Just a quick update...

It's kind of been a madhouse around here so I haven't been able to write the next post.  BUT DON'T WORRY!  I'll be getting around to it shortly.  In the meantime though, I'll be taking a little trip down memory lane this weekend and I'm going to bring my camera with me and snap some shots of my old homes and schools.  Granted everything will look quite a bit different now but you'll get the basic idea.  So as long as I don't get picked up by the cops for driving around neighborhoods and school area's with a camera, I should have them up by early next week!

Star Trek: TNG, X-Files, ER, and Mom

When my tastes for TV started to refine and distil into the perfection that they are today (I will not accept debate on this matter!), it geared towards the sci-fi, unexplained and a dollop of drama to bind everything together. I’m not saying I didn’t love sitcoms such as Married with Children and Simpsons, but I’m going to leave that for another post.

For this post, I’m going to focus on 3 specific shows that I enjoyed immensely not only because they were great shows but they were also the 3 shows that my Mother and I would set aside time to watch together. Star Trek: The Next Generation, X-Files and ER. I’m not sure if Mom really cared for the shows themselves (with the exception maybe of ER) but I think she just saw it as a bonding time with me.

My Mothers’ and my TV bonding began probably around 1990 and I would be 11 years old or so. Star Trek: TNG had started a few years earlier and although I did watch it when we lived in Orangeville, I was only 8 and didn’t really get into it. Mom and I started watching Star Trek on Friday nights when we lived in Grand Valley. It was great and something we looked forward to during the entire week. The weeks’ worth of anticipation though could be shattered in a heartbeat though if a storm blew in (especially a snow storm) and we were unable to get a clear picture using the antenna!

Here’s a little side note:
Yes… we used an antenna back in those days before Mom and Dad broke down and got cable. For those of you who have never used an antenna, you have a small dial in the house that you use to rotate and point the antenna. Most people, like us, had a small sticker with the channel written on it somewhere on the dial and that’s where you rotated it to in order to get the clearest picture. It could be a family game to see who could get the picture in best IF you didn’t care what you were watching and had time for it. However, it could be a real pain in the ass if there was a program on you really wanted to watch and there was some sort of electrical disturbance! Many a night we would watch snow on the television and squint until some sort of picture would materialize. To this day I still can’t see one of those 3D posters where some sort of picture jumps out at you. I blame years of looking at the TV like Mr. Magoo studying a quadratic equation.

Back to Friday Nights! Mom and I would settle in to watch Star Trek every Friday night usually with a bowl of popcorn (and a bowl of corn syrup for Mom... don’t let her tell you she didn’t have a sweet tooth!). My eyes would be glued to the television and Mom would usually ask a question or two when the episode was done. To this day I don’t think she was really interested in the show itself but just having something we could both talk about during the week and look forward to together was enough.

Star Trek: TNG sadly ended in ’94 but X-Files had started the year before and was on right after Star Trek so we already had our new viewing hour in place. A cool side note on the final episode of Star Trek: TNG, City TV aired the final episode on the JumboTron at the Skydome in Toronto (now called the Rogers Centre or something like that). Dad was in Toronto at a conference for work and scored me a ticket as a souvenir! I still have it to this day!

Now X-Files was a bit different from Star Trek and I think Mom enjoyed it more. A few of the episodes would get our hearts racing or choking on popcorn. And the best part about the show (aside from the ultra cool premise) was it was filmed in Canada! Well the first few seasons anyways Until Duchoveny had a hissy fit about travelling so much. All in all… Friday nights rocked!

1994 also brought a new series that Mom and I would watch on Thursday nights. The show was ER and honestly, the only reason I started watching this show was because it was created Michael Crichton of Jurassic Park fame. After those first few episodes though, I became hooked. Mom I think was a bigger fan though so it became something else we could watch and talk about during the week.

It may seem like all I ever did was watch TV or movies with my folks at this point but you have to realize that when you get to a certain age, you really don’t have TOO much in common with your parents. You are growing, developing and finding out who you are. And that usually is with friends your own age, not your folks. Setting aside a few hours a week though for something we all enjoyed kind of grounded me in those hectic times.

This was a bit more of a nostalgic post but I’ll try to make the next one a little more amusing. I’m calling it “A Fishing Trip, A Search Party, A Dead Dog and the Wrath of Grandma”

What the hell is a Commodore 64??

The Commodore 64 was a marvel in engineering back in my day. Granted so were acid wash jeans and Styrofoam packing for McDonalds food so that doesn’t say a lot. The Commodore was THE computer system for families back in the day. It came out around 1982 but I don’t think we bought one 1986 or so. What set this little beauty a part from other computers, other then the fact it didn’t cost as much as a vehicle were 2 things.

1. It could be bought in any house hold store. You could run down to Sears and grab one which meant you didn’t have to head to an electronics store which to this day can be pretty intimidating to a lot of people.
2. It had an adapter that allowed you to plug it right into your TV so you wouldn’t have to buy a monitor with the unit.

