The Duck Project

Several years ago, the class of about a dozen special needs students I worked with, participated in “The Duck Project.” “The Duck Project” was much like “The Egg Project”, where students are required to carry an egg around and take care of it, making sure it isn’t neglected or broken, with the intention of giving the chosen students the responsibility of looking after something that depends on them for survival.

Only with “The Duck Project” each student was given a duckling, a beautiful, fluffy baby, to take care of for two weeks after which time the ducklings were returned to the duck farm and left to grow up and become someone’s dinner. How lovely though, that for a brief time, the students would have the opportunity to take care of a living, breathing thing whose life depended on them. A fine life lesson for young teens? A taste of reality maybe?

It was an absolutely dreadful idea from the start – baby ducks, although cute as can be, stink after only a short time in an enclosed pen (where they were kept during school hours, a much preferred location, I am sure to the boxes they were kept in while being transported to and from school and maybe longer.) A letter and a consent form explaining the purpose of the project went home but accommodations weren't checked out. I believe though, most of the ducklings were cared for appropriately.

Days passed and the ducks grew rapidly. They got bigger, noisier, smellier and less cute. The kids lost interest quickly because looking after them was hard and unrewarding work. Ducklings don’t give a lot back. The peeping was continuous, tempers flared and everyone was getting pretty edgy. By the time the ducklings and students had been together through a weekend, everyone, including the ducklings I’m sure, wished that the project would end. And for one it did, very abruptly.

About midway through week two, a previously healthy duckling died overnight at the student’s home. The student came to school and told the teacher she didn’t have a duckling anymore. I wasn’t privy to that conversation and I don’t know the details which were never shared with the rest of the staff working in that classroom. However, I do know the ducklings were returned to the duck farm that day and the dead duckling was never acknowledged. Questions from the other students went unanswered. It was as though the poor duckling never existed. Death, especially suspicious death, apparently was a taboo subject, not to be included in this life lesson. As classroom assistants, we were told not to discuss it.

Weeks later however, a group of the students approached me and asked me if I remembered xxx’s baby duck and wanted to know what happened to it. I told them it died and they asked why. I said I didn’t know. One said she’d heard that it was strangled and another said it got stepped on. One of the boys told them the family ate it? Someone else said it drowned? They all knew it was dead but my goodness, how rumours grow when questions aren’t answered!

They wanted to know where it was, what happened to its body? Again, I didn’t know. Their concern, empathy and sorrow were evident. One said it was wrong to just forget the duck like it was nothing and started to cry. I told them it was okay to be sad and that it made me sad too.

The students had expressed my thoughts precisely. The fuss at the beginning of the project suggested that the ducklings should be personified and treated like part of the family, like darling baby cousins coming for a visit, and yet when this duckling died, there was no mourning, no funeral, and no acknowledgement of sadness and grief even though everyone was visibly upset. All of the ducklings were just gone.

Children require answers so they can make sense of their world. Tragedy and death are not pleasant topics but questions need to be answered in an honest way. Information doesn’t have to be repetitive, elaborate, or sensational – just informative at the level of the kids’ questions and understanding. So much angst could have been prevented after "The Duck Project" if only the kids’ feelings had been considered. Tragedy happens and when it does, kids hear about it. They want mostly to be reassured but often don’t have the words to express their needs. It is important to find the time to listen and to share information at their comfort level so fears can be addressed and their rampant imaginings can be put to rest.

Play it again...

Okay, so I have this cupboard full of old cookbooks and recipes. Most are mine but some of the really old ones were my mothers. And there’s a recipe box full of handwritten recipes from before that.

My grandmother’s scone recipe is there but the method involves a handful of this, a pinch of that, a dollop and a slab of other ingredients and then folding it all together with your hands until a soft dough forms. I tried this once and got to the folding together part, assuming that the dough “forming” was a kind of magical phenomenon. It wasn’t and I doubt that I translated dollops and pinches correctly because it was all a big mess. All I know is my mom made these scones and, with strawberry jam, they were out of this world delicious.

