Even the Little Prairie Chickens Dance

A story about my Dad

by Lesley Schatz of Saskatchewan, Canada

Chapter 1

My dad said a lot of things to me in his life. One of them was “Never underestimate your audience,” which I thought was quite an amazing thing for a World War II veteran to say who only had grade 11 and had never been on a stage in his life.

Number two: The other thing he said to me while I was busy trying to be an artist / musician and having doubts was, “Even the little Prairie chickens dance.” Another thing I remember him saying (this is probably the first thing I ever remember him saying and I would’ve been quite little) was “Go ye to the plains” … that was supposedly from the Bible.

Now the first few quotes that I’ve mentioned I totally get, but this last quote has me stumped and I’ve been searching for where it says that in the Bible for most of my life and I haven’t found it yet.

I did try moving really close to where Dad was raised in Saskatchewan and in doing so faced drought, cold, wind, ticks, debilitated old farm sites, fields that had been drained of all their moisture, grasshoppers in numbers that just about killed you when you went for a walk and on and on.

But on the other side of the fence, I saw dozens of sandhill cranes and heard their ancient chortling calls as they flew over. I met some of the most wonderful people in the world and actually met a small pack of wolves who were living on the same farm that I was living on. We learned to respect each other by remembering to “never underestimate your audience” … I could go on and on and on, but I’m still looking for that quote in the Bible and I have yet to find it.

So I’ve decided to try to find a little farm that I can purchase or rent up near where mom and dad finally ended up near Mayerthorpe, Alberta, Canada and posted an ad on the Mayerthorpe area information site.

This triggered my ‘Dad’ memories and I got to thinking about all the crazy things that he did, all the wonderfully brave things that he did and thought; you know, I need to record some of this stuff… they don’t make them like that anymore.

So that’s how I started on this story. But right now I have to go out and split wood. I’m a very gullible person who thinks positive thoughts about most people that I meet. I am not a cynical person and would like to believe the good in everyone before I start believing in the bad and believe me, I’ve met a lot of people who have hoodwinked me. And now I am trying to kick as much bad out of my brain as I can. Whenever I start to think of those nasty things that my memory has saved deep down and think I should try to forgive the sources but my God, I think I’d rather kick them out of my memory! If I could just keep them out and never think about them again and just deal with the lessons that they taught me (mostly about not trusting) then I could get on with the rest of my life…

So yes, back to splitting wood. I really got good and hoodwinked on the wood deal. The company unloaded my cord and left before I could inspect it.

I’ve now got to get out to split wood and work hard at it every day because I have to split it into tiny 1 inch or 2 inch pieces so that it can dry inside my cabin before I burn it. This is wood that was guaranteed to be dried split Tamarack and is actually wet, sappy chunks of uncured Tamarack.

I didn’t unload it so when I got out to see the stacking process (that my son came down from Edmonton to do for me), I realized by the weight of each piece that this was not dry.

Then when I started splitting it and found sap in the middle and heard the water boiling out of it while it was burning, I realized I was in trouble since this was my winter wood.

So every day, one or two times a day, I go out with my 73-year-old 5 foot two body (well now it’s about 5 foot one), and split from the beautiful stack that my youngest of four did for me. -31 Celsius with a biting wind and thank my lucky stars that I have some of the most wonderful children in the world that a mother could ask for and that I never underestimated any audiences, that I always believed that the little Prairie chickens could dance and lastly that I tried to believe that we all should head for the plains…

Maybe because Dad was in the Air Force (when he was only 17) stationed in London, England, what he actually meant was, “Go ye to the planes”… and just fly away from here… away from all of the troubles that you face on a daily basis. Away from cares up where it was beautifully free.

Up where your perspective on life would be incredibly changed and all your problems would be too small to bother with.

So this is what has brought me to writing these stories about my dad.

(Chapter two in progress)