Now you’ll notice I didn’t add “ease of use” to the list even though at the time, it was pretty easy to use. I guess I’m comparing it to today’s GUI (graphic user interface) which the commodore didn’t have! It was all based off the old DOS operating system which means you had to type in all the commands at… and this will blow your mind… THE COMMAND PROMPT. Bet you didn’t see that one coming.

Now the top of the line units (there were several different types) sported an 8 bit processor and 64 kilobytes of memory. I won’t mention what computers are sporting now because that’s always changing but as I’m writing this, I think most watches have more processing power. The system also had top of the line VGA graphics which is basically wearing glasses with 2 inches of Vaseline smeared on them.

Now at this point, you’re probably wondering how this little baby made it into MY memory banks and stuck?? Well I’m going to tell you!! THE GAMES!! Back when this monstrosity came out, games involved you trying to get a little white dot on a screen to go back and forth or climbing a fire escape to kick some barrel throwing monkey’s ass (Atari products, post later). These NEW games on the commodore had simple graphics, sound and colour… but were much more addictive and complex. They tended to have a bit of a story behind them and a lot more in the way of controls.

I still remember when Mom and Dad came home with the computer and setting it up next to the bar downstairs when we were still living in Orangeville. It was a standalone unit with a monitor and a 5 ¼” floppy disk drive. Yes, we used flat chunks of plastic with a metallic disk in the center of them which held between 110 Kilobytes to 700 Kilobytes. As you can well imagine, programs had to be LEAN when it came to coding to fit on these bad boys. How lean you ask… think of a Japanese Club Sandwich. THAT lean. These were later replaced by 3 ½” diskettes but we didn’t get one of these high tech drives until we got an IBM much later on.

Now, onto the memories and games. When Mom and Dad brought home the computer they also brought back a whole box full of ripped off computer games for the computer which I think we all enjoyed immensely. Our supply of games was further augmented by the nerdy, older kid who lived down the street from us (Chris something or other). He was a bit of a dork even back then but as soon as we got a computer, he became my best friend for a time. He not only had a whole PILE of games, but he was also smart enough to figure out how to copy them onto another disk and give them to me! It was GREAT! And to top it off, while he would be copying me games, he’d let me play with his full size pinball machine he had in his basement! Could anything be any better to an 8 year old?? I think not!

The 3 games that I think I played most of all though and have the best memories of were:

Spy Hunter - A cool game where you were the driver of a car outfitted with machine guns, oil slicks, rocket launchers and flame throwers. The best thing about this game though was the soundtrack. I still get the theme running through my head every now and then!

Mission Impossible – This game really got you thinking. It was a side scroller where you were some spy trapped in a mad mans’ mansion and had to escape. It basically had you going from room to room, down halls and in elevators trying to figure out puzzles and avoid henchmen. I remember spending days trying to figure out particular ways to avoid traps.

Spy Vs Spy – This game catered to my funny bone AND an 8 year olds fountain of cruelty without the magnifying glass and ant colony. It was based around two pixilated spies (one black, one white) and their never ending quest to capture and destroy each other in some sort of diabolical trap. You basically set up cruel ways for your opponent to die, run a couple trip wires to set the trap off, then sit back and watch the mayhem!

I played a ton of other games such as Summer/Winter Olympics, Montazuma’s Revenge and a host of others. Usually the more violent, the better the game (I guess some things never change). Mom and Dad tried curtailing that little aspect but when kids are trading games like baseball cards, that can get a bit difficult.

We had the Commodore for several years and was eventually replaced by an IBM which I’m sure I’ll post about later in some kind of tech post. But that Commodore was my first taste of a computer system and the pleasure I got from puzzle solving, coding, troubleshooting and everything else to do with a computer never went away. I eventually got a degree in computer systems but it all started with that old radiation king called a Commodore 64 in my parents’ basement. It just goes to show you how some innocuous thing in your childhood can shape your entire life.

Next post “Star Trek: TNG, X-Files, ER, and Mom"

Moving and switching schools… something every kid should be traumatized with

I guess I should give a brief run down of the sorted little bergs I called home over the years to provide a bit more context to future stories. Sorry about this. Probably should have been my second post!

I was brought into this world at Southampton hospital (when they were still delivering babies) in the winter of ’79. The day of my birth was a beautiful day as it should be… however the day after was something else entirely. My Father wasn’t able to visit Mom and me in the hospital due to the roads between Port Elgin and Southampton being closed from a snow storm. Ahhhh… Port Elgin. This is the town I lived in the first few years of my life. I do have some vague memories even that far back. Some friends across the road and a neighbor girl I used to play with that lived right next door. But I believe the most vivid memory I have of this town is the day Mom told my sister and I to sit on the front porch and look for a big truck to come down our street. That’s right… it was a moving truck. Right up to the hour we moved, I had no idea we were leaving Port Elgin (I would eventually come back about 25 years later).

