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The Long Road Home

Mid-winter, January 1949, and we are on the road.  Business matters had taken Sheldon to Edmonton and we took the opportunity to visit friends.  Now the three of us—Sheldon, our one-year-old son Ralph, and I–are heading home.

This is not the ideal time for travelling.  The roads are kept open but are not in great shape.  Traffic is light; service places scarce.  Travel is slow, as the roads can be icy.  Even so we usually made it easily in one day to our home in McLennan, a little town north and west of Edmonton, and south of Peace River.

We started early this morning in order to finish the trip in daylight.  The words “cold and crisp and even” come to my mind to describe the weather.  Sunny and calm and cold.   Ahead we see a truck about to pull onto our road.  It is large, filled to the brim with debris from a building site.  No tarpaulin covers the load, and bits and pieces fly off as it goes.  Having no safe opportunity to pass, Sheldon drops back a bit and follows.  Suddenly the truck hits some ice and shimmies around.  A sudden gust of windy blows a big plank off the load directly in front of us.     Continue reading

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