Walter went back to his tent shortly after supper on his last day of work, but an eager group of us lingered as the day’s tallies came in. Walter’s final-day total began to grow. Paul’s crew, the crew Walter was on, gave their whole day’s tally, which put the count over ten thousand. Others came by to give the day’s numbers to the crew bosses and threw a hundred or five hundred or more to Walter. I stayed up late, watching the tally grow.
I missed Walter’s send-off the next morning. I had to catch an early-morning bus to Edmonton. But I heard later that the camp supervisor had called an end-of-contract camp meeting to talk about the next contract coming up and to send Walter on his way. He told the story of when he’d first met Walter, how he’d seemed like a pretty unlikely rookie, but that despite his numbers Walter was a really good planter and a vital member of the camp. Then he presented Walter with the survey map of the last block he’d planted, with his final tally inscribed on it with a Sharpie: twenty thousand trees, a $2000-plus send-off.
Tree planters are known for being a lot of things—scruffy, dirty, smelly, and occasionally bothersome seasonal visitors who stir up way too much trouble at the local bar. But I’d like to add one more item: generous, very generous.
Winnipeg, Manitoba
NO ORDINARY CAT
You never know the importance of your words and which of them might be taken seriously.
I learned this from a good buddy of mine—a cat named Boo Boo. Boo Boo was not an ordinary cat. He was an eighteen-year-old grey tabby with a regal bearing, Jack Nicholson eyes, and an enormous head. All of him was enormous. I have a tradition of huge cats, but Boo Boo was the champ. He weighed a hardy twenty pounds.
Sadly, he’d developed arthritis, which bowed his front legs and made him trundle when he walked. He also suffered seizures of increasing intensity, and eventually lost his meow altogether. He took to purring loudly when he wanted to communicate, or he’d open his mouth and make a rasping sound—a sort of pantomime meow. He was my buddy and my shadow. He followed me as I gardened.
In his last year the seizures increased, but he didn’t seem to be suffering, despite all his maladies. He was always so affectionate that I couldn’t bear to put him down. I kept waiting for a sign that enough was enough.
His last seizure was in August out on our deck.
After his jerking stopped, I knelt to comfort him, and while I petted him I said, “You’ve got to help me out here, buddy; I don’t know what to do about you.”
After a few minutes he seemed fine. He shook himself off and went to drink out of the plant water. I went upstairs and hopped into the shower. While I was in the bathroom I heard a truck, but paid it no attention. My twenty-five-year-old son, Josh, had come racing home to gather some tools from our shop. In his haste he jumped out of the truck, left the motor running, and bolted into the shop. Tools in hand, he leaped back into the truck, put it in gear, and took off. Immediately, he hit something.
All I heard was “Oh my god. No!”
Boo Boo had lain down in front of the rear wheel on the passenger side of Josh’s truck. Josh hadn’t seen him. Josh took off his T-shirt, wrapped it around Boo Boo, and carried the injured animal to the cab of his truck. He raced to the vet with the cat in his lap.
When Josh got to the clinic he gently gathered Boo Boo in his arms and rushed in shirtless, his chest scratched and bleeding. Through tears he said to the receptionist, “You’ve got to save him, I ran over him.”
But it was too late. Boo Boo was dead.
The news crushed Josh. The entire staff gathered around him and the dead cat. They were so touched to see this young man weeping that they became tearful, too.
Josh brought the cat home to me wrapped in his bloody T-shirt. Boo Boo looked peaceful and was still warm to the touch. We laid him on the grass on the front lawn, both of us petting him and crying. I told Josh the whole story about Boo Boo’s last seizure and how I’d asked him to help me know what to do with him.
“Josh,” I said through my tears, “I’m convinced that he did help me out by lying under your truck.”
We cried together and eulogized Boo Boo until my husband came home. That night we buried our buddy. Josh made a stout wooden cross that I can still see from my front window.
I miss him of course. But to this day I maintain that it wasn’t an accident.
