Danny
stood to see men with their pants on fire drop from the sky. The rest of us,
Carolyn, Kim, Cindy, baby Dylan and Ma sat on the rocks and watched the air
show at the Canadian National Exhibition. Ma had brought her tea in a thermos
and I ripped open the metaphysical wise crackers. Rode the Flyer roller coaster
with ma and screamed out a laugh. "You've got to do something about that
laugh," Ma said, her eyes whipped back in the breeze. Danny stayed behind
to watch the Beach Boys concert with Carolyn; being like that, always sneaking
off to enjoy himself.
We stopped at Kim's on the way home, so Kim could show us the barn boards he had installed in the kitchen and tell us how he acquired his garage. "I bought it at a garage sale. The town wouldn't give me a permit to build one, so I bought it, and installed it during the night. The neighbor woke up and saw it, and called the town. Apparently he doesn't like me working on my cars all hours. So the building inspector comes and I show him the original blueprint of the house. The blueprint has a garage on it just like the one I bought. I told him I just sent it out to be repaired and it just came back. I poured the cement fir the foundation, and even had a wood stove burning inside so the neighbor would go nuts."
We stopped at Kim's on the way home, so Kim could show us the barn boards he had installed in the kitchen and tell us how he acquired his garage. "I bought it at a garage sale. The town wouldn't give me a permit to build one, so I bought it, and installed it during the night. The neighbor woke up and saw it, and called the town. Apparently he doesn't like me working on my cars all hours. So the building inspector comes and I show him the original blueprint of the house. The blueprint has a garage on it just like the one I bought. I told him I just sent it out to be repaired and it just came back. I poured the cement fir the foundation, and even had a wood stove burning inside so the neighbor would go nuts."
Woke up at 49 Mary; had tomato sandwiches
and poached eggs. Read some poetry by Theodore Roedke at Victoria Park;
returned home and played Danny's Ovation guitar on the veranda.
Went to the fairgrounds around ten thirty. Sat on the top row of the grandstand overlooking dozens of steam engines, at the Annual Antique Steam Preservers Reunion. It was Sept. 3, 1976; the Steam Show met every year on the Labor Day weekend. Across Thomas Street I could see the red brick duplex where I used to live with PB the photographer. Interesting exhibits included the North Tonawana One Man Band; a player piano kind of contraption on a roll. Signed up for a country and western singing contest. Clouds were kind of muggy in spite of a cool wind. The calliope hadn't been played yet. It would be the same old tunes over and over. One of these years that old man would drop dead with his nose on middle 'C' and you'd never hear the end of it. Looking at the model steam engines in the old Boy Scout Hall, I recalled my own little steam engine, a hand me down from my whistling brother Terry. Puffs of steam were everywhere but not so many whistles. Acorn Girls Pipe Band tooted by. The sound of steam could be quite obstreperous.
Went to the fairgrounds around ten thirty. Sat on the top row of the grandstand overlooking dozens of steam engines, at the Annual Antique Steam Preservers Reunion. It was Sept. 3, 1976; the Steam Show met every year on the Labor Day weekend. Across Thomas Street I could see the red brick duplex where I used to live with PB the photographer. Interesting exhibits included the North Tonawana One Man Band; a player piano kind of contraption on a roll. Signed up for a country and western singing contest. Clouds were kind of muggy in spite of a cool wind. The calliope hadn't been played yet. It would be the same old tunes over and over. One of these years that old man would drop dead with his nose on middle 'C' and you'd never hear the end of it. Looking at the model steam engines in the old Boy Scout Hall, I recalled my own little steam engine, a hand me down from my whistling brother Terry. Puffs of steam were everywhere but not so many whistles. Acorn Girls Pipe Band tooted by. The sound of steam could be quite obstreperous.
I was about to leave when I happened on Don
Makowski, my good friend from high school. He had just bought a candy apple,
and suggested I get one too. So I did. Took one bite of it and tossed it behind
a tree when no one was looking.
Don was the
one who suggested that I ignore Betty, back in grade 10, so that she would be
intrigued by me. We devised a plan of totally ignoring her. Don had been
apprised of every aspect of my travesty and said said "The worst thing you
can do to someone is totally ignore them, if you pretend that you are not interested
in her she will wonder why..." After four or five months, I heard through
an unreliable source that the object of my affections might not object to
seeing me.
