A FEW STORIES

Here are some stories I submitted to a contest that the TV show Corner Gas was running a couple of years ago. You had to submit stories about small town life. I did pretty good, most of the stories ended up in the top ten.

"ACE"
The small fishing village where I grew up had a local character named "Ace". He got his nickname as a young man because he and his brothers spent hours playing cards. He was so well known by this name that few people knew his real one. One day a man arrived at the town store asking where he could find Bernard McDormand. The old men who spent all day sitting on the bench in the store said he must be mistaken, there was no one by that name in town. He was about to leave, probably thinking that either he had the wrong town or there was some conspiracy to keep him in the dark when the store-keeper, Gladys, who always seemed to know everything about everybody, spoke up. She was happy to inform the visitor, and the crew on the bench, that Bernard was in fact Aces real name.

Ace had an odd talent for fixing the old car engines that most of the boats used for power. His methods were somewhat free and easy, often having a few bits and pieces left over. His philosophy was that "if it would run without those parts then it didn't really need them anyway". One year, just before fishing season, he was tied up at his wharf, trying to get his engine running properly. Finally, in a fit of exasperation he hoisted the engine out of the boat, swung it over the side and dropped it into twenty feet of water. The next morning it dawned on him that fishing season opened in a couple of days and he didn't have an engine for his boat. At low tide he went down on the beach, hoisted the engine back in the boat and a couple of days later went fishing with it.

"HOW TO RUIN A PERFECTLY GOOD TRUCK"
One day when I was about five years old I was playing in my father’s new ’54 Chev truck. I was happily pushing pedals and pulling levers when suddenly it started slowly rolling backwards down the driveway. At the end of our driveway was the street, and just past that, an eight-foot drop into the ocean.
I frantically kicked at the pedals and tried to yank the emergency brake, but the truck kept rolling and I quickly decided my only chance was to bail out. I opened the door and jumped, recovering just in time to see the truck disappear into six feet of salt water.
The tires, the wooden bed and the air trapped in the cab kept it afloat and, with just a few inches showing, I watched my dad’s new truck slowly drift away.
Luckily a fisherman unloading his catch nearby noticed my dilemma and kindly towed it back to shore.
By this time most of the 350 people in town had shown up and as the tide fell, the men went to work. They stripped the truck of everything that could be removed, disassembled the engine, drained the gas tank, then towed the truck to a pond in an attempt to wash away the effects of the salt water. By nightfall the truck was back together and running.
Even though none of the gauges worked, the windows wouldn’t roll down and the body developed a severe case of premature rust, my father continued to drive this truck for another year or so. Right up until the day he hit a bump and the rotted out cab dropped down around his ears. He drove straight to the dealership and traded it in. For his one-year old truck my father got a trade-in value of $50.

"THE LESSON"
I grew up on a small island off the coast of Nova Scotia. My wife was born and raised in the big city of Toronto. Her introduction to life in a small town occurred in 1979 when we moved from T.O. to a new job in Louisburg, Cape Breton. Since our apartment was not quite ready, for the first few days we stayed at a local hotel. Coming home after my second day at work, I noticed that she was industriously knitting away and commented that I didn’t know she could knit. She replied that this morning she couldn’t, but finding herself with time on her hands, she went looking for something to do. Coming across a local craft store, she was impressed by some of the handiwork on display and was inspired to buy some yarn and needles. Returning to the hotel with a one-page brochure explaining all you needed to know about knitting, she was growing frustrated trying to interpret the instructions when a knock came on the door and the maid entered to make up the room. After a few minutes of cleaning and straightening, she approached my wife and said, “Here my dear, let me show you”. For the next half-hour, between cleaning the bathroom and making the bed, she patiently gave a hands-on lesson in the finer points of knitting. Many years later my wife still enjoys knitting and still remembers the kindness of that woman who could find a few minutes in her busy day to lend a helping hand to a young newcomer.

