My friend Ken Parker had an irrepressible grin which no doubt helped him get on in life. I first met Ken when we both worked on the Centennial Caravan #7 in 1967. For Canada's Centennial year, a number of tractor trailer caravans of ten units each had been developed to tour through the provinces, depicting Canada's history from pre-ice age to the then present. The trailers were set up so that people could enter at one end of the string of trailers and walk through an advancing depiction of key historical events and then out the other end. We boys, most in our early twenties were hired as attendants to set up the display in each new town, usher folks through and then tear down for the move to the next town.
Ken had travelled out from Ontario and I joined the Caravan in Milk River, Alberta, in May 1967. The Caravan had a route that spiralled from small town to small town, moving northward, to eventually cover the majority of Alberta, Yukon and western Northwest Territories. As prairie folks know, May can still be winter and two others and I landed in Lethbridge in a snow storm. The Caravan was already set up in Milk River and we started work there. We were supplied with summer blazers, shirts, trousers, coveralls and a rain coat. However, this was not enough to stay warm. We shivered through a couple of small towns and as winter gear did not seem forthcoming, the attendants held a strike. This is where I got to know Ken.
I had worked for Great Northern Railway in Vancouver and when rail workers needed time off, they "booked off sick". I suggested we all book off sick. We did and of course the Caravan left without us for the next town. Ken got on the phone to our bosses in Ottawa to say what had happened. Our instructions were to get ourselves to the next town and winter coats would be on the way.
I can't remember in which town Ken had bought a 1947 Studebaker pickup but that was our transport to the next town. And it was chilly in the back of that truck. We must have made quite a sight, scrunched low in the back, singing folk songs from the era, bombing down the road. Ottawa sent fleece lined, canvas army coats for us until summer arrived.
In most prairie towns, the highest landmark is either a grain elevator or a water tower. Ken and I and sometimes one or two others would climb the water tower for great aerial photos of the town. No drones in those days. And so it went.
Most of the little prairie and northern towns centred their Centennial activities around the arrival of the Caravan. We boys were invited to homes and ranches for meals and cookouts. A memorable cookout was on the beach of Great Slave Lake, N.W.T., outside Hay River. Huge (longer than I was tall) whitefish had been caught and were being grilled over an open fire with the aurora borealis running riot overhead.
Somewhere, north of Edmonton, Ken bought a 1947 Harley Davidson motorcycle. Beautiful. It was cream in colour, had a suicide shift, a great big seat that would have looked good on a tractor. My last memory of that bike is riding behind Ken towards Edmonton. He had a fringed buckskin jacket and I was bundled up in a sheepskin. Ken then bought a 1953 Chevy.
Soon after that we left the Caravan as the World's Fair was on in Montreal but only until November. We left Edmonton with one guy driving while the other slept in the back and made it to Toronto in 54 hours. This was fairly good going as normally it takes three days to drive from the Manitoba-Ontario border to Toronto. My wife, then girlfriend, was staying with her parents in Mississauga so I was able to catch up on sleep there and then Ken and I headed to Montreal with the '53 Chevy.
On the dodgier side of things, Ken had traded a guitar for a German 9mm luger, which was with us. We stopped in a forested area along the highway to try it out. No worries back then. The first night in Montreal was spent at the foot of the big cross on the hill, sleeping in the car. Looking back, we might have been in some trouble if police had searched the car. However, all was well and we rented a room in a boarding house and went to the Fair. Driving back to Toronto at night, I was stopped by the highway police. I guess I was tired and wandered somewhat. He asked me how long I had been driving. "Since I was sixteen" was my reply which got a roll of the eyes. Tonight is what he meant. He told Ken to drive and shooed us away.
Back in Toronto, Ken had bought a pair of MG sports cars from somewhere and they needed to be driven back to Woodstock, Ontario where Ken's father ran a garage. So off we went. Halfway to Woodstock, one of the cars ran out of gas. Ken didn't bother with the Automobile Association but went to the nearest farm house and borrowed a gallon of gas and away we went. That irrepressible grin paved the way.
After that, I headed to Ottawa with Betty and then back west. I didn't see Ken again for over a decade when we were both married with kids. In 1984, I was working in California and Ken came for a conference and got in touch. I picked him up at his hotel and we went to see the sights of San Francisco. I had a 1979 Volvo that had the unfortunate fault to shut down when driven at night. First the lights would go out and about 15 minutes later the engine would stop. On this night, at about 2:00 am and not far from Ken's hotel, the lights went out. We proceeded, sans lights, around the next corner right into the midst of a police convention of several squad cars. Needless to say, we got pulled over. Our cop was one who really relished his role, right down to tight leather gloves. As he was writing the ticket, Ken decided to test the waters. "Are those scratches on your hood from slamming perps against it?" Crowbar hotel here we come. Just as it was dawning on the cop what Ken had said, he got a radio call about a break and enter in the next block. He ripped the ticket out of his book and threw it at us and disappeared. See, it was Ken's grin.
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