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The Runaway

runaway When I was four years old, I ran away from home.  I can’t quite recall why.  It may have been due to the spanking I received when my Mom thought I stuck my tongue out at her when I really stuck it out at a spider.  Mom’s uncle, Unk, was visiting us.

I loaded my dolls and my books into my doll carriage and moved into the garage.

Dad arrived home and came to see me in the garage.  He quietly explained that although the garage was detached from the house, it was still on their property and if I really wanted to run away from home, I would have to move totally off the property.  He thought he’d convinced me to come back into the house.

I loaded my dolls and my books into my doll carriage and proceeded to move across the street to my friend’s house.  Dad watched me cross our quiet street.

Years later I learned that Mom, Dad and Unk figured I’d come home soon.  When I didn’t, Unk suggested that if they, rather loudly, got into the car and slowly backed down the driveway, I would show up.  Nope.  That didn’t work. They drove around the block but still no sign of me.  Dad finally had to come to my friend’s house to get me.

That was one of many of battles of wills. All of us – BullMom, Dad and me – were born under the sign of Taurus, the Bull. 

The Arrest

Every summer the town of Claresholm enacts water rationing.  Southern Alberta is often very hot, very dry and very, very windy.

My scariest memory was the day the uniformed town cop knocked on the back porch door of our house. My three-year-old-self saw my dad hide behind the entranceway door to the kitchen and say to my Mom, “Tell him I’ve gone to Timbuktu”.

Policeman

Mom found me in the bedroom sobbing my eyes out because I thought my dad was going to jail.  I’m not sure how I knew about the concept of jail then, but somehow I did.

My dad had been caught watering his vegetable garden outside of assigned watering hours. The penalty?  The town cop invited himself in for coffee.

The Brass Bed

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Kelly fell in love with the chair.  Actually there were two chairs but she didn’t know that. The chairs are solid wood children’s chairs painted dark blue. They’re seventy years old. I’ve had them since I was a young child.

Kelly is a good friend with two young children.  I debated giving her the chairs but was struggling with the decision.  I couldn’t quite figure out why.  Kelly’s children are the only little people even remotely in my life.  So where else would the chairs go once I’m no longer around?  I only use them as stools.

Then I thought of old Mr. Clark.  Forty plus years ago, old Mr. Clark was my neighbour in Castleton, a tiny town in Ontario with a general store, post office (in someone’s house) and a garage as its only amenities.  Mr. Clark and I would have coffee together two or three times a week and, early on, he gave me a tour of his house.  Upstairs in a bedroom, was a lovely old brass bed.  I commented that if he ever wanted to sell it, I’d love to buy it.  He said nothing. I wasn’t sure he heard me.

One night many months later, old Mr. Clark knocked on the door.  It was odd.  He didn’t often go out after dark.  He came in, declined a seat, and said that if I was still interested in the brass bed, he would sell it to me for $65 but there was a condition.  The condition was that I must keep it until I was his age and if and when I sold it, I must sell it for the same price.  Mr. Clark was 85.  We shook hands.

A month later, old Mr. Clark was in the hospital in Cobourg terminally ill with cancer. It tore me up when I went to visit him. He constantly called out that he wanted to be at home. It took too long, but Mr. Clark died.

Funeral plans and decisions about the house and contents took up much of his son, Keith’s time.  I figured that I would forgo the brass bed.  Nothing, of course, had been written down.  But one day, I decided to mention the brass bed to Keith who said that whatever his Dad had agreed to with a handshake was an agreement to be honored.  I paid the estate $65 and the brass bed moved to our house.

Tomorrow, the chairs go to Kelly.  She’s agreed to keep them until she’s my age.

blue_chairs

Calgary, Alberta

March 4, 2015

 

P.S. Unfortunately, the brass bed was destroyed in a fire in Ottawa…a whole other story….