OK...so now we are well past New Year and the sun will shine an extra 3 minutes and 52 seconds longer today than it did yesterday, I think it's just barely safe to make some resolutions. So, for the rest of 2007...
I promise not to look on the timeanddate.com website every day to see how much longer the daylight is today than it was yesterday, and then feel a little smug like I had something to do with it.
I promise not to use less daylight as a reason to sleep in and wear a wrinkled shirt in the morning.
I promise not to pick on Tom so much.
I promise that, in the event I cannot keep the above promise, to pick more on Kitty to balance things out.
I promise not to have popcorn for dinner three nights in a row and and then justify it by calling it a cleanse.
I promise not to have another cigarette...except in my dreams, which I can't help, and is really driving me frigging crazy.
I promise not to be disappointed in myself for the things I do in my dreams.
I promise to go on more dates with nice boys.
I promise, in the event I cannot keep the above promise, to go on more dates with not-so-nice boys.
I promise, in the event I cannot keep either of those, to get a cat.
I promise not to have a hundred cats by the end of the year. Or ever, for that matter.
I promise to actually clean my bathroom when in danger of having company, rather than just a surface swipe and a prayer to Martha Stewart that they won't drop anything on the floor.
I promise not to be offended by the phrase, "Oh, so you're the 40 year-old friend I've heard so much about!"
I especially promise not to scratch her eyes out.
I promise not to be offended by the phrase, "You look great for 41!" regardless if it's coming from a nice or not-so-nice boy.
I especially promise not to scratch his eyes out.
I promise to dress my age, whatever the hell that means, Mother.
I promise to improve my Spanish.
Prometo mejorar mi ingles.
I promise to learn all the words to Nothingman.
I promise to pay more attention and not be so flighty.
What was I doing?
I promise to try and not be such a needy pain in the ass and drive everyone nuts because I have to be involved in everything all the time. Whatever, I promise to get better at punctuation?
I promise to ask for more help.
I promise, if I can't get it or make it happen myself, and I really want it, to ask for it.
I promise to never let anyone important leave without being certain he knows.
Tuesday, February 6, 2007
Wednesday, January 10, 2007
Son of a Farmer
When I was twelve years old, my family moved from Calgary to Lomond. From a bustling southern Alberta city of 700,000 (then) to a small village of less than 200 (still). And I lived. And I am still surprised when I think about it.
My father was a teacher and didn't like to stick around in one community for very long. I'm not really sure why, he just didn't. So, one afternoon late in the summer of 1977, me, my father, and my cousin Kevin, made a long, hot journey in a fire engine red Buick Century station wagon from the big city to the big country. Dad was going for a final meeting to see if he was to become principal at the local school.
As mile after dusty mile rolled away beneath us, my and Kevin's initial excitement began to leak away through our slackening jaws and dull eyes until, at last, we breached the final wave of bald brown prairie to see Lomond before us. So lulled into utter boredom by the endless expanse of field and pasture, this small, drowsy place had the look of a busy mall to the two of us. It would be a short-lived mirage.
The highway east of Vulcan ended at Lomond and promptly turned to gravel. No plainer sign could there have been to say "This is the end of the line. All ye who travel past this point are sure to be eaten by something hairy and snarling. Next services: doesn't matter."
We turned onto Main Street. On our right: two grocery stores (which, I later learned, were engaged in a bitter feud), a cafe, and a post office. To the left: a structure, presumably man made, of mounded straw and mud that looked like nothing less than some sort of Saxon lodge. I confess that I half-expected to see Ewald the Black standing on the top of it, brandishing a sword and railing against the local Christians. This was kind of exciting, until I learned that it was a pig barn belonging to Cliff Thompson, the oldest living bachelor pig farmer on the planet. Taking a left turn, we parked in front of the Lomond Hotel where we were to spend the night.
As anyone knows who has been to a small town in Southern Anywhere, they all have a local hotel, this is a rural word meaning "bar". It is a scheme for separating idle farmers from their hail damage insurance money. It is the last place anyone wants to try and get a good night's sleep, particularly if you're twelve and thirteen years old and unlikely to be allowed into the bar. My dad, however, was permitted and who can blame him when he availed himself of that opportunity?
That left Kevin and I to our own devices. So, in our wisdom, we decided a little exploration was in order just as soon as we got ourselves a couple of Coke Slurpees. We went to find the local 7Eleven. A thorough and exhaustive search of the village and precisely eleven minutes later, we realized there wasn't going to be so much as a licorice pipe let alone a Coke Slurpee.
