16 years old: Dad, Camp Stevens, poetry, guitar. 12 inches

16 years old was a very big year.  The line between 15 and 16 years old blurs because Camp Stevens fell between Gr. 8 and 9 or Gr. 9 and 10.  These times blur.  Somewhere later in storage I might find the reminders that would tighten the date line up.  I kept a journal all these years.  The trouble was that with one of my divorces the ex destroyed years of writing and disrupted my whole organizational system. She was high on spite and cocaine and at the time didn’t consider husbands as higher than slugs. I was escaping with my life from years of chaos, passive aggressiveness, covert aggression, drugs, negligence and arrogance.  I’d met my match and I was lucky to get out alive. My friends believed she really was trying to kill me and more than once had almost killed us and others with her.  Crazy lady.  I married her and I loved her for what it was better or worse. But I wasn’t going to an early death with her and her drugs and lies.  I surrendered. It got too crazy even for me. And I’d been arrogant to think I could help her and that love conquered all. Well it didn’t.    

  I began writing this in part because I’m planning on tackling the storage locker and going through these old journals and some of the files I’ve kept for years.  Starting at 12 I’d produce a couple of binders of hand written journals or poetry and even some scrapbooks.  It’s sad so much was destroyed. Like ISIS wiping out the temples of the Zoroastrian, Christians, and Jews.  My personal shrines destroyed. There will be no other religion but one.  A divorce is like a war. There’s a lot of scorched earth.  Both people come away scarred but little do we remember the wounds we inflicted. But boy or boy do we dwell on the wounds we received.  I’m still working on forgiveness.

My first big work  began with Camp Stevens.  I took a paying job there for 6 weeks or more.  It’s a camp job. For people who have never worked in ‘camps’ in the north they usually don’t have a clue as to what this is.  I’d get my first experience and later admire the men and women who went off to the out of the way places, mostly in the north and work while the sun shined where the work was.

I’d been working for my Dad now for a couple of years. Before that I cut lawns. Tried a paper route one yard. Always worked in addition to school and everything else. Dadhelped me get my millwright helper ticket. I’d begin to work on job sites with him. That’s when I really appreciated how others saw him.  He was really smart and a hard worker and problem solver. My brother was annoyed that he didn’t wear a suit. He always wore work clothes and got his hands dirty.  My brother felt that he didn’t show his status and consequently wasn’t respected as much as he should have been. He was high status but did portray this. He didn’t even have his engineering diploma displayed on the wall.  That was my dad, a humble man. A shirt and tie didn’t make the man for me.  What I saw working with Dad was that all the men followed his direction and sought his advice.  He was given the authority over hundreds of men and managed it. That’s no small feat. Business owners and employees all admired him.  I didn’t know that till I worked on big job sites with him. The men all spoke highly of him too.  Sure took the wind out of this adolescents sails, considering I by contrast was a ‘know it all’ as teens can be. 

I’d only work on weekends or in the summer or evenings like this. Dad would get these industrial painting contracts or roofing contracts and we’d work as a family evenings in the spring summer and fall getting the work done. My brother was a worker too. I was spoiled as a kid working with these great men. It was rare for me the rest of my life to be surrounded by people set on working their best with a view to completing the task its best as quickly as excellence permitted.  Being an owner operator Dad took pride in his work knowing that would bring in contracts word of mouth.  As his sons he’d trained us since childhood to meet challenges and to be conscientious.  We had fun too.  Working as a family doing physical construction type work is rewarding.  Later he’d leave me to do jobs like painting the apartment building. If I needed money he’d find work for me.  I think people and governments that give out money for free are doing a disservice to people and really don’t respect them. I’m personally not as wise or accomplished as my brother or father with money. I give out charity but I think often it’s from a place of fear.  Dad loved me and showed his love by finding me work that paid. My brother carried that on with his children.  

Camp Stevens was my first actual ‘longer term job’.   6 weeks away from home working and living in the camp.  As a “cookie” , the job title for camp kitchen help,we were in a nebulous position in the camp. We bunked with the camp leaders but we were actual employees.  

The camp cook was a crazy lady.  An emotional angry efficient Nazi of a leader. She was loveable too in that blustery middle aged lost way some women are.  She took no ‘guff’.  She was a worker and she got the job done. We were her slaves and we did as we were told. There were three of us ‘cookies’ , an assistant cook and a cook That was the kitchen. We were up at 5. We had to get the breakfast made for 150 kids.  The cook had an elaborate healthy menu with scrambled eggs, pan cakes and hash browns, bacon and toast and jam for breakfast.  Sandwiches and salads or soups for lunch. Then dinners were a variety of roasts and stews and soups.  She really had a good taste sense and made great meals which the kids and staff enjoyed. There were recipes that had developed over the many years of the camp. I thought they were hers but no they were just one thing more the YMCA ensured worked well with excellence.  The YMCA was and is an amazing organization of excellence and yet modest cost. Camp Stevens was and remains one of the great camps for boys.  I don’t know if girls are going there now.  YWCA at the time had another camp on the other side of the same lake.  I found this out because the leaders had a panty raid with a retaliation by the girl leaders stealing the guys underwear another night.

Because we bunked with the leaders who were mostly there for fun and a small honarium we had a lot of the experience of the camp albeit as the ‘hired help’.

The one other woman in the camp was the gorgeous nurse.  I believe that nurse at Camp Stevens caused me forever to love nurses. She was the source of all the erotic fantasies of all the boys of Camp Stevens for years to come.  I was especially traumatized by her godliness because as camp help we got to share her shower on occasion. She had the only hot shower.  “Her’ shower smelt heavenly, lilac and other sweet feminine fragrances.  Each of us talked about being in there after our shower.  Guys masturbated in the bunks trying to be discrete.  Some less so than others.  There wasn’t any porn so memory sufficed. The nurse really was gorgeous. We’d imagine her naked there washing off with any of the vast collection of shampoos and lotions she kept.  She dated a couple of the older leaders that summer. She wore white short shorts and mini skirts. 

Once  we made the breakfast we had to do the clean up. I found out I loved working a dish washing machine. I liked spraying off the left over food stacking and then getting that soul gratification of closing the door locking the mechanism and pushing the button to begin the cycle. Then it was the unstacking and storing. I competed against myself and got incredibly fast. It was a ‘skill’ and I liked acquiring ‘skills’ and having ‘competence’ with them. This was an important part of the ethics of Boy Scouts , the YMCA and frankly ‘manliness’ of the day.   Competence was such an important word.  It was the height of praise to be called ‘competent’.  I would become ‘competent’ in a lot of things over my life arriving at that point where I could accomplish a task well, reliably and on my own.  I really miss ‘competence’ when I see it lacking.  It’s not perfection but a level of ‘good enough’, a kind of B or A standard, not A plus but certainly more than C. It was the basis of professionalism in earlier days.  

