Subway Mystic

I was new to NYC, but already aware how rare it was to find a seat on the subway. One day I was delighted to get on and find several seats! I failed to notice the wide berth people were giving them. I paid no attention to the empty paper bag on the seat beside me, thinking it was just garbage that somebody left behind. Then I heard a kind of chanting. The crowd parted and grizzled old man in grimy clothes appeared. Droning his chant he began lighting matched and tossing them, still lit, in the bag beside me.

The thing about deranged people is you have to be careful about moves you make around them. When the ‘mystic’ on the subway car began tossing lighted matches into a paper bag on the seat beside me, I sat frozen, not wanting to draw attention to myself. I breathed a sigh of relief each time a match went out before disappearing into the depths of the bag. At the next subway stop I bolted for the door. Who knows what blessing he would have bestowed if he had become aware of my presence? Maybe I missed out on great fortune?

Please Don’t Feed the Bagmen

He had the universal sign of all transients: A plastic bag turned inside out and stuffed to breaking. I sat across from him on the subway and watched as he rummaged around, carefully taking out a bit of sandwich, surveying its contents and then wrapping it up and replacing it in his bag. I was drawn to him and his Deputy Dog jowls. So before I got out of the car at Lansdowne, I placed my package of licorice on top of his bag. He looked up, disgusted, “Hey Lady, I don’t want this!” and threw it back at me.

Like those experts on Antiques Roadshow who can tell a 1902 Stieff bear from a fake, seasoned TTC riders can spot a crazy a mile away. The Smellies and Lone Talkers are obvious, but it’s the ones who look normal until you sit next to them and then start telling you about melting skeletons that present the challenge. There’s a simple rule of thumb that always works for me. It’s not their hair nor clothes. It’s their shoes. Worn heels and salt stains are a dead giveaway. And for Heaven’s Sake don’t sit next to any adult with Velcro ties.

The Better Way

Whenever the Amalgamated Transit Union goes on strike, anyone who depends on the subway or the bus or the streetcar to get around Toronto has to scramble to make other arrangements. The smarter commuters spend the time working from home for a change, but most don’t think twice about adding their car to the chaos downtown or maybe make some small effort to form a car pool at work, but mostly they grumble—a lot; and usually along the lines of legislating the overpaid bastards back to work and usually after only a day or so of such unbearable hardship.

Back in the ’70s, people seemed a lot less anxious about getting to work. Then a transit strike tended more to bring people together in the simple adventure of getting around, when on the typically uptight streets of Toronto, you had only to stick out your thumb, and someone would give you lift.
     On the way home from school one afternoon, I met a man who’d driven downtown just for the fun of it. I sat with the others on the floor of his van, and he offered me plum from a basket of fruit he’d brought along for us.

Rule of Thumb

Usually it was no problem getting a ride back to town from Owen Sound, but this evening we were not getting any takers. After standing with our thumbs out for almost an hour, a car stopped. And it only took us as far as Allenford. It was about 8:00 at night, but I swear the entire village had already gone to bed. We did not see lights on in any of the homes. And it was ages before another car came along. It stopped. We got in. We would have taken a ride with Freddie Krueger at that point.

For a couple of years my best friend and I hitchhiked everywhere. Sometimes just for fun, with no destination in mind. You often met interesting people. But after a couple of dodgy rides that got us thinking about safety, we gradually lost interest in it. And, in my late teens my parents bought an old beater for the kids to bomb around in, so it was no longer as necessary. My hitchhiking career ended firmly when I moved to Toronto and discovered standing by the road with your thumb stuck out was a signal that you were open for business.

I Love You to St. Joachim and Back

This summer Dan will take driving lessons. I see preparing him for his G1 as teaching an important life skill. A more practical incentive for leaving the basement than a couch fire. Being a county kid, I had my license early. I failed my first try at Windsor then opted for a second attempt at Tilbury. That time I passed and became a bonafide driver at the age of seventeen. And I was a late bloomer. Farm-girl Cathy thumbed her sun-burnt nose at the law and drove when she was fifteen. But that was just a truck full of corn.

The move to Toronto was a rude awakening for me. Fresh from Tecumseh, and bereft of my beloved Dodge Dart I was forced to take the TTC. Or rely on the vagaries of city drivers whose predilections were to dump you at the nearest streetcar stop. Back home nobody took public transit. What’s more, nobody got marooned at a bus stop. You just drove people home, no matter where they lived. So we chose our friends wisely. A Brouillette or a St. Pierre was a fifteen-minute drive into town. Returning a Chauvin or a Menard took forty-five minutes one way.

FFFFF . . . JJJJJ . . . DDDDD . . .

When school lets out again this summer, I’m sure every child, young and old, will soon be looking forward to their first day of typing camp. That’s what my mother, the mistress of subsidized summer fun found for my last holiday before high school, two whole weeks of fffff . . . jjjjj . . . ddddd . . . kkkkk . . . Understand, we’re not talking about computers here, this was touch typing at its most basic, on massive old manual machines back when tab stops were actual metallic tabs, and it took every ounce of your strength to return the paper carriage back to the start of every line.

I maintain that those two weeks of typing camp were all it took to set me apart from all the poor hunters-and-peckers who’d be spending the rest of their lives cursing their computers and the demise of the once ubiquitous secretarial pool. Everyone would soon be doing all their own typing, and I was fortunate enough to learn what I consider the two most important typing tips ever: use your pinky to hold down a shift key and your thumb on the space bar. Everything beyond that is nothing but practice, muscle memory, and lots of looking at the keyboard.

Image from Wikipedia.

A Spoonful of Sugar

Mrs. Schlinker, my piano teacher, was a great fan of Liberace. I think he would have loved to have met her. Like him, she smiled all the time and employed his method of highly arched fingers prancing up and down the keyboard, with the ends of phrases accentuated by a flourish of the wrist. This flamboyant style of playing was enforced on all her students. I did not mind. It was fun to add such physicality to my playing, and it was a way of making sure each note was precisely defined. Later I transferred that style to computer keyboarding.


Finding ways to inject playful fun into my routine is really the only way to survive the monotony of office work. Because of my piano training I love typing. It is satisfying to fire off a section of text at the speed of a machine gun, and finish with a flourished hand on the ‘enter’ key. I also like to play number games when making my bookkeeping entries – looking for patterns in number combinations. But I have to be careful with my sense of humour. It always bubbles to the surface in serious situations, where it is not always appreciated.

Life Before Pete Townshend

My tiny record stand was shaped like a lyre and had a capacity for fifteen albums. Unless I padded it with Alvin and the Chipmunks or the Singing Nun, it would remain half-empty. Fearing reprisals from my friends who had older siblings with collections that boasted Machine Head and Brain Salad Surgery I’d frantically comb my pile looking for the least dorkey cover to place at the front of the stand. Once in a panic I settled on The Cowsills and lived to regret it. A great jettisoning of titles occurred. Except for Liberace’s Rhapsody in Blue. Coolest. Record. Ever.

