THE SUMMER OF ’23 – SO FAR

Back in the olden days when summer holidays were the period of time between one grade and the next at school, I was the kind of kid who worried about having nothing to write about in the inevitable “what I did on my summer holidays” assignment in September.  Other kids went on trips or had cabins at the lake or got to go to the city or something.  All we ever did was ride bikes over to our uncle’s place and shell peas for mom or go pick wild strawberries and put pennies on the railroad tracks for the train to squish flat.  Yes, I am that old – back in the olden days there were trains.

It's a pity that I’m not headed back to school this September.  It’s not even all the way through July and I have enough for an essay.

I hardly know where to start.  Maybe when our truck was pronounced dead in the middle of seeding?  And the debate that followed as to what to do about the situation.  Buy? Or try to fix?  And if the answer was buy, new or used?  And how to go about this vehicle shopping when he was still out on a tractor.  The job was delegated to our son-in-law who found us a good deal in Selkirk, Manitoba so summer ’23 started off with a trip to see the Manitoba grandkids and driving home in a truck whose A/C didn’t work, but that’s another story and it’s fixed now so no worries.

Next up was the July long weekend with three grandkids on an extended sleep-over and another family here for a two-night stay.  We crammed in a wiener roast and a s’more fest, the kids blew through maybe 100 water balloons and the lawn around the trampoline got well watered with hose and sprinkler activity before their parents picked them up and took them camping.  I had a few days to catch my breath before I spent a few days at the lake too.

By that time I had company coming from B.C.  Imagine, people who are crazy enough to think Penticton to Redvers is an easy drive.  And two days’ visit here.  And two days back.  I get tired just thinking about it.

It was a great visit though.  Those mountain folk had to have some prairie farmland lessons on what canola looks like and when it’s ready for harvest (ie: not in the flower stage) and what the different crops look like at 60 miles mph.  But that’s okay, I probably couldn’t tell peaches from apples at that speed either.  There was even lessons on how to drive a hay conditioner that will give bragging rights for years to come – especially when I sent them a picture of the farmer who gave the lessons stuck up to his axels before they were even out of Saskatchewan.  They are unconvinced that there is any wildlife besides gophers and grasshoppers.  One raccoon roadkill is the one and only critter they saw until they were back in B.C.  That’s got to be some kind of record.

I came through with the requested pie, cinnamon buns and raspberry muffins for them and they gifted me with a case of assorted Okanogan wines.  Win/Win.

To round out their adventure we took them out for the pure prairie ambiance one enjoys at a bar and steak pit.  Thank you, Maryfield Hotel – you never disappoint.

It is back to some kind of normal now.  I’ve picked raspberries and peas, weeded garden and mowed lawn, and made beet pickles – my hands are an intriguing mix of purple skin and black nails at the moment and my kitchen smells very ‘pickley’.

It’s ironic that the very things that I thought were too boring to write about when I was a kid – garden, company, staying home – are now enriching experiences that I’m happy to write about.

Attitude and perspective – that’s what makes us old folks wise.  

Now I just need someone to grade my paper and give me an ‘A’.

 

 

LONG DISTANCE FRIENDS

They’re actually coming. 

We’ve been talking about this visit for so long it seemed like it was likely to stay in the ‘someday’ category, but I have a message right in front of me that says “We’re coming!”  There are even some convincing details like dates and times and places.  I do believe that a week from today I will have company from B.C.  One of them I’ve even met before … in Beijing Airport … in the middle of the only typhoon I hope to encounter in my life.  She and her grandson were the only other human beings in that turmoil who spoke English.  It was the worst of times: it was the best of times.

I was on my way home from visiting my newest grandson.  My son-in-law had dropped me off at the airport, both of us certain I could handle check in on my own.  There was a light rain at the time.  Had anyone bothered to check the weather that morning there were probably storm warnings, but of course they would have been on Chinese TV and offered in the local language.  We were oblivious.

