Tales My Grandfather Told
The Shaw Festival Theatre had just let out its Christmas crowd from the classic production of White Christmas. Snow crunchedunder our feet as we approached the parked car. We were all chattering about the play we had just seen and making comparisons to the Bing Crosby, Danny Kaye, Rosemary Cooney and Vera Ellen original. The younger of us, especially the grand kids, had no clue what we were even talking about.
“The singing may not have been Bing quality and the dancing may not have been Kaye quality but a classic story, just that one lady, OMG, the one working in the Inn could not sing, that was just too sad.”
We packed into the car and headed out to the Queen Elizabeth for the two-hour drive home. I had grown up near Niagara and this had been part of my home turf. As kids we had made frequent bike trips out to Niagara from St Catharines and sometimes on to Brock’s monument and Niagara Falls. My parents, typical of the time, seldom, if at all, knew our where abouts. We, and by we, I mean my brother, myself and several friends made a bike caravan leaving early in the morning and returning to our respective homes close to sunset. As long as we made it before the street lights came on, we were in the safety zone as far as my mother was concerned and I was never certain if my father was ever aware of what we were doing, where we went, when or with whom.
It was on the same road we were now driving on from the theatre having watched a serene and classic Christmas play thatalmost 60 years earlier by good friend, Art, lost his sister Grace in a tragic car bike accident. Grace was out delivering papers on her bike when she was violently hit from behind and thrown into a farmer’s field. She was hit so hard she probably died before she landed.
It was the first tragedy and death I had experienced and it hit us all hard. Each time we made the bike trip to Niagara, for we were never deterred, we would stop at the spot where Grace died and sit astride our bikes for a moment of silence, sometimes Art would be with us, before heading on to finish our road trip. Those were different times and perhaps safety, or even a regard for safety had not been devised or seriously even aconsideration. As kids we lived like feral cats and wondered for the sake of adventure. Our lives were full and joyous for the most part
Driving back from the play we missed the turn off leading to the highway. “Looks like we missed that last turn to the Queenie, this is Lakeshore where I grew up and these are the places I remember as a kid. Guys this is my memory lane.”
Not to spoil the glow of the recent play we had just seen I didn’t tell anyone about Grace and her bike accident as we passed the spot.
“This turn to the left takes you to Avondale Dairy a place we would bike for ice cream on week ends or in the summer, sometimes on a Sunday my father feeling generous would drive the family out here, but we would never admit to him that for every time he took us, we had been ten times on our own. Had I stepped up to the counter and said to one of the scoopers I’ll have the usual they would have known exactly what to get me.”
I continued with my tour guiding with my captive audience as we drove the long way to join the highway. “This is McNab school where my brother went to grade eight. We biked out here frequently to go hiking and hunting at our base camp near the lake. We had an arsenal of guns including everything from pellet and BB guns to a 22 rifle. Later we added a few shot guns but since we were raised Mennonite, we put a self-imposed cap on our arsenal. I admit we were merely stupid kids. We didn’t know any better and as such randomly and without care shot birds and squirrels and just about anything that moved, in large numbers. There was one day that a group of old order Mennonites with a higher level of ethics and scruples witnessed our carnage and unknown to us at the time found our bikes and as a punitive self-righteous gesture let the air out of our tires. It was a long walk to the nearest gas station. Had they not been Mennonite they would likely have slashed our tires too”.
Approaching the Welland Canal lock one lift bridge I pointed out the 20-ton semi-circular counter weight that was now securely fenced in because back in the day, that would be my day, it was not. I pointed out that, “During those times, in the wild sixties, we took great joy in placing coins, usually pennies,in the path of the counter weight as the bridge went either up or down. In the process and under such weigh a penny would increase in diameter by a factor of approximately three. Mind you there was the danger of losing a finger, hand or arm as the bridge weight moved thus the fence on location today. The fence adds safety, but removes adventure.”