For those not in the bar, the place for local entertainment appeared to be the park. This consisted of an unbalanced teeter-totter, two canvas swings that dangled from a suspiciously rusted iron frame, and one of those whirly things, sort of like a miniature manual carousel, whose sole purpose is to separate children from their breakfasts. These three structures were huddled in one corner of the park, while the rest of it was apparently a natural grassland reclamation area. The whole thing took up a space in the centre of town that was the approximate size of a city block.
We swung for a while in the canvas torture devices, until one of us, I can't remember which, noticed that one of the iron posts was wiggling to and fro in its cement mooring with each swing. We moved from the swings to trying to catch crickets. This proved to be less than stimulating once we realized that the population density of these insects was somewhere on the order of a Tokyo subway at rush hour.
We then noticed another curious thing: apart from the hotel, we hadn't seen another living soul walking or sitting or otherwise engaged outside their homes. With one exception. The same eight or ten trucks were driving around and around and around the streets. Back and forth. Up and down. All of the drivers were male. Most of the passengers were female and sitting in the middle of the bench seat. None of them were wearing seat belts. Occasionally two trucks would meet in an intersection, stop, the drivers would roll down their windows, and some sort of communication would occur. Then they would move off in opposite directions and continue their endless pacing. This, I would come learn, was a common pastime that had the clever name: Driving Around.
Local high school boys couldn't wait to turn sixteen and get their driver's licenses so that they could Drive Around. Local high school girls couldn't wait for their boyfriends to get those licenses so they could ride with them. Whole conversations took place about Driving Around. Who was riding with whom, who was driving what piece of shit truck, and why wasn't so-and-so Driving Around last night? It started just before dusk and went well into the evening, especially on weekends. It got so that I could eventually tell who was Driving Around by the sound of his muffler. But that's another story. Suffice to say, it was quite different from the big city and, from my first impression, I felt smugly superior to it all. I was also certain we weren't going to live there. Who in their right mind would want to do that? Just to make sure, I made certain promises to God that, let's just say, in my current vocational choice I am not exactly living up to. I wouldn't have looked good in a black cassock at any rate.
A couple of weeks later, and to my utter horror, we moved to Lomond. School started and my superiority vanished with the haste of a winter vacation tan line. I was the stranger among kids who had known each other their entire lives (twelve years being virtually an eternity at that point in my life). We were there for four years, and in that time I came to envy those people. I made some great friends. I spent most of my time outside ripping around on anything with a seat (and many things without), regardless of the season. I Drove Around. I had whole conversations about Driving Around. I sneered at city people. Hell, we sneered at Vulcan people...the closest metropolis of nearly 1200 people. Without even noticing when or how it happened, I wanted to be a farm kid.
When I was 16, to my utter horror, we moved back to Calgary. I started grade eleven in a high school (a high school!) that had more people in it than the entire county I had just come from. I felt superior. I told those city kids that I was a farm kid, like it was some kind of badge of honour. A pillar of simple values and virtues that was impenetrable to their Gomorrah-esque shenanigans. But I said this with inner shame because I knew it was a lie. I was not a farmer's son.
During our time in Lomond, there were two things that my dad really enjoyed doing, and, as with things you really enjoy, he did them exceptionally well. The first was teaching. I know he was good at it for a few reasons. Firstly, he gave up a lucrative job as a geologist in a successful oil company for the miserly salary afforded a rural high school teacher. They write entire essays in men's magazines about this sort of spiritual pilgrimage these days, like it's some sort of nirvana that those of us stuck in corporate North America can only peer wistfully at overtop of our debt loads. Dad pioneered that movement, as far as I'm concerned, and you only do that for the love of something.
Secondly, there were students of my dad's at our house all the time. Regardless of how many times we moved, how many different schools my dad taught in, there were always students of his that would come to visit. Or come help move the piano. Or show up at Christmas for a pop or a beer or whatever. These would be students from umpteen schools ago all mixed in with current editions. It wasn't until much later that I understood what a tribute this was to my dad and to the relationships he had with his kids. And we were all his kids.
Lastly, and most importantly, I know he was a good teacher because, while we were in Lomond, he was mine for Math and Chemistry. I mean, he was my teacher all my life, but I had never taken a class from him until then. He was, and I say this without the least guilty shred of detectable bias, the best teacher I have ever had. Period.
