Recent hot weather revives memories of attending the North Battleford Exhibition when I was a teen. Despite August heat, the event highlighted our summer holidays.
In the cool of an early hour, we older kids set about picking plump pea pods to fill a washtub. Sale of the peas to the Gold Leaf Cafe would pay for our pork chop dinner.
We shelled peas sitting in the shade of Virginia creepers on the screened veranda. Shelling took several hours. My thumb would be sore from sliding along the spine of the pod to flush out the peas. Mom helped us after she and Dad had milked eight cows, fed calves, pigs and chickens.
The cafe always bought our produce. How Mom knew they would welcome fresh peas I never understood. Sure she never phoned and she couldn’t have emailed.
While Dad and my brothers made sure all livestock had water for the day, Mom and I packed a supper of cucumber sandwiches on Mom’s fresh baked bread and filled a large thermos with cold water pumped from the basement well. My family couldn’t afford to buy soft drinks or midway hamburgers for us.
Only after livestock were tended did we wash up, dress in our off-to-the-city togs and pose for mandatory photos taken with a Brownie box camera. Today iPhones take shot after shot; we had a total of eight exposures; that was it until Christmas. We’d drop off the film with a North Battleford photographer for developing and wait weeks to see the final result mailed back.
Saskatchewan highways were gravel with potholes for rumble strips. Dad’s top speed was 30 m.p.h. We teens sat in the box of our 1936 Chev half-ton, backs against the cab for the 30-mile trip. The youngest rode in the cab.
At the fairgrounds entrance we’d queue with other farm vehicles. Dad would do his best to park so later we could sit in shade on the running board to eat our lunch.
The main stage show began about sundown. I remember one of the first jokes told by a comedian relating his boarding house pre-plumbing experience: “Wash down as far as possible, then up as far as possible, then wash possible.” I thought it was hilarious. An example of small things amusing small minds.
Until the grandstand show we roamed the midway, drooled over the trinkets the “claw” promised to retrieve, raised our arms to capture any breeze swooshing along barn alleyways, and collected glossy pamphlets given away in the exhibition building, pamphlets with titles like “How to Grow Gooseberries”. I didn’t like gooseberries; eating them made me shiver.
As the stage show ended a hint of the moon would peep over the nearby stubble field trampled by overflow vehicles. Anyone ducking RCMP driving a vehicle lacking tail- or headlights would aim for the unofficial back exit. One year a dozen jalopies followed the leader only to circle nose to tail in their rising dust.
Driving home in the evening cool, wheel vibrations lulled us into somnolence unless one of us had to make a pit stop. A rap of knuckles on the rear window and Dad would pull over. Highways had narrow rights-of-way with bushes close by. With today’s expansive rights-of-way a kid needs a compass to find the way back to the vehicle.
Once home, the little ones tumbled into bed. We soon followed, leaving Mom and Dad to milk eight cows, separate the milk, and feed the calves.
