But I Love to Read!

When I was in grade 6, my mother was called into the school to discuss the possibility that I might be underachieving. They wanted to do some testing, including testing to determine if I had a reading disability. Upon hearing this, my mother uttered the now classic line, “Reading disability? Not possible; I love to read!” And she did. My mother did not get much time to read, but she truly loved to read.

History is destined to repeat itself: We were having a family discussion about where to go this summer and the comment was made that my son had never been to Banff. Stymied, I uttered the first words that came to mind, “How can that be? I have been to Banff hundreds of times!” And I have, but he hasn’t. Suddenly, I heard echoes of my mother… “Reading disability? Not possible; I love to read!” I took a great cosmic whack, and I think I even heard my mother chuckle, but perhaps it was just thunder.

The experience did start me thinking about how this could have happened, and what effect it might have on my son. We see life through the filters of our experience firstly, and then through our understanding of the experiences of others. What filters were added from my mountain experiences? In about grade 6, my school in Calgary took us students out to Banff, and I remember the science teacher talking about Pots and Kettles, and glacial till and fault mountains. The cool thing is that all of those features are still there, exactly like they were when I saw them many, many years ago.

Geology is interesting, but I learned many life lessons in the mountains as well. At a young age I learned that “if something seems too good to be true, it probably is!” If there is an empty campsite right beside the lake in an otherwise full campground, there might just be a good reason. At 2 a.m., I awoke thinking that I’d wet the sleeping bag only to discover that the whole tent was under water. The lake tends to rise when they close the flood gates; perhaps it was not a camp site after all.

So on my summer outing, as my son and I drove out the old highway to Banff, I heard all the old monologues from my science teacher in my head and repeated them. We stopped at many of the roadside POIs to read the plaques, something that we had never taken time to do when I was young. We stopped at the Seebee Dam, Lake Miniwanka, Toojack Lake, and Buffalo Mountain all before getting to Banff. My son was amazed as we drove past mount Yamnuska’s shear face and more amazed when I told him I had climbed to the top.

The two best things to do in the town of Banff is the hot springs and the candy store, and we did both of those. We went to Bow falls, and I told him about Bob, (not his real name) the tourist who tried to go over the falls in a raft. He succeeded in going over the falls, but did not live to tell about it. We spent the rest of that summer looking for Bob every time we flew from Banff to the heliport in Canmore where I worked.

I talked pretty much non-stop the whole day, and it occurred to me that my mountain experiences did have significant impact on the way I view life. My son has not had those experiences yet, but he could if I made it possible. I, on the other hand, never experienced first person shooter games in HD. Our children can never experience all that we did and will experience things we can not. Each generation experiences some of the old and some of the new, and I believe that is the way it should be. I do not want my son to be a carbon copy of me; I want him to be the new improved model. Better mileage, better for the environment, better for the future. He does not see through my eyes or hear though my ears, but he does love to read, mom.