The afternoon was peeling potatoes.  We had potatoes for breakfast and evening many days a week so had to peel hundreds of potatoes, hundreds. We’d shuck pees too and peel carrots. Hours of this.  One of the cookies wasn’t  very good. A funny guy. Not fast and not very competent.  Still two hands is better than one.  The other cookie who’d been there the year before was great. We’d become friends too. We all hung out together but this other guy and I had more in common. We both had hunting and fishing back grounds whereas the whining kid was purely city spawn.  He was all tv , hollywood and talk.  Not very competent.

Jon Cowtan was the assistant camp cook. Jon would become my lasting friend and sometime mentor.  He was president of the North American Unitarian Youth Groups at the time.  A year or two later I’d storm out of my parents home and move in with him. He played guitar. We became fast friends at Camp Stevens talking ethics and philosophy and religion.  We both canoed evenings when we had a little free time.  We’d be canoeing on the moon lit lake just enjoying the call the loon or the hoot of the owl. Often I’d paddle at the back and Jon would bring his guitar and play. He was into jazz and fingering styles ahead of his time.  He’d sing too at other times  but playing guitar was his passion.

He taught me my early chords. The first song I learned was “Draft Dodger Rag”We’d talk politics and war. I can’t explain how much we all feared that the Vietnam War would expand into a global conflict. As guys we discussed volunteering to ‘fight commies’.  We worried we’d be conscripted if the Russians got in. We met draft dodgers.  They talked a lot. They were usually stoned.  The soldiers didn’t talk. They often had the thousand mile stare.

It was good to talk with Jon. He was a little older and a whole lot wiser.  He’d traveled more too. Met more people. The unitarians were an intellectual lot and had a breadth of consideration.  We didn’t argue.  I didn’t argue religion.  I was curious and interested and learned a lot in my teens and twenties. The only time I’d argue with someone was when I saw they weren’t sure so were trying to get certainty by selling their idea to me.  I thought the best ideas were free so that complicated things. Freedom was a big word then. 

‘What’s that I hear....that’s the sound of freedom coming’ was another song I learned from Jon.  The best one though was “Elusive Butterfly”. Jon played that song beautifully and I’d spend years trying to play it right.

To put this playing guitar and skill thing in perspective. My friend Kirk who played guitar a bit like me told me in his 30’s, ‘you know that rift Danny used to play.’  I finally figured it out and got it down last weekend. I knew because I’d been practicing that same ‘distinctive Donahue rift’ for a decade or more myself and it had taken me just as long to get it. 

Some guys were really talented, natural and obsessed with an instrument. Jon and Danny were like that. Regular George Harrison and Paul Simon types. 

So that was the summer I was peeling potatoes and learning guitar, making friends.

The cook had a nervous breakdown and maybe alcohol was a contributor. I can’t say. Just one day she was shouting then the next she was packing her bags. Jon became the cook then and I became the asssitant cook until we got a replacement.

The camp ran in two week stretches .150 boys at a time. We’d get a day off between the groups leaving and coming. That was the big day in Kenora. Kenora was one of those big towns for folk out on a camp. When you’re weeks in the woods whatever town that’s nearby takes on aspects of a city. It’s got that ‘feel’. It also takes time eventually to adjust back into the noise and rush of bigger cities.  Working years up north I remember first having this experience in Kenora.  

Camp Stevens was a great summer job even if the money was very poor. The experience and friendship were incredible. Just meeting Jon was worth the trip.  Beginning to play guitars and more poetry writing.  Politics, romance, religion and God.  Lots of Christian men and Christian creations but no one talked of Jesus.  We lived like the disciples in many ways and our discussions were becoming more and more high minded despite the occasional lapse into full blown adolescence.

That came when one of the guys said he had the longest dick and bet everyone he did.  These memories are too bizarre to make up. Everyone has $5 dollars riding on the outcome and we’re sitting around the hall on chairs with our backs to the wall. 20 guys all waiting, money in hand, backs to the wall. One guy has a tape measure. This guy then pulled out his pencil thin boa constrictor.It was long, not huge, but really long. More than 12 inches.  It was measured. Not even hard.  No one wanted that thing hard.  No one brought out a competitor.  He collected the the money. We had a feeling he’d collected winnings with that thing before. We had to share a bunkhouse with him so that was a source of jokes too.  It didn’t win him friends. It was a circus thing. He was a bit of a freak now. Already a peculiar kid so he was more a loner.  In time we all forgot he was different.  Differences lapsed for boys really quick when we’re working and playing sports together.  That week we all lost money we thought about this guy as weird but after that he just became another weird kid. Like the guy who could go cross eyed or rather went cross eyed and had to consciously keep his eyes uncrossed. Nobody was ever as weird as the Cub Scout who put ketchup on his corn flakes years earlier.

13 years old: hormones, masturbation, ice floes and church camp

13 years old went on forever. We still lived in Fort Gary.  I still went to Viscount Alexander School.  We were no longer in Viscount Alexander Elementary School but now in the Viscount Alexander Junior High School. The former was a bungalow building whereas the latter was two stories.

As a family we continued to go to Trinity Baptist Church in Fort Rouge. I was a member of the church youth group.  I rode my bicycle, the big one, no gears that I remember.  Gears came much later.  Things were basic when I was growing up. Legs were gears. 

Sonny the dog still lived.  Dad and Mom still slipped him treats under the table but still said ‘don’t feed the dog at the table’.

In the summer I swam at the Fort Garry Pool where I took Red Cross life guarding courses. I remember mixed feelings about doing mouth to mouth even if my partner was a pretty girl in a red one piece. I continued in the YMCA Gymnastics Team and Leader’s Corp in the winter.  I wrote poetry.  I played a little guitar.  I didn’t keep it tuned.  I was off key so why should the guitar be different.  We played volleyball on the school team.  

Kirk masturbated first. He told Garth and I about it. He’d asked us about nocturnal emissions and we’d said no and stared st him weird. Then a few weeks later he said he’d figured out how to do it. Really. Amazing. After that  I tried. Nothing happened.  Months would go by ,probably just weeks, which didn’t make sense because Kirk was younger. But his black hair that started in his legs travelled up his body.  Garth and I were jealous. Garth reported next that he’d had one it. Kirk had his brother’s Playboy  stash while Garth and I only had the Sears Catalogue. Eventually all three of us had masturbated. 

So one day the three of us in different rooms in Garth’s house when his parents were out,  had a ‘beat off’ competition.  Each took a Playboy Kirk had stolen (‘borrowed’) from his brother’s under the bed hiding place.I don’t know who won. It was all an honor system. It just seemed before  we started one shouted  ‘Finished!”’ . We’re kids.. This is micro and nano second era. Premature ejaculation might not be in our vocabulary but it was de rigour.

