March, 2008
all rights reserved
by
Wendy Morrow
Somewhere on the highway outside of Kitchener Ontario we pulled over to the side of the highway. It was getting close to dinner time. We were hot and tired and had been on the road most of the day, stopping here and there to look at tourist attractions and historical sites.
There were five of us, our mother and our father, my 10 year old sister and my little brother who was 9 years younger than me; he was around 4 years old at the time.
All through the long winter months Dad had planned the family holiday which was the highlight of his year. His work vacation time was 3 weeks and we took every second of those 3 weeks. Often leaving on our holiday the night before they began and coming home after midnight of the very last day.
Every winter night he poured over the road maps spread out on the kitchen table with a note pad by his side. He calculated how far we could travel in a day and what amusements we were likely to find along the route. ‘It is important to find camping spots before 4o’clock.” he would remind us, “You still have time to find a good spot and you have daylight to set up your camp.”
I don’t recall once in my childhood finding a spot before 7:00pm, long after everyone in the car had given up the will to live and were close to passing out with hunger.
Now, here we were in Ontario, far from our home in Winnipeg, pulling the home made tent trailer.
Smoke was billowing out in clouds from the engine of our old 1949 Chrysler sedan and Dad was leaning over the grill into the engine’s abyss, peering through the haze.
“Having trouble there?”
Dad jerked upright bumping his head on the inside of the car hood, when the voice behind him boomed out the question.
A tiny little man in overalls walked up to our car. My sister and I and our little brother stopped squabbling and slapping each other long enough to roll down our windows and listen.
Mom was fishing around in the trunk and looked up when the man approached.
“I used to be the Chrysler plant supervisor.” The little man told Dad. “What’cha got going on here? She hot?”
“No”, Dad started to reply. Before he could say anything further the little man pulled a rag out of his back pocket and wrapped it around the radiator cap.
“Watch out now,” he said. “The steam will burn you if she is too hot” He dug further into his pockets and came up with a pair of pliers. Clamping the pliers onto the cap he squinted, turned his face away and twisted the cap.
Small hisses of steam, then the cap came off and to the little man’s surprise no geyser of hot vapour.
“Well”, he said, scratching his chin, “There must be a leak in a hose somewhere in here.” With that he dove into the engine and squatted down among the hoses, fans and wires.
Our view of the proceedings diminished with a new puff of smoke and all we could see from our dashboard vantage point was the little man’s back as he hunched further down into the engine’s belly to find the problem.
“I don’t think you’ll find anything wrong with the car.” Dad said.
“Eh?” The little man wheezed through the smoke and looking up at my father through steamy glasses. “Sure is a puzzle though, nothing on the road, so she ain’t leaking antifreeze. “ One things’ for sure, I am getting a strong whiff of smokie wieners. Smells like a campfire.
My dad pointed to the manifold on which a large bundle of tinfoil had been carefully placed. Little droplets of meat juice were working themselves out of the foil package and dripping onto hot engine parts sending clouds of smoke and steam into the air.
My mother passed him a pair of oven mitts; Dad reached into the engine and took out the parcel. Holding it in one hand he closed the hood of the car with the other hand and placed the steamy package on top.
A cloud of delicious smelling steam and smoke erupted from the package as Dad slit it open. There inside was our dinner. Crusty and burnt but definitely hot enough to eat.
Mom passed the little man a paper plate on which she had prepared a hot dog bun, Dad ceremoniously placed the first blackened and shriveled hot dog wiener inside the bun and said to the little man.
“I bet you that Chrysler never showed you that the Imperial can also cook dinner.
The astonished little man took his plate and still looking back at us over his shoulder, got into his car and drove away.
Friday, March 7, 2008
Wednesday, February 20, 2008
The Fence
February, 2008 all rights reserved.
By Wendy Morrow
The full moon reflected onto the ice glazed snow in the back yard. Its light was so bright that the spruce trees cast shadows. A jackrabbit leapt across the field beyond the fence leaving tracks that disappeared in the shadows. Little lumps of dog poop were sprinkled across the yard, frozen into the snow. The old dog, for a moment turned to the hare and considered the chase; she hunched her back and strained once again. Finally satisfied that her bowels might give her some peace, she came back to the door and softly woofed.
Her owner closed and locked the door behind her and they both crept up the stairs, back to bed.
The form of a man leaned against the outside garage wall. He was dressed in black from head to toe but in the full light of the moon his dark shape against the white snow only made him stand out further. He didn’t understand the calendar of the moon and he didn’t consider how bright it might be tonight as he slipped between the houses. He was only concerned with making a score later on. He needed something to sell to the fence who he knew would only give him a tiny fraction of its value but that would be enough to get another rock of crack.
He had seen the electronic collection through the window of the walk out basement in the summer. He was pretty sure this was the house, he had memorized its location from the tractor seat of the golf course lawn mower that he rode all last season. All he needed was to get something slim enough to slip into his backpack and not be noticed.
He opened his jack knife and thumb nailed out the longest blade. He slipped the knife into the crack between the window and the frame and flipped up the latch. He opened the window and slithered inside.
Along the far wall was a bank of equipment for the family’s home theatre system. He drew in his breath as he slid into one of the back leather lounge chairs that faced the massive flat screen hanging on the wall. “Rich bastards” he thought, “They can get another one tomorrow”. He pulled out a component from its oak niche and yanked on the cords to free it, and stuffed the slim unit into his back pack.
Stepping over the sill he eased back out the window. He slipped on something beneath his feet that he couldn't see and fell into a thorny shrub, tearing his pants and ripping his flesh.
It was a long midnight bus ride out to the pawn shop in his neighbourhood. Dabbing at the blood as it dribbled own his leg he was getting anxious to get his fix.
His fingers were shaking as he felt for his crack pipe with one hand and slid the component under the teller window with the other. He waited.
The old fence let his glasses slide further down his nose, “Jesus H Christ, you stupid asshole” he said, “This DVD player is HD, its junk, its worthless, you gotta get a Blue Ray boy. I can’t give you nothing for this. Hey and don’t come in here with dog crap on your shoes again ya smelly bastard."
By Wendy Morrow
The full moon reflected onto the ice glazed snow in the back yard. Its light was so bright that the spruce trees cast shadows. A jackrabbit leapt across the field beyond the fence leaving tracks that disappeared in the shadows. Little lumps of dog poop were sprinkled across the yard, frozen into the snow. The old dog, for a moment turned to the hare and considered the chase; she hunched her back and strained once again. Finally satisfied that her bowels might give her some peace, she came back to the door and softly woofed.
Her owner closed and locked the door behind her and they both crept up the stairs, back to bed.
The form of a man leaned against the outside garage wall. He was dressed in black from head to toe but in the full light of the moon his dark shape against the white snow only made him stand out further. He didn’t understand the calendar of the moon and he didn’t consider how bright it might be tonight as he slipped between the houses. He was only concerned with making a score later on. He needed something to sell to the fence who he knew would only give him a tiny fraction of its value but that would be enough to get another rock of crack.
He had seen the electronic collection through the window of the walk out basement in the summer. He was pretty sure this was the house, he had memorized its location from the tractor seat of the golf course lawn mower that he rode all last season. All he needed was to get something slim enough to slip into his backpack and not be noticed.
He opened his jack knife and thumb nailed out the longest blade. He slipped the knife into the crack between the window and the frame and flipped up the latch. He opened the window and slithered inside.
Along the far wall was a bank of equipment for the family’s home theatre system. He drew in his breath as he slid into one of the back leather lounge chairs that faced the massive flat screen hanging on the wall. “Rich bastards” he thought, “They can get another one tomorrow”. He pulled out a component from its oak niche and yanked on the cords to free it, and stuffed the slim unit into his back pack.
Stepping over the sill he eased back out the window. He slipped on something beneath his feet that he couldn't see and fell into a thorny shrub, tearing his pants and ripping his flesh.
It was a long midnight bus ride out to the pawn shop in his neighbourhood. Dabbing at the blood as it dribbled own his leg he was getting anxious to get his fix.
His fingers were shaking as he felt for his crack pipe with one hand and slid the component under the teller window with the other. He waited.
