David Berner - story telling

One of my all time favourite songs is Lyle Lovett’s “If I had a boat”.  It goes ‘If I had a boat I’d go out on the ocean and if I had a pony I’d ride him on my boat.”  I found myself thinking of that song listening to the incredible David Berner tell stories of as many incongruous moments in his fascinating long life.

He told of his helping set up  X-Kalay, recovery house for addicts leaving jail in Winnipeg. That’s the story of his book. “All the Way Home”.   He talked about living in London England doing the most boring job, putting items in a ledger for the Queen. He told of his time with Bob Hunter, later of Greenpeace Fame, in the “Company of Young Canadians”.  Then his work as a famous actor and comedian. He’s so very funny.  

The audience laughed and there were enough in the theatre business there to appreciate his description of his life a ‘between gigs!”  

He wrote for the Province and the Tyee and is known for the David Berner Monologues and the David Berner Show which continus to appears on Shaw Television 

 He worked at CBC having various jobs including interviewing folk from all over the world but mostly in the entertainment industry.  He’d later work as a radio and television interviewer for a variety of stations, including CJOR and CKNW  He reminisced about old leaders in the radio and television journalism world.  

He told wonderful anecdotes of Oscar Award Winnners he knew.  We especially loved hearing  about Shelly Winters,  Ginger Rogers, Carol Channing, and Ray Malan.  But his stories about his Jewish grandmother took the cake. 

He continues to teach and work as a therapist with addicts. I personally knew him from the Drug Prevention Network where he was the Executive Director. He has also been  working at Orchard Alcohol and Drug Treatment Centre doing group therapy. He told moving tales of recovery bringing tears to our eyes with the stories of hope. 

He  talked of his writing and concluded with reading a delightful work of detective fiction. It was a couple of hours of sheer entertainment. My partner Laura loved it all.  

I found myself thinking of Billy Bishop Goes to War, Canada’s most famous one man show.

5 years old

5 years was a big deal. That’s when the memories start to flow.  Before that they’re snapshots unconnected in time.. Other than being bit by a dog I felt safe and secure in a family.  Now all that was going to change.  My memories are now mine, by 5 I was becoming a separate person, less as a member of family and tribe, different and differentiated from them and my community.

My dad, with his engineering diploma , various advanced tickets, former spit fire mechanic and bombardier in WWII, with practical mechanical wisdom, and his consummate skill at leading groups of men, large and small after working awhile with Matthew’s Conveyor Company out of Port Hope was offered a major promotion.  He was asked to be in charge of their western Canada installation and maintenance division.   Mathew’s Conveyor  had won the very big contract for the installation of the conveyor system for the new Winnipeg Post Office building.  They’d later get the contract for the Winnipeg Airport much because of the success of Dad’s work at the Winnipeg Post Office.  We had to move.  Mom was not happy but it was the opportunity of a lifetime.  Wives went where their husband’s work took them.  

I know there were lots of discussions with my Mom.  Dad was from Manitoba but  Mom was a Toronto girl, her mother,sisters and friends all being city born and Toronto raised.  She’d worked as an executive assistant in the finest offices. My aunt who’d risen to be the executive assistant to the  Canadian ambassador in Washington always said my mother was the best office woman of them all.   

“She gave that all up to be with your Dad and to have you and your brother, Billy’ I heard from my beloved aunt very young. Probably in an attempt to guilt me and have show more respect and appreciation. .  Apparently I had a problem with authority from a young age. 

 My mother  thought of the west as heathen and wild.  Dad was asking her to leave civilization and take her babies to a wilderness place called Winnipeg.  Toronto at the time was called ‘Toronto the good’ because of it’s churches, ethics, clean streets and good government.  It was industrial and manufacturing and men in suits and women in fine dresses. The west was ‘dirty’ by comparison.  Definitely ungodly.  She was very refined. I’m sure she was terrified.  Dad was from Minedosa near Swan River in northern Manitoba and thought Winnipeg a big city like any person from Ohio would think Columbus Ohio was a big city and not even realize that New Yorkers think the Big Apple is not only a ‘city’ but the ‘only city’.  Torontonians still are like that. In the 1950’s the only city more important than Toronto’s was perhaps London, England. Toronto was the best of cities and Winnipeg was a hick town, a place of saloons most likely.  Older I realized my mother was courageous but as kids we were just looking for adventure. I was sorry my grandmother and my aunt weren’t coming and didn’t know why. 

I remember the Morris car.  A big dark green machine which was small compared to trucks and even other cars but really big to us. The back seat where my brother and I sat was huge.  We had a roof rack too.  The Morris had a big trunk.   When we left we were all loaded up.  I remember mom in a white cotton dress with a white bonnet hugging my wee smiling grandmother in her ground length black and white polka dot dress.  . I was at the leg holding stage still clinging to my mother at times like this.   The adults were all smiling and weeping and hugging above me. I was lifted up, big faces kissing me.  I was thankful for my big brother. We stood together. He was always comforting when adults were acting strange. He’d even put his hand on my shoulder when he knew I was afraid.  I would never admit I was afraid.  We were dressed in new clothes. Not Sunday clothes but new still.  I always noticed new clothes because I mostly got my brothers clothes. “Hand me downs” they were called.

We all climbed in the Morris.  Dad pulled out and away from our house and home.  We were leaving Toronto.   Lots more waves.  Mom was sitting quietly after that. She was crying. Trying to make a brave face of it.  Dad was happy doing his best to cheer her up.  My brother and I were wide eyed and innocent.  We didn’t know we were going to the moon. 

My grandfather had come over from Aberdeen Scotland. He  bought a farm in Northern Manitoba, a place called Minedosa near Swan River.. He logged and ranched. His first wife, my fathers mother, died in childbirth with his only brother. The brother lived. I think my father blamed his brother for that. They had an off and on relationship all their lives, different and similiar in so many ways. Granddad, with his thick Scottish brogue, remarried and had three more boys and a daughter.  The girl was accidentally shot with a 22 rifle by her brother. Dad had been close to his sister but never really blamed his brother because it was an accident and she could have died as easily being hit by a combine or kicked by a horse.  Accidents happened on farms.  Children grew up witnessing animals and humans die.  There wasn’t any television. Life was real. People were not subjected to false narratives. They knew.  Dad missed his sister but he never blamed his brother.   It was never talked about until later when we were all adults.  

My grandmother, Dad’s step mother, was a quiet kindly woman who I remember being strong and tough but also very  sweet and kind.  Mom always said, “she had a hard life.”  The wives of ranchers and farmers always did. It was the hardest life for men and women but they’d only want to leave it when they got too old for all the chores.  Mostly rural people feel sorry for people who live in the city. Only the teen agers want the neon lights.  

Dad would have stayed in the country but he loved machines.  He also had that hankering to explore.  He loved to travel.  There wasn’t enough for him on the farm. Besides he and Dad fought horribly in the end before he left and before he returned with a family and Grandad and he forgave each other but never forgot. No they never forgot.  Most of what I knew I learned from Mom. Dad didn’t speak much about his childhood except when he’d talk of the horses and cattle and the tractors and cranes and such.  Also the hunting and fishing and carnivals.  Relationships weren’t much talked about. Pranks were. Like them as boys pushing the outhouses back 2 feet on Hallow’s Eve.   I remember too hearing how my Grandad shot the big black bear that had killed his calves after the dogs treed him. He’d shot him with a 22 rifle. One shot in the eye.  He fell dead to the ground.  Those were the stories we were told as kids, not the other ones we might or might not learn about when we were old. 

When Dad was old he talked about his childhood more.  All he said of his father was he was a ‘hard man’ back then.  Being a ‘hard man’ back then ment unyeilding and frankly ‘heartless’.  Grandad built a huge ranch and logging business became a millionaire and the Reeve of the district.  His sons paid the price. They were the work force for the expansion and Dad’s leaving after a brutal fight was seen by my strongly religious Old Testament non drinking temperance grand father as betrayal.  Dad went to work driving 6 horse Clydesdale logging wagons for the neighbours and eventually left the north.  Grandad and he loved each other. He was the first and oldest son.  I think Grandad missed his first wife too. Mom would say that.  They’d been so in love.

