How I Spent My Summer Holidays

On By Mike LalondeLeave a comment

 

Packing two families on a rental houseboat the size of a port-a-potty wasn’t going to be easy. The last time I tried anything like that was as a student in the 70’s. A bunch of us tried to sneak into the drive-in to see Jaws for free. We packed into a car with some of us in the trunk. Try seeing if you can make your ankles meet your ears. By the time they pried me out of my tomb in the back, I had to be unfolded like a piece of Egyptian parchment.

Fast forward to the nineties and watch history repeat itself. I’m with my wife Fran and our 11 year-old, Amy, and we’re racing west along the TransCanada from Calgary to Sicamous. In the Shuswap language Sicamous means ‘the place where the houseboats gather’. We’re racing because John, his wife, and their two kids are waiting. He is staring at his watch at this very moment wondering if we’ve been abducted by aliens. We’re supposed to be there now so our two families could learn how to maneuver the houseboat.

John is the most uptight guy I’ve ever known. That’s why we are white-knuckling it (as much as a twenty-year-old Volvo will allow). He’s told us a dozen times to arrive early so we can all learn to take turns being skippers on the big girl.

On our arrival we slam on the brakes and run down the wharf to start our lessons. He greets us on the stern. That’s the back of the boat. I’m convinced it’s called that to confuse us people from the prairies. John sits relaxed and salutes us with a can of coke. No nasty look. No snide remark. He seems to operate on the principle that the more stressed everyone else is, the less stressed he becomes.

“I’ve had the lesson, he says, “and only one person needs to do the actual driving. So we’re good to go.”

Great, I think, if he had only made that clear from the start, it wouldn’t have felt like being in the Le Mans to get here.

The moment we set out on the narrow Sicamous channel that leads into Shuswap Lake, John must maneuver past a bridge. I have a foreboding feeling, like the time I got called to the principal’s office. The conversation went something like this.

“So, what brings you here young man?” Mr. Harrison asked.

“I’ve been wrongfully accused of smuggling books out of the library.”

“Is that so?”

“Yes. No one’s actually caught me with one sir.”

“Then you’re here because?”

“Like I said. Other kids are lying, saying I’m jacking books.”

The conversation went round and round until he said he had more important matters and he’d deal with me later, which he didn’t.

Now to the present. We brace ourselves to take the houseboat beneath the bridge, John’s hands leap from the steering wheel like he’s received a jolt of electricity and his kids run for cover, followed by our little Amy.

“What’s wrong?” we shout.

“I can’t control this.” He begins to shake, perspire, and pace. “The steering is gone.”

When we begin to shake, perspire, and pace, it’s as if the kryptonite has been removed and superman is back to his old self. He commandeers us safely beneath the bridge and into the welcoming expanse of the Shuswap. We travel for hours until we find one, a suitable beach to slide up on, much like how the landing crafts that stormed the beaches of Normandy did it. Only with him at the helm, it is more dangerous.

The flat-bottomed feature of the houseboat allows for a 90˚angle slide onto to the beach. John acts like any deviation would be as catastrophic as a space shuttle on reentry, you become a flaming marshmallow or you’re bounced off the atmosphere to Jupiter. He begins to shake and perspire, but when he turns and sees us doing likewise, he jettisons caution and we arrive safely ashore. Fran and I assist in establishing a beachhead by securing the boat to nearby trees with rope.

Where are the children during this commotion you ask? Good question because in all the fretting about crashing the boat into the shore, we’re not sure. They seep out of the cracks like cockroaches as John’s blood pressure returns to 115 over 75. His kids are pale as ghosts because they’ve seen their dad in action but our Amy is beaming for she loves the spontaneity of their games of hide-and-seek.

Just before you imagine we all have supper and settle down to a roaring campfire on the beach singing kumbaya-think again. Did I say the Shuswap is sweltering in summer? It’s an alliterative fact. After a long walk on the beach seeing a million round rocks Swiss families Robinson return to the boat. John’s wife cranks up the AC as I power up the refrigerator and get the icemaker going for cocktails. Fran has the compressor working to blow up the dinghy, while the kids are listening to music. John is in the shower washing off what’s left of the bucket of sweat excreted by jittery nerves.

You probably know where this is headed. We lose all power. The boat’s stereo dies. The AC cuts out and several lights flicker. Then all is silent, like those war movies where the submarine is submerged and everyone is waiting for the depth charges from above, waiting for someone to crack.

“ARRRRGGGGHHH,” John screams. He emerges sopping wet blaming his wife for his predicament of course.

We manage to use a nearby houseboat’s radio, and within the hour Andy the troubleshooting guy comes to the rescue. After reengaging the breaker and admonishing us about running everything at once, Andy guides his boat back into the blackness. You’d think we’d all settle down to a night of blissful sleep.

Think again.

First we have to decide who sleeps where. The penthouse sleeping area goes to their kids. That’s a no brainer because you have to climb a ladder to get to it. And as they will be separated from the adults, their late night chatter will not disturb us. Amy will sleep next to the adults on the sofa that makes into a bed. Call it practical but it’s cramped; there’s no two ways about it. That leaves the two remaining staterooms for the adults. You can hear a mouse’s heartbeat through the common wall. On that note, have a pleasant sleep.

