One year my sister gave me a gift I have continued to treasure. It is a gift of words. She gave it at a time when she had two young children and little money. However, she has always been resourceful.
She gave me a photocopied page from my Grandmother’s journals set in a gilded wooden frame. It has become a touchstone of Christmas, set out as early as possible.
My Grandmother’s journals are written in a flowing script with elegant capital letters. I first became aware of them as a child when I saw her writing in a scribbler and asked about it. She told me she recorded such information, as when the first and last frost came, when crops were planted and harvested, the price the geese and pigs brought, for Grandpa. I later have learned they contain more than that, but they are never confessional, not often reflective but they show the daily life of my rural grandparents in my Grandmother’s voice I remember well.
My frame has entries from December 23- December 25, 1945. As always the weather hovers about like a background character determined to take the front of stage. On the twenty-third and fourth, it is 20F below. Molly, a cow, freshened Sunday Dec 23rd, (they) are calling it Mary. Small farmers like my grandparents who would have no more than a dozen cows typically named each one. A sow had birthed a dozen piglets. That Saturday night friends, the Yoeman’s, dropped in after we were to bed, but we got up and had a cup of tea together and when they departed we gave them the 3 pigs we had in the house to see if they could have any luck with them. Friends dropping in without calling is usual and acceptable, newborn pigs at risk are brought into the house, and my Grandparents went to bed early. Best to draw a curtain on that. By the next day we just have four baby pigs now all told, I guess it was too cold for them to move and the sow laid on them. gosh it sure is bum luck. Sows lying on their young is an all too common trope. In the daytime, my Grandmother goes into London, about ten miles, to her sister-in-law Beatrice to help prepare for the next day’s dinner.
Christmas Day, 1945. My Grandparents’ two eldest sons are still overseas in the army. For my Grandmother, here’s the day all the kids look for, but oh gosh what a day it has been. Rain and sleet, we could not get to Beat’s too darn icy. George (her husband) and Vernon , (the youngest son who stays home on the farm), went up to Dales to phone her and got soaked it was raining so hard and had an awful time to keep from falling it was so icy, they couldn’t get (through) to her, guess the wires were either busy or down, but we had a chicken picked (plucked) so we had chicken for Christmas dinner steamed pudding and a mincemeat pie. Vernon got the dime out of the pudding and George the nickel. George gave me a lovely pair of ornaments. Lady and Gentleman, in blue and gold, they are real good china not Woolworth’s goods. I gave him an Oddfellow’s (his Lodge) pin and a steel measuring tape he had been wanting. Vernon got a pair of skates from the baker. So we’re all happy.
I read the words of my Grandmother and I am there magically seeing her younger self and I am at the same time in that house, where she wrote her words, at many later Christmas gatherings with my family and cousins. Now I read and smile about the Yoemans, wonder at a heifer called Mary, at pigs kept around the wood stove, and the joy of real good china. I am humbled by the simplicity. So we’re all happy. I am remembering my Grandmother, a small woman with little education who came to Canada as a Home child from England, who raised five boys and buried her only daughter at three, who married another like her from England, who worked nine years as tenant farmers before they bought their own fifty acre farm. The many Christmases at my Grandparents blend into one happy memory of sledding down the hill in the pasture, skating on the creek, presents from the cedar tree, angel hair, mittens knitted for every child, and once lovely horse head bookends from Kingsmill’s, not Woolworth’s. Grace before the food imagined for weeks. The bird, of course, and all the trimmings. Then the desserts. Christmas pudding with its special caramel sauce. Mincemeat pie, completely homemade like everything else. In the evening the adults played cards, children played crokinole or with some present, perhaps read. In the evening, the Christmas cake is brought out, admired and sliced. The chocolates with the cherry in the middle I had helped make are passed around. Adults glare at children to let them know to only take one. So we’re all happy.
When I was a child, my English Mother told me about the fish pond in the back garden of her childhood home. No one I knew had a fish pond and it added to the exotic appeal her home, which even had a name, Icona, had to me. I wished when I grew up to have a house with a fish pond.
When I eventually bought my home, I was delighted to discover it had a fish pond, a concrete fish pond, probably built with the house in 1949. Well, it probably was not built as a fish pond exactly, as I slowly figured out. It was large and kidney shaped, measuring at least fifteen feet long and at points, six feet across. However, it had sloping sides so parts were shallow and no part was deeper than two feet. I think it was originally designed as a lily pond. And rather than a natural concrete colour, it was the aquamarine of a swimming pool.
There is a saying, “Be careful what you wish for,” the implication being the wish might not be exactly what you hoped for. I had wished for a fish pond, but strangely I had never owned fish, never thought about fish, knew nothing about fish. It took a while to dawn on me that if I had a pond fish, the pond was not deep enough to winter fish over. I would need an indoor aquarium with all the trimmings and some time to keep the fish clean and healthy. Still, in the early years, I was undaunted, even by the dreadful aquamarine paint, as besides a few fish, I planted water lilies whose lovely flowers and spreading leaves distracted from the swimming pool colour.
I did overwinter fish in a tank in the basement, surprisingly to me, with little fish loss. With spring, there was always a lot of cleaning to do after the winter had filled the pond with snow water and leaves that appeared despite a fall raking. Over some years too, the water lilies bloomed less and less as the surrounding trees grew more and more. I had to give up on the lilies which made me more aware of the dreaded colour of the pond. There followed a series of attempts, too painful and too boring to recount, to change the colour of the pond until I discovered a product called rubber cement for ponds. It changed the pond to a satisfying black colour, but the wonder product itself was not without issues of needing continued renewal, again too boring to recount.
With all this, you might wonder why I didn’t just have the pond filled in. Sometimes I wonder if it’s more the idea of having a fish pond than the reality. But ultimately, I think not.
It brings me joy to sit quietly and watch the fish swim freely. The pond is big enough that they seem to be exploring it, leisurely, alone or in a group. If fish can be happy, my fish are happy in the pond. I have replaced the water lilies with water hyacinths and pots of impatience in small pots that float in a styrofoam ring. There are no frogs around but dragonflies. Several kinds of birds come to the pond to drink and bathe. Robins particularly seem to like a good bath and will spend several moments wetting themselves and then fluttering off the water. The squirrels and the couple of resident chipmunks come to drink.
Recently I have had to rehome eight of my fish as they have grown, over the past five years, too big for the indoor tank. I knew this coming winter, they would be shoulder to shoulder for those long winter months. When I left the aquarium store where I was able to take them, I felt sadder than I ever thought I would.
The ancient sage, Aesop, advised to be careful what you wish for because you may get it- and get unexpected consequences. I truly get the unintended consequences. Though my pond may be no Walden Pond, it gives me lovely reflections.
This piece owes its first three lines to Anne of Green Gables and references a concert put on by Anne and her classmates for Christmas.
