Basically, my uncle was one of those guys -- and his life unfortunately has turned to tragedy and booze, thanks in good part to the trials and tribulations of a nasty divorce. Who to blame? Blood-thirsty feminists (who egged on his ex-wife), for starters. Secondly, lawyers. Third, the changing nature of the corporate world. Lastly, the booze itself. Nuff said.

You forgot Frank. My uncle Frank. Uncle Frank came to Vancouver Island with the Army. He was originally "from the Danforth" which I later found out was in "Tarana", which some people, for reasons known only to them, spelled Toronto. Uncle Frank liked the Island, and took his discharge out here, married my Auntie Betty, drove cab for a living, and played piano every chance he got. He used Brylcreem, his hair was shiny black with a great big wave in the front and when not playing the piano he did finger excersizes, without dropping his cigarette. He drove cab one-handed, his right hand, his left arm out the open window, one arm always more tanned than the other. But all good things come to an end and there wasnt' enough work for a cab driver in Nanaimo so they went back to Tarana where he got a job with IBM. Every five years they came back for a visit, and he spent the entire month saying he wished he could stay here all the time. "If it wasn't for the damned up and down of the economy I'd chance it but this place is either boom or bust and too much bust fora guy like me." Oh, yeah, he had a knife. Not a jack knife, a little pen knife which he wore on a chain attached to his belt. He said his grandfather had given it to him when he was a boy and he'd had it with him ever since. He's gone now. And I have no idea what happened to his pretty little mother-of-pearl handled knife.

I had an Uncle Frank too. Mine was from Newfoundland. A big, gruff teddy bear of a man who worked for a dairy and smoked Players Navy Cut. His first child, born in a prairie January, was small enough at birth and for the first couple of months of her life that Frank used to snuggle her into his oversized overcoat pocket and keep his hand on her when they went out. Frank's been gone for years now. Died before the first year of his retirement was up.

It's probably hard to be a salt of the earth guy in the world we find ourselves inhabiting now. The last few I've encountered came to the house or our cottage as a result of a repair call. Plumbers who can do a little carpentry and painting. Painters who can do some drywalling and wiring. Craftsmen. Generous, big hearted men with an eye out for how they can help more than what they can get out of it. I've never resented their invoices. I usually add a little. Just for the pleasure of their company and conversation.

I used to run into dozens of them in my Trampminer days. They were called clerks on the little jackpot jobs, do the ordering, keep time, be first aid men. Where have they gone? With the neardeath of mining exploration in Canada, there was just not enough demand for their considerable skills and knowledge. The lucky ones adapted and found other ways of masking a living - different jobs, small business, etc. The unlucky ones ended up on skidrow.

Too bad you missed these guys, Coyote. I am old enough to have a good few of them in my memory too. Nice guys, big men with hard hands who would stop work, pass a deck of Export A around and stand in a circle shooting the shit for a smoke break of five minutes talking about the job, the wife and kids, the last weekend or the next one. Giving each other a good natured hard time and having a laugh.

They never came out of the "Prosperity times" though. They came out of the dirty thirties, through the war they would rarely talk about, and were proud of the cars and houses and families that they built into a life from the remainders of all that. And proud of their jobs.

Truth to tell, they probably would have been almost as hard on dubious men and smartass college kids as you are, Coyote. I haven't thought about those guys for years. It's too bad they're gone.

"Iris was pleased as punch" ... my favourite line... awright, I'm not even going to start; I'm too young to be commenting on this here story but will say one thing- thank god I was born when I was- ever occur to you, My Uncle, that the feminists who "egged on his wife" did so because, I dunno, she just wasn't happy enough with her "tacky flower vase" or wahtever?? Oops, but this is supposed to be happy cutie simple story....

I think I initially took this story the wrong way. After I responded to what I though was a slight, they paraded by me in legions of memory, of course. I spent my life working with these guys, only there's not too many of them around the cities anymore. Folks there tend to be too "specialized" now days, to be the "generalists" these guys were. City men, or significant numbers of them, since, have become more... I hesitate to say it. Feminized. They can't hand grind the valves on the engines out of their rigs anymore, put in a fantastic garden like my old man could, or do all the other gut slogging and "fix it" things those guys could. (If the ladies don't find you handsome, they should at least find you handy. :-) At least, like I say, not so much in the city. There are always exceptions to prove the rule.

