We were both young once
your smile bore all the troubles
of the world away. In the garden
under gentle green canopies
of beans and potatoes,
the spayed ferns of carrot tops,
we would hoe reality around our roots. Read
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It was going to be a wonderful Christmas. Uncle Ray and Aunt Mable and their children were coming to Grandma’s for the holidays. In 1929 a one hundred and forty mile automobile trip was not undertaken lightly, especially in winter. Uncle Ray had a new baby, three-month-old Frank, not as new as our month-old Bobby but new to us. We would all be at Grandma’s on Christmas Day. It would be a wonderful reunion Read
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Vol.15,
No.87, October/November 2012 Martin Edward Burke by Christine MacKinnon
Martin Edward Burke was born on
Angel Place, St. John’s, Newfoundland on July 22, 1876.
I’ve often felt that a good writer must be able to conjure, conjure up people and places and bring them to life in the mind of the reader. Today I am going to try be a conjurer.
Martin Burke, I would have to guess, grew up in great poverty. He would often say that his mother arrived from Ireland just in time to drop him in Newfoundland.
From the time he stowed away on a ship bound for Liverpool at the age of
fifteen his love of the sea was legendary. He served king, queen and country until his retirement at the end of the second world war. Read
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That Sunday morning, Hank Snow lay supine on his bed, his lanky, ghostly body stiff like a corpse in a casket. His black Stetson covered his face, smothering his bull snoring interrupted occasionally by spells of gasping for breath, when, in the course of his nightmare, he feared drowning, panicked, and imagined himself rocketing up through actual ocean depths instead of his deep, drunken stupor. His hands lay folded neatly across his bare chest, protecting his one, long, black hair sprouting from his breastbone like a pigtail. Only his striped red and white boxer shorts and high, black cowboy boots, sheathed with his crumpled blue jeans, offered him a wisp of warmth from the zephyr wafting through the window to his right. On it rode the sweet aroma of freshly cut hay from the fields beyond. His pink nose twitched
unconsciously. Read
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Vol.15,
No.86, August/September 2012 WINNER OF THE TRUE STORIES: SUSANNA VOTH WIEBE PRIZE Day Dreaming by James A. Logan
One day my ten year old grandson,Gary,and I decided that we needed an adventure. It wouldn’t have to be anything too hairy, just a change from the daily routine. We got the old pack boxes out and stuffed them full of all the good things we liked to eat, like peanut butter and cheese and bacon and some good home made bread. We tied it all on a paint horse named Little Joe, along with our sleeping bags and a canvas tarp big enough to sleep under if we ran into a storm, then, with me on my favourite buckskin and Gary riding his mount “Topper,” we headed north. We were into what’s known as the Aspen Grove country on our second day out, the weather was sunny and warm without the over powering heat that would come in mid summer. A gentle breeze stirred the leaves on the aspens and sent a happy feeling through us like it was good to be alive. We hit an old dirt road far enough back from the highway that you couldn’t hear the howl of cars and trucks and along about sundown we made camp by a little spring the cows hadn’t yet found and soon had a nice smelling campfire blazing. I like the odour that dry aspen gives off in a fire. Gary’s a pretty good camp cook and he soon had a pan of beans warming up on the hot embers. With bread and cheese and a billy of tea we made do. Read
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Vol.15,
No.86, August/September 2012 WINNER OF THE CREATIVE NON-FICTION: PEARL WEARMOUTH PRIZE It's Time by Harold Studholme
Vera stood quietly behind him for a long time, her hands resting gently on his broad shoulders, not quite sure in her mind how to broach the subject. She had waited until they had enjoyed their mid morning ritual together: strong black tea, his liberally laced with sugar and milk, hers,‘untainted’ as she would put it, both in the same old mugs they had always used, chipped and stained by a multitude of fills with tea, but big enough to satisfy their love of the brew. A pair of miss-matched saucers completed the tableau, dusted liberally with the crumbs of Vera’s homemade rye bread, toasted black, Lawrence’s favourite. As usual, she had scolded him for the way he had slathered his toast with butter and a huge dollop of her wild blackberry jam, but with a wry smirk and a little grunt, he had gone ahead anyway, just as he did every morning. Read
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When my daughter was beginning
her second year at St. Mary’s
University in Halifax, Nova Scotia,
she moved from residence life to her
own apartment, sharing it with a
friend. We had found the perfect
apartment building, close to campus,
and very cosy and attractive. It was
located at the end of a street that was
lined with huge oak and elm trees,
making it a pleasure to walk to class.
She loved it.
