Christmas

Every Christmas morning after we left Cochrane for Timmins, we’d wake up to my father rushing about the house, hammering on doors, declaring that Santa had been here! We’d leap or drag ourselves out of bed, depending on the year, leap at young ages, drag later. We’d eat a hasty breakfast, despite our ogling the feast of presents about the tree, open our gifts and be left to play with the toys for a time; not too long though. There was preparations to be made: every year for 10ish years after leaving Cochrane, we were to return to the homeland for celebrations with the family, eat an early lunch, pack up the car with the gifts to be given, and pile in, Cookie at my mothers’ feet in the front. I can’t recall if Piper, our next dog, ever made the pilgrimage with us, if she had, she'd have been in the space at the back window (that’s where she loved to lounge for the hour-long trip).

I recall many such long commutes back to Cochrane, getting car sick, puking into the ditch despite tripping on Gravol. I was not a good traveller then.

We’d arrive at Nanny’s (my mother’s mother’s) house, where we’d open gifts, then be herded back into the car for the short drive to Gramma’s (my father’s mother’s) with Nanny in tow (my mother’s parents were always invited if I recall properly, certainly my Nanny after Poppa passed away), where we opened gifts again. Those gifts were packed away in the trunk of the car before my uncles, aunts, and cousins arrived.

Gramma’s house already smelled like dinner when we arrived. There was a great deal of cooking to be done in such a small galley kitchen. Food was piled high on the dinner table, arranged in depth, buffet style. Only Grandpa sat at the table, holding court on how much anyone might take, even though there was enough food for three times our number (about 30ish people in what I would describe as a wartime house). Turkey, ham, mashed potatoes, pickles and beets and Lord knows what else, my memory fails me. There were six types of pie: apple, cherry, raisin, mince, pecan (?) and sugar (?), one for each son’s preference. They each had to have their favourite. And they’d have been disappointed had their personal favourite not been there. Family politics. Enough said.

Grandpa would always call me over, draw me in and hug me, and slip a two-dollar bill into my pocket.

There wasn’t enough room at the table for everyone. Obviously. And with thirty people in attendance, seating was an issue. Families sort things out, and by the time I came along, a system had long since been adopted. The adults ate in the living room, with paper plates in wicker baskets on their laps. We cousins were arranged on the stairs, each to his own riser, Keith and I sharing a small bi-fold table at the base.

Gramma never ate until everyone else had. And by then the Great Clean-up was in full swing, the food and dishes tackled by the women, teens and adults alike; but not by Gramma, though, she was eating.

The men congregated in the living room, the chairs and stools arranged, years of Daily Press Carol booklets laid out, one to a seat. Once the Great Clean-up was complete, we sang, we soloed. I most certainly soloed. I was expected to sing “Rudolph, The Red-nosed Reindeer” every year. Tradition, you know how it goes. There was no accompaniment though: I don’t know if anyone could play anything portable. Karen could play piano, but there was none present. Gramma played fiddle, but I don’t remember it ever being brought out. I recall French songs being sung after the carols were complete. Beer flowed. There were chips and snacks and such, because that’s what we all needed, more food.

We kids took that as our queue to retreat downstairs where there was tabletop hockey and an absence of adults and alcohol and demands by our elders to bring them more. I think the elder cousins may have played street hockey out front or may have just slipped away to party with friends.
If they did, Keith and I were oblivious to it all, having lost interest in all things adult, even all things teen. Later still, Karen and I were packed up by our parents to go back to Nanny's for the night. Over the next few days, we visited...everyone. It was exhausting, fun, but exhausting. Christmas would never be as exciting as it was then.

The Field

When we first moved to Timmins, and for years afterwards, the lots across the street, the space between Hart Street and Murray and bounded by Brousseau, were owned by the district school board and remained undeveloped. In various stages of growth, every so often sheared to the nub, it was a spark of imagination and a little space of bush, a couple of blocks from the real thing. It was a wonderful playground for all around.

There were trails of passage, worn down by thousands of footsteps, trails that remained even when it had grown feral. That only happened once, when the shrubs had reached a proper height to create a proper maze. But more often than not, the bushes were no more than ankle height. There were thistles and fungi, blueberry bushes and alders scrub. But when it was a proper maze, it was a brilliant place for hide and seek!

I remember when, in the early/mid ‘70s, my father bought a Skidoo. We didn’t have it for long, a few years at most, I suppose, but when we did we had a caboose trailer too. I recall hours of bone chilling cold back there, despite our being wrapped up in a heavy woolen blanket, when Karen and I were being dragged along behind my parents on the sled. My feet were blocks of numb ice at the end of those family outings. Not fun. But when we weren’t being frozen in the caboose, Karen and I would take the skidoo out onto the barren lot across the street for a ride. That was fun, that was thrilling. There were laps and loops and figure 8s etched all over that field. Karen drove more often than not, but I did too, never at great speed—my mother told us to keep it down, and since we were in plain sight, we did; to do otherwise risked our never being allowed to play on the sled, ever again.

One winter, Keith came to visit for a weekend. We were playing war out in that field, with hockey sticks for rifles. We stormed the banks, and defended them. Then we split apart, adding hide and seek battles to the scope of play. I was left to seek. He was out in the deep, windswept field, and I was sneaking up on him, keeping low, using the high banks for cover. I risked a peak over the bank, expecting to see his toque clearly, an obvious dark spot out in the stretch of snow. But he was nowhere to be seen. I panned left and right. No Keith. So, once I reached where I knew I’d seen him last, I bounded up and over the bank, expecting him to scream BANG, BANG BANG! But all I heard was silence, and the wind. I crawled, my belly sliding over the snow. When I reached where I’d last seen him, there was just an empty foxhole, and a berm neatly piled up around it. I looked over the berm and discovered he'd hollowed a tunnel.

“Keith?” I called.

“Down here,” he answered. Climbing down feet first into the hole, I found he’d been busy. He’s burrowed out a warm cozy tunnel down there. We spent the next hour expanding the space...until it collapsed on our heads.

That began a furious burrowing out of banks by David Miller and me after Keith had gone home. At least until we saw the snowplows and massive city snow blowers pushing back and cutting into those banks, crushing them, chewing them up and spitting them out into trucks. Visions of being caught inside one of them when these monsters passed ended our snow tunneling phase.

Shortly after that, the school board sold off the lots, houses rose up on them, and that short-lived free-for-all playground disappeared for good.

There was disappointment. There was mourning. They’d stolen our domain.

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.