Dad grew up on the farm. He was schooled at home and in the one room school house.  Minnedosa was a big place to him.  Winnipeg was a huge city by comparison.  By the time he got to Toronto he’d travelled all over Canada with the Air Force and with work. He liked Toronto but I know he missed the west.  Dad was happy talking hog prices and didn’t much care for talking about stocks and bonds and politics like that was all they talked about in the  east.  Dad never left Minedosa in some ways and Mom never left Toronto. I grew up with displaced parents like lots of other folk in Canada. Everyone in the west and north especially were immigrants or children of immigrants.  Even in the east the linearge was as best a few generations. CAnada was a young country and growing exponentially.  Even the natives had often only been where they were for a few generations.  They’d displaced the ones before them as the new immigrants moved in and the earlier ones moved on.  Our family still remains in Minedosa but there’s the a maritimes branch, an American branch and I’m  the one of the furthest west, one of  those whose settled  in British Columbia. We still keep in touch with the Scots in Glasgow, Ediburogh and Aberdeen.  I was blessed to find the graveyard of my Irish ancestors when I went there a couple of years past.  I never thought of such things much as a kid but they’ve become more important with age.

I vaguely remember the long drive across Canada in the Morris, mom trying to distract my brother and I with Christian comic books. We were a family of  readers, I was reading early, and doings puzzles and games. My nephews continue to this day to be gamers and puzzlers. . We’d sing songs too. Jesus Loves Me.  He’s got the whole world in his Hands.  Soon the car was out of the towns travelling forever  on long empty roads  through evergreen forests past the  Great Lakes in the Northern Ontario. We’d camp in the canvas tent and sleeping bags made with with wool blankets and flannel sheets and large diaper pins.   Dad was forever pointing out birds  and animals as we drove. Mom was reading billboards out loud. I was bored and bugging my brother.  He was happy to be reading his books while I was the proverbial kid asking ‘are we there yet!”  We also stayed in motels for the first time.  Everything was new. 

 Mom was sad and efficient.  When she was sad or anxious she was like Martha of the Bible, busy.  She became quiet and busy.  She knitted in the car. Dad tried to be cheerful.  It was a long trip.  I liked the stops by the lakes to skip stones and pee in the woods or use the gas station facilities.  There were gas stations all along the way with attendants.  Dad could make such a long trip because he was a mechanic and knew his cars. It was way beyond the skill level of most people and there weren’t the roads filled with tourists we see today by any means.  Long lonesome highways.  

I mostly  still remember the worry on my grandmother’s face, the brave smile, and my mom and her sisters hugging, my grandfather, a few neighbours and friends come together for the departure,  Dad filled with adventure and pride in his new position. Us kids not knowing what to think. It was a big step for Dad. He’d soon have a hundred and fifty men working under him. Then he was a young man who had made good and been noticed. He would come to be admired in the world.  City and provincial officials would speak highly of my father. Other men would defer to him.  We’d be invited to dinner’s as a family with politicians and ‘big wigs’ as he’d call them..  Mother liked the attention. She liked knowing important people and would have friends in Royalty and Parliament but she was a Christian. ‘Christian’s don’t brag about that stuff.”  She’d say.  My parents were very private people and even after they were dead my brother and I were still learning about their lives outside the immediate.family.  

Mother would not be so liked by all.  She was extremely selective about her friends.  She was very jealous around other women.  My aunt and other women have since told me “Your father’s was a very handsome striking man.”  Not something I thought of as a son and boy.  My mother though  was truly  a beauty, great thick auburn red flowing hair, intelligent,  educated, admired but really with very few highly selected close friends. By contrast she had lots of acquaintances.  She was Baptist and eastern.  A lady.  Looking back I realize today what a real lady she was. 

“Your father is the only man I’’ve ever been with and that’s true Bill. The women today don’t know what love means. You don’t know what you’re talking about for all your education and worldly experience.” She’d almost shouted at me one day when I was talking to her in the ‘big shot’ way of myself and my ‘academic’ peers.  Our generation was so much smarter than theirs.  We actually felt sorry for our parents.  But that would come much later. When I was 5 my mother and father were next to God.  As far as I was concerned my mother was the most wonderful, most beautiful, most intelligent woman in the world. My Dad was the greatest father ever. My brother was pretty perfect too.  All we needed was a dog back then and that was coming. 

My mother’s  close special  friends all had families, went to church, loved their husbands and cared for their children.  She wanted nothing  to do with women who said bad things about their husbands or families, cheated on their husbands, drank or smoked or didn’t care for their children well enough. She was evangelical before the term was known.     

My mother could be very judgemental, stubborn and difficult.  That made her enemies in low places.    She was happiest in the church. My aunt told me that when they were growing up all their social lives revolved around the Baptist church and community.  As a kid growing up I wasn’t fully aware of what a rock star my mother was or the power of her tribe. It took me a lot of years to recognize what fine people my parents were and how it wasn’t easy for them to be who they were and who they became.  

We’d move into a temporary apartment  on Gertrude Avenue in Fort Rouge, Winnipeg,  a few doors down from Trinity Baptist Church a block away from Pembina Highway.   It was the third floor walk up of a old wooden house.  I don’t think it wasn’t a happy year for my mother..  Dad’s first work took him away for weeks at a time ,working somewhere in the north. In addition to the big projects which had brought us to the edge of the world he’d put in conveyor systems in small airports, post offices  and grocery stores around the province. This is what he began doing when the Post Office job was beginning.  Later he’d branch out to work on projects in Saskatchewan and Alberta. That wouldn’t be until I was in my teens. There was enough work in Winnipeg to keep him busy for years and then the northern projects after that would only see him away for a week or two at a time.  Mom didn’t like him away and he didn’’t like being away.  They were pretty interdependent that way, their life revolving around the family community and home. Neither had any ‘vices’ except saving and making money and raising a family, not that they are vices.   

That first year was tough for mom. Two small children, a new city, her mother and sister not there, a little apartment with an old lady landlord who was annoyed at noise us boys made. I have vivid memories of that year. Some aren’t good. It seems that this was when I began to know bad children and bad adults.  Prior to that I remember being hurt by the dog and skinning knees playing games but its’ at this age in the Wild West I first become aware of what I’d later know as evil.  Theology, psychology, sociology and politics all began for me in my 5th year of life. 

The neighbourhood kids played together and included me, the new kid. .  The girls were a year older.  My brother, four years older, had found older friends, boys and was already playing baseball with them. He loved sports. 

I was in the back yard at that parallel play stage still digging in dirt with a younger brother of the older girl, another  little guy.  I loved digging in dirt. We had a little dinky toy cars and trucks and were making highways and hills for them to drive on, We were sharing the roads. We weren’t at the stage where we’d have shared our toys.   It was under the veranda, a bit of a private place.   The little girls were giggling together. It was parallel play days.

  I remember the girls huddling on the other side of the space under the veranda and then coming over to us and wanting us to play house with with them like their parents.  I remember them using us as props and daring each other to kiss us.  We were malleable.  The little brother didn’t like this and stood with his hands in his pockets turning back and forth on the spot letting his sister and her friend kiss him.  The older blond girl with her two friends took the lead.  I was kind of frightened. The new kid.  Wanting to fit in. I don’t think I’d ever played alone with girls.  At church we all played together but there was always older kids or adults. . 

They’d been whispering and giggling in the other corner.  They’d  come across and kissed us and gone back to their conspiratorial little circle while we’d gone back to playing with dirt .  The next thing, the bold one had hoisted up skirt and pulling down her panties at the side and exposed her bum check. She said “I dare you to kiss my bum”.  Her girlfriends chanted “kiss her bum, kiss her bum.  We dare you.”    Not kiss her ass or kiss my ass but ‘bum’. Bum was a big bad  word for 5 year old back then. .  

I did.  She giggled and straightened her clothes. They went back to their corner ,’ their house and kitchen, they called it’ and I went back to digging and making roads.  We  heard our mothers calling us for lunch and we left.

It seemed the phone rang immediately.  Mom was white when she got off.

“What have you kids been doing? “she asked in that very serious Mom voice.

