Where you never know who you'll run into

NATHAN'S FLAME-EMBOLDENED PETE: I told you he could draw. 

Something happened earlier this week and it made my day. Life rather.

I'm currently in the middle of researching a story for a business magazine I used to be editor of, Today's Trucking.  I sometimes refer to Today's Trucking as my  "alma pater". Get it? Pater? Mater means mom. Pater's dad. At Today's Trucking  I got to write about all kinds of things I first learned growing up around my late father Tom's bus business, like engine retarders, which are real things.

But never mind that. The story I was preparing this week had me calling provincial government offices all across Canada.

Here's how I roll. I go online and find main government phone numbers. Whoever answers gets the following--my name, what I'm doing, an abbreviated account of my whole life history, my assignment details, and my last line "who do you think I should talk to?"--and it's all condensed into about five seconds. Over the years, I've found this highly non-strategic system effective with public servants at every level in this country approximately 100 percent of the time. You call a government as a reporter and somebody gets back to you.

Tuesday, I called Saskatchewan. 

Woman who answered the phone got my five-second earful and then told me she'd find somebody who could help and, just before going bye-bye, she asked me to repeat the name of the magazine.

Me: "Today's Trucking." (I speak italics.)

Her: "And you said your name's Peter?"

Me: "Sure did."

Her: "This might sound weird but I'm pretty sure it was a Peter from Today's Trucking did something incredible for my young nephew a few years ago."

Me: "Are you Nathan's aunt?"

Her: "YES!"

One of us, maybe both: "HURRAY!"

Her: "You are a hero in that family. I can't wait to let them know this happened."

Me (mostly): "Four or so years ago....blah blah blah.. Nathan this...Nathan that.. Great coincidence...coolest story ever...and on and on....and sweet kid....isn't it amazing how much you can love your nephews and nieces?.....I still have the truck picture he drew.. say hi for me.."

I hung up the phone and was like, "Yessssss!"

I wasn't no hero. I'd just made a couple of phone calls. 

Four years ago, when I was editing the magazine, I received a snail-mail letter from an eight-year-old Duncan, B.C., chap named Nathan. He really liked Peterbilt trucks (who doesn't?); he was a highly skilled artist (proven by the drawing you see above); and there were one or two other things on his mind.

The envelope contained a return address so I Googled it and phoned. That call led to another and after a few weeks of laughing and talking and backing and forthing with Nathan, his mom and some generous folks in the trucking industry, my new buddy and his family wound up going for their very first big-rig ride from Vancouver to the aptly named Hope. B.C.  

Just connecting with Nathan's aunt (his mom's sister) this week made me relive the whole happy episode and the part I got to play in it. 

You can get a play-by-play of the original story if you hit the links below. 

TO HOPE AND BACK: Artist Nathan
with cool TFX Transport driver Jeff Lockwood

But even if you don't read more, don't forget the important lessons we get out of all this.

First is, journalism can make important things happen.

Second, you might think Canada's a huge country but in fact it's tiny. You are two and a half clicks away from just about anybody.

Just sayin.'

http://www.todaystrucking.com/hey-van-island-truckers-nathan-needs-a-ride

http://www.todaystrucking.com/11-minutes-to-make-nathan%E2%80%99s-dream-come-true

http://www.todaystrucking.com/8-year-old-nathan-goes-to-hope-and-back

Where we put the fun into funeral

YOU MEAN TO TELL ME Your grandma didn't
keep a copy of this handy?

I've been paid to attend a couple of funerals recently because my daughter Ria, who is a licensed funeral director, put me in touch with an organization that is sort of like a supply-teacher company for the funeral business.

It works like this: If a funeral home is overloaded and needs, say, an extra hearse driver, or if a family wants pallbearers but there's nobody at hand, this organization sends in help. So they maintain a roster of people like me: I have a driver's licence, a flexible schedule, I clean up pretty good.

It helps that I really like funerals. Always have.

Some people are at their best rinkside at a hockey game or making, like, a PowerPoint presentation. Me, when I am standing beside an open casket or leaning over to read the names on the sympathy cards attached to bouquets, I am, as they say,  in the zone.

