Two Holes

Two Holes

       by Annie Oakley Reemer

yes he said

and no she said

and then they turned away

from talk and did

and that is everything

there's to this tale

for it takes us on tour

of all that ever was

If you are ever in the mood to take a side trip on your way through Brandon, Manitoba, you might travel highway forty-nine south through the twin towns Sidney and Golash to view the monument to the last buffalo. The stone cairn stands sentinel above the towns, quietly grazing on a hilltop of prairie grass undisturbed by plow and horse since the days that these animals provided for the Cree, Ojibwa and settlers at the turn of the century. The plaque reads thus:

Here, at this location, the last buffalo was seen by Julian Morrisette and a party of hunters on March 11, 1947. Just down below here, by the shore of Max Lake, one hundred yards from where you stand, the very last buffalo paused lonely and confused by the water, neither eating nor drinking. It was as if it knew that the last days of its noble empire had come to an end. The party shared the animal among family and village members in a time-honored aboriginal tradition.  

What the buffalo had never enjoyed, it enjoyed now without stint. Privacy is a great blessing. I should know, having grown up in a family of eleven siblings and three members of the extended family in a house the size of a double garage.

       I was the twelfth child and all of us still lived together in that shack till my thirteenth year when the second youngest left, since it was that or sleeping with the chickens that were his especial charge. Bill, the oldest at forty-three, could be seen sitting where my mother sat or gardening where my mother gardened. He carried the lunch and the hoes to the strawberry patch and sat in the grass watching her bend and work the earth. Willie, the next in line, knew horses and helped father harness them, saddle them, feed them, shoe them and groom them. Father and Willie were inseparable unless you consider sleep a separation. Willie wore overalls without a shirt during the summer and overalls with one in winter. Otherwise, Willie Jacob Haman Hamm (he was a proud one as his insistence on having all his names spoken tells you) kept to himself, not given to public appearance with his lame leg and his one arm ending in a little hand where his elbow should have been. He whistled when he thought no one could hear, songs such as "Soldier Boy," and "Jesus Help Me Through the Storm."

(To be continued)