Whoever finished first left the remaining two of us in fits of laughter. That’s how that competition ended. One of us won hands down. Kirk returned the magazines to his brothers hiding place.  We never had a beat off again. Probably because we figured no one could beat the winner. The irony is that from that occasion forward the objective became to slow down.  We certainly didn’t discuss this with adults or anyone else. We only talked about it at first.  That stopped when we actually began to think about girls as girls. Then  extreme privacy became the code. As a Christian I think I had more concerns than others.  But I was also the first one with a girlfriend which didn’t help that matter at all. This was before the age of sexual promiscuity and kissing was all junior highs did unless you actually ‘copped a feel’.  I had every intention of marrying my first girlfriend too. The girls were very proper (until high school).  But kissing and petting and dancing were all happening in junior high school.  

At my age today I say that my ‘automatic’ is broken and I’m reduced to a ‘pull start’.  When we were 13 spontaneous erections were  an issue.  Farts and erections. Both very embarrassing.  The complicating factor was tight jeans.  We’d have to stand up but could be literally  trapped in our seats because of the jeans and the erections wouldn’t let us stand up.  The horror of horrors would have been to get an erection at the Y. The pool was probably kept cold for a reason.  The joke was, we could get an erection doing math. I never knew when it would come on or what would trigger it. Suddenly I had this  this independent appendage literally with a mind of it’s own.  I wasn’t the only boy squirming around in chemistry class trying to get ‘adjusted’ and hoping things would go away.  There’s a lot of truth to the notion that men have two heads and only one blood supply. But when you’re 13 and in class it’s just embarrassing. Probably blushing helped to alter the blood flow.   

Meanwhile the girls then were periodically running out of class leaving blood on the seats with teachers trying to clean up discretely with Kleenex. Adolescence is a steep learning clothes. And it’s all done with sits and voice changes.

I remember when there were a few of us guys out one night and we ran into Arlene and her girlfriends. A guy asked Arlene jokingly , ‘would you have sex with me.”  Quick as a whip and famous for her comebacks she answered, “I’ll only have sex with a guy who brings me a cup of sperm.  I want to have babies so I need to know he can produce.”

Well, we were shot down.  Really.   A whole cup. It was like she said she would do it but how as anyone going to come up with a cup of sperm. For guys it became a logistics problem. Everyone wanted to it with Arlene. She was gorgeous. We were all afraid of her Dad though. He seemed like a really scarey guy with a beautiful daughter. He scowled at us boys whenever we came by.

So There’s a group of us guys asking each other if anybody thought they could produce a ‘cup’.  No one could. Then we’re discussing if we could store it in the refidgerator without of mothers finding it. We must have struggled with that problem for weeks to something else took over our brains. We all felt we just weren’t up to Arlene’s standards.  It was years later I thought about this again when I read the words of the song Scarborough Fair. Girls have been teasing guys in similiar ways for hundreds of years. Arlene’s challenge was just a modern version.  

“Are you going to Scarborough Fair?

Parsley Sage Rosemary and Thyme

Remember me to one who lives there

He once was a true love of mine.

Tell him to make me a Cambric shirt 

Parsley Sage Rosemary and Thyme

Without no seam nor fine needle work

Then he’ll be a true love of mine.

Tell him to bring me a cup of sperm

The girls were wearing bras in gr 7 whether they needed to or not. Gr 7 was simply all about hormones.  Voice changes, acne, growing up, new clothing, gossip.  Everything was different.  

I was elected class president and began school politics.  I was on the student council in Viscount Alexander and later in high school..  Wes Hazlitt and I became friends as a result of this overlap in interests. He’d go on to be school president, a truly great guy.  I’d end up President of the Amalgamated Baptist Youth Groups of Winnipeg but that would come later. It just began in Viscount Alexander with going for meetings at lunch with one of teachers and  sometimes the principal. We discussed the most mundane matters.  It was an exercise and only in later years would it hold more meaning and pay off. Learning Robert’s Rules of Order and how to conduct meetings became a plus. Being on the executive in high school was something else. Later I’d even be the Winnipeg Representative to Youth Parliament in Ottawa. It all began in Viscount Alexander with Wes Hazlitt. I wanted to have a sock hop where my friend Dan Donahue who had a band could play for the school. We eventually got the sock hop and Dan and his band played but that was a couple of years later. 

I miss the little girl with pig tails who cleaned the hamster cage. She was really pretty but we all were surprised at how she’d muck about in hamster shit and seem not to be bothered by all that. The pretty and popular girls shunned her. As guys we like to muck about with shit but she was a girl ahead of her time with a passion for biology. Sitting behind her in class one day I made like I was putting one of her pig tails in my ink well. I didn’t have ink in the ink well. She just thought I did. She just jumped up, turned around and punched me. Not slapped but punched.  Amazing girl. Naturally she got detention.  I acted innoscent but I never forgot her. She wanted me to dance with her one time and I didn’t get the hint so she stomped on my toe once and walked off.  I’ve often thought of her as the one that got away and wondered what became of her. She was brilliant and totally different.

Meanwhile Laurel a taller girl was the first to actually develop breasts. The girls were wearing bras I later learned were called trainers and thought they helped “boobs” grow. But you could see that Laurel had shape because she wore these white blouses when she stood in front of the windows with light shining through she was mesmerizing. I just stared and thought of heaven. Other guys handle hormones differently. I remover a couple of guys couldn’t deal with the tension so showed their affection by snapping her bra strap. She slapped a couple of guys silly and that stopped. This was before MRI’s so the guys weren’t taken to emergency but went straight to the principals office where he strapped them even sillier before sending them home to their parents. This was still the age of chivalry and girls were expected to be treated like ladies. 

Meanwhile I fell in love with Kathy but I don’t think she became my girl friend till gr. 8.  

The Baptist Church camp came before Kathy.  Lots happening at age 13.  Music suddenly became very important along with dancing. Everything continued but somehow it was all no longer in black and white but in technicolor passion. I was having intense moods. I remember I was totally torn up about some Mrs Browns daughter fromEngland and went about singing all the words of the song. Before I had a girlfriend I’d broken up wit everyone on the radio.  I was reading books from the school library, every poetry book we had, studying the Bible and philosophy and still reading science fiction.

Keith Carter had memorized all the Bill Cosby ‘s Baby Coach Wheels and Monsters under the bed.  He’d tell the story and we’d laugh till we cried.  “Hey , come see my kid, he set the house on fire because he thought there were snakes under his bed.”  

Dead baby jokes were all the rage too.  Fart jokes. “ Beans ,beans , the musical fruit , the more you eat the more you toot!”  At campfire we’d tell gruesome horror stories.  

