Time Now for the Vinyl Cafe Story Exchange

by Stuart McLean

My neighbour Tommy Gordon has a philosophy that anything is possible if you have enough time and the cost is within reason. He’s proved this on many occasions to those who’ve come to him with problems that seemed beyond fixing.

  If you have something to be repaired, welded, rebuilt, manufactured, blown up, blown down, or blown out, Tom is your man. He comes from a long line of self-reliant thinkers; farmers like him have to be, to survive.

  At a young age Tommy took up dynamiting as a means of ridding fields of tree roots. He soon moved to blowing down unwanted farm silos. This unusual talent gained him recognition far and wide. If there was a silo to come down in southwestern Ontario, Tom got a call.

  He had the reputation of being able to fell a silo within inches of surrounding structures.

  But of all the things Tom blew up, the most famous was certainly the project on Ron Forbes’s farm.

  Ron Forbes actually owned two farms that abutted the same concession. Ron’s problem was that he had a fine silo on the south farm, but needed one on the north farm. He had to haul feed from the south silo to the north farm daily, and this constant trekking back and forth caused a good deal of wear and tear on his equipment. In the fall of 1993, after harvest when things were a little less hectic, Ron met with Tom. They came up with the idea of moving the silo from the south farm to the north farm—a distance of about three-quarters of a mile. And so the adventure began.

  The only way to move this behemoth was to get it onto a sled and tow it across the concession. The first order of business was to ensure that nowhere en route was the elevation greater than eleven degrees—if it was, the silo would tip over. The proposed route met the requirement.

  Next, the silo had to be jacked up, one side at a time. Enough to get a sled constructed under each side, but never more than the determined eleven degrees. The silo had to be cut through about two feet up from the base with a cement saw.

  Tom travelled to a shipyard in Port Dover to get clevises and cable heavy enough to do the job. In conversation with the ship repair people, Tom was advised to put the cable around the silo rather than around the sled—otherwise, the sled was likely to be yanked out from beneath the silo.

  That meant the silo had to be reinforced so that the pulling cable wouldn’t crush it.

  Finally the day came. The cables were attached. The sled was ready. Three bulldozers were fanned out with cables taut. The show was about to begin. Cars were lined up along the road and there was much argument as to whether or not Tom’s plan would work. There was wagering as to if and when the silo would topple over. Tom stationed himself in front of the three bulldozers like the grandmaster of a parade, which, I suppose, in a way he was.

  The actual move was a bit of a letdown as the dozers and silo moved without a hitch. Once it got going the whole procession moved at the pace of a good walk. There was a problem, however, in that there was no base to put the silo on at the destination site. Tom, Ron, and gang had been pretty sure they could pull it off but not sure enough to build the base, so everything stopped twenty feet short of home plate. A cement base was poured, but by the time it was ready it had rained a good deal. It was a muddy mess to move the silo the last twenty feet, but they got it done.

  The silo-moving business is slow; nothing has come up since the big move. I would guess that every time Tom drives by the famous silo he gets a little twinge of satisfaction. As the years have passed by, the silo is no longer in use, so maybe someday Tom will get the call to come blow it down. But I hope it stays standing because it represents what can be done if you’re positive and put your mind to it.

  Woodstock, Ontario

  THE RESCUE

  One beautiful summer morning our dog, Lucky, and I went to check on our horses. The walk took us past our pond. In the summer the pond is surrounded by tall grass, so we often see wildlife. That morning was no exception.

  Lucky had run ahead of me and, as he did, a deer stood up. The deer, which was a doe, stared at the dog and started moving toward it, head down. Clearly it was protecting something. It didn’t take us long to figure out what. A small fawn jumped out from behind her mother and started running in the other direction, away from her mother and toward the pond. The doe, dog, and I watched in amazement as the little fawn dove into the pond headfirst. It didn’t come up for ten or twelve feet. When it finally surfaced it started swimming for the other side of the pond.