I talked to about everyone I met about Betty, the girl I had a crush on. I would ask her out and she'd saying she had to baby sit. I said that's a lousy excuse so she said that would have to do. I told her the scrambled egg story, which ended up in my flamenco talking blues song 'Scrambled Eggs and Pretty legs.' In grades 10, 11 and maybe some of 12 my infatuation endured. I started out by asking her out over the telephone every couple weeks, but then decided to ignore her, and wrote an “x” on a calendar for each day totally ignored her. After many months of ‘ex.’s Finally I got her attention, and arranged what I thought was a date…
I talked to about everyone I met about Betty, the girl I had a crush on. I would ask her out and she'd saying she had to baby sit. I said that's a lousy excuse so she said that would have to do. I told her the scrambled egg story, which ended up in my flamenco talking blues song 'Scrambled Eggs and Pretty legs.' In grades 10, 11 and maybe some of 12 my infatuation endured. I started out by asking her out over the telephone every couple weeks, but then decided to ignore her, and wrote an “x” on a calendar for each day totally ignored her. After many months of ‘ex.’s Finally I got her attention, and arranged what I thought was a date…
On Friday,
before my “date” with Betty, I saw Pam Branch outside of Art Class. She tried
to tell me that Betty had second thoughts about meeting me in Toronto, and that
I should not see her. At that point, nothing could stop me.
The next morning I woke at about nine. I shaved the fuzz that was under my neck. Holly Stinson had told me that I had a tendency of going without shaving for a week at a time, so I shaved real well.
I went to Toronto, and I visited the Harrison’s, who used to live across Mary street from us, at Duplex Crescent. (Ron Harrison was a composer who scored my very first song, entitled: In An Old English Meadow.) After my short visit, I walked down to Avenue Road, stopping at an Esso station to wash my face to make sure I was clean. The day was quite sunny and it was the height of Autumn. I was wearing blue jeans, with a blue shirt and my blue plaid lumberjack jacket. It was my happiest morning ever.
I was to meet Betty at two o’clock, at the Bronze statue of the “Unknown Student” in front of Roschdale College. I got there a little before two. I was talking to a man who walked away just as Betty showed up. Betty asked if I was talking to that man and I said, “Yes, he was black.”
Betty said, “That doesn’t matter.” She was wearing a raccoon fur coat and brown corduroy pants. I can’t remember what else she was wearing. There was a game at the Varsity Stadium and every now and then I could hear a roar from the crowd. Betty asked me if I’d ever been inside Roschdale. I said no. She knew a back entrance and we went walking through the halls that were covered in posters and filled with smoke. There was a cat walking around, and Betty said, “That must be a freaked out cat.” Jimmi Hendrix was splaying on someone’s record player, and she wanted to hear it. The smell of dope was everywhere. She said she liked Jimmi Hendrix. She seemed quite different, her image, than she was at school. At school she seemed to be shy, but it Toronto it appeared that she was quite the opposite.
We went outside and she said, “You wanted to buy a pair of pants, didn’t you?” I had mentioned the fact that I might be going to Toronto to buy pants, when we spoke earlier that week at school. She took me at that and started to return to her friends place nearby, at a rooming house in the Annex. I stood before her a while, and she discouraged me from going inside. I made an advance, and she drew back and went in the house.
I walked away, feeling the worst I’d ever felt. All the way down Yonge Street I cried, not caring who saw me. I saw Betty again that evening at Union Station as I was waiting for my train. She ignored me. This was even worse than before. I sat in the Go Train in the steps by the door and sobbed, playing my blues harp to console myself. I hitchhiked home, and got a ride with Marg Elliot, a classmate, and her parents. I didn’t tell them what happened.
The next morning I woke at about nine. I shaved the fuzz that was under my neck. Holly Stinson had told me that I had a tendency of going without shaving for a week at a time, so I shaved real well.
I went to Toronto, and I visited the Harrison’s, who used to live across Mary street from us, at Duplex Crescent. (Ron Harrison was a composer who scored my very first song, entitled: In An Old English Meadow.) After my short visit, I walked down to Avenue Road, stopping at an Esso station to wash my face to make sure I was clean. The day was quite sunny and it was the height of Autumn. I was wearing blue jeans, with a blue shirt and my blue plaid lumberjack jacket. It was my happiest morning ever.
