and if ya don’t know…
Leaves are green. Air is warm. It’s fall in California which means everything looks the same except the calendar reads October.
Growing up in Toronto, fall is school starting, new erasers, classrooms with the alphabet lining the walls, treetops turning yellow, orange and red, raking, grey skies, marveling at summer growth spurts, rosy cheeks, pristine running shoes, crushes on boys you didn’t notice the year before, the scent of rotting leaves…and if you’re in elementary school, a trip to Black Creek Pioneer Village.
I looked at the map on the website this morning and realized that the village is a lot closer to where I grew up than I remember. Field trip bus rides always seemed like an aching eternity. The anticipation drew out the minutes. I’d sit against the green leatherette seat, straining to peer over at the kid in front of me. Our heads and our bodies bobbed and swayed in unison with the changing potholed terrain. We left the 1980s behind and made our way to the 1880s.
The pioneer women wore bonnets and big skirts with white aprons. They walked around in stockings and black orthopedic shoes. During business hours, they “lived” in real houses built the 1800s. They would bake bread, churn butter, dip candles and sew. After hours, they would tug blue jeans over their legs and slip into their cotton-polyester sweatshirts and drive home. Looking at the map again, they might have been my neighbors. But during my visit, they were my teachers for a day.
I remember dipping strings in tallow to make candles. They tied strings which would later become wicks onto a stick and dipped them into a big pot of filtered animal fat. After you dipped the candles, you’d lay the sticks between two chairs so they could harden. Then, repeat, being careful not to leave the candle in the tallow too long or else the heat would melt the previously coated tallow right off. I’m sure these chaste ladies never used the tallow in the bedroom.
I remember learning the varied uses for strips of fabric. They loved to make mats with them. Two kinds. For one, they took burlap sacks and used hooks to loop the strips in with both ends of the fabric on one side. That side would end up resembling shag carpeting or a Muppet’s head while the other looked like cobblestone. I remember learning to use a loom there. They made woven mats by tying longer strips of fabric end to end, like an escape rope from a cartoon prison movie. It was then wrapped around a wooden shuttle which dove back and forth between the alternating strings tied to the frame of the loom. It was like playing inside a grand piano.
Other memories from this field trip are fuzzy but I do recall walking on a dirt bath next to a field where I saw a pitchfork. Why I retained the image of the pitchfork, I can only psychoanalyze. Imagine what Freud would say. I remember the stone walls of the buildings. I remember eating a deliciously anachronistic ice cream sandwich. It probably cost me a penny.
Most interesting in my rolodex of memories is what is not available. I don’t remember the year in school I was. I don’t remember the teacher who accompanied us. I don’t remember the other students. I don’t remember being conscious of my race. I was a girl, wandering around in history, my history. I lose myself often because there are no mirrors on the streets of foundation, of inception, of origin. Maybe I pass a shop window or a reflection in the water trough in which I catch a glimpse of my oddity. Otherwise, how would I know I didn’t belong? Chinese in colonial Canada? The round “pioneer” women didn’t treat me any differently when, if truly in character, they should have treated me like a prostitute, purveyor of sexual deviance and cholera. I should have been tarred and feathered (a practice that still horrifies me) but instead I ate freshly baked bread and ran my hands over antique furniture with the rest of children.
The things I remember pop into my head and lull me into daydreams. They serve little purpose other than to pad my longing for vacations and what were once new and fascinating experiences. The things I don’t remember incite debate, introspection, investigation. So, to twist a hip hop phrase, if I didn’t know, now I know.
Growing up in Toronto, fall is school starting, new erasers, classrooms with the alphabet lining the walls, treetops turning yellow, orange and red, raking, grey skies, marveling at summer growth spurts, rosy cheeks, pristine running shoes, crushes on boys you didn’t notice the year before, the scent of rotting leaves…and if you’re in elementary school, a trip to Black Creek Pioneer Village.
I looked at the map on the website this morning and realized that the village is a lot closer to where I grew up than I remember. Field trip bus rides always seemed like an aching eternity. The anticipation drew out the minutes. I’d sit against the green leatherette seat, straining to peer over at the kid in front of me. Our heads and our bodies bobbed and swayed in unison with the changing potholed terrain. We left the 1980s behind and made our way to the 1880s.
The pioneer women wore bonnets and big skirts with white aprons. They walked around in stockings and black orthopedic shoes. During business hours, they “lived” in real houses built the 1800s. They would bake bread, churn butter, dip candles and sew. After hours, they would tug blue jeans over their legs and slip into their cotton-polyester sweatshirts and drive home. Looking at the map again, they might have been my neighbors. But during my visit, they were my teachers for a day.
I remember dipping strings in tallow to make candles. They tied strings which would later become wicks onto a stick and dipped them into a big pot of filtered animal fat. After you dipped the candles, you’d lay the sticks between two chairs so they could harden. Then, repeat, being careful not to leave the candle in the tallow too long or else the heat would melt the previously coated tallow right off. I’m sure these chaste ladies never used the tallow in the bedroom.
I remember learning the varied uses for strips of fabric. They loved to make mats with them. Two kinds. For one, they took burlap sacks and used hooks to loop the strips in with both ends of the fabric on one side. That side would end up resembling shag carpeting or a Muppet’s head while the other looked like cobblestone. I remember learning to use a loom there. They made woven mats by tying longer strips of fabric end to end, like an escape rope from a cartoon prison movie. It was then wrapped around a wooden shuttle which dove back and forth between the alternating strings tied to the frame of the loom. It was like playing inside a grand piano.
Other memories from this field trip are fuzzy but I do recall walking on a dirt bath next to a field where I saw a pitchfork. Why I retained the image of the pitchfork, I can only psychoanalyze. Imagine what Freud would say. I remember the stone walls of the buildings. I remember eating a deliciously anachronistic ice cream sandwich. It probably cost me a penny.
Most interesting in my rolodex of memories is what is not available. I don’t remember the year in school I was. I don’t remember the teacher who accompanied us. I don’t remember the other students. I don’t remember being conscious of my race. I was a girl, wandering around in history, my history. I lose myself often because there are no mirrors on the streets of foundation, of inception, of origin. Maybe I pass a shop window or a reflection in the water trough in which I catch a glimpse of my oddity. Otherwise, how would I know I didn’t belong? Chinese in colonial Canada? The round “pioneer” women didn’t treat me any differently when, if truly in character, they should have treated me like a prostitute, purveyor of sexual deviance and cholera. I should have been tarred and feathered (a practice that still horrifies me) but instead I ate freshly baked bread and ran my hands over antique furniture with the rest of children.
The things I remember pop into my head and lull me into daydreams. They serve little purpose other than to pad my longing for vacations and what were once new and fascinating experiences. The things I don’t remember incite debate, introspection, investigation. So, to twist a hip hop phrase, if I didn’t know, now I know.
posted by Katie at 2:47 PM
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