“As a baby, I came with my father and mother … from England to Red Deer….  In either 1905 or 1906, we came to Alix where my Dad opened a real-estate office.  We lived in a house next to Sim’s Livery Stable for some years before moving to the house on Lake Street.  Pettets lived on one side and the other side was vacant right to the Grand Trunk Pacific Station.  Two sisters were born in Alix, Dorothy in 1907 and Edwinna in 1911…. As a small boy, I remember being so proud of our senior baseball team who won the “Calgary Brewery Cup” and held it for quite some time.  Also, there was the Citizen’s Band which flourished for several years.  My Dad played cornet in this band and in about 1912 or 1913 I joined also, playing or rather “blowing” a trombone….

I must not forget to mention the Alix Fall Fair.  I remember this as being the big event of the year and we all really looked forward to it….

We had a fairly good school baseball team… even though we were always short of equipment.  We made many Saturday trips to Mirror to play their school team.  We usually made these trips with a team of horses and a wagon, but occasionally some boy took a horse to ride as well.  This was an easier way to travel, and I can recall as many as three boys all riding bareback on the same horse….

One incident I’ll always remember.  One afternoon at recess about four of us had a little joke on our teacher… a man who lived in the country about a mile.  He drove to school in a buggy which he would leave at the school barn during the day.  We reversed his buggy wheel, putting the small ones on the rear and the big ones on the front and he couldn’t figure out what was wrong and drove home in that fashion after school.  Nearly everyone noticed his predicament and got a huge kick out of it.  Next morning, however, it was a different story – he just about wore out a new strap on our poor hands.”