Category Archives: #family

Ideations

She called me.
We went rushing
in two cars.
His promise was empty, though.
Passed out,
half on the floor,
half on the couch.

She smacked him in the face,
gently.
Put a cold cloth on his forehead,
and he sputtered awake.

We searched the house,
emptied all of the bottles.

Haha, he said.

I stuffed my hands into my jacket pockets,
and left.
She left in morning.

Until next time.

 

 

 

Dad’s wish

Dad’s been long in his grave.
We didn’t know each other, really.
At nineteen, I felt like a fake,
attending bedside vigils,
not knowing what to say or do.
When i got the call, I was silent.
Only silent.
Fifty years ago.

And now, I’m a year away
from living as long as he did.
In a bothered and quavering dream
last night,
I waited by the winter waterfall,
in a cove among dark pines.
I knew of his coming,
and kept an eye upslope
on the frozen bush road.
There were no night noises here,
and so I heard the crunch of his zip-up rubbers
just before he materialized.
It was Dad all right, with his white goatee,
dressed in an overcoat of black oilcloth
and his tweed fedora.
He was carrying things:
one of those flat aluminum saucers you had when you were a kid,
and, in the other hand, a dufflebag.
He came up to me, and set his things down.
He did not speak, but pulled out a pack of cigarettes,
lighting one for each of us.
I could not speak,
and withdrew my eyes from his.
We smoked for a minute or two.
He picked up the dufflebag
and led me by the arm down to the river.
There was a wooden bench there,
and he motioned me to sit.
Beside me he placed the bag,
then made a curious praying gesture.
Then he held up one finger,
in token that I should wait.
I watched him trudge back up the icy hill,
carrying his saucer.
A moment later, he came plummeting down the hill.
He was laughing, laughing.
My Dad was having FUN,
such as I’d never seen him do in life.
As he passed me, he was waving,
and I stood up suddenly.
He was going straight for the river.
In a second, he was gone.
I ran to the riverbank,
just as he went through the thin ice.
He was still waving, and smiled placidly,
making the OK sign as he sunk.
I knew he didn’t want to be saved,
for this was only a cartoon death.
At the end, I struggled with the meaning
as I sat down once more on the bench.
I unzipped the brown dufflebag,
and there was a mewing as I lifted out the black cat.
It was warm, and I gathered it to me,
but it wanted to look at my face.
Its eyes looked into mine and held me,
seeing more than I wanted.
Dad, I thought.
At last, the eyes relaxed,
with a seeming smile of wistful regret.
“Would you like a cigarette?”
I said.

Sequestered

Darlene and Dave,
they had a love.
On grandfathered land,
they built a house of modesty,
high under the evergreens.

Neighbours flocked to raise the roof.
Each brought shingles, cedar shakes
of secret colours, ’til unboxed.
The coffee, the tea, the hot chocolate.
The joy. The laughter. The promise,
in that snowy October.

First came Darlene’s gardens,
with care-woven roots.
Then, a son and daughter, a year apart.
Never the holiday they took.
Never did they want for other lands.
But the boy and the girl,
they went to good city schools,
and soon they had a hankering.

With their earned degrees, they wanted the world.
There were stoic farewells, in time.
The house of modesty had a change in its airs,
too many spaces in its purpose.
And Darlene plied her trade in the summer gardens,
trying to grow what might fill.
And Darlene took a room
and made tapestries of delicate beauty.
Quilts that had no rival.
And Dave took a room
and tied fishing flies
and made soldiers and cannons of molten metals
and hammered copper story scenes for the walls.

And they did go to a hidden summer lake
to swim and to collect things that drifted.
And even after their middle age
they skated on that lake,
sequestered in the snow.

