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The Car Show, A shelf, The Variety Show, And a late concert blaring through a closed window all the way from rail town…

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Written by: Rod Boyle

Category: Blog

Published: 08 September 2024

Hits: 90

Morning, the car show, I’m up-and-at-em by 8:00 AM, need cigarettes, groceries, walking down Baker, the street - from one end to the other, and a good many of the side streets, are filled with vintage trucks, roadsters, hot-rods, even a few new cars. I've seen it but never really stopped to take it in, work always interfered. This car show, it’s a community thing, all the vehicle owners have set up around their car, camping chairs, coolers, coffee's, the cars, gleaming with bright paint and wax, every owner eager to talk about their pride-and-joy, this is a boon for business, millions of dollars in a couple of days, collectors plates from Idaho, Montana, Washington, Ontario, further even, the shops, cafe’s, hotels all full, streets full of shoppers.

I get my groceries, cigarettes, head home again, eat breakfast, finish cleaning the bathroom, then make lunch.

Then to the thrift shop where I find an appalling shelf, all function, no style, white veneered particle board, but I need one, my art supplies spread out over the living room floor in a 10 foot radius from my chair have grown to be a bit much, the place, once again, is a mess. After lunch I clean it up. And breathe a sigh of relief. The shelf's ugliness is largely concealed by the abundance of supplies I’ve heaped it with, watercolours, gouache, oil pastels, pen, ink, mixed media - paper, maps, passports, foreign currency, envelopes, acrylic, oils, mediums, stamps: duty-paid, postage, lottery tickets, etc, etc.

This done it's time now to read my book - Hiroshima by John Hersey. An assignment by my daughter who’s English course relies on an intelligent interpretation of and essay on said material. This reading merely so we can have an intelligent conversation upon the subject.

After which it's time for a shower, shave, and the Variety Show at the Capital…

Not the show I'd hoped for, but what I'd expected. You recognize everyone from the community, the banker, the MC, another person of finance, an actress, too many others to list. these are the people in your neighbourhood, and most of them in one way or another are in the theatre…

The lobby filled with snacks, everyone saying ‘If I knew I wouldn’t have eaten dinner”, there are salad rolls, chips & salsa, bean dip, guacamole, peanut sauce, a charcuterie of sorts, sausage, smoked meat, cheese, lots of food. I didn’t eat dinner and so make free on the buffet.

Milling and hob-nobbing, meet the authors, B.B is there, needs a drink, is short on cash having just published her second volume of poetry. And R&A are there, 85+ years old, neighbours from the old Beggs Road Vacation house, and R has a new book out, reminisces of the old life in the valley, these are the pioneers, the people that made this place great, in the 70’s with all their free-love, draft-dodging stick-it-to-the man communes & pot-growing, the old timers, and T.W. as well has a new book of poetry out…

Just keeping up with reading the local authors is a chore…

The variety show, a good natured promotion for the upcoming next season, the Xmas Panto, coming musical, theatrical, comedy, the summer youth camps that see every local youth indoctrinated into the world of Drama, as small towns go this is the town.

Then home, there's a concert in rail town, old-style rock&roll, “BC-DC”, 500 people according to a neighbour who went, loud, in tune with the largely out-of-town car show audience, through closed windows I can still here it blaring, and when it wraps up at 11:00 it's time for bed.