The Musician

I’d picked at playing music a few times over the course of my life. I suppose if I had an extraordinary talent at it, it would have stuck. But, if anything, I am persistent. And I’d always wanted to play music, even if I’d never had the “opportunity.” I’d only had a couple weeks of Recorder while in Junior High and a couple weeks of choir, nothing else. I’d taken some extracurricular classes, but age and focus and bullying caused me to set it aside, then I got busy with college, then work, then laziness, I suppose. Time passed. A lot of time passed. I appreciated music, but I never pursued it.

Then the time came that I decided I was going to learn to play an instrument, come hell or high water, but which one? I’d always liked guitar. I’d picked it up off and on over the years. But I discovered that teaching oneself to read music while learning to play was a daunting task, at best. So, lessons. But where would I take lessons? I saw an advertisement on Facebook about the Timmins Symphony’s music school. Music is good for the mind and the memory, it said. My memory was troublesome at times, now. I’d always found myself in a room wondering why I was there, but more recently, I found myself groping for words, forgetting names of celebrities and musicians and bands with regularity. It was troublesome. It was troubling. I put one and two together and decided that maybe learning to play music was at least part of a solution.

But the Symphony Music School did not teach guitar. So, I had to choose one of the instruments that they did teach. French horn? Tuba? No interest. I’d never been much of a classic music fan, so those options available to me were a little foreign to me. Violin? Not me. I began to read about classical instruments and listen to sound bites of what they sounded like, just to see if anything stirred my soul. Some fell flat, some looked heavy, unwieldy, uncomfortable. My sister had taken piano lessons, but piano was frightening, what with each hand doing independent things, the eyes having to follow two staffs of notes, each wildly different from the other. I may not have been a classical music aficionado, but I did like jazz. Surprised? Don’t be. I’d been watching classic B&W movies all my life and jazz abounded within, especially in movie soundtracks and musicals of the period. I was well versed with Crosby, Sinatra, Dino, Ella Fitzgerald and Rosemary Clooney, and the like. And I’d watched countless episodes of Lawrence Welk on Sundays. Don’t judge; we only had two channels and we watched what my parents wanted to watch. So, I knew what Big Band and jazz sounded like. I liked Louis Armstrong and he played trumpet. I liked Arty Shaw and Benny Goodman and Pete Fountain and the opening sequence of “Rhapsody in Blue” never failed to thrill me. And my sister had taken clarinet while in Junior High. I couldn’t choose, so I bought a student model of each along with very basic self-instruction books and set about teaching myself what I could in preparation of the beginning of the music school year.

Making a proper and appealing sound with the clarinet was difficult. It squeaked. It squawked. It sometimes made no sound at all, my breath stopped cold and backed up and almost blowing the top of my head off. The trumpet was even harder. The best I could produce was a warble, as far from what I thought a trumpet should sound like as can be. Then again, I was trying to be relatively quiet, too; no need to annoy the entire neighbourhood. I developed an even greater respect for Louis Armstrong than I had before. Indeed, all musicians.

Humans are like water. They find the easiest path. I was no different. I focused on clarinet. I began to develop a little finger memory. My tone improved a little, too. I suppose I still sounded like shit and probably no better than a toddler taking his first lessons, but I gave myself license to suck for a while. That may sound obvious, but that doesn’t come naturally to me; I demand perfection from myself, regardless how impossible that may be until perfection is a target that’s actually attainable, and am always impatient and frustrated when said perfection doesn’t surface quickly.

Registration day arrived. I drove up to the old Hollinger administration building where the TSO was renting rooms, climbed the flight of stairs to the entrance and followed the signs indicating where registration was being held.

There was no one my age there, not counting the TSO volunteers manning the tables, taking names. Even the parents were younger. There were quite a few children, and everyone seemed to know one another, as though they’d been returning there for years. I felt awkward. Did middle-age people take lessons? They must; why else would the TSO advertise in the Press and online, targeting middle- and older-aged people? Or was I the first?

I approached a table. Waited my turn. That seemed to take forever as TSO members and the parents chatted and laughed and didn’t seem in any hurry to complete their business and be on their way.
“Excuse me?” I said, pressing into the table.

“Yes? Would you like to register your child for lessons?” the woman asked.
“No,” I said, “I’d like to enroll. Me. Myself. Can I do that?”
Her composure seemed to shift. She perked up. “Of course, you can,” she said. “What would you like to learn?”
“Clarinet.”

“Oh, that’s lovely,” she said, as though not many people chose clarinet as their weapon of choice. I discovered in time that woodwinds and brass had always been in high demand at the Symphony and that my choice raised their expectation that I might fill one of those not particularly sought-after slots.
She handed me a registration form and a sheet of rules I would be agreeing to. I signed on the dotted line and wrote a check for the first ten lessons. I’d be billed later for the second semester, they said. Dates were not mentioned.

“When do lessons begin?” I asked.
First week of September, she said.

“I can’t do the first two weeks of September”, I said, “I’m on vacation. Can I get a deferment, or make up the lessons?” I asked. I didn’t think they would. The agreement I’d just signed clearly noted that absentee lessons would not be made up.

“Sure,” she said.

They may have been desperate indeed to get new clarinet players to ignore their own rules even as I signed on the dotted line.

Indeed, no sooner had I begun my lessons did the Concert Master ask me, “Clarinet?” when she heard what I was studying. “Do you want a job?” Everyone assumes that someone in their forties must have been engaged in whatever they were doing for years, decades in fact.

I’d only had a couple formal lessons by then, so I said, “I think that may be premature.”

A Devolution of Concerts

There were quite a few concerts to see over a few years, some put on by Northern College, some not. Most were. Timmins had been largely bypassed for decades, hardly any “name” artists bothering to grace us with their presence anymore. Johnny Cash was an exception, but I didn’t go see him. The Barstool Prophets were another exception, but they’d fallen on hard times, thanks to file sharing, and were playing everywhere that would have them.

That left the college. Northern College had made a point of trying to lure bigger names on the University Circuit to Timmins; and they were succeeding, somewhat. But attendance was touch and go.

