Time Now for the Vinyl Cafe Story Exchange

by Stuart McLean

  Dad was a fabulous runner. He could jog smoothly for miles without showing any signs of fatigue, but sprinting was his specialty. He’d race me everywhere. He’d chase my sister and me through the empty lot that bordered our home. Duchess, our collie, often joined in the fun, circling round our feet.

  During World War II, my father was a private in the Canadian Army. He was stationed in Petawawa, Ontario, just a few hours from my parents’ apartment in Montreal. They were newlyweds and my mother never missed an opportunity to visit Dad at the base.

  In his second year of service, the news came that my father was going to be shipped overseas to do a tour of duty. There was no time for anything more than a quick goodbye phone call. Dad travelled by train to Nova Scotia to meet the ship that would take him abroad.

  The days in Nova Scotia were filled with organized activities and competitions to entertain the troops while they waited to ship out. My father ran “the mile,” and to everyone’s surprise, Dad wasn’t just good—he was exceptional. So when the troop ship sailed to Europe a few days later, it left without my father. The army had decided to keep him in Canada to race competitively. Five months later he was discharged and returned home to Montreal, where he and my mother were reunited.

  Years later, when I was a teenager, my father began to slow down. We ran together less often, and during our races he seemed to struggle. In his mid-forties he was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease. Dad was no longer the vibrant, energetic man I knew. Every movement became an effort, and although he was fiercely independent in spirit, his mobility deteriorated over the years and he often fell. Eventually, one of his falls left him with a serious injury and he was admitted to hospital. He never lived in our house again.

  My father spent the last seven years of his life in a nursing home, strapped into a wheelchair. When there was no one to push him, my father’s life literally came to a standstill.

  Shortly after my father died I began running regularly, usually with friends. I entered my first race since high school days. It was a fundraiser for a women’s shelter and I was proud to run for the cause. Next, I participated in a race to support breast cancer research. In no time, I was racing regularly to support worthy causes.

  I’ve run dozens of races in the ten years since Dad’s death. This year I ran my third Boston Marathon.

  I’m proud of my accomplishments as a runner. I’m only sorry that my father never had the opportunity to share these moments with me. I think of my dad every race I run. As I push myself through the miles, I think of the struggles he endured courageously over so many years. I think about the man, once agile and fit, and the cruel fate to which he fell victim.

  But mostly, I think about our countless races down the block, so many years ago, and how he always let me win.

  Hamilton, Ontario

  MEASURE OF A DOG

  I’m a blind person and I use a guide dog. A number of years ago I was working as a secretary in a large building. My guide dog, Trixie, guided me to work and around the office. Trixie was a black Labrador retriever, and like most Labs, loved to carry things in her mouth. The women in the office had given Trixie an old twelve-inch wooden ruler to play with, and she loved it so much that she insisted on carrying it everywhere we went.

  One day Trixie and I were walking along the corridor in the office building. We came to a double fire door, of which only one half was open. Two men stood there chatting as we passed. Trixie, as usual, was carrying her ruler in her mouth and she carefully negotiated her way past the two men and through the fire door.

  As we continued down the corridor, I heard one of the men remark, “Did you see the way that dog measured the doorway to see if there was enough room for both of them to get through?”

  St. John’s, Newfoundland and Labrador

  THE OUTHOUSE

  The outhouse at our cottage was like most outdoor toilets at cottages all across Canada. It was painted bright white to give the impression of being clean and sanitary. But this outhouse had something different hidden within. Instead of a hole in the ground beneath the seat, our outhouse had an empty forty-five-gallon drum. The drum was to be removed and emptied when full—eliminating the hassle of relocating the building and digging a new hole when the old one became full.

  This idea was my father’s brainchild.

  After mental calculations—which I’m sure involved Einstein’s theory of relativity, chaos theory, and quantum physics—Dad figured that the drum would take at least two years to fill.

