Canada XV - Dreams

     Fifteen minutes up the new road Emil began, "When I hit this stretch it always seems like The Pas should be no more than a couple of minutes away.  But it's not.  The world's a lot bigger up here.  Hours between towns.  Even on a main road like this one, it can be a long stretch between buildings.  Almost as far as between me and the truth.  Take a peek to the left, off in the woods a bit.  That steel track and the power line are about the only signs of civilization.  Unless you include the asphalt we're passing over.  And the car we're in.  And all the stuff inside."
     Emil paused, "I was going somewhere with that wilderness thought but I seem to have ambushed myself."
     "I've been thinking a lot since Lena passed.  Most of it has to do with where I'm going from now 'til I'm pushing up daisies.  One thing's for sure, I don't see me getting married again.  No sir.  Did that and did that well.  And I don't see Parkers Prairie in my future either.  Time to move on.  Someplace farther north.  Place with pine trees, rocks and water.  Kind of like what we're passing through but not so far from the civilized world."
     "There's a coupla three spots I've been thinking of.  One's along the Stump River up near the Canadian border.  Of course having the name Stump doesn't make a river sound like much more than a snake infested bayou that once had trees.  But it's not by a long shot.  Over the last few miles the Stump turns from slow and wide to a regular Rocky Mountain type stream.  The kind of rivers called freestone for a good reason.  Rapids, water falls, dead fall, the whole nine yards.  And it's way the heck off any kind of beaten path.  Off a side road, off another side road, off the Arrowhead Trail.  And the Trail isn't all that much to begin with.  Once back in there I'd still have to cut a driveway."
     "Most everything about it screams boonies.  Which it is.  Build a place there and I'd have access to the lakes of the roadless area all along the border.  But come snowfall and snowfall comes early and hard up in the deep Arrowhead, any idea of traveling by motor vehicle would be long gone.  Wintering up there would be a challenge.  Ten cords of firewood and quarter ton of food problem.  Screw up and the hospital down in Grand Marais might as well be on the other side of the planet."
    "The Stump's pretty much what I'm looking for in a stream.  There's trout in it as the river tumbles toward the border, brook trout.  You see, this old dog is thinking of learning a new trick.  Spent my life fishing pike and bass, walleye when they were friendly.  But now I figure it's time to learn trout.  Stream trout.  Fly rod some small floating flies and maybe fool a few brookies."
     "I've called myself a fly fisherman for a couple of decades but am I?  Don't know.  I can throw twenty yards of line.  Buggy whip it to fish that aren't all that hard to fool.  But trout?  That's a whole 'nuther ballgame.  Up in the Arrowhead most of the streams are forest and brush choked.  Not much call for a long cast.  Trout there need a delicate, accurate presentation.  Won't look twice at something called a cast.  Don't know if that's because they're so finicky about what they'll eat or they're just arrogant little boogers that'll make you jump through hoops and wear the right brand of hat just so Orvis can stay in business."
     "Guess it doesn't really matter.  If you wanna catch 'em, you've got to play their game.  Not so much different than the rest of life.  I suppose a man could say nearly anything is like life and not be far wrong.  Lookin' for four leaf clovers is a lot like life.  Mostly a waste of time and after a while my back hurts.  Like I said, nearly anything."