We had recitations this afternoon. Our last practice. I just put my whole soul into it. And now…
I am standing on the stage, holding my cardboard letter turned into me. My letter is M. I turn my letter to the audience and speak. My voice is loud, clear, and stilted. M is for magical- Santa coming down the chimney. Relief, I’ve said it all and now can look down the line as each classmate in turn flips over a cardboard letter, -E R R-, down the line, some yelling out their piece- C is for Christ, the reason for the season- or whispering- H is for holy, Oh holy night- some shocked into silence until loudly prompted behind the curtain- T is for turkey, roasted and stuffed- some giggle, some shuffle, some look down at their feet, until the final card is flipped, a large exclamation mark to signal everyone to shout, “Merry Christmas” and to allow little Evalina to take part. Evalina who is in grade two and who would be in grade two when I graduated from grade eight in that one room school, Evalina still in the same desk, still the same size, with her face like a rubber doll and her hair ever wispy and white like an old woman’s.
We are grade 2’s and 3’s at S.S.11 Public School and we are the closing act of the annual Christmas concert held in the basement of the United Church (established 1873) and this is the culmination of our weeks of preparation. It starts on the Friday afternoon after Hallowe’en when we begin the walk to the church, a stone’s throw away from the school and a blessed relief from the dreaded reading to an older student, possibly a boy, maybe dour Jacob Liemann, the oral math genius, reading that marked long afternoons.
The concert is of course more ambitious than the presentation of my junior classmates. The serious Irene Black who is not allowed to play baseball for fear of injuring her fingers plays a classical piano piece. Three Grade 8 girls sing their song with harmony, the one prepared for the Rotary Music Festival. Shirley Gough plays her accordion. Two of the big boys give a comic recitation. As we prepared, there was an unstated message from our formidable teacher that somehow our work here will be evaluated, hence no writing of our short recitation on the back of our cardboard letters. I am in awe of the bigger kids, those who have a role in the two marquee presentations of the evening- Dickens’ A Christmas Carol and the always required retelling of the Christmas story. I am unaware that our twenty minute version of the Dickens’ classic is greatly abridged but am impressed because I have a part in the play. I am one of the Cratchit children though admittedly I have no real lines. Instead, as we play on the floor, we have been instructed by Mrs. McKenzie to say “rhubarb” over and over again which will make it seem as if we are having conversations. We have learned that this is what professional actors do in crowd scenes so feel disproportionately important. But my real awe is reserved for the grade eight boy who plays Scrooge who has many lines and never stumbles.
The retelling of the Christmas story is required every year and never varies much. The central figures, Mary, Joseph, and the Christ child doll take centre stage. Mary has nothing to say but has mastered her look of wide-eyed adoration as she leans over the manger and beholds the Christ doll. I am dimly aware that the girl chosen to be Mary is the prettiest of the senior girls, a slim girl with long wavy blonde hair and no trace of pubescent imperfection in her creamy skin. She seems as serene and elevated as a fairy tale princess awaiting a troop of suitors. Joseph is the dark haired captain of his bantam hockey team and already marked as cool. The angels come and go, the shepherds guard their stuffed toy sheep, the Wise Men trek across the stage to deliver their three gifts and few words to the holy couple, and circling this tableau, the massed choir of the rest of the school sing carols artfully chosen by Mrs. McKenzie to link the story together. There is huge applause at the end of the presentation.
I look out from my place at the side of the stage near the front where the smaller students sit to sing. I can see my mother and my father. They are sitting in a row with Evalina’s parents and grandparents, the only people in that row. My father is right next to the grandfather, the scary Mr. McVicar with the sunken face and the jaw that looks all eaten away. “Cancer,” my mother has said and it is rude to stare at him. Evalina’s parents are there, her mother looking almost as old as my grandmother, her father looking as if he has just come in from the barn, still wearing a denim smock coat. I have asked my mother why they look so different from everyone else. “They are poor,” my mother said, “but Evalina has such a pretty name.” My mother is most impressed with names and has saddled me with a name I greatly dislike at this time. I am Briony and I will not hear that name given to any other girl until I am an adult of some years.
The basement is overflowing. Every pupil’s parents and many grandparents are there along with younger siblings. There may be over one hundred people. So many that some are standing at the back. These are mainly youths as old as seventeen or eighteen, all young men, all tall and gangly, looking uncomfortable in starched shirts and dress jackets, hair freshly combed and brylcreamed, young men who have just finished the evening’s milking. They are both awkward and intimidating standing there, sometimes laughing together for a moment between acts of the concert. They are intimidating but not so much as they will be in a few years when I am on the cusp of being a teenager and am a large girl in a pink taffeta dress, tragically the same dress as a grade eight girl who has recently lost many pounds of weight from a magic pill her doctor gave her, and we must make our exit from the stage, down the aisle, and past that clutch of perennially looming youths.
But this night is one of great happiness. I have remembered my words. I have been a Cratchit child. Santa has come at the end of the program. And I do know already that he is just pretend, that the thin man with the skimpy beard is Mr. Hipley the Sunday school teacher and that the present he handed to me is the scarf I saw my mother accidentally leave in a bag on the table. I do not yet know how much I will later think about my mother and my father sitting with Evalina’s parents nor how the mysteries of early memory shape us and visit us especially at Christmas.
Sources for story ideas can be found everywhere. As a way to jumpstart our group’s creativity, I thought ‘filling out’ the stories behind obituaries might be a good place to begin. Some were local people, but most were found online. I Googled a few key words like military, immigrant, beloved, humour, and found ten beautiful people who had excelled at life. From there I erased all names, funeral homes and hospitals, leaving blank spaces to fill in with our made-up names.
I encouraged the group to do a bit of research into the history of what was left in our outlines. A woman who fled Eastern Europe, a mother growing up in the south, a Winnipeg orphan and so on. Life was to be added back into our obituary outline.
The results speak for themselves. A journalist meeting a famous Canadian on a kibbutz, a doctor who dedicated his life to restoring sight around the world, a train aficionado ruled by his tomato harvest, a young ambulance driver who met the love of her life in a time of war, and a young woman rescuing her boyfriend from his mother’s claws.
Obituary Stories
Obituary Memory (Madeleine Horton)
Sand was whipping around the bus as Randy Kerr prepared to board. She reminded herself through the stark light that fitfully shone through the sand, that she had wanted an adventure. Her plan, if she had a plan, seemed more and more absurd.
She could see through the shadowy windows the outline of many figures. The bus was nearly full. A couple of soldiers, clearly late comers, stepped back to allow her to board. She stood at the front, quickly glancing at the passengers and the two empty seats at the front. No one would think it strange if she moved to the back and sat in one of the two seats with a single passenger.
She had been here in Israel before. Twelve years ago when she was still an idealistic younger journalist. She had scored a much desired assignment to write a long article on kibbutz life. It had probably been the piece that really ignited her career and set off the stream of prestigious awards that followed. She was here now for a different reason. She had felt for some time that she was coasting, taking cosy domestic assignments, being paid to stay in posh hotels and given unquestioned expense accounts. After all, she was Miranda ‘Randy’ Kerr.