I was to meet Betty at two o’clock, at the Bronze statue of the “Unknown Student” in front of Roschdale College. I got there a little before two. I was talking to a man who walked away just as Betty showed up. Betty asked if I was talking to that man and I said, “Yes, he was black.”
Betty said, “That doesn’t matter.” She was wearing a raccoon fur coat and brown corduroy pants. I can’t remember what else she was wearing. There was a game at the Varsity Stadium and every now and then I could hear a roar from the crowd. Betty asked me if I’d ever been inside Roschdale. I said no. She knew a back entrance and we went walking through the halls that were covered in posters and filled with smoke. There was a cat walking around, and Betty said, “That must be a freaked out cat.” Jimmi Hendrix was splaying on someone’s record player, and she wanted to hear it. The smell of dope was everywhere. She said she liked Jimmi Hendrix. She seemed quite different, her image, than she was at school. At school she seemed to be shy, but it Toronto it appeared that she was quite the opposite.
We went outside and she said, “You wanted to buy a pair of pants, didn’t you?” I had mentioned the fact that I might be going to Toronto to buy pants, when we spoke earlier that week at school. She took me at that and started to return to her friends place nearby, at a rooming house in the Annex. I stood before her a while, and she discouraged me from going inside. I made an advance, and she drew back and went in the house.
I walked away, feeling the worst I’d ever felt. All the way down Yonge Street I cried, not caring who saw me. I saw Betty again that evening at Union Station as I was waiting for my train. She ignored me. This was even worse than before. I sat in the Go Train in the steps by the door and sobbed, playing my blues harp to console myself. I hitchhiked home, and got a ride with Marg Elliot, a classmate, and her parents. I didn’t tell them what happened.
Back in school again, the Monday after,
sitting in the library I tried to tell Don what happened. I was overcome with
emotion and ran out to the garbage dump the city fathers had conveniently put
beside the school. A flock of sea gulls took flight. Don stood beside me and
said "Imagine all you're pain and suffering has been transferred to that flock
of sea gulls, has now lifted from you and you are free. If you were up there in
the sky looking down at yourself down here in the dumps, think of how
insignificant you would appear." Finally Don Makowski gave me some advice
that enabled me to get over my infatuation.” Tell her to Get Lost." I did,
and sure enough I was cured.
But I could have been cured right from the start. In grade One with Roy Bird, the bully, I stood by silently as he snuck up behind Wendy Cress to kiss her on the cheeks. I was aware that my teacher, Mrs. Trathuey was doing her best to help Wendy in her plight, but she never sat me down and told me, "Now Stefan, what your friend is doing is unacceptable. No girl would ever respect a man who persisted with unwelcome advances." Then if she had asked Wendy just one time to speak civilly to Roy Bird, perhaps he would have felt respect from her, and would respect her in turn by leaving her alone. But I'm no expert on these matters. No one ever sat me down and gave me good guidance on human relations. No one, but Don — who advised me to utter the two dreaded words.
Don went on to study at York University, and stayed in the same dormitory as Betty. I visited him, and happened to see Betty who invited me into her dorm room. As I stepped in, she locked the door. For years afterwards I wondered why she locked the door. What was proper to lock it, or leave it open? It was just an innocent meeting however, where we just said hello to each other.
I went back to see Don right after saying hello to Betty. Don raved about the coed living arrangements, gave me a misguided tour and related a disturbing experience. He had been dealing in nefarious stuff, and had been robbed at gunpoint. "In this very dormitory."
But I could have been cured right from the start. In grade One with Roy Bird, the bully, I stood by silently as he snuck up behind Wendy Cress to kiss her on the cheeks. I was aware that my teacher, Mrs. Trathuey was doing her best to help Wendy in her plight, but she never sat me down and told me, "Now Stefan, what your friend is doing is unacceptable. No girl would ever respect a man who persisted with unwelcome advances." Then if she had asked Wendy just one time to speak civilly to Roy Bird, perhaps he would have felt respect from her, and would respect her in turn by leaving her alone. But I'm no expert on these matters. No one ever sat me down and gave me good guidance on human relations. No one, but Don — who advised me to utter the two dreaded words.
