On the other side of the fence…

Two boys, two families, two diverging roads. Who would ever think I would thank my Mother for all those rules? Need a gift for the kid who has everything? Give the gift of love. Give them boundaries.


The voice on the phone was hauntingly familiar but I couldn’t quite place it. “Know who this is?” the voice said coyly. My mind was racing. A pause that was way too long to be comfortable passed after I had said “NO, I am sorry, I don’t.” “It’s Donald. Don O’Connor.” You could have knocked me over with a breath. This was a blast from the distant past. Don had disappeared from my life sometime in high school. He slipped away almost unnoticed and yet I had always wondered what had become of him. Now here he was, big as life on the other end of the line. But where? And why was he calling me now, after all these years?
Don and I had been close, once. We did boy stuff. We lit surreptitious firecrackers; we fished suckers in the swamp behind the school with sharpened sticks. We threw snowballs and raised harmless mischief as boys are wont to do. The sixties were a great time to grow up. Yet we came from very different homes. It was that difference that would ultimately drive a wedge between us. In the woods behind the school we were equals. We were both free; we roamed as pirates and hunters. We made believe that we were cowboys and Indians, we re-fought the battle of Normandy, we stormed the beaches and we took Pork Chop hill, just like our heroes on the big screen. Then we went home…
“Of course I remember you Don. How the heck are you?” my mind was still racing. “Well I guess that’s why I am calling. I messed up Greg, I really messed up my life.” his voice was taught and faltering. I knew the words were hard to come by so I left pauses for him to continue. “I am going through counseling and part of my therapy is to call people from my past and talk to them about what kind of person I was... Is it O.K.?” a lump swelled in my throat and now it was my turn to have a hard time speaking. “Of course it is! How can I help?” There was a choked sigh on the other end of the line. It is amazing sometimes in how much you can read in a voice. Especially if you know the voice. I knew this voice; even if it had been a quarter century. How could I forget, we had stormed the beaches together?
Going home was what separated Don and I. Two more different households you could scarcely imagine. My Mom was old school. She had been raised in a strict household, a household that knew scarcity. My Grandfather had died when my Mom was not even two. My Grandmother moved in with her sister also a widow and the two women set about raising two families in a world without much for safety nets. But they were both women of faith; they raised the kids in a house filled with love and prayer. Mom and Dad weren’t rich either and when I was young it often seemed to me that other families had more than we did. Their lives seemed better somehow. Other friends including Don had more freedom that I did. In fact in Don’s house it seemed there were no rules at all. He had no fixed bedtime, no fixed mealtimes, his hair was long, and he wore clothes my Mother would never let me wear. He never had to go to Sunday school.
“I always envied you, did you know that?” I truly did not. “Me?” I said incredulously. “Yes, I always thought of your family as the Cleavers from Leave It to Beaver.” The Cleavers? That was certainly a thought that had never occurred to me. “You guys had it all, regular meals, regular bedtimes and a Father that worked and a Mom that stayed at home. You had structure and faith and direction. I had none of that. Because of that I wandered into a life of drinking and drug abuse. I was messed up for a very long time. Only now in middle age am I starting to put my life together.”
I thought back to the time when we had drifted apart. Don was already on his way to a life of dependency. He was drinking in High School. He smoked he did drugs. We had less and less in common and one day he just wasn’t there anymore. He slipped from my radar. I heard rumors of him overdosing. It was a world I couldn’t relate to. He was right I had a very good childhood. When you are in the middle of it; on the inside looking out it didn’t seem so hot. Rules seemed like chains. I saw others doing things I wasn’t allowed to do and I was envious. I hadn’t given it much thought since; but a seed had just been planted. I had just experienced an epiphany that would change my view of my childhood. What had once seemed boring and limiting now seemed stable and enabling.
“I went off the tracks.” Don continued. My life became a train wreck; no a series of train wrecks. One after the other. Booze, drugs and failed relationships. I didn’t like what I became. Do you remember me as being a violent person?” The question stopped me in my tracks. We had a nickname for Don. We called him the Marquis de Sade. He was always doing things to others, hurtful things, physically or otherwise. That was not the Don that I knew and it was one of the things that pulled us apart. I waited longer than most to break the ties, but eventually even I drifted away. I wanted better from life. “I needed to talk to someone from my past. Someone I admired.” Don said. “Admired?” I repeated dumbly. “Yes, I admired your family. You were what I needed.”
I thought of the image of a train wreck. I thought again of the rules my Mother had laid down. They didn’t seem so bad anymore. The rules were the rails that my train ran on. They hadn’t carried me to a train wreck. They had kept me out of the danger that Don had been mired in. He suddenly didn’t seem so free to me anymore.
“I called you because you were easy to find. Your Mom and Dad still live in the same house; so I called your Mom. I hope that’s O.K.?” I was smiling as I thought about what that meant. I had grown up in that house. Don and I had played in that yard. “Of course it is.” I replied. “Are you going to be alright?’ I asked. I was starting to see a glimpse of the little boy that I had been friends with. “Yeah, I think so. I mean it’s day to day; but I’ve got someone special now and I’ve got something to live for.” He said with confidence. “I’m glad, thanks for calling.” This stunned Don. “Thanks, I should be thanking you.” He added. “God works in funny ways. You seldom do anything good that it does not bring some good back to you. Talking to you has shown me just how special my boring little life was. “I said. “I’d take boring any day, Greg. Thanks for being there for me.” “Thank my Mom. If she hadn’t been the person she was you probably never would have even found me.”
Life is about changing perspectives. If the view doesn’t change you are going around in circles. Life is also about rules. Boundaries can be very important to a kid. They can make all the difference in your life. I may have been on rails but I was going somewhere; college, a career and a life that could make a difference to my community. Don would have to endure a pile of pain before he would get his life back on the rails. The next time I got back to that little two story house I am going to take a walk in that yard. Maybe the grass is greener on this side of the fence.