On the other hand, they still survive like dying Marlboro men, or ancient relics on places like ranches and farms, in small towns now on the downhill skids in the New Neoconservative World Order, and in some industries like logging. Where more and more they're being exploited again, or still, like the '30s, with incredibly long hours, and pay getting poorer instead of better, and too long away from homes and families. And they've paid and are paying the price for having accepted/tolerated de-unionization throughout much of their former range, where it had existed.

Yeah, they're salt of the earth types, but too many of them weren't too smart politically, unfortunately. And the ones I know still too often aren't. They're examples of how that stoic, struggle on and make the best of a bad deal and tough times attitude can work against you sometimes. (I was always the politico/ trouble maker, who they would admire and used from a distance, so long as you didn't involve them into it, or get into trouble. Then they'd as like turn their backs and look the other way. Not all, of course, but enough of them. Because they were also strong "frontier individualists", who believed when you made your bed, you lay in it, and accepted the consequences. They were salt of the earth, but they could have, with exceptions, these, what seem now, strange social attitudes too, that often worked against them over the long haul.)

Though I knew old communists, anarchists and socialists that came out of their ranks too. The Great Depression, the Spanish Civil War, The Great War, and then after all that, the Blacklists did something to them though. It wearied these amongst them, in a way that is difficult to describe. And we won't talk about their attitudes towards women, of course, at least for many of them.

Still, everything considered and on balance, there was a lot about them, that we are the poorer for the loss of. And one does have to be careful about generalizing about them too much. Overall, I admired most of them, and when I was fourteen, I wanted to be and became "a working man" just like them. Which is probably why I spent most of my life so damned poor, eh? That, and too much "breeding" the old lady, who tended to get pregnant, pre-pill, everytime I looked at her. :-) Unions though, was/still is definitely the way to go. For which those old radicals were a large part responsible too.

Ernie Knott, a log-boom man for Victoria Plywood, and an organizer for the Communist Party on Vancouver Island all his life, blacklisted for years from the IWA. Somebody told me recently that he's dead and gone. I hadn't though of him for years. (Friggin' Haggard isn't good enough to tote out his garbage.)

The Depression and The War really did leave its mark on them all.

Wow, The building caretaker (the super) at my building is an Earl. Have been spending time with him lately, sort of enthralled, somewhat appalled with his ability to be friendly, and super talkative while being informative (what's up) entertaining (gossipy) and unfortunately (I think it is part of the profile) racist and intolerant. But for sure very helpful. Blood thirsty Fem. they are still among us!

Hmmm... sounds to me like they'd be dead anyhow based on the level of self-abuse (and I don't blame healthcare entirely on that one). I think the bigger question is - why are you looking for them? I'd run the other way.... then again, I'm allergic to stagnancy.

They were the guys who joined Rotary or Kiwanis or the Shriners. Who thought getting the new childrens wing at the local hospital all outfitted was a worthy project. Or seeing to it that the school playground had a proper ball field with a backstop and everything. They thought doing things and raising money for the good of the community was worthwhile. And it didn't have to be the school their kids went to or the hospital in their neighbourhood or even in their town.

Yes, they might not be politically correct by the sometime prosaic measurements we've come up with for our world but in their world they showed a level of commitment to community building and contribution that is harder to find in ours today.

These guys are still around. You can find them in most small towns where the times haven't quite caught up to the present. These are our father's generation, the Father Knows Best and Leave it to Beaver generation. Where "the Wife" was a stay at home model of good housekeeping. The Father was the provider and the kids were the "seen but not heard". Some aspects of that time are worth looking back on with nostalgia as much as others are worth looking back and thanking progress for changing the way we now go about our daily lives. A lot of these "guys" were hard-drinking, hard-working, hard-playing. Only the attitude of the public at that time allowed them to be thought of as "personable". Today their attitudes and intolerance towards others that don't fit their "Good 'ol Boy" image is found to be "Red-necked", racist, chauvinistic, and homophobic at least by this reader.

Hey, great story and comments too. What a read. My dad is kinda like Earl. Actually, a Hank. Technically, a Henry. He's white collar and Japanese, but also a man of the soil, the plain, the pipeline. A genial guy, powerful drive off the tee, shoots the shit with the fellas, and stands up when a woman enters the room. He's still got prairie dry-farm muscles, is comfortable in work coveralls, and is super-handy (welded his own barbecue out of pipe steel). Doesn't hold with queers but admires Svend Robinson because he was "great for the seniors." Likes the CFL. Wears safety specs and a touch of Brylcreem.

