Ah, the joy of the journey! Just the other day, for example, our coffee companion Ernst Enns invited me to join him in a ride to the Bottrel area, a half-hour north of Cochrane. He wanted to visit his late wife’s gravesite in the Bottrel Cemetery. “Absolutely!” I said. And soon we were on our way.
Unlike his 11,800 km cycling adventure that took him the length of Africa some 15 years ago, however, we travelled by car. The late-summer scenery along the way was totally breathtaking. Take, for example, the green forests and fields near Bottrel (photo at left in accompanying collage).
That scenery provided a pleasant backdrop to Ernst’s late wife Lynne’s plot in the Bottrel Cemetery (photo at right, d. 2008). She was an amazing example of positive attitude in the face of adversity. Ernst celebrated her life with a graveside 90-inch-tall bird made of Serpentine stone from Zimbabwe. “It looks to heaven,” Ernst says.
As we were leaving the cemetery, Ernst made a couple turns I wasn’t expecting, and before I knew it, we were pulling up to the historic Bottrel General Store. He just had to stop here, and hopefully, meet its new owner, Beverley Guthrie. He had just read about how she had fallen in love with the store, and when it came up for sale recently, she determined to acquire it. (See Tim Kalinowski’s feature article in the July 25, 2024 edition of the Cochrane Eagle, p.13.)
Well, how fortunate Ernst and I were! Upon entering the store, we were soon introduced to Beverley (inset photo). And for the next hour, she left us spellbound with her memories of what it’s been like to enter into this new venture.
One of her memories, in particular, has stayed with me. After taking over the store, she began finding dimes that appeared in the strangest places. She’d find dimes at the back of shelves, others in the floor boards, and even among the building’s studs. She figured her guardian angel was giving her a message, “Well done!”
And yes, well done, Ernst, too! Thanks for taking me with you on this dime-in-studded journey.
© 2024 Warren Harbeck
