Thank you for my Freedom
What can be won by a little inspiration? As Canadians recognize and continue to honour our Veteran’s on this 80th anniversary of D-Day, recognition is as simple as the street you live on.
While housing markets continue to price buyers back to renting, my childhood neighbourhood echoes its former glory. From those looking in, only a keen eye would notice the city-block sized gaps between the new builds and the old-world clapboard houses. After the war, families boomed in every sense of the word, as two-storey dwellings were commonplace.
Making your way to the front stoop, only the family doctor knew that my dad was born with a heart defect which kept him from going overseas. Serving in basic training with the SD&G Highlanders took him all the way to Halifax, where a bullet-proof military panel of doctors gave him the golden ticket home.
In retrospect, he wore a tiny button-hole pin on the left hand collar of his shirts denoting exemption. While meandering city streets, the very real lynch mob threatening to tear guys apart as yellow-bellies was in truth, a fact of life.
From one end of the street to the overpass and back, were tradesmen, plumbers, mailmen, janitors, pipefitters or mill hands. Of little education or none, they made it work. If one or the other took ill, rounds were taken –usually in the middle of the night – to restore the balance and broken spirits of men from boys to soldiers.
Having each other’s backs was a common theme. Everyone had knowledge of the layouts of each other’s houses, having laid tile or brick or painted some such thing. In it together, those friendships were built to last. A handshake – as good as your word, became the wealth of our middle class upbringing. It stands to this day.
Better than any warranty, is to belong and be a part of that particular revolution of ‘Who’s your father…’ and absolutely know- the last thing you want- is to let your father down. To the Millennial, the ‘Who’s your father…’ phrase meant… Can I trust you?
Lives built on trust, legacies and livelihoods are the sinew of what it takes to be Canadian, eh!
One of the major highlights of those retired Veterans was the purchase from one neighbour of an aluminum fishing boat. Used on Saturdays, they took turns catching their share and then some, for fish fries, corn roasts and King Cole on the radio.
Despite my age and shortening memory, recounting the neighbours from their position in either direction, is melancholic to spring and renewal. While the newest garden gadget or seed packet promised bounty crops, dirt under your fingernails, or rides to the Co-op, there is no better smell than garden fertilizer or gasoline.
When collecting 5¢ bottles for candy or reading the Star Weekly funnies, the summer breeze called my name.
What can I say but, thank you for my Freedom.
Copyright Lisa Gray © June 2024
