Grandpa Ashe

Last week, Sam received a card from Grandpa Ashe that read “Just thinking of you and hopin’ you’re coming soon!” The handwritten note inside read,

Dear Sam,

Just a note to tell you I think of you often and wonder how you are doing in school and how much you’ve grown. A small gift [$10] for you and a little about my life. I’ve lived a long time. 84 years.

Love you very much, Sam.
Grandpa Ashe

***
This is a transcript of the letter tucked inside.


Frank William Ashe
Born March 29, 1926

I was born in Edmonton, Alberta and lived on the very northern outskirts of the city. No electricity – no running water – we did have a telephone though. My mother passed away when I was 18 months old. I had 3 older sisters – Mabel (Midget), Thelma (Bonnie) and Ruth (Rufus). Ruth was 7 years older than me and basically raised me along with the neighbour ladies – who were very kind. My oldest sister passed away when I was about 6. I don’t remember too much about her. Bonnie was working and so left Ruth to look after me (I was spoiled).

Living on the edge of the city there was lots of open spaces and I loved to wander. One day a man found me about two miles from home. He didn’t recognize me but he recognized my dog Spot (a wired haired terrier) and so took me home. Spot was my constant companion. When I started school he came with me (school was about 1 mile away) and then he would go home until recess then he would come back and all the kids would play with him – also at lunch time and afternoon recess, when the weather permitted. Then every day Spot was there to go home with me. One day he didn’t show up. I couldn’t figure out why. When I got home he was lying dead on the front lawn. I was heartbroken.

I had a cat as well – Tommy. A beautiful silver grey. He would climb up on my knee when I was getting ready for bed and purr and purr and lick my face. I also had rabbits and pigeons – lots of pets. We had chickens, too – and when I would go through the chicken yard to go to the toilet (outdoors) the old rooster would come and fight with me. I would kick him and send him flying and he would come right back for more. Lots of fun, hey!

When I was twelve, we moved to a farm 60 miles away from Edmonton, with my dad, Bonnie, Art her husband, and two small children. Ruth was married by then and stayed in Edmonton. It was living in the country. Lots of room, hunting and fishing. When I was on the farm I got the saddle horse to go get the work horses – bareback. Just a rope on neck – saddle horses weren’t wild. He headed for a fence. Only way to stop – arms round the neck and swing down in front!

My first day at school I was very nervous and shy. There were 8 grades in one classroom, about 23 kids in all. I was in grade 8. It didn’t take long though and I and the other kids got together and had fun. Only one teacher, a lady. I can’t remember her name. She was nice. There were 2 other grade 8 students besides me. I passed into grade 9 and the second world war broke out that fall. I passed grade 9 and that was the end of my schooling. I would have had to stay in a town twelve miles away and my Dad couldn’t afford to send me.

Bonnie and Art decided they didn’t like farming and so moved back to Edmonton. Left my Dad and I. I became chief cook and bottle washer. Could I ever make a good beef barley soup. The two neighbour boys loved it and came to our place every time I made it to have a bowl and play cards. I was 14 now.

When I was 16 I decided to move back to Edmonton and get a job. I lived with Ruth and her husband. I got a job training as an aeroplane mechanic. I sure liked that. Then when I was 17 ½ I decided to join the army and was in the navy for 2 years when the war ended. I loved the ocean — waves as far as you could see. The bigger the waves got the better I liked it. Once we almost hit a big BIG iceberg. Exciting! [On the phone that night, Grandpa told Sam that he was on watch when they passed alongside the iceberg and you could have reached out and struck a match on it].

So back to Edmonton. I trained to be a printer (an obsolete job now). That was a good trade. When I was 20 I got married (END OF STORY). After 15 years, my wife and I split up and were divorced. A few years later I married your Gramma. 46 years ago (NICE). And now I’m old and very tired. I had a good life though I’m sure happy I got to know Jehovah.

