Friends to the Max

ART IMITATES MAX: This is ChatGPT's response to my request for a rendition of Max and
his new pal on the roadside near Burwash. 

In 1986, thrilled by the idea of working in the big city at a fancy magazine, I packed up my silver grey '78 Dodge Aspen and headed south to Toronto from my hometown of Sudbury.

As I was leaving, I stopped to tell one of my hippie pals what I was up to and I asked if he wanted to come along for the ride to Toronto.  

He--let's call him Max--said "sure" and hopped in. 

We were about 50 minutes south of Sudbury when Max and I got passed by a huge old sedan; the kind everybody believes dads drove in the '60s. We were right near a place called Burwash, which, at the time, was home to a recently shuttered provincial prison farm

Along the side of the highway were signs reading a version of: "Do not pick up hitchhikers." 

Once in front of us, the driver slowed down a lot. So I passed him. He sped up, passed me, slowed, and I decided enough was enough. 

I braked, steered to the shoulder and stopped. So did he. 

A slender guy with long dark hair and moustache emerged from the driver's side; Max all but leapt out of our passenger door and went to greet the stranger.  

After a few seconds, Max did a 180, and grinning, walks back to tell me: "He's got coke and wants to trade it for some weed. Open the trunk."

I had no idea. 

My pal was carrying a whack of grass. It was not something I was happy about, especially on this trip; with me heading to my new magazine job.  

Trafficking weed was serious. Instead of just stopping near Burwash, we could have wound up doing time there.

Here's what happened next. 

I said, "Max, if you're doing a drug deal, I'm outta here." 

He said, "Really?"

I said, "Really."

He said, "Open the trunk." 

I did. He fetched whatever stuff he had, shut the trunk and I watched Max and his new business associate get smaller in my rear-view mirror. 

That was the last I heard from him. For months.

One afternoon, I was in a place called Rower's Pub on Harbord Street with my new boss (and by then, friend) Jim Cormier and in walks tall skinny Max! The last place I'd seen him was Burwash. By the time we were in Rower's, I'd actually gotten to know Jim well enough that I'd told him a few Max stories. So Jim was sorta happy about his in-person appearance.

Max stood in the Rower's doorway holding a rifle. Max and guns were certainly not a thing. He was and I'm sure still is the world's most passive pacifist. 

Turns out he was carrying the hunting gun because it belonged to one of his pals and he was just delivering it. As friends do. 

Again. Good thing there were no cops around. But all that came of the Rowers encounter  was Jim and Max getting to know and like one another. They were both at our wedding a few months hence. Jim was with his girlfriend Cindy and I forget Max's date's name. I met her for the first and only time at the wedding.

I asked Max how he and she met. 

Max said, "I was walking westward on the north side of Front Street in front of the Royal York; she was walking east on the south side, you know,  in front of Union Station.. And our eyes met." 

Me: "Your eyes met? Front Street's very wide Max. It's huge!"

Max--with that same grin I recognized from the side of highway 69 all those months ago: "Right?"

I could write Max stories all day.   

After I described the old movie The Mission to him, Max observed "my favourite movies are the kind you would enjoy even if you are blind or deaf."  

One time, back in Sudbury, when I was a reporter at a newspaper called Northern Life, I was invited to a press conference to hear the recently returned-to-earth Canadian astronaut Marc Garneau. I invited Max. During the question period, Max raised his hand and asked "has anybody researched what astronauts dream about when they're up in space?"

I cringed. Oh Max. 

Garneau politely laughed and said, "No I don't think so."

That was 40 years ago. Last week, I Googled "what do astronauts dream about?" There's tons of material on the topic.

Max was ahead of  his time.

Why am I telling you about Max and the astronaut now? 

Because I think (hope) Max might see this blog and get in touch. And he'll give me something to write about. 

  

John School

"I think I may need some executive coaching. Is that one of the suite of services offered by Pete's Blog & Grille?"

PUTTING THE BILL INTO PLAYBILL: I swiped my cousin-in-law's
photo off the Facebook account of the little person on the left. Pretty sure.

