Jack
I really enjoyed your short stories.
They inspired me to finish one I had started some time ago about the Town Line
School House.
The Tommy's Camp story really relates
with me as I passed there countless times and have been by there in all seasons:
in the summers, while I was on my
way for cigarettes up Grandma's Road to Quadeville;
in the fall while I was on my way for deer or partridge hunting;
in the winter while I was on my way to Tommy's Lake to ice fish; and, in
the Spring while making early morning trips to the meadow for rat trapping.
I too ate some prunes, lit some of those big Eddy matches from the jar,
and read the papers. Another thing you may have missed, or I may have altered
the survival supplies, was a brown 2 or 3 oz medicine bottle full of brandy.
Would that stuff warm your innards, and all the way to your toes.
I had more than a few swigs of this medicine but, then, the bottle went
missing. I guess Tommy, in his
wisdom, didn't want us mixing the prunes and the brandy.
Now it would be called "Extra Strength".
I have a picture of my first new car,
back in fall of 1968, when I stopped and took a shot of it along with the
coloured leaves at Tommy's Camp. My
wife wonders why men always take pictures of their vehicles.
In the winters when Tommy did not work
the bush and there would be a heavy snowfall, he would often come to me at
Church on Sundays and ask, "Gee, Boy, would you go back and shovel the snow
off the roof of my Camp?" This
would be a whole Sunday afternoon’s outing. You could light a fire and warm up the Camp, smoke inside and
eat prunes. The next Sunday, Tommy
would come to me after Church and say; “Gee, Boy, did you get the roof
shovelled of?" Then he would
slip me $5.00. That was like winning the lottery.
The only time I stopped there that I
didn't enjoy was once when I was fishing back at Tommy's Lake beyond the Camp
A vicious summer thunder storm started to roll down the valley and I
didn't spot it soon enough. By the
time I paddled to shore and started running for home , and being loaded down
with Northern Pike, I made it only to Tommy's Camp where I had to take cover.
Once in the camp, the lighting and the thunder was one continuing
alternating duo that made the hair stand up on the back of my head and I didn't
know which one scared me the most. You
could smell the sulfur from the lighting and with all the tall trees around, I
watched for one to be split open at any minute. There was no serenity around the area that day.
Bryan