17 yo : Political Science, Vincent Massey Collegiate, Poison Magazine, Student Council Executive, Guess Who, YWCA Wise Eye Coffeehouse, Jim Donahue,

I think of 17 years old as Gr. 11.  I’m concerned I may be off a year with Gr. 10 ,15years old  and Gr. 11, 16 yo. It’s complicated because for me my birthday was spring but my friends was fall. I’m looking forward to finding the Yearbooks and seeing if I have some old journals that would tack down the dates.  Then of course, thanks to this little exercise I’m looking forward to next year’s Vincent Massey High School Reunion.  I can’t wait to  ask people. Who was that person?  Who was that teacher? What year was that event.

In Gr. 11, when I think I was 17 , I was still doing academics.  I left this one English class and went to another. I believe her name was Mrs. Kavanaugh.  She was an incredible whip and taught me a lot 

We had a political science teacher and I have forever remembered her telling exercise.

She showed the class excerpts from three famous documents on human rights and freedom.  They were all typed the same and looked vaguely familiar. No one recognized them.  She had the class vote on them.  We voted individually for each. The percentage of the class who embraced each of these glowing promises for the future was seriously telling.  

The excerpts were from. the Communist Das Capital, Nazism Mein Kampf and Thomas Jefferson’s Democracy,  Declaration of Independence.  The latter was the least attractive to the suburban predominantly white kids who voted instead  principally for Das Capital and Communism (International Socialism) and next Fascism Nazism (National Socialism).  Democracy simply had little appeal for children living at home with Mom and Dad paying the bills. Democracy is work, accountability and responsibility. 

The message our teacher wanted to get acrosstoo  ‘don’t believe the flowery speeches’ . She wanted us to look for substance. Look at the ‘actions’.  Year’s later we’d say if a politician’s lips were moving he was telling a lie.  Arendt’s study of Nazi Beurocracy at the trial of Eichman, the ‘banality of evil’, were later powerful learnings.  At the time I had learned and was singing  Universal Soldier by Canadian Buffy St. Marie. I was in the peace movement. I walked 50 miles for peace on a whim one day with thousand of others in the first walkathon. I thought I’d never be able to get out of the hot bath I needed after that.   

The aetheist communists would succeed in short years being the greatest killers of all time murdering hundreds of millions of .  The Nazi holocaust was well known. Yet here was Thomas Jefferson, of the American constitution, the greatest democracy to date and the response to the dictatorship of the left overs of the Roman Empire coupled with the last of the post Magna Carta, English Royal empire.  

As Canadians, like children, we lived under the wing of Daddy US and continuously criticized the US like a typical modern teens.  That lesson in realpolitik never left me.  I began to read more history and economics and biographies of political figures economic and  philosophy. As a teen a lot of information about the world comes through the back stories of novels,historical suction..  Science fiction was chalk full of advanced notions and discussion of government and utopia.

 Theatre was about playing the role of what Jung would call different archetypes.  I really did feel and appreciate the sense of power I had playing a king in a play only to then get the sense of powerlessness playing the peasant in another.  We explored our own views and feelings in the theatre and in discussions in the YMCA Leadership Group and at the church where I remained President of the Amalgamated Baptist Youth Groups.

At school I’d become friends with Karey Asseltine. In Gr. 11 Cathy and Karey were the school girls who could easily win any Penthouse or Playboy centre fold contest. Many a boy lost his faith in prayer and God because he never did get a chance to see these ladies nude. They were truly voluptuous girls who caused the greatest spontaneous erections and ejaculations  in the school. They were the first to wear mini skirts and boots. Karey had an older boyfriend who had a motorcycle. When years later Nancy Sinatra would put out her song and video These Boots were Made for Walking the image of Carey riding out of the school parking lot would come to mind.  Cathy was  just Angelina or Marilyn perfect, and aloof.  These were ladies. Sophia Lauren era perfection.  One guy expelled from class, departing would touch Cathy’s breasts. A girl today would spend years in therapy.  Cathy slapped his face.  He left and all us guys understood the desire even if we condemned the crime.  

Gr. 11 was the year half the best looking girls in one class didn’t return because they went to visit an aunt in another province. It was really common for girls to get pregnant, go away for a year, complete school, give the baby up for adoption, everyone wanting to adopt children.  Rarely would a teen age girl keep a child. None or hardly any would want an abortion.  Life was precious.

