Chasing Happiness

A couple of weeks ago, I overheard talk about the Whistlepigs having a CD release party on Groundhog Day. I was at a supper meeting to plan the 2008 Forget Summer Arts Festival (great supper, and I have a new resolve to get the Festival website updated, along with many other things to do, but first - first I have a story to tell). As you may have heard here, I am a great fan of the 'Pigs. Still, Minnesota is a fair distance away from here, even at the closest corner, and St. Paul is double that. I felt a brief twinge of envy towards the folks who were planning to go, and then I got on with my busy-ness.

Then came the cryptic two-line email from Fred, with the subject line "PS...", suggesting that if I caught a ride with the folks from Forget, I could stay at his place. Garth, who knew nothing about the CD release, and didn't remember a guy named Fred, found that an interesting email indeed! After we sorted that out, I got to thinking - I could meet Deb! A few messages and phone calls later, Deb was planning to come to the concert, I was scheming to get out of directing band rehearsal on the eve of Groundhog Day and playing the organ in church the morning after, Garth was resigned to his fate of taking the kids to all their activities for the weekend, and I was getting excited. I had left a somewhat awkward message on an answering machine in Forget, inviting myself to catch a ride, if that was okay . . .

Monday morning I found out that it was not. An extra passenger just didn't fit with the travel plans, and I admire those folks for saying so! I quickly withdrew my request and wished them a good holiday.

Still, there was no denying I was disappointed.

I may have a little stubborn streak somewhere.

Next thing you know, I'm checking bus schedules. I know there's a bus that runs south from Winnipeg - what was the company name, again? Found it, no, that bus gets in too late to catch the show. Maybe Greyhound? Ooh, closer, but still too late.

Train? I must be crazy. But there is that Amtrak line across North Dakota - yes, I must be insane, but, but . . .

Well, this will be a long story no matter how I tell it, so I'll cut to the chase and tell you I bought a train ticket. It was too late to have the ticket sent out to me, and the quiet little station I chose (Stanley, ND) doesn't have a ticket office, so I got a boarding code to let me buy my outbound ticket on board, and prepaid a return ticket which I would pick up in St. Paul.

Fred assured me that there would be concert tickets at the door.

Deb told me about some restaurants where we might meet.

I checked out St. Paul city bus schedules online, and printed off a map of downtown attractions like the Science Museum and the library. My train was scheduled to arrive early Saturday morning, giving me the whole day to poke around and then find my way to the vicinity of the concert. My return train departed late in the evening, so I wouldn't need to stay with Fred - I could just sleep on trains, both ways! Very efficient, I thought.

There were some minor worries, still, like whether I would have trouble at the border crossing with the brand new document requirements, and whether I could sleep sitting up, or whether I would snore. Still, things continued to come together for me. The weather forecasts for North Dakota were warmer than here, so my truck should start okay for the drive home. Ruth was willing to contort her weekend plans a bit so she could take my place as band director Friday night. Brian gave us a U.S. road atlas, which he had picked up for our summer trip planning, and I noticed the Lostwood National Wildlife Refuge, right next to my route to Stanley - maybe I could see some sharptail grouse on a lek!

Friday morning, things started to shift a bit. Ruth couldn't make it to the band rehearsal after all. Oh, well, they'd manage. I finished my packing, discovering a forgotten favourite T-shirt that would be perfect for comfort layering for my train-sleeping outfit, and remembering a wind-and-rain-proof shell that I could wear over top of my warmish coat if it was wet in St. Paul. I planned to leave my really warm clothes in the truck, and just carry a small backpack on the train, so when I reached the city, I could look like a local student instead of a vulnerable tourist. Which book to take for the train? I settled on Darwin, Divinity and the Dance of the Cosmos by Bruce Sanguin, with the striking cover design of a delicate frog, balanced on a stem, circumscribed by an expanding spiral. I had a library book I wanted to read, but having lost a library book on a plane once, I decided to leave it at home. It was James Bonnet's treatise on writing great stories, with the flaming pencil on the cover and the title Stealing Fire from the Gods. Little did I know, fire from the gods was already on its way: I would have no need to be stealing it.

Just a few things left to do - buy an inflatable neck pillow, and get some spare house keys made for Ruth and my parents.

Then came a call from Amtrak, saying there were avalanche conditions farther west, and my train had been turned back. The replacement was running about six hours late, estimated to depart from Stanley not at 8:11 p.m. as I had expected, but around 2:30 a.m. instead. Call for updates, they advised me - they didn't want me waiting in the cold.

Suddenly the thought of a quiet little station in a small town was not so appealing. Would they open it for an off-schedule train? Would there be anything open in Stanley at 2 a.m.?

A Google search for Stanley gave me a city website that was not responding, and a lot of these useless directory sites that list every named community in the nation and offer nothing but advertising. Paging through the Google results, I noticed a link for "Great American Stations." A great station? In Stanley? Intrigued, I clicked through and found a picture of a low wood-frame building beside the tracks, with a gravel parking lot in the foreground. Great, indeed. Perfect, as a simple, uncrowded place to catch a train in the daytime; but somewhat daunting as a place to wait in winter in the wee hours.

I recalculated my departure time, and called my parents to say I would come to band rehearsal after all, at least for the first part. I finished the last of my preparations, finding a neck pillow and also a slim wallet that would fit in the zippered breast pocket of my fleece jacket. I figured a person couldn't grope around there without waking me.

It occurred to me that I should clean my truck, to make sure there weren't any hayseeds for the border officials to object to. But first, since I was feeling weary enough, I lay down to get some of the rest that I had planned to get on the train.

I couldn't sleep, but I stayed flat on my bed and rested, stubbornly.

Just before dark, I cleaned the truck as well as I could without washing it and having the doors freeze shut. I checked the train status again. Now the estimate was 3:13 a.m.

At band practice, Lorraine heard my plans and declared that she hadn't been that young in a very long time. She said she knew where her prayers would be directed that night. We had a fine rehearsal, and I was given the leftover cookies to take with me. (We always have cookies at band rehearsal. If you live anywhere near here, you should come.)

When I got home, I found out the train was running even later. How could this be? Shouldn't it be making up time? With a three-hour drive between me and the station, there were too many uncertainties - road conditions, problems at the border, and always, the status of the train - and yet, I didn't want to end up shivering for hours by the tracks in Stanley.

I knew I should get some more sleep before leaving. Could I trust my alarm? I remembered a friend who is always up late. His phone was busy - tied up with his dial-up Internet connection, no doubt. I sent him an email asking him to call me at 11:30, and went to bed.

At 11:30, the estimate for the train had moved even later. My friend listened to my worries, told me I was the craziest friend he had, and agreed to call me again at 12:15.

When I answered, he said "You didn't sleep, did you." He offered to drive me down to Stanley. And pick me up again. No, said I, firmly - two trips in your gas hog instead of one in my little truck? No. We talked about places he had seen in North Dakota, like Lake Sakakawea that winds all the way from Williston to south of Minot. Finally I decided the train status seemed to have stabilized: it was time to go.

I sent an email to Deb, letting her know my train was much delayed, but since this whole thing was a crazy jaunt anyway, I was going through with it.

I left Arcola at about 1:30 a.m., feeling oddly alert. My friend had told a warning story about falling asleep behind the wheel, but I was pleasantly surprised to find that my sleepless resting had done me good. I was growing excited again, although I did calculate mileages in my head and figure out that this joyride - just the driving part of it - was equivalent to five weeks' worth of my trips to Carlyle for the kids' usual activities. Could it be worth the cost?

I took the shortest route, on the smaller roads, and I had them to myself. I didn't see another vehicle until I reached the highway near Bienfait, where the clouds from the coal-fired power plant loomed high in the darkness, lit from below. Before I pulled onto the highway, I used my cell phone to check the train status once more. It hadn't changed. I hoped that would hold, since my phone wouldn't work once I crossed the line.

I had no trouble at the border. The officer's voice had a hint of incredulity as he asked me, "Where're ya coming from?" and "Where're ya going?," but maybe it was just his way of amusing himself through the long and mostly empty hours of the night.

Speed limit 25. Oh, yes, that's like 40 where I come from. All my worrying had cost me some sleep, but it had sure etched the route map into my mind. I found my turns just like I'd been there before, and often. South of Bowbells, I noticed grassy ditches: there was almost no snow at all. A little further, the land began to roll a little and the lights of farmsteads thinned out to nothing on the west. That must be the Missouri Coteau, I thought, and Lostwood N.W.R. Not much farther now.

After a while I began to wonder where Stanley had got to. Shouldn't I see lights ahead?

It took longer than I expected, but Stanley did come into view at last. I passed an imposing brick building that must be the county seat, and then the street plunged into a railway underpass. Glancing quickly off to the sides before they rose out of view, I caught no glimpse of a station. When I emerged on the other side, I stopped right there on the empty street and craned my neck each way.

After a moment of doubt, I spotted it, just like in the picture on the Internet, except half shrouded in darkness. There were a couple of trucks parked by its wall, looking like work trucks that stayed there a lot. Other than that, the parking lot was empty.

A pay phone? Nothing obvious in view, so I pulled into the parking lot to take a look around.

I had never been at a train station before, except once in the vast marble hall of the VIA rail station in Regina, where I found out that I had misunderstood the departure time of 12-something a.m., and come to catch the train a day late. That was years ago. VIA doesn't run through Regina anymore, and that great station is a casino now.