"THE FIRE BRIGADE"
In a small town, phone calls at 2:30 Sunday morning are never good news. Elsie, the local switchboard operator, was alerting us that a neighbors house was on fire. While my mother took off for the house in question, dad went with a group to commandeer the town fire engine, an old pickup towing a trailer with a car engine on it that ran a pump. The town had bought this rig a few years earlier, after the last fire. Unfortunately, no one had maintained it and when the men tried to start it, they realized that the battery was long dead. They pulled one out of a nearby car and after some priming and cranking and cursing, it started. Sputtering and spitting and stalling, they arrived at the scene were a cheer went up from a weary bucket brigade who were scooping water from a nearby beach in a valiant effort to quell the flames. Hoses were quickly rolled out and the key turned to start the pump engine. Nothing, another dead battery. Quickly one was borrowed and the engine turned over but wouldn't start. While the men worked feverishly, the exhausted bucket brigade continued to toss water at the growing fire. Finally to everyone's relief the engine roared to life, the pump started to pump and men grabbed hoses, ready to douse the now raging inferno. Noticing a lack of water pressure, they looked behind to see that the old hoses had split under pressure. Hoses were changed and changed again until some were found that could stand the strain. Meanwhile the engine kept stalling and the fire kept growing. In the end, the house burned to the ground, but the village fire brigade was instrumental in saving the house next door from suffering more than minor damage.

"CURT'S STORE"
My best friend's father ran an honest-to-goodness corner store. It was a very small building situated on one of only two intersections in a very small town. Although diminutive in size, it was a full-fledged general store in spirit. Customers could rely on “Curt's” for everything from penny candy to lightbulbs to fresh meat and vegetables. Squeezed in among the rubber boots and pop cases was a wooden bench which was usually occupied by a half-dozen or so of the local sages. These were retired or otherwise unemployed men who spent their days smoking, discussing things of great import like the weather, and observing every customer who came through the door. The men on the bench were a community resource, they usually had the latest news about the goings-on around town as well as a wealth of history about the community and everyone in it. Great philosophical discussions would rage for hours, interrupted occasionally when one or another of the debaters would rise from the bench and call out, “Curt, cut me off a slab of baloney”. Curt's store is long gone now. Every time I pass the intersection where it once stood, I look at the empty field and can’t help but feel that the village and its people are a little bit poorer for its passing.

"ISLAND GAS"
My father was way ahead of the curve. Decades before the big gas giants started converting all their stations to self serve gas bars and convenience stores; he was already there. Brier Island, Nova Scotia, the fishing village where I grew up, was too small to support a full-fledged gas station, but too isolated to be without some source of fuel, tires, car parts etc. His version of Corner Gas (which actually was on a corner) consisted of a general store which carried everything from meat and vegetables to lumber and paint to sewing needles to boat anchors, as well as the aforementioned boat and auto supplies. The gas pumps were across the road from the store and people would just pull up to the pumps, pump their own gas and then walk across to the store to pay, or more often than not, to yell from the doorway, “Five dollars worth of gas. Put it on my bill.” Being on an island, the threat of people driving off without paying was pretty well non-existent, after all, where would they run too? The self-service aspect of the business even went farther than todays gas bars. Behind the gas pumps, near the edge of the Baptist Vestry parking lot was a wooden ramp that people could drive their cars up onto to change their own oil. Stove oil was also sold, delivered on an old army truck in forty-five gallon drums and transferred to the house tank via a hand-cranked pump. Thirty years later, things haven’t changed much, the business is still in the family, the pumps are now on the same side of the road as the store and the town isn’t quite as isolated as it was, but the corner gas pumps are still an important and central part of the community.

"NEW BOOTS"
Among us kids, the traditional test of new boots was to wade out until water started coming in. Knowing this, my father had warned me that if I got my new boots wet inside, there would be dire consequences.
I was fishing off the wharf with my friend David when he snagged one of the wharf poles. I decided that I could hang over and unhook it. The next thing I knew, I was under twenty feet of water.
My instinct was to kick off my boots and swim for shore. Two things stopped me, first being that I couldn’t swim. It may seem odd that a ten-year old surrounded by water would not know how to swim, but most of the fishermen I knew never bothered to acquire this skill. Ocean water is so cold that within minutes they would be incapacitated anyway.
Second was my fathers warning. I had definitely got my boots wet, if I arrived home with no boots at all, well, I just couldn’t imagine that.
Running out of air, I went up a post hand over hand to the surface. After gulping some air, I assessed my situation. David tried to pull me up but my boots were dragging me down and I couldn’t hang on. Suddenly a simple solution occurred to me; I would just walk ashore.
Sinking back to the bottom, I set off toward shore. I’d pole climb to the surface for air, drop back down and keep slogging along.
Emerging from the sea in water-filled boots, I was met by David, crying his eyes out. Touched by this uncharacteristic display of emotion, I sought to reassure him, telling him to not worry, I was O.K. Finally he looked up and said, “I was just afraid that you’d drown and I’d get blamed for it”.