William Campbell

I once got into an argument with a friend of a friend, over whether it was really Liberace in that episode of Star Trek where the crew is captured by an alien who does look a bit like Liberace. I looked up the real actor’s name and kept it in mind for months just waiting to bump into, you know, that guy who’d thought it was Liberace and the first words I said to him were “William Campbell,” which I can still recall thirty years on, even if I can’t remember the name of the guy I said it to.

Information Overload

I can never remember the names of bands, or the names of songs. I know the music, but those details will not stay in my head. Steve is always rolling his eyes when I hear a song and ask him, “Who does this, again?” Or he will name a song and I will say, “What?” Then he has to hum it to me before I recognize it. Once, I got a big laugh from a clerk in a record store when I asked for the latest album by “A Hundred Thousand Maniacs.” “Do you want ten of them?” he asked.

The Born Identity

Because she saw Billy Crystal in When Harry Met Sally and then soon after watched him host the Academy awards, Laurette thought there were two of him, one about ten years older than the other. She insisted on referring to them as "The Crystal Brothers" and couldn’t be convinced otherwise. And so 'The Crystal Brothers' became part of our arcane little lexicon. One will say this phrase when the other mistakenly identifies an actor. And it's usually me. I’m not good with names and don’t go to movies much. I’ve never been able to tell my Langellas from my Damons.

Bill Cosby and Ben

Mark had an extra ticket to Bill Cosby’s new show and invited me along: the O’Keefe Centre downtown, a big American star, and if that wasn’t enough showbiz for one evening, Ben Vereen did a surprise walk-on just to say hi to his pal, just like they do on the late-night talk shows.
     “Great show,” said Mark at intermission. “And how about Flip Wilson just dropping in like that?”
     Ben Vereen? What the hell had I been thinking? Flip Wilson was way more famous than Ben Vereen, and I’d just blown my best chance of ever seeing him in person.

Easy Money

The TV was on in the background while we were playing cards. My sister’s boyfriend made a comment about Eddie Murphy. I looked up and saw it was The Late Show. “That’s Arsenio Hall,” I corrected him. “Eddie Murphy!” he insisted. “Betcha a hundred bucks it’s Arsenio Hall.” I said, absently. “Betcha!” he returned. I thought nothing of it until a letter came in the mail a few weeks later with a one hundred dollar bill tucked into it. “A gentleman always honours his bets,” it said. A bet I never meant to be serious. Glad I was right.

Eat your vegetables or the Seal will kill you!

For children and parents that ghastly time between school and supper is mitigated by TVO Kids. We realized how much Dan was influenced by one particular program after he arranged our beer empties into circles on the kitchen floor, looked up at an imaginary overhead camera and shouted, “This is an Art Attack!” But some shows, like Pingu, were stupid, and he just had to wait them out. Until that episode with the seal. A smooth, brown disproportionate head that rose up slowly against that creepy blue background. It looked like Eddie Murphy and scared the shit out of him.

The Penguin Guy

Every few months, on the way to the dentist, I’ll pass by my first apartment and wonder what the next tenant thought of the bathroom I left behind. When I first moved in, I’d enjoyed patching things up, but after a few months of plaster and paint, I was getting just a little bit potty and so, when someone told me that wallpaper would make quick work of the cracks in the bathroom, I splurged for a print of penguins kicking a beach ball around, penguins on the drinking glass to match, and with that I became the penguin guy.

A Girl’s Room

The theme for the bedroom was Winnie the Pooh. There was a Winnie the Pooh sheet set, a Winnie the Pooh comforter and matching Winnie the Pooh drapes. Winnie the Pooh prints hung on the walls. A Winnie the Pooh lamp stood on the table by the bed that was loaded with dozens of Winnie the Pooh stuffed toys. She tucked herself in wearing Winnie the Pooh pajamas every night. She even had a Winnie the Pooh lunch box that she carried openly on her bus commute to work each day. Yes, we are talking about a grown woman, here.

Hunters and Gatherers

Serious Aspergery-collecting, like monolithic rows of albums or floor to ceiling libraries tends to be a man thing. How many of us had boys who lined their cars up in single file from kitchen to couch? It’s too deeply entrenched in their DNA to fix. But seeking out bits of dross is a completely female addiction, running from the mildly artistic vintage teak to the truly heinous plaster angel or cat figurine varieties. Junk is consumer poutine. It’s bad for us and makes our houses fat. Over time I've learned to resist stuff. Just don’t look in my yarn cupboard.

Main Street

Growing up a block or so away from the corner of Bloor and Yonge, I didn’t quite know what to make of the Main Street station on the Bloor-Danforth line. Yonge Street, after all, is one of the longest roads in the world and that particular intersection pretty much defines the centre of downtown Toronto; and so there was little doubt in my 14-year-old mind that either of those streets had a greater claim to main-ness than one I’d never even heard of until that dull afternoon I decided to spend the rest of the day underground, collecting subway transfers.

Grey Area

The last house on Main Street was on the edge of town, and the change was abrupt. Its lawn was edged by a row of trees and a fence. On the other side of the fence stood a field of corn that served as the front yard for the family whose property marked the start of farmland. Now there is literally a ‘grey area’ between the town proper and rural areas – paved over with asphalt and concrete of big box commerce. Both sides of the highway offer a mile of bleak, treeless, wind-whipped parking lots fronting huge palaces of retail.

Femme D’Affaires

It doesn’t have to be in Barrie. It could be in Sudbury or Lansing, but nothing makes you feel more like a loser than walking out of the parking lot of a Holiday Inn. Sidewalks exist only in an academic sense and as you attempt to cross the eight lanes of suburban traffic drivers view you with interest. Is she too poor to afford a Windstar? Is she just back from the methadone clinic? In reality, I am usually on my way to one of those ersatz Mexican restaurants, the kind that feature iceberg lettuce and Frank’s Red Hot sauce.

Cycling the Suburbs

We crossed the 401 at Keele, rode our bikes over sixteen lanes of rush-hour traffic, past acres of prime Ontario farmland now devoted to elaborate ramps and merges, dodging cars desperate to get onto the highway and those just trying to get off and get home. Out there they wonder at the people crazy enough to cycle through their suburb, that is if they bother to watch for you at all. But at least the lanes are nice and wide. And you can ride on the sidewalk if things get hairy and not have to worry about encountering a pedestrian.

