JOIE DE VIVRE! Of Potholes & Smashed Potatoes

Of Potholes & Smashed Potatoes

con’t from The Thin Man

The Thin Man and I say goodbye and I settle back in the car, ready to make tracks for home.  As I drive away, I look in my rearview mirror to see The Thin man give me a salute, by tipping the pop bottle to his temple.  As he turns back to Titus, the bottle is at his lips and he takes a long drink of water.  I wonder if we’ll ever see the Thin Man and his dog again?

* * *

Back on the sunlit road once more, Sofie looks at me quizzically, as if to ask where I’ve been.  She stayed very quiet in the car while I was talking with the Thin Man.  Now that I’m back, she gets up and puts her paws on my shoulder and gives me a really good sniff around.  I’m don’t know why she does that but I think it’s because she wants to make sure it’s me.  After she’s satisfied I haven’t been replaced by aliens, she settles back on her seat and curls up, reminding me of a big, white powder puff.  I’m glad I keep wet wipes in the car and get one out, washing the greasiness from Titus’ coat off my hands and give the steering wheel a good swipe while I’m at it. 

Figure 1Benson Lossing -                                                                    The Pictorial Field Book of the Way of 1812 Fort Wellington I

I see a sign indicating a historical plaque for Fort Wellington and decide to stop and check it out.   

One of the fort’s walls faces the St. Lawrence Seaway and you can see it from Highway #2 but it’s so nondescript, if you didn’t know it formed part of a fort, you wouldn’t think anything of it.  I turn onto the side street, and then the parking lot, I see a sign, ‘Closed for the season’.

“It figures, Sofie.  Everything closes for the season the day after Thanksgiving. Maybe I’ll take a vacation in late spring and we’ll come and stay in the area, when things are open again.”  Sofie twitches a solitary eyebrow but doesn’t bother opening her eyes.

As I pull back out onto Highway #2, I start thinking about The Thin Man and Titus.  Tears come into my eyes, as I think about the two of them together, against the world, just them.  What adversity must they face on their long journey?  My imagination takes off and I see law enforcement looking for a reason to hassle them − farmers chasing them off their land, shotgun at the ready.  Surprised skunks giving them a spray or two as they continue their odyssey after sundown, taking advantage of the cooler temperature. Who knows what else?  A lump in my throat makes it hard to swallow. 

Then another image springs to mind − he’s living the simple life.  Everything he owns is with him.  I wonder what it would be like, to live like that.  No clutter, no muss, no crushing responsibility paying a mortgage and other bills.  No going to a job every day that you don’t get paid enough to do.  Not caring that the cost of electricity is increasing every time you turn around but your salary isn’t and you wonder how you’ll find the money to pay for it.  Not giving a damn that the price of oil is driving the price of gasoline beyond the reach of some people’s incomes.  Every day is an adventure, something new, good, bad or indifferent. 

 He’s probably in better shape than most people, with all the biking he does.  I betcha he doesn’t have to worry about high blood pressure, high cholesterol, high triglycerides, and high sugar.  The only high he probably has is a natural high from the endorphins, which flood his system from all the healthy exercise, fresh air and sunshine he gets.  I’m betting he probably sleeps like a log every night too.  Maybe there is something to be said for his simple life? 

But then my mind switches gears and I start thinking about all the blessings I have in my life and I feel so thankful, even with all the crap I’ve had to live through.  Far from having just a summer of discontent, I’ve had a good couple of years of it and I’m ready for a change.  I silently give thanks for all the blessings in my life and the beautiful safe haven I call home.  The realization trickles into my head − The Thin Man makes his joy and I make mine.  Ah, joie de vivre!

All of a sudden, I just want to be there - home.  My foot presses harder on the gas pedal, and the car seems to leap forward, as if it’s just as anxious as I am, to be home. 

I reach down into one of the fabric shopping bags I’ve packed my snacks and other essentials in when abruptly it hits me.  When I was looking for food to give The Thin Man, I hadn’t looked in the car, just the trunk. What else do I have packed in here?  I keep driving and looking for a good place to pull off the road, so I can check out the various bags on the passenger-side floor.  I see parking signs for a retirement home and make a quick left.  Following the yellow directional arrows painted on the asphalt, I find a place to stop where the sun is shining in at the back.  Putting the car in neutral and pulling up the hand brake (I drive a ‘stick’ as the Americans like to call it), I lean over to grab the two or three bags from the floor and find a treasure trove of food, both for people and dog.  Wow!  How did I forget all about this great stuff and more importantly, where are The Thin Man and his dog?


