A Touch of Envy

The Casey’s crowd took an annual trip to Buffalo to watch the Bills play. Why the Bills? Proximity I suppose; that and Brian Reid was a Bills fan.

I never went. Not once. I really wasn’t a football fan, not really. I watched the CFL sporadically, more often later than then, but that didn’t stop me from wanting to go. It looked like fun, taking a road trip with a bunch of guys I knew. I thought it might open up my social circle, make me more friends, and get me out of my weekly rut. I just didn’t have the holidays to spare in those days. It took years to accrue four weeks holidays at Kidd. It still does for P&M (Production and Maintenance). I’m not certain when they began to go. I became aware of them later on, and by that time I’d begun investing in a two-week international adventure and a Stratford road trip, usually with a stop in Toronto to watch the Jays.

I’d mentioned that I only had one week’s holidays my first year at Kidd. I had two weeks in my second and third years, three weeks in my fourth and fifth. It wasn’t until 1994 that I finally had four weeks, and that was the year I really began to travel. Prior to that, I was rather limited to what I would, could, do.

I really couldn’t tell you what I did with my holidays in those early years of employment. Not much. Garry was still in town, doing his accounting placement at Ross Pope, deciding he didn’t actually want to be an accountant. Henri was in town, working for the city, then Aquarius Mines. Neil was in town holidays, summers, and for a time after dropping out of university. I spent time hanging out with them. I spent time trying to convince my friends to go somewhere with me, something they never did for a number of reasons. Long story short, I didn’t do much. I hung out. I spent weekends at Casey’s and Dirty Dave’s, and then Mendez’.

Because of that, I had few markers to chart my progression through those melancholy years. They got all mixed up and jumbled together in my mind, taking some thought after all these years to disentangle. Further research resolved some of these, requiring corrections to my timeline. That’s nothing new. If you recall, I’ve had to do this before. You wouldn’t have known had I carried on, but I would, and I’d have felt bad about it, so here’s what I did do to set things straight:

1989: I began work

1990: I bought my first car, the Pontiac Sunbird

1990: Blue Jays with Henri

1991: Sudbury and the Watchmen

1994: Jamaica

1995: Jamaica 2

1996: Caribbean Cruise (with Henri and Sylvie) mid-winter; and my first Stratford trip, “Waiting for Godot” and “Sweet Bird of Youth.”

After that, I began hearing about the Buffalo trip.

I watched Mike Reid post a sheet to the bar. When I asked him about it, he told me that he and Brian were organizing an autumn football trip. The fee was included. Not being much of an NFL fan, and not having any holidays left for the year, I put it out of my mind.

It was only after they returned and I heard their stories that I wished that I’d gone. It sounded like fun. Mike and Brian had gone, obviously, their having organized it. Dave Payne and Pete Cassidy, too. Peter Vernick, among others. But in some ways, I was also glad I hadn’t. The drinking began as they climbed into the bus, continuing until they stepped back off in Timmins. I don’t think they actually remembered the game. I’m certain they didn’t. They’d drank way too much to remember anything. What they did remember was the comradery. I was jealous of that.

Their tickets were crap those first years, usually nose-bleeds in line with the visitors’ end zone. They’d begun to plan too late for good ones. But as the trip became an annual event, a time-honoured tradition, the week was set aside by all as a given, they booked earlier and gained better and better tickets. They added Leafs games later, too. It was an event, not to be missed by those dedicated attendees.

“You’ve got to go,” some said.

So, one year I watched the game they were set to see. Bills and the 49ers. Being the bookish sort, I grabbed a book and a pot of tea and settled in front of the set.

They returned with stories of how great the game was. The Greatest Ever, in fact. I begged to differ.

“How drunk were you?” I asked.

They shrugged that off. That didn’t matter, they said. It was a GREAT game, they said.
“It wasn’t that great a game,” I said. “I made a point of watching.”

They reminded me that I wasn’t much of a football fan. True enough.