Love,
Grampa Ashe

***
Grandpa Ashe passed away today, September 27, 2010. We will all miss him.

Sam used his gift money to frame the first photo in this summer visit series. It sits up on his captain’s bed headboard.

The Cottage

For the fourth year in a row, we headed to Paul and Siobhan’s cottage north of Hunstville on the Labour Day long weekend to celebrate the last gasp of summer holidays with some of our best friends. While Camp Hideaway — or, Morley North — seems relatively new to me and Jeremy, Sam can’t remember a summer that didn’t include a blissful stint in this idyllic acreage. (Remember this? And this?)

Sam and Carter (and Hudson) leapt from the car before it even came to a full stop and didn’t look back: the beach, the boats, the marsh, the tree fort, the toys, the woods, the bunk beds, the fire pit, the smores, the ATV rides, the frog catching and fish almost-catching...what’s not to love?

Like a living growth chart, the cottage property makes Sam’s leaps in ability and independence clearly evident each year. This time, he and Carter ran into the water and swam strongly out to Splash Island for some jumping/flipping water action … by themselves. We were on the beach of course, but no longer “within arm’s reach.” They’re swimmers. They're fine. Which is not to say that no one needed a lil’ towel snuggle with a sensibly bundled Mommy after the fun (the air was somewhat cooler than the water!).

Each morning, the boys tucked away massive breakfasts, grabbed their cowboy hats and sped off in search of fun while we grown-ups spent the days relaxing—chatting over daiquiris, playing cards, or flopped out reading. Sam, Carter and Mason (and sometimes Chloe-bug, Hannah and Cassie) played long games of tag, wrestling, and “spy,” hunkering down in the Rustic when the rains came and then scrambling back to the tree fort when the skies cleared. We cocked an ear from time to time, to make sure we could hear everyone, but otherwise we left them to their own adventures.

Adam apparently taught them how to chop wood (I didn’t ask any questions), and Paul took them out for a few boat rides around the lake (our first at sunset) and he and Jeremy took them for a nice long spell of fishing (in a light rain). Sam caught a wee one—the only catch of the day—and Jeremy caught an accidental mini-movie of the moment when he went to snap a photo. That night, Paul ATV’d the kids one by one around the site at dusk, following our communal (and yummy) pulled pork dinner. We could hear Sam’s excited commentary around the full loop, and the look of happiness on his face as they zipped past our line of picnic tables was priceless.


Then we all piled down to the lake for the traditional Labour Day Weekend campfire and fireworks show. No kidding around here: we do it up big. The kids perch up on the big rock and watch as volley after volley is sent up from a boat in the bay (the men ducking as the spent cardboard canisters hail down around them!). After the last whiz-bang-pop, we shuffle the sleepy boys off to the cabin.

Summer’s last hurrah. It comes up way too fast.

Them Apples

There is a giant apple tree just outside our kitchen window (there's one out the kitchen window of every mother's dream house, isn’t there? With a swing and a tree house?) The arborist, whom we practically have on retainer, estimates that the big ol’ girl is about 110, 115 years old. She’s seen a few things in her lifetime. Like the farmer’s sons go off to WWI and the like. After all, Courtland Park has been a neighbourhood for just 65 years. And we Arnold/Ashes have been here for just five … barely a wink in her long, long life.

Which is why it’s hard to complain about the apples. The dozens upon dozens (upon dozens) of apples that drop onto the playground pea gravel each summer and fall, like punishing rain. We looked into takin’er down a while back, what with the rotted core branch and the leafy encroachment onto the roof and the worry about root damage to the foundation. And the apples. But, no — no! — the arborist implored. We can save her. She can be pruned back, her rotted branches cut out (and apple trees have tap roots, dontcha know … no worries about the house). So save her we did.

