I placed some of the cockles on a paper towel and headed for the morgue. I knew the man who ran it and I knew that he’d be up for a little fun. I asked him if he’d tell Steve that he’d just cut the cockles out of a body and that they had to be photographed right away.
Steve went into the copy room and turned on the light box. The cockles sat there, waiting to be photographed. The man in charge played along, regaling Steve with stories of the growths.
After Steve took a few pictures I came into the room and asked what was going on. Steve told me that the cockles were rare growths.
I picked one up and remarked, “Wow! These look almost good enough to eat.”
I popped one in my mouth.
It only took Steve a few seconds to realize he was the victim of an elaborate prank. We got along famously after that.
Sidney, British Columbia
CANOE MEMORIES
My first memory is of being in a canoe.
I am no older than three. I’m on the bottom of a canvas-covered, wooden-ribbed cedar canoe, lying on an assortment of coats and life jackets. I awake to the sound of my parents’ whispered voices, discussing the pickerel my dad had caught and brought into the canoe—the pickerel now tied to the stringer with the other fish, trailing along in the water.
I grew up in a large family with eight siblings and even more cousins, aunts, uncles, and grandparents. We lived in an isolated community comprising mostly Native people. Most of our activities centred on hunting, fishing, gathering berries, and cutting firewood.
As the youngest child, I was dragged along wherever and whenever my parents went fishing. From the time I was an infant until my teens, I would spend many hours in a canoe or a boat. It was on those trips that my parents would talk about our ancestors—tales of trips from James Bay to the interior of the Canadian Shield to the shores of Lake Superior. Stories of the Windigo, Manitou, and Nanaboozho, and why we had to put offerings out for these spirits that inhabited the land. Those stories shaped my life, connecting me to nature and her beauty.
Today, with work and family competing for attention, I try to spend as much time as possible in a canoe, paddling remote northern rivers, exploring wilderness parks, and meeting other canoe enthusiasts from around the globe. The best trips are the ones with family and close friends, without pressure to cover great distances. These excursions into the wilderness bring back memories and clear images of my parents and the lessons they taught me.
Back in the canoe with my parents, I stayed quiet, maybe because I didn’t want the enchantment of the moment broken. I felt safe and protected. The gentle rocking of the canoe, the swirling and gurgling sound of the paddle as it’s pulled through the water, the fragrances of cedar and fish. As I watched Dad’s strong, deeply tanned, callused hands clutch the paddle, propelling us forward, I was content to remain on the bottom of the canoe, pretending to sleep.
Atikokan, Ontario
CANADIAN PORRIDGE
When I came to Canada, my older brother told me that Canadians were turned off by English people who went on about how good things were in England.
“You’re in Canada now,” he said. “Get used to the Canadian way of life.”
My first job in Canada was at Bell Telephone. I was involved in a new twelve-hour-shift experiment. There was nothing wrong with the shifts themselves, but the way Bell organized it I was on nights one week and days the next.
So when I arrived at Fran’s Restaurant that morning in 1973 for breakfast I was bleary-eyed and not with it. I had just come off a twelve-hour swing shift.
A sweet lady named Rose worked there as a waitress. She gave me a menu, and I saw “oatmeal porridge.” I was concerned that this didn’t sound much like English porridge, but I remembered what my brother told me and decided to eat whatever was served. I made myself promise not to compare it to English porridge.
Service was slow that day, and it seemed like an eternity before Rose shuffled over to my table with the bowl, unceremoniously putting it down in front of me with a small jug of milk. Hungry, I looked down at it, thinking that it looked more like molasses than porridge, but then I heard that little voice inside telling me that I was now in Canada and should do things the way Canadians do.
I ate the contents of the bowl. It seemed a bit sweet to me, and it was cold, but as I was about to complain, I heard that little voice again.
As I was sitting back thinking that life in Canada was going to take getting used to, Rose came over with a steaming hot bowl. She put it down, looked confused, and said, “What did you do with the brown sugar?”