Just Bumped Into Him

The car I dinged in the cramped parking lot of the movie theatre already had so many dents and scrapes that I considered just driving away. But my conscience would not allow it… and there were witnesses. I went back into the theatre and had him paged. And, to avoid any insurance claims, I agreed to pay him $50 cash if he came to my house the next day. He appeared, on schedule at my door the next morning to collect. “Can I take you out to dinner tonight?” he asked. We went out for about six months after that.

Roxanne, You Don't Have to Put Out the Tail Light

My first fender bender occurred only weeks after I received my driver’s license. Drunk with the anticipation of buying a new Police album I drove the Dart to the store only to discover, Outlandos D’Amour in hand, that I had forgotten my wallet and had to return home to get it. Peeling out of the parking space I clipped the right side of a green station wagon. I did what any resourceful seventeen year-old girl would do: Reparked on the far end of the mall and phoned Daddy. After all, it would have been too ironic to call the cops.

Parent’s Night

It has nothing to do with my parents, Mr. Robb. It’s because of the Accident.
     We were starting home late from a day at the beach, and although the parking lot was empty, and the exit was way off in the corner, my father still followed the lines. I was the only one who noticed the other car coming diagonally across from the right, but all I could do was watch, because I just knew both cars were moving at exactly the right speed to meet up precisely, and they did.
     And that is why I’m so good at physics.

Danger of Short Circuit

Having observed many a dullard who came from brilliant parents and many a brilliant child who rose out of a dull family, I had already come to the conclusion that it is a person’s specific gene mixture that has a far more potent effect on the outcome of their character, than their upbringing. Then I had children and marveled how their personalities were hardwired in from day one. Possibly certain environmental factors may make a difference, but, in my opinion, we die the same person as we were born and trying to change who you are can be damaging.

What Not to Expect When Expecting

In periods of intense navel-gazing I’ve wondered if my mother hadn’t smoked a pack a day and taken diet pills and DES when she carried me, if I wasn’t raised in a trailer or enrolled in Catholic schools my entire young life, would I be more successful today? But what if this sort of prenatal nourishment and early childhood education had an immunizing effect, and I’m much stronger than if I had been spawned and raised by rich folks? Maybe. I know I’ve developed quite a resistance to bingo halls, truck rallys and Don Cherry. And I never get sick.

Potential

In Grade 3, I made the mistake of doing well on a school-sponsored IQ test, a rather stupid mistake considering how smart the test said I was, because from then on every one of my teachers would look more closely at the work I produced and invariably inform my parents that their son wasn’t “living up to his potential,” and of course I was just dumb enough to believe them, up until high school and all the way through university, to the point where I wonder now if I haven’t spent the last forty years trying to prove them right.

Significant Expectations

My earliest toddlerhood memories are of staring up at my parents, seemingly omnipotent beings, towering over me, making me feel insignificant. I railed against my ineffectual status in society. I longed to be an adult; to be in control of my own affairs and confident in my experience. Every step I made toward independence gave me great satisfaction: tying my own shoelaces; driving a car; getting my first job; moving out on my own; settling down and starting a family. I have progressed through many proud milestones. But for all that, I have never overcome the feeling of being insignificant.

It’s Not Just a River in Egypt

Sure everyone got old around me, but I thought I was hermetically sealed in my youth. Maintained. Preserved. But first it was policemen who looked younger than me, then the doctors. Suddenly people half my age became successful writers or academics. Famous. Like I wanted to be. But I never realized how much I was aging until an aerobics instructor visibly recoiled when I got close enough to ask him a question. What an eye-opener! Health, Pulchritude, Dreams and my unrealistic romantic pairing with Pete Townsend, all things to be stored away in the four canopic jars of my youth.

Welcome to Your Future

I suppose we should be thankful that aging is such a gradual process, that the day-to-day indignities build up so slowly we hardly notice the cumulative effect of all those years. For instance, I’m sure I wake up every day hurting, but I couldn’t tell you how much. It’s like a bad smell you slowly get used to so that you no longer worry about it unless you have company coming, which makes me wonder what my nineteen-year-old self might think if he were to be suddenly dropped into my 49-year-old body, what he would say after the screaming stopped.

Too Young To Be Old

People often tell me they admire my self-discipline, in terms of fitness and dietary routines. There is nothing to admire, I exercise, bike to work and eat vegetarian because it makes me feel good and I enjoy those activities. I feel better now in my fifties than I did in my twenties. Back then I often felt nauseated when I had to stand for very long; like an old woman, I could not walk more than a block because of flat feet and weak knees. I hope not to feel that way again until I am a certified senior citizen.

Taking the Bait

Because I spent my early years breathing in the exhalations of two chain smokers I have developed a superhuman sense of smell. Blindfolded, I could tell who you were just by smelling you, or your house, or anything that came from your house. On this occasion I was sat next to Christina who gesticulated wildly with her fork, the speared flesh dangling off it as if she were fly-fishing. Only two inches from my nose. As usual, the conversation turned towards vegetarianism. She insisted that people were natural carnivores. Instead of arguing with her, I threw up on her shoes.

To My Vegetarian Girlfriend

If you’re going to take this vegetarian thing seriously, it might be a good idea to do a bit of reading first; because even I know it’s not as simple as not eating meat—you’ve got to find something to make up for the meat, and then you’ve got to eat more of that something than you’d probably ever care to. So, yes, technically, sour cream and onion potato chips are a vegetable, and you might even get a tiny bit of protein from the coating, but if that’s all you’ve been eating, you dingbat, it’s no wonder you’re sick.

Photo by Boris Hoppek.

Unpalatable Assumptions

Being vegetarian provides me with an excuse to avoid eating all sorts of questionable; or downright disgusting foods. It is hard to go wrong with vegetables and most dairy products. And things are getting easier for us vegetarians. There was a time when I would state my dietary position and get served fish or even chicken. Actually nowadays people go the extra mile and assume I am vegan. I was confident I would get pasta with cheese when pre-ordering vegetarian for our company Christmas event at an Italian place. But they had tempeh – one veggie option I truly abhor.

Nuthin’ says Luvin’

“So, are you going to eat the placenta?” This from a coworker who had it on good authority that the afterbirth should be consumed as it purportedly offered the mother a leg-up towards recovery. His informant ate hers fried up with onions. Since I am wary of any baked good, gifted or not, produced by a child under the age of fourteen, the thought of eating something after it had been attached to my son for thirty-eight weeks was right out. And forget about roping Rich into the scheme. He won’t even eat things that come out of a microwave.

Why not take all of me?

I ticked the box and let it be; considered it for but a moment and then tried not to think of it ever again. Because, really, what do I care what they do when I’m gone? Hose me down and prop me up in the last suit I’ll ever own. Scoop me out and serve it all up to anyone who will take the stuff, whoever might want my fatty liver, my kiddlies, my lights—just make sure you fry up the rest so that there’s nothing left over for some cheeky soul to inflict upon me one last indignity.

