The Grandfather (Ira) Quotes in The Lost Salt Gift of Blood
“John here has the makings of a good fisherman,” says the old man. “He’s up at five most every morning when I am putting on the fire. He and the dog are already out along the shore and back before I’ve made tea.”
“When I was in Toronto,” says John, “no one was ever up before seven. I would make my own tea and wait. It was wonderful sad. There were gulls there though, flying over Toronto harbour. We went to see them on two Sundays.”
All three of them begin to sing, spanning easily the half-century that touches their extremes. The old and the young singing now their songs of loss in different comprehensions. Stranded here, alien of my middle generation, I tap my leather foot self-consciously […] The words sweep up and swirl about my head. Fog does not touch like snow yet it is more heavy and more dense. Oh moisture comes in many forms!
“When she married in Toronto […] we figured that maybe John should be with her and with her husband. […] Well, what was wrong was that we missed him wonderful awful. […] Like us had no moorings, lost in the fog or the ice-floes in a snow squall. Nigh sick unto our hearts we was.”
“Well, it was all wrong the night before the going. The signs all bad […] But still I feels I has to go. It be foggy all the day […] And I says, small to myself, now here in the fog be the bad luck and the death but then there the plane be […] soon he comen through the fog […] Powerful strange how things will take one. That night they be killed.”
“Jennifer Farrell of Roncesvalles Avenue was instantly killed early this morning and her husband James died later […] The accident occurred about 2 A.M. when the pickup truck in which they were travelling went out of control on Queen St. W. […] It is thought that bad visibility caused by a heavy fog may have contributed to the accident. The Farrells were originally from Newfoundland.”
He opens his hand to reveal a smooth round stone. […] Suddenly he looks up to my eyes and thrusts the stone toward me. “Here,” he says, “would you like to have it?”
Even as I reach out my hand I turn my head to the others in the room. They are both looking out through the window to the sea.
The Grandfather (Ira) Quotes in The Lost Salt Gift of Blood
“John here has the makings of a good fisherman,” says the old man. “He’s up at five most every morning when I am putting on the fire. He and the dog are already out along the shore and back before I’ve made tea.”
“When I was in Toronto,” says John, “no one was ever up before seven. I would make my own tea and wait. It was wonderful sad. There were gulls there though, flying over Toronto harbour. We went to see them on two Sundays.”
All three of them begin to sing, spanning easily the half-century that touches their extremes. The old and the young singing now their songs of loss in different comprehensions. Stranded here, alien of my middle generation, I tap my leather foot self-consciously […] The words sweep up and swirl about my head. Fog does not touch like snow yet it is more heavy and more dense. Oh moisture comes in many forms!
“When she married in Toronto […] we figured that maybe John should be with her and with her husband. […] Well, what was wrong was that we missed him wonderful awful. […] Like us had no moorings, lost in the fog or the ice-floes in a snow squall. Nigh sick unto our hearts we was.”
“Well, it was all wrong the night before the going. The signs all bad […] But still I feels I has to go. It be foggy all the day […] And I says, small to myself, now here in the fog be the bad luck and the death but then there the plane be […] soon he comen through the fog […] Powerful strange how things will take one. That night they be killed.”
“Jennifer Farrell of Roncesvalles Avenue was instantly killed early this morning and her husband James died later […] The accident occurred about 2 A.M. when the pickup truck in which they were travelling went out of control on Queen St. W. […] It is thought that bad visibility caused by a heavy fog may have contributed to the accident. The Farrells were originally from Newfoundland.”
He opens his hand to reveal a smooth round stone. […] Suddenly he looks up to my eyes and thrusts the stone toward me. “Here,” he says, “would you like to have it?”
Even as I reach out my hand I turn my head to the others in the room. They are both looking out through the window to the sea.