Friday Harbor, Washington
A CURRENT OF KINDNESS
In 2005, my friend Drew Osborne and I embarked on a five-month, six-thousand-kilometre canoe trip.
The expedition began on the snowy banks of the North Saskatchewan River in late April and ended on a glorious fall day on the St. Lawrence River in Montreal. It was an experience of a lifetime shared between two friends.
Conquering the grand wilderness of Canada in a canoe is both unimaginably challenging and stunningly beautiful. We paddled up and down rivers, over waves, rocks, and sandbars, and across some of the world’s largest lakes. We saw it all.
On our seventieth day we began our first upstream battle, against the current on the Winnipeg River. Paddling against the record flood proved to be more emotionally draining than it was physically (as if surviving the Manitoba bug season wasn’t enough).
It took an entire day to cover what we normally covered in an hour. After three long days of this, the force against us began to take its toll. Evening drew near and we struggled to find a place to camp amidst the cottages on the banks of the river, our exhaustion turning to frustration. As our weary, bug-bitten arms dipped our paddles into the river, we began to wonder if it was possible to continue.
Up in the distance we saw a man standing on his dock as if awaiting our arrival. When we were within earshot he called out to us. He asked where we were going.
We replied, “Montreal!”
“I doubt you’ll make it to Montreal tonight,” he laughed. “How about you call it a day and stay with us?”
It was perfect.
Al and his wife, Lynn, invited us into their beautiful cottage for the evening. When Lynn took one look at our bloody, swollen bug bites, our dirty clothes, and our messy hair, she insisted we each take a bath. It was our first bath in over seventy days, long overdue and simply magnificent.
After we’d each bathed and it was possible to stand within ten feet of us, Lynn approached us holding a telephone.
“Call your mothers,” she said.
She said they’d want to know we were safe and doing well. She was right. We had an amazing dinner, lovely conversation, and, under fresh sheets, we fell into deep sleeps. As I drifted off, I remember wondering what I’d done to deserve the generosity of these total strangers.
In the morning we had another wonderful meal and then began our preparations to continue. Lynn had prepared fresh-baked goods for us to take on the journey.
As we paddled away we were beaming. Our strokes were powerful and strong. I don’t think we even noticed that the river was flowing against us. At the time I felt so lucky to have met these inspiring people. As we continued, we found that this was just the first example of the incredible generosity of strangers. Every time we thought we couldn’t go any farther it seemed there was someone else waiting with a warm meal and a fire.
I learned a lot of things on this trip. Many things I will never be able to put into words.
One thing that continues to resonate with me is how inspiring it was to meet such giving people. They opened my eyes and my heart to the simple beauty of generosity. As I reflect on this trip years later, I feel a profound gratitude for this gift.
Vancouver, British Columbia
MAC AND CHEESE
I don’t know about you, but when I think of comfort food— the kind that can be slathered like sunscreen over wounded egos, homesickness, and disappointment, the sort that evokes home and hearth and safety—there’s only one food I think of, and that’s macaroni and cheese. Not the stuff in the box, the real thing.
My mother’s macaroni and cheese was plain—elbow noodles
and a medium cheese sauce mixed together, topped with buttered bread crumbs and baked in the oven till golden and bubbling. It was one of my favourite meals—until the summer when, as a university student, I worked at a lodge on Gabriola Island, where Bertie Turner introduced me to a whole new kind of macaroni and cheese.
Every Wednesday, guests were given a picnic lunch and encouraged to go exploring. While they set off, the staff would congregate in the huge log lounge and do a thorough cleaning, including polishing the hardwood floors. At lunchtime we’d troop into the kitchen to sit around the long rustic table, laughing and joking as if we were a large, boisterous European family. Lunch was always the same on Wednesdays: a crisp green salad and Bertie’s wonderful macaroni and cheese. She baked it in a wide shallow pan and cut it into squares for serving. The bottom layer was caramelized onions, and then the quiche-like, cheesy middle, topped with thinly sliced beefsteak tomatoes and sprinkled with buttery crumbs. From that summer on, I was convinced that my mother didn’t know anything about macaroni and cheese. Bertie’s was the best in the world.
