INTRODUCTION
THE EARLY YEARS
In the fall of 1956, I set off walking to my first day of kindergarten at Highland Park School from our house on the 500 block of Scarth Street in north-end Regina. My dad, Jim Sr., had just put sewer and water lines into our house. It was a five-block walk to the school on 5th Avenue North. In the mid-1950s, there was no such thing as school division busing, nor were there any concerns about children being abducted or accosted while playing in their neighbourhoods. I was starting my association with education, with no idea where it was going to lead.
There were also no parents lined up in their cars, dropping off or picking up their children. The fathers were working and the mothers were either at work too or were stay-at-home moms with no second vehicles. In the case of my mom, Mabel, she didn’t have a driver’s licence.
Highland Park School no longer exists. In kindergarten, I met my lifelong friend, Gary Wilson, who moved with me to Imperial School for Grades 1 through to 8, to Thom Collegiate for high school and then to the Regina Rams for four years of junior football. Led by inspirational head coach Gord Currie, the Rams appeared in three national junior football championships, winning twice.
Growing up in the North Annex in the 1950s was much like living in a small town. Its boundaries were the railway tracks on the south along McKinley Avenue, Albert Street on the west, Winipeg Street on the east, and 9th Avenue North on the north. Everyone seemed to know everyone. My dad had been raised on the 400 block of Ottawa Street. He moved to the 400 block of McIntyre Street when he married, and then to the 500 block of Scarth Street, where he lived for the rest of his life. Mom was born and raised on a farm near Kelso in southeast Saskatchewan. At age 16, she moved with her family to a home on the 300 block of Scarth Street.
I learned quickly that if I misbehaved in the North Annex, someone was likely to holler at me: “Jimmy Hopson, smarten up or I’m going to call your mom and dad!” There was no bus service in our neighbourhood. There were open ditches, wooden sidewalks and, every few blocks, a water stand so residents could get potable water. My dad’s family was lucky to have a well in the backyard. There were still a few small farms in the annex and the “Honey Wagon” came down the back alley every week to change the pails in the outhouses.
It sounds bleak when I describe it now, but it actually was a great place to grow up. No one was rich, but we “North-enders” grew up knowing the value of hard work and being a good neighbour. While we did not have much, we had our families and friends. We made the best of it.
I never grew up thinking I would someday play professional football for the Saskatchewan Roughriders, become a director of education, and president/CEO of the Riders. My goals were less lofty: I wanted to get a job, buy a nice house, and raise a family. I wasn’t a very good athlete and I had not played much organized sports. I didn’t learn to skate until I was 21 and teaching in Ceylon, Saskatchewan. Some friends and teammates may say I never really learned how to skate!
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