Where we learn to do wishing well

STOLEN FROM MY GENEROUS COUSIN SHARON'S WEBSITE:
Insert your own "sharin'" pun here.. 

“Do you think,” I asked my wife Helena, “that wishing works?” 

 Helena: “Huh?” 

Me: “If you want something really really badly, do you think wishing -- with all your might -- helps?"

Her, with not even a nanosecond's hesitation: “No.” 

She then said she remembered wishing for lots of things when she was a little girl and most of them never happened. 

“So what?" I should have said at the time but didn't because I just thought of it now. "I’ve sure gone fishing a lot but way most times I didn't catch anything. Does that mean fishing doesn’t work? No, it does not." 

For the record, we were having this conversation just yesterday, in our black Volkswagen Beetle; a.k.a, the only car the very design of which makes people smile. We were stuck in heavy traffic on the expressway between our home in Toronto and my cousin Sharon Van Noort’s place in Niagara Falls. Sharon is one of my favourite people; she and her husband of 42 years, 11 months and a few days Rob run a flower business in a village called Virgil, Ontario, and I wish only good things for  them and their spectacular family for the rest of their lives. I'll tell you about the purpose of our visit in another blog but right now, that's beside the point.

I told Helena the wishing thing reminded me of a famous wishing experiment that she had probably never heard of before.

I filled her in.

PHOTO STOLEN FROM THE SMITHSONIAN: Just a bunch
of acid-heads trying to get some exorcise.

Back in the '60s,  a bunch of anti-war hippies thought that if they surrounded the Pentagon in Washington and concentrated hard enough, they could levitate the building 30 feet in the air and, as they put it, "exorcise" it. 

I am not making this up. A few hundred thousand well wishers (see what I did there?) attended.

As I understand it, the hippies hoped to ring the Pentagon but security officials didn't let them. Many believed the success of the levitation depended on the hippies forming a complete circle. That did not  happen. So, the levitation never occured.  As I said to Helena, "Who knows what might have happened? Right??"

Then she asked, why the heck would I know this? 

Easy answer. I had all sorts of older brothers and sisters and cousins who told me important stuff I needed to know. I knew about hippies before other kids my age did. And Woodstock and Lenny Bruce. I was (many might say am) the luckiest human who ever walked this planet. My family spoiled me something perfect. In fact, six days ago Helena and I were walking through the Courage My Love vintage store in Kensington Market and I spotted a little boy's cowboy shirt that resembled a get-up that belonged to five-year-old me. "When I was a kid," I commented, "if I wished for something I never had to ask twice!" 

She reminded me of that after I had finished tellling her of the failed levitation experiment.. 

Also, I should mention, by that time, traffic had cleared and we were back to highway speed, heading to Sharon's.

Me (I have to admit I was pretty happy about the traffic moving along and it showed with the way I was gesturing): "See Helena? See that? Back when I asked if you thought wishing worked, I was wishing hard for the traffic to clear up! 

And look!"

Her: "And I wish you'd drive with at least one hand on the wheel." I stopped gesturing. Resumed the 10-to-two position. 

Ha. About 12 minutes earlier, she'd said wishing didn't work.

 

Bring out your Ed!

FUNERAL DIRECTION BY MEL BROOKS: Alex, Mary,
Charlene, Norma, Bertholde, Me. I should have phoned them each
to ask if I could use this photo but to heck with that life's too short. (Besides, it
was Alex himself who told me once "if a family's got a writer in it, it's screwed.")

A guy on my street Wednesday asked if I think the universe, or God, or a deceased relative, ever sends messages. 

I said "You mean like one of my dead brothers? I have three, you know. Or our sister Mary Leona who died shortly after she was born?  Might she send me the occasional text from the other side?"

It was pretty clear he did not expect that  exact answer. (To tell the truth, I kinda took me by surprise, too.)

But it's true. Pat, Tom and Ed. Dead. And a sister, Mary Leona. My mom had 10 kids and only six of us are still, as one of my co-workers so artfully put it, "on the right side of the sod." The half-dozen live ones are in this great photo, taken in the cemetery where Mary Leona is buried.

Either my wife Helena or Alex's wife Brenda shot it, a few months ago. We were having a memorial service for Ed which really turned into a memorial service for everybody. And a fine time was had by all--dead and alive. We wouldn't have been laughing otherwise.

