You may fire when ready.

Being the last of 5 kids means that the chances of getting a bike that wasn’t handed down past at least 3 other users was slim to none. And god help you if you “borrowed” your brother’s banana seat bike, the one with the gear shift (3 only) in the centre bar that looked like a Death Star laser beam control. A brotherly pounding was usually your reward if you were caught even dreaming of riding any of their bikes.

So when your best friend offers you a ride on his brand new bike, you take it, right? Even though your best friend at the time was a year younger and naturally shorter than you. Of course your knees would hit your hands/handlebars as you pumped the bike faster down the path in the park by your home, right? And we all know that knees hitting hands intermittently is a pretty crappy way to steer.

Right?

I was booking it on Paul G’s little bike. I wanted to do an Evil Knievel skid in the sand that lay across the cement path so I had built up some good momentum. When I hit the sand I slid the bike out from under me and the damn thing kept on going. I couldn’t right myself up and went horizontal with the bike.

I was in such pain and shock that I’ve blocked the sound of the bone snapping.

Actually I’m exaggerating. It was only a fracture but it was enough that I couldn’t stand up after untangling the bike from under me. I didn’t know exactly what happened to my leg but I knew I couldn’t walk on it. Tears flowed from my face like wine at a Roman orgy during a grapes harvest.

My unstoppable crying was persuasion enough to get my brother and Paul G to run home to tell Dad of my injury. Know that this was a lot like mere mortals crying to a God for intervention. Not that my Dad was a malevolent god, no. He was divine. His problem lay with the fact that he would faint at the sight of blood, anyone’s blood – his, his offspring’s, pot roasts, etc. Once at a work-sponsored blood drive he fainted so fast (before he got the cookie and juice) that they gave the blood back to him. To suddenly have two kids in his face yelling about an accident threw up all sorts of personal guards for my Dad.

Mike and Paul, simultaneously yelling: “DAD! (Mr Healey!) Come quick! Ted’s fallen and broken his leg in the park!”

Dad: “My goodness, Paul. Is that a new shirt? Looks great!”

Mike & Paul: “He’s hurt! He’s crying!”

Dad: “How’s school, Paul? Good grades?”

Dad, by this time, was the master of evading the site of human vino. He had endured a golf club to my sister’s head, a lawn dart in one of my brother’s back, a full on broken leg from another and a particularly bloody Xmas. But in the end, he was the one who picked us up and washed our wounds and hauled us to the hospital. To his credit, usually by the time the doctor had us under their protective wing, Dad would faint. But not a moment before, bless him.

I wound up with a toe to hip cast and spent most of the summer hobbling around on it. 4 weeks into my convalescence I had to have the cast re-plastered because I was walking on it too much and not relying on the crutches, much to the horror of the doctors.

The lesson? Uh. Never. Borrow a bike from… Paul G? I don’t really have a gem of wisdom for you in regards to this story. Shoo.

The radio is playing Human League’s “Don’t You Want Me Baby” as I come up for air after a prolonged kissing session in the front seat of Donna’s massive car. The kind of kissing session where we’re both trying to prove something. She’s trying to see how far I will go. I’m trying to see if this thing will work.

“About time,” Lisa says from the back seat.

Apparently her date wasn’t as interesting.

Donna and Lisa are two girls inseparable at the hip. Good friends from the time I met them to the time I moved away from Brockville. I dated Donna in the spring of 1982 and it was expected that Lisa was, by association, my best second friend. We met during an unexpected high school teacher’s strike, giving Brockvegas teens a prolonged summer break, meaning: a lot of kids with nothing to do. I was 16 and Donna and Lisa were 18. Donna and Lisa were two single girls living in their own house on the border of town, acquired suddenly due to Donna’s parents dying within months of each other. These girls (and their living arrangements) were parent’s worst nightmare: teens living alone in a relatively remote house. Needless to say theirs was a crash pad. But thanks to Lisa, it didn’t become a dive. Hers was the voice of reason and would loudly eject any shenanigan makers.

When Donna and I decided that we were going to “out”, Lisa showered us with comical threats of cradle robbing and pedophilia.

Lisa eventually hooked up with my best friend at the time, Michael, who was 16. So she wasn’t without reproach.

But she always was the smart one in our little group. She kept Donna on a path of mental health during her mourning. She would tell us when parties got a little out of hand, like when she shut down a particularly roudy fete after Tim Picotte accidentally put his hand through a window without blinking a drunken eye.

