[hitch-hiking notes from a 3"x5" lined notebook]
April 29, Thursday 1965
Taxi driver - "Hey, youse have three thousand miles to go!"
Three steeple jacks - 5:00 to Toronto. Three McCraies drinking beer from
tins. "I suppose you have to drink if you live dangerously." "You
don't know how true that is."
[Johnny McCraie's phone number]
Friday April 30th
Chemical salesman, bachelor, curly hair, large, golfs, swims, flies to
New Orleans. Went out of his way to set us off on Highway 400 [401].
Brawny tanned gorgeous Frenchie in clean blue pants and tee-shirt, tiger
head in many colors tattooed on forearm, buck shoes.
Lunch beside the road under a tree on the grass, one squashed apple pie
eaten with fingers and a knife, a quart of beer cooled in the ditch (gift
from Donny), read Mother's letters, half an orange Trinidad style.
Thompson Transfer, tall green truck going to North Bay, race with boss's
son. "D'yuh hear the one about the karate expert who joined the army?
First time he saluted he killed himself."
"Seen a guy get burned to death last night, Morris Transport, hit
this big cement curb, had these rolls of paper on the back, and - A-men!
Burned right in the cab." "Was he conscious?" "Oh, yeah.
Screamed a lot."
"I've been drinking quite heavy." Hair falling forward and
large mouth with cleft chin, eats with fork almost in his fist, huge chunky
fried potatoes, slimy yellow beans. "What's this garbage? I'll eat
it anyway."
"It must take a lot of juice to turn over any engine like this."
"That's trucker talk!" Feeling of pride.
Toward North Bay.
Coming over the hill in Muskoka, trees still bare, glowing in grey and
red branches, billowing slightly like smoke, sculptured in finely textured
bursts of color.
Gull story.
Girls Diner.
Psychiatrist in the penn who asked "Did you ever have intercourse
with your mother?"
Railroad man who rolls his own, railroad cap and soft brown skin, neck
pitted with deep holes, grizzled hair, leather jacket and plaid shirt. His
grandmother, when she was a little girl, traveled by canoe from Peace River
to Montreal, settled in Ottawa, Irish. Clear green eyes.
Trees, spruce, balsam, Jack pine, tamarack. Christmas trees! White birches
with red tips.
Car salesman from [?], red Mustang convertible new this morning from
Hamilton, French balding and red-faced, completely bland, even 'Trinidad'
didn't stir him! (I love to light cigarettes - it opens them up too.) Feel
very grand passing people at 85 mph. Smoke curling up for a moment like
---'s "Jolly Smoker." Grand Nobosing. [?]
- Nipissing, Powassan [?]. Blue sky, contrast of pine trees.
- East Mattawa. [?]
- Little white "Gravel Pit Gospel Mission."
- Temagami.
- Wanapetei.
-
Motel furnishings salesman accounting.
Shad flies, come out of the water, across in clouds, wash the streets
down in the morning, three feet deep, skid down.
-
Business Machines, Computers, Accounting Machines.
Encyclopedia Am[ericana].
Sudbury - stacks, 'tailings,' black rock in heaps, strange hellish landscape,
heavy fog [?]. Rocks like weathered leather magnified, smoke compacts as
it leaves the stacks, loosening and turning itself out.
Spidery towers, webs of power line, stands on one leg, two arms, head
frame.
Laurentian University, colleges, Alarron.
Saturday
Boy in restaurant, bright yellow sweater, [?].
"[?] of Salt Lake City, duh!"
90 mph.
'Lively' high school principal with a theory that formality, snobbery,
is a mathematical function of both distance west and population density.
"Now I clout a kid who doesn't call me 'sir'."
Jim.
"Calgary, 90 mph."
