A letter from Peter to the Thessalonians

WHY DON'T LAUGHTER AND DAUGHTER RHYME?
Such are the things that go through a dad's head
on such an historic road trip.

In 1949, my dad, Tom, was the first person to drive the length of Highway 129, which runs north from the village of Thessalon, Ontario (population about 1,200) to Chapleau (2,000, give or take). Total distance: 220.7 kilometres. 

The trip took Tom and his friend Frank Korpela two days, and even though the car was outfitted with winter tires and chains, the snow got so heavy at some points, the guys had to dig ruts in the road to move forward. 

Their pioneering adventure made the local paper; i.e. the Chapleau Post,which quoted Tom saying 129 was "the most interesting highway" he'd ever been on.

Until a few days ago, I'd never seen Highway 129. 

But on Sunday, September 15, 2024, my daughter Ria, riding her 2003 BMW f650gs and I, on my aging Harley Sporstster 883, followed in Tom's and Frank's footsteps, except we went north to south. 

FATHER KNEW BEST: The most
interesting highway ever!

And in the days leading up to the trip, if anybody asked me why we were going, I answered: "To see if my dad was telling the truth."  

So.

Was 129 an interesting highway?

The answer is this: When I was a little kid growing up in Sudbury, before I started school, my late brother's Eddie's best friend in the world was Johnny Cosgrove, who lived a few houses north of us on the other side of Eyre Street, in a second-storey apartment with his mom, dad and kid sister Judy. 

When I was in grade two or three, Mr. Cosgrove, who worked for CN Rail, got transferred to North Bay, a two-hour drive east from Sudbury. At the time, our sister Mary lived in North Bay so sometmes when we went to see Mary, Eddie got to visit Johnny. 

A few years later, Mr. Cosgove got transferred to Chapleau.

ON THE SHOULDERS OF THOSE WHO WENT BEFORE:
Over one 100-kilometre stretch, Ria and I spotted six vehicles.

Bored yet? 

You won't be. 

When Eddie was between either grades seven and eight or grades eight and nine--definitely before high school--my dad had reason to drive to Sault Ste. Marie, which is four hours west of Sudbury. The trip required him to pass through Thessalon. 

Thoughtful dad that he was, Tom agreed to drop  Ed at Thessalon so he could thumb a ride up to to see Johnny. 

You read that right. 

My dad let his little boy Eddie hitchhike alone, 220 kilometres north, along a remote highway that was quiet even by Northern Ontario standards. 

What the hell? 

And to think my mom bought into Tom and Ed's hitchhiking scheme! 

When Ria and I were on 129 Sunday, I barely let her out of my sight! And my folks let skinny little Eddie who couldn't fight his way out of a smelt net head out on his own, up through the backwoods of Area Code 705, behind the trees of which who knew what lurked? Did they even like much less love him?

WHAT? MOM WORRY: She had 
bigger kids than me to lose sleep over.

Then again, when I was 12, those same parents put me, alone, on a 1,300-kilometre-long train trip from Sudbury to Sioux Lookout, so I could visit Clyde Donnelly, one of the kids who'd been a page with me at Queen's Park. Sioux Lookout's way farther than Chapleau. 

My parents also let me take rides astride the gas tank of my late brother Tom's friend Charlie MacMillan's Ariel Square 4 motorbike. Without a helmet.

There are times, I have this image of my mom and dad, in bed, at night. They're tired; after a busy day convincing us 10 Carters that they loved us. 

In my imagination, mom and dad are lying beside each other laughing and swapping ideas for risk-filled games of derring-do, like the people who dream up Survivor-style TV shows do; except instead of a group of contestants who didn't know one another, my folks cast us Carter kids. And if one or two of us got lost in the mix, they'd just make some more.

Ha ha. I'm only kidding. Of course my parents loved us to pieces. Right? 

They also knew that guardian angels are out and out invincible.

Turns out Highway 129 was way more interesting than I thought it was going to be when I started writing this blog.

Giddy up a oom papa oom papa meow meow!

KEYBORED: Best example of pure (or should that be purr) 
research I've ever seen

I sometimes get asked about Iris the Cat. 

