Letter from Dad

Dad has been writing to his cousin about some property in New Brunswick. This is his letter:

Dear George,

I have been wanting to write to you for some time. You overcame my procrastination. Of course I will sign the course of action you advise. In fact I hope I have remembered to include it with this correspondence of June 20.

It brings to mind a wonderful summer I spent in New Brunswick with Grampy at his house there. It sat on a corner of a graveled road that had no junction with another regular road for another forty miles (?) after passing Grampy‘s house. Just before Grampy‘s house a dirt road went up to the McCutcheon farm. Chester and his brother Ralph lived with their parents there. All of the McCutcheons were great friends of Grampy. Chester visited us in Cornish for Sandra’s wedding.

For fun Ralph and Chester took me deer hunting one late evening. That involved a rifle, a large flashlight, and a drive past a game warden‘s house and a detour through large areas of sloping fields fronting his house. The pick up truck was parked some walking distance back past the warden’s house and we walked back to jacklight some deer below his house. A deer was lighted, a shot was fired with no resulting joy, we heard a vehicle start up near the warden’s house and consequently we ran towards where the pick up was parked. The rifle was hidden in one stone wall and the flashlight in another. Arriving at our transport we drove circuitously back to Grampy‘s and continued our evening conversation there. Soon a car drove up and the driver stopped to chat knowingly with Ralph and Chester and courteously with Grampy. He even kindly said he hoped I was enjoying New Brunswick. Definitely New Brunswick had exemplary people.

My routine there was to visit the outhouse upon awakening. It was a short walk there and each morning I would pass a steaming pile of bear droppings. Then I would wash up and Grampy would start to make his delicious sourdough biscuits telling me to go catch breakfast (trout) in the stream in back of the house. In a few minutes I would have three to five brook trout and return to the house. Grampy and I would prepare the trout for pan frying and a fantastic breakfast would be ready in minutes.

The neighbors would always include Grampy and I in their baking each week so we had fresh bread and sometimes cookies or a cake. One neighbor added me to his family for a blueberry picking trip. We went there in a horse and wagon. I hope I turned in more than I ate but it was a long time ago (sixty + years) so my memory fails me on that issue.

Another time some friends of Grampy took us on a day trip to a remote lake. We had to take a motor boat to the island they lived on. I saw and heard loons on that trip. This trip was up the road past Grampy’s.
Mention of Chester certainly evokes pleasant memories.

However a correspondence from you brings forth even more and greater memories of the most wonderful family I have ever known, the WALKER’S. Your mother and father were exceptional, and their children Betty, George, Tom, Kathy, Dorothy all contributed to my ideas of what people
should be like. Each of you were different but with your own admirable qualities. For all of the terrific things each of you did for me, huge THANKS!