Jane Macdougall: The Bookless Club Tackles Life and Death, and CDs

Article content

I never drive through Exit 32 without remembering that day.

Article content

If it had gone the way it should, you would probably remember the day too.

There were five of us in the car; four noisy 10 year olds and me. There were three children in the back seat and my son in the passenger seat. The back of the car was crammed with hockey bags. We were on our way to the Richmond Ice Center, which is just east of Highway 99 where the Steveston Highway meets Route 6. The area is an entertainment and recreation mecca with a water park, trampoline park, a theater complex, along with the multi-layer ice complex. He was happy to take the kids to his game and his parents were happy to have the day off from driving duties.

The boys were jubilant. His team was on a winning streak and they were eager to tie their skates. Defeat was simply not in his vocabulary; life is perfect when you are 10 years old. My job was simple: drive. Stay calm and drive.

Article content

I got off Highway 99 at Exit 32. It was a bright spring day, it seemed such a shame to be inside. But there you have it, hockey. There was a car ahead of us at the red light on Steveston Highway. The ice rink was only a few minutes away and the boys were getting more and more restless. As we sat in the light, the guys yelled at me to put on the CD with their team’s song. They were already singing the lyrics. The light turned green and the car ahead of me pulled into the intersection. It took me a moment, a heartbeat, actually, to push the CD into the CD player, took my foot off the brake and started onto Steveston Highway.

I can still see the driver in profile, the truck passing me, apparently on the hood of my car. I gasped and instantly began to recriminate myself. I must have misread the traffic lights! It must have been red! Fool! So dumb!

Article content

The boys didn’t notice.

I drove the short distance to the arena parking lot. I still remember where I parked, looking south. The boys huddled together and retrieved their bags from the back of the car. I got out and stood next to my car, seized with confusion and self-recrimination.

A car stopped directly behind me. The driver jumped out, leaving his car running and his door open. He ran up to me and grabbed me by the shoulders, exclaiming, “Do you know how lucky you are?”

I managed to get out: “OMG, did you see it too ?!” right before I started crying. He explained that a fully loaded gravel truck had passed through the most stagnant red light, coming between me and the car that was in line at the stoplight in front of me. He said he was surprised I still had my front fender, let alone my life. He had not been able to obtain the license plate of the truck, but he had managed to obtain the name of the trucking company. He wrote it down and handed it to me. He kept repeating that he had no idea how close he had been.

Article content

I was immobilized in the parking lot for what had almost happened. Except for the time it took to load a CD, four families would have lost a child that day.

I made inquiries. I discovered that there was a gravel pit not far from this entertainment complex. That drivers were paid per load.

I wrote to the BC Minor Hockey Association, to the stadium, to the league. I sent a letter to the Richmond RCMP.

Months later, the RCMP contacted me to inform me that they had investigated the matter and had given something to the neighborhood of 87 citations and had pulled several trucks off the road for violations, as well as recalled some of the drivers.

I think about all this every time I pass Exit 32.

I think about it each and every time I meet one of those guys, all now grown up for men.

Article content

Jane Macdougall is a freelance writer and former National Post columnist based in Vancouver. She will write at The Bookless Club every Saturday online and at The Vancouver Sun. For more information on what Jane is doing, visit her website, janemacdougall.com

This week’s question for readers:

The intersection of life and death; Do you have stories in which fate was on your side, but hardly?

Please email your responses, not an attachment, in 100 words or less, along with your full name to Jane at [email protected]. We will print some next week in this space.

Answers to last week’s question for readers:

Are you a lifelong learner? What have you had now that you are an adult? What do you regret not staying?

Article content

• This week’s column made me smile. In the mid-1950s I met a woman in Edmonton who taught drums. He had played with some well-known and lesser-known bands in Canada and the United States in the 1960s.

I immediately signed up for lessons and every Wednesday after work I went to his house for my weekly lesson.

It didn’t take me long to realize how uncoordinated I am, as well as rapidly developing leg cramps and carpal tunnel syndrome. It’s definitely not a womans game!

I kept going to my lessons and paid my teacher not only for the lessons, but also for an hour in which we would often dissolve in hysteria at my feeble attempts. It’s worth it! Almost two decades have passed and we are still the best of friends, even after I moved to Vancouver.

Article content

Lois kathnelson

• I did my undergraduate degree, primarily through evening or correspondence classes, from the University of Victoria, Vancouver Community College, Simon Fraser Univ., Fraser Valley College, and Okanagan College, as well as the BC Real Estate Licensing Course (UBC).

At 35, I quit my 15-year banking career and went to law school. I passed the bar entrance exams in BC in 1988 and Alberta in 1999, at age 50.

Simply put, I have been a “lumberjack, lender, attorney and leader, laterally at Lumby, Langley, at Lawson Lundell College of Law and Attorneys.” That’s 17 L! I am a “poster boy” of lifelong learning.

Ian C. MacLeod

• I used to tell people that if I ever retired I could take lessons in the hopes of learning some of those delicious sounds from professional jazz pianists, never believing that I would do that.

Article content

Well, weeks after I closed my office, I took that step. I enrolled in the VSO music school, asked for and was assigned my favorite jazz pianist, who was on the faculty, and started the lessons, first at school and then for most of last year at Zoom after the intervention of COVID.

He was a wonderful teacher. I have no talent for doing it well, but I often spend a pleasant couple of hours a day at the piano.

Earl hardin

• During my youth, I had aspirations to become a writer. Life passes and finally, at the age of 44, I completed a degree from SFU.

However, getting out of science left me without creativity. After retiring from a satisfying career and reflecting on the future, the pandemic took over the world. I returned to SFU and am completing my fourth creative writing course.

Article content

Through that, eight motivated students, like myself, formed a Zoom writing group. We meet monthly, share and critique our writing, and have set a goal of “memoir drafts” for September 2022. Lifelong learning and making new friends are beneficial to everyone during the COVID-19 season.

Sandra Castle

• I had always wanted to play the alto sax but never did.

When I was 56 years old, I had the opportunity to join an adult concert band called Brass, Wind and Wire. It is a weekly night band class created for adults who have never played an instrument or have not played in a long time. I joined as a beginner, with a borrowed sax.

A year later, after graduating from middle class, I bought my own instrument.

After nine years, band class is still a learning experience as well as a social event and I even enjoy playing concerts. I have to thank the band’s director, Brenda Khoo, for creating this wonderful experience.

Wendy meloche