Cultural Clash in 'Big Sky Country!'

Yes, it is ‘Big Sky Country’ here. The air is fresh and crisp and there’s room for a fellow to really stretch without worrying about jostling some politically correct/corrupt Liberal. Yes, I call myself a conservative but I am aware that lines blur and definitions get hazy depending on where you are located. I suppose that south of the border I’d be considered a socialist. Out here in Alberta they probably assume I’m a liberal, (I am from Ontario after all). None of it matters really, just so long as everyone’s happy. It does seem a little ironic though that I’m in Alberta looking for a starter home, while my pal Steve seems about to consolidate his tenancy at 24 Sussex Dr. in Ottawa.

“Gone are the days when the Ox would fall down,
I’d pick up the yoke and plough the field around.
Gone are the days when the ladies said, “Please,
Gentle Jack Jones, Won’t you come out with me”

Jerry and the Warlocks

It may seem odd for a fellow to leave a well paying job after 21 years, throw caution to the wind, and leap frog half way across the country. Call it mid-life crisis if you will, but I call it curiosity, wanderlust, and a desire to get a little closer to my rural roots. A fellow named Plato, from a different time and country, once said that, “The unexamined life isn’t worth living.” His student, a fellow named Aristotle, mulled that over for a while, and, while he agreed for the most part, he carried the notion a little further by stating, “The unplanned life isn’t worth examining!” Planning has always been my downfall, so, with the minute hand sweeping so quickly towards the age of 50, it was time to do a little planning. While continuing with my plans I’ll do just a little examining too.

Yes, I grew up on a farm planted firmly between the communities of Creemore, Duntroon, and Duneden. Duneden! Taken from the Gaelic, that’s a name to lend a small community a little flair. “Dun” of course means ‘fortress’, and “Eden”, on course, really needs no explanation, and there you have it, “Fortress at the entrance to Eden”. My Scottish forebears were drawn to this rugged, hilly terrain, and while their judgement may have been lacking in regards to agriculture, I do admire their taste in landscape. Perhaps that is what I’m trying to get in touch with, my rural, and other, roots.

I was born on the threshold of the 1960’s, the decade that shook up rural Ontario and dumped it unceremoniously into the 20th century. My Father had been a tank gunner in the 2nd world war and I asked him one time what was it that he most missed when he was overseas. “Rock Cola!” was his immediate response, “At nights I’d lay under the tank with shells bursting all around, and all I could see in my mind was a frosty bottle of Rock Cola. There was nothing like it in Europe.” That’s how antiquated we were back then; Rock Cola, just like Fred and Barney, way back when, in Bedrock. But Bedrock isn’t a bad place to be; especially if you wish to build a solid foundation.

My Mother and Father grew up on opposite sides of the small town of Creemore; She 5 miles to the north of the tiny community, He about 3 miles to the south/west. Both grew up on small farms during the depression. He developed a passion for farming; she swore she would never marry a farmer. They met in Toronto after the war when my Father was on the Police Force. In later years when teased about it she’d set her chin firmly and exclaim; “I didn’t marry a farmer! I married a policeman, who decided to farm!”

That’s how my family ended up on the west half Lot 18, Conn. 5, Nottawasaga township, and where we remained in one form or another till just into this our new century. I often teased that I was descended from a long line that my Mother once listened to! It was true! And a fine line it must have been for she continued listening through 50 years of marriage, while raising four children, and working a farm. In the end she slipped from this world to the next clinging to it tightly still!

It was a tight-knit Scott/Presbyterian farm community and at our Sunday School Picnics some of the older men and women still spoke Gaelic. When my Father began farming here in the early ‘50’s he did everything with horses. We did eventually get self propelled equipment, and fine stuff it was too, but, from the beginning and continuing to the very end, we lived and worked with horses. In the beginning they were an eclectic bunch with a heavy leaning towards Clydesdales. As we became more prosperous, and horses became well, not an amusement so much, but a necessary asset for small day-to-day jobs, leaving the heavy ‘oomph’ of modern farming to machines, my father began buying huge, matched Belgian teams. ‘Big Dumb Blondes’, I always called them, but wonderful, calm, patient animals, and Oh! so easy on the eyes as they meandered through the twilight pasture. Of course we had riding horses too, but more of them later.

My Great Uncle, Harold Miller, was, as he was called in the Ontario papers, “The last of the Pony Express”. I can just remember Uncle Harold sitting on His Sister’s porch in the Hamlet of Duntroon on a sunny Sunday afternoon. I would be very small then, and he seemed ancient to me, all weathered and worn; grizzled with generally a couple of days growth of whiskers on his etched face. A painter did his portrait back in the ‘60’s, and it gained a level of local fame, showing Harold on a fine, sunny day sitting in his buggy, holding the leads in his gnarled old hands. That is what Harold did for a living, a Postal worker, delivering the mail, six days a week, through the rolling hills that enfolded the town of Duntroon. In summer he drove an open buggy, and in winter a cutter with top, and drapes surrounding the driver, with just a slit through which the reins passed. “Neither rain, nor sleet, nor snow, nor dark of night....” well, you get my drift. It was partly age that ended a long and quiet career. It was partly an antiquated way of life being swept before an impatient and unforgiving future. But at the end it was just local youth who brought that era to an end. One Halloween night they broke into Harold’s barn and painted his horses with oil based paint. That was the last of the Pony Express!