  I stood there astonished at how well the fawn could swim. It couldn’t have been more than a few weeks old. But as I watched, I could see that it was getting weak. As the fawn neared my side of the pond I started thinking that I should grab it and pull it out. But as soon as it saw me standing there it panicked and headed back toward its mother on the opposite shore.

  The fawn was now back in the middle of the pond and slowing down. It looked exhausted. When I saw it wasn’t going to make it I started running toward the other shore. The fawn had made it to within ten feet of its mother. But all I could see was the top of its head.

  At this point, what with me running and the dog barking, its mother had run off.

  Without thinking I jumped into the pond and started pulling the fawn out. It wasn’t much bigger than a cat, so it didn’t take much. It was as limp as a dishrag and water was pouring out of its mouth and nose. I let the water drain and quickly put its whole muzzle into my mouth.

  I had no idea what to do next.

  So I blew into its muzzle for two seconds and then let the breath exhale. I did this for about twenty seconds, and all of a sudden one of the fawn’s eyes shot open. It started coughing up water, and when it was done, it looked at me with both eyes. It wasn’t panicked or scared, it just stared at me.

  The fawn didn’t seem to have any strength, but I knew it would be okay. I laid it down, back where it had been with its mother, and curled its body into a sopping wet ball. Its mother was nowhere to be seen, but I knew she wasn’t far away, and she certainly wouldn’t be coming any closer as long as I was on the scene.

  Half an hour later I went back to check. The bed was empty.

  I haven’t seen either of them since.

  Pierrepont, New York

  ON THE SUNNY SIDE OF THE STREET

  I met Wray in the fall of 1998. My husband and I had just moved to Tecumseh, near Windsor, and were settling into our two-bedroom apartment. Wray’s wife, Teddy, the more outgoing of the two, introduced herself to us in the elevator on moving day.

  My husband responded by introducing us.

  “This is my wife, Netty. My name is Brad.”

  “I know,” said Teddy.

  “What floor do you live on?” I asked her.

  “The same one you’re on,” replied Teddy. “My husband, Wray, and I live just down the hall from you.”

  Apparently, news travelled quickly in this apartment building that was home to many seniors. A young couple in their mid-thirties moving into the building had prompted a flurry of excitement amongst the elderly residents.

  “Well,” I promised Teddy, “we’ll have you over for tea once we settle in.”

  A few weeks later, Brad came home with a basket of plums that one of his parishioners had given him. I remembered my promise to Teddy and decided to invite our new neighbours over for tea and plum pie the following day.

  The next afternoon we were sitting in our kitchen, empty dessert plates pushed to the centre of the table and with a second cup of tea in our hands. Conversation flowed freely between Teddy, Brad, and me. However, I was keen on involving Wray. So I began to ask him questions. His answers were limited to one or two words.

  As time passed, I noticed Wray looking at the piano in our living room. I asked him if he played an instrument. At that, Wray’s eyes lit up. He told me about his band, The Wray Chapman Orchestra. For three years, before World War II, Wray and his band played in the Sarnia-Glencoe area. He then left to serve his country as an operating room nurse in a front-line field hospital. After the war, Wray’s love of music never faded. He played with dif
ferent bands in the Windsor area. If he wasn’t playing for audiences, he was playing for family and friends.

  I asked Wray if he’d be interested in getting together occasionally to play. Again, his eyes lit up.

  For the next year, Wray shuffled down the hall once a week to our apartment, music stand in one hand, guitar in the other, and a bundle of sheet music under his arm. I would meet this eighty-two-year-old halfway, taking his music stand in my one hand and his arm in my other. As we made our way back to my apartment, I’d listen to him outline the repertoire for our afternoon session. We would then settle in for the next hour, allowing the music to flow out of our hearts, me on piano and Wray on guitar.

  In 1999 my husband and I purchased a home and left Wray and Teddy at the apartment in Tecumseh. We kept in touch and, over the years, witnessed a decline in Wray’s health. In December 2001 we visited Wray in the hospital before leaving for Montreal, where Brad could complete some courses at Presbyterian College.