Don went on to study at York University, and stayed in the same dormitory as Betty. I visited him, and happened to see Betty who invited me into her dorm room. As I stepped in, she locked the door. For years afterwards I wondered why she locked the door. What was proper to lock it, or leave it open? It was just an innocent meeting however, where we just said hello to each other.
I went back to see Don right after saying hello to Betty. Don raved about the coed living arrangements, gave me a misguided tour and related a disturbing experience. He had been dealing in nefarious stuff, and had been robbed at gunpoint. "In this very dormitory."
Don and I went to a rock festival
together one time and tried to sneak in the back way. We got a ride in a
Volkswagen bus with some hippies. I asked the couples' four year-old if he was
looking forward to school and he said, "What's school?" His parents
said he would be home schooled. They let us out and we crossed a fence in the
forest and walked towards the music. We came to a pond where people were skinny
dipping, like at Woodstock Don and I followed suit. In the distance we could
hear Ten Years After. We walked through the crowd and thought the whole scene
was bizarre. We both left after a couple hours without seeing any bands.
I was out of touch with Don when I heard the news. He had been found dead in his bathtub. No one contacted me at the time, so I wasn't able to go to his funeral, I don't even know when it was. I still have a cassette of Makowski and I joking around on a song. I learned later from his sister that Don had epsilepsy and had been nervous about taking his drivers license, when he died.
I was out of touch with Don when I heard the news. He had been found dead in his bathtub. No one contacted me at the time, so I wasn't able to go to his funeral, I don't even know when it was. I still have a cassette of Makowski and I joking around on a song. I learned later from his sister that Don had epsilepsy and had been nervous about taking his drivers license, when he died.
And so it was on the Saturday
afternoon of the Labor Day weekend that I sat on the grandstand and told Don
Makowski the story of... The Lonesome Demise of a Little Blue Chevette.
"I go down to the Mill Pond in the evenings to play my flute," Don said, "And I run into your brother Danny a lot. He says he likes to listen to the church bells in the evening. Are you still writing?"
"I just started a chapter yesterday," I continued, "About PB the photographer, but got stuck after the first line. You see across the fairgrounds to that red brick duplex," I pointed; "Well we shared that place after I came back from Europe. It was three years ago, during the Steam Era that I Invited Dawn over for dinner and made the colossal mistake of having PB present at the time. He was going steady with Louise, and I thought nothing of it. But during the course of the dinner he dominated the conversation and I didn't have a chance to say anything. He kept talking about the two men with tape recorders who went around documenting the steam engines."
"Ya, I saw them too. They came back again this year. Aren't they a tourist attraction," Don said, with mock sarcasm.
"His only motive was to be a good host, and in doing so had usurped my nefarious intentions. I got fed up with him. After going to the green bridge to vent my frustrations I went to my parents house quite depressed. My mother asked me what was wrong. I said my radio broke.
"I go down to the Mill Pond in the evenings to play my flute," Don said, "And I run into your brother Danny a lot. He says he likes to listen to the church bells in the evening. Are you still writing?"
"I just started a chapter yesterday," I continued, "About PB the photographer, but got stuck after the first line. You see across the fairgrounds to that red brick duplex," I pointed; "Well we shared that place after I came back from Europe. It was three years ago, during the Steam Era that I Invited Dawn over for dinner and made the colossal mistake of having PB present at the time. He was going steady with Louise, and I thought nothing of it. But during the course of the dinner he dominated the conversation and I didn't have a chance to say anything. He kept talking about the two men with tape recorders who went around documenting the steam engines."
"Ya, I saw them too. They came back again this year. Aren't they a tourist attraction," Don said, with mock sarcasm.
"His only motive was to be a good host, and in doing so had usurped my nefarious intentions. I got fed up with him. After going to the green bridge to vent my frustrations I went to my parents house quite depressed. My mother asked me what was wrong. I said my radio broke.
'Well
can't you fix it?'
'The knob broke off'
'Well can't you get a replacement?'
'No, it was a special knob.'
'Why don't you buy a new one?'
'I'm saving up for a parachute.'
'The knob broke off'
'Well can't you get a replacement?'
'No, it was a special knob.'
'Why don't you buy a new one?'
'I'm saving up for a parachute.'