  One weekend we headed up north to the cottage and discovered that Dad had erred in his calculations. It had been just two months since he’d installed the tank, but it was already overflowing. We had horrifying visions of bailing out the contents of the barrel, but much to our surprise Dad said this wouldn’t be necessary. He said everything was “under control.”

  Now, when Dad was discharged from the army at the end of the Second World War, he was permitted to retain his Lee Enfield 303 rifle. For what purpose I’m not sure, unless his commanders foresaw the dilemma that was to befall him in the summer of 1960.

  I had never known Dad to use a rifle. So when I saw him working the bolt action and inserting a shell into the chamber, I was intrigued. (I was an eleven-year-old boy; anything that involved guns was interesting.) My mother and my three brothers and I gathered on the porch and watched as Dad made his way, weapon in hand, to the small white building in the bush.

  Dad’s plan was to puncture the barrel in several strategic places, permitting the liquid portion of the contents to drain away. According to his new calculations, this remedy would permit us to use the system until next summer.

  By this time we’d gathered near the front of the outhouse to watch his act of genius. Dad entered the building, lifted the seat, and brought the weapon to his shoulder. Just as he was about to squeeze the trigger a gust of wind swung the outhouse door closed, engulfing him in darkness.

  The 303’s report was strong enough to rattle the door on its hinges, but it didn’t open until Dad pushed it from the inside.

  He staggered out of the tiny building with his hands covering his ears, moaning something about a ringing sound and a stinging in his eyes.

  He was covered head to toe.

  None of us had the courage to go near Dad; in fact we all backed away as he lurched—stunned and stinking—around in the bush. Mom, who had to yell to be heard above the ringing in Dad’s ears, directed him to the lake where he removed his clothing and washed.

  The outhouse, which had been plastered with artwork and pink newspaper clippings, was ruined. The pink Toronto Telegram pages were no longer pink. A major refit was in order—a job eventually assigned to Dad.

  We ended up moving the outhouse the next weekend, and Dad never tried shooting in enclosed spaces again. As a matter of fact, I don’t think Dad fired a rifle for the rest of his life.

  Calgary, Alberta

  (submitted by his mom, Gladys Sandland of Newcastle, Ontario)

  LOVINGLY MADE BY GRANDMA

  It was September 1997 and I was two weeks away from delivering our first child. It was nearly seven years to the day that we’d lost my mom to a breakdown and suicide. The shock, denial, grief, and anger had been pretty much worked through and accepted. What remained was the sadness of knowing that my mom would never see the grandchild she had yearned for.

  Two days before my baby shower my sister came over with our stepmother, Mary. We’d resented Mary when she first entered our lives, but that resentment had turned into appreciation and, eventually, to love.

  Mary handed me a gift bag. Reaching in past the ribbons and tissue paper, I was surprised to feel something woolly. Mary was a master seamstress, yet I’d never known her to knit before. The tag read, “Lovingly made by Grandma.”

  “Wow Mary, I didn’t know you could knit too!” I said, admiring the dainty newborn coats.

  Mary became teary. She explained that when she’d moved in with my dad, six years earlier, she’d co
me across my mom’s knitting bag. Inside were the two tiny coats she’d been working on before she died. Mary had been saving the coats for me all these years.

  Two days later at my baby shower I proudly related the story of how Mary—of all people—had saved a little piece of my mom for me.

  The last gift that day came from Colleen—my mom’s best friend’s daughter. I read Colleen’s card aloud: “Leslie, everything in this basket, including the basket, was given to me by your mother at my own baby shower ten years ago.”

  As I held up the various infant ensembles for everyone to see, there wasn’t a dry eye in the house. It was lovely to be reminded of my mom’s generosity. We all remembered her that day with fondness and laughter, rather than the grief that had gripped us at the time of her death. She touched others who, in turn, waited years to touch me.

  Aurora, Ontario

  SUMMERLAND

  Sunday was always Pancake Day at our house. Mom prepared her pancake batter from scratch, while my younger brother grated cheddar cheese and I beat the eggs for the cheese omelettes. Everyone got their own tri-folded, two-egg cheese omelette to accompany their pancakes.

