My Oldest Brother's Car

He drove 846 miles to bring that car home for the summer after he was finished teaching in June.

No one could figure out why it hadn't fallen apart on the way, or at least broken down, let him down even, but it hadn't.

A Karmann Ghia, 1956, 1584 cc engine producing 60 hp, a European car the color of faded oranges.

My brother had just turned twenty-two and his career life had begun to flower and grow in the far north of Ontario at the lakehead.

He was excited about teaching, about living so far away from home, and about having his own place in a city that had never heard of him.

If he came home at Christmas wearing a massive full-length wolf coat and carrying a pair of equally massive snowshoes on the train, then surely he'd come home for the summer in a car so foreign and wild it would knock the socks off the boys he grew up with and the uncle who got my sister that Willys.

And he was right.

He was right about everything that summer. Loud and right and laughing and right and glowing and...

Boisterous. And right. You couldn't tell him anything.

The Ghia was a mess. Chipped paint, faded paint, and the interior? Puleeze.

Ripped, torn, scratched, smelly, but wonderful, exotic, and fabulous.

"Get in, get in," he said to me. "I'll take you for a ride."

And he did.

But first - "Be careful of the floor," he said.

"What's that cardboard doing on the floor?" I asked.

"Don't put your feet on it."

"Where do I put my feet, then?"

"On the sides."

"What's so special about a piece of cardboard?" I asked, in fourteen year old innocence.

"Nothing. But it's basically the floor. Lift it up."

I bent down and pulled up the big piece of cardboard and looked beneath it.

Whoa!

"There's gravel down there!" I said.

"Yeah. That's the driveway. There's no floor there. Sorry."

"You can't drive a car with no passenger floor," I said, amazed and intrigued and grinning.

"Sure I can. Put the floor back and keep your feet off it."

The Ghia was low to the ground and so it felt like scooting across the gravel driveway and along the pavement. The thought of seeing the pavement so close made me peek under the cardboard when we were doing about 55 mph on Hwy 74.

What a thrill!

"Put that back!" he said.

Gee.

I went for a lot of rides with my brother that summer, because I loved his car like he did.

But the worst ride I had was coming home from a long weekend at my uncle's cottage. My brother and Dad all drove their cars, but my oldest brother insisted I go with him in his charming Karmann Ghia.

When you're young, the rough ride isn't felt. When you're young and happy, the world flies by at ground level and you never stop laughing.

It was 180 miles of joy, until we went down that long, long hill where at the top of it, a sign, a big sign, screams at you:

Slow down - 25 mph on hill.

Train tracks ahead.

"Slow down," I said. "I've been here many times with Dad. Slow down!" I yelled.

He didn't. He laughed. He was twenty-two, a career man in a foreign sporty car held together by rust and cardboard, and wearing an attitude as big as an elephant.

"I mean it!" I shouted.

"No problem. This car can take those tracks lying down."

The tracks were set in the road partway down the hill. The hill was on a steep slant. The tracks were level. 25 mph would be almost slow enough to cross them safely.

We were doing 65. The Ghia had picked up speed on the steep slant and my brother couldn't wait to hit those tracks.

I grabbed everything I could get my hands on to brace myself against his stupidity.

Behind us, my brother in his car saw what was happening. And he started praying.

The Ghia hit the tracks and became airborne. Silence filled the tiny interior. My heart pounded to death. My brother's face beside me went white and he swore.

My brother in his car behind us way up the hill, doing 25 mph, said later that he was watching us about to die.

When the Ghia landed, it should have blown apart and sent us flying. But it didn't.

It hit with a massive force, jarring every cell in our bodies. Everything behind our seats flew forward and covered us, clothes and beach towels and snacks.

The car slowed and rolled to a stop, then nothing.

We sat, dead-like, shrouded in underwear and potato chips.

"Are you okay?" he whispered.

"Yes," I whispered back. "Are you?"

"I'm sorry."

"You're stupid."

"That too."

We were shaking by now. We had headaches and body aches and we were shaking.

We slowly started uncovering our heads and my door was yanked open and my brother, who'd seen it all, was ghostlike in fear as he peered in at us.

"You're not dead?" he asked, and I started to cry.

