Warrior on Water

Tony Zasada

The crazy thing about the story I'm about to share is that the mystery remains unsolved to this very day. It would have cost a fortune to investigate back in the '90s and money was tight. I remember my parents sending us out to play after dinner because I was sure that it became a disagreement in their not-so-perfect marriage. Of course, being loving parents, they didn't want their children to hear the raised voices, the cussing, and my mother sobbing uncontrollably afterward. My mom, a beautiful Lithuanian woman had once told us that surviving World War 2 was the toughest hardship that she has had to push through. But, this event was both one of the proudest yet catastrophic moments in the history of my family.

This is the story of my mother's son, my brother, and the man who was always recognized and loved in the city of Regina. It is the tale of a remarkable man who started, quite literally on a small town lake.

My parents had decided to raise a family in the second-largest city in Saskatchewan. There are many small towns in Saskatchewan, making day road trips easy to plan. If you were awake for the ride, you were able to see many eye-catching fields full of wood lilies and if you were lucky, you could spot cows and horses grazing out on the field. My two parents 4 of my siblings and I would all cram into a small, run-down beetle car that my father owned and drive three hours to Saskatoon. On the way there, we would always pass by this small town that served delicious ice cream from a small, brown shack.
Traveling felt like a well-deserved break for the family, especially for my parents who worked so hard trying to support the five of us. My mother was a nurse who worked at the hospital downtown. There was absolutely no fooling her when it came to pretending to be "too" sick for school. My father had a government job, he worked in the immigration department. He was able to decide who could and couldn't reside in Regina. He was a big know-it-all, he would read lots and take my brothers out to the library when they had nothing better to do.

When we weren't traveling, life was ordinary back home. Everyone would wake up, we'd always fight about who gets to use the washroom first and head downstairs to eat before getting ready for school.  You'd have to eat fast in my family because if you were too slow, my older brothers, Tony and Adam, would always pick up their fork and steal your egg or your last piece of bacon.  Don't even let me get started on how much food they stole at the dinner table. 
Adam is closest to me in age, but we were never close as siblings. He would always make fun of me and I think it was because he knew he could since I was younger. It's the power older siblings have over the younger ones.  But, Tony, was older than him, and even though he came up with pranks for all of us, he made it extra worse for his little brother, Adam. Sadly, my big brother A had made me promise not to tell a soul about these embarrassing instances.

I still remember how after supper, Mom would let us watch TV for an hour, and whoever was sitting beside Tony would get a surprise finger jammed right in their cheek. 
Tony would chuckle loudly and yell obnoxiously, with a grin on his face, "Sweet tooth."
There was nothing sweet about getting a finger jammed in your cheek and in between your teeth. This wasn't even the most annoying prank my eldest brother would pull on us.  Before I was born, my parents brought home an untrained medium-sized dog that we called Sam. If Tony was home and was the first person to realize that Sam had pooped on the living room floor, he would wait patiently until one of us would walk downstairs. My brother would tackle us and hold us right above the dog's manure until he didn't find it funny anymore.  I don't even recall my parents scolding him over it.  My brother, Adam, and my two older sisters, Monica and Elly knew that he was the prankster of the family. There wasn't anything we could do about it, other than complain when it happened.

He was also the laziest sibling out of the five of us, spending most of his time watching cartoon television. I would often hear my mother hassling him about finding a better hobby or helping her out in the house like the rest of us. My brother was smart, he would never argue with her and instead, he would agree and tell her that he'll spend some time outside.
This, my mother, accepted because she thought that being outside was good for both the body and the brain and she wanted him to make friends.
Tony would bring his camera, a notebook, and pencils in his school bag and walk the 20 minutes to Wascana Lake.  He studied the few species of birds that built nests in the birch trees that overlooked the lake.