And if we go straight on along Lakeshore, we get to an access point at the end of Vine Street the landmark street I lived on which gives access to Lake |Ontario where of course we would go skinny dipping. We weren’t allowed to swim in the lake unsupervised and since we were never supervised in was best not to come home with incriminating evidence like wet bathing suits.
Along Vine Street run the many plum, apple and pear orchards and vineyards that we liberally stole from on our way to Prince Phillip Elementary School each and every day. We were chased by many farmers who it seems kept us both fed and exercised.
“Grandpa, you were quite a bad ass kid. I’m not even allowedto go out alone in my neighborhood?”
“Yes, I get it Ryan times have changed a lot and we were a little wilder and freer, but you are so totally right times have changed so much from when I was a kid growing up to now. You know I have many more stories those were just a few travellinghighlights, to be continued if you ever have the time.”
We eventually got back to the highway and conversations turned to other topics as we made our way home and it did turn out to be a very White Christmas that year.
***
“Keep your eye out for the supply drops, they fall out of the sky and have all the best stuff.”
I had just flown a routine reconnaissance mission in the Battle Bus over Mystic Island looking for the optimum drop off spot. This followed by a jet pack assisted descent to the island’s surface, when suddenly with no explanation my jet pack disappeared and my avatar, on screen, continued the rapid descent with parachute like butterfly wings. I had no apparent control over what was happening next. “Ryan,” I shouted out what’s happening?”
It’s okay. Just remember grandpa when you land its basically kill or be killed. Move fast pick up weapons and supplies, destroy things, go into buildings, but keep moving and get weapons.”
I landed, my yellow butterfly wings morphed away and miraculously and with mixed emotions I had a woman’s body with a tight nylon suit and an automatic weapon. I was a maniac out of control shooting everything in my path. Just following orders, sir.
“Ryan, what is happening?” I repeated. Even though I held a control in my hand to play this game I had no idea how to control my character and in an instant before I could cause any more harm Ryan snatched the remote from my hand and continued the battle on my behalf. My ten-year-old grandsonhad just saved my avatar’s life.
As he bravely fought on, I could see the fury in his eyes, as his boyish hairs on his forearms stood on end with his adrenaline rush. At the same time as he ravished the landscape, he gave a play by play and instructions which resonated with his obvious disappointment in my lackluster performance and sounding very much like an admonishment at the same time.
“Remember grandpa you are playing against up to a hundred other players. Its not like you are alone out here. members of your squad are depending on you. You don’t have time to feel sorry for your loses. You have to be quick. Think on the move. Get weapons.” Just as he used his pick axe to break down a structure in his way. I need wood, bricks and metal to build. I have to protect myself and be on the attack. Grandpa I have to do it all and you weren’t really helping!”
His eyes had a demonic gleam like he was possessed and I realized he was still armed. I quietly left the basement, without detection, and so ended badly my first tutorial on Fortnite Battle Royale.
I have to admit the video game had a certain dynamic, violence-packed-adrenaline rush appeal. I could also tell, at a glance, that it was not just a mild interest Ryan had in Fortnight, it was a full-blown addiction. He spent multiple indoor hours upon hours on the giant basement screen with his interests focused on little else. What to do about this obsession this was a new world to me?
At bed time a few nights later, while “baby sitting” and pet sitting the dog, Annie, an American Cocker Spaniel and the cat, a Benegal, Milo. It fell to grandma and I To get the grandkids through the nightly routine in a somewhat orderly and timely fashion. Ryan and Aurora being opportunists also knew this as a period of vulnerability and weakness and therefore a window of opportunity by which to extend bed time to the max, watch more TV get extra bed time stories, more play time wherever their energies and interests might take them.
As for myself having already raised four kids and learned all of the tricks and had the thrills of a blended family I bought more into the philosophy of externally gruff but ultimately cool grandfather and hell to many of the routines. Those are for parents.
