Free I by Jack Olsen

them at each other. One of his grandfather’s junker cars caught fire and we spent the next ten minutes putting it out. Nobody found out who did it.”
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    The companions weren’t so lucky when they accidentally torched an empty house owned by a neighbor named Webster. “We started a fire in the fireplace and a spark flew into a stack of newspapers. We put it out and ran. A half hour later we heard the fire trucks. That old house burned to the ground. Someone saw me running and told on me, and I had to take the blame.
    â€œI knew better than to argue with Dad about it. In his eyes, denying blame was as bad as being guilty. I was punished and had to pay off my neighbor with my life savings—almost fifty bucks. Later on the neighbor told Dad he collected on the insurance and was glad we’d burnt the place down. He never thought to give me back my money.”
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    In his endless accounting of raw deals and childhood disappointments, Keith claimed that he was forced to take the blame for the bullying of a smaller boy by his younger brother Brad. As in almost all his reminiscences, he cast his father as villain. “Brad came home in a panic and asked me if a grown-up had called. He told me that he got in a fight with a kid and the parent threatened to call Dad. When the phone rang later that afternoon, I answered it. The man accused me of beating up his son. Then he asked me my name and I told him. He said he would call back to talk to Dad that evening.
    â€œWhen the call came, Dad answered. I saw him stare hard at me. As usual he’d been drinking. When he put down the phone, he punched me with his fist. 4 He said he would teach me what it felt like to be beat up by a bully. I told him it wasn’t me and he called me a liar. After he was finished, Brad stepped up and took the blame. Dad taught him a lesson as well. When it was all over, I waited for an apology. As usual Dad told me to consider it a learning experience.”

10 Church of Hard Work
    Keith remembered being impressed into his father’s workforce when he was eleven. “Dad had a huge work ethic. He said that if we worked our asses off we would grow up to be big and strong and successful. If we didn’t work hard, we’d grow up to be bums. Me, I just wanted to be a kid for a few more years. Mom thought my brothers and I should start Sunday school, but Dad said the Bible was a crutch for the weak and we could make up our minds about religion when we were grown. “Right now,” he says, “you’re gonna work on Sundays. And you’re gonna pay room and board.” He said his dad charged him and his brothers room and board, too, and it taught them the value of money.
    â€œHe put us to work cleaning nuts and bolts that he’d soaked in barrels of oil as part of a contract for salvaging a Fraser River bridge. We scrubbed them with wire brushes till they gleamed. Sharp little shreds kept getting under our fingernails—hurt like hell.
    â€œWhen we finally finished with the nuts and bolts, he made us mow and bale our hay. If he didn’t have a job for us, he’d create one. Work was his church, and he was the preacher. He put my older sister Sharon out of the house when she was sixteen and told her not to come back till she got a job.”

    In addition to working for his father, eleven-year-old Keith began delivering morning newspapers. The Province was published daily, and the boy took pride in delivering in the harsh Canadian weather. On the worst days his mother chauffeured him in her Ford Falcon.
    Adults on his seven-mile route took a liking to the curly-haired boy, and for the first time he began to feel a slight kinship with adults. On collection day some of his customers would leave exact change on their front porches, and others would put out larger bills and notes and expect him to leave the correct change. He was surprised by the show of trust from strangers. “I liked