© 2019 UNDERCOVER CONFIDENTIAL aka PHYLLIS MAHON … IT’S UNLAWFUL TO REPOST, COPY OR PUBLISH CONTENT FROM THIS WEBSITE WITHOUT WRITTEN PERMISSION.

THE THIN MAN - Of Potholes & Smashed Potatoes

* * *

Of Potholes & Smashed Potatoes

con’t from Ghosties

The thin man and I stop talking and watch the cop watching us.  His head swivels ever sideways as he moves on.  I hold my breath and will him to continue.   I see his bushy moustache twitching, as he slows even more and I’m surprised he hasn’t come to a complete stop.  Will he or won’t he?

* * *

THE THIN MAN

The cop creeps past.  I’m glad.  A confrontation with the fuzz is not on today’s agenda.   

“Hello,” says the sweaty man again and I reply in kind. 

“Hot today, eh?”  I say.

“Oh man,” says he, “I hope we get to a place soon which has some shade.  My dog is really feeling the heat today.” 

“I can imagine he would with that fur coat he has on”.  I’m glad I caught up with you.  I want to offer you some fresh, cold water.” 

His eyes light up and he exclaims, “Oh, I’ll take a couple of bottles off your hands, if you have ‘em...”

I explain, “I don’t have bottles, but if you have something to put the water in, you’re welcome to what I have.”

He says, with barely suppressed excitement, “Oh yes, I have a bunch of ‘um.” and sprints to the child trailer (up close, I can see it’ll fit 2 kids).  He rummages around for a minute and comes up with three empty pop bottles, the two litre size.  He comes back to the car and I open the trunk to pull out the insulated water containers.  They’re pretty full but since I always freeze the water before I hit the road, only so much of it is actually pourable.  I manage to fill up two of the bottles and a bit, spilling a little over the thin man’s hands. 

“Oh,” he says, “it’s so cold.”  His face wears an anticipatory look and I know he’ll be taking a swig as soon as I leave.

“What’s your dog’s name?” I ask as the 4-legged finally notices me and ambles over, done with grazing, at least for the moment.

“Titus.”  Hearing his name, Titus looks up at his master and I see the adoration in his dark chocolate brown eyes.  A strong bond these two have, like me and Sofie.

“A noble name, for a noble dog.”  I say.  “How old is he?” 

“Ten,” replies the thin man and rests his hand affectionately on the dog’s head.                            

“What kind is he?”  I ask, inquisitively.

“An Akita, you know like the O.J. dog.” 

Oh, I think, he means the dog that was on the scene when O.J. Simpson’s wife was killed.  I shiver as a goose walks over my grave and my joie de vivre drops a notch.  Not the most pleasant thought on this beautiful day.  I shake off the image and start to close the trunk lid. 

The thin man’s eye light on the small cooler and he says, hopefully, “Titus is almost all out of food…”

“Let me see what I have.”  I open the cooler and see the foil-wrapped package.  “Here”, I say impulsively, “take these and a happy Thanksgiving to you.  It’s the leftover turkey legs from last night’s dinner.” 

“Oh,” he exclaims, “I get Thanksgiving turkey after all?”  And with that comment, I feel tears start into my eyes, and blink them back quickly.  Keeping my face averted, I fumble around to find other things I could give him.    There’s some fruit in the cooler and I give that to him too.  “Where are you biking from?”

“Halifax”, is the laconic reply.

“Wow, that’s a ways away.  Where are you heading?”

“Toronto.”  

“Wow again.”  I seem to be at a loss for words – unusual for me. 

“Any particular reason?” I imagine an odyssey of some kind, you know, like Terry Fox or Rick Hansen. 

The man screws his face up.  I think he’s trying to find an answer he wants me to believe is ‘normal’, and finally comes back with,

“Oh, vacation.” but his faded blue eyes slip away from mine.

“Why Toronto?”

“That’s where I live”, says the thin man.  “My family used to own a horse farm in the Highway 7 and Leslie area.” 

“Oh, I know that area well.  It’s pretty close to where I work.  Have you been up that way recently?”

“No,” he replies, “I don’t go up there at all anymore.”

Sensing he doesn’t want to talk about his background, I ask, “Toronto to Halifax and then back to Toronto.  That’s quite the round trip.  How far do you bike in one day?” 