Lunch off the road on a mossy stump (apples, bread, cheese, milk - eaten
with a hunting knife - Jim finished off a quart of chocolate milk by himself)
just outside "the Sault," driving north along Lake Superior, sudden
views from a hilltop, blue water, black rocks, hard white ice in jagged
piles, water glinting to an indistinct horizon. Jim was sleepy, kept falling
off the road, we suggested he stop and sleep for a few hours, under a tree
on a mossy rock, sprawled on our sleeping bag, while we explored a stream,
climbed rocks, steeped in the sunshine (like old tea-bags exactly, limpid
and languid). Startling white frozen waterfalls, a big cow moose, rapids,
half-frozen lakelets, fishermen, delicate birch trees with their dusty maroon
branch tips, mixed over hillside with evergreens, like mauve-grey smoke,
ice cream cone. Long shadows across the highway, rotting snow, rock walls
on both sides, chipped granite blocks, haze makes the hills look deep violet,
105 mph (earlier, downhill, he showed us 120 mph, with great élan
and wind roaring). He is seventeen, going to Calgary alone for the first
time, to seek his fortune (a spindling tree growing from a tiny layered
rock in a glass smooth bay), enjoys our company, speaks little, rotund,
peculiar imitation crocodile boots, trucker's wallet (clear air like cold
water, bright, good-smelling, large scaly birch trees).
Sunset, orange, finely detailed silhoettes, Jim driving while asleep,
swaying from side to side, over onto the gravel, then in the left lane,
nearly smashing into a bus. We slept on a roadside lane, very cold and uncomfortable,
Rash and Jim snored, Rasheed slept with his jacket over his head, I tossed
and wriggled and was acutely uncomfortable, woke up sticky and itchy. We're
roaring toward Winnipeg - (last night, traveling full speed, radio blasting,
black sky and bright stars, talking about how the earth was formed, crusts
and 'peelings').
Entering Winnipeg, flat, black land, swank freeway with lamps like grasses.
-
Winnipeg and Monday
Tuesday
"Perk," from the rainy 7:30 roadside - we woke up with rain
on the groundsheet in puddles, still falling on the poncho over our heads
- shoes wet, sleeping bags wet (yet the sleeping bags had been warm and
dry, under the trees). Struggling into jackets under the tarp was awkward,
insulted about looking bedraggled, washing in a washroom across the road,
and being queried by a very disgruntled owner who disapproved immediately
even though the coffee shop promised to open at 7 and it was now quarter
past. Standing beside the road again, swearing after infrequent cars who
passed without seeming to see us. Then Perk, bald with a little, short,
hair bristly or whiskers, like all of our rides laconic at first, but soon
radiating good will and innuendo, good advice about sex ("You've got
six free days after your period, but never take any more," with a smirk),
taxes, douches - brilliant discussion with Rasheed about transportation
and economic development in Canada (he was some sort of freight coordinator,
service operator for the railroad, extremely conversant with his business.)
Regina, let us off at the entrance to the city, we had time only to swallow
half a banana before the next man picked us up, a Canadian vice-president
of the American firm that manufactures a plastic non-jointed flooring called
the Monosaic.
-
Good to spend days in companionship of adventure, nights in companionship
of tenderness. "I have only one rule - never drink, go to parties,
or make love when you're sad." "Are you sad?" "No, I'm
happy."
Red and blue lights flashing faintly on the wall, a hand holding a cigarette,
slanted over the side of the bed.
[Month at La Glace with Rash intervenes.]
[undated letter]
Arrived last Sunday, just in time to celebrate Grandparent Konrads' anniversary.
We stayed at Uncle Peter's, on Monday night Rasheed left by CPR for Kingston.
The next day I spent exploring downtown. On Wednesday morning Uncle Peter
took Auntie and Raymond and Heather with him to Kamloops, where he finished
off an important apartment project and Auntie had a very enjoyable holiday
while I took care of everything at home. They came home on Friday; on Saturday
we spent the day in Hatzic Lake and I came to Clearbrook and slept in my
old bed in the sewing room. Today I'm excused from church by having no Sontagsche
Kleider mit, spent the afternoon very enjoyably talking to the same old
Frank Doerksen on the lawn. Grandpa's cousins from Vancouver, the Konrads,
were here. Mrs Konrad, whom I like extremely, told me hairy stories about
girls she knows who had too many boyfriends and eventually "blieb sitzen"
presumably because of it! Then she told me very pointed what a "hipscher
Jung" Frank is, and how, "Vielleicht würde er warten."
Frank is still a hipscher Jung indeed and as charming as always,
and even better, no longer devoted! This increases his attractiveness, but
I do know better than to try anything again.
Grossma, by the way, is scandalized at my hitchhiking, "wie Bumps,"
and insists that "Es ist nicht .., nicht POLITE." "Ist nicht
weiblich." "Aber Grossma, ich bin nicht sehr weiblich."
But we are getting along beautifully, lots of jokes. And I'm enjoying the
grandparents more than ever.
There is so much to tell you about the trip that I'll save it for a feature
story.