This would change everything. A war had started. The Yom Kippur War they were calling it and she had a scoop. Leonard Cohen was here secretly to entertain troops. That was the payoff from keeping in touch for all these years. A tip from a friend in a kibbutz, a call to the commander the friend knew and here she was boarding a troop bus to the camp Cohen was going to.
Her plan, if she had a plan, was to wander around the camp. If questioned she would show her press credentials and use the chutzpah she hoped she still possessed. She stood at the front of the bus. She was the only woman. No one stared up at her. With her loose beige shirt and baggy cargo pants and long hair tucked under a floppy sun hat, she drew no approving glances. And the dozen more years on her face, middle-aged, she reflected. She knew at once where she would sit. She couldn’t believe her luck.
“I had forgotten the sandstorms. Maybe because I was at a kibbutz, indoors a lot.” She sat down. “Will the sand affect your guitar playing?” she said with no introduction and the presumption she knew who he was.
She had already heard he had called a soldier his brother, cementing his ties to the tribe. It was all they talked about at the kibbutz.
“I called a man my brother,” he said, as if he were reading her thoughts. “He wept and grasped my hands. ‘You, you understand us’ he said. I told him we are all brothers, I have many brothers, across many borders. His hand went limp and fell from mine. I’m not sure why I am here. Forge a bond with those like me….” He looked at her, “May you find what you seek.”
Randy sat in the silence for a long time. This alone could make a sensational piece. More came as she free floated from topic to topic without the questioning she’d heard he abhorred. Later she watched him sing surrounded by men, no stage, no barriers. Such good details for a story.
He was not on the bus she took back. In her room, she jotted quick notes for her story. “I am here and not here.” She thought of his crushed identity, never really to have a tribe, a people. The true artist, always the outsider. And herself, an undercover scavenger gnawing on his torment. She grasped her notes and tore them up.
Obituary Project (Cathy Sartor)
October 22, 1921 – October 7, 2023 – Doctor John Alexander Campbell
A routine “turn around the sun” ended abruptly after 102 rotations which was a goal achieved by “Doc. J” as he loved to be called. He would be especially pleased to know that his passing coincided with the Canadian Thanksgiving weekend of October 7, 2023. John’s mother was a Canadian at birth and she launched the family tradition of celebrating both Canadian and American Thanksgivings which John celebrated throughout his life.
Enjoying life to the fullest and in the face of challenge was a preference John embraced wholeheartedly. His partner in life for seventy-four years was his awesome wife Matty who supported him during his academic years while qulifiying to practice optometry. John and Matty met when they were high school students in Hudson, New York.
John was the devoted father and father-in-law of Neil and Shirley Smith, Robert and Mary Brown, Douglas and Margaret Matthews and Ronald. Adored grandfather of Jacob, Cameron, and Lara. Dear brother of Michael and the late Mary Jones, and brother- in-law of the late Ronald and the late Elizabeth Hewitt, brother of the late James and Johanna Caughlin. Cherished uncle of Peter, Susan, Camilla, the late Judith, and the late Teresa.
In recent years, his love of jazz sustained him while in palliative care. Born in 1921, Jazz was ingrained in his upbringing and throughout his young adult years. Performers like Count Basie, Duke Ellington and Louis Armstrong influenced his love of jazz from a very early age. He and Matty enjoyed years of wintering in Palm Springs where he riffed and jammed with many jazz performers that he met during his extensive travels. During his winters in Palm Springs with Matty at his side, Dr. John continued to enjoy and fine tune his jazz repertoire. Sadly, Matty predeceased John. Following her passing and in his remaining years he was able to maintain his well-being and enthusiasm for life by sharing his love of music with fellow long term care friends.
Jazz was not Dr. J’s only passion. Dr. J’s career passion to provide eye care followed him into retirement. With the conclusion of his practice of Optometry, he volunteered travelling into remote areas of Canada providing support and diagnostic eye care for residents living in remote Canadian locations. He was especially proud of his work with ORBIS. Over the past four decades, ORBIS the Flying Eye Hospital has flown world-class professionalsto provideeye care in over 95 countries and has been a call-to-action for better eye care around the world. Wherever ORBIS lands, specialists raise awareness, create change, and ralley support from local governments, global organizations, and philanthropists in an effort to contribute to the global fight of ending “avoidable blindness” particularly in children. (can.orbis.org) John’s enthusiasm and determination to engage will be missed by all who knew him, those he diagnosed and those who may have benefited from his expertise and connections.
The family wishes to thank his wonderful caregivers, Mary, Matthew, Danielle, James, and William for their years of compassion and loving care. Their dedication touched us profoundly. The family is also very grateful to the Palliative Care Unit at the St. Joseph’s Hospital. Funeral service took place from St Peter’s Basilica on Monday, October 9th 2023 at 2pm.
Obituary Reflection (Catherine Campbell)
Obituary – Henry Nichols – Sept 22, 1946 – Nov 19, 2022
It is with great sadness that we announce the death of Henry Nichols on Nov 19, 2022 after a two year battle with cancer. Henry is survived by his loving wife Thea and his sons Brendan (Leslie), Jeffrey (Rachel), Derek (Laura) and daughter Deirdre (John) as well as his loving grandchildren Francis, Serena, Elsa, Daniel, Stephen, Indra, David and Richard. Henry was predeceased by his parents, Andrew and Emily. He was born and raised in Richmond, attended Vancouver College and graduated from UBC. His love of travel began with a backpacking trip through Europe and the Middle East in 1969. Henry was a great provider for his children and coached many of their sports teams – football, baseball, lacrosse and soccer. He began working in Prince Rupert Pulp Mill’s technical department as well as serving in production, marketing, management in various other BC mills.
After retirement, Henry and Thea pursued a life of travel visiting 138+ countries in all seven continents. Travel also comprised of train trips in South Africa, Zimbabwe, Egypt, Morocco, Peru, Europe, India, China and Mongolia. His passion was collecting model trains especially those made for the Canadian market culminating in a published book. He also loved to work in his vegetable garden each year providing great crops for the family. We would never leave on vacation until the tomatoes were harvested!
A Mass of Christian Burial will be held at St. Mark’s. Rest in peace, Henry.
Reflection on a life
Rest in peace, Henry.
Rest would certainly seem to be needed. Filling a couple of paragraphs with a lifetime of activity. Can’t help but look at the selfless presentation and question how it was possible.
I had known Henry in his younger years – ironically he got involved in smuggling. Perhaps that unmentioned past is reflective of his fondness for travel.
Although I hadn’t spent a lot of time with him over recent years I remember his joie de vivre with fondness. Then he packed up and headed out west.
