Alburgh, Vermont, around 1957

Why do kids have to pull faces when they're getting their picture taken? Maybe they don't any longer...

Here is my brother (seated) and I, with our dog Buddy, outside of the cottage we rented in Alburgh, Vermont. I assume this was the cottage we rented...

Here I am with our dog, Buddy. I remember taking him for a walk that summer and being dragged along the dirt road holding onto his leash as he ran after something; then I let go and he escaped, but we must have found him or he returned by himself. Now I think of it, cats and dogs running away and the effort to find them, driving across the city, advertising in the newspaper, announcements on CJAD radio, phone calls from total strangers saying they'd found our cat or dog, all of that was a part of growing up. Alburgh, Vermont is located on Lake Champlain, which is one of the largest in-land lakes in North America. Alburgh is about sixty miles from Montreal. Of course, we all love Vermont, one of the most beautiful states. I think a typical Canadian experience is living within a hundred miles of the Canadian-American border and driving across the border to the States to buy cotton goods, blue jeans, cotton sheets, and back in the fifties to buy chocolate bars you couldn't buy here, and to smuggle back alcohol and cigarettes. I remember returning from Vermont with my grandmother in the back seat with packages of cigarettes in her purse for my Uncle Alex. Or the various ways Canadians used to smuggle back bottles of whiskey, in thermoses, or hidden elsewhere. Or taking the kid down to the the States in his old clothes which were discarded down there, and returning wearing three shirts, new blue jeans, running shoes, and other clothes hidden away in the car. Now, with free trade, that's pretty much a thing of the past. But it was a Canadian experience back then, whether in Montreal driving down to Burlington or Plattsburgh, or in Vancouver driving down to Bellingham, or (I guess) in Toronto...