‘How I May Have Saved My Own Life’

A week ago I posted a blog that was about an older gentleman I knew from Stayner – Matt Rawn. He used to write columns for the paper from time to time mostly about war times as he was a Merchant Marine working alongside the Canadian Navy, but many of his stories were about his travels as a hobo in which he hopped trains to get from city to city across the country and into the States to find work. Some of his stories were about life on his farm in Monticello and earlier in Simcoe County where he lived with his family as a youngster in the Sunnidale and Nottawasaga Township areas. Matt was a character and he had lots of memories to share – some are yarns and some of true fact.

This next piece is about a love affair gone wrong but it’s a good reminder at Christmas time (or anytime of year) and will really make people think twice.

By Matt Rawn:

‘How I May Have Saved My Own Life’ is a story I like to tell just as often as I can but today I find it difficult to get anyone to listen to me. Of course, if my yarns or stories or whatever I’m talking about are laced with smut or any similar substance…well as I have said it’s just another story - so have a read of this one and see how it compares. Though I don’t stress and nor do I want to put a lot of emphasis on it because I think that water should be allowed to find its own level.

The first time I met her was in Georgetown Ontario way back when I was working on a dairy farm in that area. It was the general practice for hired farm hands to go into town on a Saturday night – we would each have a dollar or two - no more, and this would be during the nicer weather only. We would take in the Saturday night movie (silent pictures) usually a western or a thriller, shoot a game or two of pool after, get a haircut, buy a supply of fine-cut tobacco, maybe have a glass of what was known as 4-4 beer, buy one of any weekly papers with the brown section and coloured comics and then head for home about 10:30 or 11 p.m.

Well this Saturday night I wasn’t with the usual gang, I was with two older fellows and they introduced her to me. She was older than I was and exciting and she’d been around. The farmer that I worked with warned me to have nothing to do with her. He said no good would come of our relationship but I didn’t pay any attention and kept meeting her on the sly. She was so sophisticated and worldly it made me feel, well you know, more grown up just being with her.

It was lots of fun to take her to a party in those days. She was always the centre of attention. We began to see more of each other and I took her to my parents once or twice.  They were farm folks as well.  They didn’t think much of her and they told me so. When I got a place of my own later on she was a frequent guest and it was not long before she moved in with me. It may have been common-law and it was heart breaking for my parents and two of my younger sisters, but I kept reminding myself that I was not a kid anymore - besides it was legal.

We lived together through my early years and I seldom went anywhere without her but I wasn’t blind. I knew she was unfaithful to me and what’s worse I didn’t care so long as she was there for me when I wanted her and she usually was.

The longer we lived together the more attached I became to her but it wasn’t mutual. She began to delight in making me look foolish in front of my friends but still I couldn’t give her up. It became a love-hate relationship and I figured out that her glamour was nothing more than a cheap mask to hide her spite and cynicism. I could no longer see her beauty after I came to know her true character but old habits are not all that easy to break. We had invested many years in each other; even though my relationship with her made me lose a little respect for myself she became the centre of my life. We didn’t go anywhere and we didn’t do anything. We didn’t have friends over – it was just the two of us. I became depressed and I knew that she was largely responsible for my misery.

I finally told her that I was through and that I was leaving. It took a hell of a lot of guts but I left.

I still see her around and I miss her now and then. I’m not boasting when I say she’d take me back in a minute but by the grace of God or whatever you want to call it, I’ll never take up with her again. If you see her give her my regards for she is still as beautiful as ever and I don’t hate her. I just loved her too much and that was all.

Chances are you know the family. The name is ‘ALCOHOL’!  

 

 

 

  

Matt Rawn and the Christmas Tree Story

By Sharon Weatherall

When I began working at the paper in Stayner I got to know an old fellow who used to drop into the office from time to time to ask if we would be interested in publishing any of his stories. Matthew Rawn was a war veteran of the Canadian Merchant Marines and retired ‘tramp’ or ‘hobo’ – for anyone who isn’t familiar with that term it’s a person that “rode the rods” so to speak.

Matt saw a lot of the country hopping on and off trains during the Depression years, lingering in little towns wherever he could find work for a few days or weeks before he’d hop aboard another train and move on. He travelled around Canada and into the States doing odd jobs while caching a phenomenal store of memories which he would later share through his writings. When he was older, Matt moved back to Simcoe County area and his roots living his years out in Stayner at a small senior’s apartment behind the Main Street.

