Vinyl Time Capsules

My mother's birthday falls this week.  Like many people, the older she gets, the harder she is to buy gifts for.  I mean, she's had a good life, rarely wanted for anything, sired the kind of son that most parents can only dream about and basically has pretty much everything she wants.

Mom doesn't own a record player and hasn't owned one for years now.  The one and only turntable that she ever owned was built into one of those all-in-one stereo cabinets; you know, the kind that has a receiver, turntable, tape deck and speakers built right into it, with compartments to store a few records and tapes thrown in to boot.  This wasn't the kind of modular sound system that's been the norm for the last 30 years or so; this was a stand-alone piece of furniture.  They were popular back in the seventies.  However, that old relic was finally taken to the curbside in front of mom's house some years ago, to be replaced with a much more diminutive stereo/CD player. 

Being the pack-rat that I am, I,  however, still have an old Dual turntable and a sizable collection of vinyl records to go with it so, having no further use for her old records, mom gave them to me.  I'd always had this idea that some day I might hook up the turntable to my computer and convert my favorite old records to CD, and I thought that mom might like me to do the same with her old records as well.  It was just one more of the many personal projects that I never seem to have the time for.

That's where I got the idea that maybe it was time to take the plunge and give mom a little trip down memory lane for this birthday.  So I dug out my old Dual, hooked it up to a computer and chose three titles out of mom's record collection that I thought she might particularly enjoy.  There was Harry Belafonte live at Carnegie Hall (mom was always a big Belafonte fan; I get a little embarrassed when she Calypso dances in public, particularly after a few glasses of wine), a German singer who goes only by the name of "Lolita" (no, it's not what you think - apparently that's a perfectly acceptable name among certain ethnicities) and, finally, the lady who's depicted at the top of this post; a fairly obscure Canadian country songstress by the name of Jean Pardy.

Jean Pardy was actually never one of mom's favorites, but I chose to convert the album for its nostalgic, sentimental value.  You see, I`d purchased it for mom back in 1973, when I was still but a young lad of ten years.  Records were still something of a novelty in our household at the time as the old stereo cabinet was still brand, spanking new so I decided to get mom a record for her birthday.  I didn't know much about music in those days.  I had no records of my own and I only listened to the radio when it happened to be on in the background so I marched down to the local Woolworth's department store, found the section where they sold records and scanned the rows of album covers for something that looked appealing.  The only reason I can offer today for choosing Jean Pardy is because I was a big fan of Popeye cartoons back then, and she appears to have shopped at the same fashion outlets as Olive Oyl.

As the album title suggests, most of the songs are tributes to Newfoundland and Newfoundlanders, Jean being herself a native of that maritime island.  Several of the songs sound as though they may well have been written by the iconic Canadian country/folk singer, "Stompin' Tom" Connors, with a few well-worn (even at that time) country favorites such as `D-I-V-O-R-C-E` thrown in for good measure.  Listening to the album during its recording (because analog recordings can only be duplicated in real time after all) I realized that I had forgotten how astoundingly bad this album really was.  Let`s just say it`s no mystery why Jean Pardy isn`t exactly a household name down in Nashville nowadays, or even in Thunder Bay for that matter (maybe in Corner Brook though).

And yet, I couldn`t help feeling a certain nostalgic pleasure as I heard those whining slide guitars, the wheezy concertinas and the clickety-clack of the spoons (yes, those are considered musical instruments among certain people of Celtic and Gaelic origin) and I waxed a little philosophical as I so often do, thinking how the music that I thought had been lost for all these years had been right there, safely stored away among the peaks and valleys that form the floor of the spiral grooves that are pressed into the two faces of that vinyl disc.

My thoughts have wandered off along those lines before when listening to my stereo.  It's sometimes incredible to me to think that an electronic box can reproduce any music that a person might imagine.  Beethoven, Caruso, AC/DC, Rolf Harris, Mike Oldfield, Lady Gaga... you name it, this box can faithfully reproduce any of their masterpieces without "knowing" anything about music.  More than that, it could even, theoretically, play compositions that haven't even been conceived yet much less written, if we could only feed the correct sequence of magnetic signals to it.  This idea is somewhat akin to the "Infinite Monkey" theorem which states that a monkey banging on typewriter keys for an infinite amount of time will eventually reproduce all of Shakespeare's writings.  If you fed random electrical signals to your stereo receiver for an infinite amount of time, it would eventually play any music you can name.

And now, having transitioned from the nostalgic to the silly and, finally, the completely whimsical, the nice men in the white coats tell me that it's time for my sedation.  I'll try not to stay away for so long this time, faithful readers.

Yabba-Dabba-D'oh!

I was, and still remain, a fan of The Flintstones.  I watched the shows at every opportunity during my boyhood years.  I'm certain I've seen every episode multiple times, and I own the first two seasons in the form of DVD boxed sets.  I still like to watch them from time to time.

I recently watched the episode entitled "Fred Flintstone: Before and After", which aired during the first season.  In this episode, Fred appears in a weight loss commercial for the "Fat Off Reducing Method", which extols the benefits of its product by offering the typical "Before" and "After" comparison.  Fred is mislead into thinking that he is to be the "After" model.  In fact, when the commercial airs, during a show called "The Happy Hour" ("sixty minutes of spine-tingling suspense guaranteed to keep you on the edge of your seat") there's Fred as "Mr. Before", with all his family and friends watching, much to his humiliation.

Incensed, Wilma threatens to sue the sponsor, report him to the FCC and slap his face.  To pacify her, the sponsor makes a deal with Fred, offering him one thousand dollars if he can manage to shed twenty-five pounds within a month.  Fred loses weight, makes some easy money, and the Fat Off Reducing Method gets some great publicity.  Everybody wins!

Fred agrees and the challenge begins with him stepping onto a scale on a televised weigh-in to record his starting weight.  As Fred mounts the scale, an official from the Bureau of Weights and Measures (if it had been the Bureau of Measures and Weights they could have called themselves the BMW for short, or maybe just "The Beemer") announces that Fred weights two hundred and twenty-five pounds. 