The next day I am reading on the shore when the kids return from beachcombing. The moms are fixing lunch and John is nearby on the houseboat rearranging deck furniture for the 17th time. I have pure gold in my hands. It’s a copy of W.O. Mitchell’s How I Spent My Summer Holidays. It is wet your pants kind of humour. I decide to read some to the kids. I’m at the funniest part of the book, where Musgrave’s grandpa nearly gets blown up by three sticks of dynamite while he’s sitting in the outhouse. A fencepost would find this funny. So that’s why I’m wondering why John, who is within earshot, has now taken to sweeping off the deck yet again this morning.

“Yep. Hate to see a poorly functioning head,” says Andy on the third day, and he’s not talking about any hangover we might be nursing. You see, we have a flushing problem with the head. The ‘head’ is another one of those nautical terms that we prairie people find confusing. They could call it something familiar to everyone, like the can or the john. But the ‘head’? I don’t want to know how they came up with that part of the anatomy for its name. By the time Andy’s finished installing the new pump, we’ve come to appreciate the man. In spite of his professed humble beginnings, and after facing much adversity along the way, Andy managed to fight the odds, and is now leading an incredibly ordinary life.

As we wave Andy off, I’m beginning to wonder if we should have spent more on a newer, bigger houseboat like the behemoth going past us now. It’s the size of two football fields. This spectacle has more decks than Rob Ford had apologies and it has a tube slide whose top is obscured in the clouds. Through one window on the main deck I see a boardroom and people videoconferencing, and I’m thinking this craft is perfect for those intimate corporate getaways for say, 300 employees. If Noah had rented one of these bad boys, the ship’s manifest would surely not have been limited to two of each species. Our little camper on a barge sways violently in its wake but I’m consoled thinking at least our rental has not cost us the equivalent of the national debt of Albania.

On our final day we are returning to port. The food is spent so we will have lunch after we drop off the boat before driving home. In the meantime, we’ll reminisce over the past four days, make light of the many misadventures. Coffee has finished brewing. That’s when John’s wife announces that after one of Andy’s last visits someone forgot to plug the fridge back in. John always has cream with his coffee and now that cream has gone bad. As the first rumblings begin, the kids scatter and the adults brace themselves. His bellyaching sounds like he’s having his spleen removed by Vlad the Impaler (I’ve never cared for cream in my coffee since).

We are at the dock an hour later and we wearily make our way to the parking lot. John begins loading up his van while we toss stuff in our car. But when we are set to leave, the twenty-year-old starter quits and we are stuck. Despite all that befell us this week, John does something truly amazing. It is Sunday and any mechanic worth his salt is in church or fishing. We’ll have to wait until Monday.

After our week with John, you make a lot of assumptions. But just when you are at the end of the rope and you think the guy doesn’t have a good bone in his body, think again. He checks his watch. He looks back at his van. There’s room to squeeze us in so we can get lunch too, and maybe help us to find a motel before John returns home. He checks the time again and then looks at us. And with a self-assured nod he says, “Can’t help you.”

As he drives away, the town seems to close in on us. We’re six hours away from home and feeling alone. That foreboding feeling returns and I’m back in the principal’s office. As if by some wondrous means, I feel that I can change the course of the future, get out of the present predicament. I only have to fess up to the principal. By making amends, I can right a wrong, and maybe that starter will miraculously work.

“Then you’re here because?” the principal asks.

“Actually sir, I did remove a copy of Boy Enters Manhood and I’ll return it. While I’m at it, I’m returning Girl Enters Womanhood which I apologize in advance for its dog-eared condition.

A Fish Called Romeo

On By Mike Lalonde4 Comments

“Let me tell you a story.”

Words cast, like verbal bait, reel in listeners in disparate times and circumstances.

Be it the co-worker who gathers an audience round the proverbial water cooler. Or a public speaker that deviates from the intended trajectory, as was the case at a recent talk where renowned naturalist and painter Robert Bateman, related an encounter with Margaret Atwood.

It went something like this.

“I probably shouldn’t be telling you this story,” he said, and the audience went for the hook. “Years ago in an Ontario forest,” Bateman continued, “ I was with my group of birders when we encountered another birding group led by Pierre Berton. I noticed a woman among them off to one side, who resembled Margaret Atwood. So I strolled over and asked her if she was Margaret Atwood. She replied, ‘I am not Margaret Atwood today.’ And as she walked away, she called over her shoulder, ‘I’ll be her on Monday—maybe.’” Bateman’s audience laughed, and with the bait taken, he reeled them in with the rest of his talk.

In junior high I had this one Health class teacher. I don’t remember much of what Mr. Harrison actually taught us, but I do remember the stories. Like the time he brought in some teen magazine (Was his lesson plan devised somewhere between the school library and our class?). He proceeded to enlighten us on manipulation in advertising, and he illustrated his point with an ad for Cover Girl cosmetics. Cheryl Tiegs, then a little known 20 year-old, graced the magazine’s cover. Her blonde hair, neatly parted in the middle, cascaded down a flawless face. Mr. Harrison argued her hairstyle purposely covered crow’s feet. Hmm? Crow’s feet on someone who would age another ten years and then be catapulted into supermodel status with the likes of Vogue, Elle, and Sports Illustrated. That’s some manipulation.

And there are those scary campfire stories, like the ones my counsellor told the first night out at Camp Cadicasu. Securely tucked into our bunks, he told the tale of a bad traffic accident down the road.

“All that remained,” he said, at the end, “were the guy’s eyeballs.” In the darkness he passed around soggy grapes.

How corny is that?