Judy, I can't give you any news about berries, except that strawberries,
the few there are, are barely beginning. Dycks' strawberries are completely
wiped out and his raspberries won't start for weeks. I'm trying (tomorrow)
to get on at York Farms. You'd probably be better off waiting a few weeks
and coming with the parents if they come later.
I miss Rasheed, you all must too. Your description, Mother, in the letter
to Grandmother, was very good.
As we were waiting for his train to come, he said to me, "Tell your
mother I love her." I said, "You tell her yourself." He,
"I don't even tell my mother." "All right, I'll tell
her." He, "Good." Then his train came, and we went through
the doors with the mob and I went out and cried a little bit and then walked
through the city a bit and felt quite bereft and then went home to Maitland
Street to bed.
Paul, Frank says that Dave is becoming an excellent musician and that
he has fans (all girls) throughout the province since a band tour he took.
Frank seems happy and looks well. He's still talking about wanting to
see you in hunting season. Mother gave us our first ride, into La Glace,
to the post office, to wait for the mailman - Tuesday morning, bright and
hot. La Glace looked like any small town on the prairies, and the picture
Mother took of us both walking away with our bags could have been taken
in many of the small towns we passed through.
June 8
[family letter]
The mailman arrived, Rasheed kissed Mother goodbye quickly and we were
gone in a minute. Teddy Voth's friendliness surprised us. When he dropped
us off on the highway going to Sexsmith, the long way around for us, he
said gallantly, "It was my pleasure."
We hadn't time even to put out our thumbs before the first car to approach
stopped beside us. A couple of newcomers to the Buffalo Lakes district,
a thick-necked oilman and his scrawny faded wife with their really beautiful
small son, offered us a ride to the Four Mile Corner. They were keenly interested
in our trip and in our former adventures. Strangely, few people can be stirred
out of their apathy even by our stories and by the names of faraway places
that we are learning to drop so easily. Receptive people surprise and please
us, and we try to give them their ride's worth of entertainment.
Dropped off at the corner with many good wishes and our five bags, we
picked up the trudging gait we knew so well by now, with the familiar pull
of the bags against our shoulders, and found an "Edmonton 282 miles"
sign to stand in front of. But both of us felt a little sad from our goodbyes
and we were in no hurry, so we sat down on the gravel shoulder with our
chins in our hands and talked about home. Rasheed was particularly sad to
leave. But after a while it seemed as though this was a direct extension
of our trip from Kingston, as though there had been no trip home and no
month in between. Rasheed was in his blue jeans and red shirt again, doggedly
wearing the red Queen's jacket even in the heat, and I was back in the baggy
blue jeans with a shirt, ragged black sneakers and Rash's red sweater.
After a while a new green car stopped for us, and a briefcase and business
suit on a backseat hanger said 'salesman' to us. But the middle-aged man
with his lank and pot belly, and kindly sensible face, was more than a salesman
- business president of Miller's Stationers in Edmonton and director of
the Alberta Stationer's Guild, he had entered the firm as a delivery boy
when he was sixteen. Now he vacations at Las Vegas and Bermuda; is widely
traveled and educated but retains the cautiousness and frugality combined
with kindliness that made him order a 35¢ hamburger for his lunch so
that he could charge our lunches to his expense account as well. Hard working,
he had been up since five and had made several business calls before leaving
Grande Prairie. He talked easily and well, and accepted our adventuring
as a natural and good experience for curious high-spirited youth - he has
two sons in high school and college. We liked him very much and he seemed
to like us as well. To us, he represented an old-school type of Canadian
- a shrewd business man who prospers on integrity and quality. When we approached
Edmonton in the middle of the afternoon (an afternoon of brilliant greens
and blue skies in the Whitecourt-Valleyview bush) he overheard us wondering
whether Dr Rostrup would be in and whether he could see me - and he offered,
"I've done some work for him, I know where his office is, and I can
go by that way."
Dr Rostrup was away for the day, and his sophisticated receptionist told
me firmly that he was much too busy the next day to see someone without
an appointment. Back out on the street (pushing through the glass doors
of the Medical Arts Building was enjoyable; we had to struggle with bags
and people stared) we sat on a bus stop bench and stared at the beautifully
dressed women who stared at my hobo clothes and packsack. It was too late
to get out to city limits and hike out before dark. We straggled through
rather crumbling downtown back-wash streets for half an hour, at last found
a respectable hotel that gave us rooms at four dollars each [this was a
lie, we didn't take two rooms] - oh well, go without supper tonight. We
wandered through Edmonton looking at the city until late; I was thirsty
for city sounds and sights.
