Take off your hat, I want to stand up.

Regina Beach: Part 9

Chapter nine: Beach days are the best.

Summer at the beach

Sand, roller skating, boating at the Yacht club, fish and chips at Bulters, we lived the life of Riley. I always wanted to know who was this Riley guy. He seemed to live life like a pirate warrior, take no prisoners kind of party dude, he held the secret to the good life.

Ev, my mom, would arrange to hold Red Cross Certificate swimming lessons at the beach front, $0.25 per lesson cash. She would have 15-20 kids of various ages and abilities lined up in their swim suits ready to go each and everyday for two solid weeks. The weather was suspect at best, rolling waves, overcast and cool, sunny and hot, you name it probably a lesser dedicated person would have called it a day, but not Ev. She was to determined to teach kids, teens, adults how to survive in the water and have fun while they were at it. If it was ice cube cold after the lesson she would have the group run down to the point and back, off they would fly, sailing their towels after them as super hero look a likes. Then they would turn around and bombard the trailing edge of the pack with whoops and yells.

Years later I did the same thing with my group of 50 grade one kids. We would go outside, exercise, play games, enjoy the outdoors. Near the end of the period, just before we lined up to go in, I would encourage the kids to run like crazy to the fence and back. This was not in a competition, rather it was for the shear joy of the group run. I would watch and smile to my mom, I would think. She was a remarkable woman.

Later on in life I was swimming in the masters swim program. When one of the swimmers came over and said to me, I see you still follow your mom's swimming advise. It was simple, to do the front crawl, act as if you are reaching for a dollar, put it in your pocket. I smiled and agreed, yes I actually say that to myself on occasion, take the dollar, put it in my pocket, thanks, mom, I love you.

Ev taught swimming and collected a whole piss pot full of quarters, so what do you think her angel like kids did? We lined up to go horseback riding, go-cart racing, skiing behind our boat, roller-skating at the park on the hill over looking the lake. Sit on the steps to eat fish and chips at the world famous Blue-Bird Cafe, run by the Butler family. These were salad days, good days with my good friends, true to heaven good days. All thanks to our mom, who I am sure did not get a lot of gratuitous thank you mom from us.

Kids, we take parents for granted, because they are our parents, back in the day we were part of the larger group called the family. We had a small family, 5 kids. Today that would be unheard of, my own sister Joanie had 7 kids, and she did not like kids when she was growing up. My grandpa Blair came from a family of 17. As it happened he was 17, when one of his older sisters gave him $200.00 and told him to go West to seek his own way. The offer he took her up on and moved West to work as a dollar a day wheat field farm labourer, plus meals. I think it was the actual food he was after, the money came a close second. There were pictures of a young Grandpa Blair standing on a horse drawn thrashing machine smiling back. His suspenders visible on his shirtless frame.

Jesse Blair, nee Campbell was also of old Scottish ancestry, she hailed from a family of nineteen. Can you imagine a whole baseball team with spare pitchers, as your family. That would be a lot of mouths to feed. In the old days people had a good many children for a number of reasons, as time went by the women had fewer children almost as a self defence.

Our summers at the lake were magic times, simple, pure and timeless. I can remember A particularly warm and fly buzzing day, Auntie Verna, mom's go to favorite sister would stay at the lake for a short span, with her two kids, Donnie and Dianne, mom said let's go to the spring and get some cool fresh water. We normally had to haul water from the local stand pipe a few blocks from the cabin, other than rain barrel water this was the only source of supplied water to the house. This sounded like a dumb plan, and as is the case with all dumb plans it took substance immediately. We were out of the cabin door slamming behind each one that left, four, five, six times, Ev would shout don't keep slamming the door. We could not help it the door was spring loaded to shut with authority once it was released, a guard against summer blue bottle flies from roaming in the kitchen. We went out, forgot something, went back in, then went out again, we looks like we were engaged in a merry go round ride, in stop, out stop, at each turn the door would most definitely slam.

We went off down the dusty back alley a troop of urchins following the leader to our distant goal, spring water. The troop travelled far down the lane, our speed slowed to pick up the slowest child amongst us. We adventured down the hill, round the bend. We passed the cottage that had a castle torrent, passed the log cabin, the cabin built out of stone, at the lake there is a personal standard building code, which means all the cabins look like they were built from re-cycled materials purchased from the bargain bin three for one sales at the local lumber yard. Muir Barber's hardware and lumber yard was the best choice for a shopping place at the lake. I would work for him in my early teens.

At last we arrived at the railroad tracks this gave us a clear path to the hillside where the spring pored forth it's secret cool water. There was a slight problem before us, a test really, the tracks crossed open water, with a wooden trestle as our bridge. The dilemma we rehearsed, was there going to be a train? It was an interesting thought as we did not think the train ran on these tracks. Not one person recalled the last time a train went by, conclusion no train.

We set off, a rag tag group of wanderers trudging on their trail aross the wooden ties. When we looked down the water appeared as though it was a mile maybe two below. To a kid it would represent certain death, the body lost to the deep. We patched our way tie by tie, we were half way, exactly half way when the train whistle pierced the early morning light with a sharp pang. Blood rushed to our brains and we all panicked at once. Real fear found a hold in my heart, step, step, look up, step faster and faster, the train was rounding the bend, we would die in minutes if not sooner. The end was in sight, Everyman for themselves, one made it off, two then three, just as the last of us jumped to the dirt side of the tracks the train chugged through. The train guy stuck his smiling face out the port side, gave a long low tug on the horn and powered back up to steam on, we felt lucky.

At the spring, Ev put on a happy face and said see, was this hot worth the trip, the water was crystal clear, clean, fresh and cold, we gather a few litres in mason jars and only then did we realize we Needed to cross the wooden trestle for the return trip, we were all very quiet, focused and relieved when the task was done, we wanted to point a finger in blame at someone, so we blamed the spring for being across the tracks, we were happy with this explanation.

We drank the water like it was fine wine from the holy land. Naturally by the time we arrived back up the hill the water was all gone. At any rate we had an adventure to remember by noon of a middle day in the week. Let's go to the beach, we walked the other way to the lake and spent the rest of day sunning on the sand as the waves lapped at our sand castles and moats, while we tried to eat Popsicles before they melted too much. There is nothing more summer like than watching children eat something that is frozen on a hot day. It is a race against time.