I signed up to join the Royal Canadian Navy in Vancouver, BC. Shortly after processing I was taken down to the train station with a few other new recruits and assigned a relatively empty train car that would eventually be filled with more new recruits as we travelled across Canada to CFB Cornwallis in Nova Scotia. 

During a stop in Calgary a pretty young lady joined us. Her and I soon became fast friends, spending the rest of the trip to Halifax sitting together and thoroughly enjoying each others company. Once we arrived in Cornwallis several days later, she went one way with the rest of the young ladies (future Wrens) and I went the other. 

Six months later I got out of basic training and was stationed to Shearwater naval base outside of Dartmouth. I was to spend the next 6 months training as a meteorologists mate and then serving at the airport as a meteorologists mate. 

Two years later I was re-assigned to a destroyer escort, HMCS Columbia. During my time on the ship I was assigned to a bunk in a cramped mess along with 30 other sailors. Of course a person gets to know his messmates quite well in a short period of time. A lot of stories are shared especially during free grog time or the drinking of beer at sea at 10 cents a can.  

It was during one such time after several mess mates had already shared one of their favourite sexual conquest stories that I felt the overwhelming need to have one of my own. I made one up. My story was a long romantic, sexually charged yarn about how this cute little nymphomaniac I met on the train couldn't keep her hands off me for almost four days while we travelled across Canada together. I was so proud. Thinking back I almost believed that it actually happened. 

Months later I became a drinking buddy with one of my messmates named Jim. Jim and I soon became good buddies and hung around together most of the time during shore leave. During one day we went ashore, we met a couple of cute girls who invited us to a party they were having at their place. It turns out that many others had been previously invited as well. When we got there, there were several other sailors along with several pretty young ladies as well. 

Several hours later found me drinking and dancing and having a good old time, that is until I see another sailor walk into the living room and he has a young lady on his arm. The sailor turns out to be my buddy Jim's step brother and to my horror, the young lady is no other than the one I travelled across Canada with a couple years before. She recognizes me immediately and rushes over to give me a big hug. "So nice to see you again," she says. We chat for a short while before she goes back to her date. 

The rest of the evening I pretend to be having a wonderful time but the guilt from telling my huge lie is eating me up. The last thing I want to happen is be caught in it in front of all my peers. Alas, karma bit me! It was inevitable, my buddy Jim talks to his step brother and tells him how intimately I happen to know his date. The step brother confronts his date and gets a flat out denial from her that anything untoward happened on the trip across Canada. Then the step brother asks me to step out into the hall. I figure for sure I'm going to get a punch in the face if nothing else but I'm more worried about the story that will get around about the lie I told to all my shipmates. 

The young lady is standing beside her date with tears in her eyes and obviously very upset. I feel so bad to see her this way. She sobs, "Denny, why would you say such a thing about me? I thought we were friends." 

I can't bear to see her like this and my conscience is killing me. I'm going to risk the punch in the face, the good chance that my peers will find out. I admit my lie explaining that " you know how it is on board ship, everyone has to have a story. I didn't so I made one up. I totally apologize to both of you. To be quite honest I am still a virgin."

I neither got a punch nor did anyone pass the story around on board the ship although I would have deserved it and was prepared to suffer the razzing I would have gotten because of it.

To this day I have not seen the young lady again but this episode left me with a life lesson that I have never forgotten and probably never will.

Stumbles

If you happen to stumble

across love my anxious friend

drink it slow like a comfort wine

giggle at the simple possibilities

believe anything can happen

good or bad yet

always as it should be

at least for today

the wine is yours to savour.

Hiraeth (Home)

by denny bastian 2013

Wistfully staring at the rain on my kitchen window,

I imagine mum’s yellow white hair, framing face.

Her back is slightly hunched as she bends over the kitchen

sideboard. She is patting together with a mother’s hands,

rice with ground beef, small chunks of cubed ham for taste

and selected spices in her favourite bowl, slightly chipped, 

with big red flowers. Nearby from a huge grey pot boiling

on the stove, lid slightly askew, wafts clouds of steam

and the odour of extra-large leafy summer cabbage.

It’s hot in the kitchen. When most families in the crushing

heat of August, are sitting on a blanket beneath the cottonwood

trees at the lake, dining on potato salad and cold deli meats,

removed from blue Coleman coolers, mum has the oven on. 

She is making cabbage rolls. Sniffing constantly from the high

humidity in the room she mixes, then turns to the stove to remove

the cabbage pot. Placing it on an old singed oven mitt beside

her flowery bowl, she wraps the meat and rice inside the cabbage

leaves which are still too hot for the average mortal to touch.