Heartless

My brother, who is a doctor, refers to motorcycle riders as potential transplant donors. Up until recently, when a large contingent of baby-boomers fulfilling their youthful dreams swelled the ranks of motorcyclists, bikers were usually young and therefore still had useful organs; and they died in accidents at a much higher rate than other vehicle users. There are many science fiction imaginings of how the spirit of the original owner of an organ lives on after being implanted in a recipient. Thanks to my brother I have a vivid image of getting the heart of a Hells Angels member.

Spam Filter

It was a rainy drive home from Big Sur and we were all tired. I’d been in the water the entire day. I was lean and fit, never touched alcohol and usually let things just glide past me. That is the irony of it all: I didn’t deserve to die, much less lose my cozy existence. But we didn’t anticipate the sharp bend in the road and the next thing I knew I’d lost everything. They were my heart and my soul, my eyes and my ears. Now I am just an empty vessel. I have become Steve Jobs’ liver.

aBaBccDDeFFeGG

If you’ve only ever seen a few episodes of Star Trek here and there, you’re probably unaware that, in addition to the television shows and all those movies, Pocket Books has, over the years, published hundreds of novels based in the Star Trek universe. I once tried to write one of those novels. And, as if writing a novel weren’t already hard enough, I decided that by the 23rd century, the computers would all be speaking to us in verse—Onegin stanzas in iambic tetrameter, to be precise. Mister Spock would not approve, but I think Steve Jobs would understand.

Heart Smart

Watching Star Trek, I always identified with Spock. I wanted to be like a Vulcan, cool-headed, clear-minded; able to make logical, analytical decisions without being muddled by emotions. I hate the anguish that accompanies major life decisions in which the outcome could be either tremendously rewarding, or disastrously damaging. Over the years, however, I have found myself in many difficult situations in which I carefully and methodically weighed all of the information and took what seemed to be the most logical course of action. All the while my heart would be screaming, “NO!” In retrospect, my heart was usually right.

Spock Was The Smart One

Recently, I caught the final minutes of William Shatner’s Weird or What? It sounded like a low-brow version of Leonard Nimoy’s In Search Of... The latter show was appointment viewing when I was ten. Each week I’d tune in, only to be willingly creeped-out by stories about Nostradamus or the Bermuda Triangle. Now, I love Bill as much as the next person. You simply have to. But even with his twinkle and rug, I can’t bear to watch shows with titles like “Human Popsicle”. But Bill can’t help it, either. He’s always been Norville “Shaggy” Rogers to Leonard’s Rod Serling.

To Bowled-ly Go

In 1973, four years after NBC had cancelled Star Trek, an artist named Franz Joseph published what would become the definitive blueprints of the U.S.S. Enterprise, a little more than three years after they had broadcast an episode called “The Naked Time,” in which everyone on the ship loses their minds to a mysterious contagion brought on board by the landing party, and Ensign Kevin Riley, having taken control of the bridge, orders a formal dance to be held that night in the bowling alley . . . and so, of course, you will find that bowling alley on Sheet 11 (Deck 21).

It Once Stood as a Reminder

Even then the bowling alley on the beach was a relic of the past. You could see the kids who were hired to set pins scurrying around behind the back wall after the end of each round. Scores were kept by hand. It was a great way to escape the intense heat of mid-afternoon, to come in and play a few games – accompanied by the best milkshakes and onion rings available locally. Part of our youth was wrenched from us when it closed. For years it stood boarded up as a reminder of our loss. Now it is gone, altogether.

Little Shop of Horlicks

Raymond’s coffee shop is out of business. At least I think it’s so as the windows are now papered over in newsprint. As we walked by on our way to Roncesvalles we tried to remember the various incarnations of this tiny, doomed boite: Chocolate store, a cheese boutique where the owner’s wife complained to me, “Why am I doing this? I’m a yoga teacher for Christ’s sake!” Then a second cheese shop run by frenemies with creative differences. If it were my venture I’d sell Ovaltine and the New York Times. It would be like shooting fish in a barrel.

Wai Lai?

I didn’t like Henry and trusted him less, but when he suggested we all go for Japanese, I figured it might go some way to getting along a little better with someone I had to work with every day. Hell, I even made a point of riding with him, through the twisty suburban streets, to what he claimed was one of his favourite restaurants: a bustling place with fast service and good food . . . so good, in fact, that when I asked him the next week for the address, rather than tell me, he said it had gone out of business.

Society’s Glue

We are taught that lying is a sin, but the truth is that society would fall to pieces if not for lies. Relationships would be in shreds. At the very least we rely on lies of omission; things better left unsaid. But all husbands know the pitfalls of answering honestly to “Does this make me look fat?” So much so that it is a standard joke. And then there are the other clichés of “Let’s do lunch soon,” and “The cheque’s in the mail.” Yet, we continue to repeat these lies to each other over and over. And believe them!

Off-white Lies

I’ve never understood some people’s compulsion towards honesty. I mean basic, karma-inducing honesty like not stealing stuff or cheating is a given. Take something that isn’t yours or hoodwink somebody and you’ll get it in the end. But I feel no need to answer the phone nor the doorbell just because I’m home. And forget about supplying my real name to the dog-park by-law officer or entering it on classmates.com. In these and in similar circumstances my handle would become Lorraine Tessier or Marie-France Gouin. They are sensible adaptations: Close enough to be believable, but far enough from the truth.

Happy Birthday! Never Mind.

If you gathered all the people I know who were born in 1961, at the front of the line would be my poker buddy and reluctant Facebook friend, Marc Egan. He claims he signed up only to see some photos another friend had posted, and so there’s never been much to his profile but for the single delightful fact that he was born on New Year’s Day, which today would’ve made him the first of us to turn 50, except that, when I wished him the Happy Birthday I’d been saving all year, he confessed he had faked the date.

A Lotto Hope for the New Year

Out with the old, in with the new, so the saying goes. After all the warm wishes, hugs and kisses of the first week we will settle into the new year with hopeful expectations of what it will bring – as if some arbitrary date imposed on the calendar will change anything. Maybe we should ask not what the new year will do for us; but ask what we will do for the new year? Instead of waiting passively for a windfall, go out there and make a change. All the same, I hope my lottery ticket is a big winner.

We Wish you a Merry Mithras

This year I decided to study Mithraism. Mithra, the ancient sun god was born of a virgin on December 24th, sported a halo and wings and except for that (occasional) lion’s head of his could have been mistaken for someone else. If my dear cousin Denis was alive 2,000 years ago, he would have worshiped Mithras, the patron god of the Roman military. Scholars believe that the Romans imported the religion from the near East. Denis is spending the year in Iraq. I’d like to sway as many locals as I can to make sure they look out for him.

