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Fred, my father.

5/7/2017

1 Comment

 
I don’t know how old I was. Maybe four. Maybe five or six. I was sitting on the couch in the living room, feeling totally safe and cosy. My mother was sitting close on one side and my dad on the other. Mom was probably just sitting with Dad, who was reading his Braille, his fingers moving across the page and his eyes looking up into the warm air. I was feeling so good because I had never sat between them before. I know I hadn’t because I can still remember seeing the space there and wanting to sit in it, hesitating, then finally actually doing it.

Even today the worn leather of the couch presses against my fingers. Dad was resting where he always did after his farm chores, beside the right arm rest. And on that uncomfortable-looking split, he had worn into the leather with his backside. Across the room from him was the nicest piece of furniture we had -- other than the old, ornate organ Mom had inherited from her mother. It was our HiFi and the most beautiful music was emanating from its cloth-covered front, filling the room. Even now, whenever I happen to hear a bit of that particular piece on the radio, the room with me sitting there between Mom and Dad fills my mind. I still have the album Dad played that day. Here. You can listen to it with me while you read this:https://youtu.be/t4lnWB7R_qM It’s a serenade by Mozart, called Eine Kleine Nacht Musik, or A Little Night Music. And six decades later it’s still one of my favourite pieces of music. A little night music in the middle of the afternoon. For me, it’s the sun dancing on grass. I was looking out the screen door of the porch opposite me. The warm sun was glancing off the tall green blades in our lawn, grass that Dad would let grow to farm length, then cut with a scythe. I watched through the screen the slow flight of a bee from dandelion to dandelion, as in a dream. The bee and the sun were part of the music. At the far end of the wide lawn, our fence posts stood white in front of the neighbour’s trees, which lounged green and tall and comfortable there. I thought of going out, but not yet.
1 Comment
when to follow up after interview no response link
5/10/2018 10:02:43 am

Thank you for this sincere story! Of course it could be hard to remember such things and to think about hem so often. But of course this is the special memories and they are warm. Thank you for writing this post and I hope to see more content like this.

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    Fred Burfield 

    Fred was born Nov. 20th, 1906. When he was three, in 1910, his family moved to the Alberta prairie from a very comfortable upper-middle class home in Hastings. (His father had inherited a brewery, which apparently his grandfather had mismanaged and driven into serious debt, no doubt worsened by the rapidly growing temperance movement of the time.) Fred and his family lived as homesteaders, at first in a sod house in the Drumheller area, then, during the dust bowl years, in log houses in Northern Alberta. Fred became blind as a young man but nevertheless farmed and raised a family. Upon retireing to Calgary, he wrote a memoir of his life.
    ​

    Stan Burfield

    ​​I am Fred's son, 67 at present, living in London, Ontario with my wife Linda. . I am in possession of Fred's lengthy type-written memoires, also his short stories and poems, and many photos of his family and homesteading days. I plan on posting summaries and excerpts here as I get to them. Find titles and links in sidebar called "Memoir". Also I will post memories of my own and photos albums: see sidebar called "Other".

    Memoirs
    1. Baby Fred, Ferris Wheel

    Other
    *Evening light
    *Fred milking cows 
    *Fred, my father.
    ​

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