It was right then that I had one of those eye-opening moments of truth that we all dread.  I could stand to lose some weight myself.  In fact, the last time that I stepped on a scale, I weighed ... well, let's just say that it was more than two hundred and twenty-five pounds.  "Oh my God!" I cried, "I'm fatter than Fred Flintstone!  When did I get fatter than Fred Flintstone?"

Unfortunately, my exclamation was overheard by my daughter, who helpfully added "...and he eats freakin' dinosaurs!"  Jessica's very supportive like that.  Obviously, she still hasn't forgiven me for my previous post.  What goes around truly comes around.

Paddle To The Sea

One of Canada's cultural treasures, in this Canadian's humble opinion, is the National Film Board (or, for those francophone Canadians out there, the Office National du Film). The NFB/ONF was first established in 1939, its goal being “….to make and distribute films across the country that were designed to help Canadians everywhere in Canada understand the problems and way of life of Canadians in other parts of the country.” Since that time, the NFB/ONF has made over 13,000 films, most of them short (running for 30 minutes or less) including documentaries, educational films, animated shorts and their famous "vignettes". NFB/ONF films tend to have a uniquely Canadian flavour and perspective.

I recently discovered that the NFB/ONF hosts its own web site, where one can view (for free) and download or purchase (relatively cheaply) most of the titles in the prodigious NFB/ONF collection. Among my personal favorites are "The Sweater", Sheldon Cohen's animated version of Roche Carrier's classic short story about his boyhood idolization of the Montreal Canadiens and Maurice "The Rocket" Richard in particular (charmingly narrated by Carrier himself in his heavy francophone accent) and "Paddle To The Sea".

I first saw "Paddle To The Sea" in elementary school, when my teacher played it for the class as an educational film intended to teach us about the great lakes and the St. Lawrence seaway. Paddle To The Sea is the name given to a wooden carving of an aboriginal Canadian in a traditional birch canoe. He is hand-whittled by a young boy who lives in the Nipigon country on the northern shore of Lake Superior. This talented young boy wants to see the ocean, but can't, so he carves "Paddle" to make the journey in his stead. Paddle does eventually reach the ocean, but not before evading or overcoming a number of obstacles, as one might imagine, including being beached, beset by seagulls, a snake and all manner of aquatic wildlife including a young child who fancies him an excellent toy, getting frozen in an ice-covered lake and almost being puréed by the propeller screws of several very large ships.

This film appealed to my boyhood self on several levels and therefore made an indelible impression and sparked a lasting fondness that finally resulted in my happily paying to download it and add it to my personal video collection these many years later. For one thing, I was filled with admiration at the craftsmanship with which Paddle was carved and painted, since making miniatures (albeit plastic model kits in my case) was a favorite hobby of my own in those days. Oh how I would have loved to add something like Paddle to my collection of display pieces! And herein lay the second source of my fascination with the story. Had I actually the talent to create such a carving myself, I'm sure that I could never have parted with it, consigning my long hours of painstaking work to the whims of the currents and the tides, never to know for certain whatever became of it or, indeed, whether it actually reached its destination.

The whole concept of tossing a canoe into the water and then simply following its progress to see what becomes of it without actually intervening in any manner was equally intriguing to me. I've noted before in this blog that I seem to have this unusual fascination with just sitting and watching things unfold of their own accord.

A small creek ran parallel to the street where I lived during my pre-adolescent years and, after watching "Paddle To The Sea", I'd often go there and toss all manner of items into the water, wondering how far or to where they would drift. I'd often see them snag on a tree branch or clump of grass or stone before travelling even ten yards. Oh well. "A thousand mile journey begins with a single step" someone once said. A pity they didn't mention that it often ends there as well.

This leads me to the one thing about this film that really sparked my incredulity. When I tossed things into the creek, I would at least watch the start of their journeys, wanting some idea as to whether they got anywhere at all. However, the young boy who made Paddle To The Sea doesn't do that. He doesn't even put him in the water! He simply perches him at the top of a snow bank, and leaves him to sit there until the spring thaw sends him into the river. In other words, he can't even be sure whether Paddle's journey ever began! Oh, certainly he could return in the springtime to find Paddle gone, but this doesn't necessarily mean that he made it to the river. Some other person or animal might have come upon him and simply carried him away. To summarize, then, this young boy spent countless hours, painstakingly carving and painting this beautiful miniature brave in a birch canoe, then took it to the river bank, set it in the snow and walked away, hoping that it might somehow find its way to the ocean.

And I thought that I was an optimist!

Social Networking ... Old School

"We had social networking when I was a kid. I think it was called 'Outside'".

This witty comment, which I came across recently, has inspired this week's post. Ironically, the term "Social Networking", meaning FaceBook, MySpace and any number of other internet chat forums is, in a sense, an oxymoron. It might be argued that those who spend a significant amount of time "networking" with others via this medium are actually losing the ability to network in person. Put some of these people in a room with other flesh-and-blood human beings and it becomes painfully apparent that they have no idea how to interact with others who are standing right in front of them. Perhaps a more appropriate term might be "Anti-social Networking".

I once saw an episode of "60 Minutes" which examined why young children nowadays seem to have lost the ability to create their own fun. To be fair, the feature wasn't talking about FaceBook or even computers in general. It was talking more about modern parenting styles. Many parents enroll their children in any number of recreational programs; anything from pee-wee sports to dance to general fitness to French immersion to computer camp. These programs, while well-meaning, are so structured and controlled by adults that the kids who participate in them need not exercise any kind of spontaneity. They simply follow the schedules and participate in the routines. Put one of these kids outside by themselves and simply say to them "Go play" (you know, the way parents used to do back in the seventies and earlier) and they (the kids) are at a complete loss. They have no idea how to begin.

