Black Water Diving

I’d always wanted to try scuba diving, having grown up watching Jacques Cousteau specials on TV. I finally had an opportunity while on holiday in Jamaica at the Hedonism resort. I was hooked straight off and wanted more but was unsure how to be fully and permanently certified. I was under no illusion that the one hour training I’d received at the resort was of any use, regardless how difficult it was. One of the things I had to do was to tread water while holding two five-pound weights above water for a full minute, otherwise it was a no-go. I passed. It wasn’t easy, and I was a strong swimmer. FYI: that treading water was a totally useless exercise.

I was pleased to discover “Blue Water Diving,” a PADI (Professional Association of Diving Instructors) certified company, had returned to town that summer to further train all comers, and there were a lot of us, about 20 all told who signed up for the week-long course, the last of two sessions offered. I had to take a week’s vacation to do it, in the summer. I was lucky to get it, too. I was unable to sign up for the first session (the one Henri had signed up for), two others on my crew had booked it off, the max allowed off at any given time. So, if I were to fail, I’d have to wait until the next year to try again.

The first few days of instruction were held at the Sportsplex, fairly basic stuff, mainly classroom material and tests and a few introductory dives to get used to breathing through our regulators, clearing one’s mask, use of buoyance compensators and weights, regulator care and such. Once were had the basic theory down, and once we proved that we wouldn’t panic when underwater and could use our gear reasonably well, we moved on to the Lake, the Aunor Lake, specifically. It had a lot to recommend it. It was close to town. There was a road alongside it. It had an easy grade to begin with, and it was deep enough, yet still within 33 feet. Anything beyond that depth was reserved for the “advanced” class the next weekend at Greenwater Provincial Park in Cochrane.

Long story short, I passed the PADI diver and Open Water certifications and enrolled in the advanced course. If I were to dive in the Caribbean again I’d have to have my advanced or I’d have to take their course or not dive. And their courses were a joke. They took time otherwise spent diving, and were just a cash grab as far as I was concerned.

Advanced consisted of learning navigation skills, deep water decompression times, night diving, boat diving and rudimentary rescue. It was a packed weekend. I didn’t own a camper so I booked into a room at the Westway Motel. A lot of us did. There was a bar next door, so a few of us ended up there, none of us drinking much, none of us wanting to risk a hangover. Alcohol and diving don’t mix, unless you like narcosis and the bends.

What I recall most vividly of that weekend was the deep dive. There was a particularly deep hole in Blue Lake. It was over 100 feet deep and icy cold past the thermocline. I was waiting my turn to descend into the depths, floating on the surface above it, breathing through my snorkel to conserve my tank, gazing at the weighted line plunging into the black depth. Spotters hung suspended along its length in case we got in trouble.

Once the diver before me broke the surface I was given my cue. I approached the buoy, bled my BC dry and dropped like a stone down the line, my fingers lightly tracing its length. At first the water shimmered about me, the light still strong and dancing across my mask, my jet-black neoprene glove and the bright yellow of the nylon rope, but once I broke through the thermocline the light all but failed, the depths now a rusty tea, easily twenty degrees colder than the comparably tepid shallows. My face stung as I continued to the bottom.

I had a simple task to perform when I reached the bottom. I was to inflate my BC to correct my buoyancy and float weightless above the bottom, fish out the three stones I’d tucked up my thigh between my top and trousers, display the certain dexterity required to place them in a neat triangle, proof that I wasn’t narcing out. Once my task was complete, I was to give the thumbs up and repel back up the line at a rate slower than my exhaled bubbles could rise.

I dropped one of my stones. It’s not easy doing precision work with neoprene gloves on. Not able to complete my triangle of stones, I placed two, and then pointed three times at where the third ought to have been. The instructor nodded twice and gave me the thumbs up. I returned it, and inflated my BC a little to begin my accent. I wasn’t rising fast enough to my taste, so I added another burp of air, one that proved too much. I struggled to control my assent for a few moments, finally coming to a stop opposite one of the spotters.

Cold water invaded my suit, its ice invading one of my ear canals.

