Langenburg. “Home of Kelly Buchberger”.
June 10, 2002
Langenburg. “Home of Kelly Buchberger”. Central Butte “Home of Clarke Wilm”. Eyebrow. Elbow. Estevan. They all have one NHL star to put on the sign coming into town. Small town Saskatchewan’s work ethic and clarity of purpose has consistently resulted in success on the highest level. There is not a joy that a chosen son has made it out like there is for the inner city basketball players of America. The chosen sons are prodiga and they love what made them. They would raise their own children the same way and under the same conditions. The purity of purpose provided by a harsh and vivid environment brings about so many other spiritual possibilities. Blowing through each town without blinking can be a big mistake. The shop signs of each main street, and points of civic pride, are all so image rich. You collect them in your memory cells like valuable trading cards you find your mom never threw away. Out of the shoe box come the cherub faced innocents, the war heroes, the lightning bolts, twisters and diving hawks. All sharing the flatland’s direct connection to the starkly beautiful. You eventually become hypnotized and your metabolism changes to meet the mood but you still feel an outsider somehow too weak to survive. Too many big city thoughts to ever get the real job done. Too much bric a brac in the brain pan. Pointing this out are the farm machines. I have seen thousands of huge tractor things with their spider like metal legs and red, green or yellow primary exteriors. Hauled down the highway by even bigger machines with flashing yellow lights. Sitting with a hundred others in fields by the throughway. Exoskeletons and knobby rubber tires on cousins of the back hoe beasts. Some two stories tall with buffalo backs and glass cages where the head should be. I only “sort of” know what they do. My mate says there should be an interpretive station at the gateway to any prairie highway that explains each implement and how it is used on the farm. Combines, bailers and seeders may as well be Corkscrewers, band saws and seam rippers. They are all tools I don’t know how to use for tasks I don’t ever perform. Like the kid in class who is too afraid to raise his hand for fear of looking stupid I just say, “I think it harvests wheat” when the kids ask what “that one does”. Lately I have just said, “I don’t really know but I’d sure like to drive it down our street”. I bet Kelly Buchberger knows all this stuff.
Note to Floral Saskatchewan. You are the home of Gordie Howe. Get a bigger sign. God knows you deserve the biggest one in the country. It should be painted on your grain elevator with the name of the town.
Technical note: or some reason this program sometimes prints quotation marks as question marks so bear with me when it seems I'm asking too many questions.