That came from my colleague and friend John Schofield, about 70 minutes ago. He texted me the message just as he was stepping out for a lunchtime walk. 

I told him that we here at Pete's B&G hadn't yet fully developed our full "suite" of executive coaching services but I'd have something ready when he got back from his stroll. (That's where Johns go, right? Haha)

So here it is: 

10 tips guaranteed to catapult you to the very top of the corporation. In no discernible order, and with no proven results.  

10) Start close to the top. It's way easier to be appointed president if you start as vice president. 

9) Sucking up is under-rated. Do what you're told. That might be the single most important rule you'll ever learn in school. Nobody I've ever met in any context enjoys being told they're wrong, about anything. The only thing worse than being informed you're mistaken is having it proved to you, especially when others are watching. Just yesterday, I watched the excellent Netflix movie Whiplash about a (supposedly) 19-year-old drummer who defies his bully conductor only to prove to the world that he's as good a drummer as Buddy Rich. Elaine Benes would put it this way:  "Fake! Fake! Fake!" I suck at doing what I'm told.

8) Speaking of sucking up, my wife many jobs ago told me I spent a lot of time"sucking down." Time I could have put to good use polishing the brass's brass I used talking to the building-maintenance guy about Dustbane, that stuff Mr. Dorigo the St. Albert's school custodian cleaned up kids' barf with. It's a smell you don't forget. The Dustbane. Barf too.

JIM'S DANDY: Cormier would have seen through this cheap
excuse to run his photo just to attract readers. And
he'd have approved. (I think it was the baby's FB
account I stole this great pic from.)

7) Speaking of Dustbane, one of my personal executive role models is a late cousin-in-law named Bill McIntosh. Bill and his wife, my cousin Leona, had six kids, Canise, Keith, Helen Leona, Mary Frances, Norah and Laurie. I was lucky enough to spend a considerable amount of time at their cottage near Calabogie Lake in Ontario, and just down the road from their place was a Clampett-esque mansion that, legend had it, belonged to, you guessed right, the guy who invented Dustbane. But that's not why I look up to Bill. I loved hanging with him and his family because as a dad, he put his energy into relaxing with Leona and the six little McIntoshes. I don't even know what Bill did for a living. It wasn't a thing. But when he cottaged, he wasn't like, "okay kids line up it's time for our annual archery competition!" or anything like that. There were no mahogany-boat maintenace chores neither.  Time off from work was for relaxing with the missus and kids. Not sure why I mentioned that here.

6) Stay on topic. 

5) Wanna hear something funny? I was already on journalism job number four--at Chimo Media in Toronto--the very first time that any journalist I knew refer to what he was doing as a "career." It was another role model of mine, the late Jim Cormier. Jim was considering a move to another magazine and said "I have to think about how this would affect my career." I asked him to repeat it. Nobody in my "wingin'-it" universe had ever used that word before. 

4) If Jim were alive I know he would actually be at the top of his profession, because that's the way he rolled. Very smart, ambitious but kind, way too good looking, funny and likeable besides. So this tip should actually read, "be more like Jim Cormier".

3) And forget about the sticking to plans. 

2) And next to finally, if you're reading Pete's Blog&Grille for executive coaching advice, you might as well isskay ouryay areercay olongsay.  

1) Sorry. Thought I had 10. I was wrong. Godspeed (whatever that means) your career dreams John.

Stompin' 2.0

SUSSING THEM OUT?  Go to
Kurt Suss Music on Facebook

"Pips was a partially blind English bulldog with a protruding jaw that made him look like Mom when she was mad." (Dogman. by Kurt F. Suss.)

"...a protruding jaw that made him look like Mom when she was mad!"  I sure wish I had written that. 

Dogman's full of colourful story telling. And it brims over with love of dogs and love of family in equal measures.

I happened to meet the writer, Suss, a professional dog guy a few months ago. And every once in a while I get to know somebody I want to yell to the world about.

Okay okay. I've ever met anybody boring. True fact. Scratch any person's surface--never mind scratching, just ask--you'll get drama.

