The Bear, #MeToo, and, well, me too....

   True story.
   A few years ago, I was walking through the forest, alone, and I came across a bear. It was a mother bear and she had a cub with her. From all I knew of wilderness safety, this was a bad combination. I stopped dead in my tracks and watched them. My mind, however, was racing a mile a minute. It was going through all the small bits of data it carried regarding bears--- their tendencies, behaviours and inclinations.
   I had been in close proximity to wild bears before but it was always from the safety of a car, stopped by the edges of mountain highways. I had never been on foot, alone, with only the fresh morning air between me and a bear.
   What I knew in that moment was that the bear was the one who would be deciding what happened next. I knew I could neither fight nor outrun it. 
   Without the presence of the bear, the situation was as

benign as you could have made it. The sun was filtering down through the treetops, the forest was moist and primeval, and the air was easy to breathe. With a bear and her cub added to the equation, however, I was suddenly faced with some terrible possibilities, the consequences of which might leave my life seriously compromised or, possibly, over.
   The mother bear saw me at the same time I saw her. Neither of us lost eye contact for what seemed like an eternity. Blessedly, the cub had no idea I existed and was intent on exploring its surroundings. Its curiosity took it across the trail I'd been on and back up into the forest. The mother briefly continued to look at me but then decided to follow her cub. I gave them a minute to get further into the forest and then I hurriedly continued on my way.
   It did not occur to me then but it strikes me now that this must be what it's like for women to travel a landscape which, as much as the forest is made for the bear, is almost entirely advantageous to men---men of many ilks and dispositions.
   I, obviously, am a man and part of a subgroup which benefits from a great many things not always afforded to women. Of all of these, personal safety is perhaps the area in which there is the largest chasm of difference. For the most part, men go where they want with no fear. Until, perhaps, you are in the forest with a bear.
   When you are in the forest with a bear, you are at the mercy of whatever natural instinct strikes them. You have no idea when (or what) they might have eaten last, what the nature was of the interaction they had with the last human they saw, or, more simply, whether they were having a bad day or not. If you are lucky, you get to safely share their environment with them. If you have picked a bad day to be in the forest, then you are maimed or dead.
   In a way, is this not the same for some, many or even all women? Whether or not it is at the forefront of their fears, is it not at least subliminally there, whispering warnings? As benign as the setting may be, if you are a woman in close proximity to a man you are unfamiliar with is it not that much different than coming across that bear in the forest? And how many hundreds of thousands of women have found themselves in the forest, on a bad day?
   

It is now the era of #MeToo and #TimesUp. In an age when communication between people is both instant and constant, women have been able to rally around these hashtags and share their stories and fears. Because of this, both collectively and individually, they have found the ability to rise up against the evil which men sometimes do and have almost always gotten away with. #MeToo has also exposed the pervasiveness of male sexism---at any given point in their lives, pretty well all women could justifiably claim to have been victimized in some way, shape or form.
   In part because of #MeToo, patterns of male behaviour have been laid bare, open for inspection, and many of us men have been found lacking. We have also been found complicit---many times by simply looking away. We have heard stories from other men about the many ways they might have abused women, or continue to do so, and we have remained silent.
   In the ongoing aftermath of all this, many men, I believe, are now looking back at their past interactions with women in an attempt to determine whether at some point they might have strayed. Some men may have done this in an effort to predict possible fallout headed their way. Other men, simply in an effort to understand how their attitudes and behaviours in the past can be changed for the better.
   As a man, you can learn if you pay attention. I have a female friend on Facebook I've known for many years. She has an amazing smile, in my opinion, but she rarely uses it when she posts photos. In the past, I have gone out of my way to point this out to her, while commenting on the occasional pic. It has only been since the emergence of #MeToo and the accompanying discourse on latent sexism, that I've come to realize how inappropriate it is for me to do this, regardless of how well I know this woman and and how light-hearted our exchanges seem. So I've stopped making this mistake and am actually contemplating an apology. It is simply not my place to offer an opinion to someone on how they can more closely live up to what my expectations are on how physically attractive I think they could be.
   This seems like just a small thing to me but I also think it is indicative of what hopefully the new climate around gender roles is bringing---men rethinking how they act and react around women. And if you are on social media and you are paying attention, women will actually provide you with do's and don'ts.
   For a moment, back to the bear in the forest. 
   I drew the comparison between me encountering that bear in the forest and women interacting with men in common, everyday environments. I'm not sure how far-fetched or unrealistic comparing those two things may sound to you but the fact of the matter is this---for that length of time I was in that forest with that bear, my life was basically upside-down. Whatever vestige of male privilege I'd carried with me prior to that moment slipped away into nothing. No amount of physical strength or intellectual reasoning was going to come between me and that bear. If the bear thought it had any good reason to seriously hurt or kill me, well, that's what was going to happen. I would have done nothing wrong but having been in the wrong place at the wrong time, with a predator. Is this not sometimes what women face? 
   I'm going to present yet another metaphor or scenario which, as far-fetched as it might sound, I think might actually be applicable. As women walk around in this world they are faced with about 50% of the rest of the population being male. Out of that 50%, perhaps 75% of men are capable of performing whatever act of violence they wish upon whatever women they encounter. As a man, I can only think of one sphere of existence wherein, on a daily basis, I might have to live my life faced with similar odds of having to face violence or possible death. Prison. 