So I headed to googling several of the details in his obituary. Only Henry’s name shows up (not his wife or family) – reflects the uniqueness of his life’s passions.
Henry and Thea certainly didn’t have reservations about a big family and that aspect of the obituary suggests a real family-based life. Let me work it out – Henry’s travel started in 1969. A typical backpacking post university jaunt – 23 years old. Then back to British Columbia to marry, work, coach multiple sports. I am going to assume he retired at 65. And I am going to assume that his children were born in the 1970’s, grew up, went to university, married and produced grandchildren in short order. During this period Henry seems to have taken up gardening (and provided generously) and developed a passion for model trains. He had the time to write a book. I have a friend who is infected with that train passion. It is an intensely time-consuming activity. Without writing a book.
Given his focus was Canadian trains it is surprising all the travel references are elsewhere. Train trips were still a focus. Planning and organizing a series of tours through Zimbabwe and South Africa to see the falls and safaris is time consuming not to mention the actual trips.
All the other locations mentioned for the travel are stand alone. Exotic. Add them up though and the total is a long way from 138 countries on seven continents. Maybe cruising – no suggestion he and Thea chose that mode of travel.
It doesn’t feel credible.
Impose the growing season of tomatoes, the social and sports activities of children and grand-children Henry and Thea must have spent zero time at home during some key events in the years.
Who was this obituary written for or by? No intimate anecdotes about activities with his family, friends, workmates. No memories of coaching the sports teams – winners or losers. Was it written by a grandchild impressed by ticking off the numbers and not missing a relationship with his/her grandfather.
Perhaps the absence of reflections on a deceased’s personality, uniqueness, is common in obituaries. It is uncomfortable to dwell on the loss. But it reads like a Wikipedia post. Cold. Unreflective. No recognition of the deceased’s personal essence.
I don’t care about 138 countries and harvesting tomatoes. I remember the young, vibrant Henry. Laughing over a glass of wine. Talking about the backpacking adventures. Making his friends feel special.
That Henry – rest in peace.
Obituary (Diane Chartrand)
NAMES FOR OBIT 8 WRITING
OBIT PERSON-
Amelia Brook Kirk
HUSBAND-
Noah Kirk
CHILDREN-
Sadie (Daughter) and Christoper (Son)
GRANDMOTHER OF-
Tilly, Pearson, Arthur, Petunia, and Elroy
PREDECEASED BY-
Husband: Noah -Sister: Mazzie – Brothers: Max, Donald, Stuart, Allen, David, Nathan, and Michael
OBIT SCENE FOR AMELIA
A year before her passing, Amelia contacted her remaining family members and asked them to come to the house for a special dinner. She wanted to show them a secret she had been keeping. Amelia just got several copies of the memoir she recently published. She wanted to read portions of it to them.
Amelia selected specific sections and marked each one with a sticky note. Her children Sadie and Christoper knew some of how she had met their father, but Amelia and Noah never talked about their lives in England before and during the war.
In the memoir, Amelia revealed her entire life, starting with growing up in England with her older sister Mazzie and her seven brothers Max, Donald, Stuart, Allen David, and Nathan, who always were her protectors since she was the baby of the family.
There are sections telling about the painful times during the war and her work as an ambulance driver while serving in the Women’s Auxiliary Force of the RAF. Her job was how she met the wonderful man she married in 1946.
Amelia wanted them to each have a copy and read about her life, but she needed to tell them about a special time for her that created the family they have become. It was time her children and grandchildren knew how she had met Noah that terrible day.
After everyone had taken their assigned place at the nursing home dining room table, Amelia brought in a box and set it in the middle of the table, taking her book off the top and sitting down.
“I’ve summoned you all here for a surprise. In my hand is a copy of my memoir that I published. Before giving you each a copy, I need to read a section to all of you.”
“Mom,” said Sadie. “You wrote a book? How did you hide this from us?”
“I had a lot of help from the staff who typed it up for me and helped to get it up to the publishing site.”
Amelia opened the book to the page she had marked. “For years, a story was told about how I met my beloved husband Noah, the father to Sadie and Christoper and grandfather to the rest of you. That tale wasn’t completely true.”
“What are you saying, Mom,” said Christoper.
“Your father and I didn’t want to revisit that terrible time during the war, but now, since I’ve put it in the book for the world to know, I thought it was only fair that you hear it first from me.”
The room was so quiet you could hear the rain hitting the two windows next to the table. Amelia looked around the room and began to read.
As the sound of guns and explosions could be heard, I drove my ambulance to a location given to me. I found a young man lying on the ground with a lot of blood flowing from his chest area. My assistant and I did what we could to stop the bleeding. We loaded the young man into the back of the vehicle and drove at high speed to the field hospital a few miles away. For some reason, I couldn’t leave this patient and waited to see if he’d make it or not…..
Obituary – Lila and the Ladder (Marian Bron)
Process: I first googled Ooltewah, Tennessee to find out its history and if anything, interesting had happened that would affect my character’s life. It was a Union stronghold during the civil war which I found interesting since it was in the traditional south. Her parents are mentioned but not her late husband’s, only a sister-in-law. That gave me a reason for her elopement in October of 1960. I made her the descendant of a rebel, something her mother-in-law could hold against her family. From there I had fun.
The twelve-foot wooden ladder I had lugged from my parent’s house thudded against the second-story windowsill of a white clapboard house two streets over, making more noise than wanted. Wesley Freichuk had always been a sound sleeper, his mother not so much. My luck she would find me standing beneath her pride-and-joy’s bedroom window in the middle of the night and spoil my plans. Squatting next to the leafless lilac bushes beneath the kitchen window, I waited until I was sure she hadn’t heard me.
Wesley’s very manhood needed saving. If Mrs. Freichuk had her way, those apron strings of hers would never be cut. Especially for the likes of me, the great-great-granddaughter of a rebel. But I loved Wesley, and he loved me, so there was no way ancient hostilities were going to ruin my happiness. His sister Melinda liked to joke that those strings were tied tight around her brother’s neck. He couldn’t breathe without his mother’s say so. Mrs. Freichuk was a force to be reckoned with, and I was up to the task.
The Freichuk house was locked tighter than Fort Knox. There were no spare keys hidden under flowerpots, especially since flowers were sentimental wastes of money according to Mrs. Freichuk, and no windows cracked open to catch the mountain breeze. Since no lights came on, I started my climb up my father’s rickety ladder, avoiding the rotten third rung. The seventh rung was also a bit punky. I stood on the tenth and tapped on Wesley’s window.
He slept on.
I tapped a bit louder.
Still, he slept on.
The window wouldn’t budge. Knowing, Mrs. Freichuk she had nailed her son’s window shut to preserve his chastity. No gold-digging princesses were going to get at her boy and ruin his virtue.
I tapped louder yet.
The window one room over flew open. I pressed myself against the wall.
“Lila?” Melinda whispered. “What the blazes are you doing?”