  Brad said to me as we left Wray’s hospital room, “You’d better take one more look at your friend—it might be the last time you see him.”

  It was.

  We received a call from Wray’s family a few weeks later. We went home, and on February 20th, Brad assisted at Wray’s memorial service and I played Wray’s and my favourite song, “On the Sunny Side of the Street,” alone.

  It was one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to do.

  Windsor, Ontario

  DISCOVERING DIEPPE

  Recently my fiancée, Lynsay, and I went on a vacation to France. We took the opportunity to visit the beaches of Normandy. Our destination was the city of Dieppe and the Canadian World War II cemetery. Neither Lynsay nor I had lost family there; in fact, between the two of us, only Lynsay’s grandfathers had fought and lived through the war. We’re pretty fortunate, and we know it, which is part of why we felt compelled to visit the cemetery that day.

  We drove into the seaside town and toward the water, expecting the scene of the great military landing to be the logical location of the burial ground. And, sure enough, when we reached the sea, parked the car, and walked up to the rock-filled beaches, we spotted a Canadian flag. A lump formed in my throat.

  “Here we are,” I announced. Unfortunately, what we’d found was a seaside casino with a set of international flags. Where was this world-famous cemetery? we wondered.

  Dieppe is a factory town. Most of the people there felt pretty intimidating for an English-speaking couple from downtown Toronto. But, in our best and admittedly rusty Canadian French, we inquired about the location of the cemetery.

  “Ou est le cimetière des Canadiens?”

  Much to our dismay, none of the locals seemed to know. Most of them kept pointing away from the water and saying something about a nearby town.

  Back in the car, we drove around Dieppe for over two hours, growing increasingly frustrated with each dead end.

  Finally, in the middle of a roundabout, we spotted a small green sign. We followed it and a series of others that led us out of the actual city of Dieppe and into a farming community some miles away. And there, in amongst roaming fields filled with thick, fragrant poppies, lay a small cemetery with a simple stone-arch entrance. We parked at the end of a dead-end country road and walked inside the cemetery.

  We were alone, looking out at rows upon rows of rectangular white monuments—each as straight as a line of soldiers in formation. The grass was freshly trimmed. The grounds smelled of moist greenery. It was like nothing I’d ever experienced. At each grave there was a flower, laid with military precision, yet the decoration was so sublime and fair you’d think the invisible groundskeeper was an artist.

  As we examined each gravestone, Lynsay remarked on the large number of deceased who hailed from her hometown of Hamilton, that most of the men were really just boys, and that most of the deaths had taken place over a three-day period. “There must be a thousand young men buried here,” she said.

  My thoughts were abruptly interrupted by the sound of a woman yelling in French and honking her car horn. I walked to the entrance to find a rugged, middle-aged woman, a local, waving something in her hand.

  As it happens, I must have been so excited to have found the cemetery that when I exited my car I’d dropped, in the middle of the road, my brown leather dossier containing our passports and all our money for our trip—about eight hundred euros. The French woman was honking her horn so that she could return my case.

  As the woman made a hasty retreat to her beat-up, twenty-year-old Peugeot, I called out, “Thank you, thank you! Merci.” She shook her head, looked me in the eye—and then at the graveyard—and said, “Non, non. Merci.” She was pointing at me.

  It took me a moment to realize what she was trying to say.

  After she left, I examined the dossier and saw that the case had been opened, but not a penny or passport was missing. She’d seen that we were Canadian, and although I’m sure that money could have solved a whole bunch of her problems, she felt compelled to return it.

  So, as we discovered, the people of Dieppe haven’t forgotten what some very brave Canadians did, so long ago—they just chose simple gestures of kindness to express their gratitude.

  Toronto, Ontario

  PICNIC, POSTPONED

  This story begins when I started working at the Safeway grocery store in Richmond, British Columbia. I worked in the deli for many years. Over those years I became friends with a sandy-haired, fast-moving customer.