But after he whipped out his hatchet man hiding in the attic story, I spent the rest of the week sleeping with an eye out our bunkhouse window. And for months at home, I never once entered the bathroom without first peering upwards to ensure a closed attic.

It is funny how natural storytellers captivate their audience without the written word. (National treasure Richard Wagamese excels in both the oral and written forms.) With apologies to so many great writers, a good story needn’t involve countless drafts of soul-depleting-bled-on-paper desperation. The raconteur may start with the other kind of ‘draft’; the beer-fuelled yarn that regales buddies round the tavern table, the telling of which is embellished on successive occasions; it reaches classic status when people declare, “You have to tell the one about…”

Two stories with such potential came my way recently.

In the first one, over coffee one morning a smiling Laurie revealed she spends summers at her cottage on Lac Mecham.

“Where’s that?” I asked.

“It’s an hour or two outside Ottawa,” she said. “I swim there every day—love it.” Her smile lessens, and then transforms into a look of consternation before she continues. “But this one time I noticed something in the water following me.”

I thought of Jaws. “What did you see?”

“A fish,” she said. “And it followed me wherever I swam. It looked bug-eyed.” Laurie laughed. “Its lip curled like this.” She yanked one corner of her mouth downward and added, “I suppose it was like a harelip. I named it Romeo.” I thought she should have called it Bogart. But hey, it was her story.

Laurie spoke of the fish with the fondness and pride one speaks of offspring.

Each time she swam out into the lake, the fish greeted her like the family dog, and it followed her back to the dock. So that started me thinking about the behaviour of fish. I didn’t think they interact with people much. They always scurry away. Not Romeo. He didn’t take the food she offered, and yet he remained her loyal follower. (A simple crush?) And what of Laurie’s husband? Did he have any idea? The husband is always the last know. But alas, the lake season drew to a close, and with it, the summer romance.

“Will you see him this year?” I asked.

Laurie grew silent, musing, and then said, “A neighbour approached me the day I left, said she’d caught a fish earlier.” Laurie grimaced. “I hope it wasn’t Romeo.”

I’ll see Laurie in the fall, and I’ll ask her about Romeo. No sense asking Tyrrel because…well…the husband is the last to know.

The second story destined for classic designation also came my way the very same day.

As I waited for fitness class to begin, another participant approached.

Marilyn is a wiry blond dynamo, and in the gym displays impossible ragdoll-like flexibility. Before I knew her, the first time I laid eyes on her, petite Marilyn raced up and down our street in a wheelchair, determined not to let recent foot surgery diminish her spirit. A former runner, Marilyn remains a rabid fitness freak. But before class that day, she told me of the harrowing experience that tested her mettle.

She began in classic hook fashion (Apologies to Romeo). “Let me tell you what not to do if you find yourself lost in the mountains.” She expelled an exasperated breath and explained that she’d been up to Mount Washington the day before. The summit is an easy 30-minute drive for the snowshoeing crowd of the Comox Valley (Locals love to brag how they play golf in the morning and ski in the afternoon), so they think nothing of going up for and hour or two. Marilyn is no exception. On a whim she had decided to go in the early afternoon.

“I did all those things they say that you shouldn’t. I didn’t tell anyone where I was going, left too late in the day, packed no food, matches, flashlight, carried nothing—NOTHING.”

“Did you bring extra clothes?” I asked.

“Are you kidding?” she said, with a self-deprecating laugh. “At the top there’s a crisscross of snowshoe trails delineated by colour-coded poles.” She waved off my slack jawed wonder. “No, no map either.”

Marylyn chose one of the seemingly benign routes and trudged onward in the sunlit snow.

“In the quiet of the meadow, I stopped to take a picture of a whiskey jack,” she explained, “but my cell phone had died. So I kept walking. With the daylight fading, I took off my sunglasses. I tried to return to the trailhead, but I must have taken the wrong turn because I found myself going in circles.”

“Was there anyone else around?”

“No. I never saw anyone.” Her eyes widened. “My breathing became rapid and I began to sweat profusely, not from the exertion, but from fear.”

“So, what did you do?”

“I kept to the open meadow, away from the surrounding forest, thinking what an overnight stay might bring. Eventually a snowmobile came my way—someone probably checking to see who was left on the trails. He blew past me, so I went in the direction he’d come from, and in the dark I found my way back with three cars remaining, including my own, in the parking lot.”

In her novel ‘A Tale for the Time Being’, Ruth Ozeki’s character Jiko, a 104-year-old great-grandmother and Buddhist nun says; “Life is full of stories. Or, maybe life is only stories.” And so it is that everyone loves to hear them. They serve many purposes: to teach First Nations culture; to pass the time; to carry us away; maintain interest in a topic; send a chill through the spine; to savour a delicious morsel of gossip. No one responds to the offer of a story with, “Not now, I need to finish these dishes,” or “Can we get back to those equations?” And if you do, someone pipes up and says, “Let them tell the story.” And as a child at bedtime, you begged for one. And when that story was done, you’d holler for another, and another one after that. There is no greater thrill than to enter that world. Which reminds me, did I ever tell you the story of how I almost set the house on fire…?

Eavesdropping

On By Mike LalondeLeave a comment

The 90’s tested the mettle of every Alberta teacher. Oil prices slumped as the province teetered through yet another bust, something that continues to plague the province’s one-horse-town of an economy to this present day. Back then, Ralph Klein threw down the gauntlet on spending and swept into power on the promise to bring the financial house back into order. His new provincial government took no prisoners in the public sector. In education, slashed budgets brought funding caps. The numbers of support specialists shrunk and programs disappeared altogether. In the face of mounting pressure to do their part, teachers shared the collective pain and voted to take a ‘voluntary’ five percent pay cut.

