From Tabusintac to Tokyo | Page 2

onto the road just ahead of thema�|
My father and mother disagree on what would have been the best course of action at this point. My mother feels that my father should just have kept on going straight through the moose. My father sensibly points out that this would have resulted in the moose sharing the front seat with them. In any case, the fact is that my father swerved to try and avoid the moose. It wasn't until my father tried evasive action that he discovered that the road was covered in black ice.
Let's freeze this tableau for a moment. Remember that no one wore seatbelts in those days. In case of an accident, you were left to carom around inside the car as freely as a politician's brains rattle around in a gnat's ass. Also recall that, this being the '50s, cars were built to be more like traveling living rooms and were really only good at going in straight lines. Braking and handling were definitely considered to be minor considerations. And forget all the modern innovations like dynamic vehicle control, force-limiting seatbelts, airbags and anti-lock brakes. Nope, once you exceeded the safe envelope of the straight and narrow, you were pretty much on your own, safety-wise.
Returning to my parents: Completely out of control, the car's nose swung to the left. The right rear clouted the moose. The rear bumper (bumpers weren't integrated into the body, air resistance being a tertiary design consideration) somehow snagged one of the moose's legs. Bouncing off the snow bank on the left side of the road, the car and all its passengers proceeded down the hill backwards, gathering speed.
When they arrived at the bend at the bottom, the car went straight, leaving the road for the forest and snow and, underneath the snow, the frozen river. What really saved the day was the moose, acting as another bumper as the car ploughed through small saplings and snowdrifts for some 100 feet.
Once all the hoo-ha settled down and my parents realized they were still alive, my father leaned forward and turned off the ignition. They exited the car and were greeted by the smell of moose poop and freshly cut trees. The moose was exceptionally deceased, whether from blunt force injury or fright was never ascertained. They made their way through deep snow to the road and proceeded to wait for about an hour for someone else to come along and rescue them.
On the way into Bathurst, my mother went into labour so instead of going to a garage, the first stop was at the hospital. Husbands weren't encouraged to stick around for births in those days, so my father went off to see about getting the car hauled out of the bush.
I popped out about twelve hours later, four weeks early and pissed off as hell. I've been that way ever since. My folks didn't finish their trip. There was very little damage to the car, so they turned around and took their bundle of joy home.
And had roast rump of moose for Christmas dinner; they recall it was very tender.

Dirty Snowballs for Breakfast
Once, while grating potatoes to make potato pancakes, I had a Proustian moment. I can't lay claim to much in the way of literary knowledge, but I do know that Proust's "Remembrance of Things Past" was prompted by his biting into a pastry and feeling a sense of overwhelming pleasure with no recognizable cause. In my case, I was instantly transported back to the grandmother's kitchen as she and my mother grated potatoes in order to make "poutine r?��p??e", also known as "poutines".
People will immediately flash to the Quebecker ethnic food known by the same name. However, in spite of all the Franco-culinary posturing, this is really only French Fries with gravy and, oh yeah, can I have some cheese curds on that? One etymological source indicates that "poutine" really means "mess".
If you come from my part of the country, the Quebecker poutine is just another entry in the long list of dishes that will cause you to keel over from a myocardial infarction while shoveling a foot of snow out of the driveway shortly after you've retireda�|sometimes before.
Nope, poutines as I know them are a different creature entirely. They seem to be more of an Acadian thing and none of my friends had even heard of them, much less eaten a single one. Because of the work involved, my mother only made poutines for special times: Christmas, say or Easter.
My mother would borrow this grater that was about two feet long and she and my grandmother would set to work. Generally, they started off with an enormous paper sack of potatoes, about 25 pounds or so (We used to buy potatoes by the cartload and store them in a