TRANSCRIBED:
Another remarkable occasion, in that it’s an occasion and I’m making a remark. Oh, my word, these are troubled times. If anything really reflects the change that’s come over the company since I left, it would be the $95 phone bill that came this morning. As usual, Heather pored over it to maximize my contribution. That includes the usual little error—10% in her favor of course.
No work today made my schedule somewhat less cramped, but that brings me to where I am now, in that I’m making an entry before the day is out. I got to the airport without incident to discover the plane was an hour delayed. So far, no problem, for there was indeed a mother-daughter team which kept me far from any pain. Both short little blue-eyed blondes, and the bums, my god man, the bums. That’s with apologies to the Supreme Commanders.
Things were uneventful till at one landing it appears they couldn’t get the door closed on the aircraft, a Boeing 737, so there was a lengthy wait at the terminal. I got to thinking. No, it’s impossible [on a Boeing], but what the hell?
I looked in the white pages and Begorrah! It was a listing for Eddie Lovely. Remember Eddie? (Pronounced EE-Dee.) Well, she still lives here and she’s shacked up with Len, whom apparently I know but can’t place. She’s 21 now, due any day, and that accomplished, they are planning to move to Red Deer in June. To think I used to do her homework for her back in, oh, early 1978.
She insisted I give her my address, but I’d have to have something in writing this time. I sincerely hope it is quadruplets. All girls. Course, they wouldn’t have any trouble if they all looked like Eddie. Just think in 16 years, an 8-pack to go.
It was surely a very bad trip so far, we’re just taking off from Ft. St. John. They’ve announced -40 degrees in Grande Prairie, no less. I phoned ahead so Becky could plug in the car. We will be a minimum of three hours late, but the crew handed out a free round. So I took two. Gotta strike while the iron is hot. That’s the most I’ve ever been late on a flight. Then again, I’m young.
Odd, when I finally do see Dawson Creek from the air, I’m traveling east. Semms nothing ever quite happens the way I plan it. Needless to say, passing over Wembley was a most disturbing thing for me. It was nine years ago last Saturday Ted and Susan and Angle and I stayed at her house after the dance in Beaverlodge. Nine years already.
Then I had to phone Henry, as their address wasn’t in the book, and I don’t imagine he was pleased. We’ve sort of declared a truce, but what can you do? Got the car as far as Rycroft and the gas line froze.
[Author’s note: the “company” here means Delta Community of Interests, today shortened to Deltacomm. We were to ride the upcoming real estate wave, but turned out you are not competing with dumb middle-class homeowners, but huge corporations like Cadillac Fairview. RofR is from northern Louisiana, but his father moved to the Peace River country in the early 70s. Thus, I have flown all over western Canada as ot is really the only way to get around the huge distances.
By comparison, until twenty years later, the only cities in the US I’d flown between were Los Angeles, Seattle and Honolulu. And I’d flown to Bangkok more often. I’d had stopovers in most hubs and was even in Miami around ten times before I moved here in 1999. It was the last stop before Caracas, Venezuela.
Becky is RofR’s younger sister, she stayed at home until marrying the boss’ son. Him and I never got along as he was a greaser and I was a hippie. Or at least looked like one. Hey, no way was I gonna let all my blonde hair to wind up on the barbershop floor, not when I was meeting at least two new women per week. Those were the days. I don’t recall the other names above, or the mother-daughter team, but they knew what I was after.]
