A Wedding

That time between high school and college was my last carefree summer.

What happened? Not much. A lot. I should have worked, but I was a little pissed at not been given my choice lifeguard placement at the beach near my house. Most others on staff were, Garry at the Schumacher Pool for instance, so too Jodie at the Mattagami River, etc. I just couldn't abide spending the summer working at the Archie Dillon Sportsplex, where one never knew what the weather might be while in its humid and claustrophobic expanse. Unless there was a torrential downpour, that is.

ButI digress. This post is about a wedding. My sister's, specifically.

Karen was getting married and I’d been allowed to invite friends to her wedding. Not to the meal, but to the ceremony and the dance. So, I invited the lot. Why not? Suits, ties, and the Dante Club. And I was an usher. One of two times. Never a best man. I’m still baffled by that. I’d had a lot of friends then, and I  was always left wondering why I wasn't asked to tuxedo up. As to being best man? There were a few times whan I wondered why I hadn’t been chosen. There can only be one, I suppose. I can only guess that I was passed over as a kindness; I was somewhat shy, not much of a public speaker then, either. Also, a great many of us had begun to drift apart and had also relocated when those nuptials were finally embarked upon. No matter.

That summer, I was chosen to be one of my future ex-brother-in-law’s ushers. It was an obligation, I imagine.

Powder blue tux. Sylvie Aube, Marc's cousin, on my arm. She was pretty, and I may have fallen in love with her a bit at the time. Pretty girl, friends, cousins, a few drinks and a lot of dancing. What more could one ask for?

The Soccer Pitch

We were playing soccer in O’Gorman’s back field (the one that would soon sprout a crop of portables) in my final year of high school. Grade 12 and 13 boys were participating, each grade a team. How we came about this, I’ve no clue, but I remember it was extremely competitive. We wanted to show the older boys that we weren’t kids. They didn’t want to lose to a bunch of kids.

So, there was a fair bit of aggressive play. John D’Alessandri had possession of the ball, and was moving it up field. He was in range of the net, and set to kick. He kicked for all he was worth. He kicked so hard that when his foot swept the ground just short of the ball he broke his ankle. He didn’t just break it, he broke it and twisted it around until his foot faced backwards. He dropped, screaming. We rushed to help, but fully half of us were so sickened by the sight that we turned away. John lay there, arms wrapped around his head, continuing to scream until the endorphins began to kick in and we realized that he’d been screaming FUCK, FUCK, FUCK, over and over, longer at first, then rapidly, then breathlessly. Teachers rushed out of the buildings, brushed us aside. John continued his litany, despite being surrounded by a number of nuns, Sister Fay among them. It was the first time I’d ever seen them not correct someone’s language. When that thought passed my mind, I had to turn away and clutch at my mouth or I’d have begun to giggle. I felt it boiling up, and there was no way I was going to laugh in light of what was unfolding.
The ambulance came, collected him and left. Jodie Russell visited John at the hospital after school had let out. John had still not been attended to, as yet...but he had been pumped full of morphine upon arrival. He was sitting upright, his legs crossed, the leg sporting his backwards foot crossed over the other. “Jesus Christ,” John said to Jodie, “are they ever fuckin’ slow here! Look at that,” he railed, pointing at his foot, “look at it! That is so fuckin’ wrong.”

Natatorial Anecdotes

Yes, I used a thesaurus to find that word.

I have quite a few memories from my time at the Sportsplex, the Mattagami River, Gilles Lake. Some of them good, some of them not. As I remember it, there was quite a bit of fun, some horseplay, too, hopefully always out of the public view. But sometimes not, either. What can I say? We were teens. Controlling us was like herding cats.

The lake and river were the most sought-after posts. We spent the entire winter cooped up in the Sportsplex, no windows, always humid, as depressing as a tomb when one spent one’s whole day in its confines. We never knew what the weather was like, unless there was such a deluge that we could hear the thumbing of the downpour on the roof. We only saw the sun when we were not scheduled to guard a swim and were left with a free hour; no long enough to go anywhere, but enough time to crash out on the patch of grass out back and catch some rays. So, to spend one’s summer out in the sun? Heaven!