The old fence let his glasses slide further down his nose, “Jesus H Christ, you stupid asshole” he said, “This DVD player is HD, its junk, its worthless, you gotta get a Blue Ray boy. I can’t give you nothing for this. Hey and don’t come in here with dog crap on your shoes again ya smelly bastard."
Monday, February 18, 2008
Liquid Gold
February, 2008
All rights reserved
By
Wendy Morrow
When I was 6 years old, spring in Calgary was a longed for event. After a winter of snow and dirty streets, short days and long nights, spring brings optimism. One day the ground is frozen solid and then almost the next day you can sink up to your ankles in the mud. The crocuses bloomed on the hill sides and the robins came back.
Like gophers popping out of their holes, gardeners emerged from their houses with their gloves on, balls of twine and seed packages in their pockets.
My mother was our gardener and she had prepared the ground in the previous fall, all the waiting vegetable beds needed now was a top dressing of compost and a gentle raking before she could plant the seeds.
My mother’s family had been gardeners going back to their very beginning. Her father was an avid rose gardener and a serious vegetable gardener as well. Her mother’s family were farmers of Irish extraction who lived in the country just north of Calgary. In the back soil of their farm’s massive vegetable patches, they grew everything they ate. They were not afraid to try anything new either. They would eat banana potatoes or purple carrots if they came from the garden. Their social lives were the big family gatherings that coincided with shelling peas and canning vegetables in the spring and harvest dinners and corn roasts in the fall.
Our little family had a fairly big city lot. Mum allowed only a small square of grass for us to play on and the rest of the back yard was devoted to the vegetable garden.
One spring day after the snow had melted from the garden plot, my father suggested to my mother that he could get a load of compost for her. He said that he could borrow a friend’s little flat bed trailer and hitch it to the back of our 1949 Chrysler sedan and bring home a load of gardener’s gold. “If you get manure make sure that it has been well composted.” Mum said. She didn’t want to be picking weeds out of her vegetable garden all summer. Everybody knew which one of our neighbours had put un-composted manure on their garden, you could smell it for blocks and the weed seeds were the first to sprout. “Righty-oh.” Dad said and went away whistling. I knew he wasn’t listening to her.
I felt quite privileged and very grown up when he asked me to come along with him. We drove to his friend’s place and after hitching up the little utility trailer, drinking several cups of coffee and long discussions with his mate about where to get the compost, off we went to the Calgary stock yards.
With money my father is a very careful man. He is extremely generous to his children but he could pinch a nickel so hard it would make the beaver squeak. He was shocked that the garden supply places would actually charge for what Dad considered to be just common ordinary dirt. His Scottish ancestry was too strong to over come, it wasn’t long before we ended up at the Calgary stock yards loading up the utility trailer with fresh manure.
Fresh manure is free, compost is pricey and Dad’s family weren’t farmers.
He loaded the runny muck onto the trailer. The solids remained in the trailer and the liquids spilled onto fenders and the tires and the road. As we drove away, I looked out the back window and watched the spray kick up behind us. The fumes were suffocating.
We drove home up the Edmonton Trail hill. This is one of the steepest roads in the city. The load in the trailer was heavy and as Dad put the car into 2nd gear and his foot on the gas, the trailer jumped off the hitch and hit the road. I screamed for Dad to stop, the trailer was going sideways. One little chain was the only connection that the trailer had to our car. The manure sloshed back and forth and settled to the front of the little trailer. The weight of the load dug the hitch cap into the pavement and prevented the whole works from snapping the chain and finding its own course down the hill. Dad put the hand brake on and got out of the car; he bent down and surveyed the damage.
He tried to lift the trailer back onto the hitch and couldn’t budge the thing. Cars passed us honking and pointing to the brown trail that was running down the centre of the road. With a wave Dad thanked them for their helpful observations.
When he is puzzled or worried my Dad holds his chin between his thumb and forefinger and twists his mouth from side to side. He leaned in the back window and sucking the air in between his teeth and out with a low slow whistle he said, “Well Deed, it looks like I have to go find some help. You stay here and I will be back in a jiffy.”
So, there I was on that lovely spring day with the temperature rising, sitting in the back seat of the car and a tipped over load of stinking fresh manure running down behind the little trailer with its nose buried in the road.
My swollen eyes were running and red and my nose plugged with the allergic reaction to the fresh manure. Wafts of the noxious fumes were filling the car. Even clogged up I could smell it. It was too warm outside to leave the windows up. This was the most embarrassed I had ever been. I sat there leaning out of the window with my head on my folded arms trying to catch any breath of air created when a car went by. I was out of tissues and my nose was running like a tap. It seemed like hours went by. People would stop their cars and walk up to ask me if we needed help. I got tired of telling them that my dad was going for help. I thought of abandoning the car and its manure load. I thought of walking home by myself all 15 blocks up hill. Finally Dad came back with a man to help him. Together they hoisted the trailer back on the hitch and we drove up the hill to home.
We shoveled the manure out onto the garden before my mother could catch on. Dad hosed out the trailer and returned it to his friend who was never able to use it for a domestic purpose again. For a couple of years the soil was too strong to grow anything in it without burning and the smell would drive us indoors on warm summer evenings, but it was fertile ground for the stories and the laughs I have shared with my father over the years.
All rights reserved
By
Wendy Morrow
When I was 6 years old, spring in Calgary was a longed for event. After a winter of snow and dirty streets, short days and long nights, spring brings optimism. One day the ground is frozen solid and then almost the next day you can sink up to your ankles in the mud. The crocuses bloomed on the hill sides and the robins came back.
Like gophers popping out of their holes, gardeners emerged from their houses with their gloves on, balls of twine and seed packages in their pockets.
My mother was our gardener and she had prepared the ground in the previous fall, all the waiting vegetable beds needed now was a top dressing of compost and a gentle raking before she could plant the seeds.
My mother’s family had been gardeners going back to their very beginning. Her father was an avid rose gardener and a serious vegetable gardener as well. Her mother’s family were farmers of Irish extraction who lived in the country just north of Calgary. In the back soil of their farm’s massive vegetable patches, they grew everything they ate. They were not afraid to try anything new either. They would eat banana potatoes or purple carrots if they came from the garden. Their social lives were the big family gatherings that coincided with shelling peas and canning vegetables in the spring and harvest dinners and corn roasts in the fall.
Our little family had a fairly big city lot. Mum allowed only a small square of grass for us to play on and the rest of the back yard was devoted to the vegetable garden.
One spring day after the snow had melted from the garden plot, my father suggested to my mother that he could get a load of compost for her. He said that he could borrow a friend’s little flat bed trailer and hitch it to the back of our 1949 Chrysler sedan and bring home a load of gardener’s gold. “If you get manure make sure that it has been well composted.” Mum said. She didn’t want to be picking weeds out of her vegetable garden all summer. Everybody knew which one of our neighbours had put un-composted manure on their garden, you could smell it for blocks and the weed seeds were the first to sprout. “Righty-oh.” Dad said and went away whistling. I knew he wasn’t listening to her.
I felt quite privileged and very grown up when he asked me to come along with him. We drove to his friend’s place and after hitching up the little utility trailer, drinking several cups of coffee and long discussions with his mate about where to get the compost, off we went to the Calgary stock yards.
With money my father is a very careful man. He is extremely generous to his children but he could pinch a nickel so hard it would make the beaver squeak. He was shocked that the garden supply places would actually charge for what Dad considered to be just common ordinary dirt. His Scottish ancestry was too strong to over come, it wasn’t long before we ended up at the Calgary stock yards loading up the utility trailer with fresh manure.
Fresh manure is free, compost is pricey and Dad’s family weren’t farmers.
He loaded the runny muck onto the trailer. The solids remained in the trailer and the liquids spilled onto fenders and the tires and the road. As we drove away, I looked out the back window and watched the spray kick up behind us. The fumes were suffocating.
