Sunday, January 3, 2010

Memories of Francois Lake

When we lived in B.C., I spent 5 years working at a school called "Grassy Plains Elem-Sec School." It's a school, ranching community, and First Nations region on the other side of an enormous lake we lived near: Francois Lake. Everyday, I caught the 06:35 ferry in the morning, and I tried for the 3:20 in the afternoon. It was a little bigger than the Phomn Penh ferry below.
While waiting for delayed sailings, I would nap, mark papers, talk with locals, or do sudokus. But, unlike the guy below, I never did my laundry.

It took a while to be completely 'accepted' as a local by the deck crew. But I knew I was 'in' after I came speeding around the corner on two wheels in my nearly daily bid to catch the 3:20. The crew recognized me, hailed the captain to reverse back to the ramp, dropped the loading gate, and then parked me side-ways, under the overhanging logs of two fully loaded logging trucks. They draped the safety-chains tightly against the rusting paint on my 1980 Subaru, and away we went.
Nina, Eva, Alice, Susan: have you ever been parked outside of the chains on the loading gate?

Our taxi, another car, several mopeds with trailers, and a half dozen pedestrians are all parked on the loading gate, suspended over the river by two corroded, braided steel cables. And I thought Grassy was hick.

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