That said.

If Pete's Blog&Grille was a podcast, Suss would be a regular guest for as many weeks as it takes him to share the stories behind each of the songs on his two CDs.

(I'd have told you about these recordings sooner but  I don't have a CD player in the house any more. Just the car. I had to wait til I took a reasonably long drive, which was last week.)

Every song is about a Canadian legend. Or ghost story. Or obscure piece of history that you probably don't know.

Case in point, first time I heard Mad Trapper, I was northbound on Sorauren Avenue, which is adjacent to the street we live on. About 30 seconds into Dark Day in Saint Thomas, his lyrics actually made me, say, out loud, "Really?" 

And then, a second later, his lyric was "Yeah," as if he could have heard me. And then I got a bit blue. The song's about Jumbo the elephant getting killed in St. Thomas, Ont. I had no idea.

Another? Cloud 11. Hands up anybody who remembers the escaped inmate Donald Kelly who was making headlines around Ontario back in the '70s, as he outran the law. Cloud II was a tracking dog that got killed in the process.

WANT TO CONTACT KURT: Try 'Hey Siri! Who's the world's
worst self promoter? Or try isiscanine@hotmail.com.

Not all the songs are dark.

On the same album as the Jumbo song are not one but TWO bus songs! 

Two bus ballads!

My mom and dad have a bus carved on to their gravestone. 

Last century, a few weeks before I met Helena, my dad gave me my very own 44-passenger school bus because he had no use for it anymore. Who else do you know had one of those?  

But I digress. 

A Bus Just Like Neil's is a tribute to Neil Young's touring vehicle, and The Little Blue Bus is a Glace Bay, Nova Scotia, French fry place that, according to Suss's lyrics, even Stompin' Tom Connors approved of. 

Did I say Stompin' Tom? Are you, like me, thinking Stompin Tom 2.0?

Kurt would be chuffed. (Good name for a song: Suss got chuffed!)

He's a huge Connors fan and believes he  ran into the late singer long ago, before Connors was a household name. (Which he is, in Canada, in case anybody Stateside's reading this.) 

Recalls Suss: "I actually met him [Connors] once but didn't know who he was. I was 16 and dating a girl whose sister worked for a sound studio in Toronto. I occasionally helped out a bit with making sounds for TV productions.. Tom was there previewing one I think I may have even got him a pop." 

Suss can tell a story.  

Here's the thing. 

Suss told me he's on the lookout for more Canadian stories and legends to sing about.  

Which brings me back to that beautiful old bus I owned when I met Helena. 

Pop star Don McLean was a lonely teenage broncin' buck with a pink carnation and a pickup truck. 

I'll start by telling Kurt F. Suss,  I was all alone but I owned a bus.

I am on to something here.. 

Fearless (ish) Fred

THE TROUBLE WITH ANGELS: God knows who most of these kids are. I can name about half.

I love when stuff like this happens. 

See that arrow? It's pointing at Fred Bortolussi. 

A few hours ago, Fred emailed me this picture of his and my St. Albert's School grade one class on the steps of St. Clement's church after we made our First Communion. (I stuck the arrow in. Fred didn't.)

.

The pic came as a wonderful surprise. It's not like Fred and I stayed in touch all these years. We hadn't spoken since before the turn of the century. 

But Fred came across a recent Pete's Blog&Grille, responded very kindly and mentioned that he had a photo he wouldn't mind sharing. 

PS: Fred looks the same now as
he did in grade one.

The emails flew back and forth. I decided to share the communion pic and write this blog.

Except I early on realized I wasn't sure I could spell Fred's last name right. 

I did a search. And found a story and picture in the Oct.27, 2022 issue of the Kemptville Advance. 

The kid that the arrow's pointing at was recognized a few years ago as one of this country's best high school teachers. Fred won the  prestigious Baillie Award for excellence in Secondary School Teaching. From Queen's University in Kingston, no less. (Motto: We're Queen's and you're not. Haha.)

I'm proud to know him! 

