Grassroots

"We almost lost our school," the volunteer tour guide adds, near the end of a fascinating ride on the Southern Prairie Railway at Ogema.   "We were down to 45 students.  And when you lose your school, there goes your community."

So, she continues, people  got together to brainstorm possible pathways.  They decided to lobby agribusinesses to see if one would set up near their town.  Success!  Filipino workers followed, with their families.  School enrolment is now at 145 students.  An ice-cream shop and a wellness spa have opened.  Further down main street is Solo Italia Pasta, relocated from Northern Italy, that makes wood-fired Neapolitan pizza available fresh on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday, or frozen and ready to bake at home.   Great story here, combining travel, romance, and business opportunity.  Wow!  How inspiring!  All this has happened in Ogema, population 403 (2016 census)! 

"When you walk down Main St.," she concludes, bringing me back from my reverie as the train pulls into the station,  "remember to find the fire wall.  It was buit in 1915, after a fire destroyed a significant part of Main Street.  The brick came from the plant in Claybank."

The Claybank Brick Plant, as it happened, is our next day’s destination on our Southeast-Saskatchewan camping experience.     We head out from our home base at Dunnet Regional Park in Avonlea, a beautiful park nestled in a sheltered valley.  It boasts a concession booth, outdoor gathering spot, and a swimming pool in the final stages of renovation.  I notice many RV’s permanently installed on sites rented annually.  I’m surprised.  My surprise itself astonishes me.  This is a beautiful spot—peaceful, quiet, clean, friendly, restorative, a tribute to the community that works hard to maintain it.

We find the brick plant on an iconic July day, sunny, warm, the living skies living up to their name and reputation.  At the Bunkhouse Café and Gift Shop, we take advantage of the orientation video, and enjoy chats with other visitors.  The place buzzes with the chatter of a cycle group from Regina that’s just arrived.  A server brings the corn chowder and homemade Saskatoon pie to our corner table.  One hour until the tour.

Claybank brick, we learn, was a high quality product used nationally and internationally.  It faces the Gravelbourg Co-Cathedral as well as the Château Frontenac in Quebec City.   Its exceptional resistance to heat made it a wise choice for the launch pads at Cape Canaveral, Florida.  The tour guide is knowledgeable and patient with our questions, as we discover the fascinating process of brick making and details about the lives of the workers who lived and worked in this isolated spot.  The plant itself has hardly changed from its opening in 1914.  In fact, each year on Heritage Day, volunteers get the machinery moving again to demonstrate how the bricks were made.   For outdoor enthusiasts, hiking trails branch out from the plant into the clay canyons.  As the site has lost provincial grant money, support is critical to maintain this jewel of Saskatchewan history.

We move on to another home base outside Maple Creek.  From there, we head north on Highway 21 toward the Great Sandhills.   I’ve never been on this highway, I realize, a set-square perpendicular that pierces fields of startling yellow canola, flax showing off a blue hue as it ripens, green pastures dotted with watering holes and cattle, and  a brilliant blue canopy.     All the way to Leader, with only a small mid-way correction, the road heads straight north and the landscape replicates.   We encounter almost no traffic.  The isolation of farm families living in this area of the province overtakes the beauty of its vast panorama.  I thought I understood isolation, growing up in a hamlet of 100 people, but this expanse moves me, and I’m grateful.

At Leader, we turn eastward toward the access to the Sandhills, Sceptre.  The museum and interpretative centre testifies to the innovation and hard work of small-town folks.  Residents have transformed a circa 1960 school into a small town, with school room, hospital room, dentist’s office, police service, general store.   Detail is painstaking, and artefacts abound.  As we head down the grid road to the hills, we appreciate the solitude, and trust that we’ve interpreted the directions correctly.  In the parking area, we read about John Both, a rancher devoted to the sandhills.  No one should judge another person until you’ve walked in his boots, he said, and, to honor him, a arch of boots greets hikers on the trail to the hills.

What an experience!  Meandering through grid roads and secondary highways in southeast Saskatchewan in a 1978 camper van without air in +30 temperatures has reminded me of the challenges of life in what some might consider the middle of nowhere.  Thanks to this grassroots holiday, I can better understand and appreciate the issues, concerns, and delights that characterize life in this corner of our great province.

August 10

Until not that long ago, August 10 was just an ordinary special day.   Embued with elevated status because it is my husband’s birthday, it has always borne the accoutrements of celebration.