Didn't get up until late in the morning - good, saves breakfast. Bought
some cherries though, at a fantastic price, and had them with Cokes for
breakfast. While we were waiting for a bus to take us to the highway, trying
to hold a city map upright and discover the right route-number, a woman
leaning against the building next to us asked to help us out - told us hair-raising
(for Rasheed) stories about the bears in Jasper Park, gave us our directions,
then climbed into the number 5 bus after us, grinning because the bus jerked
suddenly and I flew forward onto my knees among our bags. Rash was right
behind me! Then the bus jerked to a stop and I flew backward in the standing-room-only
bus, stepped heavily onto a fat white shoe and was finally put out of my
and the other passengers' misery by a kind soul who gave up his seat.
Reached the last stop eventually, got out to buy food from a rundown
Chinese shop where the flat breasted woman followed us suspiciously around
the room to make sure we didn't pocket anything. Rasheed gleefully picked
up a handful of cherries, ate them, deliberately spit the pits out one by
one as she added up the bill. 85¢ a pound, those cherries.
It was noon, and hot. Across the road was a cemetery; we lay down on
our stomachs under an evergreen, got out the loaf of brown bread Mother
had given us and the few apples we had left, sliced them up with the hunting
knife and ate it with celery and some lunch meat, arguing, furiously, listening
to the humming of a grass cutter and the chomping of a grave digger, looking
at the decaying flowers and names on children's graves nearby. Silly lambs
and cherubs and "Gone Home" in curly writing. And our enraged
typical argument which I can't remember now.
We got onto the road, it was hot, no rides but many cars. Finally a ride
with two hoodish boys in a rod. Then another, both very short. Then a large
gravel truck - inside, a muscular young man, very tanned and goodlooking,
in very dirty clothes. Although he was reticent, we discovered that the
truck was one of seven in a fleet which comprised part of an enormous farming
operation his father had left him - several thousand head of steers, seventeen
quarters of land. Stopped for an ice cream cone, and he drove off down a
side road. A long wait in the hot sun - we had begun the pattern that was
to haunt us all the way to Vancouver.
Finally, a ride - a dopey looking but well dressed middle aged man in
a new car. A school teacher in Entwhistle, he said. He pointed out several
poor-looking farms beside the road, complained that the town of Entwhistle
was of such low intellectual calibre that it was impossible to arouse interest
at the school. When Rasheed remarked that it must be difficult socially,
in such a place, Mr Praeger said quite scornfully "Oh, we have a library
and intelligent children; we have really nothing to do with them."
A bit of prying brought out the fact that Mark was the boy who got the provincial
highest average during Judy's grade nine - "He spends all his money
on philosophy books and such, Aquinas ..." When we got to Entwhistle,
it was pouring rain so that the car had difficulty moving - he drove us
into town, but the rain stopped and he drove on through the run-down streets
to the highway again. Wet road, an old woman peering at us through her shoddy
curtains across the road. Very few cars.
Then Ted Nichols. Another smooth surfaced car, new and green. Blond young
man with an intelligent face, work clothes, western supervisor for Standard
California Oil, coming to visit the survey-exploration crews. Explanations
of technique and geography conditions of the area with Rasheed and Ted enjoying
each other's company and me asking many questions. Ted was one of the most
striking personalities of our trip - intelligent, curious, intellectually
energetic, successful and ambitious, more aware of the problems and enjoyments
of free-ranging travel than anyone we'd met. We learned about sonic filters,
seismograph equipment, $104 an hour helicopter work, $1200 a month wages.
We reached Obed at dusk, and after thinking for a moment, Ted suggested
that, since he had to go on to Hinton for the night, we wait while he spoke
to his crew and then go with him. There was a small café - we sat
in a booth and watched the oilmen flirt with a plump fifteen year old, Rash
piled in a huge meal (we'd chomped celery beside the road) and I washed
up thoroughly downstairs - Ted was busy making long distance calls to far
places and conferring with a striking Norse-looking foreman with an extremely
intelligent face - finally both came over to have a cup of coffee - and
insisted on paying for our meal, so that I wished I'd ordered more. Then,
pleasant surprise, the delightful foreman came along on the ride to Hinton
- dusk, excited conversation. The young foreman was wistful about leaving
the bush, getting married and civilized. We reached Hinton and Ted asked
around for a campsite - back half a mile on the road to a huge pulp mill,
under a hillside. They left us there, good wishes again, and when the foreman
shook hands with us I said, "When are you getting married Ray?"