There are several old recipes in that box, all with really vague measuring instructions. Maybe in the early 1900s there was a collective baking sense that came to women the way computer sense now seems to be almost inherent in our children. Born half way through that century, I missed out on both counts.

But the reason I was recently snooping through those old recipe files was because I was in search of THE vegetable marrow honey recipe. This delicious, lemony preserve, when spread on toast of fresh bread was wonderful, one of the special tastes of my childhood – something I remember fondly but don’t know how to make. I could let it go, but as fate would have it, my mother fed it to my son when he was a little guy and he remembers. A few years ago he asked me if I would make some. I thought I had it figured out but, like the scones, it was a disaster. I haven’t thought about it since.

Fast forward to the market last weekend. The lady in front of me asked the market lady if the squash she was holding  was a spaghetti squash. No, she was told. It was a vegetable marrow. The market lady said she hasn’t  been able to get them for several years. Maybe the grocery stores haven’t had them either because I haven’t seen one in a long time.

“I don’t want it then,” said the spaghetti squash lady.

“I do,” burst out of my mouth, the memory of marrow honey teasing my taste buds, the memory of not having the recipe, gone. So I brought it home. It isn’t as big as the ones my dad grew but it is a firm, light yellow vegetable marrow, none the less. And it’s waiting for me to do something with it.

So I am in search of the recipe. I’ve found a couple that might work on vintage recipe sites and I’m hoping I can come close to the smooth, buttery texture and fine taste of the marrow honey I remember. If not, I’m done, but if it works, there will be a couple of us who are really happy.

Anyone else have memories of marrow honey?

Eeehaw and all that crap.

From the Calgary Stampede website:

The very first chuckwagon competition at the Calgary Stampede occurred in 1923. Stampede founder Guy Weadick recruited ranchers to enter their chuckwagon and roundup crews in competition, and the Rangeland Derby was born.

Billed as the No. 10 Event evening competition, the "Cowboy's Chuck-Wagon Race" offered purses and prizes totaling $275. An outfit consisted of four horses, a wagon, a driver and four helpers. The Yukon's Bill Sommers won the first race. For the Official Canadian Championship, each outfit was required to "Cut a figure eight around barrels, out through backstretch into track, run around track back to camp ground, unhook team from wagon, stretch fly. No less than two stakes, and make fire. First smoke decides winner."

Considering the number of accidents on the track as chuckwagon races get faster and faster, let’s consider how the races came to be what they are today. The above bit of research shows that in the beginning the races were much different. In my memory, starting in the 50s, several changes have been made to the chucks to make conditions safer.

The current grandstand and infield replaced an earlier version in the 1970s. If you think the infield is too small for the barrels and turns now, you should have seen it then. Wagons have been refined, stove baskets removed so horses running behind a wagon don’t step in them, tent poles have been shortened so they no longer fall out of the wagon or drag on the track. Drivers and outriders wear safety gear. This year we’re down to two outriders to clear the congestion a little.

Still we have accidents. I see two main reasons for this. As in the accident on Thursday evening, and many other accidents in other years, a horse suffers a fatal medical incident before the accident causing a roller coaster of events. This is not unique to chuck wagon races – it happens in horse racing, harness racing, show jumping, steeplechase etc. With the veterinary care and monitoring chuckwagon horses receive, everything possible to predict this type of danger is in place. But accidents happen. I’ve seen chuckwagon races several times and I’ve seen a horse collapse and die on the track…but not at the Stampede but at one of the many small town rodeos that dot the prairies each summer. Unlike bullfighting, which is an accepted sport in many parts of the world, no one starts out planning how a wagon horse will die.

