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.

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.