Happy as the Grass was Green - Softcover

McColl, Catherine

9781412011204: Happy as the Grass was Green

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1412011205 ISBN 13: 9781412011204

Publisher: Trafford Publishing, 2006

This humorous personal memoir recounts events in the life of a young girl growing up with her family of homesick British immigrants in the southwest Ontario village of Brussels during WWII.

"synopsis" may belong to another edition of this title.

About the Author:

Catherine McColl was raised from the age of two in the southwest Ontario village of Brussels. She is married with two grown daughters and is presently living in Waterloo, Ontario with her husband Steve. This is her first book.

All This And Fresh Air Too

Our train chuffed past a collection of huts and open pens nestled in the tall, dusty grass a short distance from the tracks. It came to a jolting stop in a great cloud of steam in front of a dull red building on which hung a large black and white sign.

"Brussels!" announced the conductor on his way through the passenger car. "Brussels! This way out."

"We're here!" exclaimed my father with unnatural enthusiasm. "We're home!" I don't remember anything about our former home. My life began on that train to Brussels, as surely as if I'd been born there.

"My God! Where are we?" Mother groaned to no one in particular, as she struggled to lift me onto the rug covered orange crate that served as the back seat of the only taxi in town.

"Even the Devil won't follow me here," she mumbled, somewhat desperately, giving a fairly picturesque description of her first impression of the village.

No Place Like Home

The living room had two large bay windows, one facing an expanse of lawn and flower garden, the other facing the lane and open fields beyond. We heated this room with a tall round coal stove, its stateliness enhanced by bright accents of chrome. The slender stovepipe meandered a few feet across the ceiling before disappearing to warm my parents' second floor bedroom on its way to the chimney. Warm is a relative term. In winter, even with storm windows in place, ice formed inside most of those twenty windows, though frostbite was rare.

Hanging on the only wall in the living room that did not have a window, a picture of Highland cattle wandered the bonnie hills of Scotland, the entire scene rendered in various shades of green. Not only had I never seen cattle with hair covering their eyes, I had never seen cattle in this or any other shade of green. They seemed too exotic even for Scotland. Mother gazed lovingly at this picture, saying it reminded her of home. For too long I figured Scotland was completely green. Grass, hills, sky, cattle, bagpipes, haggis, people, every bit of it green. And then I thought about children playing in the grass and getting lost and not being able to find their way home because everything around them was green. I loved that picture more than any other in the house.

Aunts in the Cottage

Saturday morning found me stuffed into an overcrowded car with assorted relatives heading to Kintail, a modest collection of vacation cottages on the shores of Lake Huron. Eight of us rode in Uncle Bill's postwar sedan, loaded to the roof with enough provisions for a lengthy siege. Crowded as we were in the stifling heat, the car grew smaller with each passing mile, until by the end of the trip it felt about the size of a tuna tin.

Because the Scottish side of my family has always had an unusual attachment to water, it seemed only natural that these vacations should be spent at a cottage by a lake. Lake Huron seemed about the right size. At the end of the first week a few more pale faces arrived from the city, and the same number of pink ones packed to return home. The little cottage could hold just so many people, no matter how related we were.

Getting Plastered

Despite Mother's best efforts to prevent it, I managed to contract a cold at least once each winter. This meant packing me off to bed with a piece of wet silk around my throat and a hot toddy in my hand. I remember that famous Scottish drink as a vile concoction of honey, lemon, hot water and a shot of whatever was left over from New Year's Eve-like a cup of tea that had gone terribly wrong.

I remember my bed floating around the room in a fog and the wallpaper melting like water, but little else until morning. By then, if the hot toddy had not killed me, perhaps it had cured me. And if neither had been accomplished, she pulled out all the stops, promising a mustard plaster would do the job. Maybe I wasn't sick at all. Maybe I was just hung over from the hot toddy.

God's in His Heaven

There had not yet been time in my life to mull over the intricacies of death, with its unthinkable finality. But of this I was certain. For the loved ones left behind, there was nothing like a death in the family to perk up an appetite. What followed the funeral can only be described as a potluck feast. Mother baked an angel food cake-which I considered fitting under the circumstances-though the kitchen bulged with everything from plates heaped with sandwiches to casseroles, hams and fancy cup cakes-all donated by friends and neighbours. The smaller the community, the bigger the spread.This must have been the origin of comfort food.

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