Mr. Timko

I grew up in Raymond, Alberta and lived in a house two blocks from the Alberta Pacific elevator where my father bought grain. Our company house was on a corner lot. Across the street to the south lived the Mr and Mrs.Pajkowski and their two children. The Salada family were kitty corner to us and Mr. Timko was across the other street.

All of them were immigrants and none were ,members of our Church, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints or Mormons. This is unusual since Raymond was settled by Mormons from Utah. Their descendants made up the majority of the citizens of Raymond. I have heard that some of the Pajkowski children later joined the Church. When we were neighbours, they were not. As I think about it now, we probably lived on the wrong side of town.

Mr. Timko lived in a small house on a large lot. The house needed paint and did not seem to have electricity; the glow from the window was pretty faint. Mr. Timko had left is family in Poland and moved to Canada and now lived alone in the mostly dark house hidden behind rows of poplar trees.

Mr. Timko sometimes did odd jobs for my mother. He was a small, almost elderly, man with a very thick Polish accent. He had trouble understanding us and we had trouble understanding him. However he worked hard in our vegetable and flower gardens for the money and food that my Mother gave him.

One day Mom told me to go ask Mr. Timko if he could come over and transplant a peony. He said he would. He came over a little later and asked where the piano was that we wanted him to carry. To me he was the original 'small man mover with a big heart.'

I remember when I was quite young climbing the poplar trees in Mr. Timko's yard. There were other kids there but the only one that I remember was Johnny Salada. He was a few years older then I was: maybe ten to my eight or nine. Somehow we started discussing the origin of the species - not Darwin - sex.

I was pretty shy about things like that. I had learned that you don't talk about those things when I asked my mother when my baby niece's penis would grow in. I thought it was like teeth. In any even, I suspect that Johnny Salada was doing more talking than I was. Whatever the give and take he told me what people did that brought children. I was appalled. I told him that he had to be wrong and I had two solid arguments that proved it. Firstly, no one could withstand the extreme embarrassment that 'doing it' would cause. But more convincingly, I had recently seen the movie "Giant" staring Rock Hudson. In one scene, his wife told him that she was pregnant. His reaction was one of shock and surprise. As I figured it, if you'd have 'done it' you would certainly have remembered. Ergo, he hadn't.

At first Johnny didn't really argue with my logic; it was pretty solid. After some thought he came up with an alternate hypothesis. He was pretty sure that the mechanics that he described were accurate since they seemed to have come from a reliable source. But, drawing on his logic, he reminded me that 'doing it' was often referred to as 'sleeping together.' As he figured it, that countered both of my arguments. If you did it while you were asleep, you wouldn't be embarassed because you didn't know that you had done it and you would be surprised to find out the result.

He had me. It was plausible.

Years later there was a lot of discussion around sex education for children. Was it better to get it at school where the facts would be sure and the teachers trained or at home where values could be taught along with the facts. I didn't have either. Just Johnny Salada in Mr. Timko's tree.