Makes sense, really. I come from a huge sprawling Irish/Scottish Catholic family. Everybody dies, and funerals are just a part of life.

One of my earliest memories has four-year-old me visiting Kelly's Funeral Parlour in Ottawa. I don't know who the old person in the casket was--some distant relative--but I recall wondering if his or her hearing aid, which was still in place, was still functioning.

For years, on one of the coffee tables in my Grandmother Carter's living room sat a book called "Irish Wake Amusements."

And wait'll I tell you about the night Pat Murphy died.

I was probably in grade two or three.

I had been taking piano lessons from Janet Anderson, who was the absolutely stunning daughter of my mom's best friend Ida Anderson.

Janet was about seven years older than me and the only thing I can remember about the lessons is the way her delicate hands danced on the piano keys and that she sat straight and elegantly on the piano bench; her waist-length shimmering black hair cascaded down her back. My music teacher had fine white skin and very red lips and the more I think about Janet the further I'm going to stray from my topic of death. But it was because I was taking piano lessons from Janet that, one evening, I was in our basement pretending to practise scales on our big old upright black piano.

MY MOM'S BROTHERS: Fun-loving uncles
Alex and Stellie

Like with everything else in my life, I really wanted to play the piano, but I did not want to practise.

Upstairs, mom and dad were entertaining some relatives and I could hear they were having a lot more fun than I was.

Drinking might have been an activity. Laughing certainly was.

Anyway, our downstairs piano was situated right beside the basement bathroom.

At one point, my mom's brother Stellie came down to use the facilities. (Stellie. I know. His full name was Stellarton. My mom's name was Huena. That's another blog altogether.)

But never mind that. What's important is that instead of going right into the bathroom, Stellie plopped himself down beside little boy Pete on the piano bench.

It would be safe to assume that he might have been holding a drink and/or a cigarette.

He said something like, "Um.. how about this one.. " and then... and then..  he started banging away at the keyboard. Chording. I'd never seen it before.

And he sang. Loud. And somehow, he was laughing, all at the same time.

 "Ohhhhhhh.... The night that Patty Murphy died was a night we'll never forget!  Some of us got good and drunk and some ain't sober yet. Said it was a sin and a shame and we winked at one another. something something something something the night Pat Murphy died."

It was completely spontaneous, unrehearsed and Stellie was having the most fun I'd ever seen any adult have, ever.

I had no idea a mortal could just sit and play and belt out a song with such unrestrained joy.

Stellie didn't care if he hit all the right notes.

Stellie didn't even know all the right words. I could tell he was making half of them up.

He just had to sing and didn't care what he sounded like.

I'm kind of sad to add that Uncle Stellie died far too young, not long after that epic basement performance. So I never got tell him how much his song meant to me

But when Stellie was belting out Patty Murphy, he was completely and utterly living in the moment and that inspired me to take the same approach and anybody who knows me will tell you I love making music for fun and it's often when we're doing that kind of stuff a person is most alive.

And that's why I like funerals.

P.S. Here's version. Not as good as Stellie's but it'll do.

Where we don't nurse grudges or begrudge nurses

We were in grade eight.

 UNCLE ALEX & His nurse sister: My mom

It was afternoon recess at St. Albert's School in Sudbury, and a softball game was underway. I can't remember whether Joey MacPherson was batting and Paul Uguccioni pitching or vice versa but I know I was catcher. 

And the other detail that remains cemented in my mind as vividly as if it happened two minutes ago is the mind-splitting agony that quaked through my entire body when the batter swung with all his might and rather than connect with the thrown softball, he whacked my left elbow. 

Had it not been attached to my arm, my elbow would have been knocked clean outta the schoolyard.

Safe to say that when I took the hit, I likely said a swear. 

The play stopped. 

I staggered over to the school's cement wall, leaned against it and must have been trying with every cell in my skinny little body to impress my classmates because when our principal, Sister Sylvia, showed up and asked what happened, I shrugged it off, with something like, "I'll be fine. Don't worry." As if.

