​Two pebble stones from Normandy Beach, in memory of a Kincardine veteran

To the Editor:

Recently, I had the honour of presenting bass drummer Brian “Brow” Fry of the Kincardine Scottish Pipe Band, with a milestone award plaque for his 25 years as a member of the band, with unbroken service. I also gave him two pebble stones from the Normandy Beach in France, in memory of his father, the late Doug Fry, who was born and raised in Kincardine.

I told the band about Doug and, with Remembrance Day approaching, I thought I would like to honour the memory of Doug Fry (right), a Second World War veteran, and share some stories about him with you.

When I came to town in 1960 as the recreation director and arena manager, Doug worked as the cemetery supervisor/maintainer for seven months and then five months at the old Lambton Street Arena (just west off Queen Street) as the ice-maker and building maintainer.

Back then, the ice was installed in November and kept in to the end of March. We had that old rink and auditorium going seven days a week, jam-packed with activities. Looking back, I don’t know how we operated the place with a staff of only TWO! I guess it was because we both knew how to work and we had a great special core of 15 “rink rats” (teenagers, ages 14-16) who scraped the ice and helped clean the building, in return for free hot dogs at the concession booth and free ice time for pick-up hockey games. If Doug was still with us, he would say, “God bless those rink rats!” A ditto from me too!

Doug Fry was a peach of a guy – a good man, quiet, kind, a hard worker, really strong and never ever talked about his service in the Second World War. He was a proud family man. His wife, Betty, worked at the Sunrise Restaurant for years; she also worked for Lampman’s clothing store doing sewing, and did tons of sewing at home.

Their eldest son, Dennis “Rocky,” was a hard rock-’em, sock-’em hockey player who got his black belt in karate and started his own karate school in the arena auditorium.

Karen was the captain of the famous Tiverton “Big Reds” girls hockey team, coached by Kincardine District Secondary School (KDSS) teacher, John Gates. The team had a rookie defenceman, Margot Verlaan, of Lorne Beach who went on to play for Team Canada and won two Olympic Gold Medals.

Brow was the star goalie for Fred Tout’s Kincardine Minor Hockey Association (KMHA) Kincardine Construction juvenile hockey club, “The Bearcats,” a team that could have beaten most Junior C teams.

Wayne, the youngest, was baseball crazy and was a good pitcher.

FLOODING THE ICE IN THE 1960S

Back in the ‘60s, Doug had to flood the arena ice by filling a 50-gallon barrel with hot water that was affixed to wheels and there was a big special heavy cloth dragging behind it that spread the water evenly.

He had to pull the contraption by hand all by himself all week except on Sunday mornings when he had a helper – son Brian when he was a pre-teen helped his Dad (provided his boots did not have any mud on them) pull the barrel all around the ice surface not just once but sometimes twice and even three times, making the best hockey ice in Canada in preparation for the Bulldog games that started at 1 p.m.

In 1998, Ronnie McLeod (now deceased) painted a night-time watercolour scene of the old arena for me, showing just the front of the building on Lambton Street. The painting is huge – 22-inch-by-16-inch. It is special folk art of the finest order, in the manner of Maud Lewis, the famous Nova Scotian painter. 

I treasure Ronnie’s painting so much because he captured everything we had going on in the arena and auditorium. He had every sport or activity depicted in funny cartoon caricatures – people were coming out of the roof, off the roof, out the windows in the auditorium, on the fire escape, on the sidewalk, on the road. He had our Bulldog line in one corner of the picture - Leon Wilson had devil’s horns on his head holding his stick over his head with both hands, Jimmy Bell with a big smile on his face was snapping a blazing puck at a goalie down on his side, and there I was wearing a kilt and tam, smoking my pipe and at the end of my hockey stick, there was a big bulldog chewing and pulling on it. 

BUT for me, the best part is Doug Fry smack dab in the middle of the painting, pulling his flooding barrel on the sidewalk with a smile on his face as three of the rink rats were saluting him with their scrapers outstretched over their head. On the other side of the flooder, was a rink rat all spread-eagled on the ice exhausted from working so hard scraping the ice. Priceless! A special story painting that still makes me smile when I look at it, and memories always come flooding back (no pun intended).

