For the Love of Dirt

When I was eleven, in 1972, my mother's brother, Bill, spent the long winters with us. He drove his camper over 1700 kms, (about 16 hours), from Bethune, Saskatchewan, to Victoria , B.C. stopping at Hell’s Gate to get me a sweatshirt ( nowwe call them hoodies). Thanksgiving weekend he’d suddenly appear. As soon as he arrived ,my mother put on his favourite record, “Sons of the Pioneer”, then boil a pot of coffee on the old wood stove. I can still see the embers coaxing the pot to bubble.

My uncle had brought that very wood stove from the farm, years before, when my dad was still alive. The flames still cooked sizzled. Most days. The bottom was not stable and ashes fell here and there. It was a dinosaur.

Bill always showed up, second week in October. My mother greeted him in the driveway, waving a dish towel at him, telling him not to drive into her old Dodge. He’d yell at her to stop caterwauling. I can still see her standing with her hands on her hips, tapping her foot, while he backed into the driveway.

Once in the kitchen he’d drop a frozen goose on the table. Years before he went hunting with his friends and had tons of "stuff" in the farm freezer. My job was to take the frozen ball of goose over to our neighbour. Every year they got a goose from Bill, for their thanksgiving dinner. They always sent back a tin of beef jerky.

Over the next four months Bill lived downstairs, where mum stoked the Franklin stove with dry wood she’d chopped herself. She was pretty independent and pretty good with that ax. She'd swing it around her head and it would crash down on chunks of wood.

Bill had an old suitcase full of James Bond books, a couple of pipes with tobacco, and a bag of raw garlic. He used to spend afternoons downstairs, smoking cigars and chewing on raw garlic. By Christmas time, he had read all the books he brought. Then he’d walk downtown and buy more books from the local store. Thirty years later , they were still there, stacked in a box downstairs, when the house sold. I gave some of them to the local away, kept the rest for years.

His pipe smoke, laced with garlic wafted thru our house. My mother scolded him . He would just chuckle.When February rolled around, we’d find Bill standing out on our front steps after breakfast. He’d watch the skies daily, until one day, when it felt right, he’d announce it was time for him to go home. To Bethune. Till next year.

Those four months he was here, my mother was a cooking machine. Full breakfasts of fresh scones ,slathered with warm butter, and honey, huge fatty rashers of bacon or sausages, with two or three over easy eggs, sprinkled liberally with pepper. Some days there were hash browns charred in the iron skillet. The old stove loved to work its magic, and the fire roared and squealed with delight, as it kept the kitchen toasty warm.

With “Sons of the Pioneer” playing in the background , my mother and my uncle argued over politics, remembered old friends , and sang along, tunelessly with the record. Meanwhile, the old stove chugged along as much coffee and tea it could cough up.

That stove burned night and day in winter. Like her parents kept it, on the farm, years before.

Thanksgiving 1972, my mother cooked a 30 pound turkey in the old wood stove.She had trouble shoving it in and closing the old door. Mostly, cause it was so stuffed with apples and bread. Stirring the fire to greater heights, boiled cranberries were stirred with home made apple sauce, mashed potatoes with turnips followed. Then buttered peas, carrots, creamed corn from a can, pumpkin pie made with evaporated milk, like my grandmother used to do. My thrifty, resourceful mother noted in her housekeeping book, the meal cost 30$. Pretty good. Since it had to last the entire week.

It was the last meal the old wood stove could handle. It literally fell apart, after the pie was wrenched from its bowels. Ancient oven door hinges crumbled. It fell silent. Ashes everywhere. The coffee pot fell silent.

Bill bought us a new electric oven with burners. I can’t remember exactly when , but not long after. He carted away the old stove to the dump. My mother was a little fearful of the new fangled stove, till Bill showed her how to boil coffee on the front burner. She missed chopping wood for the stove. Over the next winters, when he came, Bill shingled the roof, mended the old cabin out at Sooke, built a fence, cut down dead trees and made beach chairs out of the wood. He took me down to the ocean to see the waves pound on the rocks. He made sure things were taken care of, before spring.

After Christmas he’d sit by the fire in the living room, reading James Bond, Dickens, the Almanac. “Sons of the Pioneer” played every night. He was allowed to smoke his pipe and chew garlic upstairs by the New Year. When he left in February, we sent him home with a tape of “Sons of the Pioneer” for his truck.

I saw Bill, for the last time, in 1988, on the Bethune farm, in the autumn, when the sun was warm, and fields were golden. He fed us boiled beef dinner, and apple pie he got at the corner store. We ate outside on the old porch, in the twilight of the prairies. Best meal ever. Best place ever. Peaceful. Wonderful.

He said he was sure glad we came by to stay for a few days. We almost didn’t stop on our cross Canada trip. Best thing we ever did. He took us to the lake where we paddled a canoe, ate sandwiches on the shore, while he smoked his pipe on the rocks with the water lapping at his feet. We picked vegetables in the old slough. He cooked them on the old wood stove in the cabin. Coffee burbled in its pot over the fire ....

A few years later, he passed away, leaving part of the farm, and the slough , to Ducks Unlimited. It returned to its natural state over the years. Just like he wanted.

He was a quiet , thoughtful man. He was there, when we needed him, without fanfare, after my father died . He was a Giant to those who knew him……..we buried his ashes amongst the poppies , on the farm, with good friends near.

I hope the poppies are still growing wild there, in the wind, in the golden grass, all these years later. I hope the scattered ashes of the old stove, now silent, swept into the wind, remember him as well....

Photographs 2024