Posted on October 26, 2013 under Storytelling with no comments yet

“For they looked in the future and what did they see

They saw an iron road runnin’ from sea to sea.”

Gordon Lightfoot – Canadian Railroad Trilogy

A Sunday morning walk has brought me face to face with the past as I meander down the train tracks past the Heritage Museum.  I have seen the train trestle many times, from a distance, spanning the confluence of three rivers.  On this day, something beckons me towards the mist which shrouds the bridge and tracks.  I gingerly walk among the rails, festooned with high weeds, discarded coffee cups and broken beer bottles.  I am tempted to lower myself to the ground to put my ear to the steel rail to see if a train might be coming.  But all I hear is silence.

Travelling by rail was once a vital transportation link.  It was the favored mode of travel for people going to the city for medical appointments or on shopping trips.  It carried students who attended the local university to and from Antigonish.  It took high school students on educational trips to far off locales like Rimouski, Quebec and for sports fanatics, it was simply the best way to get to Montreal or Toronto to see the Leafs or Habs play.  And in a distant time, it carried our boys off to war.

Everyone of a certain age has a train story but sadly, our children and grandchildren who live here will not be so lucky.  Passenger rail service has all but disappeared from Atlantic Canada.

Rail has a magnetic draw, even to a three year old girl, some fifty years ago.  The girl’s beloved aunt, who lived with her family, was travelling on the Rail Liner to Cape Breton, and this wasn’t going over well with her small niece.  She didn’t want her aunt to leave or, better still, wanted to ride the rails with her.

It was a cool, crisp fall day and the youngster had watched her dear aunt depart, suitcase in hand.   Wearing her pretty yellow dandelion hat, she remained outside playing in the yard.  Or at least that’s what everyone thought.

When the girl’s mother called the children in for lunch, the three year old could not be found.  Her older brother reported that she was headed for the train station. That is what she had told him.  Concern turned to panic and then fear as the mother and her five year old son hurried eastward down Main Street.  They stopped at the flower shop and discovered that a small person fitting the description had indeed passed by their doors a short time ago.  A call was placed to the police department to report a missing child.

The mother, son and the flower shop owner raced towards the train station. They stood on the train platform and looked to the left in the direction of the dairy.  Nothing.  As they swung to the right, they spotted in the distance a small figure in a yellow hat, close to the trestle and the rushing river below. The child was rescued without any harm done. The tears only came later when the police arrived at the train station and she discovered that this was serious business indeed.

My wife still loves to travel by train.

Posted on October 24, 2013 under Thursday Tidbits with 2 comments

Last weekend I went for a long walk and ended up down at the old train station which is now our local historical museum. I stood out front where the loading platform used to be and thought about days gone by when the Railiner used to pass through our town daily. I decided to wander up the tracks ( no fear of encountering a train ) and headed towards the trestle, a place I had never been to before. It passes over a river that empties into Antigonish Harbor. Weeds are growing between the rails and the tracks are littered with broken bottles and coffee cups. As I stood there staring into the mist, I recalled the golden age of rail and decided to write a story about it. This is a pure nostalgia piece and I will put it up on my website this Saturday. It’s called ” A Train of Thought.”

And speaking of train wrecks, The Casket has agreed to run my story about menopause next week. I have never received so much reaction from a story that hasn’t even been published yet. I am speaking at a conference this weekend and might test drive it there. If I disappear off the radar next week, you’ll know that it didn’t go well. This story had more rewrites than any story I’ve written before. Hmm. Wonder why?!

Betty and I will be heading off for vacation at the beginning of November so expect some Florida themes. I have been told that there won’t be as much shopping this year as in previous years. I am somewhat disappointed as this always gives me fodder for stories. But then again, I have known people to have a change of heart. One way or another, the stories will continue to come.

Books arriving Friday. Be the first in your neighborhood to have a first edition,  autographed copy. Limit of 100 per customer.

Have a great weekend.

Posted on October 22, 2013 under Storytelling with 2 comments

She knew this day would eventually come when she would have to have “the discussion” about the birds and the bees and body parts with her young son.  But she wasn’t quite ready.  Her own parents hadn’t discussed the topic very much when she was young.  She was clearly out of her comfort zone.  So when her boy came up to her one day and asked, “Mommy, where is my weenis?” she was reduced to a stuttering, stammering glob of humanity.

Much has changed over the years when it comes to educating children.  Back in the day, there weren’t a lot of useful textbooks to explain these types of things. Unless you consider the lingerie sections of the Eaton’s and Sears catalogues good reference material.  The sum total of sex education in high school for many of the boys was one, brief, forty minute lesson from the school principal.  We were herded into a classroom and imparted the “facts of life” while the girls were getting their earful from one of the Sisters.

The initial request for information from little Johnny was brushed off.  Parents develop this skill early on.  You just change the channel or distract the child with the offer of an ice cream.  The mother of the boy anguished about the question for days.  She went to the local library looking for age appropriate books.

She wondered how he could have possibly come up with the term “weenis”.   Back in her own childhood she had heard all of the slang expressions and figured that somewhere along the way, Johnny had become confused and simply blended the word wiener and penis to come up with this gem.  A smile crossed her face when she realized the humor in all of this.

That did little to remove the discomfort she was feeling as she girded herself to have the discussion with her firstborn.  She decided that she would wait until the weekend.  This turned out to be a bad idea. While Johnny waltzed through another carefree week at school, she stewed and brooded and occasionally broke out in a sweat wondering how she was going to explain things.

She did find a few anatomy books that would help her with the task at hand.  One book in particular was quite amazing as it showed the external and internal organs of the body vividly and graphically.  She had never seen the human body like this before.  And, not having been a biology whiz at school, there were names for body parts that even she had never heard of before.

Including weenis.

She stared in disbelief at a picture of a human elbow with the flap of skin that hangs from it.  “The medical term for the skin located on your elbow is olecranon skin” she read.  “The slang term for this flap of skin is the weenis …”   “So that’s what a weenis is’” she thought to herself.

She could hardly wait for little Johnny to come home and wore a short sleeve blouse for the show and tell session that was to follow.