Summer

Sometimes memories remind me of a burning cinder in my brain. Slowly smouldering, getting stronger everyday until you can’t stand it anymore and just have to write about it. This is one of those smouldering little cinders. I’m not so sure why I have been thinking about this for so long, but it keeps popping up at the strangest times without provocation; when I’m driving, in the shower, falling asleep, waking up, working, shopping, so I’m giving it it’s due, here and now so that my brain can move on to other more important things.

We’re going back in time to the mid 60’s. Probably around 1967 to 1969. For three or four summers from the age of 6 to 8 maybe even when I was nine and ten, my sister and I would spend a week or two with my Dad’s parents. Grandma and Grandpa Hudson. When I think of summer, I am immediately taken to their house (or garage, will explain more later). These are the memories of summer to me.

My grandparent’s lived in Toronto in the heart of the city on a narrow city street with lots of small brick bungalows that all looked the same. The garages were at the rear of the yard and a shared driveway ran between the two houses and led directly to them. If you stood in their backyard and looked in either direction all you could see was line after line of fresh, clean clothes billowing in the wind.

To get away from the hustle and bustle of the city, my grandparent’s used to go to their property in the country. This small piece of land, approx 3 acres was located in Pickering, which is just east of Toronto. It was north of Finch Ave on the east side of Liverpool Road North. There were very few houses on Liverpool Road North of Hwy 2 and fewer still north of Finch.

A dirt road sprayed with tar in the summer led to the driveway of the property. There was no house, just a cement block garage that my grandfather had built after the original house had burned down some years before. Inside the garage, there were four single beds along the one side, a table and chairs close to the side entrance door and a pot belly stove for cooking and some heat. It was rustic and sparse but it was an exciting place to be.

There was no electricity and life was simple. My grandparents had big water barrels situated at all corners of the garage to catch the rainwater and my sister and I were bathed in a tall field of grass in a large steel basin. The water was soft and warm. There was no need to heat it during those hot July days. I remember being a little shy about bathing outside naked but then my inhibitions would disappear at the sheer joy of feeling that soft warm water on my hot skin.

During the day my sister and I would play in the tall grasses, or watch grandpa building something in his woodshed. The smell of the wood, tools, and oil is still fresh in my mind. I had no idea what he was doing, but was always happy to just sit on the edge of a large can of something in the corner and watch his hands working with the wood. Creating either a wagon, or swing, or something wonderful for my sister and I to play with.

When the sun went down we would sit on chairs to enjoy the cool summer evening looking up at the blanket of stars. There were no street lights. Just pitch black with bright white lights in the sky for miles and miles. Crickets chirped loudly in the fields and other nocturnal animals would make their presence known.

Just before turning in for the night, we would head inside where my grandpa would play guitar or his harmonica and my sister and I would dance to his music, our shadows dancing along with us in the lamplight.

Once we were sufficiently tired from all the dancing, my grandma would tuck us into bed and give us a kiss goodnight. We would fall asleep listening to my grandparents sitting at the table playing cards or cribbage.

I remember trying to fall asleep to the quiet sounds of the countryside rather than the loud noises of the city. It was difficult at first, but before long the crickets would lull me to sleep and in the morning a distant rooster would wake us at dawn.

Life was easy. My sister and I amused ourselves with make believe games outside. We didn’t have a television to watch and there were no shopping malls to go and spend money. Our big treat was to make the long trek (or so it seemed to us) to Stella’s Country Store on the corner of Liverpool and Finch. It was an old stucco house that had a small store in the front. I can still smell the old wood floors and sweet candies that sat on the counter.

Stella always knew who we were and would ask after my grandparents even though we were only there in the summertime for a couple of weeks. We would shyly answer her questions and rush outside with our vanilla ice cream cones licking furiously before they would melt all over us.

To this day, the smell of a tar covered road in the summer takes me back to that time, 6 or 7 years old, walking with my sister, licking my ice cream cone without a care in the world, thinking of how lucky I was.

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