"Anyhow, right after that I moved into
Toronto. A year later PB and I happened to share an apartment, which was being
managed by a drug pusher; so there were all sorts of problems and cops
traipsing through the place with their noisy shoes; you see PB would let the
cops in after midnight, and ultimately our friendship frazzled and we went our
separate ways. But that's another story. My latest story is about how the two
of us took a 1965 Chevrolet 'Shove it' across Canada for a drive away service,
and it kept falling apart."
THE LONESOME DEMISE OF A
LITTLE BLUE CHEVETTE
The first
day of our trip we visited Mr. Rogers, who looked at PB's photographic essay
and said "It had a lot of balls." Mr. Rogers had been my brother's
father in law at one time; he made his living near Sauble Beach painting rural
watercolors. The first time I met Mr. Rogers was on February 13, 1967, when he
came over to visit our house, just after Rick and his daughter announced their
engagement. I had just bought a plastic model of a Fokker Triplane and had a
run in with Kim on the verandah, by the side door. We almost smashed into Mr.
Rogers. Ma wrote about it in her logbook.
Mr. Rogers took one look at the tiny convertible; which we dubbed the 'Shove it', and said it would never make it out West.
PB had arranged with a drive away service to deliver the car to British Columbia, where it could be sold for more money. We would just have to pay for gas, and would be reimbursed for any mechanical expenses.
In Sudbury we stopped at the President's Lounge, where I did a guest set for some friends I knew, and played The Battlefield of My Body. I know I sang that song, because PB and I were singing it just beyond the barren terrain of Sudbury when the car started knocking, and eventually sputtered out.
That night we slept in an orange pup tent beside the road. We got an estimate; the car needed new bearings, and we were told that the owner would wire the money to Vancouver. So we had it fixed.
As we set off again PB told me of the time he and Louise were up by Sauble Beach, at four in the morning and ran out of gas. 'We knocked on a man's house said it was an emergency and we were out of gas. He wouldn't help us and threatened to call the police, At that time, I felt what it would be to be one of the have nots. I felt like smashing his face in.' PB used to read me quotes from Saul Alinski's Rules for Radicals.
The next night we were driving along, and the car suddenly stopped. So we slept in the orange pup tent beside the road again. The car started in the morning, but we had to hotwire it with a knife. We were told it would need a starter motor, but decided just to keep hotwiring it.
Mr. Rogers took one look at the tiny convertible; which we dubbed the 'Shove it', and said it would never make it out West.
PB had arranged with a drive away service to deliver the car to British Columbia, where it could be sold for more money. We would just have to pay for gas, and would be reimbursed for any mechanical expenses.
In Sudbury we stopped at the President's Lounge, where I did a guest set for some friends I knew, and played The Battlefield of My Body. I know I sang that song, because PB and I were singing it just beyond the barren terrain of Sudbury when the car started knocking, and eventually sputtered out.
That night we slept in an orange pup tent beside the road. We got an estimate; the car needed new bearings, and we were told that the owner would wire the money to Vancouver. So we had it fixed.
As we set off again PB told me of the time he and Louise were up by Sauble Beach, at four in the morning and ran out of gas. 'We knocked on a man's house said it was an emergency and we were out of gas. He wouldn't help us and threatened to call the police, At that time, I felt what it would be to be one of the have nots. I felt like smashing his face in.' PB used to read me quotes from Saul Alinski's Rules for Radicals.
The next night we were driving along, and the car suddenly stopped. So we slept in the orange pup tent beside the road again. The car started in the morning, but we had to hotwire it with a knife. We were told it would need a starter motor, but decided just to keep hotwiring it.
We made it
to Wawa, after stopping to look at the Lake Superior. PB said 'It's important
to travel and see what the country is like, because in twenty years from now
this will it be all built up.' At Wawa, we had a new steering rod put on
because the front wheel was starting to shake. After that, it was a miserable
drizzly day, so we stopped at the hostel to hear a few travelers tell stories
of their perpetual pursuits. One man, who looked like Mickey Rooney went out to
the river, which was next the staff's geodesic dome and skinny dipped. It was
cool and overcast; the water must have been chilly. I remembered the geodesic
dome cause I made one out of toothpicks for my grade 8 Science project."
