A stroll down memory lane

Our journey began when my best friend and I started on the lane in which we chose to spend the rest of our lives travelling. We did not have a lot of money when we first started our journey. I remember this as if it happened yesterday.

The first event started when I got onto one knee and asked my best friend to marry me. She smiled and very excitedly accepted my offer to marry her. Then she paused, and what she said next really did shock me.

"I do say, Yes, but first you will have to ask my father if he will give us his blessing on this marriage."

I reassured her that I would, then off back to her place to phone her father for his blessing, thinking, how hard could this be. I ask him, and he says, sure, okay, then we could start to plan for our wedding. A piece of cake it is, so I thought.

I remember asking him which to my shock, he needed time to think about this. Now, I had the feeling that this was not going to be as easy as I first thought it would be.

I waited and waited for hours for the phone call to come to let me know what his answer was for my future to be with this girl or not going to be with this girl. The stress was hefty and made me feel worried that this could go sideways for me. After a whole day of waiting, my best friend suggested that maybe I phone him to ask for his answer. I was not aware of this was allowed within the rules of how to ask a possible father-in-law for his daughter's hand in marriage. When I called him and asked him for the answer, I was shocked at his response.

"What question are you talking about, Son?"

I repeated the question very impatiently and then waited for his answer.

"Oh, that question. Well, mother and I thought about it, and we mediated about it over and over. There is only one thing that I can say to you, Lorne."

I almost exploded as I exclaimed,

"What!"

"Well, welcome to the family, my son. You will make a great husband for our daughter."

The wedding was around one year later when we had our wedding with 134 friends, which we had invited to share our special day.

Our wedding reception was at the Mellowdale Community Hall. Since we did not bring our car with us, we got a ride out there with the wedding cars to our reception. My new father-in-law borrowed two brand new cars from Schulz Motors to use as our wedding cars. He was a car salesman at that dealership at that time. I remember the ride from the Alliance church to Westlock, where we got our wedding pictures done. As the two cars were driving down the streets of Barrhead, honking their horns, I noticed that people were rushing to honk back at us. I was amazed at how popular we were on that hot sunny August afternoon. Suddenly the sign on the back of the last car fell off. After the car had stopped, one of the best men jumped out to retrieve that sign and brought it into the back of where we were sitting. I was shocked to see that the sign read, "If you love sex, honk.".

This event was the start of the journey on our lane, which we chose to start together. I remember how nervous I was as I sat beside my best friend. The meal was my most favourite food: turkey, dressing, mashed potatoes and gravy and peas are my most favourite food in this world. Our wedding reception was the very best place to start this journey. I remember one of the groomsmen was my brother, Peter. He was very good at making speeches and organizing events. He had already in the past helped organize my older sister's wedding which occurred way back in 1988 in the month of December.

My mother, who is now up in heaven, was an essential part of my development as a young man. My father, who sat beside her, also is with my mother up in heaven. These are memories that I will have for the rest of my life. These stories are important because, over time, the memories are what is left since, over time, all these people will have crossed over to the other side of the Jordon River.

Since we were in the middle of the country without a vehicle, we had to find a ride back into town. We found a person who was driving a truck to give us a ride back into town. We were totally on foot, walking down the road going towards the payphone at the local convenience store. We phoned the local taxi company to ask if we could get our time call. The taxi driver had no idea about our taxi time-call. The taxi came over and picked us up. He was thinking hard about what was happening when he remembered that the handicapped van was sitting in the back of one of the driver's houses. He told us that he would take us there and ask if we were his customers for our time call.

Around fifteen minutes, we were on our way to Edmonton, where our motel was for our first night together as a married couple. As we were sitting there in the van travelling down the highway, I heard the interpatch phone ring. An interpatch system is an old piece of equipment that connected the phone with a two-way system.

"My brother just got married, and somehow he gave us the slip. He is riding in one of your taxis, and do you know where he and his wife are headed to?"

"I am so sorry, sir, but I have no idea what you are talking about."

As we continued to ride, a second call came in; however, this time, it was one of my wife's sisters.

"My sister just got married, they took a taxi and somehow she gave us the slip. Do you know where that taxi is taking them?"