We drove home up the Edmonton Trail hill. This is one of the steepest roads in the city. The load in the trailer was heavy and as Dad put the car into 2nd gear and his foot on the gas, the trailer jumped off the hitch and hit the road. I screamed for Dad to stop, the trailer was going sideways. One little chain was the only connection that the trailer had to our car. The manure sloshed back and forth and settled to the front of the little trailer. The weight of the load dug the hitch cap into the pavement and prevented the whole works from snapping the chain and finding its own course down the hill. Dad put the hand brake on and got out of the car; he bent down and surveyed the damage.
He tried to lift the trailer back onto the hitch and couldn’t budge the thing. Cars passed us honking and pointing to the brown trail that was running down the centre of the road. With a wave Dad thanked them for their helpful observations.
When he is puzzled or worried my Dad holds his chin between his thumb and forefinger and twists his mouth from side to side. He leaned in the back window and sucking the air in between his teeth and out with a low slow whistle he said, “Well Deed, it looks like I have to go find some help. You stay here and I will be back in a jiffy.”
So, there I was on that lovely spring day with the temperature rising, sitting in the back seat of the car and a tipped over load of stinking fresh manure running down behind the little trailer with its nose buried in the road.
My swollen eyes were running and red and my nose plugged with the allergic reaction to the fresh manure. Wafts of the noxious fumes were filling the car. Even clogged up I could smell it. It was too warm outside to leave the windows up. This was the most embarrassed I had ever been. I sat there leaning out of the window with my head on my folded arms trying to catch any breath of air created when a car went by. I was out of tissues and my nose was running like a tap. It seemed like hours went by. People would stop their cars and walk up to ask me if we needed help. I got tired of telling them that my dad was going for help. I thought of abandoning the car and its manure load. I thought of walking home by myself all 15 blocks up hill. Finally Dad came back with a man to help him. Together they hoisted the trailer back on the hitch and we drove up the hill to home.
We shoveled the manure out onto the garden before my mother could catch on. Dad hosed out the trailer and returned it to his friend who was never able to use it for a domestic purpose again. For a couple of years the soil was too strong to grow anything in it without burning and the smell would drive us indoors on warm summer evenings, but it was fertile ground for the stories and the laughs I have shared with my father over the years.
Monday, February 11, 2008
The Code
January, 2008
all rights reserved
by
Wendy Morrow
"Where is that password? " Lindsay grabbed handfuls of paper from the box that only weeks ago she had stuffed full of desk detritis in an effort to find her apartment keys. The keys were eventually found and the box kicked further back under the desk. She never had the time or the inclination to sort through the computer bean bag charms, the curled yellow stickies, the fuzzie cough drops and the MacDonald burger coupons
Now she had to mine the box again for a wrinkled piece of lined note paper with several code names written in pencil. "I knew I should have put the stupid code in my day timer or scratched it on my keyboard or texted myself with it." she muttered. She found two credit card applications that had been filled out and discarded, and a scratch and win lottery ticket with 'try again' in the window. Alas,no note paper with the code.
"Damn!" She snagged her perfect shell pink pinkie nail on a carpet tack which had somehow found its way into the box. The blood from the torn quick of her nail bed was dripping onto the plastic chair mat. She kneeled in the blood spot and reached over her head with her other hand blindly patting the top of her desk until she found the kleenex box. Her fingers brushed her coffee cup. She pulled out a handful of tissue and blotted the blood stains. Her coffee cup teetered and swayed propelled by the cold curdled liquid inside. As it tilted near the edge of the desk, the cup tipped over and washed the contents down Lindsay's neck. She turned with the shock of it and fought her way out from the nest of cords and winter boots. The crack of her head banging on the underside of her desk sounded like a gun shot.
She grabbed more kleenex and mopped herself. She could feel the cold sludge dripping down her back and the coffee stain spreading across her silk shirt. The stain was creeping. The hair on the back of her head was plastered to her skull, cold coffee or blood, she couldn't be sure which. It was a warm summer morning when she left home and she hadn't worn a jacket. She couldn't hide the stain.
Last night Linday had forgone the usual drink with her friends at the local pub and instead she spent the evening getting ready to stage the first step in her career plan.
She had soaked for hours in the tub, she exfoliated and scrubbed and lathered herself with fine scents and creams. She had meticulously applied the lovely coral pink colour to her beautifully manicured nails. She visualized herself standing no, sitting in front of the HR's desk as the HR admired her CV and her stunning confident self.
She set her alarm and and slept like the righteous right through the night. In the morning she reset her hair and applied her make up . She ripped the tags off of her lovely new shirt and got to her desk half an hour before her work mates arrived.
Yesterday she had requested an appointment with the head of HR. In the ladies room, she had overheard a conversation between two employees in a department which oversaw hers and in which she had longed to work. One of them was about to hand in her resignation and the vacancy would no doubt be filled in house. Lindsay was qualified, academically at least. She knew she would love this job.
Yesterday she been so full of herself and so confident that she would soon be the lord queen boss of all of the underlings in the department that she told the whole world in her facebook page blog. She wasted most of the afternoon tapping on and on about how she was going to make the cliquey 'power chicks' snivel and crawl for her. She pressed 'publish post' and then went home. On the bus, she thought "Oh my God, what if someone from the company reads my blog"
She ran from the bus stop to her building. Opening her door she saw that her trusty little laptop friend was waiting for her on her couch resting on an empty Lay's bag. She had barely put down her keys and poured herself a glass of red wine before she kicked off her shoes, opened the computer and pressed the ON button. Nothing happened. Nothing. She checked the connection, it was in. The power in the apartment was on. Why wasn't her lap top working? This unreliable piece of crap!
Slowly a green glow began in one corner of the screen, then it spread getting brighter and greener until it covered the entire screen except for a red stripe that ran down one side. Then the green glow faded to black and her lap top died with barely a death rattle.
"Thank God I have a computer at work and if I get there before anyone else, I will just edit my blog and no one will ever be the wiser." Lindsay rolled over in bed and slept the sleep of the innocent.
In the morning Lindsay sashayed into the office tower leaving a trail of perfume. Her company's office door was open. The office manager was on some kind of power trip to be the first to work everyday. This worked well in her favour she thought. She clicked down the hall past his door to show him that she was second in the door in the morning. In case that mattered. 'Oh! Lindsay", he called, "Glad to see you are in so early, can you show me how to get into that Facebook thing? My kids told me I should get with it and get on Facebook.
Lindsay blanched. "Oh my God!" she thought "He will see my posts. I am screwed!"
"Just a minute, I'll be right there to help you. Let me put my purse down."
She ran down the hall and into her cubicle.
"Don't Panic! Turn on the computer! Hurry hurry! Oh God where is the Favourites? Jeeze, why is this so slow? Okay what is the password... " she tapped out an e-mail name....no that isn't it. Not Found! Damn! okay what else could it be? I had the damn thing yesterday....calm down, think" She tapped in another. "Not found" Oh shit what is it....Where did I write it?" Oh, yes! its on a piece of paper in that box, I saw it just a few days ago. "
Where is that password? Lindsay dragged out the box and began to dig around inside.
She could hear her boss coming down the hall.
all rights reserved
by
Wendy Morrow
"Where is that password? " Lindsay grabbed handfuls of paper from the box that only weeks ago she had stuffed full of desk detritis in an effort to find her apartment keys. The keys were eventually found and the box kicked further back under the desk. She never had the time or the inclination to sort through the computer bean bag charms, the curled yellow stickies, the fuzzie cough drops and the MacDonald burger coupons
Now she had to mine the box again for a wrinkled piece of lined note paper with several code names written in pencil. "I knew I should have put the stupid code in my day timer or scratched it on my keyboard or texted myself with it." she muttered. She found two credit card applications that had been filled out and discarded, and a scratch and win lottery ticket with 'try again' in the window. Alas,no note paper with the code.
"Damn!" She snagged her perfect shell pink pinkie nail on a carpet tack which had somehow found its way into the box. The blood from the torn quick of her nail bed was dripping onto the plastic chair mat. She kneeled in the blood spot and reached over her head with her other hand blindly patting the top of her desk until she found the kleenex box. Her fingers brushed her coffee cup. She pulled out a handful of tissue and blotted the blood stains. Her coffee cup teetered and swayed propelled by the cold curdled liquid inside. As it tilted near the edge of the desk, the cup tipped over and washed the contents down Lindsay's neck. She turned with the shock of it and fought her way out from the nest of cords and winter boots. The crack of her head banging on the underside of her desk sounded like a gun shot.