The pendulum began to swing towards stability and those same teachers staged protests calling for the reinstitution of funding for public education. And I did my part. I sent letters to politicians. I smiled on the Calgary picket line when the businessman rolled down his car window and screeched out ‘whiner’ before speeding off. There was the weekend bus trip to Edmonton where we paraded placards around an empty legislature.

But serendipity provided my most triumphal moment.

In between afternoon and evening parent teacher interviews, I met my wife Sharon, also a teacher, for supper.

“What will it be tonight?” Magda’s pronounced eyebrows rise in expectation.

“We’ll share the number nine,” I say, and glance across the table at Sharon. She wants the vegetarian special and so that’s what we’re ordering. I want number six–the meat lover pizza–but I’m feeling guilty about all the nitrates.

Guilt.

Yes, there’s plenty to go around. Turn on the evening news where ‘experts’ are interviewed on the street. They tell you you’re lucky to have a job, so quit your complaining. They must know what they’re talking about, right? I mean they all went to school once. And as I’m about to find out, guilt arrives on your doorstep like an uninvited distant relative and never fails to overstay its welcome.

Two men brush past us with the swagger of wrestlers entering the ring. They sit nearby.

I whisper, “Have you seen them before?” When Sharon shakes her head I say, “Me neither.”

Both are wearing suits and look to be about forty. The shorter one sits with his back to us. The other is in plain view. He has a round, clean-shaven face and an unrelenting smirk. His head jiggles about his wide shoulders, like a Bobblehead, as he surveys the room. Satisfied of his innocuous environs, he unfurls his banner of disdain.

“They’ve got no complaints,” Bobblehead declares to his associate.

The other man whose face is hidden from us is a kind of shadow.

Shadow mumbles something.

Bobblehead straightens in his chair. “Of course. They’ve got pensions for Christ sake. And security. And if that’s not enough…”

Magda greets them and they order beer.

Shadow mumbles something and Bobblehead peers over his shoulder at a departing Magda. Bobblehead’s gaze returns to his friend. “You can say that again…Anyway, as I was saying. Teachers get all those professional days, and on top, two months off each summer as it is…What’s that?…You’re damned right they should get rid of the union.”

Magda is back with our steaming pizza.

“Thanks Magda,” I say, trying to ignore Sharon’s grimace and sidelong glances at their table. “Just the way we like it. Isn’t that right?” I manage to capture Sharon’s attention momentarily. I grin and prepare to make the best of my meatless meal, thankful that we have something else to focus on for the moment. The first slice that I slide onto my plate unleashes a cautionary surge of steam. With lips drawn back I allow my teeth to make their first incursion, and the aroma of artichoke and sun-dried tomatoes fills my nostrils. “This is delicious.”

“Shhhh.” Sharon dismisses my accolades and tilts her head towards Bobblehead’s rant. But with the arrival of their beers, and the taking of their dinner orders, the spatter of vitriol is tempered for the moment. That’s good as I am worried Sharon is about to hurl her own diatribe spears in their direction.

“Don’t say anything.”

Sharon shakes her head like I’m overreacting.

Bobblehead’s musings continue on their errant path our way, like misguided missiles. “I mean, who are they working for, the union or us, the taxpayer?” He nurses his beer as Shadow responds in inaudible words.

Magda tops up my water glass. “How’s the first few bites?” I can only nod my approval because my mouth is full. That is possibly a restaurateur’s method of ensuring there will be no dissent on the customer’s part. But Sharon’s smile to Magda affirms my endorsement and Magda smilingly drifts back to the kitchen.

“That’s right,” Bobblehead’s voice floats over us and I want to declare our table space a no fly zone. “They shouldn’t be treated any differently from other public sector employees.”

“He means they don’t deserve higher wages,” Sharon says to me.

I lean in. “Not so loud.”

“I don’t care if they hear me,” she says, and I know she means it.

“I just want to eat my supper in peace.” I cough because I haven’t finished swallowing my last mouthful.

Sharon says, “Drink some water.”

We eat and share the day’s events so far.

It is black outside the window when Bobblehead’s Baked Lasagna has arrived. He shifts in his seat and enthusiastically aligns himself square to his plate. He plunges his knife into the crusty cheese exterior; steam now rising from a new caldron.

Sharon retrieves a fresh slice of pizza from the pan that separates us.

I nod and chew and Bobblehead’s verbal sorties continue.

“The thing is,” he says with a mouthful of Lasagna to his tablemate, “your kid’s teacher doesn’t give a rat’s ass. They talk about class size. Well, that’s just a smokescreen for leeching more money out of the system…”

Sharon is staring in his direction now.

“Don’t look their way,” I say and her gaze returns to me. “We’ve heard this before. ‘Back in the day, I had 40 kids in my class and I turned out okay’.” Sharon has that expression on her face though, the one she has when she is thinking, You’ve told me this a hundred times. “No, just listen,” I say, “Educators want a lot less than 40 pupils in their class because they’re dealing with a totally different mix from a generation ago. They need the extra funds for classroom support.” Sharon continues to listen to me but her eyes keep shifting to the other table. “And why should teachers feel bad about asking for higher wages? The job’s not getting easier.”

