82 Years Ago This Summer…

In 1925, Ruby’s mother took her to the Bruce Mines Fair for the first time. As far as I know, there still is a Bruce Mines Fair, but I don’t imagine it’s near as interesting now as the way Ruby describes it. Maybe I should just let her tell it – she’s a much better story-teller.

The fair lasted for three days, and people would be getting ready for next year about the time this year was finishing up. They had a prize for everything. You could bring all your livestock to be judged, and your preserves, and pies, and quilts. My mother always won first prize for hooked mats, every single year, but she put in all kinds of other things, too; flowers, and canning, and vegetables. Especially carrots; all her carrots had to be exactly the same size. She’d line them all up on the kitchen table and grumble over them.

People would get excited over the fair like you wouldn’t believe. Even the kids had events, like the three-legged race and the potato-sack, but they had other contests for them, too, like “Best Dog” or “Best Cat” and they’d all bring their pets. It’s a wonder all the animals made it through the weekend.

The older girls would put needle-point in – I won once for a tea cloth. The big stores like Sears and Eaton’s would award trophies and such for the best entries, and one of them sent me a silver platter for that tea cloth – had my name engraved on it and everything – I was right proud of that. I wonder where that is now? I don’t remember….

Long pause….

Me, prodding: Did people sell things, too?

Oh, of course! You could sell anything you’d brought, which was why it was so important to win! The winners sold first, and made more money. But you couldn’t take a thing off those tables until all the entries had been judged, so at the very end of the last day, that’s when things got really crazy. All the people with blue ribbons would be puffed right up to twice their size, holding out for more money than people wanted to pay, and all the “losers” would just be trying to get rid of stuff so they didn’t have to drag it all back home again.

My mother spent the whole week before the fair walking on a razor blade, and us along with her, trying to get everything packed up and making sure not to forget anything important.

She took me to the fair for the first time when I was about a year old. That must have been a mess for her to deal with; all that stuff to organize and pack and making lists, all the while with me hanging off her hip. When we got there, she saw they’d set up a Ferris Wheel. She’d never been on a Ferris Wheel before, and that’s all she could think of, but she couldn’t get herself a ride because she had me with her.

She finally run into someone she knew and asked the lady if she’d watch me while she went on that Ferris Wheel. So whoever this woman was, she took me, anyway, and my mother finally got her ride. She thought that was the cat’s whiskers, being up that high and seeing everybody’s house for miles and miles around. She didn’t want to come down again.

When she did finally get off, she couldn’t find me anywhere, of course. There were crowds and crowds of people, and it was some time, probably a couple of hours, even, before she found the woman that had me. When she got me back, she noticed I had a blue ribbon pinned on my dress.

Wouldn’t you know that lady had entered me into the Most Beautiful Baby contest while my mother was on the Ferris Wheel. And didn’t I win?

Me, smart-ass-like: Did she get any decent bids on you?

Random Song for the Day: “Voice on Tape” – Jenny Owen Youngs

Almost Perfect…

Yeah, yeah, if it was all perfect what would I have to look forward to, blah, blah, blah. I wish I could remember the actual quote for that – it was killer.

BUT, regardless, it really was an almost perfect day. And the one disappointment isn’t getting me down much, because it may yet happen, and if not today, then tomorrow. ‘Cuz I wants it.

Matthew Mansel Falls & Eleanor Maude (Van Every) FallsJuly 28, 1948Meldrum Bay, Manitoulin Island, Ontario
Matthew Mansel Falls & Eleanor Maude (Van Every) Falls
July 28, 1948
Meldrum Bay, Manitoulin Island, Ontario

Today is my parents’ 59th Wedding Anniversary. FIFTY-NINE!!!!! Holy ol’ shit, Bloggosphere! My brother and sister-in-law (the Barber-Falls actor/director/producer/musician type people. Yes! Those famous ones!) took us all for a drive over hell’s half-acre and God’s green earth – we didn’t exactly get lost, but I don’t think we knew where we actually were most of the time – and poor unsociable, hermitaged, non-people-loving Me had a wonderful time. Me, who’da thunk?!