We filed in to see The Headstones, shocked to see the college gym only about a third full. Hugh and the boys put on a great show, despite the low turnout, focusing on we who had shown up and not those who hadn’t. Hugh spit, he growled, he screamed, and he and his band peeled off layers of midnight black as they sweat through one layer after another. I braved the stage, risking Hugh’s spit, finding the sweet spot between the speakers, where hearing loss was at its optimally least.

Then Blue Rodeo unfurled their Turkish rug on the stage, easily the most expansive and expressive I’d seen to date. There were couches. There were wingbacks. There were claw foot lamps, replete with tasselled shades. There was even a sock puppet at stage left, where Dawson and I were contemplating its presence and mystical meaning, when Jim Cuddy and Greg Keelor came up beside us, joining in our discussion.

We braved a snowstorm to watch Sarah Harmer and her first band, Weeping Tile. There were only twelve of us in attendance. It was easy to meet her and talk to her at length, considering.

There were others, the most notable being a college concert trip to Sudbury. Cambrian was hosting 54-40. Northern had tried to lure them up, but they were a little too pricey, and the SAC budget had been spent. So, Northern College, SAC specifically, had enquired if anyone wanted to go. But we’d have to shoulder the bill. We did. A lot of people did. We bought tickets, along with just enough people to pay for the bus. We boarded the coach when the time came: me, Dawson and Jim, those others.

We brought a twelve pack for the trip; it is a four-hour trip, after all. Those hours went faster than I’d anticipated. Anticipation. There were new people to meet. There was lively discussion. We were going to a concert, after all. Dawson knew most of them. He was custodian at Northern, he worked hand in hand with them on SAC. And Dawson was beginning to prefer the company of those younger souls.

We thankfully pulled into Sudbury about an hour before the doors opened; not long enough to get a good meal at a good restaurant, but time enough for a slice of pizza or a burger before queuing up at the Cambrian Hall, the same hall that I saw The Watchmen in.

Students are starting to look young to me, I thought, taking in those people around me. No doubt. I was 35, they were still 20. There was a different vibe. It didn’t feel like it had when I’d attended The Watchmen. And it wasn’t. The crowd was more aggressive, rougher, quick to anger. The mosh pit did not nudge, it thrust. The pit did not flow and leap as one. It pushed, it jostled, it elbowed.

And when we surfed the hands, they crashed us into the bouncers who pushed us back. I was up and in, the bouncers nudged me back, and the crowd rushed me back toward them. They pushed me back harder, and I felt the hands almost give. Then they pushed me back into the bouncers a third time, and the bouncers lost patience. The thrust me away, hard, up and towards the center. The crowd did not catch me. The crowd parted. I crashed through and hit the floor, neck first.

That hurt. I found Dawson and Jim and said that I’d had enough of up close and personal. So had they. So, we retreated to the back third, where the crowd had thinned out.

A young woman eyed us. She had evil in her eyes. She rushed us, leaping up and crashed into us, her elbows flying. We tried to catch her, but elbows flying are a deterrent to such magnanimous conceit. She backed off and did it again.

“What the fuck,” Jim said as she prepared for her third assault.

She rushed us, we parted, revealing the metal support post behind us. I don’t think she saw it. I wouldn’t have cared if she had. She hit the pole hard, laid out on the floor as she crumpled.

We looked at her, then at one another. And we laughed.

“Let’s get out of here,” Dawson said, “before she wakes up.”

That was foreshadowing to a day of concerts in Hollinger Park. Nine bands were booked, Big Sugar, Sam Roberts, and Swollen Members, among them. Our Lady Peace headlined.

Seven thousand attended. Lawn chairs abound. A slice and a coke ran you up about twenty bucks. I milled about, chatted here and there, and tried to inch my way closer to the stage from time to time, but as time wore on, I retreated back to the chain-link fence where Dawson and Lena, Jim and Geri, and Joel and Denise, and those others in attendance from that period had settled.

Our Lady Peace took the stage. The crowd surged forward. The mosh pit stirred, and grew violent. It turned into a riot. Young girls were beating on young men, yelling at their boyfriends to “kill him!” They clutched other girls’ hair and dragged them to the ground, kicking them when there.

A woman from Dawson’s group was beside me at the edge of the melee. She looked at me and said, “Do something.”

I did. I laughed.

“You’ve got to be kidding,” I said, “They’ll tear me apart if I go in there. That’s a job for Mommy.”

Just then an army of Mommies took to the field. They waded in and pulled the little boys and girls apart. Sent them packing. No one dared punch Mommy.

And I kept my skin.

I’m getting too old for this shit, I thought.

Days of Welcome

I decided to buy a computer. I’d put it off long enough, not knowing what I’d actually do with it. Everyone I knew who had one just played videogames with them, or signed up on ICQ (the messenger of the time) and talked to random people around the world about the weather. I had no clue why anyone would want to do that. Why not spend the energy getting to know the people you knew, or people who you met who you’d actually see face to face.

Granted, the internet was relatively new. I suppose it wasn’t by then, it was 1998, and the internet had only been around since about 1992, but you had to seriously know what you were doing with a computer back then. Windows 95 and Netscape changed all that. So I bought one. And pretty well just played video games on it.

But I began to see other uses, too. I discovered that there were dating sites on the net, and since the prospect of my meeting women through my friends was bleak at best, I thought I’d give modern technology a shot. There weren’t a lot of local women on them, not by comparison, but we were only just beginning to dip our toes in the modern age, or at least I was. I crossed my fingers and dove in.
Not much happened for a while. Slow start, small steps.

Neil had dropped out of university by then. He too was floundering. Like me, he was getting on, relatively speaking, and still had no clue what he wanted to do with his life. We hung out more and more, struck up a D&D game, grasping at the past as we were unsure about the future.

He was doing a little better than I was. Many of his friends were still in town. He was dating Sharon (not Martin, St. Jean). He may not have known what sort of career he was striving for, but he was firmly grounded.

He introduced me to the Welcome Tavern. I knew it existed, but I had never been in it. Not true. I’d been in it once, back when I was a student. My car pool of students had met up there once to bid farewell to the summer, years ago. It had been an old guys’ bar then. As far as I knew it, it still was. I was wrong.

Wayne Brown had bought it, and had transformed it by happenstance. Wayne put in a new Jukebox, banishing all country except the outlaw sort, Cash and Jennings and the sort. He began to bring it bands. Small bands, up-and-comers from down South, local bands with small followings. The university crowd, unhappy with the usual favoured establishments, heard about Wayne’s and what he was doing with it and opted to make his their own, much to the chagrin of the old guys who were finding themselves being pressed out.