I was plenty early for my flight so once I was checked in and found my way to the right departure lounge, I had lots of time to relax.  My soon-to-be friend had just flown in from Katmandu (doesn’t that sound exotic?) and was on her way home to Canada too.  She was busy with a young boy; their easy demeanor and body language told me that they were family, but their appearances made them stand out.  She was a middle-aged Caucasian Canadian and he was, as I would later learn, Tibetan.  As we sat and waited my story-telling brain went into overdrive trying to come up with a scenario that would put them together.  People watching is one of my favorite things to do.

We boarded the 747 insulated from the noise and commotion of the storm building around us.  There was no hint of how the night was going until I sat down and looked out my window.  It was raining.  Hard.  I spent the first part of a very long wait wishing that we would just take off and be on our way.  As time ticked by and the tarmac disappeared under water I changed my mind about that. I don’t like hydro-planing in a car, I could not imagine that in a plane during take off, it would be a good idea either.

Finally, the captain came on and told us that this was a monsoon and no one was going anywhere.  He reassured us that we would be taken care of and we were to take our carry-on with us but that checked luggage would stay on the plane and we would leave in the morning.  These were the last clear English words we heard for at least 24 hours.

We found ourselves back in the terminal filled with thousands of other disrupted travellers.  I had a plan – I happened to be flying first class that time (back when my husband was making oilfield dollars) and I was just going to camp out in the First Class lounge.  No way was I going to leave and risk missing my flight the next day.  When I ran into the grandmother and little boy again, I told her my plan.  She liked it – we bonded.

But nothing was to be that simple.  Beijing Airport was CLOSING for the night.  Can you imagine?  Everyone had to go somewhere else.  In a monsoon.

We were herded here and told they now expected us to claim our luggage first.  We were herded there and told we had to go somewhere else to claim our bags.  Another announcer told us there was no food or anything to drink.  But, they would send buses for us.  And take us to hotels where we could phone our families.  All of this delivered by people who spoke more English that I spoke Chinese … but not by much.

Marilyn (my new friend) and her grandson (Kai) and I became inseparable.  Even if we didn’t know what was going on, at least we could comprehend what each other was saying.  We did our best to follow instructions and spent hours waiting for our luggage while we exchanged life stories.  Kai played Angry Birds on my iPad until the battery went dead.

Finally we were herded toward buses in the pouring rain and set off into the unknown, made all the more confusing because a number of the buses ahead of us turned around mid-road and headed back.  Our driver was either braver or a dare devil but we made it through.  (Interesting side note here: did you know that when torrential downpours have nowhere else to go the water will blow manhole covers off and the resulting ‘fountain’ can shoot higher than a bus?)

Eventually we arrived at our promised hotel: soggy, hungry, tired, and stressed.

We lined up to book into rooms.  We each could have had our own but somehow it just seemed smarter/safer/more comforting to stay together.  Besides, it was going to take both of us to figure out how to make these international calls we needed to make.  Somewhere I have pictures of us eating what little was left of a Chinese food buffet at midnight, happy to be there together.

Obviously we made it home and added each other to our Facebook friends lists.  At some point Marilyn’s daughter (Kai’s mother) Sandra, friended me too to thank me for taking care of them on that dark and stormy night in Beijing (I recall it being more of a mutual benefit proposition) and our friendship has blossomed too.  There have been many invitations to come visit – in both directions – and it seems like it’s really going to happen next week.

They are driving, not flying.  The Canadian Prairies aren’t known for their monsoons but it’s probably a good thing anyway.

 

WHAT SHALL WE DO TODAY …

A normal summer day around here starts at 5:00 am.  There was a time in my life when I considered this to be still the middle of the night – I mean, who in their right mind would get up at such a ridiculous hour?  My mother would smile and tell me that “it was the most wonderful time of the day.”  As a mother of seven children, she knew where to find peace and tranquility.  We had a small dairy farm; she got up early every morning and went to bring the cows in for milking.  I was in my teens and thought of this as drudgery, she was much wiser and recognised it as a gift.

