Conrad Boyce is the editor and publisher of the Cosmos. He has a BA in English from the University of Alberta and a diploma in journalism from Grant Macewan Community College in Edmonton. He lived and worked in the Yukon and Vancouver Island before arriving in Ontario in 1995. Beyond these pages, he is the Artistic Director of OnStage Uxbridge, and the technical manager of the Uxbridge Music Hall.
Uh-oh, Part 2
If you read this column from time to time, you may remember that earlier this summer, I reached what some people call a “special” birthday. The big 6-0. At that time, I recounted how I had no fear of the milestone, and proceeded to tally all the marvellous things I was still capable of at my advanced age, and even made a list of some neat stuff I had at 60 that I hadn’t had at 50.
One thing I was proud of was that I still had a fairly decent command of the English language, written or spoken. I was no Shakespeare (who used a ridiculous number of words in the composition of his works, lending credence to the theory that the plays were written by a committee), but I could usually find a simile, metaphor or win a short spelling bee if I really had to.
However, in last week’s column I told of a seemingly innocent task - reading my grandson a bedtime story - which shook my confidence thoroughly. In the process of asking him some questions about the picture on the page, I drew a total blank on the word “slingshot”. Not exactly the most challenging word in the language, but it was gone. I concluded the column thusly:
“So what strange blank in my synapses stole the word from my memory banks at just the wrong time, when my grandson needed it? Just a fluke, I told myself, could happen to anyone. Nothing to worry about. Not until another part of my mind went AWOL a couple of days later. But that, as they say, is another story.”
So here’s the other story.
Only a couple of days after the “slingshot” trauma, my wife went off for a “girl’s weekend” at her sister’s Muskoka cottage, leaving me alone for a couple of days with my canine companion, Lacey. I decided that in the interests of some concentrated exercise, she and I should take a stroll along some of Uxbridge’s vaunted country trails. So off we went in the Cosmobile down the Seventh Concession to the Walker Woods, an area which Lacey and I often explored in her younger days, but hadn’t visited for a few months now. We were surprised to find some snow near the parking lot, but the day itself was getting warm, so I only took a couple of layers. More than I would need, as things transpired.
My plan was to head west toward the far side of the tract, go south for a while, then double back east to the Seventh and north to the van. Maybe a half hour or so, forty minutes if I dawdled taking pictures. I didn’t take a map; there were plenty of trail markers with rough maps on them, and besides, I remembered these trails well enough to make the few necessary turn choices at the right time. Right?
Well, I suppose you can see where this is heading. Which is obviously more than I was capable of on that particular afternoon. Shortly after Lacey and I encountered a nice young couple with a black lab and confidently gave them directions back to the parking lot, I made a wrong turn. I chose a leafy path which led me seriously astray, rather than the proper one which would have taken me home for a nap.
By now, we were deep in the woods where, even though the trees were mostly deciduous and bare of leaves, they were thick and tall enough that you couldn’t really see the sun. Not that I was looking for it, though, since I was still blissfully unaware that I was taking us the wrong way. Lacey, I’m sure, knew we were off course, but she wasn’t about to tell me. She loves walks, the longer the better.
Well, this walk would prove a little long even for her. Eventually it started to sink in that we should have gotten back to the Seventh by now, and there wasn’t a trail marker in sight. Finally we encountered a small group of elderly hikers (i.e. even older than me) and I boldly asked how far we were from the nearest trail marker. Not far, they assured me, and a few minutes later, there it was - #16, which I had never seen in my life before, and which was several leagues south of where I’d intended to go - so far, in fact, that I wasn’t even in the Walker Woods any more, I’d migrated to the Glen Major tract!
To make a long afternoon short, we eventually emerged from the woods only a stone’s throw from Skyloft, and headed straight back to the car park along the gravelly Seventh. By the time we arrived, I was down to a t-shirt - in mid-November! - and Lacey was panting like a racehorse and paw-sore from the gravel. A half-hour stroll had turned into a two-hour march, and my reputation as having an unerring sense of direction was soiled forever.
First the lost word, now just plain lost. Getting old stinks. But at least I know that if I’d been stuck in the woods much longer, I’d have been able to kill my own food... with my slingshot.
