Same Old Outlook. April 5th 2024
We just got back from yet another road trip. Not because a month in California isn't enough travel. Not because a house full of family over Easter isn't enough holiday experience. Our trip this time was to old familiar territory for a very different reason. We attended a funeral. The funeral of a person I don't think I ever met. But funerals aren't just about those who left us. They are also for those loved ones who remain.
I have been through this before: In 1975 I was posted to Outlook, Saskatchewan. I was there four years. In 1976 I married Carol and brought her there. In the fall of that year, we bought our first house. Carol landed a casual job with the Prairie Pioneer Lodge. And there, she met her first friend, who was also her boss. The boss thing? Well I don't think that ever factored into the friendship. Both were good at what they did. Both cared about the residents. The friendship thing? Well it is pretty hard not to love someone with a sense of humour and the ability to make people feel important. Carol's friend became my friend as well.
But in the Mounted Police, you don't put down roots, and in 1979 we moved on. And as much as you believe you will always stay in contact to those with whom you have made an important connection, time has a way of setting new directions. We lost touch. Heard some things, our friend was divorced. She continued her education, moved up in the world of geriatric care. Met someone new and became involved in raising Texas Long Horns. One day she and Carol reconnected on facebook. A very short time later she and Carol fulfilled an item on her bucket list and went white water rafting. It is amazing how certain people from your past can re-enter your life decades later and resume just where you left off. That's what happened between Her and Carol. (Me Too!)
So when she lost her life partner, a person we didn't know....at all, we decided to attend his funeral. We got there early, and took a little better than an hour to explore the community where we first resided together. We drove the streets where we lived. Where our friends lived. There was our first house. Our 648 sq. ft. palace on three lots. Jacked up on a trailer and ready to move. The basement filled in. The garage vanished. The hedges and my first lawn all pulled and plowed. Carol desperately wanted to walk through the mud in her good clothes and shoes just to look inside. But leveller heads prevailed. The house still had remnants of the paint job my dad had given in on a visit in 1977. I don't think people do starter homes these days. Not the way we did them back then. But I don't think I would ever feel what I felt looking at that tiny little house sitting there on a trailer. I so hoped it was going to a new home, or to be a home again for someone else.
We took pictures of all the old houses where we were welcomed as a new couple back then. Well the ones we could find. For as much as the town really hasn't changed, many of the accommodations young members of the detachment have been replaced. Like everywhere else, progress has changed things. But it was the same old Outlook. The "Best Town By a Damn Site". ( The town motto, as it grew from about 500 to 2,000 while the Gardner damn was being built on the South Saskatchewan River.)
And as for the funeral? Well I sat in a country church and listened to all the people around me talking about the man we gathered to remember. There was laughter, and happy conversation. Three old dudes of my vintage sat in front of us and discussed farming hunting, CFB Dundurn which is located in the area. They were talking about boars. One of the gentlemen talked of a boar and was asked if it was a wild boar. He replied he wasn't sure how you could tell. I leaned forward and said "They stay out too late and drink too much" The gentleman turned to me and said "That's one thing about the deceased ( He spoke his name) He always was friends with those who had a sense of humour. He loved to laugh."
Much more was said about this man I never met and his ability to make smile and laugh. I left feeling like I knew something important about him. People in that little town always maintained that rural know your neighbour standard. A good Outlook on life from the same old Outlook.
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