Chicken Soup for the Canadian Soul (19 page)

His genuineness and comfortable smile eventually won me over, and soon we were talking about everything under the sun. We first discussed the timing of spring, our favourite television programs and great places we had visited in Canada. Unexpectedly, we began revealing our politics, exchanging our different experiences as parents, and expressing deeper feelings about the people we loved. He mentioned that his daughter and her ten-year-old son, Jason, were coming to Calgary in a couple of weeks to visit him; he hadn’t seen them for two years. How he looked forward to their visit! “You know,” he said, touching my arm, “family shouldn’t be separated. We should be with people we love and who love us.” I nodded.

In-and-out, back-and-forth we went, revealing meaningful moments in our lives, paths taken and not taken, laughing, and occasionally misting at the corners of our eyes. We touched one another, emotionally and physically; a sense of mutual “knowing” washed over us. I learned that he was a widower and gently poked him when he mentioned a certain woman he had recently met in the nearby retirement village. He smiled at the compliment; I could see the face of a young man in his eyes.

I think it was the late afternoon chill that broke the moment between us. I looked down at my watch. What seemed like a half-hour had actually been three hours! We had been captured in a moment, totally unaware of time and place. We who were strangers had somehow become soul mates. It was a serendipitous meeting and yet magical in the “connection” that occurred.

We bade our gentle farewells, “See ya around,” smiling and waving as we parted. We knew we probably wouldn’t meet again, and why should we? We had never met before despite having engaged in the same activities in the same park many times before.

Several days later, while putting newspapers into a recycling bin, I chanced to see the old man’s picture in
The Calgary Herald,
on the back page, in the obituaries: “Mr.— is survived by. . . . In lieu of flowers, please send donations to the Canadian Heart and Stroke Foundation.” Tears welled up in my eyes. They trickled down my cheeks as I drove home; I didn’t brush them away. I was also crying for his daughter and her not having had that moment of closeness with him that I just had on that Sunday afternoon. Arriving home, I sat down and wrote her a brief letter, describing the chance meeting and what we had talked about. I hoped it might ease her grief knowing that she was loved and in his thoughts before his passing. I addressed it in care of the funeral home.

It was almost eight months later when an envelope arrived postmarked “Brandon, Manitoba.” I didn’t know anyone from Brandon, at least that I could recall. As I began reading, I realized it was from the old gentleman’s daughter. There was a carefulness and kindliness in the letter that brought him vividly back to mind:

Dear Mr. Fouts,

Please excuse the tardiness of this letter. I’m sure you
can understand. I wish to acknowledge your warm generosity
of spirit for letting me know that Dad had Jason
and me in his thoughts just before he died. You were
probably the last person that he talked to in his life,
since he was found in the park later in the day where
you said you had met. It was close to his apartment. I
wish to thank you for being the kind of person you are
to talk to an old man sitting alone on a park bench. I
take comfort in knowing that you were there with
him—if only for a brief time—to share the sunshine
and a few thoughts. Thank you so much.

I put her letter away with the picture of the old gentleman from the paper. Later, as I went for my jog through the park, I approached the same bench where we had met eight months before. No one sat there now on this cold December day, but as I jogged past, I was filled with the memory of our special connection and all the things we had shared on that Sunday afternoon. With a warm feeling in my heart, I gave a little salute and carried on.

Gregory Fouts
Calgary, Alberta

My Dad and Little Joe

A
good dog is so much a nobler beast than an
indifferent man that one sometimes gladly exchanges
the society of one for that of the other.

William Butler

Dad and Mom both immigrated to Canada from Iceland, their families settling in Lundar and Gimli, Manitoba. After they met and married, they moved to Winnipeg where Dad started his boat-building business in a shop attached to our house. Putting in nails was our job: As kids we were small enough to get to the underside of the boat, and it saved dad a lot of time.

Like many families, eventually we had a dog. Little Joe was a brown, short-legged, sausage-shaped dog of dubious ancestry who supposedly belonged to my sister Anna. I use the word “supposedly” because, with great tail wagging and thumping, Little Joe came to anyone who paid attention to him. We all loved him dearly, as did the rest of the neighbourhood kids.

Little Joe’s lack of pedigree caused him no discomfort, nor did it cast any stigma. He trotted around the streets as though he were nobility, his foolish little head held high, bestowing an innocent doggy smile on all he met— including vehicular traffic. We tried to teach him about the dangers of the road, and finally resorted to locking him in the yard. However, on one unforgettable day, Little Joe dug a hole under the fence and bounded out to visit all the friends he knew.

Sometime later, a tearful delegation consisting of the younger members of our family augmented by excited neighbourhood children brought home the alarming news that a truck had seriously injured Little Joe. He now lay down the road awaiting death by a policeman’s bullet, the accepted method in those days of dispatching injured animals.

We children ran to the scene of the accident, where a small crowd had gathered around our hapless Joe. Though his eyes were open, he lay pitifully stretched out, apparently unable to move. Tears filled our eyes and also the eyes of some of the bystanders as Little Joe showed that he recognized us with a feeble wag of his tail. We huddled around him, frustrated by our inability to respond to the appeal for help we read in his eyes. And we were terrified by the pistol in the holster of the approaching policeman. He motioned us away from the dog and drew his gun.

Wide-eyed, and with the defenselessness of small children looking up into a tall adult world, we began to back away with feet that seemed to be made of lead. We looked into the faces of those around us. No one could help us, and no one could help Little Joe.