“Shh!” I whispered, finger to my lips, almost losing my balance. “Your mother will hear you.”
She shook her head and shut her window. Moments later, Wesley’s window opened.
“The dope’s still asleep.” She tip-toed to his bed and plugged his nose.
His eyes whipped open in a panic. He looked from his sister to me at the window. Melinda put a finger to her lips. He nodded in understanding.
“You are crazy,” was all he said as he started to dress. He filled a paper sack with clean underwear and socks. The family’s only suitcase was in Mrs. Freichuk’s bedroom closet.
Before her brother could climb out the window, Melinda said, “Wait.” She slid from the room and came back moment’s later with the keys to her brand-new Chevy Bel Air. “Don’t scratch it and don’t eat in it.”
“Thanks Sis,” Wesley said as he pocketed the keys and kissed her cheek.
The seventh rung snapped under his weight, and he crashed through six and five on his way down to four.
“Shh!” Melinda and I hissed in unison.
He rolled his eyes and reached for the third rung with his foot. He crashed to the ground, taking two lilac branches with him.
He dusted himself off. “Who knew eloping with you would be so dangerous? I take it that is the reason for all this subterfuge?”
As a young man, my grandfather Walter Freidrich Karl Ernest (anglicized from the original Ernst) spent much of his life in Africa, from about 1895-1910. His apparent facility learning languages led to employment as an interpreter with the native labourers building the railway in British East Africa. He was also a keen amateur photographer.
My Aunt Dorothy, my mother’s older sister, seventeen years her senior, had many albums of his photos, which she dramatically called the Safari Books. On an early visit to Canada, she brought one. It cemented my fascination with this branch of my family which seemed then so much more exotic and interesting than my farming grandparents who lived down the road, a mere half mile from my family. All this was, of course, before words like colonialist and settler had taken on the negative connotations they have today. Interestingly though, in the early eighties my Aunt Dorothy said she would not be offering the Safari Books to Africa House in London. She was aware, with the many newly independent nations in Africa, photos taken by a dead white man from England might not be welcome.
When I made my first trip to England, my aunt offered to let me choose an album. It was the nicest gift she could give me. I felt honoured that I was being entrusted with a piece of family history.
So for a long time now, I have felt an ongoing sense of guilt. Somehow I have lost my Safari Book.
I did not lose it during my travels. Nor on the way home. For many years, it was in the same place on my bookshelf in my den. Periodically I took it out, always amazed at the enduring quality of the sepia photographs. Others in my family enjoyed seeing it. I remember only once taking it to my school to show an art teacher who had travelled to Africa. I remain sure I brought it home and remember packing it up to clear the room when the den ceiling needed major renovation. I have turned out every box and scoured all the places where I squirrel away papers. I have looked under beds and taken apart closets. All to no avail. I regret bitterly that I did not have the foresight to scan the photos.
For myself, I seem to remember the photos clearly, their sepia tones ever bold. Though, as time goes on, I wonder how many I have already forgotten. The pages seem to flip before my eyes ~ two views of the forbidding Zambesi River flowing into impenetrable jungle ~ a small building, dwarfed by the jungle behind it, seemingly set on stilts, captioned in my grandfather’s flowing cursive “Hotel, Umtali” ~ a very tall man in a flowing white robe in front of an arched and carved doorway framed by the two huge elephant tusks he holds. The building a mosque, the man perhaps a Somali or Ethiopian from his features ~ a panorama of the port at Mombasa, the end point of the railway ~ several photos of the railway being constructed in British East Africa. Men dwarfed by the giant jungle trees on the slopes behind them. Wielding pickaxes behind the trains in front of them. Perhaps clearing land for a small settlement ~ my favourite, a Black youth standing on the front of a locomotive. (I’m not sure why. I never asked myself if he was posed.) He isn’t smiling. He just looks like a young boy who has scrambled to a cool position to get his photo taken ~ a portrait of a priest, presumed Anglican or Catholic, formal, unsmiling. (One wonders about this context too.) ~ a room titled someone’s office. The desk, a table really, covered with a fancy linen cloth, draping to the floor. A coal oil lamp. an inkwell and fountain pen in a stand. Papers. On the wall, several animal skins. Zebra, leopard, some kind of antelope, horns ~
I wish I could see it once more. Though I feel differently now about pinning the skins of animals to walls for decor. I still have the feeling of the room. It feels stuffed and stolid. As if the walls could be wood panelled with a fireplace. Perhaps an attempt to conjure up faraway home. But is it not simply a hut?
~ a group of men dressed in suits. The background now unclear. But I remember the caption “The Ananias Club” and then a strange quote about wood and water which I can no longer remember but never did understand ~
I have discovered what may be the origins of “Ananias Club.” It is apparently an expression, used as a euphemism by Teddy Roosevelt, for the word “Liar.” In my imagination, it is ironic or perhaps ironically accurate. A Club where men got together and told of their exploits in those lands. I recognize the short man with the trim moustache, my grandfather.
~ finally, three grave markers: simple slabs of stone etched with names and the stark details. One died of malaria, one was killed by natives, one was killed by a lion ~
Are their gravestones too now lost?
I confess I have shed tears over the loss of that album. I am not sure why its loss has bothered me so much. The world it showed is itself lost and most would say good riddance.
On a personal level, I never met that grandfather, who was over sixty when my mother was born. But I do remember my formidable Aunt Dorothy who still had some memories of her early childhood in Africa and how her stories nourished my imagination. She entrusted me with the album which had endured so long and travelled so far.
Across the street Teagan comes out of his house. Plaid hat, snow pants, large gloves, swimming in his coat. The lawn is covered with snow. The boulevard is banked high with huge chunks of snow after yesterday’s storm. Teagan begins to carry chunks of snow to the lawn. He is choosy. Sometimes walking further down the street to find the perfect chunks. He is building, not a snowman, a snow fort. Some of the chunks are so large he struggles to carry them, until one overcomes him, and he falls. Face down in the snow he lies for long seconds until he rises, snow covered, shakes himself, and trudges over to a smooth piece of snowy lawn. He lies down and makes a snow angel. Refreshed, he arises and goes back to finding the next perfect chunk. Refreshed, I turn from my window to do an adult task.
My sister thinks I have a lot of crackpot theories. Not that she would use a word like that. She says in an even voice, “You might want to not broadcast those ideas too loudly.” That would be her theory about our trip to Red Butte.
I was working at a small stable. In the middle of nowhere or what passes for nowhere in that part of southern Ontario. I was doing massage on an older mare. I used to do people too, but I got tired of it. Too much complaining about my fees and come-ons from older guys.
Janis was standing at the head of the mare in case it got antsy. An excuse. Janis is a real talker and there aren’t many people around in the daytime. Most of her boarders are working so they can pay for these massages.