Toronto, Ontario
THE ART OF IRONING
Every Saturday night in the winter, my three older brothers and my dad used to watch Hockey Night in Canada while my mother did the ironing. That was when there were only six teams and the season ended before daylight started to stretch into the evening, giving us more time for chores.
I grew up on a dairy farm, and while hayfields, ponies, and apple orchards may have seemed idyllic for a child, life wasn’t easy for a woman with four children. Especially for a woman who worked full-time at the hospital in town to ensure there was enough money to pay for university educations. Laundry had to be done on Saturdays. So early in the morning Mom worked at the wringer washing machine (I wasn’t allowed to help in case my hand got stuck in the bars) and then hung the clothes on the line outside the kitchen porch. By late afternoon we were hauling in the frozen pieces and spreading the sheets, shirts, underwear, towels, and pants all over the house to thaw in time for the Saturday night ritual.
I didn’t particularly enjoy hockey, and there really wasn’t enough room for me anyway, since my dad sat in the one chair and my brothers took up the chesterfield. So I perched on a stool in the kitchen, watching my mother as she methodically ironed the sheets, the pillowcases, the jeans, and the shirts.
It was the shirts that fascinated me. She did all my dad’s shirts—his one Sunday white shirt and his plaid work shirts, one for each day of the week. She religiously followed a pattern that I watched over and over again. Of course I wanted to iron too. My mother let me start with the pillowcases. They weren’t all that interesting, but we had to make sure that I understood how to use a hot iron (one without steam) before we took the risk of scorching a shirt.
Eventually I made my way to the shirts. First was the collar—both sides. Then the panel on the back of the shirt at the top. Next the sleeves. Do the cuffs first—again both sides, then pick up the underseam, give the sleeve a good shake, and you’ll find it lies nice and flat on the board. It’s a bit tricky when you come to the part where the pattern narrows and you have to negotiate the tip of the iron around the little tucks. A well-ironed shirt will have a sharp line running from the shoulder to the wrist.
After pressing both faces of the button strips, fit the front around the end of the ironing board and you’re almost done. Two fronts and then the broad, open back—long, smooth, easy strokes.
Of course, ironing like that came before polyester shirts— shirts that you can throw in the dryer, pull out hot, and quickly put on a hanger. Certainly, throughout my adult life I haven’t been ironing shirts. It’s not a talent one brags about to one’s husband.
At least it hasn’t been until the last few weeks. He’s either walked out the door wrinkled, or occasionally pulled out the ironing board and struggled away—no technique, no understanding of the intricacies of the art of ironing. But his life has been so engaged and hectic recently that I decided to reveal my secret. He needs a freshly ironed shirt for every night that he plays the drums for Stuart McLean’s The Vinyl Cafe. He doesn’t have time to iron a shirt. He doesn’t have time to do his laundry. He doesn’t even have time to call his mother.
And so I find myself using the skills that my mother taught me so many decades ago. As I struggle with those pleats around the cuff, I begin to think as my mother must have thought. This is not just a man who lives in the same house, eats the same food, and t
akes turns walking the dog. He’s the man I married. Each shirt becomes an intimate affair. I can smell his skin and recognize scents that only a wife can know.
My parents have both passed away. This holiday season my three brothers are getting together to watch a hockey game at the Air Canada Centre.
I was invited. I won’t be going.
I’ll be ironing.
Toronto, Ontario
AN ABSENCE OF ERIKA
I met Erika at a little college south of Winnipeg. I was seventeen. She was nineteen. We fell in love with a storybook sweetness and intensity. We were together for less than a year before she moved to Brandon, Manitoba. After a year of struggling to keep up a long-distance relationship, we decided to let each other go. We were no less in love than we’d ever been, but our lives had begun to go in different directions. Our decision seemed practical and it broke our hearts.