“Around 70 to 80 miles.”

“How far is it to Halifax?”  The thin man doesn’t answer my question, so I ask another, “I’m guessing Titus rides in the trailer most of the time?”

“Yes, he gets out and walks when we go up hills and then whenever else he wants.  Most of the time, though, he rides, especially when it’s this hot.” 

By now, I have a sneaking suspicion that the thin man and his dog are homeless.  The bedding, which covers the bottom of the child trailer is far from clean and he seems to have a lot of stuff stored in there.  His appearance is also somewhat of a giveaway, with what’s left of his greasy, light brown hair, scraped back into a thin ponytail.  The overall yellowness of his teeth and the missing two front lower teeth speak to a lack of a toothbrush and dental care.  The grayish stubble on his leathery-looking cheeks is probably about a week or two old.  And, by the wrinkles fanning out from the corner of his eyes, I guesstimate his age to be, perhaps, in his late thirties, early forties.

I think that this man’s home is wherever he happens to be.  I can picture his sleeping arrangements –  a farmer’s field somewhere down the road – the Thin Man curled up in the child trailer and Titus curled up beside it, keeping guard.  My diminished joie de vivre slides a titch more.

 

I’ve scavenged everything there is in the trunk and wish I had more to give to the Thin Man. He thanks me profusely and even Titus comes up to give me a sniff and consents to letting me pat him.  His coat, like his master’s hair, is on the greasy side and he’s odiferously doggy but I keep patting him and scratching under his chin, which he really seems to enjoy.  I give him a few dog treats I have in my pocket and he wolfs them down enthusiastically.  Handing the man the small plastic bag I’ve put Sofie’s treats in, I say, “Here, take these for Titus.  He’ll have a Thanksgiving treat too.” 

The Thin Man and I say goodbye and I settle back in the car, ready to make tracks for home.  As I drive away, I look in my rearview mirror to see The Thin man give me a salute, by tipping the pop bottle to his temple.  As he turns back to Titus, the bottle is at his lips and he takes a long drink of water.  I wonder if we’ll ever see the Thin Man and his dog again?


© 2019 UNDERCOVER CONFIDENTIAL aka PHYLLIS MAHON … IT’S UNLAWFUL TO REPOST, COPY OR PUBLISH CONTENT FROM THIS WEBSITE WITHOUT WRITTEN PERMISSION.

GHOSTIES - Of Potholes & Smashed Potatoes

Of Potholes & Smashed Potatoes

con’t from HISTORY ALONG THE ROAD

… as I slowly advance down the road, I feel like I’m driving into a time warp of a long ago era.  Even the air seems cleaner and smells like freshly-washed, line-dried laundry.  Suddenly though, a thin frisson of je ne sais quoi skitters across the back of my neck and down my spine.  Weird.

* * *

There’s not much around.  Hugging the curve of the road on my left is a beautiful fieldstone house, and outbuildings, twins

clad in identical stone.  Almost directly across the road, poised on a bluff, stands a majestic, matching fieldstone lighthouse.  It must be at least 50 feet high.  The vivid blue of the St. Lawrence Seaway creates the perfect backdrop.  And I wonder where the windmill is.  Oh, I think, I bet the lighthouse used to be a windmill before it morphed into its current persona.  My mother didn’t raise any rocket scientists but, still, it didn’t take me all that long to figure it out, I think in a self-deprecating way and laugh out loud at myself. The only discordant note is the railroad track, which runs along the shoulder of the road and disappears around the next curve.  And the remnant of that weird I just don’t know what kind of feeling.    

I pull into a small parking area and we get out of the car, happy to be stationary.  Sofie bounds across the quiet road and immediately leaves her pee-mail near the railroad track for the local dogs, if there are any, to check out.  “I was here”, it says.

As I slowly meander over to the windmill site, I inhale a few bushels of fresh air, relaxing me.  There are a number of plaques, which form a story board and explain The Battle of the Windmill, which took place in 1838, with much loss of life.  What an exciting time it must have been back then in the early 1800s, albeit bloody.

I make a circuit of the plaques, spaced in a u-shaped grouping and take images of the windmill-cum-lighthouse.  Sofie dogs my every footstep, uncomfortable in this area.  She seems a bit on edge and tries to guide me back to the car.  “What’s the matter, Sofie?  Are there ghosties here?  Are you ready to go?”  Sofie looks up at me, hopefully, but I wander to the back of the lighthouse.  As I stare out over the water, I wonder what a lookout might have seen that fateful day.  