And something just occurred to me.

FOR HUENA'S SAKE: A quarter of a century later, I just realized whose
 words I stole to use for the opening of that story!

If I sound sort of casual about dead people, it's not a sign of, whatchamacallit, disrespect. I don't like them any less just because they're gone. So why not have fun with them? They'd certainly want us to.  

We miss the dead ones, but beyond that? 

Here's why this attitude comes so easily to me: I--and the rest of the Carters-- were raised with strong beliefs. 

Our mom, Huena, was a fountain of beliefs of all sorts and we (I don't think it was just me) drank them in like baby formula.  

In some homes, people grew up knowing which golf club to use  to hit a ball out of a sand trap, or which banks had the best mortgage rates. In my house, we knew that if you wanted to perform well in choir practice you prayed to St. Cecelia. Also, mom knew (don't ask me how) that if you sang your prayers they counted for twice the spoken versions.

If you lost your wallet, check with St. Anthony.

She had religious icons and assorted statues in every room in the house and she also instilled in me and at least two of my siblings and I could name names almost every superstition known to humans. In Huena Carter's house, beliefs were not beliefs, they were facts. Brick solid facts.

Think about what that does to a person.

I once interviewed, for Chatelaine magazine, the super-talented songwriter Rufus Wainright, whose mother was the songwriter Kate McGarrigle and whose father was the songwriter Loudon Wainwright III and HIS father, Loudon Wainwright II, was one of the best-read columnists in the world who wrote about his family for LIFE magazine. (P.S. I think I took Rufus by surprise when--instead of asking about him--I enquired about his granddad who was one of my role models.) 

But given his upbringing and genetic inheritance, is it any wonder Rufus can string phrases together? 

The Carters had as much supernatural stuff in our house as the Wainwrights had musical stuff in theirs.  

It should come as no surprise that one of the first features I wrote for Chatelaine--one of Canada's most respected sources of indepth journalism--was called "A ghost in your bedroom." I just remembered that among the expenses incurred in investigating that story were the ghost-busting services of a Feng Shui expert! The feature also mentioned my sisters' haunted apartment back in Sudbury.

So, the guy asked, do I think the universe, or God, or our deceased relatives sometimes send us messages? 

I think one of them sometimes write this blog.

Quote while you're a Ed

This is my favourite picture of my big brother Ed, who died in February. 

It was taken approximately 40 years ago in the southbound lane of highway 6 a few miles north of Manitoulin Island in Northern Ontario.

I shot and processed the photo; a fact I know for sure because I was a reporter at the time and that's what we did.

If you look closely you'll see there are two other guys in the picture, lying under the beautiful albeit broken-down black Buick LeSabre, trying to figure out what was wrong.

One of them was my brother Tom, who died about two years before Ed. The third? Not a Carter but a friend who quite possibly might have known even less than the rest of us what he was looking for.

As if he were beside me on my front porch where I'm sitting now, I can hear Ed: "You see people on the side of the road with their broken down cars with the hoods up, looking to see what's wrong with the motor, but do they ever look to see what the motor looks like when it's running right? Noo.."

I'm pretty sure I was driving the Buick when it cacked out, but I sure know it wasn't Ed. Yes, that's a beer he's holding in his right hand. Eddie left the driving to others. More fun for him. 

(Which brings me to another mystery. And here's how Ed might put it. "I totally get why we can't drink and drive; why can't we drink and passenge?")

But back to the present. 

I miss Ed all the time and channel him several times a day. What's more--and this sort of borders on the miraculous, two short paragraphs ago, I, without meaning to, sort of made up a quote that Ed might have uttered but didn't actually say. He would have totally approved of "why can't we drink and passenge?"

Which brings us to the upside of missing a dead person.. 

Ask anyone who knew him. Ed, like everybody who has ever lived, could be--I know you're going to find this hard to believe, and I hope you're sitting down--sometimes a little, um, you know, challenging.

As much fun as Eddie was, his idealistic buddy and fellow CUPW unionist Gerard van Deelen said the following at Ed's funeral, "James was a hardliner. And I like hardliners." (His name is James Edward. He was James at work; Ed at home.)