As you might guess life on 18/19 side road was quiet by today’s standards. We knew the owner of each automobile that chanced to pass, and, if we were within shouting distance of the road, they often stopped to chat. And why not? If the weather is fine, and the crops are tended, what better pastime than chatting with your neighbours? One year, before we kids were old enough to do all the work, (that’s right, at birth the doctor gave me a slap on the ass and handed me to my Father saying, “There you are Jim! An eight and a half pound hired hand!”), my father placed an ad in the local paper looking for someone, anyone!, to help with the haying. A local wag, Alex McDermott, later claimed that it was two years before another car ventured down our side road. “They just weren’t willing,” claimed Alex, “to take a chance that the haying wasn’t yet finished!”

I think that the greatest contributor to our discontent these days is our marvellous media which showers us with images of what we might aspire to, and constantly reminds us of how the Jones are doing, and what we must do to keep up. As a child on the farm I knew that we were rich, and I felt sorry for those that didn’t, for whatever reason, have those things that we did. We had the fields, the machines, the cows and horses, a huge garden, and ....did I mention the meals? Never heard of ‘lunch’ till I left the farm. It was breakfast, dinner, and supper! I remember hearing of a somewhat eccentric threesome that had lived close to us, two brothers and a sister, who’d never married and still lived together on the family homestead. Apparently the sister was a marvel of a cook, and her baking, it is said, approached the immortal, especially her pies! At meals, when the pie was trundled in, it was cut in three equal pieces, and each member of the family got an even share. You didn’t have to wait for desert either, the Family Rule was, “Pie, then Tatties, then Pie again! It was school that finally ‘Bust my Bubbles’. Grade one! Looking around I could see that while we might be rich in our own farm way, we sure didn’t have much money, and hardly any shiny, store bought stuff. I don’t recall it troubling me, but I did notice.
In the end I blame two things for the loss of that way of life. The first was the loss of Sunday as a day of rest. In our austere Scots, Presbyterian, agrarian community the world came to a stop late Saturday evening, and didn’t dare creep forward till sometime in the am Monday morning; (quite often about 4:00am!) At church on Sunday Black was the proper attire of a man’s suit; grey might be accepted, if the shade was dark enough, ....but the wearer would be forever suspect. You never saw a blue suit on a man at our church, they weren’t Presbyterian, and just didn’t get it.

Then in the 50’s an ambitious young fellow moved into the neighbourhood and took up farming. A hard worker, respectable and ploughed a straight, neat furrow; it looked like he fit right in, except that he was two generations younger than the locals. He was just starting up while they were in the slow country process of shutting down. He was looking forward to having children, they were past their child bearing years, and they’re kids had limped out of the hayfield and hitchhiked straight into town, too smart to take up farming! There was really only one aggravating thing about him; if the weather was nice, he worked on Sunday!

On fine summer Sunday’s the ladies sitting in the passenger seats of the solid black cars passing his farm on the way to church would stare straight ahead icily, unblinking and unwilling to even glance at an interloper so callous as to blaspheme the Holy day by driving team or tractor through his own fields. Their husbands, sitting solemnly in black at the wheel, with tight collars chaffing sunburned Adam’s Apples, would glance cautiously, and grimace slightly. They knew where they wanted to be, but had better sense than to mention the fact! I asked my Father about it in later years, and he answered, “I felt that God wanted me to make it possible for people to eat, and I knew that he wouldn’t mind me doing some of the work on his day; especially when it was him who provided the sunshine.”

The second suspect in the decline of that way of life was the convenience of bottle feeding. I confess that I’m a natural man; never, as a babe in arms, did I receive my required nutrition from anything that had to be boiled before and after! But Mother succumbed to the times as well and, unlike my older sister and myself, my younger brother and sister were raised on the bottle! That’s right, both of them were deprived, while I, then as now, am depraved. Those early influences in life stay with you, and I’m still a sucker for a nice set.
So perhaps that’s what I’m looking for, a place a little quieter, a little friendlier, a slightly slower pace. I’m the first to admit that I may never find it, but at the same time I realize that some places hold closer to my ideal than others. Julie and I spent wonderful time in Eastern Canada, and we found the pace and people pleasing there. But the jobs are scarce there, and, however much we might wish or feel otherwise, we aren’t quite ready to retire yet. We hope to find something similar out here in Calgary, and I believe I’ve seen lot’s of positive indications so far in my adventure. A fellow once said, “East is East, and West is West, and never the Twain shall meet!” (....unless there’s another Twain on the same Twack!)

