Yahoo rancheroo!

ME BUCKAROOS! Whatever I dreamt last night
had this bunch rolling in the bedroom aisles.

It's been a year to the day that my older brother Ed died. 

Although the following might strike you as callous, this very morning -- the anniversary of Ed's death -- I woke up laughing like a stoned teenager. 

Seriously. 

From a deep sleep to laughing out loud. Drives people around you crazy when it happens, but to me, waking up laughing is magical.

I also know Ed would approve. Especially after I tell you why.

Yesterday, my wife Helena and I went for breakfast at the Sunrise Cafe, about three blocks from our house. 

I like everything about the Sunrise. I've never had better Eggs Benedict. 

One of the first times there, I was with a sales guy named Emerson and when the server asked what we wanted I pointed to the specials and said "I'm really curious about this 'Surprise breakfast.' What is it?" 

Immediately and as if she had rehearsed, she was like, "The surprise is, you're dyslexic. It's Sunrise breakfast." 

Back to yesterday. 

Sunrise tables are close together. 

Less than two feet to the east of me and Helena sat a pair of six-foot-tall-with-football-player-shoulders guys who looked like they were in their early 50s. Or 20s. I can't tell. They were fair haired, they slouched over the table the same way and wore similar glasses. 

They were speaking softly but at one point I heard the one closest to me go, "well, I wouldn't want to climb on a motorcycle if I had jet lag."

I kept quiet. Hard to believe, I know.

A few moments after I started eating my "Mexican Scrambled Eggs," our server, Lindsay, arrived with an unusual plate of something for the motorcycle guy. His tablemate asked him what was in it.

He responded. "Eggs, cheese, chilis, some other stuff and ranchero sauce." Except--and this is important--he pronounced it "rancheroo."

Rancheroo.

His friend, slowly: "I think (pause) it's (pause) ran-chair-oh." The guy realized his goof; they laughed. I liked these two.

I had to talk. 

I asked if it was their first time at the Sunrise. The not-the-motorbike man: "No. My brother and I have been coming a long time. We found it one New Year's morning. We were both hung over and just dropped in and been coming back ever since." I liked them more.

Me: "I gotta tell you; my brother died a year ago right now and I miss him like crazy. Just please never forget how lucky you are to have a brother to get hung over with and go to restaurants with." (I'm not griping here. I'm still spoiled and lucky to my brother Alex and four sisters Charlene, Norma, Bertholde and Mary still around. But Ed lived in Toronto and we hung out A LOT. From the time I was born.)

The cafe boys both said they were sorry about my loss and agreed they were fortunate. You know how you can tell sincere gratitude from the fake kind? These brothers were the real thing.

The conversation moved along, to growing up, travelling, motorcycles. They both ride. 

I said Ed never got his licence but sometimes rode on the back of mine, adding "we probably looked like a couple of cartoon characters."

'Til finally, I couldn't take it any longer. I had to ask. "Did I hear you (pause) um, say (pause) rancheroo?"

He laughed and was like, "I know, right?"

TOM, LAUGHING WITH HIS WIFE, HUENA : Not sure if he ever woke up laughing but I think he
went to bed that way. Frequently, I'd wager.

I said "It sounds like a kids' favourite, I dunno, candy." 

We're all laughing now. 

Me, in a little-boy voice: "Daddy daddy can we get some rancheroos?"

By the way, this talk of dads brings me to another question--one I find myself asking a lot these days. 

I am now the same age as my dad, Tom, was when I was in university. Did Tom do stuff like this? Did he ever wake up laughing and think, "I can hardly wait to tell everybody about my stupid dream?" 

He, too, had an older brother Ed who died too soon. So many many things I don't know about my own father. I've interviewed thousands of people, but never him. I feel another blog coming on...

Meanwhile, back at the Sunrise Cafe.

Lindsay delivered the bills; the boys said, "sorry about your brother" again, we all shook hands and left.  

