The Railroad Tracks to My Past

As the years pass and the collection of places I have called home grows, I am starting to appreciate that I will carry pieces of each with me. As I prepare to embark on a nomadic lifestyle by living out of a converted school bus, the idea of home is on my mind. Indulge me in nostalgia as I explore my conceptual building blocks of home, while paying homage to the first and longest place that I have ever lived.

_____

Our young family of four lived in a yellow brick house, surrounded by a massive hedge that acted as more of curtain for the first floor windows than decorative greenery. Every year, my father would wage a war on the vines creeping up the side of our house, only to have them return and threaten to besiege the brick and eavestroughs.

Our house was on the corner of the street where the road intersected with the railroad tracks. When trains passed by it would shake our entire house. The contents of my mother’s china cabinet would rattle nervously every time, but surprisingly nothing ever broke. The flashing red lights would dance on my bedroom celling when the pavement was wet. The crossing signals’ metallic ticking became a surprisingly soothing way to fall asleep. I imagine the rail traffic was partly to blame for the house’s uneven floors and curiously crooked walls.

Plenty of exciting things happened under our roof. One of those moments was the birth of my younger brother, which happened the day before 9/11. When I saw him for the first time, I ran outside yelling, “my baby sister is here and he is a boy!” I dreamed of having a younger sister, but having a brother was better than I could have imagined. He was even compliant enough to let me dress him up as Cinderella and paint his nails with rainbow coloured nail polish, for a short time.

My childhood best friend lived a few houses down the street. He dreamed of being a train conductor. He had a uniform (overalls) and a collection of wooden train whistles that he would proudly wear as we lined up pennies on the railroad tracks to be squished. Realistically, it was an affordable source of entertainment considering the countless hours of fun we stretched out of that pocket change.

_____

Transformed from one of the old railroad tracks, was the Caledon Rail Trail. It was a perfectly flat pedestrian trail that extended for many miles and connected all of the surrounding towns. The trail entrance, just a few steps away from our door, made the perfect place to start adventures with a pack of bike-riding neighbourhood children. I was always more reluctant to go on these rides when my parents led the way. I graduated from the baby seat on my mother’s bike handle bars to a tow-along children’s buggy before I got my own bike. When I did, my bike always seemed to malfunction, until the incentive of ice cream from the store a few towns over was introduced. I usually ended up wearing more ice-cream than I ate, turning heads with my poorly applied raspberry ice cream lipstick on the way home.

Having said that, you might assume that ice cream was scarce in Inglewood. That was not the case. We had a general store steps away from our house, just on the other side of the railroad tracks. They had every kind of candy and ice cream that you could imagine. However, it was the owner of the general store who made it special. She knew everyone by name, and basically was the unofficial mayor of the village. The general store hosted a farmers’ market every weekend, and contests for children over the holidays. I remember winning a purple scooter with glittery tassels on the handlebars for my Easter drawing contest submission. The scooter just happened to have a little basket on the front that was the perfect size for picking up things from the store, like sour cream for nacho night.

One day every summer the community park would be filled with a beer tent, penny raffles, a fire truck, games and a main stage to celebrate Inglewood Day. They always had an assortment of contests so that everyone could enter something. One year, my mother signed my brother and I up for a karaoke contest. We performed a song called “King of the Bongo”. My brother played the bongos in the background while dressed as a monkey, and I belted out the lyrics. With the stiff competition, we were shocked when our less than carefully choreographed performance won. Unsurprisingly however, we quickly spent all our prize money at the general store.

_____

Every Halloween the population of Inglewood seemed to multiply. Families from surrounding neighbourhoods made our village their trick-or-treating destination. There was a friendly competition among the neighbours to create the scariest house. One street would transform their dead end road and compile resources to make a promenade of terror. Children had to go through a maze of horrors hosted by team of ghouls, creatures and chainsaw wielding goons to reach the pot of candy at the end. I remember having to stick my hand in random bowls while blindfolded, to identify the contents. The peeled grape “eyeballs” gave me nightmares for weeks. My father, always having a competitive streak, borrowed a fog machine from work one year. When the ominous fog billowed down the main street from our house, it quickly drew in the crowds. Soon, we had to have a fog machine every year.