Short answer? She's fine.

Professor Iris Cat's turning 16 any day now. Iris came to us on my son Michel's 16th birthday in 2008. Because Iris is a pound kitty, we don't know her exact age. 

She's still healthy, pleased with herself, and active. Iris once in a while lets fling  a random loud, omnidirectional -- how shall I put this? -- string of potty mouth invective, but who, I ask you -- at least among those living in my house -- doesn't?

Mostly, life is grand.  Just yesterday Iris sat on the bottom step of our front porch and watched a parade of tykes from a local daycare centre march past our house on the way to the park at the end of the block.  

This, incidentally, is the most adorable parade you're ever going to witness. Pride, Caribana, Santa Claus, they got nothing on the daycare kids. About 20 of them, between one and a half and three and carefully watched over by a half dozen daycare workers, march hand in hand. No two kids have the same walking style; and they all talk all the time. Loudly. Sounds like a bunch of birds and chipmunks or something. What two-and-a-half-year olds have to discuss is beyond me. It's not like they've watched a lot of Netflix or read many James Patterson thrillers. 

But they all--daycare staff included--smile when they see Iris. 

Iris smiles back.

I admit she's getting on and not as quick to jump up on tables as she used to, but are you?

IRIS AS COPY CAT: Copy cat.That's a 
journalism joke. Reporters call stories and
 headlines copy. I didn't say it was a good
journalism joke.

Whenever Iris seems to slow down or have uncertain senior cat moments, Helena and I start discussing, in euphemisms but within earshot of Iris, how our grandparents dealt with aging house pets. That livens her right up. Iris I mean. Not Helena.

Sometimes after Iris enters a room she looks around and wonders why she came in, but again, who doesn't?

She's still pretty and in fact she's aged a heck of lot better than lots of other old white cats.  

Iris also greets me, same as she has for years, every morning, and--bonus points!--she has recently inspired her own earworm, courtesy of the Oak Ridge Boys' biggest hit.

Try this at home.

Sing the opening few lines but where Duane Allen sings "Elvira," you stick in "Old Iris." Do it more than twice and you'll think it's our Iris who's got "eyes that look like heaven."

And that's what goes through my head every single freaking morning of the week. "Old Iris."

Hi Ho Silver Away!

Your one-stop source for writing, fishing and investing advice

AL ABOARD! Patent on the rocking/fishing chair pending,
and that's patently ridiculous. (Lifelike illustration by the author.)

I once read that you should never write about your dreams. 

Some writing advice; such as the following, I can live with.

• Don't write italics because nobody reads italics; 
  
• Employ lots of quotes; 
• Lists, too;
• Stick to interesting stuff.
  
  

But write off dreams?  

As my good friend the writer Rick Mayoh would put it, "Hogwash fiddlefaddle!"

Dreams are often the high point of my day. 

In the early hours of Friday, July 26, I awoke from a dream about having John Lennon and Bob Dylan at my place for a sleepover and I was surprised they were both way nicer than I expected. (I know the exact date because I told my cousin Roseanne about the encounter in a text message.)

Also, my dead parents visit me on a more than weekly basis.

This past Wednesday, my late brother Ed popped by to ask whether I wrote friction or non-friction. 

Plus dreams can serve up life-altering opportunities.

Last night, my pal Marty Seto and I visited my brother in law Al MacNevin on Manitoulin Island where Al was demonstrating his latest invention: A gas-powered twin-cylinder wicker-yet somehow seaworthy combination fishing/rocking chair.  

 If that's not a million-bitcoin idea I don't know what is. 

YOUR GUESS IS  AS GOOD
AS MINE: How'd Marty 
get here?

"But Peter!" I hear you say, "Were you or were you not this very morning laughing with your neighbour Don because his electric garage door opener cacked out and you told him about the Friday morning your  garage door broke so you underwent a hasty $750 hosing at the hands of  a couple of 24-hour emergency garage door quote unquote experts who didn't speak English and whose receipts didn't have names or addresses on them? 

"And didn't you then tell Don that in 1985, you met a young man who told you he was going into the electric garage door business and you thought, 'Ha. Electric garage doors. As if they'll catch on!'" 