* * *

The night of November 12, 1838 was close around the many, small boats, which carried 250 ‘Hunters’.  Hunter Patriots to

be exact, a rogue paramilitary troop based in the United States.  Their mission?  Invade Windmill Point, just a couple of miles from Prescott, Ontario and use that beachhead to launch further attacks within Canada, defeat the British rule and claim the land for their American selves. 

In other words, these Hunters wanted our land and our country and would do whatever they believed was necessary to get what they wanted.

It was not the first battle for this wonderful and great country I call home and it wouldn’t be the last.  This grass-roots organization was made up of armed militants whose plan it was to overthrow British rule in Canada.

In all, the battle raged for four nights and five days and out of the 250 Hunter Lodge invaders, 53 died, 61 wounded and 136 were captured.

The defenders, 1,600 strong, British, Canadian and allied American soldiers fared much better, losing only 17 to death and 60 wounded.

We all know how the battles ended, with Canada being strong and free.   My thanks to the brave men who fought the good fight.

* * *

Looking down, I figure it must be a good 30 or 40 foot drop to the shoreline.  Catching sight of a path off to the left, I follow it down to a small plateau.  Looking up, the lighthouse stands in solitary splendor on the promontory.  I take images from that awe-inspiring perspective and would have continued down to the water’s edge, but Sofie is getting really antsy.  I wonder if she senses the spirits of the 70 or so souls, friends and foes, who lost their lives here?  This was a pivotal battle, which started this great land on its way to Confederation in 1867, some thirty years later. 

According to lore, the windmill was converted into a lighthouse in the 1870’s.

Sofie pushes her cold nose against the back of my leg and gives a high pitched whine.  “Okay, okay”, I say, “We’ll go.”

I slowly trek back up to the bluff, Sofie’s saucy behind bounds quite far ahead of me and she beats me back to the car.  As I finally get close, Sofie looks up at the door handle, then at me, then back to the handle, then at me, ad infinitum, shifting back and forth, from foot to foot.  I can tell by her little dance that’s she’s yelling, “Hurry up, Mom, hurry.”

* * *

A few weeks later I was telling my friend, Grandma Jacquie (she’s 85ish) about my spine-tingly experience.  Funnily enough, upon mentioning the Battle of the Windmill, she gasped and said, “My ancestors fought in that battle.”  I’m not sure which side they were on, or if they were part of the 70 or so men who died there; or were grievously wounded as they fought; or were captured and later hanged.  Interesting though, that I have a connection to this bit of history.  What a small world!

* * *

As we turn back on to Highway 2, I wonder if we’ll see the thin man and his dog again.  We go a good few miles and just when I think he’s turned off somewhere, I see him up ahead.  He’s squatting down beside his bike, on the side of the road, puffing on a cigarette. 

“Hey, Sofie, I’m going to stop and offer this sweaty guy some of our nice, fresh water, especially for his dog.”  Sofie’s eyebrow twitches and one eye opens, so I know she’s heard me.

                                                                                                
I pull over, somewhat further down the road and onto the gravel shoulder, trying to go slowly, so the car doesn’t kick up too much dust.  It would surely stick to the sweaty man.  I inch over as far as I can on the narrow shoulder and stop.  Checking carefully before I open the door, I step out and walk quickly to the back.  It’s a pretty busy road and I’m not off of it by much.  I wonder where the dog is and then spot him, checking out the greenery on the lush hillside.  He seems oblivious to my presence.  Carefully, he selects a blade of grass and pulls it out of the ground.  He chews it with obvious enjoyment and I’m reminded of a cow chewing its cud.  Sofie likes to graze too and when she does, I call her Elsie, after the famous condensed milk cow. 

The man walks towards me.  Just as he draws near and we’ve exchanged hellos, a police vehicle, which I noticed approaching at a pretty fast rate of speed, slows

considerably.  As the police car crawls by, the cop turns his head and he gives us the fish eye.  The thin man and I stop talking and watch the cop watching us.  His head swivels ever sideways as he moves on.  I hold my breath and will him to continue.   
I see his bushy moustache twitching, as he slows even more and I’m surprised he hasn’t come to a complete stop.  Will he or won’t he?