The rest of the day went as planned.

 CHARLENE, R.N.: Presents as innocent 

This is interesting: The harder I think about the event, the more I remember. I'm pretty sure it was that same evening that Joe, Paul--all the grade eights--went through a Catholic religious sacrament called Confirmation. It's when young Catholic boys and girls are recognized as adults in the church. We also get to choose another name. My Confirmation name is Alexander, in honour of my mother's late brother Alex MacIsaac because I thought he was such a funny guy though now I'm wondering if my brother Alex has believed all these years it was because of him. He's wrong. And I digress.

Morning after the ball game,  I remember my parents had to leave town for the day and although my arm was still sore, it didn't prevent me from going for a walk with one of my sisters, who was, at the time, a nursing student. 

Actually, three of my sisters became registered nurses.  And my mom was one, as well. How unlikely is that?

Imagine how proud my mother, Huena, must have been when the girls all graduated and our local paper The Sudbury Star reported that her daughters Mary, Norma, and Charlene followed in her white-shod footsteps.

MARY HOLDING MY SON Michel. The statue is another Mary holding her son. 

In fact when I found out two hours ago that May 6 to 13 is National Nursing Week, I decided it's high time I shouted lovingly to the world about the four wonderful nurses I shared a home with. Four.

No wonder I had such a charmed injury-free childhood. Has any young boy in history ever been showered with as much TLC as was little Peter Frances Alexander Carter? No. 

Unless of course you're referring  to "The Elbow Incident."

I once again whisk you back to the Saturday after I got batted. 

Nursing-student-sister number-one and I returned home from our walk and I noticed my elbow had started swelling up. 

Another nursing-student sister assessed the damage and a majority of my them determined that a trip to the General Hospital emerg was in order.

One of them drove me to the General and accompanied me through triage and then for treatment. She had actually worked at this hospital and knew her way around. Also because she's my big sister I believe everything she says. Which--when we were told who the doctor on call that day was--was this: "Oh no! He's got a terrible drinking problem. I hope he doesn't screw this up too."

NURSE NORMA: A consonant away
from being Normal

That is not what you would call a confidence-builder.  

Drunk or not, the doctor determined that my elbow was indeed fractured and required what he called a half-cast; i.e., a plaster support that worked like a splint, so it didn't go all the way around my arm but was wrapped completely in bandages so I ended up with what looked like a cast that would keep my bones in position until they healed, so they should stay put for a few weeks.

A few weeks, that is, or--as determined by my sister nurses once I got back home--a few hours. Moments after I got into the house a coven (or murder, or group, whatever the collective for sisters is) of Carter sisters determined that what Peter's arm needed was a good washing. 

So. 

Off. 

Came. 

The Cast. 

They wiped my elbow and got the cast back on, all before mom got home. 

Happy to report my arm healed okay. I'm pretty sure they didn't really know what they were doing but perhaps I've been wrong all these years. There is an outside chance they made the right call. 

Maybe that's why they all turned out to be such great nurses; i.e., they had me to experiment on. 

Two final thoughts: First, I can't believe how lucky I am to have such doting sisters, who remain just as sweet and caring to this very day; And finally, those same darlings encourage me to write. They should be careful what they pray for.

Where We Twitter Away Our Time

I just found a bunch of really really important notions I tweeted over the past couple of years and realized I'm not using them anymore so you can have'em!
(p.s. I'm @petesbandg)

My wife of several decades says we should get a banner for the back of our car that reads "Just Married" cuz "Just" is also a synonym for "barely."

My brother Tom, a retired underground miner on safety: "Is mining dangerous? I dunno. Death rate's the same everywhere....one per capita."

Me. Single. At a party. Saw baby in a room. Wondered what'd be like to be a dad. So I gave it $20 and said "You really need this light on?"

22 down; 2 to go. How blowing the guts out of eggs relates to Jesus rising from the dead escapes me completely 

Hear about the metal band that plays the same song over and over and over cuz it's never quite good enough? They're called OC/DC.