Next to the parking lot, chained off from it, was a lighted area of concrete level with the tracks. I guessed that might be the place to board. From there I followed a narrow gravel walkway between the tracks and the station building. There were some lights in an office, but no-one inside; and beyond that, a door, through which I saw a lighted waiting area.

The door was open, and the interior was warm. With rising confidence, I strode past empty ancient benches of wrought iron and green-painted wood, around a corner and down a silent hallway, following the signs to the ladies' room. Reckless, maybe, for a woman alone, but I needed that room.

Later I explored the waiting area. There was a bit of literature and signage, but not so much as a note to tell me the status of my train. I found some baggage tags and learned that even my carry-on bag should have one. I made a trip out to my truck for a pen. Still there was no-one around.

Walking back to the building, I heard a whistle off to the east, and saw lights begin to gleam along the rails. I had barely stepped inside the waiting room when the freight roared by, shaking the walls and the ground, cars flashing and gone again at the window. Catching my breath, I realized that I had never been so close to a moving train. Well, sure, I'd ridden antique steam trains at low speeds in heritage parks, a couple of times. This was as different as my truck from a tricycle.

When I got bored and walked outside again, there was a car in the lot, and I could see a woman around my age, talking on her cell phone. I longed to ask her whether the train status had changed in the last few hours, but I thought she might be frightened if I approached her car. I walked past, nodded at her, and she smiled. I continued onto the bridge over the underpass, so I could look down the street. What would a pay phone look like, here in North Dakota?

Back in the waiting room, I tried out the benches, and let my gaze wander over the details of the room. It was old, and worn in places, but not uncared for, painted a neutral shade on the wallboard panels (asbestos?) and green on the wood trim. Outside I had noticed neat and solid modern metal roofing. Still, there were signs of frustration, literally: the office door had stick-on lettering that said "SECTION HEADQUARTERS / IF THERE EVER WAS," and above that someone had added with a marker the prefix "EX." There was a piece of equipment on a counter, with lights to indicate "charging," "fully charged," and "defective." That last one was the one that was lit.

I noticed a dark beige plastic box high on the wall, with a slim cable coming to it, and below it, a rectangular section of wall that had missed out on the most recent coat of paint. I had found my pay phone, or the traces that were left of it.

A woman stepped into the waiting room, saw me, and asked "Do we know the time yet?" I assured her of my ignorance. She told me she was going for a large coffee - would I like one? - and not to let the train leave.

I was outside again when she returned, and we could hear a whistle in the distance, this time from the west. She and her daughter went inside, while I waited and watched. The whistle came closer; light gleamed along the rails, and then the triangle of headlights came into view. At first I imagined the train was slowing, but then suddenly it was blazing at me. A freight! The thought hardly formed in my head before the wind blasted in my face and the engines roared by. I stepped a little further from the tracks, fearing flying objects, and marvelling at the enormous momentum of the train.

"You survived that!" she grinned at me, when I stepped back into the waiting room. I found a bench and let her conversation with her daughter wash over me. She was going to Minneapolis, picking up a brother-in-law along the way, and staying for a while to help him find his way in the big city. He had been a farm boy all his life, she said, and didn't know how to be safe in such a place. Now his wife was in hospital there.

I wondered if I knew how to be safe in St. Paul.

Our train came at last, a great tall silvery thing, with windows far above us. The conductor sorted out which three of the four women before him were boarding, and sent us on. Every bit of it was new to me: the vestibule with racks for baggage, and nearly hidden in a corner, the narrowest stairway I had ever seen, but quite comfortable to climb, turning twice and bringing us out on a dimly lit aisle above, where there was seating just like on a Greyhound bus, only far roomier. Hesitantly, I chose a seat rather close to the woman who had waited in her car, but not too near, so as not to seem pushy. The other woman had disappeared somewhere behind me.

The train was rolling. The conductor appeared and started the paperwork for the woman near me. I dug out my boarding code and ID and waited. Another man spoke to me from behind, asking if I was buying my ticket on board, and turned away, saying he would let the conductor take care of that. I didn't get a good look at him, but he was one of those people who just feels comfortable and reassuring - not too tall, wearing some sort of uniform, but instead of the fancy hat that the conductor wore, this man had a toque.

I signed for my ticket, took my receipt, and settled in. The woman near me appeared to be a seasoned traveller, pulling out a blanket and getting comfortable, but I was happy with my own preparations. My loose-fitting cotton clothes were perfect, my neck pillow yielded gently with the rocking of the train, and my fleece jacket kept me cozy while my warmish outer jacket covered my legs. The other passengers were quiet, the lights were dim, and I slept.

I was vaguely aware of a couple of stops, but I knew we had a long way to go before I should worry about missing mine. I did take notice when a young man took the seat across the aisle from me. He deposited his things and went off somewhere, leaving me to observe with fascination his bundle of diamond-willow walking sticks, some beautifully finished, others in various stages of carving. A dream-catcher dangled from the bundle.

He returned, arranged a couple of pillows that he got from the train car attendant, and went to sleep.

Somewhere along the way, I went for breakfast. In the dining car, I was seated with two men, one a nervous-looking man about my age, the other older, personable, questioning the first about his journey through the mountains to get to this train. When avalanche conditions had stopped his train at Whitefish, the passengers had been loaded onto buses - three buses, full - and driven around to Havre, to meet the train we now rode towards the east. As his story unfolded, I learned why our departure time had grown steadily later. The buses were caught in a snowstorm on mountain roads. To make matters worse, in the bus our dining partner rode, the defrost was not working, and he and other passengers stood up next to the driver and wiped the window with whatever cloths they could find. He saw the driver talking on a cell phone, trying to find out how to fix the defrost, holding a flashlight and looking down at the controls while discussing the problem, and still driving all the while through the storm. At one point, the driver gripped the wheel and said, "Oh my God, I can't see!" They stopped briefly, and when they tried to start again, the bus slipped sideways. Backing up cautiously, the driver got them back on the road.

The older man beside me laughed, gently, shaking his head. "So that's where you were when we were sitting in Havre, wondering 'Where are those buses?'!"

Mountains seemed unreal from where we sat, swaying above gently rolling fields and pastures indistinguishable from the landscape of home. The man who had survived them excused himself to retreat again to his sleeper. A woman took his place, and the man beside me quizzed her. He guessed - correctly - that she was a teacher, but he didn't get the details quite right. She taught English as a second language. We talked about the places we came from, the frustrations of politics, and the populations of hares on the prairies. Lingering over coffee after the teacher left, the older man offered advice about riding city buses in St. Paul. He thought I should take a cab rather than walking from the train station to the nearest bus stop. "How much luggage do you have?" he asked. Just a backback, I told him. "Oh, you're fine. For the daytime. But at night, after the concert, you should catch a ride or get a cab."

I paid for my breakfast, trying not to look puzzled over the all-green American money, with its one-dollar bill looking hardly any different from the five, the ten, or the twenty. Back at my seat, I discovered that I could zip the hood off my coat and use it to cover my eyes and leave my nose clear for a very comfortable doze.

The train was motionless when I heard the announcement. "Ladies and gentlemen, we have had a crossing accident. There were no fatalities, but we have to wait until the police come so the engineer can give his statement." Gradually, over the succeeding hours of our journey, I heard bits and pieces about what may have happened. A man driving a pickup truck had not noticed the train. He would have driven right in front of it, except that he heard the whistle and turned aside a little, hitting the side of the train instead of having it hit him. No-one was hurt. The train had taken a full two miles to come to a stop.

Later, as we passengers got to know each other, we started wondering if we recalled a bit of a bump or a lurch, one that stood out from the rest of the little bumps and lurches along the way. I remembered a couple, but I couldn't be sure that either of them was the one.

The young fellow across the aisle hadn't even heard the announcement, so the whole thing was news to him when people started discussing it again. Again the train had stopped, and not at a station. The Grand Forks station was just a few hundred yards behind us, and we were enjoying a view of impossibly flat bare fields and an industrial park. Why had we stopped this time? Why was the power going on and off? Had the accident damaged the train?

Eventually they told us that the air brakes were locked up, and they were working on the engine to fix the problem, and they had to turn off the power at times in order to do that.

Bored and restless, passengers drifted into the sightseeing lounge, and traded stories. Some went downstairs to see what they could find in the snack bar. "Sorry folks," said the attendant there. "I'm shut down while the power is off."

Where I come from, nobody would turn away customers over a little problem like a power outage. That's what a pad of paper is for.

We gazed at the industrial park, and introduced ourselves to our neighbours, and shared little pieces of our lives. The dining car was serving lunch, and we wondered how they were doing it, when the snack car couldn't sell us a bag of chips. Another announcement came: they were unable to repair the engine, so they were going to change that unit out, but they had to find a place to leave it. We wouldn't be rolling again for a while yet.

The young man across the aisle from me began to realize that he wouldn't be home in time for the SuperBowl. I repeated a joke I'd heard in the sightseeing lounge: we wouldn't be home in time for the election. The woman in the seat ahead, the one who had smiled at me from the parking lot in Stanley, turned around and joined the conversation. Slowly, bit by bit, the young man's story emerged.

