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.
