My Life in Cars

This month, the lease for the Dodge Ram comes to an end. It was definitely not my first choice when we got it three years ago but it certainly has served its purpose and of course I have now become a bit attached to it. I also love telling the guys at work that I drive a Ram 1500 with a Hemi engine. They are impressed. I will be a bit sad when we return it next week.

We are replacing the Dodge with two vehicles – a truck for the farm and a car for the city. Marty found the new farm truck in an online Richie Bros. auction in Texas which was an adventure in itself. The new car remains a bit of a mystery at this point but I am feeling the pressure to make the right choice. Every car we have marks a period of time in our lives. It reflects our needs at the time, the styles of the day, and is forever caught in pictures and memories.

My life in cars is not very long. It starts with the White Parisienne. I don’t remember it at all but I was around when it was!

Next up was a blue sedan with a white top, bought second hand from my grandparents. I do have a vague impression of the back seat of that one.



Next came the Buick Skylark. It had metallic brown/bronze paint and a light beige interior (which I am sure Nancy thought was impractical!). It looks a bit like a 70s muscle car so I wonder how much you could get for it now?

After the Skylark was the 1973 orange VW Westfalia camper van. We had the VW van for years and it defined my childhood. It was like a member of the family. Sticking with us when we moved house, going on vacation with us, travelling to Headacher, being there when we learned to drive. I sort of wish we still had it! What most people do not know is that there were two orange vans but I will let George tell that story.

We became a two car family in Kamloops when Nancy needed a car for her business. She ended up with a 1981 red 4 door Honda civic hatchback. This was another car that we had forever. It was what we really learned to drive in and it was the car of choice for Janeen and I as teenagers. When we were in university Nancy permanently loaned us the car and it served us well. It just kept going and going and going.

At some point, George got a gold Honda accord. This was our first manual car and learning to drive a stick is not as easy as it seems but it is a great life skill. The gold Honda eventually morphed into a maroon Honda accord which Nancy and George still drive today (I don’t know two people who drive their cars longer than Nancy and George!)

The first car I ever got for myself was a 2001 Black VW Jetta with black leather seats. To me it was pure luxury. I only put 20,000km on that car – most of it driving to the grocery store on the weekends! I met Marty when I had that car and we started driving up north on a regular basis. After a terrible car accident, we decided that we needed something bigger and safer. The next car was a 2004 red Volvo XC70. I loved that car. I really loved that car. In a million years, I never could have predicted what came next. When the lease on the XC70 came up I wanted to get another one but we needed a truck for the farm and a way for Marty to get supplies for the house. We knew that a truck was the only logical vehicle but I was heartbroken. Once again, a lease is coming to an end and although I am not heartbroken this time, I have come to like the truck and I will miss it a bit I think.

We are done with leasing so I am actually going to buy my first car! I won’t spoil the surprise as to what it will be but I am sure there will be some stories that will come with it…

Travelling with my Dad.

I grew up in an era where the way of life and the related experiences were very different. There was a certain level of technology in the those days but nothing like the miracles of today. Those days were in the mid forties to the late fifties. As I reflect back on my childhood I remember the many experiences my Dad provided me as a way to learn and remember.

These memories were brought to mind as we bought Taj a toy grader for his birthday coming up soon.

I was 11 years old when my Dad took me to his work. He was a travelling salesman for The George McLean Company, a wholesale grocer. He had two territories that he serviced in between Lake Manitoba & Lake Winnipeg known as the inter-lake region. Dad arranged for me to travel with him to the Eastern Territory. We left on a Monday morning in the summer of 1948 and returned on Friday after a week on the road. It was all very exciting, overwhelming and fun. We never seemed to drive very far before we made another stop at one of my Dad's customers store. After several stops I began to see a pattern that my Dad followed when in a customers store. Over the years he had established such a high level of trust with the customers that he moved up and down the aisles making note of what the customer needed. Before we left the store owner would check the list, add to it and sign it. When I realized how much respect my Dad had with his customers my pride burst at the seams.

Three events stand out in my mind that I will never forget. The first being filling up the car with gas. Simple you say. Not in those days. My first task was to move a tall handle back and forth filling the glass tank above. Thus the term "pumping gas". When it was full I then put the hose nozzle in the fill pipe of the tank. My Dad gave me the amount of gas he needed and I squeezed the handle letting the gas flow into the tank. I had to watch the glass tank to make sure I put the right amount in. Far different from the city gas pumps and the pumps used today. There aren't many individuals who can remember filling a car with gas like that.

On Monday night we stayed in the Lundar Hotel in Lundar. This town is where my mother was raised. My Dad took me to the Post Office Building where the telephone operators worked to send in his daily orders. He pointed out that my mother was a telephone operator and this is where they met.

