Tecumseh Summer's (Part 2 of 2)

Dear Reader,
My apologies for taking so long between posts.  I've been run off my feet getting ready for our 4-weeks in China.  Stay tuned to read all about it.  Marlene
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Following is the final chapter on Tecumseh Summers ...

Great Aunties Kit and Edie lived on Lake St. Clair.  We spent days on their beach modelling a never-ending supply of clay ashtrays for our parents and other smoking relatives.  We didn’t stop at small items, oh no, we girls would fashion furniture that we sat upon once dried.  We’d turn the beach into our play house taking turns being mother, father or child.  Gina, being the eldest, was the clay diver.  The lake bottom held an abundant supply.  Our beach toys were stored in the garage where we also changed into our bathing suits.  I remember the smell from Auntie Edie’s old black car with the rumble seat.   

            I don’t recall the make of the car only that I never got the relished rumble in that special seat.  I was, at that time, ‘the little one’.  I was however, allowed to lie along the back shelf to watch my giggling sister’s take pleasure from their joy ride.  Who knew seat belts would come along to curb such car antics. 

            When weather did not allow for beach play we’d be found in the auntie’s sun room.  I still have a plan to make an afghan just like the one that sat on the glider we loved to ride by the hour.  I’ve also had the desire to have my own creaking glider.  If I ever find one, that’s when the crochet hook will be called into action to use up stashes of yarn on the black and brightly coloured granny squares.  I never quite got as a kid why the granny squares were at the aunties’ house.  In the same way I never understood what to say when Grannie’s eiderdown slipped to the bottom of the bed.  “Pull the eider up?”

            One memory of a stormy afternoon on the auntie’s porch remains vivid.  I sensed Mum and Dad were worried and were whispering something about taking cover and no, they did not mean that favourite afghan.  We all watched out steamed windows as the storm grew fiercer over the darkened waves that washed away not only our clay furnishings but the entire beach.  The waves had reached the edge of their grass and were advancing towards the house. 

            One roaring gust of wind blew their garden swing up the yard to be stopped only when it met the house.  The kids loved the event not knowing what there was to fear.  The adults were relieved that a bump on the side of the house was the only damage.  Years later, I suppose in an effort to recapture happy childhood memories, I bought a garden swing and my singing voice, I’m happy to report, still sounded pretty good in it.  Perhaps the swing-breeze forced much-needed air into my lungs.  Don’t ask me if I ever stood up and swung it as I had as a kid and belted out that Mario Lanza tune.  Of course I did.    

            A favourite afternoon treat, served by Auntie Kit and Edie, were cinnamon buns and a glass of ginger ale.  There we would be, the three sisters lined in a row along the favoured porch glider with the beautiful afghan when the question would come. 

            “Gina, would you like a glass of ginger ale?”

            “No, thank you.”

            “Jackie, what about you, would you like a glass of ginger ale?”

            “No, thank you.”

            Being the youngest I’m certain the older sisters hoped I would crack and say, “Yes, please”.  Don’t ask me why but Mum taught us to say no to a first offer of refreshment.  Eventually, one of us would give in allowing all of us to relieve our thirst for the sweet and sticky treats.  The aunties also liked to serve ‘pink tea’.  It was regular tea with a lot of milk and sugar in it.  That was really special.  Whilst we pretended to be all grown up drinking our tea the real grown ups enjoyed their gin with Lime Rickey.  Given the choice to have Lime Rickey, rather than the standard ginger ale, made a kid feel very mature.  Whatever happened to Lime Rickey?

       A short walk from the auntie’s along Riverside Drive took us to Auntie Ruby and Uncle Reg’s.  Being Auntie Ruby’s favourite (she called me Pixie) I loved visiting for the attention she lavished on me.  I’ve never forgotten watching Auntie Ruby peel potatoes, not with the usual potato peeler but with a paring knife.  She’d carve the spuds into perfect tiny round balls using only a fraction of the potato.  Her sink piled sky high with thick peels.  The waste was incredible.  Ruby had a sister – Irma.  The only thing I remember about Irma was her flaming dyed red hair and that it all fell out one day when she was washing it.  They said it was from over-dying.  Could it be the reason my purple hair phase was so short-lived?

            Ruby and Reg’s house had two sets of stairs which added greatly to our indoor games of hide-and-go-seek.  The portrait of Uncle Reg sitting on his white wicker porch chair with his binoculars on the wicker table beside him under the tiffany lamp and beside the ashtray with his pipe sending out curls of white smoke is one, given an artistic talent, I could paint.  The cement floor was red … probably Ruby red.  If the sound of tamp-tamping tobacco into his pipe’s bowl and the lip-smacking puff, puff, puff to re-light could be added you’d have the complete picture.  He also smoked cigarettes and had a special way, after retrieving the pack from his left breast shirt pocket, of tapping them out.  I can hear the click of the lighter now.  Was I surprised to learn he lost a lung to cancer?  No.  I am shocked however, to learn he lost that blackened lung long before we kids were born to witness what I perceived to be an idyllic scene.        