She grabbed more kleenex and mopped herself. She could feel the cold sludge dripping down her back and the coffee stain spreading across her silk shirt. The stain was creeping. The hair on the back of her head was plastered to her skull, cold coffee or blood, she couldn't be sure which. It was a warm summer morning when she left home and she hadn't worn a jacket. She couldn't hide the stain.
Last night Linday had forgone the usual drink with her friends at the local pub and instead she spent the evening getting ready to stage the first step in her career plan.
She had soaked for hours in the tub, she exfoliated and scrubbed and lathered herself with fine scents and creams. She had meticulously applied the lovely coral pink colour to her beautifully manicured nails. She visualized herself standing no, sitting in front of the HR's desk as the HR admired her CV and her stunning confident self.
She set her alarm and and slept like the righteous right through the night. In the morning she reset her hair and applied her make up . She ripped the tags off of her lovely new shirt and got to her desk half an hour before her work mates arrived.
Yesterday she had requested an appointment with the head of HR. In the ladies room, she had overheard a conversation between two employees in a department which oversaw hers and in which she had longed to work. One of them was about to hand in her resignation and the vacancy would no doubt be filled in house. Lindsay was qualified, academically at least. She knew she would love this job.
Yesterday she been so full of herself and so confident that she would soon be the lord queen boss of all of the underlings in the department that she told the whole world in her facebook page blog. She wasted most of the afternoon tapping on and on about how she was going to make the cliquey 'power chicks' snivel and crawl for her. She pressed 'publish post' and then went home. On the bus, she thought "Oh my God, what if someone from the company reads my blog"
She ran from the bus stop to her building. Opening her door she saw that her trusty little laptop friend was waiting for her on her couch resting on an empty Lay's bag. She had barely put down her keys and poured herself a glass of red wine before she kicked off her shoes, opened the computer and pressed the ON button. Nothing happened. Nothing. She checked the connection, it was in. The power in the apartment was on. Why wasn't her lap top working? This unreliable piece of crap!
Slowly a green glow began in one corner of the screen, then it spread getting brighter and greener until it covered the entire screen except for a red stripe that ran down one side. Then the green glow faded to black and her lap top died with barely a death rattle.
"Thank God I have a computer at work and if I get there before anyone else, I will just edit my blog and no one will ever be the wiser." Lindsay rolled over in bed and slept the sleep of the innocent.
In the morning Lindsay sashayed into the office tower leaving a trail of perfume. Her company's office door was open. The office manager was on some kind of power trip to be the first to work everyday. This worked well in her favour she thought. She clicked down the hall past his door to show him that she was second in the door in the morning. In case that mattered. 'Oh! Lindsay", he called, "Glad to see you are in so early, can you show me how to get into that Facebook thing? My kids told me I should get with it and get on Facebook.
Lindsay blanched. "Oh my God!" she thought "He will see my posts. I am screwed!"
"Just a minute, I'll be right there to help you. Let me put my purse down."
She ran down the hall and into her cubicle.
"Don't Panic! Turn on the computer! Hurry hurry! Oh God where is the Favourites? Jeeze, why is this so slow? Okay what is the password... " she tapped out an e-mail name....no that isn't it. Not Found! Damn! okay what else could it be? I had the damn thing yesterday....calm down, think" She tapped in another. "Not found" Oh shit what is it....Where did I write it?" Oh, yes! its on a piece of paper in that box, I saw it just a few days ago. "
Where is that password? Lindsay dragged out the box and began to dig around inside.
She could hear her boss coming down the hall.
Thursday, December 6, 2007
A Day's Rain
January, 2008
all rights reserved
by
Wendy Morrow
The drought was approaching its eighth year. They said that droughts went in seven year cycles.
Everyone was looking forward to the rain.
Each night after the men had come home from the pub, they would stand on their verandahs with their thumbs in their belt loops and look to the west.On the horizon the clouds banks would build up after sunset and every evening the farmers would say, “Looks like rain tomorrow.” In the morning the red dust storms would gather higher in the sky than the day before and still come carrying no rain.
The women had worked all day and had little time for pubs and verandahs and speculation. They had carried water in buckets to the garden; water that had made the tea then boiled the potatoes then washed the dishes then washed the clothes then washed the floors and bent their backs. They poured it over the soil and watched the thirsty red dust suck up the recycled water and disappear before the garden seeds could come to life.
They all looked towards the horizon. They cupped their hands on their browned and furrowed foreheads shading their gaze from the relentless sun.
“Just a day’s rain is all it would take,” they say, just enough to get things started. ”
“That would never be enough.” the old ones said. “You need a good two weeks to soak the soil”.
The people’s lined and wrinkled faces were cracked by the heat and the arid wind. The grit had found its way into their hair and their noses and they spat the dry red soil out of their mouths when they spoke.
The men drove the trucks filled with hay to the waiting livestock at the gate. The bleating sheep argued like members in the house of commons imploring the men to work faster and spread the food. The farmers wiped the sweat from their foreheads in the crooks of their elbows and counted another loss as the sheep ate up another expensive bale of hay.
The only relief was in the cool draft beer in the pub which was overflowing with men. There were no good tales of green crops and record prices, only jokes of a land as dry as their wit.
“Did you hear the MacKay’s paddock crossed the road today?” they laughed. Whose shout was it now? And the golden lager would go another round slaking the thirst for company.
The red dust banks rose high on the horizon and the washing on the line blew wet and waiting. The women washed their faces and put on their hats and their white gloves and drove to town to the country women's tea.
They shared their cakes and gossip and the sweet sound of other women’s laughter. They told stories of children, husbands and homes. Their voices rose like the chatter of cockatoos and then suddenly like birds in a flock they were gone. Rushing home to get the wash off the lines before the red winds blew everything to pink.
all rights reserved
by
Wendy Morrow
The drought was approaching its eighth year. They said that droughts went in seven year cycles.
Everyone was looking forward to the rain.
Each night after the men had come home from the pub, they would stand on their verandahs with their thumbs in their belt loops and look to the west.On the horizon the clouds banks would build up after sunset and every evening the farmers would say, “Looks like rain tomorrow.” In the morning the red dust storms would gather higher in the sky than the day before and still come carrying no rain.
The women had worked all day and had little time for pubs and verandahs and speculation. They had carried water in buckets to the garden; water that had made the tea then boiled the potatoes then washed the dishes then washed the clothes then washed the floors and bent their backs. They poured it over the soil and watched the thirsty red dust suck up the recycled water and disappear before the garden seeds could come to life.
They all looked towards the horizon. They cupped their hands on their browned and furrowed foreheads shading their gaze from the relentless sun.
“Just a day’s rain is all it would take,” they say, just enough to get things started. ”
“That would never be enough.” the old ones said. “You need a good two weeks to soak the soil”.
The people’s lined and wrinkled faces were cracked by the heat and the arid wind. The grit had found its way into their hair and their noses and they spat the dry red soil out of their mouths when they spoke.
The men drove the trucks filled with hay to the waiting livestock at the gate. The bleating sheep argued like members in the house of commons imploring the men to work faster and spread the food. The farmers wiped the sweat from their foreheads in the crooks of their elbows and counted another loss as the sheep ate up another expensive bale of hay.
The only relief was in the cool draft beer in the pub which was overflowing with men. There were no good tales of green crops and record prices, only jokes of a land as dry as their wit.
“Did you hear the MacKay’s paddock crossed the road today?” they laughed. Whose shout was it now? And the golden lager would go another round slaking the thirst for company.
The red dust banks rose high on the horizon and the washing on the line blew wet and waiting. The women washed their faces and put on their hats and their white gloves and drove to town to the country women's tea.
They shared their cakes and gossip and the sweet sound of other women’s laughter. They told stories of children, husbands and homes. Their voices rose like the chatter of cockatoos and then suddenly like birds in a flock they were gone. Rushing home to get the wash off the lines before the red winds blew everything to pink.