One memory of Lisa stands out the most. She and Donna were having a heated discussion as they cleaned up the kitchen about something long forgotten. Lisa was drying dishes and trying to convince Donna to do something or other and at the height of the argument/conversation, Lisa had a white Corelle dish* in her hand. Without comment, she unexpectedly marched to the side door of the house and flung the door open that lead to the all-cement car park.

Lisa opened the side door and, with a pitch that would have certainly made her popular with the Blue Jays, tossed the plate against the brick wall opposite the door.

The dish shattered. One thousand tiny shards. No one says a word.

“Hmf. Those fuckers do break,” she said calmly. Her anger subsiding, the heat of the argument diffused.

She had a knack of dismantling a situation.

I moved away from Brockvegas when I was 17 and kept up contact with Donna and Lisa for a while but life got in the way. The last I heard from her was that she was going into Childhood Studies at a local college and that she and Donna didn’t hang out much anymore. Recently thought, Lisa and I re-connected on Facebook and she would leave great comments on my wall about my blog posts. We chatted and I learned that she had a son and a single mom and was quite proud of him, evident by the glowing posts she would display in her profile. Her son was  someone that she was immensely proud of and was the love of her life.

I learned this morning that Lisa passed suddenly on Friday. I don’t know the causes. My thoughts go out to her son and her family.

I jam my bare feet into my fraying, cracked rubber boots. The same ones I’ve had for years – old faithfuls – that have been protecting me from the onslaught of leeches found lurking just below the waterline. Nothing is more horrible than to have to pull one of these savage parasites from my skin so for protection, I have taken to wearing knee high rubber boots to thwart vampyric attacks.

I am 10 years old.

It’s the summer of 1975 and I have just been paid my allowance of $0.25 which I jam into my frayed jean cut offs’ pocket. With the influx of cash I, and next-cottage neighbour, Randy, decide to travel to the nearest store, approximately a mile away from our summer homes, to purchase high fructose treats. It’s not really a store, it’s actually a tuck shop for a campground/trailer park, but it’s the only place we can go shopping without a car ride or parental supervision.

Ten years old and I’m ready to shop like it’s Sex and the City.

The first leg of our journey is through a massive swamp. Massive to me, at ten years old. We climb over the rotting cow fence behind my cottage and we’re away, into marshy ground and past downed evergreen trees. There is a slight path we follow, forged from other kids that cut across our collective lots along the lakefront. But in the swamp, the ground trail becomes fuzzy, the only markers are holes in above ground foliage. My boots sink into the ground and water overflows into them.

Dragonflies light on sticks. The sun is blotted out by the tall trees that rise up from the swamp, branchless until the leafy canopy high above us. We chat about making a fort in the back woods, about going for a swim later, about

HOLY SHIT A SNAKE!

We hoof it. My boots nearly stay in the swamp but I manage to curl toe and keep them on my feet, despite having a litre of water in each. Water and muck can’t keep us in the swamp’s dirty grasp when it comes to snakes. Oddly enough I no longer fear them, though I choose not to imagine what it would feel like to be bit by one.

We come out on the other side of the swamp to our next obstacle: the dangerous cut through, across a cottage lot that echoes games played against Boo Radley in To Kill a Mockingbird. I never knew the owners, never saw anyone on the lot or in the house, but Randy insisted that they were heinous and needed to be avoided. Going around their lot wasn’t an option – it would mean walking a mile up to the county road and back down to the shop, adding hours to our sugar journey. I empty my boots of water and watch as Randy scoots across the yard, using lawn furniture and old tire planters as cover.

I just run straight across.

The rest of the trip is free and clear. We walk in the summer sun talking about what treasures we will find, having slayed the unseen Kraken, survived the seven tasks, found the golden fleece, etc.

The store is dark and cool and full of fresh product.  I purchase Bottle Caps, Lix a Stix (a candy stick you lick, then stick into a Kool Aid powder – duh!) and a bottle of orange Fanta. I jam a dime into the humming vending machine, open the thin glass door and pull on the bottle neck to make the machine release the sugary syrup drink. I wrench off the bottle top (non-candy, non-edible) and insert a straw. Which promptly falls into the bottle and with less than half a centimetre for my lips to grapple it, ensures that I won’t drink the entire thing on the way home.

But I do anyway.

Now boarding...

My oldest brother, Dan, is almost 9 years my senior. Needless to say, growing up we were never really close. Mostly he ignored me outright while he was dealing with his homosexuality as he grew up in a backwater East Ontario town of 20,000. I remember Mom calling him an “outsider” when he was a kid and I don’t recall him having many friends.