There are no cows to go fetch in my life but I do enjoy sitting on the deck, sipping my coffee and watching the cattle grazing across the road.  There are mourning doves coo-cooing in the evergreens, hummingbirds buzzing past me on their way to the feeder, robins and brown thrashers picking worms out the lawn for their breakfasts, and red-winged blackbirds singing their morning song from the cat tails across the road.  Reassurance that all is well with the world.

A day that starts as early as 5:00 has a lot of potential but in the heat we’ve been experiencing lately a girl needs a plan to survive the day. 

The first order on my daily agenda is to get up and close all the windows.  This is called ‘shutting the cool in’ and is even more important than #2 – hitting ‘go’ on the coffee machine.  Then there is breakfast and getting the man out the door with his lunch on whatever mission he has for the day thus leaving me free to sit on the deck, bird watch, and plan my day.

Remember the cartoon series Pinky and the Brain from the mid 1990s?  Remember how Pinky would ask the Brain every episode “What are we going to do tonight, Brain?” to which Brain inevitably replied “We are going to take over the world.”  Well, except for the names and a few other changes, that is what goes through my mind at 6:00 every morning.  How best to tackle my day?  What can I get done?  What can I postpone? Is it an outside job kind of day?  When did I last fertilize my deck planters? Do I need to go to town for anything? 

And the one question that is there Every. Single. Day.  What do I make for supper?

I’m pretty sure that taking over the world would be easier than a new meal plan 24/7/365 forever and ever, amen.

All of these quandaries depend on the weather.  Every single one of them.  How hot is it going to be?  And when is the heat going to hit?  On a good day it’s 10:00 before it’s too hot to weed, on a bad day weeding is stroked off the ‘to do’ list before my coffee is cold.  What I choose to wear depends on the temperature and there are days when I change 3 or 4 times to keep up with weather fluctuations and activity levels.  Likewise, the supper menu choices rely on whether I want to turn my oven on, or not.  There’s been a lot of BBQ and salads lately, with a couple of crock pot meals cooked out on the deck table for variety.

I also have to wrestle with practicality.  There can be a whole bunch of things to do that I really don’t care for and some that are among my favorites.  My windows are in extreme need of cleaning but I hate that job.  On the other hand I could do a load or two of laundry – I’m not crazy about the folding and putting away part of that job but the washing is easy and I LOVE hanging it out on the line, and how it smells when it comes back in.  Laundry wins over windows almost every time. 

Likewise the cleaning-the-fridge-out vs. tending flower beds battle.  Mowing the lawn is the biggest temptation of all; I love the smell of fresh cut grass and how easy my zero-turn mower makes the job.  Luckily the price of gas holds me back. 

This morning common sense and weeding the vegetable garden won out.  Two hours of reasonable temperatures and a nice breeze to discourage biting insects and the job was done.  It’s not even noon and I am back on the deck wondering ‘what next?’  And also ‘what’s for supper’?

The thing is, a person has to be careful not to overthink things.  That’s what the Brain used to do.  His plans to take over the world were so detailed and convoluted that they never worked.  Pinky came much closer to success by bumbling along with good fortune almost falling in his lap at times.  I identify with that kind of approach.  I’m going to fix myself some lunch (while ignoring that the fridge still needs to be cleaned out), watch the noon news, and go with whatever the afternoon turns up.

Like maybe a nap.  Narf!

 

graduations ….

It’s that time of the year again – graduation time.  Time to celebrate our young people as they prepare to write their final exams and head out into the big wide world.  Ready or not, their high school days are behind them, and we all wonder how did that happen so fast?

How did they go from the little faces sporting toothless grins in their kindergarten pictures to being these young women and men in formal gowns and tuxedos?  When people asked them at kindergarten grad what they were going to be the answers came easy: nurses, farmers, teachers, firemen, astronauts, race car drivers – the possibilities were endless.  Now that the real decisions are immanent confidence is harder to come by.  A few have made definite choices, some are wisely keeping their options open, and the rest recognise they are best to let the first part of furthering their education be finding a job while attending the School of Real Life.

