High School graduation. One of the important milestones in a person’s life signifying the time when you move from your childhood stepping into the adult world. You leave that bedroom in the basement, the parents who raised you and the siblings you endured but secretly loved for all those years. Now it was just you to stand on your own two feet, survive and make something out of your life. Perhaps it is a little different now, children stay in the nest longer but still at some point it must be the same.
My graduation was in 1972 at Charlottetown Rural High School in Prince Edward Island. Before things like Safe Grad so shortly after the ceremony we all left for the parties. Food and alcoholic beverages had all been purchased in advance and were stowed away until the time was right. I am not saying this was the right thing but that is the way it was done in the Seventies. The memory of my graduation is…well, the important thing is that I had a fun time and ended up home in one piece. The graduation I remember most is not my graduation. It was one that occurred in the community of Wesleyville in the Bonavista North area of Newfoundland and Labrador, now known as New-Wes-Valley.
It happened when I was stationed there between the years of 1982 and 1985. I know little about it other than I was there on that night but this one incident sticks in my head. Wesleyville detachment was a three-person unit which covered the communities between Musgrave Harbour and Trinity and all the lands between that area. Point to point the distance is roughly 120 kilometers and the population at that time was around 7000-8000. Many times, it was patrolled by one member with back-up about two hours or more away depending on where you were at the time.
One of the things, we tried to do while on night patrol, to keep criminal offences down was to enforce the liquor control act. Many criminal acts involve persons who have consumed alcohol or drugs. Some young people while under the influence make poor decisions such as becoming involved decide to become involved illegal activities, things they would not have done in sober condition. It seems like a good idea when they are in a group. Enforcing the liquor control act, interrupts this thinking pattern and thus prevents the commission of an offence or so we thought. Maybe it worked, maybe it didn’t.
It was on a weekend in late spring and Lester Pearson High School was having their graduation dance. Constable John Butt was on patrol with me that night and we were aware of the dance. We had decided we should show the colors and swing the police car into the parking lot to throw a scare into those drinking by their cars. It worked because there were dozens of mostly young men in suits dropping beer and running for cover. We got out of the car and picked up the discarded beer, emptying them on the ground. I noticed one young man running for the woods as fast as his legs could carry him. I chuckled as I thought he would huddle in the woods until we left and then he would return to the dance.
Once we had emptied out the beer bottles, we threw the empties in the trunk and left the parking lot. Thinking our appearance had curbed the drinking activity at least for a little while, we continued our patrol. We had only driven a kilometer or so when we came upon a young man walking on the side of the road. He was dressed in a suit, but he was soaked to his arm pits. We stopped and I spoke to him. He told me he had run into the woods to get away from us as he had been drinking. Once he got in the woods, he found it difficult to walk on the slippery ground with his dress shoes and he slipped falling into the brook. He was walking home because he could not go back to the dance with his suit all wet.
I could not help but feel bad. It was certainly not our intention for anything like this to happen. I offered him a drive home and he got in the back seat. His house was another couple of kilometers up the road and when we pulled in the driveway, I let him out of the back seat. He thanked us and I told him not to thank us yet. He looked at me with questions in his eye and I said, “Get in and get changed. We’ll wait for you and drive you back to the dance.”
He dashed to the door, and it wasn’t ten minutes later that he was back. We drove him back to the dance and as we pulled into the lot, there was no one around. I let him out of the back seat, and he stood there before me. I told him to enjoy himself and stay away from the drinking. He teetered awkwardly on his feet and nervously he said thanks before running towards the gymnasium.
Our patrol was quiet that night, we checked a few cars, sometimes strategically in front of the clubs, and responded to a few minor calls. End of shift came, and we went home with one of us advising telecoms we were on call until the morning shift. I slid under the covers next to my wife and settled in. I thought about this young fellow and wondered if he had enjoyed himself as I drifted off. His first step into the adult world was certainly a wet one but maybe that night we all played a part in one of life’s lessons. We all fall down, make mistakes, but it is important that we get back up and move forward. When we do, there just might be someone there to help us, even if it is with a twinge of regret.