Neil dragged me in there to see Babelfish, a little local band slapped together by his friends, John Huggins, John Tunnicliffe and Lee Hannigan. I was impressed. The Welcome was exactly as I remembered it, yet it was completely different. A few old guys still scowled at the trespassers from the dark corners, but it had a whole new vibe. And the price was right. The price of beer had rolled back by a decade.

I still began my weekend evenings at Casey’s (I’ve always been one for misguided loyalties), but I vacated it a couple hours later to walk down the hill to that shabby old Welcome, where even Dawson and crowd had begun to frequent, owing to Wayne Bozzer’s attendance. Bozzer and Brown were old friends. And Dawson had toiled alongside Bozzer at the college with SAC to book bands for the college pubs, so they were all one big happy clique. Another I’d joined the hazy peripheral vision of, one I was not afforded the privilege of being taught the secret handshake to. Not a problem. I knew where I stood with them now. I was filler at a party. I was a fallback when all plans fell through. I was their failsafe.
But not with Neil. Neil called me. Neil made plans with me. But Neil had also begun to work with the MNR, fighting fires by then too, so Neil was beginning to be away, hanging his duffel in Chapleau a lot.

I rekindled a few tentative friendships from Haileybury while at the Welcome, with Scott Smith, with Peter Kangas, with some of their hangers-on. We had a shared history, even if we’d never been friends while there. We recalled the Matabanick Hotel, the Haileybury School of Mines, survey classes and chemistry labs. And school sponsored curling bonspiels. I recall us sitting together after my match, nursing beers, watching Boston play “More Than a Feeling” on MTV when they, Scott and Pete, decided to pool their resources. They bought twenty bucks worth of Nevada tickets and won a hundred. Pay-dirt! Their weekend had been funded. They tried that same trick the next weekend. They pooled what bills and change they had, collected their tickets, and began to rip open the perforated tabs. Hope slipped away as the pile of lost chances piled up on the table before them, and then deserted them altogether when the final two came out losers, too. They lost what was left of their weekly budget on a whim, they skulked home wondering who they could hit up for some beer.

Neil called me one week to say that Ron Hawkins was coming to the Welcome.

“Who?” I asked. My synapses weren’t firing.

“Ron Hawkins,” he said. “Ron Hawkins of Lowest of the Low!”

We bought tickets early. Good thing, too. They sold out in no time. It’s not like the Welcome was a big place.

The night came. We arrived at what we thought was an early hour. And found the bar already full to the rafters. We carved out a spot along the back wall, bought our beers and awaited Ron and his new band. It was the Rusty Nails. But they’d yet to record anything. Ron was touring his solo material he’d just released: The Secret of My Excess.

He came down from his fleabag rooms upstairs and inched to the “stage.” We’ll call the space cleared of tables a stage. We were no more than twenty-five feet away, directly in line with the speakers.
Need I say that it was loud? ‘Nuff said.

Between sets Neil and I pressed forward to meet the man. He was amicable, he thanked us for coming out (the usual cliché heard from all performers when met). He was likely stoned. He admits now to the unlikelihood, and miracle, of his survival of that period of his life, and he must have had really high tolerance when we met him, because we couldn’t tell. I bought his solo CD. I got him to sign it. Neil bought his cassette. Ron signed that, too. We made small talk. He was eloquent. We shook his hand. He promptly forgot our very existence.

I think my ears rang for a week.

Drowning Out the Void

 

Not all weekends were spent on a barstool. Those years would have been sad indeed, had they been.

I’d already grown tired of the routine, but habits are hard to break.

Those years weren’t boring, far from it. If they were I’d have done things differently, or so I’d like to imagine. There was more live entertainment, but the crowds in Timmins were far less interactive than they were in points south. There were no mosh pits. There was no crowd surfing. People just pressed towards the stage and took their entertainment in passively. Those who did, anyway.

Point in case, my first concert. Between my first and second years of college, The Headpins and Toronto came to town and played at the Mac. Karen and I got tickets. We were excited. We recalled the line leading up to the doors of the Mac in earlier years when the Stampeders and April Wine used to come to town. We expected the same. But Timmins was already gaining the reputation of a town that would travel to see its music but wouldn’t attend concerts in their own town. That “big name” bands only played Timmins on a Tuesday or a Thursday may have had something to do with it, but DUI charges may have had something to do with it, as well. I don’t know. The crush of Schumacher Days ought to have dispelled that myth. No one seemed concerned about DUIs then.

We were surprised to see that the Mac was only half full for Toronto and The Headpins. They had hits! They were played on the radio! They were playing on the weekend! Yet the floor was only half full of patrons. I didn’t care. One of them was Keith! We hung back, watched, talking as The Headpins took the stage, and then as Toronto walked on and Holy Woods asked us, “Is anyone out there high?” She paused for effect and cheers before declaring, “So am I!”

I expected more after my college years, but no one came to town, not often anyway. Johnny Cash did, but I had no interest then in the Man in Black. I did for Big Sugar! We bought tickets, but were surprised to discover they were playing at a little basement bar downtown. They had CDs!

The night came, I was having a couple in the early evening, still in the light of day. It was after 8 pm, the show was not due to start until about 10 pm. I was seated at the bar when I saw Gordie Johnson walk in with Dave Mcloughlin, a local disk jockey. I was star struck. I couldn’t wait for the show.
Skip forward, Big Sugar took the stage. The ceiling was low, the speakers brushing the ceiling. The bar was narrow, a natural funnel for sound. Small, tight, contained. Gordie was dressed in Hugo Boss, natty and neat, his tie cinched, his hair greased back. He waited for the whoops to die down as he strummed his ever so silent jet-black Paul, tuning it for what felt like forever. Then he clicked the pedal and a hum thrummed the narrow space.

He looked up. He surveyed the wall to wall to wall crowd, and said, “Let’s rock this place,” quietly into the mic. His pic raced across the strings, and I wished I’d brought earplugs.