Around 1968 or so, Doug was able to retire that old barrel on wheels he had pulled and pulled and pulled for so many years. A man in Nobleton invented an ice-cleaning and flooding machine, called Fab Met, to attach to the power take-off of a tractor. Nute Cuyler, a KMHA minor hockey coach, whose son, Tom, was one of our rink rats, got wind of the new invention and talked his sister, Ruth, into buying and donating the machine to the town (what a great act of kindness). 

The town bought a Case tractor from Donnie Doupe in Millarton – Doug got to use it in the arena in the winter and at the cemetery in the other months. That tractor sure helped lighten Doug’s workload.

Here’s a sidebar about my old friend, Nute Cuyler who was also a Second World War veteran. He was an RCAF tail-gunner in a Lancaster bomber in the war. This was a precarious job because if your bomber plane was going down, you had no parachute and no time to get out of your gunner bubble and crawl up to the front of the plane to jump out, even if you did. Nute had proof of the battles he endured while fighting the enemy with his auto-gun in his bubble. He pulled up his pant legs one day and showed me shrapnel that was still embedded in his legs from a few dogfights in the air he lived through!

Around 1970, Doug got sick and had to take a leave of absence from his employ with the town. He recovered and like a lot of old-timers in Kincardine, including public utilities commission lineman Jack Pym (another Second World War veteran), and auto mechanic Gord Black, went up to Douglas Point to work for Ontario Hydro. All three made five or six times in wages compared to what they were used to. Good on them, they deserved a good raise in pay!

Doug Fry enlisted in the army in London in 1942. He was a gunner in the 13th Battalion and served in northwestern Europe and the United Kingdom. He received the 1939-45 Star, France/Germany Star and the War Medal 1939-45. He was discharged in February, 1945, and came back to Kincardine to work at the Circle Bar Factory again.
 
My father, Dan, served with the RCAF in the Second World War. He never saw action like Doug did. He was a math teacher and when he signed up, he was assigned to teach the bomber navigators math and navigation skills. When he retired in 1965, the first thing he and Mom did was take a trip to Europe where they visited the beaches and battlefields from the Second World War, and the Canadian cemeteries where the Canadian boys were laid to rest. 

At the beach in Normandy, France, Dad put several of the dark blue and white stone pebbles in his pocket. He gave me three of them. They have been on our mantle ever since. I often look at them, especially at this time of year and wonder if I knew any Canadian soldiers who might have walked on them or even died on them on D-Day.

Doug Fry might have been one of them, fighting for his country to keep us free. So I have passed two of the pebble stones on to Brow – one for him and one for his Mom, Betty, to hold and to wonder too.

So on the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month, I am going to be thinking about Private Doug Fry, Second World War veteran; my father, Dan Davidson; and several other old Kincardine veterans and friends, now gone: Nute Cuyler, Norm Dunsmoor, Charlie Mann, Herman Young, Jack Tufford, Eugene Harrison, Ken Johnston, Doc Gordon and Jack Pym.

They all did a lot for me and the Kincardine recreation department in the old days. God bless them! And God bless all our Canadian men and women who answered the call of duty in the two great wars.

Slainte Mhath
R. Keith Davidson

P.S.: A question to the Municipality of Kincardine – would you consider naming a street, “Fry Street,” in honour of a long-serving town employee who was also a veteran? Would you consider naming the ice-resurfacer bay at the Davidson Centre, “The Doug Fry Ice Flooding Bay” and maybe frame this letter on the entrance door?  

Would the KMHA consider naming a tournament or a special year-end award after Doug Fry, the man who pulled his flooding barrel thousands of times, making excellent ice for minor hockey games?

Would Kincardine Branch 183 Royal Canadian Legion consider posting this letter and Doug’s picture at the Legion?  

Dear readers, do you have any ideas how Private Doug Fry, Second World War veteran, could be honoured in Kincardine with a lasting  tribute? Thank you!