The Clements Centre is celebrating its 60th anniversary and this brought back some fond memories from decades ago.
The Kinsmen Club, of which I was a member, volunteered to help build the new Clements Centre. Mayer Bros had kindly given us the use of a 955 track loader for clearing and levelling the building site. I volunteered to run the machine.
After the job was finished, that Sunday afternoon I was told I needed to move the machine to another job on the low-bed for the following morning. I was unfamiliar with the truck. As I was going up Sherman Road, I ran out of diesel on the hill (because of a faulty fuel valve). There I was stalled, with the 955 loader on the low-bed, stopping traffic in one lane.
I went to a nearby house to phone Bora Mayer to help me get the truck running. As I was talking to the woman in the house, I explained that I had been doing some charity work when this happened.
I was surprised at what happened next. A member of the RCMP had arrived and was directing traffic at the bottom of the hill, and a citizen at the top end had his flashers on and was directing traffic from his end. A crowd gathered because of all the commotion, and at least two ladies brought out cookies and coffee. Other people volunteered to help in various ways, some offering tools. The atmosphere was more of a picnic than an emergency situation.
Time and again, I have found this to be typical of the way our community pulls together whenever help is needed.
Brian W. Hamilton
Duncan