PHOTOS FROM THE PAST

THE EARLY DAYS

As a break from writing, tacking words together and then ripping them apart, I thought I would search for old photographs which I hope will become the visual part of my memoir. The memoir that is still in the everlasting embryo stage!

This is one of my favourite photos of my parents, each holding a milk pail. In it, they look young and happy. My mother is embarrassed at the photo not being staged, embarrassed to be caught wearing a house dress, in her working clothes, but you can see how happy she is to be in my Dad’s embrace.

My Dad, on the other hand, couldn’t care less. He was not embarrassed in the slightest at his work clothes, holding the milk pail. It was all just a bit of fun to him.

I’m glad to have the photo, as it proves that there were good days, back at the start of their marriage. That the tension and the rows they had weren’t always the norm I experienced in my childhood.

This is a photo of my mother (on the right) and her good friend Leah. I am in the middle. This photo shows the starkness of the landscape I grew up in. If you look at the background, you can almost feel the absence of anything other than grass, the “emptiness” of the prairie of my parent’s home when I was growing up.

This is me on my tricycle, aged about 4 or 5. I am pedalling on a frozen slough that formed in the hollow outside our front yard. A slough (pronounced slew) was not as grand or as permanent as a lake. Water accumulated in the dip in the landscape, was usually filled with rushes and grasses, and in winter would freeze solid. So it became a hard surface for me to pedal on. Once again, the background gives a clue as to the barren-ness of the landscape.

These are my two pals. The pets of my childhood. Trixie, the Jack Russell terrier, is at the foot of the pole, with Mittens, my cat sitting comfortably at the top. I don’t remember them being enemies. Mittens wouldn’t put up with that. He was the “boss”.

These two, plus our other dog, Rex, used to come to meet me when I got off the big yellow school bus every day. The dogs were always interested to see if there were any left-overs in my lunch box, as they got those. I don’t Mittens was especially interested in what was left of a jam sandwich, but he didn’t want to be left out.

The saddest thing was, when I left home, the animals didn’t know why the school bus didn’t stop at our road anymore, and would go sailing by. My mother said they used to go down to meet the bus for months, always puzzled that I wasn’t on it. Eventually, they would only go half way down the road, looking for me when the bus went by, and after that, would just sit on the step, still looking to see if I would be there, coming home. Poor animals! They don’t understand.

The stories of my parents, the harsh prairie landscape where the wind blew every day of the year, my little furry friends, and a childhood where I was quite isolated from other children, is all part of the back story of the memoir. The back story which seems to be too long, but also seems so necessary to show why I was so naive, yet so stupidly adventurous.

I didn’t know it at the time, but I was following in my parents’ footsteps, taking off for places unknown, and with more than a dash of fool-hardiness.

Thank you for indulging me with the photos, and if you would like to re-stack for me, that would be lovely. There is, after all, a chance this memoir might someday see the light of day!

Comments, as always, ever so welcome. They make my day.