Tuesday, January 25, 2011
rum and coke
as mentioned before grampa was not much of a drinker; grama...was no drinker at all. about once a year this one neighbor would come over with a bottle of rum to have a drink with grampa. he had been with the merchant marine during the war and he and grampa were both dairy farmers, so they would have a few drinks of rum and coke and visit and talk of old times. once when he came over he had already had a few and insisted that grama join in with the rum. grama resisted but not wanting to be rude finally agreed to have one. she sat in her big chair by the kitchen stove and pretended to sip her drink. right by the stove beside gramas' chair is were i always put my work boots to dry out; when the conversation was running high and no attention was being paid to her she discreetly dumped her drink in my boot; of course the neighbor, seeing gramas' empty glass, mixed her another one. this was repeated 3 or 4 times until the rum bottle went dry and the neighbor headed home. grama never said anything about my one boot being well over the heel in rum and coke. next morning i went to go to work and when i pulled on this one boot my foot was soaked; what the hell? i pulled off my soaking sock and drained my boot all the while trying to figure out the mystery; grama said nothing. finally i sniffed the boot and said to grama "that smells like rum and coke!" she then told me how she had avoided both drinking the rum and offending the neighbor; i wore a different pair of boots to work that day, and have been chuckling about that for many years.
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I've opened a g mail acct. Now I'm trying it out to see if it will let me comment. If it works I will write about how Mom, Betty and I went from Flin Flon to Cloverdale.
ReplyDeleteJohn, you asked me how Mom, Betty and I went from Flin Flon to Cloverdale
ReplyDeleteafter Dad joined the Army. I know that story. I even remember some of it,
although I was very young.
When Dad went to Ontario, for his training before going overseas, we followed him.
We took the train, of course. I remember the dining car. It was very formal, with lots
of elegant silverware, starched table clothes, lovely china and little children s menu's
that looked like little books.
We stayed with Hemples', who were like family to Dad. I remember their place had
a long lane lined with big trees. Their son Bobby walked with us down the lane. I also
remember Betty and I were surprised that Mr Hemple picked up his pie and ate it with
his hands. We were firmly told to not say anything!
Aunt Olive and Uncle Frank were there too. Betty and I were Christened at that time
in a big stone Anglican church. I remember the gray stone exterior of the church. Aunt Olive
and Uncle Frank were our God Parents.
When Dad went overseas we took the train back to Flin Flon where Mom finished up her business.
She sold the house Dad had built for her. Flin Flon was a boom town then so the house had good Value. We stayed with Aunt Ada. She and Uncle Joe had an apartment there. He was still working at the mine. I think he worked as a security officer, not a miner.
We then took the train to Alberta, to Bezanson, near Grand Prairie, were Grandma and Grampa Cumberworth were still living on their homestead, where Mom grew up. Grandma and Grampa Cumberworth gave their homestead over to Aunt Mable and Uncle Harry. Betty, me, Mom, Grandma and Grampa all drove, in Grandpas truck all the way to Abottsford.
Grandpa Cumberworth had a farm in Abottsford, that he had owned before he went to Alberta.
The buyers had defaulted on the mortgage so ownership had come back to Grandpa. We all lived there
for a time, I think a year at least. The government expropriated the property to build the Abottsford Airport.
Mom and Grandpa then together bought a small Chicken farm in Millner (now part of Langley) where we all lived together'.
Mom started looking right away for a farm to buy for Dad when he got home. She took the interurban tram and looked at farms in Abotsford and other areas but the one she chose was our Cloverdale farm.
She said a big part of her decision to buy that one was the fact that it already had a telephone and a full bathroom. Not many farms had those things in those days. We lived at Milner for at least a year so I think Mom did a lot of looking to find the right place. It was a wonderful place for us all to grow up.
Dad was always very proud of the farm Mom found for him.
.
One time on the farm Mona pulled a trick on me. She took a cougar skin and put it in my bed. Of course when I got into the bed I screamed. Betty
ReplyDeleteI remember that moth eaten horrible old pelt!! It had eye holes...Eeewh!
Glenda
I love this story Dad...
ReplyDeleteClever Grandma.
what happened to the cougar pelt? i think it was originally shot by uncle harry at bezanson. it's dissapearance remains a mystery...
ReplyDeleteOK, I know we called it a cougar skin but I understood(I think Mom told me) that it was actualy a Lynx skin that Grampa Cumberworth shot on the farm at Abbotsford. I think we will never know for sure. I do know what happened to it. As Glendas described it, in its latter years, it was very Eeeewh. The cats had been sleeping on it in the cubby hole closet. Sadly, it had fleas. I put it on the burn pile behind the pump house and burned it. It's day had passed. Nothing lasts forever.
ReplyDeleteLove this story about Mum. She was clever and always a lady.
ReplyDelete