Marching Around Naked

As some of you may or may not know, I have taken a three month sabbatical to prepare our eventual retirement property in the Kootenays of British Columbia. Our place is located right in the heart of what used to be known as Sons of Freedom territory. The Sons of Freedom was a breakaway sect of Doukabors that had some very different ideas and were active in the area around Castlegar, Nelson and up into the Slocan. The biggest concentration being in Krestova and Crescent Valley. I don’t really know a lot about what was going on, but they seemed to have some issues with the government of the day. Their protests hit the media on a regular basis and usually took the form of marching around naked, burning their homes or blowing things to smithereens. I’m not really sure what if anything that really accomplished in the end analysis, but it sure made for some fine media coverage.

As most of the women that marched around in their birthday suits were of the older and chunkier variety, I’m sure a lot of young boys of that era thought twice about getting married becoming confirmed bachelors and still are to this very day. Most of the population of the area still consists of predominantly Doukabors with a good smattering of Hippies and old draft dodgers from the ‘70s with a few newcomers such as displaced Albertans and other assorted foreigners.

Having said all that, the neighbours thus far seem to be a great bunch. I’ve met quite a few and especially the Doukabors are very outgoing and ready to help with whatever they can at the drop of a hat. They do have a few peculiarities that set them aside from the imports. They hate to waste anything! Now that’s not necessarily a bad thing, you know the old saying, “waste not want not”. The only problem is that eventually you run out of room to store things. Not only that, “where do you draw the line”? I mean really, at the place we bought which is just over 4 acres, most of the area around the buildings is taken up with bits of wood, kindling, jars, cans, windows, boxes (cardboard and wood), bottles, old insulation, wiring, plumbing, old drawers (not the kind you wear), rusty shovels, hoes, pitch forks with no handles and even scythes, (whoever has one or knows what they are, stand up, you’re older than me) and the list goes on and on. But on the bright side, I could start a second hand store, except for the fact that everyone in the valley likely has two or three of whatever I might have in stock.

By and large, the older folks such as the two sisters that owned our place, didn’t believe in painting anything such as homes, outbuildings sheds or garages and as such most everything is in a sad state of repair. Either that or the thought was, if it was painted in 54’, why should it be painted again? It just so happens that one of the houses on our property was built somewhere around the 40s, and I’m sure that most of the material in it was salvaged from some former home or homes in the area. It’s in pretty tough shape. We decided that it really wasn’t worth saving so we called the local fire department to see if perhaps they would like to use it for fire practice and burn it down for us. The next day a nice young fellow named John who is the Fire Chief for the town of Winlaw came down to look the situation over and decided that the next fire practice would be a good time to burn the old girl down.

As it happened, the old house used to be heated by stove oil which is about the same as diesel fuel, and an old tank next to the house had a couple of hundred litres of fuel in it and the Fire Chief wanted it empty before the burn. I didn’t know what to do to empty the fuel. I mentioned the problem to my nephew across the road and he said, “no problem, we’ll just call some of the neighbours and see if they would like to have it.” Two short calls were made and by the time I walked home the block to may place, that tank was dryer than a popcorn you know what.

Some of the locals have gotten wind that the house is going to be burnt and rumour has it that before the fire department lights it up, there will be nothing left but an empty shell. They tell me that it will be akin to a school of piranhas attacking a sick cow trying to make it across the Amazon. I don’t know how well I’m going to fit in here, but I do know that I managed to save the empty tank for myself and I did salvage a door, some electrical fittings and some copper plumbing.

Maybe I’ll change my name to Okkersnoff.