Before I was 6 years old I had crossed Canada twice.
Not alone of course, so did my parents and brother and sister.
And when we resettled in the Allen family home in 1953, in Sable River, I was old enough to start school. Actually I was only 5 and a half.
School was a one room white building next door to Thelma Harlow’s grocery store.
Grades 1 to 3 went in the morning. Grades 4 to 6 went in the afternoon.
It was a mile walk from where we lived. I remember walking most of the time.
In Grade two my sister joined the trek and in Grade 3 there were three of us.
It’s funny what you remember.
I remember breaking off a dried fern stalk in the ditch and using a piece of it to imitate smoking a cigarette as I walked to school. The dried fern stalk was porous so you could suck air through it and on a frosty morning, inhale and exhale and make it appear as if smoke was being exhaled…it was what most adults did so it seemed natural to practice.
I don’t know what acts of maturity I demonstrated that made me a candidate for the work at the school that actually paid money. But in Grade 5 I received a letter which I think I still have in some papers my Mom gave me a number of years ago. The letter stated that I had been hired to build the fires ( in the stove in the middle of the school house floor), sweep the floors, and fill the water coolers. This work would be done in the morning before classes and I would be paid $10.00 per month.
My parents scrapped to raise their family which expanded by one more when I was 7. The job provided me with spending money. I bought my first new bike out of the catalogue. I would have to make up any other specific details on expenditures but I’m sure it helped out the overall situation although I was never asked to put any of what I earned into the family budget.
I remember feeling grown-up to be trusted with these responsibilities. I enjoyed being in the school when no other kids were present. Feeling the heat off the fire I built warm the classroom, smelling the pine smelling dust retardant that I spread around the floors before sweeping, taking the first drinks of water out of the cooler with a throw away cone shaped cup and leaving before anyone arrived some how made me feel special and I was always sure to do a good job so as not to get any negative comments from the teachers.
Friendly Mrs. Quinlan taught the morning Grades and the stern Mrs. Freeman (who taught my Dad) taught the afternoon Grades. In grade 7, I began taking the bus 12 miles to Lockeport so my early morning walks and bike rides between home and the school were soon shoved to the past.
Years later, I was shown a picture of the old school being moved down the highway through Sable. Someone had bought it and turned it into a home on a piece of land they’d bought.Sometimes, I wonder if there is still someone building fires in a wood heater and sweeping the hardwood floors of the building that provided me with my first steady paycheck. If my grades throughout the rest of my school years were as good as those I achieved at the Sable River West one room school I most certainly would have become famous for something.
Thursday, May 10, 2007
Tuesday, May 08, 2007
SNAPS AND SABLE RIVER WEST
When my Dad, Clifford, left Sable River West in Nova Scotia to find a
new life in British Columbia logging in the legendary Douglas Fir forests, I was two
years old, my sister was one and my younger brother was three months. Mom followed
him a few months later on the train with her young flock..
Three years and several short stays later in a variety of logging camps and small
Kootenay communities, we were back in Nova Scotia.
*****************
We ‘made’ Liverpool in the darkness of a late September evening. Our mud- caked 1949 Ford pickup looked like a horseless-covered wagon. Dad had stretched an old, brown tarpaulin over a bulging load of boxes, trunks and furniture. We’d squished into the cab in assorted arrangements for the 5000-mile journey.
Liverpool,where my Mom's sister Dora live was about 30 miles short of Sable River, our final destination. They hugged and cried happy tears in the front yard of the yellow bungalow with its ivy-covered veranda. Two large maples shed mitten-sized orange and red leaves over the reunion. Uncle Pete, a short man with an accent, shepherded us into their home where their two sons and a daughter eyed us shyly as we did them.
Uncle Pete and Aunt Dora insisted we stay the night. But Dad was ‘antsy’. It was his mother and father whom we were going to live with on the ‘home place’ in Sable.
So they negotiated a compromise.
“Whatdaya think Bub?” Dad tousled my head. “You and I best go up to Sable and see if it’s on the same spot in the road.”
A little while later, as the truck whined up a steep grade, Dad looked at me with that little lopsided grin. It was the one I always saw when he felt good about what he was doing. “Port La Bear (that’s what I heard then but I learned later seeing it on a map that it's Port Le Hebert) hill . . . won’t be long now.”
As we plowed through the night on furrows of yellow from the headlights of our faithful truck, I suddenly felt enormously grown up. The cab was so roomy and I got to sit beside the window!
Dad had grown up here. He knew this country like the back of his hand and he’d say, “If you go back far enough probably everybody’s related one way or another.” He always told stories about ‘ back home’. Many names of places and people were already familiar to me even though I didn’t know who or where they were.
