Coffee... My fuel of choice these days.
Dave and I used to live in Enderby BC. Another tiny town. Such is our way, it would seem. (and we're only becoming more countrified with each passing year) We had the good fortune for two years, to live in a reconstructed stacked log home, up on a bluff overlooking the valley and the town. It was probably the most spacious and atmospheric place I'd ever lived, with a big cathedral ceilinged living space and a broad porch with floor to ceiling windows. There were also an incredible bunch of stinkbugs. Incredible, I tell you. Straining my water glass with my teeth was common practice. Checking my ventolin inhaler for lurking stinkbugs was a necessity. Yuck.
Anyways, I digress. We knew no one in the area when we rented thehouse and had moved as a result of Dave and his buddy Brian getting a placement with a timberframing company. I was in my off season from planting (November through to January) and would spend my days waking up late and trying earnestly to knit and/or doing lousy oil paintings. I had recently become a coffee addict (so many wasted years!) and was making up for lost time it would seem. Our coffee budget was astronomical as we made pot after pot of stovetop espresso.
One day I was alerted to the sound of our dogs barking madly, madly, madly. Not the 'freak out' there's a bear alarm, more of the 'I am letting you know that a stranger is arriving". This seemed to go on for the longest time. I opened the door to find an elderly man there with dark glasses on. He introduced himself to me as one of our neighbours and I encouraged him in to have a cup of coffee. We chatted a bit. Me slightly bewildered as to his visit. He, perfectly content and comfortable to sit in our living room sipping our 'rocket fuel' (as he called it).
Little did I know at the time that this was to become the first of many visits. Dear Doug frequented our house, stopping every few weeks to catch up on our news and most certainly to carry the news of 'these crazy hippies' out to all the other folk that he visited in our lonely neck of the woods. The most astounding thing about Doug was that he was almost 100% blind . I was astonished when I found this out. Our house was only reachable by teetering down a steep, deeply snow covered embankement and making ones way along a narrow, boot packed donkey trail. The fact that Doug at 85, wouldn't let this slow him down was entirely characteristic of his nature. We found out after chatting to neighbours that he regularly still drove his atv on the trails around the tiny lakes in the area. His wife had tied plastic bags on the trees at head height so he could see them as he drove!
I always knew when Doug was making his way down our path, long walking stick in hand as the dogs would keep up their volley of barking for minutes on end. It took him a long time but he was undeterred, either by the steep path or by the dogs. He admitted to us sheepishly one time that he was a diabetic. This was after he'd already eaten at least 5 sugar packed brownies that I'd pressed upon him. And he never refused a cup of 'rocket fuel'.
I think of him often, but not nearly as much as I should. He was inspiring to say the least. His curiosity, good humour and modernism were as much of an amazement as his fearless tenacity to continue life as he always had.
Last night as we were shutting the house down, turning off lights, filling water glasses, Dave said to me "Can you put Poppy's blind down?" I went into her room and stared out the window at this:
So sweet....
Hope you're all keeping on keeping on through this crazy holiday period.
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