Admittedly, this is slightly beside my original point, but electronic media only exacerbates the situation. Many kids have gotten to the point where they're practically incapable of amusing themselves without the aid of some type of electronic gadget. There was an episode of "The Simpsons" (a television show which is widely acclaimed for its thought-provoking social commentary) in which Marge Simpson managed to eliminate all violence from "The Itchy and Scratchy" cartoon show. The result was a cartoon that was so bland and boring that the kids didn't enjoy it any longer and, consequently, they stopped enjoying television in general. Without the medium of TV, they suddenly had to find an alternate form of entertainment, and this happened...

(c) Twentieth Century Fox, 2001

Hard though it may be for the younger generation to believe, this is what childhood used to be like (although I admit that the May Pole may have been a bit over the top). I lived in a neighborhood with lots of other kids when I was a boy, and most of those kids played together outdoors. Of course, there were the usual matches of sandlot baseball and street hockey, but I was never much of an athlete even in my tender (and thinner) years.

I recall one of the rare times that a few of the older boys let me join in a game of street hockey with them. There was one particularly stocky kid by the name of Nicky who had a notoriously wicked slap shot (for his age, at least). Every goalie within a six block perimeter knew and feared Nicky. He happened to be playing on this particular occasion. At one point, I happened to be standing between Nicky and my team's hapless goaltender when he (Nicky) wound up and let loose one of his infamous canons. I was unable to move out of the line of fire in time and so the Indian rubber ball smacked the blade of my stick with full force and ricocheted off to Scranton, PA or some equally obscure location.

You'd think I'd have been fine, having blocked the shot with my stick the way one is supposed to, albeit completely by accident, but the impact sent a tremor up the shaft of my stick and through my forearms that made me feel like Warner Brothers' Wile E. Coyote after whacking a petrified rock (that was meant to be a Road Runner) with a club. In the cartoon, I believe he disappeared down the road, still vibrating as he went. That's how I felt.

Because of experiences like this one, I preferred to participate in less sports-oriented games; the kind of games that kids used to invent on their own back in the old days. Games like "Mother May I", "Red Light/Green Light" and "Red Rover". Remember those?

For the benefit of the under-forty crowd who may not, in fact, remember those, let me give you some idea of what I'm talking about. "Red Rover" was always a favorite in my neighborhood. You needed a minimum of six kids to play it; ten or more was better. The kids would form two teams with the same number of kids on each side (if there was an odd number of kids participating, it was okay for one side to have an extra member). Both teams would form a line abreast, each facing the other, join hands and take turns calling a member from the other team with a sing-song chant that went, for example, "Red Rover, Red Rover we call Johnny over!" The kid whom the other team had summoned would then have to run full-speed at what he perceived to be the weakest link in the chain of joined hands and try to break through it. The calling team, on the other hand, would try to stop the summoned kid without him breaking the chain. If the runner managed to break the chain, he could return to his or her team. If not, he had to join the other team. The game ended when one team had acquired all but one player (yes, you could have a "chain" consisting of only two kids).

Needless to say, the smallest, slowest, lightest kids tended to be called first but, eventually, there was no choice but to call the "canonball" kids; you know, the big, burly kids who looked like the Tasmanian Devil as they approached; nothing more than a whirling dust-cloud with the occasional arm or leg appearing and disappearing around the perimeter, while each kid in the chain hoped that he wasn't heading for one of their hands.

These were the types of games that kids used to invent when they had no electronic gadgets to keep them entertained. Don't get me wrong. I'm not vilifying electronic amusements. I enjoy a good computer game as much as the next person, and I realize that criticizing social networking may come off as a tad hypocritical coming from someone who's busily posting on his blog. However, it's hard to deny that all this technology has robbed kids of the opportunity to create their own fun through sheer imagination, and it has greatly reduced face-to-face social interaction. The sad result, I think, is that kids have lost one of the real joys of childhood without even realizing it.

Christmas Eve 1968

In Austria, where I was born, Christmas is celebrated on Christmas Eve, as it is in many European countries. Presents are opened on the evening of the 24th, friends and relatives visit each other and the festivities go on late into the night. Christmas morning is almost anti-climactic.

Even after immigrating to Canada in 1965, my family continued to observe the Austrian tradition of celebrating Christmas on the evening of the 24th. It made for some amusing cultural encounters, such as the time when one of the older neighborhood kids tried to shatter my youthful innocence by telling me that there was no Santa Claus. I, still being a Believer, refused to listen.

"Oh yeah?" challenged the boy, "Why do you think your parents make you go to bed early Christmas Eve?"

"They don't," I replied matter-of-factly. "In fact, we usually stay up late on Christmas Eve."

"You mean you're still up when the presents are placed under the tree?" asked the incredulous boy.

"Sure we are," I replied with a self-satisfied smile. My interrogator was at a loss for words.

In Austria, it's the "Christkind", or "Christ Child" that brings the presents. Santa Claus does not figure prominently, although St. Nicholas' historical significance is recognized earlier, on the 5th of December. However, my parents had reconciled the cultural discrepancy by explaining to me that, at Christmas time, St. Nicholas, or Santa Claus, became the Christkind's helper. I didn't bother elaborating upon this to my elder acquaintance, because I had learned, by that time, that Canadian children didn't know about the Christkind, and I wasn't inclined to enter into the long explanations and elaborations that would be required to enlighten the poor fellow.

The other detail that I neglected to elaborate upon was that the Christkind, and his helper, Santa Claus, always appeared in our living room while my sister and I were shut out behind closed doors, with our mother. Early in the evening, just after supper, the door to the living room would be shut, and my mother would stay with us while my father waited in the living room to greet the Christkind. Unlike our uncouth Canadian neighbors, we Austrians were not so rude as to go to bed and leave the Christkind or Santa Claus or whatever benevolent visitor chose to enter our homes to simply deposit gifts and then leave, unwelcomed and unthanked. No, it was only right that father, the head of the household, should be there to welcome our guests, offer them the refreshments that we had set out, give them a full report regarding how good or bad we children had been since the previous Christmas, and then see them out again with the appropriate thanks. Just before leaving, the Christkind would ring a bell, signalling to my mother, my sister and myself that all was ready, and then would swiftly make his escape before we could enter the room to see him.

