The Interview

I’m in the chair next to beloved CBC host David Greirson - we’re on air, talking about songwriting. My palms are damp, the air is electric. David asks, “Do you have compatriots the way other writers have their groups, people who love to talk about craft, who support and challenge you as a songwriter?”

I’m about to say no, not really - I don’t have an enviable social life full of eccentric and passionate creators. My heart is sinking. This is why I’ll never be great on radio - I can’t think on my feet. But David is still talking. I wish … and then, there in my mind’s eye, I see P, who lives far away in California. We’ve kept our songwriting friendship alive for years with handwritten letters and hour-long phone calls, talking over our lives and our work-in-progress. David looks straight into my eyes as he wraps up his question: “Who puts your feet to the fire?”

Panic. Flames crackling dark and bright hands behind my back rough bark pressing coarse ropes - I'm in the fire. Faces flicker, people I know - their eyes bright. Mouths open. I can’t recant. I burn.

Blink. David. CBC. He’s simply asking about being held to account. I rally. Enthuse about P and me, our empowering songwriting group of two, while my heart pounds. In no time the interview is over and we are off the air.

What. Just. Happened?

The Year We Lived in Seattle

I discovered how it felt to miss someone the year we lived in Seattle. We had driven the green station wagon all the way across the country so Dad could study oceanography. I was nine. Lying in my bunk at night, I’d imagine the face of Mary, or Jane, my best friends from Waterloo, and I would yearn for them. This new, twangy feeling fascinated me; I knew I was growing up, just a little.

My school, Olympic View, had a band program and Mom and Dad were excited for me - all they had to do was find an instrument. Dad thought I should play french horn, but when they located a second-hand clarinet for cheap, that was that. The smell of the cork grease, the stale taste of the reed, the pain in the side of my right thumb, the tickle in my lips, the pressure in my cheeks, none of it mattered when my first squawks gave way to fuzzy dark tones. Suddenly I had a new, deeper voice, like unsweetened cocoa mixed into spaghetti sauce. It didn’t take much practice to be the best in the class and I loved Mrs. Ryker our band teacher. We played Little Red Caboose and My Country Tis of Thee, but best of all was Arabian Dance. Mrs. Ryker explained that it sounded different because it was in a minor key. All I knew was that when I played it I felt exotic and, for the first time, musical. It didn’t occur to me to tell anyone.

Out on the rough-paved street with no sidewalks that ran past our house, I made friends with Florence. Florence had that fluffy, coiling kind of almost-white hair and she was nice and she said I should come to Campfire Girls. My Mom met with her Mom, and they agreed that I could, so I did. I liked the name of it better than Brownies. Campfire meant staring into flames, cooking potatoes in tinfoil, being outside in the dark night and singing.

Meetings were held in Florence's basement. We glued small vases into towers and glazed them with a green chemical that made frost patterns all over the glass. We earned painted beads and sewed them into patterns all over the felt of our matching navy vests. The other girls had been Bluebirds the previous year so almost right away we were getting ready to ‘fly up’ to Campfire Girls. There was a ceremony and everything - I was going to graduate! When the moment came, we stood up tall and said together the words we had memorized, the Trailseeker’s Pledge:

I desire to seek the way

which has become a delight to my feet

for it shall lead me to the fires of human kindness

lighted by those who have gone before me

on the campfire trail.

It filled my heart to imagine that kindness was ahead, just up the way. I savoured this new idea of me: I was a seeker. I was on a trail, moving toward fire.

Of all the songs we must have sung in Florence’s basement, only one stayed with me:

Peace I ask of thee oh river

Peace Peace Peace

When I learn to live serenely

Cares will cease.

From the hills I gather courage

Visions of the day to be

Friends and faith for me to follow

All are given unto me

Peace I ask of thee oh river

Peace Peace Peace.

I loved how the opening lines rose like a question. I loved the idea that you could talk to a river. Could I learn to live serenely? Really? It didn’t make any sense to me that courage could be gathered in the hills. And faith, that was a word we didn’t use in my family - faith was all about church, which my parents had little use for, though we knew enough not to say so. This whole middle part of the song had me drawing a blank. But then came the end, just like the beginning, except instead of climbing, the notes went down and settled, and when I sang it I felt quiet inside. Like a deep dark river.