The cone of silence, make mine a double scoop

I was in another place entirely. The book I was reading had me so engrossed I was on another plain. By the magic of the printed page I had been transported from the tiny cramped living room of the run down single wide trailer I shared with my roommate and fellow trainee Dan. It was a Sunday the one day that the Hudson’s Bat trading post in the isolated northern Alberta town was closed. We had only CBC North and Sunday afternoons meant opera music. I was sitting on a black leatherette love seat which was excruciatingly uncomfortable. The matching sofa had been destroyed by a previous trainee who had gone round the bend and burrowed himself into the stuffing with a soup spoon. He had been “sent out” as the saying went. I wish they had let him finish the job first, I hated that love seat. Dan was on the ugly but much more comfortable sofa. The rest of the furniture in the tiny living room consisted of a pressboard coffee table which was a slab of wood with four screw in legs. The matching end tables consisted of two plastic milk crates each shrouded in green cloth pinned with safety pins. Two old lamps topped these, they did not match. The TV sat on four milk crates which no one had bothered to cover.
“How do you do it?” Dan asked. The words exploded into my world like a hand grenade. I fought desperately to keep my concentration, trying not to be sucked back to the present by this verbal vortex, like some sort of wormhole back to the reality of that drab trailer and that drab Sunday. I wanted to stay in my warm dimension like a sleeping child pulling the covers around him as his mother tried to drag him off to school. I left a pregnant pause after the statement. It was a very pregnant pause. It was a pregnancy of elephantine proportions. Eventually Dan delivered the follow up by caesarian section. “How do you go off into the bush by yourself and stay there? All weekend, sometimes three or four days without seeing or talking to another person?” Under the weight of this verbal onslaught, I conceded the field and closed my book, marking my page and tossed it on the coffee table. I wish it was a huge leather bound tome that would have struck the table with a thunderous clap to let Dan know of my displeasure. Alas it was a paperback and made virtually no noise at all.
“I am not alone.” I said sliding my hand down to the head of my golden retriever ruffling his fur. “Seiko goes with me.” “Oh, I suppose he is a stimulating conversationalist?” Dan replied mockingly. “Compared to present company…?” I asked. “Har har!” he replied. Seriously, how do you stand to be alone like that? Don’t you get restless?” he persisted. “We are very different people.” I pointed out. It was true, we were very different. I remember when I picked Dan up at the town’s desolate, wind swept dirt airstrip. No one looks graceful getting out of those tiny single engine planes. You have to put you foot on a tiny step no bigger than a drink coaster and take hold of the wing strut and lower yourself down. Dan was not aided by the way he was dressed. He wore no toque or gloves. He had on a brown sheepskin lined jacket, which was warm enough but he had dress slacks and leather-bottomed dress shoes on. When his feet hit the frozen, packed, icy surface of the busy runway he was slipping like a pig on skates. The oversized blond afro on his head did not add to his image. Hey, it was the eighties. When he regained his balance he extended a bare hand. I took it; he shook hard, for two reasons. First to keep his balance and second for a bit of heat as his hands were red and cold as ice. “I’m Greg!” I yelled over the screaming wind. “Dan!” he yelled back. The pilot shook his head as I took Dan’s bags to the truck. He tucked his head in close and said quietly “He won’t last a week.” He thumbed towards the odd looking young man. “Greenhorns.” I said knowingly. I was a veteran with two full years under my belt.
In spite of first impressions Dan managed to settle into the town without burrowing into sofas. He was different; to be sure, but the locals accepted him because of his inherent good nature. He would never be described as a typical northerner. He was a city kid through and through. He preferred indoor activities to spending time on the land. I spent as much time on the land as a hectic schedule would allow. With my golden retriever at my side I drove and hiked every road, trail and goat path for a hundred miles. Local people would come to me and ask how the roads were for traveling.
“No seriously.” Dan persisted “What’s so great about going off into the bush all by yourself?” “Well; if I had to sum it up I would say peace and quiet!” I said loudly. “Peace and quiet? How can you get more peaceful than around here?” Dan said totally missing the hint. “You have to like your own company. You also have to know how to build a fire, pitch a tent, and do a hundred other things that you don’t know.” I replied my voice dripping with sarcasm. “I could do it!” Dan replied. I looked at him hard; he had surprised me once. But could he do it again? “Maybe.” I said skeptically. I liked Dan a lot. He had grown in my estimation since that first day on the frozen runway. He still had a long way to go; but an agreeable personality makes up for a host of sins.
