Fledgling

Fledgling 

     By Douglas Reimer

Young Rudi was very fond of money. He was the second youngest child and outsold us older two siblings. The oldest sibling, Jim, did not participate in things like selling in order to buy Christmas presents or birthday presents or whatever. By selling I mean selling Christmas cards. The three of us, Gwen, Rudi and me, in 1958, let’s say. That seems about the correct date since I am not sure of it, but we were a young and fledgeling group. Every day after school we would take, on our little sled, boxes of cards provided by my dad who got them at a salesman‘s discount from the Raleigh’s Co. for which he worked. We split the houses on a street between us. If I took 102 on the south side of Centre Avenue Rudi would take 104. We’d emerge about the same time and take another box of cards if we’d sold one, or if not then move right on to 106 and 108. The temperature in December commonly hovered around -25 and sometimes -30, with wind inevitably, and us wearing not nearly enough layers, inadequate clothing because my parents did not spend money on clothes unnecessarily, and there was no parent in the family who spent more than two minutes a year thinking about what clothes the children might or might not require. So, for instance, a black nylony/cottony pair of slacks that looked to me by the end of two years like they’d been trampled by pigs for half that time and washed altogether four times, sort of, was what covered my bottom half for six hundred schooldays in grades nine to twelve. Little Rudi, born in October, 1950 had nothing warmer to wear. Nor Gwen. Cold, hungry, hungry, hungry, we tramped through town knocking on doors. At the end of two hours the three of us had each heard “I don’t think so. Not this year. We don’t really use cards” thirty-five times and  two of us had sold one box each, making gross sales of $1:00 all told, before walking the mile back to the village for supper, for cabbage soup and buttered bread. None of the other children in Altona—and I mean zero—did that. None of them got cold to the bone for any reason. None got hungry three times over. Roy Abrams, Margaret Loewen, Rick Janzen, Jim Wolfe, Marry Anne Streamer, Barry Braun, Rick Friesen, John Zacharias, Gladys Loewen, Norman Schmidt, Stealer Dyck’s, Sally Dueck, Grace Braun, Grant Thiessen, Libby Friesen, Terry Sawatsky, none of them spent weeks every year pulling a sleigh, begging people to buy something, freezing their jewels off, wearing too little to be even a little warm. We three did. For better or worse. The reason, generally? The same one that had us up in summer at 6:00 AM in a beet field hoeing beets till 4:00 PM six days a week if there was a clear sky. In often 100 shadeless degrees. And, calculated finally to have earned  25 cents an hour net when all was counted in late August. Which we then didn’t need reminding to give back to the parents because they provided for us. On paper a solid enough expectation. And the Christmas card money? The 17 dollars and 37 cents we had saved in Gwen’s piggy bank?  Well, that 1958 Christmas morning mom and dad had a handsome (us kids thought), new, blonde, two-tiered, lightweight  coffee table under the tree, a present from three proud children.  Rudy had earned most of that 17 dollars by himself. I think he felt a great sense of pride in the extra hours he put into the selling. He should have been proud. I don’t recall any feelings in myself except cold and hunger. Well, and shame.