The wonderful thing about missing Ed and quoting him and thinking about all the stuff we did together is, as the great memories grow, the irritation fades. I think cells have memories and I remember with every cell in my body how much fun we had together but try as I might, I cannot conjure up the same physical reaction I had to his, whatchamacallit, vexiness. 

Eddie can still make me laugh but he can no longer make me mad. Same thing with Tom. And now that I mention it, my eldest brother Pat, who died like 30 years ago, too. Happy memories rule.

Grieving my brothers makes my heart grow fonder.

Look at that photo again. How could a guy with a life-affirming grin like that ever vex? And as I remember it, when the cops pulled over and told him to pour out his beer, Eddie was the anti-vex; the paragon of politeness in fact and he did exactly as he was told. Not sure how we got the car back on the road but I guess we must have, some how.

And--as Ed might say--"They all lived happily in the hereafter."

Roman's chariots: The most trustworthy car-care advice you'll ever get

PHOTO BY Roman's sister in law Brenda 

My friend Roman Stankiewicz said cars have souls, just like people. 

Roman was like, "If you say nice things about your car when it's within earshot, it will hear you. Your car will perform better and require less maintenance." He's right. People who gripe about their cars have more problems with them.

My trusty 2011 Malibu, about which I've never uttered an unkind word,  treats me very well.

Roman knew what he was talking about. More than once, Roman was named the top new car salesman in Canada. Imagine!

I asked him what his secret was. He said, "Know what it is Pete? Total honesty."

And I just figured out, approximately seven minutes ago, why I believe him so easily.

I first met Roman so long ago I don't remember; it was probably before grade one. We've stayed friends since. 

But here's something that has never been documented before. When we were in, like, grade five,  I, Roman, and two other guys, Mike Blondin and Trevor MacIntyre, invented and played a game in our front yard that we called knee football.

Knee football is played like real football but instead of standing up and running or walking, you stayed on your knees. 

DRAWING OF  KNEE FOOTBALL GAME BY THE 
AUTHOR: I'm not in the picture because I was on
the sidelines, sketching.

I can only imagine what our moms thought of the idea. We played knee football so frequently, on a 15 foot by 15 foot plot of grass in our front yard, that it's one of the things I remember doing most with Roman. 

Imagine four already short kids  trying to actually pass throw,  run and tackle each other, but on our knees. It sounds like one of those dreams you're really glad to wake up from. Or an acid trip. 

Here's a weird coincidence. We four knee football stars were also altar boys together, at St. Clement's Church. It sounds like we had a kneeling fetish but we didn't. It's just something I thought about now.

We also shot a lot of pool. 

Get this: In the Stankiewicz living room, where other families might have had their best dining room furniture, often with plastic protecting the chairs and tables, the Stankiewiczes had a regulation sized pool table. And an upright piano.

What else does a family need? 

The Stankiewiczes have their priorities screwed on straight. 

Roman grew up in a house one city block behind ours and to get there, we'd cross our back yard,  across the alley and then trespass though we never called it that, through Quinns' yard. 

I don't think I ever went to Rome's house via any other route. (Yeah, we often called him Rome.)

FOUR STAND UP GUYS WITH  KNEES STILL INTACT:
Me, Trevor, Roman & Mike

But here's why I think I believe everything Roman ever told me. 

Roman's older brother is named Peter. Peter was in my brother Ed's grade at St. Albert's school. 

Roman's other brother is Ed. 

Roman's oldest sister's name is Pat. My oldest brother's name is Pat. 

I don't think Roman's big sister Mary ever met my big sister Mary but they were not only "sister" sisters they are two of the smartest, most generous and funniest people I know. 

Roman's older sister Theresa was in my brother Alex's grade, and my brother Alex's wife is named Brenda and Roman's sister in law is also Brenda but not the same one.

See where I'm going here? When you're linked like this; you're not just locked together you're welded! 

I trusted Roman like one of my own brothers.

Anyway, long story cut way too short: Roman died this past April 4. Leukemia. I'm welling up with tears as I write this; And everybody who knew him loves and misses him.

But this is not an obituary. 

It's a story about how to get your car to last longer. From a very trusted source.

Edisms

My big brother Ed died Feb. 1 and I miss texting him because the following is the kind of thing that happened a lot.