Tuesday, November 27, 2007
The Handy Man Book
Dad was brought up in the first quarter of the 20th century in a small town in the outback of Australia. Born into a family of seven children, my father was raised by two loving parents. My grandfather, worked as a plasterer to support his large family and the local bookie.
My grandmother was the daughter of a woolen mill manager who had educated his daughter to a level of gentry not commonly found in those parts of the country. She was a full head taller than her husband, what drew them together must only have been my grandfather’s wry sense of humour. My grandmother was an avid reader and would spend what few hours she could garner to herself sitting by her woodstove lost in a novel with a good strong cup of tea in her china cup and saucer at her side. As parents they had a relaxed and amused attitude to child rearing as each of their children grew up with a highly developed sense of humour and a creative bent.
My father spent most of his youth swimming in the local pool and supplying his siblings and friends with sling shots. He found a source of elastic that made his weapons famous and the choice of ammunition was what was immediately at hand. Rocks and pebbles were favoured but one day when the local nob drove by in his brand new open roadster, Dad took the chunk of roast beef from his lunch sandwich, loaded it into the business end of the sling shot and nailed the toff on the side of his head. That was the day he learned to run. Track and field became almost as important as swimming until he discovered field hockey. He went on to play in the interstate championships for NSW.
No one ever told my dad that something couldn't be done, and failure never crossed his mind. He was certain that with enough will, glue, string and strength that he couldn't fail.
He brought that attitude to Canada and a few years after the war he and my mother moved to Calgary to live. Dad decided to build our first house and since his job at the hardware store offered him discounts on supplies, he thought that only the excavation and heavy lifting would need to be hired. I was only one year old when we arrived and we stayed with my mother’s parents who lived 13 blocks up hill from the building site.
We didn’t have a car in those days and everything we used to build the house, except the large pieces of lumber that were delivered, was brought home on the bus every night after work. Huge bags of cement, packages of nails, rolls of linoleum, bundles of shingles, the kitchen sink. Everything was carried home on the bus, one load at a time. My mother and I would meet Dad at the bus stop and load up the baby carriage. Then, with me buried in the middle of the load they would walk those 13 blocks and work until it was too dark to see.
Gradually the house took shape and one day it was finished enough for us to move into. Mind you, it was missing a few things like doors and some plumbing fixtures, but those would come over time until it was completed.
A lot of the special features of the home were created by my dad and my mother’s father, a very handy one armed WW1 veteran. They had both discovered the Popular Mechanics magazine. This magazine was the precursor to home improvement DIY television shows and way back then inspired the insatiable desire for homeowners to do things by themselves. This magazine promised life to projects that most often were beyond homeowner talents.
After the tremendous accomplishment of building a house almost by themselves except thank God, for the help of electricians, plumbers, excavators, roofers and inspectors, my parents took that heady success and began to apply it to other projects.
The first one was for me.
The newest 1955 edition of Popular Mechanics magazine had a domestic project for making papier mache and directions on how to create Halloween costumes made of this stuff. My parents went right to the largest project. A huge elephant head. Complete with curved trunk and massive ears.
They began with chicken wire formed into the basic shape of an elephant head and wrapped numerous layers of newspaper soaked in flour glue over the form until it resembled an elephant with gigantic painted cartoon eyes. Two holes for me to breathe through were cleverly disguised under the elephant’s trunk. The eye slits were not much further above the nose holes and hidden in a fold of elephant skin.
My mother sewed a clown costume to wear over my snow suit that tucked under the elephant head. Dumbo was nearly ready by the time Halloween rolled around. It had been artfully painted grey with charcoaled shadows and eyelashes. The many layers of paint had slowed the drying process somewhat but not enough to prevent me from putting the thing on and trotting off to my grade two classroom on Halloween morning. I ran proudly down the street for the first block, but the thing was beginning to get a bit heavy by the second block. The early winter wind and swirling ice crystal snow was creating a vapour lock inside the warm and somewhat heavier and soggy giant head. By the time I rounded the corner and spied the school another full block away I had to hold the thing up with both hands. With each step the head would shift and I had lost the eye slits to guide my way. I fell several times tearing the knee in the clown costume that fitted over my snow suit.
I struggled to open the heavy school doors because the head would not allow me to get close enough to get a good grip on the door handle. Perspiration was running down my face inside the close chamber causing an itch that I was desperate to scratch. The smell of paint and vapour from my breath made seeing difficult and negotiating through the halls nearly impossible.
Finally I arrived at the classroom door feeling dizzy and slightly sick and clunking my long nose and ears on the door frame I felt my way to the cloakroom. I desperately needed to go to the bathroom.
The one thing I know and remember about grade Two is: rules are meant to be followed no matter what. The rules of the class were; boots off and placed on the shelf and coats hung up on our assigned hooks with mittens on a string on top of that before you could enter the classroom. I couldn’t even manage the mittens. When I pulled them over my head the string became caught up on the ears and I could only see saw my arms from side to side. No one would hear my muffled calls for help. How to bend over and take off my boots without passing out or tipping over from the weight of the now damp and slick head became a matter of urgency. The paint fumes mixing with the steam of drying woolen mittens and rubber boots were making me even more nauseous and I was getting that pre-vomit saliva in the mouth feeling. I started to cry, the tears were mixing with the sodden newspaper mache and my nose was running. I couldn’t blow it. I kept hitting my head on the cloak room walls, everywhere I turned I knocked my nose and hit my ears.
I had set off for school wanting everyone in the classroom to admire my wonderful costume, but now I just wanted to be rid of the miserable thing, I wanted to just throw it in the garbage and pretend I was just a clown.
Finally, my teacher came back to the cloak room and rescued me. I was soon free of the snow suit. She helped me put my clown costume back over my clothes, lifted up my head and let me blow my nose. She told me how wonderful I looked and how creative my parents were. She said they must be professional artists and this was the best Halloween costume she had ever seen.
I felt so much better after that and when the principal announced that there would be an assembly in the auditorium and a prize presented to the best Halloween costume I nearly floated to the gymnasium. I marched up onto the stage with the rest of my class feeling sorry for them with their dime store costumes. They looked like pathetic losers.
It was a slam dunk. I won. I knew I would. I was so proud to be an elephant. Not that I was aware all the time that I was an elephant. Most of the time I was a large, smelly, dark, damp and heavy mass of wet newspaper and flour glue and only occasionally reminded that I was an elephant when people came up to congratulate me.
The bell rang and we gathered in the cloak room to put on our snow suits to go home for lunch. The room was nearly empty by the time I struggled into my snow suit and boots, putting them on seemed a lot easier that taking them off. I was giddy with the success of my win and I was eager to get home to tell my mother.
I was accosted at the chain link gate at the edge of the school yard by two boys in my class who hadn’t bothered to dress up for the school Halloween party. They were the Matchitt boys, they didn’t even wear jackets to school and they put Brill cream in their hair. They were tough. So tough in fact, that when their house burned down, I was sure it was because they were playing with matches and set it alight on purpose.
They teased me at the gate, they pulled on my nose and pushed me from side to side. They knocked and pounded on my head creating echos like hammers on my skull. They pushed me over and laughed like hyenahs when I fell to the ground, my head spun around backwards, snow clogging my nose and eye holes and scratching my face inside my chicken wire cage. Finally, I kicked myself loose and turning towards freedom I whacked my nose on a post and pushed it so far to one side that the papier mache cracked right down to the chicken wire. The gush of cold air pouring in gave me enough oxygen to get home.
The tears were freezing on my cheeks when I staggered up the back steps and through the doorway to the kitchen. I sobbed my story to my mother in gasps. I was sick with worry that my parents would be angry with me for ruining their beautiful sculpted masterpiece. My mother removed the head and wiped the blood and tears from my cheeks. She told me how proud they were of me because without a real actress to wear the papier mache head it was only that, a papier mache head. She said I won because I wore it like a true elephant.
The next year I was Mickey Mouse, and I wore my Mickey head like a true mouse and I won again that year as well. The record still stands. I don’t think anyone has ever won two years in a row since then, unless their parents subscribed to Popular Mechanics.