On a summer, Darlene was kitchen-bound,
baking for a lakeside lunch.
She wondered at the change in the timbre of the riding mower.
Dave never left it running, she knew.
Rinsing her floured fingers,
she went out the back screen door to call him,
but her Dave had died. His heart.
~~~~~~~~~
These ten years now,
I have delivered Darlene’s groceries.
Waiting on her visitors from foreign lands,
she was soured to the world.
Took up with the smoke and with the drink.

Today, as I drive the muddy road,
I have a companion with me.
The nurse that will tend to my old friend.

The cedar shakes of the bowed roof
still show a checkerboard of colour,
even in this grey streaming rain.
I have always thought that each one was signatory
to a day in the lives of those two.
A smattering of their joys, their fights, their triumphs, their sadness.

Darlene had called this morning
to tell us not to knock.
To just come in the front door,
take off our wet boots.
She sits in the back living room now,
in a fluffed robe,
with her tobacco.
Sequestered from the gloom,
but part of it, too.

Steel and glass

Just today, 55 years after the crash, Stuart’s face has appeared to me once more in a dream.  I don’t know why I remember this, especially now, in my 69th year, but it feels as if God has spoken to me about one of his angels.

On December 27th, 1964, I was fourteen and my brother Mark was eleven.  “Stewie” had been Mark’s only friend since he and his parents had moved into our apartment building, some four years before.  Being probably the eldest kid in the building, I had been busy recruiting followers (all younger kids), setting trends with my Beatle Boots and Fabian haircut, and developing an interest in those strange creatures, the Gurlz.  All of this, though, did not prevent me from feeling a streak of jealousy over the time Mark and Stuart spent together.

Sophie was Stuart’s mom, and they lived down the hall from us.  I don’t have much of a memory of his dad, as he seemed to be away most of the time.  Sophie worked as a part time secretary, I think, and Stuart would come to our place for a few hours while she was gone.  With his round doe-like eyes and a lower lip that drooped into a perpetual pout, Stuart’s face was meant for a mother to love, and indeed he clung to Sophie whenever we saw them together.  He may have been the shyest person I have ever met.  Being a little younger than my brother, Stuart was a willing disciple when Mark began to school him in the basics of rebellion.  Nothing serious came of it, but whenever trouble bubbled over, Mark was one of the suspects.

Stuart and his family had lived in our building going on five years when they had to move away because his father had gotten a new job.  Mark was unhappy, of course, until Sophie started to bring Stuart for visits almost every weekend.

There was a new kid named Stanley.  He and his family had moved into an apartment on the top floor of our building, and he always took the stairs when coming outside.  Three flights, and he made a game out of running down them as fast as he could.  At the bottom landing, there was a heavy glass door that you had to push open, then a few steps outside to the pavement.  To the left of that door was a tall and narrow window made of frosted glass.  I assume its purpose was to let in additional light, while improving the esthetics of the place.

This window had been broken by some kids playing ball, and all that was done was to remove the shards of glass from the frame so that no one would get hurt.  Apparently, they couldn’t get it repaired right away because it was the weekend.  Someone had put strips of tape over it to show there was no glass, but this didn’t last long.  Once Stanley found out, his stair game became even more fun because now he could run right outside without stopping, making a beeline for the missing window.

On the following Monday, the repairmen were there first thing and put in the new one, this being of clear glass because they couldn’t get hold of the frosted stuff right away.
Mark and Stuart and I were having lunch on our second floor balcony when we heard the crash and Stanley’s screams.  He had played his stair game one too many times, and had run clean through the plate glass window.  My mother rushed out to see him laying in a pool of blood and went yelling down the hall for help.  Women came out with towels to help bind him up.  We went inside on mother’s instructions.  Mark and I were stunned. Stuart just buckled, sat on the floor, and cried.  Stanley wasn’t even his friend.

In the next week or two, while Stanley was still in the hospital, we didn’t see Stuart. Sophie had called to say that he was too upset to go anywhere, and so she stayed home with him.  I felt that the accident was partly my fault for not telling anyone about Stanley and the stairs, but it took me a while to open up about it to my mother.