Many thought Matt to be an eccentric old fellow and didn’t bother too much by spending a few minutes talking to him. If they had they may have come to know a very interesting person with a lot of knowledge to share. It was commonplace to walk by on a summer’s day and see Matt outside his back door sitting in a swing and talking into a cassette recorder. Following this dictation, he would painstakingly transcribe the words onto coloured foolscap sheets neatly printed on both front and back, for me to take back to the office and type up.

Matthew had the gift of gab and I got to know him quite well during those years dropping by his place after receiving a phone call to let me know he had another story ready. He wrote about almost everything from children’s stories and fantasy, to real life war experiences and life on his farm in Monticello after the war. He was a caring old soul but I didn’t know just how generous he was until holiday time one year when I learned why he dressed as Santa and walked the streets ringing his Christmas bell. That year I discovered Matt did more than write – he also liked to play Father Christmas for those in need.

Every year during Christmas week Matt donned a worn old red velvet suit with a matted beard that had almost had the biscuit. Fastening a clumpy pillow under his wide vinyl belt, he headed out to the streets to greet people and wish them a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year. Each day Matt took with him one of five carefully packaged stockings which contained not only oranges and candy, but a certain amount of money. These did not go to just anyone – he followed people around stores looking for those he felt needed the help most and presented them with one of his generous gifts. People would accept the sock not knowing until they got home as to what it contained. Matt would feel happy that he was able to help someone that truly needed a hand at Christmas time and those sock recipients no doubt took a different view of the funny old man when they saw him again – no matter what time of year. 

Before he died Matt gave me many stories which I bring out at certain times of the year when I am thinking about him. He was a talented writer and I am happy to 'pay forward' some of those adventures and yarns he shared with me. Most of his writings have a lesson or twist in them that make you think twice about everyday life. I will never forget the stories he told me and keep his collection tucked away in my office for special times when people want to read a colourful rendition of what it was really like in those difficult Depression days when people were poor but helped each other to get by.

Following is ‘The Christmas Tree Story’ –by Matthew Rawn

Many, many years ago when I was in my mid-twenties back in the Depression years as they were known then (1929-1939), I and thousands like me were down on our luck and going all over the country looking for work. Our way of going from place to place was riding the rods, ‘hoboing’ on the freight trains.

I was doing so this day when I was riding a mixed train – part freight and part passenger. I was on my way from Wainwright Alberta to Calgary for Calgary was the place out West for tramps and hobos to go at such times and being Christmas time, I was planning to spend the holiday weekend in that great city. It was late in the afternoon – just about dusk, when the train stopped at a small town. There were no electric lights but in the light of the lamps that were there I could read the name on the station ‘Drumheller’. I thought “Drumheller – what a name”. But some places do have names that are different from Stayer, New Lowell, or Creemore like I was used to seeing.

It was a very frosty day and I was cold and hungry so I decided right then and there that I would go no further. So I left the train and started to make my way up town when I came to a little building where I could see that they sold wood and coal.  A lamp was burning inside so I went in begging for money to eat supper and for a place to sleep that night. I was in luck, a lady was in the office and she asked me if I would work so I told her that was “the biggest aim in my life”. Then she explained to me that she and her husband were operating a small business on the side – a Christmas Tree Lot, down at the four corners and her husband was down there at the moment.

In a short time he came in and it was decided that I would sleep on a small bunk-like bed in the back of the office. They would fetch me food to eat if I would sell Christmas trees up until Saturday which would be the Christmas weekend. So they gave me a key for there was a small chain woven in and around the trees to keep anyone from taking them when there was nobody around. 

The next morning after I had breakfast I set out for the Christmas Tree Lot. It was very frosty – well below zero and a very light snow had fallen during the night.  When I got to the tree lot and while I was taking down the chain I heard two of the trees talking. Oh yes, trees do talk, especially Christmas trees, for they have things to talk about like Christmas and other things as well.  They don’t talk words like you and me, but they make themselves be understood. And me having worked in and around the bush a lot, it was easy to know what they were saying when they said something.

I will tell you what they were talking about, but first let me tell you their names for trees do have names, the girl trees as well as the boy trees - you know like ah, Hazelnut and Rose Bush. Then there is old Tough Oak and Slippery Elm. But on this day these two talking trees were a different kind of tree and had different names.  Both were Christmas trees and both were evergreen trees, so don’t you see how they would have different names? One was named ‘Douglas’ – a funny name for a tree you might think, well not so, for if Douglas Fir had not been cut down at such an early age he might have become very large and tall. He might have been like one such tree I saw out in British Columbia where horses and wagons and later automobiles - yes cars, and even a bus would drive right through an opening made in the base of that tree.