He, "Looks like never but I wish I were coming with you."
Dark, scent of pines, lights and smoke of the pulp mill glimmering, the
hill rising mysterious, excitement of exploration, running among the campers
like children until we found three trees under the edge of the hill where
the pine needles were thick; and there were faint trails going up the hillside,
forest all around - got our sleeping bags and ponchos unrolled and spread
out by flashlight - I climbed the hill to the railroad tracks a hundred
yards up, very steep, panting and being excited to be sleeping out - the
lights and the hills across the valley were beautiful; rocks rolled somewhere,
I didn't sleep for a long time after sliding down the hill to the spot where
Rasheed was making camp tidily with the flashlight - remembered camping
at Miette with the family years ago. Strange contrast.
And in the morning - the mountains. Bright sun again, brilliant color,
hunger, cold water. Most of the other campers were already gone. A hot uphill
trudge to Hinton for breakfast. Rash took a picture of me with my
pack leaning against the steeply climbing roadside-railing. Then - he opened
the back of the camera to watch it rolling to the next number. "Rash!
What are you doing?!" "Watching it." "But you're ruining
the film - do you always do this?" "I've done it at least twice
on every film." High gloom as we speculated on whether all the films
were completely ruined. Hunger. Sweat. Aching shoulder muscles. Finally,
a café in Hinton. We determinedly forgot the film, put two quarters
into the jukebox, and played our eight songs with toast and Coke. A song
that's followed us from Ontario to here is "I know I'll never find
another you." We heard it often in the cars across Canada, and because
one of the lines is "It's a long long journey so stay by my side"
and because we've become very close in spite of the feuding, Rash and I
play it again and again - a theme song for the recurring sequences of standing
and a pavement with the white line curving off around distant corners.
We stood for several hours - someone gave us a ride to the outskirts.
We stood for more hours, had a ride three miles closer to the mountains,
it was three o'clock and we stood for even longer with a ninety degree sun
beating down on our heads. Rash said firmly, "We aren't going to sit
down in the shade - somebody might go by." He refused to take off his
college jacket, I was thirsty and feeling faint. We walked for a while -
suddenly a gate and dirt road. Determining to get water, I left Rash at the road and squeezed
through the gate. A large white samoyed came snapping at me while her pups
ran for safety. Neat gardens and a small log house. But that enraged dog.
At last someone called to him to come away and I found a pretty Indian woman
among the fried-egg remains of lunch in a house filled with five small blond
children's chaos - she not only gave me water, but went to the pump for
specially cold water and gave me a big jar full for Rash. He was leaning
his chin against the gate: "You won't believe it: while you were gone
a blue MG stopped - but he wouldn't wait for you." Another hour of
heat, but the water helped.
At last, a rattling truck with a young father and his pretty baby daughters,
bumping over the gravel to Jasper. The Parks at last. About sixty miles
in a full day. Jasper - food, a lost wrist watch, a section of watermelon
packed away, a meeting with two other hobos at the railway tracks, one fat
man trying to find work who decided there were too many of us on the road
and he would go back to an old shack he knew of, and sleep. The other was
a thin old brown-skinned man with huge Byzantine eyes and only a sweater.
We stood for several hours just over the tracks, watched deer feeding at
the edge of the woods, while the old man walked off down the road toward
Banff and Calgary where he wanted to find work.
June 25, Clearbrook
[journal]
More than the facts unearthed, and there were many; more than the
glimpses gained of the steady flow of human knowing, generation to generation,
culture to culture - and this had also been an abiding and highly valued
attitude - beyond and above all these had persisted the sense of power
of control over the sources of understanding.
It Takes Time: an Autobiography of the Teaching Profession, Marie T Rasey
Professional skill derived from high sensitivity to other people,
high evaluation of the preciousness of each, and an arrangement of whatever
self they presented with whatever the circumstances contained.
Marie realized that her lifelong war cry, "I'll take the consequences,"
was as misleading as many of her oldsters had tried to tell her. No one
is ever able to pay his own debts.