As an adult, I spent years, without success, trying to reproduce Bertie’s macaroni and cheese. I think I felt that if I could match its flavour and texture, I’d feel as happy and carefree as I did that long-ago summer. Driven by a desire to produce an even better version, the ultimate comfort meal, I’d often include extra ingredients. But while they might have been tasty and even nutritious, I never achieved the effect I was hoping for.
And then one autumn evening, when the smoke from the chimneys was rising straight up into the crisp still air, the sky brightened and an enormous orange moon pushed its way above the trees and hung heavy and ripe in front of me. And I was transported to another autumn evening. The full moon rising above the treetops and me, riding on my father’s shoulders, so high that I felt I could reach out and touch it. Reach out and touch the moon and the spiky treetops and the little frost sparkles that seemed to be falling through the air.
It was the only time I rode on my father’s shoulders. He was a distant man, never playful or affectionate like my friends’ fathers. Whenever he looked at me, I saw disapproval rather than love in his eyes. It felt as if he was always correcting me. But that evening I was coming home from the hospital. I’d had a routine operation that had gone wrong, and I’d had to stay longer than planned. All the way home he kept his big callused hand over mine, as if he was making sure I was safe. It felt strange, but in a nice way. When we got out of the car I was amazed when he hoisted me onto his shoulders. I was so high I felt as if I were flying. I spread my arms wide. I felt as wild as the owls I’d seen swooping out of the forest. Head back, I gazed up at the stars before turning to see the moon’s enormous orange face smiling back at me. Down the long path to the house my father carried me, without a word, and I loved him more with every step. I could feel him smiling in the dark and I knew that he loved me too.
When we sat down at the table, my mother took a dish of macaroni and cheese out of the oven, all golden and crispy on top with creamy sauce bubbling through it here and there. I savoured every bite, scraping my fork over my plate to capture every crumb, every bit of creamy sauce, all the while aware of the new closeness of my father.
As the memory of that long-ago night faded, I turned and went into my house to prepare macaroni and cheese the way my mother used to make it. Nothing fancy: just elbow macaroni and a medium cheese sauce with buttered crumbs on top.
“Macaroni and cheese,” said my husband as I set it on the table. “What kind is it?”
“The good kind,” I said, smiling through the window at the moon.
Port Alberni, British Columbia
A MODEL BOYHOOD
There are four brothers in my family, and we all grew up building, and trying to fly, balsa-wood model aircraft.
My early efforts, as I remember them, were mostly glue and fingerprints. Rough, heavy, and warped, they neither “climbed” nor “soared.” My brothers and I had fun building them and playing with them, but I remember clearly the moment when my lifelong fascination with flight really took hold.
My dad was reluctant to make large financial investments in a continual supply of fragile models, but on one rare trek to the hobby shop, while I puzzled over which tiny balsa-and-tissue model I would savage this time, my dad’s attention was absorbed by a kit on the higher shelves.
“What do you think of this?” he asked. I wasn’t impressed, actually. It was a simple-profile, delta catapult-launch glider. A kind of scaled-up version of the five-cent glider from the candy store. I didn’t want it because it looked simplistic. I thought I was more advanced.
My dad thought I should try it. He pointed out that the model required a lot of work: the parts were printed, not die cut. It would require patience and sanding to make the wings into airfoils. More importantly, it could be fitted with a Jetex rocket engine. He made me a deal: if I did a good job with the glider, and got it flying, we’d get the Jetex engine and fly it under power.