Karey was into art and poetry and paired up with me to put out a school poetry magazine.  Poison. I believe it was her idea,. I often found myself around these amazing women who seemed to like my company, God knows why, and would make these projects work.  I’d get some stuff done on my own but with someone like Karey on a project it went from mediocre to excellence.  Her father was a psychiatrist. 

She was the first one to explain Creativity and Insaniety to me.

“It’s a bell curve, Bill, with 10 as the most Creative. The idea is  to get to 10 but not beyond because the other side of 10 the numbers go down. You get more and more crazy rather than more creative.”

Years later I’d meet Crosby of Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young and James Taylor. They’d both talk about the loss of their years of heroin addiction. 

Years later I’d review Dr. Vaillant, head of Harvard Psychiatry’s book on creativity. Frankly,  Karey was more succinct.  Neuroscience has shown that having three genes of a particular type and place were most associated with schizophrenia but 2 of the genes were associated with genius.  Karey’s idea all over again..  The Canadian female doctors in the 30’s were into eugenics planning on sterilizing schizophrenics and developing a euthanasia program to remove schizophrenia. It hardly got to the discussion phase because it was noted all the great leaders of society had a batty aunt in the attic.  Hitler would tragically take the findings of the Canadian eugenics movement and use them to develop his Final Solution.  

We called our magazine , Poison. It was great. 

I ran against Carey for Student Council Publicity Representative simply to get more dances. I had a following and friends as musicians. So there was a group behind me. I was interested because I was studying politics and campaigns and marketting and wanted to ‘wow’ the school, winning the contest against Karey who simply was our greatest artist and everyone assumed would win. She was brilliant, talented and beautiful.. Mine was a selfish agenda driven plan.  I’d voted for my friend Doug in the election in which I became the President of the Baptist Youth Groups and was coming to realize that the ‘best’ person didn’t necessarily win elections.  Doug and Carey were obvious far better candidates than me.  

Yet I had fun with the campaign. I got my friends to dress in bathing suits and let me paint my name on them.  They wanted rock and roll and more art in the school. They were intellectual and radical. Because I was technically a jock I was able to get all the athletes to wear 8x10 glossy  pictures I’d printed up en mass in my dark room.  The models were a couple of the super good looking but also very bright people in the class.  Everyone wanted a picture.  I did some other ‘guerilla theatre’ campaign stuff and frankly years later I saw Kellyanne Conway as the greatest genius of campaign I’d ever followed. Having approached the subject as a win/lose proposition, not as who was best or whatever, I pulled out the stops. I felt badly because Karey was my friend. Karey meanwhile having lost graciously took the position of actually doing everything with me as the figurehead. 

It’s funny thinking back to this time.  What came of it though was that for years I’ve be able to say, “I hired the Guess Who for our high school dance.”  One of the guys in our school was a friend of the band and Blue Blue Blue was playing on the radio.  I was in charge of dances and entertainment and the publicity so had the greatest say in these matters. Wes Hazlitt was president.  We voted for the Guess Who and I’m so glad we did.  Like betting on a winning horse.

We also had Jim Donahue playing folk songs during intermission. This was a weird mix. The dance party thing coupled with the intellectual Dylan thing.

But by then I’d received a call from another amazing woman who was president of the YWCA women’s leaders group. They wanted to run a business venue, as the girls were interested in learning how to have coffee houses and sales and wanted someone who would bring in entertainment. I had this good reputation in the Y’s and the experience with coffeehouses.  Mostly I think I had this network.  I also had some idea of the right combination of entertainment. A folk singer intermission in a rock and roll dance wasn’t a great idea but Jim Donahue who’d play with Dylan, Lightfoot and Joni Mitchell, one of the icons of Winnipeg music at the time, somehow pulled it off . I believe he single handedly introduced Winnipeg to Bob Dylan and Leonard Cohen despite being Irish with the haunting Irish voice more like Bono than Dylan by a long shot.  He’d play lots of nights at the YWCA coffeehouse.

I agreed to MC and bring in the entertainment. 3 sets a night. The girls sold cookies and cakes and ran the business.  I told the bands and individuals what I could pay and only found out a year later the girls had managed the coffeehouse so well that they’d had thousands of dollars of profit that they invested in their YWCA charitable functions. I was this accessory to this powerful women’s group who were all business and truly loved the coffeehouse. Mainly because I was bringing in famous locals. Downchild Blues Band was one of many. I even convinced Danny Donahue to play as a single act. He had this really popular band and had never played solo. Well he was an incredible success and those early songs he did went on to form the basis of his truly original and brilliant ‘Long Distance Runner’ album. My friend John Cowtan would play Elusive Butterfly there. A black and white guy did covers of Simon and Garfunkel sounding better than the originals. My ‘formula’ was not talking during the half hour set and a half hour of talking and such buying coffee herb tea etc in the half hour between sets. I had a list of a hundred people who wanted to play and would try to organize a good mix of sets. The red haired beauty with the haunting Lorena McKinnitt voice could definitely have got a job as a Siren. I just loved music and the talent that came out.  