I also--since you brought up the subject--didn't see a future for bottled water or portable phones.

I forget what this story was supposed to be about.

But if you need more writing and/or investment advice email me. If you'd like to get in touch with Marty or Al, I can arrange that too.

But if you'd like to reach the fish, drop them a line. 

 

This just in from the governor general's john

TOUTE LE GANGLINESS: Lily Schreyer, moi,
Governor General (at the time)  Ed Shreyer, my boss and
 Expositor Publisher RickMcCutcheon and
former GG Roland Michener.

I just got and read a newly published book called Journalism for the Common Good: The Michener Awards at Fifty, by Kim S. Kierans, because I'm in it. 

On page 75. 

Me and my wife Helena. And our friend Rick.

Get this: "In Manitoulin, the Expositor team was thrilled to be invited to the ceremony at Rideau Hall. Carter and his girlfriend Helena, who later became his wife, took the seven-hour bus trip to join publisher Rick McCutcheon for the ceremony and 'to meet all the people I looked up to,' said Carter. During a bathroom break, Carter recalled running into Ottawa journalist John Fraser, who asked if Carter had his acceptance speech ready. 'Yeah, right, Mr. Fraser.'"

I love that. 

Ms. Kierans has me talking to a famous Canadian journalist in the can at Rideau Hall, in Ottawa, where the governor-general lives.

In another paragraph: "Carter, a gangly twenty-three year old."

TEXTBOOK CASE: If all history
books were this readable, my 
marks would have soared over C.

How she knew about my gangliness is anybody's guess. Kim Kierans and I have only ever spoken on the phone. Maybe I have a gangly voice. 

I don't know.

What I do know is, I've read page 75 over and over. I can probably recite it from memory.  

Then I thought, maybe I owe it to Kierans to give the rest of the book a shot.

I was right. 

This reminded me of the time I read Cherie Dimaline's novel The Marrow Thieves. I picked up The Marrow Thieves because I knew and seriously like and admire Cherie, who I worked with at Chatelaine, even though (or maybe especially because) one afternoon our boss Rona Maynard compared my and Cherie's management style to that of the Keystone Kops. I took it as a compliment. Anyway, I started The Marrow Thieves because Cherie was the author but finished it because the story was so gripping. (The Marrow Thieves then went on to be a best-selling award winner. Feels great when that happens.)

I started Journalism For The Public Good because my name was in it then finished the book because it was so damn interesting and easy to read. Being easy to read is huge, in my books. (In my books. Get it? Never mind.) 

JFTPG would be a valuable addition to any history course in the country.

MEETING JOHN IN THE JOHN:
Kierans' ear for detail caught me
by surprise 
 

Or maybe a course called, "How to turn a wooden-sounding subject like the history of a journalism award into a marvelous story."

Kim (I think I can call her that now) couldn't  produce a boring sentence to save her life.

And JFTPG is the retelling of some of the most important journalism; and by extension, significant events in this past 50 years. 

I personally forget most stuff. Really do. At the time something’s going on I think “I’ll never forget this,” but then I do. Just like that.

JFTPG was like a trip back in time to events that were really important that I had completely forgotten about.  

I'm not going to go all boomery here, lamenting the old days of journalism when newspapers were fat and everybody watched the same three news broadcasts, because I don't do that. The newer ranks of journalists work harder, faster, smarter and more effectively than their predecessors; i.e., okay, okay,  me, ever  did.

Same thing applies to hockey players and school teachers. They get better with each generation.

Textbooks, too, are livelier than they used to be  Exhibit A: Journalism For The Public Good.

JFTPG is an overdue reminder that there’s tons of terrific Canadian journalism out there. And a morale boost for people like me who've made it our lives. 

If you're reading this, thanks Kim. And should you ever make it T.O... 

One more thing. (And this is not why I wrote this blog but a case could be made for it. When I was 11, I worked as a page in the Ontario Legislature. When I told big people about it, more than a few asked, "and which page are you?" I now have the answer.

 

 

And now for something completely, well maybe not completely but you know, different

 RENDERING STOLEN FROM WZMH Architects website. (WZMH
designed the new courthouse in downtown Toronto)  

I was in court, yesterday, in downtown Toronto. 

