Call me Ishmael, or the captain who never drank, or the man with the Golden Arm. Who was/am I? Depends on the day, and mostly the season - I have summer SAD. Ie., my mood is better when the winter days are short, and the light is not harsh. A 1%'er. A sort-of-well-adjusted misfit, a Richard Corey who liked bikes, sports, Waits, Hackman and quirky people. My earliest memory was from the impossibly young age of 6 months. My mother hurled an ashtray at Dad and hit him in the forehead - a bloody gash. People say I shouldn't have the early childhood memories I do. But, they're there.

My particular existential crises are birthed in a murk similar to the dark foreboding of Sartre's Huis Clos - eternity spent in an environment in which the lack of finalty becpmes a horror. What if Godot never comes? That sort of thing. A fear I have had since age 4, contemplating life as Bobby Johnson and I were hiding under his bed to avoid being whooped(we got it good anyway) for causing a minor forest fire. We vowed to stay under there for 17 years; how LONG was that eternity? The very next day was my first day of kindergarten, and as I stood at the end of the driveway waiting for my ride, I saw these huge tire tracks from the fire trucks in the mud. My very first remembered appointment with guilt. I soon forgot that, as I was in a fistfight with Tom in the back seat of the cab, and the little bugger actually bit my ear. I tend to try to avoid thinking of it all, for if I let myself fall into the abyss of self-absorption, I get a panic as extreme as if Bob Scarlett had dropped his Tarantula into my collar, rather than onto Linda Desaulniers lap. I wonder if she still has nightmares. I love to go to out-of-the-way places, meet different people and try to figure out what makes them tick. And how they conceive, and perceive time. From Plato's grand cyclical wheel where every conceivable situation, event and conversation is replayed in the LP the cosmos plays endlessly. Or, the 100 years of the Brahma's existence, and the escape from oppressive, hellish eternity being enlightenment through meditation and secret ritual. My favourite is the aborigine's Dreamtime, where animation and events in the world are dreamt by the ancestors, and great care is taken to follow ritual, prayer, and food gathering in a tradition set by the Old Ones. Disrespecting the Way leads to harm to the Dreamer, and who knows what fatal consequences arise from that? As a kid, I tried to stop the world so that a pleasant moment could be savoured endlessly - and I think I did it once. I still wonder why I can't, because there have been a couple I would dearly wish to enjoy at my leisure, and not just with the imperfect tool of memory.

On my last trip, in the back seat of the van coming back from the top of Mauna Kea I was beside a pleasant woman and her husband. Somehow, she mentioned that they had been living in Los Alamos, and now lived in Alaska. I countered asking if they knew of a heavenly little town named Jemez Springs. "JEMEZ SPRINGS! We love the place and still own a house there!" Strange connections. On another little tour to Lanai, I sat beside a taciturn couple. When we stopped to eat, I asked him where he was from. Upon hearing he was from Muskegon, I mentioned a couple of guys I knew who had played hockey for the Lumberjacks. Of course, he knew of them, and was a big fan of the old-time IHL and we started naming all the teams in the old league, lol. Flint Generals, Port Huron Flags, Fort Wayne Comets, Dayton Gems .... I honestly believe if you sit down with almost anyone you can make some kind of connection. If we just took the time.