Fate changes things with haste and I very shortly found myself moving on. Temporary jobs called relief assignments had opened up and I had to go. Dan and I stayed in touch. He was looking after my dog until I found a more permanent home so we needed to. I could; of course, understand his mystification with my love of solitude. It is not for everyone. But there are those who share my enjoyment, even if they may be ascetics, hermits and monks. We share something. Something most of us have lost. I frequently misplace it myself. It is not silence in the true sense of the word. For those who know the land know there is no silence there. The noises and sounds are natural ones. The wind in the leaves, the water over the rocks, the drumming of a partridge, the chatter of a squirrel. There are even much more subtle noises. The thing is that when you storm the bush on a snowmobile or four wheeler; commando style, weekend warrior style, with rowdy friends and boisterous talk there is no way you can hear it. It is the heartbeat of the earth. All this sound. Unless you are still, probably alone; certainly in a state of mind to hear it you cannot appreciate the miracle of it. You must be still enough to hear the beating of your own heart. Not the frantic beating that happens when you are stressed or exerting yourself; but the quiet calm beating of your heart when you are at rest, at peace. When you are propelled into the wilderness by a two stroke motor it would take an hour for your ears to recover enough to even hear it.
But carried into the wilderness by the effort of your own feet; carried on feet that make an effort not to disturb every creature for miles around; thusly immersed into the wild, you may hear the beat of nature’s heart. We are after all creatures; a part of nature not apart from nature. Go there. Settle. Settle on some rock or stump. Become part of the forest. Sit. Be still. In a time; perhaps an hour, perhaps longer nature will resume around you. You will hear pine needles fall to the forest floor. You will hear the wing beats of the birds flitting from tree to tree. You will see the rabbit stare at you in awe as he makes his way along his beaten path. He will stand on hind legs and sniff the air. If you are still he will perceive no threat and move on with no more fuss than if you had been a squirrel or a deer. The longer you stay in the bush the more likely this is to happen. The more naturally you fit in, the more practiced your ear becomes and the less the stink of civilization clings to you. It is a perfect time to relax; to lie in your tent and read; for contemplation and prayer; to cleanse your soul. Nothing eases tension like the sound of running water and I invariably make camp beside a source of it. I had favorite campsites in that country. Not surprisingly they had been used many times before I came there. I had shown Dan some of them on his rare trips with me.
So when my phone rang one Monday morning I was not surprised that it was Dan. “I took a page out of your book and went camping this weekend! “ He said jovially. “A whole weekend!” I replied “I am proud of you!” There was a brief pause “Well not a whole weekend. I went to that campsite overlooking the Little Red River.” Dan said his voice a little less confident now. “Ah, I know it well; I can picture it in my mind’s eye.” I replied a sense of calm rising in me at the thought of it. “That’s a long hike; it must be the better part of fifteen klicks.” I said incredulously. “Yeah; I biked it.” Dan replied. The mind boggles. “Biked it? Man you can hardly walk it, with all those potholes and deadfalls.” I was amazed. “Yeah it was an ordeal, with the pack and the tent and the gear.” Dan added. “I was exhausted.” I didn’t doubt it. “Well I am impressed. How was the weather, did you get bored?” I asked. I had a million questions. “Well, I didn’t really have time to get bored. I lay down for a while then I headed back to town. I guess I am just not cut out for solitude.” He sounded so down I felt I had to do something to lift his spirit; to recapture the mood he had been in when the conversation started. “Tell me; when you were there; when you were resting in the bush; did you hear it? Did you hear the heartbeat of the earth? “I so wanted him to at least experience the feeling of peace that I had known. “Um, well. I had my headphones on the whole time. AC/DC blaring. I couldn’t hear a bomb go off!” As I hung up I shook my head. A bomb going off indeed; I thought. The final shot in the war on solitude; civilization one silence no score.