 I told her everything because I’d not learned to lie yet, not about important things.  In retrospect I look back and I’m surprised that no one would be interested in genitals. It would be a year or two later that we  as kids began showing each other our anatomy but this was all about the ‘bum’ and  ‘kiss’. Even though we ‘flashed’ our genitals at each other a couple of years later I can remember when I was visitting my northern relatives and all the boys as a group went off with the oldest to look at the new born baby sister of one. We’d been discussing girl’s anatomy and two of the guy got in an argument which was settled by looking at the little sister. “See I told you so.”  I remember that but not what the two guys had disagreed about.  I expect it had to do with there being ‘no penis’. None. None whatsoever.  As one of the guys we were were all amazed at nature.  

Hardly five and I was in big trouble. My brother was upset that I’d upset Mom and Mom was very upset that I’d made the family look bad in the new neighbourhood.  She was angry at herself. “I should never have let you out of my sight.” “I shouldn’t have let you play with those kids’.  

Dancing  was even a taboo in a lot of Baptist churches, though my mom and Dad met dancing and would love to dance all their lives.  The classic Baptist joke, was “ why don’t Baptists make love standing up. They’re afraid it might lead to dancing.”

“You must not play with those girls again.” She scolded me.  “ You must never do what they say even if they want it.  You have to stay out of trouble, Billy!”

She was angry and sad at the same tim.e. I don’t think she ever believed I started it or caused it but she was just afraid back then. Afraid of gossip. Afraid of non baptists.  Afraid of catholics.  Afraid of aetheists if she had ever met or knew one. Afraid of communists. . Afraid of criminals.  Afraid of Winnipeggers. I think when my Dad wasn’t home she was a bit paranoid.  Her family was a family of worriers. 

 “High strung,” my aunt would say.  “We’re all just a little high strung in this family. It’s harder for your mom because we’re all high strung in the east and the western people dont’ know enough to be high strung. They don’t any society. Spend all their time around hogs and wheat. They’re stupid that way. Laid back they call it. But slow is what we call it. Your mom’s just a bit high strung then more than some. Like you Billy. Biting your nails and such.” 

My mom was a smart woman so she would have known that the girls were ‘bad’ and they’d ‘initiated’ ‘adult play’. Today years later I’d know that the kid had probably seen their parents playing or was a product of sexual abuse.  I wasn’t.  I didn’t have sisters either so I didn’t know girls much back  then.  My brother was more competitive and simply didn’’t even play with girls till much older. I was different that way.   I enjoyed girls from as early as I can remember. I was as competive as the next guy, liking all the sports but unlike most guys I liked girls.  I liked their talk and games, their silliness and humor. I’d always have girls as friends whereas my brother like most guys would have that one girlfriend who they’d become intimate with and then have her friends as family friends. That was the the way it was back then.  There was a lot of group socialization but having the opposite sex as ‘friends’ wasn’t normal in ‘jock’ or ‘geek’ crowd but normal in the ‘artistic crowd’ which I was also a part of. .   

I’d play with girls  but not for years after that incident.  The little girl whose bum I kissed would wave and smile at me slyly when her mom wasn’t around.  I ‘d see them playing across the street. None of the kids ever played under the veranda. I think the landlord even fixed the board worried about the safety risk when the mother complained about the children playing under there. . I remember that time as the first time I’d be punished for some thing I didn’t know I was doing was wrong and being falsely accused as the instigator when I wasn’t that at all.  It confused me and I stayed away from that girl and was cautious about the kids in that neighbourhood. I’d only make friends at school and church until we finally moved. .

Mom and Dad didn’t spank me .  They’d have spanked me if they thought I was at fault. It was very serious though. There was late night discussion about it. My brother and I would listen in our beds especially if we heard our name. I don’t think my parents knew we listened. They thought we were asleep.  But we listened.   Mom only wanted me playing with the kids from the church and seemed as concerned that I was ‘ruined’ as the lady who’d complained to Mom about her daughter.   She clearly blamed my mother.  My mother knew she as a Baptist Christian lady was above reproach and any woman that smoked and drank like that mother did was probably a follower of Baal.  As likely as not she thought the neighbours had orgies with their children involved. She wasn’t far off the mark as later scandals rocked the neighbourhood long after we were gone.  My mother  was here in heathen backward hardly civilized Winnipeg.  She had her work cut out for her  protecting her children and family  from all the sordid corruption of this monstrous  town.   

Now someone might think I am remembering this wrong, the psychotic flipping of victim and victimizer that the borderline and antisocial patients do but I was 4 or 5 and the other kids were 5 or 6.  As guys we like playing with trucks and guns. Girls like playing house.  As kids back then we didn’t initiate play with girls.  They were forever trying to join in our games while we as guys were forever trying to get away from the girls.  Later I’d change.  I remember living to chase girls as a teen. Not as a kid. Girls had motives.  Some invisible lice type bug that us guys knew infested girls.  Some girls didn’t have them but most did. The girls that didn’t have them were rare and special. Later I’d have a few such girls as friends.  Karey Asseltine never had kooties.

That was also for me the first ‘false accusation’ of note in my life. There would be several more of note later in my career when people would lie for ambition or money.  At the time I suspect the girls mother was simply protective, but that the dynamics of the women was a whole lot different.  Mom was incredibly jealous and detested “bad’ women with a vengeance.  As a Christian she was probably the most unforgiving person I ever knew but only if you threatened her family or as she would say tried to act ‘high and mighty’ around her when ‘you weren’t.” I never saw her that way with men either, only other women.  And only a few times in my life. 

The other big memory of that year was my brother and I just running all over the furniture, screaming and fighting and Mom trying to settle us down repeatedly without any success.  I remember a few times in my life when as kids we went Lord of the Flies. That was one of them and neither my brother or I could be stopped from ‘raising hell’. Dad was a way.    Mom was so exasperated she  phoned the police.  Years later after a few drinks, making a case for persecution and self pity, I’d love to complain  that even my mother phoned the police on me.  Ron and I had been going at it while Mom sat on the couch crying with her head in her hands , us ignoring her screaming and fighting with imaginary swords we’d made with brooms and umbrellas.  It was winter and winter was awful in Winnipeg. Dad was away for weeks.

A Bang came on the door. Mom got up and opened it.  Ron and I like wild animals watched from further back. Not at first afraid.  Just surprised at the interruption. .  “The devil had got into us.”  

There at the door were these two big Winnipeg  policemen in big coats and under that blue uniforms. They’d come in and take off their coats. Mom gave them tea and talked to them crying.  I’m so sad today to think of that.  Only now do I realize how frightened and alone  and overwhelmed she must have felt. I’ve known so many young women since who alone with little boys, mostly, have lost it.  It doesn’t surprise me to hear that a mother has killed her children or abandoned them.  I didn’t care back then. I didn’t know how  24/7 difficult little children can be and how cabin fever can make everything worse.  Immigrant families are especially taxed without the family support and the father working so much and often the mother having to work as well. We were meant to be in village not living as  isolated nuclear families. In Toronto my aunt would have taken us boys for a day or grandmother or vice versa and mom would have had a day of rest from the ‘little hellyons’.  Today my brother and I’d both be on Ritalin, me given industrial dosages.  I tried a lot of adults patience routinely correcting them when they were so obviously wrong and so stupid as to not admit it. “You’re too big for your britches!” “You’re too smart for your own good.” Was said to me thousands of time. 

Back then I can see my mother utterly defeated.  Today I’m ashamed.  Today I know that I could easily break things as fix them and if I’d not become psychiatrist I’d would have made a great hitman.  Later when dad came home he’d hold her and she’d cry,   Ron and I would get earfuls. But first the policemen would talk to us but mostly to me.  Ron would always get ‘you’re older you should know better.’ 

The policemen knew. They’d seen it a hundred times.  They sat at the table listening to our mother drinking tea and waiting. When she’d cried and shared  one of them said, “Would you like us to talk to the boys.”   My mother nodded.  While one sat at the table with Mom the other sat down at our level on the couch and gave us that ‘talk’ boys would hear over and over again throughout their lives. It’s the talk uncles , teachers and officers give. I probably heard it more than most.  It’s still part of the good man repertoire.  

 “Your father is away, sons.  Your mother is all alone and she’s afraid.  You’re not helping. When your dad is away you can’t be boys. You have to be little men.  You have to take your father’s place.  You’ve got to  help your mother. She needs you to be good.  You have to be men.  You can’t be fighting each other .You can’t be screaming and disturbing the neighbours. Not when your father is away.   You have to listen to your mother as if your father was here too.  She shouldn’t have to need to call the police  so her sons will listen to her”

“Would you have listened and stopped running about and shouting and fighting if your dad was here?”

