This past weekend I headed to Paisley with Rob as his grandmother had passed away. Turns out that they knew this may be coming at some point so the family had a great opportunity to see her the week before which is probably the best thing that can happen, I suppose.
Grandma Beech was a kind woman who always liked a good laugh. She shared Grandpa Earl’s love for playing cards. I had met Rob’s grandparents on a trip to Marmora one Thanksgiving weekend were we toured around in a camper. It was quite the fun time although I paid for it on the Sunday after a Hallowe’en party gone wrong. Hey, in fact, they had a picture of that weekend up in the funeral home now that I think of it. I should try and get a copy of that picture. Grandma Beech always had a good time wherever she was. The last time I saw her was at Rob’s and she tried out the Nintendo Wii Fit game where she proceeded to have us in hysterics while she tried out the hula-hoop game.
We decided to head out on Wednesday night and it was good night of driving. The most exciting part of our trip happened around Oshawa when the fuel light came on and from my vantage point, I thought we had awhile to go. We ended up on the other side of the 400 HWY and were still goading each other as to how much gas we could suck out of the tank! I felt like we were Kramer trying to run the car to the point of no return! In the end, we found a gas station, filled up and I proceeded to look in the car manual to discover that we still had six litres of fuel to go! We could have definitely made it places with that amount!
After the gas station, we were hitting the open roads of the Georgian Bay area where it’s a criss cross of roads linking farmlands together. We stopped into McDonalds in Orangeville around midnight to fuel our hunger. A random employee commented to us about how it would be real sunny the next morning. We thanked her for the information and kept on trucking.
About ten kilometers away from Paisley, we came up over a hill and Rob yelled out and I l
ooked up and there were not one, not two, not three, but FOUR deer in our path! Rob slammed on the brakes and miraculously we didn’t even touch a deer, but cruised on by them all as they looked at us. Rob said his grandmother must have been looking out for us.
The next day we awoke and it was a beautiful day out. The snow was pretty well gone and so we picked up some drinks and headed to his grandmother’s house where we washed all the vehicles. The rest of the day was spent visiting people and having a grand time and by night’s end, we were out in Cargill at Rob’s brother Kevin’s place and I recall us trying to feed some rye to a fly as well as me trying to tune an electric guitar with an amp that had a horrible buzzing sound to it. I finally retired for the night while the party kept going. I was probably the wiser of us all as there was no rest for the wicked the next morning and we had things to do.
We headed back into town and managed to get our suits ready and I even got a great haircut from Rob’s mom. We headed to the funeral home and I paid my respects for awhile and then I headed back home once a crowd started to gather to pay their respects. Rob’s mom was trying to trade me in for one of her sons so they could have a break from saying hello to the hundreds of people who showed up for Grandma Beech’s wake!
The next day the funeral was held which was quite lovely. There were a few tunes played by a fiddle player. Some great stories were told and the lunch afterwards was good as well. We headed to the Legion later on for a few drinks where I read this interesting story of a resident of Paisley who was in the World War and how the soldiers had ‘rum rations’ every day and he loved being next to the guy who didn’t drink so he could get a double shot to keep him warm during the night.
We woke up around 4AM the next morning to hit the road and get back as Rob had some things to attend to back in Ottawa. Quite the whirlwind weekend!
iplaying: Too Little Too Late – Metric (Live It Out)