I’ve always looked up to him so it’s safe to say he was instrumental in me becoming the geek I am today, by introducing me to science fiction. He “liked” the movie 2001 because of it’s music (he was the only person in the house who would play our baby grand piano with any semblance of skill) and I fell in love with 2001 because of the future it promised. Because of the age difference and our lack of communication, he was a stranger living in our house and like any childhood mysteries I had to investigate. I use to sneak into his room just so I could play with his Pan Am Shuttle model from the movie 2001: A Space Odyssey (hell I use to sneak into all my sibs rooms and touch their things). Which resulted in a beating or getting ratted out to some parent.

He also taught me that drawing could evoke laughter. I remember finding a small, folded two page card made by him of a crudely drawn cat. The front caption saying “Rita the cat says…” and the inside flap revealed “…fuck off.” I think I laughed for hours. I still love that level of low brow, near non-sequitur humour even today.

Dan was the reason we all had to send in samples of poo to the Canadian Government. While on one of many class trips to the USSR, he picked up a nasty unidentifiable intestinal bug and brought it back to Canada. For a week, Da had to capture the entire family’s leavings on newspapers that were balanced across toilet seats, bottle them up and then ship them off to some bunker near Ottawa. We were worried we would be quarantined for some reason and yet it was an odd family bonding moment. Probably the last.

I was the last to know that Dan had ran away.

When I was 7 or 8 years old, Dan, at the ripe old age of 17, took off to the comfort of Toronto to live with his 21 year old lover. His sudden departure was explained to me with great detail: “Dan’s moved out.” Later it was further expanded into a life lesson that “everyone moves out eventually” successfully avoiding the whole homosexual thing. But my relentless onslaught of questions as to why he left led my sister to explain to me that Dan was “just like Jody, from the TV show Soap” Effectively, Dan’s true reason for running way left me a beacon as to who I was.

Dan fell in love with Russia as a teen. He speaks Russian fluently, which lead to his studies in Russian history. Specifically Gay Russian History. I’m simplifying it because his actual field of study is a bit more involved than that – the only clear record of homosexuality during the last 100 years in Russia are archival medical documents regarding social/medical anomalies during the Soviet era, so his doctorate has some pretty fancy schmancy words explaining it (one of my favorite article title he has written is ‘Masculine Purity and “Gentlemen’s Mischief”: Sexual Exchange and Prostitution between Russian Men, 1861-1941’). To keep it simple, I just call it Gay Russian History. He would send me postcards/emails of his adventures of digging around musty archives, looking for documentation of comrades who got whisked away to re-education camps, collecting images of before and after shots of Siberian lesbians while outfoxing bee-hive haired archivists by smuggling out Xerox copies. Pure post Cold War intrigue.

He now teaches at the University of Swansea and my mom positively bursts with pride when you say DOCTOR Dan Healey.

The sun falls on our already sun-burnt skin as SharkBoy and I leave yet another overly AC-ed jewelry store in some Caribbean port, disappointed with the selection and prices. Our search for new rings isn’t like our first time selecting jewelry in the sunny islands (images missing. Sorry!). We’re coming across $1000 gold rings (whoa) or $10 cheap Le Chateau knock offs that some nightclubbing twink would wear. No middle ground.

Our original rings of Medical Grade Titanium have become tarnished and no longer have that bright shiny look they had years ago, however, make no mistake, their meaning hasn’t. We both agreed that fresh rings would be nice and an update was in order. Sometimes SharkBoy surprises me with his ability not to attach too much meaning to inanimate objects. Just the things that count to us, like our 50″ plasma TV.

After 6 sunny island ports and a brief nosey around NYC, we found nothing. Although I’m very confident that if we put much more effort into it, NYC would have yielded some fine rings, but time restraints held us back.

Last weekend we’re wandering through an underground mall and out of the corner of my eye I see a row of masculine rings: brushed metal and silver, the two elements we were looking for. Brushed, to hide any scrapes and shiny because we’re magpies at heart. The second thing I noticed was a sign proclaiming “40%” which didn’t hurt at all.

Not that I’m cheap but I don’t put a lot of money into things that I know I have a good chance of losing, like sunglasses, bikes or hats. Jewelry has a tendency to leave me like my hair did when I was 21.

I reiterate: the meaning is no less important.

We silently look at the display for a style we like. As we’re looking, the clerk, offered us a 2 for 1 if we were getting two, possibly noticing we had matching rings on, or just eager to talk to someone – the store wasn’t busy. After a few minutes of debating we choose the ring we like and start picking out our sizes.

