Remembrance

Can’t remember when being with Uncle Richard formed into memories. I’ve seen black and white pictures of him when he stayed at my parents’ apartment. Don’t remember the dates marked on the pictures or if there were any. I was probably born; maybe not.

I should start somewhere…as far back as possible. First memory…tough one—vague memories of an apartment building on Montreal Street that I never went in, a bit farther down the hill and across the street from the synagogue. A couple of churches a bit farther down, all of them were walking distance from Uncle Richard’s place. Even the stinking factory where he worked, Ingersoll Rand, wasn’t too much farther. There was only one other factory that stunk worse and made me want to vomit more.

Maybe it wasn’t so bad. Don’t know what Uncle Richard did there; maybe he got to make things, manufacture something…

Uncle Richard made all sorts of stuff.

I don’t remember when my sister got the telescope he made for her, maybe on her birthday, maybe not. She remembers.

And then there’s the stereo. When we moved into our extra-big house there was the ‘music room’. That’s where the Heathkit stereo was (and a piano that nobody wanted to play). The Heathkit was the top-of-the-line; Uncle Richard figured it out, soldered all the wires, put it all together for us.

What Uncle Richard made for me was better than the stereo. A small black box, not quite as tall but a little thicker than a paperback; bulky, hard plastic, sturdy, with small flathead screws holding the top panel in place, keeping the speaker snug. There was a little sliding on-off switch and a nice bright white push button. Everything was indicated, he made it for me, for my bike, with white lettering: ‘POLICE SIREN’. There was nothing like it.

When I first went to use it I tried to stay calm. I turned on the main switch, got ready. And then I saw them on the sidewalk. I pushed off and started pedalling; my thumb was shaking a little as it hovered over the big white police siren button. I got close, held off, waited…then I pushed the big white button. Billy, Mark, Moliner and even Westman jumped. I was grinning so hard I kept my thumb jammed against the button. The sound got louder and louder, the bike started to wiggle. I had to really grip the handlebars, forcing me to take my thumb off the big white button of the Police Siren. The sound went down gradually just like a real siren. And then I remembered Uncle Richard had explained how to use it, how not to hold the button on too long, release it, let it go, wait, then get it to wail again, ‘make the sound go up again like another music note’.

Billy, Mark, Moliner—and even Westman—came racing over. They all wanted to see it. I calmed them down and explained how to use it. Nobody had anything like it, never seen anything like it.

Sometimes in the summer evenings, Uncle Richard would pick me up, or my and brother, maybe my sister, and take us to his garden on the edge of town. It was a community garden, I guess, or maybe everybody rented a square of land. It was nice to head out there with him, getting out of the house, going somewhere. It was fun to ride in the square little Renault 8, listening to the little engine, watching him change gears and turn the bus-sized steering wheel.

Just a bit before where we were going I would keep my eyes peeled for the mini-golf. Sometimes he would take me. That was weekends usually, after going to the garden. We never stopped when we went to the garden in the evening. I still kept my eyes peeled and couldn’t help telling him when I saw it. But I never asked him to stop. One time we went in the evening; it got dark and we never made it to the garden.

Uncle Richard seemed at home with his hands in the dirt, showing me a nice big earthworm or pointing to where the toads might be. When my older brother would come they seemed to have more serious discussions. I would go exploring then look back seeing him bending over the plants, his funny dirty-white hat bobbing here and there even when the sun had pretty well gone down.

On some weekends he would sometimes play Frisbee with my brother and me, or we would take our gloves and the baseball bat out into the field to play ‘Flies and Grounders’ where a ‘Fly’ was worth 100 points and a ‘Grounder’ was only 50 even though it was lot tougher. Uncle Richard didn’t seem to care how he looked hitting the baseball or anything. He wasn’t the best at it and didn’t seem to care how many points he had even though he seemed to always know the score and tell me it was my turn to go to bat. Sometimes he hit the baseball pretty good.

A couple of times we made it to his apartment in Richmond; he taught music at the regional high school. As soon as we went in my brother turned on the TV to watch golf because he was a lot older than me. I don’t remember if Uncle Richard liked golf but he would take junk off the couch, lots of sheets of music, part of an apple. We would sit down and watch a bit with a sandwich and a bag of chips trying not to get any in the open trombone case.

Once at the cottage, Fairview Cottage on the lake, I sort of heard him play some trombone. I didn’t like it much and it seemed too complicated to get a basic note out of it. It looked neat though when he would slide it back and forth, even though Uncle Richard had funny shorts and sandals on.

I always wondered if that was what inspired my sister to make a poster of Uncle Richard. I still see it hanging on the wall in Fairview Cottage. I don’t remember if it was for his birthday. She drew a big neat cartoon, black ink on shiny glossed paper I think… It was Uncle Richard smirking with his usual goofy smile holding a plug in his hand that was the end of an electrical cord coming out his bum. It said ‘Tricky Dicky’. He seemed to like it. Maybe it inspired him.

