“YOU ARE A GODDAMN FOOL!”  “DAD, YOU GOT THAT RIGHT.”

 DAD SPOKE IN OPPOSITES…IF HE LIKED SOMETHING, HE SAID IT WAS JUNK.  WHEN HE CALLED ME A DIMWIT, HE MEANT I WAS OK. NOT THAT I WAS GREAT…JUST OK.  WE LIKED THAT….NO SLOPPY SENTIMENTALITY.  NO KISSING AND  HUGGING.

alan skeoch

Jan. 2018

One fine spring day around 1970, I brought this heavy  corn cutting machine  to the farm.   Dad helped me  unload.  He had a whole string of four letter words when he saw the thing.  That meant he liked it even though he said it was no goddamn good and the former owner had no right to exploit my stupidity.

So this story is  really about Dad and less about the machine.

“Dad,  give me a hand with this big corn cutting box…runs off tractor belt or stationary engine in barn.”

“Now what the hell did you buy that thing for…should be in the scrap yard.”

Are you out of your GODDAMN MIND…daft…brainless.  Take the son of a bitch back to the smart ass who sold it to you.””

“Neat, isn’t it.  Circular blade … sort of like a revolving guillotine. Did you ever use one on the Skeoch farm outside  Fergus? ”

“No.  I headed west when I was 14, told you that a long time ago.  Are you both deaf and dumb?”

“Harvest Excursion? wasn’t it?”

“No, I got in a  bit of trouble when I was 14…had to hotfoot it west to Keeler…

“Keeler>”

“Saskatchewan…spent couple of winters cooped up with 16 horses. Slept in an empty stall.  No farm house.  Horses kept the barn warm. No corn feed…lots of hay and some oats.  No tractor so why the hell would we want a corn cutter?  So cold around Riverhurst in those winters that a fellow could die fast in the open.  Freeze balls off a brass monkey as they say.”

“Just you alone with 16 horses.”

“That’s right, better company than my two sons that’s for sure.”

“Get paid?’

“Just enough to get me back East with a new pair of boots.  Then some bastards stole the boots  when I fell asleep and I had to hotfoot it along Queen Street in Toronto to that old hotel at Roncesvalles.. Came back with nothing. “

“Why not go home?”

“Sure as hell wasn’t going back to the Fergus farm.  No room for me up there anyway.  Too many kids…too little money.”

“Couldn’t you  go back  to school?  Grade nine?

“Jesus, don’t you ever listen to me.  Fergus High School was the reason I went west in the first place.  I told you about the wood flap at the back of the girls outhouse.  My schooling ended suddenly when Kelly and I hurled snowballs up that flap in the girls outhouse.  We thought it was funny.  Hit a girl on the ass.  She  ran into the school screaming.  Dizzy.  We just stood there.  The principal was not amused, “Arnold, you go home right now and get your father over here.”

“What did your Dad do?”

“Never told him.  Never even went home.  Hid out in the swamp for a while, slept in neighbours place.  My sisters…Elizabeth and Greta looked after me…brought me food.  Couldn’t stay there so I lit out for Saskatchewan where brother John had  just got himself married  and fixed up on a section … 640 acres…nearly seven times the size of our Fergus farm.”

“Who put up the money for the fare?”

“Maybe mother or big sister Elizabeth…don’t rightly know.  Think John had something to do with it”  He wanted us all to  move west”

“My brothers Art and Archie each bought farms near Keillor but they  never lived on them.  Had crop put in then buggered off  back to Ontario.  Let big brother John do threshing in fall…did it on shares.”

Archie made money beating up  French Canadians one summer.  You know how skinny Archie  is even to this day.  Skinny as a tent pole.   that fooled lots of people.

“Is this the boxing story,  Dad?”

“God that was great when I heard about it.  Word  was spread  around from Keeler to Riverhurst that  A fist fight was going to happen over near Riverhurst.  French Canadian against an Ontario  Scot.  Skinny Scottish bastard…going to get the shit kicked out of him.  Put your money on the Frenchy.  Wrong!  Wrong!  Archie could really fight.   Knocked the Frenchy down fast and  the boys  picked  up a bundle.   Archie became famous for a while.

“How come you were not involved?”

“Never wanted to go back west.  Try sleeping winters with 16 horses…alone.  that will knock any romantic notions out of your head.”

“Scared?”

“More scared of my dad than the idea of travelling to the West.”

Enough bull  shit.  I Bet dollars  to do-nuts you don’t even know what this son of  a bitch is supposed to do.”

“Chops up field corn.”

“For what reason?”

“Maybe cut it up green and blow chunks into the silo to make ensilage for winter feed.”

“How did a dimwit like you figure that out?”

“Farmer I bought it from told me…he was short a thumb and finger…maybe cut off by this machine.”

“How much did you pay for it?”

“Thirty dollars. What is it really worth?”

“He sure saw  a sucker coming when you arrived. Not worth a goddamn cent…junk…”

“I thought you would like it, dad.  Flattered .”

“Where do  you plan to put it now your barn has collapsed?” (Story to come)

“That, Dad, is the big question…I do not know. where to put it.”

