My father had at least six or seven half brothers and
sisters who were much older than him – between 20 and 40 years older than him
in fact. This was because my grandfather, who I never met and who died at the
age of 82 in 1962, had married twice. He was horrible to my dad and really
fucked him up in a way that I could only begin to comprehend just recently, a
few years after my dad passed away.
However, there was one half-brother, Taft, that my dad did
have a relationship with for a number of years. Taft would have been in his
60’s when I was little and he was a very nice grandfatherly type. He lived in
an area of Kelowna called Uplands Drive. Now Uplands Drive was in the section
of the city where all the vineyards were located, and in the Okanagan Valley,
there were many of these. Taft’s house was located on top of a hill at the end
of a long winding road. His house was built on the hill so that when you went
out into the back in the upper floors, you could walk out into the fields
behind his property if you climbed the fence. At the basement level, there was
a back yard, but it was a good 30 feet below the surface of the fields above.
So there was a huge concrete retaining wall built to effectively prevent the
ground from subsiding and effectively burying the back yard and every one in
it.
Anyways, we loved to go exploring – me, my brother and my
two cousins Marcel and Andreas. Marcel and Andreas were the sons of Taft’s
daughter. We would climb the fence and
just go exploring in the vineyard fields of the properties bordering Taft’s –
sometimes for hours on end. Like I said earlier, the 1970’s was a very
different time. Yes this was private property and we were definitely not
supposed to be on it, but as long as there was no real danger, nobody really cared.
If we got caught we’d be scared off the property by the owner’s most likely or
taken back home by them, where they would have had a polite chat with our
parents. If something happened to us while we were there my parents would
never, in a million years, dream of suing the owner of the property.
This property behind the house was a large vineyard that
seemed to go on for miles, but in reality, I’m sure now that it was probably
only 10 acres or so. We would walk along the property towards the point where
it ended in the highway that bordered it. Uplands Drive was located off this
highway, so you can get some idea of what I am referring to. On the way down to
highway, the property had a feature that I have never seen anywhere since: a
roof protruding no more than 2 feet from the ground. Obviously, there was a
subterranean building that you just couldn’t see from the ground that must have
been accessible by some kind of corridor, but it was completely baffling to me,
my brother, Marcel and Andreas. We came to call it the “strange roof”.
This property would be a favoured hangout spot every time we
went to visit Uncle Taft and aunt Edith. One time I went exploring on the
property alone with Marcel before dinner. This time we stumbled across an
abandoned kid’s for that contained all kinds of interesting stuff – an old
radio, pop bottles, old licence plates for cars and hockey cards. I of course
was enthralled with this new find and wanted to stay and check everything out
and possibly take the loot back with me. Marcel, very shortly after we got there told me that it was time
to go back home for dinner. Well I didn’t want to go just yet. How could I?
What with all this cool stuff to explore and check out. So I made my objections
known and said that I would stay and check the stuff out. Marcel said that if I
didn’t come home now the bears that frequented the field were going to come
after me and would eat me if they caught me.
In fact, he was going to tell the head bear about me right now and off
he went.
Now, at this point I do not think I was quite 6, so my
reasoning abilities had not yet fully developed, nor had my ability to judge
plausibility of such outlandish claims fully developed. Also, as most of us
aspies can attest to, there was a time delay between my brain hearing Marcel’s
words and processing them fully. I remember that for a few minutes after Marcel
had left, I continued to explore happily away until suddenly, Thud! It hit me
“I was going to die! I was going to be ripped limb from limb by bears! I started
to panic and cry as I ran with as much speed as my legs could muster back toward
the house. The entire time, all I could think of were the bears getting closer
and closer and gaining on me. Twice I tripped and fell, skinning both knees and
I can remember as clearly as if it were yesterday the sheer terror that gripped
me as I jumped over ditches on the property and scaled two barbed wire fences
to escape the clutches of these bears. Finally after what seemed like forever
and with my lungs feeling like they had been torn to shreds, I caught sight of
the house. I ran with my last surge of energy toward the front basement door
and pounded on the door. Marcel calmly answered and I exclaimed “quick let me
in!”. He shut the door behind me and calmly said “I told him to find you, but
it seems like he couldn’t.”
Another time, all of us went down past the strange roof
toward the road. Across the road, we could see these two houses one of which
was clearly abandoned, but the other just looked scary. There were old rusted
out buses and cars on the property and even an old rusty clawfoot bathtub. We
were all intrigued and had to explore what lay over there. So we all went
across the road and onto the other property. It was the absolute scariest place
we had been. It is hard to explain, but there was just this vibe that if anyone
caught us, we would not live to tell the tale. We sensed that there was someone
or something in that house. Marcel dared me to go up and knock on the front
door. I reluctantly agreed.
If you have seen Raiders of the Lost Ark, you know the part
in the beginning where Indiana Jones is walking in the Incan or Mayan tomb
toward the golden effigy just moments before he gets ready to steal the
artifact. Remember the suspense that builds as he walks along the floor and
tries to avoid setting off the booby traps? Well that was exactly how I felt as
I took each step toward the door – this impending sense of doom. When I reached
the door, with the panes of frosted glass to the sides, and the huge brass door
knocker, I just couldn’t do it. So I backed away. We eventually settled on
exploring the abandoned house that was on the property and the cars and buses.
It was incredible. The stuff had been there for years. The house still had
overturned furniture in it and tons and tons of ivy along the floor and walls.
All I could think was to wonder why it was abandoned like that.
Eventually once we were done exploring, we decided to
retreat back up to the other side of the road and to watch the property from
the safety of the strange roof. We sat there for what seemed like an hour and
then we saw a long black car emerge from the driveway on the far side of the
property. As the car pulled towards us we caught a glimpse of the driver. We
saw what appeared to be a black cape lined with blood red. He was a vampire!
That was our consensus as we left the property and began to walk back toward
the house. We never went across the road again.
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