Depot was Home

 A young and mustachioed Constable Nixon can be found as the 3rd guy in, on the right hand column.

Twenty-five years ago this past week I became a member of the RCMP.  Four years ago this week I also became an ex-member of the RCMP.  It's those earlier years that I'd like to focus upon today. More specifically, I'll recount a few of my more vivid recollections of those first six months as a Mounted Policeman.  Those were the Depot days, on the fringes of Regina, Saskatchewan.  By the way, Depot is not pronounced the way we say it when referring to the retail store, Home Depot, nor does it sound like Dee-Pot.  It is Dep-po (the first syllable rhymes with "step" and in the second the "t" is silent).  Get it right or you'll find yourself CB'd next weekend!  That's confined to barracks.  Or maybe it'll be a week of "Bozo Parade" - 6:30 a.m. full uniform inspections in the drill hall, conducted by a crusty, loud, caffeine deprived Corporal, who, in the world outside of Depot is merely a low level supervisor, but within the confines of the RCMP Training Academy, a corporal is a demigod.

I lived in D Block.  My home for those six months consisted of a 12 inch slab of foam on a metal frame for a bed, a few drawers and a closet.  There was also room for the tickle trunk, which was pretty much the same size, shape, and style of trunk that every RCMP officer since 1873 has had the honour of owning.  There was an expansive community bathroom and shower area just down the hall. What more could a 24 year old bachelor ask for!  Well, maybe a few walls?  You see, my room was also the bedroom of 31 other guys.  Sixteen beds lined one side and sixteen the other. We were alphabetical.  Nice and orderly.  The RCMP way.  We weren't 32 individuals.  We were Troop 20 - 1989/1990.  All for one, one for all.

In some strange way I actually enjoyed Depot.  I was in great physical shape going there and after 6 years of university I had learned a thing or two about cramming and the nuances of how to study effectively.  I found out I was a natural marksman and all those childhood scrapes with my sister had toughened me for the rigors of ground fighting sessions during our self defence classes.  Some of my troop mates weren't as prepared, so that made for a hellish first few months. The thing about the RCMP is that they instill a sense that your troop is only as good as your weakest member.  It certainly provided an incentive for the guys who needed to get better at pushups, running or swimming to put the extra hours in a night.  It also taught us to help one another and not to only think of yourself.  For those who didn't buy in there was no where to hide. Your harshest critics or your biggest supporters were an arms length away....literally....day and night.

It was interesting that I shared my living space, or pit as it was known, with Roy Nishimura, a Japanese Canadian from Edmonton.  Roy was.....interesting.  The normal 5:30 a.m. wake up for the troop just wasn't early enough for Roy.  At 5 every weekday morning, Roy would begin pruning and preening our pit.  The first few times I thought I was experiencing a nightmare, one where a monster with one bright red eye was preparing to devour me.  It made a menacing, hair raising, swishing and swooshing sounds that surely had to come from a relative of Godzilla.  No, it was just Roy.  With a mini flashlight clenched between his teeth and his steam producing flat iron in hand, Roy was getting a head start on his daily chores.  He was ironing the blanket on his bed. Yup, you read me right. Believe it or not, the actual act of ironing one's bed is not abnormal in the Depot world, but doing it before the lights came on, when sleep is a very precious commodity not to be wasted, is very strange indeed.  I may have razzed Roy somewhat but I didn't stop him.  It turned out to be a great move. Each and every weekday morning, by the time I had gotten up, showered, returned from breakfast (or Bozo Parade), Roy had not only tidied up his part of our pit, but mine too.  I never dusted once trying my entire stay at Depot, although I did iron my bed a few times, but usually just with the flat edge of a metal clothes hanger to get out the major wrinkles.

Here's something funny too.  I never slept in my bed, ever.  We learned from more senior troops that sleeping ON the bed is a better way to go.  Sleeping in the bed meant body hair, messy sheets, and dirty pillows, all things that were easily spotted during the daily inspections of the lurking corporals. The way around this was to buy a comforter and pillow and use them exclusively.  During the day, those non-RCMP issued items were then hidden in our tickle trunks. Nothing is sacred when you are a recruit, nothing that is but the inside of your trunk.  That was off limits to everyone.  It was the part of a recruit that helped protect and maintain his or her individuality.  We all dressed alike, were given identical haircuts, had to conform to rule upon rule, but the trunk remained that bastion of who we truly were, Twenty-five years later I still have my trunk.  I always will.  I no longer have the pillow and comforter though.  They went in the garbage on June 4th, 1990, the day I was presented with my badge and was unleashed on the world as a rookie cop.

I have lots of fond and some not so fond memories of life at Depot and of living with 31 other guys. I'll save those for another day.  In case your curious, Roy Nishimura was posted to Whistler, BC after graduation from Depot.  I guess the Force figured that with so many Japanese visitors to that resort town, it would be a good idea to have a friendly and familiar face wearing the uniform with the yellow strip down the leg.  Perhaps it didn't really matter that Roy couldn't speak a word of Japanese, nor did he know how to ski. The RCMP must have known what I had known, that Roy did a pretty good impression of a beloved Japanese folk hero - Godzilla.  What the RCMP failed to realize is that Roy's Godzilla wan't visitor friendly at all, as it only came out just before dawn.  They also should have known that Roy's dusting skills may have been better served somewhere on the dry and windy prairies.  All they had to do was ask me.  I could have been found at Bozo Parade.