Although I did not care for her in the least, Kathy and I shared a moment in 1980. She was telling me about an uncle whose favorite song was “I’ll be home for Christmas”. He never made it. We both cried. My heart still breaks for loved ones who can’t be together for the holidays. Rich and I spent New Year’s Eve apart one year when mom’s hospital emergency saw me bussing it to Elliot Lake on December 31st . I was away from Rich, Dad apart from mom. We turned in at 12:01 am, both thinking about happier times.

Keeping It Light

Last Sunday I got out the Advent wreath. It is really just a five candle candelabra that I decorate with Christmassy stuff. One candle was lit for our Sunday dinner, and one more will be lit each Sunday until Christmas morning when all candles will be lit. Steve derides me for hanging on to Christian traditions when I am no longer a believer. But I am pretty sure many of the traditions around Christmas are hangovers from pagan times. This time of year it is all about cheering up the darkest season. Any kind of sparkle and light will do.

Advent

We haven’t many traditions in our house, but we do like our advent calendars. This year it’s Lego again—one little model every day—and please forgive me, but I bought the damned thing in September, but only because they can be hard to find if you wait too long. One year we ended up with Playmobil instead, but they actually require you to assemble their 24 little toys into 24 little boxes, and I’m sorry but, if I don’t get to play with the toys, I at least want the excitement of not knowing what those toys might be.

It was stupid to buy this year’s advent calendar so far in advance. Every day it reminded me of how little gets done in December, and how a whole year of not doing nearly enough can suddenly come down to the crunch . . . and how are you expected to get out from under all that when there are parties to go to and gifts to buy?
     Then, to make matters worse, I opened the first day of my calendar with a message from Revenue Canada. The second was a meeting where the client didn’t show.
     The third had better be chocolate.

Festive Specials

I hear today that some malls in Toronto have banned the Salvation Army bell ringers from doing their job because of noise pollution. Apparently when they shake their money makers the silvery tinkle elicits some sort of Pavlovian response from the shopkeepers, and instead of the joy of the season these folks are filled with insensate anger. I think this prohibition is perpetrated by the Politically Correct Police, happy for the slack-jawed consumerism so long as it is not associated with the “C” word. Anyone who has really worked retail during Christmas doesn’t need a bell to tick them off.

For years our advent calendar has been a collection of 24 little elf hats. They come in different colours and have numbers perched Seuss-like on their tops. I used to put candy and treasure maps in them when Dan was little. This year we will put in karmic messages and take turns so that Dan doesn’t have to bear the brunt of the goodie-two shoedness. Since I’m dealing with a fifteen year old and an occasionally distracted husband, the duties will be light: pay someone a compliment, pet an animal, answer your God-damned mother when she asks you a question.

Hot and Cold

There was a massive blackout in the middle of the hottest part of the summer. The heat and humidity were palpable with not a breeze of relief. All the same we had the windows wide open. Probably the only difference it made was psychological. I woke to the sound of a car starting. It just sat there; fumes from running it began to seep into our bedroom. After awhile it stopped, then, just as I was drifting of it started again. This was repeated through the night. Our neighbour was sitting in her car running the AC to stay cool.

There was a massive blackout in the middle of the coldest part of the winter. Even bundled in my warmest clothes it was miserable waiting for a shuttle bus because the subway was not running. Bus after bus came, packed so full people pressed against the front window. Any cabs that came by had already been commandeered. Then a woman pulled up in front of me and beckoned me to get in her car. Three others were invited to get in her back seat. Traffic was slow but we were a cheery crowd thanks to the kindness of a stranger.

Mr. Clean vs. Mr. Freeze

How exactly do they expect you to clean a freezer? If you try to wipe it out when it’s running, whatever you’re using will likely freeze before it does any good. And if you do let it warm up enough for a proper clean, then where are you supposed to keep all your frozen stuff while you wait, your second filthy freezer? Come to think of it, the last time we managed to clean our freezer was only after that last long blackout left us without power for days, and we ended up eating things we’d had frozen for years.

Das Fleisch Balls

My Year of Eating Animals draws to a close. Throughout these months I’ve wondered if I’d go back to just consuming vegetables, fruits and scaly things, or continue as a carnivore. Dan has made up my mind since he’s announced that he will become a vegetarian. I wonder what has brought him around? Is he developing a conscience? Was it that traumatic viewing of Food Inc in last year’s geography class? Maybe it was paddling by a moose in Algonquian Park. Either way, the only thing standing between us and better karma is a freezer full of ethically tickled-to-death meat.

How Do We Survive Until Adulthood?

My friend, Roy, theorizes that the worst assholes of the world are probably suffering from some form of mental illness. Considering how much we are learning about psychology – and more importantly psychoses – I think he is probably right about that. Lately there have been some studies of the adolescent brain in which it was discovered that certain sections are not fully formed, leading teens to have very poor judgment in important decision making. This has led some scientists to declare that teenagers are virtually insane – so I guess that is why they act like assholes a lot of the time.

There is no doubt I was an asshole when I was a teen. I did many things that I thought were funny, but were actually cruel. Like when my best friend and I went skinny dipping with my sister. Donna and I came out of the water first and we took Ann’s clothes up to the house. That forced Ann to have to run naked across a North Shore Road, which was luckily not all that busy. All the same it was a trick that I would not have appreciated at all if it had been played on me.

Assholes . . . in space!

It’s my theory that the real assholes of the world might actually be suffering from some mild form of mental illness. I’m not talking here about people that merely get on your nerves, but those who are suddenly so out of synch with acceptable human behaviour that you’re left with nothing in common but your indignity. When dealing with these assholes, however, it’s probably best to avoid confrontation. Because the asshole that can cut in front of you without a second thought is just as likely to be enough of an asshole to punch you out if called on it.

So, just how big an asshole was I on December 7, 1979 when I joined my friend waiting for the opening of Star Trek: The Motion Picture? In my defence, I did manage to arrive by 6:30 in the morning with only 30-odd people in line, and it had been my idea in the first place; but it certainly didn’t help our case when more and then more of our friends came straggling in . . . and who then were the bigger assholes: us for letting them cut or them for expecting us to hold their place for three hours in the cold?

Scooby-Doochebag

I am embarrassed that I lost my cool at the dog park the other night and said, “Oh Honey, YOU have to leave!” to the bearded ignoramous attempting to clear out a platoon of dog owners and their charges so that he, his wife and his dog fearing toddler could enjoy family time on a freezing night in late November in the park during off-leash times. I should have ignored him like Rich did. He was spoiling for a fight, leading his poor child smack dab into the middle of a dog pack. Some people are just asking for it.

