George

I had a friend named George. He passed away on November 21, 2008. He was only 38 years old. I had only seen him once in the past fifteen years and that was about three years ago.

When I was young, I went to Chemainus Elementary School. There was a family which lived two houses away; the Mawson’s. Bill was in my grade, Ada was a year younger and George was a year younger than her.

As we grew up in the small town, we all stayed friends. During my teenage years, if I wasn’t at home, chances were very good that I was at the Mawson’s house. We were all very close and always had a lot of fun together. The kid’s Dad, Bill Sr., was a very funny man and would always have me in stitches. Rita, their Mom, was so sweet and welcoming to all of us “extra kids” who hung around their house. It was “Our Gang” and the Mawson’s home was our clubhouse.

The years went by and we eventually grew up and went our separate ways, except for me and George. In our early twenty’s we were inseparable. We did everything together, and got into a bit of trouble every now and then. He would even ride the ferry with me both ways when I had to get my oldest daughter from Vancouver for the weekend. Four hours on a BC Ferry - now that's a good friend!

One day - I remember this well - we were heading back from Ladysmith in my ’67 VW Baja Bug with Stinger exhaust, which is the style with an open engine and a big tail pipe sticking out the back. It was pink, very loud (oops, the baffle popped out), no brakes to speak of and a dead battery - I always parked on a hill so I could jump start it. I think it had an 1100cc engine and I always had the pedal to the floor. We were going to Chemainus along Old Victoria Rd and the engine stalled a bit, but then it started going again. (That was another thing, the gas gauge didn’t work so I did run out of gas every so often.) When I looked in my rear view mirror, all I saw was an orange glow and yelled out “Oh, s**t! We’re on fire!” It took me a bit to get us stopped - remember, it had poor brakes. We both jumped out to assess the situation and saw that the entire engine was in flames. We’d happened to stop in front of a house where we knew the occupants and ran in for help. George burst into the house and yelled “Do you have a f***ing fire extinguisher!!” They did have one and came out to save the day. After the fire was out, they gave George a little talk about his language. We got the car started again and drove it to my parent’s house. I didn’t drive it after that and I think I ended up selling it for $100. That was just one of the many memories I have of George, he was such a good friend.

I moved to Victoria and visits with George became a less frequent event. We ended up going our separate ways and having our own lives. As I mentioned, I did see him a few years ago. He told me that he was a single father of two and was living up island somewhere. I also told him about my life and then we went our separate ways once more. We get so busy with our lives and if I’d known that that was going to be the last time I’d see him in this lifetime, I probably would have made more of an effort to contact him. I didn’t, so I didn’t.

Today I went to George’s funeral. I was so sad, but a couple of good things came out of it. Bill Sr. had passed away in 2006 and I didn’t hear about it until months later. George was buried beside his Dad, so I got to say farewell to both of them at the same time. The other good thing was that I was re-connected with the Mawsons and I found out that Bill lives very close to me. I took his phone number and will give him a call in a few days so that we can go for coffee or something.

George had the biggest heart. He would not think twice about doing anything for anyone. He was always smiling and usually on the verge of a big hearty laugh. We had so much fun together. I’ll never forget him.