Leaving Niagara for a weeks' holiday in Haliburton in late summer took a lot of adult planning in the 50's. This meant scheduling between the peach harvest, spraying, slopping the hogs, milking Bossy, feeding the chickens and all the other farm chores for Vic. When you are 11 going on 12 and you live on a small arm and you can drive the tractor, work all day and you can do most the work on a farm that someone twice your age can do. Vic's parents were reluctant to give him some time off so our parents met and it was agreed Vic could go. They determined the week to be the third week in August, 1957 . We could head out on Monday but we had to be back the following Saturday; right around dinner time, well supper time, dinner for them was lunch, that way, neither family would miss Sunday church. Church attendance was an important part of the lives of both our families then. Vic went to church twice on Sundays – once in the morning and then back again in the evening.

Life on the bench was hard work and great fun; fun apple slinging and sledding on the escarpment when the snow conditions were right.

Footprints is a memoire about almost being a teenager in the 50's, growing up in Niagara, on the bench, in the ravine, on the escarpment and on summer holidays with family on Gull Lake in Haliburton. Some memories remain crystal clear throughout your life because of their footprints on your heart. The memories recorded in Footprints are as accurate as the author can remember.