A few years back I was in my seat on a plane heading for Vancouver from Toronto and we were still on the Toronto tarmac. I looked around at the other passengers and texted Ed: "Not only is there a school hockey team on board, there's a guy with an acoustic guitar and a nun.Wearing the old fashioned nun habit! This flight's going down for sure."

My text had barely left my phone when I got his response. Ed was that fast. 

When I read what he wrote I laughed out loud and the man sitting beside me asked what was so funny. 

I told him. 

His response when I reported what Ed had written? "I'd love to meet a guy whose brain works like that."

But before I share with you what Eddie texted me , with not even two seconds elapsing between his getting my message and responding, I must tell you about a book that came out a few years ago, titled Edisms. 

Edisms was a vividly illustrated and perfectly bound collection of texts that Ed had sent my daughters Ewa and Ria. 

They, with the help of my friend and graphic artist Tim Norton, made the random assortment of ridiculous texts  (e.g., "In Honour of Your Success, I have opened the Holy Can of Beer. And Poured" and "Is your Mexican hairless or did you shave him yourself?") look downright poetic. 

Scriptural in fact.

I figure some day a future archeologist will find a copy of  Edisms in a cobweb-covered abandoned tavern and it'll become a legendary mysterious text, widely quoted and maybe even made into posters. Like Khalil Gibran's "The Prophet" (Ed of course would at this point be like, "I preferred The Profit, by Khelog Albran."

NUN ART BY THE AUTHOR

That reminds me. Who here is old enough to remember that "You are a child of the universe; no less than the trees and the stars you have a right to be here" poster allegedly unearthed in some church in Boston or some such? It was called Desiderata. All the hipsters had posters of it and it actually became a hit song. Cue Ed: "I liked the National Lampoon's version better. Deteriorata starts off  'You are a fluke of the universe, you have no right to be here.'"

That, Mr. Seat Mate, is how Ed's brain worked.

All. 

The. 

Time. 

And no better evidence of it is there than Edisms, which Ewa and Ria and Tim produced in honour of Ed's 60th birthday, seven years and three days ago. A memorable party was held. 

And yes, I do believe that someday Edisms might be scripture. 

Which brings us back to to my plane ride and the nuns. Ed's response to my doomsday message?

This: "At least when you crash you'll go out with a bang AND a wimple." (See artist's rendering above.)

He had "wimple" right there at the forefront of his noggin where other people have real estate prices and interest rates; wimple had been sitting there, on deck, for years, waiting for me to deliver that straight line.

I still have a bunch of texts from Ed on my phone and they'll be there as long as I own the thing.

 

 

 

Land of the midnight daughter

About a week and a half ago my 31-year-old daughter Ewa, who lives for the moment in Whitehorse, Yukon, fell off a bicycle, hit her head on the icy ground and had a concussion. (She's much better now thanks. As soon I was able, I flew to Whitehorse to do whatever I could, which wasn't much except make her laugh. But that I did, and I'm home again.)

WHERE THE YUKON RIVER MEETS THE ALASKA
HIGHWAY: Not far from where Ewa's head met the icy road.

When she had the bike mishap, Ewa, who I'd like to mention is fluent in American Sign Language, was on her way to a Whitehorse bar called The 98 to hear a singer named Paris Pick, a singer/songwriter I'd never heard of until last week but who now has, for a fan, me and, as it turns out, Ed the Sock.

  

The things you learn from your kids.

To whit: Sam, the the hero of the famous poem The Cremation of Sam McGee , was a real person though he wasn't from Tennessee. McGee came from Lindsay, Ont., which would have rhymed too but what do I know?

The poet, Robert Service, was working at a Whitehorse bank. McGee came to town as a road builder. Service saw his name on a bank ledger and decided it was perfect for the poem he was in the midst of composing. Then -- and I love this part of the story -- banker Service contacted McGee and and asked if could use his name. McGee said okay.

WHERE STRANGE THINGS ARE DONE: I couldn't
really get a good look in.

Sam McGee in the poem died by being willingly cremated in the woodstove on an abandoned barge on Lake Labarge.

McGee from Lindsay died at 73 at his daughter's farm near Beiseker, Alberta, which isn't far from Calgary. Of a heart attack. But not before at least once returning to Whitehorse and being approached by a local offering to sell the visitor a vial of "authentic Sam McGee's ashes."

