Box Socials. W. Kinsella P.

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СКАЧАТЬ to salvage, but which eventually fell down of its own accord, and lay like a dinosaur skeleton, its timbers bleached gray as owl feathers, in the swamp it once crossed over and above.

      To get by that swamp Curly had to gun the truck over a two-and-a-half-mile detour of corduroy road that invariably shook a few parts off the truck every time he drove it. Luckily, Curly was mechanically inclined and had a plethora of spare truck parts at the old home place just east of Fark, and now, since Banker Gordonjensen was dead, in and at the old Gordonjensen place at New Oslo.

      Truckbox Al McClintock was enjoying his new-found fame as a home-run hitter. Since the afternoon at the sportsday on the banks of the Pembina River, where in five times at bat he hit five home runs off a skinny Indian pitcher whose only saving grace was a passable pickoff move to first base, four home runs going into the Pembina River and the fifth clean across it, Truckbox Al was attempting to take every advantage of the situation that he possibly could. Until the afternoon when he hit the five home runs, Truckbox Al McClintock, being squat and bulldog-looking like his mother, and covered in grease and motor oil like his father, and as my daddy said, being dumber than a salt lick, and both his folks put together, had never been a favorite with the young ladies.

      The week before he hit the home runs, at a box social at Doreen Beach, Truckbox Al spent his total savings of thirty-five cents to buy the box lunch he was certain belonged to the second-youngest Tomchuck girl, of the Venusberg Tomchucks, having to top a bid of thirty cents from her first cousin, Billy Steve Tomchuck, of the prosperous Nikita Tomchucks, who lived near Bjornsen’s Corner, because he had heard the rumor that the second-youngest Venusberg Tomchuck girl was hot-blooded.

      Unfortunately, by the time he paid the thirty-five cents, picked up the box lunch, which was a Paulin’s Soda Cracker box covered in white tissue paper with pink tissue paper rosettes on each corner, the second-youngest Venusberg Tomchuck girl had disappeared in the company of her first cousin Billy Steve Tomchuck, something they’d been known to do at other box socials, whist drives, sportsdays and ethnic weddings, in spite of severe criticism that their interest in each other was unnatural, not to mention peculiar, irregular, and downright bizarre, not to reappear until the Bjornsen Bros. Swinging Cowboy Musicmakers had announced that ‘The Red Raven Polka’ would be the first number after intermission.

      When they reappeared, the second-youngest Venusberg Tomchuck girl’s lipstick, blouse, and skirt were all a little ruffled looking, which only intensified Truckbox Al’s conviction that she was hot-blooded, besides, he had thoroughly enjoyed the double portions of roast pork sandwiches, and rhubarb pie, in the box lunch, in spite of the fact he had to eat alone, although he had paid thirty-five cents for the privilege of eating lunch with the second-youngest Venusberg Tomchuck girl.

      What he didn’t like was that Billy Steve Tomchuck was standing right behind the second-youngest Venusberg Tomchuck girl, with his own shirt only half tucked in, and a lot of the second-youngest Venusberg Tomchuck girl’s lipstick on his sunburned face.

      What he said to Billy Steve Tomchuck, which Truckbox Al believed thoroughly put him in his place, was, ‘How many home runs have you hit recently?’ A query that Billy Steve Tomchuck didn’t attempt to answer; he simply put one of his large, farm-boy hands on the nearest hip of the second-youngest Venusberg Tomchuck girl, and winked at Truckbox Al, a gesture which only further intensified Truckbox Al’s conviction that the second-youngest Venusberg Tomchuck girl was hot-blooded.

      Truckbox Al McClintock being invited to Edmonton to play against a team of genuine Major Leaguers, which included Bob Feller, Hal Newhouser, and Joe DiMaggio himself, had what my daddy called a trickle-down effect, in that it provided good fortune, temporary employment, and exposure, if not notoriety, for several residents of the Six Towns area. Good fortune was what it provided for Earl J. Rasmussen.

