This is the view from my car every afternoon around 3:25 p.m. when I join the line of cars waiting to pick up kiddos from school, now and for the foreseeable future.
Caronport is about a 20-minute drive from Moose Jaw. Every weekday afternoon I am presented with a choice: go up memory-laden Main Street and soak in the contentment of being home, or take back roads down gravel roads past fallow fields that will soon be seeded with this year’s crop. Either way, I win.
Once I’m on the Trans-Canada Highway, the rest of the trip is smooth sailing past flat farmland, silver granaries, bare-limbed trees, a red barn, an old Eaton-style house, and prairie as far as the eye can see. Sometimes I tune the radio to CHAB 800 and listen to “the greatest hits of all time”; other times, silence is my companion. It’s a sweet and solitary time in the middle of the day.
At 3:25 precisely, the school bell goes and students spill from the doors of the school. I look for my granddaughter, one of the first out, and watch as she walks toward the car. I love this young woman and am grateful for the opportunity to be part of her everyday life. Plus, I get to spend time on the prairie every day. It’s not a bad gig at all!
I lived at Caronport for two school years (1975-77) when I took the Two-Year General Bible Course at Briercrest. They were great years for me – living on campus with other exuberant young adults as we prepared our lives for the future. I loved your little memory traipse – loved that wide open prairieland! I’ve been currently working on a short memoir piece about my time there.
It’s a beautiful little town, isn’t it? I know someone else who lived in the dorms and went to school there too. Look forward to reading your story about your time there.