After a few more miles we rumbled over a wooden bridge. “Tom Tigney River.” Dad explained. “Park Harlow’s mill is just up there a ways.” He nodded his head to the right. “He gave me my first job in the bush skidding smoke wood with his team of oxen. Some folks around here don’t like him . . . think he’s a mean bugger. Guess he can be. Always treated me fair.”
Dad pointed to a whitish blob on the left as the headlights shine bounced off a set of gas pumps. “ This here’s Bernard Dexter’s garage.”
We bumped onto the decking of another bridge. “ Well, Sable River, son. Our place goes right down to the river. Good swimming hole there and a nice little beach with red sand. Wait’ll you see it.”
The highway swung left. Dad pointed off to the right. “If we went straight up there, that’s the Nine Mile Road…. Your Grandad has a woodlot up there. Been in the family since I was knee high to a grass hopper.” We bounced over a railway crossing. Dad pointed out Thelma Harlow’s general store and the school house right beside it.
“Thelma’s married to Park Harlow’s son, Tom.” Dad always liked to tie everybody together. “That’s the school where you’ll be going. Same one I went to. You might even get the same teacher. Far as I know, Grace Freeman is still teaching. You better mind her. She doesn’t take guff from anyone. I learned from personal experience. ” Dad’s voiced quivered with emotion.
“Home sweet home with the fire black out.” He muttered.
The truck slowed . We turned left into a narrow, bush- lined driveway. In a few moments I saw a big barn in the bobbing headlights. We swung right. The side of a white shiplap, two- story house with a high, sharp sloped roof hovered before us.
Dad looked at his watch against the dim yellow of the dashboard lights. “Nearly eleven. No lights on. I guess Mother and Dad gave up waiting. It’s way past their bedtime. They were expecting us tonight but they don’t have a telephone so I couldn’t get a message unless I ‘d got hold of the neighbors.”
Suddenly a glow the color of butter smeared a couple of small windows.
“A light’s on Dad.” I exclaimed.
“Huh.” Dad gave a knowing little grunt. “Your Grandad goes to bed early but sleeps with one eye and an ear open.”
A door opened. More yellow oozed out of the house. A hunched figure raised an arm as a visor to peer into the headlights. Dad shut them off, switched off the engine and we both climbed out, closing the doors with a good slam which they needed to close properly.
It sounded like blasts from a double-barrelled shotgun in the crisp fall air. I followed Dad as he grabbed the man’s hand in a firm grip and held it.
“Got a little late for us to stay up and wait.” The man explained. “Sounded like a strange vehicle when the tires hit the gravel in the driveway. Good to have you back son.”
He peered toward me. “Now, who’s this you got with you?”
“This is number one son.” Dad brought me forward with his hand on my shoulder. “Glenn, this is your Grandad.”
“Sure looking all grown up now Churchill. Just a tyke three years ago.” He caught my hand in a firm grip. “ How ‘bout we get inside Glenn? Cold enough for frost on the rhubarb tonight.”
Dad moved spryly as another silhouette appeared in the doorway. They hugged and
exchanged tender sounding words.
“Well, well, well.” The words flowed smooth as molasses on a hot soda biscuit. “Have you got a hug for your Grammie, Glenn?”
I walked forward and was gently drawn into the warm bosom and the husky yet soft arms.
“Let’s get inside. You must be freezing out here.”
“No, I’m fine.” I replied.
“Well, you’re sure tougher than me young man.” She said.
With that she had her arm around my shoulder and headed us into the house. Just to the right as we entered, was the glistening black top of a kitchen stove with a white enamel warmer running along the back of it. I recognized the acrid aroma of freshly lit kindling and newspaper.
“It’s not too late for a snack is it? You men have had a long trip.” Grammie looked at me with a twinkle then over to Dad whose moment of hesitation was taken as an okay. “ Where’s the rest of the family?” Grammie asked as she shuffled toward a cupboard beside the stove.
“They’re at Pete and Doras’’. I’ll go get them tomorrow.” Dad explained.
“I’ve got water on Churchill. I knew that was Dad’s middle name but I’d never heard anyone call him that. “You know we still don’t use coffee but I have tea or Postum.”
“Tea’ll be fine, Mother.” Dad replied.
She returned from the cupboard carrying a round, well-worn cookie tin with pictures of castles on its side and top. “I just made these this afternoon.” Deft fingers removed the lid.
“Ginger snaps!” My Dads eager voice sang out as his hand glided past my head toward the open tin.
“Ah. Ah.” Grammie warned him off and pulled the tin back. “Glenn gets first pick.” She moved
the tin to where I could reach it.
The fragrance of ginger and molasses wafted from the container. It was filled with brown rectangular cookies. Each had precise parallel lines in groups of four, running diagonally along them. I wrapped my hand around one.
