Fall nostalgia

This was a post on my other blog, but there are a bunch of changes/refinements. Please read!

Mom and Dad picking potatoes for hours on fall weekends with the help of Uncle Mike, Grandpa, Grandma, And the four of us stooges. Little red truck that we all learned to drive in. The pile of brush left after the harvest that we would burn in the middle of the gargantuan garden.

With the fall weather I get all nostalgic. I remember with acuracy, the Saturdays spent in the woods with Dad and sometimes Mom lugging the winter supply of firewood back to the farm. I remember Dad lighting our noon-time campfires with only some flint and a wad of cotton. I remember coming home to take a bath and get ready for Saturday night mass, but only after the traditional Liz speacial Pizza. After church was Hockey Night in Canada, with our classic popcorn and chips. Dad's bowl was the biggest and was deep green in color, Bone's was the red one with handles so he could push his face up out of the bowl after he had passed out in it. It seems popcorn was some sort of sedative to him. One or two mouthfuls and poof. He was done.

If the game wasn't interesting enough, then a few hours looking through the Sears Christmas Wish catalogue would provide adequate entertainment.Sunday morning (if not church time)was the big breakfast and usually an afternoon football game featuring the beloved (by some) Winnipeg Blue Bombers.

Chicken coops and endless space. These are my fondest of memories.Creting a lab to develop potions in the old chick coop, where we put the new yellow chicks. Building forts and treehouses. Playing football or field hockey in the vastness that was our own backyard. A pasture with Blinkey, Peter and Paul, and for a shorter period Gypsy the horse that hated humans.

I can still picture the ditch across from the house that was used as a launch for our bicycles as we came hurdling down the road. The slough just beyond that where I used to hide my most valued treasures inside a hollowed out log near a low spot that never seemed to dry. The moisture ensured that only I would venture into the muck to retrieve my cache.

The hills near the dugout that housed and amazing amount of gophers and served as a ski hill later in the year. The old outhouse right beside the "Gulf" fuel tank where I would go in emergencies to avoid being nabbed by mother because it was "time to come in". I can see the large pasture behind the barn where me and the mechanically inclined would try to play mechanic by stripping the poor old orange harvester to bits.

I remember the old Wood fireplace on the brick corner of the floor. The dining room with the upright piano. The kitchen with the ugly Green and beige flooring tiles arranged in alternating squares. The Co-op green porch with the laundry facilities and basement stairwell. I remember a window over the washer that peered into the kitchen. I remember the veranda that was too hot in summer and too cold in winter and the old freezer full of fire wood.

The old creaky cot that was kept in there and the access to the patio where Dad had his weight bench and Barbeque in the summer. The crawlspace underneath where Pokey found our orange cat frozen stiff.

There are so many things that remind me of home, lucky for me, Fall happens every year and the memories of our youth grow fonder every one.

I hope this kind of rejuvinates some good memories in you all.

I hope some day that I can make these same kinds of memories for my own brood. But I can't imagine for the moment how any place or time on earth would ever compare to that.