He rocked! Sweat flicked off him like rain and song by song he pealed a layer off. Jacket, vest, tie. Sleeves were rolled up. Hair whipped across his eyes! I wished for a pit to crash in front of the stage, for anyone to be raised up to surf the crowd, but the attendees stood stock still, zombies lured by the amps.

So I was always up for something new, some new type of distraction to fill the void I knew was lurking inside me, rising up with increasing rage. I realized that I needed to get out of town. I needed some quiet pursuits that challenged my mind.

One day much later, in 1996, I was in my bank when I saw a stack of booklets. I picked one up and looked at the cover. The Stratford Festival. I’d heard of it, but I really didn’t know anything about it. So, I picked one up while waiting in line and leafed through the pages. Glossy photos gazed back up, filigreed script scrawled across the pictures. Shakespeare and such. Plays. I thought I might like that, so I asked the teller if I might take one with me. She said yes, so I did. I asked around. Was anyone interested in that sort of thing? I received blank stares in response.

I read about each play being performed, and noticing which plays were being performed on my upcoming week’s holiday in September, I picked up the phone and ordered tickets for Samuel Beckett’s “Waiting for Godot,” and Tennessee Williams’ “Sweet Bird of Youth.” I booked a hotel on the main drag, and when the time came, I drove the 10 hours to see my first theatrical plays.

I fell in love with Stratford. Bookstores, music stores, antiques and chocolatiers. Restaurants and pubs and coffee houses spilled out onto the wide sidewalks. There were manicured parks and statuary and gardens in one and all.

But as I pulled in, I saw people in suits. Suits? I panicked! I didn’t pack a suit.

I asked the front desk whether I needed one, wondering where the hell I was going to get one on such short notice. She told me not to worry, that no dress code was in effect.

After settling in, I walked up and down Ontario Street, browsing shops, buying little, taking in the ambiance. I found myself sitting out a thunderstorm in Balzac’s, as quick and furious as any I’d seen, inhaling a dream of dark roast within as sheets of rain blurred the thunderheads without.

Balzac’s, Bentley’s and the Boar’s Head became my haunts that week. And a remainders bookstore a few blocks down. Pazzo’s, Fellini’s, and the York Street Kitchen filled my belly.

Ever been? Maybe you should go. You might like it.

I found my way to the theatre to wait for Godot. I took my seat, my first of many.

I love Stratford. I’ve been going back for over 20 years now.

Buckle Me In On A Highway of Sin

 

All my life I’d been looking for a place, a harbour, a friend, a mentor, guidance. Sometimes I found one. Most times I did not. After a time, I stopped looking. Bleak outlook. Yes. But by my early working years I’d begun stumbling through life, slipping into a shell, not really giving a shit about anything.

I’d received little guidance in high school, not sure what I wanted to do, not really planning for or on much of anything, living in the moment. By grade 12, the realization that I’d have to make a decision about my future was impressed on me by my mother. I was taken aback, looked to the horizon of possibilities, and discovered a blank. My father was a salesman, a precarious way to make a living, in my view, considering the economic winds that had blown him hither and thither. I looked to those surrounding my upbringing and saw teachers and lawyers, construction workers and plumbers, cab drivers and miners. I did not see myself as particularly bright, so the law and teaching were out of the question, to my reckoning. I hated home construction, did not want to drive a cab. George Miller was a miner, a shift boss; Marc, my future ex-brother-in-law was attending the Haileybury School of Mines. I was from a mining town, there’d always be a need for metals and mines, so I made up my mind without much forethought. I hated mining, then just grew apathetic to it.

I thought about a business degree and applied to university. I didn’t care for business much once I was exposed to it, preferring my electives in anthropology, sociology, and history. That brought me back to teacher, something I’d never considered and didn’t call to me, either.

I had a thought while in London. What about the military? Why did that cross my mind? I don’t know. There were commercials on TV. I thought I might be educated enough to be an officer. I looked into it, saw that they would train me in a technical trade. So, I actually applied, God help me. I passed the fitness test, barely. That’s what they told me. They also told me that my marks weren’t good enough to be an officer. They wanted to recruit straight ‘A’ students with an athletic bent, who were leaders in clubs, extracurricular activities, and the captain of the football team, all rolled into one. Would I be interested in the enlisted ranks?

I was not. And seeing how the next decade unfolded, I can thank my lucky stars that I did not fall into that path. Rwanda, Bosnia, ethnic cleansing. I’d have been PTSD had I accepted their offer.

I left school. I did not find a suitable engineering position. Instead I found myself within the enlisted ranks of the mining industry, on a French crew, invested with little training, seeing no possibility of advancement, altogether ignored and passed over.

But I was loaned out. I found myself trained on haulage trucks for the purpose of backfilling in 2 Mine, the same job I was doing in 1 Mine, but sans conveyors. At least there were new guys to work with: Tim Gignac, Frank Chiera, and James Patrick. New people, new sights, new job, of a sort. And driving haulage trucks was fun for a time. Until it wasn’t.

In time I’d saved enough to buy a car, a 4 cylinder Pontiac Sunbird. It was sporty looking, if a little gutless. It was a bit of a lemon, at first as well, always in the shop for one thing or another for a few months, for a faulty dash, for two faulty CD players, for a sunroof and windows that leaked, for a misaligned driver’s door. But it was MINE! And soon, the wrinkles ironed out, it was my passport to freedom. I became a chauffeur for my friend Garry Martin, and his sister Sharon.

That taste of freedom awakened an old wish in me. I wanted to go places and see things. We’d never gone anywhere while I was growing up, so there was lots to see. But where to go? I recalled watching friends head off to the Caribbean for spring breaks, and listening with envy as they told their tales of what they’d seen and what they’d done, tales of beach parties, and bonfires, and of blue seas and Sea-dos. I asked Garry and Henri if they were interested. “Let’s go to Cuba!” I said. Yeah, let’s go to Cuba, they said. I got my first passport. But when the time came, we didn’t. No money, no holidays, no passports.

Years passed. Let’s go to Cuba, I said. Then, let’s go to Jamaica, I said. We didn’t. For one reason or another, usually the same reasons, time and again.

So, I decided to take a small step on my own. I would go to Sudbury. I knew Sudbury, so I would know my way around. And I had a yearning to see some of my old haunts.