“Yes”, we both said. Heads and eyes down. 

We had got the gravity of the situation and were now little boys with our heads hung low. No longer great warriors of yore. .  My brother who’d always be the more responsible one nodded his head, looking at the police and somehow knowing ‘blaming his little brother’ wasn’t going to work in this situation like it did sometimes. . I had my hands folded on my lap and eyes down.  I remember I wished my hands were in my pockets because I always had interesting things in my pockets that I could feel. I really did once keep a frog in my pocket as a child. I’d always have stones and things I’d found. I’d play with them when adults were talking to me. But when my hands were on my lap I didn’t have any distraction.

“You’ll listen to your mom from now on and act like little men and not be wild animals?” The policeman said. 

My brother and I answered  ‘yes sir’ together.  They left. Mom put us to bed after that.   We’d made it through another day and night with my father gone.  

When my father was home there was lots of play and fun and games but never so out of control. He’d shout or slap the back of our heads, never so it hurt, just to get our attention. I think I like NCIS because Gibbs reminds me of my Dad in ways. I don’t like him hitting Tony’s head. They’re adults though Tony acts like a kid and there’s a whole lot going on there that men can understand. But that was my dad’s way. He’d cuff us like a big old lion and things would stop. There was this thing between him and Mom which revolved around us kids, him insisting she shut us down and her not being able to.  We knew Mom loved us and she was a pushover. She’d go off emotionally and slap us too but never hurting us.  Not till I was a teen. As a child we were pretty good kids mostly and obeyed our parents and their voice tones set the standards for the home with the occasional cuff or slap to accent things. We didn’t get ‘punishment’ as other kids did. We didn’t get ‘rewarded’ much each. We just ‘fit in’.  We did what was ‘expected’ . We were a family and mostly we all got along.

I remember well the night dad brought home garlic.

We’d never had garlic.

 “I”m not going to have any of that garlic in my food.” Despite being Irish my mom cooked  English through and through.

Where did you get it!” She asked.

“The Italian family that moved in downstairs. The man gave it to me.  He’s a good guy. We talked about fishing and cars.  Nice people. “

Dad was travelling and trying out other peoples foods whereas mom was extremely conservative till much later in life. She boiled everything she could.  The only spices God gave us were salt and pepper and everything else especially garlic was for ‘foreigners’.    

“If they’re Italian, they’re catholic and I’m not going to have any of my children eating catholic food.” Mom said. 

Well Dad prevailed.  We boys had garlic and we loved it and we all laughed because we all smelled of garlic after that. That’s how spaghetti and garlic bread became a mainstay in the Hay home.  Mom would even move on to basil and oregano later in life. 

I loved kindergarten too. The other boys and I would build things there. The school had all these wooden sticks with joints. We’d make great constructions together, space stations and such. We’d do puzzles too.  I was the de facto leader of these building activities and excelled in sports. There was always another guy I seemed to be competing with even starting in kindergarten.  Some guy who wasn’t so good with making stuff or doing stuff but would fight. I think I was insensitive to.  I’d learn later my arch villain in grade school who I fought with till we became friends came from a horrible home.  I just ticked off guys like that. Envy and rage. So I’d get in fights. From as early as I remember I didn’t ‘start’ them, never threw the first blow, but I sure did  end them.  Later I hospitalized a few guys.    I’d also learn later that I could get stupid guys to fight by saying something, just the right thing, and they’d blow their cool, come at me and then I’d take them down. I fought with my brother 4 years older wrestling all the time so I had an advantage over kids who didn’t have an older brother.  I really was a scrapper as a kid.  I didn’t mind the knives later but when the guns started appearing in my 20’s I became a bit more diplomatic. 

Girls don’t know anything about boys growing up.  Quite simply survival is the number one concern for most boys between age 6 and 12. 

Between age 6 and 12 girls are safe physically.

6-12 I was fighting bullies every other day. I was always having some clown or thug usually with one or two other guys coming up and punching me or surrounding me. The teachers didn’t help. I’d get an award at school and these bullies would come after me’ teacher’s pet’ , ‘brown nose’ , ‘show off’.  I think I was attacked at least a thousand times or more in that 6-12 age range.  On the way to school, after school. Our friends and their gang.  It began in kindergarten. 

I remember the teacher, an attractive buxom somewhat overweight woman, taking me over her knee at the front of the class and pulling down my pants so my penis was on her skirt as she slapped my naked bare bum over and over again in front of the class. I and this other guy had been fighting but i was the only one I ever knew who was bare assed in class.  I was really ashamed and humiliated mostly because the girls were so pleased and loved watching the boys get ‘disiplined’.  The girls were good. The boys were bad.  The other boys got detention and time out.  The girls laughed.

When my mother heard of this, she formally complained and the teacher was disciplined but that didn’t help me because now she was out to get me. 

It was in kindergarten the girls pulled us boys into the cloak room and showed us their genitals and demanded we show them ours.  I remember all of us , it seemed to me all of us, went in to the cloak room with this one girl who liked doing that.  No one got in trouble. No one got caught. No one touched but we stood back and looked at each other.  That was the game. The girls would pull us into the cloakroom and I assumed the other guys were showing them and they were showing us.  We knew not to tell our parents and not even talk about it. There were a few girls and a few guys but we thought it was everyone. It happened and it was passed, no one the wiser.

The other thing I remember is not knowing how to lie on the floor. I camped and lay on the ground but the whole idea of lying on the hardwood floor on a mat was beyond me. I asked my dad at the dinner table a little while after we began kindergarten the day after the teacher had us do this and it felt so weird I thought i must be doing it wrong.

“How do you nap on the floor, Dad?”  It’s the weirdest thing but my dad getting down on the floor and showing me and telling me I was doing it right was one of the important moments in my life. Mom and Dad would teach us stuff. My brother would teach me things too.  I’d simply did not know how do something and this older wiser smarter more experienced person would show me.  Not tell me. Show me. I remember the thrill of that experience beginning for me in kindergarten. I realized I loved learning. I still love learning.  I love skill acquisition. I love getting help from an older person when I don’t know something.  I ‘d go through a few years of ‘doing it my way’ but I had learned early the value of instruction and while I enjoyed figuring things out myself which I did I loved learning. I didn’t have this ego thing that stops so many peoples education.  Pride. Whatever. I just loved learning.To learn though you had to accept you didn’t know and that you were stupid. Lots of people, the really stupid ones, just can’t admit it and accept that to learn they must lower themselves.  I remember that mat business as such a time. My realization and appreciation of my father and my parents. Mom was always teaching us kids stuff too.  But dad taught me to lie on a Matt on a hardwood floor by showing me.  I’ll never get over what great parents I had. 

Bill Cosby has a great book called Dad in which he shares how his kid, and only his kid, looked at him when he shot a ball in the basket like he was one of the Harlem Globe Trotters. That’s the way I felt about the things my parents and my father and brother and teachers did, sheer awe. I was so blessed to have all these genius’s in my life. I thought my father was a genius when he showed me how to lie on a mat on the floor and assured me that was the right way.  Weird. I thought my mom was an even greater genius when she taught me how to tie my shoes. 

The kindergarten was only a block from home. Up the street past the Trinity Baptist Church.  The real fun was the fire escape. It was a big metal tube that went down the side of the building.  The teachers would put us in the top of this tube. The  teachers at the bottom would  catch us as we slid out 3 stories down. At first it was the scariest thing then all us boys loved fire drill.

I was in cub scouts too. It was in the basement of the church.  Everything we did as kids was within a block from our house.  Except when we did expeditions away from home with my parents we lived in a one block radius of home. We explored a street over each direction into really foreign country. We’d challenge the authority by crossing a road on our own a couple of kids and walk down the street of this other planet and see the different dogs that barked at us and watch out for bigger kids who were always scary because they always seemed to pick on us.  