He had boarded the train in Rugby, a couple of stations after us. He used to ride the Greyhound, but having had enough of that, he had decided to try the train. They told him to come pick up his ticket before the station closed at 2 p.m. He had a friend drop him off, got his ticket, and settled down to wait for the scheduled departure of 10:30 p.m.

I wonder, now, why they didn't tell him when he picked up his ticket, that the train was late. Hadn't they known by then? Hadn't they phoned me around noon?

Locked out of the station, he waited in the cold. He was headed back to his home in Ohio, not just to see the football game, but to stay until winter was over and the weather warmed up. He was a painter, accustomed to spending the winters doing interior finishes on mansions in Florida. He had a girlfriend now at Turtle Mountain, and he had been content there, except that this cold was too much for him.

At 10:30 p.m. he had learned that his train wouldn't be coming until early morning. He found a bar and closed it down, but back outside in subzero temperatures, the buzz didn't last long. He considered going to the police, because he thought he was going to die.

It was mid-morning when our train finally picked him up in Rugby. Now we were sitting at Grand Forks, less than 150 miles from where he had boarded, and something like 12 hours behind schedule. The woman from the seat in front offered him a cell phone to call his family and tell them not to set out to meet his train just yet. Then she loaned him a book, one of those positive-thinking books that tend to arouse my suspicion.

Presently they backed us up slowly, past the station, across a roadway, and past a fork in the rails. Then we were still again, with the power off.

I borrowed the cell phone, too, and got only answering machines. I left a message for Garth to consider whether I could stay over an extra day, to make my trip worthwhile.

A chill began to creep inward from the windows.

Somebody said, "Hey, look, maybe that's our engine." Off to one side, we could see two train engines moving slowly, presumably the pair from our train, one dead and the other pushing it to its resting place.

Sometime later there was a little bump, and another wait, and then the power came back on. The man I'd met at breakfast, with the advice about St. Paul, sought me out, cell phone in hand. He wanted to help me. He was sure I wouldn't make it to my concert, but I was still hoping I might get there partway through and say hello. He found a printed train schedule for me, and I pored over the numbers, comparing the scheduled time for Grand Forks to the actual time now, and adding the difference to the scheduled arrival for St. Paul. Yes, I might still make it before the show ended.

As we rolled along again, an atmosphere of wry merriment rippled down the train. People traded stories of all the things they were missing - supper dates, parties, the Saturday chores the wife had planned back home. Many plans were already ruined, but at least we were rolling again.

Not for long. The train slowed, and stopped. We looked left and right, craning to see forward or back along the tracks, but saw nothing but a highway and open fields. There was a highway sign, and someone noted that we were only thirty-seven miles out of Grand Forks. What now?

From the sightseeing lounge, we watched someone walking along beside the train, duffel bag over his shoulder, just walking.

An attendant rushed through the lounge, flinging her announcement at us as she went: the operating crew had put in their maximum ten hours, and now we would have to wait about 45 minutes while they brought in a replacement crew from St. Cloud.

In response to our startled looks, she said, "You saw that man walking along the tracks? That's our engineer, walking out on us." And she disappeared into the next car.

I never found out where that engineer was going, walking away from a train on a siding between two fields. I suppose there may have been a car waiting for him, but you can't see ahead or backward from a train car, just miles and miles out to the sides of exactly where you're at.

Some of us started joking about driving the train ourselves. I got in touch with Deb, and suggested that she might meet me at the station to have a drink before I got on my return train and went home again.

We passengers traded more stories, and loaned each other books. Kari, the woman with the cell phone, exclaimed over my book, saying "Frogs come into my life," and writing down the title. I don't remember when it was, but the three of us, Kari and I and the young man across the aisle, got talking philosophy. Kari mentioned a woman from First Class who had ranted over breakfast about how the seven hour delay was preposterous, and more or less complained through the whole meal before retreating to her sleeper again. Kari noted how her own tendencies had changed over time, and now instead of taking a sleeper, she liked to ride in coach and meet people. She tried not to complain, but to be positive, thus bringing more positive into her own life. The young man dug into the book she had loaned him, trying to find where it had said something just like that. I sat back quietly and wondered why those ideas bother me. True, there is power in positive thinking, but isn't there also a need for willingness to face the suffering of others, other humans and other living things? Isn't that what Christ was teaching - a willingness to go where the suffering is worst, and walk right into it if necessary? When does positive thinking cross the line into denial?

Bit by bit, the young man across the aisle told more of his life story, full of betrayal and loss, of suffering on the part of those who have no say, of demands placed on those who have no responsibility, and yet there is no-one else to serve. It was much too personal to repeat the details without his permission.

I never learned his name.

Kari and I listened with growing sympathy and concern. There was really nothing we could do but listen; there was no help or advice to give, just momentous choices that he must face alone.

Finally Kari said, softly, "And I thought you were just a guy going home to watch a football game."

And I thought I had troubles, missing everything I'd come for. It was only a weekend, after all.

The 45 minutes stretched out to something more like an hour and a half. I had to admit that my growing fear was correct: I might not reach St. Paul before my return train left.

Finally our train started moving, and then the announcements started flying. The new conductor would be walking through the train, answering questions. A special Amtrak team would be boarding the train in St. Paul to help sort out connections. Meanwhile, they were calling the First Class passengers to the dining car, and soon they would be calling the rest of us, car by car, for a complimentary supper. Before they finished speaking, the train was rocking hard, making up time.

We were sixteen hours behind schedule.

I borrowed the cell phone again, talking to "Julie," Amtrak's automated agent, trying to find out what I should do. I wanted to take charge of my situation, to do what I had to, to be sure I got on my train for home. The previous conductor had advised me not to get off this train early, because none of the stations would be open. But there was no question now about catching my train in St. Paul: it was impossible.

I got past Julie to a human, and tried to get her to help me. My ticket was waiting in St. Paul, but I needed it a station ahead, in St. Cloud. By this time, our car had been called for supper. I was seated across from the other woman from Stanley and her brother-in-law with the wife in hospital. I apologized for talking on the phone over dinner, and she assured me that I should do what I had to do. She turned to her brother-in-law, telling him I was the one she had told him about, the one who had missed everything.

I broke down. Tears streaming, I argued with the hapless Amtrak agent, gradually realizing that there really was nothing she could do to help me, and she was right - I needed to talk to someone on board. A delicious supper of stew and mashed potatoes had appeared in front of me, and I was struggling to eat it between questions and answers and sniffles and quiet sobs. At another table, I could see Kari, conversing cheerfully, and I felt awful for my little scene. Everyone else was in the same boat, or worse; why was I so upset?

My dining partners left, apologetically, but they were finished and there were others waiting to dine. I hung up the phone and finished my meal, and then set out to find the conductor.

He was a slim, quiet man with eyes partly hidden by his shiny hat brim and glasses. I told him my trouble, and at first he reassured me that the Amtrak team would be boarding in St. Paul, but he stayed attentive as I calmly informed him that I would have missed my return train by then. He promised to write me out a ticket so I could catch it in St. Cloud instead.

Once more I borrowed the phone, and left a message for Deb saying I was sorry for dragging her out of the woods and not showing up myself. I asked her to say "Hi" to Fred and the Whistlepigs for me.

I had a passing train car attendant change my seat check tag from "St. Paul" to "St. Cloud," so they would know to alert me for my stop. Then I slumped in my seat to wrestle with my hurt feelings. I didn't want to be like this. Others were cheerful. I wanted to be strong and gracious.

The young man across the aisle offered that if he were me, he'd blow a gasket. He'd demand his money back.

I didn't know what to say.

As we rolled into St. Cloud, I tried to be in the moment, to just appreciate whatever was in front of me right then. Out the window arose a mountain of logs, higher than a house and longer than a city block. Behind it was another one, and then another. Neat stacks of tree corpses.

Next came a vast and reeking mill, blocking all the light with its steel wall towering right against the tracks, a blank of darkness that dragged on for many seconds, only to be followed by an eerie yellow-lit alley crossed by huge pipes.

And then they were telling us to prepare for our stop, and that there would actually be two stops, because it was a briefing point for the new crew, even though they were already on the train. If we walked ahead in the train, we could get off at the first stop, or if we waited in the rear it would be another ten minutes. I decided to walk ahead.

As I packed up my things, I noticed the CD I had brought for Deb - a Fire Lily CD from way back in 2001, not good enough for my ears anymore, but I had thought she might enjoy a few of my songs anyway. Suddenly I wanted Kari to have it, as a small token of appreciation for all her help with the cell phone, her gentle listening, her sharing about her family and her interest in environment, all the things we had in common. But Kari was asleep.

She was curled up across two seats, peaceful. I could see her bag open in front of the window seat. Could I lean over and drop the CD into it? What if she wakened, startled, suspicious?

The young man was sleeping, too, but he stirred and opened his eyes. I started to ask if he could give it to her, but no, I realized, he was going on to Chicago, and he might be sleeping when she got off. Never mind, take care, I waved at him, wretched. I wished I could give him something, too - something much more than an out-of-date CD of clumsy folk songs. He would be needing more than that.

Downstairs in the vestibule, the man I'd met at breakfast caught my eye across the knot of passengers waiting to detrain, and gave me a startled look. Outside, he learned of my decision, and shook his head. "You didn't even get to meet your friend," he said, and I told him, no, and I didn't get to give her this, either - do you want it? "What is it?" he asked, and took the CD, seeming delighted, giving me his card in return. Then he asked if I drank wine - no - or beer? He had his car, he could take me just around the corner and bring me back in ten minutes. It was just that he was sorry I'd missed my concert.