  Once the cast-iron skillets were hot enough, I ladled out the first batch of pancakes. Dad read the paper in the living room. He’d save much of Saturday’s Globe and Mail for Sunday morning, keeping abreast of stocks and options and Parliament and Moscow and the situation in the Middle East—there was always a situation in the Middle East. Both my parents had emigrated from Egypt in the 1960s, largely to elude its proneness to “situations.”

  When the first batch of pancakes was ready, I’d serve myself and my brother, and then abandon my post. Dad got the second batch. Mom continued preparing pancakes and cheese omelettes as fast as we could consume them. Only when the last batch was done would she sit and join us. Then Dad would regale the family with stories from the world of science, of his job at the technical college, of the political arena, or of a genre I can only describe as modern fairy tales. Like the one about the fireman emerging from the burning mansion clutching what turned out to be a beautiful, lifelike doll in a jumble of swaddling, while the doll’s greedy, petulant owner remained trapped inside.

  Around our Sunday morning breakfast table, I heard about the Doppler effect and the tissue plasminogen activator years before I heard about them in school. And I devoured the tales as earnestly as the pancakes.

  In fact, I used to gobble up the blurbs on any product placed on the kitchen table. As a result of Canada’s language laws, I am proud to say that I remain fluently bilingual on the subjects of cereal, milk, and contest sweepstakes.

  Most Sundays I favoured Aunt Jemima’s table syrup. On some occasions, however, a flask-shaped bottle with shoulders and a bulbous neck appeared on the table. It was filled with berry or peach syrup that made your knees buckle. The label said it was made by a company called Summerland Sweets.

  The syrup bottle said the exquisite nectar came from Summerland, British Columbia. It seemed a magical place to me as a child. A place where the sun shone bright and hot. Where you could wake up, wander out to your very own peach tree, pick a fist-sized peach, and bite into its glistening flesh, warmed by the morning sun. It seemed about as far away from Edmonton, where I was born and raised, as I could imagine. As I grew into an adolescent, I continued to believe the place was fictitious, and scoffed at the Pollyanna whose unchecked optimism could have named a company—let alone a place—“Summerland.”

  More than a decade later, I am now the patriarch of my own young family. On Sundays, my sons get the first batch, my wife gets the second, and I don’t abandon my post at the Teflon skillets anymore. I’ve discovered maple syrup. My five-year-old, Denzel, laps up anything he can read within the range of his sharp eyes and keener mind, including cereal boxes. Theo, his younger brother, sticks to the pancakes, omelette, and conversation. Sometimes, the food sticks to him.

  Today, my wife, Janet, brought a flask of Summerland Sweets Black & Raspberry Syrup to the table, and I smiled as I dribbled it over my pancakes. And, in light of what I now know, I shook my head at the naïveté of my childhood and the arrogance of my adolescence. Summerland is real. In fact, Summerland is forty kilometres from where we live, just beyond the similarly improbably named Peachland. We moved to the arid Okanagan Valley nearly two years ago. We live among orchards and vineyards, irrigated oases among the grass and scrub. Of course, the sun is blazing as I write this.

  My favourite time of year is August, when I can walk out my front door and pick a fist-sized peach from my very own peach tree. Somebody pinch me. On second thought, don’t.

  Kelowna, British Columbia

  MR. FISHER

  When I was going to high school I had the good fortune to have Mr. Fisher for grade eleven history. The class was “People and Politics,” a history of the twentieth century. Mr. Fisher used to be a boxer and he moved around his classroom the way a boxer dances around his ring.

  I’d heard stories about Mr. Fisher and his history class. I’d heard that during his description of Vimy Ridge he got up on his desk and rat-a-tat-tatted an imagined machine gun at the students in their desks. I’d heard that Mr. Fisher waved around a blue handkerchief. To say the least, I was curious.

  During our first week, Mr. Fisher taught us the basics of how he wanted assignments handed in. We were to underline the date, title, and our name with a red pen, and we were to use a ruler. Our writing was to be legible, or assignments would be handed back. I saw a few people get papers handed back for poor penmanship. Mr. Fisher did not fool around.