With our parents we’d make big excursions, to the store, to downtown, only a few blocks away.  Then Dad would take us camping and fishing whenever he’d have a weekend off. I can’t remember a time we weren’t loading up in the car and going to some campsite by a lake where we’d all go fishing and sleep at night in the brown canvass square tent with the wood centre pole and four metal bars for the roof and big wood pegs for the four corners of the tent and guy lines. We’d use outhouses with big holes and be afraid we’d fall through.  My brother and I would walk in the woods then exploring around the camp. I’d always have to be with him and mostly we’d be with Dad or Mom. There’d be other kids in the camps and we’d play hide and seek and tag and sometimes throw balls about.   As far as I can remember we had a Coleman gas stove and mom cooked meals which we ate at picnics tables swatting flies and mosquitoes.  Mostly we’d eat fish dad and Ron caught. Mom and I would spend most of my time fishing back then untangling my line.  It wasn’t till later we got a boat.

In church the pews were hard and my feet didn’t get to the floor. The minister was a loud man in Black. The ladies smelt nice and wore pretty dresses. I liked the Sunday school comic books and stories and games.  While the parents were upstairs I’d meet with the other kids in the basement and write out Bible verses and hear stories, much like school ,but smaller and more relaxed, and more fun.  I liked Sunday School. It was better than being in church where Mom was always telling me to stop squirming and stop making noise and Dad would be upset when I poked my brother. I think I poked my brother whenever I got bored. Then we’d be poking each other. I mostly started all our fights when we were kids.  I’d start poking him or bugging him  He wasn’t a pillar of virtue either and would poke back harder or wait and poke me later.  Mom was not impressed with us in church and thankful for Sunday School. Dad was forever nodding off.  She her hands full with all her boys. 

 The singing was fun. It was especially fun when my Aunt Sally came to town and she and mom would belt out those old gospel tunes, the two loudest ladies in the church.  Dad chuckled then and my brother and I would  wonder what was going on. Whenever my Aunt was visitting it was a good time. She made fun of my Dad and made my mom laugh like a little girl. Those two were hilarious together. Then the family was even more so.

Springtime in Burnaby

It doesn’t get much better than this. I’m out in the back yard with my iPad Pro and keyboard sitting at the picnic table. This is the first time I’ve been able to sit outside and type in Canada in at least 5 months.  I know in Doctor Zhivago, he’s writing in the cold with fingerless gloves.  He’s writing poetry. Poets’ are crazy enough to write in those conditions.   As a blogger  in Canada I just moved in side.

I’ve walked outside this winter,  in my bathing suit, something you didn’t see Dr. Zhivago do. I’ve a pool and hot tub a couple of hundreds yards away. That hot tub really helped me through the winter.

Now the Cherry Blossom trees are in bud.  Flowers are coming up from bulbs. Daffodils and the first of the tulips.  Soon it will be Tulip Season full on.  I love to go to the Skagit Valley Tulip Festival just across the border. It’s vast and a true psychedelic explosion of colour.  I feel it wakes my brain up so I better see the good things in life. After the rainy Vancouver winter and the sun delinquent, , hemmed in by normally beautiful snow capped mountains, I feel a tad trapped. I  need a chiropractic twist to see God’s love everywhere. 

Even the Bloom , the smaller Abbotsford Tulip Festival nudges a soul in the right direction. Last year we walked around the Bloom with the god kids and Gilbert. They’re so funny and alive together.  It was a day of colour and wonder. We’d all been to church before that  to sing God’s praise.  

Coming home from work today I heard Matt Maher’s Glory, Let There Be Peace song on Praise 106.5.  We loved Matt Maher when he accompanied Third Day as their opening act when then came to Abbotsford.    

The birds are returning.  I saw a Blue and Black Stellar’s Jay. I heard The Great Herons are nesting again in Stanley Park. I hope the great heron and eagle that nest near here return. I always look forward to the king fishers.   I’ve seen the Stanley Park Great Heron’s nexts  I usually drop by  when I drive the motorcycle  around the park and head out to the university passing the beaches to Point Grey.  Doing that circuit of the park always reminds me of the early days on the Ruckus or when Laura and I would ride the Buell 600 around that route.    Spring in the Pacific Northwest is something to behold.  

The Canadian Author Association Can Write 2019 is at UBC this year. I’m signed up for it.  So much to learn. So much fun. The best of authors and poets and writers and the enthusiasm of all those along the path from beginner to accomplished. 

I just rode my KTM690 motorcyle over to the post office to send a box to my eastern family.  We’re all waiting expectantly with a growing new mother. I love the babies and puppies on my Facebook pages.  I like the cranes too above the city showing all the investment in new buildings, the construction.  Life. It would be easier to believe the hoaxes,fear mongers and doom sayers were the  elite to stop building new high rises on the coast.  I don’t know where they would do their money laundering though. 

Here I am in paradise with light clouds and blue sky above.  The hemlock hedge beside me is lush green.  Gilbert’s yellow tennis balls and sticks are scattered about on the lawn.  I’m longing again to be camping in the new Adventure camper.  Laura had her cousins over this week. We’re attending David Berner’s Story Telling evening tomorrow.  We even hope to get to St. Barnabus and let Emily see us before the summer comes. I’m a ‘winter Christian’.  Summer and fall I start camping, hunting and fishing whenever I can.  There’s motorcycling too.  Church attendance falls off.

It’s not like Anglican’s have a high bar. I can wear women’s underwear.  Men can sleep with men. Women can sleep with women. We’re not much concerned with what goes on under the sheets.  Battering women, punching folk, screaming obscenities in church, shooting up in the pews, making false promises in business, stealing from the poor, lying as a politician, hurting children, poverty, all of these are cause for concern. It would be very much frowned on if I peed in the pews.  Having sex with animals in church is also probably taboo since the whole matter of consent would be suspect despite what Australians might say. 

I don’t feel it’s a test when I go to church.  I like to dress up, especially the underwear. My mom was a big fan of clean underwear.   She seemed very concerned that we’d be in a traffic accident or die and we’d not have clean underwear. We wore clean clothes to church. 

 Working as an Emergency Doctor I saw most people piss or shit themselves in major accidents. Just for those concerned about such things, doctors and nurses don’t check if it’s old or new. We also don’t care if the men are wearing panties and the women are wearing Stanfields. The hospital, like our church, has more important concerns today.

I loved what Father Mathew, of the St. Jame’s Outreach Initiative said to me when I apologized for being late one morning.  “Don’t worry. Think of the church as your parent’s home. Your mother wouldn’t care if you were late for dinner. She’d rather you’d drop in if only for a few minutes than not come at all because you were worried about being late or anything else.”  Father Mathews’ a deeply loving and considerate man who touched my heart with his wisdom and compassion.

Last Sunday, I’d come late St. Barnabus so took in the Shilo 5th Avenue Service that follows the Anglican service. I had a moment of ‘guilt’ thinking that Rev. Emilie the Anglican priest would think I was being a traitor to the Anglican’s attending to her United Church friend Rev. Shannon’s service. Well, God has a sense a humor. Rev. Shannon was away and Rev. Emilie helping fill her place.  

“I’m sorry I missed your service. I slept in. ” I said as I was leaving. She shook her head, laughing, “It doesn’t matter. Don’t worry, it’s just good to see you in church.”

I thought of my mom then. She always liked when I was somewhere I wasn’t likely to get in trouble. If she heard I was in at bar, climbing a mountain, crossing the tundra on snowmobile,  sailing across an ocean or biking with gangsters she was concerned.  She said she  rested easy when she knew I was in church.

Spring feeling is like church feeling.  

It’s nice that Christmas lands in the middle of winter. The old Christians usurped the ancient ‘mid winter’ celebration.  It was an orgy and wild by all reports. A truly Baccanalian  event to break the monotony and horrors of ancient winters.  The carbon tax will bring that back in the north. Working as a family physician in Canada  I remember seeing the sick and elderly unable to afford the heat.  They’d save money by not turning on the furnace or not buying buying wood.  I’d do home visits finding them bundled  in layers and layers of clothing. You could see your breath in the living rooms.  Now our deeply callous elite communist government is dictating a return to those times.  More Canadians will opt for the new Health Care Plan, MAID. I expect a spike in the service in fall as the carbon taxes increase.  

I couldn’t believe the cost of gas at the pump today, thankful to be riding my  motorcycle.  I see so many people afraid to go out. “I don’t spend money if I stay in bed,” a woman told me sadly today.  She’s on a disability pension. It hardly pays the rent. She hasn’t money for the electric heat but she was able to get food at the church food bank earlier this week.  I thought she was young for a ‘tea and toast’ lady.  Here we are in the lap of luxury with unbelievable resources. All of while they  are being squandered by this government’s corruption and waste.  