  He always arrived on Saturday morning with a list an arm long. He moved quickly, and was in and out of the store before you knew it, whistling classical music and going his merry way.

  Over the years, we started chatting. He would stop at my deli counter and stay just a bit longer each week.

  I learned that he worked for CP Air. That he had a family of five. And that he lived just around the corner. Our over-the-counter chit-chat became a ritual, and we had some good laughs. He called me his “baloney-salami Saturday psychiatrist.”

  I can’t remember how the idea of a picnic came about, but somehow it did. Every week we would make plans—pretend dates—to meet at places like Garry Point Park. The deal was I would bring the baloney and he would bring the homemade wine. It was all in jest, but it was fun. And each Saturday morning we’d talk about why we had each “forgotten” to show up.

  Sometimes his wife would come with him to the store, and she and I would have a laugh about her husband and me never making our picnic “date.”

  Years went by. And every week we played this game. Once I told him that I couldn’t sell him a barbecue chicken. I said I felt he wasn’t responsible enough to look after a dead bird. He agreed.

  We must have been about the same age—around fifty-five— so I noticed, with concern, when his step became slow and he lost so much weight. I also noticed that he rarely whistled anymore.

  I wanted to ask him, but I knew that wouldn’t be right; he was a customer. His wife started to shop more often. I felt a cloud hanging over both of them. One day when she came in I could see that she was crying. After serving her at the deli I asked my manager if I could take my break. I walked with the man’s wife out to the parking lot. She told me that my “never-to-have-a-picnic friend” was dying of cancer in Richmond Hospital. We hugged and cried.

  Then she looked up at me and said, “You guys never made it to the picnic.”

  I asked her if I could make up a picnic basket for the three of us and bring it to the hospital that night. She agreed. I packed soda crackers, yogurt, and bananas. She’d told me those were the only things he could swallow.

  From her husband’s chit-chat, I knew that her favourite sandwich was Italian salami with Swiss cheese on a kaiser bun. We had wine for the ladies, candles, and a red-and-white-checkered tablecloth.

  The nurse was kind enough to close the room-divider curtains. We had a window looking out on the park. We laughed and cried together as they told me about their children, and the strug
gles of their life.

  After twenty-five years we were finally getting to know each other. We finally got our long-overdue picnic.

  Our time together was short, as my customer grew tired quickly. His sandy hair was gone and the fast-moving body was now almost lifeless. We said our goodbyes. I knew I would never see him again.

  He fought hard, but a few weeks later he could fight no longer.

  I made the sandwich trays for his funeral with fond memories of the times we spent over the counter. It didn’t matter that I didn’t know his name; we knew each other as people. That’s what was important.

  Richmond, British Columbia

  DOGGING SATURN

  My son is a bit of a junior astronomer. He’s got this big, honking telescope that looks like something out of NASA. He pores over sky maps and plots the movement of celestial bodies. A cloudy evening can really bring him down.

  The kid loves space. He talks about space endlessly and uses words I’ve never heard of and concepts I don’t understand. I’m always asked to look at pictures of nebulae and to ponder along with him about things like black holes.

  He likes to show me his finds too, through his telescope. And I like that. I’ve seen the moon in all its phases. There’s something huge about the contrast of light and shadow on the moon that makes you hold your breath for just a second.

  Lately, he’s been dogging Saturn.

  “It’s in our sky now,” he says. More sky maps. More searching. More looking thoughtfully out the windows into the sky. Sometimes I worry that maybe he’s really looking for the planet that he came from. Ian, phone home.

  So, then he needed a compass. South by southeast. That’s where Saturn was. He needs the compass to find his way. When could we get one? Well, he had a day off school and spent all of it helping me in the library where I work. He shelved books and did endless tedious chores on the computer. I figured it was a good day to do something for him, so we went to Mountain Equipment Co-op after work.