Just keep right on marching, Canada

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 30/06/2017 (3031 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

HAPPY CANADA DAY!

And since everybody loves a parade — there’ll certainly be a few this weekend — I’ll take you back to my hometown of Killarney and a look at a parade from long ago.

Wow, what a different time that was. And what a big deal it was to be in a parade. Sometimes there were so many people in the parade, there were only a few left to watch it.

Reminds me of a trip south Marly and I took back in 1975, when we came to this small town in some Midwestern state where there were so many people in the parade, there WAS no one left to watch it. Hilarious. It felt like we were in a Monty Python movie. Good thing we pulled in to town so the “paraders” had someone to wave to.

In a shot I have of one of the floats in the Killarney parade, the store in the background is one I have very few pictures of: my dad’s hardware shop, M & C Motors. It was also a Ford dealership and sold Minneapolis Moline farm equipment. It must be a late ’40’s shot, because he always had cars parked down the left side of the store and I don’t see any in it.

It was in front of this store that my Dad sat me on my new Schwinn balloon tire bike and launched me into two-wheeler freedom. I loved that bike.

I‘d be just a babe at this time, because a pretty young lady wearing a Hawaiian lei on the float is my sister Bonnie, who is five years older than me and young in the picture. Hi Bon’!

I got that Schwinn bike when I was about six and it made me some money over the years. My buddy Garth Freeman and I would hook up a wagon to one of our bikes and ride the highway between town and the Shamrock Drive In Theatre. Sunday mornings were the best, because Saturday night teenagers and adults alike threw a whack of beer bottles into the ditches along that section of highway.

We’d collect them, cash ’em in and make more money than we got for an allowance back then, which at one point I remember being 25 cents a week. We were RICH!

That was in my HOME town — it was the centre of my world. I loved growing up in Killarney.

When I was nine, mom and dad informed the family we were moving to Winnipeg, or Hell as I thought of it. Back then, although only 240 kilometres away, it seemed like it was on a different continent and like all big cities, full of crime, gangs and bullies. I did not want to go.

I was full of angst. But of course, it turned out just fine — and my Schwinn balloon tire cruiser covered many blocks on St. James streets.

But the most memorable trip ever made on the Schwinn was a time when Frank Hart and I were fishing at the boat launch by the bridge in Killarney.

I reached back, cast my big red devil lure out into Killarney Lake, but no splash. Why not?

I turned around to see the line wrapped around Frank’s head and the red devil three-pronged hook (with barbs) hanging from Frank’s right eyelid, which it had hooked into.

Gulp! We were horrified, so of course we panicked.

We quickly decided we had to get to the doctor, downtown, a couple of kilometres from where we were.

So I hopped on my bike, he on his, and set off hell-bent, with me still holding my rod and the hook still through his eyelid. Every time we got too far apart he’d scream.

When we stopped in front of the doctor’s office, I said, “I shoulda given you the rod.”

He sniffed back, “We shoulda cut the line!”

D’OH!

So the doctor cut the barb off, took the hook out, put some magic potion on Frank’s eye and sent us back fishing. He said, “this being a fishing town, I see this fairly often.” Frank’s eyelid healed nicely. Didn’t hurt his eyeball at all. We got lucky. Very lucky.

Wherever you are in Canada on Saturday, if there’s a parade nearby and you’re not in it, go watch it.

Do something to celebrate and appreciate the extraordinary freedom and quality of life we enjoy here in Canada, our spectacular home sweet home.

I wish I’d kept that Schwinn bike. Ah well.

And hey, if you ever want to go fishing, give me a call. I promise it’ll be a day you never forget.

One more time: HAPPY CANADA DAY!

Comments or feedback, love to hear from you!

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