One saw to what complete extent one saw with one's yesterdays, from
behind one's eyes, rather than with one's todays.
Concepts the second creation, impossible without words.
It was the question which each who leads his life in preference to
being led by it must ask, who, which, what am I?
"Ich bin ich, und durch mich selbst geworden was ich bin."
Magda, Sudermann's Die Heimat.
Two basics standing out clearly: my intense desire not so much to find,
as to make, myself (but both - echoes of Olivia, "You do everything
so consciously and deliberately") and my intense need for professionalism,
work and study under high motivation. Probably child psychology. The clarity
of this need is greater than it ever has been, and there is excitement even
in thinking about it.
Knowledge of my most dangerous failing - apathy, intellectual
and emotional laziness.
She had learned that one's aloneness as a person is only as true as
the aloneness of crystal in the rock or water drop in the sea, or the cell
in living tissue. A man amid mankind, supremely self-responsible and responsible
toward all mankind.
To design himself, to work toward that end, this was man's supreme
privilege - to work out his own salvation.
I understand this, Don Carmichael.
Walking in the back pasture here at Grandfather's farm, I passed a chipped
redwood stump and fern fields that I passed as a child and again with Frank
when I was sixteen - I thought about myth's relation to memory, and
to memory not only from childhood, but any memory put into words - memories
have the qualities of myth, emotional intensity; intensification of factual
present or present fact; realization of high mystery.
Sometimes even in the present, the high mystery is present: looking at
the tall acacia ("Akazie" in Grandmother's German) tree between
the garden and the road, leaves arranged so perfectly in light and dark,
the difference in color of the sky behind the tree and in front of it, light
and shadow moving on black limbs and trunk with its thick strong texture,
flowers at the top of the tree as light as the lightest leaves, perfection
of its shape and mystery of unseen roots and unseen circulating saps, incredible
to realize. Sculpture in the two mingled, blackened root stumps wrapped
in fern. Frank's face, hands, the line of his hair, the smooth skin on his
bare chest as he lies on the grass. Rasheed dancing over the gravel pile
with a water pail on each shoulder, narrow hips and long legs, whistling,
unaware of us at the window, of our delight. Unmoving Interpenetration,
tenderness and sweat drying cool.
June 26
For those of us who stand upon the margins of the world, as yet unsolicited
by any God, the only truth is that work itself is Love - Mountolive
" All honest effort to recreate that which God created originally
..."
"Is a form of worship?"
"Has in it a love of God's universe. Else why would the artist
bother?"
"I have always loved God," replied Michelangelo simply.
"Walk with a cripple for a year and at the end you will limp."
Tuscan proverb, Olivia?
Lorenzo de Medici - "The deepest basis for action is the
clear supremacy of contemplation, and knowledge."
"All love is 'in a way.'"
"Each psyche is really an ant-hill of opposing predispositions.
Personality as something with fixed attributes is an illusion - but a necessary
illusion if we are to love."
- Sol vergebens Mond und Sterne
- Nicht an dir vorüber gehen
Monday
[letter]
Is Judy arriving tomorrow? Grandma has baked zweibak and perushki, her
intuition was blinking "I think Mary is coming today" in many
colored lights all day Saturday, but by nine o'clock she had given up and
gone to bed disgruntled. Grandfather has a ten dollar bet on with her, that
your last letter said "We can't come" between the lines
you'd better come because Grandmother is looking forward so anxiously.
Auntie Anne and etc Dycks went to Vancouver on Wednesday morning, with
tickets to New York on the Thursday night train. Grandma has followed them
with faithful fifteen minute interval reports from long before they left.
"Na, jetzt sind sie ..." The latest was two minutes ago
"Na jetzt sind sie schon zu Hause. Werden zehr müde sein. Ist
so wie ein Traum ..." We do miss the Dycks - little Elizabeth with
her corn silk hair and huge forehead and charming ways, long-legged gay
pretty Mia, Auntie with her laugh and unexpected humor, Uncle with his made-up-on-the-spot
"russische Spruchwörter" which he hauls out to confound Grandmother
when she displays one of hers.
It's ten o'clock, the mailman will come.
Judy, if you're still home, the raspberries are starting this week.
Got a 32-page lonesome letter from Rasheed - he says to tell you he misses
you.
[undated letter]
We're here at Grandma's today [my sister Judy had arrived], after coming
from Vancouver this afternoon (Sunday) and the Grandparents aren't here
yet.