Grandma took on the case of Aurora while that night my energies were focused on young Mr. Ryan. Who at the moment was busy feeding his turtle Clive. Clive who had been found in the backyard the previous Spring had grown to an enormous size and had already outgrown a 10-gallon aquarium and was presently pushing the limits on his, as I could only assume his gender, as it could be just as easily a her and therefore Clivette, 20-gallon aquarium. Clive(ette) was due for release this coming Spring to a creek bed nearby before he had to move into the family bathtub as a permanent squatter.
“I guess you’re going to miss ‘ole Clive when you let him into the wild”
Ryan thought for a moment. He always gave his thoughts sufficient pause before speaking, as he was ever the thoughtful kid.
His answer somewhat surprised me, “Well, just like freeing Willie I guess. I think it is time.”
“Yeah, can’t argue with that”, I then segwayed into, “so what do you want to hear for a bedtime story?”
I grabbed a few pillows to lay against the head of the bed. From that vantage point when the motion sensor light from the closet turned off and only the turtle night light and Clive’s aquarium light, with the steadying unrelenting thumping of the aquarium water pump, Ryan and I were able to look back, stare up and examine the star covered sky of the Milky Way ceiling created through the effects of cosmic wallpaper on the ceiling. Although we saw no comets streaking by, it was a breath taking sight to take.
As I picked up a story book from the bedside table, Ryan said, “You won’t change the story as you read this time will you grandpa?”
I feigned shock. Ryan when have I ever changed the plot, characters, or any level of conflict in a bedtime story?”
Again, the temporary pause as he thought as if drawing up an incriminating list of evidence for the prosecution side, well he started, “There was the Good Night Moon story where you switched out the moon for Uranus, then there was that story about The Giving Tree, where the tree wasn’t exactly generous and how about the Beirenstein Bears story that time…”
I thought it was like asking the Monty Python question “What have the Roman’s ever done for us?”
“Okay Ryan,” as I cut him off mid-sentence, “I get your point.”
Busted.
“I didn’t always think you were listening to the finer points of a story and so I was testing you and may have changed a few minor details. So good for you for your excellent listening skills. Listen, what I really wanted to talk to you about was Fortnight.”
Changing the topic certainly got me out of murky waters and perked his little ears to a topic that truly interested him.
“Do you have a Fortnight Story?”
“No not really but I do have a little grand-fatherly Fortnight advice for you if you are really to hear me out.”
His interest took a giant step backward.
“I think I know what you are going to say because my parents already told me.”
“And what did they tell you?” I asked.
“The game is too violent; I play it too much. I don’t play with my other toys, or go outside enough and they made me sign a contract.”
“Seriously, I didn’t know that, so what’s in your contract?”
“Not that’s its legally binding, or anything but they are my parents. It says basically how long I can play, when I can play, with which kids I can play. It gives all the rules of controlling my game playing…”
“Okay good, and you willingly signed this document, did you?”
Well not like I had a whole lot of choice; they are my parents.”
Yeah, good call, wise decision. You know who butters your bread, or however that expression goes.”
“So where can I see a copy of this signed contract?”
“It’s hanging above the computer in the pantry next to the calendar.”
“Great, I’ll check that out.”
“Anyway, to put my two cents worth in I watched you play Fortnight the other day and actually I wanted to thank you for showing me the game and explaining a few things to me. I can see you have a real passion for the game and I have a little better understanding of what it is and I think I get why you like it so much. It looks like a ton of fun and very definitely has a cool factor.”
I paused. “Here’s the but, I think your parents may have a point in you signing a contract and you playing it may be a bit too much and why that might not always be such a good idea. Anyway, think about it and we can talk about it again later, K?”
“Sure” Ryan was pensive.
“Anyway, Good night, Ryan, don’t let the bed bugs bite.”
“Grandpa aren’t you forgetting something?”
“What’s that”
“My story!”
“Right, so what would you like to hear my lad? Are you reading any of the mystery books that grandma and I gave you for Christmas?”
“Sorry, but the Hardy boys are, I don’t know what but I’m not really into them. They’re boring”
“What’s that you say, wow Ryan I’ve read every single one of them when I was your age and older and I absolutely loved them. There is even the Nancy Drew version for girls. Have you not seen the movies? You’ve seen every other movie available on the planet at least twice?”