The second major project my parents tackled was the car top tent. This was a contraption drawn up by the inventors at Popular Mechanics and designed to fit on top of the family sedan. The tent was held up by aluminum rods and easily erected by two people. Roomy inside, it could generously sleep four. The weight of the box would be braced up by 4 corner telescoping poles so that the car roof wouldn’t dent. The tent could then be folded up, bedding and all, covered by a tightly tucked canvas tarp and driven off to the next camping site. No need for ground sheets or tent pegs. No fear of animals crawling into the tent, up off the ground and safe as houses…or so the theory went.
My grandmother had given my mother her old treadle sewing machine when she and my grandfather retired to White Rock, British Columbia and everything we wore after that was sewn on the treadle machine. My mother made our play clothes and dresses and quilts, she stitched my father’s shirts, all of our sheets and pillow cases and when my father came to her with the plan to build the car top tent she willingly agreed to sew the tarpaulin tent that attached to the box.
Dad cut the wood and dovetailed the joints and fitted the aluminium frame to the box, he painted it exactly the same deep royal blue colour as our 1949 Chrysler sedan. My mother spent endless nights painstakingly stitching the difficult material until her fingers bled. She overstitched every seam being careful not to break the waterproof barrier.
Together my mother and I held the canvass tent tight to the inside of the box as Dad nailed the tent in place. At last it was ready just before the May long weekend. We always went away on the 24th of May weekend, the Queen’s birthday, or as it was known then as Victoria Day. This year we would be camping in our snug little tent.
My little sister and I had waited all day for Dad to come home from work, and by the time he did, there was only enough time to eat dinner, pack the car and hoist the car top tent box onto the Chrysler’s roof. We clamped it down tight and off we went.
Cautiously at first but Dad gained confidence driving the contraption as we went along. It was dark by the time we got to the edge of town, but we were only going to Banff which was about and hour and half away, once we found a campsite and settled in there would still be time to have a campfire sing a few camp songs and roast marshmallows.
Tunnel Mountain campground was full when we got there. It was pitch black in the mountains, there was no moon that night and the tall spruce trees soon enveloped our car. We drove around a little bit until Dad said that since this was a car top tent we were going to sleep in that it didn’t matter if we were in a camp ground or not. He pulled off to the side of the road to a place where the ground was level and we could build a camp fire. We set up our little tent house lifting the tent box up off the car roof and tightening the wing nuts on the telescoping poles. We lit the campfire and Dad recited his favourite poems, we roasted wieners and marshmallows and then one by one stumbling over stones and logs we snuck off to the bushes and returned with toothpaste smears on our pajamas. Mum tucked some hot rocks wrapped in newspaper into the corners of the tent box and we all crawled in for the night.
We woke in the morning to the sound of trucks whooshing by. In the dark, Dad had pulled off the highway onto a tiny triangular patch of grass where two busy highways intersected. When we peeked out of the door flap we found ourselves in a foot of snow, completely surrounded by traffic. Our little tent home was so cozy that we hadn’t noticed the blizzard that had blown in during the night. Dad slid down the side of the car. Still in his pajamas he crawled into the driver’s seat. Slowly and ever so carefully he drove down the highway. After several miles he finally found a safe place to pull off the highway. He edged the car onto a nice flat spot and got out. Looking up, he was horrified to discover that there was nothing on top of the car. No tent, no box, nothing. We were gone. We had vanished! He turned the car around and sped back frantically searching in the ditches along the way. He found us back at the intersection where we had spent the night, we hadn't moved. The telescoping poles that held us up so safely the night before still perched us up off the ground. In the morning Dad had driven out from under the car top tent, forgetting about the bracing poles. What an amusing sight it must have been for the people driving through that intersection that morning to see us there, our little faces peeking out of the door flap way up off the ground, in our little snow covered tent box screaming for Dad to come back.
My grandmother was the daughter of a woolen mill manager who had educated his daughter to a level of gentry not commonly found in those parts of the country. She was a full head taller than her husband, what drew them together must only have been my grandfather’s wry sense of humour. My grandmother was an avid reader and would spend what few hours she could garner to herself sitting by her woodstove lost in a novel with a good strong cup of tea in her china cup and saucer at her side. As parents they had a relaxed and amused attitude to child rearing as each of their children grew up with a highly developed sense of humour and a creative bent.
My father spent most of his youth swimming in the local pool and supplying his siblings and friends with sling shots. He found a source of elastic that made his weapons famous and the choice of ammunition was what was immediately at hand. Rocks and pebbles were favoured but one day when the local nob drove by in his brand new open roadster, Dad took the chunk of roast beef from his lunch sandwich, loaded it into the business end of the sling shot and nailed the toff on the side of his head. That was the day he learned to run. Track and field became almost as important as swimming until he discovered field hockey. He went on to play in the interstate championships for NSW.
No one ever told my dad that something couldn't be done, and failure never crossed his mind. He was certain that with enough will, glue, string and strength that he couldn't fail.
He brought that attitude to Canada and a few years after the war he and my mother moved to Calgary to live. Dad decided to build our first house and since his job at the hardware store offered him discounts on supplies, he thought that only the excavation and heavy lifting would need to be hired. I was only one year old when we arrived and we stayed with my mother’s parents who lived 13 blocks up hill from the building site.
We didn’t have a car in those days and everything we used to build the house, except the large pieces of lumber that were delivered, was brought home on the bus every night after work. Huge bags of cement, packages of nails, rolls of linoleum, bundles of shingles, the kitchen sink. Everything was carried home on the bus, one load at a time. My mother and I would meet Dad at the bus stop and load up the baby carriage. Then, with me buried in the middle of the load they would walk those 13 blocks and work until it was too dark to see.
Gradually the house took shape and one day it was finished enough for us to move into. Mind you, it was missing a few things like doors and some plumbing fixtures, but those would come over time until it was completed.
A lot of the special features of the home were created by my dad and my mother’s father, a very handy one armed WW1 veteran. They had both discovered the Popular Mechanics magazine. This magazine was the precursor to home improvement DIY television shows and way back then inspired the insatiable desire for homeowners to do things by themselves. This magazine promised life to projects that most often were beyond homeowner talents.
After the tremendous accomplishment of building a house almost by themselves except thank God, for the help of electricians, plumbers, excavators, roofers and inspectors, my parents took that heady success and began to apply it to other projects.
The first one was for me.
The newest 1955 edition of Popular Mechanics magazine had a domestic project for making papier mache and directions on how to create Halloween costumes made of this stuff. My parents went right to the largest project. A huge elephant head. Complete with curved trunk and massive ears.
They began with chicken wire formed into the basic shape of an elephant head and wrapped numerous layers of newspaper soaked in flour glue over the form until it resembled an elephant with gigantic painted cartoon eyes. Two holes for me to breathe through were cleverly disguised under the elephant’s trunk. The eye slits were not much further above the nose holes and hidden in a fold of elephant skin.
My mother sewed a clown costume to wear over my snow suit that tucked under the elephant head. Dumbo was nearly ready by the time Halloween rolled around. It had been artfully painted grey with charcoaled shadows and eyelashes. The many layers of paint had slowed the drying process somewhat but not enough to prevent me from putting the thing on and trotting off to my grade two classroom on Halloween morning. I ran proudly down the street for the first block, but the thing was beginning to get a bit heavy by the second block. The early winter wind and swirling ice crystal snow was creating a vapour lock inside the warm and somewhat heavier and soggy giant head. By the time I rounded the corner and spied the school another full block away I had to hold the thing up with both hands. With each step the head would shift and I had lost the eye slits to guide my way. I fell several times tearing the knee in the clown costume that fitted over my snow suit.
I struggled to open the heavy school doors because the head would not allow me to get close enough to get a good grip on the door handle. Perspiration was running down my face inside the close chamber causing an itch that I was desperate to scratch. The smell of paint and vapour from my breath made seeing difficult and negotiating through the halls nearly impossible.
Finally I arrived at the classroom door feeling dizzy and slightly sick and clunking my long nose and ears on the door frame I felt my way to the cloakroom. I desperately needed to go to the bathroom.
