A Slice of Heaven
It doesn’t matter
how old they are, he calls everyone “kid.” He’s eighty-five, but I met him
fourteen years ago when Penny and I relocated to Georgian Bay and I dropped
into Johnson’s Market on the outskirts of Midland where I met the owner,
“Chicken Coop Johnson.” That’s what they called him when he played hockey for
the North Shore Hockey League (which comprised of four towns on the north shore
of Lake Superior, my hometown of Nipigon, Red Rock, Terrace Bay, and Marathon);
and Jimmy, as I preferred to call him, played for the Marathon Mercuries. It
was a curious coincidence meeting him.
One day when I was
in Johnson’s Market, I noticed a picture of a hockey team on one of his back
shelves and saw that it was the Marathon Mercuries, and I asked why he had that
picture on his shelf. “I used to play for the Mercuries,” he replied.
“No kidding? Which
one are you?” I asked, and he pointed himself out in the picture, and then it
hit me—
“I remember you!” I said, excitedly. “You were a feisty little bastard! You were
always getting into fights,” and a big smile came over his impish face; and
that’s how we became—not friends, but good acquaintances; and I dropped into
his vegetable and fruit market just to say hello because I loved the man for
being the person that he was; besides, I loved his freshly picked yellow beans and
sweet corn, and I always got my field tomatoes from him.
Jimmy was not a
big man, which made me wonder how he could be so feisty on the ice; but he
never backed down from anybody. That was his character. And every time I
dropped in, we talked a little more; and he told me about himself, how his
grandfather had started the market garden business which his father took over
and passed on to him, and every summer he’d drive his truck full of produce to
Marathon for one or two long days of selling and also to the Sault where he
sold his produce, and he had been doing that for years and couldn’t see himself
retiring. “What else am I going to do?” he said.
“Why not?” I said.
“As long as you enjoy what you’re doing.”
“I’ve been doing
this all my life, and I like it. I like meeting people.”
“So do I. I’ll bet
you met some real characters here, haven’t you?”
“Sure have,” Jimmy
said, with an impish smile. I loved that smile. It told me he was still the mischief
maker that I saw years ago on the ice when he played for the Marathon Mercuries.
“You never know what kind of people you’re going to meet, and that’s the fun of
it,” he said. “I can’t see myself doing anything else.”
“Die with your
boots on, Jimmy; that’s the only way to go,” I said, and we talked about his
family and other things and got to know each other as well as could be expected
in such short visits; and the more we talked, the more I loved him for his
spunk.
Then Penny and I
dropped in one day and I asked her to take a photo with her cell phone of Jimmy
and me with him holding his hockey team picture, and we had it blown up and framed
at Walmart and I gave it to Jimmy the next time I dropped in, and he gave me a
sweet smile and proudly placed it beside his hockey team picture.
That’s how it went
for a number of years, and then I dropped in one Saturday morning and I asked
the lady how Jimmy was doing and was surprised to learn that he had been in the
hospital for heart surgery. “No kidding?” I said. “What happened?”
“He was having
trouble breathing.,” the lady replied. She was an elderly woman who worked for
Jimmy for years and always filled in when he was away. Jimmy also had several
Mexicans who came up every summer to do his picking, and he must have been good
to them because one had been coming up from Mexico for over twenty-five years.
“Did he have
by-pass surgery?” I asked.
“Yeah,” the lady
said. “But he’s out now and doing okay. He wanted to come to work today, but I
told him to forget it.”
But
the following weekend he was back and we had a lot to talk about because now we
had something in common. I had open-heart surgery also, and we shared our
experience like old veterans sitting in the Legion hall. It would have been
nice to share our experience over a cold beer or a cup of Tim Hortons coffee,
which I would gladly have picked up just up the road in Midland, but Jimmy told
me he did not drink coffee or tea, never did his whole life.
“No kidding?” I
said. “Your whole life you never drank coffee or tea?”’
“Nope. Never did,
kid.”
“What do you drink
then. A beer now and then?”
“I like beer, but
I don’t drink it much. I drink vegetable cocktail. I like that. And milk. I
grew up on milk. I always have milk here and two or three jugs of vegetable
cocktail. That’s good for you. You ever drink it?”
“Yes. I always
pick four or five Mott’s Garden Cocktail when it goes on sale.”
“Me too,” Jimmy
said, and this led into food and Jimmy gave me a list of the kinds of foods he
liked to eat, and his cuisine was simple but hearty just like Jimmy. And as we
talked he would greet people coming in with, “How you doing kid?”
What I loved about
Jimmy was his authenticity. He was what he was and didn’t pretend to be
anything else, like my cottage neighbor Tony, and I absorbed his gnostic wisdom
like I absorbed Tony’s; like the time he was telling me about a new supermarket
going in at Marathon which he felt was going to cut into his produce sales.
“I don’t think it
will, Jimmy. You’ve been going up there for years. You must have your loyal
customers.”
“Don’t mean a damn
thing. They’ll leave you for a quarter,” Jimmy said.
“You’re right. I
should have known better. If there’s one thing you can be certain about life, it’s
that people will always disappoint you,” I said, with a wry snicker.
“You got that
right, kid,” Jimmy said, dead serious; and the next time I saw Jimmy he had
already made two trips up to Marathon, but on his last trip he fell ill and had
to be taken to the hospital, which really got his dander up. “I almost lost my driver’s
licence,” he said, still angry over the whole incident. “I had to get a medical
report to prove there was nothing wrong with me, and I had to go for a driver’s
test.”
What happened was
simple enough, but it got complicated. He hadn’t eaten all day, he was so busy
selling his produce, and when he went to the restaurant that evening he fainted
and someone called for an ambulance and the paramedics took him to the hospital.
The doctor wanted to keep him overnight and didn’t want to him drive his truck,
but he did.
“There’s was nothing
wrong with me,” Jimmy said. “I think it was something I ate. I think I got food
poisoning. I got a bit sick in my stomach and fainted, and some guy called 911.
I wish he would’ve minded his own business. I almost lost my licence because of
that.”
But he’s back on
his feet now, and he made another one or two trips up to Marathon and the Sault;
but the last time I dropped in I experienced another one of those miraculous
moments of grace that lingered for days, if not weeks.
It was innocent
enough, and totally unexpected. In fact, I only vaguely remember what we were
talking about; but for some reason, Jimmy opened up to me like never before,
and I leaned on his counter and just listened to him tell me his story.
Jimmy had an old chair
that he sat on near a propane heater, which was turned on because it was fall
and a bit cool, and he’d get up and serve his customers, greeting them as they
came in the door with his customary “How you doing, kid,” but continued with his
story (he was telling me about his daughter and son and grandchildren), sounding
almost like a summation of his long life, like his own eulogy, and as he spoke I
could feel the goodness of the man flowing out of him, and I couldn’t hold back
my emotions and welled up with tears.
Jimmy talked for
another few minutes, and when he brought his story to resolution I said to him,
“You’re quite the man, Jimmy. I love talking with you.” And I picked up my two
bags of produce and extended my hand for Jimmy to shake.
“It’s been a slice
of heaven, son,” he said, with a warm smile and a look in his watery little blue
eyes that brought more tears to mine; and on my drive home I couldn’t get over
the effect my visit with Jimmy had upon me.
“It’s been a slice
of heaven,” I repeated to myself. “Now,
that’s grace!” I exclaimed, and broke into a burst of joyful
laughter.
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