10 There Really Is an Angel Somewhere

One of the most terrifying memories of my childhood was the day David’s little sister Cheryl, who was about three, just about drowned.  It was the end of a warm summers day when everyone was relaxing after a hard days work and the anticipation of hot supper.  Most of us kids were just keeping out of site so as not to be yelled at for being under foot.  In the mean time Cheryl had wandered outside unnoticed and began playing in the water.  As I have mentioned my mother and that goes for most parents in our camp, was quite relaxed about their kids and the dangers of the water.

But what happened next was every mother’s nightmare.  Aunt Ruth was not worried but as any mother would do, from time to time come out to see what little Cheryl was up to.  This particular time however, Cheryl was nowhere in site and after a few moments of searching, her eyes fell on something out in the bay.  She looked again to make sure, could it be, no it mustn’t be, again she strained her eyes and the realization of what she saw froze her heart. There was Cheryl floating face down in the water.  It was with terror in her heart that I heard her cry out, “Oh my baby! My baby!”

This brought terror in all of our hearts and everyone came running to see what tragedy had taken place. Erwin my Uncle was one of the first to arrive, my dad was there and most of us kids.

The terror in my heart was overwhelming as I watched my uncle and my dad walk out to rescue Cheryl from the water.  I can still remember as if it was only yesterday as my uncle laid little Cheryl on top of a big flat rock and started artificial respiration.  And I can still hear my Aunt Ruth wailing, “Oh my baby!  My baby! Oh my baby!  My baby!” The cry of my Aunt Ruth has stayed in my memory as if it was yesterday.  I can still see the water mixed with curdled milk draining out of little Cheryl’s mouth and running down the rock.  My Uncle paused from time to time and all of a sudden stopped as Cheryl opened here eyes and started to breath on her own.  It was not till then that my aunt stopped her wailing and with incredible joy my uncle placed little Cheryl in her arms.  The skeptic may scoff at it being a miracle, the believer will have his faith confirmed, and I choose to believe that it gives God great pleasure to give a mother back her child.

9 Let’s Go See Some Jellyfish

It was shortly after my cousin David had arrived and that time of year when the jellyfish are in spawn, that David, Dawna and I decided to row out in a small rowboat and watch them.  The rules on safety such as they were, begged the three of us to tempt fate and row out to look at them close-up. What more could a six-year old want, then to lead out in such a cool adventure then this.  So off we went in the small rowboat that was near-by, and with no life jackets to-boot.  Back in those days there were no regulations about wearing lifejackets and nobody seemed to worry about drowning.  Everything was going fine and we were all leaning over having a great time looking at the millions of jellyfish of all colors, shapes and sizes when suddenly David fell out of the boat headfirst into the water.  I am amazed at our presence of mind, as Dawna calmly pulled David back into the boat while I leaned over the other side to counter-balance the rowboat so it would not tip over and throw us all into the water.  David however landed sputtering and coughing back in the bottom of the boat.  When we got back to shore mom asked how come David was all wet and I said, “Oh! David fell in the water and we pulled him out.”  And to this day I don’t remember my mother even raising an eyebrow.

8 What Would I do without My Cousin David?

About a year later my cousin David came to live by us as my Uncle Erwin had gotten work at the same logging camp.  My cousin was a rascal but we generally got along.  I think he liked me although we sometimes would go at it.  He generally was easy to get along with but I could easily beat the crap out of him if I needed to.  I don’t know if that made me the bully, as I was a couple of years older then he was, but sometimes he needed somebody to keep him in line.  I remember one time we were going at it and I had him squarely on his back when my Uncle suddenly came by and lifted me off by the scruff of my neck and saved David.  I guess I was lucky because he just glared at me and put me down.  Too my defense I never ever pounded him but I would take him down and hold him to the ground.  This kept him from throwing rocks at me.  One time when we were on the beach throwing rocks into the water he hit me on the head with one the size of a soft ball and did the blood flow.  I think it was an accident.   I still use the scar today as a reference point for parting my hair.

7 There has to be an Angel Somewhere

My mother was how shall I say it, was most relaxed about raising us kids and did not seem to worry about the thousands of things that might do a kid in.  We were pretty much left to our selves and seemed to survive despite my mom’s laid-back approach to survival.

One afternoon when Dawna was about four and I was about five, we rowed over to the booming ground, and no one being near by, Dawna climbed out of the boat and onto the big floating logs that were dumped into the saltwater to be later towed to the sawmills in Vancouver.  Dawna not realizing that floating logs move quite easily, had climbed onto two logs placing one foot on each.  This is not a good thing to do even as an adult but especially not as a kid. What makes it worse is that floating logs tend to roll and can be hard to stand on even with both feet on the same log.  I can still hear Dawna saying as the logs slowly move farther and farther apart, “Oh! Oh! Oh!” As inch-by-inch the logs kept moving away from each other and them splash!  In she went. My biggest fear even at five was that Dawna might get caught under the logs as they immediately came together once she fell in.  She however managed to hold to the side of one of the logs and we were by God’s good providence and lots of hollering, save by one of the men who just happened to working on the other side of the boom who came rushing over jumping from log to log just in time to grab Dawna, before the log rolled that she was hanging onto, and she disappeared underneath it forever.  Mom was glad to see us when we got back home but I can’t even remember her being upset when Dawna walked into the house, soaking wet.  I suspect in her mind it was a lesson learned and not to worry, as it would not be repeated.