Someday we’ll look back on this and laugh

The wind swept in off Great Slave Lake. It came up the beach across the open space between my house and the lake, including the parking lot of the store. The store I run. It whipped snow against the sun porch windows in a hissing sort of sound. Still it was a sort of pleasant sound. When you have no place to go, no place else to be, the sound of inclement weather can have a soothing effect. Soothing is what I needed. It had been a long haul. A long six week build up to this. Christmas eve. I stood in the sun porch looking at the waves of white snow, slashing at the front of the house. Lina came and stood beside me. She was puzzled; I suspect at what I was looking at. It was not actually snowing. It snows a lot in November in Fort Resolution, lake effect snow they call it, people in Ontario would know what I mean. The snow that was blowing around now was the loose layer of snow that skirls constantly in winter in the subarctic. It is hard and granular like cornmeal. It circulates like water, flowing with the wind like some restless river of white. When you are walking into the wind it lashes your face and bows your head. Sometimes it is easier to walk backwards. But tonight, this blessed night. I had nowhere to go and nowhere else to be. I looked down into my beloved Lina’s eyes. The lights on the tree made her eyes sparkle even more than usual.
“A penny for your thoughts?” She said breaking the soothing sound of Mother Nature. “I am the happiest man on earth!” I said putting my arm around her. “Listen to that out there. There is no place I would rather be in all the world this night than here with you.” I said, and I meant it. She smiled. I looked around the room. It was full of Christmas, strings hung in the doorways with Christmas cards draped over them. A beautiful real tree stood fragrantly in the corner, festooned with lights and all the meager ornaments that I owned. There was a bowl of mandarin oranges on the coffee table and a plate of chocolates too, in case company came by. My house had never looked so good at Christmas. This was our first Christmas together. I had never made a big fuss over the holidays before. After all I was single. I usually got invited out for dinner. A year earlier my friends Andrew and Dixie had driven three hours out of there way to pick we up and take me to spend the holiday with them in Hay River. With home cooking and a glass of homemade wine and a wood fire it was swell. People always take care of single men on Christmas. They know there is nothing mote helpless than a single man. For without them my yuletide feast would have been a turkey TV dinner. The single man’s Christmas in a box.
This year would be different, yet not dissimilar from earlier ones as Lina and I were invited out for the holiday feast. “How perfect!” I said when Lina told me of the invitation.” No big meal to prepare. We just show up, eat, and leave.” I was beaming. Lina seemed less smug. “I doubt it will be that easy, everyone wants us to be there it will be difficult too get away.” I was unconvinced. I had visions of an early evening a comfy sofa, a holiday movie on the TV a glass of eggnog and my beautiful companion. How perfect could you get?
In the meantime there was midnight mass. We bundled up and headed out into the night. Lina was in her handmade pink parka with her white “bug” mitts. I call Lina Ladybug. She had a pair of white puffy mitts that made her hands look cartoon-like. Like the paws of some cartoon bug. I called them her bug mitts. She wore her mukluks and with her long hair flowing over the pink parka she looked angelic. I wore my muskrat hat and an old army surplus parka that Lina hated. We walked the short distance to the wonderful old Church. As we stepped outside the bell began to ring, the sound bright and crisp in the frosty air. We could see the front door of the church opening and closing as the crowd filed in. The place would be packed. The windows spilled light out onto the snow the stained glass making beautiful patterns. The smell of wood smoke hung in the air; it was one of those northern nights where the smoke only goes up so far then hangs like a shroud over the town. The power lines were cloaked in frost, looking like white ribbons strung gaily between the poles. The parking lot of the church was full of trucks and snowmobiles. Friends and neighbors were crowded on the steps waiting for the rest of their party to arrive. Everyone was ebullient and handshakes were the order of the day. We found a pew in the back and took off our Jackets. A stiff draft went right up our back every time the door opened and that was often. The service was wonderful, partly in Chipeweyan, partly in English. We sang many of the old carols. Of course at midnight we all exchanged handshakes, hugs and kisses. Then we all filed out into the black arctic night.
We were frozen when we got home. The wind was in our faces and the thin Sunday clothes we had on under our parkas weren’t up to the job. We were soon in our “comfies” as we call them T-shirts and pajamas bottoms. We still has some wrapping to do so we turned the TV to the seasonal music channel and wrapped gifts. We finished about three a.m. and headed to bed, beat, tired like we had never been, yet very happy that tomorrow meant no work, no ringing phones or trucks to unload. I was delighted too that there would be no dinner to prepare. We slept like logs. In the morning Lina woke me when she stirred. She is a tiny little thing and I am a big man she only woke me when she wanted me to wake. . We prepared a special brunch of eggs, hash browns bacon and toast. Then we opened our gifts. We made phone calls after the gifts were opened to wish distant family a Merry Christmas and to thank people for the gifts. My Mom had sent Lina a stocking full of gifts just as she had always done for me. It was Mom’s way of saying “Welcome to the family.” This touched us both very much. Soon, of course we would be getting each other stockings. This would be my Mom’s last hurrah. She was good at it. Always picking such an eclectic mix of the functional and mundane, and the impractical and luxurious. There might be a toothbrush and a deck of cards. A miniature box of fine chocolates. Always there was a toy, a car or a top, or a kaleidoscope. These last items would bring a smile and would often be the thing that brought the most joy on Christmas morning. It was Mom hanging onto a bygone time and for us it was pure nostalgia and joy. For a brief moment I was back in my parent’s living room opening my stocking while waiting for my Dad to wake up and shave.
After we had finished our phone calls we sat on the couch and had coffee. It was mid afternoon and we awaited the phone call that had been promised for the signal of when to go for dinner. Lina laid beside me her head on my shoulder her hair smelling wonderful. “I could lay here forever.” I thought to myself I almost wished the phone would never ring. And it never did. We drowsed and napped. Time went by. The short arctic day had long since passed. Lina got up and stretched. She glanced at the clock on the wall as she turned on the lamp. “They should have called by now. I wonder if something is wrong.” She took the phone and dialed the number. “No answer.” She said with a puzzled tone. “I’ll call next door.” She dialed that number too and a brief conversation ensued. Lina looked at me her face looked pained. “What’s wrong?” I asked standing. “Well nothing serious, but dinner is off, what will we do?” She looked so scared and so sad. She looked as though Christmas had just slipped away. I on the other hand was in a space of such great joy that only a natural disaster would shift me out of it.” I wanted our first Christmas to be perfect.” I put a finger to her lips to quiet her. “I will be right back.” I said and I put on my coat and went to the store, sometimes it is nice to be the Manager. I returned in a moment with my purchase. Lina met me in the kitchen. With a flourish I withdrew two long flat boxes and fanned them like a hand of playing cards. “Christmas in a box!” I said waving two turkey TV dinners in the air. “You learn a few tricks as a bachelor.” I said smugly. “But I wanted our first Christmas dinner together to be special.” Lina said still sounding a little down. “Someday we will look back on this and laugh.” I said taking her in my arms and rocking her back and forth. And so we sat in our beautiful living room, had a glass of wine and enjoyed a dinner of turkey, gravy with mashed potatoes, stuffing and cranberry sauce. I looked at Lina with a funny look on my face. She smiled and we both laughed. In the decade that has passed since we have had some wonderful Christmas dinners. But Lina got her wish and my prediction has come true, it was a special dinner. If we had gone out to dinner it would have been great but I would not remember what we ate. I will never forget that TV dinner. My prediction that we would look back on it and laugh has come true with every passing season, at some point when we are alone, particularly if the snow is lashing the windows the subject of that dinner will come up and inevitably we will both end up laughing just as we did that blessed, memorable, holy night.