My friend Kirk loved the Wise Eye and my friend Nina would come out lots of nights.  I loved convincing my church friend to bring down her harp and everyone thoroughly loved that.  There were several coffee shops going on.  The Wise Eye was Sunday Night. The Winged Ox was Saturday or Friday.  I’d go to another club hear acts and invite them back to play. This was when Young was playing in the coffeehouses of Winnipeg. 

The Winnipeg Folk Festival grew out of the coffee house scene. The Coffee House Scene mostly worked because the liquor age was 21. That meant that our audience was a mix of 16 to 25 year olds generally, the youngest group wanting to hang out with the older guys and the oldest guys being really into music and not into booze and the middle guys unable to get into the pub. It also meant we had the pick of the best 16 to 21 year old groups in the city.  

I loved the Wise Eye. I loved especiallya night I had for Jim Donahue in which he told stories and played guitar and sang all these songs which weren’t on the radio. He was travelling around the country picking up tunes as people did in those days. Older, he knew everyone.  That night with the candles and the girls herb tea and his mesmerizing music with it’s tales of love, politics and war, I felt like the ancient villagers of Ireland  felt when the troubador and story teller came to town. Jim was of that Irish tradition.  Part leprechaun, A true minstrel.  

I was playing chords on my untuned guitar and reciting poetry there and in other coffeehouses. It was very Beat, the only guy talking and playing bad guitar.  I didn’t think I could sing. I was right but ego got the better of me and I’d eventually start to sing in coffeehouses. I loved to sing Leonard Cohen songs because I didn’t think he could sing and Dylan songs because I didn’t think he would sing .  I avoided Gordon Lightfoot and the Beatles material because those guys really could sing.

Years later I’d hear a funny story about Dylan. Woody Guthrie’s wife would tell about this kid befriending Arlo and liken to listen to Woody imitating his voice and songs.  She was concerned and talked to Woody who said, never mind, he’s Arlo’s friend. But the thing was Woody had Parkinson’s then and his wife said “He used to sing like Frank Sinatra, he had such a fine voice but when Dylan was around he could hardly sing anymore his throat was so ruined by the disease. “ So there was Dylan imitating Woody with a diseased throat and me imitating Dylan.  My singing soundedly that. 

I’d one day years later,  in Stanley Park Vancouver, come across Arlo Guthrie and Pete Seegers sitting alone playing guitar and chatting. I recognized them immediately and asked if they’d mind if I sat and listened.  They said, ‘no join in.” And I’d sit for a couple of hours listening to them exchanging songs and practicing for a concert they had that evening. By the time they had to go there was about a hundred of us sitting there but I’d been there from the start. I had one of the truly mystical experiences watching great professionals and old friends sharing.  It only happened because everyone like me just sat and listened.  It was magical.  

That’s what Wise Eye was like.  It was about the music and the space.  Lots of laughter and good fun.  

It was all before drugs and alcohol.  Indeed when they lowered the drinking age everything changed and the coffeehouse scene died as kids instead went to the bar where they got shit faced and legless.  I know, because that’s what I’d be doing in a few years even though I’d be a roadie for a group then.  The fine craftsmanship and deep thoughtfulness was invaded by another element which looking back I enjoy today though at the time I was sorry that loud replaced the skill of soft.

7 years old: drunk judge and rock stars

It was 1959. It was a good year. I was living in Winnipeg, Fort Garry, on North Drive, a block from the Badminton Club and Golf Club.  The Red River ran along the end of our back lane.  We lived next to the Anglican Church Manse.

“Your father and the priest have been working on fixing his door for months,” Mom would say the year Dad and the priest would get together in his basement every weekend and spend hours ‘jawwing’.  Dad wasn’t a religious man.  He drove mom to the Baptist Church a half hour away in Fort Rouge every Sunday. Asked, he’d say, “I”m a member of the round church, the one where the devil can’t catch me in the corners.”  Another friend of his was a Catholic priest.  

