Japanese Garden
Friday, May 15, 2015
Pictures from Thailand, China, Turkey, Vietnam...
ATA Winner Writing Contest:Continuous Small Miracles
Continuous Small Miracles
Continuous Small Miracles
My school has served this extremely isolated and old community for the past 28 years. We don’t have all of the same opportunities and resources usually available in the “South” and often that is a big issue. Frequently, it is difficult to recruit teachers and retain students and often our achievement test and diploma scores are below provincial average. We don’t have a football team, art or music classes and sometimes, as teachers, we wonder if we have been forgotten.
Athabasca Delta Community School in Fort Chipewyan does have many challenges. But every day I arrive at this school I see hard working, although sometimes frustrated teachers, working small miracles with many troubled and challenging students. During my career I have taught in Islamic, Catholic, Anglican and Public School systems each with its own set of values, challenges, accomplishments and problems, but never before have I seen a staff accomplish so much with so little. Mine is a school of continuous and small miracles.
Daily I witness students far behind in academic achievement, largely due to numerous socioeconomic issues beyond their control and comprehension, begin to make the association between letters and sounds, sounds and words and words and sentences, a small miracle. I marvel at the gradual transformations as the elementary team of teachers instructs their students in values education, while our “Helping Hands to Success” counselors deal with everything from anxiety to anger management issues. I marvel as our Physical Education teacher who effectively develops athletic skills, as he teaches his students to be part of something a little larger than themselves, to be part of a team and learn about the greater good and eventually discover that self worth, accomplishment and success leads to peer respect and cooperation. Our gym too is a place of many small miracles.
I have seen teachers patiently read stories to their students, tie their shoe laces, help the young ones with snow pants, wipe runny noses, get them safely on to the school bus and the day’s end and break up play fights that quickly escalate past the play stage. The children are kinetic and the teachers always busy.
I marvel as our Cree and Dene teachers instruct the values, culture and language of their students, bringing together such disparate abilities around one table and then observe as these students respectfully and quietly listen to instructions and to each other, characteristics less common out on the play yard. The aboriginal teachers work miracles on a regular basis. I learn from them.
Because we have a lunch program our kitchen staff bring healthy snacks and lunches to each classroom every day, our bus drivers transport our students to school every day and our custodians keep our building clean and warm. I witnessed the community come together and organize a Safe Halloween night. Over three hundred people came to the school that night as Nunee Health staff, RCMP officers, teachers, Band leaders, elders and families joined together in celebration. We appreciate these small miracles as they happen.
Fort Chipewyan is a small community and perhaps not very sophisticated, but it is moving forward. I am new to the community and perhaps not part of things as yet, but in two short months I have seen the changes that dedicated and caring teachers and staff members can make under very trying circumstances. Athabasca Delta Community School is the most unlikely candidate to select as a special school. I make this choice because each day I see staff members work at least one small miracle with their students each day. We have no lofty pedagogical goals other than to change this out of the way school one student at a time and that is very special.
Marty Rempel,
My school has served this extremely isolated and old community for the past 28 years. We don’t have all of the same opportunities and resources usually available in the “South” and often that is a big issue. Frequently, it is difficult to recruit teachers and retain students and often our achievement test and diploma scores are below provincial average. We don’t have a football team, art or music classes and sometimes, as teachers, we wonder if we have been forgotten.
Athabasca Delta Community School in Fort Chipewyan does have many challenges. But every day I arrive at this school I see hard working, although sometimes frustrated teachers, working small miracles with many troubled and challenging students. During my career I have taught in Islamic, Catholic, Anglican and Public School systems each with its own set of values, challenges, accomplishments and problems, but never before have I seen a staff accomplish so much with so little. Mine is a school of continuous and small miracles.
Daily I witness students far behind in academic achievement, largely due to numerous socioeconomic issues beyond their control and comprehension, begin to make the association between letters and sounds, sounds and words and words and sentences, a small miracle. I marvel at the gradual transformations as the elementary team of teachers instructs their students in values education, while our “Helping Hands to Success” counselors deal with everything from anxiety to anger management issues. I marvel as our Physical Education teacher who effectively develops athletic skills, as he teaches his students to be part of something a little larger than themselves, to be part of a team and learn about the greater good and eventually discover that self worth, accomplishment and success leads to peer respect and cooperation. Our gym too is a place of many small miracles.
I have seen teachers patiently read stories to their students, tie their shoe laces, help the young ones with snow pants, wipe runny noses, get them safely on to the school bus and the day’s end and break up play fights that quickly escalate past the play stage. The children are kinetic and the teachers always busy.
I marvel as our Cree and Dene teachers instruct the values, culture and language of their students, bringing together such disparate abilities around one table and then observe as these students respectfully and quietly listen to instructions and to each other, characteristics less common out on the play yard. The aboriginal teachers work miracles on a regular basis. I learn from them.
