A post on a message board from a nurse in the Philippines asking which city was more cosmopolitan, Saskatoon or Regina, got me thinking. After I stopped laughing, that is. I and two other members of the board attempted to describe Saskatchewan to someone with no obvious frame of reference. Finally I posted a photo of an abandoned farm house and an antique but functioning thresher. And therein lie the roots of this post...
Abandoned farm houses and barns have always intrigued me in a way I can't explain. They inflame my imagination and curiosity to such an extent that I find myself "seeing" the people who may have lived or worked there, wondering what they thought about their lives and their futures. What did they do on long winter nights when the snow-filled wind howled around the eaves and the supply of lamp oil was low? What did they do for fun? Were they happy? Why did they leave, and where did they go?
My first memory of this intense thirst for insight was of a summer day in Grimshaw when I was about six. We were living with Nan then in her little two bedroom house a couple of blocks from 'downtown'. I had five cousins there who were older than I, two who lived on a farm outside of town and three who lived in town, as well as one my age. There was a family gathering at one of the farms and I was excited and happy to be included. I was wearing my only dress that day because it was special occasion for me; it was brown print cotton with a full skirt and a buttoned-up bodice. The collar was white, if I recall correctly. In the afternoon while the grown-ups visited, we kids explored the farm; we climbed the baled hay stacked many feet high (only Ronnie made it to the top and collected a bunch of eggs he found up there), sat on the tractor and pretended we were farmers, chased the cats and the chickens and then ended up in the barn. We climbed the ladder into the loft, swung from the block and tackle used for hoisting bales of hay up there and raised a ton of dust. Some of my cousins decided we should slide down a plank leaning against one of the beams that created the loft. I was six, remember, and didn't think of the consequences of such an activity... the ignominy of having my mother pluck dozens of splinters out of my tender rear end. Such an ending to a wonderful day!
Another time my older cousins and I explored an abandoned building near the main street of our little town. It had to have been a business because I remember playing with a typewriter, an old Olivetti with round black keys. There were papers and books strewn all about, several inches deep on the floor. Some of the windows were broken, but I'm pretty sure we didn't get in there through a window. I stepped on a nail that pierced right through the sole of my red canvas sneaker; the shank of the nail broke off and protruded out of the rubber. That meant a trip to the doctor's office and, of course, a tetanus shot. When would I learn?
We used to play in a car graveyard too in those days. There was what seems, in my child's memory, dozens of rusted-out hulks with flat tires in a yard in town that no one seemed to supervise. We'd go there and play in the old cars, pretending we were taking trips to exotic places like Peace River and Grande Prairie. We could drive you know, even though we were all just little kids. There were a couple of cars that were our favourites, ones that still had intact upholstery and no mice. It was great fun.
When I was a few years older (maybe eleven or twelve) and living in Saskatchewan, I again had the chance to explore an abandoned building, this time a farm house several miles from Alsask on a dirt road. I don't remember who I went there with, but I think it might have been my sister's friend Kim Longmuir and her family. The house was a two-story four-square similar to the one in the photo above. There was faded wallpaper on the walls and a carpeted runner on the stairs. Most of the windows were still intact but there was a thick layer of dust everywhere. Some of the furnishings were left behind... a chrome-legged table and several cracked-vinyl chairs, an armchair and a small table, an old metal bedstead with a holey mattress, a lamp. It was like the inhabitants had packed up what mattered and moved on. Houses were built to last in the early part of the 20th century and this house was still quite sturdy; the stairs were safe to climb and climb them we did. The view from the windows was that of unending golden fields dotted with the occasional stunted tree and a dome of blue sky. I remember feeling deeply disappointed when it was time to leave. (Is that how the woman whose home we were invading had felt? I like to think so.)