The new rings might be considered a bit of a downgrade: from Titanium to 18/10 Stainless Steel. As I removed my wedding ring I did feel a twang of remorse for swapping out the old ring for the new. Wasn’t I suppose to have a symbol of permanency that has “No Do-Overs” stamped all over it? A forever binding reminder of my promise to SharkBoy? Does purchasing these rings weeks after our vacation in a nameless hole-in-the-wall jewelry kiosk erode the symbolism of these rings? Does it erode our love?

As the cash register rings I notice that the Pet Shop Boys are playing. Our favorite band was on the radio playing their first big hit, West End Girls. I take it as a sign and gladly stab the new bling on my finger.

I reiterate: the meaning is no less important.

Post-holiday, we’re scouring over kitchen cupboards in hopes of finding something to eat, both of us still caught up in the dreamy world of vacation where food is magically brought to us. Something is wrong… it’s well after noon and still no food! The phone rings.

It’s Da and he asks if we want to go to Costco one last time.

Huh?

The Bonneville is on its last legs. He doesn’t think he will renew the plates. This will be our last bulk shopping tirp.

That Bonneville. That 18 year old monster of a car that seats 5 with real leather interior. Da’s most luxurious car purchase (most luxurious if you don’t count the Starsky and Hutch style two tone, two door silver Ford LTD back in the late 70s) has ever so slowly become a nuisance instead of a convenience.

The Bonnie is a massive car. It runs 199.5 inches (16.5 feet – the 70s station wagon version got up to 19ft!) from nose to spoiler, 75 inches wide, where the average car length today runs about 10-13 feet. You could fit a couple of bodies back there and still have room for skis (the centre divider armrest in the back seat opened into the trunk so you could do just that). Da’s car is a deep green with fog lamps (the switch for these located cockpit style, just over your head on the roof), dual seat controls in the hump (see video), steering wheel audio controls (cassette tape deck!) and a curious HUD with speedometer/compass.

Yes. A Heads Up Display right on the windscreen that constantly reminds you how much you’re speeding. The single most coolest car gimmick I have ever encountered since the talking door alarm.

Despite the ginormous size of the car and the oomph of the engine, I was never caught speeding in it. Lord knows I had it up around 140-150kph a few trips, but don’t tell Da.

When Da tells me that he’s setting the old girl out to pasture, I recall all the times I borrowed the car for so many trips/tours/hauls. Numerous house moves where I packed my meager stuff into the trunk/back seat – I estimate 9 apartment moves. Is that too much in 17 years? So many Ikea runs with flimsy pressboard furniture strung to the roof. So many campground set ups and tear downs in all sorts of weather. And subsequent car cleanings because of it. So many trips to Brockvegas and back.

I recall picking up SharkBoy with it in our budding relationship for a few dates, just after he gave up his monster Toyota SUV. I think the fact that we had access to a big car, post-SUV, helped him ease the pain of being without car. I also recall a few good night kisses.

In the last year the poor girl’s deterioration was fast and furious: the coolant levels sensor blew out just as SharkBoy and I started out on a trip to Montreal, even though we could see the jug under the hood was full. It stayed that way until Da had his mechanic tear out the sensor. The “area” on the steering column where the horn mysteriously hides suddenly died. My last trip in the old girl wasn’t anything eventful except noticing the exhaust is running a bit loud. The cost of repair and re-certification well exceeds the cost of convenience.

I would love to do a farewell video where shot for shot, we recreate the “out behind the barn” scene from Old Yeller.

Goodbye Bonneville. You’ve been a good friend.

SharkBoy is on his hands and knees cleaning out all the old VHS tapes from the floor of the office.

I’m doing two hockey bags of laundry across the street and at the same time, trying to set up my niece’s new blog/magazine database.

In 10 minutes I have to go back to the laudromat and pull the two bags from the dryer, come home and fold it.

in about 30 min I want to clean up the living room from the massive chip and movie feeding frenzy we had last night.

In 1.5 hours I need to go get ingredients for a 6 hour slow cooker chili recipe. In 2 hours I have to dump all these ingredients into the slow cooker.

When that’s in the crock pot, I need to set up my salads/lunches/veggie snacks for the week.

In 4 hours I want to play an hour of BioShock2.

In 5 hours we have to go over to Da’s to set up his new TV stand.

In 7 hours, Da is coming over for dinner.

“Sunday is the day of rest” my ass.