The other talking tree was named ‘Jack’  - nothing fancy about him and his name and like Douglas Fir, had he not had a few mishaps and been cut down cut down for a Christmas tree, may have been like his brothers and sisters becoming one of the tallest pine trees in the forest.

So you see we had here two ‘might have been’ giants of the forest talking in a Christmas Tree Lot on this frosty morning. What are they talking about? Why the fellow who is taking the chain down, me of course.

“Listen! Look Jack! There is some new guy going to sell trees here today. I wonder where he comes from,” asked Douglas.

Smiling to myself, I fixed the chain back out of the way and lit a small fire in an empty oil drum so that I could keep warm while I was waiting to make a sale.  However, it wasn’t long until a man and a little girl drove up in an old Four-Ninety Touring car to the four corners.

The two tree friends continued in their conversation.

“How did you sleep last night Jack,” asked Douglas Fir.

“Not too good…my back is sore. It has been bothering me and this snow we had doesn’t help,” replied Jack.

“Yes,” said Doug. “I know this snow is bad. Here let me brush you off a bit. There now, how is that?”

“Thanks Doug. I feel a lot better right away.”

“I wonder if we will be picked today Jack,” asked Doug.

“Christmas is on the week-end and this fellow has quite a few of us yet to sell – maybe they will pick us today.”

“I don’t think anybody would want me,” said Jack Pine.

“I’m so scrubby and twisted and you are so straight and tall. I think they would pick you before they take me. I told those men who cut me down that nobody would want me for a Christmas tree but they said their boss told them to cut down anything that was green and with one swing of an axe, I lay there at their feet. And now I am standing here with you waiting for someone to take me home with them for Christmas. I hope you get picked and taken to a place with lots of kids Doug, but I don’t know who would want a tree like me.”

“Well that reminds me Jack, how did you get to be all twisted and scrubby like that,” asked Douglas Fir.

“Well Doug, it’s a long story. I might have been tall like my brothers and sisters but when I was very small a moose stepped on me and pressed me way down into the sand. I thought it was the end of me but I got over that and had started to grow up again when a big mother bear sat right down on top of me while she was eating blueberries and I think that is what stopped me from ever growing up to be a tall tree,” said Jack Pine sadly.

The conversation changed as the trees noticed some activity in the lot.

“Oh look Jack,” said Douglas Fir.

“That man and little girl that drove up a while back are coming into the lot now to look at us trees.”

“I believe they are Doug – let’s hope they buy both of us,” said Jack Pine.

The two watched as the little girl went along each of the trees feeling their branches while the man came along with her. When she came to Jack Pine she stopped and examined him for a bit and then said, “Daddy, this is the one I want…will you buy it for me?”

The father looked at Jack Pine with a sort of scowl then said, “alright, if that’s the one you want.”

The father came right over to me and asked me how much I wanted for the twisted little tree? It was my first sale and I had been told to sell each tree on its merits, or for whatever I thought I could get for they all had to be sold by Saturday. But, at the same time I was not to let them go for too cheap. Having been around the country a lot, I knew how to handle things and people too. Fifteen to 20 cents would have been a fair price to ask for the little Jack Pine but I thought that it was cheating no one when I said, “thirty-five cents, sir”. The man paid and started to take the tree to his car while the little girl lifted the top so it wouldn’t drag over the ground.

As they were leaving Douglas Fir called out, “so long Jack – have a nice Christmas.”

Jack replied, “Good bye Doug. I hope you will soon go as well and that you have a nice Christmas too.”

After the father and little girl had left with Jack Pine I heard Douglas Fir say to himself, “Of course well I’m glad Jack has gone and it looks like he is going to a nice Christmas place but for the life of me I don’t know what that kid saw in him – she must have been blind.”

Yes, it was true. The little girl had been born blind and couldn’t see anything but unlike you and me, she had something we didn’t - a wonderful sense of feel as some blind people do have. If you were to see these two trees and had your choice I’m sure you would pick the Douglas Fir but this little girl went by the feel of Jack Pine’s soft, silky needles in comparison with Douglas Fir’s long, course rough and prickly needles.

And like Jack Pine wished, Douglas Fir did go where there were lots of kids for he had been chosen as the Christmas tree at the Lutheran Church Sunday School on Christmas morning.

Now all of you have a very Merry Christmas for that is the way that I would like it to be.