Wistful Recollections

We have more photos for you again today but not pretty postcard types this time. Not at all, just our cruddy old driveway on a mild day — yesterday.


I grabbed the opportunity that the break in the weather provided to scrape ice off the driveway. For the most part, I could get under it with a steel shovel. Then, I would throw it onto the pile with the scooper shovel that is planted in the snowbank in the photo below. And I remembered something.



I remembered being a little boy in Montreal and my grampa doing the same thing. In my memory the ice was thicker and he broke it up with a pick axe. There were a few spots where I could have also used a pick yesterday too, but alas I am not so equipped. I had always assumed that particular day about 55 years ago was later in the year but perhaps it was in some sort of mid-winter thaw such as the one yesterday.

Now I am the grampa chipping up the ice. Perhaps I might do this again with The Smudge in another year or three when she is older, just as I watched my grampa more than half century past. While she watches, I can tell her of my memory of my grampa ... and maybe she will remember me too when she is old, and I am but a distant and fading image in her mind.

I wonder if she'll wish in that far off day that the adult her could have a little chat with me just as I wish the adult me could sit down over coffee with my grandparents. Wouldn't that be grand (so to speak)?

Sigh.

I have posted this photo before, but that's me and my grampa below. Yes, I would really love to chat with the old guy and hear about his life from his own lips. What was he really like? Was he happy with his lot? Why did he immigrate to Canada? Why did he go back to England several times before staying here permanently? Did laying bricks on skyscrapers scare him senseless? Why did he return to Montreal after living in New York for several years? How did he meet his wife, my grandmother? And so on ...



Speaking of generations, guess who's ten months old today? Happy Birthday little one. Just look at those teeth with several more on the way. (Photo taken on Feb 18/08.)