The Christkind brought everything; not just our presents, but even the Christmas tree! That's right. Believe it or not, every December 24, in the early evening, after dinner time, I would watch my father shut himself up in our plain, unadorned living room and, when that magical bell sounded, between one and two hours later, he would again open the door to reveal a fully-decorated tree with presents beneath it. In retrospect, I have to admire the man's fortitude. To set up and decorate a Christmas tree by himself, on the very eve of Christmas, with two impatient children waiting just behind the next door, it's a wonder that I don't recall hearing him curse at the Christkind and his helper.

One of the most memorable Christmas Eves of my childhood was December 24th, 1968. That was the evening that the astronauts of Apollo 8 accomplished the first manned lunar orbit, and it was the first time that a human being saw our Earth from the moon's perspective. I remember the broadcast appearing on our old black and white television as we celebrated Christmas that evening and dreaming, as only a six-year-old boy can, of what it must be like to fly to the moon in a rocket ship.

1968 was not a great year, for the most part. The war in Vietnam had reached its apex and American troops took heavy losses during the January Tet Offensive. The American public increasingly questioned the justification and ethics of that conflict. In April, Dr. Martin Luthor King was assassinated on a hotel balcony in Memphis, Tennessee. In June, Senator Robert Kennedy was likewise assassinated.

None of that registered on my six-year-old radar. I knew nothing of Vietnam or Dr. Martin Luthor King or American politics. But I did know about rockets, and astronauts, and space, and I watched in wonder.

As the crew of Apollo 8 watched the distant Earth rise above the moon's horizon, the three astronauts, starting with Bill Anders, and followed by his crew-mates, Jim Lovell and, finally, Commander Frank Borman, read from the book of Genesis. The passage must have seemed appropriate to them. Borman ended the transmission with these words:

"And from the crew of Apollo 8, we close with goodnight, good luck, Merry Christmas, and God bless all of you; all of you on the good Earth."

NASA later had to defend itself against a lawsuit launched by Madalayn Murray O'Hair, an atheist who took exception to the reading of biblical passages by the astronauts and who, in this blogger's opinion, completely missed the message behind the transmission. For the first time, men had literally removed themselves from all borders, cultures and beliefs and looked upon our home planet, and saw that we are one species, living together on one planet. From lunar orbit, no national boundaries were visible. No evidence of mankind itself was visible. All of our reasons for hating, fighting and killing suddenly faded from significance.

Our world today is, in many respects, similar to what it was in 1968. Once again, America is embroiled in not one, but two foreign wars. Once again, countless American soldiers have died as a result and, once again, people increasingly question the justification and the ethics behind these conflicts. The September, 2001 attack on New York's World Trade Center has seriously shaken America's self-assuredness. Fear and paranoia over terrorist threats, some real and some imagined, have caused a rift between Islamic and Christian cultures. International travel has been significantly hampered due to security concerns. Peoples' privacy and civil liberties have been eroded in the name of national security.

The world economy has been shaken by the 2008 Wall Street collapse. Joblessness and poverty are on the rise and entire nations stand at the threshold of bankruptcy. At the same time, the gap between the richest one percent and the rest of the world continues to widen.

We now face a new threat which has never before been seriously considered; the threat to the health of our world's climate and the natural systems that sustain us and give us life. We see increasing evidence that our habitat is changing for the worse, but we seem unable to mobilize ourselves to counter this trend. Some argue that we can't justify the expense involved, some insist that the responsibility falls on others, and some continue to deny that there is a problem at all.

Perhaps most dismaying, to me, was the news earlier this year that President Barack Obama has canceled any plans for Americans to revisit the moon in the foreseeable future. Obama's explanation is that the priority has been shifted to sending a manned mission to Mars, but this will not happen in the foreseeable future either, and many argue that the best way to reach Mars would have been by using the moon as a staging base.

As I celebrate Christmas 2010 with my family, on Christmas Eve, just as I always have, I turn on my television set and search for some message of hope, or words of encouragement. It would do me good, this Christmas, to hear any of my brothers and sisters, wishing all a happy holiday, regardless of culture or faith, and reminding us that we are all still one family living together on this good Earth.

Battling Tops

If you're part of the baby boomer generation (like me), you likely remember a host of games from the seventies by Milton-Bradley, Mattel and Ideal such as Battleship, Don't Spill the Beans, Ants in the Pants and Ker Plunk! These games tended to feature some kind of gimmick; a plastic case containing a grid full of ships and pegs, a large pot on a swivel that you filled with beans, a plastic pair of pants into which you flicked colorful plastic ants or a transparent plastic tube full of holes into which you stuck colourful straws, atop which you piled marbles and then proceeded to pull out the straws one-by-one trying not to drop any of the marbles. These "games" were essentially built around interesting toys and very much targeted at younger kids. One of the most memorable, for me, was a weird little game called Battling Tops by Ideal.

Battling Tops was a game for two to four players that featured a circular, slightly concave arena with four gates or corrals at the top, bottom and sides. Each gate or corral belonged to one of the players, who would wind a little plastic top into it using a string with a finger-loop at one end. A quick yank of the loop would unwind the string and send the player's top spinning out of its corral and into the arena, where all four tops would collide and bounce off each other. Eventually, of course, the tops would lose their momentum and fall over. The last top left spinning was declared the winner. Each top bore a sticker eblazoned with a funny moniker such as "Hurricane Hank", "Dizzy Dan" and "Twirling Tim".

This sort of game provided endless hours of entertainment to one as easily amused and as transfixed with spinning objects and buttons and gadgets as I. Once in a rare while a collision between two or more of the tops would pop one up into the air and right out of the arena (I recall the TV commercial for the game showing just such an occurrence). But I recall one incident in particular that was so bizarre that I wouldn't believe it myself if someone related the tale to me, yet I swear that I am absolutely not making this up (® and TM Dave Barry Enterprises, inc.)