It’s odd with me because I’ve always had a hair trigger when I’m in the presence of bullies. I think it stems from working with lawyers, or enduring my formative years riding the bus with Zimbo Bertrand and his siblings. It’s odd because I do not like conflict and feel like throwing up after an altercation, but I can’t let them get away with it. Something clicks inside my head and I feel like I have to speak up for the underdog. Thank Christ I don’t live next to Anne Coulter. I’d probably train Nim to shit on her lawn.

Lost Words

So many beautiful words in the English language that precisely describe what I want to say. And I know a lot of them. But when I want to use them, they often will not come to me. Much of the time they are there in my head when I begin a sentence, but by the time they need to be inserted they have disappeared leaving just a ghost on the tip of my tongue. I am left interrupting my narrative, stammering and muttering “What’s the word?” Then, hours later having the word come to me, when it is too late.

Epicaricacy

Noodling around the Internet yesterday, I found myself playing with the OneLook Reverse Dictionary, which lets you describe a concept, then spits out a list of related words. I entered “taking pleasure in the misfortune of others” knowing full well that, because there’s not a single English word that can handle it, I’d likely end up with the German word schadenfreude.
     So, imagine my surprise when I was presented with a perfectly good English synonym—epicaricacy—I’d never seen before. It was like opening a Rhyming Dictionary and discovering the rhyme for orange.
     Which, by the way, is door hinge.

LMF(Phat)AO

My goddaughter Maddie would probably argue that the minute her mother or I start wearing something, that fashion is officially over, never again to be worn by anyone under forty. The middle-aged application of trendy language has the same effect. Try saying “peeps” or “sick” or any hybridized mom dorkisms around a fifteen-year old and you will be met with rage and derision. It boils down to the misappropriation of language. My own teenaged self became indignant each time mom tried on “gross” and “it’s the pits” when she should have confined herself to cooking with gas and whistling Dixie.

Consumerism

I am not innocent of falling victim to trends. Some things are just too hard to resist. Such as furnishing with milk crates. They are such a great size for all sorts of storage, and you can stack them up to create bookshelves. Only to me the actual milk crates were just too ugly – usually that nowhere blue and always dingy and bashed up. So I bought the retail knock-offs that came in nice bright colours. Yeah, I succumbed to the second wave of the trend that started on the street and then moved into the comfortable bourgeois phase.

It’s not really stealing if…

I didn’t have that many records, but when my ABBA started to crowd out my mother’s Belafonte, it was time to come up with my own storage solution, and it sure looked like one of those plastic milk crates I’d noticed in the alley would do the job. I actually thought I was the first person ever to have this idea, and I brought along one of my LPs to make sure it would fit. And since someone had been using them for garbage, not milk, it’s not really stealing, if you’re stealing from the person who stole it. Right?

101 Uses for Preparation H

From Kool Aide as hair dye to condoms as drug tamales, I love the idea of repurposing items, especially if their new use varies widely from their intent. You can use pennies to clean coffee carafes and just a dab of toothpaste will banish a zit. For years a Borden’s Milk crate housed my Who LPs, packed with just enough room for a languid flip to Quadrophenia. But here’s my favorite: Savvy fashionistas always carry a stash of panty liners and manicuring scissors in their purse for custom shoe cushions. Try it and you will never again resort to band-aids.

Hoarding

There are some bottles I cannot bring myself to part with. They are just too nice. And many of them prove to have further use after they are emptied of their original contents. Every once in awhile I get a bottle that would be perfect for another purpose, but I cannot get the label off because it has been glued on with some kind of super adhesive that will not budge. There should be legislation to force companies to have removable labels so their containers can be put to another use and still look nice. Re-using is better than re-cycling.

Another Recycled Soldier

My first apartment had a living room that had once been a dining room, complete with panelled walls, and a plate rail that ran all the way round. It was there that I started my first collection of wine bottles, with the goal of having it too run all the way round the room, no duplicates allowed.
     I no longer recall how far I’d gotten before I had to move, but I do remember deciding to recycle the collection rather than pack it. Back then you still had to soak off the labels, and that certainly took me some time.

Bottle Mountain

“So I’m thinking you guys maybe drink a little?” Said Lester, the noodnik general contractor next door. I explained that we’re saving the empties for the steel-toothed lady. She scared us half to death one rainy evening when she called at the back door. She pulled a scrap of paper from her yellow slicker and handed it to Rich. The note was in English informing us that she had to go away but would be back and could we please save our bottles? We manage three bottles per week. She’s gone for seven weeks. We’ll have to drive her home.

Drinking Problem

“What’s Steve up to?” asked John, when I came to the door. At that moment Steve came around the side of the house, loaded up with beer boxes full of empties. He unloaded them into the van, then disappeared down the laneway again. We watched as he reappeared repeatedly, bringing armload after armload of empties to return to the beer store. “I can give you an email address to get help with your problem,” John called out to him. I guess there must be programs available for people who are too lazy to take their beer bottles back more frequently.

Twenty Cents a Bottle

There’s been a deposit on beer bottles in Ontario for as long as I can remember, but ever since the province started putting a deposit on wine and spirits, I’ve been tossing those in the wagon as well for the long walk back to the store. Most everyone I talk to in my neighbourhood leaves them out by the curb to be collected by the more industrious vagrants that rattle up and down the side streets with their overflowing shopping carts. These are the people I happily wait with in line, because we are talking twenty cents a bottle here.

The Rings of Slattern

I’ve been in a vegetative state for months, a shiftless loop of knitting and dog walking. You can count on two fingers the number of times I’ve ran. The never-ending renos are my excuse for not housecleaning. My neighbours’ kitchen extension is the reason why I haven’t gardened since August. Motherhood gets in the way of putting in a full day’s work while Wayne Dyer’s soul candy is the cause of my plateauing weight. And now I’ll have to drink more wine so that I have a stash of bottles to give to the bin-diving lady with the steel teeth.

Don’t Ask

I am a lazy cook, mainly because my dietary desires are not very demanding. Every Sunday I make a big batch of roasted vegetables that I eat for lunch the rest of the week. The selection of vegetables is based on what currently looks good at the produce market. Do not ask me for a detailed recipe. I can tell you in vagaries, but not specifics. I throw in whatever seasoning hits me – and I do not use measuring spoons. People inquire how many onions? How finely chopped? Whatever you like, I will answer. People seem to find this frustrating.

John Baxter’s Curried Chicken

There’s no room here to share the entire recipe for John Baxter’s Curried Chicken, I can’t even be sure that it’s his, although he certainly made it his own when I had him write it all down for me.
     What I like most is that you steam the chicken in Step 2, then use the resulting stock in Step 6.
     But most people prefer Step 1: “Turn on the radio such that it can be heard clearly over the din of cooking noises. Lock door to apartment/house. Pull beer from fridge. Open. Enjoy. Replace immediately upon completion of present beer.”