A couple of weeks before Christmas, after Stuart had spent a sleepover at our place, Sophie came to pick him up, saying they would see us between Christmas and New Years.  And so they did, the day after Boxing Day.  We had presents for Stuart, and they stayed most of the day with us.  The next day, Mark and I were outside playing street hockey. When we came in to get warm, Mom was sitting by the kitchen telephone crying.  She hung it up and motioned for us to come to her.  Stuart and Sophie had been killed  by a drunk driver after they left our place on the previous night.  Mark started crying.  I think I was silent.  Stuart was a true friend, and the purest soul I had ever met.

As I write this, I think that young face was in my dream for a reason.  I have gotten too far away from purity, if I ever had such a thing.  Stuart wasn’t even family, but when I think of what the knives of the world did to him, and of how short his life was, I feel humbled and ashamed that more of us cannot hold onto some of that kind of innocence. So Stewie, know that you are remembered, and held in love.

 

Tommy, can you hear me?

It wasn’t that long ago that he turned fifteen. We sat on the cold concrete of his front porch, watching the iffy clouds discuss a storm. I always sat downwind from him ’cause he didn’t like my smoke.  That day, a brisk and cool crosswind hinted at summer’s end, and the sailing cloudbank made me think of angry giants.

When I first met Tommy, he was about nine years old.  He’d been a handful for his parents ’cause in those days there were no “programs” or government assistance for kids with “developmental challenges”.  Tommy was okay physically, but seemed muffled from what we think of as the real world.  His folks had advertised for a caregiver, to be “available once or twice a week” so that they could at least have a little respite from that daunting task.  I don’t see them as bad or lazy people, and I too would have needed some time away if he were mine.  Anyway, there must not have been very many responses.  They took me on, even though my sole qualification was that I had spent a couple of summers as a camp counsellor.

It was not without emotion that Jan and Barry Morgan left their son in the care of someone else for the first time, and I am sure they had their misgivings.  I had brought two baseball mitts with me in case Tommy didn’t have one, and we were playing catch when they made ready to go.  He dropped his mitt and ran to them crying.  I came over and put my arm around his waist, while Jan tried to explain to him that they were going into town and would be back by four o’clock.  Still he clung, so I took off my wristwatch and strapped it onto his skinny arm.  “Hey, Tommy.  That means we have lots of time to play catch.  See the short hand on the watch?  When it gets all the way around to the 4, Mom and Dad will be back.  And if you get tired of catch, we’ll fly your kite.”  I give the kid credit, for he let them go without too much more of a fuss, and we spent a pretty good afternoon.

You know, it shames me to say this.  Whenever I have come across a person who was known as a “deaf mute”, I’ve been afraid.  Afraid of not knowing how to communicate with them, or even whether or not I should try.  I felt them to be unreachable or, worse, unreasonably aggressive because they were different.  Maybe I even thought that they knew something that no one else did.  Maybe I even thought that they needed something that I couldn’t give.

And I did think that Tommy was all of these things, for he was uncommunicative, if not plain stubborn.  And yes, he was aggressive at times, punching me with his small fists when I tried to shake him out of a funk.  But, gradually, I began to learn the language of his world.  He did make sounds, and could call his Mom and Dad.  The most curious thing was that he did not call them Mom or Dad.  He called them Jan and Barry.

As my time with him grew longer, his parents came to put trust in me, and they made me feel as if I were part of their family.  And, you see where this is going.  I came to love Tommy as a son.  Although he did not, or could not, respond to being addressed in an everyday manner, he knew how to tell you what he wanted or needed.  He could even play us off against one another in order to get it.  Yes, there were the times when he scared me and showed me my inadequacies.  Times of long silences and of unexplainable aggression.  Times that I thought he was grieving for someone or something that I knew nothing of.

On that cold fall day, just after his 15th birthday, with the looming of those colossal clouds, and my behind getting cold from the concrete steps, I said “Well, Tommy, let’s go in and make some tea”.  Expecting no response, I gently took his hand to get him up.  He pulled back, wanting me to stay with him.  “Mike”, he said, with a long “M”.  The first time in those six years.  He then pointed to the blackening clouds and brought his index fingers to his eyebrows.  He looked at me full in the face and smiled.  Once more he pointed to the clouds and then, unmistakably, he traced the initials “T.M.” in the air.
Smiling even more broadly, he touched his temples and tapped them several times.