Vertigo took hold and spun me like a top. I felt like I was sitting on the edge of a propeller, going round and round. I reached out and held fast to the line, fighting the black out rushing down on me. I kept a steady eye on the spotter, telling myself that the world was not spinning. The spotter was stable, in one place, and so that meant that I too was upright and stable. The blackness closed in, I focused on my hands that were clamped on the yellow line. The black circle at the edge of my eyesight slowly backed off as the spotter inched forward to check me out.

He shrugged and made a made a circle of index and thumb, pointing at me. Are you okay, he was asking.

By then, the spinning propeller had come to a stop and I was. I gave him the okay signal back, then the thumbs up. Thumbs up does not mean okay, it means ascending to the surface.

My final ascent was slow and measured.

Vertigo and narcosis kept its distance.

I broke the surface, never so happy to see the glitter of sunlight dancing on the water’s surface.

Grandpa’s Funeral

All things come to an end. That's a hard lesson to learn, but we must all learn in our own time.

We all remember our first funeral. The first I ever attended was my grandfather’s. I did not attend my Aunt Hazel’s (I was 9; I must have been, because Keith was nine when him mother died, and Keith and I are the same age), or my Uncle Ron’s (I was 12). My parents thought I was too young to attend those, too young to process the death, maybe. I believe we think differently now; children need to experience life’s passing, and the rituals we hold to help us mark the transition. I remember them passing, though, and why, and the sense of loss. I believe should have gone; children shouldn’t be shielded for death.

My grandfather’s funeral was special. Why? Because it was the first, and last time I was a pallbearer. The eldest male grandchild from each of the 6 branches of the family were chosen for the task, and although I was still fairly young (15), and many in my family thought too young, and maybe too short, or not physically strong enough, for the task, my father insisted that I was to be one.

Sadness prevailed. But the ritual was a comfort--it oght to be; it was a mass, much like every one I'd attended each and every weekend for as long as I could remember, even if the readings were different, and there were eulogies given as well as the expected sermon. The funeral Mass complete, we escorted the casket to the back of the church, sliding that beloved soul into the back of the hearse, and then to the cemetery grounds, we pallbearers following behind in a cousins station wagon. Cigarettes were passed around. I declined. Windows were cracked open, allowing the smoke to escape, and the chill air access. None followed. The graveside service has already been held at the back of the church. There would be no internment that day as the ground was still frozen.

We pulled into the cemetery grounds. I spilled out with my cousins, following, unsure what was expected, if anything. The casket was retrieved, and as one, we hoisted my grandfather on to a shelf atop the other caskets in storage, to be buried later. I’ve never forgotten that, lifting him up onto a rack where he would wait out what remained of the winter until the spring. It felt wrong, incomplete. I bit back tears. I resolved not to cry. I was a man now, after all. Maybe the others did as well. If they did, they did a better job at hiding it.

Winter passed. Spring sprung. We returned for a further gravesite service later in the summer.

That felt better. For me, anyway. Not for my cousin Carol, who wept openly upon passing her mother's headstone. She wept. Was comforted. Composed herself, only to cry again.

Closure is important.

Grandpa, Part 2

The last missive concerning Jules, my grandfather, was anecdotal, myself repeating what stories I’d been told. Even as I wrote it, I knew I ought to write a follow-up, sharing some of my more personal experiences.

My grandfather was a tease. He could be gruff too, somewhat short of temper, I’m told; but he was always kind and gentle, all the times I ever saw him. And a tease. Anyone who knew him will probably say as much. My father was the same, and, I think, I suppose I don’t fall far from that tree.

I recall sitting on my grandfather’s lap. He asked me if I wanted a sip of ginger ale, his voice somewhat raspy, that of a long-term smoker, which he was. His face lit up with mischief as he asked, an expression I knew all too well. I was having none of that. I knew it wasn’t ginger ale, and told him so. “That’s beer,” I told him.

“No,” he said, trying and failing to sound serious, “it’s ginger ale. Here,” he said. “Taste it.” And he’d place the glass under my nose.

