Up in Ontario

Winnipeg Event: Friends and Family Party Report

When I landed in Winnipeg on Thursday night the thermometre read -28C and I was quickly reminded that as much as you think you remember what cold is like, you forget. The feeling of the cold, dry, crisp air entering my lungs as I exited the warmth of the airport was not something I held close to my heart. Soon after, the hairs inside of my nose started to freeze together. "Now this is cold," I thought to myself.

I spent Friday afternoon signing books in the McNallyRobinson flagship Grant Park store. Paul McNally set me up at a desk beside the cash dias with a sign on the front of the desk, "Meet James Sherrett, author of Up in Ontario." He handed me a stack of books and a roll of stickers and I signed the books and placed the stickers on the cover. Shoppers, in their pre-Christmas fever, walked by staring at the books, the sign, me. At some points I felt like I imagine an animal at the zoo feels. But only for brief moments.

Some folks stopped to ask what this Up in Ontario was all about and I told them. Some seemed satisfied at that, others wanted to know more. One fellow asked about my family name, if I was related to the Sherrett's that lived around Portage-la-Prairie, and I told him I likely was, and confirmed it the next day with my dad, that my great aunt Jo had lived in Portage and sent my grandfather Pa cigarettes during the war. Another fellow told me he was from Kenora and he knew my great grandfather, (J.A.) Joseph Allen Sherrett, Gramp to us, when Gramp had been editor of the Kenora Daily Miner & News.

On Saturday night we held the Friends & Family party and it went off swimmingly. Folks showed up in droves and we sold out of books in the first two hours. I read four times from Up in Ontario and received my first request for a reading from a woman I knew only as Cordelia.

My mom cooked a huge ham and we served it with fresh buns and fixings. Cheese plates and pickles and chips and dips covered the tables. We served farmer's sausage sliced into rings as hors d'ouevres with toothpicks as utensils and fancy mustard for dipping. At one point the place was so packed I couldn't get down the stairs to tend to the ringing doorbell. Larry Bratland picked up the book, skimmed through the first few pages, looked up at me and declared, "I can see you're an existentialist." Once he had progressed further in his skimming he looked up at me again and said, "You're definitely a conservative." At that point, I had to sit down and talk with him about it. Asking a writer pointed questions about their work is like offering a bone to a hungry dog.

At the end of the night my grandfather told a story of a young boy in Kenora who swore too much. On a number of occasions he was sent home from school for swearing. The boy's mother was concerned by her son's swearing and provide a vigourous example of punishment to make sure the boy understood her concern. She even threatened to not let him go to the birthday party up the street on the weekend. The boy promised he would not swear and was allowed to go to the party. The mother dressed him in his best outfit and placed the gift in his hands to deliver to the birthday girl. Then she watched him walk up the street to the party.

A few minutes later the boy started walking back down the street towards home, his gift still in his hands. The mother saw this and knew he had been sent home again for swearing. As soon as the boy was within reach she started administering the punishment. Between blows she yelled, "I thought you promised no more swearing?"

"But mom," the boy said. "The goddamn party isn't until tomorrow."

After everyone had left the party I went with my friends Jeff and Kerrie, who are married to each other, to VJs, the best hamburger stand I have ever eaten at and a Winnipeg institution. Kerrie always orders a milkshake and never shares it with Jeff. He sometimes tries to get a sip but she maintains that she will not share. She always warns him she in advance that she will not share but he still tries to get his sip. This time Jeff and I shared. It's funny how some people share and some people don't and a real dividing line can exist between the two.

The evening ended in true Winnipeg winter style, with me letting Jeff out to start his truck while I parked beside him. He got back into the warm car to wait while the truck warmed up and we listened to the distant sound of a train's whistle as it approached the crossing a few blocks away. Kerrie started to feel drowsy in the back seat as Jeff and I talked about when we used to own a sprinkler company together. We still point out the installations we did when we drive past the old job sites. We had nicknames for each other and for our employees and for many of the shovels and tools we used, and sitting there watching the exhaust rise into the cold air I felt the past coming back to me in waves. The wail of the train whistle sounded out again in the night and I recogized then that Winnipeg will always be home.