The Blizzard and the Move

 The Blizzard and the Move
     by Willy Whitefish Reimer

The year before my wife and I married, my parents, John and Mary Reimer, left the village where I grew up and, together with two of their children, Lois and Rudi, they moved lock, stock and barrel to the Fraser Valley in British Columbia, Canada. Dad strongly felt that the end of one career, his Raleigh-selling career, should be replaced by another, and if so, then employment might as well be in the new place he had frequently dreamt about and secretly longed for. The story of their move has all the elements of fine narrative about it: indecision, marital dis-ease, the wrenching of children from their familiar surroundings, schools and friends, great fear and terror and stupid decision-making.
     Dad had bought a large utility trailer 30 years before the move that proved to be more durable than expected. It still serviced them at a time when, looking around for a way to bring some of their personal things with them, instead of renting a U-Haul truck or trailer, they made the infamous decision to just use the old trailer. I mean why not? There was a good chance that nothing would happen to it or their possessions. Right? But….the time of year, December, and the year 1969.
     It just so happened that the 1969 winter season was the worst snow blizzard season the Rockies had seen in decades. They made the first 700 miles through prairies  and the early stages of foothills without incident, the trailer staying intact, the tires full and her possessions still comfortably tied down under a tarp. They stayed that first night in a little motel on the outskirts of Medicine Hat, Alberta (where they had spent a night every time they’d ever gone to British Columbia), drove on past Calgary and then 90 miles farther through Banff and then Lake Louise, minds fully focused on Revelstoke, that town that chose inexplicably to situate in the most craggy, road-curvy section of the Rockies imaginable. Sure enough, of course, what else would you expect, not a chance it would be otherwise, most certainly, they travelled the entire 200 miles from Banff to Revelstoke in one of the worst blizzards my father had ever been in and he had been in  many, many a bad blizzard.   
     It was essentially eventually just simply a white out and dad could see nothing. The snow was a foot and a half deep on the road and because a few large rigs had passed through there in the last hour there were tracks they followed. At one point the visibility became virtually zero and suddenly my mother got the claustrophobic conviction that they were about to go over the cliff and down into the Columbia or the Fraser or whatever the river is that goes through there. Without a by-your-leave or any warning, she lunged sideways, grabbed the steering wheel and yanked it towards the right, yelling that they were about to go over the cliff, convinced that they were on the verge of plunging 1000 feet to their deaths. Just in time, dad jerked the wheel in the other direction and they fought for control. Mom, being insanely energized by fear, fought hard and only with great difficulty did dad manage to overcome and bring the car to a stop. Had mom had her way, my family would have died, trailer and all. Dad was correct. The cliff wall was on the left side and the abyss on the right. Mother has been yanking us towards the abyss, father in the cliff wall direction.  
     My brother Rudi remembers the incident in cinematographic detail. He said it was terrifying, just simply mind-blowingly scary. He said he was looking towards the front from the backseat of the station wagon and out of the blue these two adults began yelling and screaming and yanking the wheel back and forth. He said he was surprised that he didn’t have a heart attack himself.
     If you have not met my family, my parents, then you have not understood strange behaviour until now. Such spontaneous extempore yanking and decision-making and startling uncertainties were commonplace in my home. I, of course, have had the rare good fortune to have been unaffected and hardly influenced by my environment growing up. I carry with me none of the negative qualities of the Reimer clan and all of the good ones that my distant, distant relatives sparingly contributed to my gene pool. I would never have made such a mistake. No, not me! I would not have driven out in a blizzard moving to BC. I would not have yanked on a steering wheel when I couldn’t see but was convinced of some direction being correct. I would not have sat in the backseat allowing my parents to argue and fight with each other, endangering myself and my brothers and sisters. I am above such peculiar business, such tortured qualities of character that leave so much to be desired. I am Douglas, refined of tastes and educated, trustworthy and fully rational of mind, a mind that sees well ahead of time such troubles as cause confusion in many and, seeing such dangers in advance, finds himself not making the sorts of mistakes that might drive cars over cliffs. I listen to the clues around me that help me to avoid all dangers. When in the wilderness, these clues and cues teach me how or when to expect a bear and so to avoid it. My very nature, my instincts and intuition, provides me with ample resources to foretell how a word or statement might light on someone’s thought processes and causes some sort of short in their inner wiring. 
     So, being trustworthy and fully competent to make all decisions well, it can be expected by those who follow me into the wilderness, into new territory, that they will find themselves unfearful, unterrified, unbothered by the unexpected and always very well taken care of with all their needs of food, clothing, emotional aid and mental requirements more than fully predicted by myself, seen to and resolved before they cause stress and difficulty for any particular person who might be in the party following me.