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| Arta in Dapp, Alberta That is my sister, Bonnie, on the right hand side of the photo. She looks to be about four years old, which would make me 8 in this picture. |
I remember that there was a polio epidemic when I was growing up.
My mother told me that the wading pool at Riley Park, Calgary Alberta, would be closed for the summer due to the epidemic.
On the last day of school my father thought that a good way to protect his children during the summer would be to take us to Dapp, Alberta where he owned a bit of land.
There was a house on the property, no running water and a wood burning stove.
I have two strong memories of the summer months that we spent there. One is that I had a quilt, but no bed. This would have been the first time I ever slept all night on a wooden floor, and yes, night after night, though the whole summer on that wooden floor. When I began to think about this adventure, into my mind came the discomfort again, the tossing in the middle of the night to find some soft spot to cuddle into, there being none.
I wouldn’t have known how hard this was for my mother. The water for the weekly bath was warmed on the stove. Taking our turns, we stood in a large, circular metal container the water rolling down over our backs, cool air passing over the front of our bodies, creating in us little shivers. Now I might term that act as just a nod to a bath.
I do know that there was a handle that could be used to move a circular plate off of the top of the stove so that I could peek in and see how the wood fire was doing.
I don’t know how mother got us to drink water that summer. We had come from Calgary where we are the first major community to pick up water from the sparkling creeks that get to us from the Rocky Mountains, now in the form of the Bow River. Even Kool Aid could not cover the metal taste of the well water at Dapp.
There must not have been a lot to do that summer. I learned to swat mosquitos. I would watch them land on my skin and then suck blood out of my arm before giving them a swat. Alternately, I would take my thumb and push down on the mosquito, just as it had taken its fill, thus claiming back my blood, though there wasn't much to do with it than wipe it off and start again.
Doral hired someone to come and take some brush off of his newly acquired land. He and I rode on top of the cab of the machine that was to do the work. At one point the operator was over zealous, bringing down a large tree that landed on top of his cab. I can remember my father throwing his body over me. I remember this as the first time I really understood how much my father loved me. I also remember that is the last time I got to ride on the top of that cab.
In the fall he brought all of us back to Alberta and to school. That memory of flight from disease surfaced again this month, during my own desire to flee from the pandemic. I don't have a Dapp, Alberta that will keep me isolated.
Arta
I don't think i remember you telling me this memory before. Or perhaps it is just that I didn't have a framework to understand what you had told me? I do have a strong memory of going on a summer girls camp to southern alberta, and it is a memory of the metalic taste of the water. I also remember that there were leaches in the little river we swam in. I had not had such an experience (having spent my summers at the Shuswap, at a time where the water could easily be drunk from the lake itself)
ReplyDeleteI wonder where you went in southern Alberta on your camping trip, and who took you there. Leaches in the water must have been a big surprise to you I wonder how big the river was that you swam in. You call it small. Does it have any other name. And which of
Deleteyour friends were with you.
Sometimes all that is left for me is a fleeting memory of something.
I am glad that you have the memory of drinking water out of the lake. Sometimes I walk down to the Little Canadian Stream and take a dream out of the creek, just before the water drops from that little drinking trough someone always makes, and trickles its way through the sand into the Shuswap. Lovely memories.
You are right. I don't remember telling my children about this memory of a fleeting summer.
ReplyDeleteI want to add that at the end of each school year, as the teacher handed us our final report, she also gave us a ticket to the Calgary Stampede. We could go to the children's show free and present this ticket. The usher would tear off a stub and put it into a lottery. At the end of the Calgary Stampede morning show for children, a number would be drawn from every one who was present.
Someone would win a pony. I can remember the disappointment of being whisked off to Dapp, Alberta, and missing my chance to win a pony in a couple of weeks when the Calgary Stampede occurred. Strange what kids will hold against their parents.