I thanked him but told him I wanted to just go in the station and sit. And I did.

The building was much like the one in Stanley, but instead of wooden benches there were molded fiberglass seats, each one with its own separate arms, all mounted in rows on steel frames. Nothing you could lie down on. I noticed that some of the seats were up against a wall, where I might lean my head back, but those seats faced away from the front of the station, so I couldn't watch for my train.

I realized that if I had waited in the rear of the train, I would have had ten more minutes to sit in comfort, ten fewer minutes to sit in this place.

It was now about 10 p.m., and my train would be coming at 12:40. Had I ever been so tired? How would I endure the hours of waiting? How would I stay awake? There was another couple waiting, but they were waiting for their son to pick them up. There was a man working in the office, but he soon closed up and walked outside. I followed him to ask whether someone would be coming inside when the next train came. If I fell asleep waiting, would someone wake me?

He assured me that, since this was a crew change point, the new engineers and conductors would be here well ahead of the train, and they would notice me and wake me if I were sleeping.

The other couple waiting talked with me a little. Their son wasn't answering his phone. "He lives on his phone," said the father, perplexed. The son had said something about leaving a car for them, but they had been dubious about that, because it wasn't a very good part of town. They peered out windows, checked around outside, sat and talked some more. Now that everyone had left, they couldn't use the phone in the office anymore. Suddenly the man jumped up. "Why does that say 'Phone'?" I swivelled to see what he was looking at, and realized that the magazine rack behind me was formerly a pay phone cabinet, now just a shelf with the phone gone, but the lettering still there.

I couldn't converse anymore. I crossed to the small area of thin, hard carpet by the doors, and stretched out on it, with my back against a wall, my head close to an office door, my backpack protecting my head, and my feet stretched out beyond the carpet onto the cold concrete. The carpet and the wall weren't much warmer. I spread my coat over my legs, but soon shifted it to cover my trunk, to keep from shivering. I laid my glasses in front of my face, put my zipped-off coat hood over my eyes, and dozed.

The doors opened and two young men strode by me, glancing down with surprise, but moving on into the station where the couple welcomed them. All of them left together, and I dozed some more.

Again the doors opened, and a voice said, "Look what we have here," as slim uniformed legs disappeared into the office.

Once more the doors opened, and a tumult of young men poured through. Were they a bunch of friends? A team? Alumni of a team? The room was suddenly boisterous with testosterone. I stood myself up, rearranging my glasses and coat to their proper places, blinking and leaning against the wall, straightening up since it wasn't a good place to lean, with a framed poster behind me, leaning again, straightening again.

One of the men said something about "seven of us" going to Devil's Lake. I counted, slowly, confirming my suspicion that there were more than seven in the room.

The office door opened again. The uniformed man had shed his warm coat. Very tall and slender in a well-fitting black uniform, with curly black hair and dark eyes, he moved briskly and boldly out among the young men, who now looked short and drab in their casual clothes. I was half dead, and still I was stunned.

He sorted out boarding arrangements for the group. They wanted to remove one name and add another. I watched, blankly. The conductor turned slightly and said, "Are you the one going to Stanley?" I stared, blankly. "Stanley?" he said again.

I may have mumbled something as I moved forward and took the blue seat check tag he held out. I turned it over, curiously, realizing that it was just like the one the conductor on my last train had given me to use as a ticket. Like that one, this was marked "STN" for Stanley, except that the writing on this one was more elegant.

The young men were taking their first ever ride on the train, and they plied the conductor with questions. He explained what to do, where to have their luggage, what would happen when the train came in, and how he would call them to board. I listened in, knowing most of it already, but comforted to hear it laid out.

As the train came in, one of the men turned to me and asked if it was my first time too. I said yes, but then he asked where I was going and I explained that I was going back home. "Oh!" he said, "you lied to us!" I laughed a little, shaking my head. It was all one trip now.

I might have been feeling a little more confident than I had been at 5 a.m. the previous morning, except that this time the train was on the far side of a set of three tracks. I watched closely as the conductor crossed to it, talked to someone, and then turned back towards us. "Board!" he called, beckoning, and we trailed out across all the pavement and rails. His voice followed us inside the car, telling us about the luggage racks and the stairs to our left. The young men wondered if they should keep their bags with them, and I was too tired to explain that it was up to them, whether to leave some on the racks below or not. They dragged everything with them, following me up the stairs, spreading out in the nearly empty car, each of us taking two seats. I had turned toward the rear of the car, knowing that in the cars I'd seen on the other train, the forward seats had been reserved for groups and couples. Not that it had mattered; I had chosen a "parties of two" seat in my uncertainty in the dim aisle at 5 a.m., and no-one had objected. Anyway, the young men took seats all around me, and started talking about their classic car restoration projects and their parties. I heard beers popping. Someone snored in the seat in front of me.

The train started moving. A smell arose and strengthened in the car. "It reeks," said one of the men. "The thing's on fire!" I was thinking the same thing, sitting straight up, wondering where to go, what to do. The conductor had not appeared, and there was no attendant in sight. The smell stayed, but didn't seem to strengthen anymore, and I remembered the reeking mill. Maybe that was all it was. The mill came in sight.

The train slowed, and stopped.

I wondered if this was just another check, related to the crew change.

The power shut off, leaving only the glow from the battery lights in the stairway.

"Oh, sh*t!" I said, audibly.

"This isn't good," said one of the young men, but I was thinking: not again. Not this train too. It's me. I'm sorry!!

It didn't matter. I was on a train facing west. I'd get to Stanley sooner or later. I curled up across the two seats, tucking my coat around me, arranging my seat check tag in my hand where the conductor would surely see it, and closed my eyes.

Later, rocking along again, I heard an announcement that we were about an hour behind schedule, since they'd had to work on the air brakes at St. Cloud.

The seat check tag was still in my hand. I could see one dangling from the luggage rack above me, and I silently thanked whoever had written a new one rather than disturb me by drawing the tag from my fingers.

Later still, stirring around to find a new sleeping position sitting up, I noticed the conductor coming along the aisle with his flashlight, saying "Devil's Lake, five to seven minutes." Just past my seat, he turned back and repeated this. "Did you hear me?" Then his hand was on my shoulder, shaking me gently. "Devil's Lake."

I guess I was more forgettable than he was.

"I'm at Stanley," I called feebly to his retreating back, but he was waking more of the young men, my voice lost among their questions.

I waited for them to leave. I had hatched a little plan to tuck my "STN" tag up in place of the erroneous one for Devil's Lake. As the tumult of testosterone faded down the stairs, an attendant swept by, clearing the Devil's Lake tags. I waited for quiet in the car, then tucked my elegantly written tag in place, wondering if I had it right, since it didn't seem to hold very well. No matter, I still had a spare one in my pocket. Dragging my fingers through my hair, I set off toward the dining car for breakfast.

I dined with a couple from Williston, on their way home from visiting a sister in some place I didn't recognize or remember. We talked about the lack of snow, and how they had a four-wheeler derby at Williston instead of a snowmobile derby. He knew of the Moose Mountains.

Back at my seat, I daydreamed about the conductor coming by and recognizing me, realizing his mistake at Devil's Lake. I imagined him apologizing, asking about my turn around in St. Cloud, sitting down beside me to listen.

His voice came over the speakers, announcing a crew change in Minot. He told us about the extended stop for a scheduled check of the train, and how they would try to get it done more quickly to make up some time. He told us there were soda machines in the station, and pay phones.

I wondered about going to a pay phone, to tell Garth what had happened, since my last message to him had been about whether I might stay over an extra day. Had he tried calling Deb to find out? Was he worrying about me? But I didn't know what change the phones would take, or where I might get it. Still, if I went into the station, I might get to see that conductor one more time.

I stayed on the train.

I heard someone asking a family member whether he had had a chance to get cleaned up a little. It occurred to me that I might do that, too. Exploring a little on my last trip to the bathrooms, I had discovered a bathroom labelled "changing room," with an extra space with a little bench in it, and another room labelled "dressing room," with two stools before a counter with two sinks. There I sat and brushed my teeth in comfort, secure on the stool instead of bracing against the rocking of the train. In the changing room, I traded the comfortable clothes I had dozed and lived in for the past day and a half for a slightly less comfortable but much better smelling outfit.

As I came back upstairs, I saw steep banks next to the tracks. More sandhills? I had been delighted with a glimpse of sandhills somewhere farther east, but these turned out to be cut banks where the tracks crossed through the upper reaches of a coulee before emerging onto the plains above.

Out on the plains, the view stretched only a little way, before it was swallowed in fog.

An attendant stopped in the aisle, looked at my seat tag, and asked if anyone had come for my ticket. I gazed at him, mouth open, fearing for a moment that after all this way, I was going to have trouble about my right to be there. Awkwardly, prompted by his questions, I explained what had happened, and that I had never actually had my ticket, since it had been waiting for me in St. Paul. Understanding, nodding, he finished my explanation for me: "So they just told you to get on, and let's go," and then he was walking away up the aisle.

Not long after, a uniformed man - a conductor, perhaps? - in a toque, not too tall, stood before me and told me we would be in Stanley in a few moments. I gathered my things, accustomed to the drill now, and went downstairs.