‘Graduation’ is a word we have come to think of as just this: the end of a section of schooling.  Be it kindergarten, elementary, middle school or high school we call them all graduations and celebrate them as the completion of something, but if you think about it this meaning is distorted.   Another meaning for the word graduation – and even more suitable – is ‘a mark or set of marks to show steps or stages of measurement’.

Although we all acknowledge that graduation is the end of high school, I’ve never heard a valedictorian say “We’re done!” and stop there.   They speak of the friendships they have made, the bonding they have done, the experiences they have shared, but the main topic of the speech focusses on the future.  They may be all choosing different paths but they are all going the same direction – forward.

Think of the ruler you used in elementary school.  We old people remember that ours were a foot long and showed increments of inches but when we bought them for our kids they were marked off in centimeters.  It doesn’t matter what the spaces between the lines are called, though, it just matters that each line signifies a progression.  A move forward.  A graduation.

In the same way, this weekend’s graduation is a measurement that has been met.  The graduates stand on this significant mark on their measuring stick in their fine clothing and we congratulate them and wish them well.  While they savour this moment, we all know that their journey has only just begun – there will be so many more graduations to claim.  They are only at the beginning of their ruler.

Interestingly, this very same weekend there is a 60^th year class reunion going on. 

These are people who are closer to the other end of their rulers.  They have progressed through so many milestones: higher education, marriage, careers (possibly several), raising families, welcoming in-laws and then grandchildren, things that today’s graduates can barely fathom.  These older rulers also show scratches and other wounds: divorces, deaths, disabilities and other disappointments life deals out over that much time – again, things that today’s grads can barely fathom.  These are the grads of the early ‘60s.  They had their moment in the fancy-dresses-and-three-piece-suits spotlight complete with lofty speeches and grandiose dreams, but now they also have the wisdom one gains over a lifetime of regular living.

And that wisdom is what made it easy to say “yes” to an invitation to this party.  The days of competitiveness over marks in school or possessions afterwards are in the past.  The worries over social standing or getting ahead no longer hold any power.  Simple things like spending time with lifelong friends is pure gold.

No one knows how many graduations – either of the party type or the increment kind - we have on our personal rulers, life is kind of scary that way.

Maybe the most meaningful wish a person can offer is that your ruler is marked off in many many increments, and that each of them has a graduation story by the time you reach the end.

 

 

OUR BARD

In one of those unexplainable quirks of fate I told the story of my Gordon Lightfoot/Sundown memory in my last blog entry just hours before he passed away.  It’s one of my favourite memories for so many reasons and it had seemed like the perfect time to tell it.  I’m glad it happened in that order – the spontaneity of my thoughts seems to offer a truer tribute than if I had written it after I had heard he died.

As it was, it was a friend of mine who messaged me about his passing late that night and we spent some time in conversation about Gordon’s contribution to the Canadian identity.  I think it was his song The Wreck of the Edmond Fitzgerald that showed me that Canadians were made of special stuff. That we have our own brand of ‘cool’.

That on the world stage we are unique. 

That we value things differently. 

That this is something to be proud of.

In the year 1976, when The Wreck of the Edmond Fitzgerald spent 21 weeks on the billboard charts and peaked at #2, it was up against not only the hot new craze of disco boogie but also bands like Fleetwood Mac, ABBA, the Eagles, Paul Simon, and Queen.  The formula for a hit was a love song no more than three minutes long and here was this Canadian singer with his rich baritone voice singing of a real-life tragedy in a historically correct ballad more than double that length, and people couldn’t get enough of it.

At the sound of those first chords we all know what comes next … “The legend lives on, from the Chippewa on down, to the big lake they call Gitche Gumee …”

And by ‘we’ I mean people all over this planet.