_____

Our childhoods were not without a healthy amount of risk and danger. In our backyard we had a huge hill that must have been at least 75 degrees steep, on which we would pick up some serious speed going down on toboggans. To make things more interesting, my father would help us build ramps and jumps on the hill. To make them faster, we would coat them with water which quickly turned to ice. As if the speed did not make the hill treacherous enough, we had an Australian Shepherd named Chinook, that loved to chase the toboggans and pull them out from underneath us. That hill witnessed countless wipe outs, cuts, bruises and a few lost teeth.

Just outside of our little town was the infamous Cheltenham Badlands, or as we called them, the “Clay Hills”. These deeply rich, rolling, red clay hills made most landscape photographers drool, but for us, they became slides during the winter. My little brother, my best friend and I would struggle to climb up the hills, holding onto each others’ hands for support. After reaching the top we would race to slide down the hills in different directions. As you might imagine, none of our snow pants would escape the fate of having their original colours stained by the red clay. I still remember the gritty, earthly smell of that dirt. We would only head back home as the sun started to set and the haunting cry of coyotes in the distance started to echo through the tree line.

_____

My father built a playhouse for my brother and I, which became a popular hide-out among the children in our neighbourhood. I would host teddy bear tea parties, art shows, play dress up and take refuge there when snowball fights got out of hand. I took on the project of painting each wall a different neon colour, which was then tied together by splatter painting contrasting colours over top. The top floor of the playhouse was a little more conservative with only clouds and stars painted on the ceiling. It was so cozy that one summer, a group of wasps decided to call it their home. After being trapped on the top floor with the unwelcome guests, it took me some time to heal from the countless stings. It took even longer to get over my new fear of wasps. After that day, I would send my stuffed animals or my younger brother up first to scope it out.

_____

The true heart of the community was the Inglewood Volunteer Fire Hall. It was around the corner from our house, and when my father’s pager would go off, my brother and I would rush to the front window to see our neighbours still buttoning their uniforms, sprinting to the hall. Minutes later, we would hear the screams of sirens followed by a flash of red and a blur of lights whizzing past our front window.

After school, my brother, my best friend and I would often wander down to visit our fathers cleaning and prepping the trucks. While it was a concrete building, it always felt incredibly warm and inviting simply due to the people who filled it. We learned our way around fire trucks and the fire hall’s fridge pretty quickly. If you have heard the rumours about food at fire halls, you will likely understand how central food is to fire hall culture. Even though firefighters are notorious for missing Christmas dinner because they are always called to an emergency as soon as it is ready, everyone on the street could smell the deep fried turkey they made once a year.

Whether it was new equipment or local families in need, the Inglewood Fire Hall was well practiced in raising money. There would always be events, concerts, public skates and car washes scheduled. The concerts at the community park were my favourite, because the three of us kids would dance until our legs gave out. My best friend’s parents were musicians; his mother was a blues singer and his father sang and played bass. As Inglewood VIPs, our dance floor was right in front of the stage, so we did our best to add to the rockabilly performances. The biggest concert was called “Inglestock”, which was an all-day event featuring local bands.

_____

The passage of time is bizarre. Certain memories are just as vivid as the day they happened, while you only recognize the significance of others by thoughtfully looking back. The mysteriousness of our choices and directions in life might become clearer if we dare to reflect on our pasts. There is clarity as to why certain experiences in my adult life posses the comforting feeling of home, after making this connection to Inglewood.

If I dare to look closely, I can see the parallels between my earliest concepts of home and the future I am trying to build. I can also see the parallels in the lives of those that I grew up with. My brother’s passions are downhill skiing and mountain biking; classic outdoors adrenaline. My childhood best friend is a film maker and a train conductor for CN rail. As for myself, I am an artsy firefighter who is driven by building my sense of community and connection.

If home is where the heart is, the memories created in those spaces may define who we were and help to shape who we are becoming.