There could be loneliness out there, too, depending on when one’s shifts at Gilles Lake or the Mattagami River were. In July, there were so many swimmers at the lake and river that there were four of us stationed at each site. Days were full. I’d arrive at the musty old guard shack at Gilles, drop the wood panel shutters, and fill out the log. We’d man the two chairs, 15 minutes at a time, the others basking in the sun, gaining the best tans of our lives. In August, on the other hand, the temperature slipped, the rains fell, the beaches emptied, and we were reduced to one per site. Owing to my living on Hart Street, I never worked at the Mattagami River, although I did hang out there on my off days when friends were stationed there, usually Jodie Russell, Sean Light, or Jeff Chevrier. I’d arrive later, some beer stashed in my backpack, and stow them away in the water tank of the Men’s toilet, where the water was colder than ice. After 8 pm, we’d lock everything up, retrieve the beer, and while away a couple hours before heading to Top Hats. But left alone for 8 hours there in those guard shacks? Mattagami’s was a narrow cinderblock room; Gilles’, a musty old wooden shack.

At Gilles, I’d only open one of the shutters, so that the wind would not howl through, carrying the icy rains with it. I’d wrap myself in a musty old wool blanket, one of many at hand there, one stripped from the bed in the back room. Yes, there was an old cot there. Use your imagination, in that regard. And I’d curl up and read what book I was lost in at the time, waiting for my sister to bring me what supper my mother would send up, talking, on occasion, on the phone with whomever was whiling away their hours at the river.

Once, I had to rescue an idiot. It was August. I was alone. He was drunk. He staggered up to the beach, stripped down to his jeans and plunged in, swimming out to the Hydro tower in the middle of the lake. It was a rare, hot day; but there was no one to guard, as the threat of swimmer’s itch at Gilles in August was another reason for the absence of everyone but me. I watched him make early swift progress, then none at all. So, I grabbed the guard board (sort of like a big surf board), and paddled out to him. I wouldn’t normally have been able to do that, leave the beach unattended, but as I said, there was no one else to guard. I paced him, telling him he’d never make it and to climb on board. He gasped at me to fuck off. His words. But I didn’t. I wasn’t going to let him drown, foul mouthed idiot that he was, or not. He finally climbed aboard having failed to reach the tower, but he was not pleased with my leisurely progress back to shore, so he paddled hard. Then said I was a “fuckin’ shitty lifeguard,” and stormed away. Ah, the memories.

One day, I got a call. Cold, rainy, windy day. It was Jodie, spending his cold shift at the river. He said, in a wildly thrilled voice, said “We can do anything! I mean anything! And nobody will say a thing.” What? I asked. He explained. He too had not bothered to open up much of the river site, deciding to wait to see if the day improved and swimmers arrived. It didn’t. They didn’t. His girlfriend did, though, and one thing led to another. And then Tory Kullas, our supervisor, did. She just walked right in on them, catching them in their state of somewhat undress. Tory stepped back outside, and closed the door gently behind her. Jodie and girlfriend composed themselves, the girlfriend left. And when Tory re-entered the guard shack, she didn’t say a word about what had just transpired. Not one word. She left after a few minutes, and before she’d gained her car, Jodie was on the phone with me. I gaped into the phone, not sure how to process what I’d just heard. Ah, good times.

One day in August, the Timmins Press arrived to report on how the local beaches had emptied out, due to a weeklong cold snap. The reporter asked Jeff if he would submit to being photographed. Jeff was bored, there were no swimmers, so he agreed; but he was chilled to the bone in his speedo and polyester guard’s tank top, so the report suggested he put on his jeans and jean jacket to warm up. The reporter also set Jeff up with his back to the water, to show that the beach was empty. Jeff didn’t think anything of it. Not until Fred Salvador, head of Parks and Rec, saw the picture in the Press. There was one of his lifeguards, back to the water, out of uniform, while on duty. He wanted Jeff fired on the spot. Tory eventually cooled Fred down and saved Jeff’s job but we were all given a stern talking to about “professionalism.” Like that helped. Jeff told me and Sean all about it over a beer at 8 pm.

There was quite a bit of boredom, as well. Time creeps and slows to a crawl and a stop while guarding a less than popular swim, most notably, the adult noon swim. One finds one timing swimmer’s laps to pass the time, and later finds oneself watching the clock tick, second by second, realizing that one cannot escape that swim, not once, that all one’s shifts will span its eternity.

