Writer’s Block

A family encounters an unexpected visitor during a trip down memory lane

In 2011, my parents John and Ilse Wackerle and I decided to revisit the old farmhand’s house we lived in back in 1963, located just southwest of Pincher Creek, Alta.

“Mom! Look!” I cry, pointing to all that remains of our old homestead’s foundation. “There’s a cow in your kitchen!”

We watch the big, black-and-white milk cow slosh her rubbery lips back and forth. Dark cow pies, thistles and tumbleweeds litter what used to be our kitchen floor. Grey weathered lumber and chunks of broken cinder blocks are scattered throughout the surrounding pale-yellow prairie grass.

The cow swings her head towards her butt, her tail whips and black horseflies take flight, hover and land again.

“The house…it fell apart.” Mom’s voice is quiet. She shakes her head as she stares at the cow.

The cow’s thick, pink tongue slides out, all the way up and into a nostril, twists once, then again and slips back into her mouth. Her long eyelashes lazily blink over her brown eyes.

“We were so poor,” Mom bemoans, clasping her hands to her face.

“No, we weren’t.” I wrap an arm around her shoulders and rest my cheek on her thick grey hair. “We had everything. Growing up here was the best.”

“Work, work, work,” Mom sighs. “That’s all we ever did.”

Dad pulls off his Stetson hat and wipes a handkerchief across his brow, places his hat back on and adjusts it just so.

“Not much left of the old barn.” He tucks his thumbs under his suspenders and heads to the slanted corral posts that surround a long row of fallen dark timbers. “Spent a lot of hours in there.”

“The smell of warm, fresh milk. Remember?” I ask, placing my hand under his elbow and Dad snugs my fingers tight to his ribs. He pushes a few boards over with his polished cowboy boot and bends down, picks something up, and rubs it against his jeans.

“Maybe it’s from the headstall buckle of a bridle,” he says, passing it to me.

The rusted rectangle with the bent clip had a hint of silver. I rub it hard to make it shine.

“Maybe from Taffy’s bridle.” I turn it over. “Taffy was my white stallion.”

Dad laughs. “Taffy was an old Palomino. A gelding workhorse.”

“Nope. He was a stallion.” I stick out my chin in defiance. “He galloped so fast.”

The image of Taffy clumping across the

field with a pudgy girl in a pink princess dress, hanging onto a fistful of scraggly mane, makes me smile.

The cow plods out of the used-to-be kitchen and into the overgrown front yard. She tips her head at us. Her tongue flicks a bug off her shoulder.

“I remember my room in the attic.” I say, pointing to where the roof used to be.

“It wasn’t an attic,” corrects Mom. “It was your bedroom.”

Dad mouths, “It was an attic.”

“There were so many mice and moths,” I nod. “They woke up when we went to bed.”

“We never had mice. Not in my house.” Mom wags a crooked finger in the air, while Dad peeks behind her and winks at me with a smile.

I remember steep, narrow stairs used to lead up to my non-attic bedroom. A short right turn at the top and there was the metal-framed double bed tucked in the corner against the sloped roof.

Each night, when Mom was sure my sister and I had climbed near the top of the attic staircase, she’d flick off the lights from the bottom and shut the door. We’d race the last few steps in darkness and jump onto our bed. The metal springs would squeal and fill the room with noises that woke other noises—the scary, spooky ones.

In the summer, we had a sheet and a thin wool blanket. I would hide under both and tuck them in around the edges on my sides so mice couldn’t run across my skin. I never asked but I’ve always hoped my sister did the same.

During the late fall, when the frost sparkled on the tiny, cracked window, Mom would put flannel sheets, wool blankets and a fluffy goose-down comforter on our bed.

When winter came, more scritchyscratchy noises of what I thought were mice raced along the wooden floor. I’d slide across the cool spot on the sheet to snuggle in closer to my sister. Most of the time, her toenails would dig into my belly and push me back. She was six-years-old—way too old by then to share a bed with me.

As Dad, Mom and I gaze across the horizon, the cow bobs her head back towards her butt.

“Let’s get out of here,” Dad says. “There’s nothing left to see.”

We climb into their shiny van with its heated seats and sunroof. I stick my head out the window and watch the dust follow us as we drive down the lane and away from Gladstone Valley.

Mom loosens her seatbelt and turns to face me. “Where are we staying tonight?”

“At a brand-new hotel in town. They have a pool and offer continental breakfast,” I say.

“But will it be clean?”

“For what we’re paying, it better be.” I grin. “And I bet you there’s no cow in their kitchen.”