Snuggies were in then too. . Guys running around trying to lift each other up by the ‘gotch’ (underwear). That stopped when one of the slower guys did it to a girl and came up with a hand half her nylon panties. Somebody should have explained to him that you had to stick to Stanfields. Canadian made Stanfields were tested for standing up to snuggies. They had some lab where they did tensile tests. Stanfields had to withstand snuggies and fats. Panties were never in the league of Stanfields. 

I was shooting at the gun range getting marksman awards then too. Hunting and fishing with Dad and Ron and Mom continued.  I began shooting grouse with my 22 rifle when I was 13.  I still wasn’t big enough to handle the 12 gauge. My father and brother let me take a shot with big Remington pump action. The recoil put me 10 feet back on my ass in the wet marsh. We all laughed. Nothing like a practical experiment to show I wasn’t ready for a shot gun. My brother had his own by then.   The dog sure loved duck hunting though. My dad and brother shot  atthe ducks. Seeing one fall out of the sky was rare but extraordinary.  Sonny the springer spaniel hunting dog just flew through the air into the freezing water right to where they fell catching them in his mouth and retrieving  them .After the early morning hunt we go looking for prairie chickens in the grain fields.  That’s when I’d get to use the 22. Mostly we shot prairie chicken, in the woods we might shoot a grouse. Sometimes we’d shoot a rabbit.  Dad had his old truck and we’d drive across the fields to park. Then we’d hike for hours along the edge of the field sometimes even getting some ducks that were eating the grain. Then we’d sit down and eat the sandwiches Mom had packed for us and drink the sweetened tea she’d made for the thermos. These were greatest fall days.

The fall suppers were incredible too. Great harvest feasts we’d go to. They were held in the town’s around the cities, the farmers and their wives would make these unbelievable smorgasboard dinners, the turkey and the mashed potatoes with gray were the best. Then there’d be Apple and pumpkin pie and vanilla ice cream. We’d seconds too. Great harvest moons would be shining outside abode in the star studded sky. The city lights obscured the stars but once you were on the outskirts the whole Milky Way was ablaze in the sky. The moon was so bright and big you felt you could touch it. The sound of Canada geese flying south could sometimes be heard with hawks hooting as they hunted field mice in the night. A soft which was the sound of a bat flying by close.

Spring break up was the exact opposite. We’d be worrying about flooding and even get school days off to join in the sand bagging the red river.  Kirk and I would raft about on ice flows in the golf course. We almost got carried out into the Red River by the current. That was the same day we saved a couple of other guys from passing out of the park eddies to the fast flowing river.

That night there was a picture of a couple of guys our age on the cover of the Free Press. I remember Mom and Dad asking me if Kirk and I ever got out on the ice floes. They asked about the river ice floes so I said in all honesty, “No, never”. We just rode the ice floes in the golf course. It flooded each year to the 8 foot dike, 

In the  winter the snow would be so deep we couldn’t get the door open. I’d have to climb out the window with a shovel to dig us out. I’d go over to the neighbours too. The 1966 Winnipeg blizzard was famous showing all the houses with snow up to the roof but each year we’d get so much snow you couldn’t open the doors without shovelling. That year was the worst because the snow was over the doors and the windows. Dad fished me the smallest through the kitchen window some 12 or more feet above the ground. I just spent the day shovelling neighbours doors free. I must have freed dozens of people. The old people were the most thankful. I’d come back the next few days and shovel out paths. As kids we had tunnels you could stand up in all through the backyard. People couldn’t get their cars out for days and some weeks. We pulled a toboggan up to Pembina with Mom so she could shop for groceries, Pembina a mainstreet was plowed and businesses along Pembina opened one after another. It was a while before the side streets could be plowed and cars dug out. Days or maybe a week later everything was back to normal. Winnipegers were the most resilient people one could imagine. Everyone pitched in too.

Being 13 was a busy time. I had a very full life when I think back to it.  We were just so active. Now I hear that kids are looking at their screens. I remember mom only allowed 1-2 hours tv time a day.  It was the first thing to go too if we got into trouble.  I didn’t mind so much because I was so into reading.

Younger I’d entertain myself with cards, four boxes with different colours would become my armies and I’d have these kings and queens and princes and have the cards having major wars I imagined in three d all over the room. Sofas were hills. The carpet was the valley . When people talked of past lives I thought I was probably some kind of general because as a kid I was so involved in strategy. I laid out these great wars with hundreds of cards. Later in life when I looked at some of the wars of history I had the feeling of déjà vu. It was like I was going through all these wars as a kid, reviewing them. Napoleon and Wellington.  

Life as a child and especially as a teen was sacred. Astro projection and synchronicity were givens. Kirk and I were always talking God and physics.  We just believed. Kirk wasn’t limited by Christianity. He was just spiritual and had these experiences like I did but didn’t have to consider them in the light of Christian teachings. My brother would join the Billy Graham movement and it would be years before I found myself around Christians who lived in the spirit.  At church there was just a lot of preaching. Hell and brimstone ruled back then. Dad would fall asleep and mom would elbow him awake. 

I thought about Jesus and crucifixion a lot.  

I didn’t think I was going to hell.  There’s a lot of misunderstanding about Christianity and a lot of wholly unwarranted criticism. I just kept asking myself if I was doing what I was supposed to do. Was I fulfilling God’s desire for me. Years later I’d come across the Christian reader, “My Utmost for his Highest.” Christianity was just all about doing your best.

I’d have these dreams of shining people like angels. I’d see a mother and father godlike creatures who’d reassure me it was going to be alright.

I’d had this recurring dream all my life of myself in a pod and somehow getting knocked off course and ending up in the wrong planet and the wrong life.  Stop the planet I want to get off meant something more to me when I heard it.

Gr. 7 we weren’t into pranks as much as we’d be in gr. 8 and 9. But we were becoming mischievous. I think it was when I was 13 that I set a bag of dog poop on fire in front of my neighbours house on Halloween. I watched him go ballistic after stamping the fire out with his slippers getting wet with poop. He saw us hiding in the ditch.. we immediately let out down the road while he fell stumbling behind us in his housecoat in the snow. We only did that once but it worked perfectly.  It definitely encouraged us.  Success does that.  

12 years old: Bumper shines, IquanaBoy Scouts, YMCA

It seems my life began to be busier with Gr. 6.  The sleepy quality of Gr. 5 with it’s routine and study begin to change as we boys become more rambunctious.  When I think of 12 years old I think of hoppies and soaping the school windows.