Talk about a kid consumed. I thought of nothing else. I spent that summer carving the fuselage to specifications, sanding the wings to perfection, and aligning all the surfaces with precision. Laser beams cannot carve a straighter line than an eight-year-old’s hand and eyes, given the proper motivation. I studied the set-up and trimming instructions meticulously. I carried out flight testing in scientifically planned stages, finally culminating in a glorious seventeen-second maiden voyage.
True to the deal, my dad and I picked up the Jetex engine. There was no need to study the instructions. Somehow, in those pre-internet years, my eight-year-old brain managed to master the physics of rocket propulsion and had accumulated an intimate knowledge of the engineering and safe operation of all the models in the Jetex line. After some simple heat-proofing modifications, I attached the engine. My newly rocket-powered glider was ready for testing.
For those who aren’t familiar with the Jetex engine, allow me a moment to explain the basics. It’s a small tin cylinder with a hole in one end for thrust gases to escape. You insert fuel tablets that look like compressed clay, coil a wick against the fuel pellets, and lead it out through the exhaust pinhole. The idea is to cut the length of fuse to equal the delay time required to a) light the fuse, b) catapult-launch the aircraft, and c) allow the aircraft to reach the apex of rubber-powered flight. If everything goes right, your rocket thrust engages at just the right time and up you go.
Jetex fuel comes in a package with fuel tablets, special screens, gaskets for six flights, and precisely enough of the incredibly fragile igniter wick for two flights. The problem is further compounded by the fact that the igniter works only once every eighteen tries, and the flame is readily extinguished upon reaching the exhaust hole. The first day, I think I actually had about eighteen or twenty “failures to ignite,” two ground burns (launched, landed, then ignited), and one burn where I held on to the plane until it was burning, then chucked it just as it was running down. Dad and I got to the hobby store just as they were closing, to get more wick.
The next morning I was ready and anxious to try again. Waiting for full daylight was not a big priority. I remember the dew on the grass. I guess the sky was a beautiful colour, and lazy morning clouds were glowing in the rising light. I guess I was surrounded by the quiet that accompanies the start of a summer day. I don’t remember. All I was concerned about was whether the dew would get that darned wick wet and cause me problems.
I had prepared the night before, winding a precision coil of igniter fuse on a lightly sanded fuel pellet, installing the cover carefully so the fuse was perfectly sized and placed. The frustration and haste of the day before had been replaced with quiet certainty. My muscle memory was prepared for the much-practised routine. Dad had loaned me his Zippo, which proved more reliable than the paper matches I’d struggled with in the breeze. I prepared myself—light the fuse, wait for a steady burn, stand, string the catapult on the hook, stretch, wait … wait. A hot spark landed on my forearm. I
held my breath waiting for the wick to sputter through the little exhaust hole. When it reached the hole there were about four seconds till it would ignite, about six seconds to begin burning. Wait …
You know it right away when it happens. Flight, I mean. A clever engineer once won a paper airplane distance competition by wrapping a rock with paper and throwing it. But that was a loophole in the rules, not flight. This was really something new to me.
The little dart flew beautifully, arcing up straight and true in the still air as it had done so many times before, but this time, just as the flight began to level out, the little jet engine sputtered and puffed, a thin stream appeared, and the plane began to rise again, coaxing lift from the meagre thrust of the jet. It soared to three times the height it had ever gone. I began to wonder if it would get away!
I began my leggy pursuit, stumbling along as I struggled to keep my bird in view. Looking back momentarily, I saw my dad watching from the steps by our old house.
Burlington, Ontario
AFTER THE WAR
My most memorable Remembrance Day did not occur in November, but rather in May 1964.
Barely out of my teens, I was in first year at the University of Toronto. With my strong background in Army Cadets I’d landed a summer job with the Canadian military. I would be trained during the next few summers to become an army officer.
First there were the tedious, but necessary, medical tests at Sunnybrook Medical Centre. Back then, Sunnybrook was totally devoted to treating active military personnel and injured war veterans, many of whom lived there permanently in long-term care.
Time Now for the Vinyl Cafe Story Exchange Page 15