“The kids are the ones who suffer.” Bobblehead’s utterances intrude once more. He leans back in his chair. “The priorities are all screwed up. It should be students and parents first, then teachers.” Shadow nods his agreement. But Bobblehead’s words wrap around me, like a tight coat.

“Magda.” I say as she nears our table. “Could we have our bill, please?”

Magda looks down at our half-eaten meal and frowns. “Is everything okay?” When we nod yes, she adds, “Do you want me to package the rest?”

“Yes please,” Sharon says.

We are standing when Magda returns with the bill, and we take it along with the boxed leftovers to the cash register.

“We’re both done at nine o’clock,” I say to Sharon. “I’ll come get you when my own interviews are over.”

Before leaving, I turn once more to Magda.

“Here’s ten dollars. We’d like to buy a drink for those two gentlemen next to our table.” Magda unwittingly takes our money. “Tell them drinks are on the two teachers who sat next to them.”

 

Clint Eastwood Style

On By Mike LalondeLeave a comment

“Did you learn anything?” Vinnie asked me on the last day of school.

We stood out front and watched the yellow buses, ‘cheese wagons’ as our students called them, lining up on the street. Beyond the yellow stream, foothills hugged the Rockies.

We were talking about my first year of teaching as I stood perspiring beneath the June sun, watching students exit the school. The answer to his question would have been different last September.

 

My first day of teaching. I was going to set the world on fire. Molding all the bright minds of youth was the noblest ambition. That sunny autumn morning, I flew up the front steps two at a time and crossed the threshold of Eastside Junior High.

“You’re late,” spouted a rotund principal Abernathy.

I checked my watch. “But it’s nine o’clock.”

“That’s right,” he said with a smug look that I would come to dread. “Late start is Thursdays. This is not Thursday.”

My heart sank. He stood with hands clasped and his sausage fingers twitching. Somewhere in the process of swallowing the deluge of information first year teachers are bombarded with, I had confused the start time.

“They’re waiting,” Abernathy said, hands clasped, fingers still twitching.

“I’m on it, sir!” I resisted the urge to salute and tore off down the hallway’s polished linoleum floor.

A pungent smell was coming from somewhere. Musty runners left over the summer? As I neared my room, a head dropped back behind its open door.

“He’s coming!” the eager scout declared and slammed the door.

I heard the clamor of desks scrapping and footsteps stamping. I imagined them barricading the entranceway. Then just as quickly, silence.

I opened the door.

“Good morning Mr. Peters,” the class bellowed in contrived unison. Every student sat in angelic radiance with arms extended over desks and hands clasped. Some snickered.

I wasn’t about to let this deter me from any preconceived notions I may have had of them. They were the vessel and I was their pitcher of knowledge. But as I scrutinized their faces, I could feel the veneer of my determination melting away. They were the senior class and I was ‘the new teacher’. More accurately, they were the whale and I was the plankton. Breaking in the new guy was going to be fun.

I took my place at the front of the room.

After brief introductions, I announced I would be handing out forms and reviewing procedure.

“Boring!” someone muttered.

“I know you fill these same forms out every year,” I said, half smiling, “but look at it this way, you’ll be going to a new school next year.”

A hand shot up.

“Yes,” I said.

“Do we have to do this?” said a lanky bushy haired boy with high brooding eyebrows.

What’s your name?” I asked.

“Jim.” A chorus of snickers erupted.

I nodded and the girl next to him whispered, “This is sooo boring.” Barely suppressed snickers seeped out like farts. They punctuated my instruction the rest of the morning­­­­–snickers that is, not farts.

I was behind schedule, and assembly was coming up, so I rushed through the next hour.

Knock. knock. Someone was at the door. This unleashed a pack of boys from the back row, hell-bent to answer first. They scrambled over desks leaving a swath of carnage in their wake.

A skinny short boy stood in the doorway holding a long plastic tube that dangled at the ends from unsteady arms.

“I’m supposed to find out where th…th…this long stand belongs,” he said.

Before I had the chance to ask him what the hell a long stand was, one of the boys at the door interjected.

“That goes to room 17.”

“Th…th…thanks.” He scurried away and the class broke into laughter.

I put my hands on my hips. “What is going on here?”

Jim, or rather, Connor, (his real name I found out later), put his hand up again in mock enthusiasm.

“He’s a newbie.” Connor explained how each year a teacher would send a new student, usually some smart ass (those are my words, not his) on a mission to locate a home for the imaginary long stand. The student would search high and low while the teachers played along.

I imagined this could go on a long time. Sure enough, when at long last the day ended, I saw the same boy running to his bus, still clutching the long stand.

 

As the weeks rolled by, I fumbled my way through lesson planning, keeping one step ahead of my class. The yearning to inspire was being cast off by the instinct to survive. To buy time, I put quotes on the board to spark discussion.

One morning before class, Vincenzo Lorenzini, or Vinnie as he was affectionately called by the faculty, wandered into my classroom. He taught Science next door. He was short, and stout with a skirt of scraggly grey locks capped by his bald head. And though he wheezed from a lifetime of smoking, Vinnie never lost his smile.

“The hell’s this?” Vinnie pointed at my latest quote.

‘The more I give to thee, the more I have, for both are infinite.’ William Shakespeare.

“Son,” Vinnie said, he would come to remind me that age was a kind of rank, and I was definitely a private, “Shakespeare never had to pay alimony to his ex-wife on a teacher’s salary.” He chuckled and retreated out the door.