“Oh, that’s not enough for a growing boy.” Grammie urged.
I lifted out two more. She smiled her approval as I nibbled at the corner of one. They were hard and crunchy. The taste instantly made my mouth water. Dad grabbed a handful and stuck about half of one in his mouth. The sharp, hard corners bulged his cheeks. Grandad slipped one from the can protesting quietly that he shouldn’t have one because it was too late for him and cookies might keep him awake.
The gingery flavored dough had been rolled thin so when baked they became hard and snapped exactly on grooves in the dough. Grammie’s snaps were pretty much identical. The decorative lines perfectly repeated on each cookie.
While the kettle heated, Grammie went out to the small porch we’d entered through and returned with a gallon glass jar half full of milk. She had to tip it back and forth several times to mix in the thick cream that had separated. “A glass of nice cold milk is just what you need Glenn, to wash down those snaps. Soak them in the milk if you want to soften them up a bit. That’s what we do around here anyways.”
“Sure feels good to be home.” My Dad said. His lopsided grin was wider than usual.
***************
The taste of ginger snaps and milk. Grammie’s caring smile and warm voice. The feel from the place that had been called ‘home’ for several generations of my family tree have remained gentle breezes through my mind. I’ve always felt them as my ship of life sailed far from those times and places. And now they push persistently against a spinnaker of silent hope that would guide the voyage that way again.
When my Dad, Clifford, left Sable River West in Nova Scotia to find a
new life in British Columbia logging in the legendary Douglas Fir forests, I was two
years old, my sister was one and my younger brother was three months. Mom followed
him a few months later on the train with her young flock..
Three years and several short stays later in a variety of logging camps and small
Kootenay communities, we were back in Nova Scotia.
*****************
We ‘made’ Liverpool in the darkness of a late September evening. Our mud- caked 1949 Ford pickup looked like a horseless-covered wagon. Dad had stretched an old, brown tarpaulin over a bulging load of boxes, trunks and furniture. We’d squished into the cab in assorted arrangements for the 5000-mile journey.
Liverpool,where my Mom's sister Dora live was about 30 miles short of Sable River, our final destination. They hugged and cried happy tears in the front yard of the yellow bungalow with its ivy-covered veranda. Two large maples shed mitten-sized orange and red leaves over the reunion. Uncle Pete, a short man with an accent, shepherded us into their home where their two sons and a daughter eyed us shyly as we did them.
Uncle Pete and Aunt Dora insisted we stay the night. But Dad was ‘antsy’. It was his mother and father whom we were going to live with on the ‘home place’ in Sable.
So they negotiated a compromise.
“Whatdaya think Bub?” Dad tousled my head. “You and I best go up to Sable and see if it’s on the same spot in the road.”
A little while later, as the truck whined up a steep grade, Dad looked at me with that little lopsided grin. It was the one I always saw when he felt good about what he was doing. “Port La Bear (that’s what I heard then but I learned later seeing it on a map that it's Port Le Hebert) hill . . . won’t be long now.”
As we plowed through the night on furrows of yellow from the headlights of our faithful truck, I suddenly felt enormously grown up. The cab was so roomy and I got to sit beside the window!
Dad had grown up here. He knew this country like the back of his hand and he’d say, “If you go back far enough probably everybody’s related one way or another.” He always told stories about ‘ back home’. Many names of places and people were already familiar to me even though I didn’t know who or where they were.
After a few more miles we rumbled over a wooden bridge. “Tom Tigney River.” Dad explained. “Park Harlow’s mill is just up there a ways.” He nodded his head to the right. “He gave me my first job in the bush skidding smoke wood with his team of oxen. Some folks around here don’t like him . . . think he’s a mean bugger. Guess he can be. Always treated me fair.”
Dad pointed to a whitish blob on the left as the headlights shine bounced off a set of gas pumps. “ This here’s Bernard Dexter’s garage.”
We bumped onto the decking of another bridge. “ Well, Sable River, son. Our place goes right down to the river. Good swimming hole there and a nice little beach with red sand. Wait’ll you see it.”
The highway swung left. Dad pointed off to the right. “If we went straight up there, that’s the Nine Mile Road…. Your Grandad has a woodlot up there. Been in the family since I was knee high to a grass hopper.” We bounced over a railway crossing. Dad pointed out Thelma Harlow’s general store and the school house right beside it.
“Thelma’s married to Park Harlow’s son, Tom.” Dad always liked to tie everybody together. “That’s the school where you’ll be going. Same one I went to. You might even get the same teacher. Far as I know, Grace Freeman is still teaching. You better mind her. She doesn’t take guff from anyone. I learned from personal experience. ” Dad’s voiced quivered with emotion.
“Home sweet home with the fire black out.” He muttered.
