OUT OF THIN AIR

of make over and make do, inexpensive cuts of meat, lots of porridge, rice, and that all time favourite, tapioca, or “fisheyes” as my brother Bill called it. On our verandah there were cases of an insipid strawberry pop. The day it arrived from the bottler, my grandfather Smith was vis- iting. He appraised the stack of cases, then said dryly, “Did you buy that Keith, or did you talk for it?”

Dad worried that things would get so bad that we would not be able to get fresh milk; so he horse-traded for a cow one winter. Like many of the older houses then, ours had a barn at the back. What a hassle that cow turned out to be. She was always kicking over the pail and getting sick. One day she sprained her leg. Poor Dad knew very little about cows; but to him a sprain was a sprain, and he knew that Antiphlogistine poultices were good for sprains, inflammation, and just about everything else. So the cow got Antiphlogistine poultices. It was a horrible smelling goo that came in a lavender can that you submerged in a pot of boiling water until the goo was soft enough to spread and hot enough to blister the hide of an elephant. The poor cow kicked even harder then. Finally she got her dearest wish and was sent back to her former home on the farm. But still my memory of that cow is not the

cloverish smell of fresh cream, but that of Antiphlogistine. In those dismal days the radio played an important part in keeping

people’s minds off their worries, and as they tended to stay at home more, a radio set became an everyday necessity. The sales of radios, tubes, and batteries, though not large, enabled my Dad to stay in the

business. In order to try to raise a bit of extra cash, he diversified, and many

strange things were sold from the front of the radio store. One dealership was an automatic card—dealing table for bridge players. It was such an innovation I doubt it would have caught on in the area even in good times. Although it didn’t sell, it provided an endless source of fascination for my brother Bill. Oh yes, and there was the refrigerator—~an early Norge with a large and cumbersome cooling system on top, half of which had to be dipped in hot water, and when that cooled, the pro— cedure had to be started all over again. I remember the demonstration model sitting in our kitchen rumbling and shaking away like a sulking giant. These “get rich quick” schemes were desperate attempts to shore

up the retail radio business, and every bit helped to keep the station on the air.

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