay at Larry’s B&B for those two reunions.
Ernie and I got together again in Edmonton a few years ago. I joined Ernie at the airport when he had a stop-over in Edmonton on his way back from visiting his son and grand kids in Inuvik. Turns out something happened with the airline and he wasn’t going to be fed as he had expected, so I treated him at a local restaurant. A short, but nice visit.
My last visit with Ernie was when Ann and I stopped over to visit him and Kathleen at their place in The Villages in Florida on our way home from our cruise in April 2024.
Despite the evanescence and eventual end of our life on earth - my memories of – “George Ernest Parkes the Third” - will always remain with me whenever I see an injured athlete, whenever I see a waterfall, whenever I see a Greyhound bus. Clare Harner captured it all in her very famous poem, published in The Gypsy in December, 1934.
Do not stand
By my grave, and weep.
I am not there,
I do not sleep—
I am the thousand winds that blow
I am the diamond glints in snow
I am the sunlight on ripened grain,
I am the gentle, autumn rain.
As you awake with morning's hush,
I am the swift, up-flinging rush
Of quiet birds in circling flight,
I am the day transcending night.
Do not stand
By my grave, and cry—
I am not there,
I did not die.
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