Birthdays have always been important in our family.   Gifts?  Not so much.  Time in celebration?  You bet.  I would make coconut cream pie, a favorite to anticipate this once in the year.  We would gather for a special meal around a dining room table set with the china and my mother's silver.  Often, guests would join the party.  To take advantage of summer, we might eat on the patio, linger over a mug of beer or a glass of wine with neighbours, while away the afternoon and evening chatting.   Now and then, we might change it up—a car show, supper on the lake in the city with friends or family.  In 2006, we had cake on the cliff on the isle of Capri.

From the get-go, my husband shared the August 10 magic with a a friend and neighbor, one year older.  That friendship has endured through the years.  Over the last decade, though, others have laid claim to August 10.   The daughter of our niece (and godchild) was born on August 10, as was our grandson’s cousin on his mother’s side.  When August 10 rolls around now, we think of three other people.

In the last five years, a shadow has tinted the aura around August 10.  People die on this day.  My godmother, Janine, died on August 10 in 2013.   The link to my tribute to her (August, 2013, Strength) is here.  Three years later, the director of education who first hired me (at the time, those individuals were called superintendents), an elegant and magnetic individual in his nineties, with a calm, reassuring manner, passed away on this very day.  At the request of his wife, I played and sang Ave Maria at his funeral, a significant musical stretch for me. 

Just this past August 10,  last week, Charlie, my husband’s music partner over the last three years, passed away.   An agressive and pervasive cancer claimed him only six weeks  after diagnosis.   A gifted musician with a mellow approach to life, generous in sharing his time and abilities, he was an ideal partner for Elmer.  Together, they brightened the days of countless individuals with limited opportunities to get around.  Just such an occasion at St. Paul’s Lutheran Home is described in my post, Teleportation (October, 2017).  In response to a request from the family for stories for Charlie’s grandchildren,  Elmer has written a moving elegy to Charlie.   Check it out in the preceding post.

Curious, isn’t it?  And there’s no explanation, either.     Astrological sources (more curiosity) indicate that August 10 is "an extremely potent time,"  and that the configuration represents "a form of a cold passage that one needs to go through to reach for the light of the Sun."  That’s interesting.   August 10 is known as a pathway to the sun, to the light.  In birth, the light of life, I imagine; in death, the light of the spirit, of eternal life with God, believers would say.

Right now, I’m thinking this coincidence of life events assures our connection to six very special people.  When August 10 rolls around, how can we not ask how the girls born on this day are doing? How can we not think of Elmer's childhood friend?  How can we not remember those close to us who passed away?  How can their lives not touch us deeply?

August 10 will continue to be a celebration of the lives of special individuals.  It’s just that a few of those individuals will be with us in spirit.

Charlie

Last week, Charlie Mintenko, my husband's musician partner during the last three years, passed away after a very brief but devastating illness.  Their musical collaboration evolved into a close friendship, and Elmer will miss Charlie on the personal level as much as on the musical level.

Charlie's family asked friends to send them stories about Charlie that they can tell his grandchildren.  Here is Elmer's tribute to Charlie, a fitting ode to a special man.


Dear grandchildren of Charlie Mintenko,

    I want you to know how very fortunate you are to have had your grandfather be part your life while he was with you. Know that he will continue to be with you for as long as you live. 

    I can say that with conviction because, although as a musician my life and his have crossed paths many times since the 1980's, it has been the last three years that he and I have had relatively exclusive time together doing gigs mostly as a two piece band.

    It's been said that one of the reasons farmers in Saskatchewan are so creative is that they spend so much time on a tractor with significant time to think of new ideas while they drive up and down working their fields. For musicians, a lot of sharing happens as we navigate the many roads all hours of the day or night to play our music.

    During this time together I developed a very deep appreciation of who your grandfather was. First of all he was a very good man. He was very quick to make friends, and once relationships were established he'd nourish them with hugs and humorous quips. He wouldn't allow negative experiences get him down. He would dismiss them as learning experiences and move forward from there deciding not to make the same mistake again. I believe that is one of the reasons he got along so well with people. He never held a grudge and was very quick to overlook any "indiscretions" directed toward him. His sense of humor was amazing and even if he told the same joke twice it was still funny. To say he was a talented musician would be an understatement. The thrill of playing with him in a two piece band was reinforced by the fact that his repertoire was amazing.  His instrumental competence was superb, and his stage presence exuded warmth and confidence. You can't beat a combination like that. 