In the vestibule, the attendant who had asked about my ticket was waiting to one side, and the man in the toque was at the doorway on the other, with the window open, watching for something as we rolled into the station. The attendant looked at me suddenly and said, "Sorry about your weekend!" I smiled wryly and said, "Well, I got to find out what it's like to ride the train."

"Yes," he said, "and ride it, and ride it . . ."

"And sleep on the station floor for a few hours, and ride it some more," I finished, laughing.

Out of the corner of my eye, I could see the conductor, if that's what he was, slowly turning away from the window to look at me.

Then there was a voice from outside the train, saying "You don't have any on here," as we rolled to a stop. "Yes, but I have one off," said the conductor. I felt sorry that they had to stop just for me.

Then the door was open, and the little yellow stool was placed on the ground in front of it, and the conductor was telling me to watch my step. "Thank you," I said, planting one foot on the stool and the next well beyond it, striding away, past the caretaker on the platform, around the end of the chain and into the parking lot, heading for my truck. The caretaker asked if someone was meeting me or if I had a vehicle, and I pointed ahead, not looking around. But as I opened the door, I saw the train rolling away, with a window still open, and the conductor in the toque, watching me.

The tall dark one I may remember for a while.

The not-too-tall one in the toque, I will hope to meet again.

I started the truck immediately, and then turned to the task of scraping thick frost off the windows. Suddenly I turned and waved at the caretaker. He waved back, then understood and stopped his truck.

"Can you tell me where there is a pay phone?" I asked.

He looked at me significantly, and gesturing with his hands for emphasis, declared, "There is not a pay phone in this whole town."

I drove around looking for gas, and found some down towards the south end of town. Coming back north, as I emerged from the railway underpass, I noticed a phone-shaped symbol on top of a wooden booth with glass panes. I craned to look at it. I couldn't be sure, but from the shadowless outlines of the glass, I'd have to guess that the booth was empty, its phone long gone.

Driving north in the fog, I thought about Lostwood. If I saw a sign, I decided, I would stop.

I saw several signs, but mostly they were just signs in the corners of fences, with no access trails, or if there was a trail, it was gated and locked. I was struck, though not surprised, by the the thick stand of smooth brome grass (an invasive introduced species) that spread behind the first sign. Idled land, I thought. The worst thing you could do to it.

Later I saw another "Lostwood" sign in front of an area of extremely short grass. Well, that's more like it, I thought. They must be grazing that parcel.

Then, off in the fog, I saw an observation tower. A trail led towards it, but I could see that it was gated off, less than halfway to the tower. I backed the truck onto the highway again, and carried on.

Just a bit farther, I saw one more "Lostwood" sign, this one more imposing than the rest, with an open gravel road next to it. I drove in, and found a small office/public building, and the start of the auto-tour trail, marked "Open May to September." Next to the trail was a large display board, with information about prescribed burning, and racks of brochures. I read about the burning, looking past the display to the hills draped with smooth brome, and wondered how much success they were having with it. I wondered if that very short grass area I'd seen was actually a recent burn. I remembered a conference presentation by a man from North Dakota, about successes with brome grass control on public lands, but that had been using grazing, hadn't it?

I turned my truck around and drove away from Lostwood, drove on towards Bowbells and lunch. But at Bowbells, I didn't feel hungry yet, and there didn't appear to be much of a place to eat, anyway. I munched a package of M&Ms and sipped at a Pepsi I'd bought on the train. Caffeine and sugar, to keep me awake. At the border, the officer looked at my ID, and asked "Any purchases?"

"Half a can of Pepsi?" I offered.

"Have a good day," he said, walking away.

At the first high ground, I tried the cell phone. Garth asked where I was, and asked if I would be stopping to see anything. "What's to see?" I asked, puzzled. He hadn't realized that "north of Northgate" meant I was already in Canada, almost home. He said they would wait lunch for me.

Near Alameda, I watched a golden eagle take flight when I slowed for a better look at him, feeding on something out in the field. It was the best sight of my whole trip.

I came into the house, and Ruth was talking, eagerly, telling me all about their curling competition from the day before. James was in the bathroom. Rather than waiting, I decided to go across the street to Brian's to use his bathroom. My own family hadn't asked for my story yet, but I told it to Brian. When I returned, lunch was still waiting, because James was still in the bathroom and Garth was finishing changing the oil in the car before we ate. Ruth talked curling all through the wait and into lunch. I heard every detail, how they beat out a good team, and an excellent team, and then lost to a team of people that had never curled before. How the games developed, how the deciding shots went, what nicknames their skip earned with his frenetic sweeping of opposing rocks as soon as they crossed the tee line, right out the back of the house, again and again. Garth watched me, quietly, and still Ruth talked. James chimed in occasionally from behind the bathroom door.

Finally Garth asked me how my trip went. I suggested that my story should wait until everyone came to the table.

Somewhere during the telling, I found out that Garth had not checked his voice mail at all. It was perhaps an hour after I got home, as my story unfolded, that he first learned that I had not even set foot in St. Paul.

He was apologetic, disappointed, wishing he had known, because he would have encouraged me to stay over.

Who knows? Maybe Amtrak would have put me up in a hotel. Maybe Fred and the Whistlepigs would have had time to see me on Sunday. Or maybe I could have caught a ride with Deb out to her place, and then maybe there would have been a bus back into St. Paul on Sunday.

Or maybe not.

I was happy to be home.

---

Update: Where Credit Is Due

Was that Only Last Summer?

I've been promising pictures of the sunroom building project for several moons now. Tonight, on the full moon just after the winter solstice, many are gathered under old family roofs, but I stay on alone under my own roof. I am waiting until my church duties are completed before I too gather to the chosen family roof of this fast-passing year, and meanwhile, I am enjoying some quiet and tidying up some loose ends. Thanks to a nudge from Jim, I got browsing through pictures from the days when the newest part of our roof was only an idea awaiting a foundation.

It feels like these must have been taken more than just moons ago - feels more like several turns around the sun ago.

It was June 23rd. Garth and James were off in Calgary, having gathered with family by chartered coach to help celebrate his aunt and uncle's 50th wedding anniversary. I woke to the siren of the town fire truck, cheerily summoning the folk to the pancake breakfast. It was Fair Day in Arcola.

I burrowed back into my pillow, but something nagged at me. I tried to deny it, to pretend it could be something other than what I knew it must be, but finally I sprang from the bed with the mental admission that I was hearing thunder. Fair Day, indeed.

There was a huge round tarp in the garage, left by my Dad in case of just this circumstance. I dragged a rickety wooden ladder from behind the garage and propped it against the eave of the house where the porch used to be, forming a ridge pole for a makeshift tent over the exposed basement stairs. Then I looked at the partly rotted ladder rails, considered trusting them for a climb, but decided a sturdier second ladder was in order.

As I placed it, the thunder was getting louder, and I could see that the black cloud to the southwest was right on track for a direct hit.

Hammer, spikes, and tarp edges in hand, I started the climb.

The higher I climbed, the more weight of the tarp came up off the ground and into reaction against my effort.

Raindrops started slicking the aluminum ladder rungs. Lightning flashed closer.

I pounded on the wall and yelled at my sleeping daughter to come help. With the hammer and nails out of my hands, and both of us tugging, the tarp finally relented and rose the last few feet I needed. I spiked the top in place under the eave, added some spikes lower on the wall to hold the tarp out to the sides, weighted down the bottom edges with concrete blocks borrowed from the nearby fire pit, and retreated inside.

Then I looked out to see how the tarp was doing, and saw all the water from the garage roof pouring, not into the rain barrel that used to sit behind the garage, but instead into the gravel-filled base we had excavated for a new concrete slab there.


It's amazing what functional structures a person can concoct under pressure. That's a sawhorse supporting a piece of plywood, with various bits of recently removed eavestrough and downspout and connectors balanced and wedged until they conducted the bulk of the water away from the slab base... and into the hole where the chokecherry bush (seen lying in the background) had been removed to make way for the coming concrete truck. I bailed that hole out later. More than once.

The garden sure needed the rain. My kitchen floor didn't. (Well, maybe it did.) The porch removal had inadvertently pulled the eavestrough slightly out of position, not enough so you would notice and remember to fix it on a sunny day, but enough so that the roof runoff from a thunderstorm came sheeting down over the kitchen doorway.

Looking out and down from my kitchen doorway, June 23rd.
The black tarp covers the basement stairs.

If there was any south wind with a storm, the water came sheeting into the doorway, and pushing in under the rubber sweep I had added to the bottom of the door, which was only an interior door after all, and was never intended for keeping out such elements. More than once a hapless family member shuffled into the kitchen during or after such a weather event and found the river with their feet. It crossed the whole kitchen and disappeared under the electric stove, but nothing electrifying happened. We tried to remember to keep some rags tucked up against the door when weather threatened, but that was about as successful as our remembering to fix the eavestrough. It did get done, several storms later.

The tarp did remarkably well at keeping the basement dry. Everyone wondered, though, why I had chosen to drag two tarp edges up the ladder, line up the grommets, and spike both edges in place, instead of unfolding the tarp and leaving more of it on the ground. Everyone wondered, including me. I guess I just had it in my head that a half-moon-shaped tarp would be perfect for the job, and didn't realize that a circle would do just as well, with the other half of the moon spread on the ground. Hey, I was about to climb an aluminum ladder in a thunderstorm. I was actively setting aside my intelligence for a while.