Canada XIV - Fessin' Up

     Uncle Emil asked me if I liked to read.  Well, I did and said so.
     "So, what exactly do you read?"
     That was a stumper.  Actually I tried to read a bunch of things but little held my interest for long.  There seemed to be a lot of stuff for little kids and for adults, not squat for us betweeners.
     I did read some science fiction though most of it was so badly written even a kid like me could see the lack of reality in it.  But I did like Robert Heinlien, Jules Verne and H. G. Wells.  Emil seemed to think they were okay.
     I went on, "Two years ago The Hardy Boys took our school by storm.  Everyone was reading the mysteries and passing them around.  I read one, then got halfway through another.  That was it.  They were so predictable Uncle Emil, by then I could have written them myself."
     Emil nodded, "Isn't that the truth about a lot of it.  Seems you're already onto the notion most of what's published is a waste of good trees.  As for me, it's a struggle finding the good reads.  I like Steinbeck.  Not all of it but there's usually enough meat in his good ones to get me thinking.  Hemingway, not so much.  Some of the Russians, long-winded but okay.  Someday if you get the notion, try another Hardy by the name of Thomas.  Had a thing for the German writer Thomas Mann for a while.  You're old enough, try Conrad.  Takes a few pages to get into the swing of his style but it's worth the effort.  And one of the new guys, James Jones or John Updike.  Reading something worthwhile takes effort.  Slow down, read  and understand all the words.  When you get the drift, let it take you to that other world inside the page."
     Now that was a side of Emil I never saw coming.  For sure he had his weird side and his jokes.  But, someone who took literature seriously?  Food for thought.
     I sat there watching the tree parade for a minute.  Then it dawned on me.  He was always saying something funny but Emil never told jokes like the ones older guys usually told.  Such as 'three guys walk into a bar...'.  Something would grab him, something that was said, a sign at the side of the road, most anything and that would get his mind going.  Off on a tangent.  A bee line directly into the gray areas of life where pain, tragedy and tear-streaming laughter meet.  His humor was always of the moment, made up on the spot.  Strangely enough, if you gave it some thought, there was usually a message hidden within or, at the least, a grain of truth.  Uncle Emil saw life as a straight line waiting for him to add a measure of spice.
   

Canada XIII - One Thing Leads to Another (It Always Does)

     The joy lasted but a minute or two before I returned to the land of the dead-headed.  Not that I wasn't enjoying where we were.  It was more like I was sung to sleep by the hum of tires on asphalt while being rocked in the arms of spruce and pine.  Time on the road drew me inward to wander around in another world.  Did then, does now.  Sometimes a future filled with hope, at others, the past with it's should have dones mixed with a helping of happy memories.
     Seemed the same thing was happening to Uncle Emil.  Only his thoughts were sneaking out of his mouth just loud enough for me to hear.  At least I think they were.  Might have been dreaming but I don't think so.
     "Don't think I'll ever pass though a day without Lena being in the seat next to me or across the table with a cup of coffee.  A man can't live and love someone that long without her becoming a part of him.  She was the only woman I ever really loved.  The only one I wanted to love."
     "We weren't always together.  No, the War and my pig-headedness saw to that.  Of course I could have avoided being a part of the Army had I wanted.  I was way too old for the draft.  Not many men my age, at least those who weren't career military, took part.  In fact, I was so darned old they wanted to make me an officer right off the bat.  Or maybe lock me up in the looney bin.  But that wasn't me.  Never minded working with people.  Didn't even mind taking charge of a group so long as it was a mutual decision.  But there was just something about having brass on my shoulders that wouldn't have set right."
     "I volunteered for the draft on New Year's Eve of '43.  Lena was okay with it even though she was none too happy.  I'd wanted to enlist in the infantry but she wasn't having any part of that.  Said I'd come home in a box with a flag on top.  By volunteering for the draft I let the Army make up my mind for me.  Joke was on us.  They made me a medic."
     Emil paused, stubbed his cigarette butt in the ash tray, "I suppose you're wondering how I passed the induction physical?"
     I wasn't.  Didn't even know what an induction physical was.  But I did know Emil had his glass eye back then and even the Army wouldn't be so hard up as to take a one-eyed man.  At least I didn't think they would.
     "It was warm body time in the middle of the war.  Down in the cities they were cramming future soldiers through as fast as they could get them to spread their cheeks.  Didn't know Sam from Jack.  About all they did was peer in every hole, whack a prime grade on your backside and send you on.  Had a buddy of mine take the physical for me.  Simple as pie."
     About then we came up on a tee in the road and hung a right.
     "Won't be long now and we'll catch us some lunch.  Hope you like brown gravy on your pickles."