Her parents’ concerns were of no
consequence as we asked her about
coming home from class after dark,
walking down that very beautiful tree
lined road was a different story when
darkness fell. Anyone could hide
behind the very trees and shrubs that
were so beautiful in sunlight, but an
excellent hiding place for anyone who
wanted to pounce and assault the
unsuspecting walkers. We were
assured that all would be OK, because
St. Mary’s University has what is
called the ‘Husky Patrol’. This is a
program that the popular St. Mary’s
Huskies football team members and
other students had developed. They
worked in teams of two, a football
player, or senior athlete, and a senior
female student would make up each
team. The ‘Husky Patrol’ would walk
with the student if they lived off
campus and had to return home after
dark. It is a terrific program and
worked well for the off campus
students who needed the service.
Heather assured us she would use the
Husky Patrol when necessary. Read
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This one’s for those who are always
telling me that English is messed up
and for anyone with kids who are just
learning to read and I’m realizing how
often the “rules” don’t apply to so
many words.
Vol.15,
No.84, April/May 2012 The Last Ride by Jean E. Carriere
We were f i f t e e n , Louise and I, when grandfather bought my cousin a horse. I should have been pleased that she chose to name the beast Johnny; and I should have been pleased at being offered the inaugural ride on my namesake. I wasn’t.
Once a week, we headed to the riding stables in St. Foy. Louise, the equestrian, always chose the friskiest animal, which she rode with assurance and authority. I, on other hand, always selected the slowest, the gentlest horse, preferably one that had pulled a milk wagon in its youth.
When grandfather told her to choose a horse, I was not surprised that she had picked a high-spirited three year-old Chestnut measuring over eighteen hands. What did surprise me, however, was that she had named a mare - Johnny. Read
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Oh Blessed bucket of bolts, you were a work of art,
You saw me through my high school days, so happy and carefree,
Polished and so shiny you never failed to start.
You took us to the graduation prom, where she did steal my heart,
You proudly carried her, she of the pretty face, soon my bride to be,
Oh Blessed bucket of bolts, you were a work of art. Read
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This is a painting I did when I was
five. Interesting choice of colours.
You can clearly see the apple, rushing
to its impending demise. There is a
defining, pervasive sense of motion in
the piece... suspended motion. I really
nailed it, in my opinion. For a child, I
had a strong sense of foreboding. Kind
of eerie, actually, now that I think
about it (which is something I hadn’t
done in ages, until I found it in a stack
of papers, coffee-ringed and largely
ignored). But I’m beginning to feel the
significance of it now. Powerfully. As
if I’ve just realized that I’m holding
the Rosetta stone to my life,
masterfully executed by me at the ripe
and sage fifth year of it. Weird. I don’t
actually remember painting it. I do,
however, remember having the idea to
paint it... stranger still. Read
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Vol.15,
No.83, February-March 2012 Haying Time by Robert J. Patmore
We lived on a
small farm
in the North
S a s k a t c h e w a n
Parklands area.
The country was a
little rolling, with a few valleys. Most
of us farmed the valleys, and ran a few
cattle on the marginal part of the farm,
down near the slough. Up on the hilly
part, to the east, a lot of “prairie hay”
grew. Prairie hay is not very tall, and
kind of woolly. The mower has to be
in good shape to cut it, and the hay
must be very dry. Damp prairie wool
won’t mow! You know, I am sure, all
about that! Before you mow “prairie
wool” you overhaul the cutter bar on
the old 5 foot horse drawn mower.
You rivet new mower sections in the
knife, as well as new “ledger plates”,
in the “stone guards”. Oil all the right
places! Now, you are ready. Hitch up
old Sparky and Babe, take along a
gallon jug of cool water, and begin.
When you arrive at the edge of the odd
shaped hay patch, you lower the cutter
bar from its transport position. Now,
the mower has a big lever, so you can
raise the cutter bar, to avoid any stones
or “mole hills”. Gotta take care of
your new knife! If you see a quite
thick patch of grass ahead, you
“encourage” the horses to hurry a bit,
so the mower will cut this thick patch.
Now when you are mowing, you can’t
go around all the sticks and little
shrubs. If they’re not too big, they’ll
do for hay too! You’d be surprised
what the cows will eat in the middle of
the winter! After the mowing, the hay
has to cure a couple of days or so, to
be sure it’s dry enough. Then, along
you come with the big hay rake.
That’s fun! And the team seems to
enjoy it too. You rake back and forth,
so as to make long windrows. When
you think you have enough hay in the rake, you just step on that tidy little
lever there by your right foot. Up
comes the rake tines. And your long
row of hay looks so nice! But don’t
get too much hay in each rake full,
because if it should rain the hay won’t
dry. Now, when you get the whole odd
shaped hayfield into long rows, the
next step, in a day or so, is to rake the
rows up into ‘hay coils’, to be forked
onto the hayrack. It’s surely not going
to rain, now you’ve got this far, is it ?
So make good big hay coils, as you
gather up the long rows. Read
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