“Look at it,” I said, gentle pushing it away, leaning back. I did not like the small of beer. Too sharp. And it stung my nose. “Look at the suds.”

“That’s whipped cream,” he explained.

“No it’s not!” I said.

I did eventually plunge my nose into his glass, to confirm to myself that he was teasing me. When I came back up for air, my nose was wrinkled. “That’s beer,” I said, my nose still wrinkled. Of course, he laughed.

Somewhat later, when his flexibility was less than it had been, I used to kneel down in front of him to help him put on and take off his shoes. The elderly imp used to curl his toes while I did it, making the effort difficult, if not impossible. Once I figured out what he was doing, I’d look up into his eyes to see if I could see that mischievous glint in them. It was. “Stop that,” I’d command him. He’d just laugh, and do it again. Exasperated, I’d call out, “Mom! He’s doing it again.”

“Grandpa, stop curling your toes,” she’d tell him, expecting that he’d do as he pleased, would do what he would, regardless what anyone said. And that he would, eventually. Of course, that just made him laugh all the harder, that raspy chuckle shaking him.

I remember him in his place, in his chair in the dining room, the cards set out before him in solitaire. Listening. Calling out to my grandmother. Holding court at Christmas time. He’d call me to him, to that chair. I’d come close, and he’d gather me up, and then he’d pass me a two-dollar bill, slipping it covertly into my palm. He always seemed to have a two-dollar bill ready when we came to visit. This is for you, he’d say. Don’t tell anybody. Everyone saw. Everyone heard. But it was our little secret, just the same.

Grandpa

"Good old grandsire ... we shall be joyful of thy company."

William Shakespeare

Jules Leonard. My father’s father. Jules emigrated from Belgium at a young age. Born in Brussels, he came to Canada in 1906 at the age of 3, and his family settled in Saskatchewan. You’ll have to forgive any errors I make, my father was not the most curious of creatures, certainly not in the case of his family’s history, so I’m threading together the few facts I know, just about all from my Grandmother when I’d grown older, and asked her about her past (Gramma, was always brief about such things; I wonder if she thought that the past not something to dwell on, the present and her family always her primary concern), a couple from my mother, from what little she knows and related me over the years.

Jules worked for the railroad when he was a young man, and at some given time within those younger years, he attended a cotillion. That’s a French country dance for we young’uns. And as fate would have it, he met a young lady there, a young woman named Blanche, and though he managed to dance a couple times with her, she insisted that she be escorted home by the gentleman she’d arrived with, and not by Jules. But persistence wins the prize. Jules set his eye on Blanche and began to court her, and a while later, the two settled in Timmins, Ontario, where Jules worked at the MacIntyre Mine, along with his brother-in-law Frank, and Blanche set about bringing 6 kids into the world: Lorraine, Laverne, Ronald, Jerome, Edgar (my father), and then, after a brief span of 9 years, Derek.

Jules worked underground for about 10 years (total guess), Frank in the bit shop. Both decided mining was a death sentence, as it was in those days, it was—most miners bled out into their lungs and drowned in their own blood by their early 40s from silicosis, black lung, as they liked to call it.

Frank bought a motel in North Bay, never had any kids, but embraced his sister-in-law Blanche’s, and her grandkids, as his own, as much as anyone could.

Jules struggled to make ends meet. Five kids (as there were then) were financial burden enough, but he also had to contend with Blanche wiring money back home to Saskatchewan, back to a brother who’d been caught red-handed embezzling from his company and had only been spared prison under the promise to pay back the amount in full, money he apparently did not have.

Jules eventually moved to Cochrane, and re-entered into service with CN, and pulled more than his share of overtime while with them. Blanche had taken ill upon the onset of her change of life, and had been so ill that she’d received the last rites in her 40s. Times were tough. The future dire.

Enter Mec Gauthier (Poppa). Poppa sold medicine to Jules at a hefty discount, and told Jules that he had to get out of the house they were living in. There was an open sewer running alongside their property, not a particularly healthy place to live. So, when my parents married, and moved to Toronto for a brief period, Jules bought their house on 16^th Avenue, the much beloved house I remember as theirs. Blanche remained in poor health, always had need of medication, even after Jules had retired. But she did improve. I remember her suffering headaches, Jules never too far from her side.