Hoppies or “bumper shines”were ‘hopping on the backs of cars’. This was pre Uber.  As kids in Fort Garry we’d duck walk in the snow ,low down so the driver couldn’t see us, to a car stopped for a stop sign or light then grab onto the fender.  Sometimes when we were really daring we grabbed onto the rear door handle as we were walking past the stopped car. The driver would accelerate and we’d have a free ride skiing on the soles of our snow boots behind the moving vehicle.  This was a primary winter activity from Gr 6 to Gr. 10.  Frankly I don’t know why I stopped it. It really was fun especially with friends cheering or hopping on beside you.

In the burbs the car speed would be 30 or 40 km but when we hopped on the backs of buses on Pembina the bus would go at 60 km / hour. That was a thrill. The down side was when our boots hit gravel or a stretch of  the road was salted to cut down on the ice.  At that point my feet would simply stop moving while I’d begin to be dragged on my belly.  A lot of knees of jeans were torn that way especially on Pembina Highway.  I lied to my mom and said I fell down the stairs.  Several times.

One time I caught on the back of an unmarked police car. The young policeman  jumped out. The chase ensued. Only this young policeman was fast.  I was going over a fence when his boot connected with my butt.  I flew and landed head down into a snow drift. My friends had to help pull me out because I was trapped like a cork in a bottle.  

Mr. Jerry Fischer was the Gr. 6 teacher. He was for many of us the ‘To Sir With Love’ teacher character. He was a character. I remember waking him one fall on the way into school one morning.  He slept in or was passed out in his English sports car parked in front of the school unshaved and shirt tails out.  He also had a babe of a girlfriend. It was the beginning of mini skirt era.  As boys we were just beginning to notice such things.  He certainly was Kirk and my hero.  He brought plants and cages of various animals and fish into the classrooms.  It soon looked more like a jungle.  He was so enthusiastic about teaching. We, as kids, just got caught up in his passion for science mostly.  Biology became fascinating.  

I took the iguana home. On weekends someone took the iquana home.  It was sunny I was letting the iquana out of the cage on the grass. I had little cut bits of apple I was feeding this miniature green monster. Iquana were vegetarian.  Suddenly it keeled over and died. I truly believed that I’d killed it by not chopping his food up small enough.  I was mortified.  Inconsolable. My parents actually were angry with Mr. Fischer for letting the kids take an exotic beast home where it could die and a kid would cry all night.  No one thought I killed the iquana.  Certainly Mr. Fischer didn’t think that when I brought the dead iquana back to class in a shoe box.  The other kids did but none of the adults.  Really, he just died.  Keeled over with a bit of apple in his mouth.  I didn’t try to revive him. I didn’t know CPR or mouth to mouth when I was 12. I was simply horrified. But a couple of my classmates who loved the iquana like I did thought I killed it.  I insisted I didn’t. I felt so sad. I killed the iquana.  Didn’t chop it’s dinner up fine enough.  Today I don’t even think a valsalva maneuver would have helped.  Fate.

His revolutionary teaching ideas resulted in him being interviewed for the Winnipeg Free Press.  A picture was taken of him and the aquariums, I can’t remember if the iquana or some other creatures were in them but there was Kirk and me in the picture.  My mom cut the little clipping out and kept it.  She sent it to me years later. I put  it in a frame and kept it on my desk.  Biology and Mr. Fischer.

Thanks to his inspiration I got my first tropical fish tank that year. Soon I was even breeding Siamese fighting fish.  

I believe it was Gr. 6 that I joined the YMCA.  Kirk and I joined along with a number of other boys. Keith and Colin were members of the gym club. I might have been in the YMCA swimming but it was when I was 12 the the YMCA gymnastics club began to play an important part in my life. It just seemed that I went from playing hockey as a kid outside to spending all my time at the YMCA.

We took the Pembina Bus downtown and loved the walk through the Hudson Bay basement to come out on the street by the Y.  In the winter in cold Winnipeg as kids we travelled through stores, then scooted out onto the street then entered the next store, that way getting warm between exposures to the 40 below wind chill.  The wind on Portage was famous. The wind chill at Portage and Main record making.

This was when we came under the influence of Mr. Don McQuaig (sp).  The YMCA wasn’t just a gym. Young Men’s Christian Association.  I did all the levels of swimming there. In the summer I’d collected Red Cross swimming awards each year at the Fort Garry pool. So when I joined the Y I just repeated the tests and collected all my swimming awards there.  In free style swim we’d not wear clothing as boys but for the classes and tests we wore bathing suits.  There were codes of conduct and people trained there for the Olympics.

The YMCA Gymnastics Club was the thing.  We’d start with a mile run around the track that circled the gym just below the high ceiling.   After the run we’d do tumbling exercises and then take training in the different stations.  We had rings, low bar, vault, parallel bars, high bar. We learned all the somersaults and hand springs on the mats. On the wall there were pegs we’d try to develop our upper body strength with.  Pulling our bodies up and putting the pegs in the hole above. Colin Lount, Ron Brawn and Keith Carter walked the pegs up and down the board effortlessly. Meanwhile I was thankful if I could drag myself once to the top.

I’d left Boy Scouts because there was an older bully who picked on me. My 4 year older brother Ron stayed in Scouts.  He was the same age as the bully. The bully just smashed us younger kids with his fists.  

Dad had taken Kirk, Garth and I as kids and set up a rope ring in the basement. He bought us a couple of sets of boxing gloves. That was when we were 6 and bullies had bothered us in our first year of school. So there he was teaching us to box, us little uncoordinated kids, down in the basement with this rope around a part of the room and us learning to thrust and punch and dance with our feat. Little Rockie’s ahead of time. I don’t remember learning much boxing. Dad had boxed some in the Air Force. It didnt’ go on long but it stopped the bullying then.  When the older kids jumped us we punched back and that took the fun out of it for them.  

Most people don’t realize, especially girls, how often boys are bullied and how we learn to stand our ground and hit back.  I wrestled with this other kid in my class. Despite the silliness of girls we didn’t think it was bullying if kids were evenly matched. We knew about light weight and heavy weight. Girls didnt know anything and nobody fought with the girls because they were girls. Besides if a guy lost to a girl anytime he was a loser and if he beat a girl he was still a loser because he beat a girl. The girls had all the advantage in a fight. But we considered it bullying if two or more guys took on one guy or if an older bigger guy took on a little guy.  Older bigger gang guys were a problem. It was also bullying if the other guys came at you with weapons. So there I was in one of the best districts in the city and by Gr. 6 I’d been attacked three on one and 5 on one always by boys 2 or 3 years older.  Thanks to Dad my friends and I survived.  The main issue was the confidence.  If a kid showed weakness the bullies pounced. I avoided most fights by standing up to challenges and talking.  

