Making It Up As I Go Along #692

Been a while since the last post.  Two weeks of mom and dad here was very busy.  Running around shopping and organizing for their condo.  And lots accomplished.  And I was back to work the day after they left… so not much time to sit and post.

The darkness across the street is not as dark as it once was.  Looking across at the woods, at night, has been a time of mystery.  I’d always be left to wonder what the darkness hid.  Working beavers? Patrolling coyotes? Fox? Deer? Moose?  Or, on those nights where spookiness is in the mind… ghosts… or demons?  Sometimes I’d look out expecting to see the red glow of evil eyes peering back.

The woods remain, but they’ve been substantially thinned since I moved in.  A hundred yards through a section of the woods now bring you to a road.  And with the leaves having dropped south for the winter, glimpses of street lights break through the birch and maple.  Perhaps I’ll sometimes see the lights as extra terrestrial orbs… but, for now, the mystery has been broken.

I’ve slept my last on the only mattress I’ve known in Ontario.  It’s bagged up and ready to go.  Delivery people will be here this afternoon… bringing memory foam into my room.  It’s odd to be nostalgic over a fourteen year old mattress… and I’m sure I won’t much miss it in the long run… but bagging it up, this morning, felt like a form of abandonment.

I am done with the concept of “thoughts and prayers”.  America seems to have a mass shooting every few weeks now… at least a newsworthy one.  And each time it’s the same old reaction.  Shock… statements of there’s nothing that could be done… and “thoughts and prayers.”  It’s a routine now for an event that should never be accepted as routine.  Thoughts and prayers are completely useless and meaningless.  Especially when given by politicians who have the power to actually do something concrete that would curb such violence.  But, instead, they take their NRA money and offer up thoughts and prayers.  I’d rather they say nothing and own the decisions they’ve made to get our southern neighbours to this point.  “Thoughts and prayers” are a mock solution to a problem that could actually be solved if the desire was really there.  It isn’t that complicated.  Ban civilian access to assault rifles that were developed for use by soldiers in war zones.  Mandatory background checks.  Register the weapons that are legally purchased.  And, in the wake of the Vegas shooting, once a civilian has purchased his tenth firearm, perform a more thorough investigation.  I mean, honestly, any person who owns forty or fifty firearms should likely be checked in on from time to time.  But America doesn’t really care.  It’s freedom this and 2nd amendment that.  And if people die, that’s the price of freedom.

A stat I heard the last few days that really strikes home.  Columbine, the shooting that was so shocking to the world when it occurred, is no longer in America’s top ten biggest mass shootings.  God help America when laser guns are developed and civilians will be able to vaporize a stadium of people within three seconds.  Cause seriously, when the 2nd amendment was created, semi-automatic assault rifles would be as much science fiction then as laser guns are to us now.

As a society, we are too addicted to the economy.  Sometimes it feels like we’ve been brainwashed to think we were put on this earth simply to buy stuff.  One can’t get away from the advertising.  Turn on the TV… every 8 minutes you’ll get 4 minutes of advertising.  Radio is a constant barrage of advertising that’s occasionally interrupted by a few minutes of music or programming.  Newspapers are blocked full of ads.  Sports facilities are named after corporations and the playing surface is painted full of business logos.  The internet got so full of advertising that I often skip articles on certain sites because I know I’m going to have pop ups to work around.  I actually took to “the Athletic”… a pay sports site… so that I can read about hockey and baseball without being overwhelmed with the advertising.  I constantly get a community newspaper delivered to my front door.  I used to be nice about it… emailing the company and asking them to remind their carrier to skip by my house.  But every few months it starts up again.  Now my emails are much less friendly.  And my dream is to find out where that carrier lives so I can bring that advertised rag right back and leave it on their front doorstep.  And now, today… the car parked quietly in my driveway got a flyer for windshield water repellant tucked under the wiper.  It’s all just too much.

But the sun is out… The bare forest is still and I’m a week away from once again living in the same town as my parents (at least for approximately half of the year).  So life isn’t too bad.

Making It Up As I Go Along #691

A busy last little while.  Home for a trip that included lots of cleaning up during the day and many evenings out.  Then pretty much straight back to work after getting back.

The trail is finally being developed along the tree line across from my place.  Once done, it’ll sure beat the ditch that has been sitting there the last year or two.

Went to the far woods a few days ago trying to size up winter walking and snowshoes.  It was kind of depressing to see.  Many acres of the woods is now gone over there… soon to be developed.  And an orange fence cuts straight through a large chunk of the remaining forest.  I guess they want to keep people back away from the work that’s coming.  But having a trail cut off by those plastic orange fences just leaves you feeling down.

For the first time ever, I got snow tires put on the car on a day that I’m wearing shorts and sandals.  But many of the nights are already slipping into single digit temperatures and the first snow and frost isn’t far away.