More recently, I have experienced pain from a car accident a dozen years ago. Of course, when something bad happens, it seems to be nature's way to pile pain and illness upon each other, making recovering a normal state of social, emotional and physical well-being almost impossible. I was dumb enough to listen to the doctor and take heavy duty narcotics for over 7 years. Percs, oxy and fentanyl; I ate them like candy. I grew into kind of a strange individual. The hardest part of it all is the isolation I experience. As I grew weaker, friends dropped away quickly. Even family did too. I HAVE made many efforts to either re-new old friendships, or make new ones. If I were to tell u the number of telephone calls I have received from friends and family in the past 12 years, it would be impossible to believe (4...maybe 3). Me and loneliness are on good terms. Believe it or not, it would go a great way in restoring my sense of belonging to the world if I were to receive just ONE unexpected call from a friend. I do correspond - as long as it is me making the effort to call, or write. I'm past all that now, if anyone wants, or needs to correspond, I am open to it, and right here. But, I am through with making the constant effort, I can't keep giving forever, I'm all used up; it's become humiliating, I feel like a dog begging for scraps. I'm getting pretty contented being with Algren's losers, boozers, bums and smackheads - they've gaped into the maw, and now, I have too. Some nghts my best friend is the BurmaShave girl, she kind of smiles back I feel at home in the Carleton, the Dominion - Algren's children having a never-ending convention in ding dong daddyland. I used to go to a pawn shop to look for bargain CD's. One day, in a display case was a 1976 Grey Cup ring, with the player's number engraved (whom I knew). I asked the salesman "Ain't that sad? Probably one of the guy's proudest possessions and he has to sell it for a little cash. That just isn't right." The salesman just smiled knowingly and said "Life's tough ain't it"? I've since found out that it is, indeed.

Oh yeah, more of me is a chronic displeasing of Cra, the Income Tax deity, and the time for the accounting is nigh. I unabashedly love the United States, and visit when I can. Mind you, not ALL the people, and not all the states. But there's just something so much larger than life in the best of them. Generosity, humour, talent and openess. Strange, hilarious, scary and just downright fun. I've been in some pretty odd and fascinating situations. A loser of a criminal came out of an alley to mug me in Boston. Problem was he was too drunk, or high to pull it off. He just sort of fell down unconscious so the cops had to prop him up to Miranda him. Or, the night spent carousing gay and lesbian bars in deepest, darkest DC with some black friends I had met in suburban VA. I made it out alive somehow. With no help from big-mouth Melvin. His brother probably saved us some serious grief in the basement men's room of the DC bus station. As we were facing the wall, lol, he just sort of whispered to us "Whatever you do, don't lose your cool, or show ANY fear walking outta here." As we turned to leave, we had to walk a gauntlet of young, angry and visibly unfriendly black guys. Just a few taunts, and stares and we were on our way.

As I was hitch-hiking on a rainy evening in 1972 outside Harrisburg, a lady stopped and apologized for not being able to pick me up. So, she rolled up 10 bucks and handed it to me to make up for it. We've all heard about the tourist who shows up at the border in July with his skis. One time I was in Shippensburg, PA, buying a pair of boots. As the nice lady was making change, she asked where I was from. "Canada", I said. She said her hubby went hunting and fishing up there all the time. "Why don't you go along with him?" "Well,my husband says "Dear, Canada is NO place for a WOMAN!"" Take that! In a general store in the hills of North Carolina, being served by a 10-year old kid who stops to answer the phone. His dad asks what they wanted. Johnny says "That was Rolly down the road, he wants us to send him down a new n.....r, the old one is gettin forgetful". Gulp ..A trucker who picked me up on I-95, and I asked him why he had that huge pistol mounted on his dash. "To shoot the n.....rs sneakin' around at night." He said he'd shot about 6 and drove off leaving them for dead. And who can forget Bob's Bar B-Q, a little joint winking in the warm, dark, narcotic American night, in the hills near Stinking Creek, KY. The clientele was a concatenation of bikers, truckers, ex-cons and slack-jawed, blank of eye hillbillies. As I entered to purchase my beer, every voice stopped, every beer glass hung in mid-air, and every eye was pinned directly on me. When I paid for my beer, the cashier just said "Git!". I got. Getting stopped on I-95 in SC at 4am, by a large black officer and having our wallets pillaged "Unless we wanted to wait in jail until next Wednesday to see the circuit judge". Making conversation with a Chicago cabbie: "Wasn't it horrible that poor black kid gunned down in a drive-by coming out of choir practice?" Cabbie: "That's one less n----r I have to worry about gettin into my cab". An argument overheard in a bar in Knoxville: "What kind of man are you anyway? That guy was buggin the heck outta me!" "Honey, I didn't have my piece with me. If I had, you KNOW I woulda shot him daid!" These little vignettes - important to me somehow, and were kind of like my Master's in Humanity.. they sure never taught me this stuff in any class.