It worked, and I got back inside, safe and soggy. I dried myself off and got into my marching band uniform. By the time Ruth and I were on our way to the parade marshalling grounds, maybe six blocks away at the south end of Main Street, the storm was a distant bank of fluffy white in the east, and the sun was softening the pavement. We survived the march to the fairgrounds in our bright blue polyester jackets and felt-look western-style hats, as we always do. This time someone had arranged to have water waiting for us!

Ah, water. We do need it.

And the garage slab base was none the worse for waterlogging. As my Mom said, it's a good thing concrete likes water.



To be continued...

Two Fables

There is a story of a man passing by a building site, and asking one of the workers what he was doing. "I am laying bricks," the worker replied, without looking up from his monotonous task. The passerby walked on and asked a second worker what he was doing. "I am building a wall," he replied, with a wave of his trowel as if to say the answer was obvious. The passerby continued a few more steps, and asked a third worker what he was doing. This man straightened up, gazed into the air above the growing foundation, spread his arms wide and declared, "I am building a great cathedral!"

When I was young and ambitious, eager to mold the world to my beneficent dreams, I heard that story with delight.

Later, weary with searching, I heard another story less frequently told. I wish I could remember who told it, or tell it as richly as they did.

There was a long road through wild and desert land. One night a small band of travellers came trudging, their waterskins empty, their lips cracked and dry. As darkness came upon them with nothing but dust and dry rocks in sight, they sank down by the side of the road in despair. But one of their number walked apart, unwilling to simply watch and endure this suffering.

After a time, as the shadows deepened, one stone seemed to draw him. He crossed to it, touching its rough surface, stretching out his arms to encircle it, and finally tugging on it, harder and harder. "I am mad with thirst," he thought. "Even if I move it, what will I find but more dust? Perhaps when it yields, it will roll and crush me." And still he tugged, and at last it seemed to him that the rock had shifted. He braced himself better, and with a mighty effort, he rolled back the stone and revealed a spring of water.

As the years passed, many travellers stopped at that spring to cool their throats and fill their waterskins. Some stayed a while to clean it and build a stone basin where water could be gathered without muddying the source. Others gave thanks and passed quickly on.

Later, as fears darkened the minds of men, some thought that the spring was too precious a thing to be left so open to the sky, to the wild, and to all manner of people who passed by there. And so they built a shrine to shelter and protect it, and a dwelling nearby for those who would tend it. And they welcomed travellers, holding out a cup to them and filling their wineskins with a dipper.

Years passed, and the shrine was expanded and refined. Travellers gathered inside, bowing in gratitude and praise, listening to the sound of the water somewhere deep within, and finally taking a little sip before they journeyed on.

At last a great cathedral stood upon that spot, and those passing on the road would tell the story of how a spring of water once rose up from the stones in that place. Sometimes one of them would venture inside, and in the dying echoes at the end of a great hymn, he might catch his breath in wonder, imagining that he heard again the trickle of clear water.

Garden Planning and Unconscious Competence

My uncle out in B.C. moved from his acreage to a care home over a year ago, but he still got this season's Lindenberg seed catalogue in the mail. Mom and Dad were out to visit him this winter, and brought the catalogue home as an extra for me. It sat out in the living room for a few days, and then moved into one of my stacks where it was in danger of lurking until sometime after the growing season. Noticing this hazard, I fished it out, and while pondering where to put it for timely attention, I started leafing through it. A pencil came to hand, and I put marks by the vegetable varieties that looked good at first glance - mostly the same ones I recalled using last year, and a couple of the new ones, and one or two daring different things.

Then I balanced the catalogue on top of a stack of unfiled band music, partly under a leather wrist strap designed to hold a flutists' music lyre for marching, all of which rested on an assortment of clarinets (in disassembled form inside their cases, of course).

I had a reason. All this stuff was on the kitchen floor, mostly in the way of our usual path of travel through the kitchen, waiting to be delivered or handed to my parents for return to their collection of band instruments and music out at the farm. It was right there in plain view, and when I walked past it, seeing the catalogue there would remind me to carry on out to the shed and look at my leftover seed packets from last year to confirm my choices and choose my quantities. If my parents showed up, I would do all that in a great rush and hand them the seed order to send in with theirs. All very logical, you see.

Perhaps something else got balanced on top of that stack.

Perhaps the bright green of the catalogue cover became part of my normal expectation of the view in the kitchen.

At any rate, I must have stepped around that stack of stuff many times over the next little while. I remember having a nagging feeling that I should do something about it before it became a major irritant to my spouse.

Then one day the whole stack was gone. I was vaguely uneasy, but mostly just grateful that responsible parties had sent it on its way. I dashed through the pleasantly clear kitchen space on my way to somewhere else, and that was that.

Last weekend I was in Estevan for a Presbytery meeting, and getting a new muffler and tailpipe installed while I was there. Once the truck sounded like her old self again, I spent the remaining time before the meeting drifting through some big-box stores in search of items that my children desperately and very specifically desired. Neither of these items was anywhere to be found, not even in the brand-new 110,000-square-foot Wal-Mart. I know the square footage because the city manager addressed our meeting and proudly described this new store, fully double the size of its previous incarnation in the mall just up the street. He suggested several times during his talk that we could do some shopping while in Estevan. After he left, there was some discussion about changes to the agenda due to the cancellation of an evening presentation, and someone called out that we could have a video presentation instead: "Wal-Mart: The High Cost of Low Prices." I confessed to someone that I had been to Wal-Mart that morning - and had come out empty handed. I'd also been to Canadian Tire (where it is now a challenge to find the tire section way back behind all the household, hardware, and recreational departments), and there, as I wandered the aisles fruitlessly, I paused to peruse a rack of "Heritage" brand garden seeds. I was surprised to discover that the company was headquartered just over in Brandon, Manitoba, the same place as our trusted Lindenberg. The varieties were familiar standards; many were my own favourites. It occurred to me that I really should get at the garden planning and seed ordering. I was tempted to just gather up an assortment of seeds right then and there, but the prices looked a little high, and I decided that if I was going to just buy off a rack, I'd prefer the rack in our own local grocery store.

What with the meeting Friday and Saturday, and potluck lunch at church on Sunday, and a little talk to give there about my idea for a Lenten fundraiser, the weekend didn't give me much time to regroup. Weekdays used to be my quiet time for taking my own directions, but not so now, with James being homeschooled. Sometime during the scramble of the following week, the phone rang, and Mom said she wanted to confirm some details about my seed order.

I was baffled.

I stammered something, and she insisted that she had a seed order from me. It was in that green catalogue from Uncle Frank.

Well, bless you, Mom. She had found my little pencil scratches scattered through the margins of the vegetable section, decided on quantities, chosen for me where I had put a question mark, and made up the order.

I guess I've done my garden planning for this year.

Finish the Story

She woke from a dream that seemed significant somehow, and lay still, wondering what it meant. The possibilities circled in her mind until the ideas blurred and the phrases grew strange and poignant again, and she dozed some more. At last, with a particularly odd phrase tickling her mind, and the pressure of her bladder grown too great, she came awake again, threw the blankets back, and flicked her ankle free of the sheet. In the corner of her vision, she saw her husband throwing his side of the blankets onto the same ridge down the middle of the bed. Something seemed strange, something about the way he moved, just as suddenly and briskly as she; as if her hurry had reminded him of some deadline that she herself did not remember. But before she could frame that thought, she noticed the flick of his ankle, just like hers, except that there was no sheet for him to kick free of; he would never have had his feet covered. And then he was sitting up sharply, almost simultaneously with her own sitting up.

She: "What are you doing?"

He: "Copying you."

Santa and the Stone Soup

Ruth had an assignment in art class, to write a children's story so that she could then illustrate it as a children's book.

She was not amused.

As an expression of her frustration, she wanted to kill Santa off in her story, but that was not very original, since she knows a fellow who actually did that, and got sent to the school counsellor for it.

(Now she's telling me she actually wanted to kill the Easter Bunny.)

In the end, she wrote something about a pink penguin, which wasn't all that original either, considering the song I used to sing to the kids when they were younger (Boom, boom...). "But," she says, "my penguin was a loner, because he was actually pink."

Anyway, back when we were still discussing the assignment, we did cook up a bit of a yarn about Santa. I asked Ruth if I could post it here, and she said "Sure - you're the one who made it up." Ummm - before you call the folks in the white coats, I insist, it wasn't all my idea.

Once upon a time, in a village far away, a great pot was set over a hot fire. The pot was filled with water, and a strange, quiet, happy man carefully lowered into the simmering water a single, plain-looking stone.

Curious villagers began to gather. First the youngsters came, their first timid steps giving way to bold rushes, and then to questions. Each time the man answered that he was making stone soup, and it would be very good. But each time he added that it would be even better if he had a little bit of this or that.

And the villagers came with their little bits of this and that, and each bit was solemnly added to the simmering water with the same strange look of quiet joy.

The joy spread, and grew noisy, and the pot bubbled, and the smell of the stone soup grew stronger and richer and spicier and sweeter and stronger still, and mounted to the sky.