Because we have a lunch program our kitchen staff bring healthy snacks and lunches to each classroom every day, our bus drivers transport our students to school every day and our custodians keep our building clean and warm. I witnessed the community come together and organize a Safe Halloween night. Over three hundred people came to the school that night as Nunee Health staff, RCMP officers, teachers, Band leaders, elders and families joined together in celebration. We appreciate these small miracles as they happen.
Fort Chipewyan is a small community and perhaps not very sophisticated, but it is moving forward. I am new to the community and perhaps not part of things as yet, but in two short months I have seen the changes that dedicated and caring teachers and staff members can make under very trying circumstances. Athabasca Delta Community School is the most unlikely candidate to select as a special school. I make this choice because each day I see staff members work at least one small miracle with their students each day. We have no lofty pedagogical goals other than to change this out of the way school one student at a time and that is very special.
Marty Rempel,
Wednesday, May 13, 2015
Dilemma of the Second Chair
Dilemma of the Second Chair
Dilemma of the Second Chair
A bid for the wild side of life,
extreme sport,
risk taker...
two black chairs in my living room
I crossed the room and sat in the
other one, a new perspective
disorientation, confusion.
What's my next move?
Growing up Mennonite
Mennonite Life
More Children of the Corn
My childhood friend Larry Shelly tried to kill me and his sister tried to seduce me. I think the seduction, if you want to call it that, (I know I do), likely happened before the attempt on my life; so there could be a little cause and effect going on here. Returning, after many years, to the neighbourhood of your childhood can bring back many memories, some even pleasant. I don’t think my friend Larry really meant to kill me, but he sure came close; of course it came close with his sister too.
Not to bore you with a lot of sex and violence right up front, but have you ever noticed that when you return to the neighbourhood of your birth it has gotten much smaller? I grew up on 500 North Vine Street, in St Catharines, Ontario; since I was born in 1950, this qualifies me a “Baby Boomer” and part of the ruling elite.
I have made several trips back to the old “hood” as an adult, either on my own, or with my wife, in order to share some of the events that led to the numerous indelible emotional scars I now carry with me as part of my personal baggage. I am encumbered.
I attended Prince Phillip Public School and like all kids of my generation we walked to school. Generally, it was about a ten minute walk that took, on a good day, about half an hour. Naturally during this particular historical time period the route to school was arduous and up hill in both directions. School buses were a thing of the future.
One of my earliest childhood memories has me being pulled by my mother in a wooden sleigh with large metal runners. Snow falls as I stick out my tongue to the elements. Flakes gently melt on its tip. My mother is humming a Bing Crosby tune as we gleefully go to school. I was bundled in my seat and held in place with wooden rails similar to those found on a child’s wagon. It wasn’t quite like this, but I thought I should throw in a good memory because remember my friend Larry did try to kill me and I need some solace.
There were far too many distractions along the way and I seldom got to school on time. My route took me through and past numerous orchards and vineyards, as we were located in the Niagara Fruit Belt. There were pear, plum, apple, peach, and apricot delicacies to choose from en route. It was like going to school via the Garden of Eden without the snakes, but with most of the temptations.
One temptation we could never ignore (I’ll get back to Deserei later) was a construction site. We were drawn like paparazzi to a Britney Spears sighting. Because we lived on the rural-urban fringe of the city there were many such sites and several on my route to school, which made it almost impossible to attend school with any regularity. The fact that I failed grade one had a lot to do with my early morning visits to construction sites. It was only an ironic twist of fate that I ended up as a teacher and not a construction worker.
There was always something sublimely complying about the deep dank hole in the ground that formed the foundation of a new house, or the fresh smell of cut lumber, or the irresistible framing which served as a jungle gym to my youthful enthusiasm. For some reason, maybe because we were stupid kids, we never figured out why contractors and new home owners did not appreciate us playing at the building sites. Despite the fact that we seldom did major damage, we were chased by the usual suspects of construction workers, their bosses, their dogs, and/or the future home owner out to protect their investment. I never considered what we did as vandalism; it was more like self-directed collateral damage.
We were young, fit, fast and flexible and we seldom got caught. Often in hot pursuit, we would head out across Boikoph’s orchard, backing on to the construction area, at or near Mach 4. As if on cue we would split in several directions to throw off our pursuers. Not to take full or even partial credit, but I hasten to mention that Steven Spielberg used a similar scene in his classic movie ET in which a gaggle of kids were escaping on bike, (remember the flying bike scene), with ET into the woods in an all out effort to get back to the mother ship. Okay, grant it our escape did not involve free flight, but I think the parallels between my childhood escapes and those in ET are, at least to my mind, more than coincidental.