“No, I like more the Adventures of a Wimpy Kid. They’re easy to understand, lots of pictures, like sketches and the words are easier.”
“Okay fair enough, as long as you are reading something you can’t just be doing Fortnight and watching TV. I had to hold back before I got too preachy and turned Ryan off to the idea of stories and the joy of reading.
“Fair too that I can’t expect you to like reading what I read as a kid. I know things have likely changed in a hundred years.”
“You think.” Came Ryan’s somewhat sarcastic reply for which I gently swung a pillow to the side of his head.
“Hey give me a little break here kid.”
I could hear grandma reading to Aurora in the other room, so time was running out for the evening bedtime routine. “Listen Ryan why don’t I just tell you a story about when I was a kid and we can, you know, compare notes. You teach me more about Fortnight, if I’m not too slow to learn, and in return I’ll tell you about the wild times of being a kid your age 60 years ago before colour was invented and the whole world lived in black and white in a world that had toys with friction motors, there were only 12 channels on television and kids played outside until the sun went down.”
“What’s a friction motor?”
“You’ll find out, but first deal?”
“Is what a deal.”
You teach me Fortnight I’ll tell you stories about how kids played back-in-the-day. We compare.”
Ryan stared at me for too long, perhaps weighing the pros and cons of my proposal and maybe seeing that I was perhaps a little unhinged and he had very little if anything to lose and in fact this could buy him more Fortnight time. He agreed.
“Okay, but tough love tonight we are out of time; so, as we stop for station identification on channel 4 we will stay tuned for Howdy Dewdy Time tomorrow night. Your parents are gone for a few more nights, so we can pack more in tomorrow night. Now lights out, good night, Clive, Good night, Ryan. Love you to hyper space and back.”
Maybe, I thought, I was total out of touch with my grandson’s generation and my expectations were unreasonable. As I quietly left Ryan’s bedroom and said my last good nights, I did my personal flashback. On the way to school my friends and Iwould wander through orchards and vineyards, talk, joke play tag and eventually reach the school yard where we would meet up with more friends and join in with a group game of marbles, frozen tag or touch football. It was all about social interaction, games and having fun with friends.
Later in life with my own kids I deposited them at a bus stop and watched as a big yellow school bus would whisk them away to their school. Today, as a grandfather I stand on a corner with the neighborhood parents as they drink their morning coffee and gather their children on and off the bus morning and afternoon. Making sure the bus driver sees them and notes that parent and child have connected and all is safe before driving on. On occasion a child gets dropped off at the wrong spot and it becomes a national scandal, parents demand drivers be fired and school boards be more accountable. Over time parents have become more uptight and protective.
In the process of being protective school yards have collectively become safer and at the same time perhaps sterile and less fun. Not all bad. I think of some of the things we did as kids, the trees we climbed, the holes we dug, the games we played and I often wonder how I physically survived my childhood. We swam in the Welland Canal. We built rafts for Lake travel. We did 20-mile bike trips all with no parental knowledge or input. By today’s standards we did a lot of wild and crazy things.
Times have changed and we have become more protective and I think to a fault.
When I drive through any neighborhood in any town large or small in southern Ontario and likely if I had that same drive in any hamlet, village, town or city anywhere in Canada, I do not, or very rarely, do I see kids outside at physical play individually or in groups. Perhaps the only exception to my observations is iconic road hockey, which I hope never disappears from the urban landscape. It gives me hope for the future.
I believe children have lost their ability to organize themselves to play in groups outside of a school yard and without adult supervision. If I took a random sample of kids, or kids that were friends and gave them baseball equipment or a soccer ball and placed it and them in a field, my guess is that they would not know what to do. They could not make teams, select captains, show leadership, designate positions, calculate the division of labour, mediate disputes, or most importantly have fun outside participating in a physical activity. Children of today’s generation would be in a social void without direction and unless they could google a solution to their dilemma they would remain at a loss. Their thumbs would be twitching until someonerescued them, or threw them an I-pad.