I’ve known Janis for years. She’s on the wrong side of forty and looks it. Too much sun. Her arms are real sinewy, ropey-like. Her hands are always calloused and raw, almost every finger crooked, from making a living wrangling rebellious horses at the end of a line. Still attractive at a glance though. She wears her hair long – lucky because it’s dead straight. I had to shorten my curly hair years ago. I knew it had the blowsy look.
I met Janis at a stable. She was one for the dramatic scene from the beginning. She married a pilot and on the wedding day, he parachuted onto the cross-country field and she picked him up in a two-horse carriage she borrowed.
I lost track of her for a few years until she started her stable. She told me she had kicked the bum, the pilot, out because his layovers were, well, lay overs. After that I saw her occasionally with an assortment of men at horse shows, usually guys looking baffled and doing her bidding. Carrying water and such. I had to admire how she made her little stable work.
So, I was stunned when she was holding that horse and said, “Ellen, I’ve got big news. I’m selling up and moving to live with my boyfriend.” I had not even seen a man lurking around there for a while.
I took my hands off the mare’s haunches and stepped closer to her. “You have got to be kidding.” I saw right away that was wrong and felt bad. “Tell me all about him.” That got me off the hook.
“His name is Colton” – I forget the last name – “and he owns a ranch that breeds and trains cutting horses.”
She met him on-line. I must have had a sceptical look because she laughed. “Oh, Ellen, come on. Everyone does it now.”
He was near her age. Divorced, of course. No kids. Had sold horses to Robert Redford and that media guy, Jane Fonda’s ex. Liked western sunsets, loved to barbeque, preferred sitting around the fireplace to bars. I was tempted to ask about quiet walks along the beach but held back. Instead, “When will I meet him?”
Her voice softened and she spoke in that tone young, untested brides do. Not like her at all. “I don’t think you will. Unless you come visit. Which I’d love for you to do. In South Dakota.”
“South-frigging-Dakota. You’ve got to be kidding. You read about women doing such things.”
She was set on it. Business was down, dealing with spoilt horses was getting harder. This was a chance for a real future.
She wouldn’t take her horse.
“No, it will be just Tucker-dog and me.”
She admitted Colton hadn’t mentioned a dog. “You can usually trust a man with a dog.” I said.
She settled up quickly. Turned out she only rented the land. Gave her horse to a friend. Sent most of her possessions to Goodwill. She gave me a wrought iron hitching post with a horse’s head I had admired. The day I went to pick it up she gave me a piece of paper with her address. I stared at it as if deciphering hieroglyphics. It read:
Eldorado, nr. Red Butte, South Dakota 37558
“Keep in touch,” she said.
Janis isn’t a hugger and nor am I. We looked at each other, quiet. “See you,” I said as if I’d be back in a month.
I waited to let her settle in. I phoned first. Number no longer in service. Unsurprising now she was stateside. The letter was not returned so I assumed she had it. No response. But at Christmas a strange postcard arrived. A black and white photo of three early settlers, a man and two women standing outside a cabin, more like a shed. Where they stood was a nowhere, not a tree or shrub or rise of land for a location. I turned it over. The postmark was illegible. The faded pencil scrawls were inked over with my address and a wobbly heart and ‘Janis’ printed in the large unruly letters a first grader might produce. I knew I had to visit Janis.
My sister and I were driving along the Needle Highway in South Dakota. A scenic detour she wanted to make. Thankfully she agreed to make the three-day trip from Phoenix with me. I think she gets bored. Her husband is retired but does a lot of contract work.
Peggy was excited about the rock formations she knew we would see. I think people who like rock formations are the same people who like abstract art. Peggy has a lot of that in her house. Myself, I could never settle in a place without real trees. Oak, ash, maple. Not the scrawny trees we saw there. I told Peggy about the mystery man Janis met over the internet, the quick move, and the long silence. Nothing of my suspicions or the post card.
“You always have strange friends.” I let that comment pass. It did irk me though. Peggy’s life has been highly conventional. Her husband is an on-the-move-research scientist. Their two daughters are high achievers. All their friends are doctors and lawyers and such, as the song says.
I decided I might as well tell her about what I thought was really going on. “I don’t want to alarm you but I suspect we might not see Janis. I have a feeling she is being held captive.”
“Good God, Ellen, then what are we doing here? And what do you mean a feeling? A feeling or a theory?” You might know she was a linguistics major.
As I said, she thinks I am always promoting some cockeyed views about events. Not conspiracy theories, of course. “What do I mean?”
“Yes. Like your idea that violence and rioting in some places are explained by dehydration because no one has enough water to drink and dehydration causes irrational behaviour.”
I did happen to think that. Too many men running amok without water bottles. But I ignored that dig. “As it happens, I do have some thoughts on missing women. Don’t you notice how many aren’t found? It’s not easy to move and conceal a body. I think a lot of them are being held captive. I’ll bet it’s way more common than you think.”
“That is so disturbing. I don’t know how you can think about things like that.” She changed the subject to more of her research on South Dakota vegetation.
We reached Red Butte late afternoon. A faded sign announced, Home of the Pheasant Festival. “Must be the ringed neck pheasant. The state bird.” I wanted to show I knew something.
Peggy laughed. “You must mean the ring-necked pheasant. Though possibly true at the festival.” She took her hands off the steering wheel, twisted both hands on her neck and mimed breaking it.
Sometimes she breaks out in weird humour.
We pulled into the only motel in town. A six-cabin affair. The Pheasant Motel- surprise. A worn-out looking man booked us in. He seemed uninterested in our business there.
We set out for the Post Office where I hoped to get directions. Closed. Open three days a week for two hours according to the window sign. Next door another older man sat behind the counter of the hardware store, reading a Bible. I made some small talk about the pheasant festival but the man said it was mostly a local affair.
I was looking for directions to a place our GPS would not track I said. “The Post Office is closed,” I added as if this would be news.
“They don’t know much anyways. It’s all cluster mailboxes out there now. Some folks they never see.” I heard Peggy’s muttered, “Good God.”
“We’re looking for a place called Eldorado.”
He looked up now with interest and fixed his eyes on me. “I know about it on account of the name. Some like to dream big.”
He had never been there. Didn’t know anyone who had. But drew a map to an old logging road. It was about twenty miles away. I figured the kilometres roughly in my head.
“Hope you got a decent truck.” He nodded when I said I was from Canada.
My sister says she doesn’t care about vehicles as long as they run. I could sense otherwise. She was tense with all the jarring and bumping given to her SUV. She clutched the steering wheel with both hands and looked straight ahead.
“At least we aren’t on a mountain road.” Outside nothing but phallic-like rocks – her words from earlier – struggling aspen trees and in the distance ponderosa pines. Her research again.
The road ended abruptly in a turnaround and small clearing. An old trailer curved and shaped like an egg huddled alone in dry weeds. Amidst its rust, I could make out the original maroon and gold colour. “Do you know it’s called a teardrop trailer?”
“I suppose you think that makes it an omen.” I’ll say this. Peggy is often good at reading me.
