Our purpose in going to Brockville on this trip was to attend the celebration of life of my late cousin Ernie Neufeld who died this year after falling down the stairs in his home. But before we got there we had a problem. Steinbach was in the news on account of overland flooding as a result of extensive rains. We were worried that our house might have been flooded so we called our neighbour Anne who had our key. She said water was very high in our backyard and hers so she had gone to check on our basement and found we had a big problem!  But it wasn’t what we thought. Our basement was dry. But it was stinky. It turned out that our freezer had been accidentally unplugged and all the meat inside it was thawed out and rotten. Stinky rotten. And we are on the first leg of a 5-week trip across eastern Canada more than a thousand miles away. That was my big problem. I had accidentally unplugged it when I was checking things out the day before we left. My bad. My very bad.  We were lucky to have the nicest neighbour in the world. She and her granddaughter cleaned it out for us! That is carrying neighbourliness to a very high level!

As I said, when we were in Brockville Ontario we attended the celebration of life of my cousin Ernie Neufeld.  It was held at the yacht club in the harbour in the centre of town near these buildings.

 

When I was growing up, Ernie was my closest cousin so I wanted to pay my respects and celebrate his life. It was a life well worth celebrating.

Ernie was 2 years older than I and much more sophisticated. After all, he lived in the Big Smoke—Winnipeg. So, he was the teacher; I was the student. He always willingly and happily taught me what I, as a rube, needed to know. For example, he taught me how to smoke. He also taught me that girls liked to kiss, though it took me a few years to find that out. After all he was 2 years older and much more advanced than I was.

Since there were many of his air force and Air Canada buddies at the celebration, I chose to speak  about his first flight which I had witnessed.  I thought this would be an appropriate topic because Ernie became a pilot when he joined the Canadian Air Force in Greenwood Nova Scotia where he met an elegant, and an exotic, young beauty, Margie, who became his bride. I was mesmerized. Then if that was not exciting enough, he moved from the Air force to Air Canada, because he wanted to get away from the military bureaucracy, but found that the one at Air Canada was even worse.  I learned this from one of his friends who also spoke. My  most exciting experience with Ernie was his first flight which I witnessed as a young lad. Ernie was also a young lad.

At the time I was visiting  in Winnipeg, as I did at least once a year. He and his mother lived with our Oma. Oma was fantastic!  She loved western movies. At least so we thought, for she took both us downtown by bus to see them. What a great Oma.

But getting back to his first flight.  I’m meandering again. One time, we went bicycle riding to Monkey’s Speedway in Winnipeg. This was a series of pretty large hills in Winnipeg near what later became Polo Park, and right beside the Assiniboine River.  The area was undeveloped at that time. So boys took it over, much like homeless people would today. Boys turned it into a park for riding bikes. The object of our endeavors was to drive to the top of a hill on our bikes and then down at incredible speeds. I could not believe how fast we rode. One of those hills had a smaller hill at the bottom. As we careened down, and after we hit that small hill,  we literally flew into the air as if on a ski jump. It was stunningly exciting.  But on one jaunt, Ernie flew so high into the air that “he slipped the surly bonds of earth,” and when he landed back on terra firma, he broke his arm when he crashed at the bottom.  His first flight ended in a crash. We had to call 999 [now 911] for help to rush him to the hospital. The police came first and they took us both to the General Hospital (now the Health Sciences Centre) where his broken arm was treated and put in cast.  It was all very exciting. But not too much fun for Ernie.

A friend of Ernie’s read this poem that apparently is often read at the death of air force pilots:

 

High Flight

By Jon Gillespie Magee Jr.

Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of Earth

And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;

Sunward I’ve climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth

of sun-split clouds,—and done a hundred things

You have not dreamed of—wheeled and soared and swung

High in the sunlit silence. Hov’ring there,

I’ve chased the shouting wind along, and flung

My eager craft through footless halls of air ….

Up, up the long, delirious, burning blue

I’ve topped the wind-swept heights with easy grace

Where never lark, or even eagle flew—

And, while with silent lifting mind I’ve trod

The high untrespassed sanctity of space,

Put out my hand, and touched the face of God.

That was the day that Ernie first slipped the surly bonds of earth. I don’t know if he also touched the face of God but I hope so.