On the same trip on the Thursday we were staying overnight at a town called Ericksdale. After we had dinner my Dad met the operator of the Road Grader. My Dad knew him of course because he had often met him on the roads leveling and grading and in particular in the winter when he kept the roads clear. The grader operator was going out for an hour or so to work on some roads. Whether it was my Dad who asked if I could go or the operator himself I don't recall. All I know is I was in the cab of the grader and for sure I had my hand on the wheel standing in front of the operator. It was dusty and dirty but it was fun. A lot of my friends of the day were envious of my experience.

George

The Canadian

A couple of weeks ago we were on our way home to the city and listening to the Vinyl Café. Stuart McLean was hosting the show from “The Canadian”. They were somewhere in northern Ontario on their way to Toronto. It made me realise how lucky we were to have experienced that train when we were kids and made the trip through the mountains and across the prairie to Kenora. Not many Canadians these days have the opportunity to experience their country from the Dome Car.

We were pretty young so the memories are spotty. For example, I have no recollection of eating on the train at all. Maybe we fasted the entire way? No, wait, there were granola bars and maybe some chewy bears? I am sure we ate in the dining car and had our three meals a day but I can’t remember it!

I do remember the scenery (which probably says a lot about the beauty of this country if it made an impression on a kid!), the dome car, the challenge of walking between the cars and rolling into the stations we stopped at. Nancy, Janeen and I got on in Kamloops, joining Eliza and Elaine who boarded in Vancouver. I have memories of the mountains and the spiral tunnel so we must have travelled through them during daylight. I also have memories of getting off somewhere on the prairies at twilight and walking around. Otherwise, we spent hours up in the observation car or in our seats, watching the country rock by, reading, playing games and spending time together.

As we travelled through towns and urban centres people would watch us pass by. Freight trains and commuter trains are common in this country but everyone stops to watch the cross country passenger train go by. Then, as these days, it was something special. Thanks Nancy and Elaine!

Hmmmmm, Bacon

As a kid, staying with Amma was like being wrapped in a warm hug. No one else showered such constant affection and attention on us. In her eyes we could do no wrong and what kid does not love that! Amma was even able to tame the scariness of Grandpa Alliston.

Their house was so different from our house and the Head households. It smelled different, it looked different (is it my imagination or was there plastic on some of the furniture?) and it was filled with what seemed to be exotic and unusual objects.

One of the things that Amma did well was feed us everything that we were not allowed to eat at home. The details are a bit fuzzy but one thing I remember clearly are the breakfasts. After being allowed to sleep as long as we wanted, Amma would let us have whatever we wanted for breakfast which was a strong contrast from the healthy eating that was routine at home.

I believe that Janeen was taken with the sugary cereals that would never be found in our cupboards. As for me, I was hooked on bacon sandwiches. Three pieces of buttered toast layered with a few pieces of bacon inbetween. No egg, no lettuce, no tomato – just bacon (!?!?!?). How I came up with this for breakfast I will never know but I thought they were delicious and I was allowed to have them every day!

I am sure that a daily bacon sandwich would not pass muster today as far as child nutrition goes. I am also sure that my mom cringed when she saw what we were eating but held her tongue and let Amma spoil us. I don’t know why these sandwiches were so good. I think that it is mostly because there is something special about being spoiled as a kid and being showered with unconditional love. All I know is that although I have never had a plain bacon sandwich since and will probably never have one again, my stomach is growling at the memory.

Adventures in Canning

I am trying for the life of me to remember an Easter story but.... nothing. However, on the drive yesterday we were listening to Jian Gomeshi on Q interview Gordon Ramsey about his book A Healthy Appetite. They were talking about eating locally and in season. Well, that got me thinking about our canning and freezing adventures in Kamloops; summer weekends spent driving around the Okanagan picking up the fruit or vegetable in season and bringing it back to the house to be preserved. 30 years ago, Nancy was way ahead of her time and although it did not seem like a cool idea at the time, with the steam swirling around us in the kitchen in the middle of August, what we were doing was quite remarkable and let us eat naturally and locally throughout the year.

It would start with asparagus in May or June. I think that the asparagus came from Armstrong but I don't remember much about going to get it so I could be wrong (or I was in school). I do remember that we would get to have fresh asparagus on toast with cheese sauce for dinner that night. The asparagus was like a warm-up before a marathon.

As I write this, I am also realizing that I don't remember much about any of the vegetables. I guess that they were not as exciting as the fruit. The exception would be the zucchini. Let’s just say that Nancy’s Zucchini looked nothing like the ones you get in the grocery store. These were monster Zucchini and deserve an entry of their own one day.