Excitedly now, it was he that pulled me by the hand, urgently wanting me to follow him.  Follow him to the big old maple tree on the edge of their property.  There had long been a hive there, and it was active with the bees wintering down.  He ran ahead, even against my call, and started to climb.  Fearing the worst, I yelled after him..”Tom!  Tom!  Stop!”

He straddled the limb just below the buzzing nest, laughing and tapping his forehead.  I felt as if he was “seeing” things for the first time, and I couldn’t help feeling happy and a little proud.  I called for him to come down and hugged him tightly, as he said my name one last time.

Passings

It’s a slow down zone, and, in today’s tiny town, a little girl with scabby knees dawdles along the sidewalk.  Her chin and part of her white T shirt are stained dark purple from the grape popsicle she’s licking.  As she passes a picket fence, she puts out a pudgy hand as the slats go by.  She likes the soft suggestive sounds and the roughness of the old wood. The rhythmic ta-TAT-ta-TAT-ta-TAT as her small fingers brush along the boards.

Soon, the fence gives way to the clipped green lawn of the local Legion.  Celia had first seen the rusty army tank from the swaddling blankets of her stroller.  Mommy had taken her for an outing on the prelude to a winter’s day, some eight years ago.  Today, she wants to climb up and sit on the gun turret, even though there’s a sign that says
Keep Off, and even though Mommy has said “don’t let me catch you”.  Up and down the street she looks, then reaches for one of the fenders to hoist herself up….but it’s no good.  All at once, she’s reminded that she’s late, she’s late, for a very important date.  The oversize wristwatch, strapped to her wrist by Mom, tells her she had better get going. They’re going to see Aunt Daphne, and she has to get cleaned up and dressed up.

In a few minutes, Celia is climbing the steps to her front porch.  Mommy is sitting there with her arms crossed, a bad sign.  “What on earth were you doing?”  Celia, covered in dirt, has a purple face  and a runny nose into the mix.  Oddly, as her Mom stands up, Celia just hugs her waist and says “It’s alright.  It’s alright.”  Mom takes her by the hand into the house.  “Girl, it’s bath time, and God knows how I’m going to get that purple off of you.”  Celia sticks out her tongue, which is also purple.

This day, as they ease into November, the darkness is coming on sooner, so Mom wants to get the drive over with before nightfall.  When by herself, she is prone to speeding a little, but tonight she has Celia in the back seat (where she has always made her sit for safety reasons).  As they pass the last traffic light in town and head onto the open road, a Police car happens to pull in behind them.  She keeps, of course, to the speed limit, and the Officer keeps a respectful distance back.   “Celia, keep your eyes open.  We’re coming to the big curve.  You might see some deer up there.”  As they’re about to enter the wide curve,  Mom notices a huge tandem trailer of logs approaching them, just straightening out from the corner.  She slows down a little, out of instinct.  Sometimes these big rigs stray over the centre line by a foot or two.  At that exact moment, a car pulls out from behind him and floors it, trying to pass.  Mom slams on the brakes, steers too sharply, and hits the steel guardrail.  Their car catapults and rolls down a slope towards the lake.

Officer Remy had steered in the opposite direction and had hit the rock cut on the left.
As luck would have it, he had grazed it sidewise, but at considerable speed.  His cruiser was a write off, but his injuries amounted to a sore shoulder and neck together with some broken ribs.  He was able to summon help.

Celia wakes up in hospital with her Aunt Daphne sitting at her bedside.  Celia has a plaster cast on one arm and one leg.  Her vision is blurred, but she can tell that her Aunt has very red eyes.  When Daphne sees that her niece is conscious, all she does is hug her tightly and cry as she has never cried before.  Their lives have changed, and the future has turned as cold and as grey as the bleak November sky.

Haraview Burgers and highway 11

I’ve been making trips to north central Ontario for nearly 50 years, almost all of them via highway 11.  During that time, I have passed by a curious anomaly that remains to this day:  A burger place that was in business for a short time in the early to mid seventies.  It shut down after two to three years, I think, but was never demolished or replaced by another business.  On the contrary, all of its signs still remain in good repair, and the building itself has not been allowed to deteriorate.  Within the last couple of years, it’s been graced with a new paint job (true to original colours), and occasionally shows signs of occupation.

For the back story to this, and some pictures, visit https://secret-lifeof.com/2018/07/16/haraview-burgers/