Is this what it's like for women, in a man's world?

   These are not numbers which will ever change and I doubt that many of us view life this way. But, for many women, this is a reality and for many women it will become a reality. As men, we need to understand our role in all of this and come to grips with some of the changes which need to happen.
   This will probably screw us up. How we treat women (how we treat people, in general) is something we started to learn basically as we were lying on our mothers' bellies for the first time. We learned from how our mother treated us and then watching how she was treated.  We have witnessed the many ways power can be used. We have spent our lives watching how the people around us used or abused relationships and we have formed behaviours around all this which will now be difficult to change. There will be confusion and there will be anger and we will rail against what seems to suddenly be an injustice we don't understand.
   Make no mistake about it, though, women will force a change.  Women will save themselves. Along the way, men will need to provide fewer reasons for women to be wary of us. We will need to come to grips with masculinity also meaning protecting, enabling, and respecting as much as it does anything else. We can do this if we just think. What we can't become, or continue to be, is the bear in the forest.
   
   
   

   

Strange Boy

   It was this past All Hallows' Eve when the Strange Boy appeared, literally plopped down in our midst, almost from out of the darkness of nowhere.
   It was the spacesuit which held him apart from all the others who'd trundled up our steep wooden steps. Some otherworldly force (his Dad, I think) had enabled him to levitate past those foreboding steps and land there in front of us.
   He had never been there before and looked about at this strange new place, our entranceway, in wonder and possibly a little bewilderment.
   When he landed among us, I was in our kitchen, cleaning up a few of the leftover dishes from dinner. Doralyn had gone to the door when this Strange Boy arrived and it was her loud, gasping ohmigod which then alerted me to the presence of something new and wonderful in our house.
  I investigated and came face-to-face with the visitor from out there, as well. I had the same reaction as Doralyn when I saw him--my jaw dropped a little and the rarefied air he'd brought along with him caused me to inhale fully and deeply.
   He looked like he might have been one and a half years old and had simply one of the most the beautiful, tiny faces we had ever encountered. This same face peered out from his velour space helmet and as he looked up at us his mouth dropped open, in wonderment, as well. He was not quite sure why he had landed here and he alternated between staring up at us and then turning to his Dad's voice coming to him from outside. His visit was brief and, insofar as he had obtained quite a bit more candy than any of the other kids had, his mission was complete. Back out onto the launching pad of our porch and then flying away into the darkness, and his Dad's arms, he went.

   I returned to the kitchen sink and the almost-completed dishes. It was here that I began to feel the effects of the Strange Boy's visit---suddenly my eyes began to well up with tears and this choking sensation took over my throat. This tiny visitor had done something unexpected in the short time he was here and I was at a bit of a loss as to exactly how this had happened.          I am not totally immune to the cuteness of young children as I encounter them but, for the most part, this entails complimenting parents on how adorable their child is, and maybe squeezing the odd chubby cheek or two. This Strange Boy was different, however. 
   I am still at a bit of a loss as to being able to adequately explain how I felt while he was here. A part of me wanted to envelop him in our world and, if had stayed with us, that might have been fine. It also could have been that he was a bit of a time traveler, that somehow he was perhaps connected to my kids when they were that age. The other possibility with this theory was that he came from the future. All I remember was that he didn't seem sure why he was there and, as much as his father thought he had just landed for the candy, I'm not so certain either how and why this Strange Boy came to visit, from out of the dark and past the stars.

