Home of my heart Cape Breton

One of my cousins, Maria, from Vancouver sent me a video slide presentation on Cape Breton with the great song ‘Home of My Heart Cape Breton’ in the background.

We are all cousins these days in our family. Since the big reunion of the Pottie’s in Halifax mid-90’s we decided to call each other cousin. Forget about the third cousin twice removed. Too complicated.

All of our family comes from Cape Breton around L’Ardoise and Isle Madame. Directions: cross the Canso Causeway, take a right and when you get to St. Peters you are home.

One of my ancestral grandmothers was Claire Langlois, originally from Port Royal. My ancestral grandfather was Jean Pâté which got changed to Pottie which is very common in NS and just Pate.

When I was young we fished and camped all over the Highlands National Park without giving a thought to our heritage. A little older now, the strains of the Highlands are hard to ignore.

Noted in passing: Guy the Painter

Noted in passing: Jean-Guy Arbique, otherwise known as Guy the Painter from cable TV fame. Everyone in the Maritimes will remember his TV show that taught you how to paint in Guy’s folk style. He made use of some unique tools like ‘P de toilet.’

We were amazed at his technique and conversational style. I’d venture quite a few people tried painting due to his encouragement. Even for non-artists, his entertaining patter kept one glued to the set. Guy was part of the simpler, non-500 channel universe. Guy was a Maritime hero.

It was my unexpected pleasure to spend an evening with him in Rustico a few years back. Chuck and Albert were polishing their act at the local hall. I had a supper invitation from a friend in West Prince. To my delight, I was seated with Maria Bernard, the charming sister of Leonce Bernard our last Lieutenant Governor, and Jean Guy Arbique.

Guy had been off the air for quite some time but I knew the face and voice. I tenuously asked him if he was ‘Guy the Painter’. His congenial ‘yes’ started one of the most pleasant evenings in memory. Guy was still a charmer, a man of wit and a great raconteur. Talking with Jean Guy prepared me to enjoy myself. They must have thought me the silliest man in Rustico that night since I laughed uproariously at Chuck and Albert’s jokes.

There aren’t many Maritimers who don’t remember Guy the Painter with fondness.

Funeral arrangements are at East Prince Funeral Coop

Fishing blues

Apparently fishing is not productive over the web. Those fishies they see you but they run away. At supper last night it was brief topic of conversation that fishing for presents would only mean an empty hook.

I thought it was just a fun little Blog about my Dylan habit. Things can be mis-interpreted when a fella is just havin fun. My mind musta been on Taj Mahal when I wrote that little ditty cause now I got the fishin’ blues.

Betcha goin fishin all of your time, baby’s goin fishing too
Bet your life, your sweet life, catch more fish than you
Many fish bites if ya got good bait
Here’s a little tip i would like to relate

Big fish bites if ya got a good bait
I ‘a goin fishin
Yes i’m goin fishin
And my baby’s goin fishin too.

Self control for adults is not easy

Self control is no easier for adults than it is for children. Usually the difference is adults have the cash or where-with-all to indulge their whims whereas children might have to wait on the largesse of others.

I’m a Bob Dylan collector. I have most of the albums as vinyl lp’s, even Love and Theft which my son-in-law gave me for X-Mass. Then I have the CD’s. Two years ago at Christmas I received, with only a modicum of hinting, the 16 SACD package. Better sound you know – that’s important.

I have so many Bob Dylan framed posters we ran out of wall space last year and only renovations will get them on the walls. There are Bob Dylan hats, scarves, a lovely hoodie I gave to my son (what was I thinking!), t shirts, sweaters.

Thanks to two nieces and my girl friend, I have some great Bob Dylan picture books – coffee table style. My sister bought me all Dylan’s lyrics one year. There are dozens and dozens of sheet music books, plus one big one of all the songs he wrote with piano and chord notation. Hannah got me another Bob Dylan book: she was only 10. I’m going to mark the donor’s name inside because there are so many and I want to remember who gave me what.

Then there are more than 20 hardcover and softcover books: biographies, an autobiography, music commentaries, touring guides, recording guides, and a poetry commentary which I reviewed recently.

There are videos in VHS format, Laser disc and DVD’s plus a rare multi-media presentation for both Mac and Windows from the early 90’s. I have over 70 hours of concert recordings both video and audio that are hard to find.

