Once in my 20s I took my blind father for a walk down in Confederation Park in Calgary, not far from the house. While we walked, I was trying to imagine it from his viewpoint. The park was a mostly untreed gully, similar to what he would have been used to homesteading out on the prairie in his own youth. I took him up to an aspen tree, said, "See how big it's grown since they planted it," putting his hands on the trunk. He smiled, the kind of smile an older man indulges a youngster with who's trying to do something for him. But he didn't seem to have any interest in really feeling the tree, the roughness of the bark, the heft of it. Maybe he had chopped down too many trees when they had moved to the forests of northern Alberta during the dust bowl of the '30s. So I suddenly said, "Hey, Dad, do you want to run a ways. I bet you haven't done that for a long time." He smiled again and said, "Okay," and, holding my arm, we trotted on down the path, he in his 70s but thin and still healthy.
Looking back from here, it's odd how seldom I imagined my parents real lives while they were alive, and how very few times I tried to do something for them that wasn't out of a sense of offspring duty. I guess I was a typical youth, pretty self-centred, putting most of my effort into leaving, not getting together.
From Facebook: likes...9...Nikki Maud-Marie Reimer, Cambridge N Calvin Keenan and 7 others
Comments
Larry Burfield Your Dad and the park bring back good memories here too. It always amazed me how he could walk over to our Uncle Robin's place on his own. The hill on Uncle Robin's side was quite steep. I remember walking the other way over to your Mom and Dad's place and when we got there your Dad was just walking from the bus stop after visiting down at the CNIB.. He came down the street with such confidence. He then had to show his garden, which he took such good care of. And I complain about having to pull weeds that I can see!! Didn't do as much of that complaining after that visit. I remember the incident you mentioned at his funeral, when their was a storm brewing and he asked you to round up the cattle and put them in the barn or shelter. You returned after awhile and said you were unable to get them to cooperate. Your Dad put on his raincoat and went out, and came back to the house later and said they are all in.
Like · Reply · 1 · 25 November at 13:47
Stan Burfield Yes. He was walking from the bus stop by himself? I never knew he did that? But if he could negotiate our bush, a sidewalk would be easy. I wasn't living there then. Wonder how he found the walkway to his house, which was third from the end of the block. Yes, that incident trying to get the cows in amazed me. Because of the constant thunder, they were hidden in the thickest, deepest brush. I could only chase one out at a time and it would circle around and go back. And I was clambering over deadfall and getting stabbed continually by brush. And I could hardly hear for the thunder and wind in the trees. Then Dad went out in that by himself and got them. The answer, which either you or your dad told me, was that Dad was their boss in their eyes and as soon as they saw him they headed home, but still Dad had to find them in the bush, which was pretty big, and he would have to hear the one bell on the lead cow, in that thunder, and survive the deadfall and the switches, and somehow figure out what direction he was going. It all still seems impossible to me. But nevertheless he did bring them home and milked them that night. That was the spirit the pioneers had: Just keep going. Keep at it no matter how hard. Because there was no choice.
Like · Reply · 1 · 25 November at 14:06
Larry Burfield The Burfield family had the Pioneer spirit for sure.. Moving from a nice home in England, to a sod house in the middle of nowhere in Alberta. And with three small children to make the challenge a bit bigger.. Then having to move everything in the 1930's drought to start again at Smith, and then again striking out individually to make a life in southern Alberta. They survived it all. And then your Dad lost his site, my Dad lost the site of one eye, but nobody complained Just charge forward! Make the best of what you have and go from there
Unlike · Reply · 1 · 25 November at 15:06
Stan Burfield Right. Make the best of it. For sure!
Like · Reply · 25 November at 16:54
Write a reply...
Tina Pickard Good memory......
Like · Reply · 30 mins
Looking back from here, it's odd how seldom I imagined my parents real lives while they were alive, and how very few times I tried to do something for them that wasn't out of a sense of offspring duty. I guess I was a typical youth, pretty self-centred, putting most of my effort into leaving, not getting together.
From Facebook: likes...9...Nikki Maud-Marie Reimer, Cambridge N Calvin Keenan and 7 others
Comments
Larry Burfield Your Dad and the park bring back good memories here too. It always amazed me how he could walk over to our Uncle Robin's place on his own. The hill on Uncle Robin's side was quite steep. I remember walking the other way over to your Mom and Dad's place and when we got there your Dad was just walking from the bus stop after visiting down at the CNIB.. He came down the street with such confidence. He then had to show his garden, which he took such good care of. And I complain about having to pull weeds that I can see!! Didn't do as much of that complaining after that visit. I remember the incident you mentioned at his funeral, when their was a storm brewing and he asked you to round up the cattle and put them in the barn or shelter. You returned after awhile and said you were unable to get them to cooperate. Your Dad put on his raincoat and went out, and came back to the house later and said they are all in.
Like · Reply · 1 · 25 November at 13:47
Stan Burfield Yes. He was walking from the bus stop by himself? I never knew he did that? But if he could negotiate our bush, a sidewalk would be easy. I wasn't living there then. Wonder how he found the walkway to his house, which was third from the end of the block. Yes, that incident trying to get the cows in amazed me. Because of the constant thunder, they were hidden in the thickest, deepest brush. I could only chase one out at a time and it would circle around and go back. And I was clambering over deadfall and getting stabbed continually by brush. And I could hardly hear for the thunder and wind in the trees. Then Dad went out in that by himself and got them. The answer, which either you or your dad told me, was that Dad was their boss in their eyes and as soon as they saw him they headed home, but still Dad had to find them in the bush, which was pretty big, and he would have to hear the one bell on the lead cow, in that thunder, and survive the deadfall and the switches, and somehow figure out what direction he was going. It all still seems impossible to me. But nevertheless he did bring them home and milked them that night. That was the spirit the pioneers had: Just keep going. Keep at it no matter how hard. Because there was no choice.
Like · Reply · 1 · 25 November at 14:06
Larry Burfield The Burfield family had the Pioneer spirit for sure.. Moving from a nice home in England, to a sod house in the middle of nowhere in Alberta. And with three small children to make the challenge a bit bigger.. Then having to move everything in the 1930's drought to start again at Smith, and then again striking out individually to make a life in southern Alberta. They survived it all. And then your Dad lost his site, my Dad lost the site of one eye, but nobody complained Just charge forward! Make the best of what you have and go from there
Unlike · Reply · 1 · 25 November at 15:06
Stan Burfield Right. Make the best of it. For sure!
Like · Reply · 25 November at 16:54
Write a reply...
Tina Pickard Good memory......
Like · Reply · 30 mins
RSS Feed