Homestead

Homestead Much more than bricks and mortar Copyright Doug Blair, Waterloo ON, 2019 Homestead

Drove by yesterday Mom happy and commenting From back seat.

Home for almost 57 autumns.

Built up in Happy increments.

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Upper bedrooms extended Back den looking out Large sliding doors.

Dad’s perch for Many a Sunday Resting from retail race.

Pool dug out back.

Thanks to Bob Scott’s kindness: “Jack just bring the big rigs Down my side Grass will grow again.”

And the family dinners By fireplace And the Aunts and Grandparents The happy widow Edith.

And the Vize family The Stiles, Carsons and Wards.

Dalton, Jerry and Chip.

Music thanks to Tony Bennett Mantovani, Julie Andrews.

And Old Blue Eyes.

Problems addressed.

Adventures planned.

Funny stories told.

Little Otto scampering about.

Expressive pet and Scott's friend.

The quiet intervals.

Resting and gazing At the sight of backyard snows Or daffodils.

Rhubarb or black currents Pulled and processed.

Spring robins and rabbits Anticipated And then spotted.

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...But now just a drive-by Except in our hearts.

Rare views on memory’s canvas.

The Feel of the Wood July 25, 2010

We have just finished cleaning out the family homestead in London.

Mom (Bev) is in a retirement home. Dad (Jack) rests in peace. Last Saturday I walked through empty room after empty room. Many rich memories. Fifty-six years of stuff accumulated there.

I took particular interest in the downstairs workshop where for years Dad had worked on his beloved carvings of birds. Much steadier hands then. Much clearer eyes.

The shop had a wide variety of specialty saws, files, planes and wood-burning equipment. Items now for the enjoyment of 3

grandchildren. Also many manuals on technique, many posters and photographs and volumes of the Ducks Unlimited subscription.

I found plugs of wood representing projects barely begun before macular degeneration did its ugly work. How he had prided himself in the detail of feathers and postures and distinctive markings. How he loved the scenery of loon on a lake, of Canada geese flocking into a freshly cut field, of wood ducks in a row on a submerged log displaying their overmuch colouration. (see the poems ​River Ducks​ and ​Northern Night​) The carved birds have now been distributed as family treasures. Others were gifted to friends long ago. With appreciative hands we explore the rich textures of the worked wood, even as Dad would have done, hour after hour.

But the time was now up. The woodcarving and the home no longer appropriate for a man in his eighty-ninth year; a woman in her eighty-fifth.

The empty rooms are just that...empty. The rich heritage, love and hope remain.

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River Ducks

A walk by the river in winter

My Father and I undertake.

The bush is all glaze from the ice-storm, Affording a needed wind-break.

The City with all its white panic Seems much farther off than in fact.

The Country calls us to adventure, With lunch and hot drinks duly packed.

We’ve done this before, but in springtime With wildflowers and vine in the bloom.

But this day holds different promise,

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Somewhere in the gray and the gloom.

The trees are bereft of their songsters Save only one brave chickadee, Who scolds from his perch in the low brush, My Father and I cannot see.

Approaching a bend in the river My Father, with much softer gait, Binoculars pulled for a sighting, And signaling me just to wait, Steps out to the clearing at shoreline, Where ice has been broken away, By storm sewer’s much warmer waters,

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And ducks are out there, and at play.

The first that I see are just landing, With synchronized drop, skimming wake, And greeted by others assembled.

What strange, raucous music they make!

The mallards, mergansers and pin-tails Who CHUTTER and MUCK and RANK-RANK. My Father and I are now laughing In spite of ourselves, at the bank. Â

He watches their moods and their movements, Their matchings and sparrings and play,

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Their discourse and dunkings and flappings.

My Father’s their student today.

And with insight gained from the outing Will turn to the woodcarver’s skill, And fashion remarkable likeness Of feather and pose, wing and bill.

Now this is the best kind of hunting.

To live and let live is the way.

And trophies we’ll have of the visit, And memories of this good day.

I may be a teen in a tempest With thoughts much too awkward to tell;

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But here with the ducks and my Father, I know that he knows me quite well.

The Danish Side September 05, 2009

My mother is not much of a story-teller. Dad has that propensity.

Mom was always the good listener, sitting often at the kitchen table, hearing out the teen-age boy with his many challenges. I always treasured her support. Words, though few, were appropriate and loving. She was extremely artistic. Oil paintings of scenes and still life.

Tasteful backyard gardens. The finest of popular music on the high

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fidelity record player - Tony Bennett, Frank Sinatra, Keelie Smith, Julie Andrews, Percy Faith, Mantovani and Henry Mancini.

There were times when she had to be both mother and father, Jack taking to the road in his Regional Manager's position with Dominion Rubber. On one such occasion she suffered the undeserved guilt of being on the watch when her son was on a construction site and throwing stones with another boy. An errant stone took out about sixty percent of the vision in my right eye.

Mom had not had an easy upbringing. At age fourteen she lost her mother, Hertha (nee Jaeger) to a heart attack. Her father Ken Roberts, English-born, tried valiantly to hold things together. He was a commercial painter and a crack local athlete - softball, lane bowling, lawn bowling. Daughter Beverley held in some secret pain, began to gain weight, felt out of place.

But then Danish aunts came to the rescue. Mary and Lillian, sisters to the deceased Hertha. These were robust, jovial Danske folk. Mary had married a local musician, Stuart McKenna. Lillian's husband was Pete Belcher, a cab driver.The female comfort and counsel took hold and Beverley began to blossom in high school - glee club, basketball. Then off to nurse's training at Victoria Hospital. Â

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Aunt Mary suffered the early loss of Stuart. Her beloved son Dalton joined the American Navy for the war and became an American citizen with Hollywood friends. Dalton was the practical joker, hockey enthusiast, construction engineer, traveling to distant places with exotic projects. He would always, and I mean ALWAYS make his mother laugh. He was the closest thing to a brother for Bev. My parents happily visited him in California. His third and final wife, Laurie was an airline executive.

Lillian and Pete lost in a couple of attempts to have children. This would draw Lil even closer to Bev and her two sons. I always remember Aunt Lil for her considerate gifts and cards, which seemed all the more precious because she did not have much money. She worked as a switchboard operator at Hotel London. Her voice was perfect, "I'll connect you." Surprisingly she also suffered threatening bouts of emphysema. Mary was married again to a local optometrist, Perce Dawkins, and the two lived comfortably. They got my parents involved in the Gyro Service Club with many memorable meetings, projects and parties.

These women remain all that I really know about my Danish side. Of course I have the stereotypical images of pastries, dairy cattle, blue cheese, seas in every direction, herring, Hans Christian Anderson, Jenny Lind, Victor Borge and the history of Vikings in longboats.

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Perhaps only the people really matter anyway. I can still see the fair-skinned, rosy-cheeked, costumed sisters smiling, hugging and singing Christmas carols at their beloved Beverley's holiday dinner.

Inheritance

It’s the joy of our sins all forgiven. It’s the peace of the Lord’s resumed smile. It’s the hope of new tasks in the Kingdom. It’s the hush of His presence a while. It’s the promise of kin never parting. It’s the safety of homes filled with grace. It’s the dignity love gives the lowly. It’s the Body where each has his place. It’s the troop of a marvelous Captain.

It’s the news of a battle well won. It’s the end of all fretful endeavour.

It’s a right-standing now in God’s Son. It’s the certainty His Word is faithful. It’s the relish in simplest of prayer. It’s the blazing of light at life’s passing. It’s the knowing our Christ will be there.

Psalm 91: 9-16

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