Nanny

Hilda Gauthier, my mother’s mother. My Nanny was a career woman. She had always worked. She didn’t do housework, not really, she puttered on occasion, and straightened papers, but she didn’t have time for such things, so she hired live-in maids when my mother was young, and then housekeepers and cooks later on, the last of which was Mrs. D., who worked for her for years, the only one I’d ever known.

As you might expect, Hilda had not been a hands-on mother. Not that she was distant. She wasn’t. She just didn’t know how to express her love. I think that may be why she was never a tactile grandmother with Karen and I. We knew she loved us, adored us, but she was more comfortable in the company of adults. And yet she was always happy to see us, was always generous and lavished us with gifts, and visited us with regularity in Timmins, usually for a week at a time.

Back in the ‘20s, Hilda had begun working at Bell, the telephone company, when her mother, Susan, took in Mec, my grandfather-to-be, as a boarder, and saw an opportunity for her daughter in him. Mec would be a pharmacist, not a working man living from paycheck to paycheck, but a proper professional. I’m not sure what Hilda thought of Mec in those first years, he was 11 years her senior, but she eventually did marry Mec, despite their age difference. And moved north with him to Matheson. Which must have been a shock. Matheson was not Toronto. Matheson must have seemed the savage frontier, the very edge of habitation and barely civilization. And Matheson was French. There were very few people for her to talk to, I imagine. So, moving to Cochrane was probably a wish come true to her. English. A railroad town. And their own business. Their money. Her own money. While in Toronto, Susan used to meet her at Bell, palm out for her paycheck.

In time, they flourished, prospered, bought and drove a car back up north when the road from the south to the north was completed, and later still, they adopted my mother, raised her, or reared her, in any event. The housekeepers and later Mrs. D. may have had more than a hand in raising my mother.

Hilda may not have been an overtly tactile and lavishly emotionally loving mother, but she was always there for my mother. She and Mec helped my parents when they married; financed a house for them; used their social and political connections to make arrangements for my parents when their first, developmentally challenged child was born. She was a live-in babysitter for my sister and I when needed, no matter how harrowing the experience of dealing with me may have been for her, at times. She was there to listen whenever my mother needed to talk, never judged. She bought my parents a Caribbean vacation for their 30th anniversary.

She may not have lavished us with hugs, she may not have said “I love you” often, but she found her own ways to express it.

Poppa

Joseph Meclea Gauthier, Mec to his friends. My mother’s father. Poppa had retired to his bed, and all my memories of him were in that bed.

When we came to Cochrane to visit, we always stayed at my mother’s parents. Karen and I would get out of the car and run up to the house, a large green painted, cinderblock building, mount the stairs two at a time, and greet Nanny at the door. We’d leave our bags to our parents to carry. They were probably heavy for little kids, you can’t convince me otherwise. Having kissed Nanny, we’d race up the flight of creaky stairs to our Poppa’s room. I’d jump onto the bed with him, hug him and kiss him. He was a small man, rail thin, sporting a somewhat longish beard, making him a new age hipster, way before his time. He was the only man I knew with a beard. I’d seen others, it was the early ‘70s then, so they were scattered about, but it was also Northern Ontario, and barely out of the ‘50s despite the date.

Poppa should not be judged by his largely unkept state, or his having retired to his bed. He cut quite the figure in his time, despite that small frame. Born in Quebec, he mostly grew up there before his family moved to Ontario. It was rustic here, then. Matheson, Cochrane, and Timmins hadn’t been around that long. There were few roads, none of them connecting the North to the South. Indoor plumbing may have been a luxury when he was young. His father bought the Stanley Hotel in Matheson, his mother was a school teacher, a family of note in the North, middle-class. They valued education in a time when most people in the North quit school after grade 7. They insisted on it, sending their boys south to school in Toronto, a rare occurrence in those days.