But I reminded that that I had watched quite a few games while at Casey’s. I’d listened to their opinions and their comments, so, I did know the game. I did know the rules. Most of them, anyways. And I had watched the game. Sober. So, I began to describe it to them.

At the half, the score was 3-0, 49ers. There was a lot of stoppage. That in itself caused the game to drag. In fact, there were so many flags in the first half that when all the penalties were added to the forward yards gained, the 49ers had advanced 3 yards cumulative, the Bills had lost 4.

I fell asleep in the second half.

If that were my introduction to the NFL, I’d have never watched again.

Actually, I haven’t. Not really.

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.”

Track & Field

Or just track, in my case. I was always fast, faster than most in my class, anyway; so, it was only natural that I would enroll in track and field, or more specifically, the 100 and 200. Never long distances. Maybe it was because I came from a smoker’s house, but I lacked the lungs for it. I was usually placed in long jump, but I always seemed to either leap too early, or be disqualified for stepping on the board. I was hopeless at field. When attempting shot put, I’d have to dance out of the way to avoid crushing my toes. Javelin was not much better. Maybe I ought to have spent time in the gym, but I wasn’t interested in pumping iron. I had some at home. They were largely ignored, excellent at collecting dust in the corner. I tried hurtles, but we trained indoors at O’Gorman, and we only had room in the gym to set up three, and a mat against the wall. So, we’d have to crash into the far wall when training to keep enough momentum to clear the third hurdle. I always crashed into the fourth when in competition; I suppose that was that flinch instinct kicking in, expecting a wall to rise up and slap into me.

Track was late in the season, so I never made it into the yearbook. Those who ran cross-country in the autumn did, but never us in track and field. Too late to make the printers, I suppose.

My first meet was at RMSS, my first time on an asphalt track, too. I did alright, considering my never having ever worn cleats before, well enough to not lag behind, fast enough to finish with the field, but that was all. What I remember was an RMSS senior turning his dirty tube socks around so that the dirty bottom was on top. I wondered why he did that. It must have felt wrong, what with the heels all stretched out, not to mention the crusty feel they must have had.

I improved with age. Winning heats. Never quite coming out on top, but I remember always making it to the finals, and usually crossing fourth.

And then there was the joy of seeing friends who attended other schools, hanging with them, lazing out in the sun between races.

On one occasion, and I think it was the only time I’d ever seen him since Pinecrest, I watched an old friend, Mike (no idea what his last name was), running in the 400 meter. He was a short guy, muscular, long flaming hair flying behind him. I called out, “Go, Mike, go,” to him; he glanced over, but I don’t know if he recognized me as he passed. Time passes, people move on, and who knows, maybe he didn’t like me much back in Grade school. Or maybe he moved away, because, like I said, I never did see him again.

I do recall my less than finest moment. I was set to run the lead leg of the 200 m relay (not to brag, but we placed our two fastest runners in the lead and final leg, or so I’d like to believe). I surveyed the field, the competition, got set in my lane, one of the outer lanes, and anticipating the gun. There was the sharp snap, and I took off the moment I heard the shot. I focused on the race at hand, and when I ran, the world faded away, until there was only the pumping of my arms, the pounding of my feet on the track, my rapid breathing, my eyes on the lane ahead. What I remember most of the 200 was that you couldn’t see the other lanes, so when in the outer lanes, you couldn’t gage how you were faring against the inner lanes, so you had to really focus on maintaining speed, and on gaining speed. I thought I was doing pretty well. As far as I could tell, I was so far ahead that I couldn’t see anyone in my peripheral vision. What I did see, was my team mate, Mark Charette, the next leg on my team, running back toward me, waving his arms. I looked up, then around, then back. Not a soul. I was alone.

“What?” I asked, I yelled. I knew what.

“False start!” Mark said. Not my fault, either.

I was shocked, then furious in a heartbeat. I’d just ran 100 meters of a race for nothing. I threw the baton down. Cursed, almost threw a fit. Retrieved the baton. And sulked back to the starting point. Hoping and failing to get my wind back.

