Dear Editor,
I went to school in Barrhead from Grade one to Grade nine. Lorne Jenken was the Principal. When I started school, there was no running water. For a toilet we had a three holed, wooden structure. Nobody washed their hands. How did we survive?
I haven’t been back to Barrhead many times since I left when I was fifteen, so in my mind my fellow students are still fifteen or younger. This month I turned the big 80, so I imagine my school buddies did too. How did that happen? We were young yesterday, we pulled our drinking water up from a well. We chopped wood for the stove. The outhouse was frozen and sparkly in the winter and aromatic in the summer with bees down the hole, threatening our most sensitive parts. Banking the stove with coal at night and taking out the clinkers (that part of coal that didn’t burn) was an accepted part of the routine. Who ever dreamed of television? We had a movie theatre that showed three different movies a week. Saturday matinee was 10 cents. Battery radios were a luxury. Soaps like “Ma Perkins” and country music like “Curly Gerloff’s Coral” was what I remember. Somebody probably listened to the news.
I’m in the “Golden Years” now. Who ever thought that up. My friends are disappearing. It’s like stars going out in the midnight sky, leaving a black hole. Conversations about aches and pains and parts that don’t work anymore, or might not when you get out of bed in the morning take up centre stage.
I don’t get invited to weddings anymore. It’s mostly funerals I hear about. I admit to being selfish. I don’t go. Maybe if I don’t go they won’t either. To witness the finality of a person’s life, who has been in my mental landscape seemingly forever, is just too sad.
There is a part of the brain that doesn’t recognize age. It’s just when a quick glance in the mirror (that’s enough) and a wrinkly old woman shows up, that I wonder where I went.
I write letters to many people. Nobody writes back. They all have electronic gizmos that don’t interest me. I fear someday to lose my newspaper.
There used to be some very big families “back in the day.” I’m thinking of the Meuniers, and the Schultzs in Mosside. Did any but the oldest ever get new clothes? Did they ever know what size they were? Will they ever again taste such wonderful food as they raised themselves?
Even though some dear friends have left the planet, they will live forever (who knows how long that will be) in my heart. One by one, friends, brothers and sisters are making the journey. I’m much closer to the end than the beginning but it’s not frightening. It’s just the way it is. It’s been a privilege to have been here this long. The greatest sadness is when the order is disturbed and the young go first. Time doesn’t heal. You just get used to the sadness.
To all my grey haired, wrinkly, creaky, limping old buddies, I say, congratulations on making it this far. Old age is not for the faint of heart. Last one to finish turns the lights out.
Mona Baker
Airdrie