We ended up out for dinner at Trout Lake Resort where I ate an incredible white fish dinner (and a beer; can’t forget the beer – in public I drank a beer!) where we asked Mom and Dad how they got engaged.

Father: She called me on the phone and said she was coming on the train and to meet her at the station and that we were getting married.

Mother: I did not!

Father: Yes she did. She was desperate.

Aubrey: Were you desperate, Ma?

Mother: I must have been, I guess.

Me: So, how’d it really happen?

Mother/Father: I’m not telling you.

My sister (Tootie, of last July’s Caught Smokin’ video, for those of you that remember when I had a real blog) and her husband weren’t present for this celebration because of a trip to Manitoba to attend the nuptials of my Un-Brother, Ken, who somehow convinced his lovely companion that she should make an honest man out of him (she must be desperate), and who discovered the one romantic bone in his body (no, not that one, you pigs) and decided that he could only marry on the anniversary of his parents. And she went for it! She did! Congrats to them both, the foolish, foolish youngsters.

One more sister (Big Sis)was missing, as I think she may be up a tree somewhere in Southern Ontario. It’s okay, though – it’s her tree.

On the ride home, we popped into my cousin Carl’s driveway to get tasted by large dogs and learn how to get rid of unwanted Jehovah’s Witnesses. I haven’t laughed that hard in a long, long time.

As we unlocked the door, a tired Kyla, all “peopled-out”, sent me off to Ruby’s for coffee, crosswords, and more laughter.

I came home to my small, but soon to be remedied (wish hard) disappointment, but at least I have good things to write about. And I didn’t snark at anybody all. day.

Yup. An almost perfect day. It’s all good.

Random Song for the Day: “Walkin’ on Sunshine” – Katrina and the Waves

Ruby Strikes Again…

…strikes me funny that is. Another little collection from “The Landlady”.

“She still hasn’t forgiven me for that time I hit her over the head with a shovel.”

“I was black and blue from all the pokin’ around.”
(About a nurse drawing blood…)


“I had the stupidest dream. It was Christmas, and all these dead people showed up. You should’ve SEEN all the presents!”

“I was just beside myself. I should’ve got a lot more done.”

…and after she realized why I was laughing so hard…

“Don’t you write that down! I didn’t mean to say that.”

Struck Me Funny, It Did…

Ruby has gotten used to me writing down everything she says, now. She even seems to be looking forward to reading all the stuff I’m making up about her, if I ever get it printed and bring it over. I hope she still feels that way once she reads it.

Contrary to what I told Mushy in a recent email, Ruby just turned 82 a few weeks ago (I had added a year on – and she wasn’t altogether too impressed with me when I told her that, either). Her stories have made a big difference in getting me writing again. My own mother will be 83 in October, and I’m working on getting stuff out of her, too.

I’m able to visit Ruby more often than my mom, though. Ruby’s just up the street, and full of stories as she is, sometimes it’s the one-liners that she comes out with that make my whole day. I’ve gathered up a few to share. I don’t know if they’ll turn into “Landlady Stories” or not, or if you’ll find them as comical, but they sure struck me funny, as Ruby herself would say.

“He wasn’t really a dwarf.”

“Donkeys aren’t very obliging animals.”

“I can crawl around out there and stick ’em in the ground, I guess.”

“I’d be scared to try it (Pot). I’d get addicted.”

“I wish I could get in and out of the bathtub as easy as I can get in and out of that truck. I got stuck in the tub. Twice. Once was on New Year’s Eve, and by the time I got myself out, I was pret’near too tired to go out.”

Blackberry Summer

Taken May 2, 2007
with Canon PowerShot A550
©Les Becker, 2007

I have a “Landlady” excerpt. No, I still haven’t got my first funny Landlady Story written yet, but that’s because I’m going to end up with a based-on-a-True-Story kind of piece; which pisses my landlady right off, to tell the truth.

