Mitchell Way
It used to be that when I was young, strong, and had hair, just walking in front of a group of women would make them stare. Now when the women stare it is usually because something is wrong. I’m not saying that I look bad in a swimsuit but last year while walking on the beach in Cancun the women secretly dressed me with their eyes. It’s because I have fashion blindness.
At Bellingham High School, the stereotypical gender pathway in the 70s was always the same; enter the school through the main doors, pass the main office following the hallway down between the auditorium and counselor’s offices. Upon reaching the next crossing hallway, the girls turn left walking north. The guys turn right or continue straight out the east end of the building. The girls were going to Home Economics and the boys to Industrial Arts.
Elwood K. Wayson was a man of the woods. He was a hunter, trapper, and fisherman. He was a spar tree setter for logging camps and later a lineman for the local power company. Elwood lived in a small house behind mine when I was growing up. Since I had no living grandfather, I adopted him to be mine.
Saturday, June 4th, 1988. Just another typical weekend morning for me. I was reclined in my lounge chair in front of the TV, sipping a cup of coffee and watching Garfield and Friends. These were the Saturdays I enjoyed. Totally relaxed, no socks on, not a care in the world.
I was an eleven-year-old in sixth grade All City band. It was two hours each Saturday that the family would not have to listen to me practice my trombone. There is only so much a parent can do to encourage a child. After that, they play a game called, “Hide the Slide.”
It was a panoramic view which I am sure most people have never witnessed. The whole of Abbotsford, B.C. and further up the Fraser Valley to Harrison Lake, south to Bellingham, Washington and west to the San Juan Islands. There I sat in the morning sun; the wind was at my back — about 80 miles per hour of wind.
In a small cabin at the Fisherman’s Cove Resort on Curlew Lake, eight men prepared for a week of deer hunting on Vulcan Mountain. This was the opening weekend. This was the final weekend of the World Series and this was the year we witnessed “The Phantom.”
“I once sucked down a whole can of sardines — heads, guts and all, while only taking one breath.”
“Ok,’ I said. ‘You’re a liar.”
My friend Rex removed a can of sardines from his backpack, peeled back the lid, took one deep breath, and proceeded to slurp down the whole can — head, guts, and all.
The slush pump, or more commonly known as the slide trombone. The instrument which has mystified children since the day it was created — “Mommy, where does that tube go when he slides it back and forth. Into his mouth?”
The instrument which mystified me for over 50 years — “Cripes, where do I position the slide so I don’t make the sound of a bellowing cow?”
It started as any of our other hunting trips — with high hopes and low expectations. Sturgis Fenton and I were going to spend three days hunting the hills of northeast Washington.
It was not unusual for mysterious events to take place around the Mitchell neighborhood in the 1970s. It appeared, to the untrained eye, to be just another group of normal homes with average families, but this was far from the case.
Poof! A chalk eraser ricocheted off the top of my head. Chalk dust settled in a cloud around my desk.
“I told you, Mitchell! I told the class that if I caught anyone looking at their keyboard, I would wing an eraser at them. There you were staring at your fingers.”
The rest of the class, afraid to look up from the test cards in front of them, nevertheless, giggled. It was after all, a timed typing test so every word counted.
It was a time in life that every boy either looked forward to or shuddered to think he must be a part of. It was a freshman class in high school that every boy had to participate in to graduate. It was a required class, and girls were not allowed. They called it Boys’ Health and, Sex Ed.
“Just another ripple on my lake of irritation,” I can almost hear custodian Luke muttering this as he hiked up the stairs to the third floor at Bellingham High School. For some reason the drinking fountain was plugged.
Ho, Ho, No! You ain’t getting me into that thing! And with that, Santa left his sleigh and drove off in his car.
Dad and I stared at each other. “Huh,” he said. “I guess we go with plan B.”
It was the yearly tradition of The Santa flights.