It gets better: Fred taught at least one individual who shares my DNA. This should come as no surprise. The Ottawa Valley, where Fred lived all these years, is my paternal ancestral homeland and the Irish Catholic Carters bred like Irish Catholic Carters. 

My second cousin Sheila's daughter Jessica Kehoe was in one of Fred's high-school law classes.

Reports mom: "She  [Jessica] is now working as a Director of Human Resources for a research pharmaceutical company. I would say that career path is the direct result of the formative high school experience." Ladies and gentlemen? My cousin's kid. 

Back to Fred. 

We're talking about a guy who helped finance his education by fighting forest fires. 

And then when he was at Carleton University, on his first skydiving adventure, Fred's chute didn't open and he wound up getting caught in a tree. True story. They had to cut him down! (I was in Carleton's journalism program at the time and produced a short radio news item about the adventure. Journalism 102: Let other people risk their necks. You write about them.)

Fred is so unafraid of stuff that one day, he rode on the back of Ray Cote's motorbike from Sudbury to Ottawa and somewhere along the line, fell dead asleep, at highway speed. 

And then...if  that wasn't foolhardy enough, Fred Bortolussi spent the rest his career standing in front of groups of teeangers trying to tell them stuff  he thinks they should know.

The guy's fearless.

To a point.

Neither of us is dumb enough to try putting names to all those kids in the First Communion pic. You get one wrong you'll hear about it forever. So help me God. 

If anybody out there wants to weigh in, Fred and I would love to hear.

 

Hitting it into the park

For as long as I can remember, I've liked High Park. 

A BENCH OF ONE'S OWN: What
more could an old guy want?

Now I love the place. 

Here's why.

When I was 11, I worked as a page at the Ontario Legislature. During that time, I lived in the far west end of Toronto with my sister Charlene, a Humber College nursing student, and her beautiful room mates, Cathy and Barb.  

Because I was away from home, didn't have to attend regular school, got paid real money, hung out in the big city, commuted to work on the streetcar every morning with the grownups and roomed with three very cool older women, my time as a page is almost too precious to be believed.  

I sometimes think I peaked at 11.

On more than one Sunday, Charlene and I visited High Park. We occasionally rented a row boat; visited the zoo or just hung out. It was also educational. From the handful of hopeful young men who made it their business to chat up Charlene, with her blazing red hair and long legs, I got flirting lessons,

Fifty six years later, I live within a 10-minute leisurely stroll of the park. I've been in the same area since moving to Toronto in 1985. 

And I've probably walked (and cycled and drove and skated) around as much of the park as anybody. 

ED OF HIS CLASS: He spent countless hours in
High Park with us.

I remember exploring the valleys and wooded areas of High Park when Helena and I were planning our wedding 38 years ago. 

Later we took our kids skating on Grenadier Pond; we snuck wine in to watch the Canadian Stage Company's Shakespearean productions at the outdoor theatre; we check out the Cherry-Blossom-festival festival goers every April. The people are more interesting than the trees. 

When my son Michel was a preteen he played outfield in in the High Park Baseball League.  At one game, a baseball mom asked me which player was my son; I pointed to Michel, and she said "He's very good looking." Her female companion felt it necessary to add, "Yeah, and he doesn't look at all like his father."

When my daughters Ewa and Ria were finishing grade eight at the nearby St. Vincent De Paul School, their class had a picnic in the park. My role? I took any young person who wanted for a ride around the park on the back of my black 1982 Yamaha Heritage Special motorbike. Teachers might not like that idea now.

BENCH IMPRESSING: Musician, husband,
brother, nephew, son, weight lifter,
and pun lover Paul

Around the same time, the  community rallied to erect a giant children's play structure. All the families we knew pitched in money and a bit of sweat equity, and if you visit the playground today and search hard enough you'll find a fence post with Ewa, Ria, Mick engraved on it. 

If in fact you do come, we should go for breakfast on the patio at the Grenadier Restaurant, located mid-park. 

But before we hit the patio, I am going to insist we pay a visit to the two most important places in the park. 

They are also the reason I'm writing this story.

