The Icelandic Canadian - 01.06.2000, Qupperneq 38

Vol. 55 #4
THE ICELANDIC CANADIAN
336
supermarkets, its three aisles of canned goods,
snacks, fruit and vegetables looked to me like
a horn of plenty. It was especially exciting to
be allowed to go into the giant meat freezer on
a hot summer day, to see the stacked boxes
and the hanging carcasses in that dark and
frozen world. I thought it must be amazing to
be the owners of the store, and to be able to
take home whatever you wanted for dinner. I
didn't know much about the ecology and the
economics of running a small business. Valdi
and Joe retired a few years back and turned
the store over to Brian and Ken. At different
times most of the members of these two fam-
ilies have worked in the shop. Joe would still
get up most mornings after his retirement and
go down to the shop by 7 AM to do an Hour of
meat-cutting before breakfast. Now there are
much bigger supermarkets in Gimli. The peo-
ple who come to the new hotel for a vacation
may come across the street to buy soft drinks
and snacks, but few of them will be wanting
meat and groceries. On the surface Gimli is
full of optimism and prosperity, but under-
neath that no one is convinced that the
Heaven where they live will mean plenty for
their families forever.
So when you add it all up, maybe Gimli
doesn't quite live up to its name.
If Heaven is timeless, if Heaven is the
peaceable kingdom, if Heaven is a place
where you want for nothing, Gimli could
charm you into thinking that you've found
Heaven on Earth when you come for a week-
end visit. If you were to stay for a while, how-
ever, you might change your mind. You might
think Gimli is a far cry from that kind of
Heaven.
My uncle Joey and I don't generally have
theological conversations, but we did have
one during a recent visit, although I'm sure he
wouldn't call it that. It was a conversation
about the Old Guys Fishing Trip. Joey is an
earthy type - not much for metaphysics and
philosophy. Lutheran Sunday School did not
impress him much. He learned more about
life in the Navy and in trying to run a small
business for forty years and in being a father
to five children. In his early years of retire-
ment, after cutting up some meat and coming
home for breakfast, he liked to pass some of
his summer days riding his motorcycle around
town. He got a little too rambunctious,
though, and spun the bike out on some gravel,
and broke a bone in his leg.
This accident came at a particularly bad
time - mid-June - because plans were well
under way for the Old Guys Fishing Trip.
Three of my uncles and my dad were invited
by two of my cousins to come up to the fish-
ing camp they had in the far north country -
one of those places you fly into by seaplane.
It was a weekend where you bring along some
beer and some butter and a frying pan, and
you eat what you catch. You portage from one
Lake to the other, you lie in the sun for a
while after lunch , and then you fish some
more. You spend the evening embellishing
and polishing your stories so you'll all be able
to tell the same lies .consistently when you
come back home. The plans Sounded great!
And Joey had a broken leg. But he wanted to
go anyway... and so they took him. Joey
scrambled around the rocks dragging his cast
behind him. He got in and out of the canoes,
and portaged between the lakes. It wasn't
easy, but he did it all, and it was well worth it.
After Joey had told me all the stories that they
had brought back from their trip, I told him I
was still surprised that he had decided to go
on the trip with a broken leg.
"Well, Wayne," he replied. "When you're
dead, it's for a long time."
My Uncle Joe is not a very good
Lutheran. It may be that he believes in
Heaven nevertheless, and that he knows
where to go looking for it. Gimli may not be
timeless, harmonious, and safe. The town will
always change, the tension between species
and cultures will always continue, and even in
these days of prosperity and security, no one
in Gimli will ever know for sure what might
befall their health or wealth just around the
corner. There are moments, however - there
are even days, and sometimes weeks that
stand out in our memories as golden and hal-
lowed, times that give us our picture of what
Heaven might be like. They are precious
because we know they will not last, and they
give us hope and give us courage for all those
other times when life does not go so well.
If I believed with an unshakable faith and
confidence that I was destined to meet once
more with all those people that I have ever
loved - my family, my relatives, my friends -
in some other dimension of time where we