So much else happened the year we lived in Seattle. I got a magic kit for Christmas. My baby brother was born. There was an earthquake. I learned what fuck meant. But my re-membering circles around these three: singing as supplication, embracing a vision of being a seeker but not a loner; and bearing down on a mouthful of wood and bamboo to make not just sounds but music. I want a word, now, for what these have in common, a word with the weight and colour of what these moments evoked in me. It is a word I’ve never owned. Soul. I felt soulful.

ReplyForward

Quadra Island

In those Halcyon days of hippies and back-to-the-land ventures by totally unprepared and naive city dwellers, I found myself living on Quadra Island one of the Discovery Islands verging on Desolation Sound.  Quadra was becoming one of the go-to destinations for those who felt the need to leave the already tiresome scene of Vancouver’s Fourth Avenue about the same time San Francisco’s Haight-Ashbury was devolving from flower children into a snake pit of heroin addicts.

Like so much of my life, I felt my time on Quadra was a bit like that of an outsider, a dilettante, trying to fit into both worlds and not succeeding very well at either.  In the mornings I put on a jacket and tie and took the ferry to Campbell River where I held a respectable job with the community newspaper.  In the evenings and on weekends I put on my torn jeans and Mexican peasant shirt and smoked doobies hanging out in and around the Island’s pub. 

 Back then I liked both weed and beer and indulged in one or both depending on the company.  One evening in the pub I was heading for the Men’s room and while passing the wide-open door of the Women’s, I noticed a true Hippie chick doing her best to bathe in the tiny hand sink.

Stark naked, she was standing with on one foot on the floor and the other lifted into the sink while washing herself with wet paper towels.   I’m not even sure of my initial reaction.  Was I a Satyr gazing at the beauty of a wood nymph bathing her long, lithe limbs in the cool water of a pond deep in the woods?  From my brief glance through the doorway, I think I found her attractive.  But I didn’t linger long enough (I am a gentleman after all) to notice what must have been hairy legs and armpits.  And try as I might (like the true Renaissance man I wanted to be) I never was able to find this early feminist statement appealing.

Memories might be a bit blurred by a marijuana haze, but I believe that may have been the same night I nearly burned down the house along with a brood of chickens I was babysitting while my friends who were renting the place were away.  It was more of a summer cabin really, poorly insulated and when the night turned cold I tried lighting the old oil range cum heater that was fed by gravity from a barrel on the outside of the house.  Instructions were simple, open valve, allow a quantity of oil to pool, drop a burning Kleenex on top of the oil and allow it to ignite.  But it didn’t work.  Kleenex after Kleenex fizzled and went out.  Why Kleenex?  Anyone who’s ever tried knows Kleenex burns at too low a temperature to start a fire.  Finally in desperation, I tried crumpled newspaper.  Meanwhile all this while the oil supply valve was still open and it was getting deeper and deeper in the bottom of the stove.  When it finally ignited it didn’t take long to turn into a roaring blaze.  Toasty warm but soon it was heating up the metal stovepipe which made a 90 degree turn near the ceiling before exiting outside.  I had shut off the oil supply valve, but the fire kept rolling and before long, the top of the pipe at the elbow began glowing red, and then flames licked out scorching the exposed ceiling joists.  My rising anxiety was turning into mild panic.  I threw water on the stovepipe which helped temporarily, but the ensuing gush of steam scared me enough that I clamped down on my embarrassment, and called the volunteer fire department.

The siren at the firehall just a ways down the road issued its ululating wail, summoning the volunteers to gather from all parts of the Island.  It took a while to assemble enough crew and for them to climb into their gear and make their way to the cabin.  By the time they arrived with sirens wailing and lights flashing and neighbours gathering, my water treatment had knocked down the fire and the stove had burned off the excess oil.

With the firefighters milling around with nothing to do, then came the awkward part.  It turns out the fire chief owned the cabin that my friends were renting, and he was indignantly grilling me about who the Hell was I and what the Hell was I doing there.  Turns out the tenants never informed the landlord they were going to be away and that I was would housesitting and tending their chickens.

I thought humour might help.  I suggested my plan was to invite the fire department over for roast chicken.  When that fell flat I prompted the Chief and his crew: “Charles Lamb?... Roast pork?”

Nada.  Cleary not up on their literary allusions.  Must all be locals.