We were at Aunt Maryanne's last night after coming, laden down like donkeys
with our packages and sleeping bags, late in the afternoon after shopping
and stuff. Evening spent making microscopic doll clothes for Roseanne's
skinny Barbie doll.
- Later, Dyck's cabins
Grandma and Grandpa got home from Chilliwack, and after pretending to
disapprove of our hitch hiking to Vancouver and making sure we weren't hungry,
delivered us here.
Dyck's cabins, July
[journal]
Sunday. Frank, dressed in his favorite light blues and looking exceptionally
good, dropped Dave here and stopped, with reluctance, to talk. A few restrained
sentences from him, desperate replies from me. And then Homer, all unintelligent
friendliness, stopped to say goodbye and Frank escaped into the raspberries,
was gone in a moment, waving - "If you have a day off, be sure to call
me" with complete impersonality. I'm sad that the change is so complete.
How lovely you are, focused by the two years since I've seen you. Your
face is sharper, and your way of speaking is pared to even greater confidence.
- How much older you are than I. It is as if I had become younger, and
you, aged to surety and wisdom.
- I am young by loneliness, and you are sure by loneliness.
- You seem to see my uncertainty and remember
- When I was sure by happiness and mocked you
- Young by loneliness.
Your loving is concentration, a hard gaze in only one direction.
Truth to one, warmth to one; treuherzig and young to me only, you were
hard to everyone else. ("Ellie I hope we never forget each other"
on the red steps in the rain, but you have.)
- Turn your gaze (your love is concentration)
- And I am 'other' too.
- You loved me better then, and you are loving well again
- But I am loving longer. You are a coda to my love's,
- Of all of them, it's you that I remember longest.
- (I have been faithful to you in my fashion.)
- Because you loved me better then
- You leave me now to love both long and better.
-
- If you loved longer and I knew you loved me with your new love
- Would I feel the betrayal of your better love?
- I'm glad you loved me better
- And content to love you longer.
July 20, Tuesday
[letter]
It is raining! A few foolhardies are out picking but we've considered
the cost in old age arthritis of going out and getting soaked, and staying
in was the better - and easier - part of valour.
You asked, a long time ago, about the anniversary celebration at Uncle
Peter's.
Just as we arrived at Uncle Peter's someone in the living room turned,
and it was Uncle George. Then relatives emerged in waves: the Honey Toews,
all of the George Konrads, the Peter Konrads, then Grandpa and Grandma arrived
with Jenny, were stabbed with corsage pins and elaborately admired in Aunt
Lillian's usual way (they looked me over - giggled a little at my bumish
appearance, and looked Rash over very thoroughly), and then while
I was bathing and changing I heard Auntie Anne come in with a typical Anne-joke
("Everybody's in stripes! All striped down!") Uncle Jake and family
pulled up and took our picture in our bum clothes in front of a Vancouver
view.
When I was got together in some of Violet's nylons and skirt and blouse,
there were all sorts of family photos on the lawn - Alfred was chief directionist
and thorn-in-the-family-side. Jake's boys were all quiet and good. The little
girls, Mia, Jenny, Heather and Barbie with Raymond (all of them especially
attractive kids, especially Barbie who has grown so pretty I didn't recognize
her) had a ball on the swings and I joined them to escape the fatuities
of the adults. When they are all together, every one but Anne burbles along
absently, although most are alright singly.
We were all shepherded into the living room where they deliberated over
a German song and sang it very raggedly. Then an English song that Grandma
requested, also sung in snatches as people remembered the words just as
the right part of the tune had passed. (Poor Rasheed was downstairs looking
at a magazine that didn't interest him because this was all too much family
- too much German. I felt much as he did!) Then Uncle, as Eldest Son, read
a Bible passage, and Grandmother spoke about how all this happened, of how
she and her family had fled before the Reds and had been kept from home
so that she had been given a teaching post. Then one day someone had asked
to see her and after two weeks he had come back and the wedding had been
arranged. This part of her story was so vague and disrupted by heckling
and denials from Grandfather that I got only a vague picture of what had
actually happened. But the description of the wedding was extremely interesting.
The days of preparation beforehand, the arrival of overnight guests from
far away, the zweibak and meat, the blue wedding dress made from a bolt
of blue cloth sent by brother Hans from university in the city (she had
wanted a white dress but the country was unsettled, routes were disturbed
and supplies impossible to get so the seamstress made her a blue creation
that Lillian assured her was beautiful.) There were few gifts, but the village
had given her a fine present in recognition of her teaching there.