I arrived, I booked into the Ramada Hotel downtown. I went to the malls and did some shopping. I kept my eye open for a face I might recognize (secretly hoping to bump into Debbie while there), thinking that one or two of my old Res Rat friends might have landed there, but I didn’t recognize a soul. Before long, I grew bored.

I found myself in a bar in the afternoon. After two beers, I asked myself, what are you doing? I left and wandered the streets downtown, and spied a placard outside the Cambrian Community Centre, advertising a concert that evening. The Watchmen! I had their CDs! I tried the door, found it unlocked, and was pleased to see someone at the box office.

Did they have tickets? Yes, they did. Did I have to be a student to buy one? No, I didn’t. So, I did.

I was flattered when they asked for my ID, but they said they had to card everybody. I was informed that there was no booze on the concert floor, only in the licensed lobby. The band would hit the stage in about an hour, they said. I’d never been in the building before, so, I checked it out. It was a converted theatre, the floor still sloping somewhat to a raised floor before the stage. I retreated, had a beer, struck up a conversation with a couple people who were curious about the old guy in their midst. Then I made my way back to the stage. A couple of the curious stayed with me, wanting to hear more about Cambrian in the “old days.”

The band came out, they cranked their amps, the smallish, yet fullish crowd roared their appreciation, me among them. We surged forward and I found myself mid crowd, mid mosh pit. We flowed back and forth, leapt and crashed together. And before long the first bodies were hoisted up to surf. The curious asked me if we’d done that “back then?” No, I yelled back. They took hold of me and raised me up, their hands gathered in to stretch me out and lay me flat, drawing my forward and back, sweeping to and from the stage.

It was like floating on a precarious bed of flat fleshy needles. It was beautiful.

Freshman on Campus, 2nd Time Around

I was moving up in the world. University. I would have never believed it had you told me back in high school, but here I was going to Western University in London. Sadly, I was a grown man among aged children. But as I was far from a mature adult, I thought I ought to fit in. And did. Somewhat. Let’s not forget that I was a 22-year-old among 18-year-olds. I had far more in common with my TAs than I did my fellow classmates.

I didn’t consider Residence as a place to live. I remembered a couple of older guys in Cambrian Res. I thought a couple were cool, I even smoked a joint with one a few times in the front row of the theatre, but most had been ostracized by we young pups; I had no desire to be on the receiving end now that I gained their age. Luckily, we had somewhere to stay while house hunting. My Uncle Derik lived in London (still does, actually), so we made a visit of it, bunking at his house. I never considered living with Uncle Derik. He never offered, and I really didn’t want to live with my Uncle and his partner; I wanted to be on my own by that time, and would never have tolerated a “my house, my rules” environment. I had that at home. Aside from that, I doubt Larry wanted me crashing in his house, cramping his life. I don’t blame him. Armed with the list of prospective houses, my parents and I made the rounds, and found a suitable house a couple blocks from campus on Richmond Street. There was a mall and a grocery store a few blocks to the north, a bus stop around the corner. I was set. I went home to work off the rest of my summer.

That was to be my last summer slumming with Aubrey. He’d been accepted into the military where he’d begin his aircraft mechanic apprenticeship. I was happy for him, if not for his absence. But hanging out with Aubrey had been a case of back-wheeling arrested development, and it was about time we both began to grow up.

Garry Martin, Chris Cooper and Jodie Russell were still about, but wouldn’t be for long. John Lavric was finished school. I was beginning to see the first of my friends drift away. And I was starting university from scratch. I was beginning to wonder what I was doing. I would be in school until I was 28, I realized, assuming I didn’t do a Master’s Program. Garry, Jodie and I were playing D&D with Neil Petersen and Jeff Chevrier. During one session, Jeff told me that he was attending Fanshawe in London, so we exchanged addresses, with a promise to exchange phone numbers once I got one.

I was the first to arrive at my new place of residence. Matt Hait (from Toronto) and Jak Yassar Ninio (from Turkey) were yet to land, so I set about setting up. My landlord, Jaimie, was already there, taking up the basement in its entirety. This was our first meeting. I’d dealt with his mother when reserving my room and signing on the dotted line. Jamie and I chatted, and within about 5 minutes I marked him for an unreliable idiot. He would never disappoint me in that regard.

I was bored, so I grabbed a paperback (yeah, I’m that type, if you didn’t already know) and headed up to the campus to get my bearings, saw posters advertising ROCK and HYDE’s performance the following day, so I made a note of when and where, found a map to see where the when and where might be. I found the cafeteria, and I found my home base, the social science building, where I’d complete registration the following day. And I found the campus pub, arguably, the most important find of all. It was open. I was pleased. Like I said, I was bored. There were clusters of people here and there who took no interest in the old guy entering, so it was a good thing I brought a book.

Jamie had said that he was itching to see ROCK and HYDE, and that he would head up to campus with me. So I waited, crashed out on the couch with a book. And waited. I ought to have known. I’d marked him and he had already not let me down. So I locked up my room, and made my own way to the campus, to the hill descending to Talbot Hall. I was late enough that I was way at the back, but not so late as to miss anything. They played some PAYOLAS too. That made me happy. It was like seeing two bands at the same time.

I met my fellow roommates in due course. I liked them straight off.

Matt had access to his sister junker, once a month, so we planned our groceries around that. We were thrilled to see that rust bucket when it first arrived. Matt said, “My sister says for us to be careful with it.” I gave it a long hard look, and asked, “Why? What could we possibly do to it that’s not already been done?” It stalled. It stalled often the first time he had it, at each application of the brakes, at each stop sign and at each red light, it stalled each time we said the word stall within its hearing; so, we took it out for a 401 for a road trip, to blow the carbon out of it. Matt floored it, that’s not saying much, but it didn’t stall. It did leave a trail of black smoke and backfires behind it. We topped out at 70 km/hr, and over the next 2 hours gained another 10, but no more. We loved it, christened it Bessie, and Bessie she remained forevermore.

Harmonic Disquiet

Living alone does not necessitate a life of pastoral listlessness. But living alone can allow one to choose when one will find solace from the fray. I needed it that year. Doug had told me I did, but I’d brushed him off. I know now that I ought to have paid closer attention to the wisdom of my elders. I’d have had a smoother ride.

