Tuesday, February 1, 2011
This is a little story of a regular trip around the bay. As many of our friends and family know Gus and the old man (Ernest) did lots of trips out to the Cape Shore, almost every Saturday. As a child, I always went along with my father and Gus on these regular trips. On one of the trips, I remember us leaving early to head out to the shore and about half way down the Placentia highway the old man looks at Gus and says we should go to the Ferndale area before heading out towards the shore. After a short while we turn toward the Ferndale area, which to me at that time was a new area. Gus was driving and talking to the old man about not wasting too much time in the area as the day usual ran from 5:00 am till sometimes 12 midnight. After a short while we came to a road which was no wider than the old flat bed truck we were driving, which at the time had a couple of tonne loaded on it. This road was down a hill at about 70 degree drop and had a cross road at the bottom. But also at the bottom there was a guard rail which I was pretty amazed at the time as to why it was there. Well we stopped about 1/3 the way down the hill at this little house and the old man got out and went inside. Gus then shut off the truck and put it in reverse to keep her at its present position on the hill. We were sitting in the truck and I was still questioning the guard rail in my own mind and looked at Gus to ask why it was there. Gus looks over at me and says well on the other side of this guard rail there is a 90 foot drop to the road below which head down to the Placentia area. Well I had no more questions on that guard rail from there on. About 5 minutes went by and with that the truck seemed to start to move a bit at a time. Then all of sudden the truck started down this really steep road towards the guard rail, it was not running at the time, I asked Gus were we where going and he said hold on and with that, all that was going through my head was the drop on the other side of the guard rail. When I looked over at Gus he was stood up in the seat with 2 feet on the brake and 2 hands on the wheel. Well we stopped right at the guard rail with the bumper of the truck resting on it. Gus and I got out and looked over the side and it was a 90 foot drop for sure, with that he then looked over at me saying thank God the break lines didn't break. Knowing now that at the time Gus was no small man and I can only imagine how hard he was pushing on that brake peddle to bring us to a stop. After this little incident the old man comes out of the house up the hill not knowing what just happened and yells down to Gus to back the truck back up the hill to were he was with a couple of people standing looking down at us. Gus yells back at him in saying if your going to the Cape Shore come on, if not, I'm going home. At that present time I was in agreement with Gus to go home after all my heart was still in my throat and I'm sure his was too. We continued on to the shore but not much conversation was had between us, no doubt to day I can understand why. Thank God for letting us make it home that day and now I thank God to have these two old buddies back together remembering these trips that we shared. I'm so grateful to have these very fond memories of my brother-in-law Gus (to me, in a special way, my 2nd father).