Dial 668—The Neighbour of the Beast

Mrs. Miller made the best butter tarts. She got the recipe from her mom, who quickly recorded it while listening in on her telephone’s party line:

     ½ cup butter, softened
     1 cup packed brown sugar
     ½ cup corn syrup
     2 eggs
     2 teaspoons white vinegar
     2 teaspoons vanilla
     Big pinch salt

Cream together butter and sugar; beat in corn syrup, egg, vinegar, vanilla and salt. Pour into uncooked shells (every 1950s eavesdropper worth her salt could make pastry from scratch). Bake at 375 degrees Fahrenheit for 15 minutes and cool. Makes about a dozen.
     The devil made her do it.

Perpetuating the Obsolete

Interesting how we have symbols and expressions for things that no longer exist. Often in front of phone numbers you see pictographs of those long discontinued black telephones with dial faces – something that most people have not seen in years, and many young folk have never seen at all. After I key in a telephone number on my office phone system, I hit a button that says ‘dial’ when there is no dialing going on at any point. I think there are still toy phones that have dials – teaching children something they will never again experience once they clear toddlerhood.

I’d horsewhip you, if I had a horse.

I don’t pretend to be an expert on Groucho Marx. Not even close. In fact, like so much of the stuff that happened before I was born, I probably got my first inkling of him from an old Warner Brothers cartoon, or maybe the tired impressions of uncountable b-grade comics, and there’s every chance I’ve never sat through a whole Marx Brothers film, but still I was flabbergasted when Nicole confessed to me that she’d never even heard of him.
     “You know those glasses you can buy with the fake nose, moustache, and the bushy eyebrows?”
     “That’s Groucho,” I said.

Tragedy and Comedy

Back when we could control our son’s pastimes, back when he was willing to watch movies with us, we had Laurel and Hardy marathons. All the fun ones- Brats, Way Out West, The Music Box- we greedily watched right away. It developed into a weekend obsession and we worked quickly through their roster, eventually coming to their later, inferior films. If you are a Laurel and Hardy fan do not watch Utopia. It’s their last film. Both men are older, Oliver’s fatter and Stan, his body wracked by diabetes, looks like a ghost. It’s like spotting the waddle on Oopsy-Daisy.

Abuse of Power

The doorbell rang at about 4:00 a.m. My room was closest to the entrance on the floor I shared with three other student roomers in the big Annex house. Two cops stood there. One a short older guy who kept insisting they could get to the upper floors to arrest somebody on the third floor by surprise. I told him repeatedly there was no access and they would have to ring the bell on the other door. He continued to badger me while the other cop, who was young and tall, made eyes at me over the old guy’s head.

Officer Requires Assistance

Walking back to my place, along Eglinton Avenue towards Mount Pleasant, we came across the largest assemblage of police cars I’d ever seen. The closer we got to the Swiss Chalet, the more cops there seemed to be, and yet they weren’t warning us back, because as it turned out there was no danger. Apparently some poor sod had left the restaurant in a wheel chair and tried to cross the street. There down the road was what was left of his chair; and all those cops weren’t there for us, but to protect the cop that had hit him.

My Groovy Neighbour

From the oil paint on her smock to her eighty-odd years of wisdom, Bridget has style. She’s the coolest person I know. For years I watched her, purple do-rag on her head, tending her magnificent garden. She had quite a past: A London foundling, adopted into a posh family whom she rejected, she became an artist and married a much-younger sculptor. One night with the rest of us far into our cups she finished the tequila, adjusted her lime green glasses, looked both ways and crossed the street home. Feist now lives in her house. We’ve yet to have drinks.

The Glamour

What else is style, but confidence? It is not what you wear, but how you wear it. If you can walk into a room with an aura of knowing you rock, other people will think you do. More important than any piece of clothing or accessory you can purchase is the ability to have presence. Dance lessons, fitness classes, anything that enhances your grace of movement will have a much more profound impact on how you are seen. You do not even have to be toned and trim, as long as you have comportment. It is like casting a spell.

Sophisticates at the Gate

Things seemed simple enough when we started: try to ignore the fact most everyone at school is older, and therefore better, than you, do your time, and eventually it’ll be you at the top of the heap. And yet there we sat, looking down on the throng, only to see a new wave of kids coming in, with better clothes, better hair, and better music. And since we’d only ever been children in the ’60s and never of the ’60s, we’d never really developed a style of our own. We were the barbarians, and we had nothing better to offer.

Honey, I shrunk the Blundstones

Our Lainie says the mom uniform in suburban BC consists of yoga pants, a travel mug and a ponytail. Add a French manicure and these gals could be shopping at the Vaughan Mall. Inner city folks have a different vibe involving more attitude and less hair product. That’s how we recognize each other on winery tours. So imagine our surprise when last night at Aries we sat next to a family who, mullets akimbo, went on about hockey before spontaneously bursting into a round of Wavin’ Flag. Rich suspects Rob Ford parachuted them into the neighbourhood as the New Normal.

Loyalty Rewarded

“I’d rather fight than switch!” declared the models in the ads for Lucky Strike cigarettes, with eyes blackened to prove it. The height of brand loyalty. But are the brands loyal to you? I loved Lululemon yoga pants and Steve was under standing order to get them for my Christmas gift. Then one year the fit was different and I needed to exchange them. I ventured out on Boxing Day, something I had never done before. After slogging downtown I discovered that Lululemon does not make exchanges on Boxing Day. Lululemon treated me was atrociously. I will never go back.

Branded

As a conscientious and rather cynical consumer, I try not to let myself be unduly influenced by particular brands. Sometimes I even like to think that I’m somewhat immune to their effect, but here I sit in my tiny basement office and within easy reach I have my CANON scanner and my CANON camera, my PANASONIC phone, my VIRGIN mobile, CRAYOLA markers stuck in an empty tin of SPAM, a stand I built out of LEGO to raise my monitor, IKEA everywhere I look, a SHARP calculator, HARMAN/KARDON speakers, a WACOM tablet I hardly ever use, and APPLE APPLE APPLE.

Wabi-Slobby

Andrew my summer student always gave me grief about my preaching edgy design yet practicing a bland urban aesthetic. Day after day he’d sit in his ersatz office in our kitchen and point out the Pottery-Barneyness of Caesarstone and KitchenAid appliances. It’s not as schizophrenic as it sounds. Mixing slick with schlump is my take on the Japanese notion of the impermanence of beauty. My sink full of dirty hand-thrown pottery, black Comrags clothes loaded with cat hair. A fridge full of organic fruit and a drawer teeming with ho-hos. It’s not really me being slovenly. It is artistic. Really.

