"Look at life through the windshield, not the rearview mirror..." -Byrd Baggett
Lost. Hopelessly lost. A late spring day. Rain, last vestiges of snow and wind. Dark clouds opening to blue sky. Lost in 1953 on a road as my father wanted to find a new way to get to the Malahat lookout. The actual Malahat highway used to be a cattle trail in 1861, and was upgraded to a paved road in 1911. My father thought there was a dirt road that would be a short cut.
By 1953 TV dinners would be introduced. My mother had never seen anything like them. She had brought four for later today, wrapped up in foil, hot from the wood stove at home. It had been a mean feat heating them up. But she had done it. Took her two hours to do it , but she managed. And right now they were lost. My mother had told him to turn left at the fence. The map showed a fence. My father said "No no. That map is out of date" By 20 years. "We go right. Up the side road. It will get us to the Malahat." Faster. Easier. Earlier. "Before dark," said my father. My mother sighed and cradled the tv dinners. They were still hot for now. So up the winding road they went. In the new Dodge they had just bought. So proud of it, they were. First ones on their block to a Dodge. Dark green in colour. a big steering wheel and windows that you could wind up. The latest in comfort. Their road turned from snow to mud and back again. Typical spring.The brand spanking new Dodge, spun its wheels. My mother held the TV dinner trays tighter." I told you we should have gone left. But oh no, you HAD to go right," said my mother. My mother wondered if the woodstove had cooled down before she left. It would be the 1960's before she got an electric one. By 1965 the woodstove kicked the bucket. A fire in the flue destroyed half the kitchen, and blackened most of the yellow daffodil wall paper. It remained like that for about a year till she was forced to get a new stove.I remember her hovering over the new electric one, scared to turn it on. She dried underwear and t shirts on the door, rather than cook with it. She boiled water and fried up steaks on a Coleman stove for weeks, till she could bear to turn the knobs on the oven, to bake bread. She never looked back.
But right now in 1953 they were trying to find a way over to the Malahat . With four half warm tv dinners in their foil trays. The lookout was somewhere beyond the trees and rain and snow.They were driving on a logging road and the sun had come out from under the clouds, the snow was further back. Just gravel ahead.They came to a fork in the road. One road looked fairly smooth. the other full of potholes.
My father didn't even hesitate.He took the pothole road, of course. My mother held onto the four tv dinners as the car bumped and sloshed and skidded. Rain stopped pelting on the windshield. Gravel grated under the tires."You're going to break the car," said my mother as she tried to hold the dinners level. The trays contained roast turkey, gravy, cornbread stuffing, sweet potatoes and buttered peas. The peas were trying to make a break for it.My father gripped the steering wheel, as the Dodge grunted and groaned over pothole after pothole."What if we run into a bear? I've heard there are gangsters up here. They have hideouts. " My mother held the trays over her head as the car jolted back and forth. Trees swung in the wind. The car came to a complete crunching stop at the last pothole at the end of the road. They sat there. The smell of turkey dinner wafted up from the foil coverings. My mother glared at my father who busied himself perusing his map. "Ahhhh," he said knowledgeably, " Should have taken the OTHER road." And then there was a loud rapping on the roof. My mother jumped. It was a HUGE man. Enormous man in red flannel carrying a gun. He'd come out of nowhere. But he wasn't wet from the rain. He was dry. "It's an ax murderer!" whispered my mother. Her hands shook as she proctected their dinner.Turns out he wasn't an ax murderer. Just a hunter passing thru. He was huge. Size of a Sasquatch, my mother would later say, scraggly dark beard, huge hat hung low over his heavy brows. He scraped gravel and branches under the wheels to get the car going. And it worked. The Dodge shot over the rocks onto the paved road beyond. My mother wasn't sure how to thank him, so she handed him one of the turkey dinners. He pointed at another one. So she gave him two more. He grunted and vanished into the forest. She was left with one.
Later on , my parents reached the Malahat lookout just at sunset, to share the one turkey dinner left, minus the peas, which had escaped earlier and were now rolling around on the floorboard. No dinner had ever tasted so good .......Photographs 2023