Eventually, we would jump any fence, hedge or other intervening barriers to make good our escape. As kids we always had the advantage when running through vineyards. With each new line of parallel vines, without losing speed we would drop and roll to the next row of vines until our pursuers, even dogs, gave up. We would then infiltrate the neighbourhood on the other side of the orchard and after a suitable length of time, using every clandestine means at our disposal, short of disguise, we would slowly and one at a time infiltrate into our own neighbourhood until the heat was off, leaving the construction workers, their bosses, their dogs and/or the future owners wandering aimlessly in the wrong neighbourhood looking for the wrong doers, with no leads. Truly, it was a thing of beauty, as was Deserei.
You probably want to hear more of the seduction side of the story. Now remember I was only about ten, give or take a year, and this is my story and I’m sticking to it no matter what the facts are. Deserei, to my young eyes was an older woman. She was 13.
I spent lots of time at Deserei’s house because I was good buddies with her younger brother Larry and they were our next door neighbours. Deserei would often invite me downstairs into their unfinished rec room, sit next to me, really, really close on an over stuffed, soft couch while showing me pictures from the Eaton’s and Sears catalogues.
She was totally into fashion and I wasn’t yet familiar with the concept. Deserei would ask me to pick, from a given page, the best looking outfit, pair of shoes or model. I was strangely drawn to the swim suit and lingerie pages, but noticed that none of the girls had navels. This was an anatomical mystery that I did not unravel until much later in life.
The difficult part was somehow justifying my catalogue selections to Deserei as my choices were often random and I had no set of criteria to guide me. Deserei could keep going with the catalogue game for hours. She had stamina which I greatly admired. I humoured her because I was excited just being in the same room with her not to mention on a couch looking at models. There was something vaguely tactile that attracted me to her and she smelled really good. I would find ever opportunity to lean into her (easily facilitated by the softness of the couch) to get a better look at the page under scrutiny, pretending to study every detail when I was just trying to be as close to her as possible. This was heaven or something very close. In fact later in life I was to discover that it actually was heaven.
With the help of my big brother, Larry, and a few miscellaneous friends, we excelled at building underground forts. I believe it was a niche market and apparently we had cornered it. My father had helped us with two tree forts in our backyard, one in a plum tree and the other in a willow tree. He had also built us a playhouse of epic proportions, complete with moveable glass windows, and furniture. We had to share this with our sisters and their friends; so it lost some of the luster for us, therefore, the quest to go underground.
We chose our fort location with precision, usually close to existing construction sites to reduce the cost of materials and transportation. Our basic design was a huge pit or trough-like hole and by using unwanted valueless lumber from the nearest residential construction site we fabricated a lattice or framework of 2 X 4’s and 2 X 6’s, depending on availability. This sturdy and heavy framework was covered with whatever plywood the contractors happen to be using at the time. We preferred three quarter inch for its durability, if nothing else, we were all about quality.
Once the plywood was situated we would joyously fling shovelfuls of previously excavated dirt over the entire project. The soil was covered with sod and within two weeks the whole thing was overgrown with weeds and was therefore perfectly camouflaged with the existing environment. Naturally, being attentive to detail and cognizant of the need to breath while underground, we inserted eaves troughing and pieces of downspouts along the edges of the roof, penetrating into the cavern below. A second smaller trench, covered with branches served as an entranceway. The floor was modeled after soddies from the prairies and other Depression era homes with dirt floors. Ours were covered in generous layers of the venerable St Catharines Standard, allowing us to keep up with the news while staying relatively dry and cozy.
“Terrific, and such an innovative design,” you say, “But what about the parallel plot line involving Deserei?”
After one lazy summer afternoon of scrutinizing the Eaton’s catalogue shoe section, in later life I was to discover that to a woman a shoe is not a shoe. A shoe, in all its discomfort and impractical design and numerous short comings, is actually a piece of art. My daughter Meghan, who had done hard time at Aldo’s, confided that, “Shoes are not about comfort.” Had I known that fact back in 1960’s it likely would have made absolutely no difference to the outcome of this story. I am just making an editorial comment because that’s just the way it is with shoes and women.
Our garage, built from scratch by my dad, and our neighbour’s garage were side by side with a narrow space between them. This space was an actual location we referred to as “between the garages,” for obvious reasons. My dad stored lumber here from his various projects. We used the lumber to get up on the roof. We liked doing this because we were kids and it was there, some adults have the same attitude about mountains.
Deserei suggested that we needed a break from the catalogues; my eyes were blood shot from the strain. She held my hand and led me “between the garages.” I should have known something was up because I didn’t think she had any desire whatsoever to get the panoramic view from the garage roof. Did I mentioned for a young girl she was extremely voluptuous and could easily have appeared on a catalogue page herself, possible on the swim suit or lingerie pages, but what did I know because when she purred (and I swear I thought it was a cat), “I’ll let you see mine if I can see yours.” I thought she was referring to my Swiss Army knife with the multiple blades, can opener and what looked like a corkscrew. I should have recognized one of the most famous of pick up lines for what it was. I was naïve, curious and very eager.
