Afterwards we went to a park where they were fund raising for a dance group that had lost its space in a fire. Also going on were consciousness raising and volunteer seeking for a summer camp for teens and young adults with special needs. People sold food and drinks and musicians entertained. Maurice was one of the musicians. Unfortunately we missed his performance because the art class went overtime. We ate hot dogs and chatted at a picnic table under a tree. Maurice kept Sam with him.
About 2 o’clock Sam arrived at our picnic table in the arms of an ebullient woman called Margot with a “t”. I took a photo and then Sam caught sight of Kerry and set up his raptor cry. It turns out that Margot is a neighbour of Mrs. Langley who was one of the mothers of my childhood days in Halifax. She is now in her nineties but still living in her own home. Kerry and I plan to visit her soon.
I gave Margot a ride home and we made plans to meet for a movie that evening. I planned to walk the dog and have a snooze before we met. She planned to pile firewood and hang bells in her cherry tree to protect the almost ripe fruit from the crows.
At 7:15 Margot arrived with a can of beer to share. We drank it and then walked down to the Acadia Theatre on Main Street. Margot knows everyone and introduced me to several of the raging grannies of Wolfville. I hope to attend one of their meetings before I go home. The movie was a clever bit of romantic fluff ... British ... feel good ... the audience clapped. It was a little like being at the By Towne but even more community oriented. The man who sold tickets and ran out of loonies and toonies was a town councillor. Everyone seemed to know everyone else. More like a house party than a public movie house.
After the movie, we went in to the Irish pub next door where we ate good junk food, had a couple of drinks and listened to a very laidback Celtic jam session.
On the walk home we decided to meet on Tuesday at noon for an aquafit class.
Margot is an explosion of energy and committed to several causes ... the environment especially ... but also HIV-AIDS and AIDS-orphaned children in Africa. She was raised as an army brat, always moving, but never felt as if she were without a home because her parents made her feel absolutely secure and because they knew the importance of maintaining their rootedness in the Annapolis Valley. Her bedroom in every new posting, and even today, houses the furniture she has had since she was three. Her home is the one in which she lived with her parents after their retirement, and later with her invalid mother till she died. Her family goes back many generations here and she is related to half the townspeople.
How very different from my own un-parented and continually uprooted childhood in which the steadiness and calm of Mrs. Langley, the mother of my best friend and the Baptist minister’s wife, was an oasis of sanity. I remember their home as the one place where there was love and order. A place where people lived their lives by strict rules and felt absolutely certain of who they were and how much they were loved ... by their family ... by the community ... by God. I don’t think Miriam ever had a new piece of clothing in the four years she was my best friend, and her make-up consisted of a jar of Vaseline. She had chores every Saturday morning and church all day Sunday. But she was beautiful and content with her life. I envied her the family outings to pier 69 and the community garden, the security of a mother who poached eggs in milk and made bread, but wondered why she didn’t rail against her father’s restrictions. I think I am beginning to understand now.
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