LOST in 1953...

"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 That map is out of date" By 20 years.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

 

VICTORIA B.C. in 14 hours.......

 EARLY DAY! Hour 1. Leave Campbell River. Head south along Inland Island Hwy. "HOME" is four hours away.....We've lived in so many places that sometimes it's hard to remember where home actually exists. But Victoria will always be "home"......

 HOUR 1 . Still. Big sky. Approaching Courtenay.

 HOUR 1 1/2. Approaching Discovery Passage Lookout. Are we there yet?

 Are we there now?

 And farms. Lots of farms.

 HOUR 2. Approaching Nanaimo.

 Still HOUR 2. Houses. Way up high in Nanaimo.

 HOUR 3 ( approximate). Crossing Cowichan bridges.

 Arriving in Ladysmith. Take a break.  Are we almost there?

 HOUR 4. Arrive in Langford Lake. Outskirts of Victoria. Friend. Old friend.

 "Each friend represents a world in us, a world possibly not born until they arrive, and it is only by this meeting that  new world is born." (Anais Nin)

 Langford Lake.  Development. Where are all the boats?

 My favourite view of Langford Lake. Stop and stand still.

 HOUR 4 1/2 . Stop to visit. Friend. Old friend.

 "The only way to have a friend is to be one." (Emerson)

 Spend time with loved ones.

 Laugh .Share a chew toy.....

 "It is not the years in your life but the life in your years that counts." (Adlai Stevenson 1879-1881)

 HOUR 5. Time to leave. Push on through the traffic that leads you into Victoria.

 HOUR 6. Arrive at in-laws house. Closed up. Quiet.

 Garden gone  wild. Snakes. Racoons.

 HOUR 6 1/2: Find my mother's antique pottery platter. After 28 years. 
 See the wild in the garden take over.

 Dandelions gone to puff.

 Chamomile  raging .

 Poppies flopping through the garden boxes.

 Ancient tables rusted .

Silent shoes. Silent stairs. All that are left of shadows.
                                   
 Silent street.

 HOUR 7. Find Canada Geese sitting on sand bars. Time for a tour.

 Piano perched at edge of ocean.

 Selfie Stick. Most important.

 Freighter in Gonzales Bay.

 Sailboat.

 People eating lunch. Doing laundry. Hanging out by beach.

 Gonzales Observatory.

 From the hill.

 From the Cliffs.

 From the ocean.

 HOUR 7 1/2: Trial Island.

Beacon Hill Flag in the distance. HOUR 7 is ticking down.

 Sailing around the point.

 Perched at the edge.

 TOURISTS. The ultimate photo op. They come wit their own photographer. What a gig that would be.

 HOUR 8: Kite Flying at Clover Point.

 We used to do that as kids.

 Then head out of town. Douglas Street.

 The old church.My old church. Next time. Stop. GO in. See. Stand still.

 HOUR 9 and 10 . Dinner with friends.  "I think that wherever your journey takes you.....there is patience and laughter." (Susan M. Watkins, 1945-)

 HOUR 11. Head up the Malahat. Back to where you came.

 Take selfie in car. Boy I'd love to take a selfie with the prime minister. It would be a hoot.

 HOUR 12. Into setting sun. Don't squint. Find sunglasses.

 HOUR 12. Watch alien cloud track your car.

 HOUR 13. Watch sun blind  the road.

 HOUR 14. Just home. Then do it all over again.......
"Happiness isn't something you experience, it's something you remember." (Oscar Levant)