Has anybody checked to see if Putin's first name really isn't Ras?

Cops are looking for a escaped prisoner; He was doing time for bestiality. He's been on the lam for days.

Incoming joke: Plane crash in California. 100s killed. Searchers find black box. They hear the last words the pilot says: "Too soon?"

If they want to find a lost peacock, they have to issue an amber, orange, blue, green, red, teal, yellow, and silver alert.

Just stood up to talk at a meeting and realized I forgot to wear pants to work today.. is that what they call Livin' The Dream?

English is amazing. Laughter and Daughter are only one consonant apart; My daughters make me dafter. With laughter.

You know your preschooler's hanging with a tough crowd if--when you say "say please,"--he's like "guilty and not guilty."

Still in Charlottetown. Can I measure the circumference of the island using PEI R squared?

H: "Please stop by Costco to buy kitty litter & milk." M: "If we just traded our 2 cats for a cow we'd never have to go to Costco again."

What religion are most heavy-duty technicians? Diagnostic?

You never know if our main-floor toilet's going to flush well or not. It's always a crap shoot. Or should that be chute?

One hour and 45 minutes from my bed to the F97 departure lounge at Terminal One in Pearson. That was fast! And quite a Departure!

David Menzies: "When small-town djs play the Edmund Fitzgerald ,
 it's because they're taking a extra long bathroom break.'

I used to be dyslexic but now I'm mornal.

My New Year's Resolution: Play more C, F, and G chords. Ask not what country can do for you but what you can do for country.

Why do priests and ministers wear colourful clothes for services?  Huge altar-egos?

"Eddie. Come in. Sit for a spell. We're playing Scrabble."

I hate having unwelcome insects in the kitchen. Time ain't fun when you're having flies.

Flu got. Difficult smart to work when. My drugs on brain.

Why do they call it fasting when it makes time slow down so?

In a restaurant with a password protected wi-fi. I told them the password should be "OnlyCheapskatesDon'tTip."

When will somebody finally invent the wind-powered car?
It seems like such an obvious and cheap use of wind energy. 

Besides copyright, what else will be obsolete in 100 years? Hope they don't replace internal combustion motors with external combustion ones

My wife wants me to buy a new windbreaker. Does that mean she wants me to break even more wind? 

Laziness walks in my family.

If you have a crush on your pastor do you get pulpitations?

The Life story of Ravi Shankar: From Ragas to Riches

Woman at work as I exit office: "Are you off?" Me: "No I just smell that way." Her: "I grew up with brothers. I get it."

Just realized I'm of the age when I order a club sandwich, mostly looking forward to the 4 toothpicks that come with it.

Who decided not to put the comma in years? I mean, it's really 2,013, no?

.

 Spellcheck ALERT: if you type thong instead of thing, spellcheck will not alert you, Your message "Show me your new thong" gets sent

She keeps saying she's going to phone her friends but doesn't. She should join I'll call aholics Anonymous.

Damn,less than 15 hours into New Year's I already broke 2 resolutions. 1: to not drink before 6; and 2: if I do, not tell the world about it

As ye rip so shall ye sew.

 

In a music store in Toronto today. Me: "Do you have accordions?"
Clerk: "Sorry sir we only sell musical instruments."

 Astonishing: The moment the plumber says the toilet is broken and won't be working for a few hours, the back teeth start zipping up life jackets.

Off course Bernie's name was Madoff. Cuz that's what he did with other people's money.

Wife's awake fretting about sick mom, work, bills, taxes. I'm awake worried I can't come up with a joke beginning for the answer "Car Pool Tunnel syndrome."

Ria rules. My answer: "Car pool tunnel syndrome" Ria's question: "What do you get when you cross a covered bridge with commuting secretaries?"

I failed math more times than I can count.

Why do men make more typos than women? Male pattern badness?

Is saying bye-bye a tautology? 

  

Jokers can be wild but can they be trump too?

A pretty alarming notion goosestepped across my alleged mind yesterday morning. I'll explain later but first I'll tell you my way of thinking.