Vinnie sauntered in again the next day to view the board. He scanned the latest quote. ‘Honesty is the first chapter in the book of wisdom.’ Author Unknown. His face contorted with contempt, then with a glint in his eye, he added “and deceit is the first chapter in the book of survival.” His impish smile grew. “Hey. You want me to put that one up too?” But Vinnie didn’t wait for my answer. He did an about face and left.

 

One day in late October, the senior class had an Orienteering field trip in the foothills. As I stayed back at the school, I didn’t have to prepare a lesson for them that day. I relished the prospects of a day of peaceful prep time. After an hour in my classroom, I grabbed my mug and went to the teacher’s lounge in search of coffee. This took me through the front office and past the scrutinizing gaze of head secretary Phyllis Pascoe.

“I was going to call your room,” she said, and added in a voice barely above a whisper, “There’s been an incident.” Her smile never wandered from her face, no matter how hectic things became.

Phyllis informed me of a phone call to the office. No sooner had the senior class arrived in the wilderness and disembarked from the school bus when a group, led by Connor Brady of course, shot up the nearest trail and hid behind a thicket of birch trees. He removed a 26 of rum from his backpack. Before he could unscrew the cap, gym teacher Barbara Kalinowski– ex-provincial champion hurdler Barbara Kalinowski Phyllis reminded me– ran her man down. That sent a furious Mr. Abernathy flying down the highway like a bounty hunter on a fresh trail.

“I just got off the phone with Mr. Abernathy, Phyllis said. “He’s bringing back Connor and another student. This other boy is blaming Connor for them getting into trouble.” Phyllis scanned the office; we were alone. “He said Connor has a gun in his locker. Mr. Abernathy wants it removed.”

“How?” I asked.

She raised her eyebrows expectantly.

“Oh no…not me. What about the assistant principal?”

“She doesn’t know anything. She left early to take her son home from his school. He’s very sick.”

I didn’t like the direction this was going. “There must be some kind of protocol in times like this…Should we notify the police?”

She shrugged saying, “Your call,” before returning to her computer.

So if there were any disciplinary problems to be dealt with, classroom teachers, even beginners, were on their own. I thought on it a moment. Then I imagined Connor’s locker partner discovering the gun at any moment.

I heaved a sigh. “I’ll do it.”

“You’d better go before students are let out for lunch,’ Phyllis said without taking her eyes off the computer’s screen.

I walked out of the office and down the empty hallway to my classroom. All I had to do is retrieve Connor’s locker combination from my desk, access his locker, and take the offending item down to the office. There was only one glitch; I was terrified of guns. My throat felt dry. Then I remembered that I hadn’t gotten coffee. I stopped and drank from a water fountain and took several slow breaths before entering my classroom and scribbling Connor’s combination on a piece of paper.

I found his lock and with trembling fingers dialed the numbers. I started imagining those high school massacre news headlines, and stopped short of opening the door. I stood back. What now? The locker could be booby trapped. I imagined Connor Brady, lean and long appearing as Clint Eastwood, telling me he knew what I was thinking. ‘Did he plant a pipe bomb in there or not? Well it’s like this, in my absence, I won’t be able to tell you. You’ve got to ask yourself one question: Do I feel lucky? Well, do ya, teach?’

I stood back and eased the creaking metal door open. Nothing. I looked and saw a bundle at the bottom. On bended knee I slowly lifted something hard and heavy wrapped in a towel. I stood up and carefully pealed back the layers and stared at it, and then I gripped the gun’s cold handle. Its long barrel like that of the .44 Magnum in Dirty Harry. I slammed the locker door shut with my free hand and Vinnie’s head popped out from his open doorway.

“Peters! You better get that thing in a bag. People will think you’re going postal!” He watched me fumbling to cover the gun again; his laughter chased me all the way to the office. Once there, without looking away from her computer, Phyllis pointed one finger in the direction of the back room.

“In there. The safe’s open. Close up after yourself.”

The next day Mr. Abernathy called me into his office. “I met with Connor and his mother this morning.” He shook his head. “The police were here.”

What do you expect? I thought.

“Connor’s mom explained that the pellet gun—“

“Excuse me, did you say pellet gun?”

Mr. Abernathy’s head jerked back in surprise. “That’s correct.” He gave me the look that asked if I had something to say but I waved him on. “There’s a misunderstanding here. The gun brought to school was not for some nefarious purpose; Connor arranged to sell it to another student to help pay for a school field trip to the Bamfield Marine Sciences Centre.”

“But still…” I said. I knew Mrs. Brady headed the parent council. She fundraised for the new computers and was a constant fixture as a volunteer in the school. In short, when she spoke, Mr. Abernathy listened.

“I know. He’ll face disciplinary action; that’s school board policy…But there’s another reason I wanted to talk to you…Connor’s mom said his dad isn’t in the picture, that he’s missing a father figure in his life.” Mr. Abernathy went on to say that I might fit the bill. He told me I could be a kind of mentor to a promising but misguided soul.

For me, the ideal of imparting knowledge had lost its luster since September. Simple and practical instruction came to the fore. Thoughts raced across my mind: Connor learning to cook in my kitchen; Connor going on fishing trips with me; his coming over on weekends to help me with home projects. I gasped for breath.