University - after a couple false starts, I found a comfortable place at Trent. Made a couple of friends for life, and met a woman with whom I shared a 4 year domestic sentence. Boy, were we wrong for each other! After a couple weeks of the blues, I started a new and much better life. And Duane. We were together in spirit until 3 years ago when he left us. We had a falling-out, and never had the time to patch things up. In his last couple of days, he said that we would. I hope so. Hugh Miner: The strangest, most confused and down-right mixed up guy. We all piled into a van one time to go to Florida for March Break, and made a solem pact that no one wold bring any drugs across the border. We got a good going-over at Detroit, but since we had nothing, we weren't worried. Thirty miles down the road, Hugh pulls out of his boot a bunch of acid, proudly announcing "Look what I got!" 5 guys wanted to murder him. When he finally took it, he laid down beside me, and says "I'm ga, and I've had my eye on you for a long time...". That's when I got out of the van and hitched back to Canada.

To those I have re-connected with - it's been a life-changing experience. And, I thank you for the chance to finally meet, Rather than a chance late afternoon meeting in front of my unkempt, and mostly empty locker. And those early morning basketball and gymnastic practices... Boy Staunton threw snowball, I threw a side-ways glance. And held the glance a bit too long, I guess. What a stunning fool a 16-year old can be.

I've had some damn good times in the intervening 40 years. Getting attached to and accepted by Ottawa Valley natives is an honor something like being accepted into an exclusive London gentlemen's club. I heard stories that a Star Chamber met in the stock room of Father Afelslkie's shoe store in Barry's Bay to turn thumbs up or down on prospective entrants to the Club. They picked you, no one could actually apply. My greatest love(well, second) for years was playing fastball, to the detriment of my career, and probably much else. I played a hundred games a year. I remember, as a pitcher, classic duels with Jimmy Ryan from Fitzroy Harbour, Larry Lavalee from Pembroke, Danny Purdy from Richmond, and best of all, a kid named Peter Finn from Kingston. He went on to be in the Fastball Hall of Fame playing pro in Michigan. The highlight was a game in Cornwall, the day after I'd spent the night in the Crowbar Hotel. I had a swollen bruised arm and a bloody, worse for wear face. I beat him the first game 1-0. He got much better at night. I was on second base when Gilles Dore was at bat. He swung at 3 pitches that started out thigh-high, and ended up over his head. He came back to the bench and said, "Those pitches sounded a little high." in the second game we were tied 0-0 in the tenth inning when Les thought it would be a good idea to try to slip a riser high and tight on the catcher. Like trying to slip a bleeding seal past a great white shark. I threw it, wincing as soon as it left my hand, and the next time the ball hit the ground was after it cleared the roof of the arena in centre field. Oh, well. Les and I still laugh about that one that got away, while we're waiting for the fish to eat all our minnows so we can go home and talk about THOSE ones that got away. I wouldn't trade those times for anything. That's a lot of what Life is; the ones that got away.

An old friend has asked me to help with the preparation of the history and social development of the Dwyer Hill Road... a line of supply and road for movements of Englishter troops when there were fears of American invasion in 1830. I am weighing my options.

I think I would rather take my 14 per in the Commissionaires as a supplement to my huge pension. I'll let you know, for that other occupation would require trust and trust is a currency I need to be frugal with as times go by. BTW, I am working security for the G8 summit in June. Apparently my job is to get my rationed bag of peanuts and entice those squirrels brazen enough to infiltrate the security perimeter to go back to home and hearth

And to my old friend Colleen, who has just lost her Mom: my prayers are always with u, and I hope ur back cracking wise real soon.

Quant a l'avenir, on ne sera jamais. Peut-etre le Bolivia, ou le Nepal mais jamias l'ennui des subburbs de la city of Barrhaven and Kanata.