In one of the many tributes I’ve read this past week someone used the word ‘bard’ and I instantly recognized this was the perfect title for Gordon.  Not the present day way that ‘bard’ is used in the English language which reduces its meaning to just an every day poet, but the original designation of traditional reciter of epic stories and oral history; a national poet, a minstrel.

Back in the days of castles and knights when the written language was only for nobles and priests, historical records were kept and told by bards in poetry accompanied by music.  A kingdom’s identity – their battles and victories, their sufferings and celebrations were carried from generation to generation in song and verse.  Gordon Lightfoot personifies the true meaning of ‘bard’.

His words, his music, his voice – they tell our tales.   

Facebook has been full of people paying homage to the man and his music.  The stories from his close friends and fellow artists offer a peak into the world of stardom and the passion they have for their art.  While they speak in admiration of Gordon’s talent, the warmth of friendship that comes through make their tributes special and genuine.

It’s the other tributes that resonate most with me though.  The ones from people who had never met him. The people like me who only know him through his music.  His everyday people.  They, too, say that losing Gordon feels like losing a close friend, a feeling that I share.  He is a piece of who I am – especially as a Canadian, but also deeper than that.  His music features prominently in the soundtrack of my life; its down-to-earth-ness echoes in my soul.

In this way he lives on.  We may have laid the creator of his music to rest but the songs ring on.  The words are written in indelible ink in our hearts and on our psyches.

“The legend lives on, from the Chippewa on down, to the big lake they call Gitche Gumee ….”

 MUSIC IS MAGIC

A couple weekends ago my favorite channel on SiriusXM featured a show with all the hits that made it to #1 during the ‘70s decade.  They repeated the show three different times and one more time the next Wednesday.  I listened to it every time.  It was the best.

I’m pretty sure that my kids, and now my grandkids, or anyone else trapped in my car with me for that matter, inwardly groan at my choice of music but I love the way it makes me feel.  It’s my version of a mood-altering drug.  It’s also my own, personal time machine.

Ever since that weekend I’ve been trying to think of the words to describe how listening to music – especially music from this era – enhances my life even these many years down the road.  It’s hard to express a feeling in language so I went wandering in Google-land for help.  I emerged from that scouting trip an hour or so later having learned in the first five minutes that music improves our moods and our memories (that’s just what I said), and then I backed this information up with listening to some of my favorite mood enhancers for further proof.

People who know me have heard me say that I am 26 years old.  In my head, I am 26.  I don’t know why that’s the magic number, but, on the inside, I’ve never got past that mark.  My mirror keeps reminding me that my outside is not nearly so resilient.

Although I know this “age” of 26 is a silly thing to hold on to, I also know it feels real to me.  And it never feels more real than when there is music playing in the background.  It can be any kind of music but mostly it’s the music of my youth.  It’s like those familiar notes wrap me in happiness for a few minutes, and then releases me again as they fade away.  It leaves me feeling gifted with an eloquent, enduring connection to a much younger me.  It’s not that it ‘takes me back’ so much but that it transcends me to the time and place I first heard it.  There’s a difference.

One of the songs I looked up while on my little adventure in Google-land was Gordon Lightfoot singing Sundown.  I love where it takes me.

If you head straight south of Moose Jaw toward a little town called Willow Bunch the highway you take is #36.  I haven’t been on that road in more years than I care to count but the first time I travelled it was the day we moved there.  There is a spot where you can park at the top of a hill with the road spilling away in front of you in what looks like miles and miles of ribbon candy … undulations of prairie hills and hollows from here to eternity.  You feel like the world has been laid at your feet.

We stopped there to take in that view.  Gordon Lightfoot was singing Sundown on the radio.  We were expecting our first child.  The sun was warm on our shoulders.  The grass was just beginning to green up.  We were full of questions about the coming months.  What would the new job be like?  What new friends would we meet?  The road seemed to be inviting us onward.  

That moment is distilled to perfection in my mind and the sound of Gordon’s voice transports me to that hilltop every time I hear him sing those words.

