Chicken Soup for the Canadian Soul Page 13

  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.

  I’ll never forget that Christmas morning. I watched as Mother peeled the tissue paper off a large box that read “Eaton’s Finest Enamel Dishpan” on its lid.

  “Oh Frank,” she praised, “just what I wanted!” Dad was sitting in his rocker, a huge grin on his face.

  “Only a fool wouldn’t give a priceless wife like mine exactly what she wants for Christmas,” he laughed. “Go ahead, open it up and make sure there are no chips.” Dad winked at me, confirming his secret, and my heart filled with more love for my father than I thought it could hold!

  Mother opened the box to find a big white enamel dishpan— overflowing with crimson satin that spilled out across her lap. With trembling hands she touched the elegant material of Big Red.

  “Oh my goodness!” she managed to utter, her eyes filled with tears. “Oh Frank . . .” Her face was as bright as the star that twinkled on our tree in the corner of the small room. “You shouldn’t have . . .” came her faint attempt at scolding.

  “Oh now, never mind that!” Dad said. “Let’s see if it fits,” he laughed, helping her slip the marvellous dress over her shoulders. As the shimmering red satin fell around her, it gracefully hid the patched and faded floral housedress underneath.

  I watched, my mouth agape, captivated by a radiance in my parents I had never noticed before. As they waltzed around the room, Big Red swirled its magic deep into my heart.

  “You look beautiful,” my dad whispered to my mom— and she surely did!

  Linda Gabris

  Prince George, British Columbia

  Hopfstadt’s Cabin

  Love is all we have, and the only way that we can help each other.

  Euripides

  The summer of 1944 was the most memorable of my life. It was the year I had my tenth birthday and the last year we lived on the farm: It was the summer when, for the only time in my life, I saw a man cry and the summer I learned der Fuehrer’s secret.

  The stony quarter section my family owned near Darwell, Alberta, was good for nothing but grazing. To make a living my father followed his trade to the city, leaving my mother and me alone on the farm. My father is a shadowy memory to me, a tall man in a blue serge suit who came home at Christmas and on an occasional Sunday.

  I was a shy and lonely child, and I think that’s why I liked Hopfstadt so much. Hopfstadt was a big stolid man with a red complexion and blond hair that bristled every which way. He had emigrated from Germany in 1936 and settled about three miles from our farm.

  It was my job, twice a week during the summer, to walk the five miles to the post office, pick up our mail and Hopfstadt’s, and deliver his on the way home. I vividly remember that he wore ordinary overalls and a denim smock jacket instead of the bib overalls and bulky sweater the other farmers all wore.

  And of course, there was the dog: a great German shepherd, kept on a tether chain in front of the granary that served as a home for Hopfstadt. The dog would bark wildly and lunge on the chain whenever anyone approached. Hopfstadt would quiet him by speaking in German and calling him a strange guttural name that no one was ever able to catch.

  I loathed the dog. My greatest fear was that he would break the chain and attack me when I came with the mail. I could never understand why a kind man like Hopfstadt kept a vicious beast like der Fuehrer.

  Der Fuehrer was the nickname the neighbours had given the dog. A real killer they all said. Dogs like that are trained to kill.

  When the war sta
rted, the neighbours made bad jokes about Hopfstadt and der Fuerhrer. The more patriotic ones would have snubbed Hopfstadt if they had been given the chance, but he seldom left the farm.

  He worked like a demon from dawn to dusk, eking out a living on the muskeg quarter section he farmed. He’d been a carpenter in the old country; farming was new to him, and he was not good at it.

  Whenever I came by, Hopfstadt would smile and hiss a few words I didn’t understand. Then he’d disappear inside the granary for a moment and return with a small horehound candy. He’d press the amber circle into my hand, pat me on the head and say, “Iss gute boy,”—along with a few other words I could never understand.

  Hopfstadt had a tractor, a huge, steel-wheeled monster that sat in a shed by the gate. One day he was starting it when I arrived. We had no tractor, or car for that matter, and I must have been wide-eyed with curiosity.

  “Rhide,” said Hopfstadt, taking me under the arms and lifting me onto the iron beast. Four times we rode around the small ploughed area behind the granary, dragging the harrows behind the tractor. The wind was brisk and we were both choked with dust. When we finished, we shared a dipper of cold water from the well. It was one of the happiest moments of my life.

  On one of his infrequent visits to our farm, he told my mother that a girl was coming from the old country to marry him. A childhood sweetheart—as near as mother could understand. Shortly after, in the scrub pines behind the granary, there emerged a large, comfortable looking cabin. Hopfstadt continued to live in the granary, apparently saving the cabin for his bride. After the war began, however, the pale purple, parchment envelopes, postmarked Berlin and addressed in a small, neat hand to Herr Eberhardt Hopfstadt, stopped coming. Then one day a dozen of Hopfstadt’s letters to Germany were returned in a bundle. Across the top letter were several words written in German, in red ink.