Dad was a good man and a deep man.  He expressed his love with his hands. Mom was the church woman through and through.  Prudish by contemporary standards, judgemental for sure, highly moral, and a thoroughly good lady, but she did like her gossip.  She was Irish too and held onto resentments.  Red haired, she had a fiery temper.   

Years later, looking at the black and white photos of her and my father, before the children came, it’s so apparent the love and passion literally jump off the page.  My sister in law said, “Your mother loved her husband.”  Her sister said, “Jean and Johnny were the most in love couple we knew.”  They’d all been young at the end of the war.  Later, the love and friendship, youth and industry are so apparent with Dad and his cars and work and mom, her house and garden and babies.

Our other neighbour was out of work a lot of years.I think he’d managed a car dealership and had been laid off. He’d eventually get a government job. He read books and didn’t do much more. His wife was loved by all the children and could be seen always busy. The kids were our friends but out of sync by grades.  The daughter more my brother’s age. The son younger than me. We’d all play ball together though when the kids used the adjacent front lawns on North Drive for epic football games.  The dogs were always involved in those games.  Running to and fro to catch the ball meant dodging about masses of dog shit.  “Ahhhhh” would be a great cry with laughter following when someone slipped in the shit or ball landed in it.

The neighbour next over was a pilot. He’d been in the RCAF too. Dad and he had many a back lane conversation. He hunted ducks as did Dad. The mothers didn’t get along, friendly but nothing in common.  She was more a socialite and had two beautiful daughters she dolted on.  Mom had sons. When I was older but still not older enough to date I’d love to watch the neighbour  daughters all gussied up going on a their dates.  The neighbour’s daughters were hotties by today’s standard’s. The Guess Who would come by in a large white boat like convertible with lots of shouting and laughter.  The girls would out to jump in. Only a few years before these same three beauties had been slipping in dog shit with the rest of us.  

When years later the Monkeys came on television, a show about a band with guys mostly dancing and chasing girls, I’d grown up beside that scene vicariously living it with the neighbour girls who were the favourites of rock stars.  The Guess Who were just one of the bands that came by to pick up one of the three girls in the two houses next to us. Our immediate neighbour sexiest and the most fun with the two daughters of the pilot and his wife, more aloof sophisticated and stunning.  I watched them as a pre teen and dreamed.

The next house over was the judge. He was a drunk.  He and his wife didn’t have any children we knew of.  My greatest memory of him was his driving braille home Friday nights.  A weekly binger, most likely a black out. I remember more than one Saturday morning with a shouting match between him and someone’s whose car had been mauled by his passage. Dad and the other neighbours didn’t park on the front street on Fridays. The victims were mostly visitting th Badminton Club. 

“I never hit your car!” The red nosed judge would be shouting.

The other fellow would be saying,”It’s your car’s paint on my door.”  

“You’ll have to prove that in court,” the judge would say

Other’s knew better than to argue with the judge.  He had a fiery temper. His wife was a quiet mouse like creature who smiled weakly at us kids. Mom just said, “she has a hard life.”

The one time I remember my dad afraid was when I hit the baseball through the judges window. He took me over immediately after school,  

“Now apologize Billy,”

“I’m sorry sir for breaking the window.”

“Don’t worry Judge I’ll fix it myself and be sure it’s better than new. When could I do that for you?” My father grovelled.  I felt so bad I’d done this.  Dad took the window home and fixed it that night returning it later in the evening. 

The judge never gave me back my baseball.  He didn’t say anything but nodded.  

“That will be okay John.  Make sure your son learns his lesson.”

“Yes sir.”  He said as he dragged me home holding on to the sleeve of my shirt. I’d been spanked and then grounded for a week .

I think I got my first baseball glove when I was seven. I remember feeling and smelling the leather.  My brother already had his glove. We’d toss ball back and forth endlessly. Dad would join in weekends and holidays.  He was working installing Matthew Conveyor Systems in the city.  Blue prints would often be laid out on the kitchen table with Dad cursing the architects and engineers for sending parts that didnt fit or having to jury rig an extension around a wiring column which was conveniently left out of the blue print. As kids we did’t understand what he was saying but Mom would listen patiently and say, “you’re figure it out John, you always do.”  