Erika became a nurse. I worked, studied, and travelled before settling in Winnipeg. We had almost no contact for five years, but I couldn’t forget her. There weren’t more than a handful of days when I didn’t think about her and wonder where she was, how she was doing, and whether or not I would see her again.
In the fall of 1999 I was broke, lonely, and depressed. My parents invited me back to Youngstown, Alberta, to help them with the harvest. I needed to get away from the city, so I drove home to our farm and got straight to work. Mom and Dad wanted to sell the farm, so I was glad to be there for what might be the last harvest. Dad and I bailed hay, cultivated fields, fixed fences, and worked around the yard, but it was the harvest itself that I liked best. We started early and worked until after dark, and Mom kept everything going with the lunches and suppers she brought out to the fields. Dad thanked me every day for coming home to help. He said he couldn’t have done it without me. (It turned out to be the best harvest my dad had ever seen. The following summer they sold the farm and moved to a little acreage near Linden, Alberta.)
Farming was good for my soul, and being home with my parents was just what I needed. The long hours on the tractor gave me plenty of time to think. I thought about Erika. I thought about where she was, how she was doing, and if I would see her again. I tried to come up with situations where we might meet up. But it was all make-believe, all in my head. I thought she might even be married by now. Once again I tried to let her go.
Two days later I stopped at the house to pick up my lunch and Mom met me at the door. “Guess who called?” she said, putting her arm around my shoulder. “Erika. She wanted your number. She said she was going to be in Winnipeg and wanted to meet you for supper. I told her you were here and that you’d call when you had the chance.”
I called that night. We talked for more than two hours. I called her again a couple of days later, after the harvest was over. I stopped through Brandon on my way to Winnipeg and we had supper. We talked until it was late, trying to catch up on the last five years. I felt the goodness of it right down to my bones.
Months later Erika told me that she’d called me out of the blue because she was tired of wondering where I was, and how I was doing, and if I still loved her. She didn’t know if I was even in the country or whether or not I was married, but after five years of longing she’d had enough. She called me because she wanted to marry me.
One year later, she did.
Vancouver, British Columbia
SCOTCH ROSE
My father, Alfred Watson, came to Canada in 1911 from Northumberland, England. My mother, Morag Urquhart, grew up on the Isle of Skye in northern Scotland. She came to Kimberley, British Columbia, to visit her sister Margaret. Margaret was married to my dad’s best friend. Mom didn’t get back to Scotland for forty years. She married my dad and raised a large family.
In 1954 the family moved to Kaslo, on the shores of Kootenay Lake.
Mom and Dad were Christians. They both knew scripture from memory. Their Bible was well loved, with many passages underlined in red. Church and music were a big part of our lives.
They were also avid gardeners. Each spring the back fence was covered in bright yellow forsythia, deep purple lilacs, and cream mock orange. In May the cherry, apple, plum, pear, and apricot trees burst into delicate pink and white blossoms. And there were the roses! We had yellow ones, white ones, pink ones, red ones; we had climbing roses, bush roses, tea roses, and hybrid roses.
The air at our house was always filled with sweet perfume and the sounds of songbirds making nests. Our backyard was a glorious profusion of colour and fragrance.
As well as flowers, our vegetable garden produced prodigious amounts of food. Fall was a busy time for the family. We helped Mom can the fruit and store the vegetables in the root cellar. Every year our fruits, vegetables, and flowers took top prizes in the Fall Fair. We were kids growing up in a small town, with plenty to eat, little supervision, and the lake and beach a short walk away. It was paradise.
This peaceful, happy, and secure childhood came to an abrupt end one day in September 1960. I was thirteen. Mom, Dad, a young friend, and I had gone across the lake in our boat for a picnic. As we returned later that afternoon, the lake became choppy and the temperature dropped. The boat’s engine had been having trouble. Dad exhausted himself pulling the cord to start it. When we got to our beach and pulled the boat up onto the sand, Dad picked up the motor and promptly fell over backward—dead from a massive heart attack.