During one such swim, I was guarding the shallow end of the pool, watching the thinly spread bathers swim laps, walk laps, hang off the buoy lines in conversation. I had not reached the point of stifling yawns, but I was not far from it, either. Adults were never as quick to enter the pool as the kids were, who were eager to gain as many seconds in the water for their money as possible. Adults, on the other hand, were more orderly, more composed and leisurely minded, and may spend quite some time in the sauna before even exiting the change room, so there were still a few leaking out on deck even thirty minutes into the swim. I was on my second position of the swim, my first seated, when I watched a middle-aged Asian gentleman exit the change room and make his way to the furthest corner from me of the shallow end. He stretched and reached, spun his arms to warm them up before entering the water. He had a well-sculptured pompadour. Okay, maybe not a pompadour, as the hair flowed around his head, beginning from behind his ear, drawn up to his forehead, before sweeping up and back over the top of his head. It was an unparalleled engineering feat. He dove in, with grace, with hardly a splash in his wake, and flowed beneath the surface for half the length of the pool before surfacing opposite me. His hair flowed behind him, as long as his shoulders at the back and on the left, no longer than an inch on the right. His glistening pate shone in the lights. I watched him swim back and forth, fascinated at the transformation. When Jodie relieved me after another ten minutes, I pointed the Asian gentleman out, and said, absolutely deadpan, “If you ever see me do that, take me out back and shoot me.”

Dungeons and Dragons

Yes, I played Dungeons and Dragons. Were we geeks, those of us who did? Maybe we were, all of us were already in the freaks and geeks crowds at our respective schools, each of us having learned to play chess, each of us avid readers, movie buffs, and maybe a little introverted, in our own ways, but we certainly didn’t feel like it. We also played sports. We also started drinking at about 15, far too young for that nonsense, but we grew up in Northern Ontario, so that was almost a given.

I began to play “the game,” at the pool. Henri Guenette approached Garry Martin, Jodie Russell and I and asked us if we’d ever heard of “D&D.” We hadn’t. So, he showed us what his elder sister had bought him for his birthday, a Basic Box Set, an AD&D Player’s Guide and DM’s guide (those in the know require no explanation, anyone else can look them up). Most of us had grown up watching and reading science fiction and fantasy, Star Wars, Star Trek, Sinbad movies, Doctor Who, Arthur C. Clark, Asimov, Fritz Leiber and Michael Moorcock, and the like, so we were intrigued.

None of us knew what we were looking at, so we spent our break between swims in the relatively secluded and sunny spot out back of the pool (the same spot where we would sun tan, what we’d been doing at the time) leafing through the source material (the game books), Henri filling in what little he’d already gleaned on his own. We decided to give this new type of game a try.

We had our first session; again, out back in the quiet seclusion, and were hooked. Before we knew it, we were playing upstairs in the glassed in observation deck most evenings. The place was perfect, long folding tables, folding chairs, and it was a place we were already at. Other members of staff watched, a few declared it silly and stupid, a few asked to play.

But we didn’t have a complete set of books, and each of us wanted our own. We asked the older lifeguards, those heading down to Sudbury to check out the university, to pick us up the books at whatever store was selling them at the time, Comics North, most likely. And before long, we each had a new set. We studied them, and the largely made up rules we’d been playing by up to then fell away.

Then Tory, our boss, asked us not to play at the pool anymore. Someone had seen us and complained. She said it was inappropriate. We weren’t aware of it at the time, but this was during the Satanic Panic, back when the news was reporting that the game was stirring up Black Masses everywhere, in the schoolyards, in dark basements; that, and mass murders and suicide. Truancy, runaways, cavities!

We convened to basements, splayed out on couch and floor, our papers fanned out around us. Pop, chips, pizza, then after some time, beer. Lots of tense moments and even more laughter.

When my mother heard about it, close on the heels of watching “Mazes and Monsters,” Tom Hanks’ greatest film before beginning his acting career, she asked me about it, and told me that a friend of a friend of a friend said—you know the drill—that we were worshipping the Devil (now my mother is a fairly religious woman, so she was understandably concerned); so I showed her what books I had, showed her the tables, the stats, the dice, showed her how the basic mechanics of the game worked, and then said to her, “this is no different from any board game; it’s just played in our heads.” She never forbade me from playing.