Suddenly we became aware of a commotion, and the crowd parted. My father was elbowing his way through the circle of onlookers. He spoke with authority to the young policeman. “Put that thing away! You don’t use a gun around children!”

Then, bending on one knee on the road, he removed his worn work jacket and carefully wrapped it around Little Joe. Perhaps many events in a child’s life reach exaggerated proportions as time passes, but to this day I remember that had my father’s rough, work-worn hands been those of a great surgeon, Little Joe’s broken body could not have been moved with more gentleness. I cannot swear that the emotion that I saw in our dog’s eyes was gratitude, but I like to think that it was.

I’ll never forget that homeward journey. My father was the master of the situation. With Little Joe wrapped in his jacket, he led a procession of admiring children, tearstained but no longer crying. We held our heads high with pride as we marched behind the man who had stopped an execution and saved our dog. He might have been a great general leading his troops but for the fact that his uniform was baggy-kneed overalls, his sword a carpenter’s rule.

For many nights we thought Little Joe’s life was over. In fact, the veterinarian we summoned did not even bother to return, he was so certain our dog would not survive. But my father spoke with resolution as he knelt beside the wooden nail box that served as a makeshift hospital bed.

“He has fight in him. Wait.”

So we waited. Sure enough, Little Joe survived. He went on to live a long life, and my dad—he built many more boats.

Our ostensibly stern father would probably not have stood out in a crowd; in stature he was a little above average. But I know of an army of kids and a sausage-shaped dog who, on that one special day, watched him become a giant.

Sigrun Goodman Zatorsky
Winnipeg, Manitoba

Big Red

The first time we set eyes on “Big Red,” father, mother and I were trudging through the freshly fallen snow on our way to Hubble’s Hardware store on Main Street in Huntsville, Ontario. We planned to enter our name in the annual Christmas drawing for a chance to win a hamper filled with fancy tinned cookies, tea, fruit and candy. As we passed the Eaton’s department store’s window, we stopped as usual to gaze and do a bit of dreaming.

The gaily decorated window display held the best toys ever. I took an instant hankering for a huge green wagon. It was big enough to haul three armloads of firewood, two buckets of swill or a whole summer’s worth of pop bottles picked from along the highway. There were skates that would make Millar’s Pond well worth shovelling and dolls much too pretty to play with. And they were all nestled snugly beneath the breathtakingly flounced skirt of Big Red.

Mother’s eyes were glued to the massive flare of red shimmering satin, dotted with twinkling sequin-centred black velvet stars. “My goodness,” she managed to say in trancelike wonder. “Would you just look at that dress!” Then, totally out of character, mother twirled one spin of a waltz on the slippery sidewalk. Beneath the heavy, wooden-buttoned, grey wool coat she had worn every winter for as long as I could remember, mother lost her balance and tumbled. Father quickly caught her.

Her cheeks redder than usual, mother swatted dad for laughing. “Oh, stop that!” she ordered, shooing his fluttering hands as he swept the snow from her coat. “What a silly dress to be perched up there in the window of Eaton’s!” She shook her head in disgust. “Who on earth would want such a splashy dress?”

As we continued down the street, mother turned back for one more look. “My goodness! You’d think they’d display something a person could use!”

Christmas was nearing, and the red dress was soon forgotten. Mother, of all people, was not one to wish for, or spend money on, items that were not practical. “There are things we need more than this,” she’d always say, or, “There are things we need more than that.”

Father, on the other hand, liked to indulge whenever the budget allowed. Of course, he’d get a scolding for his occasional splurging, but it was all done with the best intention.

Like the time he brought home the electric range. In our old Muskoka farmhouse on Oxtongue Lake, Mother was still cooking year-round on a wood stove. In the summer, the kitchen would be so hot even the houseflies wouldn’t come inside. Yet, there would be Mother—roasting—right along with the pork and turnips.

One day, Dad surprised her with a fancy new electric range. She protested, of course, saying that the wood stove cooked just dandy, that the electric stove was too dear and that it would cost too much hydro to run it. All the while, however, she was polishing its already shiny chrome knobs. In spite of her objections, Dad and I knew that she cherished that new stove.

There were many other modern things that old farm needed, like indoor plumbing and a clothes dryer, but Mom insisted that those things would have to wait until we could afford them. Mom was forever doing chores— washing laundry by hand, tending the pigs and working in our huge garden—so she always wore mended, cotton-print housedresses and an apron to protect the front. She did have one or two “special” dresses saved for church on Sundays. And with everything else she did, she still managed to make almost all of our clothes. They weren’t fancy, but they did wear well.

That Christmas I bought Dad a handful of fishing lures from the Five to a Dollar store, and wrapped them individually in matchboxes so he’d have plenty of gifts to open from me. Choosing something for Mother was much harder. When Dad and I asked, she thought carefully then hinted modestly for some tea towels, face cloths or a new dishpan.

On our last trip to town before Christmas, we were driving up Main Street when Mother suddenly exclaimed in surprise: “Would you just look at that!” She pointed excitedly as Dad drove past Eaton’s.

“That big red dress is gone,” she said in disbelief. “It’s actually gone.”

“Well . . . I’ll be!” Dad chuckled. “By golly, it is!”

“Who’d be fool enough to buy such a frivolous dress?” Mother questioned, shaking her head. I quickly stole a glance at Dad. His blue eyes were twinkling as he nudged me with his elbow. Mother craned her neck for another glimpse out the rear window as we rode on up the street. “It’s gone . . .” she whispered. I was almost certain that I detected a trace of yearning in her voice.