Life away from Residence had a certain rhythm. Rise, bathe, breakfast, dress, school, classes, lunch, more classes, return, do homework, cook, eat, watch TV, play pool, read, sleep. Repeat. I hadn’t had such rhythm since leaving high school. It allowed me to concentrate, even though I ought to have applied myself more. But playing pool with my roommate, reading, watching TV seemed far more interesting. That said, I was developing an understanding of my chosen curriculum. Time does that, time and persistence. All I needed was a year away from distractions to centre myself, just like Doug said I did.

I rekindled an old friendship that year. Chris Cooper was studying pre-med at Laurentian, and he and I stumbled across one another one day, got to talking, and discovered how we’d missed one another, so we exchanged phone numbers. We decided to meet up for coffee one day, then for a couple beers one night, then we were beginning to hang out in earnest. Not during the week, and not every weekend, either. Chris had his sights on being a doctor, so his workload was fairly intense, his study hours long. But he would call me when he needed to blow off some steam, when there was a pub at Laurentian worth going to, and I did him the same courtesy.

He invited me to go see David Wilcox. I was thrilled. Wilcox was all over the radio that year. Wilcox was great, but we all thought he was SO old; we also thought he was SO high on coke. His eyes were wild and vacant, never fixing on any given point. He never treated the crowd with his attention once. I’d discover later that Wilcox was/is legally blind. That explained the vacant eyes, the lack of interest in his audience. We must have seemed a blur to the man.

Chris kept to himself most days, struggling with his studies. He called me up one day and asked me out for a coffee, or two. We met and told me how exhausted he was, owing to some crazy girl who kept calling him all night, yelling at him to put her boyfriend on the line. He tried to tell her that he lived alone, that he had no guest, that he had no clue who her boyfriend was, let alone who she was. But she was insistent. He hung up. She called back, and kept calling back, never letting up throughout the night, until she finally discovered near dawn that she’d been calling the wrong number. She hung up on him. No apologies necessary, lady, Chris told me that day.

He would call me up and tell me that he was going home for the weekend, on a Friday night, at one in the morning, and ask me if I wanted to go. I did, once or twice, but by then I’d grown accustomed to staying “home.” There were more things to do in Sudbury, even when there was nothing to do.

One week we were carted off to Mine Rescue training by the College, no exceptions. We were livid. Octoberfest was Thursday night; our test was Friday. Did we go? You bet your ass we went. But we brought our crib notes with us and quizzed each other between eying girls, chatting up girls, and hoisting our less than tankard sized beers. I stayed till 11 pm, was in bed by midnight, and was up again by 6. All but one of us passed. The Stu Unit failed. The Stu Unit didn’t even show up for the final day.
October was as eventful. We all went out pub crawling on Halloween, too (when I say we, I mean the Mining Tech crowd). All but one passed on dressing up. We had no clue where to rent costumes, and were adamant that we wouldn’t waste money on cheap K-mart costumes either; that would have been a waste of money better spent on beer. The Stu Unit did dress up, though. The Stu Unit dressed up in a Wehrmacht uniform. Our jaws dropped. “What the FUCK are you doing dressed up like a Nazi,” we asked.

“It’s not a Nazi uniform,” he said, “it’s Wehrmacht!”

We begged to differ. So did the cops when the Stu Unit decided to tap dance on top of their cruiser. Stu had no idea it was a cop car. Probably because he was too drunk to see straight. The cops stepped out of their cruiser, warned us off with a glance, and hauled Stu back down. They cuffed him, tossed him in back, and drove away. The next time we saw Stu, he was battered and bruised. The cops had beat the shit out of him, he said.

Serves you right for dressing up like a Nazi, we said.

I began a dangerous precedent. I began to go out alone. I asked about at school, but I lived alone (I had a roommate, but he was young, and inclined to go home a lot, much as I did when I was his age, and I really didn’t want to hang out with him much, anyway; we were too different), so it wasn’t like I could just walk down the hall to see who wanted to go. Sometimes the boys from class came out, sometimes they did not. I usually met up with people I knew, and if I didn’t, I had an uncanny ability to meet and strike up conversations with strangers (maybe all young people do, but it’s been remarked on, then, and now), but there were evenings when I didn’t as well. I still went out, though; I’d begun to associate pubs and bars and alcohol with friends and good times. Because they had always been those last few years. So, when someone suggested that we go out, I was usually up for it.

Jim Parisi had some time on his hands one day. He wanted to go see some strippers. The bar was almost empty when we arrived. The bar was almost empty when we left. It was the afternoon, after all. We sat in the front row to watch the show. The girls did their usual thing, an act so old and tired, even they looked bored. Jim and I got to talking. I’d glance up from time to time, but I was looking at Jim throughout most of our conversation. I noticed Jim’s expression change. He began to look amused, his eyes bouncing back and forth from me to the stage. So I glanced back at the stage, just in time to see the stripper take a dive down on my crotch, laying a big red mouthful of lipstick on my faded 501s. I looked from her, back down to my crotch in disbelief.

You bitch, I thought.

Jim thought it hilarious.

You could have warned me, I said.

He laughed. “What, and miss that look on your face? Not a chance.”

Pitfalls of Peers

We were all trying to find our way through those formative years, some more successfully than others. Friendships were reassessed, and we are all shuffling whom we hang out with.

We all learn new things, adapting as we go. Learning about ourselves, too.

John Lavric introduced me to punk and metal. Punk stuck. Chris Cooper opened my eyes to Ska Revival, Reggae, and Post Punk. Garry Martin loved New Wave. Garry was a bit restless, always in need of motion. New Wave and dancing was a pressure release valve. Dan Loreto was very much a Classic Rock guy. John, Renato Romey, Roger Rheault and Mark Charette had cars. I did not. There were girls. There were bullies. So much to absorb, so much to assimilate.

How did I do at negotiating those pitfalls? I have my opinion on that, but you be the judge.

One day I was walking towards the school, up Joseph, with two of the aforementioned gamblers (see earlier memory, gambling in high school). We were in sight of the school, literally at the corner of the “senior” building, when suddenly the two of them jumped me, trying to wrestle me, and at times throw me, to the ground. I gripped them, then I somehow (I’ve no idea how I managed it) managed to get both in a headlock, and we hit the ground together, probably not what they’d been expecting. They struggled. I held on. From what I could see, they were turning red. “Are we done yet?” I asked. They said we were, and I let go of them. Upon rising, I saw other members of their steady clique further on. That should have told me something. But I brushed that bit of foreshadowing aside. They said we were done, and so I thought we were, until I’d learned otherwise. I refer to the night they took me to the cleaners.

