It appears this was sixty years ago.
The summer before there was a garden where that swing set sits. In late August we jumped off the fence into a pile of corn husks. No bushes or trees then, no leaf piles. The red dogwood hedge, blowing in the wind, is newly planted. Two years before the fence wasn't there, and neither was the house. Just land, and sky.
It was a street of new houses built on the edge of town. But we saw it the other way around, houses built on the edge of the country. We didn't say country, we said coulees.Â
It looks like flat prairie, but beyond that fence it dipped down into the first coulee hill, which was later nicknamed the Sugar Bowl and became popular for sledding. A road was built. But at the time, when you went past that fence, it was coulee, endless hills that went on all the way down to the river bottom.Â
We're going down the coulees, Mum.
Don't go too far.Â
We didn't really know how far was too far, but we were smart enough not to ask. In my head I decided it was Saskatchewan. Sometimes we went down to the river bottom and skipped rocks. We counted the boxcars on the long trains going over the High Level Bridge. Past the bridge, built into the side of the coulee, was a makeshift shack where a hermit lived. It took a dare to head there, and there had to be enough of us. Not every time, but sometimes his door would fly open and he'd holler:Â
Shoo! Go on back where you come from! That’s right, you better run.
That Rambler is pale green, the colour of a Scotch Mint after it has been in your mouth awhile.Â