Life's little rewards

Andy was standing at the store bulletin board. He was flattening a bulletin against the cork board, as I had breezed through the door the icy wind that followed me had lifted the bottom edge of the piece of paper Andy had been tacking up. “Bit cold for a yard sale!” I said sorting through the mail I just picked up at the post office. Now Andy is a teacher at the school. Andy is a first year teacher at the school. They are a breed apart, these new teachers. They come to tiny northern towns like ours from universities across this great land with new sheepskin diplomas and shiny faces with ruddy cheeks. They show up every fall, full of enthusiasm and brimming with idealism. They are set to change the world. They can’t wait until the first day of school. They are young and hip and expect that the kids have just been waiting for someone like them. Someone who listened to their music who understood the way they spoke. Someone cool. They were full of the brave foolishness of the young. They are bullet proof.
I admire them, I do. I admire their enthusiasm, their bravado. I admire them and I pity them. I have seen them come, a week earlier than the older teachers. So keen and so full of energy. And I have seen them on the last day of school, standing on the apron of the runway, less than five minutes after their last class. The school door still swinging behind them. They had been packed for a week as they stood there waiting, straining to hear the sound of the single engine charter that was supposed to be waiting for them. Oddly enough a few come back. Most don’t.
Andy turned and looked at me forlornly. “I am trying to find Hagar.” His voice was reedy and tired. Now Hagar is a dog. Well sort of. Hagar is a stray that wandered into the school one afternoon. Andy took pity on this odd creature. Hagar was a dog of indeterminate breed. Usually people will pin it down to two breeds, you know like, it’s a shepherd, husky cross. Or maybe a terrier, spaniel mix. Hagar could never be summed up in two breeds. He had the head of a St Bernard, the body of a sheltie. He had a tail like a Golden Retriever but short legs like a Dachshund. He had a coat of many colors to match. I gave up trying to categorize him. If I had to choose two words I would call him an ugly, mutant cross. Not that I am a snob. Most of my dogs have been mixed breed and none the worse for that. But poor Hagar was another kettle of fish altogether. Andy was an English teacher. A literature major who had named the dog after Hagar Shipley from Margaret Lawrence’s A Stone Angel. The kids thought it was named after the Viking character from the cartoon of that name. So Hagar was missing.
I was a bit surprised that the dog was missing, it followed Andy everywhere. I liked Hagar. As ugly as he was he had a way about him. His body moved in a queer corkscrew motion, his tail was outsized for his tiny abdomen and it spun his body like some kind of gyroscope. Andy put in the last thumb tack and turned his face to me. His eyes were swollen and he had obviously been crying. I had been about to make a snide remark about Hagar seeing his own reflection and taking to the hills. Instead I put my arm over Andy’s shoulder. I glanced at the bulletin. It was a reward poster. It offered a $100 reward for the safe return of Hagar. There was a photocopied picture of the beast himself. The grainy black and white photocopy was no improvement on the original.
“Feel like having a coffee and telling me all about it?” I asked opening the inner doors to the store I manage. “Sure, I guess.” said Andy sullenly. He looked like he didn’t have a friend in the world. He was a quiet sort so it was almost a literal truth. The older teachers had been together for a while and the local guys his age were too busy to seek out the company of the young, bookish white guy. Andy would show up at my door on Saturday nights he would have the latest thing he had read under his arm and Hagar would be trailing behind. I would make a pot of coffee and we would discuss history or literature or politics or philosophy. I think he liked the fact that I had taken many of the same courses in college. When he left hours later Hagar would rise from my deck, shake off the snow or damp and follow behind him with that queer corkscrew gait.
“He was just gone when I got home last night!” Andy was practically wailing. “Gone?” I commiserated. “Was he chained up when you left?” I inquired. “Of course!” he said with disbelief. “You think I would let him ruin loose?” “I guess not. I am sure he will come back. I’ll help you look for him after work.” I said reassuringly. “I looked all night. He isn’t anywhere.” Well that explains the dark circles I thought to myself. I left Andy at the door after our coffee and went back to my work. We walked the streets for hours that night. There was no sign of Hagar. Andy was disconsolate. “Maybe he’ll be back in the morning.” I said as we said good night.
