Abbé Nicolas Louis de Lacaille

Abbé Nicolas Louis de Lacaille was a French astronomer noted for his catalogue of nearly 10,000 southern stars. He mapped great swaths of sky and defined the constellations that had once lain hidden from the eyes of the ancient world. He saw them first . . . and he gave them all unbelievably shitty names.
     In chronicalling the drama that played out each night against the celestrial sphere, the Greeks had drawn upon their culture and the world around them: a world of nature, magical creatures, and gods.
     Lacaille looked around his room and gave us . . . The Telescope, The Furnace, and The Clock.

Daniel

We named our boy Daniel because it sounded good both in French and English. I wanted to name him Damase, a name that’s been passed through five generations on my mother’s side. Rich refused to call our child a name that could be pronounced Dumb-Ass. We also decided not to christen him but instead accepted our neighbours’ offer to give him a Hindu name, chosen specifically for him based on his time and date of birth. So today Daniel Patrick Deepak Haynes turns fifteen and in spite of the twenty-two hours of labour I cherish the day he was born.

Christenings

Mitzi was the name that was planned for me. Then Mitzi Gaynor made a comeback. My parents did not want it to look like they were naming me after a movie star. So Mary Jo it was. A name that seemed like a curse to me as a child – nobody back then had double-barreled names. Until “Petticoat Junction.” Then I got Billy-, Bobby-, and Betty-Jo. Either that or people would take my sister’s name and tack it on, renaming me Maryanne. More often than not I get christened the more common, Mary-Jane. Nobody who knows me shortens it to Mary.

The Ballad of Sergeant Schultz

Rogers (Roy) was still a star
When I came on the scene,
With Charles Schulz’s comic strip
In every magazine.

But then Hogan and his heroes
Appeared on TV shortly
And brought with them a new namesake
Both incompetent and portly.

“I see nothing,” Schultz would say,
To my classmate’s jubilation.
He knew nothing, nothing heard . . .
Until their cancellation.

Then Robert Crane was murdered
And Sergeant Schultz had gone
And reruns of that prison camp
Were hardly ever shown.

So, I suppose the lesson is
To name kids carefully,
In spite of which we named our boy
After Mister Bean.

What’s in a Name?

Bill and Joe are just regular guys. John seeks out a hooker. Where I come from, crazy people acted like Mels. Or worse, if you pulled a Hector you got caught jerking off in a public washroom. Where do we get these names? Was there really a retarded Mel or a generic Bill who lacked any discernable features? Hector left an indelible impression in the prurient pea-brains of Essex County high school kids. Stan Rogers, had he lived, would have written a ballad about him. I’ll bet Hector never even did it. I’ll bet he changed his name to Joe.

The Memory of Bill

My mother often cites the metaphor of people banging their heads against a brick wall because it feels so good when they stop doing it. There is certainly a feeling of great release when long-standing chronic pain finally comes to an end. It was euphoria at the end of my labour giving birth to my daughter. I could not believe how completely stoned I felt. It was more of a gradual creeping of contentment getting over my first marriage. But I do remember the bliss of one day realizing I no longer felt tortured by the memory of Bill.

It Hurts When I Do This

Somehow, I’ve managed to bung up my wrist, and as usual my ill-advised attempts at self-medication have only made it worse.
     David would tell me to go to the doctor, but then he thrives on finding the definitive solution to these sorts of problems, while I actively avoid the time-consuming spiral of tests and referals and treatments where everyone eventually just gives up, and the problem goes away on its own.
     Plus, in this case, there’s a certain level of embarrassment, since I’d have to tell my doctor that it really hurts when I reach around to . . . wipe my ass.

Chafing Dish

Some women give up coffee, others don’t drink, but for me, the height of maternal sacrifice came when my doctor advised me to take either showers or tepid baths throughout my pregnancy. Maybe when it’s stinking hot out, but for most of the year I’m completely frozen by 11 pm and our meager dribbling excuse for a shower just adds to the discomfort. There’s nothing like stepping into water just a tad too hot and laying back hearing that thump-thump-thump as your blood pressure rises up to your ears, and you know within minutes you’ll be as warm as anything.

Fresh Baked

If our family was stranded in the woods in winter I would have been the first to go. I was the scrawniest kid and had no insulating fat whatsoever. Swimming lessons in Lake Huron left me ashen blue and gripped with shuddering shivers even on the hottest day. I would race home and dive into the tent that we kept up in the backyard all summer. It would get hot as an oven baking in the sun all morning. Nobody else could bear even a few seconds in there, but it would take me a good hour to warm up.

Keeping It Dry

So much about camping is just keeping dry and keeping all your stuff dry, too, and of course finding clever ways of drying your stuff once it’s already wet in spite of all your best efforts to keep it dry. Rule of thumb: If your matches light and the salt pours freely at the end of the day, you’re probably winning that battle.
     Of course, keeping yourself warm is important, too, but more often than not just follows from the quest for dryness. I certainly don’t remember hearing anyone on a camping trip complaining about how cold and dry they were.