Our fort had three rooms; we called them chambers, as this was actually part of a secret lair project from where we hoped to achieve world wide dominance, or at least hid from our parents when we were called in from play. Each chamber was joined to the next by a tunnel about three feet in length. Along the earthen walls we dug shallow enclaves to situate candles. We discovered that by the time we got to the third chamber (here after referred to as the inner sanctum) the candles would barely burn. Apparently, and no one told us this at the time, candles need oxygen to burn. Read the last sentence again. It is a clever example of foreshadowing!
Deserei was already taking her clothes off. Now, in the following description please don’t hold me to the exact details because these occurred almost fifty years ago, that’s half a century by my reckoning. The weather that day was a humid 86 degrees on the Fahrenheit scale, there was a slight breeze blowing at 3.2 knots from the SSW, the barometric pressure was holding steady at 1016 mb, as a high pressure had just moved in form the Gulf of Mexico. I vaguely recall that Deserei wore a pale blue pair of tight Capri pants. Her toe nails were painted in a deep purple and nicely contrasted with the Capri’s. Her sandals were of light brown leather the colour of her silky hair, which flowed long and straight to her shoulders. She was highly tanned with strong muscular definition along her calves. She wore a white peasant type blouse with a delicate gold chain caressing a heart shaped pendant. I did not know, nor would I ever, what was inside the pendant.
However, I soon discovered what was under her blouse and I was mesmerized like… now I don’t even have a good simile to use here because I was so completely and utterly fascinated by what I saw. My mind was frantically and desperately in over drive trying to absorb and assimilate every nuance and magnificent detail of all that stood before me. I was the proverbial deer blinded, yet attracted, by the rapidly oncoming transport truck with the high beams blazing. I froze this moment for eternity in time and space, and as I stood before a now naked Deserei the magical moment synchronized with the exact moment that Larry happened along.
Of course I will never know what could have happened next and I bear no malice towards Larry for his interruption while I lusted after his sister, other than the standard wish that he would rot in the fourth level of purgatory until the end of time. It really wasn’t his fault, damn it. And like I said I wasn’t bitter! I have no regrets, but I can’t stop thinking, “What if that little asshole hadn’t have come along when he did?”
The next day found me forlorn and alone in the inner sanctum of our fort, whiling away the time with some sort of carnal magazine with fold out pages. Why do you think we had to go under ground? The air was already quite stale this far into the fort; so when I had my first whiff of smoke I didn’t panic until my eyes were watering and my eyes were burning, as massive billows of smoke from the smoldering newspapers wafted towards me.
The depth of the chamber was such that I couldn’t get enough leverage with my arms or my legs to push the roof off because with all that stolen lumber and dirt it weighed about 17 metric tones, nor could I move forward to the next chamber without crawling over burning newspaper. There was no time to form a think tank and problem solve with the use of a flow chart; so I just began to scream loud and long through one of the air tubes to the outside world.
I was only ten; so when my life flashed in front of me I had to rewind several times to pick out the skimpy detail, because three really wasn’t much content after allowing for all the commercial breaks. I did pause several times at the clip with Deserei between the garages, but even that couldn’t bring me much joy during such a crisis.
I really was too young to die. I had been “saved” two summers prior at the Brunk tent revival and I was relatively confident that my soul was safe, but I was more concerned, at the moment ,with the flesh part of me and it was getting hotter, and smokier by the moment.
I don’t believe in miracles, but I do believe in my brother. Even though we didn’t always get along and he frequently blackmailed me about not telling our mom about his smoking down by the canal, or about the cat incident and the ax, or about the broken cellar window, or his driving in a stolen car with an under aged driver while under the influence, or about the crossbow he made from a car spring that nearly decapitated his friend Victor. I forgot all of that, as my brother literally tore the roof off of our fort and flung it to the side, like a superhero, while simultaneously grabbing me by the forearm and practically throwing me out of the pit of death. I was saved.
Minutes later, when I appeared in front of my mother, still and oddly, clutching my fire damaged copy of the July 1960 Playboy magazine from the fort, my dear sweet Mennonite mom probably didn’t know whether to slap me in the back of the head of give me a hug. In quick succession she actually did both, but I won’t say in which order.
Honing in with fine detective skills we narrowed down the incriminating web of evidence and concluded that Deserei’s brother, Larry, had indeed set the fire. I think the defining clue was the fact that Larry was doing a little dance in front of our house, while singing out something to the effect that he had “burnt the little”…it was either “turd or perv.” I really couldn’t tell which.