I am 73 and grew up before computers and the internet. My TV world had 12 channels with little violence. My TV time was regulated and generally was a family activity including Ed Sullivan and on Saturday Mr. Green Jeans and Captain Kangaroo. I walked to school and played hard outside at recess and lunch. When I got home from school I put on my “play cloths” and met with my friends and was gone until dinner. My parents may have had a vague notion of where I was and with whom I was playing.
We build forts, played hide and go seek, organized baseball and football games, made hockey rinks without adults in the winter and played all the seasonal sports, we camped out in the back yard and explored the neighborhood on our bikes, reenacted cowboys and Indians, cops and robbers, and pagans and missionaries when our sisters played with us, all without the intervention of a single adult. Life was good. I had a wonderful childhood.
As night fell mothers in the neighborhood would call out for their kids for dinner. We would in turn yell back, “five more minutes,” anything to buy more time. Once in we would eat as a family with no TV on in the back ground. After dinner was homework, more unsupervised indoor play time, building plastic models of cars and trunks, using my Mechano set, or mini bricks or more likely pieces of scrap wood from my dad’s basement wood working shop. I read Hardy Boy books and then off to bed to repeat the process the next day.
I can’t help but contrast what I experienced in my childhood growing up with what I observe today and can’t help thinking that I pads, cable, Netflix, video games, internet, cell phones and the like have been more curse than blessing. Children and young adults are losing connections with each other, the family fabric is suffering and dialogue is being muted with the pause button of the electronic age.
I also recognize that society is not the safe haven it was when I grew up. It is a darker environment now and children do need protection. But when I see children hustled off to gymnastic lesson, swimming and music lessons, then soccer and everything else I think we have also gone too far in another direction. Too much of a busy schedule and too much organization I think may also stifle an element of individual and group play. We have come so far that we have organized, protected, and structured our children to the point where I think, in many cases, kids need more breathing space to play with other kids in the absence of electronics and adults.
Give them a ball, a bat a skipping rope, a football, a doll and let them play and see what they do. They may surprise us! I keep hoping they do.
The Contract
Fortnite Contract
Agreement between Ryan Lee and his Parents
For Ryan to maintain continued access to Fortnite and other videogames, YouTube, cell phone, or any other electronic device, hereto referred to as devices he must abide by and adhere to the following set of rules and restrictions.
Addiction Issue
Devices have proven to be addictive, and as such, we as parents reserve the right to restrict your usage based on our opinion of your mental state… if you seem overly stressed about device usage, become withdrawn, irritable, aggressive, depressed, or are behaving abnormally we will remove devices and establish a new and healthier social pattern. By signing this contract, you also acknowledge the fact that you have an addiction to devices and must proactively work to limit your usage. That is plan daily schedules and adhere to them.
You also agree to the following rules as stated below:
- Minimum of three hours of daily outside or creative play (e.g.Lego, transformers, war etc.)
- 30 minutes each day of exercise, to be completed before screen time in the morning
- All school work completed as requested
- bed made
- Shower and teeth brushed on time every day
- We expect an immediate response when asked a question or when told to do something.
Signatures
Parents _________________
Ryan ____________________
__________________________________________________________________
“So, Mr. Ryan correct me if I am wrong but what I found out about your game is that in Fortnight characters gather weapons, and to me, at least that seems like the potential for a very violent game to be playing. I mean why have weapons if you aren’tgoing to use them? Although when I did my due diligence, searching online that is, the game makers kept repeating the fact that there was no blood shed, or at least none that was visible in this game, so although many, die in the course of the game, many, many, no one seems to bleed out, simply a miracle of modern science. Did I get that right?
“Anyway, okay, Ryan, you know how you want your parents to buy you a pellet gun for your birthday? While I support that on one level, mainly because I had one at your age, along with a number of other items of mass destruction. I’d like to tell you a little story about many of the things that can go wrong with gun ownership and the theme from your game that when you have weapons in real life you tend to use them and often in very stupid ways. Let’s call this a cautionary tale. So, I really need you to listen carefully to what I have to say here. Unlike our violent American friends to the south gun ownership takes on different meaning in Canada, but will get to that later.”
