Knock Me Down and Call Me Dusty !

As I was out for my evening walk on Tuesday evening I happened across Al Parker out watering his petunia's. Of course I said hello to him and 'how the week was going, etc' and the next thing I know he invited me in for coffee. For anyone that is familiar with Al, a coffee is about 5 cups of the diesel kind, no decaf there.

As we chatted along he mentioned about the new people that had bought the lot down the street from us. This guy's name was Scarfe and his dad had something to do with the 'Canada Remembers' Air Show. As I was very familiar with Jack Scarfe who was one of the original founders of the Air Show, I asked what this fellows given name was. Al figured it was Jim or James. I just about fell off my chair at this point. I then asked Al if he knew what this fellows wife's name was and he thought it was Darlene or something similar but that they were from Haywarden, Sask. We immediately looked in the phone book and found a listing for a 'B Scarfe' in Haywarden.

Now a bit of history here . . .

When I was about 13 years of age I joined the militia. Yup you were supposed to be 16 to be able to join, but I lied. The next summer (ie when I just had turned 14) I was fortunate enough to take training out at Detachment Dundurn. Lo and behold one of my fellow trainees was one James Gara Scarfe. Well we hit it off and continued our relationship after we got back to Saskatoon. The next year we both ended up back at Dundurn on training and continued our relationship.

On our weekends off, we would depart Dundurn and hitch hike north. Jim would be heading towards Waskesiu and I was heading to Christopher Lake. As you can imagine we had the opportunity to walk many a mile together. Mind you we were in uniform when we were hitching and this was 1965 so it didn't take too long to catch a ride. But our relationship/friendship grew throughout the summer and then continued on to the following year when we were once again at training in Dundurn. Needless to say we did stay in contact even when we were back in Saskatoon. But I'm getting ahead of myself. That first year I met Jim was 1964 and he had very important information for myself as a fellow young male.

My new found friend Jim advised me of this family he was familiar with that had 3 young foxy ladies (now remember we are talking 14-16 years of age). Of course I had to meet these fine young lasses so Jim was more than willing to introduce us. In due course I was introduced to the Mayers family and Sandra, Patricia and Isabel. To say I was smitten would be the understatement. The long and short of the story was that I did end up in matrimony to my wife of 36 years, Sandra. Yup this would be the former Sandra Mayers.

Fast forward to June 12th . . .

About 11:45 a.m. I called the 'B Scarfe' phone number in the phone book. I of course used *67 so the person would not know who was calling (see I did learn something in my years with the RCMP). A woman answered the phone and I asked if this was Bonnie Scarfe I was talking to. Oh yah, my friend Jim Scarfe from Dundurn had married a Bonnie Cherry. So far, so good.

I then asked Bonnie if she was married to Jim (James) Scarfe and if they had just recently bought a lot in the town of Hanley. She replied in the affirmative. I then advised her that she had just made her new neighbour one of the happiest people in the world. She asked me who that would be and I replied that it was myself. She then asked who I was (remember *67) and I advised her what my name was. Bonnie's retort was "NO WAY", "NO WAY".

I assured her that I was indeed who I said I was. She then yelled at Jim that he had better get to the phone right away. I could hear in the background as Jim came to the phone, "who is this and what the heck did they want". I then went through the same scenario with Jim as with Bonnie. Same reaction of disbelieve and then when it sunk in he comment was "there goes the neighbourhood". Nice guy, heh?

Go figure that two best friends, Jim and I, have not been in contact with each other for going on 25 years or so and then we find that we are living approximately 25 kms away from each other for the last two years. Now we are going to be living across the street from each other in a town of 500 people and neither one of us has any prior connection to the town.

Small world.

To say that I'm just tickled pink that one of my best friends from my past will be living across the street from me would be an understatement just doesn't come close to what I'm feeling at this point in time. I'm just flabbergasted.

But damn do I like it :)