MARCH IS PEEKING AROUND THE CORNER

   It seems that spring is anxiously stirring around these late February 2012 days to check the trees for buds and sprouting seeds that might be cracking the surface of the soil after having waited patiently in their underground root quarters throughout the winter months.  Towering trees and dainty buttercups are rushing the season to spring to life. The weather man hints of a possible Pacific storm to descend in the Okanagan Valley.  A thin layer of snow covers the walks that encircle Carrington Retirement Center and promises a walk outside in the fresh morning air.  There are indoor exercise rooms in our building but the outdoor air is more invigorating as the clouds part and let the sun welcome the day with encouraging rays.

    Some of the residents here have renewed former friendships from days on the prairies.  We all seem to feel a sense of empty longing when first moving from our former homes to retire and have enjoyed some surprises when we meet old friends here.  After supper a new friend and I go for a walk.  She tells me about Regina, Saskatchewan where she lived for her first 87 years before coming here to be near her daughter. “I don’t know if I will ever see Regina again,” she opines, recalling former days when she and her daughter went swimming in the pool at the YWCA.  “She could wriggle and shuffle her way to the bottom of the pool but never showed me how it was done fearing I might drown when she was away.  She picks me up on Sunday for the 10 mile drive for a dinner with them in Armstrong.  I loved driving in the early l940’s during and after World War II when I worked in the military.”

   My new friend’s sight is impaired and wears a hearing aid which makes it easier for us to chat about the early days on the prairie. I tell her I was born in Orion, Alberta, near Medicine Hat.  We speak of the fun we had picking Chokecherry and Saskatoon berries – but seemed to have forgotten the days of longing for rains during the dry years with crop failures.  Nor is mention made of the mosquitoes - they must have shrunk or flown away since then.  There was no talk of the wildcats that sometimes lurked in the chokecherry trees near the almost dry Pakowki Lake.  Someone managed to catch one of them and caged it for awhile for local viewing.  Our older brothers protected us with riding horses when we picked berries.  A few miles from our place a busy mother was preparing dinner and to satisfy her impatient three – year old handed her a cracker. Thinking things were a bit quiet the mother went out to the porch and found her child happily chipping pieces off the cracker into the upraised and satisfied mouth of a rattle snake.