Whale Summer
December 31st 2006 21:11
Happy New Year everyone! Well here we go again as we make our way through another year, at record pace no doubt. I can’t help but feel optimistic during this time. Something about starting fresh with new beginnings and all that.
As for my reading, I am deep into two very large books and it will be a few weeks before I have anything of interest for you there. Late last year one of my stories was selected for inclusion in an anthology, so with my confidence up, I decided to delve into my short story collection and subject you to something I wrote a few years back. It’s a little too long for one blog, so will post it in installments. Hope you enjoy it. Let me know what you think.
As for my reading, I am deep into two very large books and it will be a few weeks before I have anything of interest for you there. Late last year one of my stories was selected for inclusion in an anthology, so with my confidence up, I decided to delve into my short story collection and subject you to something I wrote a few years back. It’s a little too long for one blog, so will post it in installments. Hope you enjoy it. Let me know what you think.
WHALE SUMMER
Opening your eyes to a brilliant summer morning is always special to a child. Even more so when they are opened to one of the hottest and longest summers you can remember.
And I can still recall everything about that day.
It was already warm by the time I scrambled out of bed, the sun streaming through my window, unchecked by the flimsy silk curtains my mother took such joy in buying. For someone who had shared a bedroom with older brothers until she was eight, I now had an amazingly feminine room.
T-shirt and shorts went on instantly. It saved time and meant you could be ready to go in a millisecond. Not that I had anywhere particular in mind on that morning. We were actually bidding farewell to one of those rare Canadian summers that seem to hold on well into September. The holidays were nearly over. My girlfriend, Joanne was due back from down island any day now. Everyone was winding down their summer activities. Our family had already experienced and returned from our annual camping trip to the lake, so now it was just a matter of enjoying those last few days of freedom. Freedom from school, and the biting autumn winds that were sure to come howling in from the north all too soon.
The house was quiet except for the friendly sound of the overworked washing machine that was my mother’s dancing partner for most of my childhood days. Sometimes I felt she wasn’t complete unless she was standing in front of some form of cleaning machine! So I wandered through, grabbing an apple on the way, being drawn magnetically to more interesting sounds coming from our garage. There, I found my father in his unhurried and easy manner going through the motions of preparing for a day of fishing. Tackle boxes, rods, nets, petrol, all being distributed around our runabout, which was already on the trailer and hooked to his old red pick-up. Leaning on the banister of the porch I said a most intelligent thing -
“Whatcha doin’ Dad?” Munch
“Goin’ fishing.” Was the reply.
“Where are the boys? They goin’?” Munch munch.
“Don’t know where they are. Gone when I got up. Wanna come?”
I can’t say I agonized over my answer. I had been fishing with my father, and family, many times and I would be lying if I said it was my favourite pass-time. I was twelve years old, about to go into high school and probably should have been more concerned about saddling myself with my father all day in a small runabout, but I suppose all those hang-ups had not yet set in and I simply said “Sure.”
Dad was very unfazed about the fact that his sons had better things to do. They had all obviously taken off to girlfriends, baseball fields or where ever the general hangout was at the time. I had three older brothers who were all swiftly growing to an age where this sort of past-time was not a major priority. And all though my father was quite aware that I was a girl, I’m sure it never dawned on him that I would want to do anything different to the boys. Actually, at that point it had probably never dawned on me either!
So it came to be that summer morning that my father and I were bumping along the spit road in the pickup, boat bouncing behind us, dust and gravel spraying past our open windows. Dad whistling some long remembered tune with his arm resting on the open window, permanently tanned from its constant exposure to that position. As we drove, I remember seeing the local reservation kids playing in the open fields, scrawny dogs running and jumping amongst them, the sun shining on their backs.
There forever seemed to be Indian children playing in these fields, whenever I came out here with Dad, which had been quite often that summer for various reasons. It was as though they were spirits, conjured up for my entertainment as soon as we rounded the corner.
Free and light hearted spirits.
Things were as they always were.
There was nothing that would warn us of what was to happen to me that day. And it was to be a day I would never forget.
Opening your eyes to a brilliant summer morning is always special to a child. Even more so when they are opened to one of the hottest and longest summers you can remember.
And I can still recall everything about that day.
It was already warm by the time I scrambled out of bed, the sun streaming through my window, unchecked by the flimsy silk curtains my mother took such joy in buying. For someone who had shared a bedroom with older brothers until she was eight, I now had an amazingly feminine room.
T-shirt and shorts went on instantly. It saved time and meant you could be ready to go in a millisecond. Not that I had anywhere particular in mind on that morning. We were actually bidding farewell to one of those rare Canadian summers that seem to hold on well into September. The holidays were nearly over. My girlfriend, Joanne was due back from down island any day now. Everyone was winding down their summer activities. Our family had already experienced and returned from our annual camping trip to the lake, so now it was just a matter of enjoying those last few days of freedom. Freedom from school, and the biting autumn winds that were sure to come howling in from the north all too soon.
The house was quiet except for the friendly sound of the overworked washing machine that was my mother’s dancing partner for most of my childhood days. Sometimes I felt she wasn’t complete unless she was standing in front of some form of cleaning machine! So I wandered through, grabbing an apple on the way, being drawn magnetically to more interesting sounds coming from our garage. There, I found my father in his unhurried and easy manner going through the motions of preparing for a day of fishing. Tackle boxes, rods, nets, petrol, all being distributed around our runabout, which was already on the trailer and hooked to his old red pick-up. Leaning on the banister of the porch I said a most intelligent thing -
“Whatcha doin’ Dad?” Munch
“Goin’ fishing.” Was the reply.
“Where are the boys? They goin’?” Munch munch.
“Don’t know where they are. Gone when I got up. Wanna come?”
I can’t say I agonized over my answer. I had been fishing with my father, and family, many times and I would be lying if I said it was my favourite pass-time. I was twelve years old, about to go into high school and probably should have been more concerned about saddling myself with my father all day in a small runabout, but I suppose all those hang-ups had not yet set in and I simply said “Sure.”
Dad was very unfazed about the fact that his sons had better things to do. They had all obviously taken off to girlfriends, baseball fields or where ever the general hangout was at the time. I had three older brothers who were all swiftly growing to an age where this sort of past-time was not a major priority. And all though my father was quite aware that I was a girl, I’m sure it never dawned on him that I would want to do anything different to the boys. Actually, at that point it had probably never dawned on me either!
So it came to be that summer morning that my father and I were bumping along the spit road in the pickup, boat bouncing behind us, dust and gravel spraying past our open windows. Dad whistling some long remembered tune with his arm resting on the open window, permanently tanned from its constant exposure to that position. As we drove, I remember seeing the local reservation kids playing in the open fields, scrawny dogs running and jumping amongst them, the sun shining on their backs.
There forever seemed to be Indian children playing in these fields, whenever I came out here with Dad, which had been quite often that summer for various reasons. It was as though they were spirits, conjured up for my entertainment as soon as we rounded the corner.
Free and light hearted spirits.
Things were as they always were.
There was nothing that would warn us of what was to happen to me that day. And it was to be a day I would never forget.
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