      It was because of Earl J. Rasmussen that everybody in the Six Towns area, and everybody who came to one of the box socials, whist drives, or community dances in one of the Six Towns, knew ‘Casey at the Bat.’ Earl J. Rasmussen, a bachelor who lived in the hills south of New Oslo with about six hundred sheep, loved to recite ‘Casey at the Bat,’ at the top of his lungs, at every box social, community dance, whist drive, and, if given the opportunity, at ethnic weddings. Earl J. Rasmussen, who had emigrated from Minnesota, had been raised near Norseland, Minnesota, but had played baseball as a boy somewhere up in the Iron Range, my daddy thought it was Buhl, or Hibbing, or maybe even Chisholm, but never remembered to ask for certain, though he knew it was a place where it gets fifty below in the wintertime.

      In Minnesota, just like in Alberta, there was about nine months of wintertime, followed by three months of poor sledding, and people in both places took to memorizing poems in the cold months, which, if you combined wintertime with the cold months and poor sledding, pretty well took up the whole year in both Alberta and Minnesota.

      There was a custom at box socials, community dances, and whist drives, whist being a card game my daddy said was bridge for people who couldn’t regularly recall how many suits there were in a deck of cards, that while the band, the Bjornsen Bros. Swinging Cowboy Musicmakers, were taking their break, anyone and everyone was not only allowed, but encouraged, to come forward and contribute an entertainment. There was always some question as to how much entertainment was involved when Earl J. Rasmussen, who was about forty-five years old and lived alone in the hills south of New Oslo with about six hundred sheep, recited ‘Casey at the Bat’ at the top of his lungs, but speculation of that nature never stopped Earl J. Rasmussen from reciting.

      Earl J. Rasmussen had been unsuccessfully courting the widow, Mrs. Beatrice Ann Stevenson, who also recited poetry, and claimed her deceased husband to be a second cousin, once removed, of the famous Icelandic poet, Stephan G. Stephanson, her husband’s family name having been altered by an incompetent immigration official so the spelling was no longer the same as that of the famous poet. But entertainment or not, Earl J. Rasmussen was always the second person to come to the front of the community hall, when the Bjornsen Bros. Swinging Cowboy Musicmakers were taking their break, the first always being the widow, Mrs. Beatrice Ann Stevenson.

      The widow, Mrs. Beatrice Ann Stevenson, was a Sangudo Stevenson, as opposed to the Venusberg Stevensons, a group that often lived in tents along the road allowances just like Indians, and couldn’t have recited their ABCs without cursing fit to curdle the moon of a clear night. The Sangudo Stevensons, on the other hand, owned their own land, occasionally wore store-bought clothes, and somewhere in her life Mrs. Beatrice Ann Stevenson had come in contact with some poems by a woman poet name of Emily Dickinson.

      To solidify her position as the artistic person in the Six Towns area, a position temporarily challenged by Mrs. Edytha Rasmussen Bozniak the time she instigated, bulldozed through, and more or less organized, a Little Box Social for the children of the Six Towns area, a story I’ll get to a little later, the widow, Mrs. Beatrice Ann Stevenson, not only claimed to be a second cousin by marriage, once removed, of the famous Icelandic poet, Stephan G. Stephanson, but she claimed, and with some truth, to have been before her marriage a Birkland, from Camrose, a town south and east of Edmonton, big enough to actually be called a town; a town where there was an actual college, called Camrose Lutheran College, where Miss Beatrice Ann Birkland had actually attended through tenth grade, and where she may well have been exposed to the poetry of this woman poet, Emily Dickinson.

      As soon as the intermission break was announced at a box social, whist drive, or community dance (Mrs. Beatrice Ann Stevenson considered it inappropriate to perform at ethnic weddings), the master of ceremonies or the members of the Bjornsen Bros. Swinging Cowboy Musicmakers would barely be off the stage before the widow, Mrs. Beatrice Ann Stevenson, would be at center stage performing an entertainment, which consisted of reciting three Emily Dickinson poems complete with gestures.

      It was my daddy, who had no small ear for music, especially after a slug or two of Earl J. Rasmussen’s raisin wine, or a nip or two of chokecherry СКАЧАТЬ