The truck slowed . We turned left into a narrow, bush- lined driveway. In a few moments I saw a big barn in the bobbing headlights. We swung right. The side of a white shiplap, two- story house with a high, sharp sloped roof hovered before us.
Dad looked at his watch against the dim yellow of the dashboard lights. “Nearly eleven. No lights on. I guess Mother and Dad gave up waiting. It’s way past their bedtime. They were expecting us tonight but they don’t have a telephone so I couldn’t get a message unless I ‘d got hold of the neighbors.”
Suddenly a glow the color of butter smeared a couple of small windows.
“A light’s on Dad.” I exclaimed.
“Huh.” Dad gave a knowing little grunt. “Your Grandad goes to bed early but sleeps with one eye and an ear open.”
A door opened. More yellow oozed out of the house. A hunched figure raised an arm as a visor to peer into the headlights. Dad shut them off, switched off the engine and we both climbed out, closing the doors with a good slam which they needed to close properly.
It sounded like blasts from a double-barrelled shotgun in the crisp fall air. I followed Dad as he grabbed the man’s hand in a firm grip and held it.
“Got a little late for us to stay up and wait.” The man explained. “Sounded like a strange vehicle when the tires hit the gravel in the driveway. Good to have you back son.”
He peered toward me. “Now, who’s this you got with you?”
“This is number one son.” Dad brought me forward with his hand on my shoulder. “Glenn, this is your Grandad.”
“Sure looking all grown up now Churchill. Just a tyke three years ago.” He caught my hand in a firm grip. “ How ‘bout we get inside Glenn? Cold enough for frost on the rhubarb tonight.”
Dad moved spryly as another silhouette appeared in the doorway. They hugged and
exchanged tender sounding words.
“Well, well, well.” The words flowed smooth as molasses on a hot soda biscuit. “Have you got a hug for your Grammie, Glenn?”
I walked forward and was gently drawn into the warm bosom and the husky yet soft arms.
“Let’s get inside. You must be freezing out here.”
“No, I’m fine.” I replied.
“Well, you’re sure tougher than me young man.” She said.
With that she had her arm around my shoulder and headed us into the house. Just to the right as we entered, was the glistening black top of a kitchen stove with a white enamel warmer running along the back of it. I recognized the acrid aroma of freshly lit kindling and newspaper.
“It’s not too late for a snack is it? You men have had a long trip.” Grammie looked at me with a twinkle then over to Dad whose moment of hesitation was taken as an okay. “ Where’s the rest of the family?” Grammie asked as she shuffled toward a cupboard beside the stove.
“They’re at Pete and Doras’’. I’ll go get them tomorrow.” Dad explained.
“I’ve got water on Churchill. I knew that was Dad’s middle name but I’d never heard anyone call him that. “You know we still don’t use coffee but I have tea or Postum.”
“Tea’ll be fine, Mother.” Dad replied.
She returned from the cupboard carrying a round, well-worn cookie tin with pictures of castles on its side and top. “I just made these this afternoon.” Deft fingers removed the lid.
“Ginger snaps!” My Dads eager voice sang out as his hand glided past my head toward the open tin.
“Ah. Ah.” Grammie warned him off and pulled the tin back. “Glenn gets first pick.” She moved
the tin to where I could reach it.
The fragrance of ginger and molasses wafted from the container. It was filled with brown rectangular cookies. Each had precise parallel lines in groups of four, running diagonally along them. I wrapped my hand around one.
“Oh, that’s not enough for a growing boy.” Grammie urged.
I lifted out two more. She smiled her approval as I nibbled at the corner of one. They were hard and crunchy. The taste instantly made my mouth water. Dad grabbed a handful and stuck about half of one in his mouth. The sharp, hard corners bulged his cheeks. Grandad slipped one from the can protesting quietly that he shouldn’t have one because it was too late for him and cookies might keep him awake.
The gingery flavored dough had been rolled thin so when baked they became hard and snapped exactly on grooves in the dough. Grammie’s snaps were pretty much identical. The decorative lines perfectly repeated on each cookie.
While the kettle heated, Grammie went out to the small porch we’d entered through and returned with a gallon glass jar half full of milk. She had to tip it back and forth several times to mix in the thick cream that had separated. “A glass of nice cold milk is just what you need Glenn, to wash down those snaps. Soak them in the milk if you want to soften them up a bit. That’s what we do around here anyways.”
“Sure feels good to be home.” My Dad said. His lopsided grin was wider than usual.
***************
The taste of ginger snaps and milk. Grammie’s caring smile and warm voice. The feel from the place that had been called ‘home’ for several generations of my family tree have remained gentle breezes through my mind. I’ve always felt them as my ship of life sailed far from those times and places. And now they push persistently against a spinnaker of silent hope that would guide the voyage that way again.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)