A LEGEND IN MY MIND

When I was six years old we moved to New Westminster. There for the first time I met two of my cousins, boys of about my age. They seemed to be apprehensive, even somewhat fearful in my presence. I asked my mom about this. Was this the way kids acted in the big city. She told me that my grandfather Anton Vick, a terrible tease, for months before our arrival had been telling my cousins to just wait until ‘David From The North’ arrived, things were going to to be different. He was going to be straightening them out. Exactly what Big David From The North was going to do to them was never quite spelled out. Fears unspecified are the most effective ones, only limited by the reach of young imaginations.

This story has got me to thinking. Take another look at the photograph. Imagine that you can see my grandfather leaning closer and whispering in my ear, “David, some day you will become known as ‘Big David From The North’.”

I see myself wearing gigantic hip waders, fishermen’s wool pants, a red and black mackinaw and a raven perched on one shoulder, an eagle on the other. I would stride up and down the North Coast performing deeds of derring-do, legendary heroic deeds and rescuing small puppies. For starters I might fill fisherman’s nets with schools of bright silver salmon and blow the clouds away from Lax Kw’alaams, Metlakatla, Kitkatla, Prince Rupert and Hartley Bay. I might even scoop away the top of Mount Hays thus ensuring a greater amount of fair weather for Prince Rupert. *Tonight children might be being tucked in their beds, wide-eyed, hands clasped, waiting to hear of the latest exploits of Big David From The North.

If only my grandfather had whispered in my ear I could have become a legend. If not a legend, perhaps at least, in the iconic Marlon Brando line from On The Waterfront, “I coulda been a contender!”