I went to Costco this week. I stocked up on their  their incredible  Marie Collander’s frozen chicken pot pies. Costco has incredible savings but I’ll be eating potato salad for a couple more days. Thank God for refrigeration. I don’t know how the young people can eat out so much. Dining out is a wonderful way for socialization. I don’t think many people know how to cook. So many of the arrogant youth who are so politically active lack any real practical skills. 

I miss the dinner parties we hosted during the university and medical residency years.  Cooking and hosting was such a matter of pride and the dinner time discussions were so enriching.  The brilliant young women, like my ex wife, were all so beautiful too. 

 I loved later the great game feasts I’d  host on after shooting a moose.  Given I’ve shot 7 or 8 of them I’ve hosted a lot of great barbecues.  My old hunting buddy Bill Mewhort, the greatest hunter I’ve ever known, always had game. Now Victor appears when I’ve had a poor year. Like Bill, Victor always gets a moose or deer. .  They both live in the country. I’ve got a lot further to go to hunt and this medical practice to maintain.  Bill’s son, Bill Mewhort has followed in his dad’s footsteps. I wanted to introduce him to Derek, my hunting friend. In Langley  whose already planning a bear hunt this spring. 

Willie Gutowski, the great Christian psychiatrist, told me he’d hunted when he was young but gave it up, like my Dad did, when he got older.  Last year I got out a few times but I only watched the sun come up once despite driving all the way to the back woods.  I preferred sleeping in and then  riding around the back woods on my KTM690 Enduro, scaring the game away so I don’t have to clean and haul it.  I still had a great time and have enjoyed cooking up the grouse I shot. I still have a rabbit to barbecue.   Now Derek is talking about spring bear hunting.  I may have to bring my rifle with me the next time Laura, Gilbert and I head out with the Ford F-350 truck and the Adventure Camper.

Rev. Vivian has been hosting meetings for the Urban Aboriginal Society. I’ve been on the board and passed on bear, moose and venison for their gatherings. Now Michel, the genius west coast French Canadian computer programmer has completed her website. 

I was glad last month to go to Ethiopia, visitting the Rock Hewn churches of Lalibela, chatting over Ethiopian coffee with the Anglican jazz musician and talking to his friend the Adis Ababa Professor of Religion who speaks Hebrew, Ethiopian, English and a few more languages, a deeply spiritual, brilliant raconteur. I loved  seeing the hippos, the Fish Eagles and giant white pelicans in Lake Tana.. It was truly a blessing to meet a humble holy monk.  He was radiant as such men are, his smilechildlike, his statements and questions profound. 

I was blessed to be with my nephews, their loved ones, my sister in law, Adell and her family and share a fabulous Christmas turkey dinner that reminded me of all the Christmas turkey dinners my mother made.  Priorities shift as we age. Some things we appreciated young but now find so special because of tradition. 

I fear the winter. It wasn’t so bad when I was skiing or even sailing. Now my joints are sore in winter, so many aches of aging.  I don’t exercise enough. I swim several times a week, love the hot tub, and walk the dog.  But the refridgerator and the couch have so much more appeal. I love watching NCIS and reading westerns.  At the end of the day especially after seeing so many unknown patients it’s often all I can do to pop a Marie Collander’s Chicken pie in the microwave.  

I’ve enjoyed the evening meetings. Despite my complaining about being out late at theatre, ballet and concerts, as if I’m being unfaithful to my couch and tv, these cultural shakes ups have been a god send for my spirit. Jesus Freak last weekend at Pacific Theatre was extraordinarily moving. Sarah Brightman was rejuvenating. I’m looking forward to the SFU Pipe Band Concert and later Carrie Underwood. 

I feel this spring is conspiring with God to revive my soul.  I rejoice in being alive.  I am so blessed and thankful , at least this minute. Here outside, smelling the clean air, liking the light breeze.  I’ve got fresh buns from Cobb’s Bakery and some duck pate. Gilbert would like a little walk before the sun sets.  He’s been enjoying the neighbour’s fast growing “puppy” Thor.  He has his regular friends we meet as we walk the neighborhood, his little tail going a mile a minute especially when he sees friend Emory.  

God is good. All of the time. Thank you Jesus!!! I love the flowers of spring.

Brunette River

Vancouver DTES

Vancouver DTES

Vancouver

Blind Gilbert listening and sniffing at the screen door, Burnaby

On KTM 690 today in Burnaby

  

  

Jesus Freak by Peter Boychuk

Jesus Freak by Peter Boychuk plays at Pacific Theatre,  March 1 to March 23.  It’s genius. A brilliantly written play performed by the best of casts to enlightened direction.  I loved the physical fight scene.  But most I loved the mother played by Katharine Venour.

The story is of an adult family, “cool” parents living on Saltspring Island, mother a novelist, father a bureaucrat who fought the establishment when younger, with the gay actor son over from Vancouver and the political science student daughter visitting from Montreal. It’s the Easter weekend. Everything is symbolic in this play. There’s layers within layers.  It’s Biblical in that sense, shallow and mythical for the superficial reader, profound and revolutionary for the deeper explorer.  Pathos too. I was crying as Kaitlin Williams,who played the daughter ,Clara Campbell told her mother how anxious she felt, how alienated, how alone.  I was so angry at the father, Alan Campbell, played by Ron Reed, who was such an intellectual bully but completely unaware of his intransigence yet equally so loving of his family. His hypocrisy ,so apparent as he claims to be open minded but says “I think I’d have found it easier if she said she was a drug dealer rather than saying she’d joined a church.” Such a fine little man with such a big heart.  Such beautiful a family.   Ron Reed surprised me with yet another unique performance showing facets I’d never known.  Yet I’ve admired him in dozens and dozens of roles.  Morris Ertman the director has a delicate touch.  I loved mother giving her daughter a picture of her mother and her in Sunday school.

God, it’s good to be Canadian at times when you see such a play! It’s utterly unique to Canada and especially the Pacific North West. The eagle joke was over the top.

 The struggles of the gay son, Nate Campbell, played so sensitively by Brandon Bate.  I loved the protectiveness of the father who said his son’s late lover was insincere. 

 Such beautiful parents.  Smoking a joint, having a glass of wine, so much accomplished. Later in life.  Such a story. Such incredible dialogue.  And humor.  Good humor.  Sadness, angst. I was moved to the core.  A play you could watch over and over and over again.  Such themes.  Faith, grace, intellect, reason.  But mostly love.  

Without the good mother there is war was my take home message.  The mother who is a cancer survivor.  Such profundity.  The family that loves. The great actors and great theatre.  Truly wonderful, a magical,  mystical, Druidic miraculous angelic night of live theatre..  Alright, I liked everything about this play. 

I  know each of these people portrayed in real life.  They  have all irritated me. But I loved  transformation.   In the end even I  found  tolerance and love. Their pettiness transformed into rank humanity.  They’re relationship. Fellow humans on a tragic comedic planet. The playwright captured a glimpse. I loved the references to Star Trek.  Now that was hilarious.  Gene Roddenbury would have approved.

A great night. Laura loved it too.  It was a dark and rainy  night when we left the theatre.  We were a little closer, a little more connected.  Three in one. There were a lot of clues and still more to be found. 

Sarah Brightman

Laura loves Sarah Brightman.  I liked that she was a classical singer and had been married to the Cats creator, Frank Lloyd Webber.  I’d heard her Pie Jesu somewhere along the journey. I got us tickets late surprised that the best tickets were sold out and we were in the balcony, centre but still, balcony.  The advantage was that we had a really great view of the show. I was glad I’d brought the Nikon binoculars (opera glasses) because they allowed us to zone in on her face. The venue was sold out.

She was marvellous. What an incredible voice! What a great performer! Standing ovations! Such elegance.

No photos or recording was allowed. The female guitarist was entertaining in leathers as a contrast to Sarah in great gowns and tiera. The light show was spectacular. Nearly thirty people in the choir, a symphonic orchestra and a rock jazz group. That’s a wall of sound. Sarah Brightman’s voice was a symphony of it’s own.  

The Queen Elizabeth is a great venue.  We loved the evening.  

In contrast to the normal swag of t shirts and cd’s, Sarah Brightman had jewelry and a really glamorous bag which looked good on Laura.  We just needed it to carry home the CD’s. I’m looking forward to listening to her Hymn cd. So many beautiful songs.

