South Arcola, Saskatchewan – 1965
I didn’t like Percy Ottowell very much.
There was nothing really wrong with Percy. He was an elderly neighbour, who lived a mile south of our farm. Percy was harmless; he smoked a pipe, which he tamped down with a yellow deformed fingernail that wrapped around the end of his little finger, but that didn’t make him a bad person.
Percy would occasionally drop by the farm for a visit with Dad. I remember him standing in the yard in his bib overalls, puffing away on that foul-smelling pipe, jamming his hideous nail into live coals.
Percy was rough-around-the-edges, but that isn’t why I disliked him.
Percy’s biggest shortcoming was that he owned a Bombardier, pronounced “Bomba-deer” in Saskatchewan.
In 1960s Saskatchewan, we could depend on at least three or four snow days each winter. Blowing snow would pile up and block roads, so school buses couldn’t operate. On snow days, rural school children were allowed to stay home.
With a blizzard raging outside, parents might allow truant kids to watch television or otherwise occupy themselves with non-scholastic activities.
All rural Saskatchewan students experienced the bliss of snow days. All students, that is, except South Arcola kids.
When school buses were immobilized, Percy Ottowell would fire up his hump-backed snowmobile. He would collect students within a five-mile radius, and take us to school, whether we wanted to or not.
Being his closest neighbours, my brother and I had transportation to school every time it snowed.
I detested Percy!
Riding in a Bombardier wasn’t luxurious. There were benches along either side with no arm or back rests. The engine was an inboard diesel, mounted in the rear – noise and fumes were overpowering.
Little round portal windows lined both sides, but they didn’t open and were usually covered with frost. The interior was dark, uncomfortable and smelly.
Bombardiers travel where nothing else can, they heave over snow drifts and crawl through ditches. The driver sits in relative comfort, but the cargo in the back gets jostled around like Bingo balls in a wooden cage.
Percy would pack as many neighbour kids as he could uncomfortably fit in the cabin.
If the route took us west, we sometimes stopped at Eberl’s. Bouncing around in the overcrowded space with the Eberl girls wasn’t all bad, but even that didn’t override the fact that we were being transported to school when we might have been enjoying re-runs of Bonanza.
Today, we woke to a late spring dump of snow in the Foothills. Gazing out over the bleak landscape, I had a déjà-vu. I imagined a roaring green snow machine crawling up our driveway. The side door swung open and I climbed into the overcrowded cab. The engine roared, and the tracks grumbled over snow drifts, on our way to school.
I don’t understand why memories mellow with time, but today, I find myself yearning for another ride in …
… Percy’s Bombardier.
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2 Responses to “Percy’s Bombardier”
I remember that bomba-deer, except I remember always having to sit in the middle seat that ran down the middle. You had to straddle the seat to stay put during the ride. The youngest students were always in the center.
I had forgotten that middle row seat. Were you there the time we got stuck by Matt Ingram’s?