Years later when I’d work for my Dad as a “millwright’s helper’ I’d hear all these greats stories about how smart my Dad was. He was in charge of hundreds of men on these large projects, always in coveralls, always hands on.  My brother was disappointed he never wore a suit at work. “He could have worn a suit and he should have, “ my brother maintained. Dad dint like suits except when he went out with Mom.“He always talks with pride about his boys,” we’d hear from others but he wasn’t one to praise us directly.  As a child,I just knew him as a man who came and went during the week, was really tired in the evening, often falling asleep after dinner and only able to play with us on the weekend.  On holidays camping and fishing he was the greatest father ever.  Adventures,  Stories.Laughter. 

I think we got Sonny that year. He was a liver coloured Springer Spaniel who loved my dad 100% and hung out with me because I was part of the pack. We were best of friends.  He comforted me a lot. Always keen to go on a walk or explore new places. A constant companion when Dad wasn’t around. I’d feed him and forget so Mom mostly cared for him. He loved Mom too.  He loved us all and was one of the family.  There were so many funny stories he was apart of over the years. Dad would later repeat these tales and we’d all laugh before he got half way started.  Stealing the drunken hunters game bag and bringing us a half dozen ducks. Diving in to catch the fish before we could get it into the boat.  Stealing mom’s home made apple pie.  He was a character, his own personality. When  I cried he sat close beside me.  Whenever I was jumping up and down he was jumping up and down with me.  A great hunting dog. A great family dog.  We all cried when he died so many years later.  We loved when Dad brought him home.

The Carters lived across the street.  Keith would become a friend in the YMCA going on to be an Olympic star. He competed in gymnastics as a Canadian champion and later on the Olympic team. His sisters were beautiful and one was a friend of my brother’s.  Keith figured in a lot of tales later but I didn’t really know him till I joined the YMCA.  Though he lived a few doors down and we went to the same school, it was only in the gym we all became friends.  

Kirk lived in the house across the back lane.  I think their street was Somerset.  Lyons street headed up the road running parallel to the river. Bill Giles, son of the famous and hilarious cartoonist lived up the street, his daughter a friend of my brother’s. Bill and I would become friends years later in Vancouver.  Garth whose father was a commercial pilot lived across Lyon street one over from Kirk.

Kirk’s immediate neighbours were the ‘maiden aunts’.  We’d later learn they were probably Lesbian.  The women’s voices usuaully became a whisper when they spoke of the two who kept much to themselves.  Further along Kirk’s street was the veterinarian. I can’t be sure about this. They had Siamese cats which were so exotic and their son became a doctor ahead of me. A studious quiet boy who’d later be a dissapointment when he left clinical medicine and the university to become a bureaucrat.  I’d always thought he’d be a scientist as he’d pass our house loaded down with books, always reading and talking about science. 

The Red River was there.  It began behind the badminton courts. Our lane ended there and the trail that ran through the woods along the river began.  As boys Kirk and Garth and I roamed up and down that trail.  We’d find golf balls from the golf course. We’d throw rocks in the river. We’d watch ducks and geese go by. We’d make spears and throw those. We’d walk all the way over to Wildwood where the Private Boys School was. It was a hike for us little tykes and of course our parents didn’t know we would go that far away. We weren’t supposed to play by the river.  

Once I looked up and a bob cat was in the tree overhanging the river trail. I stared at him eye to eye. He was  not more than three feet above my face before backing away. Dad had taught us young never to turn our back on wild animals.  He hissed. I backed away.  When I got home I told my parents about the bobcat as a curiosity. Mom phoned the police. There was a search but he wasn’t found. They did find the tracks so no one thought I made up the story. Mostly in those days adults thought all stories us kids told that were unusual were probably made up.  Obviously some were. Kids have a great fantasy life. I’d see the bobcat a couple of times after that but never so close.

Alaska joined the US that year. Fidel Castro and Che Quevara entered Havana Cuba.  The Soviets recognized Cuba.  De Gaulle was inaugurated president of French Fifth Republic. Musicians Buddy Holly,  Ritchie Valens and Gyles Perry died in a plane crash, ‘the day the music died.”.

