The Unsuspected Poet

Going through some my parents' stuff (which I was quite sure I'd gone through several times before, but apparently not thoroughly), I came across an undated and untitled poem written by my father. I had no idea he'd ever written one, and the funny thing is that it looks like a first draft as there are only two cross-outs. This one is 100 per cent autobiographical (and untitled).

In 19-74 promotion came our way.
Away from Ottawa, friends and French
We travelled east to Scotia shores
For a year or more we worked like hell
And lived in Dartmouth like a snail in a shell.
With pioneer heart we packed our bags -- our books with bricks for shelves were moved
To Shubie and the Sutherland place.
A deal was struck, a fee arranged.
We then fell prey to a knave so foul --
our prized possessions proceeded to fly
As fast as a mouse in the jaws of an owl

I'd love to know when it was written and why he never sent me a copy of it - I know I used to send him my poetry until he offered me money to stop doing so (hasn't stopped me writing 'em, Dad, and thanks for the cash - it was a more than fair rate given what most poets earn). It's an odd rhyme scheme: A, B, C, D, D, E, F, G, H, G. But then he always was an original.

A few notes of explanation:

Away from French: he means away from the torture that was a year-long French immersion course, not away from Francophones. Some of his best friends were Francophones. Although he was so distraught when his department moved to Hull (out of temporary quarters in Ottawa's west end that were thrown up just after World War II and were well past their 'best buy' date) that he started car pooling. Because, as he claimed, 'All Quebec drivers are crazy.' (Sorry. But you have to admit, the Montreal driving style does differ from that of other cities. And at the time, Quebec roads were inferior to Ontario's. Of course that statement was broad enough to include all Anglophone drivers resident in the province as well.) This explains why, on trips from Ottawa to New Brunswick, we had to travel through the US, crossing the border into upstate New York and safely crossing back at Calais, Maine.

Becoming officially bilingual was necessary to his chances for promotion in the federal government and key to his retaining the job he had. The move to Nova Scotia was prompted by the fact that there was a unilingual English position available in Halifax and it was closer to his family in New Brunswick. After 25 years of willing conscription into my mother's family's matriarchy, he wanted to reconnect with some of his own family.

My father had a scientific mind rather than a literary one, although he was an avid reader of Westerns (how I wish he'd had a chance to read Patrick DeWitt's The Sisters Brothers - he would have loved it) and had what I thought were rather surprising enthusiasms for W.D. Valgardson's and Gloria Steinem's work (in fact I seem to recall he 'borrowed' Outrageous Acts and Everyday Rebellions and I had to buy myself another copy). He'd hated Latin so much in high school he deliberately scored 2% on his exam, knowing they would conclude he was a hopeless case and not make him take it again. My mother and I spent two weeks trying to figure out a phrase he didn't understand, only to realize it was 'chapeau de paille.' Important to know how to say 'straw hat' in French when you're working for the Inland Waters Directorate of Department of the Environment. Personally I would have worked on vocabulary like 'salt water intrusion' and 'glaciers' but hey - far be it from me to second-guess language instruction.

Oddly, after two cerebral hemorrhages, we had taken him to the Montreal Neurological Institute for a second opinion on what was causing the strokes, while we stayed in Ottawa, visiting when we could. On one of my visits, I was amazed to hear him speaking perfectly fluent, totally grammatical French to another patient in the sunroom. "I have a wife and daughter in Ottawa - they're coming to visit me soon," he said. The disinhibition of right brain damage isn't always a bad thing, as those of us who've discovered we're much more fluent in our second or third languages when drinking know. If only they'd served beer for breakfast at the French immersion classes!

When they first moved to Nova Scotia my parents rented a two-bedroom apartment in a high rise. Not only was it on an ambulance route, but they were frequently awakened by the woman upstairs dropping one of her high heels on the floor. They would wait in vain for the other shoe to drop - and apparently it never did. They lost a lot of sleep during that year, between the ambulances and the neighbours. And they just found the concept of paying rent bizarre after more than 15 years of home ownership.

So they started looking for a house in the country with some land, and ended up buying an unrenovated Victorian house in "Shubie" (Shubenacadie, Nova Scotia). Full of antiques, some in excellent condition and others not so, the deal was they would buy not only the house but all its furnishings as well. You can guess the rest - the best pieces had mysteriously vanished when they went to take possession of the house. Not sure who the knave was, but presumably a friend or relative of Mrs. Sutherland who arranged the removal of the furniture on her behalf. But the supreme irony is that the name of the village of Shubenacadie is commonly believed to be a corruption of "Je suis bien en Acadie." Oh Canada.