“My Tarzan Tree and Other Farm Boy Memories”
By Doug Cameron
Published by Cameron Narratives
Review by Shelley A. Leedahl
$25.00
ISBN 9-781738-687749
I grew up in small-town Saskatchewan and thus am familiar with folks who congregate daily at “coffee row” to remember the good old days, tell amusing stories, share gossip and passionately discuss current events. I continually thought about coffee row while reading Swift Current-area writer Doug Cameron’s memoir, My Tarzan Tree and Other Farm Boy Memories.
This 1945-born author is obviously a storyteller at heart, but more than that, he’s done what many people talk about doing—writing a book about their life—but few accomplish. Cameron’s light and informal tone; the emphasis on his rural upbringing (near Alcomdale, Alberta); and rambling reminiscences of boyhood escapades with eight siblings, cousins, and friends reads like coffee row conversation: I could even imagine Cameron’s coffee mates nodding in recognition as they stirred another spoonful of sugar into their coffee cups.
Cameron, who had a significant career in agricultural science (he was employed at Ottawa’s Agriculture Canada Research Station, and worked globally), has culled his varied childhood experiences into an easy and pleasurable read. He says that he’s “always wanted to write about [his] boyhood days as a toddler to a teen growing up on [their] farm,” and now that he’s “getting long in the tooth,” it was time to do it. The fact that he “loved writing this book,” shines through the short chapters, which include occasional black and white illustrations and maps.
The nearly 300-page book begins with the author’s earliest childhood memories, ie: playing with toy soldiers, and slowly becoming aware that he lived on a farm, complete with dogs and “oodles of elusive cats,” chickens, cows, horses, pigs and turkeys. This was back when chamber pots were in use, teachers gave students “the strap,” and everyone bathed in a galvanized steel tub on Saturday night. For Cameron, money was earned by picking bottles and picking rocks: the kids’ father paid a penny “for a pail and ten cents for a pile.” In those days, ten cents could buy a “box of Cracker Jack popcorn (with a prize inside), one large O’Henry chocolate bar, five licorice pipes, or, best of all, 30 jaw breakers.”
Several food memories are shared, from church picnics and fall threshing meals to pilfered apples: “—there is nothing like the taste of stolen apples,” Cameron writes. He goes into detail about the type of candy cane in his Christmas stocking (“There would always be one peppermint candy cane with the barber pole stripes of red and white. Sometimes green got in the mix.”), and describes his first vanilla milkshake so well, it made me long for one.
Cameron presents a rosy picture of his childhood within a large rural family, including a home life filled with chores; church and community activities; school days; hobbies and sports. “We didn’t go hungry,” he writes, “and there was lots of love.”
Readers, if you recall playing “Kick the Can,” skating on sloughs, and making cattail torches, you’ll probably see some of your history in these merry personal tales.
THIS BOOK IS AVAILABLE AT YOUR LOCAL BOOKSTORE OR FROM WWW.SKBOOKS.COM
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“Where the Cherries End Up: A Memoir”
Written by Sandra Ramberran
Published by Wood Dragon Books
Review by Shelley A. Leedahl
$19.99 ISBN 9-781990-863769
“You have not lived until you have shared a staff room with ten other women, sharing information about male genitals …” British-born Sandra Ramberran writes in Where the Cherries End Up: A Memoir. This quote exemplifies the brazen author’s honesty and matter-of-fact confessions in her tell-all, and clearly demonstrates that from the time she was nine and a fellow student “put his hands down [her] knickers,” her body’s been controlled by others. Soon an older man was also taking advantage of her and other “young, maturing school girls” by offering to “put money in their training bras.” The quick cash allowed them to “buy sweets or single cigarettes from the local shop.”
Born the eldest of six with an alcoholic father, Ramberran’s rape at age fourteen and the ability to drink “more than most women,” seemed to set the stage for several challenging decades among “the world of massage parlours, drugs, and sex.”
School was something to be endured, and as a teen, “done with childhood games,” her focus turned to “chasing boys and being chased”—and she had an eye for the bad boys. At sixteen she was sleeping with a married-with-family man. Pubbing, fighting, losing jobs … this was the writer’s experience before she met a dashing older man in “a three-piece suit and tie.” She was soon entangled with Richard, a “con man,” whom—after his divorce came through—she married and moved to Canada with. They set up house but happily ever after was not to be, and the marriage crumbled.
Harry, Ramberran’s next lover, introduced her to cocaine and quickly began “grooming [her] for prostitution.” Her career in the sex industry took place in “high-end hotels,” and she writes that in retrospect she was “desperate to be wanted, loved, and protected.” After a few months she briefly returned to England—back and forthing between Canada and England is a constant in this memoir—and upon her return began decades of employment with “Bob,” who owned a “fully licensed” massage parlour, where “full service” (there’s a euphemism!) wasn’t allowed, but sharing whirlpool tubs and shenanigans were. “Before long, I was literally throwing money in the air,” Ramberran writes. Bob rented her an apartment, took her on extravagant trips, made her the manager of his business (there were “25-30 girls working at the parlour”), and—although Bob was married with children—the pair had a son together with the help of a surrogate, who was also the parlour’s assistant manager. Surprisingly, Bob and his wife accepted this son as one of the family; he was provided with a university education, a car, and a home. “I am not proud of many things,” Ramberran writes, “but I am proud of my son.”
Now in her seventies, Ramberran lives in “a 55-plus building” in western Canada, “volunteer[s] in a food kitchen,” and says her life “has finally moved beyond all the drama.” After a lifetime of wildness and pain, it seems, thankfully, that she’s settled down and found peace.
THIS BOOK IS AVAILABLE AT YOUR LOCAL BOOKSTORE OR FROM THE SASKATCHEWAN PUBLISHERS GROUP WWW.SKBOOKS.COM
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