“It’s a famous story.  A humourous essay called A Dissertation Upon Roast Pig.  It’s about a Chinese farmer who discovered roast pig after his barn burned to the ground,” I explained as I swept my hand towards the chicken coop.  

Still nothing.

I shrugged, thinking to myself it probably wouldn’t have worked with chickens anyway – the feathers might have been a bit messy.

Five Angry Women, or How to be a Father

To properly set the scene for this anecdote, we need to start a year or so previously.  My business partner and I had sold our thriving provincial government relations consulting firm to one of the big federal outfits in Ottawa.

It was one of those typical agreements where the intellectual property of the principals of the company is its chief asset.  To ensure its value to the new owners, the purchase agreement included a two-year transition period, or “earn-out”.  What it means is that to receive full payment of sale agreement, we had to keep the company operating at full capacity and maintain the monthly billings to a level set out in the contract for the next 24 months.  What it meant for me in reality was that I was an indentured slave for two years – I could neither quit my job nor be fired.  It made for a difficult time. 

The Ottawa boys sent out a hot-shot kid 20 years my junior to head up their newly acquired operation, and I no longer had any input in the decision-making.  Unfortunately the new boss brought with him two large pieces of baggage – the Eastern business arrogance that that failed to recognize British Columbians do things differently, and youthful arrogance.  He strutted around with a chip on his shoulder so big it must have given him a back ache.  Needless to say we locked horns right from the get-go.  “You guys are under billing your clients,” “Your employees aren’t working hard enough,” “You gotta get this place ship-shape to keep the head office happy.”  And it got worse.  They implemented a strict dress code.  Jacket and tie at all times, not even a casual Friday.  Bow ties were verboten.  As was long hair and face jewelry on men.  Women could not wear slacks, they had to wear skirts and pantyhose (and this was in the mid 1990s for heaven’s sake).  And they added a half hour to the work day with the added expectation late hours and weekends would be routine with no extra pay of course.

Within six or eight months all my entire staff had either quit or been forced out, and of course I had no say in the hiring that replaced them.  By the end of the two years at least half our clients had slipped away, making it challenging to keep our billings to the level needed to receive our buy-out.  

I was mad as hell virtually every day I went to work, but there was little I could do but hang on and survive the best I could until the two years was up.  On the QT I’d begun my silent protest.  And although it was a pain in the ass to keep neat, I stopped getting my hair cut and let it grow for well over a year.  Finally, on the penultimate weekend I got my ear pierced and showed up for work the following Monday with a large hoop in my ear and my hair in a pony tail, both of which I wore with pride all that last week of exmployment.

Shock and awe.  It was great.  I knew I’d struck a nerve when the kid running the Victoria arm of the company didn’t say a word, although most everyone else slyly commented on how cool I looked.

The following week I was unemployed and it felt great.  My young son had just turned three and his mother had just finished her Master’s degree and I had plans to be the stay-at-home Dad while Mom worked.  I’d turned 50 that year and still hadn’t fully let go of the way the new owners had treated my business.  Which I guess is why I kept my greying hair in a pony tail along with an earring.  It made me feel a bit like the rebel I’d always wanted to be.  And it also got me into trouble in a most unexpected way one mid-week day when I took my little guy to the park. 

The playground was a ways away, so we jumped into our Westphalia van and drove down.  The parking area was a soccer pitch width from the play area, so we hoofed across the grass and son Riley headed straight for the kiddie swings.  These are the ones designed for the small kids that are shaped liked large plastic diapers that make sure the little ones can’t fall out.

I popped him in and began pushing him.  A dad pushing his boy on the swings. How cute I thought, thinking all the young Moms around the playground must be watching and wising their husbands weren’t spending so much time at the office so they could spend quality time pushing their children on the swings.  I was a shoe-in for Best Daddy of the Year.  However, reality wasn’t living up to the fantasy and things weren’t going so smoothly.  For some inexplicable reason Riley wasn’t happy.  I knew he was a bit of a dare-devil so maybe I wasn’t pushing hard enough.  So I added a huge underpush with me shouting out “Wheeeeeeee!” 

“Nooooooo Daddy!” 

“Okay, okay, what do you want.”