That’s only one of my magic memories though.  There’s singing Bobby Goldsboro”s Honey with my high school BFF.  Or singing Three Dog Night’s Just An Old-fashioned Love Song with my sister.  Or Jim Croce’s If I Could Save Time In A Bottle.  Or John Denver’s Annie’s Song.  Or Roberta Flack’s The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face.  Or every single thing Neil Diamond ever recorded.

The list goes on and on.

Hearing this music suffuses the magic elixir of perpetual youth (or in my case, the age 26) into the very air that I breathe.  I am unaware of grey hair and creaky joints.  I am surprised by the lady who looks back at me from my mirror (who is she, and how did she get in there anyway?)  How can I have so many candles on my birthday cake and yet intuit as a much younger self?

Maybe It’s like I said earlier – it’s hard to put ‘feelings’ into words.  Maybe I have to just leave it as ‘feelings’.  Maybe I don’t feel old because every time I hear one of these favourites I get a fresh dose of youth.

Maybe I don’t feel old because I still know how it feels to be young.

 

RECOGNIZE   HONOR    CELEBRATE

Last week a bunch of us (and by ‘us’ I mean local volunteers) met for a quick noon hour meeting to touch base and share information about what each of our individual groups were planning for the year ahead.  On a practical level the benefits of this are obvious – we can coordinate our efforts and grow the event status for the town (ie: if the Chamber of Commerce knows when things like ball tournaments are on they can add things like sidewalk sales the same day). It just makes sense to pool our energy in promoting our community as a whole.  There is a side effect to these meetings, though, and that is the feeling of camaraderie when people of diverse interests, but common goals, get together.  It’s not all business; it’s good to visit with our peers as well.

One of the many topics that surfaced in this meeting was volunteer appreciation. 

Volunteers are the life blood of everything we try to do.  They are invaluable to our community, and yet while their work is vitally important, the people themselves end up standing in the shadows of what they have accomplished.  It’s not that they are offering their time and talents for glory or fame, but so many times they don’t even hear their names mentioned when the work is done.

As Fate would have it, a day or two after this meeting an email arrived announcing that Volunteer Appreciation Day was coming up on April 20^th.  This letter also offered a whole range of ideas of how to thank volunteers.  The part that caught my attention was that they used the same three words that I had been thinking about: recognize, honor, and celebrate.  This is exactly how we need to show our appreciation to people whose work benefits us all.

I hesitate to use the word ‘work’ though.  It gives volunteerism a bad reputation.  It makes it hard to recruit new members.  Nobody wants to take on more ‘work’.

I am reminded of when I was a kid and doing the dishes was a job that my sisters and I had to do.  It was drudgery.  It took forever.  We argued constantly about who did what.  It was a fight every night (sorry Mom).  But when the extended family got together for a big meal and there were countless more dishes to do, it was the adult women who cleared up and did the dishes.  They did this much larger job with cheerfulness, conversation and cooperation in half the time.  They did it with laughter and light hearts.

How could such an enormous job be turned into something that sounded like fun? I don’t know how old I was when it finally dawned on me that the difference was a simple matter of attitude.

When a group of volunteers are working on a project together this same kind of magic happens.  I’ve said this before many times: “Many hands make light work!”. 

Being a volunteer is a vitally important contribution to the community in which we live.  It’s how we build our community, but it’s also what makes our community worth building.  It’s where we weave our lives together, where friendships blossom and grow, where we build a collective resilience to both weather setbacks, and build on our successes.

A volunteer’s work is so valuable we could never afford to pay them, but our town wouldn’t exist without them.  That’s how important they are.

So, tell them ‘Thank You’.

I know to a large extent that means this means mutual ‘thank yous’ back and forth as so many of us are the very volunteers we wish to honor, but it’s still important that we recognize each other. 

And for once people, don’t be so humble.  When someone thanks you for the work you do, accept the praise – you have earned it! 

Go ahead – celebrate your good deeds!  You are the true Hometown Heroes.