The second reason places blame on a public that demands extreme excitement, the vicarious thrill of speed and danger at such events. That grandstand is full because the audience is looking for an adrenalin rush. Prime viewing from Scotchman’s Hill is packed because people are looking for a thrill. Everyone who watches races knows there is danger involved – you can smell it. How can it not be dangerous but is it more so because horses who are bred to run have an accident? Race car drivers die, skiers die, mountain climbers die and although I have trouble with the concept, everyone says they died doing what they loved. But that’s not for horses, I guess. I’m not saying the horses make a conscious choice as extreme sports people do, but thoroughbreds do love to run.

And in today’s world, how many people would pay to watch the races as they were originally set out? How many people would have the patience to wait, at the end of each race, for the cowboys to unhitch the horses, set up a lean-to and start a fire? Today’s thrill-seeking crowd would be bored to tears.

But It is no longer about tradition, people. It’s about getting the adrenalin going. So don’t whine when the unexpected happens and you’re brought up short at the fragility of life; don’t whine when you have to console your children who have been devastated because you’ve neglected to explain the danger, or, for that matter, where their hamburger came from when you whine about other aspects of rodeo. And don’t blame the cowboys who make every possible effort to keep their horses – the thoroughbreds, many who have been given a second chance – safe.

More Shameless Promotion

http://www.alexandrawriters.org/what-we-offer/courses

Finding Your Muse

Ellen Kelly

Saturdays

9:30am-12pm

July 14 (6 weeks)

Is there a book hidden somewhere inside you? Do stories dance in your head? Does your personal writing say what you want it to? Are you a poet at heart? Through friendly discussion, in-class writing exercises and sharing your writing, we will address the basics and specific interests of the participants involved. For writers of all levels.

Underwear Sale

This is a survey, or maybe not. But what I want to know is – sometimes do store specials confound you, like how is this a special? Really?

Point in question – panties. Today I found a special in a ladies store, seven pairs of panties for $28. $4 a pair. Great deal except who really needs a week’s worth of panties in one shot? Individually each pair cost $8 which, I guess provides real incentive to stuff one’s drawers, pardon the pun, and may have even been tempting if a) I needed some, and b) the colours weren’t so hideous.

The most interesting part of the encounter was the sales lady, who went to lengths her employer would be proud of, to convince me that I really needed seven new pairs of panties in hideous shades of fushia and lime green and that I didn’t want to buy the one subdued pair I liked for $8 because that would be ripping me off. Really, she wanted to know, why on earth wouldn’t I choose six more pair?

Turns out I put back the ones I liked and didn’t buy any but I left the store with a weird feeling that maybe during the next laundry my panties will all fade, develop holes, over-extended elastic, and ripped seams and that I will forever regret not having seven new pairs of blindingly bright underwear waiting in the wings.

I am happy with replacing my undies as necessary. And besides, it may not matter much what goes on beneath the jeans but I don’t want to be blinded when I get dressed in the morning.

Long overdue

Long overdue, my mom passed away in 1990 but here goes.

To my mom, who I always loved but didn’t always show it because it wasn’t always easy  -

I sometimes wish there was a telephone/chat line/ text messaging system (you would have loved computers) that could reach you now because there are so many questions left unanswered. I am curious about so much but it probably isn’t any more my business now than it was when you told me it wasn’t so I just hope that you’re still keeping an eye on me. I say to myself sometimes, when the going gets rough, I wonder how Mom would have handled that. Most of the time I know the answer and most of the time, it helps.  

There are a few things I should have said to you but didn’t/couldn’t/wouldn’t – I was blessed with your ability to procrastinate, your elephantine memory and your stubbornness. I wish I had also been blessed with your courage, your tenacity and you sense of purpose. Anyway, here are some of the things I should have told you.

First of all, sorry I was such a brat when I was a kid, especially in high school. That must have been tough. I often wondered why you weren’t more lenient, more understanding, more forgiving. Although it’s taken me 60+ years, I now have to admit your “tough row to hoe” was dead on. So, sorry for the insolence (I know you caught the eye-rolling, the under-the –breath comments, the slammed doors etc.) and thanks for the ultimate understanding that I was just being a kid and would come around eventually.