The next morning he showed up at the tree-house with pieces of wood connected together with two bright yellow ropes, the kind we would use for the boat and if it slid in your hand it burned the skin off. The pieces were sanded wooden bars with holes drilled through them. I always wanted a rope ladder. You could pull it up after you. Nobody could get to the tree-house except for visiting birds and spiders.

But when Uncle Richard tried to go up he had a tough climb. It was free hanging so when he got on it was hard to go up straight. He made it up three or four or five rungs hanging backwards with his head aiming back and his legs far forward. But if he stayed on the same rung too long he seemed to slowly get closer to the ground. And it became harder to get to the next rung because everything was getting farther and farther apart. The rope kept stretching and stretching. I was disappointed it wasn’t working; getting worried Uncle Richard would fall but still holding back laughter.

He came down safely with a grin, sweating pretty hard, his hair even messier. With self-mocking  sarcasm he said, “I think we’ll have to modify it a bit.”

That afternoon we turned the TV on but couldn’t catch much. Uncle Richard went up the post and starting rotating the antenna. My brother and I intently watched the screen. We shouted to Uncle Richard when enough of the baseball game appeared. Sometimes you could almost see the baseball.

That night Uncle Richard connected the antenna to his big shortwave, tuning it in, adjusting the frequencies. And then we heard: “This is the BBC World Service. In Nigeria today the…”

My brother’s eyes lit up, “Nigeria! A world away…”

Uncle Richard chuckled, keeping his ear to the shortwave.

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At the end of that summer my parents had already started divorcing. We didn’t see Uncle Richard as much.

In late November I showed Mark McBean a still-favourite present that Uncle Richard had given me a few Christmases before: ‘101 Electronic Experiments all in 1’.

I told  McBean without thinking, “You can make all sorts of circuits—parallel or in series.”

He sneered at me, “I knew that—kid’s toy.”

I went along with him, “Yeah, I know. I don’t ‘play’ with it anymore.”

McBean saw the little black motor, “What’s this?”

“An electric motor—pretty cool, you connect it to the rheostat.” I set it up with a neat pattern on the motor shaft. “And this creates a kaleidoscope effect.”

I started it, slowly increasing the speed, looking wide-eyed at the effect of the spinning pattern, “The rheostat is like a variable resistor.”

McBean complains, “Puh, I like it when there’s real juice in it.”

I turned the motor off and acted tough, “Yeah, I wonder what it would do if I plugged it directly into the 110 coming out of the wall..?”

A sarcastic McBean asks, “How would you do that? You couldn’t do that.” He smirked, “I wouldn’t mind doing that.”

A few days later I was alone with the ‘101 electronic experiments all in 1’. I tried a mixed circuit—series and parallel. It didn’t seem to work. I tried re-wiring: nothing. I unscrewed a bulb; it was burned out, Uncle Richard had showed me with Christmas lights that if you looked closely enough “You can see where the filament is broken.”

I didn’t have any other bulbs and tried something else; it worked a little but the batteries were dying. I didn’t have any more and looked at the wall outlet. I remembered what I had told McBean and went to get an extension cord. Pulling open the female plug I slowly wound the little electric motor wire around the thick multi-stranded bare power cord. I held the little motor steady as on the counter top protecting it from falling. Carefully moving the far end of the long power cord towards the outlet; I took my hand away from the little motor.

I didn’t really want to plug it in. A big spark? A flame? It wouldn’t do that.

I went ahead, the little motor burnt out with barely a puff of smoke; I sadly put it back in the experiment kit feeling guilty and slowing blaming McBean.

A year or two later—it was early Spring, one morning I was going up the stairs at my school, Sherbrooke Elementary. As usual there were a lot of kids. Mr. Champoux-the-Principal was coming down the stairs talking with another man. I hugged the wall like I always did. It wasn’t until I was at the top of the stairs that my brain told me who the other man was. I rushed to the railing and stared down the stairs. They were already gone.

Class started as usual. We sat back down after finishing ‘God Save the Queen’. In those days I was still singing it a bit, mumbling really, getting dirty looks from Mrs. Rich.

Mr. Champoux politely knocked on the doorframe and came in with his friend. All of a sudden I was awake; it was Uncle Richard!

Mr.Champoux introduced Mr. Smith and announced that there will be a concert at 10:30 pm in the gym with “Mr. Smith and the Richmond Regional High School Band.”

Everybody clapped. I was in shock.

Uncle Richard nodded to all of us with his smile and they went on to the next classroom. Mrs. Rich told us to open our books; telling us what do. I kept staring through the doorway. All I could hear was Mr. Champoux knocking on the next doorframe.

Mrs. Rich yelled, “Stephen! Pay attention.”

I blurted out, “It’s Uncle Richard!”

 

A few months later we were in Uncle Richard’s little square Renault 8 heading down the 401 to visit my grandmother. He had invited us to come.

I hadn’t ridden in the little Renault for quite a while. In the back seat I moved the sliding window towards me. I always like those sliding windows—it was so simple. I looked up at the dangling hand strap and grabbed it. A semi went by and the Renault wobbled. Uncle Richard steadied it with the oversized steering wheel. My mother looked at him but nobody said anything. It started to rain harder.