One evening, while playing Battling Tops with my sister, my mom and my dad (yes, back in those days, families actually played games together sometimes) my hapless top did get knocked out of the arena, just as described above. Surprisingly, it landed upright on the table, outside of the arena, still spinning.

Amused, I decided to let it go and continued to watch it. As it shimmied slowly across the table, its base hit a seam (this was one of those extendable tables, you see) which caused it to pop up into the air, right back into the arena, where it landed, still spinning! The moment this happened, the other three tops, which were also still going, converged on the upstart survivor, as if to punish it for its audacity, mercilessly beating it to the ground. My top didn't win, but it sure did try!

The Fathers' Day Present

The Fathers' Day that stands out most clearly in my memory is the one from 1967. I was four years old at the time, and not yet a father myself. But I had a father, who smoked at the time, and who had expressed an interest in a certain lighter that he had seen in a store during a recent shopping expedition. So mom decided that she would get him said lighter as a Fathers' Day gift, and that she would take my two-year-old sister and me along, partially because she had no sitter for us and partially so that we might feel that we had participated in getting dad's Fathers' Day gift.

"Big deal," you may say. I agree it may not seem like one, until you understand that:

a) The store at which dad had seen the lighter was a considerable distance from our home.

b) We had only one car, which dad had taken to work, and mom didn't drive anyway.

So we took the bus, but even that entailed a fair bit of walking, both to get to the bus stops and because mom didn't remember exactly where the store in question was, having been there only once or twice, and never having navigated her way there on her own. You know how it is; when someone else is driving, you don't always pay attention. Besides, the buses almost never take the same route as one would take by car.

Still, mom was confident that she could find her way there and so off we went, the three of us, leaving home at some time between 9 and 10 am. We started off in the best of spirits, but young children tend to tire easily. By noon or so we still hadn't found the store, we were getting hungry, not having had lunch, and my sister and I were both getting hot, tired and cranky.

Not long after that, we finally did find the store that we were looking for, and our spirits lifted slightly, both because our goal was finally within reach and because we were finally able to get some lunch.

Once inside the store, mother was just as vague about exactly where dad had seen the lighter as she was about the location of the store itself, so we wandered around searching for a bit until mom finally gave in and asked a store sales clerk. Unfortunately, we had been in Canada for less than two years at the time, having immigrated from Austria in 1965, and her mastery of the English language was far from refined, so she mistakenly asked the sales clerk where we might find a "flashlight", which she thought was the english word for an instrument that lights cigarettes. The sales clerk, of course, very helpfully took us straight to the sporting goods department, where there was a wide variety of flashlights to choose from, none of which, unfortunately, produced enough heat to ignite the end of a cigarette.

We stood there, somewhat befuddled, for a few moments. Mom did not want to explain to the sales clerk that this was not what she wanted at all as she already felt stupid enough. She didn't want to have gone to all that trouble for nothing either. So, after a little more unsuccessful searching around, she finally bought herself a pair of gloves for forty cents, and we headed home. By the time we finally arrived back home, it was about 2:30 pm. Exhausted, we all went straight to our rooms where we slept until almost dinner time.

Dad never did get his lighter; in fact, he eventually gave up smoking entirely, which makes his premature departure from this life seem all the more unfair. When mom later told him of our adventure, he laughed and told her that she'd better mount and frame those gloves.

Happy Fathers' Day, dad. I miss you.

Easily Amused

Recently, I reminisced about how, during my boyhood, I would sometimes spend time watching raindrops splashing into puddles on rainy days. This may not seem like the sort of pastime that would hold most peoples' attentions for very long. Although I never timed myself, I daresay that this activity probably held my attention for far longer than most people would deem reasonable. Apparently I was already sorely in need of a life, even during my tender years.

It was always thus with me. My mother sometimes reminisces about my toddler years. Anyone who has ever parented a little boy between the ages of two and five years will agree that raising such a child is very much a "hands-on" activity. They tend to be full of energy, and they're into everything. You can't turn your back on them for a moment. Not so with me. According to mom, all I needed was a handful of Matchbox cars and I would sit quietly in some corner, playing with them for hours. Sometimes, she barely knew that I was there.

In fact, I've heard her recount, on a number of occasions, an anecdote about the time that our family moved to a new apartment. Mom set me down with my collection of Matchbox cars and left me to play while she went about the business of unpacking and arranging our new home. After several hours, as the sun began to set outside, I finally put down my cars, walked up to my mother and asked, "When are we going back home?" I spoiled my mother during my early years but, that's okay; I'm making up for it in my adulthood.

Things didn't change as I aged. During my schoolboy years, I would often pass the time when it wasn't raining playing bizarre solitary games which I had invented and whose appeal was apparent only to myself. One involved sitting in the backyard with plastic ships (essentially, bathtub or beach toys), dropping ants which I had caught onto their decks and watching as they clambered around. I was particularly satisfied when one of them would move between decks in the proper manner, by scurrying up or down a staircase or ladder, rather than straight up or down the wall, which I of course regarded as "cheating". I could never quite make the ants understand the rules of the game.

Another favorite game involved squeezing drops of water onto the north pole of a model globe, then turning the globe slowly and watching the droplets run down the northern hemisphere, toward the equator. If one of the mountain ranges, which were slightly raised, obstructed a droplet's path, I watched in fascination as it detoured around the perimeter or, more rarely, as it actually crested the summits and rolled down the other side, a giant tsunami besting even the mountains themselves. Once past the equator (i.e. the underside of the globe) I would muse as to how long the droplet could cling to the globe's surface before gravity overcame its adherence and it dropped off the face of the world. Antarctica was by far the driest continent on my globe.

