I grew up in an area of Winnipeg termed the Northend, on Cathedral Avenue to be specific, and just several blocks from the Red River. The Red, as locals refer to it, is infamous for its springtime flooding after the melts of all those winter snowfall accumulations. There was a great flood throughout the city of Winnipeg in 1950. This was something I did not experience; since, not only was I not born yet, but my parents both came to Canada and met each other after that destructive flood. Today, the city is protected by an incredible floodway that bypasses a major portion of the river around one side of the city during flood seasons.

I remember a very particular day in the summer while growing up on Cathedral Avenue. It was one of those great summer days. I was probably in grade five or six with an entire two months of summer holidays. At that age, and if you wanted to, you could just make time seem to drag on forever. This is a great ability and advantage of youth: something I am now unable to recreate as effectively. It was on just one of those days that I was stretching time.

Summertime in Winnipeg is incredibly beautiful with totally blue skies as far as the eye can see. Dry air was something I grew accustomed to and this is the only way that I can take the heat. Heat and constant high humidity are not something you find in this city. Winnipeg is an ideal summer location as it is within one hours drive of the most fantastic fresh water lakes and beaches to be found anywhere. This is cottage country. There were many weekends when my parents would take my sister, brother and I to one of the many beaches that dot both sides of massive Lake Winnipeg. Beaches such as: Gimli, Winnipeg Beach, Patricia, Grand Beach, and Victoria. On a beautiful summer day at Grand Beach, with white sand dunes as high as a single story house, extensive and flat powdery sand beaches, blue fresh water with gentle waves, with a matching expansive blue sky, you would gaze across the lake and you could not see any land on the other side. There was just water and sky. Without being told, you could imagine yourself anywhere in the world at the most famous beach resort, and it would not be any better. As youngsters, Linda, Arthur, and I would play in the warm and shallow waters for hours on end - no other entertainment needed.

It was on just such a day, a gorgeous day with a breath taking blue sky, a few white fluffy clouds, and me alone in my backyard lying on the soft grass. I was just gazing up and wondering, with nothing to do and in no rush to do it. I remember looking down and observing little hills of dirt scattered amongst the grass and watching the ants at work. They were tiny black ants hard at their efforts. Some ants may have been carrying items and others just moving hurriedly between point A and point B. Of course, I had no idea what those points might be.

I decided I was going to distract them and I proceeded to do so either with a small twig or my finger. I wanted to see if I could distract them off their chosen path - to confuse them. I even wanted to see if I could frighten them and set them off in another direction. Nothing really seemed to matter to them. When I put something in their way, they just went around it. They proceeded at the same steady pace. It was as though I was not even there. I would pick up an ant, let it wander around my hand, relocate it to a different spot and look for a change of behavior. The ant merely carried on or, so it appeared to me.

That is when I started to think about it. ‘It’ being the point of this chapter and a message that I will likely repeat, if I can hopefully describe my point clearly. The ants did not seem to realize that I was even there. It dawned on me that I was not sure if they could even see me. If they could, they did not seem to display any fear whatsoever and they certainly did not run off in another direction. If I was an ant and saw something thousands of times my size and moving about me, I know what I would be doing. Either those ants did not see me, or if they did, they did not seem to care in the least; no panic, no mass hysteria, and no scattering to the corners of the yard.

I kept thinking about this, wondering, and looking up at that beautiful sky. I did not have feelings of superiority: instead I felt somewhat sad for them. The ants had such short lives compared to mine and I wondered if their lifespan would allow them to even survive the summer. Then thoughts and questions just seemed to pour in on me, like sudden and repeating blows from a hammer. Did these ants even know where they were? Did they know that they were in a backyard? Were they aware that there was a house and human beings close by? Did they even know they were in a city with streets, cars, huge buildings, and sophisticated technology all around? Did they know that they could all be crushed instantaneously by some simple construction activity? No, these ants were totally oblivious to it all. Totally oblivious to how vulnerable they were and I had not even the remotest of possibility of any communication with them. No explanations could be made to them - it would be laughable. I kept thinking: they actually might not even know I was there. Since I was lying on my side, my face was just inches away from them. It was both amazing and bizarre. We were so close physically but nothing could be further apart.

I was an elementary school student and even I knew we were on the planet Earth, within a solar system, and part of a galaxy. Never mind about the entire universe. These ants had no idea … just no idea where they were and what could happen to them. They had no comprehension of their situation. I could only gaze up at that blue sky and slowly shake my head.

Those are the thoughts and the questions that made me remember that time and that day. As for the rest of the days of that summer, nothing seems to stand out, and I am sure there are other recollections. They would only need jogging and a linkage to that same time period.