The robin, the blue jay and Monsieur Benoit

It wasn’t so much as spotting the robin this morning; it was the screech of the blue jays that whet the appetite to write. I’m not sure how to spell the sound the blue jays make when they get excited; you know, the scream of alarm outing predators nearby. The blue jay call can easily mimic the sound of a turning pulley in need of a shot of oil. There it was, the pulley image flashback: thoughts tumbled down the stairs from the memory attic; a slide show of old photos archived in my imagination flashed descriptions of the neighbourhood backyards of my youth.

You see, some places have clock towers, a bell in a steeple, a lit-up billboard announcing time or day. My old hood in east end Ottawa had clotheslines: not only clotheslines but the pulleys that accompanied them. On any given Wednesday morning for example, a chorus of blue jay-like ‘skrealls’ would herald the ceremony of the unfolding bed sheets, the waving of socks and underwear as if flags of surrender. Somehow ritual had designated Wednesday to be washday. But no one seemed to get the part about pulleys needing oil every so often. I shouldn’t be critical because maybe oil was scarce, a luxury to be used only on bicycle chains, lawn mowers and in car engines.

Now that I think of it, the bugle call of the squeaky wheel was also heard midday if rain was on its way. The cottons and linens were recalled off that line faster than a thoroughbred race. I’d scan over hedges and fences to see Mrs. Lefevre or Mrs. Quinn or Ms. Thibodeau, wooden clothes pegs stuffed in their mouths for temporary storage, shepherding socks off the line as if the socks themselves were on the run to jump into overloaded wicker hampers. Undaunted, the Wednesday wash would be soon paraded back out there when the rains had quit and hope of sunshine was near. I’m surprised that there were no choking incidents considering the hazard of the clothes pegs; none that I can recall that is.

Like every other neighbourhood there were the odd non-conformists that would put out a small wash on non-Wednesdays and take it in around midnight two days later. I’m still not able to guess at that one. The subject of the Wednesday routine is something I’ll bring up in my next therapy session. While being a subtle childhood experience it might be worth looking into as I don’t recall any joy coming off the forty-foot lines that began at a raised stoop on a back veranda and that straddled the yards eventually to terminate on a post hidden in the grove of lilacs somewhere back there.

Okay, it’s all coming together now as I’m seeing the comparison of the clothesline to the ski lift at the Batawa hills and perhaps why, while my son navigates the hills, I can stand there for hours in wonderment of the invention of the seemingly endless line. But the regularity of the wash routine, outside of Sunday mass or Saturday shopping, conjures another picket in the fence of recall, that of Monsieur Benoit’s chip truck on a Friday at supper time. I figure that M. Benoit, an obvious good Catholic was picking up on the entrepreneurship of the pope who decreed that “ye shall eat fish on Friday”. I later discovered it was not so much the fish, it was about fasting in terms of eating meat.

I think I was in Grade Five when I looked into the business of fish and discovered that as long as it was an aquatic cold blooded species, you could eat it on Fridays. Hence, proud of my findings I stood in front of biology class to report that you can eat frogs or alligator, hippopotamus and beaver and not break the rules. I also believe it was around that time when my folks agreed with Sister Nancy, my holy nun teacher, that it was time for me to be transferred to the public school system that had a more liberal approach when it came to sharing research findings.

So, while Monsieur Benoit did tour the neighbourhood on odd days, he knew that hitting up the Catholic streets at dinner time on Fridays, especially on cold winter days that were already dark, would add to his retirement program. I can still see his moustached grin out-glowing the steamed windows of his truck, his rosary swinging from the rear view mirror as he set out the salt and vinegar.

The truck didn’t need to be painted red and blue to know he was coming; old Benoit would slowly navigate the streets, crowded in by snow banks and as if he was the Pied Piper himself, the greasy scent of deep fried potato chips perfumed the air and spread the word to the masses. No matter what practice or religion, big and small folks lighted from front porches and back laneways and as I’m thinking back, ‘M. Benoit Patates Frites’ truck would’ve out-drawn the Popemobile. After filling my mother’s cobalt blue, giant size bowl with frites for two bucks I never got around to confessing to the priest on Tuesdays about the fries that went missing while in transit, before, that is, the bowl landed on our kitchen table to complete a dinner of cod and peas.