Did playing D&D stunt my development? I don’t know. Maybe. But it also quickened my interest in mythology, history, ecology, and helped develop my understanding of statistics.

Say what you will, but it also created some of the most deeply felt friendships I have ever known, memories of which I cherish still, regardless my not having seen some of them for some 30 years.

The Pool

When compared with the politics, social pitfalls, and ever shifting landscape of who hung out with whom, who was dating whom, the Archie Dillon Sportsplex was an oasis of calm, of known rules and expectations. The staff changed relatively slowly, as the older teens left for university, and younger ones arrived, first as helpers, then as guards and instructors.

Whereas in school, cliques and friends were segregated by grade and age, rarely mixing, at the pool, all ages were thrown together, regardless of age, regardless of school. We met, got to know each other, learned to work and play with one another. Even the adults, who made up the small maintenance staff and management. What they thought about working with a bunch of teens is anyone’s guess. We certainly didn’t ask them.

Early on, when I was but a wee helper, I recall Anthony Loreto, Cecil Guenette, Rhonda McIntyre, and my sister, among others. Later on, there was Jodie Russell, Christine Racicot, Janice Milton, and Wendy Rochon. Then Garry Martin, Henri Guenette, Sean Light, and Susan Spencer. There were the Senkus twins, Astra and Alma. Later still, Jeff Chevrier, Jeff O’Reilly, and Neil Petersen.

We shared a common history, swimming lessons at the Schumacher pool, summers at Gilles Lake and the Mattagami River. We’d grown up in the water, took lessons together for years, passed CPR and National Lifeguard. Was there politics and pitfalls, romances, rifts and grudges? Sure. But I guess I flowed with it more. These were my friends.

I still had my group of friends at O’Gorman, mainly Garry, John, and Chris. And new ones, too. Renato, Mark, and Roger. And comfortable acquaintances. Gerry Gerard, Sean Quinn, Andrew Rose. We attended dances together, hung out at Top Hats. We spent hours in each other’s basements listening to LPs, watching the digital displays of the EQs rise and fall. Talking. Shooting the shit.

But in that Timmins has always been a cliquey town, those friends at the Sportsplex became my clique. We shared the same experiences.

There were parties, late night after hour swims; there was skinny dipping, not often, but it happened.

And there was work. Lessons to be taught. Swims to guard. Chaos reigned during public swims, far busier then, than now, I expect. The kids would wait at the change room doors, much like we had at the Schumacher pool, half spilling out, and waiting for the bell. And when it rang, they’d run out. We’d yell at them to WALK, and they would slow to a rapid duck walk. I had to bite my cheek, lest I burst out laughing.

We’d rotate through guard positions, 15 minutes per station, scanning the sea of flowing, bobbing heads for that one kid who might actually be drowning, bobbing and splashing for far more urgent reasons.

Older teens would jettison from the high diving board, slapping the 60-inch steel vent tube before plunging feet first into the deep end, falling far too close to the wide mobile divider that separated the deep end from the shallow for our comfort. They’d often time their leap to splash us as we crossed the walkway, something our boss, Tory Kullas, wanted us to kick them out for. Personally, I didn’t care. We’d race across the walkway when they did it, breaking our own rule of never running on deck, not that any kids ever called us on it.

Once, I watched a late teen do a running dive off the high board. Halfway through his arc, he saw how far he’d overshot. I heard him growl, “Oh, shit!” as he descended. And I heard the loud low hollow drumming of his head on the divider as he entered the water. His lower legs had still to enter the water when he hit. I stood up on my chair, my own legs shaky! I was sure I’d just seen a spinal injury, if not a full on broken neck or fatality. We’d spent hours training for spinals, but I never thought I would actually have to perform one. I was off the chair, at the water’s edge, before I saw him swim under the surface to the deck. He clung to the tiles, held his head.

He actually refused treatment, refused to allow us to call an ambulance. But he did leave. My legs were weak for an hour.

I had my Zen moments there, too. I’d take a flutter board (a kick board), and hugging it to my chest, would roll endlessly in the hot pool, buoyancy and centrifugal force carrying me through rotation after rotation. My mind cleared, sound receded. Calm. Bliss.