I was about to decline the offer when I caught Mr. Abernathy giving me the once over from across his desk. It was that dreaded smug look. A look that said, ‘the boy needs a father and you need a job’. As I was on a first year probationary contract, what was I to do but acquiesce? Surely this would mean nothing more than directing him into science club or taking him on as this year’s ‘project’ with my volleyball team.

 

Connor returned to school after a one-week suspension. He entered my classroom bereft of swagger. A recent buzz cut had replaced his thick mane and a pressed white shirt supplanted his Che Guevara t-shirt. He sat by himself with folded arms and mournful eyes.

I had prepared a lesson on basic economics for the senior class. The textbook approach to teaching concepts had worn thin by November, and survival mode kicked in once more. I adopted an experiential method. Now, they welcomed and expected my little simulations of real life concepts. The more we deviated from the textbook into the ‘real world’ the more I felt connected to them. So I began.

“Why aren’t we all rich?” I asked the class.

Connor’s eyes flickered my way.

“Cuz people are greedy,” someone said.

“I’m not!” another protested.

Meaghan Sturgess raised her arm and waited.

“Yes Meaghan,” I said.

“There’s not enough for everyone?”

“That’s right.” I nodded. “There’s a scarcity. And we’re going to look at how that affects you.”

Connor’s furtive glimpses continued.

I explained that within a time limit, everyone had to satisfy the universal need for food, clothing, and shelter. They received the raw materials: yellow paper from which to cut out fish, cloth to make ponchos, and white paper to make igloos. Each student needed to produce all three items in miniature in order to survive.

I placed the requisite tools (pencils, scissors, rulers, etc.), in limited quantities, on my desk.

“Everyone starts on the count of three.” I said, oblivious of the tightly coiled spring of tension I had set in motion. “One…Two…Three.”

They plowed over one another and descended on my desk like a pack of teachers going for cheesy convention freebies. Sweet mother of Christ! I said to myself as demure Meaghan Sturgess engaged in a strenuous tug-of-war with Don Little over a ruler. There were reports of paper cuts and Elwood Ketcham punctured his thumb before escaping to the nurse’s office.

Everyone took to their task in earnest. Everyone that is, except Connor. He remained in his seat, still licking his suspension wounds.

The activity continued unabated under my constant reminders of what precious few minutes remained.

Don Little had lost the battle with Meaghan Sturgess. He relegated himself to the social fringes by retiring next to Connor who grew more morose by the minute.

Scarcity of materials in this class is one thing, but scarcity of father, friends, and self-esteem is something else. I walked over to Connor.

“Why aren’t you taking part?”

“No one’s sharing.” Connor kept his arms folded. His head nodded like he was having an inner conversation.

“You need to get up and negotiate,” I said, but Connor only shrugged. I wanted to say ‘Get your head out of your ass!’ But I only repeated his name.

Connor looked up at me. “What’s the point?”

Part of me wanted to help him, and part of me wanted to say he was right. In the chaos surrounding us, I had no patience for self-pity. “Fine, then.” I shrugged and started to turn.

“You’re just going to walk away?” Connor said.

I looked at him. How many others had heard that line? “Connor,” I said, “people will share with you, if you give something in return,” and then I walked away.

Moments later, Connor stood up. He fashioned a makeshift placard using a meter stick and other ‘found’ materials. The placard read THE END IS NEAR! Some smiles and laughter greeted him as he weaved his way through the class.

Several students complained of hoarding and outright theft of materials.

I thought that things couldn’t get worse. Then Vinnie appeared.

“Peters, I heard your class clear over from my room.” He stood beside me. “What’s going on here?” He didn’t wait for an answer. As usual, Vinnie was having too much fun. He stared at Connor. The Pied Piper had a small following of fellow misfits, including Don Little. Connor waved to Vinnie and Vinnie waved back.

How quaint, I thought.

Vinnie nudged my arm and pointed. “That sign there. Do you suppose it has to do with what’s going to happen to you?”

“What do you mean?”

“When Mr. Abernathy discovers the chaos in here.”

I wanted to offer Vinnie some kind of retort, some witticism I could simply point to on the blackboard. But in the frenzy of preparing for this morning’s class, I had forgotten to put up a quote of the day. So I decided to go impromptu.

“You know, Vinnie, fear does not rent a room in every first-year teacher’s mind.”

Vinnie looked at the empty space on the board where a quote should have been. Then he looked back at me with that devilish look and said, “Fear doesn’t have to. It’s got squatter’s rights.” He turned tail and laughed his way all the way back to his room.

By the end of the lesson, the official count was 26 dead and only six survivors. Through groans, I explained that we would do it all over again the next day.

The following morning Connor entered into my empty classroom and sat in a new spot, closest to my desk.

“You’re the first here.” I said, as I continued recording grades in my mark book, pretending not to look as shocked as I felt.

“I know.” Connor’s head bobbed back and forth as if he were listening to music through imaginary headphones. “I had fun yesterday.” He smiled as he surveyed the other students trickling in. “I’m going to get the jump on this stuff.” He pointed to the resources on my desk.

“That’s not quite the way it works today.”

Connor tilted his head. His eyes narrowed and he became silent.

I addressed the class. “Do you want to tell me about yesterday?”

Elwood Ketcham brandished his gauze enclosed thumb. “Ho—ly. That was war!”

Everyone laughed.

“You’re exactly right,” I said. “And it’s for that reason we’re going to go about it differently today. I’ll give you ten minutes to talk things over first, then you’ll get the materials… Any questions?” I caught Connor looking at me like I had sold his little sister to the slave trade. “No questions? Begin.”