Every time we passed a massive effigy of the wild; say the huge goose over the Wawa Inn, or perhaps a thirty foot moose, or a whale of a trout PB would stop and take a picture, and say that the people who put them up were 'real idiots.'
We'd take turns at the wheel, and PB lost his patience with my inexperienced driving. I would slow up to let a car pass, and he would say, "Forget the people behind you."
By the time we reached Winnipeg, the car was breaking down even more. We not only had to start the car by opening the hood, but to put the top up, I had to stand on the back seats and heave it up and over manually. And one of the tail lights had to be fastened with duct tape.
Though the prairies — if we drove in the cooler evenings at a constant speed the car would keep going. One night, after washing ourselves in a lavatory in a police station, I parked the car in the middle of a field, with a drive in movie Last Tango in Paris, in the distance. I told PB we would have some entertainment.
We drove along a highway that was off the Trans Canada, and stopped in a bar where old farmers at every table, one to a table conversed with the whole room. They talked about the depression, how one year the wheat was a rust color, and even the eggs the chicken laid were rust colored. PB thought that was quite funny having grown up on a farm and all. And then something came on the TV about Nixon facing impeachment, and PB got all excited. I was apolitical at the time. I just remember it because its like when Kennedy got shot, you always remember what you're doing when you hear the news. Except with Nixon it went on and on. We could have spent the whole summer getting the car to Vancouver; we could have seen Nixon on TV every night, at a different dingy bar.
At the next village, we stopped inside a church, then went to a combination general store and restaurant which was run out of a ladies house. There was a door half open to a bedroom and PB asked to take a few pictures of it, and she let him. This particular room had a lot of religious pictures on the wall. We ordered tuna sandwiches, which were reasonably priced.
The lady served the lunch on an old Coca Cola tray. While we were eating, an Indian boy of 12 wandered into the other part of the store, wearing a dime store headdress of orange and purple feathers. "After he left, the lady told us, that the boy walked ten miles with seventeen cents to buy a twenty cent pop. 'You have to watch him like a hawk because he steals things.'"
We stopped at another village, and had dinner there. PB kept teasing me, saying there we were two teenyboppers on the table behind us and one of them 'can't take her eyes off you, she keeps looking at her girlfriend and snickering.' I wouldn't turn around to look at them, although PB tried his best to have me fall for it.
PB read a letter to me that he'd been working on, a letter to Louise. It talked of the constant wind, and the monotony, broken only by a handful of crows flying off the fencepost. When I was about 12 and used to hitchhike to Kelso, there were about six of us one time, and I was the designated hitchhiker, as the rest hid in the bushes. When a lady pulled up, Mrs. McCutchen, from across the street, all the boys ran out, and she sped off. Whenever I think of those crows taking off by the side of the road I think of Mrs. McCutchen.
With the sparse mountain traffic we were running smoothly. A hundred miles from Vancouver, I was asleep on the back seat when I awoke, hearing a crash. I got out of the car and PB was looking at the engine. It was pushed back a half a foot. PB slammed his fist on the car roof and cursed: 'There was a bleeding rock slide in the middle of the road. A truck coming the other way and the mountain on the other side, so I couldn't avoid it.'
"How big was it?" I asked.
"About as big as a bread box" his hands said in mime. I ran back to where the rocks about a quarter mile back and picked them up and threw them off to the side. There were a few other rocks too and I cleared up most of the big ones. Some one pulled the car to a garage down the way, and helped us push the car into a parking place. There were other cars that had run into rock slides.
At seven, the proprietor opened up, ignoring us. This seamed to have a perturbing effect of immense proportions upon PB. "I hate it when people ignore me like that," he said. The man attended other customers, eluding us, till finally he said if we left the car on his lot, we'd have to pay a months' rent.
We began to hitch hike. A burgundy colored 1967 Buick Riviera, fully loaded, pulled over rather abruptly; an Indian got out, opened the trunk, and we plunked in our stuff. After we'd driven off we realized they were extremely inebriated. There were two in the front, and a lady in the back sitting between us. They were all Indians. Driving over a hundred and ten, taking reckless chances. Cars were careening into the gravel honking their horns as we blasted by in the passing lane. Three tractor trailers with two car lengths between them and we passed them. The lady in the back had her nails digging in into my legs. PB was white in the face. This went on for about fifteen miles. The lady tried to persuade him to hand her the wheel. It was stuck to the post. The pedal was stuck to the floor. Finally I asked very politely: 'Could you let us out here now.' The driver said 'at the next garage.' I said, 'We just want to be let out right here so we can have a picnic.' He pulled the car and we got out.