"Doesn't hold with queers but admires Svend Robinson because he was "great for the seniors." Likes the CFL. Wears safety specs and a touch of Brylcreem." writes Ron Y.

Loved the story, and gave me a good laugh. Your Dad sounds like a number of guys I might have worked with . ;-)

Which is one of the major points about these guys, also touched on by Secunda and Dana, of course, like probably a good many folks, male and female, still around today; they were typically walking contradictions, with an incredible sweep of experiences that they drew on, both positive and negative.

Though one has to be careful how one judges "the good housekeeping moms" they tended to marry too. They wielded way more influence and power within the family and the times, than we tend to give them credit for. Strong women are not a new phenomena. They have always been around in many guises, that could "seem" self-effacing. And that varied from time to time, and situation. Even most of these guys knew it, though they might never speak of it-, don't you kid yourself. (There has also always been weak men, and weak women-, even still.)And don't think lots of the ladies couldn't be racist and redneck in their attitudes, hidden behind lace and "Lily of The Valley" perfume. Most of them were way tougher than many women today are inclined to give them credit for. They had their lines in the sand.

Though these guys did tend to hold on tight to the purse strings and dole out the cash from a tight fist, no doubt.

Great story and great writing. I have a few of those guys in my past as well.

Coyote, these must be the women Steel Magnolias was written about. I am sure some were the actual backbone of the family that held it together in more ways than one. A "housewife" has always and will always be a noble profession. One that many of us today do not have the luxury of being as we have become dependant on the two income household to survive. After having the latitude that women today have I don't know of many who would be happy with whatever sheckels the "man of the house" is willing to dole out for their own pleasure. Women today have the advantage of being able to have an opnion and the freedom to voice it as well, something many of these "little women" didn't. Personally, I am very happy to be born into the age of female emancipation even if we have lost some of the advantages of being married to such personable men.

Guess I'm older, or maybe the guys I remember were different from the herd...hang onto the purse strings and dole out the money from a tight fist? Uh uh...both grandfathers, my uncles, and my dad signed the back of the pay checque, handed it to "the little woman" and after SHE had figured out the budget and gone to the bank, to cash the checque, the guys got their "allowance"... I was lucky, and I know it. I not only had my Uncle Frank, I still have my Uncle Tom. Lives in Cassidy. Headed off to WW 2 as a volunteer, wounded, got married in England, came home and for years wouldn't say word one about "army". He worked in the bush for years and when his back started to cave in, he retired from the bush and drove school bus. He can build or fix anything! He's fully retired now. The funniest guy you could ever meet, a huge man who never thought there was anything "wrong" with looking after a baby, changing a diaper, giving a bath, putting a band-aid on an injured knee. He's the one taught me the fun of "sillytalkin'". He showed me a wedding announcement and told me to read it out loud. I did ..."the bride was resplendent in a gown of white lace" (I still remember the line". He coughed, then jabbed me in the ribs and intoned "the bride was repugnant in a gob of white lice". We howled! And then he added "just magazine that". I was hooked. I read of the guys in the lives of some others and wonder about "racist"...my uncle wasn't and isn't. He might not understand the "why" but he figures its none of his business if people are "gay". It has never bothered him that I'm a dyke. Today he is very upset by the war in Iraq, as he was by Desert Storm... and I like his idea...Steven Harper is willing to send our servicepeople to Iraq, and seems to think he's Alexander the Great..the difference, says my dear Uncle Tom, is that old Alex LED his troops into battle and until the "leaders" are willing to grab a gun and footslog with the "grunts" they shouldn't be allowed to make decisions about getting into a war...... as for the women... hey, some of the toughest, most enduring people I have met in my life were and are women. When the Politically Correct prattle on about "non traditional" work for women I can only suppose they never met the women who drove logging truck, drove bulldozer, worked as saw filers, and even on the green chains. Women who drove bus, drove freight truck, dug, planted, tended and harvested HUGE gardens, and were out with pitchforks helping with the hay harvest. Maybe we need more "nostalgic" articles and responses like these, it seems some people just don't know this country did not grow out of the cities or out of those with soft white hands who work in offices and have to wear Spandex to go to the gym to futz with some machines to keep the flab away. I have much enjoyed this article and the responses. Coyote, you'd love life in Tahsis! Hey, we're having Tahsis days the weekend of the 11th.....you're all invited!! Bring a sleeping bag and you can crash on my floor... and thanx to all who have participated in this discussion, it's one of the most enjoyable I've seen!!

