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Florent Foisy
2007



Credits:
Foisy, Florent

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On Saturday, we did nothing at all and plainly relaxed; but during the evening, we wanted to go and see what was going on at the Lake's dance hall. Of course, the four of us left the camp on foot and found that dance hall easily. At that time, we were too young to get in, but at least, we could sneak a peek inside through the many large openings. To our great satisfaction, we saw and heard a real orchestra playing that night. We sure enjoyed such music and we were glad to see them in person. It was unique for us to have that opportunity, as there was no TV in these old days to see live shows, of course.

At the end of that evening, there came lightning and loud claps of thunder. Then a deluge came down on Atton's Lake by about 11:00pm. We could not get inside (too young for that), so after an hour of this storm, we were all soaking wet. That heavy rain storm sure came down hard and never seemed to come to an end. Since we were wet to the bones, the only alternative was to go back to the grain wagon, which was also our camp, hoping that the binder canvasses had held up in the storm, which luckily they had. But getting from the dance hall to our wagon and hideout in pitch black darkness was no fun as you can imagine. There were only rough prairie trails then, and two ruts of that trail to follow back to our spot. It was so dark with absolutely no lights on that road, that the only way not to get lost was to bend down and walk on all fours in the ruts full of mud. Well, we did finally manage to get there, tired, nervous and exhausted…

No need to say that we could not get into dry clothing as we had no extra clothes to change into. What a miserable night it was! All wet, we struggled and managed to wrap ourselves into whatever we could find and waited for the morning to come. That happened to be a very long night for the four of us. To top it all off, our dried-up slough had nearly filled up with that torrential deluge and had soaked everything that we had left there.

The next day, Sunday morning, a beautiful sun was shining and we soaked ourselves in its warm, strong rays to dry up a bit. Sadly, that Sunday afternoon, an accident happened at the Lake. Someone had drowned and many volunteers tried to rescue the victim, but without success. What a weekend it had been for us boys. We could have spent our three days at home and enjoyed full relaxation, but we wanted to get out and see the outside world.

So camping had ended and the horses were hitched up to the grain wagon by 4:00pm on Sunday for the trek back home to Wilbert. The camping was a total failure and a great disappointment. Yet, we still had the $2.00 that Dad had given us, as we apparently did not know how to spend it. Money meant so much for our family during those drought and depression years! But we all lived through them and these episodes now remain forever engraved in history books and among our numerous souvenirs.