At lunch the next day Andy was back at the store. His eyes were clear; his cheeks were ruddy once more. He was bouncing as he walked. “I got Hagar back!” he shouted. He almost looked like Hagar; he seemed to be developing a corkscrew motion of his own. “Well I’m glad!” I said. “Did he show up at your door?” “NO!” Andy said pointing to a young man with an armload of junk food making his way to the checkout. “He found Hagar he just returned him.” The kid seemed to be as pleased as Andy he was struggling under the weight of pop and chips and gummy bears. He had a few chums tailing behind. I rubbed my chin and then shook my head. I was having suspicions. I thought it was my paranoia. I’ve been up north too long, I thought. I wanted to share Andy’s moment of joy. All was well for a week or so. Then in one of those déjà vu moments I came through the porch doors of the store to find Andy putting up another bulletin. I recognized the slope of his shoulders and the pallid cheeks and sunken eyes. He didn’t have to say a thing. “Hagar again?” I said. Andy nodded his downcast head. “Coffee’s on.” I said. “Tell me about it.” The story was the same. Andy had come home the night before to find Hagar’s chain outstretched the empty snap laying in the snow. He had once again spent the whole night walking. “Same reward?” I asked. Andy nodded again. “I have a feeling you will see him by lunch tomorrow.” I said my suspicion hackles standing on end. “You will help me look tonight?” I looked at Andy. They say that we start to look like our spouses after years together. Andy looked every bit as pathetic as his pooch. How could I say no?
That night was windy and cold. Snow lashed our faces as we walked every road and goat path in that tiny town, not twice, but three times. Nothing. I said goodnight and went home. Sure enough the next noon Andy was back in the store looking like He’d just had a baby. I congratulated him. A few minutes later a young guy came to the cash register with a pile of munchies. I took the till myself this time. I rang up the items and sure enough the young guy pulled out five crisp twenties when it came time to pay. It was a different boy, but the first lad was in line behind him, not buying anything, but they were definitely together. I stared hard at the youth and he began to shift his weight from foot to foot. “Let’s get outta here.” He said to his friend and they left post haste.
A routine developed. Every few weeks Andy would come home to an empty yard. A reward would be offered and the dog would magically appear. A boy would come into the store with five new twenties. Finally I had to do something. “Andy…” I said one Saturday as I poured coffee. “Do you trust me?” “Of course I do!” he replied emphatically. “Why?” “The next time Hagar disappears, and believe me there will be a next time, let me handle it.” Andy got pale. “How do you mean handle it?” he asked. “Just trust me I said. Andy got quiet for a second. He sipped his coffee before saying, hesitantly “O.K., I guess.” I nodded. “Good. The next time will be the last time.” He eyed me very strangely. He downed his coffee and took his coat. Hagar was already on his feet when Andy opened the door. He never even said good night. I watched the pair as they walked into the snowy blackness as they passed the last streetlight.
I didn’t have long to wait. Tuesday morning Andy dashed through the front door that familiar look on his features. “He’s gone!” he wailed. I sprang into action. I pulled a bulletin out from under my desk blotter. I had taken Andy’s last one and cut the bottom two inches off it. I photocopied it with my one and only change. Andy followed me to the bulletin board, perplexed. He stared at the poster. “You can’t be serious?!” he asked sounding a bit angry. “Oh yes, very serious.” I said turning on my heel and walking back into the store. Andy was hot on my heels. “You can’t do it!” He demanded. “You said you would trust me. So trust me.” I said firmly. Andy stopped, he looked at the ground. “At least help me look tonight.” He pleaded. “Uh-uh we have a deal. You are going to trust me and I am not going to waste another evening walking the streets.” I left him so suddenly he knew the conversation was over.
Andy didn’t come to the store the next day, so I went to his trailer that night. Hagar was on his chain in the yard. He jumped on me as I approached and I rubbed his big head. I slipped him a soup bone I had been saving for him. Andy met me at the door. “Well, how did it go?” I asked. “He was in the yard when I got home, on his chain no less.” He was a little down for a man who just got his best friend back. He had the look of a child chastised. “I think your problems are over now.” I said. I hadn’t taken off my boots or coat. It was obvious he didn’t want me to stay. I was turning my toque in my hand as I spoke. “I told you to trust me. I hate to say I told you so.” I said. “Well it sure doesn’t sound like you hate it. How did you know it would work?” he said tentatively. “Economics!” I said boldly. “Economics?” Andy snorted. “Yeah, economics. For a hundred bucks I’d kidnap your dog myself. For the ten bucks I offered no one in their right mind would kidnap that creature.” I let myself out. Hagar followed me the length of his chain. I stopped. He put his short legs on my tummy and I leaned forward so he could lick my face. I ruffled his fur. “Well boy, you may not be a purebred but you are the most expensive dog in town.” His tail was wagging a mile a minute as I walked under the streetlight and disappeared into the snowy dark.