And across that sky came the strangest thing yet: a sleigh borne aloft by some great magic, and pulled along by eight reindeer. Or was it nine? After the peculiar events of that evening, no-one could clearly remember. But they all remembered the jolly face of the rotund man in the sleigh, his white beard trailing in the breeze of his flight, his tall red cap tilted sideways too, and a look of pure pleasure on his features as he leaned far out to catch the smell of the stone soup. Farther and farther he leaned, straining his great bulk against the side panel of the sleigh, until all at once he tumbled over.

Down he fell, down, down towards the centre of the village. And it seemed that the soup pot had grown wondrously large, and the steam had grown fiercely thick and hot, and on its updraft the rotund fellow settled softly into the simmering water with hardly a plop, his face still suffused with rapture at the scent.

And all who tasted it agreed: it was a very good soup.

Thus Spake Garth

"No. I don't need to [go to the hospital]. It's just a scrape that gushed a bit."

Me: "We're going."

Two stitches. The ER staff said it was "debatable," whether to suture it, but they had fun bantering about whether it was a laceration or a scrape. He fell off his bike, you see, when the dog he was exercising decided to go sideways, just as he was using both hands to pull a loose brake lever back into position. When he got home, I was at the computer (guilty) and he didn't say anything, just spent a moment in the washroom and then went to lie down. An hour or so later, he took off his shoes and discovered a problem.

I became aware of it when I turned from the computer to call him to the phone, and I could see a thick pile of bandages on his ankle, and little squirts still leaking out. After eight bandages, he hobbled off and put his foot up, insisting that he was fine. I cleaned up the bathroom a bit while fretting and fuming and repeatedly getting his brother's busy signal - I figured maybe Brian could talk some sense into him.

It would have been different if ER were open in Arcola. From our driveway, we can look across the slough and see the ER doors.

It would have been different if it had been my ankle instead of his. I am a very willing patient. I've been to ER here, when I swallowed wrong and dislocated a tonsil or something. They figured I just had a muscle in spasm after too much time on the phone, but I still think something was out of place, because after a while I tried swallowing with my chin tucked, and something slipped back into place, and I was fine.

Anyway, when I had nothing left to clean, I worked up my determination and phoned the HealthLine. Since Garth hadn't cleaned the wound or even looked at it well enough to describe it, the nurse advised me to take the bandages off, clean it, and check if it might need stitches.

Well, that took some doing. There's no point in attempting something like that without Garth's cooperation. He was stubbornly stoic; I was in a small flap. But once we got the bandages off, I was the calm one. Finally I could see what we were dealing with and know what needed to be done. Garth, meanwhile, was looking off into the corners of the room and wiping his brow.

Cleaned it, covered it with a smaller, neater pile of bandages (one bandage probably would have done it), and drove him off to Weyburn. The ER doctor was a delightful little lady from Northern Ireland. I mentioned Garth's upcoming trip back to Nepal (for three weeks in August, to test some software that was developed as part of his project). She told us about friends of hers who went climbing there. She had given them lots of information about altitude sickness. The husband decided he was feeling the symptoms and needed to go back down, so a guide took him, while the rest of the group carried on. He and the guide were both very fit, and perhaps pushed it a little too hard. He made it. The guide died.

Just before we left, the nurse drew the doc's attention to a second injury, this one on Garth's hand. Standing with his abraded hand palm up in hers, she looked him in the eye and said, "Now that's a scrape."

Driving Stories

A vital piece of news, from the Kidman-Urban wedding in Australia:

Australian movie star Hugh Jackman was the first guest to arrive, though his black European sedan almost missed the entrance. The car stopped and reversed back to enter the venue.

Aren't you glad we have such diligent reporters on the scene?

Here's an equally vital vignette from my own past.

It was early winter of my Grade 12 year. Our class and the Grade 11s went to Regina to see a Shakespeare play at the Globe Theatre. I don't remember what play it was, but I can still see in my mind several short pieces of the journey home.

I was driving my mom's K-car, with my friend Twila on the passenger side. In the back seat were Grade 11 student Gord, and our English teacher Mr. Burland.

Somewhere in those mind-numbing miles of straight flat highway between Regina and Stoughton, we noticed a car pulled off on the shoulder. Thinking it was another carload of Arcola students, we decided that I should pull in behind to see what was wrong. When my headlights illuminated the student standing partway down the ditch, we decided I should just pull back into the driving lane and keep going.

The resulting bit of levity shortened the miles remaining before Stoughton. At the second turn there, where we would finally reach our homeward Highway 13, that other carload caught up to us.

As I pulled out through the left turn, I looked down and noticed the engine light glowing red. With an inexperienced driver's rather grinding thought processes, it took me a moment to decide that I should stop and check what might be wrong. Meanwhile I had gathered a bit of speed.

I signalled right, and pulled onto the shoulder. A little too sharply and too far, it turned out; my wheels caught in the snow on the roadside and pulled toward the ditch. I'm sure if it happened today, I would just hold the wheel steady and stop, but at that time, with my head full of all the cautionary tales about how easily one can roll a car at the edge of the road surface, I played it by the book. I drove down the ditch.

Gord immediately took command from the backseat, urging me to keep it moving, pick up some speed along the bottom of the ditch and drive out again. There wasn't very much snow, and I accomplished that task without difficulty.

Back on the pavement, rolling along, I checked the dashboard. The engine light was off.

I signalled left, pulled into the driving lane, and carried on.

It must have looked pretty funny to the carload of students behind us.

It wouldn't have been funny if we'd got into trouble on that bitterly cold night. Back in Arcola, I stayed overnight with Twila. The next morning I found a blistered spot on my arm, where I must have frozen it against some cold steel while reaching under the car to plug in the block heater. It wasn't a bad wound, and yet the scar lasted for many years.

The story has stayed with me longer. At my graduation the next year, Mr. Crump introduced me with words something like this: "With all her practice driving up in the hills, Laura has become an excellent driver. I hear that she even signals to go into the ditch."

Camping Stories

I came across some camping stories, and a memory came back.

It was our honeymoon, over sixteen years ago. We didn't have a plan. No exotic hideaway for us, just a room at Kenosee for one night, and after that, the road. Funny, Kenosee is a very short way up the road from my hometown, but we didn't see any Arcola folks there. Instead, when we stumbled over to the Moosehead for some food, we encountered a fellow we both knew vaguely from the dorm at Luther College, U of R. He reminded himself of our names, found out why we were there, and sang out, "So, what did you guys do last night?"

When we packed up the debris from the motel room, we discovered some things missing, and some things extraneous, so we went back to the farm, where the relatives cooed over us and pressed lots of leftover food upon us. Then we made our escape for the second time, and drove from the Moose Mountains to Duck Mountain. We have lots of Mountains in Saskatchewan. I've noticed, though, that if you're not from Saskatchewan, you can't see them.

They assigned us to the overflow camping, which was a lovely meadow in the forest, and if I remember rightly, we had it to ourselves. We walked on the shore by the campground, swam at the main beach, and then decided to hike the trail between the two areas. It was nothing daunting; you might want to bring a water bottle. It roughly paralleled the road, but kept its distance, off in the woods. There was a movement up ahead - another hiker intruding on our idyllic wanderings? No, a bear. It jogged across our path and away toward the lake. I had never seen one at large, but this one didn't seem too terribly large; probably a young one. We consulted and hesitated and worried about mother bears before finally deciding that no more bears seemed to be coming along, so we could probably safely continue across the bear's back trail. Later at the main beach, I found a map that showed all the facilities, including the garbage dump. Aha.

After Duck Mountain, we picked another green spot on the map, Greenwater Lake, but I don't remember our stop there. I remember the narrow iron bridge at St. Louis, but I had to do some Googling just now to find the name of the town, and thus I discovered that a major archeological find was made just a few years ago during assessments related to replacing that bridge. Well, the find is exciting, I'm sure, but I'm sad about the bridge. Safety, convenience, progress. Sigh.

During my Google tangent, I also found a St. Louis ghost story.

But sixteen-plus years ago, we knew none of this; we just drove across the bridge, admiring the broad river below, and continued on our way to Waskesiu.

The overflow camping there was a totally different scene. Again, it was a grassy meadow, but this time jammed with camper trailers and tents so close together that their guy strings overlapped. We hadn't been keeping track of days, let alone noticing the impending August long weekend. How it occurred to us, I don't recall, but we came up with a solution: the backcountry.

We rented an aluminum canoe, and signed up for a campsite out on the west shore of Crean Lake. They warned us that the sites would be primitive, but we were delighted. We piled our car-camping gear and several grocery bags of foodstuffs into the canoe and set forth. It was about four in the afternoon.

The Hanging Heart Lakes were lovely, and Crean Lake was like glass stretching away out of sight. We paddled through the deep green reflection of the shadowy trees and easily found our campsite: three sites together, but we had the place to ourselves. The "primitive" facilities included an outhouse, a nice firepit with a grill, a supply of firewood, and my nemesis: a platform high on some trees, for storing food out of reach of bears.

It's not like I fell off it.

It's just that the tin wrapped around the tree trunks had deep grooves scratched in it.

And the place was so beautifully private.

We drove each other crazy with our half-remembered wisdoms about how to avoid leaving attractive smells around your campsite. If I recall correctly, Garth was fairly unconcerned, but I heard every little sound in that terribly beautiful silence, and the next day, the setting was somewhat less appealing to him because of the bear in his tent (me).