Later, around dinnertime, I was trying to recall exactly how events in the restaurant had unfolded, but--and this will sound weird-- I had forgotten the most important word. 

Only six hours had passed, and whatever it was we were laughing about completely eluded me. Was it fava beans? Quacamole? Nacho? Warned you it was strange.

I went to bed.

Then, and I know because I have a digital alarm clock beside my bed, at exactly 5:48 a.m.,"rancheroo" weaseled its way into a dream starring my dad, my brothers Pat, Ed, Alex, Tom, and me. I forget what I was telling them but rancheroo got in there, it was hilarious and I woke up laughing. 

Ed would approve. In fact he had told me that he, too, over the years woke up that way sometimes. It's a gift.

I wonder if it ever happened to my dad. I hope so.

Why big city traffic is my jam

AS HARD AS IT IS TO BELIEVE...this is not a photograph 
(rendering by the author).

I want to tell you about a soul-lifting display of human achievement that I witnessed, a half hour ago. 

A moment worth celebrating. 

I'm writing this at 5:30 on a snowy January evening in my house in central west Toronto. My wife, Helena, and I just got back after an errand that, under normal conditions, would have taken 15 minutes but because of the snowstorm, lasted two hours. 

The whole drive was fun with all sorts of slipping and near misses, but the final five minutes were spectacular. Suspenseful in fact.

We were in our reliable VW Beetle -- loved the world over by brothers and sisters who view the car's presence  as permission to sock their sibling -- and we were three blocks from home.

I was turning left to a street that intersects ours, and from that corner it would be a 50-metre downhill run.

Negotiating the turn was tricky, because a public transit bus -- a casualty of the storm -- sat  stuck on the ice (See illustration.) I had to go around the bus sort of blindly to get to the street and the moment I got past the bus, I was facing an assortment of stuck trucks and cars aimed in all directions. A RushHour gameboard come to life.

THIS IS.

One sedan was on the far right sidewalk, looking as if the driver had lost control. But clearly, she or he had tried to navigate around another stuck truck that was spinning its wheels on the icy incline.

A grey van, behind the wheelspinner, appeared immobile but was facing across the intersection. Perpendicular to the street.

Right behind him, an SUV, with its nose right up against the truck’s left rear fender. I am not exaggerating.

Behind the SUV? A Mercedes sportscar. 

I sat a bit mesmerized, wondering what was going to happen next.

One of the furthest-away cars started backing up. The Mercedes nudged forward and up the east sidewalk. I didn't think it would succeed, given the icy hill but up and around the corner it glided, somehow not sliding into anything. They sure make cars way better than they used to.  

The next move was simply acrobatic. The perpendicular van spun its rear wheels and steered the front tires to the left so the van actually moved around as if it were on an axis. It went from facing northeast to east to southeast then the driver quickly turned the front wheels hard to the right so suddenly it was pointed in the right direction, downhill. It slowly drove away, weaving its way among the other stuck cars and freeing up the rest of us. 

The street actually cleared, and I drove, without incident, home.

The scene reminded me of one of those highly complicated Polish folk dances where the participants glide around and beside and and over and through one anothers' arms and legs and you never know who's going to wind up where.

But those dancers are coached. This mid-city vehicular mazurka was improv'd. Nobody exited their vehicle or honked. Six or eight drivers just realized the fix they were in, used their noggins and calmly  solved the problem.

Remember the stuck bus I mentioned earlier? While all this other stuff was going on, it also got traction because two gentlemen in a delivery truck stopped mid-intersection, and for some reason, had a bunch of sandbags that they opened and spread under the bus's wheels. I love those guys.

My whole reason for telling you all this is that the show reminded me, once again, that 99.9 per cent of people drive okay.

The huge majority of vehicles get where they’re going with incident. They brake when they have to; they  avoid crashing into anything; they don’t cause problems. Hard to believe, I know. 

I've always loved driving, especially in the city. It's probably the only sport I'm any good at. 