First of all, I love watching TV. (Which reminds me of the famous movie Being There, starring Peter Sellers, in which an extremely challenged TV addict gets elected president. I recommend it strongly but I digress.)

Second, I can’t make my mind up about anything.

I can be walking from one end of my block to the other and when I start, the first neighbour I run into will convince me that our local government’s plan for a guaranteed annual income, no strings attached, is the worst idea since unsliced bread. (Unsliced bread must be bad, right?  I don't have numbers--we'll have them later in the week--but I do know an awful lot of people agree the sliced version is the best invention of all time.)

Then, I’ll take, like 40 steps and run into another acquaintance. By the time she’s through with me, I’ll have done a complete 180 and thrown my support behind the annual-income idea.

I change my views more often than some people change their underwear. Maybe it’s because I’m a Libra. I don’t know.

Sometimes, I find myself in a position to engage freelance writers or photographers or home-repair types. Who do I turn to first? My friends. And of course I'd hire my kids. If my brother Ed's not busy, him too.

I'm so vain that last week before a visit to Paula our family's delightful dental hygienist, I clipped my nose hair.

I can do a wicked combover.  

Even though I’m a self-employed freelance writer which means I can work any hours I choose, I like to goof off on weekends. 

Plus, as recently as one week ago, under extremely dangerous circumstances—and I’m talking something akin to terrorism here--I used my phone as a flashlight. What happened was, I was on my way home from visiting my nephew Hugh and brother Ed at the Pilot Tavern in downtown Toronto. (The Pilot. I think's foreshadowing.) Part of my journey involved riding on what we in Toronto call streetcars; i.e., electric bus-type things that run on rails.

SPREADING DIRT: Way lots of people think that's what
we in the media do best.

While I was waiting at the streetcar station, I saw the operator exit his streetcar, go over to a bin and extract a shovel full of something and with the shovel, re-enter the vehicle. I approached him and asked what he was up to. Turns out—and I’m glad I asked—streetcars carry a load of sand that the drivers can spray out onto the tracks if they need extra traction or improved braking power! Who knew? 

The streetcar operator was pretty happy telling me about the sand. Then, because he still had a few minutes before departure time, he escorted me back outside the car and told me to bend down to shine my phone at a certain valve under the chassis while he re-entered the car and pushed the sand button.

So, it’s very possible that on some transit-system security camera that authorities might be examining right this moment, there’s a suspicious image taken at about 10:30 p.m. last Tuesday showing a grown man kneeling down beside a streetcar and, like, fooling with something on the public-transit system. They might have even launched an investigation for all I know. And I don't care if they have.

I also have a very pretty European spouse with strong business-sense.

I really like it when people like me.

Finally, I couldn’t tell you, without Google, where Yemen is.  

Just call me Forrest Trump.

Good thing I'm not running nothing, nowhere.

Bum Wars: Trevor and Pete's Guide to Profitable Panhandling

A PAIR OF PUSHOVERS

Over lunch this afternoon, my long-time excellent friend Trevor MacIntyre and I discussed the fact that we’re both pushovers for panhandlers. So’s my wife Helena. She is quite unable to pass somebody with his or her hand out without looking him or her in the eye, talking a bit, probably patting a hand or two and ponying up. 

So after lunch, on the drive home after the lunch that Trevor paid for, I decided I could probably write the definitive “A-to-Z Guide To Getting Money Out Of Pushovers.” 

What follows are the top 10 tricks.

10) Be Entertaining. About 11 years ago, my nephew Alexander said he saw me on a TV show called Kenny Vs. Spenny.  I had no idea! Kenny and Spenny used to compete with each other in rather unorthodox competitions, like, “who can sit on a cow longest” or “who can wear a dead octopus on his head longest” or “first to be mean loses.” Alex thinks he saw me in what must have been "who can panhandle the best." When he reminded me, I recalled the incident in detail. I had been walking up Toronto’s main drag, Yonge Street, in midafternoon,when a man in his mid-20s sitting on the sidewalk says, “Hey! I betcha two dollars I can tell you where you got your shoes.” Me: “You’re on!” Him: “You got’em on your feet!” He won.

