I spent my early years of life amidst the fragility of cold war relations, potential atomic bombs sent from enemies, and the very real struggles of blue collar working folks to keep pay cheques coming in; thus maintaining an acceptable lifestyle, which for my family meant a humble week to week existence living in a nicely kept apartment in Burlington, Ontario. My parents arrived there as poor city refugees, wishing to get out of late 1950's Toronto for the quieter life in what was then a relatively small lakeside community. I believe we moved to Burlington in about 1957 and remained on Harris Crescent, a block from Lake Ontario, until we re-located to upper Brant Street for two years, before heading north to build a new life in Bracebridge, in the heart of this amazing natural paradise in the District of Muskoka. No regrets with this move, but I really did enjoy all the natural comforts of our Harris Crescent neighborhood, that seemed so nostalgic even for a young gad-about kid who shouldn't have known anything about what is and isn't nostalgia. As my mother Merle continued to tell our neighbors back then, that I was an old soul in a kid's body, it was her attempt to explain why I was a spirited wanderer and adventurer, and yes, with a troubling penchant for searching through weekly garbage offerings, before the town trucks would arrive to empty the lid covered tin pails that lined my route to Lakeshore Public School one day each week. It was you see, the beginning of my foray into antiques and collectables, and the preamble staging for my writing interests that would bud into a career in less than fifteen years. I turned pro as a writer by the age of twenty. I was five years old when I started scavenging for salvageable stuff in these curious receptacles at roadside.
It's an important biographical note, even if it's just for the information of my own lads, Andrew and Robert, that their father was a terrible student, who absolutely hated school, and so much so, that I'd escape my appointed classroom at my Burlington School, and if apprehended on my way out the door, feign illness as the reason for heading home. It got to be quite a problem but one that eventually subsided when I discovered a wee lass named Donna, who sat directly in front of me for a good chunk of school day. I even started going to Burlington United Church after I found out that was where she attended Sunday School Classes. I still hated school but it was far more palatable from this point on, as other girls inspired me to give the whole school-day a more insightful study.
When I'd get my report card, which was a folded pink affair, with a lot of handwriting in allotted spaces for teacher overviews to blend with the given marks in adjacent columns. My mother hated my poor grades but what really aggravated her, was when my teacher that particular year, would make a comment about my inherent shyness, and the fact that I spent a goodly amount of time watching out the window, because outdoors is where I wanted to be instead. I can remember walking briskly with Merle, back to the school for a parent / teacher conference, about my lowly standing in classroom aptitude, and listening to her chastise the teacher for having the "gall" to suggest that "shyness" was a damning obstacle of child / student development, or that being bored and staring out the classroom window was a sign of her son's unfortunate and imminent failure to achieve anything more than voyeur status, from some eventual park bench, watching the rest of the world pass and achievement in anything meaningful be denied the hapless "dreamer." I came to be very proud of my mother for this intervention on my behalf, and I think the advice she gave those teachers who critiqued her son, about his lack of attention to the work of the day, made some improvements in their respective teaching models. "Maybe," she said. "Your lessons are not engaging, interesting, or challenging enough, to keep Teddy's attention." You know, I could be getting the tar kicked out of me in a neighborhood fight, and she'd expect me to figure out how to best my opponent with street smarts, but when it came to anyone picking on her son for being a dreamer, or having a shy disposition, she'd burst blood vessels in rage to defend my personal characteristics. No, I wasn't a fighter and I learned this early on in life, making me opt for a more peace seeking relationship with my peers, bullies included.
I spent about an hour late this afternoon, improving the tiny final resting spot of our cherished tom cat, Angus by any other name, who passed away yesterday. I finished clearing away some branch debris and a few dirt piles made by neighborhood moles that also reside in this small parcel of forest here at Birch Hollow. I sat on a fallen log nearby the graves of our other former furry friends, that have passed since we arrived here at this humble homestead, and been interred in this modest pet cemetery, and rather enjoyed the atmosphere then, that had been so distressing twenty-four hours earlier. The afternoon was much warmer, and the leaf canopy of our venerable maples and birches, have made it seem so much more lush and storied than earlier. The moments when I just wanted to get on with things, and establish a final resting place for a family fixture that died too soon. Which is nonsense, of course, because Angus was heading into his sixteenth year, and it is certainly a ripe old age in cat years. Point is, while I should have, as is my penchant to ponder, to remain for a while, regardless of the shovel-in-hand, and a tear in my eye, it just seemed so necessary to run away to a more uplifting locale of this treed property, where the scent of forest and lilacs seemed so muted this spring. I used to run away from events and circumstances that upset my sense of emotional balance, which is why I took off from school and headed home in those early school days. My mother always marched me back and offered an apology to my teacher, while winking at me in retreat, that she did however, understand why I didn't want to be stuck all day in a classroom. On this occasion, seeing Suzanne coming at me with a nicely appointed flower planter, to place at her cat's graveside, gave me reason to linger a while longer, despite an earlier desire to distance myself with an unpleasant reality. We consoled each other with a discussion of the pleasant surroundings, where our boys once loved to sled in the winter, and make forts in the summer; play with their toy cars on bright afternoons just like this, and ride their bikes around the paths we have only recently restored from a lagging sense of nostalgia.
Sitting alone today, I heard the nature around me in the interlude of silence, when neighbors had ceased using lawnmowers and leaf blowers, saws and drills, and stopped revving their car engines and slamming doors. There was the most restorative sounds of a haunting spring wind with the lowland scents we recognize from out over the Bog, situated just across the lane; and I was transfixed by the sparkling sunlight breaking through the brilliantly green weave of overhead leaves, just as I still clearly remember from my days playing down in the Ramble Creek Ravine, in that Harris Crescent neighborhood, where my robust enthusiasm for exploration and an unfurling of imagination had its greatest influence on the child of nature. I was okay being spell bound and it is an experience I cherish on a daily basis, but no one who knows me has the disposition to defer my ambitions, especially when some good can come from it, and I remain out of their way, on missions and adventures that please them.
I want to introduce you to the places in childhood, that had a most profound influence on the wanderer "me". A condition of life and times I choose not to address, especially the part about "growing up," and waxing realistic as any adult should. I shall instead, continue to fall back on my mother's safe advice, and allow my imagination the freedom it deserves as one of human-kinds greatest resource assets.
Please join me soon for a trip into the fantasy and wonderment of my favorite haunt; the tangle of nature and sparkling waters of the very storied Ramble Creek.
No comments:
Post a Comment