My father was the best storyteller. Please share your memories and stories from his early years in the comment section below! We look forward to reading your own stories of Arnie or those he shared with you.
If you have stories from other times in Arnie’s life, please consider posting the tales under
Thank you!
Arnie 
This story goes back to the first month that Glen and I moved to the lower mainland in 2000. When we moved here I was not very close to Merna and Arnie, but I was very familiar with Arnie’s sense of humour and larger than life personality. I was often forewarned about his hair trigger temper and his non-stop chatting (a characteristic that seems to have been inherited by his son and grandchildren) . However, on this one occasion the events that transpired left even good old Arnie speechless!!
As most people know Arnie liked to tinker… He was always trying to fix this and fiddle with that.. It got to the point that I called him Papa McIver because he was always jimmying something together to make it work faster or better or work at all.
Anyhow, on this occasion Arnie had just purchased a new stereo, but of course didn’t want his old speakers to go to waste so he had set them up behind a nice big rocker. While at the time I was sitting in this rocker and we were watching some show he tapped and he looks very seriously at me and says “are you gettin it from behind?” I looked at him ever so slowly and seriously and said “Arnie, I think that’s awfully forward of you to ask about your son and I”
Well he sputtered and chocked and looked at the floor… I looked over at Glen and we burst out laughing! At that point Arnie pulled it together and he said “the sound dear …is it coming from behind the chair?”
“Yes”
Glen said he’d never seen his Dad so red faced or flustered as he was in that moment!!
It was a classic story from then on… Number 73 if I recall correctly lol
I remember he told me a story when he was 6 or 7 he would build dirt roads with sticks and use the sticks as trucks but then he wanted this little toy truck it was 1 dollar so he saved up his allowance all winter then he got the truck so he had a real truck for his roads
Arnie always loved home cooking and Nana’s biscuits and gravy were his favorite. He knew how to sweet talk her into making him a batch whenever she was visiting. Biscuits and gravy were only topped by biscuits with molasses. It was a real skill to make the molasses (mixed with butter) work out even with the biscuits. Arnie was a master at doing this. He always teased that Merna could only cook Kraft Dinner. In my younger years I even believed him, but of course it was just another of his stories!
During summer holidays, my brother Allen and I would often go out to Rica and Pat Mansell’s farm at Inisfree. Arnie, Bob and Lorraine would also be there, and of course all the cousins from around the farm. Arnie was always “In Charge”‘ and took his duties quite seriously.
I remember two times in particular. First when I was about 3, and the big kids were all having turns riding on a pony. I probably begged Allen for a ride, and he figured I was too small, so he stuck me on a calf instead! I didn’t stay on very long,and Arnie came running! He wasn’t too upset at Allen, but did point out that as “In Charge” all ideas had to be run by him first! The second occasion that I remember so well was a few years later when my cousins Joe and Miriam came to visit. We were all out for a walk and I was quite away behind and pretty sad. No one would walk with me because someone said I had Peanut Butter breath! Arnie said yes that’s true, but everyone had to be nice to me anyway!
i was only five when my big brother arnie brought his beautiful fiance merna home to meet the family, she was so sweet and kind, i thought she was amazing. so i was very upset when i witnessed how he was treating her, i went to my mother very upset and told her that arnie was in the living room and he was trying to suck the life right out of poor merna.
This is a story Dad didn’t like to share much, but it was a funny one. He told me that once as a teenager running late for school he showered, dressed very quickly and hopped on his bike to head to school. Well, as often is the case in Edmonton in the winter, it was brutally cold and because he was still wet as he dressed it was the perfect conditions for some freezing. He said the bike seat was frozen and hard as a rock and that by the time he got to school he froze the end of his dick. He said the thawing was one of the more painful experiences of his life.