© 2019 UNDERCOVER CONFIDENTIAL aka PHYLLIS MAHON … IT’S UNLAWFUL TO REPOST, COPY OR PUBLISH CONTENT FROM THIS WEBSITE WITHOUT WRITTEN PERMISSION.

HISTORY ALONG THE ROAD - Of Potholes & Smashed Potatoes

Of Potholes & Smashed Potatoes

con’t from JAUNTING

Not paying very much attention to my route, I notice that the very high bridge, which I have been flanking, is now suddenly in front of me, with a sign pointing ‘thataway’, To U.S.A.  Uh-oh.

* * *
HISTORY ALONG THE ROAD

Yikes!  I don’t want to go to the U.S. of A., especially since I don’t have my passport with me or Sofie’s papers.  Luckily, there’s a sharp right hand turn coming up and I crank the steering wheel, feeling very Dukes of Hazard(ish) – I can almost feel the car tilting onto two tires.  Just kidding but sometimes it’s fun to let my imagination go nuts.

Squinting into the sun, something glows brightly on the horizon.  Wonder of wonders, just ahead of me, salvation in the form of two Golden Arches.  Yippee!  Mickey D’s, 4 gazillion served. 

Finding a parking spot not too far from the door, I speed-walk inside and make a beeline for the bathroom.  Oh joy, no line-up.  I hit the stall and sigh with relief as I make room for coffee #2.  Coffee in, coffee out.  Kinda like beer – you don’t buy it, you rent it.  I make for the counter and sigh again as I spot the line-up there.  Oh well, at least I don’t have to pee anymore.  Finally, the fresh-faced, young girl (she looks all of 12) behind the counter asks, “And what may I get for you today, ma’am?”  The ‘ma’am’ grates, but I overlook the polite address. 

Asking for a medium-size Arabica roast to go into my travel mug, I succumb to the special of the day, two hot fruit pies for the price of one.  Can’t resist – one apple, one mixed fruit.  Inhaling the tantalizing aroma of fresh ground beans, mixed berries and cinnamony apples, I make my way back to the car, where Sofie’s on guard.  She leaps back to her side, as I settle in the driver’s seat.  Turning the GPS back on, I punch in the next leg of my backroads trip, and include a local park as a via point, then exit the parking lot, as directed by the electronic rendition of a female voice. 

Comfy, satiated and looking forward to my now-cooled hot fruit pies, I find that the park is really just a grassy knoll, with a solitary splintery bench, but convenient parking.  I perch gingerly on the rather wobbly bench, and enjoy my coffee and apple pie, while Sofie has her bathroom break and then a big slurp of water.  I keep a watchful eye on Sof, even though she’s not inclined to wander away.  Sudden noises tend to startle her into flight mode, no matter what the cause or proximity and I want to head her off at the pass if I have to.  Broiling a little in the late morning sun, I lean back against the bench, and Sofie, although very interested in a particular patch of grass, lays down, panting, pink tongue lolling.  It’s that hot.  We head back to the car and still with the windows down, start moving, creating our own zephyr.

Onward and westward, I tool along Highway #2, singing at the top of my lungs to one of my favourite songs.  Life is good.  

* * *

A ways to go - I start seeing signs for Long Sault, which brings back happy memories from my childhood.  I recall the hot summer weekends, usually a Sunday morning, when my father would come home from his second job and pack up the car, the four of us and my mom, for a rare trip to the beach at Long Sault.  My mother always spent most the evening before, cooking, making sandwiches and baking cookies.  Then she would pack my dad’s ratty old army duffle bag with our underwear and extra socks and who knows what else, because, as she would always say, “Just in case”. 

My father, not the most patient of men (being of Irish descent and suffering from sleep deprivation after working all night), would sometimes glare at mom and growl, “Mother, why you packing so much?  Are we going for a week?  Do you have to pack the whole house?”  My mother usually had an answer, which at least mollified my dad, and away we would go after the hour or so that it would take him to pack everything, and us, in the car. 

I especially remember one summer when my dad had a convertible, a big, shiny red one, with huge tail fins.  Away down the highway we would zoom, with the top down, our long hair whipping into impossible knots and the odd tissue or paper flapping around before hitting the slip stream and taking off like a seagull.  What fun!

Upper Canada Village slips by the rear-view mirror, keeping me on memory lane and all the fun field-trips we had there with school.  That was the field-trip just before school let out for the summer – Vermont and sugaring off was the late winter trip, hopefully before all the snow melted.  One year, I ate so much maple syrup-covered- snow, I got sick and threw up all the way home.  To this day, maple is my least favourite of flavours!   Good Canadian girl am I, eh?