Then Grandfather was asked to speak. He was very moved, spoke briefly
and gratefully about his children and grandchildren ("Alle, soweit
wir wissen, gläubich") and the peacefulness and goodness of their
life now, after all the hard times. He had to stop once in a while to collect
himself and control his tears. I was moved too, by seeing this part of what
is our life too, laid out in such a long-short stretch with a large and
healthy attractive family. Grandmother suddenly said, "Und wir sind
auch froh das Ellie hier ist," and I knew she was thinking of her eldest
daughter. She asked about you immediately, and everyone else did too, anxious
whether you were coming or not.
When we were eating buffet-style on the lawn, John and Harvey disappeared
to the back yard, and just as everyone was speculating about what the Schabernaks
were up to, they reappeared and mysteriously beckoned Liesbet, Maryanne,
and Hilda away. After five minutes the five reappeared and arranged themselves
in front of the grandparents with sheets of paper. Liesbet giggled continuously
through the following song, sung to the tune of "The Happy Wanderer."
- Das Schwiegerkinderlied - zum 45sten Hochzeitsjubilaum den 13 Juni
1965
-
- Wir Schwiegerkinder allzumal
- Wir sitzen hier fast Kahl
- Und wundern was wir gut getan
- Das Sie uns aufgenahm.
-
refrain:
- Mom und Dad, tra la la, tra la la, etc.
-
- (Harvey sang the whole with great heartiness, the others squeaked.
He was especially good on the "tra la la" chorus.)
-
- Wir Schwiegerkinder allzumal
- Habt unsern innigst Dank
- Fur eurere Söhn und Tochter viel
- Die halten uns in der Mühl
-
- Wir Schwiegerkinder allzumal
- Das jägern sitst uns nicht
- Und dennoch ist eur Herz nicht schmal
- Wir sitzen hier am Tisch
I'm not at all sure I can stop at home on the way to France because money
will be so extremely short.
Paul is having a good time I think, he and Sue [Judy's friend Susan Ksinan]
get along beautifully, and we take good care of him, physically and otherwise
I think. Also he sees Dave often and they have a good time together.
Sunday
Sitting on the front lawn at Grandma's blissfully aware of our weekend
Good Life. Two weeks of the cabin and "handful of raspberry" meals
(Grandfather's quotation) have made the Madchenzimmer with its big window,
and the clean sheets, and the fresh flowers, and the MEALS an enveloping
bliss. We hug ourselves and grin and grin.
Went to the new offshoot Bakerview church this morning, where Uncle Jake
and family attend, walked there, feeling overwhelmingly elegant in our black
dresses (the only ones in the church) and sophisticated hairstyles. Good
singing. We made disagreeing faces through most of JA Toews (Winnipeg Bible
College) Ansprache. Paul stayed home - after I went through logical acrobatics
to convince the grandparents of the irreparable damage lurking in wait for
his psyche should he be forced to go without proper clothes.
I've lost twelve pounds since Kingston, now weigh 128, would like to
go down to 120 or 116 in 2 lb per week spurts. Very safe and healthy that
way. I'm proud too.
The picking life, early rising and bedtime, healthy fruit and vegetable
food, sunshine and wind all day, hard work, cold showers, are giving us
an enormous feeling of physical welfare. And the camaraderie, the stacks
of books from the library, the beauty of this valley, the weekend Gemütlichkeit,
give us the balancing mental-emotional welfare. We wish you could be here
with us. Grandpa is gleeful about winning the ten dollars from Grandmother,
but they're both disappointed that you won't be here this summer.
I'm learning to dive, at least from the edge of the pool, and my swimming
is improving - Judy is learning to dive too, but can't swim. Paul won't
get his hair wet.
I'm reading a lot about the Middle Ages in preparation for visiting the
places next year, am thrilled to be going, still wonder where the money
will come from but am very determined.
Most amazing of everything this year is the change in the grandparents,
or me, but however, in the mutual relationship. Grandmother's fussing used
to irritate me, and I remember, at sixteen, resenting her concerns passionately.
Now - so thoroughly emancipated - I revel in being looked after a little.
Now I know when they're kidding and they seem to respect me.
part 2
- raw forming volume 4: 1965 april - september
- work & days: a lifetime journal project
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