Driving in the city as long as you're not in a hurry, is good for you: your reflexes; your mental health, you get to go places and see people and parts of the city you've never seen before, and city driving does wonders for the human spirit. 

Or maybe it's just me.

In any event, the extraordinary behaviour I just described happens in various contexts every day, in every country, all around the world; and you will never read about it anywhere. 

No crashes don't make the news.

Except here maybe.

Jumping to concussions

SOLES IN PURGATORY: Firewalking reads better than it flays.

You never know who you're going to be in debt to.

I'm thinking about a woman I met on an airplane, 30-some years ago. Whoever and wherever she is, that lady has no idea how much she changed my life. For the better.

Interesting, that. You never know what you're going to take to heart. Could be a comment from a stranger; or something you tripped across leafing through a National Enquirer  at Shoppers.

Conversely you never know what somebody else is going to remember about you!

Over the years, I've collected little observations and stuf that I've picked up by accident then clung to like gospel and I've also forgotten loads of stuff that I actually paid to learn.

When I was 18, I attended ground school because I thought I wanted to be a pilot. I cannot remember one single ground-school fact. (That'd be what you call foreshadowing.)

When I was way younger, my uncle Alex told me that if it's snowing big fat wet flakes, we're looking at a light snowfall. "Big snow, little snow," Alex said. Once.  

You've probably said stuff to people they still think about and you have no idea. (Lesson? Careful what you say. It might be something you're immortalized with.)

Which brings me back to the lady on the plane.

Yesterday, a fellow I work with invited me to try skydiving at his club down near Ottawa. I said no for a bunch of reasons. But the discussion reminded me of the flying lady. (P.S. The chap yesterday had no way of knowing I'd be writing this. See what I mean?.)

I now whisk you back to 1980-something B.C. (Before children.) 

A Toronto entertainment magazine called Metropolis assigned me a story titled "Offbeat Toronto Fun" or some such. The activities involved a hare-brained allegedly motivational exercise known as "firewalking," a slightly less flaky float in a sensory deprivation tank, busking on Queen Street, and finally, skydiving.

PLAYING FOR KEEPS: Need an ego-beat-down? Try busking?

I'll save the details for another blog, but they all left scars. Walking across burning coals hurt; the salt water in the sensory deprivation tank somehow learned that I had a hangnail on my left hand and attacked it like a pain-inflicting army, and should you ever want to grind up your ego like pepper and pour  it down a gutter, try standing on a downtown corner singing. Hundreds of people don't just walk by ignoring your best efforts, they look clean through you and you feel like mud.

But it was the skydive that really hurt. A lot. And not the way you're thinking. 

Actually, it hurt that way too. I landed badly and thought at first that I'd paralyzed myself. I crumpled on to the field and lay still, tied to my parachute, which was spread across the grass in what I remember as a northeasterly direction.  

My back felt like it had been lit on fire. I was afraid to look down because I thought my legs had been splintered. Above, I could still see the airplane circling. Through my head went "I've just screwed up my whole life and I have nobody to blame but myself." 

Turns out I was fine. The sudden shock went away and I was able to get up and limp to the car and drive home, unbruised. On the outside.

But inside? The details that follow I've never before made public.

The jump was preceded by about six hours of training. The instructor assured us that -- as long as we did it right -- landing safely would be no more uncomfortable than if we leapt off a six-foot fence. So we all -- about eight of us -- practised jumping off a six foot high barn rail. It wasn't scary at all. On the ground.

A few hours later, we were airborne. Going around and around above a farm field. 2,000 feet up. 

The instructor opened the airplane door. I looked down. And thought, "Jesus."

The instructor asked who wanted to go first. One of the big, hearty, Italian-looking guys stepped up.  And out. Just like that. 

Then another. And a third. Down down down they went.

By number five, I knew enough was enough. 

Stepping out that door went against every ounce of self-preservation I had. I made up my mind: I'm not going. Nobody would ever have to know. ... then up and out went the young woman --who, it's important to know -- was about half my size. And she didn't go until she looked around the inside of the plane and smiled in my direction. Away she flew. 