\

Morrisburg, Iroquois and Cardinal conjure up different thoughts and images as I try to figure out where the names came from.  Hmm, Morrisburg after the man who founded the hamlet way back when? 

Iroquois is a bit easier, as I remember snippets from history class in school, about the proud warriors who were here first.  Cardinal, I think, hmm, either the bird or maybe a high-ranking church official who emigrated from England, bound and determined to civilize the heathen Iroquois?  It’s fun to turn my mind loose.

  

Johnstown is next and immediately, for some bizarre reason, saloons and barmaids spring to mind.  Big, flouncy, ruffled dresses and pinafores barely cover their ample bosoms.  

The rich, pine scent seeps from the sawdust spread with a liberal hand on the wide plank bar    floor.   A hard-bitten cowboy, shouts to the barmaid, “Bring us a round of sour mash and beer chasers and make it snappy!”  The red-headed barmaid flicks her hair and turns her back on the cowboy.  She ignores him now, but later, after all the other drunken rowdies stumble through the swinging doors, she’ll be heading up the back stairs with him, supplementing her pitiful saloon stipend with the ‘Johns’, engaging in the world’s oldest profession. 

As I draw closer to Wexford, the sun shimmers on the asphalt, creating undulating waves in the still air.  I slow as directed by the highway sign, 50 kph, and watch in empathy as I catch sight of a thin man, who’s encased in the de rigueur gear of serious bicyclists; skin-tight black unitard, with bright red and yellow accents, which stretches tautly from throat to ankles.  As I drive past, I watch in my rear-view mirror, and catch the gleam of his sweat covered face, and the shiny patina on his balding head, as he pushes his bicycle up the long, sloping hill. He’s got quite the convoy going - first his bike, with its bulging saddle bags, one on each side.  Hitched to that is an empty child trailer and hitched to that, is a great, big thick-coated furry, dog plodding along in perfect rhythm with the man.  Odd. 

I pass them and turn abruptly left, when I spot a sign for an historical site, The Battle of the Windmill.  Ah, I think, maybe a good place to stop and stretch our legs and Sofie could use a pee.  It’s not too far up ahead, but as I slowly advance down the road, I feel like I’m driving into a time warp in a long ago era.  Even the air seems cleaner and smells like freshly-washed laundry, drying on the line.  Suddenly though, a thin frisson of je ne sais quoi skitters across the back of my neck and down my spine.  Weird.


© 2019 UNDERCOVER CONFIDENTIAL aka PHYLLIS MAHON … IT’S UNLAWFUL TO REPOST, COPY OR PUBLISH CONTENT FROM THIS WEBSITE WITHOUT WRITTEN PERMISSION.

JAUNTING - Of Potholes & Smashed Potatoes

  

                                

 Even with the windows open and moving at a good clip, it is hot.  Way too hot for this time of the year.  T-shirt and shorts are the order of the day, on my way home from visiting family in Montreal, for a traditional Thanksgiving weekend.  Mid-October and the sun beats down as though it’s high summer.  What the hell?  I even think about closing the windows and turning on the a/c but that seems like too much work.  Still stuffed from yesterday’s decadent pig-out of a turkey dinner with all the trimmings, I feel slothful on this bright, sunny day.  I decide to jaunt the back roads for my return trip to just a bit north of Toronto, the place I’ve called home for almost 40 years. 

Some people, including a lot of my family members, think I’m a bit strange about this thing I call jaunting, but that’s okay.  We all have foibles.  As I head towards home, driving the back roads, I think about how my addiction started.  Summer weekend evenings, usually Sundays - dinner’s over and the dishes are done - and boredom rears its flat head.  Always up for adventure, I choose a direction; east, west, north, south and just go that way, taking back roads.  I also try to get back home on roads, which are different from the ones I take to get there - wherever ‘there’ is.  I go as far as daylight allows me to see everything interesting and the not-so interesting and also the need to be back home and in bed at a decent hour.  Over the years my jaunting has expanded to encompass longer trips, such as going to and from Montreal.  I even plan vacations to places like Wawa and Thunder Bay, just to take back roads in places I haven’t explored yet.  I love taking byways and roads less travelled. You just never know what you’ll see or who you’ll meet. 