But not from massive shock. The dead branch, growing from the centre of the trunk itself, was nearly two feet across, and the rest of the pruning was extensive. Mama tree’s defences were tripped, her will to procreate slammed into overdrive. She hailed down endless mini-apples last summer. Gnarled and bug-infested apples that required hours of stooping labour to scoop up and take to the curb in bag after bag of yard waste. If we procrastinated, then plagues of ants and wasps gathered to feast on the fermenting mush trampled underfoot by Sam and friends.

We invited the arborist back this spring: “Can we remove the fruiting spears and prevent the apples from growing?” No. Not yet. The stress, the trauma — it’s all been too much for the tree. Let her try again this year to make an orchard of our back yard. And she did. Oh my, how she did. This year, we counted. 2,300. Two thousand, three hundred and some odd apples fell in the side yard. I personally stooped for 1,250 in just one day (shortly after returning from a three-week holiday to find the ground carpeted with the rotting, earwig-infested fruit).

While I picked up more than my fair share, “apple picking,” as we call it, is mostly Sam’s chore. For every 100 apples he tosses into the silver trash can or yard bag, he receives one coupon (worth about a buck) towards his next toy purchase. As the summer turned to fall, the chore became less onerous and Sam became more creative. Recently, he kicked the scattered apples into a pile near the swing and invented this game.

No complaints at this point. And maybe the fruiting spears will come off next year. Mind you, Sam’s new tree house is screwed into the four remaining large branches—the perfect platform area that was created by the massive pruning. So what do you suppose the arborist will say about Mama Apple Tree’s stress next year? (Oh well, there’s always “Waaa-cha!”)

A Tree House

A tree house, a free house,

A secret you and me house,

A high up in the leafy branches

Cozy as can be house.

A street house, a neat house,

Be sure and wipe your feet house

Is not my kind of house at all -

Let's go live in a tree house.

Shel Silverstein, Where the Sidewalk Ends, 1974

Kite Flying

And some summer days are for hanging out in the park ...

The few times Sam's tried kite flying in the past, the wind had played peek-a-boo and the anemic take-offs and listless crashes had not been that impressive. "What's so great about a kite?" he wondered. Then, on a breezy Canada Day morning, Sam took his large pterodactyl kite—a gift from Lori and Greg—out for a test flight. Success! The bird worked perfectly (even drew a crowd for a while!), and Sam had a blast flying him.

I love this little video. I'd taken so many photos of the Sam getting the kite up and figuring out the wing flapping manouevre that he began to ignore the camera—so I could catch a little of his unaffected conversation, even though he'd asked me to make a movie.

Sam at 7. Flying a kite in the neighbourhood park with his mom, his dad, and his dog. And the wind.

East meets West

Thomas Hardy once wrote that "east is east, and west is west, and never the twain shall meet." Sam had other ideas. Knowing that he'd be flying from coast to coast during this holiday, he scooped a flat red rock from the Big Red Mud of the Minas Basin on the Atlantic side and squirrelled it away for throwing into the Pacific ocean at White Rock a few days later. Which he did. East, meet West.

The pan-Canadian trip was smooth sailing, from the early morning ride to the airport in Halifax to the late aft (evening for us) ride home from the airport in Abbotsford. Sam couldn't be a better traveller, and he was excited enough upon arrival that he was ready to get the visiting going right away. So happy were we all to see each other that we walked out to the car in animated conversation and didn't realize until we got there that we hadn't stuck around for the luggage!

We spent the next eight days enjoying Grandma & Grandpa's company. Now something of a tradition, Sam and Grandma spent an afternoon co-creating a new watercolour masterpiece—a mountain scene, complete with lakes, trees and a train cutting through the valley. Sam takes the painting very seriously and gets a kick out of sharing this talent with Grandma. He was delighted with the gift of a new set of paints and paper.

Sam's new talent, however, was unveiled for Grandpa, who sat most of the way through the Where's the Dragon? story thinking Sam had the book memorized. The look of astonishment at learning that Sam was reading it to him was priceless. Sam would read another three or four books to Grandpa and Grandma that week. He loves a good story and really likes sharing books with his family (and I learned this afternoon that he volunteers to read to the kids in Child Care, too).