True--at least as true as it has to be--story.

Another thing I learned? Ewa is in better than excellent hands up there. Ewa's surrounded by a lively  commmunity of loving and fun-loving people, evidenced by what we had for supper the day after my return: Moose stew.

PREHISTORIC FACEBOOK: Another
Ewa adventure immortalized

Before I caught my return flight, Ewa's Whitehorse landlady, Mary Gottschall, and her son Chris, outfitted me with about seven pounds of frozen moose meat, which pretty much monopolized my carry-on. I think the airport folks were a bit freaked out when they saw the meat via the x-ray machine. It looked like I was smuggling small humans. I'm still working on a decent carrion pun.

Also, before leaving, I asked Ewa if she minded if I mentioned her sore noggin on Facebook. She said "No, go ahead," her voice sort of  resigned to the fact that I'd try to distill a week's adventure into a blog post. Probably like McGee's when the banker pal asked to use his name.

I then reminded Ewa: "Just be glad you weren't one of those kids whose moms and dads paste every little-league win and brownie fly-up and dance into a gloating Facebook post; you know, the way young parents do these days."

We didn't have Facebook in my day. 

We had to use magazine columns.

Ed's not-so-secret recipe for kickapoo cariboo joy juice

AND ON DECK...ED: Always up for an interesting time

My older brother Eddie died four weeks ago, and I won't bore you with how much I miss him, but I do want to share a story about something that happened a few years back.

Thing is, under other circumstances; i.e., if Ed weren't dead, I'd text him to fact check the story. 

The exchange would go something like this: 

Me: "Remember when we were at the Quebec winter carnival and you were kissing that woman and her husband showed up and knocked you off the wall and you pranged your arm?"

Ed: "Yeah."

Me: "Was his name really Kong."

Ed: "Yup. Kong. What's your point?"

We were in university--him at Laurentian in Sudbury and me at Carleton in Ottawa--and we'd decided to check out the famous Quebec carnival that happens in the week leading up to Lent. We arranged to stay at our aunt Della's place in Ste.-Foie, a suburb of the old city. 

Mid-afternoon, Eddie and I found ourselves standing high on a three-foot-tall ice wall, watching the parade and probably clutching those yard-long hollow plastic canes with the twist-off caps. You could fill the canes with whatever you needed to drink.  

At one point, filled with the excitement of Mardi Gras, Eddie and the woman beside him (whom neither of us had met before that instant) were laughing and passing the cane back and forth and, yes, kissing, when suddenly she pulled back and yelled "My husband! Kong!"

 CANES FOR RAISING 

A guy appeared from out of the crowd, took an angry run at Ed and either shoved or punched him so hard Ed fell off the wall. It was serious, too; i.e., serious  enough that he had to go to emerg but we waited until we returned to Ontario the next day because we were  young and stupid and thought our Ontario health care coverage wouldn't work in Quebec. 

Kong's name is just one of the quite-a-few story details I'd fact check with Ed. 

Another involves his 1957-era Fender MusicMaster guitar that I am, as of last week, in possession of. My daughters Ewa and Ria rescued the instrument from Ed's apartment and it still smells like Players cigarettes. 

Whenever Ed visited our place, our cat Iris predictably sidled up to him for skritching and I think she recognizes that it's his Fender and misses him, too.

Here's me fact checking the guitar story: Me: "You know that MusicMaster you got from Moe [Sauve, a friend of our brother Tom's]?"

PLUCK OF THE IRIS: She had a soft spot for Ed

Ed was probably 15. Moe hired Ed to play bass in a Sudbury bar band called The Kings' Knights. At one point, Moe was short of cash so gave Ed the Fender in lieu. To fact check, I'd text: "Did you guys really play in a strip club in Sudbury when you were 15?" 

Ed: "Yep. The Belton. (He'd be talking about the long-gone Belton Hotel.) What's your point?" 

My point is, actually, I just remembered that in my wedding speech, I said something like, "Eddie's done so many cool things that when it's my turn to go, I hope Ed's life  passes before my eyes."

I just remembered something else. 

Those drinking canes I mentioned a few paragraphs ago? The rotgut (I think it was a blend of wine, apple juice and rum) that we drank out of them during the carnival was called "Cariboo." 

It's 11 in the morning. I wish I had some now.