Mec and his brother became pharmacists, graduates of the U of T. He met my grandmother while in Toronto, married in 1926, and settled back in Matheson first and then in Cochrane once he’d bought a pharmacy there. He was one of the first people to drive a car north from Toronto to Cochrane once the road north was finally completed in 1927, a trek that took 9 days, I’m told, 3 to North Bay, then 5 to Cochrane. He was an important figure in his community, never turning people away without their prescriptions, medicines he had to mix and dispense, himself. He kept a book of what was owed him, but he was paid in eggs and chickens and cut meat on occasion, often probably. He was in charge of rationing in Cochrane during the Second World War. He counted Judges and the leaders of the town among his friends, and a certain railroad worker named Jules Leonard, as well.

His memory and his welcoming hugs warm me still.

The Cottage

My parents built a cottage on Rancourt Lake, just outside of Cochrane. Some of my earliest memories are there. I imagine it quite large in memory, but I’ve seen it since growing up and it’s quite small in reality. My first memories of it were from before we moved to Timmins, so, I was very young, then. I remember being bathed by my mother in the lake, rainy days spent indoors, my parents playing card with my Uncle Jerry and Aunt Hazel at what seemed at the time an enormous oak table, the TV displaying more snow than picture, yet issuing what might as well have been a radio play for all we could see.

We returned often those first years after moving. We invariably visited my uncle and aunt there. I recall playing with Keith along the shore. The Owens two cottages down. Their kids Darryl and Ronnie. My parents spent a lot of time with the Owens, so Karen and I spent a lot of time with Darryl and Robbie.

I remember one day at the Owens’ cottage quite well, or should I say I remember a particular incident quite well: I was lounging in an inner tube out on the water, not too far from shore. My mother was on shore with Mrs. Owen, talking, having a drink, maybe. I slipped through the hole, becoming all but stuck. Yes, I almost drowned. The water was not deep, no more than a couple feet deep, but my circumstances weren’t ideal. I could not, for the life of me, get out of the inner tube hole and back on top of it. I’d try to drag myself up and out, but I kept falling back in and below the waterline until I could slip no more, fully stuck, the water lapping at my mouth and nose. But while I was still struggling to release myself, I saw a progression with each crest of my struggle: my mother in the lawn chair, my mother leaping out of the chair, my mother running, my mother sailing into the water, and finally hauling me out of the inner tube and carrying me back to shore where I was no longer allowed near the water, definitely nowhere near an inner tube, in or out of the water. I can’t say I wanted to, not then anyway, not for about ten minutes, anyway. I felt like I was being punished after that.

Moving Day

We moved from Cochrane to Timmins in the summer of 1970. It was the most important day of my life, up to then.

I was four and a half, so moving from the only place I’d ever known to some place I'd never heard of seemed like moving to another planet. I was concerned, unsure what to expect. I’d no idea what was going to happen. I was also profoundly sad when the day came. I recall wanting to linger, to play with my friends for just five minutes more when my parents called for me to come, telling me it was time to leave. I kicked stones. I ran. I can’t say for certain what I did because I remember doing both, and both can’t be true. I had nightmares of similar leavings for years afterwards. I’d be told it was time to leave in my dream, and I’d pull at dandelion heads and kick at stones to delay the even. I’d wake in a cold sweat upon the completion of a countdown in my head (probably a side-effect of years of NASA countdowns), just as the moment arrived.

I climbed into the car. I cried a little, chocking back what I could. We were leaving my home, my grandparents, my uncles, aunts, my cousins, my whole life behind forever, as far as I could tell.

The hour it took to travel to Timmins felt like an eternity. The furthest I’d ever travelled was to the cottage, and that was only ten minutes from our house on 16^th Ave. The eternity passed. Probably not well, either. I was prone to car sickness and was usually doped up on Gravol so that I wouldn’t get car sick. They tried rubber strips, too, the theory being that it grounded the static electricity from the car. None of that worked. I’d almost always get sick. Sometimes we’d stop in time and I’d throw up into the ditch. Sometimes I threw up in the car. I have no memory of getting car sick on that ride, even though I probably did.