The room was about the size of two high-school classes stuck together. 

Half the space was taken up by church-pew type benches, four rows on either side of a centre aisle.

That's where the public sat.

The other part contained a few desks and chairs and, raised a few feet above them, against the wall opposite the double doors that the public entered through, the judge's dais.

Hanging to the right of the dais was an oversized video screen accommodating 20 or so zoom participants, some from jail cells.

To be precise, there was no judge in the room yesterday; rather, a justice of the peace named John Jeremy MacNair Scarfe, who acted with such profound sensitivity and kindness I want to tell the world about it.

By 9:00 a.m., the pews accommodated about 30 individuals.

The man beside me looked like he was in his early 50s and appeared as though he'd just stepped away from a job as a building maintenance worker. 

To his right, a man taller than me (I'm six foot); but much wider, and younger. He actually had paint spattered on his workclothes, his unruly curly hair and on his six-o'clock shadow. He was also trying to keep a hyperactive three year old miniature version of himself under control. There were no other children in the public gallery. But there were three women.

 

Dress code: hardworking, extreme casual. A few younger men wore low-hanging jeans and oversized shirts; many present had been sporting headwear of some sort that they were asked to remove when they entered the court. 

One man, a pew ahead and four feet to my right, writhed in his seat, as if suffering some horrible itchy problem. He rubbed his hands so feverishly I thought they would chaff.

Nobody talked; about half clutched manila envelopes or wrinkled sheaves of paper.

And they weren't there to face trial. Yet. Yesterday's session was one in an inevitable series of preliminary court encounters these people would face: legal triage.

As a JP, Mr. Scarfe's job was not to determine guilt or innocence. It appeared that he was doing his best to ensure every soul in that room received the full co-operation of the Canadian legal system, with the best efforts of Mr. Scarfe bolstering them.

These men faced difficulties most of us will never know. Some involved domestic strife; many had to do with alcohol; the common thread was almost all of them  appeared financially restricted and scared. Broke and vulnerable.

In the short time I was present, I saw the court provide translators for a Hindi-speaker, a Sri Lankan, the Spanish dad with the curly hair, two Turkish speakers, and, on the zoom screen, a man who spoke an Eastern European language that I think was Hungarian.  

Imagine being one of those gentlemen.

You're new in Canada. You don't have much money. For whatever reason, you're facing  a scary bureaucracy. One wrong answer and who knows what could happen?

Court is intimidating under the best of circumstances. But these men, if they had jobs, had to risk time off for this experience. What sorts of fines might they be looking at?

The reason I'm writing this, though, is that Mr. Scarfe treated each person as if he and his legal problem were the most important crisis Mr. Scarfe ever encountered.

Mr. Scarfe chose every word with care and treated no two cases with the same language. Selecting the words you're going to employ to address a specific individual's issue is a lofty compliment, even if the person you're talking to doesn't realize it. 

There was nothing "automatic pilot" about Mr. Scarfe's proceedings. 

When a non-English speaking--and frightened--man approached the microphone to talk to the court through an interpreter, the first thing Mr. Scarfe did was ensure that the interpreter said "good morning" to the person, addressing him by name. The justice of the peace did not have to do that.

When the Spanish speaking curly haired dad was standing in front of Mr. Scarfe, his hyperactive son kept whacking the side of his dad's head. The JP appeared to not even notice, and that signaled, "I get it."

He also spoke directly to the man, and not to the interpreter, which is what most of us would do.  Exhibit A: When the arraigned individuals answered questions, they looked at the interpreter.

Mr. Scarfe spoke firmly, but in a kind voice, smiling from time to time. And he appeared interested solely in ensuring that every one of those people left the court room feeling  more secure about their future than they did when they arrived.

Mr. Scarfe treated every charged person with the same respect he would have accorded a senior colleague. 

He exuded kindness.

You don't often hear about this side of your court system. But it's there.

A couple of tough guys doing time on Bikers' Island

The scene: The Anchor Inn, Little Current Ontario.

The time? Late Spring, 1983. Probably about 9:30 or 10:00 p.m.