 The Canadian government cancelled the Avro Interceptor jet contract.  Miles Davis recorded Kind of Blues. The Marx Brothers appeared on television. Martel put out its first Barbie doll. The Dalia Lama escaped to India from Tibet where the barbaric Chinese Imperialists were continuing to enslave,rape and murder.  Queen Elizabeth II and President Eisenhower opened the St. Lawrence Seaway.Two monkeys were launched into space from Cape Canaveral and recovered on return.  Lewis and Mary  Leakey found the first skull of Austhrolipicus in the Oldavai Gorge of Tanzania. Explorer 6 sent the first picture of earth from space. Rod Serling’s Twilight Zone premiered on TV.  In New York the Guggenheim Museum designed by Frank Lloyd Wright opened. Luna 2 crashedon the moon. Rwanda “winds of destruction” begins. Martial law was declared in Laos.  MGM released Ben Hur with Carleton Heston. The Daytona International Speedway was completed.  Erving Goffman, sociologist, published the ‘The Presentation of the Self in Everyday Life.”  Panty hose, or sheer tights were first sold.  Steven Harper, later Canadian Prime Minister was born. Sheena Easton Scottish singer wasborn.  Hugh Laurie, British Actor and Kevin Spacey American Actor were born. Bryan Adams, Canadian rock star was born  Cecile de Mille,American Film Director died. Raymond Chandler, novelist, died. Ethel Barrymore, actress and Errol Flynn, Australian actor died.  Billie Halliday, American singer, died. 

Jim Donahue, folk singer and friend

Jim Donahue died recently. I remember first hearing him play guitar, a Gandalf like character, with the good magic of Tolkien. It was the deep muffled strum that caught my attention, so powerful and regular that it sounded like eternity’s  freight train . He played a few chords with that magnificent strum and may as well have had a symphony to accompany his deep melodious voice.
Then one night I heard him play a classical guitar piece, one of the classics,   it might have been Handel. It was so  amazing to hear that wondrously intricate heavenly sound watching adept fingers span the whole neck of the guitar. This was years before the ‘unplugged’ era.  It was the time of electric rock and roll ‘lead’ guitar rifts, the most famous being Jimmy Hendrix’s. Yet every once in a while Jim would break off from his  set of Dylan, Guthrie, Seeger type songs and throw in a ‘lead’ that would have pleased the Edge.
He was so inspired.  Mystical and spiritual.  A modern day Hurdy Gurdy man.  He was also a guildsman musician, an old master of his craft, his instrument and voice.  He was a true artist who’d be at home with the Travelling Wilburys, Yehudi Menuhin and Ravi Shankar. There was a humility about him too. And wisdom. He’d tell stories between songs, Zen, Socratic, Apostolic.
I had helped organize the YWCA “Wise Eye Coffeehouse” at the time.  The going rate for a  singer was $10 a set and the best like Jim , the real draw for a night, might get as much as a $100.  I doubt Neil Young who was playing the same circuit at that time got more.  The coffee houses didn’t serve booze.   Booze was where the owners made their money to pay the talent better. I MC’d the coffeehouse and hired the sets mixing and matching entertainment. Like the night Downchild Blues and Jim played together and the building rocked.
Around the same time I was on Vincent Massey’s High School Student Council with Wes Hazlitt. Carey Asselstine and I were in charge of publicity and entertainment.   We hired the Guess Who that year for our high school dance for $500, a tad before Burton Cummings and Randy Bachman made their millions.
Jim had been in Toronto in the late 60’s. His name was on coffeehouse billboards, in varying orders with Joni Mitchell and Gordon Lightfoot.  I asked him once why he’d not made the big record deal contracts.  I knew he’d had the offers.  “The record companies are just business.” He told me.  “It’s all about the money. They didn’t want the musician as much as they wanted his soul. ”  
Jim was a free spirit.  Creative and unfettered. He really would rather be poor as he often was than be contained in some gilded cage or limosine. Not that he wasn’t occasionally caught like the elusive butterfly he was. More than once a truly lovely young lady captured his heart and brought him in from the wild, befriending and mothering him till the inevitable day he left to follow his muse.    He spoke so gently of his mother and his loving creative sister was his very good friend.
I laughed later when his brilliant younger musician brother, Dan Donahue, after making his own perfect record ‘Long Distance Runner” stopped selling his soul to the company store. Instead he began to produce with a sense of what Abbey Road Studio and George Martin did for the Beatles. I loved his contribution to the incredible Bruce Coburn. The Donahues celebrated originality rather than the ‘as like’ factory approach that Joni Mitchell called ‘stoking the fan making machinery behind the popular song.’
Music in that day was about ‘raising consciousness’ ,”finding meaning”, ‘knowing”. The Vietnam War was threatening to become WWIII.  There was an intensity in art.  Visual art had dominated the world in an earlier age with Picasso, Dali and Munch  but this was the era of music with Jim Donahue a regular monk of the day.  So often he’d close a set with the Quaker song, “May the Long Time Sunshine Always Surround you and the Pure Light within you guide your way home.”
We didn’t have contemporary sheet music in the early days and songs were passed along word of mouth or someone would listen to the radio and try to write out the lyrics each time a song was played. Without Jim Donahue I expect it would have been years before Winnipeggers heard the likes of Leonard Cohen’s Bird on a Wire  or Dylan’s “All Along the Watch Tower’.  The kids call it ‘playing covers’ today. But Jim was a wandering minstrel of the day literally introducing us to songs and musicians and ideas that simply weren’t mainstream.  He was so much ahead of his times.
He stayed with me for months one year. It was a particularly tough time in his life and mine.  He’d put aside alcohol after a betrayal and  binge. He was smoking marijuana instead. I’d been injured in a major accident and separated. Late into the night we’d talk philosophy, politics and theology with our visiting genius Jewish friend. I had an East Indian Harmonium.  There was a blizzard raging outside in the Winnipeg winter while Jim like George Harrison filled the space with chants from every tradition.
It was years later we’d meet up again in Vancouver. We’d go for lunch and talk about the ‘times’ mostly.  I loved to hear his tales, He really was a Seanchai, that traditional Gaelic storyteller/historian whose insights are so deeply intuitive.
I will miss him as so many tens of thousands will.  Before Facebook and Instagram and social media he was the “unplugged”  man who had a million hits.