Several students exchanged puzzled looks. Others crept away from their desks and began talking.

Connor remained seated next to me. “I’ll probably make another sign.” He folded his arms and like a carpet being rolled out, stretched his long legs into the isle.

I leaned toward him and whispered, “You are not the only person here.”

He looked perplexed. “What do you mean?”

“I want everyone to succeed. Are you going to help or not?”

He stared at the resources but increasingly looked over his shoulder at the others. Don Little remained seated, reading a novel. Next to him sat Elwood Ketcham rubbing his bandaged thumb while staring at that monster, petite Meaghan Sturgess. She and her large following began planning. Finally, Connor placed each wide palm of his hands on his desk and heaved himself upward. He tapped Don on the shoulder and nodded for him to follow. They strolled over to where Meaghan and the others had gathered, and like the parting of the Red Sea, the group stepped back to receive their new recruits. Connor waved Elwood Ketcham and the remaining mavericks over. When the ten minutes were up, a civilized procession of students gathered the resources and went to work.

“Congratulations!” I said to the assembly of smug smiles when it was all over. “Everyone made it this time.” We discussed the merits of cooperation in the face of scarcity, and Connor surprisingly contributed his observations.

I pulled him aside at the end of the class.

“Sit down a minute.”

Connor sat and looked all around the empty room. “What did I do?”

I sat across from him. “I want to ask you something.”

“Okay.”

“What does leadership mean to you?”

Connor’s eyes rolled about like ping pong balls, scattering in a fruitless attempt to land in the safety net of a wise crack. He became very still. “It’s being popular and getting elected.”

“Is that what happened today?”

Connor shook his head, then slowly his eyes widened. “You mean how I acted?”

“Uh-huh.”

Connor stiffened. “No, I didn’t do anything. Meaghan’s your leader.”

“She’s one kind…and you are another.”

“What?” Connor looked to the open door.

“You tell me.”

“I…took part in the activity…”

“What else?”

Connor glanced at the door again. With a finger, he signaled ‘one minute’ to his friends. Then he seemed to remember something important. “I pulled all of the others over to help Meaghan’s group.”

“You used your influence as a leader.” I saw the hint of a smile germinating. “I could use some of that on the volleyball team. Would you come to tryouts on Monday?”

Connor straightened up in his chair and held his head up high. “Me?” A smile flickered from his lips then dimmed. His shoulders lowered. “I don’t know how to play volleyball.”

This could be a mistake. He would have to learn the basics and still would see limited court time. But his imposing physical presence and easy going demeanor could have a calming affect on the others. “Then I’ll show you how.”

Connor made the team in the midst of some grumbling that he couldn’t play and his only asset was being a full head taller than anyone else. Word spread and soon Vinnie made a habit of poking his nose in the gym during afterschool practice. He would get my attention and slyly point at Connor before shrugging his shoulders as if to say to me ‘You must be out of your mind.’

“The others are saying things about me behind my back,” Connor complained after the first game, a disappointing loss.

“Keep trying,” I said.

Connor held out his jersey two games later. “I can’t do this.”

I took him aside. “You are improving, but today you shanked the ball too much. Learn to control it. Do you understand?” Connor nodded. “Good. Then you’ll start to nail it.”

As a right side hitter, Connor rarely touched the ball. But when he did, he gained confidence and earned smiles from his teammates. He learned to cut the ball well around opposing blockers. On occasion I trusted him to handle middle blocker duty.

I would like to say that we went on to win the divisional championship, but we didn’t. We finished dead last, but gave the eventual division champion quite a scare. Connor showed poise in sudden death in our one and only playoff game against them. He found the seam and came up with a half dozen kills, and the team rallied around him when he served several timely aces.

“So, what did you learn?” Vinnie pressed as we stood on the school steps watching students in their busses depart for the summer.

“That nothing is impossible.”

“Oh, really.” He laughed and asked in an incredulous tone, “You can change the world?”

“Sure you can.” The boy in the Che Guevara t-shirt waved frantically at me as his bus pulled away from the curb for the last time, followed by a great plume of purple smoke. I waved back. “One person at a time.”

Double Take

On By Mike LalondeLeave a comment

At the end of another dull day, I found a wallet on the floor of the ferry. At least that is what I was trying to tell security.

“But this lady here,” the security guard motioned to the elderly woman next to him, “says she saw you take it.”

“Look lady,” I said, “I wasn’t even near this part of the ferry.”

“Then how do you explain having it?” she asked.

I looked sidelong at the security guard. “Like I’ve said, I was on my way to report it when I was stopped.”

The guard tapped my shoulder. “Wait here.” He spoke with several passengers in front of the woman’s seat. They cast furtive glances my way. He returned to face my accuser. “No. I’m afraid they don’t remember seeing this man ma’am.

“That settles it then,” I said.

“He could have come from there.” She pointed to a stairwell directly behind her seat and the guard raised his eyebrows at me.

“I can’t believe it.” I shook my head. “Lady, did you even get a look at this guy?”

“No, but I’m sure I saw you walking away just before my wallet went missing.”

“So you didn’t even see the guy’s face,” I said.

She looked at the guard, then at me before her eyes settled gloomily downward. Then her head jerked upward. “I didn’t need to see you.”

“What?” Now I knew she’d lost it.

She pointed to the tiny security camera facing us.

“Oh.”