Serving up a curveball

My wife and I have been brought together over vast distances, and against all reasonable odds of coincidence, to the fossil-crusted cliffs of Blue Beach for, it appears, a much larger purpose. But could it really be because we have made this contract with fate, and isn’t FATE just a word ?

Fate or no, this is some of the story of Sonja’s moving to Wolfville, still a fateful choice. Afterwards, neither she nor the Valley would ever be the same…

While she had still been walking around the Province, people started hearing about what she was doing; some would meet her along the route, some would join her to walk for a ways. One woman who did this unknowingly served her up life’s first curveball, altering the future I think, by becoming her friend.

The woman soon introduced Sonja to her eighty-six year old grandfather, Fred Salzman. He had been reading about it all along in the papers. When Sonja mentioned she had applied to the local university, and may soon need an apartment, Fred was delighted and said he would help find her one. Once she found out, she had to talk to him before she started looking around. One estimate suggests Fred owned over twenty apartments in town, so the offer was certainly very encouraging. So when Sonja received the letter from the Acadia School of Music Studies, she promptly hiked back up the hill to Fred’s place.

At first it turned out there were no apartments available, however, Fred’s grand-daughter was moving out of hers in a few weeks’ time. “Look””, he said, “why don’t you just stay here for now ? I have this place all set up, and you’d have your own little room, you won’t have to go anywhere ‘till your other apartment’s ready.” Sonja envisioned her sheepdog Sampson in this neat and very antique house; all the bone china he’d collected. She politely tried to object because of the dog, but Fred brushed it off and practically insisted.

By the time the new apartment became available, Fred’s family wanted Sonja to stay on as their father’s caregiver. They were astonished how Sonja wasn’t going out of her mind with dad, and that he absolutely adored her, something rare. They had tried to find professional help more than once, and desperately wanted her to say yes.

By the time Sonja began her music studies, she was not only coping with the unimaginable Fred, she was beginning to interface with McCluskey Two (the previous blog). Sonja has always seemed to be attached to one cause or another; some of those causes are people.

Fred wore a hearing-aid which needed to be turned up full blast before he got any inkling what it was you were saying. He had the biggest console-TV money could buy at the time, all carved wood with enormous speakers inside. The volume was always turned all the way up to watch his favorite show of all: Bob Barker and The Price is Right. Fred thought Bob was terrific, this was how life should be, always giving people stuff - everybody so happy ! However, he wouldn’t turn down the hearing-aid, and it would be feeding back from the TV and squealing like an angry tea kettle until Sonja turned it off for him.

With the severe deafness that comes with old age, Fred spoke embarrassingly loud in public. They went to a bonspiel where they were giving out the awards for all the curling teams. Fred just loved curling too, and was so proud of his new live-in, Sonja, he got them a pair of tickets. There were lots of speeches, and Fred wasn’t able to hear. “What the hell is that feller going on about ?”, causing many heads to swivel. Sonja did her best to get through it.

The first time Sonja lived with Fred for about three months, and she attended Acadia. Soon she started looking for a rock band to join. She auditioned at a gig in Berwick one night, got the job, and on the way home they were in the accident. Sonja returned from the hospital four months later, and Fred had fixed-up the apartment underneath him so she could stay. She also joined the band that who hired her, but were denied just as she was by the fateful accident. Sonja Wood would live below Fred for almost three years, right up until she built her new home and was ready to move to Blue Beach.

There were lots of day-to-day emergencies with Fred of course. He needed his daily ride to town. He never kept groceries in a fridge; bought everything fresh daily. His son was supposed to do the driving but was always late in Fred’s opinion (it wasn’t a happy arrangement for either). One day when his son was late, Fred started cursing and headed out the door. Sonja figured he was just stepping out to wait, until she heard the car starting.

The car started immediately, but Fred of course couldn’t hear anything and kept holding the key on. The starter was complaining so loudly, Sonja could hear it getting ready to meltdown all the way back to her bedroom. It took less than a minute to get into the wheelchair, push herself down the hall, to reach the kitchen window where she could look out. She got there just in time to see Fred going for the gearshift.

Putting it into drive, the car shot forward and hit the rose garden; coming to rest once it could go no further. Fred cursed some more and put it in reverse, backwards down the driveway at a reckless speed. Fred always had to have big cars, like Cadillac’s or Monte Carlo’s, built like a tank. Considering the holes in Fred’s driveway, which the car lurched and bounced through with ease, he probably needed the extra suspension. He just kept backing up and nearly hit the white house where his son-in-law lived, then turned downhill, crossing the yards. When he saw the hedges coming, Fred at last veered over, back into the street.

He survived the two block drive down the street to safely arrive at his son’s house. Half the neighborhood was out of their houses by this time. Everyone knew Fred’s driving was horrific, had always been so.