            When our parents arrived with our baby brother for their vacation all the relatives got together and we girls entertained with a story, poem, magic trick or song.  My best songs were Al Jolson impressions.  I’d go for the gusto by getting down on one knee, spreading my hands and belting out, in the deepest voice I could muster, “Mammy!  How I love ya, how I love ya, my dear old Mammy!”  I’d walk a million miles for one of those smiles today from the Tecumseh relatives.   

After our performances the aunties and uncles would give us quarters.  I got in trouble with Dad when, after a Turner Trio performance, the money was slow to appear and I blurted out, “Where are the quarters?”

Sister Dale, having arrived on the scene ten years after me, detested dancing her way through those performances and was not as fond of her trips to Tecumseh.  It wasn’t until her ballet piece was over and the butterflies in her stomach had fluttered away that she could relax and try to enjoy herself.  Owning enough quarters herself she would have gladly paid the aunties and uncles if only they wouldn’t ask her to dance.  Was it the lack of ‘ham’ in her that has had Dale turn out to be ‘the thin one’?

Bonfires were always at Reg and Ruby’s.  It wasn’t until I was older that I understood my mother’s tears the night they burned ‘Smokey Joe’.  There they sat, Dad with his arm around Mum while she leaned her head against his shoulder.  All we kids wanted was for the flames to turn to embers so we could toast our marshmallows.  So what was it about that broken down old canoe that made my mother’s cheeks glisten in the light of the crackling fire?  ‘Smokey Joe’ was my parents’ courting canoe. They must have spent hours getting to know each another while afloat.  Thankfully, for the well-being and existence of their six kids, they had indeed progressed from an apparently disastrous first date to paddling the shores of Lake Ontario in their own little love boat.    

            Auntie Kit, the more rambunctious of the Pratt sisters that I knew (Grannie, Kit and Edie) was apparently ‘in her cups’ that eventful bonfire evening and gave us a rather raucous rendition of Barnacle Bill the Sailor.  She’d be reminded of this from time to time at future family get-togethers.  I can still see her kicking up an aging leg on one such re-enactment.          

When all the relatives gathered at Grannie’s home to enjoy a meal she’d pull out a small wide chair that was broad enough to allow two kid-sized bums to share the space.  I have that chair now and seeing it evokes many memories already captured by my words.  Let’s not mention what single bum has trouble perching on that special seat today. 

I was never very fond of circling the room and kissing the old relatives goodnight when we had to leave the gathered family for bed.  It might have had something to do with the prickly whiskers on the chins of the uncles AND the aunts.  The very same kind of whiskers I now spend hours trying to pluck from my own chinny, chin, chin.    

The memories are too numerous to mention but flow back on perfect summer days when a smell, a taste or even a breeze carries me back to childhood summers.  Memories come at a moments notice much like our paper doll cut-outs.  We’d leave them in the drawer of an old table under a special tree in Grannie’s garden and find them again the following year.  They’d be a little bubbled by the damp but survived and were ready and always willing to play with us. 

Today I savour opening my memory drawer to find the sweet images of a childhood summer ready and waiting to be taken out to play on my mind.  Now I’m making efforts to fill my grandkids heads and hearts with memories they’ll one day visit and remember just how special they felt back in the good old days when they stayed with Gramma at “the little red house” in Erin. 

 

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Tecumseh Summers (Part 1)

What is it about a childhood summer that evokes the sweetest of memories?  Often, when we visited our Grannie in Tecumseh, the journey started with the three oldest daughters running around the block to the magazine section of Fryer’s, our local variety store on Kingston Road, to pick up the latest copy of hit parade favourites.  Those weekly newsprint lovelies, always in a different pastel colour, contained all the words to the songs that were currently topping the charts.

            If you were ready early for the road trip you had the honour of accompanying Dad to the station to gas-up for the trip.  I still get the feeling an adventure is about to unfold when noxious fill-up fumes waft my way. 

I can’t imagine why our parents liked us taking our song books along on a road trip because we three (Gina, Jacqueline and Marlene) would belt out those tunes for most of the seven-hour journey along Old Highway #2.  Highway 401 did not exist in those days. 

A stop at the White Horse Inn in Paris for my then favourite burgundy cherry ice cream cone always eased the pain of the long drive.  Dad wasn’t very fond of stopping and often feigned our pleas to pee did not give him enough warning.  “I can’t turn off that fast”, he’d say, “It would be dangerous.”  We’d strain our eyes and wear out the seat springs bouncing until we located the next possible stop.  It often took more than a couple of us making the same request to deem the stop necessary in Dad’s eyes.       