PB and I took the train from Prince Rupert to Prince George after a long sight seeing cruise from Vancouver. As we rolled past the fish cannery, the house trailers, the children standing beside the clotheslines with their mother's hair in curlers he took pictures through the club car window. We stood in the open space between the cars drinking a bottle of wine and pissed it all to the wind. It was exhilarating. In the club car, I wrote a huge postcard to each member of my family, bar none. When I purchased the card, I had clowned around with the cashier. PB was embarrassed by my performance.
Every time we passed a massive effigy of the wild; say the huge goose over the Wawa Inn, or perhaps a thirty foot moose, or a whale of a trout PB would stop and take a picture, and say that the people who put them up were 'real idiots.'
We'd take turns at the wheel, and PB lost his patience with my inexperienced driving. I would slow up to let a car pass, and he would say, "Forget the people behind you."
By the time we reached Winnipeg, the car was breaking down even more. We not only had to start the car by opening the hood, but to put the top up, I had to stand on the back seats and heave it up and over manually. And one of the tail lights had to be fastened with duct tape.
Though the prairies — if we drove in the cooler evenings at a constant speed the car would keep going. One night, after washing ourselves in a lavatory in a police station, I parked the car in the middle of a field, with a drive in movie Last Tango in Paris, in the distance. I told PB we would have some entertainment.
We drove along a highway that was off the Trans Canada, and stopped in a bar where old farmers at every table, one to a table conversed with the whole room. They talked about the depression, how one year the wheat was a rust color, and even the eggs the chicken laid were rust colored. PB thought that was quite funny having grown up on a farm and all. And then something came on the TV about Nixon facing impeachment, and PB got all excited. I was apolitical at the time. I just remember it because its like when Kennedy got shot, you always remember what you're doing when you hear the news. Except with Nixon it went on and on. We could have spent the whole summer getting the car to Vancouver; we could have seen Nixon on TV every night, at a different dingy bar.
At the next village, we stopped inside a church, then went to a combination general store and restaurant which was run out of a ladies house. There was a door half open to a bedroom and PB asked to take a few pictures of it, and she let him. This particular room had a lot of religious pictures on the wall. We ordered tuna sandwiches, which were reasonably priced.
The lady served the lunch on an old Coca Cola tray. While we were eating, an Indian boy of 12 wandered into the other part of the store, wearing a dime store headdress of orange and purple feathers. "After he left, the lady told us, that the boy walked ten miles with seventeen cents to buy a twenty cent pop. 'You have to watch him like a hawk because he steals things.'"
We stopped at another village, and had dinner there. PB kept teasing me, saying there we were two teenyboppers on the table behind us and one of them 'can't take her eyes off you, she keeps looking at her girlfriend and snickering.' I wouldn't turn around to look at them, although PB tried his best to have me fall for it.
PB read a letter to me that he'd been working on, a letter to Louise. It talked of the constant wind, and the monotony, broken only by a handful of crows flying off the fencepost. When I was about 12 and used to hitchhike to Kelso, there were about six of us one time, and I was the designated hitchhiker, as the rest hid in the bushes. When a lady pulled up, Mrs. McCutchen, from across the street, all the boys ran out, and she sped off. Whenever I think of those crows taking off by the side of the road I think of Mrs. McCutchen.
With the sparse mountain traffic we were running smoothly. A hundred miles from Vancouver, I was asleep on the back seat when I awoke, hearing a crash. I got out of the car and PB was looking at the engine. It was pushed back a half a foot. PB slammed his fist on the car roof and cursed: 'There was a bleeding rock slide in the middle of the road. A truck coming the other way and the mountain on the other side, so I couldn't avoid it.'
"How big was it?" I asked.
"About as big as a bread box" his hands said in mime. I ran back to where the rocks about a quarter mile back and picked them up and threw them off to the side. There were a few other rocks too and I cleared up most of the big ones. Some one pulled the car to a garage down the way, and helped us push the car into a parking place. There were other cars that had run into rock slides.