Canada XII - A Death in the Family

     I've been considering this for a couple of days and have decided to do away with Aunt Lena.  She was a wonderful woman in many ways but didn't figure into Uncle Emil's future, at least as far as this blog goes.  Requiescat in pace Aunt Lena.  Her demise was sudden, peaceful and unexpected.  She passed in her sleep.  Unfortunately, she was at the wheel of her '56 Buick Roadmaster at the time.  Fortunately, the high school gym was empty when she passed through and exited its two brick walls.  The pommel horse was repairable.  As was the Buick's cracked high beam.

Canada XI - The Dawn

     We'd passed the three or four creeks necessary to reach our turn.  Uncle Emil wasn't sure which number was right but he was positive if we missed our turn there wouldn't be another chance to hang a left for two hundred miles.  Two hundred miles?  That's a long way for a city kid like me who knew the next turn was only a minute away by bike.

     Turned out it was four.  While we headed west, the land rose.  Not a lot but thankfully we left the swamp behind.  And any kind of view.  Trees to the left of us and more of the same to the right.  Here and there a crumbling sand and gravel outcrop.  My uncle had me pull out the road map just to see what we were missing on the other side of the forest.  I looked at the map and found a pair of huge lakes to our south, no more than a mile or two away.  So close we could have smelled them.  I looked out the window.  Trees.  

     "The map isn't lying is it Uncle Emil?"

     "I doubt it.  But it might be.  I've been on this road before and what you're seeing now is exactly what I've seen.  Spruce and jack pine.  Probably better there's nothing much to see I suppose.  The way this track curves I'd be a dead man for sure.  There's no way I could keep my eyes off any piece of water wondering what the fishing might be like.  One second I'd be down below in my mental boat reeling in a yard long walleye, next second I'd be flying through the evergreens reviewing my life as it flashed by."

     A minute passed.  "What about that sunset last night?  Are all of them like that up here?" 

     "Nope, but not a one of them can hide when you're camped out on a lake.  One thing you've got to sit up and take notice of, sunsets are like rainbows.  When the sun goes down and there's an open sky with a half dozen popcorn clouds to catch the light you'll see every color of the rainbow, top to bottom and bottom to top.  On the clouds and in the sky, everywhere.  Not only that but you'll even see a couple of colors that don't exist.  And there's no way you can see them since they're out of the visual spectrum.  But you will.  And the next morning you'll forget them like they'd never been there.  But if you dream in color, they'll come back.  It's a Canadian boonies thing.  Doesn't happen down in the States.  And if it did, some booger in Washington would make both those imaginary colors illegal and people would go to jail for trying to smuggle them over the border.  Of course I'm exaggerating but not about the colors, they're there alright."
     Uncle Emil paused, fired up his Zippo, lit another cigarette and popped his inhale.
     "With a little luck we might see Northern Lights.  Not like they'll be come fall or winter but just maybe.  They're the ghosts in the heavens above put there to protect us and bring good fishing.  Can't say for sure that's true but I do like the sound of it."
     "Me too."
     The idea of good fishing and camping in the wilderness was beginning to grow on me.  The thought  of huge fish was starting to give me the tingles.  Just because you're physically in a place doesn't mean you're aware of where you are.  Sometimes it takes a while to catch up to reality.  As we continued west I began to open up to the possibility of what was waiting up the road.  And realize where we were, how far we'd come and what those lakes we were driving toward might be like.  Wow!  Light bulb time.  Finally dawned on me this was really happening.  We were on our way to one of those places I'd only read and daydreamed about.  Only it was really happening to the two of us sitting up there in the front seat of the Nomad.
      "Uncle Emil.  Thanks for taking me on this trip."
      "My pleasure.  Archie me lad, it wouldn't be the same without you."

Canada X - Terror II

     The skeeter hunt went on for ten minutes.  Can't say it did any good 'cause it turned out there'd been dozens in hiding, biding their time 'til we were hunkered into our war surplus sleeping bags.