Post Modern Jukebox

Laura and I loved our night with Post Modern Jukebox at the Vogue Theatre Vancouver.  Their Utube performances give a good hint at what one gets in personal. Tremendous music and great ideas. The really joy is in the live performance. It’s almost vaudeville.
The most incredible tap dancer I’ve ever seen was hoofing it through most of the show. They could never appear in Cape Breton Island, Maritimes,  without her being kidnapped.
The saxophonist was so mellow and cool.  Where do you get a trombone and banjo on the same stage. Fabulous music. I loved the hot piano and funky guitar.
The voices were to die for. I love the original voice. She is so original.  She could sing and catch pop corn as well.  The fantastic torch singer was a  heart throb. The MC was everything one could want in a singer and a performer.  Funny, engaging, a true character.   It reminded me of Cabaret and the best of Vegas.
The costumes period and punk  added to the show. The audience joined in.  For future reference one dresses in period for PMJ shows.  Lots of can can and 1920 to 1929 paneche.  Rocky Horror Picture Show and Blue Man Group for the jazz set.  I loved the sparkles.

Then there was the Tom Jones Engelbirt Humperdinck Frank Sinatra voice. What a voice. The whole show though reminded us of a 1920 Carole King New York musical. We were transported into another world for a night. Speakeasy and ‘all about the bass!”  Thank you PMJ.

    

4 years old

I don’t remember much that happened that year in my personal life. When I look at the encyclopedia to see what is in the collective memory most of it doesn’t even ring a bell.  The Winter Olympics were in Italy.  I know the olympics from later in life as I know Italy.  They would hardly have been an idea to a four year old.

But Guy Burgess and Donald McLean turning up in the Soviet Union five years after they went missing jumps off the page at me.  The Cold War would go on throughout my childhood and have a great impact on my me, my family, my country and my life.  Spies and spy novels, James Bond and espionage were all a part of my future.  Guy Burgess was a very bad man.  The Soviets were the thieves who stole the secrets of the west. They stole the nuclear bomb. Spying especially in WWII would become a big interest as time went on and we all learned about the Enigma machine.  Older, my friends and I as teens, would  be reading Ian Fleming. Later we attended all the  James Bond movies. As adults we bought the movies and watched over again.  As young teens James Bond, Star Trek and  the Beatles ruled.  

Oklahoma was  released that year and Roger’s and Hammerstein’s Carousel. Elvis Presley recorded Heartbreak Hotel and released a gold album. My older brother Ron loved Elvis Presley and  sang his songs at home, memorizing words, sounding quite like Elvis at times. Ron had a lovely baritone tenor voice and would go on to sing in the church choir.

Doris Day recorded Que Sera, Sera (Whatever Will be, Will be).  My mother sang that around the home.  I’ve got it firmly implanted in my brain, a song that comes to me at crossroads and other times. Doris Day was a favourite of my parents. Khrushchev attacked the cult of personality of Stalin.  Morocco declared independence from France.  Laurence Olivier and Shakespeare’s Richard III were in the news.    The Broadway musical My Fair Lady opened in New York City.  Later in life I’d see the movie. The first episode of As the World Turns is broadcast on the CBS television network.   My father who liked to watch the ‘news’ and read the ‘news’ .  Pakistan became the first Islamic Republic. We were Christians and I knew nothing of Islam, Buddhism, Zoroastrianism, Jainism or Buddhism growing up.  

I remember the outside of the church from these early times.  My mother, aunts and grandmother were all very Baptist and the Baptish Church was the centre of their social lives the whole time we were in Toronto.  Later I’d remember sitting in church with my parents and going to Sunday school but not from those early Toronto years.

Grace Kelly married the Prince of Monaco and oddly I know this tidbit of history not from childhood but because it was a thing repeated through my life. In a peculiar way such bits of history show up in my memories. This one is under the ‘American actress’ and European Royalty category, I’d say. There were several of these in the news. Today it’s Meagan Markle and Prince William but Jackie Kennedy’s younger sister Lee Bouvier  married the Polish prince Radziwill. Rita Hayworth married Prince Aly Khan a direct descendant of the Prophet Mohammed.  The most famous for me was Wallis Simpson who King Edward VIII of England abdicated his throne for.

In the US The Southern Manifesto was signed beginning the desegregation of schools.  Videotape was first developed. The first ‘snooze’ alarm was introduced by General Electric. The playwright Authur Miller appeared before the House UN-American Activities Committee. Marilyn Munroe married Authur Miller. The Lockheed U2 made its first reconnaissance flight over the Soviet Union. Egyptian leader Gamal Abdul Nasser nationalized the Suez Canal. Elvis Presley appeared on the Ed Sullivan show.

I can see this in my mind but I don’t remember watching tv in Toronto.  My recollection of tv in the home begins when we move to Winnipeg the next year.  Yet Elvis Presley’s first appearance on Ed Sullivan showing only the upper half of his body and not his provocative hip movement is iconic. It was shown over and over again in my life.  

Cecil B. DeMille’s epic film Ten Commandments starring Charlton Heston as Moses was released.  Yogi Berra was playing baseball for the Brooklyn Dodgers when pitcher Don Larsen wins the games for the New York Yankees.  As kids we’d collect baseball cards and trade these. Dad and Mom would take us to baseball games and I remember good times in the bleachers eating pop corn, drinking Coca Cola, the sunshine, blue sky, and lazy family days, Mom and Dad happy, everyone cheering.  The white uniforms of the players and the ball caps. I had a ball cap as a little kid but would remember getting my first baseball glove a few years later when I was older and bigger and could be trusted to take care of sports equipment and not lose something so valuable. 

The Hungarian Revolution broke out Oct. 23 when Hungarian attempted to leave the Warsaw Pact.  The Soviet Union troops invaded Hungary.  The Suez Crisis took place.  The United Kingdom and France bombed Egypt to force it to reopen the Suez Canal. Israel entered the Sinai Peninsula pushing Egypt back towards the Suez.

The Amundsen Scott South Pole Station was established.  Allen Ginsburg ,of the Beat Generation, has poetry is published in San Francisco.

Republican incumbent Dwight Eisenhower defeats Adlai Stevenson in the American election.  Fidel Castro and Che Guevara take the yacht Granma with 82 men from Mexico to Cuba. 

December 9 the Trans Canada Airlines Flight 810 crashed into Slesse Mountain near Chilliwack British Columbia. I’d later live in Slesse Park. 

Mel Gibson, actor and movie producer  was born that year aong with Tom Hanks, American Actor and Director. Sri Ravi Shankar was born that year as well, along with the American Boxer Sugar Ray Leonard and Kenny G the saxophonist. Theresa May, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom was born this year as well as Carrie Fisher, the actress who played Princess Leia in Star Wars.  Dwight Yoakim, American Country singer, musician and actor was born this year along with American actress and model Bo Derek, forever famous for her No. 10  beach run.

A.A. Milne English author of Winnie the Pooh, the bear based on a Canadian bear, died in January.  Hiram Bingham, the American Explorer and discoverer of Machu Picchu died.  Walter de la Mare , English poet, short story writer died.  Alfred Kinsey, American sex researcher died. Billy Bishop Canadian WWI flying ace died.  I’d read all I could about Billy Bishop in later years and love the one man play, Billy Bishop goes to war.

Juan Ramon Jimenez got the Nobel prize for literature.  

It seems amazing to me that all this was happening in the world. I certainly was living with my family in Toronto. I remember well my father and mother and brother and my mother’s father and mother and sisters.  I remember friends and friends my Dad and Mom had.

The only events though that stick out in my mind are the little dog shivering under the street lamp. When I approached to pet and comfort it bit me.  I remember that short haired grey dog. I remember that he was not vicious but afraid.  I remember him running away because I cried out. I remember my mother and father coming then being taken to the hospital.  All that summer I remember trips in the car to hospital.  

But there’s also the other event when I stepped on a rusty nail in the construction site and it went through my fore foot. I think now it might have been someone else’s foot too. But when the dog bit me everyone was upset, angry at the ‘event’, not at me, and worried for my life. The rusty nail incident everyone is angry at me because I wasn’t supposed to play in the construction site.  There’s the same worry too about my health. I’m given a tetanus shot I believe but then I’m not truly certain this happened when I was 4 because I don’t remember a construction site by old house then , whereas there was a construction site near a later house. We were definitely told not to play in that construction site when I was 6 or 7.