It seems to me that the East and West are a Twain, similar in many positive and refreshing ways, the only obstacle on the Twack is that big area surrounding Toronto. When Julie and I were in Nova Scotia we spent a delightful afternoon talking to lovely lady who brought us up to date on local history, and lent us insights into the people there. “How is that everyone is so warm, open and laid back here?” I asked. She paused for a moment, looked me straight in the eye, and replied, “It’s because we shipped all the assholes to Ontario!”

Change is inevitable, and I’ve avoided it as long as I can; the time to act is now, for just a little later will be ....too late. I admit that change generally entails loss, but I suspect it also comes with its share of gain as well. It reminds me of our old Piano instructor, who I shall here call Barb. It was my older sister who met her first, and she became a friend of our family; a closer friend to some than to others I suppose. She was 22, and had followed her ‘draft-dodger’ boyfriend up to Ontario where he was working on his Master’s degree at U of T. Tall and slender she was; a child of the 60’s with jet black hair, and that almost ethereal, translucent ivory skin which so often accompanies it.

In no time she ingratiated herself into our lives, and was soon hired by my Mother to teach my younger siblings, Lori and David, to play the piano. Lonely, as she was stuck out in the country in an old farmhouse while her boyfriend Larry stayed in Toronto during the week to pursue his education, she often graced our table for evening meals. The roads were poorly maintained in winter in those days; travel difficult, and storms frequent. One night she was storm-stayed at our place.

Looking back, even now I don’t know how things transpired. I suspect it was squeaky Farmhouse floorboards; perhaps it was maternal intuition. In any case, late that night my bedroom door burst open, and my own Mother caught myself and the piano teacher involved in what I can only describe as an enchanting conversation. She just didn’t understand. It was a major change in our lives! Poor Barb lost a job! My younger sister lost the chance at entertaining in the musical fashion she so aspired to, (and has never forgiven me for by the way!) Our family lost an entertaining social connection. And myself ....well, never mind what I lost! My Mother never discussed the matter with me, and from outward appearances seemed quite miffed. On the inside, who knows, she took the matter to the grave with her. I hope that on the inside she was pleased in some small way; that she no longer had to depend on our family doctor’s assurances; that deep inside she knew, “It’s a boy!”

My losses in any event were, to my mind, trivial. Did I gain from the experience? Well, I’ve never mastered the piany; if asked I can perform a rudimentary “Chopsticks”, but, believe me, I’m seldom asked! But, at almost fifty I can look back through all the intervening years, and recall how one evening, as a mere youth, I tickled those ivories!
But now I have put all that behind me and am headed to Calgary with, as Corb Lund put it so well;

“My hair in my eyes like a Highland Steer,
A Spring in my step like a White Tailed Deer,
A hitch in my hip like an old sheep Dog,
I’ll puff out my chest like a Big Bull Frog!”

The Hurtin’ Albertans

As I drove through Manitoba and Saskatchewan I could see the country opening up, and feel the change in the air; that elusive, laid back, rural vibrancy! The endless convoy of 18 wheelers I’d been scrunched between all through Ontario began to thin out and passenger vehicles became more plentiful. In the early evening, approaching Calgary, I could see the Buffalo, etched against the horizon by the setting sun. And that was when I saw that which I’d seen on the Internet before, but had never expected to witness in Canada! “Tailgate trinkets,” is the best I can do to describe them, and they dangled gracefully from the trailer hitch of the SUV in front of me, swaying gently as the vehicle rolled and curved with the sweep of the foothills. I’ll try to put a picture at the top to show you what I mean before I post.

Finally, when I’d settled into my room for my first night in Calgary, and opened my first copy of the Calgary Sun, my eye was caught by a large ad. It was for a performance by the Royal Winnipeg Ballet Company, and, between the pictures and the enthusiastic write-up, I found myself thinking, “Yeah, I wish Julie were here! I could really go for that!”

Tailgate trinkets & Ballet performances! An odd cultural pairing I must admit; but this is Big Sky country, and there’s room here to embrace just about anything you’d care to mention, (and even those you wouldn’t dare mention!). Besides, everybody should have a pair!
When travelling you must choose your companions carefully, and I brought several along to help ease my passage. As I barrelled west along the TCH Howlin’ Wolf was sitting in the passenger seat ...well, ....Howlin’,

“Come all you Ladies when the day is done,
You don’t have to worry, you can have your fun!
Come on Baby take me by the hand!
I’m three hundred pounds of Muscle and Man!”

Howlin’ Wolf

Yes, Calgary, back-lit by the setting sun, is an enticing Lady. I think that I can have fun in this town!

James R.W.R.N Mackay