Brother Vic of the good old days

Dear Editor:

Last week I had a wonderful dream of my brother Vic. I saw him walking towards me from a distance and I stood there waiting for him to come to me; it took a while. When he came close our hands touched, and we smiled at each other. The dream was interrupted when the phone rang and woke me up.

In the early ’60’s Vic and my other brother, Harold, hauled gravel on what is now known as Highway 1 near Gull Lake and Swift Current, Sask. He owned and operated his own 4 or 5-ton tandem truck compared to the huge ones they use nowadays. 

He spent many years in Lynn Lake, Man., working as a carpenter building mineshafts. When he left, he decided to travel to Prince Rupert, BC, where he built numerous homes and hired subcontractors – plumbers, electricians, and carpenters. Since it rained most of the time Vic was only able to build three homes a year. He saved plenty of money and upon retiring bought an orchard in Osoyoos and harvested apples and various fruit trees. Every morning, he powerwalked for an hour. His acreage was situated on the side of a mountain but with all the spraying of orchards around he decided to move to an acreage in Oliver where the air was fresher and much healthier. 

Vic and his wife Aileen became involved at the Baptist church in Penticton and in fact built the church by himself and donated his time and money until his passing at 64 years of age. Vic was diagnosed with Lou Gehrig’s disease and lasted six months. Lydia and I visited him before he died. There wasn’t any sickness like this in our family; perhaps it was the pollutants from spraying the orchards or it was God’s will that he dies at such an early age.

Paul Jones, Coaldale