THE PETE GENERATION: Fierce competitors, we were.

Peter Spohn and I were sitting at the bar, looking straight ahead, the way guys used to, as if the array of bottles was something we'd never seen before but dayam they were sure interesting; maybe if we stared long enough we'd uncover the mystery of life or something. Because that, friends, is how guys did it, even when they were deep in conversation with each other. 

We looked straight ahead.

"If I were a betting man..." Pete was saying. 

He  had a sort of older-world way of talking; choosing almost every syllable, like a man born 100 years earlier.  "Yessir, Pete, if I were a betting man..." 

I knew what he was talking about.

But of course neither of us were gamblers. We were editors. 

In fact, we were editors of weekly newspapers. On Manitoulin Island. 

I was editor (and chief reporter) of the Manitoulin Expositor, based in Little Current, and Pete was editor (and reporter-in-chief) at our rival, the Recorder, based in the village of Gore Bay, a full 60 kilometres west of Little Current. He was, I think, a year and a half older than me but you couldn't tell by looking. 

That meet-up at the Anchor Inn was typical Editor Pete&Pete activity. Spohn and I were both single. We lived by ourselves--me in Little Current and him in Gore Bay--and we both had to attend all sorts of municipal government meetings together. (We'd been to the Little Current Town meeting before the Anchor Inn visit under discussion.)

School board meetings. Hockey tournaments. Farm fairs. The Manitoulin Folk Festival. (Full disclosure. Some days when I drove to Gore Bay to cover events, I would sleep over at my opponents's place. That's the sort of hard-nosed competitors Pete and I were.)

Sometimes, we hung out when we weren't working, too. 

For a while, Peter had a tall dark-haired European female companion whose name was something like Alina. My girl friend Helena (yes, in her estimation, there was still an en space between "girl" and "friend," though I believed otherwise) was tall and European, too.

 

I can't email Pete to verify the young woman's name. 

This past Saturday, John Schofield, a  guy I work with now, forwarded me Pete's obit. Spohn died (without consulting me!) in January 2023, and I only heard about it two days ago. Pete and I hadn't been in touch much over the past 20 years, but I'm telling you, the news of his death has filled me with...I'm not sure what.

I know this much. Pete enriched my life in many ways; on countless occasions involving parties, music, rum, and at one point near his cottage in Southern Ontario, I was riding on the back of a snowmobile that his neighbour Tom was piloting. Tom took a corner fast, I got tossed off into the snow drift, and Tom didn't even notice. Fortunately we were steps from Pete's cottage. Anyway, I sort of want to thank Pete for all the joy. This is my way of doing it, I guess. 

  SUZUKI LESSONS: I suggested Pete name the bike David.
 . 

Every time I smell or taste a rum and coke, I think of Pete. Same thing happens, and this brings us to us back to his Anchor Inn announcement about if he'd been a betting man, every time I see somebody riding a Suzuki. 

His phrase: "If I were a betting man" was followed by "I'd wager real foldin' money that I'll be joining the motorcycle riders of the world."

Up to that point, Pete hadn't ridden a bike but I guess I sold him on the idea.

A few weeks hence, Pete and I headed to his hometown of Kitchener, Ontario, where he purchased a sparkling red 400-CC Suzuki that he asked me to ride back to Manitoulin where he would get his licence so that we, as friends so close we were almost family--he on his red ride and me on my black Yamaha--roamed the island like inlaw (the opposite of outlaw*) bikers. 

Now get this: Last year, I learned about some research that changed my life. For the so much better. 

Psychologists have discovered that--I warn you the language gets pretty sciency here--happily anticipating a joyful event, say, a vacation, floods your brain with as much joy juice as the event itself does. I used to avoid "looking forward" to things. I wanted to live in the moment. But science proved me wrong. It's good for you to look forward to stuff, so now I do.

When I think about Pete and me, I've decided that thinking about happy times gone past can be happy making too, because his sudden reappearance in my life has brightened it up far more than I could have possibly imagined. 

Here's a whole new way to look at my departed loved ones.  I can still accept the joy they send my way.