North of the restaurant, and steps from the main entrance, are two benches with little plaques fastened to them; one in memory of my brother Ed and the other for my nephew (and Ed's Godson) Paul.

City crews installed the plaques in mid December. And it should come as a surprise to nobody that the memorials are the work of my sisters Charlene and Norma. 

Charlene worked with the City of Toronto Parks Department to have Paul memorialized; Norma did so for Ed.  

Ed died Jan. 31, 2022. Paul passed away after battling cancer on Aug. 25, 2023. 

I don't have to tell you how much we miss these men. Or that I'm tearing up as I write this. So I'll stop soon. 

But you have to know something. 

When you apply to the City of Toronto to participate in the memorial bench program, the City can't guarantee where your memorial plaque will appear. You can request a certain park, but there's no promises. 

And you can certainly hope with all your might that two memorial benches will be located near each other but that'd be like asking to move heaven and earth. 

The fact that Ed's and Paul's benches ended up within laughing distance of each other, in a park so near to our hearts and our home, where both men spent countless joy-filled hours, makes me wonder if somebody in heaven did a bit of earthly finagling. 

I wouldn't put it past them. I am so blessed.

Breakfast at the Grenadier's on me 

Getting what you parade for

MARY CHRISTMAS: If you can't laugh at  your sisters, what's the point of  having'em? Mary
on left, Norma and Charlene in the middle.
 

What follows are nine  things I learned marching in the 2024 Toronto Santa Claus parade as a snowman:

9)  Go before you go. At 11:05 a.m., and with a parade start time set at 11:30, I--fully rigged out in my snowman getup--realized I should have gone before I left home. Due to all the zippers, boots, hood, Velcro and whatnot, an activity that normally takes 30 seconds topped the 15-minute mark. At one point, I was standing at the urinal with the fluffy white snowman costume piled knee high round my ankles when a man behind me says, “You’re melting.”

8) Have a dad joke ready for emergencies. It's a personal policy of mine on a day-to-day basis to have a joke ready in case you need it, but in the excitement leading up to the parade, I forgot. But then, after marching for about five minutes,  the parade stopped. And I was within talking distance of the crowd. I suppose a person might possibly stand still, smile, wave and say Merry Christmas over and over again, but I'm me! Between the first and second stops, I came up with: “What does a Snowman's favourite meal? Frosted Flakes. What's a Snowman's least favourite meal? Tuna Melt."

 

7) Why do I always think of the right thing to say too late?  In a work meeting, I'll sit there and think "everybody here sounds smart and every thing I say sounds dorky." Seven and a half minutes after the meeting's done, I'll come up with zingers; clever comments that would have, moments earlier, morphed me into c-suite material. But nope. Never happens at the meeting. Same thing with my parade jokes. I was already ordering a main course at our post-parade meetup at Queen's Pasta restaurant when I assembled the bones of a joke ending with "What? And give up snow biz!???" 

GOLD, FRANKINCENSE AND MERCH: The cool
tee was the handiwork of Frosty Fan Jon Butler!

6) Real show biz must be hard for other reasons than you might think. When I first tried the Frosted Flakes line, kids in the crowd laughed and the snowperson beside me leaned over and said she thought it was funny. Pretty sure she didn't find it so hilarious the next 600 or so times. 

5) A cure for belated brilliance syndrome (BBS) would be a billion-Bitcoin invention. This just came to me: "My wife thinks I'm flaky." And now this: "I feel like I'm on the verge of a meltdown!" See what I mean?

4) You never know where you're going to find something that makes you happy. Take, for example, the word "of". This whole parade thing was my sister Charlene's idea. She marched as a clown in last year's parade and had such a great time she talked me, and my  sisters Norma and Mary, to join this year. So, I got to say I marched with three "of" my older sisters; not my three older sisters. See what I'm getting at here? My fourth older sister, Bertholde, stayed home in Sudbury with our brother Alex. Imagine a guy my age still having siblings to spare! And them goofy enough to want to join in a Santa parade.