When the second start fired, I was slow to start, too aware of time, the gun, and another potential false start. And found myself too winded to do much better than to keep pace with the other lanes.

Interclass School Games

I’m not sure what else to call them, but I recall we had them at both Pinecrest and St. Theresa, where the school made up teams of members of different home rooms and grades, named them particularly cool and evocative names like the blue team, the red team, green, etc., or some such, and set the teams to compete athletically for points. Sort of like team Olympics.

Pinecrest was held in the warm spring months, so the sports were relay races, high jumps and the sort. I was especially good at the sprints, somewhat good at high jumps, disastrous at throwing events. We’d compete, and the teachers would award the points to the winning teams, and after completing the full circuit of events, the points were tallied and the three teams with the highest scores won gold, silver, and bronze. I don’t remember actually winning a medal, although I do remember once or twice being confused by who actually did win an event, not keeping the actual number of home runs or whatever clear in my head. Paying close attention to details like timekeeping and unmarked scoring was not really my strong suit back then.

St. Theresa’s was held in the winter, but the events were pretty similar. The one I recall most of all was a simple one. One team had to kick a soccer ball through the opposing team, each player in turn, and the team that kicked through the other the most got the points. I knew I would do well at this one. I’d played soccer at recesses since grade 1 and was always good at it. I could always kick long and far, and with reasonable accuracy. There were no other rules than those simple ones; so, when my turn came, I prepared for the kick by setting up the ball on a built up, make-shift tee of snow. I set the ball atop it, stood back, and having already figured out who had guarded their end the worst, decided to kick through them. I decided to keep the angle of the kick as secret as possible to the very end so the other team wouldn’t be able to shift their goal keeping at the last moment, as I’d seen them do, skipped the first couple steps, and then quickly wound up and kicked hard. And realized my mistake the moment I connected with the ball; I’d stacked the tee too high. My instep kicked the ball, not my toe, and the ball went high, not hard and deep as I’d intended. It went oh so high, like a pop-up fly ball in baseball. I watched the ball as it rose, as it seemed to hang in space forever, and I cursed. It was the easiest catch of the event. I didn’t win a medal at that particular Olympics, either.

Hockey

My father always wanted me to play hockey. That’s understandable; he’d played hockey most of his life, mostly defense, but he could play any position, except goal (my Uncle Jerry played goal...right up into his 80s, if you can believe it). And he was good. Really good. I remember seeing him play a couple times when I was 4 or 5 years old. To say he flew on the ice would be an understatement. He had grace on the ice, as well. But he was dirty, too, I was told. No kidding. One of his nicknames was Dirty Leonard.

Back to my father wanting to follow in his footsteps: There was one problem. I never really learned to skate. Not from lack of trying. My parents had bought me skates when I was a tot, and I used to scurry up and down the driveway, mainly on my ankles, despite ankle supports. As years passed, I spent quite a few hours skating around the rink at Pinecrest, but I’d also spent some of it on my ass and even more time hugging the boards. I was alright taking a slow turn after years of practice, but crossing my legs over one another was out of the question, not to mention executing the classic hockey stop. Gliding or crashing into the boards was more my technique.

Not that my father didn’t try to teach me, he did, on occasion, but he was also a travelling salesman and didn’t come to the rink with me often. I don’t believe he knew how to teach me how, actually; it came to him too naturally to know how to describe it well, let alone teach it, and I don’t think he had the patience, either.

He took me up to Pinecrest one time, probably on my mother’s urging. He did not bring skates. There were a couple older kids there. They had a net, and took turns playing goal while the other took shots. My dad just had to get in there, so he called out to them, and I was left on the boards to watch. He winked at me before he slid over there. He may not wearing have been wearing skates, but he did glide over there with grace, he always had perfect balance on ice. He told them about his glory days (I did say he was really good, by the way), I’m not sure if they believed him much, so, he asked if he could take some shots on them, they agreed, exchanging looks that said, “let’s humour the old man.” They shouldn’t have (stupid kids, didn’t they see how he moved on the ice even without skates?). My father had a wicked slap shot, a good wrist shot too. He warmed up with a few wrist shots before hammering the poor kid with a few slap shots. The kid was hit a couple times, then there was fear in his eyes. Needless to say, my dad was showing off, more for me than them, but them, too.