I followed. 

The ride down was quick and I don't remember much except thinking "I wonder what hitting the ground's going to feel like."

I landed badly. And my legs hurt for a bit. 

But having to admit for the next 30 years that I'd chickened out would have been way worse. For some reason, ignominy is a word that comes to mind.

So thanks, wherever you are. 

Oh, another thing somebody said to me I've never forgotten? I'm talking about my late brother Tom here, and what Tom said was something like: "I could never understand why a sane person would voluntarily step out of a fully functioning airplane in mid flight." 

Smart man, Tom.

A real-name changer

TOM, AT MY AGE: He'd give you money but would never
tell you how much he had.

I once asked my father Tom if we were rich. He said this:  "We're rich in family." 

I have nine brothers and sisters, triple digits of cousins, and I grew up with a platoon of aunts and uncles who regularly shared cash and, if I asked, their car keys. It was pretty obvious to me that when it came  to family, we were rollin' in it.  

What I really wanted to know was, "Were we rich rich? Like with money."

Tom never said. It remained  a sacred secret. My parents did not talk money.

But we must have been doing pretty well.

We never wanted for anything. My mom, Huena, always had a housekeeper, we grew up feeding on steak and whatever else we wanted, and my folks were huge party enthusiasts. And that's an expensive hobby.

For instance: Huena and Tom frequently hosted great groups of drinkers and eaters at a place called the Silver Beach Tavern, which sounds like a place guys visit on their way home from work but was actually a semi-elegant Italian restaurant that burned down a few years ago.

We dined there so often my parents' generosity probably put a couple of the Silver Beach staff's kids through university. Or maybe threw their bail.

We were at the Silver Beach when Neil Armstrong landed on the moon. I remember watching it on one of the wall-mounted TVs.  Among the reasons for celebrating that night was that my Irish-twin niece and nephew Patricia and Tom Jr. graduated from kindergarten. Irish twins, in case you didn't know, are non-twin siblings born within the same calendar year. Irish lace on the other hand is cobwebs. 

EVERYTHING'S WORTH CELEBRATING: Spot Pete
and win a free subscription to his blog&grille.

More evidence of our well-off-edness? My dad never let me leave the house without money.

And how about this? When I was in early high school, one of my sister Charlene's friends was in our kitchen; he opened our fridge door, gazed around and I heard him go "Look at all that food."

My father--knowing with 100 per cent certainty that I wouldn't follow through on the project because that's one of my strongest suits; i.e., not following through--once ponied up tuition for ground-school because for 10 minutes or so I wanted to be a pilot.  

In grade 10 I decided to learn the flute, and my mom bought me one. I pursued it, eagerly too, until one day Heather Gardner asked why I didn't play a more manly instrument like the sax. 

I should never have listened to her but I thought she was cute so I did.

My older sisters once bought me a plane ticket to Toronto just so I could go on an airplane. 

When my sister Norma was a beginning nurse in Toronto I was visiting her and we entered a store near St. Joseph's hospital, which is within walking distance of my house in Toronto now, and we emerged  with a new six-string acoustic guitar Norma bought for me, on a whim.

You might say I was spoiled rotten; I say I was spoiled wonderful.

So here's the downside to all this.

Today, after being raised by angels who catered to my every wish, I am, at the same age as my dad when I was at university, an optimistic glass- three-quarters-full trusting naif. And I've never used that word before. 

You'd think being pampered the way I was might have taken the edge off gratitude but you'd be wrong. For some mysterious reason, I still look upon my life with sheer disbelief at the fact that we can buy kiwis any day of the year; that we can go to the dentist's on a moment's notice and he or she will fix us up painlessly.  

Nobody I know has ever been called to go to war! Has that ever happened in any generation ever in the history of time?

I believe almost anything anybody tells me and I know the world is getting--in a three-steps- forward-one-step-back-sort-of-way--better every day. 

