Meeting at the meat draw
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There are plenty of good old-fashioned local traditions alive and well, practised, from one end of the valley to the other.
I would tell my oldest daughter she was more country than a truck full of turnips. She hated when I said it. She thought she was cool, or hip or whatever the translation equalled in her language. Being country was uncool, or so she thought.
I could tell by the music she listened to or played, at night, on her guitar. It may have been classified as rock, (Sheryl Crow, Nickelback) or hip-hop, (Kid Rock, Everlast) but deep down, it was country music. Stories about youngsters growing up, driving back roads, finding peace looking at mountains and rivers and roaming small towns.
When I turned nineteen, I was working at The Valley Echo in the darkroom, operating the vertical camera and printing news photos, each with a screened square dot.
On my birthday the staff took me across the street to the Meat Draw at the Royal Canadian Legion.
A Meat Draw consists of buying tickets on various cuts of meat. The ticket drawn is the winner. To a young person it sounds uncool.
On my nineteenth birthday I won a ham. There was nothing cooler. I was hooked, and have frequented the Meat Draw, on and off for over 25 years.
It is a lot of fun for just five dollars. Sometimes I lose; sometimes I take home steaks or a roast. One Thanksgiving it was a turkey.
When my daughter turned nineteen we headed for the Legion on a Friday evening.
She thought it was going to be kind of ‘hokey’ but when they called her number for a roast, she jumped out of her chair. She was hooked.
Invermere is still a small town. Sometimes it doesn’t seem so. Our kids are looking for the same things we did at their age. Parking at the edge of the lake with nothing but moonlight after the headlights. Roaming the town, dreading running into parents. Thinking you can’t get away with anything, cursing the small town, but loving the creeks and the pure white first snow.
We are lucky to live in a small town and frequent the same untouched forests as our grandfathers did.
The Legion has the coldest beer and whether you are new to the valley or have been here for some time, once you cross the threshold you are part of the same small town. If you don’t believe me, check it out for yourself.
My daughter is twenty-two, drives a Ford Ranger, camps every weekend, and listens to Hank III and Johnny Cash. She is more country than a truck full of turnips, and proud of it. As I am of her.
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