  During our study of World War I, Mr. Fisher made the trenches imaginable for us. We were stunned and horrified by what we learned. He explained the tragedies of a soldier’s suffering with tears streaming down his face, his big blue handkerchief always at the ready. We were learning, and learning well.

  There was a boy named Dennis who sat in front of me in Mr. Fisher’s neatly ordered rows. Dennis was a troublemaker. Dennis often had his assignments handed back to him. Dennis was often late for class. In Mr. Fisher’s world, lateness was not acceptable. One day, in the middle of term, Dennis came in late and sat down after tossing his assignment onto Mr. Fisher’s desk. Mr. Fisher had reached his boiling point. He stood up, pushed back his chair, grabbed Dennis’s paper, ripped it in half, and threw it into the garbage can. He rushed over to Dennis’s desk, pointed his finger in his face, and began a two-minute tirade. He berated Dennis for everything from his tardiness to his messy hair. The whole class was uncomfortable. The longer the tirade continued, the quieter the room got. And Dennis never said a thing. He didn’t even look up at Mr. Fisher.

  Suddenly, Mr. Fisher stopped, patted Dennis on the shoulder, and said “Thank you, Dennis.”

  Then Mr. Fisher turned his eyes on us. “I stood here for two minutes completely humiliating this boy in front of all of you, and not one of you said anything. You all knew I was out of line, and had no right to be saying those things to Dennis, yet nobody tried to stop me. Why? Because I’m a teacher, a figure of authority? Because you were afraid?”

  Not one of us could meet his gaze, so he continued, “Dennis was expecting this today, because I asked him to come in late and throw his homework on my desk. I asked his permission to rant at him like a lunatic for a couple of minutes.”

  All of us looked up at Mr. Fisher and Dennis, mouths agape.

  “Today,” he said, “we begin our study of the Holocaust, the Second World War, and how it started.”

  There are not many things that I remember about grade eleven. I don’t remember how to do polynomial equations anymore, and I’m not sure how to conjugate the past participle of a female pronoun in French. But as long as I live, I will never forget that morning in Mr. Fisher’s class.

  Yes, he was eccentric, and yes, he did get up on his desk and re-enact gun battles from the First World War. But he also celebrated with us when Nelson Mandela was let out of prison, and wept as he read the article detailing Mandela
’s first hours of freedom. He used his blue handkerchief to blow his nose, mop his brow, and always, to wipe his tears. Mr. Fisher taught us to be accountable, to be empathetic, and not to be afraid to stand up when we knew something wasn’t right. In the four months that I had him as a teacher, I grew to love him like a father. I can only hope that more children have a Mr. Fisher in their lives.

  Edmonton, Alberta

  FATSO, THE CAT

  When we were first married we lived in a small but comfortable two-storey house. We shared our house with three cats. If you understand cats, then you know that in reality they deigned to share the house with us.

  The lone male cat was an impressive black-and-tan tabby with huge white paws and an expansive white belly. He tipped the scales at roughly twenty-three pounds. We’d named him Screech because he had a plaintive, wailing meow. But he was more commonly known, to me anyway, as Fatso. Screech was in the habit of sleeping on his back with his back legs sprawled and his front paws held aloft. We often came across him in this position lying in a sunbeam, his massive white belly shimmering in the sunlight.

  At the back of our house we had a detached garage. As you walked down the back steps and sidewalk on the way to the garage you got a good view of the neighbours’ backyard and deck.

  The neighbour lady was in the habit of gardening and suntanning in a bikini that she had, regrettably, vastly outgrown.

  One hot weekend morning as I left to run some errands, I came out the back door to see Screech sprawled paws up and belly exposed to the sun. In a loud voice filled with affection I hollered out, “Sunning your belly, Fatso?”

  Three strides farther down the sidewalk, I caught sight of our neighbour hastily refastening her bikini and struggling to her feet from her suntanning position on her deck. She shot me a look that almost reduced me to tears.