One of my favourite quick lunches or quick suppers is a can of cold brown beans. And one of the reasons I love cold beans is because it was one of the things that is attached to very happy memories. When I was a kid it was a lot of disfunction, alcohol, gambling abuses, and we lived from paycheque to paycheque and very often my dad would gamble or even worse, blow his whole paycheque. Or he would come home from his job and would binge drink because he never drank every day, but he did binge drink. And when he binge drank he became the epitome of an Irish temper. He argued with everybody. Fought with everybody. And unfortunately took out most of his anger on my mother.
But every summer and every fall time two special things happened. We all went as a family to pick blueberries. And because we went into the Whiteshell Park to pick blueberries we made it a day trip. I could remember our old station wagon and sitting on the tailgate as mom shelled hard boiled eggs, open cans of brown beans, and lots of fresh vegetables. So all day we would pick blueberries and eat blueberries. I would often dump blueberries and that’s OK because you just pick them all back up again. There was lots of laughter. Lots of joy. And no fighting. And no liquor. Plus on the ride home we all got ice cream.

The other wonderful trip where we had brown beans for lunch was when we went hunting for partridge. My mother and I would walk through the forest and she would use me as her look out for partridge. I’ve always had a keen sense of hearing and I can notice a little twig break in the bush so I would be like a pointer dog and just stop, and I would point and show my mom where the little noises came from. For lunch we would stop and have our brown beans and sauce. And we would have our hard boiled eggs. Maybe some pickles and a few carrot sticks. If we were really lucky mom would bring along an orange crush.

So even today and when I plan things for my children or with my grandchildren, I always try to include laughter, good stories, and being outside as often as possible. They enjoy their time with me and I love being with them. I hope that someday they will have memories that don’t include alcohol or gambling or fighting or disagreements. I want their memories to be full of walking in the woods, enjoying the day, having a great lunch and just being with the people you love. Life is simple. Don’t make it more complicated. But really all we need is each other and a can of cold beans.