Dad was buried in the cemetery in Kaslo. Shortly afterward we moved away—first back to Kimberley, and then to Vancouver. We grew up and went our separate ways. Seldom did we return to Kaslo.
In 1981 Mom passed away from cancer. We buried her ashes at the foot of Dad’s grave. A memorial plaque marked the spot. Although a caretaker mowed the grass around the plots, the grave itself soon looked barren and desolate. I was sorry we couldn’t be there more often to tidy things up and bring flowers.
Many years passed without a visit to Kaslo. Then, in an interesting twist of fate, my husband’s parents chose Kaslo for their retirement. It gave us a reason to revisit my old hometown. I delighted in showing my children our old house and yard, the school, the park, and the beaches.
When I took them to the cemetery to show them where their grandparents were laid to rest, I was astounded. There was a huge rose bush beside the grave. It was divided in the middle and its two branches cascaded down over each end of the grave. Nowhere else in the cemetery was there such a rose, or any other flowering bush. No one had planted it. It had simply appeared, provided by a loving God who knew we couldn’t be here to tend the garden ourselves. It’s the Scotch Rose, with masses of white blooms, a favourite of my parents.
I never worried again about taking care of that grave. If God was watching over it, that was good enough for me.
Sundre, Alberta
BECKY, FROM KANSAS
More than twenty years ago, the tourism branch of the British Columbia government had a campaign called “Good Show.” British Columbian residents could be nominated for being good hosts and ambassadors to visitors to our province. Little nomination cards were put in strategic places around our communities. Winners of the award were sent a little gold pin with the inscription “Good Host.”
That summer, as I stood in a bank lineup with my sister, I admired the pins. I told my sister that I thought the pins were cool, and that I’d like to wear one. I didn’t think more about it after that.
Later that fall, I received a Good Host pin along with a personal letter from the government commending my “exemplary excellence in the hospitality industry.” I also received a copy of the original nomination letter, sent in by one Becky McGovern from Wichita, Kansas.
Apparently, Becky was visiting family in Vancouver and lost her purse in Stanley Park. Not only did a lovely young woman (yours truly) contact Becky, but she hand-delivered it to the door where she was staying. Needless to say my sister had done some creative writing. I’d never found or returned a purse.
I enjoyed my sister’s joke and thought that was the end
of it, but that Christmas I received a card from the fictitious Becky. The year after that, I heard from Becky again. Every Christmas since then, Becky has sent me a Christmas card. She’s developed an astounding personality, and is such a fixture in our family that my parents ask every year, “Have you heard from Becky yet?” Becky is now a middle-aged woman who became a born-again Christian a few years ago and then an ordained pastor in her church. She loves to sing, square dance, and even moved to Beverly Hills one year to pursue her love of acting. Two years ago she remarried a fellow with six other wives and moved to Montana. She always includes a bit of advice about life. She has never been able to recall my husband’s correct name or how many children I have.
I know my sister loves writing that card and probably composes new stories in her head about Becky for weeks ahead of time. I’ve kept them all, including the original letter. And of course I still have the pin.
My sister and I no longer live in the same town, and in our busy lives we don’t talk that often. But every Christmas I’m reminded of that day in the bank—me dreaming of a silly pin and her dreaming up ways to make me laugh. Decades later, I’m still laughing.
Keremeos, British Columbia
FULL CIRCLE
For twenty-five years I worked at a pulp mill in Terrace Bay, Ontario, until the mill shut down. I moved on—to Fort McMurray, Alberta, the modern-day version of the gold rush. Like so many others, I went there for work.
This story, however, takes place over thirty years ago— when I found myself in a hotel in Pickle Crow in Northern Ontario. I was just out of high school, and had my first job: I was the junior member of my survey crew. We would work all day, head to the hotel for supper, and then to the saloon for a couple of beers.
Time Now for the Vinyl Cafe Story Exchange Page 7