     I figured there must have been some kind of powwow down in the heater vents where the mosquitoes decided to infiltrate our ranks one at a time.  No matter how many I killed, a minute later there was another buzzing up and climbing in my ear.  

     Worst part was when it got dark.  What I couldn't see was more than made up by what I could hear.  I never thought anything so small could be that loud.  Bet they could be heard all the way to Winnipeg.

     Oddly enough, come morning my face was way more welted from my own slapping than from mosquito bites.  And Emil slept through it all like a baby (outside of his snoring that is).  Good thing he was driving 'cause about the only sleep I found came once the sun was up and we were back on the road.

     Oh yeah, the terror.  That was outside.  And roaring.  My uncle said it was nothing more than about a hundred billion mosquitoes trying to bust their way inside the car so they could suck us dry, eat our flesh and drain the marrow out of our bones.  He said on his first trip to the far north the skeeters ate the paint right off his old Nash Rambler.  Even the white on his white sidewalls was gone.  

     He asked if I ever heard of the ants down in South America that could gnaw their way through thousands of acres of rainforest.  Bushes, trees, monkeys, dirt, everything.  Or the clouds of locusts that'd scarfed down half the prairie back in the nineteenth century.  'Course I hadn't but said yes anyhow just to keep the conversation going. 

     "Well, let me tell you, they're nothing compared to what's outside the Nomad at this very moment. And it's fools like us that're stupid enough to be spending the night in the kitchen of death that gets them so riled up.  They feel us, see us, maybe smell us.  Who knows?  I'm not sure exactly why but somehow or other it's all tied up with bug sex.  There's a life lesson in there somewhere.  Not sure where.  I'll let you figure out that out by yourself.  Also, should you feel the car rocking in the middle of the night, don't fret, it's just the skeeters trying to break in.  In the meantime, sleep tight and don't let, well, you know the rest."
     Laid there for a few minutes listening to the outside noises before falling asleep.  Then drifted into the world of my thoughts.  Night was the time when the barriers came down.  In the dark there was no way for me to hide from myself.  You see I'd been raised a Catholic and spent the last six years in parochial schools, guided to an appreciation of guilt by a handful of nuns.  It'd been hard for me to play by the rules.  Those rules being to not sin and should I sin, go to confession for absolution.  Easy enough.  But there were so many rules.  And the odds on following each and every one of them was so slim as to be impossible.  About the same as the odds of me going to confession.  Caught between the devil and the deep blue sea.  Long story short, I worried a lot about going to hell.  And eternity seemed a long time to be in any kind of pain.  A real long time.  I could say a lot more but won't.  Just that sometimes in the dark, alone in my bed, I used to sweat bullets over nothing more consequential than my thoughts.  But that night it helped to be sleeping beside my uncle.  He seemed at peace with himself as a man.  Maybe someday I would too.

Canada IX - Terror

     It's a good thing it wasn't warm out.  Sleeping in the Nomad with the windows down would have been a killer. As it was we worked up a sweat just moving the gear but cleared the whole back end.  What didn't fit in the front was put in the boat.
     It was outside, in the open air where I got my first taste of the Canadian wilderness.  I think they call places wildernesses when there's a good chance you could be dragged off and eaten by something.  In my innocent, pea brain that meant bears or wolves.  Taking a leak on the edge of the clearing I learned it wasn't the big animals I had to worry about.  It was the little ones.  The flies and the skeeters.  Especially when you had your barn door down and your willie out.  When the stream's flowing there's no running away from the little critters if you want to stay dry.  And remaining still 'til you're done letting go isn't easy when you're a bald chinned kid whose grown a beard of the tiny suckers doing their best to drain me white.  Keep calm boy, time to learn some meditation and self control.
     Back in the car, the two of us went on what I came to know in later years as a search and destroy mission.  While we swatted away I could see this wasn't the first time Emil had slept in the Nomad while on a fishing trip.  Not that he said it aloud but here and there I noticed tiny blood stains browning away on the walls and ceiling fabric.  Tiny grave markers of days gone by.  Rest in peace little villains.