Secondly, thanks for being there. You were always there to listen, even though I wasn’t always there to talk. I thought that you didn’t understand – you have to admit, you did have a pretty critical eye – but the thing I missed back then was how overextended you were, how stretched to the limit physically, emotionally and financially you were for so many years as you held our strange little family together. I know now that I could never keep up with you, the way you took such good care of Dad during his long illness, gardened like a farmer to can, preserve, and store vegetables and berries from our large garden for food for the winter, made do with next to nothing because many times there was next to nothing, and then how you went out to work at an age when women today are considering retiring because necessity dictated it.

I am amazed, when I look back, at the magic you performed on a regular basis. You devised toys to keep me entertained. You cooked and baked and sewed and dreamed. You taught me the value of imagination. You invented gadgets to save time and energy – who would have guessed that a ringer washer could be turned into the perfect pea-shelling machine. It took a little innovation and a few squashed peas but in the end it worked like a charm. I remember, there were a lot of peas.

There was always baking and tea. We didn’t eat fancy, but we always ate. We were really poor but I didn’t know then how hard you worked to keep me from realizing it. I’m not angry anymore that you made me pay for my school bus fare out of my babysitting money.

Thanks for teaching me to read. Not how to read – I learned that at school – but to read for pleasure, for adventure, for solace, for friendship, for discovery, for information. You took me to the library – actually the Bookmobile on the corner – when I was four. The librarian said I couldn’t have a card unless I could print my name on it so I did. I’ve had a library card ever since.

And thanks for letting me use your sewing machine when I was so small I had to stand up to reach the treadle. You encouraged me to sew and I became good at it. Being able to sew turned out to be both extremely useful and somewhat obsessive.

And thirdly, I want you to know how proud I was/am of you, of how smart you were, how determined you were, how ethical you were and how insightful you were. You were a little older than most of the other kids’ moms when I was little (Dad was a lot older) and sometimes kids asked me if you were my grandma. No, I would say, that’s my mom. I said it somewhat indignantly and always proudly. I was proud of you as you achieved your career goal in your 50s, worked tirelessly as a volunteer throughout your life and I was in awe of you when, at the age I am now, you set out to see the world. I am still in awe.

There were so many things to be proud of, too many and too maudlin to write here. It sometimes took my friends to point that out to me. You always welcomed my friends and many of them loved you too.

And I admired your sense of balance between practicality and frivolity. You were a saver of string, elastic bands, paper clips and plastic bags. When, in your 60s, you received an inheritance that would allow you some luxury for the rest of your life, you went out and bought an electric frying pan and a small crystal chandelier. I liked that a lot.

And last of all, I want you to know that I love you and I miss you. We had our differences and it took years to work through “the stuff”.  When we finally realized that we were both going in the same direction but coming at it from different angles, neither one completely right, neither one completely wrong, we got along better. I miss our long conversations about life in general, our animated discussions about books or politics or how to fix the world, and our shared joys in your grandchildren. You worried about me – a lot –but when you realized I was all grown up and amazingly enough, doing okay, we became friends, really good friends. And who could ask for more than that?

Shameless Promotion

Just a reminder to anyone interested in writing, refining, and submitting personal essays – I’m teaching a course called Our Stories: Personal Essays with Public Appeal at the Alexandra Writers’ Centre in Calgary on Thursday evenings (7:00 – 9:00) beginning on April 26^th.

It’s an 8 week course that will help participants take an idea from being a reflection or snippet, to a piece of writing with much broader appeal. Classes are small, there is lots of time for questions and discussion, and you’ll meet new friends.

The course is geared to help new writers find a starting point and to inspire experienced writers to write their stories. In the class, we discuss how to connect with our readers, learn techniques that make our prose come alive and read and write various types of essays (and learn about their specific characteristics and purposes.) Writing is required and sharing is encouraged but not mandatory.

 If you are interested, please go to www.alexandrawriters.org for information on how to register or, if you have any questions, leave me a message and I will contact you.