Civil War to Civil Rights, nothing much civil about it.

I was juggling my coffee cup from hand to hand trying not to burn myself. The paper walls of the cup were too thin and the coffee was too hot. Still; as we were in the shade and it was just nine o’clock the warmth felt good as Lina and I walked across the parking lot of a Jonesboro Arkansas McDonald’s. The tour bus doors were still closed, meaning the driver hadn’t gotten there yet. It was still fifteen minutes before our morning coffee break was over anyways. A small knot of men, mostly retired prairie farmers stood in a semi circle around a white shield shaped plaque. It stood on a strip of grass that ran to a few trees under which were clustered three or four white tombstones. They were slightly tilted their inscriptions faded with age.
"Was that the Civil War?" asked one of the men. I glanced at the plaque. "Soldiers of the War for Southern Independence" it read. I stopped and glanced at the headstones again. I took a pull on the coffee cup. "Yep." I said putting on my historian hat. "But don’t use the C word too loudly." "Aw c’mon. They are still worried about that after all these years?" Said one of the men. "Then why is that grass cut and this plaque still has the look of fresh paint? Don’t look too forgotten to me." "I was hoping to see a Civil War battlefield." Said another guy. "Look around." I said taking yet another sip of coffee and making a sweeping motion with my arm. "Here? In a fast food parking lot?" "Yes, here in Jonesboro Arkansas. You think they carried those boys here to bury them?" I deliberately dragged the sound of the word bury out. Burry like the word hurry. Like they might say it here. "They may as well have forgotten them. They died for nothing." Said an older man on the edge of the group. He kicked at the leaves lying on the pavement as he said it. "They were fighting for slavery." I walked a ways closer to the graves. I studied the names on the stones. After a few seconds I turned and walked back toward the group. "I guarantee you one thing," I said breaking the silence. "None of those boys owned any slaves. They were privates 18 to 20 years old. I’d be very surprised if any of them ever got farther from home than the county seat, before the war anyways. I guess you could argue they died for nothing. But, I think what they fought for was to preserve what they knew. Isn’t that what most men fight for?" "You said this was a battlefield?" said the guy who’d brought the subject up earlier. "Uh huh, battle of Jonesboro. Late in the war I think. Around the time Sherman burned Atlanta. The date on the stone says August 31 1864, I guess that was it. I really don’t remember the exact date. I know the Union won." My four years of history in University and a lifelong fascination with the Civil War were paying off. Well sort of, no one was actually paying me. "Then they really died for nothing, the war was virtually over." It was the older guy again. He half turned towards me his hands in his pockets his jacket open. "Well I guess you could say that about everyone who died in the whole war. It has, after all been called The Lost Cause." My head swiveled as another voice asked "Why was it called that?" "I guess you have to consider the odds. When the war started the north had more than twenty million people, the confederacy less than 9 million and four million of those were slaves and there was no way Jeff Davis was going to arm them. As well the entire Confederacy produced only one quarter of the manufactured goods that was produced in New York State alone." "Whoa, then why do it? Why go to war." Said another guy. "Well these are proud people. Just look around you. You see nearly as many stars and bars as stars and stripes. Check out the flags of Tennessee and Arkansas. They look familiar. They look like the confederate flag. Before the war began a guy by the name of John Brown took over the town of Harper’s Ferry he was going to free the slaves and start a war to end slavery. It the end he wound up being hung for treason. He didn’t say a thing from the gallows but he left a note that said something like this (paraphrasing) The sins of this guilty nation will never be cleansed but with blood. I think he knew then that the only way to make so great a change was to inflict this big a defeat."
"You think the South still hasn’t forgiven the North for Sherman’s drive to the sea?" "Forgiven, yes. Forgotten no. On the fiftieth anniversary of the Battle of Gettysburg the survivors of both sides met on the battlefield. They camped there several days renewing old acquaintances and visiting fallen comrades. The veterans were old men. The fallen were forever frozen in time. The last day the veterans of both sides reenacted Pickett’s charge where thousands of young Confederates lost their lives. On that day fifty years earlier the Southern troops let out a moan as the Union boys opened up on them. A half century later the Union veterans let out a moan as their aging foes crested the hill. The Union men broke their line that day and rushed their one time enemies. When the two sides met it was not blood that flowed but tears as the two sides embraced. These men knew just what the other side had endured, the disease that killed more men than shot. The starvation and loneliness. The silent tombstones that had once been friends and brothers. They say there are no atheists in foxholes, I suspect there are damned few politicians too. I suspect that the survivors buried their ideology with their fallen comrades."
"What do you think these rebel boys would have thought of a Black President?" asked one of the farmers. Farmers are a philosophical bunch, I guess it comes from many long hours hunched over the wheel of a tractor with nothing to do but think. I like that about farmers I enjoy their company. "I suspect that the Union boys wouldn’t have differed much in that regard. An African American historian said once that the only thing the Slaves won was freedom. They had nothing and couldn’t even vote. They traded a Civil War for a much slower fight for Civil rights and there wasn’t much civility in either." "Huh." Said the older gentleman. "I guess we did see a battlefield. Do you think the war’s really over?" The driver had returned and opened the door of the bus we began to file aboard. I took another drink of coffee. As we passed the crooked fading stones I touched my hat brim. There really was a long ways left to go. "Only for them." I said softly. "Only for them."