Micky has come back.  The greatest stuffed toy I ever had… Mickey Mouse bought from Disney during our family vacation in Florida around 35 years ago… is back in my possession.  He spent the last fifteen plus years sitting in mom and dad’s attic.  I’m not sure how he got up there.  Other stuffed toys made the trip to Ontario.  But the king of all stuffed toys… the one worn with love… that I literally could not sleep without having in the bed for at least five or six years (even going as far as stowing him away in my sleeping bag when going to friends houses for sleepovers)… he found his way into the attic… until now.  Mickey is back in my room, looking towards my bed from the comfort of a nearby bookshelf.

The best of the hockey cards has returned.  When I packed to leave Newfoundland, I put all of my best and most prized cards together in a box separated from all the rest.  And upon reaching Ontario, fourteen years ago, they were gone.  I sifted through every box over and over again… but there was no sign of them anywhere.

And when I moved from Avalon to Trailsedge, five or six years ago, I thought maybe the cards will reappear during that move.  That they will give up a secret hiding spot from the old home and join me in the new.  But, again, nothing.

I hoped they were in my friend’s basement with boxes I stored there… they weren’t.  I hoped they were tucked in a remaining box in mom and dad’s place… no sign.  I was left to assume that the movers that brought my stuff to Ontario had a go of them… or that maybe the box they were in was assumed to be garbage in mid move, and they’d be gone for good.

But this trip home brought them out of hiding.  While cleaning out mom and dad’s basement… with hockey cards totally out of mind… a small box was tucked along a shelving unit.

The writing said “Hockey Card & photos and dart board”.  But was it old writing from a former use? Probably so.  Still, I opened the box out of curiosity.  And there on top… my table top dart board.

I had actually completely forgotten the dart board.  The sight of it floods me with memories of Hayward Ave living.  And lifting it, I see a few pictures.  Including one I’d always wondered about.  A lost shot that had vanished with my cards.  Me in the backyard… full head of hair… toddler Fraser sat next to me… and Schokee in the grass below us, enjoying the sun of a summer day.

This is actually the last picture of Schokee.  Our last family dog died a few months after this picture was taken.

So once I saw the dart board and this picture, the thought of hockey cards crept back into mind.  And I bring the box to the sofa and sit to give it a good going through.

A few more photographs are glanced at… both with nostalgia and a growing anticipation of what may lie beneath… and then, with the lift of a last photograph… they appear.

It begins with the youthful face of a Peter Forsberg rookie card peering up at me.  This isn’t one of the ultimate treasures… but it’s telling me they’re here.  Forsberg was a favourite player of mine and I would have included this card with the others.  And added digging confirms it.  An old Larry Robinson card… the last card of Gordie Howe… a birthday gift of a pair of Patrick Roy cards under glass.  And then the favourites appear.  The Roy rookie card… his goalie mask card… the Mario rookie… Gretzky rookie… Bobby Hull autographed… and Vladislav Tretiak autographed cards all come back.  Like a child at Christmas I call out… “This is THE cards.”  Mom knows right away what this means… and she shares in the joy.

There is still one that remains among the missing.  A birthday gift from friends… an autographed Larry Bird card, in a wooden frame was not packed along with these.  It’s too bad… I wish it was… but after fourteen years of thinking they were all gone, it’s a small price to pay.

I think the two of these cards that mean the most aren’t even overly valuable.  There is the Tretiak autographed card.  In a random bit of oddness, he happened to be in St. John’s one day, signing autographs at Leon’s Furniture.  You were supposed to by 8x10 pictures to autograph but I had a “goalies” card from the commemorative set from the 1972 series.  Dryden and Esposito on one side of the card… Tretiak on the other.  So I brought it to him… as he sat there on a sofa next to his backup goaltender from ’72 and St. John’s Maple Leaf, Andrew McKim.

Upon seeing the card, Tretiak asked me where I got it.  In a not very clever response, I think I said “I got it in a pack of cards I bought.”  Tretiak than showed the card to his backup goalie, speaking about it in Russian.  McKim looked at me and asked what they’re talking about.  All I could do was shrug.  But then after a moment, Tretiak signed the card and gave it back to me.

The other is the Roy goalie mask card.  It was a special card randomly inserted among packs of Pro Set hockey cards.  Roy was my favourite player and I always loved his Montreal mask.

On a summer trip to Nova Scotia, dad took me to a card store and bought me a complete set of baseball cards and a box of unopened Pro Set cards.  I remember being so surprised that he was willing to spend this much on cards for me.  I went hoping for perhaps $25 worth of cards… and we probably spent around $100.

Back in Inverness… where we stayed at my uncle’s family farm… I began opening the hockey cards… pack by pack… tearing in and sorting through the cards.  Hoping for a Roy Mask card.

Memory makes facts cloudy.  My memory says I was down to the final pack in the box, and still no Mask.  Perhaps reality is that I had three packs left to open.  Perhaps six.  I know it was most certainly near the end… and I’m pretty sure it was literally the last pack.  Either way, as I sorted through, there it was.  A simple hockey card.  A picture of the Mask.  And I jumped around the farmhouse in glee.  The satisfaction of reuniting with that card again… fourteen years since I last saw it… and twenty-five years after that original opening… Even with a book value of around $3.00 today, that card is a treasure of memories.