Gran, a century in the making

2020-Apr-09 

I don’t know how many times I quit school before I quit quitting and just "didn't go back no more". It's because of my mom's mom that the count it is so high. I would have succeeded in a third or less that without her.

First two times I was in kindergarten, 5 years old. I remember getting shown to this new place, a dozen kids I didn't know and bunch of toys with colourful bins to stuff them in. It was alright, fun even. Until after lunch, when we were told lie down on the blue mats and sleep.

"Why? I'm not tired!" 

"Because." 

Well that sucks. I lay there staring at the ceiling until we were allowed to get up and go outside to play. I decided I'd had quite enough of this place and walked home. It's approaching four and half kilometers so it must have taken 5yr old legs a couple hours. I didn't get in trouble so I'm assuming I beat the parents’ home from work and concocted some story about how the day went. (Imaginative child, good with stories.) The next day was the same so I repeated my escape. Not feeling like walking that far again I hitchhiked, catching my ride by present day Inland Kenworth truck service centre. A blue car, dusty, a man driving and a younger kid in the back nestled among paper bags of groceries. We chatted and he dropped me off at the house. This day I did get in trouble. The dude knew Mom. shit.

So that's two attempts for our count, but given they’re repeat expressions of the same motive we'll call it once.

Next comes grade 1 at Porter Creek school. Again I don't know anybody, but they all know each other it seems. I quickly learn recess is a dark horror show and to stay the hell away from the treed area to the south west. That way beatings lie. I don't remember the "I quit" event but the "No you're not" one is clearly etched: being dragged literally kicking and screaming up the sidewalk and tossed through doors. Doors then held shut from the outside, until grabbed by teacher, followed by interminably long standing in the corner blubbering. That has tendency to set memorably.

So now truly two quit attempts.

I went to live with my grand-parents in High Prairie Alberta for grades 2 to 5. Gran finished teaching me to read, and in time, to love school. I mean really love it. The beginning was rough. There were the incidents of living out the day in pee soaked pants because there were no trees to sneak behind at recess; a Yukon bush kid. And being slammed against the fence and threatened with grievous bodily injury if I continued to play with the native kids. (And to correct the image I'm sure instantly appeared instantly in your mind at that sentence: it was the older sister playing guardian, not other white kids enforcing apartheid.)

After 3 winters with Gran I would pretend not to be sick in order to keep going to school. The course she set me on and the wind she put in my sails kept me going for four years without a single quit attempt, with enough residual energy to push me through the three after that.

High school though? Well, yeah.

May and June were the nicest months in the late 1980s. Some of the hottest years on record (to that date). My friends and I were hard pressed to back up our stories of "school was boring today", what with our picture plastered on the front page of the newspaper, in colour, as we jumped off the Riverdale Bridge into the Yukon River on a scorching May 1st. Oops.

At any rate, I quit school every spring around May for all of my high school years. Bringing our count to five. I likely wouldn't have made enough ground in the first half of each of those years to squeak to the next grade without Gran's wind in my sails.

A couple of years in the so-called real world brought me face to face with the realization that although I didn't think school was worth much, the other humans I'm surrounded by do put a lot of weight in it, and like or lump it, they had control over what I could do. So I took the college entrance exam, aced it with 100%, and enrolled in first year geography and science. After 2 or 3 months I was again convinced I didn't like this path and armed with crutches after a motorbike accident I had my final straw excuse to drop out for what turned out to be the last time.

So, there we are: six times I have quit school. I started off with "I would have succeeded [quitting] with a third or less times". I see it differently now, I would have attempted many more times without her, maybe every year instead of just the book-end ones. At any rate, I'm quite sure I wouldn't have made it as far as I did without her in my life. The excellent quality of life I have now, and my family has through and with me, were and are immeasurably improved by my time with Gran.

Ruth Cornell Hamson, Born March 20, 1920, Deceased April 5, 2020. (No, not Covid, just old.) 

June 29, 2009. 

March 20, 2017. 97th birthday 

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I'm supposed to be working but I had to get this down and out of my head. It's as true as I can express right now. It tilts towards crediting Gran for all that is good in my life, which simply ain't true. And by omission and implicitness directs blame to my multitudinous parents, which also simply ain't true. I haven't been able to figure out how to balance that without adding hundreds of words that muddy more than clarify. So l leave this footnote with direction and hopes you will fill in corrections yourself.

Thanks for the condolences given across all channels - public, private, and thoughts-only - those arrived and those still on their way. They’re all appreciated. I’m sad and emotional but in a good way. The grand ol' gal split her skull in a bad fall eleven years ago and I said my tearful goodbyes then. Every day since have been free bonus level rounds. 

Hope you all have a good and nourishing long weekend, apart and together as you-we are. 

Matt