MEMORIES THAT FLIT PAST AS FIREFLIES IN THE NIGHT (picture of dad in the 1920’s)

In this first blog of 2021, and still, while mostly, under Deysi’s program of self isolation, I am going to gather up some more flashes from my early days. Understand, there is not one chain of memories, that link me to my childhood. Rather what I get are some random flashes of incidents that flit by in the slowly fading darkness of my mind. Fireflies you might say. Well, I’m now going to “net” a few of these and lay them out before they no longer come by.

If I try to sort them chronological, they will, for sure, disappear and may not ever return. For this reason, I’m just going to record them as they come to mind. Once again they are probably only of interest to myself and if you asked my sisters or brother, they would have very different recollections to hold on to. I would surely welcome anyone sending me their memories of the early days when they were young. It is interesting to me to read and understand the things that remain as memories after 40, 50 or even 60 years. These are some of mine.

One of my earliest and most endearing memories was of a time in our backyard in Rosalind, Alberta. It would be about 1953 or 54. Dad had made us a swing in a backyard tree. It was magnificent and was to me like a Ferris wheel ride from one of mom’s books. I would have been somewhere around 5 years old at this time and our backyard seemed as large as the whole Amazon jungle. In reality it was probably no more than a modest sized lot. Inside this forest, there were places, where I was forbidden to go, by my elder sister “Murt”.

These were her secret places and access was prohibited. According to her, this jungle contained wild dogs and other vicious things to gobble up little boys that ventured in. I often heard dog-like noises coming from there. “Murt” would have been about 8 years old at this time and was already showing a devious side.

She single handed instilled a deep fear of dogs in me, in my early years. Only with counselling did that fear (and whatever related bed wetting was caused by her) ever go away. It just so happened that on a sunny Sunday afternoon out in our backyard she did one of her most nefarious things. On that particular day we had visitors to our house. It was a family with the surname Innocent. They were people that had been born and raised with mom and dad in the Rosalind area and were lifelong friends.

It just so happened that they had a daughter Judy, who was exactly the same age as myself. It was my first romance. We played together from the time they arrived until they left. My sister teased me about this incessantly and hurt my self image greatly. She made me think that I was turning into a little girl and would call me girly names. Oh what a dragon she was! After waiting patiently for our turn at the swing, it finally came. My sister did not want to give it up, but after being threatened by mom, she and her friend from two doors down “Bonnie”, reluctantly relinquished the swing to us.

Joyfully my friend and I ran to the swing but encountered a major liquid puddle underneath it. We were small, and it looked like, a lake. I asked my sister what it was and giggling, her evil giggle (much like a cackle), she told us that she and her friend Bonnie had “peed” under the swing. I was horrified. There was no way that I was stepping in pee even if it meant giving up my turn. So sobbing, mightily, we headed for the house to seek justice.

Mom came out and took one look, then admonished the two little witches that had perpetrated this crime. Of course they were both, by now, completely innocent and shrugging off, the rumour of their evil deed. A dirty lie they said. My mom had a good laugh which hurt me to the quick. I was too young to understand that they couldn’t have possibly peed that much of a puddle, if they had rounded up all of the kids in the village. It worked on me though! It was a long time before I ever went close to that swing again. Every time I got close my sister would making peeing noises and squat down. She was indeed evil. Funny how something so simple, endured so long.

Another of my all enduring memories of the early times took place a couple of years after the famous fire that forced us to move to Red Deer and to big city life. I am sure it was by now about 1956 because of the fact that my dad had purchased a “new” 1955 Pontiac Chieftain. To me this car was the top of the top, the leader of the pack and the cream from the cream. I was probably about 7 at this time, so what did I know? Anyway it so happened that after we left our small village for the big city, we still had occasion to return there frequently to visit my dad’s mom, still in Rosalind, and my mom’s mom who still lived on the family farm to the south and east of Rosalind.

Both of my grandmother’s were getting on in years by this time. So my dad made it his campaign to travel out and help them do anything for themselves and their properties that they could no longer do. Each of those trips out there, meant the four of us children were piled into the backseat of his car. Then driven the 90 minutes to our hometown. My god it seemed like hours. We come to dislike my dad’s trips more and more as time went on. However there was no other choice offered. If dad and mom went we all went. So jammed into the car we set off. My brother being the oldest perched himself at one door and would not budge. My oldest sister grabbed the other door. Which left me and my little sis “S” jammed in the middle sharing about 20% of the seating space.

It was hot, sticky, and uncomfortable. My dad ruled the backseat chaos from the driver’s seat. He would let the whining and bickering go on for a while and them reach one of his big ol’ hands back there and flick out a finger into the pack. Whoever it hit was immediately silent. The others also shrank as far back as they could. In order to avoid getting a finger as big as a garlic coil snapped into any part of the body. One or two of these a trip usually sufficed. It also kept, the bullying of the two bigger ones to a minimum. Well on one of these trips, there came occasion for a break in the journey.

My younger sis S was not feeling well. It was probably a touch of car sickness created by being squished in between, her three bigger siblings and rode on for most of the journey. This one occasion we stop and she is allowed outside to get some fresh air. I don’t exactly remember how it all played out, but upon reloading the car, she was given the coveted position by one of the doors. She was suddenly feeling much better in her new position of honour.

Low and behold shortly after we continued our journey and just before getting to full speed, the door of the car flew open and out flew my sister onto the highway. She hit and rolled to a stop. Dad hit the bakes so hard, that she almost caught up to us rolling. My mom let out an ear piercing shriek and leapt from the car before it came to a complete stop. We all piled out.

This was the most excitement this family had, had since Dad’s welding shop burned to the ground a couple of years prior. Mom and Dad scraped my sister off the pavement, stood her up, brushed her off and inspected the damage. Remarkably there was very little visible damage and very little crying. she was tough. Had it been me, I would have been crying for a few days. Boy was my mom pissed at my dad. I remember her accusing him of poor judgement for letting the littlest one have a door, not closing the door properly, speeding, unsafe driving, unsafe stopping and a few other miscellaneous failings. All he could do was look guilty even though he knew that no part of it was his fault, other than buying the car and taking us on a road trip.

He also knew that soon he would have to face his mother and his mother-in-law who would also have opinions about his competency and ability to look after his family. My little sis appeared to be fine, but we were all so sorry for her that we each gave her something special to make up to her. From me she received my brand new set of dinky toys, that I had brought along for the ride. From her other brother and sister she also got some treasures. For S it was like Christmas, with all of the attention focused on her. Notwithstanding a few minor bruises and some moderate road rash, she was back to normal within minutes. Nonetheless the memory stays with me 65 years later.

I had planned to put a few memories in this post, but by the time I got finished all of my BS, just two incidents had grown to a significant size. Therefore, I will stop here and post a further set of memories, of the old days, in the next short while.