Canada Day

I’ve grown up singing O’Canada. I’ve been proud to sing God Saves the Queen too.  My dad was RCAF. I was proud he served his country. I’ve been a doctor and as a Canadian served in the north. When I sum up my career I simply say, “I worked in the areas of greatest need.”  Others did too.  Canadians aren’t individual grand standers. Hockey is our game because we believe in the team. There’s hierarchy but also individuality.
Wilderness is important to me. It’s part of what is Canadian.  We have ocean and acts of heroism by adventurers, fisherman and navy on either shore. We have the north.  Then there’s the south.  The Americans don’t like to remember it. I doubt it’s in their history books. But Canadians love to remember when we ‘whooped american ass.’  We pushed them back when they tried to invade. Now we love them as our neighbours. We were a Christian country and the majority still is. Love your enemy is something we take seriously. We work with those who try to hurt us.  We believe more in reformation than revenge. Of course we’ve had Britain and now the US doing the heavy lifting. But we’ve served too.  We are Canadians.
There are fireworks in the distance.  l like that so many participate in this day. I’m reading Colonel Hadfield’s book right now. He’s Canadian. So are Bare Naked Ladies.  We’ve got Leonard Cohen, Joni Mitchell and Margaret Lawrence.  We’ve even got Captain Kirk.  There’s Emily Carr and the Group of Seven, Glen Gould and Steppenwolf.  So many Canadians are the stuff of the Guess Who and the best of the culture and science and ideas of CBC.  We’re a railway from sea to sea.  We’re a great nation. We’re all about us and we care for the world. We’re green and we have water and energy and ideas. We share and we profit. We’ve taken immigrants and refugees.  We’ve done more for our aboriginals than any people in the world has done for theirs.  We learn together.  We are better each day.
I woke this morning. I slept in late.  I had two cups of coffee on a deck chair, throwing a ball for my cockapoo while reading Jackie Pullingers’ Chasing the Dragon.  Much to my surprise I got showered and shaved and onto my Harley motorcycle.  Gilbert rode in his little box behind me. We played Steppenwolf’s ‘Born to be Free” loud.  I drove us to the boatyard where my sailboat GIRI is up on the hard. The sun was hot and the sky was a beautiful blue.  Not too many clouds at that time.  Later they were a tapestry. I drilled holes in the steel of the zinc straps and mounted these last two to the steel hull.
Then Gilbert and I drove over to the docks where my fast hard bottomed zodiac with 20 hp outboard is chained.  We took her out for a spin.  It was hard getting up on the plane.  I beached her and cleaned barnacles that had attached to the sides since last I had her out only a few weeks back. Major growth in spring.  Gilbert kibitzed ashore with a poodle while I, in the ocean, used a paddle to scrape away the barnacles.  I’ll use a bottom paint on my dinghy when I take her out next.  Gilbert, with his lifejacket on, joined me, reluctantly, when I called him away from play.  Back in the boat, I pushed off the shore, started the engine, then gunned her onto the plane. Much better.
We drove out to English Bay. The water was rough. It was already 5 pm. I’d thought of anchoring off Spanish Banks and going for a swim but instead buzzed by George’s pink palace to take a picture and text it to him.  Then I drove back along the north shore seawall enjoying seeing all the people out on the beach. Lots of boats out in English Bay too. Fishing boats, sailboats, pleasure craft. Others just like me going for a spin.
I used up a tank of gas and had to refuel out in Coal Harbour off Lonsdale Quay.  Then back at the dock I unloaded Gilbert and tied up the boat.
Back home I had BC Wild salmon and watched Robocop.  What a great day.  Canada Day.  Deck chair, boat work, a ride on the motorcycle and a spin on the water. Blue sky and sunshine.  Out with my friend Gilbert. I wouldn’t want to be anything but Canadian and I wouldn’t want to be anywhere but here.  The day had started too with a picture of Eva, Gilbert’s girlfriend, my nephew Allan’s cockapoo.  My nephew Graeme, had taken her picture with a Canada Day scarf and sent it to me.
 