9) Hit me where I live. Two weeks ago. First warm day of the year. Two blocks from my house. A gentleman with a European accent holding a beer can in his right hand, his left outstretched, caught up and walked beside me a few steps. “Can you help?” he asked. “I shoulda  known better. I only had enough money for one beer and the thing is I knew if I bought it I’d really want a second but I went and bought it anyway and now I’m trying to get another." That, I could relate to. I reached in my pocket found two twenties and said, “I’m not giving you $20 but if you hang on a sec I’ll  get change.” When I told the clerk in the store why I wanted to break the bill, I kinda think she didn’t believe me.

8) Hit me when I’m on the road. I think we all feel most generous when we're away from home. I’ve forked over in Havana, Shanghai, Manhattan, Moscow and most recently, Gdansk, Poland, where  I had so many gypsies trailing behind me around a big church I could have formed a dance troupe. When I was in The Lonestar State a few years back I really tried to get out to the Texas Panhandle just so I could say something funny when I got home because that’s the kind of thing that’s important to me. 

7) Which is why the next tip is, “Laugh at my jokes.” There’s an intersection near my house (the corner of Parkside and Lakeshore) where the panhandlers are so predictable Helena labelled it a tollbooth. Once, a guy approached my Malibu holding a cardboard sign that read, “Homeless, broke and hungry.” I rolled down my window, handed him some cash and said, “You have to change your sign now. You’re not broke no more. Hahaha.” And he took my money and laughed too.

6)  A few weeks later, same tollbooth. This time, it’s a woman, with a similar sign. But different ending. When I got to the "not broke no more," she laughed and added, “Oh you're the guy. My husband told me about you.”

5) Location location location. Trevor recalled leaving some downtown Toronto musical theatre production one night and watching the post-show panhandlers jockey for position. “I think it was after Les Miz,” he said. “How can you not be giving them money after something like that?”

4) Trev and I not only talked about panhandling, we also discussed how we are so lucky to live in the most prosperous and most comfortable cultures in history.  We both have far more worldly goods than we ever imagined we’d have and we come from supportive and lovely families and we’re safe and happy and we've got all our hair and teeth,too. It just occurred to me it might have something to do with panhandlers because almost every transaction ends with “God bless you.” If all those blessings over years amount to a pinch of duck poop, Trevor and I should be loaded. Which we are. Do the math.

3) Which begs the question, "Does a God-bless-you after a handout have the same divine heft as a post-sneeze God-blessing?" And what if the blesser is an atheist just pretending to be a believer just to make the blessee feel better? Does it still work? 

2) Speaking of working, Trev and I agreed that there’s probably no tougher job on earth. Moved and seconded: People who beg for money deserve every penny they might get; they sure work for it. Here’s Trevor on that matter: “How much would they have to pay you to actually do what they’re doing, all day long? Whatever they paid me wouldn't be nearly enough.”

1) Now that I think about it, that might be one of the reasons I’m such a pushover. Trevor and Helena are simply generous souls. But me?  At least once every waking hour I somehow remind myself that I am but  two or three bad decisions away from panhandlerhood myself.   

Pete Goes to Vimy Ridge

FOR THE LOVE OF PETE MacFarlane a hero I like to think I was named after

Yesterday afternoon, my older-by-29-months brother Eddie showed up on my front porch at 5:05 and by 5:15, we were clinking beer bottles and laughing like stoned teenagers.

We were talking about Vimy Ridge.  

The thing is, before Ed arrived, I had been reading poems by my late great uncle Walter Scott MacFarlane. Walter was my maternal grandmother’s brother and one of  my mom's favourite uncles.

In the house Eddie and I grew up in, Walter was a real hero. The irony is, he wasn't a hero because he fought and got wounded at Vimy, which he did. In the Carter family solar system, Walter Scott was a star because he was a poet.