6 Life Has its Ups and Downs

We went through some incredibly sever winters in the late 40’s and early 50’s.  One year as we were coming home from a visit south to see family for the Christmas holidays the bay where we lived was frozen over.  This meant that the only way to get home was to leave our boat in a bay that had open water and to walk through the woods the remaining distance to our house. 

As my sister and I were still very small and the path was uneven and wound this way and that through the forest dad found it necessary to eventually carry both of us.  Dawna was the fortunate one as she got to ride on dad’s shoulders but I being the older brother, remember a whole eleven months, got to ride lower down with my legs around my dad’s waist and his hand below my bottom.  This worked fine for a while but the distance was several miles and under the trees not everything was frozen solid.  What this meant was that as dad walked along and got more tired and more tired I started slipping farther and farther down as his arms weakened by my weight when suddenly without warning down I fell right into a big puddle and got soaking wet. 

Boy was I mad.  I can still remember it as it was still a long way home and I was made to walk the rest of the way-soaking wet. It was a while before I got really warm as we lived in a shake shack made of poles and tarpaper, heated with a wood stove.  As I look back on it making me walk was what probably kept me from getting hypothermia as it was some time before the house warmed up enough to take the chill off me and the house.

5 A “Gypo Logger’s” Son

So begins some of the happiest years of my childhood, the life of a boy growing up in the home of a “Gypo Logger.”   We didn’t have much but we did have love and acceptance.  We didn’t know we were poor but we always had cloths to wear and food to eat.  We didn’t have a bathtub but we did have a galvanized washtub that we all got scrubbed clean in.  You always hoped you would be the first one in when the water was still clear, after three baths it was getting pretty thick with debris.  We didn’t have electricity but we had a gas lamp that used silk mantles.  We also had oil lamps and candles for the bedrooms.  We didn’t have TV but radio was big in those days and we used to sit around the wood stove in the kitchen and listen to “Hockey Night in Canada with Foster Hewitt shouting, “He shoots, He scores,” every Saturday night.  During the week day nights we loved to listen to such shows as “Fibber Ma Gee and Molly,” and “The Lone Ranger,” or “The Great Gildersleeve”. But what really topped it off was Saturday evenings, when my mother made hot chocolate fudge, while listening to Hockey Night In Canada” with Foster Hewitt.  It was the best fudge I have ever eaten and Foster Hewitt did a fine job too.

This brings to mind my wife Sandy’s brave attempts to satisfy my hunger for some good home made fudge just after we were married.  The brave girl not having ever made fudge before got a recipe out and follows it to a “T”.  However her “T” was in a different font or something.  The secret of course has something to do with a precise temperature determined by dropping a bit of the gooey mixture into cold water and if it balls up just right, kind of softly between the thumb and index finger and at that precise moment you stir the mixture just right or the god’s of confection smile just right, you get this gloriously smooth stuff called chocolate fudge, not the little shiny brown rocks rattling around in the bottom of the pan.  We all had a good laugh and now we just buy our fudge, better then none at all, but I can still dream about my mother’s fudge.

Growing up in the 40’s was a great experience for a kid.  My sister and I being only 11 months apart grew up like brothers and at one point Dawna could put me on my back and pin me to the ground.  We had a close bond with one another but as the time approached when all little girls become big girls she did not appreciate being wrestled to the ground and I had to resort to other ways of being a boy.  It would seem that she did not like being hit in certain places that now had become quite sensitive.  At the time I was quite disillusioned but as she seemed to be always running to mother about how rough I was treating her I soon realized that times had changed.

Read Island to me as a kid was probably as close to paradise as a person could get in this life.  I can remember when coming home, after a few weeks, from a trip to see family in the US and feeling this              sense of peace when our boat rounded the last few corners past all those islands that plugged the end of Georgia Straight.  There right in the middle was my island home.  Coming into Bird Cove was an experience of peace and belonging that I have not felt since leaving there.  I suppose as a kid even though I loved the place I felt bushed and unsure of myself around people and blamed it on my growing up in the wilds.  But to see the island just springing up out of the water all covered in green down to the high tide mark where the water touched the green of the trees, as if sheered with some giant sheer that God might have used when no one was about, that was an awesome feeling, and a connection with nature that can not be explained well with words.