“As a kid I always thought that Davy Crocket’s coon skin hat was the coolest thing, as was his fighting at the Alamo against all odds. Like every Mennonite boy growing up in the 50’s I wanted a hat and a rifle like Crochet’s."
“Who is David Crocket grandpa?”
“Thought you would ask. So, you know what a Mennonite is?”
“Yes, grandpa, you are. Did your family drive a horse and buggy?”
“No, actually we had a blue 1953 Ford when I was born. We had a TV, my dad made homemade wine and we had a TV set with the aerial hidden in the attic so no one, especially other Mennonites, could see it. That was way before cable and internet.”
“As for Davey Crocket, he’s a stereotypical American frontier folk hero who is actually not that important to my story. Just another American who loved guns, got himself killed, but some say died a great hero. He is the opposite of a Mennonite.”
“You see for me growing up Mennonite I wasn’t really supposed to know about guns, or have guns, in fact we were supposed tobe pacifists. And before you ask, I’ll just tell you that a pacifist is someone who believes in not fighting, but is really fascinating by guns and violence despite what his parents and church tell him every day of his life, like most Mennonite boys.”
“I got my cap and rifle one Christmas as snow lay round about. Ironic, that I would receive a weapon on a Christian holiday. Ryan, I’ll tell you how I nearly shot my eye out during the first week I got my pellet rifle but that is another story. I can tell you that I walked around for several days with a pronounced red dot on my forehead between my eyes right where I got hit by a pellet from my own gun. My mother, so observant about many things, never questioned me as I passed it off as a mosquito bite. But rest assured she knew. If you get nothing else out of our story times remember this Ryan, mothers are not dumb. They know everything. If you think you’ve hidden something from them and have fooled them, guess again. Now, fathers on the other hand that’s a different story. “
“My brother had, and very hidden from my parents, a 22-handgun, a 22 rifle, several pellet guns, a BB gun, a 410-shot gun, a 12-gauge shot gun an AK-47 (just kidding) and a cross bow a friend had made out of a car spring, although technically not a gun. It could send an arrow four inches into the trunk of a willow tree, so I think it qualifies as serious weaponry. It would be an under-statement to say that we were well armed, at least my brother was.
Marv, my brother, taught me to fire a gun so I wouldn’t end up shooting myself in the head again. He knew our mother would be disappointed if I did. We would often drive out to CleasonSnyder’s farm out in Winterbourne towards Elora, in the general direction where your parents first lived in Conestogo, by the golf course. There was lots of privacy and empty space there where we would take rifle practice in their quarry.
Did you know, for example, that a slug, a solid piece of lead, could penetrate the engine block of a Chevy. “
“Amazing”
Bounty Hunters (1962)
My older brother cautioned me,
lean the rifle against the fence while climbing,
rest it easy under the arm while walking.
He showed me how the slug from a 12 gauge
could enter the engine block
of an old ford pickup truck in the gravel pit at
Cleason Synder’s farm.
There we hunted ground hogs.
Lifesaving action for the Holsteins,
a cow could break a leg down a ground hog hole,
at fifty cents a pelt we were eager to comply.
“I know I was impressed too. My big brother taught me how to safely cross a fence line with a rifle without shooting myself. He had great patience as he showed me how to line up my target, hold my breath and squeeze the trigger at a target. On Fortenightthose are skills you don’t even have to consider. There is much more to shooting and safety than the game let’s on. Then again it is only a game!”
We shot at and, often killed, ground hogs, pigeons, barn cats and song birds primarily. Whatever was in season. Yes, in retrospect, while it is true, we were doing a bad thing, it seemed so right at the time. There was no Green Party. There was no environmental movement. There was no endangered species list. We were just stupid Mennonite boys with guns on God’s green Earth doing what, as it turns out, came quite naturally.