The other thing my dad enjoyed, and did well, was grow potatoes. We had a garden in Lomond that, at least to my mind when it came time to do anything with it, was roughly the size of Greenland. A small portion of it was reserved for fun things like carrots and peas -- the sort of things you liked to snitch out of other people's gardens as a rural teenager -- and the rest of it, all four billion hectares, went to potatoes. Every spring, when the school year was winding down, we'd plant those potatoes. Every fall, when the next school year was winding up, we stomp down the potato plants (this, according to my father, put all the energy back into the root and therefore the potato) and then, eventually, dig them all up. We ate the stabbed ones first. To this day I have a garden fork phobia.
To be fair, there were a number of things my father was not very good at. For instance, he was not very good at eating vegetables. My mom summed it up nicely once by saying, "When was the last time you saw your father eat something green? And dill pickles don't count." He was not very good at pancakes...when you cut into them, the insides tended to run out onto the plate. He was not very good at fixing small, expensive sports cars. I remember one incident involving a candy apple red MG convertible. It was the first, and perhaps only, time I ever heard my father drop an f-bomb. And he dropped several. In a row. Very loudly.
Anyway, I've eventually come to understand something of no small importance to me. I am, in fact, a farmer's son after all. Every year, my dad grew two crops: brains and potatoes. And he was damned good at it.
My father was a teacher and didn't like to stick around in one community for very long. I'm not really sure why, he just didn't. So, one afternoon late in the summer of 1977, me, my father, and my cousin Kevin, made a long, hot journey in a fire engine red Buick Century station wagon from the big city to the big country. Dad was going for a final meeting to see if he was to become principal at the local school.
As mile after dusty mile rolled away beneath us, my and Kevin's initial excitement began to leak away through our slackening jaws and dull eyes until, at last, we breached the final wave of bald brown prairie to see Lomond before us. So lulled into utter boredom by the endless expanse of field and pasture, this small, drowsy place had the look of a busy mall to the two of us. It would be a short-lived mirage.
The highway east of Vulcan ended at Lomond and promptly turned to gravel. No plainer sign could there have been to say "This is the end of the line. All ye who travel past this point are sure to be eaten by something hairy and snarling. Next services: doesn't matter."
We turned onto Main Street. On our right: two grocery stores (which, I later learned, were engaged in a bitter feud), a cafe, and a post office. To the left: a structure, presumably man made, of mounded straw and mud that looked like nothing less than some sort of Saxon lodge. I confess that I half-expected to see Ewald the Black standing on the top of it, brandishing a sword and railing against the local Christians. This was kind of exciting, until I learned that it was a pig barn belonging to Cliff Thompson, the oldest living bachelor pig farmer on the planet. Taking a left turn, we parked in front of the Lomond Hotel where we were to spend the night.
As anyone knows who has been to a small town in Southern Anywhere, they all have a local hotel, this is a rural word meaning "bar". It is a scheme for separating idle farmers from their hail damage insurance money. It is the last place anyone wants to try and get a good night's sleep, particularly if you're twelve and thirteen years old and unlikely to be allowed into the bar. My dad, however, was permitted and who can blame him when he availed himself of that opportunity?
That left Kevin and I to our own devices. So, in our wisdom, we decided a little exploration was in order just as soon as we got ourselves a couple of Coke Slurpees. We went to find the local 7Eleven. A thorough and exhaustive search of the village and precisely eleven minutes later, we realized there wasn't going to be so much as a licorice pipe let alone a Coke Slurpee.
For those not in the bar, the place for local entertainment appeared to be the park. This consisted of an unbalanced teeter-totter, two canvas swings that dangled from a suspiciously rusted iron frame, and one of those whirly things, sort of like a miniature manual carousel, whose sole purpose is to separate children from their breakfasts. These three structures were huddled in one corner of the park, while the rest of it was apparently a natural grassland reclamation area. The whole thing took up a space in the centre of town that was the approximate size of a city block.
We swung for a while in the canvas torture devices, until one of us, I can't remember which, noticed that one of the iron posts was wiggling to and fro in its cement mooring with each swing. We moved from the swings to trying to catch crickets. This proved to be less than stimulating once we realized that the population density of these insects was somewhere on the order of a Tokyo subway at rush hour.
We then noticed another curious thing: apart from the hotel, we hadn't seen another living soul walking or sitting or otherwise engaged outside their homes. With one exception. The same eight or ten trucks were driving around and around and around the streets. Back and forth. Up and down. All of the drivers were male. Most of the passengers were female and sitting in the middle of the bench seat. None of them were wearing seat belts. Occasionally two trucks would meet in an intersection, stop, the drivers would roll down their windows, and some sort of communication would occur. Then they would move off in opposite directions and continue their endless pacing. This, I would come learn, was a common pastime that had the clever name: Driving Around.