Later, my dad wanted to put me on a hockey team. I think my mother tried to put him off the idea, but my father was adamant. I was going to play hockey. So, he enrolled me on a team, Esso, I think (actually, I remember the name, quite well). My mother took me to my first practice, and stayed, watching from the boards the whole time. When I got on the ice, I knew I was in trouble, not only were the guys racing back and forth the length of the ice and doing rapid direction changes, they were skating figure eights...backwards. I promptly landed on my ass. The coach sent a kid to help me, to teach me the basics. And to give the kid his due, he really tried. But there was too much skill to make up in so short a time and he grew frustrated, then finally giving me some tips, and raced off to practice with his friends. Once the “practice” was done, humiliated, I slumped into the car and told my mother, “I’m NEVER going back there again.”

I know my parents argued about it, but my mother won. I never did go back.

I’ve hated hockey ever since.

Bits and Pieces, and Such

Oddly, I have a lot of gaps in my memory of attending St. Theresa. I have a fair number of gaps in my memory of attending Pinecrest, too. Grades 1 to 2 are not quite as vivid as 4 through 6, when my class had solidified, somewhat.

I remember surprisingly few teachers. I remember a woman in ruffled shirts and salt and pepper hair teaching Grade 2 (don’t quote me on that, she may have been Grade 3), then Mrs. Gage (I do not remember her maiden name—she had that the first semester, then returned married after Christmas...unless I’m confusing two separate school years) for Grade 4, Mr. Litchfield for Grade 5 (our Principal took over the class after the nameless teacher we began with left for maternity leave quite early in the school year), and finally, the beloved Mr. Reade for Grade 6. I remember Mr. Battachio subbing in for gym class, his change jingling in his pockets. I remember mistakenly calling Mrs. Gage mom, once; being seated beside Alison Tilly for art class in Grade 6; Mr. Reade reading a chapter of a novel about a winter plane crash to us each day. My memory is replete with playground recollections: lots of soccer and touch football, then baseball and basketball. I remember being bused to the Schumacher Pool for swim classes, the water so cold that Tony Syball (sp) used to shiver uncontrollably. There were occasional testosterone clashes with Larry MacDowell in the playground, and sometimes with Donald Rhodes. I remember Alison Tilly and Tony Syball joining our class sometime around Grade 4 (I’m sure there are many who can tell me exactly when). There was Kathy Kreiner mania after her gold medal win at the ‘76 Olympics, and track and field try-outs.

But surprisingly few memories of Grades 7 and 8. I remember a snow day which turned out to be one of the best winter days ever, a solar eclipse when we had to sit in class with all the curtains drawn to protect us, a school Olympics where teams made up of people from different homerooms and grades were combined. I recall a socially awkward boy who was ridiculed by almost everyone. He was clueless, it seemed, unable to follow others’ lead to fit in. I first saw him up against the urinals, with his pants and underwear down around his ankles, all the boys in the washroom laughing at him. I felt so sorry for him, but what was to be done? He went from one social gaff to the next, never talking to others. I do recall how many people left to go to Ross Beattie in Grade 8, the socially awkward boy among them, the year parents had to pay extra for the privilege of having their children attend Catholic School.

I am cognizant of how many times I had to “start anew.” I began school in Cochrane, then began again after moving from Cochrane to Timmins (another beginning, when you think on it), then again when I was held back in Grade 2. I began again in Grade 7, when my parents transferred me from the public-school system to the separate. Losing many people mid-middle school was another surprise.

This trend of my starting over would continue in post-secondary, even in work, but those are stories for another day. Throughout my entire life I was always finding myself starting over. I shouldn’t complain. I may have lost many friends with each renewal, but I also met new people with each beginning, as well. It’s no wonder that my memory is a riot of mixed memories, somewhat loosely anchored.