“Are you sure you want to hear this story? Don’t fall asleep on me!”
“I’m good grandpa I really want to hear it; then can I brush my teeth and go to bed?”
“Yeah, for sure. Promise.”
On weekends my brother, myself, our friends Walter, Kurt, Donald, the Kaettler brothers and other hangers on in our strange Motely Crew would bike past the Welland Canal at Lock number one. Where, if we had the time and the inclination, we would place a penny under the bridge’s massive counter weight.
The joy at lock one was the design of the bridge with its 20-ton semicircular cement counter balance. We can drive there sometime and I can show you. It’s still there doing the same job. Here we would take great joy in placing our pennies brought expressly for this purpose along the track followed by the counter balance as the bridge either raised or lowered. It was our educated group opinion that this bridge did a far superior job in squashing pennies than did any CNR or CPR train ever could. In fact, it was almost like comparing real money to counterfeit. When showing off my inventory of flattened pennies I would always take great pride in pointing out that the flattest of the flat were lock one original in mint condition. I wish I would have saved some of those pennies.
When a ship usually of Liberian or Panamanian registry came through (I thought those countries had huge navies) we would then be thrilled to watch our penny get flattened like a pancake. The same works with trains and railroads tracks, but sissy boys today can pay fifty cents and have a machine do it for them and it will probably say San Diego Zoo or Niagara Falls on the penny when all is said and done. Just not the same when you risk your own fingers. Not that I’m saying that’s what you should do.
Anyway, biking past lock one we eventually crossed the bridge and continued along the same paved road where Art Reece’s sister was killed by a drunk driver while riding her bicycle in late Fall while delivering papers. Art wasn’t with us on this road trip but we would always make a point of stopping at the spot we determined to be the exact spot of her death and take a moment of silence.
Train Flat Coins
The joy of a penny is to see it flattened beneath the wheels of a passing freight train. I still have a collection of coins that has met its end under tons of flying steel on a CPR railroad track. Nothing in my childhood quite equaled the marvel and adrenaline rush of a high-speed train only a few feet away as it pounds along the rails sending vibrations through the ground to your feet reaching your very finger tips. Even better and more thrilling is the 20-ton counter weight on the lift bridge at lock one of the Welland ship canal. Gingerly placing coins under the gigantic semi-circular slow-moving weight as the bridge ponderously lifts permitting lake freighters to reach Lake Ontario or Lock number 2, was a boy’s delight in physics. Flatter by far than any CN or CPR flattened coin, a true collector’s item of great value and merit. Today, a secure and sturdy metal grate barring any such childish activity surrounds the weight preventing the joy of a generation. Today, we pay fifty cents for an arcade-like machine of gears to flatten our coins and emboss them at a tourist attraction like Niagara Falls. Childhood somehow… just not what it used to be.
None of us really knew Grace, as she was several years older, but Art was our friend and we thought we at least owed him that amount of respect and sensitivity for his loss. We felt oddly that we were special, for at our tender ages, actually knowing someone who had died. Fifty years later when I drove this same road by car the distances seem compressed and everything somehow seemed smaller. I still know where to slow down, just before the rise in the hill. I still remember where Grace died.
I told you some of this after we were returning from the White Christmas play in Niagara-on-the Lake at Christmas time. After the Canal we pass the turn off to Avondale Dairy, where on special Sunday afternoons our parents took us for ice cream. We were all tempted to turn off an abandon our quest for the greater good of ice cream, but we save that for another day and toil on out along the two-lane highway, when not accompanied by parents to what seemed like the edge of the known world.
Our ultimate destination was McNab School where my brother actually attended classes during the day in grade eight. The local school board had reopened and renovated this historic school house because of the explosion of baby boomers flooding through the elementary and high school systems.
A winding creek flowed below the play yard and this is where we liked to hike, make camp and go hunting for wild game. To clarify it was basically open season on any type of bird, rodent, ground hog, rabbit, barn cat, bat, large insect, snake, or turtle we could find. We had a very broad scope of interest and understanding of nature. He had not yet heard of ecology.