I had lunch last week with a guy named Tim Gallagher who I've known since grade one. We agreed life is too short to hold grudges and life is meant to be savoured.

Every day, I wake up, look around and say "Holy cow am I like the most fortunate person in the world or what?" 

And something occurred to me two Thursday ago. (I know because I work at home most days but can go into the office anytime I like and I prefer Thursdays.)

I was on the Gardiner Expressway in downtown Toronto in my trusty 2011 Malibu, listening to Miles Davis' So What on CJRT Jazz radio. 

And in downtown Toronto right now, there's a building boom. More than 100 cranes are reaching up  to the clouds, some of them are ON TOP of the high buildings.

They all look like they could fall over at any minute.

And you now what keeps them towering and safe?

Counterweights. Millions of tons of counterweight. Strong invisible support that keeps those tall skinny cranes productive and safe. (I learned this when I was editor of Today's Trucking Magazine.)

I felt at one with those cranes. All that positive support I had growing up? Counterweight.

Despite everything, they're still standing,  reaching higher every day, full of hope.

I should change my name to Ichabod.

 

This is where I came in

NOW FOR SOMETHING COMPLETELY IMBECILIC: I never doubted the existence of 
The Shelter 

When I was a kid, if I or one of my nine brothers and sisters was being particularly troublesome, my mother Huena threatened to call "The Shelter."

Without having details explained to us explicitly, we all knew it worked like this: Fed-up moms called The Shelter, somebody came and took the misbehaving kids away. Simple, huh?

What's really funny is that until a few minutes ago, I have: A) Never given The Shelter a moment's reconsideration and B) Never once thought it was conceivable that The Shelter might not exist. And yup, I'm a working journalist.

Huena's shelter sounds like a Children's Aid Society in Bizarro World. 

BURT OFFERINGS: Where I learned everything I know
about banking.

There's a reason I'm telling you this. I just finished reading John Cleese's autobiography So Anyway, and one of my favourite parts is when Cleese discusses his parents' movie-going habits. Mr. and Mrs. Cleese didn't care what time they got to the cinema. If they arrived midway through a movie, they simply stayed in their seats until the next screening and watched up to the part where they came in. 

I thought, "that sounds weird." Then I thought, "we did the exact same thing, a lot."

Growing up in my hometown of Sudbury, Ont., we regularly showed up 15 or 35 minutes into a movie then stayed for the first part of the next screening. This meant waiting in the dark theatre for however long was between shows, watching the coming attractions and with luck a cartoon or two, but then settling in for the part of the movie we missed. Sometimes, we stayed to the end but mostly we walked out over and in front of the other patrons before the show was done. That doesn't happen much these days.

I just googled my brain to see if I could remember specific titles where I did this but no luck. Though two very important early cinema experiences did show up. 

The first? Mary Poppins. It's the only movie my dad ever took me to. And he did so only because my mom was hosting (hostessing?) a bridal shower for my cousin Anne at our house and all the menfolk had to skedaddle. 

BARROWS OF FUN: A feast for a nine-year-old's eyes

I'd seen the wonderful movie before; I believe with my older sister Charlene or Norma. And that was a good thing because I knew to wake my dad (who had nodded off) so he wouldn't miss the scary part. (Something just occurred to me. I bet that's why, years later, when I proudly informed him that I had not one but two real bought-and-paid-for Carleton University credits in something called Film Studies, he was a tad skeptical.)

The other early
cinematic memory? Bonnie and Clyde featuring Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway, as what would later be described as one of the sexiest couples in cinematic history. 

Bonnie and Clyde! The sensationally sexy couple who died in a visual orgy of blood and machine-gun fire. I was nine. 

I'm pretty sure I remember the older person who brought me but I'm not 100 per cent certain so I won't name names.

But to this day, I am in total debt to whoever it was signed off on that baby-sitting assignment. 

Not quite sure why it made me think of the Children's Aid thing though.  

