Kirsten Murphy
Northern News Services
Yellowknife (Mar 26/01) - Museums remember the past with artifacts, faded photos and dusty documents. Jimmy Polson has his memory.
Three things guide Jimmy Polson's life: pouring gold, sipping beer and a woman whose name is withheld by request.
 Jimmy Polson |
Polson grew on the Con Mine settlement. The lakeside community is now a neighbourhood of new homes and empty lots. Polson remembers the site as a 30-shack community bursting with children and vegetable gardens in the 1950s -- a time when hair cuts were 75 cents at the YK Inn.
Sporting long sleeved denim shirt and baggy jeans, Polson's knotted hands adjust his oversized glasses.
"My mom was a good mom. My dad smoked too much," he said in his crisp, staccato speech.
With his parents long gone and his brother in Edmonton, Polson's friends are now his family.
"He's great. I've known him since I was four years old," said one of Polson's acquaintances from his perch at Harley's Hard Rock Saloon.
To know Polson is appreciate a man whose distinguished memory comes only second to his generosity.
"I was close to marrying ---- one time," he said without prompting. Even his company dental plan failed to win her over, he lamented.
Proud of his work
Of all the things he's done (student, reporter, radio operator) he's most proud of rising through the ranks at Con Mine.
He started sweeping floors in 1981. Today, he banks more than $20 an hour pouring unrefined gold into 60-pound bars. The bars are shipped to Ontario and reprocessed into pure gold.
"It is the most important thing that's happened to me. It makes me feel secure," he said.
A simple man with an admittedly simple life, Polson knows Yellowknife like city streets know snow.
Driving around the old Con Mine site, Polson describes his former neighbourhood: the store where he shopped with his mom, the recreation hall, the bunkhouses, the hospital where he was born and the theatre. His family's house was torn down years ago. The site is no longer accessible by car.
"I wouldn't live here now. Too far from things. Too far from the Monkey Tree," he said.
A former car owner, Polson prefers a good pair running shoes to wheels.
His first car was a '66 Ford two-door hard top, sold to him by his dad in the 1970's. After several paint jobs and many owners, the car is still cruising the streets of Yellowknife.
Every day he disappears into his Range Lake North apartment and spends hours surfing the net for news and entertainment. The high-tech passion is far from his nights glued to the radio, listening to Hockey Night in Canada as a child.
To put his age in perspective consider this: Rose Sikyea, now 95-years-old and living at Aven Manor with her 100-year-old husband, babysat the young Polson and his older brother.
The road connecting Yellowknife with southern Canada hadn't been built. Mail order deliveries came by ferry in the summer, and by ice road in the winter. Polson was 13 when the family's first refrigerator arrived. Polson went wild.
"My dad said it wasn't making any ice because I was opening the door too many times," he said, offering a wry smile.
A television followed in 1961 when he was 14 years old, a year before his mother's death. His clearest recollection of his elementary days was one Sister Margarita and her relentless ruler.
"I was a loner, yes a loner. We lived a long ways from everybody else. Very shy," he said over the drone of people and glasses at Harley's.
A voracious reader with a sanctioned bed time, Polson read Nancy Drew and Hardy Boy books under the sheets by flashlight.
A newspaper subscription was not part of his parents' budget. So when his brother's hockey and basketball triumphs made the paper, Polson went to the library and quietly admired his brother's athletic prowess.
Polson's gift for remembering names and dates went unnoticed (or misunderstood) by his teachers.
"They told me I had a poor memory. I'm just average. I have an IQ of 125; 100 is average."
For all his wisdom, Polson still kicks himself for not buying houses a $3,000 house in the early 1960s.
He never been married but carries a torch for J----. He's content, though, leading a life of greasy breakfasts and dancing with whomever he pleases whenever he pleases.
At least one local pub keeps a glass polished just for him. Several others know him and his preferred brand of beverage by name.
Like so many other Yellowknifers, it's the lakes, the scenery and the short distances around town keep him firmly rooted here.
"What makes me happy? That's one question I hadn't thought about.... People. I know lots of people in Yellowknife. It's a safe place to live."
Retiring to Edmonton, where his brother lives, is a possibility but not for many, many years he said.
"I'm happy. I work I've got money to buy beer, a cow on the ranch... not don't say that. It's been a good life, it really has" he said.