I remember the back yard in the Toronto home.  I remember the garage. I remember bushes at the end of the street. The cul de sac boundaries of a child’s play area.   I don’t remember my room or the inside of the house so much except that there was a boarder.  I miss my brother because in later life we’d share our memories of childhood and together sort out bits that were absent.  But it still seems strange that a whole year can pass and I can remember so little. Yet the dog bite remains crystal clear, I see the dog under the lamp at night shivering and anxious at my approach.  I’m a very little guy and the dogs very little as well. But it’s thought that it had rabies and because it couldn’t be found there was no certain way of knowing.  I believe I had treatment for rabies and that was the reason for the very serious trips to the doctors for most of that year.

We would have had family Christmas and New Years. We would have done all the stuff we did as a family day in and day out. I don’t remember that. The memory lays down the eventful memories.  I suppose I needed to learn to that the injured can attack out of fear for all my later work. That lesson then and my understanding what followed stood me in good stead when I later worked with psychotic people and the dangerously insane.  I was able to help so many hundreds by knowing how to approach them and engage them. A lesson I began learning with the dog.  It’s a humble lesson. The approach of the insane can’t be ‘one up, one down’ like the military and courts use.  It’s a slipping under the defences or slipping sideways through them.  You can beat a crazy person down but they’re just out wait  you and strike later like psychopaths and sociopaths do, seeking to attack when there in an advantage. 

I think a lot of hurt people became that way, closed, paranoid, frightened and bullying because no one knew how to approach them when they were shaking and afraid standing under a lamp light watching a little boy approach with his hand out like he’d been taught.  The dog must have been in such pain to bite me. Normally an animal will back off. But it stood there watching me shaking and shivering with what I gather was a fever. It may have bit me to warn me off. It wasn’t a very big bite and it ran away immediately.  I think he was a boy dog.  It could have happened when I was 3 or 4 years old but it’s the memory that remains most lucid before the later memories of leaving Toronto, my Dad bringing Sonny the Springer Spaniel home and the preparations for going west.  That may have happened when I was 4 or 5.  I began kindergarten when I came to Winnipeg.  Usually Kindergarten begins when you turn 5. 

Harrison Lake, Vedder River and the Alp Adventurer Truck Camper

We’re now parked overlooking the Vedder River by Sardis. It’s 3 in the afternoon. Sunny. Hot. Lovely sound of running river.  Laura and I are sitting with Gilbert in the camper. We had driven down the road a bit and stopped in a parking lot.. That’s where Laura made up steak sandwiches from last nights barbecue.  After, I lay down on the bed with full tummy and Gilbert lay down on the floor with full tummy.. We both napped, bellies full. Now

I’m over here on the other side of the river in this picturesque spot having made myself a coffee. I love this Alp Adventurer camper. So convenient. As much fun as a my old VW Vanagon.  Yet this is not just a pod but a whole home on wheels.  I love the big refridgerator and the bright clean head.

This morning in Harrison’s I took Gilbert on a long walk around the lagoon. When we got back I headed over to the public pool and languished for a half hour in the magnificent healing waters. 

Last night I barbecued steaks at the back of the camper and boiled up some potatoes. Food always tastes best outdoors. The tenderloin steaks were awesome. Laura and I climbed into bed after that.  We let Gilbert join us and he literally took over the bed.  He then lay between us on his back letting us take turns rubbing his tummy. 

We were all watching Clint Eastwood’s son in the bizarre western Diablo.  I keep hoping for Little House of the Prairies and getting westerns cross supernatural. This one was a bout a ‘split personality’.  Actually, really very good but too much like work in the end.  I really did like Bonanza with Hoss and Little Joe.  I bought a handful of DVD’s from the half price bin and I guess you get what you pay for.  

Soon I’ll be going for re runs like we do often with radio, opting for the oldies rather than risking getting some music which makes you want to throw yourself out of the car.  Probably why I like gospel so much.  Uplifting and inspiring. Given that I saw some of my favourite movies decades ago I probably won’t remember them when I re watch them. 

Now here we are on Sunday. If we had checked out of a motel or hotel we’d have gone directly home but this way we can enjoy the sunny afternoon. Laura just got back from walk along the woods with Gilbert who is letting us know with growls whenever anyone is coming near.  He can’t see but his nose and ears are just fine. 

I love being able to make a coffee in my vehicle.  At times life really is so good. Thank you God.  I do have the Luck of the Irish. 

It’s St. Patrick’s Day.  Not raining either.  I can’t recall a St. Patrick’s day that wasn’t raining and cold.  

  

Harrison Lake Saturday - not much happening.

The time is going so fast.  Gilbert made sure we were up at his usual work week time. He began harrumphing at 7 am. I gave him a little Cesar and made coffee at 7:30 am. That’s when the helicopter attack hit the RV grounds. I was watching out my window when a dozen men in black body armour and short hand held machine guns descended on the dozen geese squawking near us. The geese made short shrift of the combat unit. Didn’t get a shot off before the geese were among them nipping and chasing them out in the streets.

I really enjoyed my coffee. Gilbert ate his Little Cesar. Laura slept. I spoke with God.  He had no immediate business for me.  So I wrote in my journal.  I walked Gilbert around the circuit.  Harrison Lake was beautiful.  Out of the wind it was warm. The wind off the lake made me glad I’d worn two layers.  I was wearing my Keens closed toed sandals even though there’s never been Larva Migrans attacks on the beaches of Harrison Lake.  One can never take too many precautions.  

Gilbert enjoyed the walk, blind but still enjoying all the delights of the nose.  We stopped every 10 feet.  

Back in the RV Laura was talking with unicorns and dragons.  A fairy the size of a butterfly flew out when I opened the door.  She was reading a novel and the characters were dancing in front of her on the bed. A couple of 30’s folk in period wear. Period for me, not for them.

I had back bacon and eggs so fried them each up in different pans putting them together in the Cobbs buns I’d bought before this trip.  More coffee.  Gilbert was exhausted after his walk so slept.  He didn’t even wake up for the car chase.  A dozen police cars and one electric car went by with an RCMP  on a donkey following. Two cyclist policemen from False creek were even further behind. The electric car hit another car and became airborne twirling 180 degrees before crashing on it’s back and sliding down the street into the ice cream and latte vendor.  

Laura and I really enjoyed breakfast.

I actually napped after the feast.  I love the new mattress. So comfortable.  We had discussed 6 inch, 9 inch and 12 inch and really 9 inches is just great for me.  Laura was in favour of 6 inches and we both were against the 24 inch mattress. 

I felt guilty around 3 pm having done nothing while two spaceships had taken off to explore the galaxy.  I got my Motorino electric bike off the front truck mount.  Much to my surprise I found helmet and gloves, the key to unlock the Torino Electric bike and actually mounted it and rode off into the sunset.  Laura and Gilbert promised to wait. I looked back and saw them standing their waving. Gilbert was rubbing his doggie snozz with a Kleenex Laura had handed him.  Not having my eyes forward I ran into a fence then extracted myself and pedalling with electric assist thought I looked the part of an Olympic athlete until the first hill.  The bike is truly great on the flat but once there’s any amount of hill I have to get off and walk it. I rode all the way around the lake past the  docks and half way to the camp.  The hills got to me so I turned around and coasted back towards town.  Young people had campfires on the beach.  A number of Harley drivers and one beautiful trike were parked by the breakwater.  Kayakers and geese were in the water.  

I was physically tired when I got back to the RV Camper but pulled my belly in and stumbled up the stairs to look the part of a conquering hero having electric assisted bicycled at most an hour. I did bicycle across Europe but that was in my 20’s and apparently bragging about things one did nearly a half century ago doesn’t count.  Laura who maintains a low bar for appreciation was impressed I actually got it off the truck and used it.

I made myself another coffee. Laura and Gilbert went for a walk.  I’ve been left alone with myself, blood having pumped in great streams to the top of my head.  I thought I’d share the pictures. I missed the first Alien landing on earth fumbling with the iPhone but I like the little white flowers budding shot.   I admitted under torture after all my toenails and fingernails were removed that I thought I was having a good time.