The one thing I know and remember about grade Two is: rules are meant to be followed no matter what. The rules of the class were; boots off and placed on the shelf and coats hung up on our assigned hooks with mittens on a string on top of that before you could enter the classroom. I couldn’t even manage the mittens. When I pulled them over my head the string became caught up on the ears and I could only see saw my arms from side to side. No one would hear my muffled calls for help. How to bend over and take off my boots without passing out or tipping over from the weight of the now damp and slick head became a matter of urgency. The paint fumes mixing with the steam of drying woolen mittens and rubber boots were making me even more nauseous and I was getting that pre-vomit saliva in the mouth feeling. I started to cry, the tears were mixing with the sodden newspaper mache and my nose was running. I couldn’t blow it. I kept hitting my head on the cloak room walls, everywhere I turned I knocked my nose and hit my ears.
I had set off for school wanting everyone in the classroom to admire my wonderful costume, but now I just wanted to be rid of the miserable thing, I wanted to just throw it in the garbage and pretend I was just a clown.
Finally, my teacher came back to the cloak room and rescued me. I was soon free of the snow suit. She helped me put my clown costume back over my clothes, lifted up my head and let me blow my nose. She told me how wonderful I looked and how creative my parents were. She said they must be professional artists and this was the best Halloween costume she had ever seen.
I felt so much better after that and when the principal announced that there would be an assembly in the auditorium and a prize presented to the best Halloween costume I nearly floated to the gymnasium. I marched up onto the stage with the rest of my class feeling sorry for them with their dime store costumes. They looked like pathetic losers.
It was a slam dunk. I won. I knew I would. I was so proud to be an elephant. Not that I was aware all the time that I was an elephant. Most of the time I was a large, smelly, dark, damp and heavy mass of wet newspaper and flour glue and only occasionally reminded that I was an elephant when people came up to congratulate me.
The bell rang and we gathered in the cloak room to put on our snow suits to go home for lunch. The room was nearly empty by the time I struggled into my snow suit and boots, putting them on seemed a lot easier that taking them off. I was giddy with the success of my win and I was eager to get home to tell my mother.
I was accosted at the chain link gate at the edge of the school yard by two boys in my class who hadn’t bothered to dress up for the school Halloween party. They were the Matchitt boys, they didn’t even wear jackets to school and they put Brill cream in their hair. They were tough. So tough in fact, that when their house burned down, I was sure it was because they were playing with matches and set it alight on purpose.
They teased me at the gate, they pulled on my nose and pushed me from side to side. They knocked and pounded on my head creating echos like hammers on my skull. They pushed me over and laughed like hyenahs when I fell to the ground, my head spun around backwards, snow clogging my nose and eye holes and scratching my face inside my chicken wire cage. Finally, I kicked myself loose and turning towards freedom I whacked my nose on a post and pushed it so far to one side that the papier mache cracked right down to the chicken wire. The gush of cold air pouring in gave me enough oxygen to get home.
The tears were freezing on my cheeks when I staggered up the back steps and through the doorway to the kitchen. I sobbed my story to my mother in gasps. I was sick with worry that my parents would be angry with me for ruining their beautiful sculpted masterpiece. My mother removed the head and wiped the blood and tears from my cheeks. She told me how proud they were of me because without a real actress to wear the papier mache head it was only that, a papier mache head. She said I won because I wore it like a true elephant.
The next year I was Mickey Mouse, and I wore my Mickey head like a true mouse and I won again that year as well. The record still stands. I don’t think anyone has ever won two years in a row since then, unless their parents subscribed to Popular Mechanics.
The second major project my parents tackled was the car top tent. This was a contraption drawn up by the inventors at Popular Mechanics and designed to fit on top of the family sedan. The tent was held up by aluminum rods and easily erected by two people. Roomy inside, it could generously sleep four. The weight of the box would be braced up by 4 corner telescoping poles so that the car roof wouldn’t dent. The tent could then be folded up, bedding and all, covered by a tightly tucked canvas tarp and driven off to the next camping site. No need for ground sheets or tent pegs. No fear of animals crawling into the tent, up off the ground and safe as houses…or so the theory went.
My grandmother had given my mother her old treadle sewing machine when she and my grandfather retired to White Rock, British Columbia and everything we wore after that was sewn on the treadle machine. My mother made our play clothes and dresses and quilts, she stitched my father’s shirts, all of our sheets and pillow cases and when my father came to her with the plan to build the car top tent she willingly agreed to sew the tarpaulin tent that attached to the box.
Dad cut the wood and dovetailed the joints and fitted the aluminium frame to the box, he painted it exactly the same deep royal blue colour as our 1949 Chrysler sedan. My mother spent endless nights painstakingly stitching the difficult material until her fingers bled. She overstitched every seam being careful not to break the waterproof barrier.
Together my mother and I held the canvass tent tight to the inside of the box as Dad nailed the tent in place. At last it was ready just before the May long weekend. We always went away on the 24th of May weekend, the Queen’s birthday, or as it was known then as Victoria Day. This year we would be camping in our snug little tent.
My little sister and I had waited all day for Dad to come home from work, and by the time he did, there was only enough time to eat dinner, pack the car and hoist the car top tent box onto the Chrysler’s roof. We clamped it down tight and off we went.
Cautiously at first but Dad gained confidence driving the contraption as we went along. It was dark by the time we got to the edge of town, but we were only going to Banff which was about and hour and half away, once we found a campsite and settled in there would still be time to have a campfire sing a few camp songs and roast marshmallows.
Tunnel Mountain campground was full when we got there. It was pitch black in the mountains, there was no moon that night and the tall spruce trees soon enveloped our car. We drove around a little bit until Dad said that since this was a car top tent we were going to sleep in that it didn’t matter if we were in a camp ground or not. He pulled off to the side of the road to a place where the ground was level and we could build a camp fire. We set up our little tent house lifting the tent box up off the car roof and tightening the wing nuts on the telescoping poles. We lit the campfire and Dad recited his favourite poems, we roasted wieners and marshmallows and then one by one stumbling over stones and logs we snuck off to the bushes and returned with toothpaste smears on our pajamas. Mum tucked some hot rocks wrapped in newspaper into the corners of the tent box and we all crawled in for the night.
We woke in the morning to the sound of trucks whooshing by. In the dark, Dad had pulled off the highway onto a tiny triangular patch of grass where two busy highways intersected. When we peeked out of the door flap we found ourselves in a foot of snow, completely surrounded by traffic. Our little tent home was so cozy that we hadn’t noticed the blizzard that had blown in during the night. Dad slid down the side of the car. Still in his pajamas he crawled into the driver’s seat. Slowly and ever so carefully he drove down the highway. After several miles he finally found a safe place to pull off the highway. He edged the car onto a nice flat spot and got out. Looking up, he was horrified to discover that there was nothing on top of the car. No tent, no box, nothing. We were gone. We had vanished! He turned the car around and sped back frantically searching in the ditches along the way. He found us back at the intersection where we had spent the night, we hadn't moved. The telescoping poles that held us up so safely the night before still perched us up off the ground. In the morning Dad had driven out from under the car top tent, forgetting about the bracing poles. What an amusing sight it must have been for the people driving through that intersection that morning to see us there, our little faces peeking out of the door flap way up off the ground, in our little snow covered tent box screaming for Dad to come back.
Friday, November 2, 2007
A Developing Story
The HELP WANTED sign was still in the window of the pet shop when Alyson got off the bus on the last day of grade nine. The prospect of a long, hot and lazy summer lay before her. She and her friends had plans that summer for shopping, going to movies, hanging out and drinking Cokes in the food court at the mall and spending hot days on the beach at the lake. They knew they would need more money for these activities than their measly allowances could provide so the necessity for summer jobs had arisen.
The bell tinkled overhead when Alyson opened the door of the pet shop, and stepped into the smell of hamster shavings and the piercing scream of parrots. A man stood behind the counter filling sandwich baggies with fish food flakes.
“May I see the manager?” Alyson inquired.