Welcome to the All-Saints Motel

AT DUFFY LAKE:  I can't see this picture without thinking of
 my late mother-in-law Ria's eponymous dog or my pal Duff McCutcheon.

This story begins with me screaming. 

Calling out to my daughter Ewa to save my life. 

And it's true. 

And it's got a moral. Or two.

Late August of 2019 found Ewa and me motorcycling around British Columbia; her on her marvelous single-cylinder BMW f650 and me on a borrowed 600 cc Honda Shadow. We'd left Vancouver at about 8 a.m. and spent the next eight hours riding through some of the most scenic country on the planet.

First up the Sea-to-Sky Highway past Whistler then along Highway 99 to Pemberton. We're talking a twisty hilly road that sometimes had a mountain on one side and a cliff on the other, frequently with no guardrail. We stopped at a place called Duffy Lake and then rode near Lillooet, one of the towns worst hit by forest fires that year. About suppertime, we landed at Cache Creek.  

I was tired, hungry, thirsty and very pleased with myself.

The day before, in Vancouver, I used some computer program to help reserve a motel room in Cache Creek. Because of the fires that year, I thought most space would be rented out to firefighters and others and I was right. Vacancies were scarce, but I did manage to locate one roadside place in Cache Creek. I filled in all the little boxes and my credit card number and the three-digit number on the back that I have to check no matter how many times I use it. 

EWA: Burning up the scenery

The motel was right on the main highway and when we pulled in, the only other vehicle in the lot was a white pick-up. Everybody else, I figured, was out firefighting. 

Ewa and I entered the lobby; the man behind the counter asked what we wanted; we told him we'd made reservations. He looked at his computer and shook his head. He couldn't find our names in the system. And he added that he was full up. 

Some people, in a situation like this, demand explanations. I go the other way and it usually works. I do not show how frustrated I am. No matter how steamed I might feel, I try to never react angrily. 

My M.O: Smile, like I did, and say a quick prayer to St. Gabriel the Archangel, the patron saint of diplomacy. (Look it up! He's the guy whose job was to tell Mary she was a few months gone even though she had never, well, you know.)

You'd be amazed at what you can accomplish with a bit of well-delivered malarky.

I once arrived at the United Airlines check-in gate at Pearson International Airport on my way to Houston, Texas, for work, and realized I'd forgotten all my documentation at home. No passport, no ticket; just a driver's licence. In less than a nanosecond, I channeled Gabe and miraculously came up with a busload of blarney that included the fact that if I didn't make the flight I'd get fired from my new job and even worse I'd be looking at 15 to life in the doghouse. Whatever I said worked. I made the flight. 

I knew it might in British Columbia, too.

After Mr. Clerk said he didn't have our names, I still did not challenge him. But asked if he could find some place please, for me and my daughter, to spend the night. (I know. You're thinking St. Joseph, right? I bet there's a saint out there for every desperate human condition.)

Whatever spiel I gave him worked and eventually, he found us a room and handed over a key. We parked the bikes and walked across the road and found one of the finest pizzas either of us have ever eaten at Manie's Grill and Pizza. While we waited at Manie's, I started telling Ewa about how every small-town mom and pop motel owner must hate the Hitchcock movie Psycho, because they all get compared, at one point or another to the Bates Motel.

THAT'S IT! Maybe all the other guests were 
walk-ins.

Especially when guests are told there's no vacancies when it sure looks like there's vacancies. 

We returned to the motel, and I sat out front of the room with a beer, looking across the empty parking lot at the mountains, when around the corner comes Mr. Clerk, carrying a stack of towels to, he told me, the washing machines. He asked where we'd ridden from and told me how hard it is to get good trustworthy help. So he's doing everything around the place and his wife was at home and he actually gestured toward a house high up on hill across the road.

I could tell you lots more about the chap. He was extremely friendly and knowledgeable about world affairs and the United Nations but after 20 minutes or so it became clear that towel cleaning was not a priority. The man wanted to talk and even though we were having one of the most interesting conversations I had all week, it --and this is almost unheard of-- was me that ended the conversation. While we were conversing, I counted vehicles as they arrived at the motel and the total came to zero. 