Eventually with angry body language and hand gestures and the limited vocabulary of a frustrated child, I got the picture; he wanted me to spin the chair like a corkscrew and let it go so he would go spinning crazily around.  So twist and twist I did, convinced this would make him happy and stop the temper tantrum that was right on the edge of breaking loose.  I let the wound-up swing go and stepped back watching this dizzying performance, while waiting for the shouts of glee.

Wrong again.  The tantrum started boiling over.  I freed him from the swing and suddenly he took off, storming for the road at the edge of the playground in the direction of home.  I stood there paralyzed – frozen in a  lose-lose situation.  If I chased after him, he would have a classic meltdown tantrum right there on the spot.  By meltdown I mean a rip-snorting ring-tailed doozer – on his back, legs and arms flailing, all the while screaming bloody murder.  Yes, they’d happened before and I wasn’t’ sure I could go through with humiliation of yet another one in front of all these mothers with their sweet, well-behaved children. 

The other option was to retrieve the van and pop him inside where at least we could have some privacy while the tantrum ran its course.  I opted for the latter despite the fact he was getting close and closer to the street and I had a whole soccer pitch to get across.  But off I went and it was like running on soft sand in a dream. Oh-so-slowly. And my brain is screaming at me “You idiot.  What if he runs right into the middle of the street?  Does an angry three-year-old have any concept of the dangers of a road with moving cars?”

Eventually I got to the parking lot, fumbled with keys and got the van fired up and heading up the road to where I’d last seen him.

Ah, Whew! There he was, still safely on the sidewalk charging toward home as fast as his little legs could carry him.  I pulled up beside him, stopped the van and slid open the side door.  But as soon as he saw me, he took off like a mini rocket ship into someone’s garden.  The chase was on.  Up the path, around the side of the house, through the hedge and jumping over rose bushes and finally capture!  And to be completely frank, by now I was totally pissed as I hoisted him on my hip football style and stormed back to the van legs and arms akimbo.  I hip-checked him into the van, followed him in and slammed the door shut.  The wild child scrambled across the floor and flipped onto his back in front of the driver’s seat and began pummeling the steering column with his feet.  I slipped into the passenger seat and was carefully deflecting his kicks to protect the turn signal indicator and windshield wiper arm from being sheared off, knowing from experience that the tantrum would soon abate.

Those VW vans, as everyone knows, don’t have an engine hood or front fenders, so you can walk right up to the windshield.  I thought I noticed a movement and turned to look and nearly jumped out of my skin.  About three inches from my face was a woman’s face pressed against the glass peering inside. I pulled back planning my escape but quickly discovered my entire van was surrounded by five angry women – the ring-leader in front, another in back, one at the driver’s door, and two at the sliding door at the curb.  The roar in my ears was the adrenal glands blasting open once again.  Spinning around, I caught myself in the rear-view mirror.  Not a pretty sight.  In the middle of a weekday when every other man in the neighbourhood was at work, here was this older guy with long grey hair pulled back in a pony tail, a hippie earring dangling from one ear and a deranged look on his face who’d been chasing down a child, grabbing him and tossing him into his van.  Not exactly the poster boy for a kind, gentle father taking his young son to the playground.

Fortunately I was struck by a brilliant idea.  I would pre-empt whatever judgements the five angry women had and invite them in.  I slid the sliding door wide open, and the leader immediately put one foot in and leaned forward, not daring to come any further.

“Little boy,” she called out in a way-too-soft a voice.  Riley didn’t hear her, so I stepped in and in a much louder, firmer voice said, “Riley.  Someone wants to talk to you.”

“Who?”  he shouted back, head tilted so he was looking towards the door upside down.

“I don’t know.  A lady.”

“Make her go away.”

Yes! That’s my boy!  my inside voice said to me.  But I was sure the angry women would need more, so I said, “No, son.  I think you should talk to her.”

“Little boy, do you know who this man is,” the ringleader asked.

“He’s my Daddy,”

Adrenal glands calming down once again.

Reluctantly it seemed, the five angry women started peeling away.  And Riley, right on cue and with one last shudder, began letting the air out of his tantrum.  Within moments I’d gently buckled him into his car seat and we made the short drive up the hill and home.  Safe at last.

As I was unbuckling him, the tears started.  I lifted him into my arms as he blubbered and sobbed into my shoulder at the very moment the police cruiser pulled into the driveway, strategically blocking my van.