My Wife's Next Husband

    Every once in awhile, the subject of my wife, Doralyn's, next husband comes up. That's not because we're on the outs or anything, it's just what seems a realistic topic for discussion as I am significantly that much older than she is.
   This is the second marriage for both of us and one of her favourite sayings is I married the first time for kids, the second time for love, and the third time it'll be for money! 
   We kind of smile and chuckle whenever this comes up, obviously not knowing whether life will work itself out this way or not but, frankly, I'd be quite happy for her if, after I'm gone, she found some rich guy who was able to provide her with some of the things I'm unable to right at the moment. And when I say some of the things, I mean pretty well everything. 
   Neither one of us came out of our respective previous marriages particularly well off financially, so we found ourselves basically as the the stereotypical struggling newlyweds, the only difference being that we were in our thirties and fifties at the time. We're in our forties and sixties right now and nothing much has changed, believe me.
   Now, I'm not sure who Doralyn envisions as her next husband but I kind of picture The Most Interesting Man In The World from all the Dos Equis commercials. He'll be able to fly her wherever they want to go and take her on all these marvelous adventures, dressing her up glamourously and treating her royally. With the husband she has now, well, we occasionally make it to Toronto... 
   This new husband, whoever it turns out to be, will be a lucky man. I know this because I'm a lucky man and everyone knows I'm a lucky man. I'll wager that this actually confounds the odd person and I know it certainly is a little beyond my comprehension as to how I became this lucky. I should really buy lottery tickets. I really wish I could tell you just how lucky I am but, really, there's not the time. Just take my word for it!
   If there's an issue Doralyn's next husband might run into, it's that she's a little "high maintenance". I put those words into quotation marks because they are her words, not mine. I never really think of her as high maintenance (whatever that really is) but she feels this to be the case. More than anything, I feel that all woman are high maintenance, when it comes to men trying to navigate their way around them. If you're a  man and at all successful with maintaining a positive relationship with a woman, then you are clever, understanding, thoughtful, caring and empathetic. That's 5% of the time. The other 95%---well---it's  a friggin' crapshoot, and we all know it.
   It has occurred to me that something other than my physical demise might pave the way for Doralyn's next husband. One of these days she might just come to her senses and realize that I'm way luckier than she is and then I might just find myself dumped like a hot potato. This, of course, would be heartbreaking for me but would, at the same time, cause a lot of other male hearts to start ticking with a little more urgency. I know the feeling!
   I can't imagine it would be long before suitors in all shapes and sizes showed up at her door, maybe even the same door that used to be our door, who knows? Of course, all the poor, fat, bald ones would be politely re-directed but, in the end, there would be Doralyn's next husband. And his money!
   So my job, for the next few years at least, is to remain "viable"---as healthy as I am able and as charmingly acquiescent as I can be. I will try and stay away from her laundry and I will try not to eat the last piece of chocolate. I'll buy the odd gift and I'll get out of her hair for a few hours. And, as always, I will bow down to whatever force of nature brought this amazing woman into my life!







   

Roasting Pan

      We cooked a ham for Easter yesterday (actually, it was three hours heating up a ham) and after letting the roasting pan soak overnight, I got around to washing it today.

Our un-pristine pan

   We only use the roasting pan once or twice a year and for the most part it's still pretty pristine. Today, though, after I'd given it a thorough cleansing, it was no longer pristine---you could see where the juice of the meat had seemingly soaked right into it. This is pretty well aligned with any roasting pan I've ever been associated with and it was with a certain sense of nostalgia that the roasting pan today did not come out totally clean. 
   In this way, it is developing a kind of history of its own and every time it gets used the history will become deeper and more varied. Part of what I appreciate about it is the familial aspect. The pan is only brought out when there are gatherings of family and loved ones and it is with some respect that I bring it into the kitchen on these occasions.

Ah yes...the chip

   Almost immediately after we bought it a few few years ago, we noticed a chip in the lid. As it was brand-new, there was some discussion about returning to the store. I remember standing there looking at the chip and, as much as it was a flaw, it was also totally in line with any other porcelain enamel roasting pan I'd ever known---there was always some kind of dent or chip or flaw and the fact that our new roasting pan now had one of those really only endeared it to me, in a funny kind of way. We kept that pan and I'm glad we did. I also look forward to the next time we need to add another thin layer to its history and feed a bunch of us around a family table. 
   
   

Say Hello To "Hello Goodbye"

      I rarely blog about T.V. programming--generally there is very little out there I find remarkable. Which is not to say there aren't a handful of good shows we watch regularly but most of those I'm pretty sure you're already familiar with.

   Today, however, I wanted to mention a new show on CBC, one of Canada's T.V. networks. It is currently one of our favourites.

   It's called "Hello Goodbye" and stars a gentleman named Dale Curd. The premise is almost excruciatingly simple--Dale visits Canada's busiest airport, Toronto's Pearson International, and randomly interviews people who are there either waiting for loved ones to show up or seeing them off.

   As simple as this sounds, the results are always astoundingly poignant.

   Dale begins each interview (as the people are standing there waiting) by asking them who they are waiting for and why. Through a series of questions he then goes on to investigate the intricacy of their relationship with that person. The stories are never that dissimilar from our own but he has the ability to illuminate them through his questions.