Thanks to Eyolf Østrem, I have 500 plus songs with lyrics and guitar tabs. This is the goldmine – the first source of all research into Dylan’s music.

So is that everything? Thankfully not – they just released ‘Bob Dylan: Dont Look Back – 65 Tour Deluxe Edition’. I have ‘Don’t Look Back’ on VHS and Laser disc but this one is special. It has cleaned up video and sound. A second documentary that has been hidden for 40 years – we knew it was in Pennebaker’s possession but not ours. Plus a gaggle of extras.

The problem is I promised myself to stay off my Dylan acquisition habit…for awhile. Hmmm, my birthday is coming up. Yes I should wait for that to roll around. I love self-control. It’s so, so, so empowering.

Oh look, they just released the Gospel Songs of Bob Dylan. That looks good.

My Left Foot, part deux – my musical career

Other than looking like a stick, the two most prominent drawbacks to my left foot were slow-poke and pain.

One August, the YMCA held an hike to Kearney Lake for a picnic and swim. It was a scorcher of a day. The path was uphill along granite boulders, reflecting the heat like brick in an oven. All the hikers set out together. Soon I was at the back of the pack. A few considerate hikers tried to stay with me but realized they’d miss the pre-lunch swim if they didn’t pick up the pace.

I trudged on for two hours, dragging my left foot, or in my mind my Really Bad Foot. Arriving at noon, I was just in time to eat my lunch. I couldn’t swim and cool down because I had just eaten and if I got my left foot wet it would probably chafe in my brace.

Before I could enjoy the swim, the hikers started cat-calls of “make Stephen start early or he’ll hold up the bus.” The YMCA leader agreed and I trudged back down the hill. That was slow-poke.

After slow-poke comes the pain. Inevitably, trying to keep up with people who don’t know their left foot from their right will induce excruciating pain.

I don’t know why counselors feel hell-bent on telling children with disabilities to ‘be all they can be.’ Being all you can might just be reading a book at the library and becoming a rocket scientist or rich business financier, none of which requires hikes to Kearney Lake when you have my left foot.

Seeking a career in music, I joined a marching band in Grade 8 to learn the clarinet. My left foot was not required to play the clarinet. I mostly sat in a seat. The music stand held up the music and I played with my fingers. That seemed like a safe choice of musical instrument; that is until they announced the students were going to march in the 3 mile civic day parade. Thus ended my musical career with the clarinet.

Moving on, I tried drums, which seemed unlikely participants in any walking exercises. I practiced drum solos like “Wipe Out” and “Roll Over Beethoven” night and day. My left foot took a dim view of this career move. It refused to help with the tiniest movement on the high-hat cymbal. Not a peep or a twitch. So to perform some fancy cymbal work, I had to take my right foot off the bass drum and work the high-hat. If you’ve ever heard a drummer do this, you will know I was not destined to be Ringo Starr’s replacement with the Beatles.

Accepting my left foot for what it was – a smaller useless version of my right foot – I took up the guitar. I didn’t need a left foot for the guitar. After learning the requisite three chords, I had visions of becoming a rock or folk star. Then I observed that rock stars do a lot of prancing and dancing on the stage and stay up way too late for my left foot. I didn’t think this prancing enhanced their music but the female fans seemed to love it. I resigned myself to being a home musician, plunking for my own amusement. My left foot had its way again.

When I started to work in the business world, I discovered that my left foot was not only useless, it was an expensive pest. Remember the part about smaller: my left foot is two sizes smaller and double E width, almost unheard of in shoes under $150. A new pair of leather brogues is a $300 shopping trip, since my left foot wants its own smaller pair.

My left foot also shows a lack of frugality by forever ignoring the right side of its pair, except for the shoe laces. Thank goodness for using the laces or I would feel the extra pair was a complete waste of money.

Lest I give the impression that my left foot is good for nothing let me assure you there is no better barometer of the future: if it is cold anywhere within 100 miles or if it will be cold later, my left foot will let me know. My left foot can be cold on a hot day in July. The weather must be changing for the worse somewhere else.

It doesn’t seem to work the other way, since it never anticipates summer or advises me when it will finally be warm.

