Telling Our Stories:

    "Lexlexey'em"

Tony (Antoine) Sandy, My Best Friend

Tony and I were best friends when we were teenagers and even before that. We hung around and did everything together. We would hitch-hike to town every weekend to just hang out at the different cafes and restaurants in town until it was time to find a ride home again. We usually ended the day by going to the movies at the Alston Theatre. Usually that would end around 11:00pm when the beer parlors closed and there would be lots of rides home.

When we became teenagers, of course we began experimenting with booze. We would ask some adult to buy a mickey of whiskey or sometimes two  for us. Often times we would catch the Greyhound bus to the Starlight Drive-in Theatre which was located on the reserve just across the road from where the Rocky’s/Michels live. Band members were allowed to get into the drive-in free. Then we would proceed to sip on our whiskeys as we watched the movie. Many times, we would not even remember our walk home from the theatre.

Both Tony and I attended school at the Mission, but I don’t remember him as much there. I guess it was after we left the Mission that we became real close buddies. Many of us kids worked at the Mission during the summer holidays. Some of us were part of the haying crew, putting up hay in the hot burning sun. Others were part of the painting crew, re-painting the whole school, inside and out of every building at the Mission. Yet others were part of the engineers. There might have been ten or twelve former residential school students who were enrolled in a stationary engineer training program held at the Mission.  They were being trained to be able to operate steam boiler heating systems for huge building complexes such as was at the Mission. Tony was one of the people taking this training, although he never did complete and become an engineer.

After supper, at least once during the week, we would all head off walking to watch a movie at the Drive-in. That would be about a six mile walk each way, but we were young. Sometimes we would not get back to the Mission until just in time to go to work.

Tony and I hung around a lot with Willie Alphonse Sr.  Willie had started buying cars by then and we learned a lot about mechanicing on old cars from him. I don’t know why, but we started calling Tony “Trooper”. That was long before the rise of the street people who were called “Troopers”.

Tony got married to Millie in about 1967. We did not hang around as much after that, which is understandable. Shortly after, Tony got elected to the Band Council. He was the youngest band member to ever get elected to Council at 22 years of age. That record stands even to this day. Tony had two children who are Al Sandy and Greg Sandy. He died in 1969, I believe.

Back to People from my youth