My brother figured that the fire was likely designed to be an honour killing for the quality time I had spent between the garages with Deserei. When I had failed grade one, likely for spending so much time ransacking construction sites, one of my classmates, Paul Head, cruelly ridiculed me for being such a dum ass by failing grade one. I mean who does that?
As the youngest member in our family I felt quite strongly and therefore compelled to uphold a long standing family tradition. Prior to my repeating grade one, my brother and sister had also failed grade one. My oldest sister, who we have never quite forgiven, skipped a grade and became a teacher at age nineteen, but that’s neither here nor there.
To my brother’s credit and in defense of our own family honour, Marvin relentlessly tracked down my tormentor, Paul, during a wild bike chase. OJ Simpson had nothing on us when it came to chase scenes. Clearly, my brother was stirred on by the incessant screaming of wild onlookers as he leaped from his own bike, tackled Paul, and threw him to the ground and into a ditch.
Marvin, still active in social justice issues today, held Paul down while I was allowed to pummel him with my fists until he cried and begged forgiveness for teasing me. It was a wonderfully cathartic moment, after which I was determined to get better grades in order to spite my smart ass sister by becoming a teacher just like her, and so it came to pass.
It was no surprise to me that, after my mother had hugged and beat me, we snuck out to Larryie’s house where I hid across the street behind a hydro pole. Marv marched up to the Larry’s door without letting me in on his game plan. A jubilant Larry came to the door. He became progressively less jubilant as my brother explained to him that I was dead. I had a sense of the subtle nuances which were being played out across the street and, like Mark Twain, knew that the rumours of my death had been greatly exaggerated, but it definitely had the deserved effect on Larry, who, as I could see from my vantage point, was in tears.
Having lived through both a near death experience and the heights of eroticism I had learned many valuable lessons that have profoundly changed my life and made me a better person. I knew, for life, that my brother always had my back, and never ever get caught holding a Playboy magazine in front of a scared, angry, Mennonite mother. The results are just too unpredictable.
Footnote to History:
Not to leave any loose ends, as everyone likes a tidy conclusion, I will mention that although Deserei gradually drifted from my life (it was the day after the fire), she did go on to co-author the Kinsey Report. Larry served 5-10 for Grand Theft Auto and later took his experiences to develop a highly successful video game. Our friend Victor, quite ironically, was killed in a bizarre hunting accident involving a crossbow. My brother now retired, is still active in social justice issues. As for me, I really did become a teacher and on a daily basis pass on life’s little lessons to my students; but they just don’t seem to take me seriously.
Marty Rempel
From: Monkey Mind
(3500 words)
My childhood friend Larry Shelly tried to kill me and his sister tried to seduce me. I think the seduction, if you want to call it that, (I know I do), likely happened before the attempt on my life; so there could be a little cause and effect going on here. Returning, after many years, to the neighbourhood of your childhood can bring back many memories, some even pleasant. I don’t think my friend Larry really meant to kill me, but he sure came close; of course it came close with his sister too.
Not to bore you with a lot of sex and violence right up front, but have you ever noticed that when you return to the neighbourhood of your birth it has gotten much smaller? I grew up on 500 North Vine Street, in St Catharines, Ontario; since I was born in 1950, this qualifies me a “Baby Boomer” and part of the ruling elite.
I have made several trips back to the old “hood” as an adult, either on my own, or with my wife, in order to share some of the events that led to the numerous indelible emotional scars I now carry with me as part of my personal baggage. I am encumbered.
I attended Prince Phillip Public School and like all kids of my generation we walked to school. Generally, it was about a ten minute walk that took, on a good day, about half an hour. Naturally during this particular historical time period the route to school was arduous and up hill in both directions. School buses were a thing of the future.
One of my earliest childhood memories has me being pulled by my mother in a wooden sleigh with large metal runners. Snow falls as I stick out my tongue to the elements. Flakes gently melt on its tip. My mother is humming a Bing Crosby tune as we gleefully go to school. I was bundled in my seat and held in place with wooden rails similar to those found on a child’s wagon. It wasn’t quite like this, but I thought I should throw in a good memory because remember my friend Larry did try to kill me and I need some solace.
There were far too many distractions along the way and I seldom got to school on time. My route took me through and past numerous orchards and vineyards, as we were located in the Niagara Fruit Belt. There were pear, plum, apple, peach, and apricot delicacies to choose from en route. It was like going to school via the Garden of Eden without the snakes, but with most of the temptations.
One temptation we could never ignore (I’ll get back to Deserei later) was a construction site. We were drawn like paparazzi to a Britney Spears sighting. Because we lived on the rural-urban fringe of the city there were many such sites and several on my route to school, which made it almost impossible to attend school with any regularity. The fact that I failed grade one had a lot to do with my early morning visits to construction sites. It was only an ironic twist of fate that I ended up as a teacher and not a construction worker.
