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Authors: Linden McIntyre
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the scratchy sound of him sharpening an old blade by rubbing it around the inside of a drinking glass. He’d always get a couple of extra days out of it that way.
Then he’d put on his good pants and Legion blazer, the poppy and the bar of medals. He explained what they all were but I’ve forgotten. Gave them to the museum in Hastings after Ma moved out. He’d carefully comb his hair across the top of his head, the right side combed forward to cover the blasted patchwhere nothing grew. Then he’d put on the beret he wore only on that day or for Legion funerals. We’d all go in. Him, Ma, and Grandma in the cab. Myself and Grandpa, and Angus in the back, on an old car seat. Sometimes Effie and Duncan. And we’d watch the parade. He’d be in it, near the front, carrying a flag. Looking grim like the rest of them. And Angus, farther back. They’d march along the main drag in Hawkesbury, to where the war memorial used to be, at the Old Post Office. There would be quite a crowd of them back then and up into the early sixties, when I quit going. The last one I went to was November 11, 1963, only eleven days before they killed Kennedy.
After the causeway and the pulp mill, the main street pretty well died. The memorial and the Legion are up on the by-pass now. The new main street built around shopping malls. The day comes and goes now and I hardly notice. Just people pestering you to buy a poppy. Then you notice the wreaths and stuff when you’re driving by.
They had the Sea Cadets in Hawkesbury for a couple of years and I joined. I figured the old man would be pleased, seeing me in a uniform. But the first time I put it on he kind of chuckled and said, “Come here and let me look at that.”
I stood in front of him for inspection.
He said: “Well, well. Popeye the sailor man.” Kind of singing it.
I dropped out after a few months.
After the parade he and Angus and the other vets would go to the Legion Hall. Jessie would drive the rest of us home, everybody jammed into her car.
Remembrance Days were bad because you always knew something was going to happen. Him and Angus getting hammered.
Uncle Jack shut the mill down Remembrance Day in ‘57. Out of respect, he said. And I could understand just by the way he said it. By the next Remembrance Day of course the mill was a dead duck.
The sawmill was a big mistake, Jack told me years later.
“Should have listened to Sandy. And the wife,” he said. “They told me all along: ‘You got no head for business.’”
He was a little bit drunk, remembering.
“Your timing was bad, that’s all.”
“The causeway was good. Good timing,” he said. “Got me home for about three years there. Longest stretch I ever had in the place.”
“But it was just a construction project. Temporary.”
“But they were saying there would be lots of work afterwards. New industry.”
“I guess it was too…small scale. Your little mill.”
“I planned to expand. When I got on my feet.”
“Maybe you were in the wrong place.”
“You can say that again.”
Jack would stand by that terrifying saw, hand on the lever that controlled the carriage, like an admiral on the bridge of his flagship. Clothes flecked with sawdust, eyes squinting against the spray of splintered wood, wincing, cigarette clenched between his lips, as the saw screamed through the log. The carriage then raced back, ready for another run. Boards and plank falling away, perfect objects of art. More than revenue. Each turn of the saw was another bite at the future. Never mind the world’s deepest causeway and the big political plans. I’d comeafter school, help him roll big frozen logs from the pile onto the carriage. Using a peavey tall as myself. Jack using bare hands. Talking to me like I was somebody.
“You ever been to Sydney?” Uncle Jack said to me one day.
“No,” I said. Thinking: Sydney, a city, huge steel mill, a massive smoking, steaming place. Pictures of it often on television.
“Ya
Then he’d put on his good pants and Legion blazer, the poppy and the bar of medals. He explained what they all were but I’ve forgotten. Gave them to the museum in Hastings after Ma moved out. He’d carefully comb his hair across the top of his head, the right side combed forward to cover the blasted patchwhere nothing grew. Then he’d put on the beret he wore only on that day or for Legion funerals. We’d all go in. Him, Ma, and Grandma in the cab. Myself and Grandpa, and Angus in the back, on an old car seat. Sometimes Effie and Duncan. And we’d watch the parade. He’d be in it, near the front, carrying a flag. Looking grim like the rest of them. And Angus, farther back. They’d march along the main drag in Hawkesbury, to where the war memorial used to be, at the Old Post Office. There would be quite a crowd of them back then and up into the early sixties, when I quit going. The last one I went to was November 11, 1963, only eleven days before they killed Kennedy.
After the causeway and the pulp mill, the main street pretty well died. The memorial and the Legion are up on the by-pass now. The new main street built around shopping malls. The day comes and goes now and I hardly notice. Just people pestering you to buy a poppy. Then you notice the wreaths and stuff when you’re driving by.
They had the Sea Cadets in Hawkesbury for a couple of years and I joined. I figured the old man would be pleased, seeing me in a uniform. But the first time I put it on he kind of chuckled and said, “Come here and let me look at that.”
I stood in front of him for inspection.
He said: “Well, well. Popeye the sailor man.” Kind of singing it.
I dropped out after a few months.
After the parade he and Angus and the other vets would go to the Legion Hall. Jessie would drive the rest of us home, everybody jammed into her car.
Remembrance Days were bad because you always knew something was going to happen. Him and Angus getting hammered.
Uncle Jack shut the mill down Remembrance Day in ‘57. Out of respect, he said. And I could understand just by the way he said it. By the next Remembrance Day of course the mill was a dead duck.
The sawmill was a big mistake, Jack told me years later.
“Should have listened to Sandy. And the wife,” he said. “They told me all along: ‘You got no head for business.’”
He was a little bit drunk, remembering.
“Your timing was bad, that’s all.”
“The causeway was good. Good timing,” he said. “Got me home for about three years there. Longest stretch I ever had in the place.”
“But it was just a construction project. Temporary.”
“But they were saying there would be lots of work afterwards. New industry.”
“I guess it was too…small scale. Your little mill.”
“I planned to expand. When I got on my feet.”
“Maybe you were in the wrong place.”
“You can say that again.”
Jack would stand by that terrifying saw, hand on the lever that controlled the carriage, like an admiral on the bridge of his flagship. Clothes flecked with sawdust, eyes squinting against the spray of splintered wood, wincing, cigarette clenched between his lips, as the saw screamed through the log. The carriage then raced back, ready for another run. Boards and plank falling away, perfect objects of art. More than revenue. Each turn of the saw was another bite at the future. Never mind the world’s deepest causeway and the big political plans. I’d comeafter school, help him roll big frozen logs from the pile onto the carriage. Using a peavey tall as myself. Jack using bare hands. Talking to me like I was somebody.
“You ever been to Sydney?” Uncle Jack said to me one day.
“No,” I said. Thinking: Sydney, a city, huge steel mill, a massive smoking, steaming place. Pictures of it often on television.
“Ya
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