When Wally Smith was 80 years old, he told me that he had more friends that were dead than those who were alive. It was two years later and he too was dead.

Wally was a teetotaler, his dad, my grandpa, liked his rum. They both died at the age of 82. I am 67, if I die at the age of 82, that gives me 15 good years to make a nuisance of myself !

For three of the five years that I was employed for the City of Edmonton, I had a co-worker who was old school. He liked the harsh chemicals which always produced good cleaning results.

He retired two years ago. The City of Edmonton has now removed all the harsh chemicals and the new environmental friendly chemicals don’t work as well. It is good that my friend retired when he did, for he would be sorely disappointed.

On April 3 my former co-worker died of a heart attack, two years into his retirement and he is gone. When I am 80, what am I going to say about the state of my friends?

My friends began dying when I was 18. Beverly Tasker was the first. She was married on my birthday and died six months later. I saw her for the last time at the funeral home. I am glad I went, she looked so peaceful lying in her coffin.

The Tasker farm was across the highway from the Smith farm. I had three sisters and no brothers. Boys always scared me so I gravitated towards girl playmates. My sisters were all too old for me. Bev was around my age so she was my choice for a friend.

Bev wouldn’t play in the creek and I wouldn’t play with dolls, but we found that hide and seek in the basement was fun and so was hiding outside in the tall grass or a leafy tree.

The sand hill behind the Tasker farm provided hours of fun too. The irrigation ditch went along under the hill at that point so we didn’t have to watch for that peril during the games that we played.

We climbed to the top of the sand hill, then ran down a few steps and leaped out landing on both feet which pushed out the sand and made a large divot in the hillside. Then we would do it again and again until we reached the bottom of the hill.

If we chose to explore the neighboring alluvial fan, we had to watch for cactus clumps. On occasion we would brush past a clump and get three or four cactus’ on our clothing or on our shoes. Picking them off was always a challenge to not get poked by the spines.

When we had our dogs with us, we always had to spend time getting the cactus’ out of the dogs’ paws which seemed to happen every time they came with us. You would hear a yelp as the dog encountered a cactus. We would go over and see the dog trying to extract the cactus with it’s mouth and sometimes the spines stuck in it’s tongue or in it’s lips.

Wally or Bev’s dad Len, would have to use the pliers to pull out the spines from the dog’s mouth. Veterinarians were unheard of at that time, any animal care had to be done by the owner.

When Bev and I had bikes we rode up and down the driveway, but Mr Tasker wouldn’t allow Bev to ride on the highway. The driveway eventually became boring so that ended that.

There was a rental house south of Taskers called the Brownjohns House. The adults who lived there frequently had sons my age. Those boys didn’t scare me and became my friends until they moved away. Over the years I’ve lost touch with them all. Now that I’m older all I have is the memories.

That is the same way it is with Bev, all that remains are the memories.I have found a way to create new memories and that is by involving myself in the lives of others, to enable them to enrich themselves. I think that is the key to the future.

I’ve spent most of my life pursuing my interests, I’ll spend the rest of my life giving back to others.

ruralreportwithlairdsmith@gmail.com