“Now you’ve upset your mother,” was George’s passing shot, as he got up to follow her. “Your sisters don’t do that.”
His sisters looked on, wide-eyed and speechless.
At school, Ian tended to daydream in class, retreating into a private world of the imagination, working out narratives he himself devised, occasionally writing them out as skits or short stories which he showed to no-one. High-school culture in 1960s Ontario was conservative, conformist and philistine: popularity and athletic prowess were highly valued, while serious, bookish students tended to be ignored, if not ostracized as “nerds.” Canadian society’s homogeneity and smug provincialism tended to a mild suspicion of newcomers. A later generation’s parading of differences in the name of ‘diversity’ had yet to come.
So Ian’s decision to join the Scout troop at the neighbourhood church was not really a surprise. There he found a familiar ritual and practice, and companionship as well. He thrilled to the monastic hush in the church basement that preceded the solemn weekly recital of the Scout Promise, as a circle of uniformed boys repeated in unison, ‘On my honour I promise that I will do my best: to do my duty to God, and the Queen, to help other people at all times, and to obey the Scout Law.’ The words resonated for him under the fluorescent lights. He was following in his father’s footsteps, hoping to prove himself worthy. With the Scouts Ian learned to snowshoe and cross-country ski, and earned several proficiency badges but remained unable to master Morse code and semaphore signals, his father’s admonition ringing in his ears, “ You only want to do those things that come easily to you. Life isn’t like that. You have to take the rough with the smooth.”
At the time Ian had retorted, “No, I want to do those things that come naturally. There is a difference.” But his protest had fallen upon deaf ears. Nevertheless, he went on the troop’s annual camping trips to Algonquin Park, learned to paddle a canoe and portage it, slept under the stars in the great wilderness too many city dwellers take for granted, and was thrilled to hear for the first, unforgettable time, the loon’s plangent cry echoing across Opeongo Lake in the stillness of nightfall. He kept a log of the trip that he gave to the scoutmaster. Barney Saint-Jean thought him a curious kid with ‘a real funny accent,’ but each liked the other, and it came as a real disappointment to Barney when Ian abruptly stopped coming to Scouts after three years of exemplary attendance. When Barney dropped by the family’s house to find out why, Ian was silent and mutinous, especially towards his mother, who seemed to be suffering from depression. The father was away a lot, and the home seemed curiously cloaked in sorrow. But Ian assured him he was fine, and able to manage in his father’s stead. Barney did not meet the sisters: they remained out of sight. Ian was sorry to see him go, and did not expect to meet him again.