"THE FEUDIN’ FENCE"
I grew up in a small fishing village of about 350 in Nova Scotia, a place where everyone knew everyone else and everyone knew everyone elses business. Malcolm and Georgie were two men of retirement age who had been next-door neighbours for more than thirty years. They got along for all those years without any problems worth mentioning until the fateful day when Malcolm decided to get his property surveyed. The survey revealed that for the past thirty years, Georgies garage had extended six inches over the property line. For some reason Malcolm took offense to this and demanded that the garage be moved. Georgie refused, and the feud was on. After a few preliminaries, like Malcolm hosing down the side of the garage while Georgie was trying to paint it, and Georgie throwing snowballs through Malcolms open kitchen window, the gloves came off. One built a picket fence on the property line, the other built a board fence next to it. The first responded with a higher fence and the second won the battle with sheets of plywood placed on end, an eight foot wooden Berlin Wall forever hiding the two from each others sight. This went on, with more minor skirmishes, for several years until one unfortunate day when Malcolms wife collapsed in the kitchen. Old habits die hard, and in this emergency Malcolm ran to his nearest neighbour for help. Georgie responded like people in small communities usually do and helped Malcolm care for his wife until she recovered. The fence, which had become known to all as "The Feudin' Fence", came down almost immediately and the two resumed as if the previous several years had never happened.

"THE TICKET CAPER"
My father ran a small-town general store. One of his regular customers was “Percy”, a retired gentleman who liked to pass time by playing practical jokes on his long-suffering wife, Alma. These jokes were of the harmless, mildly amusing sort, that is, until the day he entered the store with a distressed look on his face and asked to speak with my father in private. It seems that Percy had bought a lottery ticket using the same numbers as the winner in the last draw then doctored the date to make it look like it had been bought a week earlier. His plan was to get his wife to check the numbers, wait until she thought she had won the lottery, and then they would both have a big laugh when he revealed his prank.
But, as he now confessed, his wife had got so excited that he didn’t dare tell her it was a trick, and since he had bought the ticket from my father, would he mind going and telling Alma she hadn’t really won a million dollars? My father, being no fool, declined this opportunity to have his head separated from his shoulders by an irate housewife and suggested that Percys best course of action might be to make a clean breast of things before it all went past the point of no return.
Percy left the store looking like a man going to the gallows, he later told my father that he had taken his advice and confessed. But Dad always suspected that he had tried to divert some of Almas’ wrath by sharing the blame because for a long time after, she treated him rather coolly and she told some of her neighbours that she believed someone had put Percy up to it.

Odds and Ends

Just thought I'd add some things since nobody else is.
This week-end we went to see John Fogarty (formerly of Creedence Clearwater Revival) at the Amphitheatre at Ontario Place. It was a great show, he did a non-stop two hours of mostly CCR tunes and a couple off his new album.
One of the things I enjoy about living here is the opportunity to take in some of the live performances. In the past year and a half we have seen Fogarty, blues legend BB King, Meatloaf and Elton John. Of these I would say I enjoyed BB King the most, a very low key and personal kind of show at Roy Thompson Hall. Fogarty and Elton are tied for second place, Fogarty put on a very high energy show (the guy's 62) and Elton is just Elton, it must give a person quite a feeling to be able to sit down at a piano, hit the first chord of "Benny and The Jets" and bring 16,000 people roaring to their feet.
Meatloaf was OK but a bit of a disappointment, I guess it was too much to expect a guy in his late 50s to still be able to sing "Paradise by the Dashboard Light" with the same feeling and intensity that he did 30 years ago.
We've also been to see comedian Ron James, the Canadian Brass and for the past three years it's been a family tradition to go see the CBCs Vinyl Cafe Christmas Show.
A couple of months ago some friends gave us tickets to see Phanthom of The Opera at the Princess of Wales Theatre in Toronto, they have season tickets but were unable to go on this date, lucky for us. It was a great production and in a very impressive building.
Hamilton is a great city for live music, a lot like Halifax. They have a couple of week-end long free concerts every summer at Gage Park, with local bands and a couple of more well know performers.