I went in; Ewa and I laughed about the fact that I really believed there's a scene in Psycho involving Norma Bates delivering sheets but I might be remembering wrongly. But the Bates/ Cache Creek jokes ran longer than they should have, I guess.

THAT NO-VACANT STARE:
One slender consonant away from Normal

Because at about 2:30 a.m., I woke up screaming. 

Calling Ewa's name. Mr. Nice Clerk had busted into our room and was coming at me with an axe. Typed on this computer screen, in little letters, the incident doesn't look nearly so horrible as it was. 

I was afraid down to my bones. Sweating maybe. Ewa was, on the other hand, being polite by not laughing too loudly.

Here's the thing: I believe that one's behaviour in dreams reflects how one would act in real life so now I know that if an axe murderer ever does come after me, I'm going to turn into the world-class fraidy cat that I am and might even call to one of my kids for help. Manly, I know.

Ewa is in fact very helpful; I had forgotten about that dream until Ewa laughingly reminded me of it last week. Another lesson here is, you never know what people especially your kids are going to remember and remind you of, sometimes years after the fact. So be careful. 

But finally, all that stuff about wanting all your dreams to come true? Buncha malarky.

A peek at pre-recorded history

GIVE PETE A CHANCE: Embedded journalist.

How old are you by the time you start remembering stuff? Five? Four? 

One of my earliest memories actually has me in my parents' bed, lying between my mom and dad, so I must have been awfully young. 

Then again we're talking about a youngster who -- if you're like, "Hey Siri who was the most spoiled child in all history?" Siri would respond, "Peter."  I likely slept between my parents until an unhealthily advanced age. 

Not every night. Just when I had a scary dream or there was thunder or something. 

And this just occured to me: Is there a link between my trips to Tom and Huena's bed and the fact that I was the last baby they had?

 MY FOLKS PUT THE LAZY INTO La-Z Boy 

But that's not what we're here to talk about. The night I'm recalling, when I was still awake between my folks, somebody else came into the bedroom. A grown up. 

It was either my big brother Tom or his friend (a guy who worked for my dad) Charlie MacMillan. Both they and my parents are gone now so I can't phone and ask if the memory's accurate. Besides, the tiny details don't matter.  

The important thing is, the visitor had with him a briefcase-sized thing with lots of switches, some lights and two big reels of what looked like film on the side. 

Turns out it was the first tape recorder I'd ever seen. 

To demonstrate the magic Tom (or Charlie) held a microphone up to my little face and I recited this following: 

"Do you want to hear a story about Johnny McGorry? Shall I begin it, that's all there's in it." 

Then Tom (or Charlie)  made the wheels whirr in reverse,  he hit a switch, and out from the speaker came my mousey little voice, reminding the world once again that I couldn't say my r's very well and to this day I believed I have too many r's in my name. I wonder if that's why I ended up marrying a speech and language pathologist. 

 JOHN AND YOKO'S COVER VERSION of Tom and Huena in bed.

I forget the point I started out to make here but the fact that my mom and dad talked to visitors in their bedroom on a regular basis makes them sound like John and Yoko, who hosted bed-ins in the Amsterdam Hilton in Holland in Montreal's Queen Elizabeth Hotel in an effort to bring about world peace. 

Having groups assemble in Tom and Huena's room at any time of day or night wasn't at all unusual. I remember on more than one occasion so many sisters, brothers and maybe cousins or the odd employee like Charlie MacMillan sat on and around the bed the frame actually broke and mom's mattress hit the floor.

The more I think about it, the more I know my parents had in common with John and Yoko.  

My parents were pacifists, they made babies and never fought and my dad and John Lennon were both born on Oct. 9. Also, somebody brought a tape recorder into the Yoko-Lennon bedroom too.

A couple of differences? My parents' pacificism predated Lennon's. And my mom sang beautifully.