I have stopped there a couple of times, but have not seen anyone about.  I plan to try once more, and soon, as several readers have exhibited curiosity about it and one person in particular has offered his own excellent theory as to its history.  He also requested that if I knew anything further, or could give him any kind of a back story relating to the area, he would appreciate it.  And so, here goes:

In the early 70’s, a group consisting of myself and a few friends began camping on the weekends at a secluded resort by the name of Kahshe Motel and Trailer Park.  It was just a few minutes up the highway from Haraview.  On the highway between these two locations was a restaurant known as The Suomi.  It was there that I met the girl who was to be my future wife.  She was a waitress, and, unbeknownst to me, was staying in a cabin at Kahshe.  I will spare you the details until another time, but will simply say that we were married within three months of meeting each other.  She left her job there, and we made our first home in Mississauga.  That was nearly 43 years ago.

In the first years of our marriage, we returned occasionally to Kahshe and camped there, for the park was still beautiful and well kept and we had some fond memories of it.  Some years after that, The Suomi Restaurant changed hands, and became The Grand.  Sadly, within a very short time, a gas leak caused the whole building to explode.  It was completely demolished.  No one was hurt, as it was closed at the time.

Many businesses have come and gone along the highway during those forty odd years.  The Sundial restaurant was always a favourite.  It was shuttered for many years, but has been rebuilt and opened up under new ownership.  For a long time, highway 11 was not divided, and businesses were more prosperous, being as they got traffic from both directions.  But, with increasing volume, the undivided highway became the site of many terrible crashes resulting from vehicles attempting to make left turns.  And so, the barriers went up.  I am sure that lives were saved, but sadly some of the highway businesses did not survive.

As to Haraview Burgers, my plan is to stop there once again, and, if no one is about, I will leave a prepared note to the owners, letting them know that I have written somewhat of a story about the place, and giving them my contact details in case they see fit to communicate.

Thanks for reading, and I will be sure to publish any updates as I receive them.

 

Furry ventriloquism 

I never knew what cats were thinking, until my teenaged daughter started “rescuing” them, one by one, and bringing them home.  In one case, it was a clandestine operation involving a smuggle under her jacket, and a fait accompli when we arrived.

Like many Dads, I found it hard to stay mad for very long, and actually was secretly amused by the lengths to which she would go to get these fleabags in the door.
Ahem, one of them actually was a fleabag.  This was the smuggled one, and it came from her aunt’s place, who once (when asked how many cats she had) said “several”.  Really, it was about 30, so this was classified as a rescue.  Apparently, her Mom knew about it beforehand, and was in cahoots.  When produced from inside her jacket, it was already scratching and had sores on its chin…..vet visit the very next day.

Once we had domesticated these things, it became my daughter’s habit to amuse everyone by devising clever things that she thought each cat would say in a given situation, then (with a straight face) speak the lines in a voice which was a dead ringer for the Gingerbread Man from Shrek.

It nearly made me pee myself, and, of course, this encouraged her.  So, for the few more years that she lived at home, I got so used to it that I almost found myself wanting to have a conversation with the silly things.

When it finally came time for her to go on her own, she left them with us.
We were standing at the door to see her off, and my tears started to roll.
All I could think of to say was “Now, how am I going to know what the cats are thinking?”

Day and night, night and day

In the early morning,
I held you when you cried.
In time, you began the building of your world.
You knew important things,
like the bear went over the mountain,
and also that the Camptown racetrack was five miles long.

At bedtime, native drums could be heard
as I thumped out their rhythm on your back and sang a song that said
that down in the jungle you would live in a tent
and you wouldn’t pay money, you wouldn’t pay rent,
you wouldn’t even know the time. But you wouldn’t mind.
Every night you asked for more, and got mad if I shortened the verse.

I reached out with the blue of my covered fingers, and you took the proffered hand.

In the broad noon of the day, you had built well. Worldly connections.
True and false friends.
I saw you less, as you ranged further and further, looking for something that you thought was beyond your doorstep.

But, you were the first to appear if I was in peril.

In this evening, now, you see the faltering.
As in a certain prophecy, it seems you have found a purpose.
I reach out once more, with weakened hand.
The blue shows through.

Take me to that place where there is no time, but I won’t mind.