   You have a mother, waiting to see the husband and daughter she hadn't seen in ten years. There is an elderly British woman, waiting to see the sister she hasn't seen in twenty years. A pregnant same-sex couple, waiting for a sister to arrive for a baby shower. Those are some of the "hellos".

   On the "goodbye" side, there is a nun who is leaving all her friends in Canada to serve in a third world country, knowing there is very little likelihood she'll ever be able to return. A man and his two young sons who are embarking on a year-long tour of the world, to honour their deceased mother's memory.

   The shows have themes, such as "Wish You Were Here", "Hard Choices" and "Honour The Past". All of the themes essentially explore the nature of human relationships and the different ways we are important to each other. Many times people are asked how their loved one has changed their lives. All of their answers make you stop and ask yourself some of the same questions. It is almost impossible to sit through an episode and not be reduced to tears, be forewarned.

   

Dale Curd

Coincidentally, Dale Curd was one of the co-hosts of the last T.V. show I recommended in this forum---"Life Story Project". You can read that post here. That show was similar in that Dale and Andrea Syrtash found ordinary people out there and were then able to bring out a wide variety of amazing stories. "Hello Goodbye" accomplishes something very similar.

   When he is done interviewing people, Dale parts company and the film crew there with him then hangs around and either films the arrival of the loved one or their departure. As the interview is going on, snippets of many of the other travelers in the airport are shown, as they greet each other. The music throughout this is also amazing.

   "Hello Goodbye" serves as a reminder of all our common bonds. This past year, I had the occasion to be at Pearson International four separate times---dropping off and picking up both my son and my wife and mother-in-law as they headed out on and then returned from world travels. Had any one stopped and asked us pointed questions as to why we were there and how had our loved ones affected us, I can only imagine a similar tearful response. The show is really about all of us, so take a boo and remember the kleenex! 

   

Facebook Gets Me Into Trouble

   Facebook got me into a little bit of trouble recently.
   A couple of weeks before Christmas, I described in pretty accurate detail on my Facebook status a brief exchange I'd been part of involving one of the people I work with and a cashier in a liquor store. If you are someone who knows me on Facebook, please feel free to scroll back to that particular post and get caught up.
   The person I was with that day is someone who gets occasional assistance from the agency I work for, an agency which provides supports to people with intellectual challenges. We were at the liquor store at that person's request so that he could buy a Christmas gift for someone. As we were talking to the cashier, the conversation suddenly took an amusingly "sideways" direction. I was so tickled by the exchange that I posted a verbatim account of it as my Facebook status that evening. The post received quite a few positive responses.
   A short time after this, however, my manager asked me to come and stop by her office when I had the opportunity.
   It seems that somehow or other someone who had viewed my Facebook post had had reservations about how appropriate it was and this had made its way back to management.  According to what my manager was able to ascertain, apparently it was inappropriate simply because I had talked about someone our agency supports. This goes against our fairly new and, hopefully, still-evolving social media policy.
   I am not entirely new to the social media policy and had gone out of my way not to identify the person in my posting. Still, the post was deemed as inappropriate. Just to double-check, I went back over the social media policy in our manual and still had a difficult time seeing where I had gone wrong.
   If all I actually did wrong was write something on Facebook about someone my agency supports then there are a whole bunch of us who have done something wrong. It is not terribly uncommon for one of our staff to make passing reference to someone they support on social media, almost always with great care not to identify that person. For those of us in the know, however, it is generally pretty easy to figure out who is being talked about. To date, I suppose it is possible that any of those other people might have been spoken to about it but, so far, not that I'm aware of.
   In my case, however, I was spoken to about it.
   My biggest concern was that perhaps people out there were thinking I had cast a negative light on the person I was with that day. Truly, that was not my intent when I set out to describe the incident on Facebook.