"I am so sorry, ma'am, but I do not know what you are talking about."

The taxi company did what we had asked them to do. They were to keep our travelling private and not to let anyone know about our honeymoon plans.

We arrived at our motel at about one-thirty in the morning. This was an exciting start to our journey together as a married couple. We did sleep in until noon that Sunday morning. Then we had breakfast, swam in the pool and then started to prepare to leave in our old grey car back to our small city.

When we got back to our basement suite, we packed up everything to start our Saskatoon journey. Saskatoon was where we were going to spend our honeymoon.

The old grey car chugged along highway thirteen eastwards towards Saskatoon. We drove past the town of Sedgewick, where I had spent my growing up years. The honeymoon reminded me of the summer holidays, which my family took every year. We passed the town of Biggar, where there was a highway sign which read, "New York is big, but this is Biggar." Biggar is 90.16 km from Saskatoon. Then we continued to our goal, Saskatoon, which was known as the city of bridges. This city was labelled this because of the eight bridges which crossed the "Saskatchewan River."

This city was a bustling, fast-paced city. Drivers found it very hard to let the pedestrians cross the street at the controlled intersections before making their turns. One would have to run for your life if you were the one crossing. We went down to a campground called the "Gordon Howe Campground," which was in the heart of that city. This campground was where my family had parked our trailer every summer when we came to Saskatoon which was one of our family's stops. Every summer, we would go to the same Mcdonalds for supper which was paid for by our grandma. This campground had 135 campsites, a store, bathroom, laundry mat and showers.

After we paid for our camp spot, we went to go set up our tent. This was when we discovered that we were missing half of our tent. Well, we had to get a hold of my wife's parents to see if we could borrow some money to complete our honeymoon. To make a very long story short, we had to have her father put the money into our account by using some of the money which we received from our wedding gifts.

We stayed overnight for three nights. Since the traffic was so wild, we took taxis to many places where we wanted to visit. One area was the "Western Development Museum," which was just off "Lorne Ave." This museum was an indoor town of old buildings. I remember the old restaurant where we had lunch. There was an old drive-in where we could sit in some old make-shift cars to watch a movie on a screen. Saskatoon reminded me of what we did as a family when we were on the summer holidays.

Then we visited the "Diefenbaker Canada Centre" which is in Saskatoon. The centre is near the University of Saskatoon. I remember watching the old films of our Primeminister getting so upset as he would respond in Parliament that he would accidentally place his glasses upside down. The who;e chamber would erupt into laughter. My poor wife was not so much into politics as I was. However, she was so thoughtful to walk with me throughout this museum, looking at the various displays.

We also visited outside of the basement suite where I rented while I was living in Saskatoon. Saskatoon was where I attempted to find a job in this fine city. I finally gave up and moved back home, where I spent some time living at my parent's place.

The whole trip was a very relaxing one, and we did enjoy ourselves quite a bit. We did not have a lot of money, but somehow we managed to pay for the entire trip. The trip back was very uneventful, and we arrived back in our fair little city to our small basement suite.

The place was a little upside down because of some visitors we had while we were gone on our honeymoon. It was while some of our family members of both sides of the family had brought our wedding gifts when the others made practical jokes in our suite. The practical jokes were like putting plastic wrap over the toilet and putting cereal in the beds and our dresser's drawers. Our landlord was supposed to be protecting our suite. Somehow, a few of the visitors distracted her so she did not notice the practical jokes being played on us.

I went back to work for Peggy's Sues after our honeymoon. I was washing dishes during the day, and at night, I was cleaning the restaurant and bar. We were doing pretty good, especially with rent, including water, power and gas. I worked at that restaurant until they went bankrupt on December 28 0f 1994. Instead of receiving a paycheque, we received the news that we were all unemployed. This was a very tough day for me personally.

Days on our lane can be very difficult to handle. This was only just the end of one part of our journey and the start of another part of our journey. I was able to receive from my bosses 70% of our paycheque. I was able to get back with the taxi to earn money for one of the lease operators of that company. Then there was another door that opened for us to continue our journey together on the lane which we had chosen to walk down. In part two of this series, I will continue with the story of our stroll down memory lane.