Archives for January 2019

I used to love taking baths. Where I last lived, there was one of those big bath tubs with the jets and all the bells and whistles but by the time the water traveled three floors to fill it up, it was cold. So after two or three tries, I didn’t bother anymore.

When I last lived by myself, taking a bath was almost a religious experience. Candles, dim lighting, music, wine, bubble bath. It was as soothing as anything I could do during the week.

I used to think it was really cool when a cowboy, a Clint Eastwood type, came off the trail, walked into a saloon, ordered a bottle of whiskey, and then asked about a bath and a shave. A bath never seemed more masculine.

I only take baths in hotels now. It doesn’t feel right. It’s a waste of water. More water than can nourish an impoverished family in the third world for a week. It’s hypocritical for me to pretend to be a responsible world citizen while luxuriating in tens of gallons of hot water.

I’ll always like baths. I also liked smoking. Some things you just have to give up.

When you are young, like six or seven years old, you know the kids in your class, your family, a few neighbours, your cousins.

By the time we reach high school, for me anyway, there were about two hundred kids in each grade and you probably had classes with half of them. All of a sudden, thirty-five kids turned into a hundred and fifty.

In university, there were thousands of young people, plus a whole city to explore. A hundred and fifty kids in your grade turned into ten thousand people.

When you enter the workforce, things get smaller. There’s the guy next to you who has a cologne you can’t stand. Or the person who always has to have a flavoured coffee.

I’m fifty-two. I remember most of the people I’ve known. But not everyone. Imagine how many people we have known? Every student, bus driver, babysitter, teacher, coach, team mate, cousin, neighbour, grocer, co-worker, customer, corner store owner, pizza slice seller, bartender, musician, bus driver, church goer, doctor and dentist.

Most people have no idea how many days they’ve been alive. They know their age but have no idea about the days. Even though we really do live day to day more than we live year to year. I’ve been alive about twenty thousand days.

I have no idea how many people I’ve met. I hope it’s more than twenty thousand.

I was in an elevator tonight and for most of my life, I thought of elevators as Otis Elevators. Like Kleenex or QTips. But this elevator was called Turnbull. And for the first time in forty years, I thought of Leafs defenceman Ian Turnbull. Right-handed shot, lots of hair, no helmet.

One of my favourite baseball names is Minnie Minoso. He was a dark-skinned Cuban who had his first at bat only two years after Jackie Robinson broke the colour barrier. But it was two years later that he became a regular. And he had a Hall of Fame type career.

It’s an under-reported part of baseball history. Black Cubans had a chance between 1947 and 1959. A whole century of baseball talent was lost because of politics.

My wife sent me a video link. Expo superstar Ellis Valentine was a featured actor on a 1978 episode of Fantasy Island.

There was a pitcher on the Yankees named Urban Shocker. That’s my favourite.

In the fifties, there were three teams in New York. Each had a star centre fielder. Their names were Duke Snider, Mickey Mantle and Willie Mays. How is that possible?

Hank Aaron was first in the alphabet and first in home runs. For decades. Out of ten thousand people.

Dizzy Dean once predicted that he and his brother Paul, another pitcher, would win fifty games in one year. The reporter asked Dizzy how many he would win. He said, all the ones Paul don’t.

I always try to separate my opinion of people from the government under which they live. The Cubans I met, hundreds of them, were beautiful people. Friendly, gracious, grateful, joyous. Any culture that embraces music and dancing as they do has so much joy while living in relative poverty, it’s inspiring. Truly.

I think there’s little trade so everything is local, including the food. I hated the food. The flavours, the spices… all the meat was what we would use as stock meat in Canada.

Booze is cheap. Everyone can dance. Lots of people smoke. and as I’ve said before, the women, as my friend Enrique said, have bumpy bums.

The airport is a nightmare. It’s a communist country that is inefficient to the nth degree. I heard they arrest gay guys if they kiss in public. The government sucks.

At the same time, that the USA thinks of Cuba as some kind of threat is ridiculous. The victims are the Cubans. They’re like East Germans in the eighties. They just want to be part of the world. There are no true believers.

I’ll miss them. I’ll never see them again. But I wish them well. They deserve everything that you and I have. And they shouldn’t have to take a perilous boat ride in the dark to get it.

God Bless Them.

When I was a young boy, like any little kid, my tastes in food were pretty simple. I loved McDonald’s, the DQ burger, eventually Harvey’s and that char-broiled taste.

At some point we graduated to Ponderosa. That felt grown up. Standing in line with our metal plates, wearing our hockey jackets with our position on the right shoulder and our number on the left. Baked or mashed? The world was pretty awesome.

My mother didn’t have sophisticated tastes when it came to restaurants and menus. My dad used to make fun of her. That if there were twenty main courses, she would always order the same thing. Pork Chop Patti, he called her. “But it’s what I want”, she would say.

There were a few spots in Ottawa that were like a whole new world to me by the time I was a teenager. The Marble Works was in an historic old stone house. The Hayloft was a place where you threw your peanut shells on the floor.

And then there was Mother Tucker’s. A buffet with roast beef. And I think the first salad bar in town. That was actually a selling point. A drawing feature.

My mum and brother and I would go there for birthdays or if she got a raise or for other special occasions. All you can eat for a twelve year old is pretty awesome.

At my last job, a fellow, who had a family of similar tastes to mine in the seventies, said they spent all their special occasions there. I always thought it was kind of sad and cute at the same time. You can do better, I thought.

Tonight I was walking by Mother Tucker’s (now called Tucker’s Market) and I smirked. And then I paused. Who the fuck am I to smirk about a place that people love?

And so I went in and had dinner. I got the carved roast beef and stuff from the salad bar and saw families having a great time and the service was top notch. And I had a bite of a Yorkshire pudding and was reminded of my own father, who came from very humble beginnings, telling a work friend while they were dining at the Chateau Laurier that his Yorkshire pudding was the worst baked potato he’d ever had.

I’ve paid five times the price for worse food. I don’t need to go back again but I’m glad I did.

Because I can’t find a Ponderosa or a hockey jacket that fits me any more.

Joey, Defense, number 8.

As I awoke from my dreamscape this morning, in that moment somewhere between sleep and wakefulness, surprisingly, I found myself thinking about my grade eleven French teacher. I didn’t have a special relationship with him or anything. I remember a handful of things about that class. We read Le Petit Prince. M Charron had been a good hockey player who was bow-legged and had a bit of an under-bite, seemed to part his hair the wrong way, and he was kind. That’s really about it.

I was in grade eleven in 1981. Almost forty years ago. And I hadn’t thought about M. Charron in decades. It’s astounding to me how the mind works. Or how little I know about how the mind works.

I woke up in a hotel this morning and when I opened my eyes, I thought I was at home. I was on my usual side of the bed. It was dark and I didn’t know what time it was but I was sleeping on my right side, with the right amount of pillow and blanket. It was as quiet as home and for a split second, I was there. And then I wasn’t.

I’ve had some experience with family members and dementia and as heart-breaking as that can be, it’s fascinating how we are wired.

We sleep a third of our lives, if we are lucky, so for twenty to thirty years our minds live in a place we might not be as aware of as we think. And it’s likely not any less real than our waking hours, when we are convinced we are aware. I’m not arrogant enough to say that the world I dream in is any less real than the world I think I live in.

In fact, I hope it is as real.

There’s no reason in the world for me to have dreamt of M. Charron, as good a guy as he was.

I wonder where and when I’ll travel tonight and where I’ll think I’ll wake up tomorrow.