Dunbar Residents Association News and Events

Leaves are coming down in gardens and streets all over Dunbar. But resist going out to rake them and read the DRA Fall 2011 Newsletter instead.

I can remember as a boy when I lived on Iona Island and in the Blenheim Flats , during this time of year I was always siting on the front porch and watching flock after flock of calling Geese moving by , high in the sky ! It was something special to see the V formation leader changing positions and giving another bird the leadership role .

As kids living on Iona Island in the 1950ies, we all ways ran from our floating scow house and watched in wonder as a big flocks swooped down on a foggy evening, to settle on the tidal marshes of Sea and Iona Islands ! The Geese hunters with their camoflaged Duck Punts and strings of decoys were waiting , just as it got dark . My cousin and I always held our ears when the gun barrels and camoflaged hats popped up out of the duck punts and the shooting started ! The hunters Black Labrador retrievers always got very excited when the shooting started and jumped in the” chuck” and paddled around looking for instructions to a downed bird . The hunters called the dogs with a whistle and we thought that was real funny as we blew on our whistle also and that confused the dogs no end, the dogs went splashing kind of round and round and the hunters got real mad . Many of the hunters set up camoflaged blinds on the beach made out of driftwood and cattails, we always ripped them down when they left .

Next morning we got up early and the the Iona kids hunt was on for the spent shot gun shells and pop bottles that we collected and took back to Mr. Piats Confectionary in Lower Dunbar! We got the the 2 cent deposit if we lugged them in our row boat back to Dunbar . Now Terry, Mr Piat would say , I told you before, there is no refund on those Spent Shotgun Shells, but there should be ,Yep Mr Piate was one of the first historic Lower Dunbar recycler,s ! He was nice and always took our muddy pop bottles, but no beer bottles .

I thumped down the 2 cases of Pop Bottles on his pride and joy Black Marble counter ! He pointed to his Candy Display Case, now how many jaw breakers do you want for them Orange Crush ones ? We left his store with two bags of spent shotgun shells and a big bag of Jaw Breakers ! We walked 3 miles, along S. W. Marine drive , down the hill to the Booming Grounds and rowed home to Iona Island sucking on our last Jaw Breaker !

Terry