My Father's Violin

This is my dad's violin.  Its story weaves all of the way through The Camino Letters, a fact that still astounds me when I read the letters together as a piece.  I didn't set out to write the full story of my dad's violin, and the story of his teacher Ford Rupert. It just happened that way.

I received a letter with a book in the mail today.

The book that was sent to me today is called Run of the Town:  Stories of an Unfettered Youth by Terry West. Terry is the man I contacted when I first decided to submit a story in May 2009 for a book about the Hearst Public School called Clayton's Kids.  Terry wrote to me today to congratulate me about The Camino Letters, which he had heard about from Ernie, another man involved in the Clayton Kids project. Because of Ernie, a woman came to the Winnipeg reading at McNally Robinson last weekend to tell me that I look just like my mother.

I heard about Terry and Ernie's project in 2009 through a client, in a roundabout way.  I didn't know Terry, but it turns out that he knew my father quite well.  And he had a picture of Ford Rupert with the class holding their violins - something that had previously only existed in my dad's memory.  A long-lost, long-ago picture of my father's favourite story.

When the picture arrived, I raced to Centennial Place to catch my dad at the end of dinner.  My dad was always the last one sitting, preferring to sit and chat into the evening. When finished, he would then deliver his licked-clean dishes to the counter. He always refused to let the staff ("the girls" he called them) do this.  He said that they did enough for him already, they didn't need to collect his dishes too.

When I got to the dining room that day, my dad was sitting at the table finishing his coffee - true to form.  I sat down beside him and without saying anything I put the big picture in front of him on the table.

I watched his face.  It didn't take long for him to realize what he was looking at and then he started at the top row left with his index finger:

back:  Lempi Hietala , Marvin Smith, Katy Terefenko, Grace Fulton, Vivian Clarin, Olavi (Oliver) Halme, Brian Grieve, Arnie Woods

middle:  Jane MacEachern, Lois Sprickerhoff, Ruth Lapenskie, Ruth Jones, Jackie West, Leila Joutsi, Stanley Butryn, Nick Olasevich 

front:  Glenna Jones, Anita Reid, Rose Palmquist, Sheila Wilson, Martin Stolz (on drums),  Mervyn Larstone, Willis Rouse, Neda Chalykoff (on piano), Mr. Ford Rupert  

He named them all, left to right, row by row.  I know, because I had the names with me on another sheet of paper.  I wanted to see if this is what he would do, and it was.

The photo went up on the wall of his room and stayed there.  He was never able to name them all again, in order, in that way. Their names recessed into the places of things forgotten in his unpredictable mind.  But in that first moment, time stood still and he was the rugrat in the bottom row right, beside the piano and playing music with his friends.  That was his last autumn in school, before he had to quit to go and run logging trucks in the bush for his father.

In his letter to me today,Terry said this:

In one story (Peasoup and Blokes) there's a quick line describing a pulp truck coming down the street, chains flapping.  In my mind's eye as I wrote the scene I pictured Willis' truck.  I remember especially a strike he was involved in around 1948-1950.  It was winter.  The truckers paraded through the streets, chains wrapped around the wheels.  I associate your dad with this because of all the haulers he was the only one I knew personally.

Sometimes the quick lines are the ones that stick.

Thank you Terry.  Thank you Ernie.