    Music was only one of your grandfather's many talents. During one of our trips, I learned that he was a qualified electrician.  True to his nature, he shared his talent. I look around our house and I see a bathroom wired, electrical outlets installed in the garage and wiring installed on our deck all done by the knowledgeable skill of your grandfather. I also learned that as a result of his early employment he was a capable mechanic. My old Chevelle, my Camper van and small SUV never functioned so well as since your grandfather laid hands on these vehicles. Musicians tend to be significantly dependent on their electronic equipment to function efficiently. Once again your grandfather's creativity rescued electronic components which would have been abandoned by average technicians. The show would always go on because he made things happen.

    You are also very fortunate because your grandfather was a tremendous family man. We discussed many topics as we travelled. In addition to solving all the world's problems we spent significant time talking about family. Usually the impression is that it's the grandmothers who pull out the pictures and brag about grandchildren. Let me set the record straight. We grandfathers can hold our own. Your grandparents and my wife and I have grandchildren of similar ages and you can understand how significantly we delved into the topic. We agreed that we were very fortunate to have such wonderful wives, children and grandchildren.

      I have presented a mere fraction of the qualities that illustrate what a tremendous person your grandfather was. I congratulate you in being able to say you are his grandchildren. You have a tremendous model to inspire you as you go through life.

Elmer Beutel

Reproduced with permission.

Segue

 "You’re an orphan now," the pastoral worker said to me, as we sat with my father after he died.   I remember staring at her, confused.  I was fifty-eight years old.  I couldn’t consider myself an orphan.  Could I?  "Both your parents are gone now," she added.

I was heartbroken.  And unsettled in my heartbreak.  My father was one hundred years old.  He had been very ill for six months, and no longer lived with us.  His death was not unexpected.  It had just been unexpected that day.  I had collapsed at the side of the bed, holding his hand, saying, "I’m sorry.  I’m sorry."  I wasn’t there in his last moments. 

I always assumed I would be.    At seven in the morning of what would be his last day, when I popped in on the way to work, he was still sleeping.  His mouth was open and a little askew.  For a brief moment, I paused.  I thought of my mother on her last morning.   That day, though, I was only five minutes away.   When the call came for Papa, at eleven o’clock later that morning,  I was half an hour away plus organization time to advise the school administration and gather my things.  He had already passed when I hurtled into his room.    I was so profoundly shaken.  Guilt, I thought.    It must be guilt.  Maybe partly, on reflection.   In the end, though, guilt encrypted the real issue filed away in the subconscious.

The encryption code itself was innocuous.  Just a meme with the words, You look around and realize there is no shoulder for you to lean on.   I am an orphan.  I’m the child no longer.  I’m always the parent now,  the  Elder.  Parents listen to the stories, they encourage, they praise, they accept.  Their support is unconditional.  They are there in the beginning, and they know you in a way no one else ever will.   When they are gone, the torch passes. 

That means I’m the shoulder now.  The bulwark.  The person who listens, encourages, praises, supports.   It’s my turn.   My parents did it for me.  They modeled the role, and it’s up to me to pay it forward.  I am almost entirely comfortable with this.   Fortunately, being is more critical here than doing.  One question looms above all, though.  What about my own need for an interested and caring ear?  A compassionate and caring confidante is handy.  Should such a person not be available, though, I can manage with the equilibrium I've worked toward over the years.  The more I live, the more I read,  and the more I reflect, the more I’ve come to wonder if  core emtional strength isn’t  a basic component of the human design, a parallel track DNA, part of the package we’re born with, there to be uncovered, nurtured and honed with use throughout our lives.  We’re ready, then, with a mature solidity, when it’s our turn to be the bulwark.   My inner strength, my steel core,  is roused and active, primed for its role in this phase of my life. 

"You will weep and know why," the late-Victorian British poet Gerard Manley Hopkins says.   I wept, and I know why.  The segue in generational responsibility has occurred.  In his poem Margaret, Hopkins continues: 

Sorrow’s springs are the same.

Nor mouth had, no nor mind, expressed

What heart heard of, ghost guessed:

It is the blight man was born for,

 It is Margaret you mourn for.

The bulwark is our destiny.  It’s what we were born for, what’s been bequeathed to us.    Whether it’s a blight or not is up to us, I guess.  Still, a part of us will mourn "Margaret", our essential child self that passes along with our parents.