No one was there. No one had bothered to shut the door properly. Inside, scarcely room for two people to move around. Peggy started going through the cupboards. I slid by her to the sleeping area. The mattresses were thin and dirty. I was leery of mice. I can’t abide a mouse inside.
“Nothing much here,” Peggy said. “A few mugs, a part of a jar of instant coffee, a can opener, cutlery, two cans of chili, matches.”
I looked under the mattresses as if expecting some big revelation. Nothing. There wasn’t much else to inspect. An oil lamp, a couple of musty pillows, a brown towel, no blood. “I think that’s it. I’ll take a quick look around the outside of the trailer.”
Peggy was already out the door.
I opened the cupboards again. One mug had a hunting scene with a horse and hounds coursing a fox. I put it in my jacket pocket.
I walked around the front of the trailer. Looking for I knew not what. Above the tiny front window was a chrome name plate: Eldorado. The brand of the trailer. Not even an original name for the place then. Behind the trailer was yet more untidy. Several empty oil barrels, a couple of tires, a broken webbed chair, all partly visible in the scrubby grass and weeds. Two more folding chairs, upended, around a fire pit filled with ashes and poked through by shards of grass. Something hung around the arm of one chair. Closer, I could see it was a dog’s collar, Tucker’s braided leather collar, and in the fire pit bones and some bits of charred black fur. “Fuck,” I said, and ran.
You know how the drive back from a place can seem shorter than the drive to the place. Not this time. I wanted to tell Peggy to drive faster but I didn’t want to scare her. Besides what were we running from? It was dark when we got to Red Butte. I couldn’t face staying there again. We drove to the nearest city, three hours away.
“What did you hope to find?” Peggy asked after a long shower in the security of a national brand hotel. I sat in a comfortable chair with the mug in my hand turning it around and around, looking at the hounds coursing the lone fox. There wasn’t much to say. Janis, of course. A ranch, maybe a struggling business. Maybe the guy would be a lot older than Janis but still it would all be good. Tucker would come out to greet me the way he always did.
“It was Eldorado.” Peggy looked up from the phone that now engrossed her. “I saw the name on the trailer, Eldorado, a brand plate. And Janis was there. I’m pretty sure.” I paused. “Didn’t you notice this mug with the hunt scene? That’s not the kind of mug a man out here would have. It’s fine china.
English made. English scene. The kind Janis would bring. The others were thick, dollar store junk.” “Shouldn’t we call the police or something?” Peggy would like that much drama.
Maybe I should have told her about finding that collar. I don’t know why I didn’t. Everything seemed to become more unreal when I saw that fire pit. It wasn’t the sort of thing that happens to Peggy and me. “There’s not much to go on. An adult woman, from out of the country, hooks up with a guy over the internet. Last name unknown. First name probably common here. Said by another woman, also from out of the country, to have disappeared. Oh, and the mug. What cop is going to understand about the mug?”
It wasn’t like we could go searching for Janis. Where would you begin in that vast emptiness? Peggy looked at me but said nothing. I don’t usually get this worked up. I walked over to her, bent down, and even hugged her. “Thanks for being such a good sport with all the driving and everything.”
At the window I looked into the dark. I wanted to go home. To my home, not Peggy’s. To see real trees. Pick up Ranger from the boarding kennel. Settle in on our couch. Make a real cup of tea. Why can’t the Americans make a proper cup of tea? Dishwater. Damn Janis. After all, I tried to warn her about him. What else could I do?
“You know,” I said more to myself than Peggy, “that was just the kind of place where someone like Janis could walk into a hardware store one day and announce she escaped years, say seven years, of being held in an abandoned cold war bunker.” Things like that happen. I tried picturing it all out.
Instead I kept seeing that collar. Such a shame about the dog.
I am not a water person. Growing up on a farm in the Fifties, my experience with water was limited to the once or twice Sunday trips each summer to Port Stanley where I would venture out only far enough beyond the discouraging stones to splash a little and then float.
In my late twenties, with little water in between, two friends and I took a short camping holiday in Algonquin Park. My two friends were both experienced canoeists and parked me in the middle of the craft. I enjoyed canoeing small lakes joined by rivers. The rivers I liked best for the sense of being able to almost reach out and touch the branches of overhanging trees on either side. For the sense of being in nature, to my mind. And probably for the sense of security.
On the last day of our holiday, Elsie proposed we drive to the Ottawa area and go white water rafting. It would be the highlight of the holiday for her. Sheila in her always soft and firm voice at once said she would not go. She would happily wait for us on shore. My first impulse was to decline also. But Elsie did not want to inconvenience us both. I said I would go.
White water rafting was still rather new at that time. Elsie had heard of one outfit, probably the least expensive. I knew absolutely nothing of the different rafts used nor of the different reputations of the different companies. The company we went to turned out to be one with a reputation for being the wildest. The rafts were like large rubber dinghies with no fixed oars—a feature I was later told made for a larger, safer raft.
We were issued life jackets of a sort. I spied some helmets which were not offered and asked about wearing one. I suppose this caution came from always being required to wear a helmet when riding. I asked about having one. I was given one, with a bemused smile. No one else asked for one.
The leader for our trip was a young French Canadian, not a large man but wiry and well-muscled. He spoke little, gestured extravagantly, and used the expression “it’s a real rush, man” frequently. That perhaps should have been a warning.
We were led to to see the first set of rapids. I looked down at churning, rushing waters forced through what seemed a narrow canyon. The guide said these were the strongest rapids and where people most often were flipped off the raft. Usually two or three per trip. With twelve trippers, the dreaded thirteen counting the guide, the odds did not sound great. We could choose not to do this part. Instead, cross a stream he pointed out, and meet the raft at a point a short distance away. My hand went up. He casually pointed to the stream some distance away and left with the group.
The stream flowed down a sharp incline. It was like a chute. Around two hundred yards from where I stood, it emptied into the river. I stood and looked down at it. .The water was crystal clear, several feet deep, and rushing. I looked across it. It did not look that wide. Perhaps three feet across. It must have been stepped over by others than me. The Guide had been offhand as he waved me towards it.
I did not make the opposite bank. I was swept away.
I remember that with absolute clarity. My life did not flash before me. I was on my back. My eyes were open. I remember seeing how crystal clear the water was above me. How far I was from the surface. I did nothing. It was so fast. I felt no pain. I made no struggle. I felt no fear. It was just sensation. Me and the clear water above me.
I did not think then of those many in Greek mythology who sought to confound their fate, only to be forced to endure it.
I surfaced in the river, further than I could ever swim. There were two canoes near me at once. I would not want a recording of my struggle to get into the canoe. They (I have no sense of my helpers) rowed me to the shore where the raft had pulled up. No one had flipped from the raft.
The Guide was enthusiastic in his effort to convince me to continue the trip. The rest of the rapids would be easier. He really wanted me to do it. It would be a rush.
