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Baba "Kind words can be short and easy
to speak,
Cool air and coppery hills rolled together for a memorable morning ride. The sun playfully peeked through cloud cover. Sunbeams pierced clouds and hop-skipped their way with us, scampering across the tan plains. It was a Sunday. And on Sundays, in small prairie towns, everything was closed more tightly than a two-year-old's fist clenching a handful of Smarties. Having left Swan Lake before our hosts were up, we passed through Somerset, Deerwood, Miami, Rosebank, Jordan, Roland, Myrtle, Kane, and Lowe Farm. Not a single place stirred. Sparse traffic continued from Morris to La Rochelle. Then, T-boning Highway 59 we had to make a choice. Head north and reconnect with the Trans Canada Highway - the route east into Ontario - and try to carve out some elbow room alongside motorhomes, freight trucks, and Greyhound buses? Or, head south to the Canada-US border and meander along gentle trafficked rural routes through Minnesota? Gee. Let me think. We chose the southern route. "Besides," Sharon said, "if we head north, we'll hit Winnipeg traffic. South will be quieter." "And safer," I added, shuddering from our previous Trans Canada Highway misadventure. Our southerly route turned out to be as treacherous as the Clan Campbell. A weekend ball tournament hosted in Saint Malo had recently concluded and a line of scrappy traffic returning to Winnipeg snorted toward us. Impetuous lead-footed apes gambled on any conceivable break in traffic to leapfrog ahead of their neighbour. Sharon and I kissed the dust several times. Near Saint Malo, three oncoming heavy-footed chimps, trailing each other by scant car lengths, pulled out simultaneously to overtake a fluffy footer in front of them who was "only" doing a hundred kilometres per hour. "Bail!" I shouted between swears. We hit the gravel, narrowly avoiding being smushed like lowly worms. "I wish more people rode bikes," I lamented, dusting myself off, "so they'd know what it's like to see a two-ton Chevy barrelling straight between their eyeballs." We arrived in Rosa, shaken. "How about calling it a day?" Sharon asked. She headed over to a new community hall to inspect the grounds for camping possibilities as a car pulled into the driveway next to us. I walked over and asked the fella if he thought anyone would mind if we camped outside the community hall overnight. Larry said, "I have an even better idea. You can stay right here in my mom's yard." He shook my hand. "I've just driven down from Winnipeg for my weekly visit. Traffic's frightful, eh?" "I'd say!" I was in the midst of telling about our near-miss by Malo when Sharon joined us. Larry's elderly mother, hearing the commotion, appeared from around a corner of the house. An aged woman clung to her arm. Larry introduced us to his smiling mom, Theresa. "She's known locally as Mother Teresa," he said. Her grey eyes twinkled as she patted his arm. Larry introduced the other woman as his Aunt Ann. Aunt Ann appeared a trifle eccentric. A wind-blown leaf peeked from a tussle of blue hair. Larry kindly plucked it free. I pulled a twisted little half-smile, imagining a bird's nest (and a happy wren or two) cached away in there somewhere, too. Aunt Ann smiled, and patted Larry's hand. Larry invited Sharon and me in for tea and cake. "That's one good thing about Ukrainian families," he joked. "No visitor has ever left hungry." After our snack, Larry bundled us into his sports car and we shot off to visit his sister Elsie, and her husband, Steve. They turned out to be kind and generous folks as well, feeding us tomatoes and cucumbers, freshly harvested from their garden. The topic turned to travelling. When Steve and Elsie heard the list of places Sharon and I planned on cycling, they confessed a lifelong dream: to visit their homeland in the Ukraine. We encouraged them to realize their dream and not be like the countless people who had told us, "I wish we had done that." It was dark by the time Larry shuttled us back to his mom's (headlights sure are handy). Back in his mom's kitchen, we talked and talked. Larry noticed the time. "Whoops!" he abruptly exclaimed. "Time for me to get back to Winnipeg. I have to work in the morning." Shaking my hand goodbye, he shoved a $20 bill into my shirt pocket. "A small contribution to your trip. Maybe you can send us a postcard if you get a chance?" With Larry's kind words and good wishes warm in our hearts, we got ready to set up our tent. Theresa (or Baba, as she insisted we call her) offered us the use of beds, but we didn't want her to go through the trouble of making up beds, then having to launder sheets and pillowcases. We stuck to our guns and maintained we would be fine in our tent. Baba eventually agreed (it was well past her bedtime, too). But, before doing so, she made us promise we'd return for extra blankets if we grew even slightly chilly. Dead tired, we wandered out to Baba's front yard. I hadn't noticed before, but on the other side of her fence was a graveyard. Under creamy moonlight we pitched our tent. It resembled a giant headstone. We crawled into our coffin-like sleeping bags, and buried ourselves six-feet deep. "I've never had a Baba before," Sharon murmured as she prowled off to netherworlds with a rest-in-peace smile.
In the morning - the moment we stirred - Baba called out, and invited us in to shower. While we availed ourselves to plentiful hot water, she busied herself in the kitchen making mountains of toast and buckets of tea. While consuming my fourth slice, a cat strutted past. I chuckled, wondering if I strapped a piece of buttered-side up toast on the cat's back and dropped it off the table, whether the opposing forces of nature would cause the cat to hover. At 9 am the phone rang. "It's for you," Baba sang sweetly, handing me the receiver. "How did you sleep last night?" Larry asked. "Like a dead man!" I replied. "And no one from the graveyard ripped off our bikes for a midnight ride." An hour later, Sharon and I waved goodbye to Baba. We met many fine folks on our travels, but Larry and his family's caring attitude elevated the definition of hospitality to a whole new level. Baba's euphonious golden warble lives within us still. |
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