If I happened to have inflated balloons handy (usually after a birthday or some such festivity), I would while away the hours with a game of "Battling Balloons". This involved dropping the balloons, which were filled with plain old carbon dioxide rather than helium and were therefore heavier than air, onto a heating vent on the floor. The rising warm air would toss the balloons around and, whichever one was the highest, was deemed to be "winning". I should point out that said heating vent was positioned near a corner of the room at the foot of a bed. The two walls that formed the room's corner and the foot of the bed served to corral the balloons over the heating vent, so that they couldn't easily escape the warm air current. Hence, they would jostle around, rising and sinking, jockeying for the coveted high ground while I watched. Good times!

Not all of the odd games that I invented were solitary. My neighbour and best friend, Mart, and I came up with a number of unusual two-player games. One was called "Hide-On-Each-Other". It's like Hide-And-Go-Seek, except that all players are both hider and seeker concurrently. The game involved skulking around our homes, trying to find and watch the other guy without being spotted ourselves.

Then there was the classic "Comeback Wheels". This involved the use of small plastic colored discs from some board game or other. We would set the discs on their edges on the floor, with the edge facing ourselves, then press our index fingers diagonally against the discs, exerting a simultaneous downward and forward pressure. Friction would hold the discs in place until the pressure caused them to spring free, in effect "flicking" the discs away from ourselves but spinning them in the opposite direction from their movement. The result was that the discs would skid away from us at first but then, as they lost momentum and gained traction from the counter-spin, come rolling back toward us. This game had no obvious object or conditions for winning. It was just fun to do.

You would probably think that, having reached adulthood, I've matured to the point where I no longer pass my time with such mindless pursuits. You would be mistaken. I've mentioned before, in this blog, that I enjoy computer games. What I didn't mention is that I don't always play games in the intended manner. (Well, come to think of it, I sort of did, didn't I? But that's not what I mean in this case). Even in the virtual world of the computer, I seem to have retained my youthful fascination with simply watching things unfold.

I'm an avid fan of Microsoft's Flight Simulator series. Their latest release provides a camera view that focuses on A.I. aircraft; that is, air traffic controlled by the computer rather than myself. I'd be embarrassed to admit how many hours I've spent, not actually flying, but just watching the A.I. aircraft while my simulated aircraft sat idle at an airport. In my own defense, or at least in the way of explanation, I'm intrigued by the behavior of the computer's A.I. (artificial intelligence). I find it fascinating to watch an A.I. aircraft taxi to a runway, take off, follow its flight path, enter a pattern, land, and then taxi to parking, all without any input from me. Sometimes, at busy airports, I've even seen A.I. aircraft abort an approach and go around because of traffic on the runway. The thought of a machine handling all that while (for normal people, at least) simultaneously modeling the flight characteristics of the player's aircraft and rendering the world realistically, not to mention weather, air traffic communications and even ground traffic, never loses its awe for me.

I've also spent a fair bit of time with The Sims, one of the more popular games available for the PC. For those unfamiliar with The Sims, the game is a sort of virtual doll house. You create a family, move it into a house, and control every aspect of their lives; their careers, their friends, their jobs, how they spend their leisure time and how the furnish and decorate their homes. I say that "you" do all of this. I do not. When I run The Sims on my computer, I often refrain from giving any of my characters any sort of guidance or instruction whatsoever. Instead, I simply watch them, curious to see what they will do when left to their own devices, much like the ants on the deck of my ship so many years ago. If they're tired and don't know enough to get some sleep, so be it. Watching them return from work the next day, only to pass out from exhaustion and crumple to the pavement before they can even enter their homes, much less reach their beds, only amuses me. Watching other passer-by Sims come across their dormant forms, stop to examine them, shrug their shoulders and go on their way amuses me even more.

I suppose that people like myself (and I do hope that there are others, else I'm worse than I thought) are so easily amused because we live largely inside of our own heads. Our own imaginations are our chief forms of entertainment. This has its advantages. If I ever become a quadriplegic, I'll wager I adjust to it much more easily than most would. Not that I'm suggesting anything.

A Rainy Day

It's Saturday afternoon, and raining outside. Not just an autumn shower; it's really coming down! Every so often, I hear the rumble of distant thunder. The sky is an inky gray and, inside the house, it's gotten so dim that we've had to turn on some lights in the middle of the afternoon. And here I sit in my attic, by the glow of my computer monitor, a small reading lamp illuminating my desk and keyboard, a steamy cup of tea within easy reach, and I feel fine.

I've always enjoyed rainy days. There's something cleansing about them. There's a certain feeling of comfort that comes from being indoors, warm and dry, while watching the cold, gray wetness just outside of my window.

On the other hand, I often don't mind venturing out into the rain either. When I was a young boy and it rained in the summertime, my sister and I would invariably doff our clothes, don our bathing suits and run out into the street, laughing and dancing about amidst the raindrops.

Sometimes I liked to watch the puddles of water that formed. As the raindrops splashed into them, they covered the surface with circular ripples that would quickly expand and dissipate. Often bubbles would spring up at the center of the ripples and float on the surface for just a few moments, before popping. There was something mesmerizing about watching the myriad of bubbles and circles constantly appearing and disappearing, only to be replaced by others. Little rivulets of water would form tiny streams that flowed along the sidewalk curbs and into the sewer drains. I'd watch the bubbles and leaves as they floated along with the current.

The sound of raindrops was always soothing to me, whether they splashed into puddles, pattered onto a carpet of fallen leaves, drummed hollowly against a window pane or tapped out a soft staccato on the rooftop above, as they are doing now.

There's a certain scent in the air following a rainfall; a musty mixture of damp leaves and grass, of wet pavement and moist soil. You can even smell the earthworms that the rain has coaxed to the surface. It's a curious mixture of decay and renewal.

A good rainfall can be the perfect excuse for procrastinators like me to put off outdoor chores. The grass needs cutting. I was going to do it today, but it's raining and you can't very well cut the grass in the rain. Ah well, there's nothing for it but to stay inside with my computer and my tea. The grass will have to wait.