Reader, I went. The Guide was more or less correct. Most of the rapids I do not recall. Except for one when the front of the raft went so high in the air I thought it was going to completely turn head over heels. (Would that be keel?) At the last second, the front bent forward and we continued on our way.
Later, as my friends and I drove to find our last campsite I assessed the damage. I had lost a pair of prescription sunglasses. My left shoe had been sucked off my foot. That foot was swollen and bruised. It was only when I was at home late the next day and looked in a mirror, that I saw a chain of large purple bruises down my spine that must have been caused by hitting rocks. I thought of my head and the helmet. A reluctant trip to a Walk-in Clinic confirmed a sprained ankle.
Sometimes I think of the lessons I took from that experience. I wonder if they are the right ones.
Several years ago, I stopped at a Pick Ur Own vegetable farm. I picked some tomatoes on a row marked Heritage Varieties: Sicilian Saucers. They proved to be, to my mind, the most flavourful tomatoes I had ever tasted both for cooking and for fresh eating. The next year, to my dismay, the farmer turned his land to cash crops and planted soybeans and corn. I decided I wanted these tomatoes but cannot grow them myself in my shady yard. So I announced a Tomato Contest to my family in hopes that most of them could deliver their entries in person. For the two brothers in the West, photos were the only option. The cash incentive attracted my competition loving family, including this year both my nephews.
The Sicilian Saucer tomato is as the name suggests one that can grow very large, thus making it good for a contest. The central prize has been for largest tomato. That continues this year. Contestants have been reminded that the margins of victory can be close. Last year’s winner, my nephew in Drayton, Ontario edged out his mother by only six grams. My brother in Hope, B.C. has for the past two years submitted a photo of an impressive looking Sicilian posed beside an egg. Regrettably, the concrete scale of his rivals has overruled his subjective egg; it has been suggested he borrow a scale this year if possible.
Sicilian Saucers are the workhorses of tomatoes. Because of their large and irregular size, they do not fit neatly into commercial containers which favour a one size for all, a one shape for all. They are not a pretty face; they will never be celebrated at the Royal Winter Fair where the flashy Beefsteak tomato flaunts itself. They will never grace the cover of Gourmet magazine. They are rough and robust, the proletarians of the tomato world, never to be relegated to the regimens of a greenhouse. But they have a noble heritage, the sunny fields of Sicily, the renowned pots of masters of tomato cuisine in the Mediterranean.
But, they are a challenge to grow. Sicilian Saucers are not a hybrid tomato with all their inherent quirks engineered out of them. They are prone to blight. Because of their size, they easily crack and split. They need a longer growing season than some others.
The first year of the contest, my youngest sister, an avid and usually successful gardener discovered the difficulties. She, however, is nothing if not an optimist and in late October she appeared on my doorstep, and held out her hand holding one, small, hard, green, Sicilian Saucer, perhaps in hopes that her siblings had had even less success. We have laughed about that since then. Last year a nephew who had never gardened before produced the winner of the largest tomato. This year he emailed me in February asking about the contest because his two children were keen to help again.
This year, the third year, and perhaps the Grande Finale of the contest, some new categories have been announced and others expanded. The unassuming Sicilian Saucer will not mind and the changes will promote good will, dispelling any feelings of disgruntlement in the West that the contest favours the climate conditions of the East. Hence, there will be a new category- A Medley of Three Varieties of Tomatoes. For this the Sicilian Saucer may be called to step aside, if needed, mindful that they also serve, who only remain on their stake.
Another new category opens equal opportunity for all vegetables- A Medley of Any Three Different Vegetables. For those whose Sicilians are substantial but not the biggest, the popular Pair of Sicilian Saucers class returns. For those who have an artistic eye, there are now two prizes for Photo Presentation of Your Produce- one to include a Sicilian Saucer. Last year the sister who appeared the first year with the hard, green tomatoes presented a photo worthy of a poster- her ample Sicilian posed with rustic pottery and vintage tins.
So, what started as a simple who can grow the biggest tomato challenge has morphed into something more. Last year, with the bigger challenge of the pandemic, and already this year, as the pandemic stubbornly hangs on, this little contest has brought good natured ribbing, laughs, new interests, and a little relief to me and my family. Nice work for a modest tomato, the Sicilian Saucer.
You ask me about my Upright. Let me start by saying I think all their problems come from being two-legged Uprights. Have you ever tried to walk on two legs? Painful. Whatever made them do it?
Still my Upright is good to me. The dish, ah the dish. As soon as I hear, “There’s something in your dish,” I’m out to the kitchen. Dish, the magic word. It used to be just the kibble, ok but boring after a while. Then one day, a little piece of juicy chicken on top and some carrot. Another day a bit of potato and a piece of a fish. I could smell it from the den where I was stretched out on the couch. It wasn’t everyday though. But I got to thinking. If I didn’t eat that kibble, she would understand and put something delicious on it. It didn’t take me long and she was trained. Something every day. One day though, for some unknown reason there was nothing. I decided to wait it out. It was really hard. All that evening, through the dark, until the next day when the dark was coming again. But it worked. Beautiful chopped egg.
Then I noticed the portions getting some smaller. I would eat but my stomach growled. So I would go into the den where she sat and sit down right in front of her and give her my stare and purse my lips and give a new little moan. It works. Always a little something more, usually one of those lamb biscuits, my favourite.
I like the couch. Just the one in the den. I don’t know why the other one is “Off.” Sometimes I stretch out on my back and I feel so relaxed. I let me head flop to the side and punch my front paws into the air. And I love to splay my back legs out. “You are a shameless dog,” she says, laughing. I have no idea what she is getting at but then she comes and gives me a belly rub. Nothing feels better.
Sometimes when I am in the house, I can hear the squirrels jump from the roof to the birdfeeder and I run to the window and give them a good barking. I don’t know why she doesn’t bark at the squirrels. She’s really missing out.
In the night-time, we sit in the den and look at the big window on the table. There are always dogs and more dogs to see though they never hear me when I rush to the window and put my face right on it. I even know the names of two who come around all the time. She will say, “Alfred’s here or your friend Sikes.” As soon as I hear their names, I’m there if I’m in another room. There are other creatures, some I know like squirrels and ducks or horses, and others that look big and strange. I’m not really interested.
Nothing beats a walk. She lets me sniff. I have heard there are dogs that don’t get to sniff. Nothing beats a walk except a ride to the place with the horses. As soon as we get there, she opens the door and says, “Go wild.” I can run as far as the woods, roll over in my favourite smell pits, sometimes jump in the pond, play with three other dogs, and try to get the cat’s food. I have found the horse leaves some dropping in his stall and I’ve eaten a piece. That gets me a big, “bad dog.” I know what that means but I don’t understand really.
At night when we cuddle in the den, she will say. “Little dog, I love you so much.” More unclear words but it always gives me a warm and safe feeling.