We arrived.

We pulled onto Hart Street and rolled down the hill towards Brouseau Avenue. There it was, 560 Hart, the new house, a yellow brick split level, two lots up from the Avenue. An empty lot separated us from the tall two-story on the corner. An undeveloped field lay across the street, the brush higher than my head.

Our new home was bigger than our house in Cochrane. Stairs up to the bath and beds. I ran up and down them, then downstairs, discovering that the basement was a work in progress, then back outside.

The movers followed shortly, and that inevitably brought every kid in the neighborhood out to watch. I discovered our new neighborhood was flush with kids my age. We were shy at first, me especially. But we were kids, and I was NEW, so we were playing in no time, before the furniture was even fully unloaded. It was like I’d lived there my whole life. I doubt that Cochrane crossed my mind at all.

That’s what kids do, they meet someone their own age and they’re best friends within ten minutes.

Kids adapt.

It’s so cool how they do that with so little effort.

It can leave a mark, though.

Driving Lessons

Not mine, obviously. My grandmother’s. She learned to drive late in life, sometime in her 50s. Probably not the best time to learn, but her husband’s health had begun to fail, so she decided that she had best learn. She asked my mother to teach her.

She did. And Gramma became a driver. She was probably not a very good one. But she was good enough to negotiate the streets of Cochrane.

I remember Gramma driving Keith and me. I believe she was driving us to school. It was in the winter, anyway. Regardless where and why, she was driving us somewhere. Keith was in the front with her. I was in the back, hanging off the back of the front seat. None of us were wearing seatbelts. Car seats and rules about how tall you had to be to sit in the front weren’t a consideration then. Not really. Kids sat in people’s laps then. I don’t think seatbelts were installed in cars then.

If she was driving us to school, it would have been in the winter of 69-70. I’d have been about four years old then, and in kindergarten.
We were driving up 7th Ave hill, approaching Transfiguration Church, and halfway up when the tires began to spin.

Gramma stopped and backed down the hill. That must have been frightening for her. Terrifying, in fact. Had the car begun to slide, she probably wouldn’t have had the skill to correct. So, she must have had a white-knuckle grip on the steering wheel as we inched back down the hill. She tried again to the same affect. On her third attempt, as we were nearing the top, the tires burning on the ice, Keith and I began to yell, “Don’t stop, Gramma!” She persisted, she hammered the fuel pedal to the floor, tires spinning like mad the whole way. We made it that time. Much to Gramma’s relief.

Cookie

Cookie was my first dog, or more accurately, she was my parents’ dog, even more accurately, she was my father’s dog. My mother could call for her until she was blue in the face without result. She’d give up, my father would open the door, call out for her once, and Cookie would be at the door in minutes. She was a corgi, a very popular breed then, as the Queen had a kennel full of them.

Cookie may have been the runt of her litter, but she was a giant in my eyes. She was my first companion. Loving, protective, always present. She followed me everywhere. And like I said, she helped me out from time to time while I learned to keep my balance.

When I began attending school, she was waiting in the window for my return. My mother tells me Cookie would just rise and go to the window about five minutes before I returned. (I've witnessed Hunter do the same, Piper, Sassy, Jasper too; dogs must be very aware of their internal clock.)

Cookie was smart. She could be cunning, too. There was this kid on the street that used to taunt her. She’d end up choking herself at the end of her rope as the kid wound her up, time and again, laughing at her; until the day she pretended not to reach, only advancing halfway up the extent of her rope. The taunting kid neglected to notice Cookie’s slack rope and entered her range. And then she rushed him. The kid was so surprised, he staggered back, falling on his ass.

Cookie was with us for some years after we moved to Timmins. Then she got cancer. And she died. Her passing was likely the first taste of intense grief I had ever experienced.

But that was still years away.

