Village Squire, 1974-12, Page 9There seemed to be many of these around
when I was a boy. Every child appeared to
have at least one. The reason was that they
were more visible. They were not
conveniently housed as now in ' large
institutions where they can be 'by
themselves' and have 'friends their own age'.
(One could add but doesn't 'and mind their
own business') There are those also who live
in spanking new senior citizen apartments
grouped together in beautifully landscaped
surroundings. They too can be 'by
themselves'. The word ghetto comes to mind
but it is surely ungracious to use it.
The world does progress, painfully, and
times do get better, and the old are not
allowed to suffer; but we must be left the
privilege of complaining. Nothing of course is
ever perfect. When the Angel Gabriel sounds
his horn there will likely be criticism of his
musical ability. Even Heaven may be not
quite as advertised; it would be that we will
have to do some adjusting and make some
compromises to be happy there.
At the time of which I write a grandparent
could be recognized at a glance. The males
wore chin whiskers; the females had the hair
drawn into a tight bun at the back of the head,
and parted chastely in front. Both sexes
tended to dark clothes and severity of style.
There was no nonsense about tinting hair or
using rouge or even cold cream. That would
be 'flying in the face of Providence'.
Providence was an aspect of the Deity more
approachable than some. Once could use the
term with less danger of sacrilege. One didn't
tempt Providence by any loose or careless
talk. It was never doubt"d that there was One
'up there, or out there, greatly concerned
about the morals of the human race and ready
to call one to account for even a wicked
rthought or word of disrespect.
Perhaps on this account the moral aspect of
this society was very tidy on the surface. Sin
was not abolished; It was driven underground
and like a guerrilla movement became more
dangerous. It infiltrated and festered. It was
camouflaged by hypocrisy, bigotry, and
self-righteousness and finally broke out in
two of the most vicious wars ever to beset
humanity. It is a bit trite to say that sin is still
with us. Those that plagued past generations
are not to the fore but there are lots of others
more pleasing and plausible to take their
places.
I suppose my own grandparents conformed
more or less to the general ideas of the age
but in my contacts with them I did not get this
impression. I had at first a complete set of
four, but both grandmothers must have died
in their sixties. I remember little about them.
People died younger then. They just got to
'feeling poorly' and pretty soon they were
gone. There was no long seige of hospital and
wheel chair. At least one doesn't recall it that
way.
I had two very good grandfathers whom I
employed at different periods: Grandfather
L., Dad's father, from infant days until I was
twelve, and Grandfather C. of the distaff side
from age fifteen to twenty-five. There is a
space in here when there was no 'Grandfather
in Residence', so to speak. It should have
been Grandpa C., who though he must have
been aware of me sort of looked the other
way.
When I was about fifteen he seemed to
Robert Laidlaw
relects
on grandparents,
his and others
decide that I might be worth some attention,
and he began to cultivate an acquaintance.
He was a witty, charming man. We quickly
became friends and this friendship endured
until his death. Grandfather C. liked children
well enough. He gave them candy and spoke
jovially, he was indulgent and never cranky,
but he just didn't see children as people. Not
until they acquired some common sense did
he really become aware of them.
Much different was Grandfather L. I didn't
become acquainted with him, he was just
there from earliest memory. He was
friendship, understanding, security. I
suppose I loved him, but one wasn't
conscious of this feeling. When he died I
wasn't upset. With the unconscious selfish-
ness of a child I had accepted him as my right,
something that was there when I needed it.
Now he was gone and other things and people
would take his place. But I didn't forget him
and never will.
As I remember him he was a frail
white-haired old man with a long white beard,
thin longish hair and a pale skin. Too pale,
because he was anaemic. He took Vita -Ore, a
much -advertised patent medicine. It must
have helped because he lived into this
eighties.
It was hard to visualize this man as the
rugged pioneer who pushed the bush to the
back of our pleasant fertile farm, who put up
the modern (for that time) buildings and who
drained and tilled the land until it was tamed.
This was all in a period of fifty years. We
think of today as the time of greatest change,
and so it is, for the world; but for Western
Ontario it was the years from 1860 to 1910.
This was the turning of the solid wilderness
into a civilized land. Our Old farm even today
is not all that different from what it was in my
boyhood.
The people who did this were ordinary
enough. They were Scotch, Irish, and English
in about equal proportions. This was a larger
proportion of the first two compared to the
population of Great Britain. The Canadian of
Western Ontario, that is, the people who
lived there up to World War One, were
different from the average Briton. The alloy
was altered. These people were tough and
hardy, very willing to work, also inclined to be
stubborn, and bigoted and uncompromising
as to religion.
In theory, Catholic and Protestant hated
each other. In practise, they worked side by
side. If a neighbour needed help his religion
didn't matter. They were drawn together and
held together by the strange alchemy of the
pioneer spirit. The bush must be conquered,
and to do that they must cling to each other.
Looking back, I can see that the Scotch
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