Three different memories of Uncle Rudy:
I remember receiving, as a child, two Green and Gold souvenirs from Uncle Rudy, from the University of Alberta: a felt wall pennant, and a toque. I was very pleased with them.
I remember being reprimanded by my father for contradicting Mom on the subject of Uncle Rudy’s summer growth of beard, seen in his photographic slide show. I thought the beard was great, while Mom said it looked terrible.
In 1987 or 1988, while Betty and I and our girls were Uncle Rudy’s tenants on the ancestral Klassen farm, we were responsible for keeping the feeders and waterers topped up for about 1500 pheasants in a large flight pen on the acreage. One morning when we went out we were horrified to find that the gate to the pheasant pen was open and most of the birds were outside the pen, some already off in the hedge rows. By taking the chicken wire loose from the side of the pen we created a funnel opening through which we herded quite a lot of pheasants back into the pen, but hundreds of them must have escaped. The coyotes probably fed well. If we had been locking the pen gate every night like we were supposed to do, this incident would never have happened. Whatever Uncle Rudy’s exasperation with us, I do not remember being reprimanded for our carelessness, nor did Uncle Rudy tell us at the end of the season how many birds he was short of the original number. This speaks to a considerable graciousness of character on his part.
Brian Megli