Wait until your Uncle Norman sees this machine.   Shows what a damn fool you are.  Why in hell he named you as executor of his will defeats me.

alan  skeoch

Ja. 2018

Stories to come:

1) The Barn that a Jackas  built

2) Dad  teaching andrew and  Kevin how to smoke White Owl  Invicible  cigars when they were 6 and 8 years old.

RED SKEOCH…”’BROTHER CAN YOU SPARE A DIME?”

ASIDE:  Mr. and Mrs. James Skeoch operated a 100 acre farm on outskirts of Fergus (SW)  and, like many farmers they had a big family. Greta, Elizabeth, Sarah, Lena, John, James, Archie, Arthur, Arnold, Norman.   The oldest, James  Skeoch was killed by artillery shells on one of the lat days of World War One,  sarah died of the Flu epidemic that followed the war.  The rest thrived.  John bought land near Keeler, Saskatchewan and both Archie and Arthur also bought some western land although they never moved  west.  Had their families in Ontario. Uncle John looked after things in the west.  Arnold (‘Red”)  and Artur became tire builders in Toronto.  They became city boys.   Norman, the youngest took over the home farm in Fergus and cared for his mother and father unto their death.

When Norman died, his will stipulated that each of his brothers and sisters should get an equal portion of the estate.  This meant that the farm had to be sold and the machinery put up for public auction.  My cousin John (long John) Skeoch and  I were named  as executors. Nasty job.  Never met my grandfather Skeoch.  By all accounts he was a tough man.  Grandmother Skeoch lived on the Fergus farm util she died.  She became an oil painter and made sure that all her kith and kin were given one of her paintings before her death.  There were so many relatives  that I never really got to know her. Which is too bad. The first Skeoch boys, James and  John, migrated to Canada in 1846 with their grandfather Mr. Watt. and an aunt who was terrified the boys would fall overboard as  they spent a lot of time running along the deck of the sailing ship.  Why were the little boys brought out while their father was not?  I think he came later but there was a little mystery about the migration. I have never been able  to convincingly join the dots.  Trouble  with the family tree is the  repeated use of James and  John…from  generation to generation.

 If you have read this far you might be  comforted to know there

was  only one Arnold in the family, my Dad, but he never went by that name.   To everyone he was  just “Red” because  he was born with red hair. No sign off red hair when Eric and I were born but the name Red stuck.  He was Red to everyone  including my mother.  She  had another name for him when he got in trouble which was often.  Then she  said, “Oh, Red, you Fathead!   Her name was Elsie  but he never called  her that.  His name for his wife was “Methooz”, a shortened form of Methusalum.  Why?  Because Methusala was  the oldest person in the bible and  Mom was  a  year older than Dad.  No I did not misspell Methusala.   Dad  added the “um” because it sounded  better. It was a love affair that defied reason.  I think most real  and deep  love affairs are like that.

Some people we knew well as boys felt sorry for us.  They thought we lived  in a dysfunctional family. Are you kidding?  We lived inside a cyclone with fascinating things whizzing by every day…and  remarks that were hard to decipher.  What?  Meaning what?  Indecipherable remarks?  Sorry, maybe only Mom, Eric and I would  understand. For instance, Dad never used  our real  names, Alan and Eric.  Instead he always said, I  have two sons one is a gutsy bugger and the other is as stupid as  Joe’s dog“  He never said who these  terms of endearment applied to.  Do I sound  like a gutsy bugger or stupid as Joe’s  dog?” Your call.

He had a disparaging label for everyone.  Catholics were fish-eaters. English people were  sparrows or cheapers or broncos. Snobs, smooth talkers, educated people who flaunted  their intelligence and creditors were ,’meally mouthed sons of bitches.’  Dad turned a lot of people off.  But he  also made a lot of friends for he had  a twisted kind of charisma.  As proven, I suppose, by the  fact he  remains vivid in my mind decades after is death.

Dad   That’s him above the day he  retired… caught him in a  pensive mood.  Rare. Shows a side of  him he did not want the  world to see.   Much preferred the  tough guy pose.  Or the  cigar smoking arrogant man of the  streets and racetracks.  Under all that was the real  man. Red was strong as  an ox from his AIaly labour making tires for big trucks. Slapping HEAVY slabs of rubber onto spinning wheel day in and day out. “Careful of that roller boys, saw a guy  go through that, came out as flat as a Gumby.”  he told  Eric and  I when we visited Dunlop Tire Company week before he retired.  Dad was proud of his work…he made things with his two hands that our society takes for granted…huge rubber tires.  Deep down dad probably wished he had gone  to high school…wished  he had not thrown those  snowballs at the ass of that poor girl in the back house.  Mistakes in life can do damage. If he  became an educated son of a  bitch he would have been a  different man.   Eric and I loved  him the way he was even when he pilfered our wallets for a few bucks to take to the track.  Or forged  a  check that emptied  my bank account just when  needed for first year university fees.  Or emptied that prize bottle of Henessy’s cognac brough back from the job in Ireland. Mom felt the same  way even though she  slept on the couch  in our three room house  using her purse as  a  pillow. Would you lend Dad twenty bucks if he came around to see you.  Most of  my friends had been  hit for a few  bucks now  and then.  They  seemed to like dad in spite of himself.