Sam played chess and cards, watched the Jays games (sort of) with the boys, helped the girls chop veggies for dinner, and rolled thousands of times up and down the living room on a yoga ball (nutty kid). We enjoyed a lovely early afternoon at White Rock, strolling the waterfront, exploring the beach, watching sandcastle artists, and enjoying some delicious ice cream. We topped off a great day with a massive order of Greek delivery—opa! And we all went out for dinner a few days later at a fave local spot, La Masia, which serves authentic Portuguese fare. Very, very good. Best lamb Sam's ever had, he reports.

On the last full day of our stay, Uncle Malcolm drove (all the way!) out from Edmonton with Carolyn, Amanda and Marissa to enjoy an afternoon visit and a Sunday dinner, Ashe-style. Roast beef with all the fixin's, including Yorkshire pudding, Grandpa Ashe's famous gravy and "The Green Stuff" (jello-cream cheese-pineapple dessert, served with the main course. Dessert was peach cobbler! :) Sam loved meeting two new cousins for the first time and (as always), he enjoyed a good tussle with The Claw.

We spent the later evenings and early mornings through the week playing in the hotel pool and goofing around in the room. The week flew by, but on the very last morning Sam declared that he missed his house and he missed his dog and he wanted to go home. Excellent timing. Our coast-to-coast family vacation was over....

18 Days

For the first time in five years of working for the GoC, I booked off a big chunk of vacation time—July 15 to August 3—freeing us up for a coast-to-coast summer holiday extravaganza to see Grandma and Grandpa Arnold and Grandma and Grandpa Ashe. We marked those 18 days on the calendar in picture art depicting plane rides and swimming and BBQs and seashell hunts and smiles (even though Sam can spell now, he still sketches pictures on the calendar squares to represent special events). Then we counted down to the big holiday.

Sam and I flew out to Nova Scotia on July 15, arriving along with James and Charlie and meeting up the next day with Trace, Carter, Anabel, Janey, Savannah and Jasmyn. Throw in Jacquie, Brent and Rosalie for frequent visits, and it was a full house and cottage up on the hilltop. We spent most of our 11-day east coast vacation enjoying the scenery, the fresh air, the sunshine, the pool, the great food…but most of all each other’s company.

Sam loved the freedom and flexibility that comes with wide open spaces that feature an out-of-site dome tent that doubles as a spy base, a forest full of trails, and grown-ups who stay put on the deck while he and his cousins are off exploring. And he also loved choosing to come back and lay on a warm towel amongst the larger group to play with Rosalie in her kiddie pool or to read a stack of books (Davy Crockett was his fave. Killed him a “bar” when he was only three…).

We made our traditional pilgrimmage to That Dutchman’s Farm and had just as much fun spotting hidden gnomes (and now fairies) on the nature walk as we did when Sam was four years old. Funny how compelling that real live “look & find” is for the kids. Having bought a tasty range of gouda flavours in the cheese shop, the refrain for the rest of the week—no matter what the menu—was, “Does that have gouda on it?” Speaking of good-ah, Grandma & Grandpa also took us to Diane’s (twice) for fresh flounder off the weir and handcut fries. The best.

This year, we also made it to Five Islands, to walk along the terra cotta cliff faces that are exposed at low tide. Sam and the cousins drank from fresh water streams flowing from the cliff face, collected rocks and shells, and scrambled up several piles of huge fallen stones (though I was leary of a sudden slide that would add to the pile — those things had to have fallen at some point!). It was a beautiful day, but quite hot in the sunshine: time to head back to the pool!

It was nice to spend an extra long time with Grandpa and Grandpa Arnold (making pizzas! hunting coyotes!), but Sam sure missed Daddy—this was the longest he’s spent away from him. So he was doubly excited for the reunion that would kick off the west coast portion of our vacation. It began with a surprisingly pleasant 14 hour trip from Economy to Langley. A story for another day…