   In actual fact, I walked out of the liquor store that day with this sense of joy that I had been part of an exchange which had perhaps illuminated someone (in this case, the cashier) with a somewhat altered view of  the world around them and all the possibilities which abound in it. No words were spoken in anger or ignorance on any of our parts.
   I don't very often talk about my job on social media sites. It is even less often (never) that I describe job-related difficulties I might be having. I suspect that the vast majority of my Facebook friends have no idea what I actually do for a living or who I work for. This particular issue, however, seems different.
   Suddenly, I have an entity telling me what I can and cannot say in a public forum. Because I have identified myself as an employee of an agency then I automatically represent that agency and, by extension, the people that agency supports. Therefore, I must be careful what I say. Regardless of whether it's a simple truth or not.
   At this point, however, I am also wondering if I need to be careful about whatever I say, about anything!
   Can I loudly announce as a Facebook status that I have taken up Satanism, as an example? (I haven't...) Would this reflect badly on the agency I work for and the people it supports, even if I mentioned nothing about either one of them? I'm really not sure anymore.
   An underlying issue for me, as well, is the anonymity of the person who "reported" me. It seems likely that it was one of my fellow employees, many of whom are Facebook friends of mine. Or, given the convoluted way social media works, perhaps it was someone I don't know who merely saw something that someone I do know "liked" on Facebook. If it is one of my fellow employees, I certainly hope that it is not one of the ones I see and work with on a regular basis---it would be difficult knowing that someone who was able to see me interact with the people we support on a regular basis would then go out of their way to initiate something that could potentially land me in hot (tepid?) water. I appreciate the fact that anonymity makes it easier for people to speak up about things they feel strongly about without fear of retribution and especially if it involves the well-being of the people we support. Unfortunately, though, in this case the anonymity involved here has made me suspicious of everyone. Doesn't quite seem fair--either to myself or the other awesome people I work alongside.
   At this point, as far as management is concerned, because the issue has been raised and I have been made aware of it, it is now closed. It could be that it never was much of an issue but, given that someone brought it up, it needed to be dealt with. There is a bit of a temptation on my part to just drop it but further investigation will be necessary because somebody told me there are things I can't write about. And, if you are a writer, this just doesn't sit very well.
   
   

I Am A Long Way From Home

   This afternoon, I received notification from a cousin that one of my aunts was ill and in hospital out on the west coast.
   If I wasn't thousands of kilometers away here in Ontario I could visit her in the hospital and if there was anything I could do for her I'd also be more than happy to help out.

On the Trans-Canada, leaving Calgary, headed to the mountains.
I want to be able to do this all the time.

   This, of course, is an impossibility.
   I was born in Calgary, Alberta back in 1953 and for the first eleven years of my life (apart from a couple of years in Youngstown, Ohio) I lived out west---in Calgary, Edmonton and Vancouver.
   In spite of the fact that I then moved to London and, essentially, grew up here, the west was still very much imprinted on me. The prairies, the foothills, the mountains and the ocean all have this undeniable hold that I continue to feel to this very day.
   When I moved east, I left all my cousins, aunts, uncles and grandparents behind. Occasionally I was able to make the trip back and see one or two of them and occasionally they were also able to make the trip this way. But get-togethers were few and far between.
   

Through the mountains and on to North Vancouver.

As happens in life, my grandparents and almost all of my aunts and uncles eventually passed away. For me, though, they passed away in absentia---they might as well have been in a different country. Most of those times I was likely too young even to make adult connections with the remaining family members. In truth, if you asked me, I would not even be able to give you the years most of them passed.
   I have always found this pointedly unfair.
   We moved east following my Dad and his work. He'd been sent to London to help set up an office for the insurance company he worked for and had been assured that it would only be a two-year stay. Forty-nine years later and I am still here.
   As much as I enjoy living in London, much of the time I find myself feeling very displaced. I feel strongly as though I am supposed to be out west. Many times people I know post pictures of their travels to the mountains and the ocean and it is difficult to describe the way this eats at me. 
   I've been fortunate enough to have been able to travel through the Rockies to the coast with Doralyn and we've both remarked at how we could understand people going there for a visit and then just staying there. There is something about the beauty of the place and, for me, I suspect there is something in my genes which connects me to it.

Gibsons, B.C., pretty well my favourite spot in Canada.

   As it happens, Doralyn and I are both at different points in our careers, by about fifteen years. Because of this, retiring out west is likely an unpractical thing to consider. More importantly, all the people we love are here in Ontario and moving away from them all would be more than difficult. At this point, even an extended holiday out there would be hard to manage.
   So I sit here in London with a little bit of an ache in my heart. It's an ache that I got used to a long time ago, though,  and is mitigated by the fact that I actually like where I live. It's good to be here, it's just that it feels so far away from home sometimes....

This Is For Eric Buckley, So That He Might Actually Read It

   Yesterday morning, at work, and as we do just about every single Friday morning, Eric Buckley and I changed shifts.
   Eric and I tend to spend five to ten minutes just chatting about life in general after we're done exchanging more work-specific details.
   