There was always something sublimely complying about the deep dank hole in the ground that formed the foundation of a new house, or the fresh smell of cut lumber, or the irresistible framing which served as a jungle gym to my youthful enthusiasm. For some reason, maybe because we were stupid kids, we never figured out why contractors and new home owners did not appreciate us playing at the building sites. Despite the fact that we seldom did major damage, we were chased by the usual suspects of construction workers, their bosses, their dogs, and/or the future home owner out to protect their investment. I never considered what we did as vandalism; it was more like self-directed collateral damage.
We were young, fit, fast and flexible and we seldom got caught. Often in hot pursuit, we would head out across Boikoph’s orchard, backing on to the construction area, at or near Mach 4. As if on cue we would split in several directions to throw off our pursuers. Not to take full or even partial credit, but I hasten to mention that Steven Spielberg used a similar scene in his classic movie ET in which a gaggle of kids were escaping on bike, (remember the flying bike scene), with ET into the woods in an all out effort to get back to the mother ship. Okay, grant it our escape did not involve free flight, but I think the parallels between my childhood escapes and those in ET are, at least to my mind, more than coincidental.
Eventually, we would jump any fence, hedge or other intervening barriers to make good our escape. As kids we always had the advantage when running through vineyards. With each new line of parallel vines, without losing speed we would drop and roll to the next row of vines until our pursuers, even dogs, gave up. We would then infiltrate the neighbourhood on the other side of the orchard and after a suitable length of time, using every clandestine means at our disposal, short of disguise, we would slowly and one at a time infiltrate into our own neighbourhood until the heat was off, leaving the construction workers, their bosses, their dogs and/or the future owners wandering aimlessly in the wrong neighbourhood looking for the wrong doers, with no leads. Truly, it was a thing of beauty, as was Deserei.
You probably want to hear more of the seduction side of the story. Now remember I was only about ten, give or take a year, and this is my story and I’m sticking to it no matter what the facts are. Deserei, to my young eyes was an older woman. She was 13.
I spent lots of time at Deserei’s house because I was good buddies with her younger brother Larry and they were our next door neighbours. Deserei would often invite me downstairs into their unfinished rec room, sit next to me, really, really close on an over stuffed, soft couch while showing me pictures from the Eaton’s and Sears catalogues.
She was totally into fashion and I wasn’t yet familiar with the concept. Deserei would ask me to pick, from a given page, the best looking outfit, pair of shoes or model. I was strangely drawn to the swim suit and lingerie pages, but noticed that none of the girls had navels. This was an anatomical mystery that I did not unravel until much later in life.
The difficult part was somehow justifying my catalogue selections to Deserei as my choices were often random and I had no set of criteria to guide me. Deserei could keep going with the catalogue game for hours. She had stamina which I greatly admired. I humoured her because I was excited just being in the same room with her not to mention on a couch looking at models. There was something vaguely tactile that attracted me to her and she smelled really good. I would find ever opportunity to lean into her (easily facilitated by the softness of the couch) to get a better look at the page under scrutiny, pretending to study every detail when I was just trying to be as close to her as possible. This was heaven or something very close. In fact later in life I was to discover that it actually was heaven.
With the help of my big brother, Larry, and a few miscellaneous friends, we excelled at building underground forts. I believe it was a niche market and apparently we had cornered it. My father had helped us with two tree forts in our backyard, one in a plum tree and the other in a willow tree. He had also built us a playhouse of epic proportions, complete with moveable glass windows, and furniture. We had to share this with our sisters and their friends; so it lost some of the luster for us, therefore, the quest to go underground.
We chose our fort location with precision, usually close to existing construction sites to reduce the cost of materials and transportation. Our basic design was a huge pit or trough-like hole and by using unwanted valueless lumber from the nearest residential construction site we fabricated a lattice or framework of 2 X 4’s and 2 X 6’s, depending on availability. This sturdy and heavy framework was covered with whatever plywood the contractors happen to be using at the time. We preferred three quarter inch for its durability, if nothing else, we were all about quality.
Once the plywood was situated we would joyously fling shovelfuls of previously excavated dirt over the entire project. The soil was covered with sod and within two weeks the whole thing was overgrown with weeds and was therefore perfectly camouflaged with the existing environment. Naturally, being attentive to detail and cognizant of the need to breath while underground, we inserted eaves troughing and pieces of downspouts along the edges of the roof, penetrating into the cavern below. A second smaller trench, covered with branches served as an entranceway. The floor was modeled after soddies from the prairies and other Depression era homes with dirt floors. Ours were covered in generous layers of the venerable St Catharines Standard, allowing us to keep up with the news while staying relatively dry and cozy.
“Terrific, and such an innovative design,” you say, “But what about the parallel plot line involving Deserei?”