Imperfect Beauty

I have always thought that the difference between crafts that are art and crafts that are simply products is perfection. The more perfect something is, the less artistic it is, as far as I am concerned. A hand-knit sweater is lovelier than a machine knit sweater because of the changes in tension and the imperfections. I remember watching a documentary on Japanese potters who would throw a perfect vase on their wheel, and then knock a dent in it on purpose to make it more beautiful. The hands of artisans must be balanced with their humanity or they become machines.

Too Crewel for School

For one of our class projects, Mrs. May made us all sew, girls and boys alike. Nothing fancy: cut two identical halves, leave a gap in the seam, turn the whole thing inside out, stuff it, and stitch up the hole. An heirloom it would never be, but at least we’d have done it ourselves. She taught us the back stitch and the overhand stitch and warned us that there’d be hell to pay if she found out we’d been using a sewing machine . . . which, in spite of all my careful work, was exactly what she accused me of doing.

Get a Room

Whenever I shell out a couple of Bordens for a bias-cut schmatte held together by two artisanal buttons, I know I should get back into sewing. Mom was a seamstress, and her mother before her. It’s genetically predisposed that I should sew, and I can, but I hate it. I feel the back of my neck getting hot just thinking about it. Mostly it’s because I have no place to sew. If I awoke one morning to my own workroom, half of it devoted to wool and the other half showcasing a Sailrite Ultrafeed LSZ-1 that’d be a different story.

Fabric Hound

The fabric piles up. Irresistible pieces from bargain bins and lawn sales; many from an interior design company where I once worked – tail ends left over winnowing their fabric store room. They are crammed from floor to ceiling into a closet in my workroom. I have no idea what I will eventually do with them. Every once in awhile I come up with a project to use a piece, but not enough to keep ahead of the incoming flow. Sometimes I cannot bear to cut into that piece once I have devised a use for it. I just love fabric.

Begonia Pope

Poor Begonia Pope suffers from a rather serious case of anterograde amnesia, which means that, although she can still remember things from before her accident, she can no longer form new memories. She can’t recall what she was doing five minutes ago, for instance, but she still knows how to knit. She’ll be making a scarf, but soon forget why she started or even how far she’s gotten, yard after yard without once looking down, beautiful and eccentric creations that never fail to fetch a good price on the High Street.
     And so her family just keeps feeding her yarn.

Image based on the Original Pattern.

Muffler Queen

“Not another one…can’t you knit something that isn’t a rectangle?” Dan asked, bemused by the constant stream of scarves that chug forth from my needles. Of course I can make other things, I just choose not to. Knitting is meditation for me, and those I truly love have either received their karma scarf, or are on my mental list of future recipients. Most of the people I’ve given these to really do like them. Maybe my former boss, or Louise the evil travel agent wouldn’t wear something I designed to wrap around their necks, but I wouldn’t knit for them.

Cover Up

Joan knew a guy who wore shorts until the snow fell, only then would he concede that he needed the protection of long pants. A lot of people seemed to be that way – always seeking to wear as few layers of clothing as possible. Joan welcomed autumn weather for the comfort of more clothing. Others would say, “Do I need to wear a jacket?” Joan asked, “Can I wear a jacket?” Gloves, scarves, hats - tights when she wore skirts – these provided a sense of security, like a shield against the outer world. The bareness of summer made her feel vulnerable.

Leo

     “You’re nuts!” said Corvus. “Didn’t you hear what he did to those kids last week?”
     “He’s not so tough,” said Krebbs.
     “No, only five guys catch him alone in the wrong neighbourhood and he stares them down. I heard he just singled out the biggest and said something like: ‘I don’t care what your ugly friends do to me, but I’m going to get you. I’m going to shove my fist down your throat, and I’m going to hold it there until you’re dead.”
     “Big deal. He never even touched them.”
     “Tough and smart . . . and you’re asking for trouble.”

The Labours of Hercules

After hours of labour Sandra looked at Mike. “You’re what?”
     “I’m sore.” He had just played a rigorous game of squash before his wife’s water broke and was feeling the effects several hours later.
     Sandra was a natural at childbirth. While it took me twenty-two hours and as many stitches to have Dan, her two labours averaged about seven hours. Completely natural with no pain medication. Still, she couldn’t be blamed for being unsympathetic. They say the closest a man could come to experiencing the pain of childbirth would be to pass a kidney stone. An eight-pound seven-ounce kidney stone.

True Grit

Guys think ice hockey is a manly sport, but it is wimpy compared to field hockey that girls were compelled to play as part of the phys-ed curriculum in high school. Field hockey sticks are more like clubs, and the hard rubber ball could do every bit as much damage as a puck. Yet we did not have the defence of any protective padding whatsoever. There we were in our skimpy little bloomers out there on the cold windblown field. Penalty for high-sticking was to run ten laps around the field – no sitting in a comfy box on the side.

Floor Hockey

Floor hockey was one of the few games I was any good at. The rules were pretty much the same as regular hockey, except you played in the gym, with a thick ring of felt about the size of a dinner plate and sticks that had no blade. Our puck looked official enough, but there was no money for sticks, and Mr. Mason told us that, if we wanted to play, we’d better bring in a broomstick or something from home.
     I’d like to see Mr. Mason ask my mother to give up a broom she’d paid good money for.

Photo of John “Apples” MacKay by Ed Carter, from the Earl Haig Fabulous ’50s Group.

What Position Does She Play?

Rich was unfamiliar with the unwritten Canadian rule that whatever is out on the sidewalk is fair game to any passerby. So when we saw that amazing dresser just sitting there, it took some convincing. I’ve never been coy about garbage picking and have dragged home everything from 100-pound oak doors to refrigerator parts. By far my favorite is a gorgeous brass lamp that, one IKEA shade later, sits in pride of place on my dining room sideboard. Even Rich loves it. Now if I could only get him to conform to that other Canadian rule: Don’t slag Paul Henderson.

Garbage Day

The woman’s house was carefully decorated. She took great pride in keeping up with the trends, and creating an attractive environment for relaxing and entertaining. It seemed like every time Joan visited her, there was another embellishment to the décor. Her friend was constantly upgrading. The slightest defect in her furnishings could not be tolerated. As soon as cushions got a little frayed, they were replaced. Or a tabletop would lose its sheen and it had to be tossed. “What a waste,” Joan thought. She was going to have to find out when garbage day was in her friend’s neighbourhood.

Major Marmaduke Lockhart Tindall

My mother gave me a photo of her grandfather to scan for a project my cousin was putting together: Major Marmaduke Lockhart Tindall in what looks, to my civilian eyes at least, like a pretty well turned-out uniform . . . except for the belt. The major might have been fifty or so when he posed for this, perhaps a young-looking sixty, but I’d bet that with every new uniform, from his time as private, he had kept the same belt. Five holes it has, and he’s on the last, but you can still see that each was used well in its time.