Graceland part 3

Day three and a chilly one in Winterpeg. We head south, to the U.S. border and to NASHVILLE! We headed south past many fields full of Canada geese doing the same thing. The sky was full of them in places. In other places the fields were covered in Geese like some living down comforter. Fields of corm were still standing tall, the stalks drying in the fall wind. The skies were a mackerel grey and the wind had the taste of winter to it. We didn’t seem to be getting any warmer as we traveled south. But my God, what beautiful country. Huge farms, the size of ten farms in my native Nova Scotia Stretched away in both directions from the highway. Some gad farm buildings in the distance, while others were so big I could see no buildings whatsoever. We passed distributors for farm equipment, with combines lined up in huge rows. Tractors, trailers and balers were also in profusion. As we approached the border at Emerson North Dakota the talk in the coach increased as people fretted over how tough the border crossing would be. People exchanged nervous jokes about secret terrors they have had about customs agents. Others told tales of difficult crossings. People joked about making ridiculous statements. The tour director made sure we all knew that border agents do not have a sense of humour. It is true even though the crossing was routine and even easy. The agents made no eye contact and would not return the driver’s cheery wave. But in a few minutes we were in the U.S.A. land of the free, home of economic collapse. The terrain again didn’t know there was a border for it didn’t change.
We didn’t stay in N.D. too long we slid across the top corner of it then headed into Minnesota. Again the farmland looked the same. Apparently Minnesota is a native word meaning “funny talking white people”. We stayed at Prior Lake at a casino so big that in order to reach the restaurant you need to pack a lunch. Every Casino wants you to get a Players Card. They always ask for photo ID apparently they are checking to see if you always looked this stupid. They still smoke in hotels and casinos down here which came as quite a shock especially to the people who were on fire. The portions are huge down here. I don’t know why all Americans don’t weigh four hundred pounds. I couldn’t finish any meal so that says something. We will see Chicago tomorrow I can’t wait. Well it’s another early start so TTFN.

Greg

Going to Gracekand part 2

After spending the night in Swift Current we headed east to Manitoba. The prairies are in the grips of a fall freeze. The mercury was 14 degrees cooler than normal, which is a coincidence because so was the temperature. The fields were cloaked in a skiff of snow. Bales of hay lay in the fields covered in snow like giant Frosted Mini Wheats. We crossed the border into Manitoba. The landscape doesn’t know that there is a border so, not surprisingly it changed little. I think that the thing that grabs me most about the prairies, even after all these years, are the skies. Big sky country they call it, with good reason. The skies are enormous. Fluffy cotton ball clouds hang over the stubbled fields. Trucks pass us on the highways taking the crops to market. Trucks line up at local grain elevators waiting to be weighed and drop their cargos. Farmers are waiting to get paid. At a sugar plant huge piles of sugar beets lay on the ground in huge heaps. Trucks with trailers behind pulling literally tons of softball to football size sugar beets pass us. Full ones going our way empty ones coming towards us. It is thanksgiving and it seems there is a lot to be thankful for.
Being on a tour bus with a dozen farmers you can just sit back and listen to the running commentary. “Boy those fields are sure dry, just look at the dust that combine is kicking up.” “Boy the sure seed every acre with corn around here.” “That must be fodder corm; it sure is late to be harvesting corn” “That sure is a nice crop of flax!” I have a special affection for farmers, having worked on a farm as a boy. They have certain honesty and a philosophical bent that comes from spending a lot of time hunched over a tractor wheel. We pass through Brandon on the way to Winnipeg. I wish I had been here years ago; I had an Uncle here once. As we get closer to Winnipeg the scenery starts to get familiar. I have been to Winnipeg many times as our company has its’ headquarters here in fact I have stayed at this hotel before when it was the International Hotel. Oh well, it is an early start tomorrow. So I must get to bed. Tomorrow the U.S.A.!

Greg