Predators can’t afford to be hurt since they really don’t have a support network.  They’re looking for easy kills.  My dad taught me about wolves in the woods and people were the same. There’s really no ‘honor’ in war today because most soldiers only engage when they have a clear advantage. War is all about winning.  Weakness attracts war.  I still find it sad that so many people who know nothing and spent their lives protected or hiding still blab on about things they don't know anything about.

Gr. 6 Kirk found a Ju Jitsu book. That’s when our formal martial arts training began. We practiced on each other all one summer.  Tosses, throws, kicks.  Kirk was fascinated by the Eastern philosophy and we talked about that. At the YMCA there was an older fellow with a black belt and he coached us that fall and for years to come.. We took some wrestling there too. I was abysmal at wrestling. Flipped and pinned by the wrestling guys in seconds.  Lots of laughter at how easily I could be beaten by them on the mats by comparison to how it was next to impossible to get me off my feet. Billy Goat Gruff.

Billy Goat Gruff was the children’s name I got when I teased Liza Laidlaw, Kirk’s little sister. She was sharp as a whip. I called her Liza Lollypop and she came back with Billy Goat Gruff. The nick name stuck with little kids in the neighbourhood.  Liza now  a mother and maybe even a grandmother will always be Liza Lollypop.

My brother beat up the bully at the Boy Scouts . It was my first year as a scout. I ‘d graduated from cub scouts and had the big round hat I was so proud of when the bullying began. Ron told the guy to lay off. When he didn’t and Ron caught him boxing me outside the church he stepped in and punched the guy a half dozen fast ones putting that guy on his knees.   In those days of cowboy fighting there was none of the ‘curbing’ and head kicking that came later. Ron had won. The guy was supposed to have learned his lesson.  All should have been well. But he came after me again. Ron wasn’t there. I was beat up bad. He was a barefisted puncher and I took a lot of hits to the head, cut by his ring and just generally battered. My brother pounded him good in retaliation the next scout meeting. My brother was a quiet peaceful guy but a force to contend with when you were wrong and crossed him. But I’d just lost interest in Boy Scouts after that.  The bully left too after Ron was through with him but it had soured my scouting experience.  

God I was proud of my brother and thought he was the greatest guy in the world to protect me. He did it a few times in our lives.  Whatever faults a kid can find with an older brother they all go when he’s getting his ass whuppped, things aren’t looking really good , and his brother steps in to the rescue.  That was my brother Ron, a guy to be counted on. Everyone did. They always could.

I just complained that all the teachers who had had him before me would say what a great student my brother was and why couldn’t I apply myself. My report cards always read that Bill would do better if he applied myself.

I’d get A’s and B’s but this one semester I’d applied myself and got all A’s but one. My mother had said, in typical Mom  fashion, not how well I had done, but ‘why did you get that B?” So the next semester I really applied my self.  I got all B’s .  It really is hard to get all B’s. Like target practice shooting bull’s eyes’ ,a person can get lucky ,but the success is in the tightening of the spread. I worked at getting B’s for a year or two after that and then lapsed into my old pattern of mostly A’s and occasional B’s , getting straight B’s was harder than straight A’s.  That was the way my mind worked as a kid. I played weird games, only I knew the rules to.

The YMCA Leaders Corp picked up where the Boy Scouts left off. The men were trying to teach us kids values and standards and down right manly behaviour.  Looking back , it was all ethics.  Young Men’s Christian Association was about applied Christian values. William James. Pragmatism. No one talked about Jesus. We were just expected to live and behave like Christians.  

The fights continued in the locker room.  I was kicked naked by an older boy in the groin and lay in a fetal position for an eternity.  The kid was a teen ager and picked on us kids slapping us with wet towels, punching us and kicking us little guys. He was a little twisted too.  But myself and three friends ‘paid him back’. We had become good with wet towels and we all slapped him silly with wets one day in the shower. He’d bullied all of us but after that it stopped. We also came together as a group. He was one of the swimmers and we were the Gym Club. 

The higher ups would hear and put a stop to these things quick unless we’d settle it ourselves if we could. No one wanted to be a rat or a squealer. They were the lowest. Presumably someone talked to the kid too and no one wanted to be expelled from the Y.  Getting expelled from school meant no homework but we all loved the Y.  No fun in getting expelled from gym.

Keith Carter was amazing. He was great at everything.  His summersaults in the air were simply unbelievable.  Colin Lount had an injury as a kid, some polio or something like that, making his one leg marginally less functional. Without that he would have been perfect. He was so graceful. On the rings he’d lift himself up then stretch out into a perfect hand stand. Kirk had grace too. Each of us had a niche.  Ron Brawn our new friend had muscle and was amazing on the high bar.  Me, well I was the vaulter. I could run and vault where others wavered.  It took a lot of faith to launch ones self head first, fly through the air, and hope to catch the end of the long box before shooting your knees and feet through your arms to come out standing.  I was crazy.  

I also liked the parallel bars until the other competitor before the annual competition pulled my arm off the bar, when I was in a handstand,trying to make it look like an accident. He really was  hoping to injure me before the competition.  I fell and twisted coming down hard.  I had to go home. I’d injured my back that day. Till this day I still remember him slyly grinning. Then in the competition next day he was smugly confidantly looking over at me with that superior look psychopaths have.  I competed beat him despite  the pain.  He threatened me after. But I’d won that competition.  I’ve had recurrent back pain in the same spot under duress. It’s probably psychosomatic. Something to do with having your own team mate betray you just to win a competition. A regular Judas.  I didn’t understand this and didn’t have that quality. It’s actually rare. Sociopaths only a per cent or two of society and psychopaths an even much smaller fracture.  That competition was years later wasn’t when I was 12 but years later.

At age 12 the YMCA gym and swimming club was a favourite place. We’d go after school a couple of times a week and then spend most of Saturday’s there. Our mom’s would give us money for the bus and a little more.  We loved the thick chocolate smoothies that they had in the basement of the Bay going home on SaturdayS. That was the stop after we’d showered and swum and dressed . I was on the way to the Pembina bus stop.  There were usually 3 to 5 of us coming and goin to the Y.

The YMCA Leader’s Club was special. We had to show merit and pass and be interviewed with Don.  Kirk became his favourite. Don McQuaig was also one of those revolutionary leaders. A devoutly Christian man who went on to be the secretary of the World YMCA’s in Switzerland.  He really did encourage ethics and morality. he’d have these incredible discussions about life with us boys. We’d meet as a group, about 6 of us in his office and discuss life, the gym, leadership and teaching.   We’d get this pure unadulterated wisdom back.  An amazing influence. He was all about excellence.

