FLASH FROM THE PAST

My husband has always maintained that if you stay in one place long enough, the whole world will eventually come to you.  I’m not saying that this is impossible, but the timeline required is probably longer than more than one life span.

Never the less, several years ago as we watched a beaver wander through our yard he stated this phenomenon as proof.  If we waited long enough there wasn’t a single animal we wouldn’t see from our front porch.  As I recall, he set his sights on the next one being an elephant.  We’re still waiting.

On the other hand, he’s not entirely wrong.  Just because we live a very rural existence and very far from the maddening crowds, there are unexpected little treasures that come our way from time to time.

Take last Saturday night, for instance.  Our town is small – around a thousand people, give or take, but nearby is an even smaller town, Maryfield, at about a third the size.  Never pre-judge the size of a town’s heart by its population’s numbers though; one has absolutely nothing to do with the other.  I’ve always said, the smaller the town, the bigger the heart.

At any rate, to get back to my husband’s theory of “it comes to you”, there we were seated in a curling rink (where, by the way, a few top echelon Canadian curlers threw their first stones) and were transported back in time to the big band years of our parents’ youth.  Who knew that this music existed anywhere but on old, dusty 78 rpm records?  Who knew that people still liked the genre enough to learn to play it?  Who knew there were enough of them in the vicinity to get together and form a band? 

I mean, really, who knew?

In a day and age where getting four or five musicians together to practice and play in a band is too hard, how did they manage to get seventeen?  Think of the love of music, the determination, the driving force needed to make something like that come together!  But it was so worth it.

There were dancers too.  The crowd was not young, but almost everyone responded to this music actually created to dance to.  Folks who probably don’t even go to dances any more (if such social events even exist) were there and happily made their way to the dance floor every time the band struck up a tune.  

Even a sweet old couple with the gentleman wheeling his sweetheart around the dance floor in her wheelchair, revisiting memories from long ago.  

Even my husband – backing up his point that if you wait long enough the improbable eventually does happen. 

And then there was the couple who came dressed for the occasion.  I don’t know if they were locals making the best of the treat, or if they love big band ‘40s music so much that they are this band’s groupies, and followed them to Maryfield to dance the night away.  They looked like they’d just stepped out of a photograph from WWII.  While the rest of the dancers covered the whole range of talent, these people could DANCE.  If the music wasn’t enough to send you back in time, watching them gave the evening an extra bit of magic.

Who would have thought that on an otherwise unremarkable cold Saskatchewan night you could enter a curling rink and be transported back in time?  The household we grew up in appreciated music and our parents loved to dance, so my sister and I recognized and welcomed the music they played.  Mom would have loved being in that time warp bubble with us, I know.  Oh heck, maybe she was.

All I’m saying is that you never know what is out there.  There are talented people everywhere, all they need is a spark to bring them together and the imagination to want to share it with others.  The time bubble last Saturday night in Maryfield was a hidden gem that we lucked into.  Apparently my husband is right – just give it time and the whole world will come to your doorstep.

He’s still waiting for his elephant.