Dale Hanson and his son Jeff were out in the shop, trying to fix the electric tarp on their semi trailer. They’d hoped it was just a bad switch, but by mid-morning they’d figured out that the electric motor was seized. They were going to have to go to Regina for a new one before they could finish the job.
“Just as well. It’s too cold to work out here today anyway,” Dale said. “I’ll just change my clothes and get my truck out of the shed. I’ll pick you up in front of your house.”
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“I can’t go, Dad,” Jeff said. “Connor has hockey practice this afternoon and Elaine asked me to take him.”
“I thought she said she’d be home all week,” Dale said.
“She’s here, but there’s some online web presentation she wants to watch on her computer after lunch. It’s about strategy, or planning or something like that.”
“Huh. I would’ve made fun of you for that, but she’s learned a thing or two about negotiation, watching those damn webinars.” Dale had been impressed when Elaine had managed to get an extra set of concaves thrown in when the Hansons finalized the deal to buy a second combine earlier in the winter. “Who would’ve thought it would be smart to take a woman along?” he’d said on the trip home. But then he’d added, “I just hope the neighbours don’t find out.”
“Wish I could go to Regina with you,” Jeff said. “I wouldn’t mind picking up some shelves at Home Depot.” Jeff and Elaine had only been in their house a little over a year, and he was still spending most of his winter evenings finishing the basement.
“You go ahead,” Dale said. “I can take Connor to hockey.”
“That’s OK Dad,” Jeff said. “Remember? Mom went out cross-country skiing with some friends. She probably won’t be home before Connor’s practice at four.”
“Are you kidding? Do you think I can’t take my grandson to the rink unless your mother comes along to hold my hand?”
“Well…” Jeff said.
“Cut me some slack,” Dale said. “I can tie skates onto a five-year-old!”
“They need a lot of equipment. And he’s pretty young. He needs a lot of help.”
Dale just snorted. “Your generation thinks you invented everything. I was putting shoulder pads on you before the Internet existed. Connor and I’ll get along fine. Go to the Home Depot.”
So Jeff went to Regina on a parts run, and a little after three o’clock, Dale picked up his grandson for the trip to town for hockey practice.
“Let’s go Connor,” he said.
“Good luck,” Elaine said, handing Dale a hockey bag almost twice as big as the boy.
They got to the rink and found the right dressing room. Dale was a little concerned when he first unzipped the bag, but as he pulled each piece of gear out, he soon remembered where everything was supposed to go.
“Your dad thought I wouldn’t know how to do this!” he said to Connor. “But it’s like riding a bike. You never forget.”
“I think that’s the elbow pad for the right arm, Dale,” said Karen Avery, as she helped her daughter into shoulder pads.
Damn, Dale thought. Then he whispered into Connor’s ear, “Do you know when I was growing up, they didn’t let girls play hockey?”
“Neat,” Connor said.
Dale took the elbow pad off Connor’s left arm and started again.
When Connor was ready to hit the ice, Dale left him in the dressing room with the rest of his team and the coach, then went to the rink lobby. He took a look around for the first time in many years, wondering why he and Donna never took the time to go to hockey games. Then he headed over to the concession to get himself a coffee. Rich Walker joined him in the short lineup.
“Hear you got yourself a new combine,” Rich said.
“News travels fast around here,” Dale said.
“The story is that your daughter-in-law talked Greg into throwing in a set of concaves.”
Dale snorted, then pretended not to hear this. Rich saw he’d hit a sore spot and changed the subject.
“With these new low prices, maybe the oilpatch will slow down a bit around here. You might even be able to hire somebody to run that new machine,” Rich said.
“Could be,” Dale said. “There’s already a lot less oil traffic on the road by our place. A few guys who know how to run machinery could end up out of work.”
“Things can change quick in the oil business,” Rich said.
Rich bought Dale’s coffee, and the two men were still standing not too far from the counter when Ron Friesen came to get a cup of his own.
“Heard you got a new combine to use on that land you’re renting from me,” Ron said.
“That’s right,” Dale said.
“Maybe I should’ve waited. If the oilpatch caves in, maybe I could’ve hired somebody and kept farming myself.”
There was a silence. Dale took another sip of coffee, and was relieved when Ron said, “I’m just kidding. I’m done. I could grow the wheat, but I couldn’t get anybody to agree to let me sell it to them.”
And then the men were off on a 20-minute retelling of local elevator company horror stories, each man sharing a worse story than the next about “terrible grading,” or a company not taking contracted grain on time. Soon two more farmers joined in, and Dale remembered how much he’d always loved bringing Jeff to the rink.
Before Connor’s game was finished, Dale had eaten a hotdog, bought a handful of 50-50 tickets, joked with Karen Avery about how tough it was to figure out all the new kids’ equipment and got a line on someone who might be looking for work when seeding time rolled around.
“That was a lot more fun than I thought it would be,” Dale thought to himself when he was back in his truck and on his way home. He was on the edge of town and happened to be driving by a police car when his cellphone rang, so he didn’t even think about answering. Then the phone beeped. “Must be a text. I should figure out how to get this damn thing working through the truck speakers,” he thought.
When he got home, he parked his truck inside the heated shed, then walked to the house. Donna wasn’t home from skiing yet, so he took a look in the fridge to see if there was anything he might want to cook for supper before he thought to check his phone.
It was Elaine who had called. And she’d sent a text, too. It said: “Never mind. Karen Avery took Connor home with her. I’ll pick him up later.”
As he was looking at his screen, cursing himself, his phone beeped and another text appeared. This one was from Jeff. “Next time, you can go to Regina, Dad. Maybe you’d have more luck with a trip to Home Depot.”
Leeann Minogue is the editor of Grainews, a playwright and part of a family grain farm in southeastern Saskatchewan.