Camper Van Grosshoven

The thought of camping fills me with dread.  Lumpy ground, cold stinky tent. The washroom, if it exists, is filthy, with a wet, dirty floor covered in flip-flop marks, and an impressive collection of dead deer flies. Or it’s a spider-infested, shit-laden outhouse.  But is this suburban camping?  Maybe the real Tabasco can be found further afield away from loud-mouthed fellow campers and their ghetto blasters. Pitching a tent on a clear smooth rock overlooking a pristine spring-fed lake with only the chorus of loons and frogs lulling you to sleep could be both beautiful  and soul-nurturing.  For some people. 

The Raj

Whenever I see a bottle of Bombay Sapphire I think of the Raj in India, sitting on shaded verandas pickling themselves with gin and tonic during long, hot evenings. I am sure it was of the utmost necessity, in order to sleep in that sweltering climate. Much as I use the same concoction to knock myself out when I am camping. Contrary to all notions of that healthy outdoor activity, I drink the heaviest when camping because I do not sleep well in a tent. Beer or wine cause too many trips to the latrine. Gin and tonic is ideal.

The Perfect Martini

Before you begin, you’ll need to set aside at least four solid days for this project. Mornings can be especially problematic.
     Pour a few generous measures of gin from a 1.14 L bottle of Bombay Sapphire.
     Top it up from a 1 L bottle of Martini & Rossi Extra Dry vermouth, shake well, and stick it in the freezer while you drink the gin.
     Once you have finished the martini mixture, start on the leftover vermouth . . . over ice, if you still have any.
     And for God’s sake, eat something! Anything. Although an olive or two is traditional.

The Cayer Guide to Fine Dining

Once on a kindergarten walkabout down Drouillard Road Sister Mary Diane chastised me for shouting “There’s my Daddy’s Vitamins!” as we passed the Brewer’s Retail. But that’s what mom told me. Salt, sugar, lard, beer and tobacco were the five food groups. What a difference from how I raised Dan. He was vegetarian until a chicken drumstick seduced him at my goddaughter’s First Communion dinner. He missed a childhood full of cheese slices, Pop Tarts and roast pork sandwiches, Cap’n Crunch and Uncle Ben’s rice. And my mother’s ever-present Benson and Hedges burning away in the background like French-Canadian incense.

No Way

If you knew me when I was a child, you would never guess I would grow up to be a vegetarian. I steadfastly refused to eat any vegetables except iceberg lettuce salad and celery sticks. I sat staring at my plate for many an hour after everybody else had left the table. “All we want you to do is try it – just take one bite,” my parents would say. No way I was going to fall for that, when in the past I had cooperated only to have my mouth flooded with a taste so horrifying it made me gag.

The Invention of Circumcision

Trier-of-Stuff wasn’t bright, but the tribe depended on him. Whenever they encountered something different—a new fruit, another tribe, an inviting pool—Trier was there to dive right in. He liked the attention, certainly; but he loved all the females it brought him.
     “Hey,” said Maker-of-Things. “I’ve been looking for you.”
     “I’m sick,” said Trier. “It hurts when I piss.”
     “That’s what I wanted to talk to you about. Remember that cutter I made.”
     “Yeah,” said Trier. “That hurt, too.”
     “Well, I have a new idea that might help you.”
     “Huh?”
     “Don’t worry,” said Maker. “Just hand me your cock.”

Image: The Sciolist.

New Smothers

I enjoyed being a new mom, I just didn’t like hanging around other new mothers. They were mostly gals with spurious CBC jobs, bemoaning their 36 weeks maternity leave. Once, I nearly got into an argument—something I only do with friends—at an Aqua Tot’s swimming lesson. Two women were having a cat fest over a third, unconnected to our group. She had a tiny girl with pierced ears.
     “Foreign.” One of them sniffed.
     “So cruel!” Returned the other.
     After casting a final disapproving look they returned to stuffing their little boys’ circumcised penises into their respective waterproof Kushies.

Delicacy

I was being observed and viewed with ridicule as I edged around the cow-pies in the field. The town girl who was squeamish about excrement. One of the boys caught my eye and with a wide smile plunged his bare foot into a big soft pile. “Oooooh! Still warm!” he said, ecstatically. Later, when we were climbing trees they made a fuss about seeing my underpants under my skirt. I thought it was funny that they were so pragmatic about shit, but became delicate about seeing a piece of cloth designed to cover areas best not openly displayed.

Holy Shit!

I don’t know if my family were particularly fastidious flushers, but I don’t think I saw another person’s shit until I was at least nine years old. Not only that, and likely because of the enormity of the event (not to mention the turd itself) I can remember exactly where I found it, which was the toilet of the Esso station at the corner of Martine and La Grande. It was perfectly formed and dwarfed anything I could even imagine coming from my tiny butt, and yet at that moment I realized this too must be part of growing up.

Hee-Haw

Kathy was the first girl to befriend me when we moved from Windsor to Pike Creek. She also gave me my initiation into country humour, the kind reserved for city people: She told me that her house did not have a toilet so I had to go pee in the barn alongside the cows. Unaccustomed to the locals and afraid to offend lest I end up inside a wicker effigy and burned to death, I acquiesced. I really had to go. I can still hear her laughter ring out over the cornfield as I sat, my ass blazed with straw.