After they took me to the cleaners, there was a spat of punching. I don’t know who started it, or why, but I understand the whole alpha male posturing thing now. Only the jocks and toughs participated. But I did, too, once. I agreed to this to vent my rage on one of the gamblers. Stupid, really. The rules: Each took his turn, balling up his fist and driving it into the fleshy bit of the other’s shoulder. The scrappers pulled this off with a rapidity and an accuracy that boggled the mind. Was I good at it? No. I was never a fighter. But I did connect solidly a few times. I know I did because I heard it. Most of mine were glancing blows, though. Not so the other guy, who took the time to aim, and he punched me repeatedly. I was bruised and sore for days on end afterward. But they did leave me alone, after that.

As I said, there were girls. Crushes and likes included Sandra, Dawn, Patricia, Gretchen, Mona, Elaine, and Carole, among others. I suppose we all fell in and out of love with dizzying regularity. I discovered young love makes one stupid, though, gullible in one’s aim to please.

Carole asked me if I wanted to play a game. I was flattered and agreed. She pulled out a quarter and traced its edge on a piece of paper (then palmed the original coin, unseen, and produced a new clean coin), then said all you have to do is roll this coin off your face onto the pencil circle and you win the quarter. She proceeded to do so. Her coin landed outside the circle. It’s hard to do, she said. She traced the coin again, telling me it got easier with more circles.

So, I rolled it off my nose. Missed. She traced it again. I passed the coin to her but she said she’d already done it and wanted to see if I could beat her time. Of course, the rules said I could not roll the coin off the same spot, so I tried off my cheek. Missed again. Repeat a few more times.

A crowd had gathered, a teacher among them. After a few more attempts, Paula Soucie looked in, and gasped.

“David, you need to stop this, right now,” she told me.

I was obviously confused so she took me by the arm and lifted me from my seat, and said, “You need to stop this and wash your face.”

I was then surrounded by laughter.

Paula threw a look of disgust at the assembled onlookers. And an even more vicious one at Carol.

As we left the room, Paula explained the trick I had been a victim of. Shocked, I hid my face and rushed past those giggling faces in the hall until I reached the bathroom.

I looked on my pencil marked, crisscrossed face in the mirror.

Crush ended. In a heartbeat.

School Dances

School dances were my first experience of formal courting of the opposite sex. There were other, different, experiences, prior, but they were private, far less public affairs. Some pleasant, quick spontaneous kisses on the cheek and then maybe on the lips, and such; and some were not, one I would consider a bit of a violation to my person, a bit of show and tell I was by no means ready for, at the time. When I begged off, was held down and forced to participate. That’s right, boys can be violated, too.

My first dance was my Grade 8 graduation. I had no idea what to expect. I realized there would be dancing. But how did one go about it? There were so many doubts. So many unknowns. I was asking myself the same questions, beforehand, that I suspect most of the other boys, and girls, were. Was I popular enough, handsome enough, attractive enough that girls would want to dance with me, were foremost in my mind. My sister tried to prepare me for the ordeal. She taught me to dance, and we practiced in our basement to those albums we had. She tried to reassure me, too, told me to not be afraid, that the girls were just and nervous as I was, and asked, “why wouldn’t they want to dance with you?” I’d have none of her reassurance. It wasn’t like I had a girlfriend. For those few who did, they knew there was someone willing to dance with them. Not so the lion’s share of us.

It was held in the afternoon, in the gym, and was no longer than an hour and a half. All the lights were left on, so it was painfully bright, not quite the ambiance I was hoping for. I recall one girl, as afraid and as lacking in confidence and self-worth as, I imagine, I felt. She was a big girl. Not as attractive as most. She was not popular, had no clique to protect her from her own fears and doubts. I saw her crying, a phalanx of girls around her, most of whom who usually wouldn’t give her the time of day, failing at first to set her as ease. I heard her say, “Nobody wants me here,” through her tears, her words broken by sobs. My heart broke for her. She was expressing those same thoughts I, myself, was tormenting myself with.

I did ask a girl to dance, eventually. With only an hour and a half to do so, I couldn’t wait too long, or it would be too late and I’d have to admit failure to my sister, who would surely ask how I fared, a fate I wished to avoid. I watched the first boys, though, to see how it was done. New territory to discover, and all that. I waited for cover, until there were quite a few kids already dancing. That way if the girl refused, the whole school wouldn’t be witness to my failure. And the first girl I asked did. It was like a shot to the heart. I retreated back to the boys’ wall, defeated. But I did venture out after a couple more songs, as there was no way I was going to be the last boy left standing all by his self against that lonely wall. There was no way I was going to be left to live down that humiliation! Luckily, the next girl I asked accepted. Was she just being polite? Did she too just need to get out onto the dance floor to get the ordeal over with? I don’t know, but that first hurdle had been faced and negotiated.

Later, in high school, dances were held monthly. I can’t say they were ever routine, that I ever faced them with practiced confidence, because I never did. I’d arrive and hook up with my friends, we’d always begin by gathering along the wall opposite the girls, and then after a few songs, we’d watch the first few brave souls as they would venture across the floor and ask the first girls to dance. That was always routine. After years of this, I discovered that as one of the older boys it was up to me to be one of those first, but I never did cross that floor alone, as far as I can remember. When I did, I did so with a few others, who were likely as nervous as I was. Safety in numbers, and all that. It was always a harrowing experience, at best, requiring all my courage to be gathered up and wrapped around me. Weak knees carried me across that distance, my heart in my throat. What if she said no? It happened, sometimes. Then the question arose: did I then ask another right away, like maybe the girl seated next to her who had just refused me? She’d likely be that first decliner’s friend, and would definitely refuse me, too. Should I ask another, three or four down the line? Would she say no, as well, insulted that she was considered second choice? Or would I skulk back to the wall that I’d just left, defeated and humiliated before my peers, and the amusement or horror of those younger boys gathering their courage, and watching, as I once had? And if I did, how long until I’d have to venture out again? One had to. Face, required that one had to.