When the radio at the office forecasts rain, the ladies who sit near me, obviously sun worshippers, groan in dismay. I say nothing, but quietly smile inwardly. Bring it on. Let it rain. I don't mind at all.

Toy Story 2

Regular readers may look at the accompanying pictures for this post and think, "Oh, right, the toy jet plane. You've already told us about that." Very true, but this one's mine. If you've stumbled upon this blog and haven't read my original Toy Story post, you may find it helpful to read it first. You can find it here.

When we left off, I had bid unsuccessfully for a Marx battery-operated jet plane just like this one. After that, I kept an eye on eBay in hopes that another might someday appear. I didn't have long to wait. Within a week, there was a second one up for auction. That one eluded me too. A few weeks after that, however, the aircraft that you see pictured here appeared on eBay and, this time, I prevailed.

I must compliment the seller, who goes by the handle of cjwile on eBay. The toy was shipped promptly, finding its way all the way from San Antonio, Texas, to my humble southern Ontario home, within a single week. It was very nicely packaged and arrived in excellent condition, looking exactly as it did in the pictures posted on eBay.

I was somewhat disappointed, when I first turned the jet on, to find that the two inboard engines no longer light. I don't fault the seller for this. She never claimed that all the engines lit up; only that the toy worked, which it does. I chastise myself for neglecting to ask. Even so, had I known of this slight deficiency, I would likely have purchased the airplane anyway. It's not as though I plan to spend hours actually running it. It will become a treasured display piece.

Apparently, this particular toy is not at all rare, despite its age. I've seen several examples on-line now and there have already been more since I purchased mine. It must have been a very popular toy in its day, and the fact that there seem to be a fair number out there still in good, working condition over 40 years after the Louis Marx Company stopped producing them is a testament to their quality.

To begin with, the airplane is made mostly of tin, not plastic. This makes it much lighter than it would be if made of plastic, and gives it a much shinier finish. The markings, including the TWA logo, the passenger windows and the cockpit windows are painted on. They are not stickers or decals. In fact, the entire aircraft appears to have been spray painted and then had a clear coat of lacquer applied for an extra glossy finish and added protection.

I was amazed to learn, after doing some more creative Googling, that this toy jet plane is actually modeled after a real one; specifically a TWA Boeing 707. I found a picture of the actual aircraft on Airliners.net and found that the markings have been more or less faithfully reproduced, right down to the registration number on the tail! When's the last time you saw that amount of attention to detail in a toy?

Touches like this doubtless made this toy costlier to produce but they also make it more attractive and durable. Decals or stickers would surely peel away or fade over time. Aside from a few minor scratches, this toy looks almost like new. I did some reading up on the Louis Marx Company after I found this airplane. Back in the 1950's, they were the world's biggest toy maker, and I'm certain that this had to do with the company's motto, "Quality is not optional".

Judging by this particular toy, this was more than just an impressive-sounding slogan for the Marx toy company. Nobody makes toys like this anymore today.

Today, almost all toys are made of plastic and pre-printed decals are applied instead of painting the markings because it's cheaper and maximizes profit. Sadly, that's all that today's manufacturers seem concerned about. Nobody seems to take any pride in what they produce anymore because pride doesn't contribute to the bottom line.

I don't lay the blame for this entirely at the feet of the manufacturers. The consumer is as much at fault. How many of us are willing to pay a little extra for quality workmanship? Too many people look only at the price tag. By doing this, we encourage manufacturers to cut corners wherever possible to minimize costs. They're only giving us exactly what we ask for.

Okay, I'll dismount my soap box for this week. I got my airplane, and I feel good about that. I feel as though I got a little piece of my childhood back.

Memories, especially old memories, can sometimes feel almost like dreams. Think of a vivid dream that you've had, and then compare it to an old memory. Don't they seem much the same? Both were just as real in your experience. How can you be sure that the memory actually happened? This is not an original idea of my own. I believe Marcel Proust essentially said the same thing.

Until recently, I had this memory of a toy airplane that I owned as a very young child. I couldn't remember exactly what the airplane looked like. I remembered that it was red, white and silver, that its engines flashed on and off with red lights and that it made a loud, piercing sound. I didn't know who made it and I hadn't seen one like it since. Perhaps I had only dreamed it? But now, I know that I didn't only dream it, because I have something tangible; something that I can see and hear and touch. My airplane has become real again.

Since it was an old photograph of my sister and myself that led me to find my beloved toy jet plane, I thought it only appropriate to bring things around full circle, as it were, and close this chapter of my life with an updated photograph, showing me, my sister, and the legendary airplane, reunited at last, after all these years.

Christopher

I've mentioned my daughter, Jessica, on this blog. I used to have a son named Christopher, too. Christopher was born prematurely. His first few weeks of life were fraught with problems. He couldn't breath on his own. He was weak. There was internal bleeding in his brain, which caused excess pressure inside of his skull. A shunt had to be surgically installed to drain the fluid from his brain and ease the pressure. All this would be traumatic for a fully-grown adult, to say nothing of a new-born baby.

Christopher proved strong enough to survive these ailments, but they did leave their scars. He was severely afflicted with cerebral palsy for his entire life. He passed away, four years ago today, because of complications from his condition, at the tender age of fifteen.

We all know the story of the Grinch who tried to steal Christmas. The Grinch hated Christmas, and he wanted everyone else to hate it too – and he decided that he could make that happen by taking away from the Who’s all the seemingly good things about Christmas; all those things that would seem to make Christmas worthwhile. The gifts, the toys, the Christmas trees and decorations – even all of the food.

Having taken away all of these things, the Grinch waited in anticipation as the sun rose on Christmas Day, expecting to hear the Who’s wailing and lamenting. But then, something unexpected and wonderful happened. Instead of crying, the Grinch heard the Who’s singing.

Christopher was deprived from birth of many of the things that would seem essential to a happy, meaningful existence. He couldn’t walk. He couldn’t even sit up unsupported. He couldn’t talk. He couldn’t feed himself or play with most toys. He couldn’t change channels on TV and was at the mercy of whatever his sister decided to watch most of the time.