I recently discovered another advantage to my left foot while in church. The priest told me I was destined to be St. Stephen of Charlottetown. Not doubting him, I kept my past sinful history and the stories about my bad left foot to myself.

However, it is impossible to hide during Mass since I have to sit in the centre isle in a wheelchair. Do you think they will ever make a space for wheelchairs in the pews? That is another story.

All during Mass, my right foot is tapping away to some Bob Dylan song that is rattling around in my head. My left foot, however, is piously and quietly listening to everything that is being said by the priest. It doesn’t genuflect so well anymore but it is attentive and this looks good, especially compared with its wicked brother who cannot contain himself for an hour a week.

The way I figure it, when I get to St. Peter at the Heavenly Gates, I am going to lead with my left foot for the first time in my life. It will be putting my best foot forward don’t you know.

My Left Foot, part deux

Daniel Day-Lewis won an Oscar for his portrayal of Irish writer Christie Brown in the movie My Left Foot, based on Brown’s autobiography. In the movie, Day-Lewis did a fantastic job of portraying Brown, his struggle with cerebral palsy and life as a person with a disability.

This is not the same story. This story is about my left foot, the one the hangs at the end of my left leg. I could have called the story my left foot and leg, but you may have stopped reading. If some movie producer wants to produce another blockbuster film about my left foot, I can play the part as a body double. I think George Clooney would be just right for the rest of me.

My story is personal but also a metaphor. We all have some cross to bear: trick elbow, blind eye, bum knee, weak heart, or stupid relatives. I threw in the ‘stupid relatives’ since they might as well be joined to you at the hip and they can be vexatious. Think of this as ‘Salvific Dolores,” with a sense of humour.

My left foot started life pretty normally about 58 years ago, right alongside my right foot. Everything was going well until I was three and the polio virus infected my spinal column. My left foot lost a few million motor neurons.

Within a short time, my left foot decided to do nothing. Decisions on where to go or how to get there were being made by my right foot. “Let’s go straight ahead” decides my right foot. “Whoops, come on left leg. Don’t turn the wrong way.” The outcome of this confused left foot versus right foot thinking was me landing somewhere close to or on the ground. To tame my left leg, doctors gave it a steel brace so that it had to go where my right leg wanted.

However as an early benefit of my left foot I gained the knowledge of left and right, not quit nuclear physics but handy. Most children don’t know their left from their right, along with a surprising number of adults. For me there was no mistaking my left from my right. Whenever someone asked for a right hand on this or a left hand on that, my arm shot up like a rocket.

My right leg was robust, healthy, a little pudgy perhaps. It tripped merrily along paths and walkways, jumped over rocks and puddles. My left leg was small, unhealthy, and rickety. It looked like it was from Ichibod Crane’s body: definitely not part of me. My left foot was only handy for dragging along, tripping over lines in the sidewalk, and falling in puddles.

My left foot was not without its advantages: say I expected a hard test in school and hadn’t studied. I just let the left foot do its job on the way to school and “Bob’s your uncle” my pants were wet from falling in a puddle along the path. Then I could drag the dejected little foot back home, look sorrowful and mother would wrap me in a warm blanket, propped in front of the TV with milk and cookies. Teachers don’t like to strap a child with a bad left foot so I can got away with a little more devilry than most kids.

Describing my left foot as just ‘left’ didn’t seem enough. People had superstitions about left-handedness that included aspersions of evil and possession by demons. I renamed it “My Bad Foot,” which was of course attached to “My Bad Leg”. This seemed a simple, if not clever, bit of double-think. It kept me from thinking my whole body and soul were “left” or evil; just my left leg was in that category. The rest of me was quite normal if not extraordinary.

The trick was not to see myself walking in a mirror to remind me of my left foot as it really was. Anyone who tried to advise me that I walked funny was the deserving recipient of my left hook.

Tomorrow – part two – a musical career

My gal is smart

My gal is smart
Smarter than the most
She roped me in

You corralled me

She twirled her lasso
High in the air
And pulled me in

You captured me

Riding on a white horse
No a painted horse
Snaffled me with her rope

Rescued you from the wilderness

With a white fringed dress
Sequins dazzling under the sun
Pulled me up on her saddle

From the brothels

We rode up the hill
Into the sun…
From the what

From the brothels
Where are they now.