After one lazy summer afternoon of scrutinizing the Eaton’s catalogue shoe section, in later life I was to discover that to a woman a shoe is not a shoe. A shoe, in all its discomfort and impractical design and numerous short comings, is actually a piece of art. My daughter Meghan, who had done hard time at Aldo’s, confided that, “Shoes are not about comfort.” Had I known that fact back in 1960’s it likely would have made absolutely no difference to the outcome of this story. I am just making an editorial comment because that’s just the way it is with shoes and women.
Our garage, built from scratch by my dad, and our neighbour’s garage were side by side with a narrow space between them. This space was an actual location we referred to as “between the garages,” for obvious reasons. My dad stored lumber here from his various projects. We used the lumber to get up on the roof. We liked doing this because we were kids and it was there, some adults have the same attitude about mountains.
Deserei suggested that we needed a break from the catalogues; my eyes were blood shot from the strain. She held my hand and led me “between the garages.” I should have known something was up because I didn’t think she had any desire whatsoever to get the panoramic view from the garage roof. Did I mentioned for a young girl she was extremely voluptuous and could easily have appeared on a catalogue page herself, possible on the swim suit or lingerie pages, but what did I know because when she purred (and I swear I thought it was a cat), “I’ll let you see mine if I can see yours.” I thought she was referring to my Swiss Army knife with the multiple blades, can opener and what looked like a corkscrew. I should have recognized one of the most famous of pick up lines for what it was. I was naïve, curious and very eager.
Our fort had three rooms; we called them chambers, as this was actually part of a secret lair project from where we hoped to achieve world wide dominance, or at least hid from our parents when we were called in from play. Each chamber was joined to the next by a tunnel about three feet in length. Along the earthen walls we dug shallow enclaves to situate candles. We discovered that by the time we got to the third chamber (here after referred to as the inner sanctum) the candles would barely burn. Apparently, and no one told us this at the time, candles need oxygen to burn. Read the last sentence again. It is a clever example of foreshadowing!
Deserei was already taking her clothes off. Now, in the following description please don’t hold me to the exact details because these occurred almost fifty years ago, that’s half a century by my reckoning. The weather that day was a humid 86 degrees on the Fahrenheit scale, there was a slight breeze blowing at 3.2 knots from the SSW, the barometric pressure was holding steady at 1016 mb, as a high pressure had just moved in form the Gulf of Mexico. I vaguely recall that Deserei wore a pale blue pair of tight Capri pants. Her toe nails were painted in a deep purple and nicely contrasted with the Capri’s. Her sandals were of light brown leather the colour of her silky hair, which flowed long and straight to her shoulders. She was highly tanned with strong muscular definition along her calves. She wore a white peasant type blouse with a delicate gold chain caressing a heart shaped pendant. I did not know, nor would I ever, what was inside the pendant.
However, I soon discovered what was under her blouse and I was mesmerized like… now I don’t even have a good simile to use here because I was so completely and utterly fascinated by what I saw. My mind was frantically and desperately in over drive trying to absorb and assimilate every nuance and magnificent detail of all that stood before me. I was the proverbial deer blinded, yet attracted, by the rapidly oncoming transport truck with the high beams blazing. I froze this moment for eternity in time and space, and as I stood before a now naked Deserei the magical moment synchronized with the exact moment that Larry happened along.
Of course I will never know what could have happened next and I bear no malice towards Larry for his interruption while I lusted after his sister, other than the standard wish that he would rot in the fourth level of purgatory until the end of time. It really wasn’t his fault, damn it. And like I said I wasn’t bitter! I have no regrets, but I can’t stop thinking, “What if that little asshole hadn’t have come along when he did?”
The next day found me forlorn and alone in the inner sanctum of our fort, whiling away the time with some sort of carnal magazine with fold out pages. Why do you think we had to go under ground? The air was already quite stale this far into the fort; so when I had my first whiff of smoke I didn’t panic until my eyes were watering and my eyes were burning, as massive billows of smoke from the smoldering newspapers wafted towards me.
The depth of the chamber was such that I couldn’t get enough leverage with my arms or my legs to push the roof off because with all that stolen lumber and dirt it weighed about 17 metric tones, nor could I move forward to the next chamber without crawling over burning newspaper. There was no time to form a think tank and problem solve with the use of a flow chart; so I just began to scream loud and long through one of the air tubes to the outside world.
I was only ten; so when my life flashed in front of me I had to rewind several times to pick out the skimpy detail, because three really wasn’t much content after allowing for all the commercial breaks. I did pause several times at the clip with Deserei between the garages, but even that couldn’t bring me much joy during such a crisis.
I really was too young to die. I had been “saved” two summers prior at the Brunk tent revival and I was relatively confident that my soul was safe, but I was more concerned, at the moment ,with the flesh part of me and it was getting hotter, and smokier by the moment.