Google him and not only will you find a mention of the book I was reading, “Songs of the Valley,” you’ll  also learn that Walter’s grandsons--brothers Scott and Kris MacFarlane--are prominent Nova Scotia musicians. Scott played in the bands Crush, Sandbox and Kilt, Kris drummed with Lennie Gallant, Great Big Sea, and Paperboys.

I’ve never met Kris or Scott but a few years ago, I contacted Kris and asked him if he was influenced by his poet grandpa. He told me Walter’s artistry persuaded him to pursue a creative career. (Me too.)

I only ever met Walter twice, at his home in Inverness, Nova Scotia, and the last time I was about 10 so I don’t remember much.  I do recall seeing him on his front porch with a glass of something in his hand (sorta like Eddie, on my porch, yesterday) and I thought, “THAT’S the famous Uncle Walter? I thought he’d be way bigger!”

He certainly had a huge presence in our growing up. In our Sudbury home, where books were as important as food, Uncle Walter was revered like a saint or some ancient philosopher. Whatever he did for a living didn’t matter, what counted was, he wrote.

Poems.

And songs.

Imagine.

My mom and her brothers and sisters used to quote Uncle Walter the way some people cite Shakespeare or the Bible.

One of my favourite Uncle Walterisms?

“There are days that haven’t been touched.”

Songs, too.

If you had dropped by my place yesterday, you would have heard me belt out—for Eddie’s benefit—two verses of a song called “They Had Neither Pole Nor Paddle,” a Walter Scott creation  that I’ve known the chorus of since I was a little kid. 

Until yesterday though, I was under the impression “They Had Neither Pole Nor Paddle” was about some epic military journey or something like that but then I actually read the lyrics and found out it’s about three of Walter’s yahoo buddies getting their car stuck in the mud on their way to a party. I like it way more now.

He wrote in both English and, as it says in the introduction of the book, “the Gaelic.”

If you’re wondering why Eddie and I were laughing, it’s because Walter--same as Ed--had a kid brother named Peter. When my great uncle Peter was all of 19, he and his older brother Walter shipped off to Europe and both found themselves in the battle of Vimy Ridge.

Both boys were shot and wounded there. Peter actually got hit, again, in another battle at a place called Paaschendaele.  And get this--Peter went back for a third time, for more, in World War Two. (There’s at least one poem about Peter’s adventures, on page 40 of “Songs of the Valley.”)

I know it must have been horrific. But I really love the thought of brothers Walter and Peter over in Europe, so far from home and in the middle of the chaos, trying to make each other laugh to take their mind off the ugliness that was unfolding all around them.

I like imagining young Walter, in  the middle of  the blood the mud and the pain, thinking, “This is worse than hell. I better find a pencil, sharpen it, and write a poem.” (Seems like a natural reaction to me.)

PETE, ALEX & EDDIE: Portraits in courage

And then he might yell “Hey Pete! Heads up! Incoming! But more importantly, what rhymes with Themis?” (Themis is a Greek Goddess of Law and Order. She appears regularly in Walter’s poetry. And I had to Google the name to learn that.)

My late brother Pat told me that Walter penned one poem that I’ve never seen about Peter standing up on the edge of a trench dancing a jig between battles.

So that's what Eddie and I started talking about as soon as he arrived yesterday. 

As I said to Eddie, “I don’t even know those guys and I love them.”

Me to Eddie, laughing: “Imagine you and me at Vimy Ridge”

Eddie: “We’d make Monty Python look lame. I’d be like, ‘Hey Pete! I found a place we can hide 'til the fighting’s over.”

All of Canada should be grateful that the country’s fate was in the hands of truly brave guys like Walter and Peter instead of seasoned runner-away’ers like Eddie and me. Or for that matter, any of my siblings. Here’s our older brother Alex, who has also written a poem or two, on the matter: “Brave men run in our family.” Eddie and I toasted the fact that he and I are probably members of the first generation of men in the history of generations to not have to worry about going to war.

I'm very proud to come from a peace-loving family that prizes poets. And forever in the debt of men like Walter and Peter who made it possible.