At seven, the proprietor opened up, ignoring us. This seamed to have a perturbing effect of immense proportions upon PB. "I hate it when people ignore me like that," he said. The man attended other customers, eluding us, till finally he said if we left the car on his lot, we'd have to pay a months' rent.
We began to hitch hike. A burgundy colored 1967 Buick Riviera, fully loaded, pulled over rather abruptly; an Indian got out, opened the trunk, and we plunked in our stuff. After we'd driven off we realized they were extremely inebriated. There were two in the front, and a lady in the back sitting between us. They were all Indians. Driving over a hundred and ten, taking reckless chances. Cars were careening into the gravel honking their horns as we blasted by in the passing lane. Three tractor trailers with two car lengths between them and we passed them. The lady in the back had her nails digging in into my legs. PB was white in the face. This went on for about fifteen miles. The lady tried to persuade him to hand her the wheel. It was stuck to the post. The pedal was stuck to the floor. Finally I asked very politely: 'Could you let us out here now.' The driver said 'at the next garage.' I said, 'We just want to be let out right here so we can have a picnic.' He pulled the car and we got out.
PB and I took the train from Prince Rupert to Prince George after a long sight seeing cruise from Vancouver. As we rolled past the fish cannery, the house trailers, the children standing beside the clotheslines with their mother's hair in curlers he took pictures through the club car window. We stood in the open space between the cars drinking a bottle of wine and pissed it all to the wind. It was exhilarating. In the club car, I wrote a huge postcard to each member of my family, bar none. When I purchased the card, I had clowned around with the cashier. PB was embarrassed by my performance.
The end of the
line for us was a whistle stop in the mountains. PB planned to steel the signal
light at the back of the train. He unhitched the light and hid it in the yard
and stood off to the side to see if the brakeman realized it was missing. The
brake man looked around the yard and found it. He wanted to give the light to
his friend who lived in the hills. We went to the bus depot, and a bus leaving
a few hours later. It was a terrible ride, and the driver dropped us off in the
middle of the night at a 'tripod marker' It was close to dawn, and we walked
down the lane, PB picked up a stick, to fend off the dogs in the darkness,
saying 'you can't trust a dog in the night.' The mountain man friend named Bill
came out in his pajamas, and the dogs were huge. He had a girl named Marg.
living with him in the log house. After some talk we slept in the loft, with
the cool mountain air blowing in the window.
Next day Bill drove us up the road about
ten miles upstream with the canoe on the back of his red 53 GMC and put us in
the stream so we could float back down. The river flowed very close to the
cabin. It was a bright sunny day, and we each had a paddle. We had fun at
first, I found a fish line snagged on a branch and used it to catch an Arctic
Grayling. It ended up stinking up my green canvas Trapper Nelson backpack.
As we were paddling along, PB would give commands to 'Paddle' every time we came to some rapids. I was paddling as hard as I could and was not experienced at boating ('except for one time when in a rented boat with Mary and Rick at Kelso when Mary got freaked out cause I was in the water and some snot was in my nose.) After about fifteen 'paddles' came barking from the rear, I took my oar out of the water and in a voice that scraped the bottom, said nothing. I just stared ahead.
"What's wrong," PB said, in a conciliatory tone, so I turned.
"I can't stand it when you constantly order me around."
"This has been going on for months," PB said, "I do things you don't like and then finally hear about it when its too late. How am I to know if something is bothering you if you never speak out about it. You store things up for months, you should deal with it sooner."
"Get lost."
As we were paddling along, PB would give commands to 'Paddle' every time we came to some rapids. I was paddling as hard as I could and was not experienced at boating ('except for one time when in a rented boat with Mary and Rick at Kelso when Mary got freaked out cause I was in the water and some snot was in my nose.) After about fifteen 'paddles' came barking from the rear, I took my oar out of the water and in a voice that scraped the bottom, said nothing. I just stared ahead.
"What's wrong," PB said, in a conciliatory tone, so I turned.
"I can't stand it when you constantly order me around."
"This has been going on for months," PB said, "I do things you don't like and then finally hear about it when its too late. How am I to know if something is bothering you if you never speak out about it. You store things up for months, you should deal with it sooner."
"Get lost."
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