Then so did he. And then the driver too. It was awful.

"You couldn't have survived that," he said, over and over. "Do you know how far and how high you flew through the air? You hit the tracks way back up the hill and landed way down here. What the heck's the matter with you!" he screamed at the driver, the one who knew everything that summer.

He pulled me out and gave me a shaky hug, then went around the hood and pulled his big brother out and hugged him too.

Then they inspected the car.

They couldn't believe that the tires weren't blown to smithereens, that the body was still in one piece. It didn't make sense.

"I prayed," my brother said. "Harder than I ever have."

And we cried some more.

The smart brother followed us home to be sure the car would make it.

It rattled a bit, but nothing else.

The cardboard settled back down on the floor.

We were silent for at least ninety minutes of the drive home.

We didn't tell our parents.

My brothers took the Ghia to the garage and had it worked on. But the pain of what it suffered to save our lives was too much for it.

My brother was forced to give it up because it was officially unsafe now.

He drove it around that summer, slowly, but went back to the lakehead in late August, in a different car.

He was a humbled man, that's for sure, the young man who came home knowing everything in 1959.

Small Town Diner, Small Town Teenaged Boy

Hank Bailey parked his old Ford on the gravel and watched the dust cloud in the rear-view mirror, the dust storm he'd made when he slid off the road and skidded sideways across the parking lot, just to show off to anybody watching behind their curtains.

He was a darned good driver at seventeen, the magic age of your entire life, as far as he was concerned. Everything happened when you were seventeen. After that, you got old.

The year was 1961.

The Ford was 1952.

The paint job was dirty brown.

The rust was just plain dirty.

And the interior was crap.

The best car to have when you're seventeen and living life like Heaven was waiting for you tomorrow.

Hank's door creaked loudly in protest when he shoved it open and stepped out onto the gravel.

It was Saturday night and the girls were inside the diner, looking mighty pretty for small town girls. Some wore lipstick like a city girl, a naughty girl, the boys all said. They looked good with red lips and wayward eyes, he figured.

He stood tall, over six feet, about an inch, almost. His hair was dark and curly. His eyes were blue and piercing. The girls liked his eyes, he knew. He could pin them with his eyes.

He had long legs under his jeans and a big chest under his cotton shirt.

The driver's door slammed beneath his strong hand, and the driver of the hot Ford sauntered across the diner parking lot in no hurry at all. They would wait for him, all those girls inside.

The door dinged at his touch. It should have been a drum-roll, not a ding. He hated the sissy ding, had ever since he was a baby.

His blue eyes scanned the restaurant like a pro. Music played on the jukebox. An Elvis song, filled with love.

Hank's face flushed for a second. Then he heard the giggles.

The girls. Down on the left, in a booth, near the jukebox and Elvis.

He smiled and sauntered on down, feeling the pull of his shirt across his broad shoulders, shoulders so powerful he looked like a man in them. Nearly ripped the seams every time he came in this place on a Saturday night.

They were watching him. Some of their eyes traveled all over him. Some of their lips sighed. Bad lips, naughty lips. Fantasy lips on fantasy faces.

He stopped his massive height right beside the booth.

"Evening, ladies," he drawled.

"Hi, Hank," they all said in unison, a chorus of beauty to his ears, singsong admiration in their voices.

"Mind if I join you tonight?"

They all slid over, all four girls, two on each side of the table, as if he could sit on both benches at the same time.

"Well, now, which side should I chose?" He smiled handsomely into each of their gorgeous expectant faces, seeing them gleaming in anticipation.

He couldn't decide. They were all so beautiful.

The waitress came over.

"Hank," she said. "Your mom just called. She needs a ride over to the hospital to see your Grandpa."

Hank stared at the women in boring white shoes, gray frizz on her head, and a notepad stuck inside her blouse pocket, making it bulge.

"It's Saturday night," he said, stupidly, sprouting a nasty frown, without thinking.

The waitress shoved her hands on her hips and said, "Is that supposed to mean something, because if it is, it doesn't mean much. Now go on home, because she's waiting."

Crap! Son of a gun!

The witch of a waitress walked away, showing him her tough back, and he pulled a face at her. The girls giggled.

Crap, that was immature.

Brenda, the sauciest of the girls, snapped her gum and drawled, "Mommy wants her little boy."

"Shut up, Brenda," a red lipstick face said. "It isn't Hank's fault."

He stared at them for a second, then one of the girls with pink lips and rosy cheeks, said, "I'll go with you, Hank, if you like. I heard about your Grandpa falling off the roof. Is he going to be okay?"

"Yes. He broke his arm, that's all."

"I'll go with you." She smiled.

"Thanks."

As soon as she slid out of the booth, the door dinged, and in marched a gaggle of teenaged boys, playfully punching and shoving at each other.

"Hey, Hank!" one called. "Wanna drag the strip with that piece of rust on wheels?"

Hank grinned and almost said, "Yeah, loser."

But a soft hand slid into his strong one and his mouth didn't work.

He shook his head.

"Chicken!"

Hank shrugged and tugged on the soft hand.

"Hank's got a girl, guys. Ain't she pretty," someone viciously cooed, boy-like.

Hank walked with Daisy across the floor, feeling not quite so powerful and handsome as when he first entered the diner, because Daisy was so sweet she made him okay with who he really was inside.

At the door, his buddies parted for him to leave.

He nodded at them, suddenly mature beyond belief.

"Good evening, gentlemen. See you next time," he said in a quiet and dignified voice.

The gentlemen stared wide-eyed as Hank and Daisy left the diner.

Ahh. Seventeen, the magic age of your entire life.

Everything happens when you're seventeen and a small town teenaged boy.

Just about everything.

Spear-Fishing Is A Bloody Mess

You didn't go spear-fishing in daylight back in the 50's. Where was the fun in that?


The adventure was at night, skulking across foreign lands in rubber boots and spears held in teenaged boys' hands like medieval cowboys.


Dark clothes, a pail or two, and whispers.


I had begged for years to go with my brothers, and they always said, You're too young, You're a girl. Ridiculous stuff like that.


I loved the sound of their adventure tales when they came home in the dark and talked, so I wanted desperately to go too.


When I finally turned twelve and my oldest brother was twenty, and I stood almost as tall as one of them, they said yes.


"You're not using a spear, though," they said.


"I don't want to," I said.


"And you can't talk. You can't chatter like a -"


"I'll be silent," I said, grinning.


"Only whispers," they said.


"Whispers." I nodded.


I borrowed a pair of rubber boots and got to carry a pail. They carried the heavy spears and the flashlights. I didn't get one.


Mom told us to keep to the ditches by the road, so if the OPP - Ontario Provincial Police - drove by, they might not see us. And for sure keep the flashlights hidden. Mom was an aider and abetter to these crimes, though she would have denied it at the time.


We went on a moonlit night, down the country road and across a farmer's field in the dark, looking evil in our old clothes and spearheads pointed to the sky.


The small creek was adorable and I nearly squealed with delight. It had rushing clear water and pebbles to make eddies and it was just...so adorable.


We could see the fish in the light of the moon. They were swimming in the beautiful shallow water. Cool water that smelled like them.


My brothers got right to work, spearing and splashing and saying not one word.


It was disgusting. Horrible and bloody.


They mangled the fish with the spearheads in their zealousness. Who could eat that torn meat, all bloody and ewwww.


The wicked night brought out the joy of whispered cuss words, further disgusting me. What would Mom think?


"Don't you tell her," they whispered, "or you'll never come with us again."


"I never want to," I said. "Are you catching the right fish?"


"Be quiet," was their answer to that.


I decided to move upstream and just explore the adorable creek by myself, but one of my brothers followed me, no doubt to spoil my peace.


I said, "See that fish right there? I can catch it with my bare hands."


He scoffed. "You can not."


"Watch me," I said.


I moved downstream a few feet, squatted down, and waited.


When the fish swam by me, I reached in and grabbed it. No problem. It was maybe eleven inches long and it wriggled like crazy.


I held it up for my non-believing brother to see.


"How did you do that?" he yelled.


"Shh. Whispers," I said.


Then I put it back in the stream and moved further down the stream and said, "I'll catch it again."


"No way. You can't catch it twice," he argued.


"Sure I can," I said.


And I did.


So he tried with other fish and he couldn't even come close. Fish are wary and slippery and he lost, every time.


I took my fish to a pail and put it in with the speared fish, knowing Mom would be proud of cooking a piece of fish that was not all mangled from a vicious spearhead.


We skulked home in the dark. My brothers had used their flashlights to spear their fish because it was illegal and they liked that thrill.


I caught mine by the moonlight.


In the kitchen, we showed Mom our two pails of catch.


I expected her to be wowed by my one fish.


She threw up her hands in utter disgust.


"You did it again! Carp and catfish! What's the matter with you boys!"


I said, "What about my lovely fish, Mom? Is it a good fish?"


She just gave me a Look.


I glared at my brothers and stomped from the room.

Spear Fishing At Night

Was it illegal back in the 50's? No.

Was it illegal to spear fish using a light? Yes.

Did the teenaged boys obey that law? NO.

Their logic was: how can you catch a fish you can't even see?

Okay. So go fishing on a full moon or a near full moon, Mom always said.

Full moons don't come around enough, was the boys' argument to that suggestion.

They wanted fish fried up crisply in a pan of bacon fat, Mom's end of the deal, because she never let them near a burner and fat and we can all guess why.

My brothers went fishing any old chance they got, whether it be with each other or with the neighbor boys or a cousin or two.

No carp or catfish, Mom always said. They're ground feeders, trashy fish. We didn't eat those.

They fished with Grandpa's farm bamboo pole or with chokecherry poles cut from our trees at the back of the property, or with rods and reels when they made enough money to buy them.

Bait was dug-up worms.

When they fished, they came home with the right fish. Bass and trout - nice fish.

When they spear-fished, they came home with the wrong fish - carp and catfish. Why? I have no idea. It always disgusted Mom, and she'd say, "Cut them up and bury them in my flower garden for fertilizer, and quit killing the wrong fish, for goodness sakes!"

My brothers would look contrite as they filed from the kitchen with their pails of fresh fish, then they'd go and do what she said.

And the next time they went spear-fishing at night?

They did it again.

And again.

And again.

It kind of makes you wonder about teenaged boys back in the 50's, doesn't it?

Remembering Back

Sometimes you just can't ignore that little nudge that says, "Go back - just do it," so you look for ways to make it happen.

Just sitting still and thinking, remembering when you were young, when it all started for you, is about the best way I know to activate what the nudge is telling you to do.

Then you make the contacts, relatives and old friends, asking them questions about the past, stirring up their childhoods right along with your own.

And then come all the answers that fill in the blanks of your life, the blanks you never even knew were there.

And things begin to fall into place and start to make sense.

It's like a mosaic that's never been completed, a piece of art that has sat gathering webs and dust and neglect in a barn somewhere. The pieces of someone else's memories, given to you, begin to rebuild the mosaic, even moving a few pieces around for you that never belonged where they were, because the whole truth had not been revealed, until now.

And suddenly, there it is.

It may be ugly to look at or at least have ugly bits marring the overall beauty, but you know you'd never change one color of it, because it was meant to be.

Most of those memories might never make you happy, but they'll make you complete.

And that must be what the nudge was all about, what the nudge knew you needed, before you reach the end of your rainbow.

Cuba in 1981 - Log Two - Customs

The customs officer never smiled. He was already an attractive man, but a smile would really have softened up that look he had on his face when I stepped up to the window

I handed him my passport, because he said, "Passport."

He looked at it and studied my photo for a while, then looked at me, and studied me for a while, which made me a little more nervous than I already was. His eyes were glaring at mine by now.

Then he looked at my passport photo again, then back at me again, so already he wasn't following the pattern of those tourists he'd checked through before me, and my stomach flipped over, and I thought, I'm in trouble.

His dark eyes narrowed on mine after a third photo check, and I held my breath.

Then - "Papers."

I didn't dare breathe as I handed him my papers that were shaking all on their own. The people behind me waiting their turn, my friends, were fidgeting and nervous, which didn't help me at all.

The officer studied my papers a little too closely, so unlike the others he'd observed, and I was sure I was headed for prison in handcuffs right then and there, doomed forever.

Finally, when I could stand the suspense not a second longer, he shoved the papers back at me, then my passport, and gave me one last look.

I said, "Thank you," so humbled by now with relief that I would have been willing to dig ditches instead of playing the Canadian tourist, if he'd asked me to. Heck, I would have volunteered.

I moved aside and a nervous friend took my place up at the window.

My legs wobbled across the small floor space and over to the door where the other tourists were exiting, smiling and happy, while I was swallowing and terrified.

Outside, the night was black and as soft as a rabbit, fragrant and sweet. I saw buses lined up beyond the cement and drivers waiting down on the pavement.

And for some stupid reason, I panicked and started to run.

Tourists stared and guides stared as I whizzed by them in panic, going nowhere but into the night, anywhere to get away.

I can't believe I did that.

A man was yelling my name and running after me, and I kept right on going.

I heard, "What are you doing!"

And then reality clicked in. And I stopped. And felt so stupid.

When he caught up to me, a friend, I said, still shaking, "He scared me."

He said, "I know. But running away?"

I said, "I should never have come to Cuba."

WRONG.

I should have come to Cuba, and I was glad I did, in the long run.

We didn't get our luxurious hotel on the water, the one we paid for. The bus took us to another hotel about three blocks in from the luxurious one.

It had a small lobby and no shops. It had a small elevator with a female attendant. They did not let us ever use the elevator on our own.

The rooms were small but clean and nice. There was a rooftop patio and a deep pool with a lovely view over houses and rooftop gardens and chickens pecking in the plants.

In the morning, roosters crowed, rooftop roosters sitting on ledges and clothes lines in the light of dawn, a wonderful sound and sight in Havana, Cuba in 1981, on my first day there.

Cuba in 1981 - Log One - Arriving In Havana

Canadians were free to travel to Cuba when Fidel Castro was in power as its Communist leader, and I was curious to see what he'd done to the country, when I was 35 in 1981.

Books showed beautiful people, and horses on perfect beaches, happy children in cute little uniforms walking side by side to school, lush green countryside, and an island promoted as having no racial discrimination because Cubans were all shapes and shades and Catholic.

The tour booked rooms in an old, expensive hotel on the waterfront, where Russian ships arrived several times a day, slipping by the downtown Havana hotel's cement patios and seawall to dock at the main wharves.

Attached to the booking was a small condition - we may not be staying in this hotel. The travel agent said that Cuba did that all the time, so be ready for it.

Our flight left Toronto late at night in the dead of winter because no foreigners were allowed to descend upon Cuba in the light of day, causing those foreigners to wonder what Castro was hiding from them and the free world.

I flew with the expectations of exploring the island, riding a horse on the white sugary sand of the crystal clear blue waters that lazily lapped at the shores. I wanted to see the museums and shop at downtown stores and taste the food that Cubans offered and buy giant ice cream cones made from exotic fruits and creams and spices.

I longed to see those happy child faces on their way to school and feast my eyes on the dramatic three-storey houses of the rich, mansions that boasted wide wooden verandahs on all three floors, set on streets lined with massive oleander vines climbing poles and fences in red splendor, along the sidewalks.

I knew these things were there just waiting for me, because the books and the travel brochures proved it did in colored glory, pages and write-ups and a "come and see me" attitude.

Wrong.

But I'll get to all that in the next post.

Our plane landed in the dark and we pulled out our passports and once again were reminded by the captain from the cockpit to be respectful and answer the customs officer's questions in clear English and smile a lot.

Okaaay.

Being told this twice put me on edge. I had horrors of being handcuffed and whisked away to prison to be never heard from again, if I didn't smile enough. Oh, yes, the captain said to keep eye contact with the authorities at all times, to prove we weren't hiding anything from them.

Customs at the Havana airport was in a small building and there were only two officers waiting to see us, so we lined up, mentally gambling on which officer was the least scary-looking in his seriousness and mood.

When I stepped up to the window where the Cuban officer stood a good foot above me in an enclosed booth, a great method of intimidation if I ever saw one, I expected him to do what he had done with the tourists ahead of me - look at the passport then at the tourist to match the face in the photo, check your papers to see that they were in order, ask a small question, then hand back the papers, and say not another word.

Wrong.

But I'll... You know what I was going to say.