Local high school boys couldn't wait to turn sixteen and get their driver's licenses so that they could Drive Around. Local high school girls couldn't wait for their boyfriends to get those licenses so they could ride with them. Whole conversations took place about Driving Around. Who was riding with whom, who was driving what piece of shit truck, and why wasn't so-and-so Driving Around last night? It started just before dusk and went well into the evening, especially on weekends. It got so that I could eventually tell who was Driving Around by the sound of his muffler. But that's another story. Suffice to say, it was quite different from the big city and, from my first impression, I felt smugly superior to it all. I was also certain we weren't going to live there. Who in their right mind would want to do that? Just to make sure, I made certain promises to God that, let's just say, in my current vocational choice I am not exactly living up to. I wouldn't have looked good in a black cassock at any rate.
A couple of weeks later, and to my utter horror, we moved to Lomond. School started and my superiority vanished with the haste of a winter vacation tan line. I was the stranger among kids who had known each other their entire lives (twelve years being virtually an eternity at that point in my life). We were there for four years, and in that time I came to envy those people. I made some great friends. I spent most of my time outside ripping around on anything with a seat (and many things without), regardless of the season. I Drove Around. I had whole conversations about Driving Around. I sneered at city people. Hell, we sneered at Vulcan people...the closest metropolis of nearly 1200 people. Without even noticing when or how it happened, I wanted to be a farm kid.
When I was 16, to my utter horror, we moved back to Calgary. I started grade eleven in a high school (a high school!) that had more people in it than the entire county I had just come from. I felt superior. I told those city kids that I was a farm kid, like it was some kind of badge of honour. A pillar of simple values and virtues that was impenetrable to their Gomorrah-esque shenanigans. But I said this with inner shame because I knew it was a lie. I was not a farmer's son.
During our time in Lomond, there were two things that my dad really enjoyed doing, and, as with things you really enjoy, he did them exceptionally well. The first was teaching. I know he was good at it for a few reasons. Firstly, he gave up a lucrative job as a geologist in a successful oil company for the miserly salary afforded a rural high school teacher. They write entire essays in men's magazines about this sort of spiritual pilgrimage these days, like it's some sort of nirvana that those of us stuck in corporate North America can only peer wistfully at overtop of our debt loads. Dad pioneered that movement, as far as I'm concerned, and you only do that for the love of something.
Secondly, there were students of my dad's at our house all the time. Regardless of how many times we moved, how many different schools my dad taught in, there were always students of his that would come to visit. Or come help move the piano. Or show up at Christmas for a pop or a beer or whatever. These would be students from umpteen schools ago all mixed in with current editions. It wasn't until much later that I understood what a tribute this was to my dad and to the relationships he had with his kids. And we were all his kids.
Lastly, and most importantly, I know he was a good teacher because, while we were in Lomond, he was mine for Math and Chemistry. I mean, he was my teacher all my life, but I had never taken a class from him until then. He was, and I say this without the least guilty shred of detectable bias, the best teacher I have ever had. Period.
The other thing my dad enjoyed, and did well, was grow potatoes. We had a garden in Lomond that, at least to my mind when it came time to do anything with it, was roughly the size of Greenland. A small portion of it was reserved for fun things like carrots and peas -- the sort of things you liked to snitch out of other people's gardens as a rural teenager -- and the rest of it, all four billion hectares, went to potatoes. Every spring, when the school year was winding down, we'd plant those potatoes. Every fall, when the next school year was winding up, we stomp down the potato plants (this, according to my father, put all the energy back into the root and therefore the potato) and then, eventually, dig them all up. We ate the stabbed ones first. To this day I have a garden fork phobia.
To be fair, there were a number of things my father was not very good at. For instance, he was not very good at eating vegetables. My mom summed it up nicely once by saying, "When was the last time you saw your father eat something green? And dill pickles don't count." He was not very good at pancakes...when you cut into them, the insides tended to run out onto the plate. He was not very good at fixing small, expensive sports cars. I remember one incident involving a candy apple red MG convertible. It was the first, and perhaps only, time I ever heard my father drop an f-bomb. And he dropped several. In a row. Very loudly.
Anyway, I've eventually come to understand something of no small importance to me. I am, in fact, a farmer's son after all. Every year, my dad grew two crops: brains and potatoes. And he was damned good at it.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