We finally arrived at Granny’s—a nice little house, well kept. She argued with me about who had a longer driveway. I was still a kid so I didn’t know where she was going with that so I kept to the facts, “Our driveway is longer than yours.”

She insisted that I was wrong, turning away with a trace of a smile.

I had started noticing things a little more. Uncle Richard seemed to know her very well.

When I played with her cat, Siamese with eyes changing colour, always looking at you twice, Granny started playing with us. Apparently news went around that she was on her hands and knees playing with the cat. Apparently that was news.

As far as I know, we were all well received.

On the way back there was a bit more talking in the little blue Renault.

 

I have a vague idea that I was probably twelve or thirteen when I last saw him. It was cold, snow and ice. He visited us for ten or fifteen minutes, not much longer, he couldn’t; he had to keep his car going. After the first five minutes of tea and cookies at the kitchen table the conversation shifted to boring adult stuff.  I put my coat on, my mother told me “Hat and a scarf!”

As I went out the door I answered “I can’t find one.”

I was always excited about a new car, or at least a car I had never seen before. And Uncle Richard always had a small car; that was pretty innovative in thse days.

It was a green Toyota Corolla. Uncle Richard had it for a while but it was the first time I had seen it. It was idling away making a proper exhaust stream in the cold winter air. I paid close attention; Toyotas were pretty exotic in those days. I could see heads turning in all the passing cars on our busy street. Most of them seemed to be smirking and making fun of the little car, especially the ones with Delta 88s and Plymouth Furys and Buick LeSabres.

Then again, maybe they weren’t and it was just me.

I anxiously looked inside at the Toyota Corolla. It was an automatic! I looked at the t-shifter: ‘P R N D L’.   I looked down at the pedals: no clutch. The disappointment started to set in. I kept staring in frustration.

Uncle Richard came out.

“It’s an automatic?!”

He was still far away, saying good-bye to my mother.

In a shiver I heard her say, “It’s cold Richard, I have to close the door.”

“It’s an automatic?!”

He chuckled and got into the car, knocking his toque a little more crooked.

I felt the warmth escaping, “Why do you keep it running?”

“If I stop it probably won’t start.”

“Are you going to the cottage?”

“Going to Granny’s in Brantford.”

“When are you coming back?”

“I’m moving.”

I noticed the suitcase and the piled up boxes that made it hard to see out the back window.

He put his seatbelt on and reached for the door. I saw the big heavy shortwave radio on the passenger seat.

He hesitated, “Got to go. Say hi to Dave and Carol.”

I nodded and he closed the door. The car jerked a little when he put the automatic transmission in ‘R’.

I watched him eventually hurry onto the busy street. The annoyed rushing cars had to slow down. I saw a Buick Riviera after he was gone, nothing much else. The back door opened and my mother yelled at me to come in and have some hot soup. I took a step or two towards the house but turned to look again. I noticed the tiny drips of oil beginning to freeze in the icy snow.

From behind I heard the doorknob turning again and headed in.

I never saw Uncle Richard again.

 

Forty-one Years Later

Richard Murray Smith was born in Bury, Quebec on June 4th, 1938 to Margaret and Wallis Smith.

His growing up years were varied and interesting and he eventually reached his goal of becoming a teacher.

Richard taught for a while in Quebec then went back to further his education and obtained his masters degree.

After this he moved to Saskatchewan where he taught for a short time at Macklin and Denzil before taking a teaching position in Prince Albert, SK where he taught until his retirement.

Richard started his music career in his teens and was very involved in music having played in a trombone quartet, The Jazz Band, as well as the Prince Albert City Band.

His involvement in the Anglican Church in Prince Albert which I believe was St. David’s found him to be a dedicated choir director for most of the years he lived in Prince Albert.

Richard and his teacher friend Ed joined together to become known as the Knotty Krafters, making countless toys and other woodworking projects which they sold at the local craft shows. Sadly Richard lost his good friend Ed a few years ago.

Richard took great pride in his vegetable garden and numerous flower beds and his greenhouse usually over flowed so he shared many of his beautiful plants with others.
In July of 2007, Richard decided to move to Nipawin where he continued to love gardening, flowers, woodworking, feeding the birds and going to church. He especially liked the fact that he could just walk down to the church and he walked every day to the post office for his mail.

Richard leaves to morn his passing his brothers Donald and Stuart (wife Earla); sisters Christina Betcke and Mary Ellis; nieces and nephews Suzanne Betcke (David Northcote), Martha Betcke (David Joy), Laura Betcke, Katherine Horney (Rick), Susan Magliarisi (Angelo), Jennifer Ellis, Jeffrey Smith (Bo Cheyne), David Smith (Elaine), Stephen Smith, Carol Smith and numerous great nieces and nephews, treasured friends and his special friend Dorothy Wark.
 
                           Rest in Peace my forever friend!

Moments pass by but never end.