As the policeman walked toward us I wordlessly turned so Riley was facing him knowing who the questions would be directed to.

“Little boy, do you know who this man is?” the policemen asked.

“Ye-e-s-s,” sob, sob, “He’s my Daddy.

Ahhhhhh, adrenal glands closing.

“Was he hurting you?”

“Ye-e-s-s.”

Adrenal glans blowing wide open.  Oh dear god.  What do I do now? Who will believe the word of this long-haired aging hippie over an innocent child’s.

But fortune struck my way once again as the policeman knew what follow-up questions to ask: “What was he doing to you?”

“He was chasing me.”

“Why was he chasing you?”

“I was running away…”

“It’s not a good idea to run away.  You could get hurt.  Are you okay now?”

“Yes.  I want to go in.”

When my wife got back home, I told her the story.

“No wonder he was frustrated,” she said matter-of-factly.  “You put him in his runners and tied the laces.  When we went to the park last week, it was wet so I slipped his rubber boots on.  When I had the swing all wound up and let it go, he swirled round and round and his boots came flying off and he laughed and laughed.  I assume his runners didn’t fly off.”

My adrenalin headache lasted a week, but all else was good.

Adolescence

I was planning to skip this segment altogether. I mean, really, who among us has anything positive to say about school after Grade 6?  Pain and loneliness come to mind, mainly emotional, but physical as well.  That period of pudginess, aching bones from growth spurts, teeth-straightening braces, awkwardness, girls who made fun of your gawkiness, best friends turning away from you as they became cool and you didn’t, trying desperately to fit in, somewhere, anywhere. And heaven help the truly lost ones who don’t find some place to land even if it’s with a group they had to keep secret from their mothers.  Of promises kept and broken, of secrets leaked out by those you thought you could trust.  If there’s one thing I do know, Beethoven didn’t have adolescence in mind when he wrote Ode to Joy.

I think for me, the teenage angst driven by the conflict of wanting to conform and wanting to be different, tossed with a dash of raging hormones, is most vividly illustrated by a pair of red corduroy pants.

It was Grade 8 and I was 14 and was obsessively mesmerized by Diane Olsen (or more specifically her breasts) and who, by dint of an unimaginative homeroom teacher’s solution to student seating, sat directly behind me in perfect alphabetical order.  Sometimes I wished she sat in front of me so I could stare at her unabashed, but then I wouldn’t be able to see those perfect aforementioned objects of my desire, which were compellingly prominent whenever I turned around.  I say prominent, but they weren’t particularly large, for despite stereotypical profiling of teenage boys, size was not my preoccupation.  No, it was a conviction hers were round and soft and hinted of sensual delights behind the fortress of her bra.  She must have thought me a squirmy little thing, for turn around I did.  A lot.  With the slightest pretense.  A dropped pencil that would strategically bounce off my foot in a well-practiced arc that caused it to skitter into the aisle behind my desk.  Or a student at the back of the class answering teacher’s question and I would twist in my seat as if to politely show my interest in my classmate’s wisdom, when actually I was impolitely celebrating the heady victory of yet another lingering glimpse at those perfect puppies.  (Making a glimpse linger is no mean feat, by the way, perfected perhaps only by teenage boys.)

Those were the days, too, when my Mom was loosening the parental strings, giving me added responsibilities which included buying my own clothes.  This freedom was commensurate with the dawning – echoed years later by ZZ Top -- that the sharp-dressed guys seemed to have much better luck in gaining the attention of the girls.  (I think it also helped that they were good-looking jocks while I was a geeky-looking klutz, but I preferred to think it was the threads, and I began to become more conscious of the need to look a bit cooler.)

I began shopping, looking for ways to be noticed by the lust of my life; she of the heavenly orbs, sweet Diane Olsen.  This obsession was at a time, of course, when I’d yet to lay a hand on any breast, let alone those special treasures that graced my classmate. Nonetheless, my imagination told me how soft and sensuous they would be in my palm were I ever to be granted tactile access to that holy grail.

I had an Eaton’s card in my name, and became an ardent shopper for the first time in my life.  The mall was only a few blocks from my junior high school, and noon hours soon found me in the men’s department, looking for the new duds that would make me a hit with the lovely Miss Olsen.  Early purchases were fairly conservative… a shirt with a button-down collar, a super-thin black tie, pleated slacks, leather shoes rather than tenny-runners.  Undoubtedly I looked significantly more acceptable to my mother, but it wasn’t my mother I was trying to impress.

