*(21. - 1310.) Quant by Anthony Bidulka - The opening pages of Russell Quant going through the farm home of his youth sent me into a kaleidoscope of cascading memories with every page. My next post will review the book. This post is for those of us who grew up in rural Saskatchewan in the late 1950’s and 1960’s. I think of my sister, Ann Marie, now gone for 26 years. I think of the neighbour kids - Karen, Wendy, Joanne, Terry, Linda, Philip, Susan, Norma, Stuart, Dean, Grant, Bryan (Buck) and Sherry. Norma and Bryan are also gone. I think of Anthony.
Life was not perfect but Russell recounted many vivid memories of what it was like to live in a happy family in that time and provided a powerful memory on the passing of an era.
The Quant family picnic on a hot sunny Saskatchewan summer day by a slough in the pasture took me back to our farm at Meskanaw. As with Russell’s family our picnics were not often which made them more memorable. My Mom, Dad, Ann Marie and I would pile into the car and go to a small lake.
Like the Quant family we would put blankets on the grass. There were no picnic tables.
The picnics were homemade feasts. Nothing would be made at a store. Russell’s mother Kay would have “tuna and chicken salad sandwiches, chunks of Ukrainian sausage and hard-boiled eggs, seeded grapes, ripe peaches and strawberries”. She would mix up potato salad from garden ingredients. My Mom made wonderful potato salad and fried chicken at home which she would put into a cooler.
Kool-Aid, not soft drinks, were served to the kids. I equally remember grape and orange. I know my sister and I would usually end up with an orange ring around our mouths.
As did the Quants we would have a wiener roast. There were no portable barbecues or fire pits. You would scrape a space and get a fire going. In the meantime, you would cut wiener sticks. The Quant’s used ash or birch. Our family had willow sticks. The ends would be sharpened and the bark cut back. I never saw a metal wiener stick until I was in my 20’s.
A wiener you have cooked over an open fire at a family picnic is culinary perfection. I would always have two.
The Quants would play catch with a baseball “black by age and farm life” for what “seemed like hours”. Ann Marie and I loved to play catch with Dad. He had played ball for years and years with the Meskanaw Mallards and would tell us stories of those exciting days. On ordinary days we would often ask Dad if he could play catch with us after supper. He was never too busy nor too tired.
Russell’s family would stay by the slough to watch as the “impossibly large sun dipped into a multi-hued horizon”. Our family would be driving home with the beautiful sun setting behind us. My sister would often be asleep before we reached home.
Kay was an amazing cook with not a cookbook in the house. My Mom was a good cook but not with the variety of Kay. I did have a Grandma Selnes who was famed for her white cake. She could only give you the ingredients. She measured with her hands and never used a clock for how long to bake the cake. She was my cousin’s wife but Ann Marie and I were included in her grandchildren. My paternal grandmother had died almost 40 years before I was born. I was close to a teenager before I knew her first name was Louisa.
As with the Quant family we had a modest home. I never thought of it as small growing up. It was a white stucco clad house with a bright red door. The photo at the top of this post is a photo of a painting my mother’s father painted of the house. It is on the wall of the family room downstairs from me as I write this post.
Russell’s memories are triggered by going through the house his Mom has lived in for 60 years and will soon have to leave as dementia diminishes her mind. His Dad had died some years previously.
I remember the day my Dad had to leave our farm. My Mom had died a couple of years earlier. As with Russell’s Mom he had to leave because of health issues. Diabetic complications had affected his mobility and left him almost blind.
I wrote about his departure in a reflection for a lay-led service at our Catholic parish a few years ago.
I said:
At the end of October Sharon and I met some friends and neighbours at the farm to move Dad.
It was an emotional day for all of us. Dad had lived all his 72 years on the farm and loved living on the farm. We knew he would return to visit the farm but he would never live on his farm again.
Dad also loved nature. He had trapped for 60 years and knew the Waterhen Marsh north of our farm intimately.
Finally we had the last load of furnishings in the half-tons and it was time to go. Everyone paused. No one was quite ready to say “let’s go.”
At that moment a flock of Canada geese in a perfect V swept over the yardsite honking their way south. Unlike many flocks which fly hundreds of feet in the air this formation was just over the treetops.
With faces uplifted we stood in silence watching the geese.
When they had passed it felt right to go. God had blessed Dad’s leaving.
Thanks for the memories Anthony.
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Anthony replied to my post as follows after I sent it to him:
