Overheard...

Standing in line at the Japanese take-away:

Woman 1: I'll have the teriyaki salmon, with noodles. Oooh - can  I have a bit of the chicken katsu curry too? With just a bit of extra curry sauce on the side.

(The Waitress puts this in a container for her. There is a lengthly discussion about the exact amount of extra curry sauce needed. It turns out to be the size of a pea.)

Woman 2: I'll have the exact same as her, but can I have the teriyaki chicken with rice instead? And I don't want the chicken curry.

The Waitress: So......the same but different?

Woman 2: Yeah.

Eleven Memories: Eleven

Because he was a driver, Papa spent a lot of time waiting around on bases. Early on, he was based in England.


None of the troops were allowed off the base without a signed pass. They certainly weren't allowed off just for fun and you can utterly forget about going down to London at any time of day signed pass or not.


So of course, that's what Papa and a friend decided they would do.


They were headed to Leicester Square. Maybe some dinner, maybe dancing, maybe a movie - Gone With the Wind had been playing for over a year, and everyone was always saying Papa looked like Clarke Gable. Somehow, they'd managed to convince their commander to sign a pass, but they still had to sneak out of the barracks in their hobnailed boots.


Papa would always pause the story here to make as much racket as possible drumming his fingernails against the table.


'And that was just standing still.'


(As a child I wondered why they couldn't simply remove the boots, but having some vague idea that hobnailed boots were nailed to your feet, I didn't ask. )


The two Canadians snuck out the front gate of the base and walked down the road to the train station. 


'But you can't just walk in those boots. There's no give. You gotta march. So we marched all the way to the station. It was a very small parade,' he'd say with a smile.


Servicemen weren't supposed to be on the trains any more than they were supposed to be off the base - so every time one of them saw a ticket inspector they had to move to the next car along. Luckily the train was busy and it took the inspector a long time to get from one car to the next. (These days I think he probably saw them, but as long as they stayed out of his way he didn't have to 'officially' notice them or kick them off the train).


They made it to London and got on the Underground to take them to Leicester Square. Arriving at their destination, they picked their way through the people filling the platforms, past dozens of Londoners ready to withstand another night of bombing, and headed up to street level.


'Those boots on the tiles! It was quite the racket,' again he would hammer his nails against the table top. Then the staccato beat would be cut off and he would look at us seriously. 


'We got to the top of the stairs and you know what? The warden standing outside said ; Sorry boys. Air Raid. You'll have to go back down.'


They'd scammed their way off the base, suck past the dorm guard in their noisy boots, marched all the way to the station, and evaded notice on the train into London, only to be beaten at the final hurdle. But only an idiot would ignore an Air Raid in those days. So they turned around, started back down the stairs.


'We got the the bottom and the bomb hit. I don't know what happened to the guy at the top of the stairs.'

_______________________________________________

My grandfather lived through the war unscathed. He came back to his family, which over the next 70 years grew to include another son (my father), five granddaughters and three great-grandchildren. 


While the past eleven days have been purposely scheduled to coincide with Armistice Day, this isn't the only time of year that I think about Papa and the things he did for me. I'm not talking about the war. I mean all the little stories and lies that are now a part of me and always will be. 


I'm so lucky to have had him.

http://www.poppy.org.uk/

http://www.poppyscotland.org.uk/index.php/homepage/show/home/poppyscotland

** if anyone has a link to Canadian or American Poppy appeal sites, please let me know. I can't find one that makes it easy to donate.

Eleven Memories: Ten

For his 90th birthday, my mother threw Papa a huge birthday party. 

Everyone was invited. Family, friends, neighbours. Even the checkout girls from the grocery store who Papa flirted with every time he went shopping.

Everyone said; 'Of course we'll come!' We said; 'Flights are so expensive in July.'

My Mother would phone with updates. 'We've hired the caterer.' 'It's going to be at the house because that's easier.' 'It's such a shame you can't make it. But we understand.'

Of course we were coming. It was going to be a surprise. And, not wanting to kill the man on his 90th birthday with a heart attack, we decided it would be best to let Papa in on the secret. A few days after Mum told us about the plans, when we  were sure we would be able to go, we phoned Papa. 'Guess what?'

'You're pregnant.' 

'Uh....no. We're coming for your party. But it's a secret. You can't tell anyone. Especially Mum and Dad.'

There was silence on the other end of the line. I wondered if he had heard me. Phone calls with Papa usually involved at least three or four increasingly loud repetitions of news items on my part. I was about to repeat myself when I heard him laughing.

'I'm good at secrets.'

He was great at secrets. 

For the next six months we updated him with our travel plans: when we would arrive, where we would stay the first night and how, one by one, we would reveal ourselves to the members of my family. We planned to stay with him for part of the visit and expected to arrive there on Wednesday at lunchtime. As we got closer to the date of the party, Papa began to toy with my parents, who were still under the impression we were not going to be there.

My mother began to worry.

'Papa says that he might be having visitors from Europe next week. Do you know anything about this?'

'Is it that Dutch couple that came to visit a few years ago? They were nice. Are they staying for the party?'

'I don't think so. He just says it's some nice people he met. He's offered them lunch.' She sounded tense. 'Your father thinks we should be there when they come. Just to make sure it isn't some kind of scam.'

I told her that sounded like a good idea and had to hang up before my laughter gave me away. I had packing to do.

The day we arrived, friends picked us up from the airport. The next day we drove out to Papa's as planned. Mum's car was in the drive. No 'strangers from Europe' were going to get one over on her father-in-law.

I could hear Papa whistling as he came to open the door. My mother hovered at the top of the stairs, a grim look on her face. It took a moment for it to sink in while the three of us grinned up at her.

'What are you doing here? Did you know about this?' She turned to Papa. 'You did! These are your visitors from Europe! How long have you known?'

'Oh since about January,' he chuckled. He looked at me and grinned. 'Shall we invite your father over for lunch?'

Eleven Memories: Nine

I've often wondered why adults lie to little kids. Not malicious lies, but lies about how the world works. Lies about the Tooth Fairy, Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny?  I think because when they do, they make the world magical for them as well as for their children. With a lie, they can make the boring and slightly tawdry, shiny and worthwhile. They can make it a story.

When you're a kid, everything adults tell you is true. It doesn't matter if they tell you that an ethereal woman obsessed with your teeth breaks in to your house at night to give you money, or that a fat man in a red lounge suit is capable of smashing the laws of physics to bits once a year, you're going to believe them. At least on some level. At least for a little while. 

So when Papa told me that he had used the sword above the fireplace in the First World War, I believed him.

I believed him so much, that I told all the kids at school about my Grandfather's awesome sword.  I built on the lie. I told them how he'd probably fought loads of battles with it in the war and about how he was probably secretly a knight but just didn't want to admit it. Because all knights have swords, right? 

To their credit, none of them believed me.

I explained to him, years later, how his lie had made me the laughing stock of my class (for all of two days, until one of the girls on the playground hung upside down on the monkey bars and revealed her underpants to the entire school -  the story of the sword couldn't compete with a scandal of that magnitude). 

He just shrugged and laughed, but it's something that I think about a lot.

The truth of the sword is that it's probably made of tin and can't cut through butter. But that's boring. Why would you hang a sword like that over your fireplace? Why would you spend money on it in the first place? The story Papa told me put that sword on a level with Excalibur. Made it worthy of being in the house, a focal point. At least for me. And maybe that was the point.

All stories are lies, especially the good ones.

Eleven Memories: Eight

'What? Your people don't like lemon?'

*sorry about this one. You kinda had to be there to see his face as he said it. 

Eleven Memories: Seven

One day I came for a visit to find that Bob and Ruth were already there. Uncle Bob and Aunt Ruth didn't visit very often. This was the first time I had seen them in ten years.

There were bits of blue ribbon by the front door, and more of them in the kitchen where I left Papa making cigarettes. I followed the trail into the living room where Nana, Bob and Ruth were. A grey pile, possibly the contents of the vacuum cleaner, was at Ruth's feet. The tangled grey mass shifted as I came into the room. It stared at me through matted grey curls, growling.

It was Ruth's dog.

For Auntie Ruth, clearly 'dog' equalled 'poodle' and genetics, breed standards and reality be damned, she was going to have a poodle. The animal at her feet was certainly poodle-like in the sense that it had four legs a head and a tail, but she'd had to do the rest of the work herself.

The grey fur had been left to grow long on head and ears and had been trimmed and combed to resemble the bouffant top-knot of a championship animal. Unable to achieve the pom-pom look of a poodle tail, Ruth had simply let the fur grow. The rest of the hair was clipped short. Mostly.

Two or three blue satin ribbons lay scattered around the 'dog' where they had failed in their duty to maintain the poodle illusion. More of their comrades bravely fought to keep ears and top-knot in check, but I could see that the battle was hopeless.

I stood frozen in the doorway as the animal continued to growl. I love dogs, and unless they are actively trying to bite me I have never held back from greeting them. I was holding back this time. Mostly because I wasn't entirely sure that Auntie Ruth hadn't found a rabid raccoon or a giant long-haired rat and decided to adopt it and partly because if I had to open my mouth, the first thing that came out was going to be a laugh.

I managed to squeak my hellos and excused myself to 'make a cup of tea' following the trail of abandoned ribbons back into the kitchen.

Papa had finished making up his cigarettes and was sitting at the kitchen table.  I wondered why he wasn't in the living room with everyone else. He prodded a fallen ribbon with his toe.

'Your Aunt Ruth's an odd one, but we love her anyway,' he said. 'And she sure does love that dog.' He grinned.

The two of us sat in the kitchen until we could control ourselves.

Eleven Memories: Six

After Nana died I started spending part of my Canadian Visits staying with Papa. There were subtle differences in the house 18 months after her death. It wasn't messy or untidy in any way, but the regimented tidiness she inflicted was no longer there and Mum and Dad had started quietly talking about the day when Papa might have to give up the house.

I liked staying there with him. It was quiet, he seemed to like having me there, but didn't feel the need to entertain me or hover and the two of us would orbit the kitchen like comets, only occasionally meeting up to have dinner, talk about his latest batch of wine, or watch Becker.

I was sitting at the kitchen table, a cup of tea and a game of solitaire in front of me when I saw the spider. It was, I'm not kidding, the biggest spider I have ever seen outside a zoo. The leg span was easily as big as my hand. It was over by the stove, but it was headed, one slow step at a time, directly for the table. So I did what any self respecting, 26 year old, abject coward would do:

I stood on my chair and squeaked.

Papa probably wouldn't have heard me if I'd shouted blue murder; he was almost Deaf by then, but he'd finished his cigarette and like Sir Galahad coming to my rescue, he shuffled into the kitchen at exactly the right moment.

'What are you doing up there?' he squinted at me, possibly wondering if I was trying to unhook the crystals from the chandelier to wear as earrings (a crime which I was forever plotting as an eight year old).

I pointed a shaking finger at the spider.

'Spider!'

He looked at the behemoth making slow progress towards the table. 'Oh dear. Where did you come from.' He scooped a mug off the counter, tipped it upside down and swiftly brought it down over the monster - who had to pull its legs in to avoid them being cut off!!


Papa slipped a piece of paper under the cup and from my perch on the chair I watched him shuffle out into the patio, where he released the spider onto the roof of the garage.

'Did you kill it?' I asked hopefully.

'Oh no,' he said. 'No, I can't squash him. A spider that big is pretty old. He's seen a lot. You have to let the old things get on with their lives. They know what they're doing.'

Eleven Memories: Five

The best piece of advice in the world:

'Drive like everyone else is crazy.'

Eleven Memories: Four

In 1984 or 85, Nana and Papa went to Europe. They came back armed with stories of a Scottish barmaid begging them on bended knee not to reveal her Campbell connections, the Filthiest Teaspoon in London and the amazing hospitality of the Dutch. It was because of the Dutch that I heard my first story about the war.

The way Papa told it to 9 year old me, when the Army arrived in Holland, they were greeted by a farmer. Since there were no Germans left to fight, the farmer asked if the soldiers might help him get his car out of the garage.

This, as it turned out, was no mean feat.

You see, upon learning that the Germans were finished with Poland and had their sights set on the Low Countries, the farmer had decided to draw a line: the Nazis could invade his country, but they were not going to invade his car. He dug up the floor of his garage, drove the car into the hole, removed the tyres, locked them in the trunk, wrapped the entire thing in sacking and buried it. The displaced dirt went onto the vegetables and the car lay under the floor of the now empty garage for the next five years, untouched by German hand. With the arrival of the Canadians, it was time to dig her up.

Digging up the car didn't take long with a few dozen servicemen to help, and soon they were pumping up the tyres and siphoning petrol out of the Jeep to get it running. As payment for allowing the men to use military petrol, their commanding office had the honour of being the first person the drive the car in a liberated Netherlands.

It was one of Papa's favourite stories. Unlike many of the others, this one never changed. He would always finish the same way.

'Beautiful car.' He'd take a lungful of cigarette smoke and blow it out slowly, looking up towards the ceiling and nod. 'Beautiful car.'

Eleven Memories: Three

My Great Nana and I  were the only lefties in our family. When I was really little, Papa used to look at me with his Serious Face and say:

'All horse thieves are left-handed, but not all left-handed people are horse thieves.' 

When he said it in front of his mother, she rolled her eyes at him and chuckled. I only ever scowled. It was awhile before I could work out what he meant. By then he'd moved on to 'Eat your crusts, they'll put hair on your chest' (quickly replaced with 'eat your crusts, they'll make your hair curly' when I shrieked in protest).

I never ate a crust and still wound up with curly hair. I've never met a horse thief, but considering the porridge drawer, I'm willing to give him the benefit of the doubt on that one.

Eleven Memories: Two

It wasn't until after Nana died that Papa really started telling us stories. By then we were too old for Cinderella, Red Riding Hood and the rest, so he told us his stories. 

You could never tell if the stories Papa told you were true or not. He sat in Nana's old chair, one knee crossed over the other, middle finger caressing the ash from the ever burning cigarette pinched between his thumb and forefinger. Occasionally he’d pause to pinch a crumb of tobacco from his lip or run a smoothing finger over his Clarke Gable moustache. Even more rarely he’d actually put the smouldering tube to his lips.

Most of the stories Papa told were outrageous lies, designed to fool his credulous Granddaughters. (We of course were far too sophisticated to fall for any of them).  ‘That’s not true,’ we’d say. ‘That’s a porridge drawer story.’

According to Papa, in Scotland everyone ate porridge all the time. If you didn’t finish it, it went into the porridge drawer, to be sliced up and eaten cold between two slices of bread later. We didn’t believe a word of it. No one, we insisted, would eat porridge cold, and only a crazy person or a sadist would have invented cold porridge sandwiches.

Imagine how shocked we were to find out it was true? 

Eleven Memories: One

Papa had an eighth grade education, which just goes to show that sometimes capital 'E' Education isn't necessary. These days eighth grade won't even get you a job at the Golden arches.

When she was alive, my Nana did most of the talking. She'd sit with us at their kitchen table, dealing game after game of solitaire, telling us about the latest family gossip. Papa would sit quietly in the corner, carefully packing tobacco into the cigarette roller, straightening out any dents in the empty tube and making two neat cigarettes, always one for him and one for Nana, before carefully sweeping up any spilled tobacco and brushing it back into the can. Then he'd shuffle out of the kitchen to smoke, leaving the girls to continue their chat. Sometimes we hardly noticed him leave.

He always smelled like fresh tobacco, even after he smoked. It's one of my favourite smells.