"After having the latitude that women today have I don't know of many who would be happy with whatever sheckels the "man of the house" is willing to dole out for their own pleasure." wrote Secunda. I certainly won't pretend to have the i's all dotted, nor the t's crossed, on this issue of the future of male-female relations. I expect we'll all get to it one day though. But like I've said before here, it seems plain enough to me, that if society is going to expect future women to have children in numbers anywhere near what it would take to even "maintain" the human population, at any level we eventually decide, (3-4 per family it probably about runs as a guesstimate), allowing for the non-producers and natural premature die-off, the "modern" woman is going to have to be satisfied that it makes "economic sense", and that there's something more in it for her, by way of economic independance, than what there's tended to be, this far. I'd sure as hell expect it, before I let some woman stick to me, if the roles were reversed. :-) (We're still getting away with it being otherwise, because most of the world, and maybe even us, is over-populated in all likelihood anyway. And we've still got a big potential "immigration" pool to draw on, like they are.)And it's now going to have to be, not only because it's the right thing to do, but for all the reasons you mention too, Secunda.

And Anne Cameron, I enjoyed your piece immensely. All true as well, as one of those revelations on the complexity of real life.

It seems to me, the old lady and I have been to Tahsis. I'll have to double check the map. But if not, I'm damned sure I'd love it. I'll make certain my next trip to Vancouver Island definitely includes your fair town.

And, by the way, when I was working and the Mrs was looking after the home front, for probably most of our married life, I simply signed my paycheques over to her as well. It was damned little to go around anyway. Now, I look after "the books", but outside that, she's got all the same "plastic" and the same personal "allowance" I get. (Though I'm sure she'd say, I still spend the most money. And she may be right. :-)

It's been a good chew the fat, for sure.

Tommy Douglas used to say,"Man can fly above the earth like a bird, swim under the ocean like a fish, and dig under the ground like a mole. Now if only he could learn to walk the earth like a man, this would truely be paradise.

I really enjoyed this article and the responses. I think in that time people valued the heart more in the chest than on the toungue. Nowadays it seems the other way around.

I enjoyed this one too. I certainly do remember these guys although they were always "parents." Bud and Ivy--ohgosh I laughed! I think I knew Bud and Ivy. They were friends of the people who had the cottage across the bay from ours. Bud would sit back on the dock and clink the ice in his glass while laughing at some joke somebody read in Playboy. Likely he was watching as Ivy sauntered over to where us kids--theirs was named Colleen, I'm sure of it--were swimming and getting 2nd degree sunburns on our straight, spindly, lily white prepubescent bodies.

Sure, some of the Buds and Ivys ended up buying RVs and travelling around from Good Samaritan campsite to Good Samaritan campsite. Course, Ivy has that little plastic tablecloth she takes out for the picnic table at each site, and she has that cute little jar of "silk" flowers that is the centrepiece...little Snuffles (the maltese terrier) sits on Ivy's knee while she tells Bud that they need to get hold of the kids (who are 50) to find out if Colleen and Bill are gonna get over to water the grass this week. The new Reader's Digest lays face down on a lawn chair--prolly open to some article "I am Joe's LIver" but what the hell......

Yeah, I liked this article. I can smell the water of the lake that I wish was still a part of me. That and everything it was, for whatever it was.

Great story... those guys are why they invented the term "salt of the earth". I think the reason you don't see those guys as much anymore, or at least why there isn't a new generation of Hank and Vern and Earl is that you can't be one of them, making $40 or $50K, and support a family and buy a house anymore.

Great story... those guys are why they invented the term "salt of the earth". I think the reason you don't see those guys as much anymore, or at least why there isn't a new generation of Hank and Vern and Earl is that you can't be one of them, making $40 or $50K, and support a family and buy a house anymore.