I told her my plan, to take her funny memory of her barmaid job of fifty-odd years ago, change her name and the rest of the characters (to protect the stupid, mostly), and change the ending. Her ending was too boring; it just was. She will, henceforth, be known here as “Ruby”.

Tonight, the crossword puzzle was too difficult for either of us, even armed with two different dictionaries. It was hot, it was humid, and we were almost out of cigarettes. We had no beer (I was pleased to learn, a few months back, that Ruby is not adverse to a cold beer or two on a hot summer afternoon. It’s gonna be a good summer.). So, Ruby did what she always does when we run out of crossword: she started to talk.

I don’t have a story tonight; just a little bit of a memory, but it’s a nice way to introduce her to you, I think…

“Must have been in the 30’s, I guess – I was just a little wee kid anyway – my mother and I would walk up the railroad track to pick blueberries…”, Ruby said.

I reached for a notepad and a pen. Ruby scowled at me and stole a cigarette from my pack.

“I’m gonna quit talking to you, if you’re gonna make fun of me on the internet!” she said, and lit the cigarette. “There! I forgot what I was gonna tell you!”

In her own words, Ruby has “no use for computers or the dang internet, whatever that is. Invasion of privacy, that’s what that is.” I pushed the pad of paper away from me, wishing I’d brought my digital recorder. She doesn’t mind the recorder so much, maybe because I’m not scribbling furiously, instead of listening raptly, laughing in all the right places. I think she might even forget it’s there once she gets talking, even though it sits in the middle of the table, blinking at her; silent witness, non-interrupting.

“I know, I know – I was telling the wrong story from the start. It wasn’t about me and my mother picking blueberries up the railroad track at all. It was about my brother and the blackberries.

Every summer, my mother went away for a few weeks to a month to visit her family. The blackberry summer, I was about 11 or 12, and I was the one in charge of the meals while she was gone. That’s where my hate of cooking came from, I think. Isn’t it a hoot that I grew up and ran a restaurant for all those years?

That year, there were more blackberries than anybody had ever seen. They were everywhere! Well, every dang day on his way home from work, didn’t my dang brother pick his whole lunch-pail full of blackberries?! I swear, his fingers were purple all summer! He did it on purpose, too, the bugger, ‘cuz he knew I’d have to put them up into jelly. It was the only dang thing I knew what to do with them! I was only 11 or 12… but I could make blackberry jelly, I’ll tell you, and just as good as my grandmother made it.

Well, one day he comes home, lunch-pail just all a-brim with blackberries, and I was sick to death of blackberries, and blackberry jelly, and my brother, the bugger. I was half set to pitch those berries out the kitchen window, but I thought better of it. We didn’t have much back then, and most times we didn’t even realize it, but I knew I’d feel pretty bad if I pitched those blackberries, so I just set to work on that jelly.

By the time the jelly was in it’s pail and setting, I was still slamming around the kitchen and stomping my feet. I was probably swearing under my breath, too – I was that ticked at my brother – and I turned too quick and knocked that pail of blackberry jelly right off the counter! I saw all that hot work turned to nothing, and was wishing I’d just pitched those blackberries out the window after all, but wouldn’t you know it? That pail of jelly landed flat on it’s bottom, right-side up!

And the whole batch of jelly flew straight up out of the pail and hit the ceiling! I swear, I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry!

Well, by the time my mother came home at the end of the summer, I had more blackberry jelly put up than any one family would ever use up in two years! No preserves, no jam, just blackberry jelly. She was some mad! She’d have been a lot more mad, let me tell you, if she’d looked up at that ceiling. If you went in that house today, I’ll bet you two cents you could still see the blackberry jelly, even now.”

Well, whad’ya know…? There was almost a whole story in there, after all. Almost.

Random Song-for-the-Day: “Chasing Cars” – Snow Patrol