I don’t believe in miracles, but I do believe in my brother. Even though we didn’t always get along and he frequently blackmailed me about not telling our mom about his smoking down by the canal, or about the cat incident and the ax, or about the broken cellar window, or his driving in a stolen car with an under aged driver while under the influence, or about the crossbow he made from a car spring that nearly decapitated his friend Victor. I forgot all of that, as my brother literally tore the roof off of our fort and flung it to the side, like a superhero, while simultaneously grabbing me by the forearm and practically throwing me out of the pit of death. I was saved.
Minutes later, when I appeared in front of my mother, still and oddly, clutching my fire damaged copy of the July 1960 Playboy magazine from the fort, my dear sweet Mennonite mom probably didn’t know whether to slap me in the back of the head of give me a hug. In quick succession she actually did both, but I won’t say in which order.
Honing in with fine detective skills we narrowed down the incriminating web of evidence and concluded that Deserei’s brother, Larry, had indeed set the fire. I think the defining clue was the fact that Larry was doing a little dance in front of our house, while singing out something to the effect that he had “burnt the little”…it was either “turd or perv.” I really couldn’t tell which.
My brother figured that the fire was likely designed to be an honour killing for the quality time I had spent between the garages with Deserei. When I had failed grade one, likely for spending so much time ransacking construction sites, one of my classmates, Paul Head, cruelly ridiculed me for being such a dum ass by failing grade one. I mean who does that?
As the youngest member in our family I felt quite strongly and therefore compelled to uphold a long standing family tradition. Prior to my repeating grade one, my brother and sister had also failed grade one. My oldest sister, who we have never quite forgiven, skipped a grade and became a teacher at age nineteen, but that’s neither here nor there.
To my brother’s credit and in defense of our own family honour, Marvin relentlessly tracked down my tormentor, Paul, during a wild bike chase. OJ Simpson had nothing on us when it came to chase scenes. Clearly, my brother was stirred on by the incessant screaming of wild onlookers as he leaped from his own bike, tackled Paul, and threw him to the ground and into a ditch.
Marvin, still active in social justice issues today, held Paul down while I was allowed to pummel him with my fists until he cried and begged forgiveness for teasing me. It was a wonderfully cathartic moment, after which I was determined to get better grades in order to spite my smart ass sister by becoming a teacher just like her, and so it came to pass.
It was no surprise to me that, after my mother had hugged and beat me, we snuck out to Larryie’s house where I hid across the street behind a hydro pole. Marv marched up to the Larry’s door without letting me in on his game plan. A jubilant Larry came to the door. He became progressively less jubilant as my brother explained to him that I was dead. I had a sense of the subtle nuances which were being played out across the street and, like Mark Twain, knew that the rumours of my death had been greatly exaggerated, but it definitely had the deserved effect on Larry, who, as I could see from my vantage point, was in tears.
Having lived through both a near death experience and the heights of eroticism I had learned many valuable lessons that have profoundly changed my life and made me a better person. I knew, for life, that my brother always had my back, and never ever get caught holding a Playboy magazine in front of a scared, angry, Mennonite mother. The results are just too unpredictable.
Footnote to History:
Not to leave any loose ends, as everyone likes a tidy conclusion, I will mention that although Deserei gradually drifted from my life (it was the day after the fire), she did go on to co-author the Kinsey Report. Larry served 5-10 for Grand Theft Auto and later took his experiences to develop a highly successful video game. Our friend Victor, quite ironically, was killed in a bizarre hunting accident involving a crossbow. My brother now retired, is still active in social justice issues. As for me, I really did become a teacher and on a daily basis pass on life’s little lessons to my students; but they just don’t seem to take me seriously.
Marty Rempel
From: Monkey Mind
(3500 words)
Made in China
China: Capitalistic Centrifuge: A Rant
Tapping keyboards like anemic woodpeckers in a hardwood forest. Dim the lights in backroom board rooms, drone on about high tech, market mass, resource allocation, shifts in the market all on Power Point. Read like rote with plush ties and black suits. They appear as clones of drones with faces reflecting on Dell computer screens, blackberries activated under tables in hostile corporate take over bids, red light on a live microphone, risk an intelligent question only to upset the status quo. What are you thinking? Building rapidly towards a tipping point, pick up the buzz, another paradigm shift, the secret sauce of success, a potent mix of R and D, a convergence of entrepreneurship, a collaborative approach. Proactive efforts make the corporation grow. Value the family but work the week end, make the candle burn with value added tax, create demand then the ultimate consumer, transport jobs to distant lands, all subterfuge, the unions are to blame, while bottom line profits are up, be happy and consume, diversify now specialize only the strongest will survive, the ones in the Armani suits and faster cars with trophy wives, exploit the masses. What does it matter everything now is MADE IN CHINA.
Industrialism in China, the locals call in mist...
Tuesday, May 12, 2015
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