Motorcycling Spokane to Bute, Montana

I got in at 11 pm and had to get up at 2 am to catch a taxi at 3 to be at the airport for 4 am to depart to Seattle at 6 am.  It was a short stop over in Seattle. I arrived in Spokane where Mr. Lawless was waiting with his taxi. Great morning drive to Lone Wolf Harley Davidson Dealers. The guys there had solved my ABS brake problem finding the old code to set it right.  By 10:30 am I was on the highway.  Terrific service.
I brought more tunes.  This time I had all the iPod music but in addition I'd collected a bunch of cd's from home.  Barrelling along the highway at 70 mph is made even better with just the right cruising music.  Steve Bell was still a hit with me after I found out how I enjoyed his music riding into Spokane. This time I also played Third Day, my favourite Christian Rock band, Steppenwolf of course, with the Born to be Wild Theme song.  I loved hearing them at Sturges North.  I listened to Guess Who as well this stretch. Some of the time I turn off the stereo or listen to the FM or AM radio when I'm near a town.
The ride from Spokane was first through Idaho hills where the pine smells were so rich. There'd been fog and chill in Seatle so I was glad to be in the heat and sun that started in Spokane. It got really dry when I got a little ways into Montana.  By Missoula it was grass plains.  Real cattle country.
I passed Blackfoot and Little Blackfoot Rivers. The rest areas had great history plaques about the engineering that went into the building of the first major roads in the mid 1800's.  Lots of Silver in the hills.  I got to an elevation near 5000 feet at one point before getting on to Montana plains and rolling hills. I could see the cowboys and Indians riding through these valleys for sure. Enjoyed seeing paint horses and remembering the great western novels about Paint Horses.
I stripped at the last rest stop and climbed into the river. It wasn't deep enough to swim but I could lie on my belly and back and get a thorough cooling dunking. It was especially refreshing on my face and head.  I'd been watching all these people along swimming in this river's swimming holes  and was finally able to join in.  Reminded me of swimming in the prairies as a kid.
I stopped at Missoula Grizzly Harley Davidson.
I had to nap at one rest area, my eyes were so gritty. Then when I pulled into Bute I met Guy outside the Alano Club.  I left my bike there and he drove me up to an outdoor grill where I had the best new yorker steak .  I'd not eaten all day and had been seeing a lot of Black Angus cattle that were whetting my appetite. I just loved that steak.  Then we were at a meeting and everyone was so friendly. Thanks to Guy I found this Best Western.

He's a Harley Rider, was helping at the Evil Kneevil Show last week in Bute. I saw the posters still up as I came into town. He'd been at the Association of Injured Motorcyclists.  A real caring and loving guy who does a lot of service helping with the church and disabled people.  Plays a Marten too.  Couldn't get over the books we'd read in common.  He'd not read Spirituality of Imperfection so I was pleased to turn him on to that. We'd both enjoyed Proof of Heaven by Eben Alexander. I was reading that still on the plane to Spokane.  What an incredible story.
Now I'm just 'rendering' the Gopro movie I made wearing the thing on my helmut for a bit before Missoula.  Now I'm at the Butte Plaza Inn Best Western and knowing I'm going to enjoy a good night sleep. I washed my underwear and socks and hung them up.  I'll actually get a breakfast in the morning.  Must remember to wake. I'm planning on driving to Livingston on the I90 then turning right to head south through Yellowstone. I have a desire to see a geyser again. I've gone through Yellowstone several times but it's always been sensational.  Though I remember the traffic was tediously slow.  I loved seeing the wildlife.