She carefully assigns each according to size and volume

to a particular spot in the roasting pot like she is packing

for a long trip to somewhere, or we’re moving yet again. 

(Dad says we don’t have to move for quite a while this time – 

Good, ‘cause I’m tired of trying to make friends every year in a

new school). Then she pours several cans of whole tomatoes on

top, places the lid and slides the whole thing in the oven, the 

burned black oven grate previously arranged by her so the 

tall roasting pan slides in perfectly with a scrape and clatter.

“Kachunk!” Hot air blows into the kitchen when the door closes.

Mum learned to make cabbage rolls from my Grandmother

when I was still a young boy. But Gram-ma didn't call them

cabbage rolls then – she called them by a Ukrainian name;

the name is “ holubtsi.” Gram-ma was my father’s mother.

When I was little we lived on the same five acre orchard property.

I loved my Gram-ma; she made peppermint cookies and 

coffee cake, she always kept peppermints in a glass dish, and

never stopped me from taking one or two. She often said I was

too skinny and should EAT, EAT! It's a Ukrainian grandmother

thing I'm sure. Gram-ma would be proud. I'm no longer skinny.

Gram-ma surely loved me. She often tried to tell my mum how to

raise me, treat me, forgive me. She saved me from more than

one licking or two which I must admit I thoroughly deserved.

She wore a large paisley print apron which when threatened

I could cling onto and hide behind. My mother didn't like that but

she respected Gram-ma enough not to tear me away from her.

My mother most often spanked me later which kept me on the 

straight and narrow.My father never spanked my butt even once.

 Instead he  whacked me upside the head with his hand.

It stung, oh man it stung. I threw a 2 x 4 back at him once.

When I was in my twenties I was quite athletic. I would rather

play ball than eat or work. I was never the super star which I

longed to be but I was more than adequate and better than average

I would say; a boy could be satisfied with that. More than forty

years later I still recall the slow motion moments of the great catch,

the clutch hit, the peer talk of awarding the most valuable player

in the tournament. The articles in the sports columns of the local

newspaper, “MY NAME, MY NAME!” Saved in posterity.

MY YOUTH, MY YOUTH! Where did it go? If I could go back home

I would pay more attention, perhaps do it better, but mostly write it down.

Meanwhile, the rain flows like little rivers down my window.

Fridge Poetry 2014

****************************

before this rain
there was sunshine
and blue skies
I know it's true that
only through trust
do we live happy.

****************************

where my soul whispers
breathes my simple kiss
come dream heart
share your happiness
with a peaceful world.

****************************

jump warm thing
sing the moment
a puppy song
smile beneath your
barefoot rainbow
dance flower woman
today is bliss
like a child's laughter.

Wasting Winter
Jan 2014

and so the winter snows abound
covering frozen leaves on ground
who's calling, calling to be found
and wishing life o'er everything
thru melting sun and orchards spring 
and we like hang dogs lacking bones
hide within our comfy homes
wishing too for springtime bold
unable to relax in natures sleep
or put to rest our weary feet.

What If

by denny bastian circa 1970’s

What if there were snowmen that cried

truths that told lies

babies were goodbyes

sight had no eyes

birds that don’t fly

no reason would I

dream, fantasize

What if there were apples, no cores

good times were a bore

and twos became fours

if ceilings became floors

and highers became lowers

no need anymore

would I dream and adore

What if there were mountains, no trees

if love meant chastity

if what was, couldn’t be

if to come meant to flee

and if you became me

no need could I see

to dream, fantasy

The Journey

you were conceived
a stream
the tears of a mighty glacier
from rocky crevices high upon
the towering grey mountains
gave you
a beginning to me

I wondered,
marvelled at your
cascading waterfalls
breathing deep,  aah!
your fragrant alpine odours
refreshed me
I cleansed myself in you

till you became
the river, deeper and wider
flowing steadily, with some purpose
through rich valleys and farmlands
ever on to some unpredicted place, I
sailed upon you

like a
young riverboat captain, I
charted each bend, narrow, and eddy
always careful to memorize your course
should I ever need
to come back this way again
I carefully mapped

my determined voyage
to the sea
your pounding, breaking waves
on rocky shores
frightened and confused me
and yet, small moments of
moonlight calm
on glistening cove waters
sheltered me
from the storm

I loved you once
when I took you to me gratefully
then, but I was
always nervous of your immensity
and confusing moods
perhaps it was that
I saw myself
in you
perhaps the journey
always ends at the sea.