Freedom of Movement

They never spoke of Minnesota or the folks they left behind. It must have been excruciating to be forced to leave everything they’d ever known with no hope of return, and a community to which they no longer existed. Out of necessity a new life was constructed, among fellow Mennonites, still apart from the greater world. If Ma placed any blame on Pa for their predicament, we children were none the wiser.

Canada Day

Certain neighbourhood traditions no one can explain other than to say they keep repeating themselves. The inhabitants of five houses near Beach and Wharncliffe enjoyed one another’s company enough, a shade of curiosity perhaps, that their lives intermingled four or five times a year. If most of these families lived as much as a mile apart they would have nothing to do with one another, but they were close neighbours and their proximity to one another, over the years, had manufactured a bond of friendship that appeared indestructible. It wasn’t, of course. The Browns, occupying a sixth house for years, had moved a few miles up the highway two years earlier and no one had heard from them since.

Winter Shuffle

He looked at the movie poster in the window beside the unused ticket seller’s booth. It was from the 1945 film noir, Edgar Ulmer’s “Detour”, a good, creepy film as he remembered, starring Tom Neal and the deliciously-named Ann Savage.