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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