The Christmas Season 2007 Summerside Prince Edward island

Note:
This is not a prepared essay per se. These are renderings from handwritten manuscript journals written from around December 19 2007 to January 2 2008. Edited as to content as appropriate. I better type it out while it still exists!

Well the good news today was finding a little leftover lawnmower gas from Jerry's gas can and putting in the Blazer. It started and ran just fine after sitting a long time in the cold damp winter air. Shel got home at 3 and was true to her word. She found a huge cache of old soda and beer bottles hidden in a cubby behind one of her closets on the third floor. We took them, along with a few I found to the bottle depot. We earned a big seven bucks on that trip.

On the way over, she was pretty excited. She has taken a big interest in various business ideas and motivational materials. I told her that after all that , be careful of what you do, as it never turns out the way you think it will. Not that that is always so bad-she said that I was bitter. I tried to tell her that being the only one she knew that really had had it all, that what I miss of "it all" almost nothing I miss has to do with money.

Its was our times together, the special places, just feelings even during the tough times-even here and now. Like cooking with her this summer at Chelton. I didn't want to tell her one of my fondest memories is the two of us walking on the beach at Loche Shore collecting sea glass last November. That cold windy November day and the rough surf of Malpeque Bay. That was before I left last time to go to Pennsylvania.

I still returned to Loche Shore beach this fall, only once, briefly with a much changed Shel. I took a longer walk tonight. Mostly to look at the Christmas lights on the quaint bungalows between here and the sidestreets on the way to the boardwalk.My beach, the past refuge of my lonely summer now eerie-attached to the snow covered frozen bay, the lighthouses and distant bridge lights reminders of my final trip from the island soon to come.

It was frigid with strong steady north winds, skin tingly to numb even through the my layers and trademark leather jacket. I walked a long time in the cold alone tonight. To my pier to toss a few coins and pray for my family, not sure am I if this is an end or a beginning. I have often classified my life as stages. High school, college, cars, my first professional job and the like. They are all discrete and perhaps this time marks the end of the "HTS period". That seems appropriate, but even my children are a product of that time, both born under and into that sign. No doubt my best memories beyond childhood are my times in Las Vegas and Phoenix with Shel and my son. It will always be my minds perfect view of the one time since childhood on the farm I had a real family.

And many of those southwestern days were hard. Little money after the divorce, at least at first, for a long time. Long drives- a scorched blistering Sonora or Mohave desert to go to work. It all seemed worthwhile for the people I loved to work for and to be with. Joey was great with Shel, as Alexis later would be but only very briefly. My last attempt to recreate that life in the Upper Susquehanna Valley in Pennsylvania in 2004 resulted in the move here. If I had still had HTS in 2004 none of that would have happened. Rhonda would have been satisfied and we may have stayed in Phoenix without ever considering a permanent move to PEI or Cape Breton.

Friday December 21

Today was cold and hazy with a few flurries. Big flurries that looked out of place, but festive. Shel stopped by after work and I helped her with her luggage for her holiday in Char'Town with her new friends. She said that she was sorry about not giving me a Christmas card, but I told her that she had given me a nice red wool scarf. She had parked her little green Tercel across the street at the motel. So we, both wearing black on a dark night both dodged holiday traffic on Central Street to cross it. There was much more traffic than usual today, it being the Friday before Christmas. She loaded up, we hugged and I gave her a kiss parent-like on the top of her head. My teenage daughter off for a visit. That was the emotion. I did shed a few tears, but only a few of sadness. I told her to be safe and we wished each other a merry Christmas.

I took a walk after my dinner of chili beans and leftover winter stew to the little store a few blocks north of the house. A rarity, I bought a 649 ticket. The store is about 6 blocks away on the main street, Granville. I walked back more slowly than I usually do when its this cold, trying to experience the town. The sidewalks are mostly clear of snow, but are covered with a thick coat of very coarse rock salt. Even after adopting the local custom of taking your shoes off at the door, my place has plenty of rock salt in it.

The Victorian homes are more stately on this walk than last nights garish decorations, lawn Santa's and flashing displays are not seen. These homes are modestly decorated with colored lights, usually small, but in striking colors. And only a few of them. My hunting boots purchased at an Appalachian Wal Mart when with Joey on a boyscout outing last fall crush the rock salt to powder with a sound not heard in Phoenix. The town was quiet and I think much like small towns back home were like in the 40's or 50's.

There is a small war memorial and park across from the back of our place. The snow seemed deeper there.

Canadian Thanksgiving, 2007

Transcribed from handwritten manuscript

There is complete silence here-its high noon and I am in my little apartment near the harbour. Its difficult to think of leaving such a place. The task I had really come here to complete is concluding and its time to look ahead, at last. But its Thanksgiving today. The weather seems right, drizzling and just above freezing. Thanksgiving is celebrated here on this day, October first, and it seems much less intense a gathering than back home. In fact, nearly everything is less intense here.

Yes, a lack of any intensity. No better way to recall this day than Thanksgiving on the farm, as only a 10 year old can recall. The cold wet morning romping through the ancient apple orchard towards the now dead toppled corn stalks in the fields beyond. In the distance a row of tall pines marking the imaginary boundary of my world. Skeletons of brown, fermenting apples of russet, green, and yellow fill the heavy cool morning dampness with a pungent, earthy memory. Crows fly at a distance, most likely seeing my shotgun and spreading the word in alert. My best friend in those years, my Shepard collie Ollie, tail wagging madly rushed down the corn rows. In moments with a loud "TERK" a ring-necked pheasant blasts, rocket-like skyward.

My single shot Stevens 20 gauge, the sweet sound of its explosion, the luscious smell of gunpowder in the cool mist. The bird falls and flutters, dying on the bare brown earth between the cornrows. It always amazed me how gently and with what reverence Ollie would pick-up a bird in his jaws like a fragile toy, and slowly walk, bow his head to release the bird, white neck ring bloodied, into my hands.

I would try to pick the shot off, but for sure there would be number six lead pellets in that Thanksgiving dinner. And of course the feathers would be great for tying flies in anticipation of a long away spring trout season.

Those solitary hunting jaunts with Ollie are some of my finest memories of childhood. Better still are too few times I hunted with my dad. Oh, we went out many times for the birds and other game on the farm and environs. But the best and fewest trips were the opening of Pennsylvania antlered deer season-a De facto state holiday. The Monday after Thanksgiving. Too few, as dad died the day after New Years, 1972. I was newly fifteen.

Its a distant place. Sitting with dad in the gun room. With my sister and mother around the always bounty of our Thanksgiving table. Roast fresh pheasant, yams, garden green beans, the fall turnips and fragrant pumpkin pies. The exposed colonial logs of the dining room ceiling and its wide, hand-hewn wide plank floor. The huge walk-in fireplace. I loved that fireplace. Rimmed with Moravian tile work tiles that told a story of Priscilla and depicted sailing ships. I never knew who she was. Her 18th century gown and the ships at full sail on a tossing sea. Perhaps it told her story of her voyage to the then colony, to our colonial aged Bucks county home.

My meal, alone here on this rainy day here in maritime Canada to be winter stew and whole wheat bread, my mothers recipe. Those days remain vibrant when I turn my thoughts to them. My family, my dog, on the farm. I peered into my pond, fascinated by the doings of the newts, small insects and colorful water plants in the spring-fed clarity. I could spend hours as a boy staring into that mystery. In those places, my love of nature was born. Only much later, as it is in a child's time, I would leave that place. The memory of silt from upland construction choking the life out of my pond.