Went to my great-uncle and aunt's 50th wedding anniversary in Osoyoos a few weeks ago-- Uncle Walt and his wife Eva. Walt is a pilot and retired aviation mechanic who (along with his cronies) still spends most days at the airfield restoring and flying WWII-era Chinese Yak warplanes. Every bit the urban thirtysomething with pomade in my hair and uncallused hands, I felt keenly my inability to talk intelligently about carburetion ("Yeah, she's running a little rich"). Doesn't make sense to try and change one's stripes, but there's something in those men that I don't have, and that I want. Some kind of ease and, yeah, John Wayne grit. Being able to source a leaky fuel line back in the fuselage, repair it with ProSeal and then fly your plane into the summer Okanagan blue-- seems like a perfect metaphor for what younger-than-their-age men like myself need to learn. Patience, self-confidence, grimy fingernails. Since we're skirting idealization here, it's noteworthy to mention that at the anniversary dinner at the Osoyoos Golf and Country Club Walt's daughter made a genial but pointed tribute to her mother in her speech: "And here's to my mom for raising us singlehandedly. No offense pop, but you were never there-- you were always at the airfield."

Excellent piece. Very well written. Great stuff. But enough with these bloody analytical responses debating the merits of wifedom back then, feminism now and smoking and drinking. Take it for what it is: A damn fine piece. And, as a 35-year-old with a wife and two kids, reading this story took me back to moments of my youth where Gil, Merv and Hank could be found with my dad, drinking a beer on the stoop or in our kitchen with all the wives, drinking smoking, swearing, yelling, laughing – while Buck Owens and the Buckaroos and Charley Pride and George Jones played on the stereo turntable. And, yes, in my humble opinion, those times WERE better . . . and I sure miss them. And wish we could have them now.

Yeah, funny Christopher but the article didn't make me go off into analytical land at all. Rather it created this wonderful nostalgia for a lost time and a long lost place.

TR, I liked your bit about the old guys hanging around the Osoyoos air strip with their greasy fingernails and grumbling about carbs...and not the nutritional kind.

I loved the this piece of work,for me it was a little like looking at the provincial musem exhibit of the fifties.Typecast as they are these men as a an identifiable group have mostly disappeared except in some rural areas.They were my barber,the guy in the tackle shop,construction workers,furniture salesmen in department stores car salesmen and orderlys.For the most part their education was seat of the pants school of hard knocks variety. Quite often as I reflect on the past eveything seems to have a golden glow about it but I have seen an awful lot o thesechaps dying of dud livers and lung cancer along with their wives.Perhaps the the memory that stirs me the most was their ability to make something out of nothing,repair at all costs and be damned proud of bein able to do it yourself without havng to cave in and have another guy come and do it for you.This trait is still alive but much mor e on the backburner.....it's a shame because for me it exhibits a great deal of backbone, individuality and the pride of self accomplishment.Todays world insists that you must be spoon fed and led by academic degrees to do the same things...think I'll go back to that golden glow for a while....thanks for your comments everybodyI've thoroughly enjoyed them all!

I'm not sure what the purpose of that "Steakhouse Guys" was or what the news "hook" was, but I loved it. My grandfather and his buddies in New Brunswick fit that title. They wore curling cardigans knitted by their wives. They played darts and went out as a group to chop down Christmas trees that, when brought home, were never allowed in the house because they were so shabby. Thanks for the memories.

Great piece! Growing up in the Interior of BC (which is NOT the Okanagan, BTW) I can identify with the 20-somethings immigrating en masse from Europe in the 50's. There was John and Irme, Rolf and Lilly, Gunther and Margaret. Life was simple then. No mortgages or huge car payments. Just the enjoyment of a peaceful time in one of the greatest places in the world. I can see why 'Hank' would have a spark in his eye.

Bourbon. Forgot to mention bourbon. < wink >

Hey TBattis... you've brought back one of my fondest Christmas memories. My 7 year old daughter and I went out to get a tree for our celebration and by golly if the forest agent didn't confiscate it at the bottom of the mountain. I was informed that it was against the law to cut trees in the "plantation". I now have a record in Victoria that defines me as some sort of tree terrorist. But at least, in that year, it wasn't a member of my family who ruined Christmas.

Stick to your writing, Barry, because your songwriting and singing suck the big one. Love, The Preacher

I've been fortunate enough to know some of the folks mentioned in COYOTE 6/24/04 comment, particularly Ernie Knott...some day wiser people will write about the life of these men who fought for what we now enjoy [and quickly loosing...]UIC, health care, labour laws....what a pleasure to see someone recognizing Ernie's labour of love and commitment to the regular working stiff