Then one day I saw them.  A pair of red corduroy pants.  They beckoned to me from the rack, and told me this was the hot ticket to paradise.  Now this red wasn’t a rich Cordovan red, or port-wine-dark red, or a red muted in any other way.  No, these were crimson.  Bright red.  Fire-engine red.  A leap-out-and-bite-you red.  I hesitated.  This wasn’t my style.  This was a bit too close to the edge.  But nothing else had worked.  I didn’t stand out in a crowd and was never invited to hang out with the cool kids.  Maybe with these red-hot numbers girding my loins as I swashbuckled down the corridors of the musty old school, things would be different.

My older brother’s histrionics were easy to discount.  He thought I was a nerd and that everything I did was nerdy.  Dad grunted behind a puff of pipe smoke; his indifference another unreliable signpost.  But when the ever-supportive Mom inquired gingerly if I was sure I wanted to keep them, the red corduroy pants became a red flag.   Had I gone overboard?

Nonetheless, the next morning with a contradictory mix of excitement and anxiety, I dressed – pale-blue button-down shirt, brand spanking new red corduroy pants, polished penny loafers.  Nervous but determined, the chrysalis had gelled and the new and colourful me had emerged and was winging his way to brighten the dark, gloomy hallways of Junior High.

Sometimes bold adventures have happy endings.  Mine was more like the Franklin expedition, doomed to failure from the start.  Bad judgment, total unfamiliarity with the terrain, complete naivety of just how hostile the environment was.  First a couple of raised eyebrows while waiting at the bus stop.  Then as I climbed on board, the bus for one brief moment was frozen like one of Franklin’s ships in the northern ice.  Spring break-up came in a matter of seconds -- snickers building to finger-pointing and then to outright guffaws and belly holding ridicule.

The homeroom teacher, a drab, homely creature, undoubtedly jealous of my sartorial courage, made some mocking reference to the Elizabethan court which delighted the entire class, though I’m convinced not a single one of those vacuous dullards had the slightest inkling what the allusion meant.  For once I kept still in my seat, staring straight ahead in hopes that Diane couldn’t see the rising crimson in my face like a mirrored reflection of my new corduroy pants.

I somehow survived the day.  With much grimacing, Mom managed to stifle the I-tried-to-warn-you-and-we-can’t-take-them-back-now-you’ve-worn-them, and she tried dying the pants navy but they turned purple. 

this was in the days before the Beatles and psychedelics and Carnaby Street, so purple was just as bad, if not worse, as bright red. I found as many excuses not to wear them as I did to spin around in my seat to make sure Diane Olsen still packed the perfect pair.  But even that sport had faded.  The light of my life had not only laughed along with the others, but she began dating a Grade 10 with a driver’s licence.  The following September, we were put into different classes, and our paths seldom crossed after that.  Eventually I got a girlfriend and I do remember the first time I unhooked a bra… but that’s another story (although one with a somewhat more gratifying ending).

Memoir excerpt

Camp Wabinaki, 1967. I’m lying on my bunk, on my back, in the dark, listening to our counsellor, Monica, read us a story, when she gasps, “Oh! Look! It’s the Cross!”. Monica points to the cabin window and we all wriggle to sit up without unzipping our sleeping bags. Whoa, there is a cross, a cross of white light coming out of the moon. How come I’ve never seen that before? It’s not magic, it’s … spiritual. 

Except. I move my head, and the cross moves too. I tip to one side and that’s when I notice the screen. We’re looking at the moon through a screen. It keeps the moths and mosquitoes from getting in. It’s the screen that makes the light stream out that way, not Jesus.

I have to say something. Because, I think they need to know. To not be fooled. "You guys,” I start, and even though the cabin is the same size as always, my cabin-mates on their bunks suddenly feel very far away. My voice goes small, like a wind-up toy winding down. And then I’m done. There’s no argument. Monica sighs. “Aww, Susan. You spoiled the feeling.”

The next day I see everyone being nicer to Linda B., Linda who has stringy hair, who used to be the outcast. Now, the outcast is me.