Owen's Wheels

Owen and the old '37 Chev

Owen has just left the University Hospital when he and I meet for the first time at Aunt Eva’s stuffy little bungalow on a quiet street in Edmonton. It is June 1940 and he is only four days old. Our mother Winnie is nursing him as she gently eases to and fro on a creaky armless heirloom rocking chair. I am a naive lad not yet seven, and this never-before-seen maternal activity is a lot for me to take in. Feeling a bit shy about watching, I decide to follow the example of the adults and act “normal”. Owen is Mom’s third child and Dad’s fifth (two from his first marriage) - all boys. Knowing that Dad really wanted a girl, Aunt Eva jokes, “You’ll have to try again for a girl.” Dad is now fifty-nine and Mom forty-three. When Mom responds with “Not a chance”, I think to myself “How can she know that?”

Growing up, Owen is small for his age and a little “energizer bunny”. At three and four years old he races around the yard on his tricycle, pedaling as fast as his little feet can spin. On reaching top speed he lifts them off the pedals for a free-wheeling fun ride. He corners around the caragana hedge balancing on just two wheels, and coasts up to me on the wooden bench by the farmhouse back door. He is proudly wearing a smile that says, “There, how did you like that?”

As he gets older Owen’s interest evolves to motorized wheels. At six he takes on the role of “shadow-driver” of the family’s two-door maroon 1937 Chev. For the next few years, whenever the chance arises, Owen stands in the back seat, leaning forward with his head right beside Dad’s, monitoring every driving move. He is vicariously driving the car, often offering advice to his dad.

When Owen is ten this “apprenticeship” has provided everything he needs to know about driving a car. Whenever he coaxes, “Please let me drive”, Dad counters with, “Not yet, you’re too young.” So Owen comes after me, a not so responsible seventeen year-old. Eventually, I give in to the pleas of my still very small-for-his-age baby brother. After all, it’s what I would want.

I take the ‘37 Chev to the farmyard – a safe place to start. Owen can hardly contain his excitement as he scrambles in and closes the door.  His little body temporarily disappears from view as he slides down to engage the clutch to put the car into first gear. Up he pops again and the maroon Chev moves off. On shifting to second he submerges once more, surfacing just before threading through the yard gate and bouncing into the south pasture scattering the sheep and cows. The return is without incident. He can drive a car!

As a teenage driver Owen assists in the aging of that car to the point where the motor breaks down. He and I find a good used one and install it, testing our nascent mechanical skills. Later, while home alone, Owen finishes connecting everything up; the fuel line, the ignition wires, radiator hoses, exhaust pipe, and throttle linkage, and the restored old Chev is ready to roll. Except that the battery is too weak to start the car. There are no jumper cables so a push is the only way to get it going.

Owen simply can’t wait the few hours for our brother Dick or me to arrive home to help. Being energetic, impatient, and creative he decides to act on his own.  He devises a plan, “I’ll put the old car in second gear, turn on the ignition, and ease up behind it in Dad’s sleek blue ’51 Chev and give it a little push.” Once it starts, he concludes, “I’ll just drive past it, stop, jump out and onto the running board of the old car as it slowly chugs by. Then I climb in and Ta dah! Mission accomplished.”

Two prominent facets of Owen’s personality are the “analytical” and the “energetic and impatient”. These generally complement each other to foster positive creativity, but apparently not always. In this venture his careful analysis is overshadowed by his energetic impatience. What he doesn’t realize is that the throttle linkage on the replacement motor is not adjusted – the car needs to be running to set it correctly. The installed setting happens to be nearer maximum speed than idle, where it would have to be for his plan to have any chance of success.

So the frumpy old ‘37 Chev gets a push. After sputtering for a few car lengths it leaps into life. The shock comes immediately. Like an untamed mustang the driverless beast bolts out of the barnyard, through the gate and into the west pasture, barely missing the old wooden granary. Owen, in a helpless panic, follows in the blue Chev, watching the maroon monster buck and rear its way over the gopher hole hummocks and dead-furrows, and as if dying for a drink, head straight for the swimming hole.

From the hill above the creek Owen vainly watches it hit the water with a gigantic splash and slowly sink to the gloop, gloop, gloop of bubbles surfacing. Only the back window remains above the water. We later drag it out with the tractor for the old maroon “37 Chev to await its final trip - to the scrap yard.  

This event in no way affected Owen’s love of driving. As an adult he drove anywhere, anytime, in any conditions. After moving to Ontario he twice bought Ford Thunderbirds and drove them the 3500 km. to Alberta to sell. One year he delivered a school bus to Edmonton from Toronto making the trip in just forty-eight hours. How? - By eating and sleeping in the bus whenever a bit of food or rest was needed.

Owen seemed to regard driving as a sort of game, and he did love games. The strategy, competition and camaraderie of any kind of game were his delight. When he was nine years old he wanted to learn chess. I taught him the basics and could, if I chose, defeat him in every game – until he was about twelve years old. He began to win games and in a few years he was not only defeating me in almost every game but also giving me instruction. This might take the form of going back at the end of a game and setting up the pieces as they were somewhere mid-game. Owen would then say “Let’s see how the game would have gone if you had made this other (smarter?) move instead”.

A love of games extended to Owen’s playing and coaching softball, and especially to curling, where he could make the strategic decisions as skip. The shelves in his den were lined with trophies his team had won. Board games, card games, puzzles, and eventually video games also fed his appetite for a mental challenge.

Owen engaged in his game playing and most other encounters with a lightness and sense of humour. He would chuckle at situations that others might take more seriously. He was fond of joking and teasing, inducing others to share in his lightness. And he was a prankster. An example is his “helpful” suggestion to a fellow guest at a party.  This guest was unfamiliar with the neighborhood, and it being after dark, wasn’t sure if he could find his way back to the main highway. Owen volunteered to lead the way, “Just follow me and you won’t get lost” he offered. After about five minutes of driving, his trusting friend finally recognized where they were. He stopped, got out of his car, and went up to Owen’s car to “thank” him. I don’t know what he said but I’m sure it was based on his realization that they had just completed a wide circular tour of the town and were back at their point of departure! Owen’s chuckles of glee were inevitably shared by his victim.

My last visit with Owen at his acreage north of Toronto was in February, 2016. We worked together servicing the transmission of his old Ferguson tractor, installing a handrail on his basement staircase, and other odd jobs. When it came time to leave on the forty minute trip to Pearson Airport I wanted to take the local shuttle but Owen insisted on driving me. We raced down Highway 400 with the speedometer registering between 120 and 130 k.p.h. most of the way despite there being plenty of time to make my flight back to Vancouver.

Owen was driving like there was no tomorrow. And for him there weren’t that many. He was in the late stages of metastatic prostate cancer, and although having some difficulty walking, he still enjoyed being behind the wheel. This was Owen indulging his love of driving for as long as he possibly could. He died four months later. I miss him and his irrepressible and infectious joie de vivre.