Skipping Stones

Every summer when I was young, my family would vacation in southern Alberta. The neighborhood kids I called my friends all thought it was quite exotic, but the reality was more ordinary. My parents were both from Raymond, a small farming town on the prairie that, aside from its dirt roads and residents who had the habit of ending every sentence with the interjection “eh?,” wasn’t much different than any small town in America. In fact, because of western Canadians’ contempt for the French-speaking eastern provinces that forced them to suffer the indignity of bilingual milk cartons, they viewed themselves as more American than Canadian. So going to Canada for vacation was about as alien and romantic as going to Tehachapi. For my parents, it was an obligation.

We typically tried to schedule our visit around the first of July, the Canadian equivalent of Independence Day. That was when aunts, uncles, and cousins that I knew of but didn’t really know all made the pilgrimage to dusty Raymond for a Christian family reunion of sorts. There was always a big, outdoor cook-out at my cousin’s house, a somber visit to the Temple Hill cemetery to pay respects to departed ancestors, a sad parade down Main Street that featured out-of-tune bands and lots of John Deere tractors, and a local rodeo where invariably someone got injured by a steer or bull. The centerpiece of the event was the bullshit sessions between my dad and his siblings. After dinner, they’d all sit around spewing nonsense, swapping exaggerated stories, telling cringe-worthy, off-color jokes, and laughing until they cried. Although the rest of us didn’t really participate, it was a hoot to see, so we’d all gather around and laugh right along with them. That tradition died with my dad and his siblings as none of the remaining family share the same type of bond they had.

Another tradition was a visit to Waterton Lakes located along the Continental Divide in the Canadian Rockies. The northern shore of the main, finger-like lake sits in Canada while its southern shore is in America. The magnificent Prince of Whales hotel occupies a breezy bluff over-looking both the lake and the cute little hamlet of Waterton Park. As I recall, it was about a 90 minute drive across the wind-swept prairie to get to the lake from our Raymond home base. Along the way, we’d pass through a number of other small farming communities – Magrath, Spring Coulee, Cardston, Mountain View – each with its own set of red or brown grain elevators emblazoned with the town name. 

On the far southwest end of Waterton Park, where Cameron Creek feeds into the lake, there is a pebbly beach with a simple, gravel parking lot. Every time we would go to Waterton, we’d make a trip to this beach. I don’t know if my mom and siblings loved that beach as much as I did, but for me it was always the reason to go to Waterton. The attraction was the millions of flat stones, worn smooth by wind and wave, that littered the shoreline. I’d stand on that beach with my dad for hours, hunting for perfectly flat rocks that we could skip back into the same lake that coughed them up. 

There was a science to selecting the best projectiles for skipping. They had to be flat, round, and about 1/2 of an inch thick. If you found a stone like that, and your throw was just right, it would literally glide along the surface of the water before eventually running out of steam and sinking. That was the ultimate objective, the raison d'être for our being there, and we’d spend hours attempting to achieve stone-skipping perfection.  

Those are fond memories that I’ve thought a lot about since my dad died. For some odd reason, the meaningless act of throwing stones into a cold Canadian lake with him holds a lot of meaning for me. At its root, I suspect it’s what I’ve come realize about life in general: it’s all about relationships and experiences. The rest is just clutter or noise or whatever you want to call it.

I’m not much of a poet because that type of writing requires talent that I don’t possess. But since a deficiency of talent has never been much of an impediment to me embarrassing myself, I’ve tried to capture those moments from long ago in the poetic form. I've titled my effort “Skipping Stones.”

Skipping Stones

Fields rippled yellow on the prairie
when dirt roads shed dust to the sky.
We gave reasons for going to that pool beyond the horizon,
but it was really just that same pebbly beach.

Anticipation got the best of us
as we entered the gravel lot. 
Like jack-rabbits, we’d spring from the station-wagon
before the motor had a chance to die.
Picking our way through forest bones that littered the sand,
we’d stand at the water’s edge,
hair and tears in our eyes,
squinting at the foreign shore.

Guarded by the Prince of Wales,
we stayed for hours, my father and me,
skipping stones,
aiming for gulls perched upon ancient pilings,
and always missing,
arms giving out before the projectiles ever did.

After, we’d purchase McIntosh toffee in the village
with colorful dollar bills and strange coins.
I always thought their money looked funny, 
they thought ours looked funnier,
and I thought that was funny.

Squinting on the shore
of that same Waterton beach,
hair and tears in my eyes,
I’m still skipping stones,
skipping stones, 
skipping stones.