After the asparagus there was a bit of a lull as we waited for the strawberries in late June or early July. Picking your own strawberries (or any other produce) is such a romantic notion; in reality it is back breaking, hot, dusty work. It only took one season for Nancy to quickly realize that pick your own plus preserve your own would result in strike action by her work force (us). On our part we were sure to complain as much as possible so it never happened again. After that we left the picking to the professionals.

As far as fruit goes, the strawberries were an easy way to start. They just needed to be washed and trimmed and frozen - some whole and some sliced. What I never understood is why the whole strawberries needed to be set out in perfect little rows on baking sheets and frozen individually before being put into bags. They all turned to mush anyway when they were thawed. I have since learned that its the recommended best practice but at the time I just thought that Nancy was doing that Head perfection thing. A bag of strawberries would be pulled out of the freezer periodically through the winter to be eaten plain or for a treat with a bit of ice cream.

July brought blueberries, cherries, raspberries. There had to be some vegetables that month but as I said, I can't remember - maybe beans? Blueberries and cherries were my favourites and still are to this day. Blueberries came from the Fraser Valley while the cherries required a trip down to Vernon or Kelowna. Janeen and I would sit in the back of our orange VW bus, strategically situated near the crates of fruit. We would gorge ourselves on the bounty the entire way home. I won’t describe the effect that this had on our digestive systems. Let’s just say that it wasn’t pretty but we didn't care and we did it every year.

The blueberries and raspberries were pretty easy - they just needed to be sorted and washed. The strange ritual of laying the fruit out on baking sheets was repeated. These frozen berries featured prominently in George’s Sunday morning pancake breakfasts.

The cherries required the additional step of pitting. This took forever and we were always in search of the ultimate cherry pitter. The cherries were both frozen and canned and they looked so beautiful packed into jars and sitting on the shelves of the cold storage room. Cherries jubilee around Christmas time became a tradition during this period.

So with the berries all packed away in the freezer and in jars we would head into August, lulled into a sense that this was not so bad and that we were half way through. How wrong we were because now the peaches, pears and tomatoes were ready and the hell began... We went through a lot of peaches, pears and tomatoes (especially tomatoes!) and they all had to be peeled and canned. Anyone who has blanched one of these suckers in order to get the skin off will quickly realize why, as a child, I thought it was hell.

It would be the height of summer and in Kamloops that meant HOT. All four of us would be elbow to elbow in the kitchen and there would be pots on every element on the stove plus a kettle or two filled with boiling water. It was an assembly line. Someone would be blanching the peaches and peeling the skins off, another would be cutting, pitting and slicing them to various thicknesses, someone would then be packing them into jars, filling them with juice or syrup and putting the lids and rings on that had been sitting in boiling water and finally, someone would be manning the canning pot, putting the precious jars into the bath, taking them out at the designated time and setting them on towels to cool.

Each of these positions had its drawbacks. Blanching and peeling the fruit required a high tolerance for scalding your hands; cutting and pitting the skinned fruit was messy and sticky; the jars needed to be packed just right – not too full and not too empty or you would not get a good seal; manning the bath was the most pressure as a messed up batch was an expensive and time consuming mistake. Doing some would not be so bad but we did a lot. Between the peaches and the tomatoes, it seemed like it would never end. However, it did end and after a few months, we would forget the worst of it, especially when the peach crisp came out of the oven in January.

Sometime in late September or early October we would have our ritual weekend with the apple press. For a couple of weeks building up to the big day, Nancy would be out collecting as many windfall apples as she could from local apple farmers. The apple shredder and press would arrive early one Saturday morning and we would begin. George would move the van out of the driveway to make room for the press and the shredder. This was not a small implement nor a small endeavour. Janeen and I would be tasked with throwing the apples into the shredder which was basically a wood chipper for fruit. The shredded fruit would be collected and placed into the press. Once the press was full we would put the lid on and then crank it down by circling the press and pushing on a wooden handle. Out would come a stream of the most amazing fresh apple juice. We would take it up to the kitchen where Nancy was pasteurizing the juice and sealing it in big jugs for the store room. It was hazardous work what with the wood chipper and the swarm of wasps that were attracted by the sweet smell of the apples. It was worth it though as that apple juice kept us going through the winter.

Apples marked the end of the season and I am sure we were all relieved when it was over. It was such a part of our lives at the time that I never realized how unusual it was to have a 28cu.ft. freezer filled to the brim and a cold store room with jar upon jar of fruit and vegetables that sustained us through the winter. As a result, I am sure that I was not as appreciative of my parents efforts then as I am now. Looking back with the perspective of adulthood, it was a great opportunity to bond as a family and a wonderful learning experience. I hope that someday (soon) I will have the chance do some of what we did, albeit on a (much) smaller scale.