I guess our singing in the car was preferable for our parents to the arguing that often ensued when personal space was invaded.  Frank Sinatra’s, “… running across the meadow, picking up lots of forget-me-nots” was more enjoyable than a whined, “Mum, Gina is touching me with her feet, again!”  Sweaty and tightly crammed into our old brown Hudson led to arguments even while enjoying an ‘Old Blue Eyes’ tune.  Gina, or I, noticed Jacqueline (we switched to Jac in later years) had the words wrong when she vocalized, “… trade them for a pack of gum, sunshine and flowers”.  We would chortle and chide … “pack of gum?” … “pack of gum? … It’s package of sunshine and flowers” … Ha!  All this at our sadly mistaken sister’s expense.

We’d also sing songs to other cars as foot-to-the-floor-Art, which would be our Dad, passed them.  Once when we spotted Texas plates we quickly rolled down the windows and sang out, “The stars at night are big and bright, (bum-bum, bum-bum) deep in the heart of Texas”.  We’d accompany our rendition with the appropriate four thumps on the outside of the car. 

            The game Mum liked us playing most on those long car rides to Windsor was one she had invented herself, perhaps out of desperation.  She called it ‘The Can’t Talk Game’.  Necessity had to be the reason for this mother’s invention.  She plied us with sweet treats for the winner.  With candy dangling as our carrot she’d get quite a few games out of us but once the first kid made a slip-of-the-tongue they made it their job to get others to join the loser ranks.  I guess a few minutes of quiet here and there helped save the parents’ sanity.

Dad had family in Tecumseh (near Windsor, Ontario) and we three oldest girls spent weeks there.  Our Grannie, Auntie Nellie, Great Uncle Reg and wife Aunt Ruby, Great Aunts Kit and Edie, Uncle Bill with wife May and eventually Glenn, our only cousin on our father’s side, all lived there. 

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Mostly we stayed at Grannie’s home.  She was the only person who called our dad Arthur.  It sounded strange to our ears and only helped to enhance her image as the stern Baptist.  Our totally ‘cool’ Auntie Nellie also lived there.  (Sorry young ones using ‘cool’ in 2010, ‘cool’ was our word back in the day.  I’ve updated the expression by adding ‘totally’.)

            Auntie Nellie did things with us Grannie would not allow.  One night she sneaked me out of bed to behind a locked bathroom door – her makeshift developing room.  There, in that ‘dark room’ with my older sisters, it was enchantment.  Nellie’s hobby was photography and we her willing subjects.  I loved watching an image magically appear on an immersed eight by ten.  The magic evaporated when we heard the clunk, clunk, clunk of Grannie’s approaching shoot-me-if-I-ever-start-wearing-those-old-lady-black-shoes.  Grannie’s hall clump was soon followed by a loud knock and the not-so-gentle enquiry, “Nellie!  Have you got that girl in there?”

            Grannie would give us “just a little longer” with Nellie’s plea, “I can’t open the door, Mum.  My photos will be ruined”.  We’d catch the twinkle and a wink from our Auntie’s eye in the bathroom’s warm red glow.

            Before I leave the thought and sound of Grannie’s shoes the story of them coming through the ceiling with Grannie’s legs attached needs a mention.  We don’t actually remember if we were there to witness the momentous occasion or if the story was told so many times we feel like we were.  I swear I saw those legs, with the seamed stockings she would mend with her hair and those black clunkers come through the rafters to a startled, plaster-covered aunt who could not move to help her mother because she was doubled over in laughter. 

            Grannie must have been fitter than the proverbial fiddle.  She survived her half fall into the living room with nary a scratch.  The stockings, of course, were simply ruined.  In spite of her long, sausage-rolled and hair-netted tresses, Grannie never could have saved the amount of hair required to bring the remaining shreds together.  Gina fondly remembers how Grannie would let her pull old stockings apart … while they were still on her legs.  To say this grandmother was feisty just doesn’t cover it.  Grannie shingled the roof on her shed when she was a spunky sixty-eight-year-old.      

Staying at Grannie’s was like magic to us.  From taking our cereal bowls out into her plentiful garden in search of raspberries for our morning Corn Flakes to singing and swaying on her garden swing and bellowing our mother’s favourite Mario Lanza tune … “When you are in love, it’s the loveliest night of the year”.  And, who can ever forget the infestation of shad flies  Tecumseh had one year.  We called them fish flies.  It was our job to pick them off the screens and sweep them into piles.  Dad had to tip-toe on the gas pedal to keep a snails pace if we drove through them at night.  The crunch they made under the Goodyear treads will never be forgotten. 

There was one thing about our paternal grandmother that scared the living daylights out of us.  It was what she said when we coughed.  “Choke up chicken, you’ll soon be dead”.  Needless to say, we hated going there if we had a cold.  To this day however, I repeat her words when my grandkids cough, but only, “Choke up chicken!”  I leave the death declarations to a higher being.

... to be continued ...

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