Sometime during our stay there, we took the canoe out on the lake in the moonlight, but all I remember of that jaunt was the mosquitoes. That and wondering if the bears would come to visit our site while we were away, and wondering if bears are fond of swimming.

That must have been the first evening. I don't think we would have stayed a second night willingly.

But in the morning, there were waves crashing onto the shore. We spent the day puttering around the campsite, watching the occasional motorboat as it bounced across the lake and sent up a burst of spray at each wave. That night I couldn't hear the little forest sounds over the roaring from the lake and the trees. I wasn't reassured.

Was it two nights, or three? All I remember is that Garth got anxious about being stranded by the wind for another few days, and being late getting back to work. He decided we should get up before dawn, when the wind should be at its lowest, and paddle out.

The wind was still high when we arose, but Garth was determined, and I was becoming panicky about the imaginary dark forms among the dark trunks of the great dark forest. Again we threw our hodge-podge of gear and groceries in loose bags into the canoe. We very briefly discussed a strategy for orienting the canoe relative to the waves, then dug in our paddles and went.

It wasn't a direct headwind, but we couldn't run with it, either, at least not until we cleared a rocky point perhaps a half mile off. Garth has always been strong for his size, and he's not small, either. I was perhaps a little more experienced than he with paddling, but he managed quite well in the stern, and the first little distance seemed mostly okay. There were moments when he felt he needed to reassure me, though. He told me, "Don't worry; if we capsize, I'll dive down and get some of our stuff."

I just kept paddling. The near-misses with oversized waves wore on my already frazzled nerves, and the shore seemed to be approaching faster than that point where we could clear the rocks and turn down the wind. Garth quit talking and paddled. And we paddled.

And we paddled.

And we made it.

The Hanging Heart Lakes were oh-so lovely.

We returned the canoe and signed out of the backcountry register, and headed for Prince Albert and a hotel.

When we recovered, we realized that we had quite a bit of our vacation time left over, so we turned away from our homeward track and went to surprise the relatives who, by this time, were gathered at Kananaskis in southwest Alberta for a family reunion. We made a stop in Calgary so that Garth could show me the wave pool.

Garth loves water. He once spent several hours swimming across a crater lake in Australia, and back, all by himself. I, on the other hand, had struggled to teach myself to swim during my years at university. The only time in my life that I ever loved water was yet to come, a few years later, when I discovered that pregnancy made me buoyant.

Anyway, the wave pool looked like fun. Garth took me in the shallow end, coaxing me deeper into the waves, and showing me how to drownproof. Then we went to the other pool, where you could sit on a ball suspended from a rope and swing out over the water and then let yourself drop in. That was fun too. Garth, bursting with the joy of water and the pleasure of sharing it with me, led me back toward the wave pool. "Let's go in the deep end," he cried, and off we went.

He went down the ladder first. I had got about halfway down when a wave caught me. Garth must have been closely watching my descending form, because it didn't take him long to get hold of me. I climbed on his head.

I had never felt that way before, and never again since. I knew I was panicking, and I knew it was pointless, but there was not a thing I could do about it.

Like I said, Garth is strong. He put me back on the ladder, climbed out after me, and calmed me down.

Then he stood back, looked at me, and said, "I guess if we'd capsized, I might not have been going after our stuff!"

Of mice, . . .

. . . missing mousetraps, and . . . sniff-sniff-sniff - do I smell smoke?

I dread the missing mousetrap. I have been on trapline duty at the farm this fall, and for the most part I'm okay with that, but I quail at the sight of an empty spot where a trap should be. There is one trap site that is very effective, under the angle where a beam meets the floor, next to a side wall. It gives a perfect sheltered spot for a mouse to pause and check its surroundings for danger before giving its full attention to a feast of peanut butter.

There is almost always a mouse in that trap. Once in a while, though, the trap isn't there.

The first time it happened, there were little shavings of grey plastic littering the floor. I followed the trail of shavings and found the grey plastic mousetrap empty nearby, its perfectly molded plastic jaws now jagged with tiny toothmarks.

The second time was similar.

The third time, I stood by the trap site, scanning for the trap, and soon saw it resting at an odd angle, way across in the far corner of the room.

That corner was another trap site.

Before I got close, even though my mind was saying it couldn't be, I knew the truth: there was a mouse this time, and it was caught in two traps.

Its foreleg was caught in the grey plastic trap, which it must have dragged across the room. The other trap was fastened as a trap should be, firmly and lethally.

I wonder. Was this tableau a sign of great stupidity (or just typical stupidity, for a mouse)?

Or was it the record of a remarkably intelligent escape from suffering?

* * *

A couple of days later I decided to use the old truck to haul some things to town. I'd been warned about its quirky starting, so I pumped the gas as instructed, and the engine coughed, roared, sputtered, and died. This was typical, as I recalled, so I fired it up again, and then once more, and finally got it rolling. The farm dog galloped excitedly alongside as I gathered my load, jumping into the box the moment I stopped, and out again just as quickly when she remembered she hadn't had the "okay."

The south wind was bitter cold, and I was glad I had taken the time to find Dad's warm red hunting cap, quilted, with ear flaps, instead of the blaze-orange mass-market cap I'd been putting up with for deer season. I wondered if the dog was getting cold, but she seemed happy to trot back and forth nearby, checking out scent trails. Suddenly she dashed forward, intent on something under the truck. She raced around to the other side and then trotted triumphantly off with a mouse in her jaws. She played with it for a while, just like a cat, letting it go, batting it with her paws, dancing over it, pouncing, and finally clamping it in her mouth again and gazing off somewhere as if nothing special was happening.

I finished loading, drove back to the buildings, put my tools away, and paused to notice the dog once more. She was standing where the truck had originally been parked, eating something off the ground.

Dog food. Oh, those rodents. Her food bucket was in the shed nearby, and I guessed that something must have been stashing pellets under the truck. I didn't stop to wonder why such an exposed spot. My mind was on other food, for the kids, who would soon be arriving home (in town) for lunch.

I said farewell to the dog, got the truck started again, and during the trip down the lane, between episodes of purely sliding downhill on the icy patches, I tried to figure out the best route into town. Should I take the shortest way, and get there quicker to feed the kids, or should I take a slightly longer route around by the auction barn and the oilfield service yard, where nobody would care about the noisy old truck?

As I watched the exhaust spreading away from the road behind me, I was glad I had settled on the latter. That exhaust was awfully thick and white. Had the engine sputtering and dying been out of the ordinary, after all? I kept glancing at the gauges, not at all reassured by the fact that the oil light wasn't on. I couldn't hear the engine well over the rattling of the load. What to do? Well, it's a very old truck. If I kill it by finishing the trip into town, it's no great loss.

I settled into a slower speed, and the exhaust seemed to ease a little. By the time I passed the auction barn, it was looking almost normal - well, normal for a rusty old farm truck. I pulled into the yard as Ruth was leaving, on her way back to school. She had found herself a juice box and two cookies. That was her lunch.

James was still inside, standing by the kitchen table, still wearing his coat, with its hood up, and finishing a more substantial meal.

I sent him off, found some leftovers for myself, and spent the early afternoon unloading and puttering in the yard, until that raw south wind drove me inside to warm up. Towards supper time I walked downtown, and still the wind cut through my clothes. There was a hint of smoke in it, sometimes strong, and I thought about my friend who worried that his house would burn down while he was out working. The wind direction was right, but he would be at home today. Not to worry. Or should I worry more?

After supper, Ruth and I walked to the church for a choir rehearsal, of sorts. The main rehearsal is Sunday mornings now, to save people driving in on wintry roads at night (although right now, the snow is gone again). Thursday evenings I just go to the church and practise at the organ, and if somebody shows up I will help them with their singing, or play their favourite old hymns, or let them look through our music library and tell me what they like. Julianna came over to rehearse her solo for Sunday, and I polished up some hymns, and then we braved the wind once more.

As we stepped round the corner onto the driveway, I wondered out loud whose farm had the fire that had been stinking all day. Ruth had noticed it too. We passed the old truck, and the smell disappeared.

Had I imagined it? We circled the truck, and sure enough, downwind the smell was strong. Ruth got nervous and started worrying about her room being the closest if it exploded. I shooed her inside, changed to my work coat, and went over the truck in detail.

No smell at all in the cab.

Nothing around the engine.

It was definitely worst around the back, but there was nothing much in the box. I ducked down and saw an actual curl of smoke from somewhere underneath.

I hurried back to the house for a flashlight. All the while my mind was running through what it could be, and who I could phone to ask what it could be, and whether it could get worse in a hurry. There was dry grass right next to the driveway, and always that knifing wind. No lights at Brian's house across the street. I could phone Mom and Dad, but I knew I'd only get Mom tonight, and I didn't want to worry her.

The flashlight made a shaft across the smoke, and I quickly zeroed in on the source. There was no tailpipe on the muffler, and its rear opening was milky white. Something was smouldering in there.

What to do? Who to phone? I finally thought of my sister. She assured me that water wouldn't hurt the muffler itself, and insisted that it couldn't be a hot fire after all these hours. We traded ideas about something to just cover the hole and smother it, until I hit on the idea of aluminum foil. A couple of wads did the trick.

Now I know why that dog food was scattered on the ground where the truck had been. I also know what burnt dog food smells like.

The only thing I don't know, is how I'm going to get it out of the muffler before I drive that truck back out to the farm.