This morning Eric was telling me how he quite often will houseclean his list of Facebook friends, depending on the nature of the things they post. I laughed and asked him whether I should check my list of friends to see if he and I were actually still friends on Facebook. He smiled at this and told me not to worry too much and that he had even noticed my most recent "Neanderings" post on Facebook.
   "It was something about Idiot Men, wasn't it?" he said. He then added, "I didn't actually read it, what was that all about?"
   I was quite happy to go on from there and give him a brief synopsis of what that post was all about. It did, however, once again raise the issue of why I blog and who I blog for.
   I can't tell you how many times people I know who are also Facebook or Twitter friends will ask me about specific things that have happened in my life the same day that I  just blogged about that specific thing and then posted it on social media. In my mind I'm thinking well, if you'd read that post then you'd already know about that race I ran, darn it all!
   In retrospect, though, I am as guilty as the next person when it comes to actually digesting the vast amounts of different types of information appearing on social media. I'm good for looking at a picture and following the caption but sometimes that's about it. If there's actually an article which needs reading then it pretty damn well be about something I'm keenly interested in. And it better be pretty short.
   I think, then, that this may have been a trap I've fallen into from time to time. Whereas a lot of other blogs are quite often topic-specific and therefore might have their own audience, my blog is all over the place as to subject matter and is written more like a freelance newspaper column than a blog, really. I imagine that if I posted three or four times a week with lots of pics and kept things brief, people might actually read my blog posts.
   All of which begs the question why do I actually blog? 
   Well, I certainly don't do it for the money. Many bloggers out there use the process as a means of financial gain, large or small. This generally entails posting ads and occasionally doing sponsored posts. I've never really been interested in doing that and the more of it I see in another person's blog, the less likely I am to read that blog.
   The principal reason I write a blog is that I have ideas in my head and I enjoy getting them out. I enjoy that there is any kind of an audience and appreciate the occasional positive response. Blogging is quite often cathartic, as well. This was especially true when my Dad was ill and eventually passed. Not suspecting the outcome from the beginning, I started writing simply to update friends and family on how he was doing. As things changed, I really couldn't stop blogging about it. It truly helped me come to grips with what I saw happening before my very eyes.
   

So, if all else fails, I'm betting that Eric Buckley will read this blog post. And if he never reads another one, well, that's okay too because I really like Eric and that has nothing to do with whether he actually reads my blog posts or not! Next, I may need to work on Kathy, Deb, Bill, Bob, Chris, Sarah, Ginny, Nathan, Tara............
   And in the meantime, Eric, thanks for giving me something to write about!

Ken

   Round about 1971 or so, my (kind of) high school girlfriend at the time and I were linked strongly because of our mutual love for the music of Simon and Garfunkel.
   I remember one day her calling me up (rotary phone) and she could hardly contain herself, she was so excited. She'd been on a shopping trip in downtown London and was passing through the menswear department at Simpson's when she spotted a clerk working there who she thought could have been Art Garfunkel's double. She was so adamant that this young man could pass for Garfunkel that she begged me to go downtown and take a look for myself.
   We went there together the next day and loitered around menswear till we spotted him. Amazingly, she was right---the lad looked just like a young Art Garfunkel, the version with the non-receding hairline. I think I might have seen him a time or two after this, on my own shopping trips, but soon my trips downtown became more and more sporadic. Not only that, but Simpson's was bought out by the Bay and ceased to exist at that same location. For the longest time, I never even thought about the young Garfunkel lookalike.
   Many years later, possibly more than thirty, I happened to be in the menswear department at the Bay in White Oaks Mall, looking for a pair of pants. Who appears to serve me but the same young sales clerk!  Except that he is now a grown man, of course.
   I want to tell him the Garfunkel story, of course, but I am not at that period in my life when I tell complete strangers intimate stories from my past, so I keep my silence. He is quite amicable and helpful with my pants purchase and we go our separate ways. In the intervening years, I see him from a distance a handful of times but that is that.
   Then, just this past year, I am in the Bay and I run into him again. My only amazement with this is that I've done the math, figured he was a few years older than myself and should have quite rightly retired by now. I am now even more strongly wanting to tell him the Garfunkel story but I'm working and can't really take the time. I've also noted that his name is Ken, from the employee tag he wore. My father's name was Ken, and this struck a bit of a sympathetic chord with me, as well.