This was safari country. We parked, but did not lock our bikes. Bike theft was still in a developmental stage at this time.
We hefted our backpacks full of beans, wieners and Kool-Aid and hiked to the Interior along the creek. Once situated we fired our guns at random targets. Walter fancied shooting at branches usually patently unaware of who was in his line of fire on the other side of the branch. I shot a blue jay that day, not a baseball player that would be wrong, and apparently there was a witness to my deed. A situation that would later teach me about cause and effect.
It seems that day we were being watched. Apparently, we had wandered into Mennonite country without really knowing it. It’ssomething like doctors without borders, one could easily pass into Mennonite lands unaware. We heard a commotion back where we had our bikes parked by the school. We quickly elected to send a scouting party to investigate.
We did not like what we found. Running off in the distance like mad dogs and Englishmen were several Mennonite boys, you could tell by their distinctive dark clothing, suspenders, bowl haircuts and flood-like pants. Their baggy untailored pant legs flapped like kites in a tropical storm as they moved away from us at great self-righteous speed.
Everything happened so fast. We went for our bikes to give chase, only to discover that the tires were all flat, every single one of them, on all seven bikes. Walter came running up the path behind us and when he put two and two together, the kid was a math whiz, maybe he was a speed reader too because a sign attached to my bike said, “Blue Jay Killer.” Walter fired from the hip at the fleeing Anabaptists, another name for Mennonite, and got my brother right in the stomach.
So, you see where I’m going with all of this, even though it sounds like lots of fun. It wasn’t right to shoot little forest animals and birds like we did. In the process my brother got shot in the stomach, and then after all that we had to walk several miles to get back to the nearest gas station so we could pump up our tires.”
Other friends we had were similarly armed, but I suppose the significant thing here is that they were not Mennonite friends. To this day I am not sure if my other Mennonite friends were actually armed and had a cache of weapons like my brother and I did. But to maintain a balance to the discussion keep two other points in mind: we had two sets of friends Mennonite and Non-Mennonite and second and maybe most importantly to my everlasting soul, I was the younger brother and therefore was less culpable.
“Grandpa, I get all of that, but tell me how did you shoot yourself in the head with your pellet gun?”
“Is that your take away from all of this? I’m trying to tell you we were stupid and we did dumb things.”
“Sure, but just tell me, I think it might be another good story.”
“Good night Ryan!”
I’m not trying to imply that life “back in the day” was better because it was simpler. I just prefer to see kids playing outside with balls and skipping ropes, playing tag, baseball or touch football in the rain or sunshine and certainly there is nothing more comforting and reassuring that certain childhood traditions will live on then when watching children playing out on school yards with their skipping ropes during a warm Spring Day, as in their happy sing song voices, I hear them say, “Strawberry shortcake, huckleberry pie, who’s going to be your lucky guy?” The enders then up the pace and rush through the alphabet until the skipper misses the rope and it is at that very letter of the alphabet when the rope and skipper stop that fate has been sealed forever in play.
I then walked over to my granddaughter’s room.
“Hi cupcake how are you doing?
No answer.
What’s up buttercup?
Her head faces down her eyes dilated fixed on the screen I get no response.
After a few more minutes of this Aurora comes out of her trance like state. “Grandpa would you like to see what I’m watching?”
My only avenue at communication is to buy into her offer, so I do. “Sure, what’s so important?”
“This is a video I made and I can change the faces with this program to make them look funny and distorted and voices sound like a chipmunk.”
I watched and started to laugh and then I laughed some more. “My gosh Aurora, that’s so funny show me how you do that, that is an absolute riot!”
I had to admit out of all of that screen exposure came some creativity and maybe the time wasn’t all wasted and maybe I was being too much of an old school judgmental jerk. My granddaughter had a truly creative flair with this technology with a well-developed sense of humor.
“Aurora,” I began, “Are you up for a little story about when I was your age?