Dad did not take pictures.  This shot of his must show the horses  he cared for in the winter in that lonely barn. The west was won by horses…thousands of them.  Dad  kept 16 alive in a frigid Saskatchewan barn when he  was a kid.  Alone.   Alone!

This is  one of the few pictures he ever had.  Hardly glorious.  Hardly glorious.

WHO WERE WE?

In 1846, our wayward branch of the Skeoch ‘clan’ left Scotland under mysterious circumstances  that I have never properly understood. Just two little boys, James  and John Skeoch, with their mom and her father, Mr. Watt.   The grandfather was the prime mover…wanted out of the Scottish Lowlands near the west coast… not too far away from the place where Robert Burns had his love  affairs and wrote his poems.  1846 was a bad year all across  Europe and Britain.  Potato crop had failed and starvation stalked humanity like  the fabled gym reaper.   Starvation, however, was not the push factor.  Old Mr. Watt was an economic migrant.  He had money.  I am  not too sure he felt his daughter had married wisely.  Hard to understand why his son-in-law, Skeoch, was left in Scotland  when the children and wife shipped out for Canada.

The  Skeoch’s  had no tartan although tartans  were made at the Skeoch Mill in Bannockburn for any Scot that wanted one.  The ruins of this mill still exist …the name Skeoch may have been derived from the village of Skeoch where the mysterious St. Skeoch (obscure  saint for sure) is supposed  to have reduced two boys from the bloody field of Bannockburn and name them James  and John  Skeoch.   Is  this true?   I do  not know but the story has filtered through the family for years.  The tiny village of Skeoch exists and the convent of St. Skeoch (a tiny place) has been converted into row housing.  It is so small that I can hardly imagine how it could have  been  a  convent.  When we visited the place years ago, it was a stone  barn.  Some evidence it had  once been a home of some kind.  St Slepcj seems to have been associated  with St Ninnian. 

We were likely a sept of the Stewarts …Lowlanders…peasant farmers in other words.

My Skeoch grandfather, James  Skeoch, was the son of James Skeoch, one  of  the little boys on board that 1846 ship.

This story is not a documented  family tree…instead  it provides a  little flesh and  blood to the family history.

By the end  of the 19th century James, son of James, was building an immense  field stone house  and  an equally giant barn on their Fergus farm.  He  also seems to have been  quite busy in the marital bed when darkness fell.   Mr. and Mrs. James Skeoch operated a 100 acre farm on outskirts of Fergus (SW)  and, like many farmers they had a big family.  Greta, Elizabeth, Sarah, Lena, John, James, Archie, Arthur, Arnold, Norman.   The oldest, James  Skeoch was killed by artillery shells on one of the last days of World War One,  sarah died of

the Flu epidemic that followed the war.  The rest thrived.  John bought land near keillor, Saskatchewan and both Archie and Arthur also bought some wester land although they never moved  west.  Uncle John looked after things in the west.  Arnold (‘Red”)  and Artur became tire builders in Toronto.  They became city boys.   Norman, the youngest took over the home farm in Fergus and cared for his mother and father unto their death. When Norman died, his will stipulated that each of his brothers and sinners hold get an equal portion of the estate.  This meant that the farm had to be sold and the machinery put up for public auction.  If you think that was pleasant, then you have a brick for a brain.

Never met my grandfather Skeoch.  By all accounts he was a tough man.  Grandmother Skeoch lived on the Fergus farm util she died. She became an oil painter and made sure that all her kith and kin were given one of he paintings before her death.  There were so many relatives  that I never really got to know her. Which is too bad.  The Skeoch boys, James and  John, migrated to Canada in 1846 with their grandfather Mr. Watt. and an aunt who was terrified the boys would fall overboard as  they spent a lot of time running along the deck of the sailing ship.  Why were the little boys brought out wile their

father was not?  I think he came later but there was a little mystery about the migration.

NEVER BROUGHT GIRLFRIENDS HOME…WITH ONE EXCEPTION

I had  a  lot of girlfriends.   Platonic  girlfriends that would  never understand  Dad.  Many would bolt in fear.  So I never brought a girl friend home to meet dad  with one exception.  Marjorie was  different. They got along like a house on fire.  He loved her almost immediately. Both loved horses so they had common bond.  One of my graphic memories is Dad  and Marjorie glued to the rail that surrounded the Fort Erie racetrack.  Racing form in hand.  Assessing the flanks of race contenders. And she  understood him even when he  was at his worst. She found him amusing.  Warm.  And he dropped in at our apartment and eventual  house so often that Marjorie had to give up trying to breast feed the kids because Dad  kept popping up at the most inconvenient times.

  

P.S.  Dad  had  a  few  poems he had  memorized such as  Wordsworth’s Daffodils “Fluttering and  dancing in the breeze”.

[I wandered lonely as a Cloud]