Addiction is Isolation;Recovery is Participation

When someone is addicted it’s like they have separated themselves from the mainstream by their addiction activities.  Over time they become increasingly absorbed in these  activities, thinking about it, anticipating it, doing it, and recovering from it,  so that the addiction takes over more and more of their life.  At first friends who are not into the addiction are lost or avoided then family, and eventually recreation and jobs.  Normal people, successful people participate in life. They are involved in their family, work, community and their political and  spiritual life.
When doctors ‘fix’ a broken leg they don’t try to ‘set’t the leg according to the way it was previous to the break but rather set it according to the best functional possibility for the leg. This information has been acquired over hundreds of years especially from the studies of olympic athletes and obviously from healthy people.
Addiction isn’t just about the drug, the alcohol, the substance, the process. It’s like a virus that invades the whole body and can indeed be a total epidemic and public health crisis as we see today in many parts of our world.
If you consider addiction socially, really, it’s more like a religion than anything else. The addiction will have ‘no other gods’ before it. The dealer or promoter is like a priest. There are ‘places’ like crackhouses, casinos, bars where the addiction is practiced mostly.  There is a language and a particular way of thinking. “If you had my life, you’d do what I’m doing’ along with other popular cognitive distortions.  To healthy normal people people with addiction often sound like fanatics and sometimes frankly psychotic.
The most successful people in society belong. Freud said mental health is the ability to love and work.  The WHO extended this to what has been summarized as ‘love, work and play’.  In addiction the person finally have only  their addiction.  Addiction has been called the ‘great eraser’. The earlier one can intervene after the ‘it’s fun stage,’ to when it’s fun and trouble, before it’s just trouble, the more successful the outcome. Indeed those with intact family and jobs and still socially active in their communities are most likely to ‘kick the habit’.
In addition to medication, individual psychotherapy and social therapy I encourage people to ‘participate.  Studies have shown repeatedly that those who are abstinent from addiction at 5 years belong to some group that supports their recovery.
Vaillant’s work showed that those 20 years clean and sober were most likely still attending a 12 step program or some other spiritual based program.
But the cornerstone of recovery is participation. It doesn’t have to be a spiritual program.  The loner is at highest risk.  Addiction presents as a ‘friend’ just like the dealer is a ‘friend’.
I had one senior government worker  patient heavily addicted to marijuana and asked her if she had any friends. She insisted she had one friend. That friend was her dealer.  We used to joke in adolescent psychiatry that if your only friend was your social worker you were in trouble. Well, in addiction psychiatry, if your only friend is your dealer you really are in trouble.
When you drive into a town there are usually two large lists of clubs.  One is the so called ‘spiritual club’ so you’ll see a surprisingly long and wide list of churches, synagogues, mosques and temples. Also you will see another list of ‘social’ or ‘community clubs - Elks, Kiwanis, Odd Fellows, Masons etc.  In addition to these emotional and spiritual community clubs there’s a garden variety secular club commonly called a ‘gym’ but also called a dojo, a yoga studio or ‘running club.’  The majority of successful people without addictions belong. Addictions eventually like other major mental illnesses are increasingly isolated and alienated.
12 step programs and spiritual clubs and some physical activities don’t ‘cost’ an arm and a leg.  The Yacht Club or the Jockey Club by contrast are usually well beyond the means of the person in recovery.
12 step clubs and most spiritual clubs welcome people without expectation of any more than a ‘buck’ and please fill a chair.  There are specific recovery ‘clubs’ like the Alano Clubs, a kind of coffeehouse atmosphere hang out, or the similar Recovery Club. The Avalon Society hosts  houses specifically for women. There are a new set of ‘sheds’ for men and a wide variety of ‘drop in’ clubs for mentally ill patients which welcome people in recovery as well. Since addiction is so depressing it is common for people in recovery to come to a realization of their depression and benefit from attendance at the mood disorder clubs or anxiety disorder clubs which are increasingly part of the urban landscape. There are specific support activities commonly, fully or particially funded by government.
The self help or community based services usually have a higher functioning capacity.  The average synagogue, church, or temple or YMCA/YMHA/YWCA will have a wide spread of highly successful to marginal individuals. This is like the 12 step programs where those who have long term recovery and ‘are’ back on their feet again are encouraged to hang around to help the next person.
Society is generally set up like a membrane with only a few ‘gateways’ where the addict or alcoholic in recovery can ‘mix’ with those who don’t suffer.  Part of the function of the health care system has been ‘quarantine’.  The local golf club doesn’t advertise, ‘heroin addicts welcome’.  It may not be right but it is real.
So Im forever encouraging patients to participate. To this end I encourage all the standard ‘health care based resources ‘but then encourage what was part of the patients life before the addiction kicked in.  Just as the addiction stopped a person from working and contributing and in recovery we encourage a person to return to work I encourage a person to return to those activities that they did before the addiction isolated them.  Not those activities which contributed to their addiction but the other ones.
Over many decades of work I’ve been pleased to be a part of  real success stories. Patients who were in school but dropped out have returned to school, often starting with a night school course and often going on to completing trades, bachelors, master’s or phd programs.  Recovery is that amazing.  So many of my patients have joined gyms and this has been the take off to their return to health and self esteem.  Yoga, Tai chi, martial arts programs, swimming, YMCA are all amazing places for increasing what has been increasingly called ‘recovery capital’.  There’s a lot to be said for ‘healthy body, healthy mind’
Actual human longevity has been associated with ‘relationships’ , the more connections one has the better off one is. What a contrast to the crack addict sitting alone with pornography in a single room with the curtains drawn. What a contrast to the grossly obese person who sits alone at the smorgasbord.  Or consider the addicts whose only contact with a neighbour is sharing a needle or the alcoholic  nursing their bottle in the lonely drinking bar.
Many of my patients have benefitted most from going to AA or NA or CA (Cocaine anonymous) or OA,  Overeaters Anonymous, or GA, Gamblers Anonymous, or Debtors Anonymous or Sexaholics Anonymous, Codepents Anonymous or Sex and Love Addicts Anonymous.   There are literally millions involved in the 12 step (or anonymous ) recovery programs. And now increasingly SMART another cognitive behavioural pseudo self help program is increasingly available.
Churches, temples, mosques and synagogues are a cornerstone for recovery. If you ever attended or your parents attended any then you’re really welcome back  Besides that being a ‘club tourists’ is always welcome and I encourage people to simply ‘drop in’ a few times to these ‘clubs’ in their neighbourhood, and put a ‘buck’ in the basket and go a few times to see if it ‘fits’. Anything is better for recovery and depression than being with ones self or one’s dealer.  We joke by saying that ‘I may not be much but I’m all I think about’ and “my brain is a bad neighbourhood, I shouldn’t go their alone.” It’s equally important to consider ‘volunteer activities’ and become involved in the countless volunteer clubs and activities increasingly available to get one outside of themselves. It’s old adage that if you haven’t shoes then you can still help a person without feet. So much of recovery is ‘perspective’.
I’ve had countless patients benefit from returning to the spiritual organizations that they attended as a child. Commonly addiction makes one critical of all those activities that don’t promoted addiction. These spiritual organizations are themselves reaching out to the recovery community with a local synagogue having a weekly group for people in recovery, countless churches of all denominations having weekly dinners and services and the various HIndu, Sikh and Muslim temples encouraging people to forsake their addictions and participate in community. In Malaysia the mosques have methadone clinics situated in their buildings with a combination of spiritual and medical personal available for people seeking help with addictions.  The local indigenous community has a variety of native healing communities involving sweat lodges, drumming societies and smudging.
A lot of my patients have been welcomed back open armed into the HIndu and Sikh temples where their extended families are so happy to see them engaging in their communities. Yoga is especially helpful in recovery while mindfulness meditation is increasingly recommended.  The taoist tai chi organizations are further ‘clubs’ where people can get healthy and learn a wholistic approach to their recovery.
Each ethnic and cultural group has it’s own ‘community’ clubs.  Where a person might have rejected their ‘catholic roots’ they might well find ‘participation’  and extended friendship in the local ‘buddhist’ temple.  The key is ‘participation’ .  Going from isolation to ‘participation’ is what works and where it begins isn’t necessarily where it ends. A number of my patients have gone on to leadership in community organizations that are at variance with where they began. A United Church minister left aetheism by joining the vaguely theistic unitarian church  to move onto anglicanism and eventually becoming a united church minister.  The key is movement.  Get out.   I have patients who have done exceptionally well in organizations like Kiwanis and Masons.  A number of women I had as patients in the country gave up drinking wine alone by joining the local quilting society.
The ‘meet up.com’ app is an amazing resource for activities for people to participate in.
I am also encouraging people to join political parties. To date 99% of those who have followed this advice have joined ones other than my own. The key is that political parties in Canada at least are ‘cheap’ to join and have a wide variety of community interests and activities.  It’s uplifting for people who once were the greatest ‘critics’ to be seen voting and participating in the political process.
Some of my patients have stayed sober in Toastmasters, others have overcome depressions and gained a whole variety of skills theres. Still others have joined a variety of dance organizations, including Salsa International, Arthur Murray’s, Fred Astaire, and all the different ethiic dance organizations including square dancing and high land dancing.  As much as we like to demonize leaders of the different parties individually they are truly amazingly accomplish social individuals.
Addiction is isolation.  It carries a large component of shame.  Recovery is participation.  Rather than a ‘phoney’ or ‘fake relationship’ with one’s substance of choice or addiction of choice, one moves out of being a mental wanker to being a part of community and participating in all the wide variety of activities that people do where addiction is frowned on and certainly isn’t a selling feature.
Some ‘clubs’ require ‘caution’.  For a while some Legions were glorified drinking clubs dominated by alcoholics though increasingly I hear that these organizations and other veterans organizations are working actively to identify and counter addictions that not surprisingly  follow combat experience. A third of those with ptsd and no other history of addiction vulnerability developed addiction. Underlying all addiction it can be said is anxiety, most commonly social anxiety and sadly ‘if you don’t use it you lose it’.  However, there's also a lot of 'yes, but' in addiction. Prochaska encouraged maximum resource input into those who were willing to be 'active' in their recovery. "Show me, don't tell me."  Many patients are indeed looking for someone to blame rather than wanting to 'change'.  It's not surprising that the phrase 'If you talk the talk, walk the walk' is so prevalent in treatment centres.  Many addicts want to say they are seeing a therapist only to 'appear' to be 'participating' and of course will get very angry if you don't 'collude' with their outright 'refusal to change'.  Not surprisingly 'drug testing' is common place in early recovery for those returning to work.
Dr. Paul O., famous for recovery, said “I can find a problem with a white wall and if you don’t see the problem, it’s an even greater problem.”  Addicts who would shoot up in a church basement without concern or get drunk at any church wedding or funeral would suddenly say they couldn’t attend AA or whatever because of the ‘god’ stuff. Thankfully SMART was developed and atheists can as well join ‘philosopher’s corner’ or ‘political parties’. Most commonly the ‘criticism’ reflects’ lack of willingness to change.  This is sadly indicative of high risk for relapse since commonly people’s previous life is adapted to support the addiction and people feel most comfortable with what they know. All change is anxiety provoking and initially discomforting. The obese are, in my experience, least likely to jump at the suggestion to join a gym.
It’s not rocket science.  It’s really very simple. Yet it’s not easy.  Those who want to change most will eventually make the effort or sadly die or end up in jails or hospitals as a consequence of their persisting addiction and isolation.  Now of course there are ‘exceptions’ and not all people with addiction are ‘isolated’ in this way. Some are merely ‘isolated’ in themselves . But that’s a specific sub group.  The generalization addiction is isolation and recovery is participation is just garden variety main stream.

