TERRIBLE LAST WEEK OF FEBRUARY 2019
alan skeoch
Feb 25, 2019
“HELLO, Andrew, I am stuck at the farm…truck spinning…snowdrifts…so cold that the brass monkey story might be true…can you come?”
“Not sure I can get away”
“Put this down as an emergency.”
“Give me an hour.”
And so Andrew came to my rescue. This was not a day for travel but I had a movie crew who needed our
institutional beds right away…residential school movie being filmed on Six Nations Reserve…needed beds
that looked as miserable as possible.. Wind was blowing white outs…70 car and truck pile up on highway 400
had closed highway both ways…lots of others accidents. Just getting to farm I passed three cars in recent
accident smashed all to hell with air bags deployed. Under the snows ice lots of it.
I was overjoyed to reach the farm. But the joy was short lived. Truck spun off a 3 foot snowdrift into the side of the road where tires
just spun on ice and drifted snow buried back end in no time. Even walking to farmhouse was tough…hands frozen because
I took time to take these pictures. OK, everyone say it loud and clear…”I Told You So!”
Look at those bed frames. Beautiful! Chipped paint…so authentic that they could not be replicated by studio art people. People don’t know
just how valuable things in this condition appear to movie makers. “Alan, we cannot get this kind of set material anywhere else.”
That kind of flattery drive me forward. Today I should have stayed home.
But the effort getting the bed frames to the road could not be cancelled…nor the effort loading the mattresses and bed boards…It took Marjorie and
I the full day Sunday just getting these wonderful beds ready for pick up.
I sent a note to Shane…”Do not come, road impassable”…but he was too busy holding on to the steering wheel of his rental van for the and was
blowing between 60 and 100 km per hour…white outs. He pulled up … two trucks on an empty road…his and mine. Only his was not trapped in snow.
He could make a getaway.
Picture above shows just how deep drifts had become…whole farm was being scoured…Until Andy arrived with our tractor and are-end snowplow.
Wind so strong that interior of the green house was converted into something for a horror movie
That’s Shane bracing himself as we loaded the beds.
Even the tractor could not pull me out…Andrew had to dig me out first. Why did I not help? Someone had to
record the event…
Take a close look at the road…under the snowdrifts is a solid sheet of ice running down the Fifth Line.
“Dad, is it necessary for you to get into so much trouble, so often?”
“Well, Andrew I just do this so I can get payback fro all those years
that I changed your diapers, piled your pablum, gavelled in front of your teachers, washed your clothes, made the meals…made your bed…”
“Dad, you never did any of that…mom did it all.”
“Right, forgot about that. But I did keep the record with my camera…and am still doing so.”
“Now turn the truck around … you are free to go.”
“Did you see that snowplow…just covered us with the stuff you plowed.”
“I will be fine…get moving before you get trapped again.”