It would have been perfectly understandable if Christopher had been a sullen, unhappy, withdrawn little boy. He could have cried and complained most of the time, and who could have blamed him? One might almost expect it.

And yet, he didn’t. In fact, he had a smile that could light up a room. He found pleasure in the smallest, simplest of things. A nice, warm bath. A cuddle in an easy chair with mom or dad. Even the simple jostling of his wheelchair when it rolled over rough or uneven ground elicited giggles and laughs.

And just like the Who’s taught the Grinch that there was more to Christmas than gifts and decorations and food, Christopher taught everyone whose life that he touched that living is good and worthwhile, even when most of what’s taken for granted by everyone else is missing. Christopher knew a secret that few people know. And though he couldn’t talk, he tried to tell it to us anyway.

One of Christopher's most striking features was his large, expressive blue eyes. Thinking about those eyes inspired me to make a photo slideshow in his memory about a month after he passed away. On this, the anniversary of his passing, I've decided to share it with others by posting it on YouTube and here on my blog. I think that it expresses more poignantly than any words can what he meant to me and to the rest of his family and how much we all miss him. Here it is.

Toy Story

The fair-haired, pouty little man in the picture to your left is me, at the age of three. The apprehensive-looking imp next to me is my little sister, Klaudia.

This past Christmas, I bought my mother one of those digital picture frames; you know, the kind that displays a continuous slide show of digitized photos. Mom doesn't own a computer, so she handed me a bunch of her favorite old photographs and asked me to scan them to the picture frame's memory chip. It was in the process of doing this that I came upon the picture that you see here.

See that big, beautiful jet airplane that I'm clutching? I remember that jet plane. It's a battery-operated toy, made by the Louis Marx company back in the fifties (although this picture was taken in 1965) and it was beautiful!

I only had it for about two weeks, yet it stands out in my memory as one of my favorite toys ever. When you turned it on and set it on the floor, the jet engines would flash on and off with red light. The airplane would emit a high-pitched whine, as though the turbines were spooling up. Then the wheels would turn and the jet would roll across the floor. After a short distance, it would stop, the jet engines would flash, engine pitch would change and the nose would swing around, changing the jet's direction. Then the wheels would engage again, the jet would taxi off on its new trajectory, and the whole sequence would repeat.

This airplane was a Christmas present. To maximize the impact on my wondering eyes, my father wisely chose not to wrap the box and put it under the tree. Rather, he unpacked the airplane, put in some batteries and, just before I entered the room to open my presents, he turned it on and set it on the floor. The first thing that I saw was this big, beautiful jet plane trundling toward me, eager to greet its new owner.

Perhaps you wondered, Dear Reader, why I only had this wondrous toy for a scant two weeks, and whatever happened to it. Sadly, the high-pitched noise that it emitted when activated proved to be its undoing ... literally! The shriek of the engines frightened my younger sister, who ran from the room whenever the airplane was active. But Klaudia was always, by nature, a strong-willed girl. Not one to shrink, cowering, from her tormentor, she kept a safe distance, bided her time, and waited...

The first moment that she saw the jet plane alone, powered down and unable to defend itself, and without big brother to protect it, she boldly picked it up and tore all four engines off of their mountings, effectively silencing the beast forever. Even my father, a man of no small mechanical aptitude, was unable to repair the damage. I don't recall how long after that we kept the derelict aircraft before finally relegating it to the dustbin of history but, for obvious reasons, the fun had gone out of it, and soon we laid it to its final rest in some city landfill.

I couldn't have told you until very recently when this jet plane was manufactured, or by what company. I didn't take note of such things at the tender age of three, and the images of the airplane and its box had faded in my memory over the ensuing forty-three years. All that changed when I came upon the old photograph at the beginning of this post. Notice that the box in which the airplane came is partially visible behind me. A quick Google search using some of the text on the box as keywords, cross-referenced with a Google image search, soon led me to a web page bearing the image that you see to your right, along with information as to the toy's origin and nature. No doubt about it, this was my long-lost airplane!

In a seemingly serendipitous twist, the web site in question happened to be eBay.com, and this very toy was being auctioned just then. What's more, it appeared to be in very good condition. I placed a few bids on it, but the price soon exceeded what I was willing to pay for sentimentality. In the end, the prize eluded me.

I told several friends and family members of my discovery, and all were very supportive and encouraging with regard to my attempts to obtain it after all these years. Even my mother, a normally frugal woman who tends to take a dim view of monetary expenditures for frivolous wants, agreed that an investment of up to $100 would not be unwarranted in the interest of reviving this particular childhood memory. My sister, who I suspect has always felt a certain pang of guilt over having destroyed one of her older brother's most cherished toys, devoutly hoped that I would prevail in my pursuit, and unabashedly asked to "play with" the airplane, should I prove successful.

I told some of my closer co-workers at the office of my discovery. Other less intimate acquaintances there inevitably overheard me. I was amazed at the interest shown by all. Various people would ask about the status of my quest several times per day.

One particular co-worker, a Vietnamese chap named Duc, related the story of one of his most cherished childhood toys after hearing my story. His was a tank, which he owned while still a small boy living in Vietnam. Like my long-lost jet plane, Duc's tank was battery operated, rolled along the ground and featured flashing lights and, I think, sounds. Duc's toy made him the envy of all the neighborhood children, as this sort of possession was practically unheard of in Vietnam during the 1960's. Duc's father only managed to acquire it by a sheer stroke of luck. Someone he knew, perhaps a friend or family member, had travelled to Europe, and had brought the tank back with him.

The chief revelation that I take away from all this is the surprising effect that toys have over our emotions. I suppose this is because, being childhood possessions, they remain a link to our inner children, even after childhood has long since passed. More than that, they are a conduit to the people, places and feelings that we associated with their presence in our lives.

Is there a favorite toy in your past? Why not leave a comment, and tell me and my other readers about it?