3) Some clowns have more fun than others. I was a snowman. Norma and Charlene were upside down clowns and Mary an upside-up clown. The upside-down clowns were crowd favourites, but  they didn't get to tell jokes and high-five dozens of thousands of mitted hands like I did. Before the parade got underway, somebody mentioned that we marchers were not to touch the people on the sidelines, which would have meant no high-fives or mitt-slapping. I could have asked somebody in authority if I’d heard correctly but decided I would pretend I hadn’t heard anything. 

2) I watch too much Netflix. Did you know that there's a Christmas feelgood movie streaming this month called Hot Frosty about a beautiful widow named Kathy who's working hard to keep her daughter and friends in Christmas moods even though she's lonely and her pals are trying to set her up but she's too busy but then she magically turns a snowman into a hunky boyfriend and, well never mind, it's just that I knew about Hot Frosty and maybe just maybe I was hoping would connect me with the movie title? Like maybe yell it from the crowd? My sister Mary mentioned Hot Frosty but she's my sister; it's not the same. Was I disappointed? No I was not. I am too mature for that. 

1)  If this last one isn't proof the magic of Christmas is real, I'll eat my snowman  hat. “It’s not bad now but I bet it’s going to be bad soon,” is what I thought for the first kilometre or two of the parade. I was dead certain that I'd be tired and cranky and sore at parade's end, that I'd be itching, desperate even, to join my sisters for beer and Italian food, as we'd planned. I was wrong! The parade was nearing the final corner, I thought, "I don't want this to end!" I could have walked another parade! Turns out, prancing around and joking and high-fiving strangers and making an ass of myself in front of 750,000 happy people is what I was put on earth to do. 

Imagine me, preferring to march than go for Italian food and beer. Like I said, if that's not magic I don't know what is. I sure hope you get to experience the magic of the season his year, like Frosty did. And like he plans on doing again in 2025. Merry everything!

 

   

Another fun recipe from the Carter sisters' kookbook

Two days ago, one of my cousins who is very close to my age, asked me the following: "Is 'clown beauty sleep' really a thing?"

My response?  "I love you and I will try rilly rilly hard to not tell anyone that you asked if clown beauty sleep is really a thing. But no promises."

The reason this Halifax-based cousin asked about clown beauty sleep is, she was wondering whether I would be attending the Taylor Swift concert here in Toronto, on Saturday, Nov. 23rd.

Of course, the answer is no. 

It's not that I don't like Taylor Swift. In fact,  if her other songs are as good as the two that I am familiar with, Carolina and Mean, I totally get the fuss.

I also admit, I totally dreamt about Taylor Swift. 

Last Friday. I know because I wrote it down after I woke up, something I rarely do. 

My late brother Ed was there, too. He and I were working as funeral home assistants at Taylor Swift's funeral. And at the dress rehearsal, while her dancers practised their routine in one corner of the funeral home, other people lined up at the coffin to bid the singer goodbye. 

In true Ed fashion, he said "Pete if we don't do this, we'll regret it forever," so he and I got in line. When we arrived at Swift's casket, Ed reached over to brush some hair out of her eyes. She sat up. 

Ed was like, "Oh-oh." 

Swift proceeded to stand and dance, right there in the coffin. 

I've had a similar dream about Ed.

But never mind that. 

When my cousin asked about her concert, I said I couldn't stay up late that night because the next day, Sunday November 24, I and three of my sisters are marching in the Toronto Santa Claus parade as clowns, so we would need our clown beauty sleep.

Ha-ha.

Clown beauty sleep might not be a thing, but me, Charlene, Norma and Mary as clowns in the 120-year-old parade sure is. It's almost hard to believe this is happening but there you go.

Charlene and Norma will be upside down clowns; Mary a musical elf carrying a giant eighth note. I'll be a snowman. Wearing a top hat.

It was Charlene's idea. She was a  clown last year and persuaded us to join her this go-round. 

I am the youngest of the four but the maturest.

I'm very happy about this turn of events. It's important to celebrate happy moments.  

I just hope parade day's not too warm.  This snowman does have to go to work the next morning.