Wes Hazlitt

It was great seeing Wes Hazlitt again.  We've known each other since school days.  Today I visitted his lovely home past the University of Manitoba. I drove by my brother Ron's old home on King Drive.   Wes has two dogs and it was clear that they were barkingly delighted to have an excuse to prove they really were great guard dogs.  After greetings all round the  two dogs remained our companions as we caught up on mere decades sitting in his back yard enjoying the Winnipeg sun..  Just like yesterday. I remember Wes so much from high school.  I was doing gymnastics with the YMCA.  Keith Carter, Colin Lount and Kirk Laidlaw were all on Don McQuaigs YMCA gym team.  When I'd show Wes what I'd been practicing for months, with his herculean upper body strength, Wes would do the stunt effortlessly first try.   We were in Vincent Massey student politics as well. His indefatigable good cheer and great sense of humor was ever present. Nothing has changed except neither of us found the time this visit to do gymnastic stunts.
Next I remember seeing Wes  when he'd  opened the Marriage Store on Pembina ahead of the curve. Wes always had an uncanny sense for business. It was only later he'd got into banking. . With Fort Gary friends it seems years have gone by and I  have a few  snapshot of these rich and full lives.   I met his son Scott.  A big full grown married  man.  I'd been sitting with Wes slipping back into believing we were teen agers when this Hazlitt clone suddenly appeared with another dog.  Genetics are uncanny.  My dog Gilbert would have loved to have been here.  Then,  Gail, Wes' wife,  his great love and companion appeared.  Wes the individual exploded into Wes the family.  I know there's this whole extended Hazlitt family with the brother I knew from days gone by. Then there are his countless friends and associates.  It was wonderful to see Gail too.    A part of me was kicking myself for always  being so distant.   Mostly I'm really thankful that Wes and I connected again, after "Wes Wisdom" and sharing on Facebook we were back face to face.  The laughter was so good.  Thanks Wes!