I was already in Alberta when Harry Wilmot invited me to dinner. I was surprised to hear from him. We were best friends in Montreal in Grade 5. I'd seen him once, and spoken to him twice, in 40 years.
At 11, Harry was stocky, crewcut and physically fearless. He taught me how to play chess and fullback. Now living in Calgary, he was married to his teenage sweetheart, a prominent divorce lawyer named Wendy, had two kids, was president of ATCO Structures and Logistics (1,750 employees) and wanted me to come to dinner. I said yes immediately.
Then he sent me the menu. He'd planned a seven-course meal “featuring only the best Alberta local ingredients.” Better still, his mother, Carol, was going to be there.
Calgary businessman Harry Wilmot enjoys a glass of wine with his wife, Wendy Best (centre) and his mother, Carol.
I remembered Mrs. Wilmot in precise detail. In 1965, there was a rumour on our street that Mrs. Wilmot had been Miss Grey Cup because she was married to Freddie Wilmot, the field-goal kicker on the Cup-winning Calgary Stampeders. She was 34 then and what my older, more sexually educated friends referred to as “a knockout.” But she was also the kindest and most tolerant mother on Golf Avenue, and to an 11-year-old boy that is the same thing.
Every spring, in the brief three years that we were friends, as the ice on the ponds of the Beaconsfield Golf Course softened, Harry and I risked our lives together.
We discovered that if you stood still on the ice, you fell through. If you kept running, you could stay on the crest of the collapse. We called it rubber ice.
When we inevitably fell through anyway – I have a vivid memory of grabbing Harry's hand as he clawed his way through the ice to shore – we repaired to the Wilmot house to dry our clothes.
This avoided a confrontation with my mother, who was English and took not just a Holmesian but an MI-5 approach to my whereabouts. As a result, I spent a great deal of time at the Wilmots.
We ate Mrs. W's specialty, “cheese dreams” – grilled cheese with bacon. My mother accused me of preferring their house to our own. I didn't understand the old girl's loneliness in those days.
Now, Mrs. Wilmot was going to be at dinner.
I admit the prospect of checking out your Grade 5 best friend's mom to see if she's still a babe at 80 could be misinterpreted. But these are the sacrifices the eating life demands.
A taste of things to come: Tuscan bruschetta.
A HOME AWAY FROM HOME
“My, how you've grown,” was the first thing Carol Wilmot said when I walked out on the patio of Harry's home. The Elbow River ran across the foot of the garden.
“And you haven't changed a bit,” I replied, which seemed to please her. Mrs. Wilmot – “Carol,” she admonished me – was surprisingly unchanged. She was older, of course, but she looked at least 10 years younger than her age. The same upright carriage, trim figure, warm voice. Her hair was bright white.
The second thing she said was, “I wasn't Miss Grey Cup.”
We talked about cheese dreams, her grandchildren and her late husband, Freddy. “I have to say – and Harry won't like this – our happiest years were after our kids left home.”
She was wearing a fetching, semi-transparent, African-print blouse.
“What I appreciated about moving to the west from Montreal,” she said, “was that people were appreciated for what they were doing at the time, not who their grandparents had been.”
“I always appreciated that you let me hang around after we fell in the frozen ponds,” I said.
“You were kind of a home away from home.”