A Beginning, Cochrane

Some time ago, I found myself thinking about those first, largely, emotional snapshots in my head. When I mentioned them to others, I always heard the same surprised response: “You remember that? I can’t remember that far back.” But I could. Although I’m not unique in this, I’ve found it rather rare. Most people can’t remember their earliest years, apparently. Most people seem to have difficulty even remembering high school, let alone their preschool years. Don’t get me wrong, those early memories aren’t that detailed; they’re largely emotional moments, like a memory of me and my cousin Keith being pushed in strollers.

A lot of my earliest memories involve Keith. He and I are only two months apart, and we lived only two doors apart, so he would factor large in them, wouldn’t he? Not all, but most.

I don’t know how many people remember learning to walk, but I do. I’d shuffle along a piece of furniture and when I reached its end, our dog Cookie somehow knew that I needed help and would be by my side. I would take hold of her and catch a ride to the next couch or chair, where I’d take hold of it and shuffle along until I needed her help again.

I remember playing in puddles, all dolled up in a mud suit and rubber boots. I’d jump in, stamping them, watching them spray, spattering my legs, and I’d laugh.

I remember riding a “hobby” horse so hard that the springs should have broken. I’m astonished that I kept my seat.

I remember my mother not wanting to be bothered with putting my boots on when we were on our way to Uncle Jerry’s (Keith’s father), so she zipped my into my one-piece snowsuit, and swaddled me up in a blanket instead, carrying me the short distance down the street and up the single path to the house. My uncle was the most judicious of shovellers, clearing just enough for his car and a footpath up to his house, and he did this every year, because later on, when I was a year older, I remember mounting that slight, but seemingly endlessly steep hill, the banks as high as houses.

Later still, Keith and I decided we were going to Gramma’s house for cookies (she was always Gramma, never Grandma). We jumped on our trikes and ventured out. Cookie followed. Cookie always followed me. I suspect she had it in her mined to keep us safe. It was no simple venture for two three-year olds to go to Gramma’s house; we had to cross one of the busiest streets in Cochrane to do so, and another besides. When we arrived, Gramma met us at the door. “What are you doing here?” she asked, as surprised as can be by our arrival. “We came for cookies,” we said. So, she invited us in, served us our much sought-after milk and cookies...and called our mothers. When our obviously fearful and furious mothers arrived, I found myself hauled to the car by an arm, then hurried on my way by a quick rap to the behind.

Summers were spent on Rancourt Lake, just ten minutes from our driveway. For a child of two or three it was a long haul. I’d grow inpatient, eager to be where we were going, a place of fun and friends, of boats and wading in shallows, of scary fish, and of cousins. I’ve memories of being bathed at water’s edge, of thunderstorms, of my parents playing cards at the dining room table, of board games. There was a woodstove, almost never fired, and a TV, one that played little but snow.

Later still, Keith and I were packed up for school, where there was finger painting and pictures on the wall, A for Apple and B for Bees. Carefully drawn letters, in both capital and lower case topped the blackboard. I remember the first day after Christmas vacation most vividly, though. I arrived wearing new mittens. I was in a panic at day’s end. I couldn’t find them. I searched and shifted the many other mittens, the coats and boots looking for them. I enlisted the aid of the teacher, but my mittens were nowhere to be found. “You lost them,” she said. But I hadn’t lost them. I’d specifically placed them in my coat pocket after showing them off to my classmates. They’d been stolen. But who to blame? To this day I can’t believe that the teacher sent me out into the cold without mittens. The distance could not have been long, five or six blocks, I imagine, from school to home, but it was bitterly cold. My hands were frozen. My cousins came to my aide. “Where are your mitts?” they asked. I don’t know, I said. I couldn’t find them. They waved down more cousins, and one arrived on a snowmobile. He set me in front, facing him. He undid his snowsuit and told me to reach around and hug him. “Hold on,” he said, and raced me home. I’d never travelled so fast. My mother was livid. She tied strings to my mitts for years, and thread them through my sleeves.

Those are my memories of Cochrane. Not all. I remember uncles and aunts and carnivals and the hill behind my house. I remember Christmases, dressed up so smartly in jacket and clip-on tie. I remember my room.

I remember the day we left Cochrane.