Kenneth Gordon Gregory 1945-2015

   I was, however, at an age when I am more than happy to talk to strangers about stuff I never would have talked to them about as a young person. I also write a blog about pretty random things and it occurs to me that this story about Ken would be an interesting one to do.
   In my head, my plan would be to go to the Bay some day when I had the time, find Ken, ascertain that he is the same guy from 1971, and tell him the whole Garfunkel story. If, at this point, he hasn't called security, I then plan on asking him if I can buy him a coffee or something on his break and do a little interview for my blog. Even take a pic.
   This plan had been rattling around in my head for a few months when the unthinkable happened.
   I was on Facebook the other day and someone had posted Ken's obituary, along with a picture of him.
   The obit talked about his long career at Simpson's and the Bay so I knew it was the same man.
   This saddened me, more than it otherwise might have, given the non-relationship we had. His obit was self-written and obviously he was aware that his days were short as he was writing. It was also one of the more beautiful pieces of writing you'd want to come across---full of family love, advice on not taking things for granted and suggestions for enjoying the simple things in life. Ken was obviously an insightful man and many nice things were said about him through online condolences.
   Part of my sadness was the missed opportunity. There was something about Ken which made me want to sit down with him and just have a chat. I wanted to talk to him about the years on the job---I understand he held the same job for over fifty years, a remarkable achievement. Along with longevity like that comes a comforting sense of constancy---the few times I saw or ran into Ken always provided me with an instant link to my past. When I saw him the first time as that young man, working in the menswear department at Simpson's, I assumed that it was likely a temporary kind of job. That he then held that job and both enjoyed it and did well at it for all those years speaks volumes. 
   Ken was a dapper man who, as he aged, morphed from the Art Garfunkel appearance into someone closer akin to Tom Hanks, at least to my eye. I managed to find a couple of Facebook pics of him at a Simpson's reunion a couple of years ago and, amidst a group of casual, leather- and windbreaker-clad gents he stood out as...well...nattily-attired, I guess. I suppose this is another topic the two of us might have chatted about over coffee.
   This is, of course, a bit of a cautionary type of tale. It is an example of putting off something you really want to do until it is too late and the opportunity has slipped through your fingers. The people around you, people who have always been there and that you can count on, will someday be gone. They may be gone without warning or they may simply slip out of your life while you were looking in the other direction. Ken, I think, would be in total agreement---do not take those people for granted! 
   So, rest in peace, Ken, and I'm sorry that we never met more formally. I never really knew you, but I kind of wanted to.

The "Once" We Went Away For A Weekend!

        This past weekend, my wife, Doralyn, surprised me with an overnight stay in Toronto and tickets to the new musical, "Once", as my birthday gift!
   Leading up to the weekend, she had told me that we were going to be going away and staying in a hotel somewhere but that's all she told me---no details, no destination, no nothing.
   The night before we left, she actually came and presented me with a couple of little scrolls, all tied up. One of them was a blurby on the hotel we'd be staying at and the other was the tickets!

   "Once" is a theatrical adaptation of the 2007 movie of the same name. It is actually one of our favourite movies! It tells the story of how a young man in Dublin comes together with a Czech immigrant woman and then start making music together. They both are in the midst of broken relationships with other people but the woman recognizes the man's musical ability and believes she can help him win back his former lover with it. She takes this on as her mission but, of course, the two of them fall in love and there's the complication. To tell you any more would be a disservice.
   In the movie version, the leads were played by Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova, who were a real-life couple at the time. Hansard wrote the music and he and Irglova won the 2007 Academy Award for Best Original Song for "Falling Slowly", from the movie.
   The play had been getting great reviews and the two of us had already talked about how cool it would be to see it and now we were!

My lovely dinner date!

   We spent the night at the Isabella Hotel, about half an hour's walk from the theater and the Eaton Centre. After we found parking (no mean feat) and checked in, we headed down to the Eaton Centre for a little retail therapy. We walked and walked but were unable to find anything we were interested in. Being hungry, we decided to stop in the massive food court, find some Thai and chow down.
   The food was actually much better than we were expecting (for a food court) and we couldn't believe we finished our huge plates of food (maybe it was all the walking...)
   

After dinner, we decided to take in a movie. We checked online and found a Cineplex only about a block away and headed there to see "The Second Best Exotic Marigold Hotel". This is a sequel to "The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel", which we had seen and loved, so it was kind of a natural choice. If you saw the first one and enjoyed it then you really need to see this one!

The foreground was better than the backdrop...

   After the show, we walked back to the Isabella. The Isabella Hotel was originally a large mansion which then had a more modern and taller addition built. The room we had was probably the smallest hotel room we've ever been in but nice and cozy at the same time. The staff were also very friendly and quite accommodating. The only negative was the parking---not enough designated hotel spots meant you had to find a local parking lot. And pay for it.

My beautiful lunch companions---Sherri, on the left, and Doralyn!
How appropriate that it happened to be International Women's Day!

   As it happened, Doralyn's brother James' girlfriend, Sherri, had also purchased tickets for "Once" as a birthday gift for him, too! So we all ended up going to the theater together! Doralyn and I arranged to meet Sherri for lunch at a jazz bistro before the play, as James was busy at a home inspector conference. He was able to join up with us at the bistro shortly before the performance started.
   The play was magnificent! The music was awesome and the actors all were perfect for their parts. There were equal parts humour and pathos and the laughing you did was balanced by the misty-eyed, lump-in-your-throat feeling you had by the end of the play. Doralyn and I couldn't recommend the performance enough. Go see it!
   After the play, James and Sherri headed for home and Doralyn and I began our walk back to our hotel. When you walk, you get a totally different perspective of a city. You get to stop and take a longer look and you notice and can appreciate things you probably would have missed in a car.