“That’s me, owner, manager, janitor, and bag boy.” He said, holding the bag of flakes up to the light. “What can I do for you? Are you here for the job?” He asked without looking at her. “Leave your phone number on this piece of paper and I will get back to you.” He slid a pen and a piece of paper across the counter and continued to fill the bags.
It took Alyson five minutes to run the 10 blocks to her home. She burst through the front door and announced to her father and her little brothers that NO ONE but her would answer the phone. She would do the answering if it rang. An agony of hours went by. Finally at 6 o’clock the pet store owner finally called. He said that he would like to give her a trial period starting tomorrow, if she was at the store by noon he would see if they could work together.
Right after supper Alyson met her friends at the bus stop. Giddy with excitement and chattering like monkeys, they descended upon the mall to spend what remained of their allowances on career essentials. They bought eyeliner, lip liner, tweezers and body cream. They bought chain belts earrings, chewing gum and dark green nail polish.
That night Alyson could hardly sleep for the excitement of beginning her new career as pet shop assistant, fashionably dressed and looking very attractive leaning behind the counter, loved by all the animals and admired by all the customers. This was the beginning of wealth and fame.
When Alyson opened her eyes in the morning the alarm clock read 9:00 AM. She flew out of bed. Three hours to get ready, she would barely make it.
Her annoying little brothers pounded on the bathroom door as Alyson floated in her steamy tub, shaving one leg and then the other. She rubbed her skin with exfoliation grit until she nearly bled. She plucked her eyebrows in the foggy mirror and covered herself all over with moisturizing cream. She blew her damp and curly red hair as straight as it would go. Opening the door she stepped out in a cloud of perfumed steam and catwalked into her room to dress for work. She was almost late by the time she had chosen her outfit and caught the bus.
“We will start you off dusting all the shelves and helping the customers”. Her new boss said. Alyson worked diligently, she dusted everything within reach, waxing and polishing the fish tanks and rearranging the cat and dog collars. She noticed that her lovely green nails were beginning to chip on the edges.
Occasionally the bell would ring and a customer would come in. Each time that a shopper would ask her for assistance their eyes would open wide and a smile would creep across their faces. Even a dour old lady looking for a bone for her pug began to chuckle when Alyson was able to show her where the best quality treats were kept.
Late in the afternoon the bell rang and a couple came in asking for help with choosing a pet for their son. The looked at one another and giggled softly. They told her that their son was having his 5th birthday party tonight and they were looking for a very special pet that would never leave his side. “What,” they smiled, “would Alyson suggest they buy?” Alyson’s favourite movie was Finding Nemo and that very afternoon she had seen a clown fish in a tank all by himself at the back of the store. She knew this could be the very special pet.
The work day finally ended and the store owner, without looking up from his account book said that he would call her later about maybe coming back to work tomorrow.
When Alyson skipped in the door she was puzzled when her family howled with laughter, her horrid little brothers covered their mouths and bent over and held their stomachs as they rolled on the floor, pointing at Alyson.
“Come into the bathroom dear” said her mother, grabbing half a lemon on the way. She closed the door and said. “Look in the mirror honey.” Alyson gasped in horror. There she was in the reflection, her face and neck as orange as a pumpkin, with deep brown lines around her eyes, ears and her nostrils as if she had been breathing in coal dust. Her eyebrows were the colour of carrots. Yesterday she bought self tanning lotion by mistake and had liberally lathered herself with the stuff in the morning. All day at work she had developed like a photograph, becoming this orange apparition.
“I will die, I will never go out again”. She moaned as her mother rubbed the lemon on her stinging exfoliated face.
The phone rang. “I am not home, tell them I died.” She wailed.
A few moments later there was a knock on the bathroom door. Her father was on the other side. “Allie, its your boss. He wants you to come in to work at 9:00 am tomorrow. Apparently a couple called him after the store closed and said you had been very helpful, their handicapped son was really happy with his birthday present. You see, he is confined to a wheelchair and his favourite movie is Finding Nemo and he said getting that special clown fish was the best thing that had ever happened to him.”
The bell tinkled overhead when Alyson opened the door of the pet shop, and stepped into the smell of hamster shavings and the piercing scream of parrots. A man stood behind the counter filling sandwich baggies with fish food flakes.
“May I see the manager?” Alyson inquired.
“That’s me, owner, manager, janitor, and bag boy.” He said, holding the bag of flakes up to the light. “What can I do for you? Are you here for the job?” He asked without looking at her. “Leave your phone number on this piece of paper and I will get back to you.” He slid a pen and a piece of paper across the counter and continued to fill the bags.
It took Alyson five minutes to run the 10 blocks to her home. She burst through the front door and announced to her father and her little brothers that NO ONE but her would answer the phone. She would do the answering if it rang. An agony of hours went by. Finally at 6 o’clock the pet store owner finally called. He said that he would like to give her a trial period starting tomorrow, if she was at the store by noon he would see if they could work together.
Right after supper Alyson met her friends at the bus stop. Giddy with excitement and chattering like monkeys, they descended upon the mall to spend what remained of their allowances on career essentials. They bought eyeliner, lip liner, tweezers and body cream. They bought chain belts earrings, chewing gum and dark green nail polish.
That night Alyson could hardly sleep for the excitement of beginning her new career as pet shop assistant, fashionably dressed and looking very attractive leaning behind the counter, loved by all the animals and admired by all the customers. This was the beginning of wealth and fame.
When Alyson opened her eyes in the morning the alarm clock read 9:00 AM. She flew out of bed. Three hours to get ready, she would barely make it.
Her annoying little brothers pounded on the bathroom door as Alyson floated in her steamy tub, shaving one leg and then the other. She rubbed her skin with exfoliation grit until she nearly bled. She plucked her eyebrows in the foggy mirror and covered herself all over with moisturizing cream. She blew her damp and curly red hair as straight as it would go. Opening the door she stepped out in a cloud of perfumed steam and catwalked into her room to dress for work. She was almost late by the time she had chosen her outfit and caught the bus.
“We will start you off dusting all the shelves and helping the customers”. Her new boss said. Alyson worked diligently, she dusted everything within reach, waxing and polishing the fish tanks and rearranging the cat and dog collars. She noticed that her lovely green nails were beginning to chip on the edges.
Occasionally the bell would ring and a customer would come in. Each time that a shopper would ask her for assistance their eyes would open wide and a smile would creep across their faces. Even a dour old lady looking for a bone for her pug began to chuckle when Alyson was able to show her where the best quality treats were kept.
Late in the afternoon the bell rang and a couple came in asking for help with choosing a pet for their son. The looked at one another and giggled softly. They told her that their son was having his 5th birthday party tonight and they were looking for a very special pet that would never leave his side. “What,” they smiled, “would Alyson suggest they buy?” Alyson’s favourite movie was Finding Nemo and that very afternoon she had seen a clown fish in a tank all by himself at the back of the store. She knew this could be the very special pet.
The work day finally ended and the store owner, without looking up from his account book said that he would call her later about maybe coming back to work tomorrow.
When Alyson skipped in the door she was puzzled when her family howled with laughter, her horrid little brothers covered their mouths and bent over and held their stomachs as they rolled on the floor, pointing at Alyson.
“Come into the bathroom dear” said her mother, grabbing half a lemon on the way. She closed the door and said. “Look in the mirror honey.” Alyson gasped in horror. There she was in the reflection, her face and neck as orange as a pumpkin, with deep brown lines around her eyes, ears and her nostrils as if she had been breathing in coal dust. Her eyebrows were the colour of carrots. Yesterday she bought self tanning lotion by mistake and had liberally lathered herself with the stuff in the morning. All day at work she had developed like a photograph, becoming this orange apparition.
“I will die, I will never go out again”. She moaned as her mother rubbed the lemon on her stinging exfoliated face.
The phone rang. “I am not home, tell them I died.” She wailed.
A few moments later there was a knock on the bathroom door. Her father was on the other side. “Allie, its your boss. He wants you to come in to work at 9:00 am tomorrow. Apparently a couple called him after the store closed and said you had been very helpful, their handicapped son was really happy with his birthday present. You see, he is confined to a wheelchair and his favourite movie is Finding Nemo and he said getting that special clown fish was the best thing that had ever happened to him.”
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)