Obviously I send my deepest and most honest condolences to Peter's family and friends. But also, and with just as much power and sincerity, I'd like to thank them for the gift of Pete, too.

(*I did not write this column for the sole purpose of making the inlaw biker joke, but even if I had, Pete would have approved.)

 

Who wants to be a pillionaire?

FULL-FAITH HELMETS: Karma is fearless, which would be a great name
 for a self-help book.

First: A spoiler alert sorta thing: The title is not a typo. I hope that if you read this blog to the second-last paragraph, you will say, "Great pun, Pete!" And you know how much that means to me. So thanks.

Now on to our story.

------------------------------

Here was my colleague--to me--on Thursday at about 3:35 p.m., in the parking lot at my office, as he strapped on a full-face motorcycle helmet: "I'm not going to die on the highway, am I?" 

Me: "I can't make any promises." 

Him: "Okay. Let's go."  

And thus got underway the great 26-kilometre motorcycle ride from north Toronto to the neighbourhood where both I and he--Karma--live.

Yup. Karma. He's Tibetan. 

And what other name could there be for a guy, who--when you tell him his fate is in your hands but you can't make any promises--shrugs it off with, "Okay. Let's go."? 

I love saying Karma is my friend. And that Karma lives down the street.

Yesterday, when I mentioned to another friend and author (and former Harrowsmith Country Life staff editor) Heather Grace Stewart that I would be giving Karma a ride home, she said, and I quote: "I love it! Karma's riding with you! You have to blog about this."

The thing is, I'd have blogged about Karma, even if he didn't have such a marvelous handle. 

He was born in a yurt in northern India to nomadic yak herders and I figure he wasn't the least bit apprehensive about climbing onto the back of my Harley because when he was a kid, Karma rode bareback horses to round up yaks in the Himalayas.

Karma does some computery job with our company that I don't understand, but he's also got a ton of side gigs, including book writing. A week ago, Karma asked me to edit this little "author's note" for his  next project. 

Karma T. Youngdue was born in Jangthang Nyoma, India and received his primary education at the Tibetan Children’s Village (TCV) in Ladakh. His journey to the USA began in 1992 when he represented TCV Ladakh in a rigorous competition against 14 finalists from different TCV schools. The competition involved oral and written exams, interviews and participation in a debate and Karma emerged as one of the top four students, earning a coveted full scholarship to a prestigious private school in Vermont, USA. After graduating from The Putney School, he secured another scholarship to Yale University, where he pursued English and Computer Science.

 After completing his studies at Yale, Karma earned numerous scholarships and pursued a bachelor of arts degree with majors in Mathematics and Computer Science at St. Olaf College in Minnesota. He furthered his education by obtaining a master’s degree in information technology and systems from Regis University in the USA. Throughout his career, he has made significant contributions across various sectors, including software development for the aviation industry, healthcare, and eCommerce businesses.

I first met Karma after he and some other members of the Canadian Tibetan community had just returned from visiting the Dalai Lama in India.

They presented their national and spiritual leader with a  3-D hand-built scale model of visitors to the Potala Palace, which is the Dalai Lama's traditional home, back in Tibet. (Click on "visitors." It's such a cool project. One of the kids is actually a model based on Karma's daughter.)

And Karma built the thing himself. The model, I mean, not the palace.

MODEL CITIZENS: One of the pilgrims in the diorama
is Karma's daughter, which would be a 
fantastic title for a ballad.

And that was the guy hanging for dear life on to me as we roared down the Don Valley Expressway Thursday afternoon.

When I say roared, I don't mean raced. My bike is loud and makes a roary sound even when I go slowly, which is most of the time.

After I dropped him off and we took a few selfies, I asked Karma if I could write about our trip, and he was like, "please do." So I did. (Karma made me write this blog! Hahaha.)

And here's the thing about the title. 

I've met more than one Englishman--yes, they were from England and they were men--who referred to the back seat of a motorcycle as "pillion." It rhymes with "million." It means "little rug" or something like that.  

So when somebody is riding on the back of a motorbike, the expression is, they're riding pillion. 

Pete's Blog&Grille: Delivering good Karma and excellent puns since 2016.