Massey Hall

   On our first trip down to the Eaton Centre, I realized we had to walk right past legendary Massey Hall. Massey Hall is much revered in Canada as a performance venue and has hosted many of the greats in its tenure. You can read a little of its history here. In spite of its fame and history, I had never seen it and didn't even really know what it looked like! So I was amazed as it loomed up in front of us that first night!

The Isabella Hotel

   Our walking route also took us several times through the Church and Wellesley area of Toronto. This area is described as an LGBT-oriented enclave and is home to Toronto's Gay Pride Parade. Rainbow colours are everywhere---the crosswalks, streetsigns and art pieces are festooned with them and it's actually pretty cool passing through.

   There were also some interesting sculptures near the Isabella and I managed to get a couple of pics as we passed---upside-down wolves and deer all over the place! I even found my own personalized mural at a construction site!

One of the best things about
walking with Doralyn!

   All in all, it was a wonderful way to spend a birthday weekend! And Doralyn was the perfect person to spend it with, I find myself thanking her for so much in my life and this weekend was just one of the many things!
   Love You, Babe!
   


   
   
   

Off To The Bank For Something Irresistible

   About a month ago, Doralyn and I were watching T.V. when a commercial for a bank came on. In the commercial a young man with a passion for guitars suddenly comes across the guitar of his dreams, in a pawnshop.
   He must have this guitar but in order to purchase it he must rush off to the nearest branch of this particular bank in order to take advantage of their expanded hours and withdraw the large sum of money required. In a world awash with credit cards, atm's, and debit machines it's a little difficult to imagine this scenario but I did mention it was a commercial, didn't I?
   Anyway, it prompted Doralyn to ask me the question, "So, Sweetie, what could you find that would be irresistible?"
   This gave me much pause for thought, kind of like those, "What would you do if you won ten million dollars?" kinds of things.
   The difference here was that I wasn't being asked how I thought my life might totally be changed, I was being asked what few singular items might have a profound and positive effect on it.
   For the most part, the things that began to pop into my head were all small (yet significant) things.
   Amazingly, a perfect example of something I might find irresistible popped up on the internet either the same day or the very next day after Doralyn asked me that question.

I discovered that the handwritten, rough draft of the lyrics for "Judgement of the Moon and Stars (Ludwig's Tune)", one of my favourite songs by one of my favourite singer/songwriters, Joni Mitchell, had come up for auction. This is a perfect example of the type of thing I'd have rushed off to the bank in order to purchase. A few pages of scribbled lyrics, torn from a notebook. What they represented, though, was almost priceless---a singular view into the thought process of one of the greatest songwriters of all time. On top of which, pieces of paper Joni actually touched! And, likely, agonized over!

   I have no idea what these items actually sold for. I am now left wondering what I might have paid for them had I accidentally come across them somewhere. I'm thinking a few hundred dollars, easily. Maybe more.
   

Leonard and Joni

It would be the same if I ran across anything personally connected to Leonard Cohen, likely. More than any other artists, Joni and Leonard struck more than musical chords with me when I was young and growing up. My parents at the time were more than a little concerned with my (what they deemed morbid) interest in Cohen and his music, assuming that I must be deeply depressed and, likely, suicidal. Actually, Leonard was having more the opposite effect---it seemed that by hooking on to whatever pathos Leonard was involved in I was able to indulge in my own little catharsis, a reprieve from teen angst.
   I was at the library quite a few years ago and took out a book of poetry by Irving Layton. In leafing through it, I discovered that it was actually a copy which had been signed by Layton himself. I thought this was an incredible find! Not only did I have the book, I had a little bit of Layton himself. Honestly, I was tempted to just keep the book, such was its increased value, in my eyes.
   So they are not big things I'd find irresistible---they're the increasingly simpler, more personal things connected principally to people from whom I took guidance as a younger boy/man.

Howe and Richard

   While I'm mentioning singers and songwriters I should also mention that I am not immune to sports figures as well. And once again, it would not have to be the game-winning puck or the all-time home run ball I'd be interested in. I would be just as happy having something Gordie Howe or Rocket Richard carried with them or perhaps wore or maybe even used once in a game. It would be the distillation of whatever might still be left of their ancient spirits embedded in whatever item it was that would intrigue me, more than anything.
   I'm sure that if I sat here and mused for awhile I could think of a few other things which might cause me to run off to the bank. Can you? In my particular case, though, there would need to be money in the bank...