Most times, the girl who I really wanted to dance with was not the first I asked. That required even more courage, afraid she would say no and ruin my whole evening. When she did, she would be the one I would ask most often, then. I wonder now if the girls ever knew that, knew what we were about, knew our minds, and could read us like open books.

But once those first songs were over, the floor was invariably filled, and the ordeal was easier. We were all having fun, inhibitions were dropped, Rock Lobster had lathered us with sweat, and we might venture a little petting before the teachers stepped in to break us up, as they couldn’t actually hose us down.

Early Music Lessons

I’ve always loved music, but didn’t engage in it much until recently, active more as an enthused appreciator than as an actual participant. I’ve always loved live music, and always preferred being up close and personal with the stage, never content with seeing acts and superstars who are no more than miniatures on a distant stage. More on that “up close and personal” in later posts, but you’ll have to be patient for those.

My sister took piano lessons from an early age, reaching 11th grade. She didn’t play in public often, just the recitals she was obligated to do. She rarely ever played when anyone else was in the room, either. She did make an exception for my father, who would sit and listen to her play for an hour at a time. She played when I was in the room, as well; probably because I never judged her performance. But she was a perfectionist, and never pleased with her playing. My mother asked me once, when I was still quite young, if I’d like to take lessons too, after noticing me fingering the keys on Karen’s piano. I declined, rather shyly, sure I could never learn. There were SO many keys, and they were SO far apart. And, having watched my sister play, it looked SO difficult. That was stupid of me. I regret it to this day. The earlier one begins to learn anything, the better, and it’s more likely to become innate if one does start at an early age.

There was "choir" practice for the plays while in Pinecrest. I know I said that I hated learning harmony, but I always loved to sing. I used to sing along to LPs and the radio, often humming along while doing homework. I don’t remember musical instruments being taught there, at all.

That was relegated to art class in St. Theresa, where we were introduced to the recorder, probably to see if they could scare us all away from pursuing music as a career. I have patchy memories of music classes, I think it was once a week, where we were all expected to screech and squeak for about 15 or 20 minutes at most. I can’t recall anyone coming away from those music lessons with a desire to continue. Unless you took guitar lessons as an extracurricular activity. I did. And I really wanted to learn. But I was learning on a J-45, enormous for me at the time. And the strings hurt my fingers. I was told it would take time to build calluses on my fingertips, but impatience took its toll. I’d pick at it a couple time a week but I just couldn’t reach the fret board and reach around the body at the same time. I also had to endure the ridicule from bullies. They threatened to steal my guitar, they threatened to break it, they pelted me and the guitar case with snowballs. I quit shortly after that, afraid I would lose my dad’s guitar. I regret that too.

I would pick the instrument up from time to time, browse the method manuals, and attempt to teach myself, but learning to read music by myself was daunting, at best. Then, a schoolmate at college said he would teach me, but he only taught me a couple cords, never following through.

I began taking actual music lessons much later on, in my 40s, through the TSO. No guitar there, but by then I was interested in more than just guitar. I began with a plastic clarinet, later added alto sax. And now that I can read music, I’ve started back on guitar again. I’ll likely never be great, maybe not even good, but it’s the journey that matters. Challenge yourself. It’s never too late to learn new things, it’s never too late to chase down a dream.

Coming of Age, Of a Sort

That would be between ‘76 and ‘78, I’d say. That's a hard thing to nail down for most people, if not all of us, as it happens in leaps and bounds over a period of time. So let’s observe some of this process. Further details of each to follow, I imagine.

In ‘76, I began helping out at the pool, not the Schumacher pool (that’s where my sister began her junior guard experience), the Archie Dillon Sportsplex, then only a year old. Judy Miller was still at the cash (God love her for her longevity of service), but other than that, the two pools could not be more different. The Sportsplex was brick, tiled, windowless, '70s modern in every way. It echoed, as all pools do. It was humid, as all pools are; but hot, as the Schumacher Pool never was.

In ‘77, I bought my first albums with what little wealth I had: Fleetwood Mac’s “Rumours,” and the Eagles’ “Their Greatest Hits 1971-1975.” I loved them both, but I can’t say I chose them on my own. They were picked out on the advice of my cousin Alan, in from Cochrane. We stumbled upon each other in the new Timmins Square on a Saturday afternoon, at Circle of Sound. I was in a record store for the first time, out with friends, trying and failing to be mallrats, leafing through the maze of future personal purchases, browsing the best sellers, when Alan appeared. We talked, he asked me what I liked, and I admitted I didn’t really know, limited to the playlist on the local radio and the memory of the too many ‘60s and ‘70s rock in my older cousins’ collections to remember; I’d yet to find my groove. When he asked me what albums I had already, I begrudgingly admitted that I didn’t own any LPs, then, yet. He took those two off the best-sellers wall, and said that these were two worthy of building a record collection from. He was right.

In ‘76, the class trip to Midland, the first time I was ever away from my parents. We were placed four to a room, one of whom likely stole the $10 of mad money my mother gave me for the trip. That kid held a $10 bill up to me and all in the room and said, “Look what I have.” Me too, I said, in response, unsure why he was so boastful about showing it off, my own mother telling me to keep it secret; but upon a search of my own luggage later could not find my own money my mother had given me. Read between the lines, and I’m sure you will come to the same conclusion I did. But how to prove the theft? I let it go.

In the summer of ‘77, Star Wars was released. I very much had an Eric Foreman moment.

In ‘78, I saw my first video game, Pong, on the school trip to Toronto. We spotted it in the restaurant of the hotel/motel we were staying at, and were soon 3 to 5 deep around it, fascinated, transfixed by what we knew was the future. That same trip, someone was caught shoplifting on a stop on the way home. One of our teachers went down the aisle with a basket, telling us that if anyone else had stolen something, to place it in the basket and nothing more would be said. He left with an empty basket. The shoplifter was eventually returned to us, his head low with shame upon entering the bus.

In ‘78 and beyond new interests began to penetrate my shell: girls, New Wave, Post-punk; video games, first at the Square, then Andy's Amusement, and later still at Top Hat’s.

The list of crushes to that point: Heather, Alison, Patricia, Shelly, Kim, and Sandra. Obviously, more to come.