                    

One of the benefits of jaunting is being able avoid the massive Highway 401, slightly to the north of my current adventure.  I understand why most people prefer the highway, since it usually only takes about 6 or seven hours to get to Montreal from Toronto.  I come up with at least three good reasons as to why I would rather take back roads and byways – ‘A’ – Highway 401 is terribly boring.   ‘B’ – Most of the time, it’s at a virtual standstill.  What’s the point in taking a highway if you’re not moving?  And ‘C’, and the one that is probably closest to the heart of the matter, is, The Ex.  Yes, the ex-husband, who’s been out of my life for about 35 years now.  It rests squarely on his shoulders.  He had and probably still has an obsession about not going for just a drive.  He always has to have a destination and then he has to go from Point A to Point B, as fast as he possibly can.  I was lucky if he would stop for a bathroom break.  His personal best time Toronto - Montreal?  Four and a half hours.  Four. And. A. Half. Hours.  If I remember correctly, I don’t think we stopped at all during that trip.  He was very proud of himself.  Yep, jaunting the back roads and byways, taking the time to stop and smell the flowers, definitely works much better for me, even if it does take eleven hours.

Sofie, my constant and perfect travelling companion, twitches an eyebrow and opens one dark-sherry-brown eye.  Heaving a deep Jewish sigh, she stretches out the length of the car seat, watching me with the hope that we would soon

find a good place for a pit stop and a pee.  Maybe even a walk?  Her suede-like tongue gives my sweaty hand a few desultory licks and then almost bonelessly, she kind of just melts into a ball of white cotton and settles back into snooze mode.  I smile and say, “It’ll be good to get home, eh Sofie, and sleep in our own bed?”  Her tail gives a short wag and I know she agrees with me.

  

A rescued Coton du Tulear, she came into my life in November of ’08 - a year of turmoil and major changes in my once tranquil life.  As the miles pass under strumming rubber, I think about the life Sofie endured at a puppy mill, before being taken into care, first by a rescue organization in Ohio, then shipped across the border into foster care by a vet and his family in Brighton, Ontario.   What a trembling, submissive creature she was back then.  But I digress…

The miles unfold, one after the other, as the sun beats down.  Gosh, what I wouldn’t do for some shade.  Even with my sunglasses on, I squint.  Squinting causes wrinkles and at my age, I think I’ve met my quota.  Crossing over the border back into my own ‘country’, Ontario, I immediately feel so much closer to home, although most of the drive is still in front of me.  Following the shore of Lake St. Francis, the day shines with a vibrancy that fills me with a feeling of peace, contentment and joie de vivre!  Ah, joie de vivre, my three days in La Belle Province have obviously influenced my thought process.  It is said that the French have a way with words and the phrase encompasses my entire being – joy of life!

As I follow the road along The Waterfront Trail, we come close to marshy wetlands and I inhale the soggy scent of decaying water plants, drowned trees and eau du waterfowl.  I sometimes get a whiff of salty air.  I know that I’m surrounded by fresh water, but my brain creates a scent I always associate with seemingly endless bodies of water - briny ocean air, and it fits.  Colourful, triangular sheets dot the horizon, as sailboats skim the water’s surface, tacking to and fro, finding the zephyr, which keeps them going just a little while longer. 

I tootle into the outskirts of Cornwall, a town whose signs I’ve passed hundreds of times on my multitude of trips to and from Montreal.  I’ve never stopped there, though, to smell the coffee and I was ready for my second cup of the day.

By Blanchardb at English Wikipedia

My GPS bleats, uni-focused in getting me from Point A to Point B, which reminds me of The Ex.  And, boy, you better not detour in between A & B, because it’ll have you driving .08 miles to make a U-turn and recalculating until it drives you mad and you do what it says, just to shut it up.  Or turn the volume off, which I do. 

              

Driving into the town proper, I get caught up in the bustling Tuesday morning commute, the first day back to work for most people after a long weekend.  Aimlessly, I follow the crowd, hoping someone will lead me to a decent cup of Joe and a clean bathroom.  Not paying very much attention to my route, I notice that the very high bridge, which I have been flanking, is now suddenly in front of me, with a sign pointing ‘thataway’, To U.S.A.  Uh-oh.     

      

© 2019 UNDERCOVER CONFIDENTIAL aka PHYLLIS MAHON … IT’S UNLAWFUL TO REPOST, COPY OR PUBLISH CONTENT FROM THIS WEBSITE WITHOUT WRITTEN PERMISSION.