From Port Elgin we moved to Orangeville due to a job transfer Dad got to the training facility for Hydro in Hockley Hills. We moved into a 3 bedroom back split in a lovely section of town called “Brown’s Farm”. At that point, it was on the outskirts of town yet it was a pretty built up neighborhood. I really enjoyed living there. The house was right next to a catwalk (that’s a sidewalk between houses that links up to another street) which also led to a large play field and park. Once I got a little bit older, I hit it off with the kid across the street who would become my best friend at the time. His mother also became my babysitter. The subdivision was chalk full of kids and we would play games until it would get dark (posts about that later). The house was a great little house for growing up in. My sister and I even got to help knock out the kitchen wall to make room for a breakfast bar between the kitchen and dining room. On the main floor, Mom and Dad had folding doors to the living room to keep us kids out of there (the only room in the house with good furniture!). Heading downstairs was a nice wide open basement with my parent’s piano, a tv, small dry bar and the computer. Heading down a few more steps was the subbasement which had a spare bedroom, sewing room, Dad’s work room and a large play room for my sister and I. It was a great little house and thinking back on it… I miss it. I’m sure I’ll post a lot of stories about that house in the future. We lived there for about 6 years I think. Mom and Dad were never really happy with the house and how Orangeville was growing. So half way through grade 5, they did the unthinkable. They moved us to another town!

I believe this was around 1987 or so, Mom and Dad had had enough and simply wanted something different. After looking at a lot of houses, Mom and Dad found a 2 storey, 3 bedroom house in Grand Valley. That’s about 15-20 mins outside of Orangeville. It would add to my Father’s commute to and from work but they thought it was a small price to pay. I guess they never calculated in the traumatizing effect of moving to a different school would have on their kids! Or maybe they did… who knows. I later found out talking with my Father that this house was their dream house and all others would be compared to it. They really did love living there in Grand Valley. The house had a double car garage and fair size lot. As I mentioned in an earlier post, it also backed onto a farmers’ field so you had a pretty nice view out the backyard windows. I must have really liked the format of the house because the first house my Wife and I bought has nearly the same layout. I still get pretty nostalgic walking into my daughters room because that was my old room in the old house.

We lived in that house in Grand Valley for about 11 years and we all THOUGHT that is where my parents would stay for a long time to come. However fate didn’t see it that way. Around 1998, the training center where my Father worked closed up with the fall of Ontario Hydro. Things looked pretty bleak and it was no shock when Dad received his termination notice. What WAS a shock was Dad got an acceptance letter to work in the training department of a now privatized nuclear plant back in Port Elgin! He had seen the writing on the wall months earlier and applied for the job. He got the acceptance letter the same day as his termination notice. So we were moving back to Port Elgin! This posed somewhat of a dilemma for me. Not only was I firmly rooted to Grand Valley, I had only 1 term left of high school before heading off to university. There was no way I was moving to another school for one term! So when Mom, Dad and the Sister moved, I shacked up with one of my best friends and his family for the remainder of my high school career. I’ll post lots of stories about this little adventure later on! When I finally did complete high school, I moved to Port Elgin for the summer before heading off to university. Mom and Dad had bought a much smaller house knowing that my sister and I wouldn’t be around much longer. They still live in the little side split to this day a few blocks away from me. And I’m still not used to the tiny little kitchenette they have instead of a full size kitchen and deep down, I know they aren’t either!

That about does it for the moving around stuff when I was younger! I lived in several residences while going to university and a couple apartments that I may talk about later. Each has some good stories linked to it so I’m sure I’ll be bringing them up.

I know there wasn’t a whole lot of humour in this post but I needed to lay some framework and context to future posts. I suppose I’ll have to do that from time to time.

The title for this post is somewhat misleading. Although the trauma was very real as any kid that had to move away from their familiar surroundings can attest to, it also passed relatively quickly. Once I settled into my new school in grade 5 (about my second day), I made friends fast and planted some seeds of friendships that would turn out to be my best friends in the world. I say second day because the first day of going to the new school I got in a fight. Go figure.

I hope I never have to uproot my family for any reason but if I do, I know they’ll be fine because they have a Dad/Husband that’s been there, done that and can help them through it!

Next post “What the hell is a Commodore 64??”

KnoWhutIMean Vern?

If you are roughly the same age as me, you should be very familiar with the title of this post. Ernest P. Worrell.

When I was growing up kids, Ernest played a pretty big part in your Dad's life. His "safe" style of comedy which started in the world of commercials and moved onto film helped your old man lay a base for understanding comedy but more importantly, helped your Father and Grand Father develop and cultivate a bond that has only gotten stronger with time.

It was the summer of 1987 some time in late May. At this point, I believe we had started spending most of our weekends in the summer at our trailer in Silent Valley just near Mount Forest. On one of these weekends, your “Grampy” had taken your Dad and Aunt to the local theatre in town. The movie… Ernest Goes To Camp! A fitting movie since we were camping that weekend.

The theatre itself was this little dive on the main street. Not many seats but sure a lot of gum on the floor. Walking around, you would almost think the floor was made by the Velcro company. Anyways, after getting our small drink and popcorn, we sat down and waited for the movie to start. I still remember before every movie back then, a “Welcome to Stinsons” theatre logo would pop up with some pretty cool music. I still miss those beginnings.

Now back then, my parents didn’t take me and my sister to the show too often so when we did go, it was a real treat. To top it off, it was just Dad that took us. Practically unheard of at that time. I Loved It! I felt so special. It was one of those moments that everything was perfect and you never wanted it to end.

The movie was great. I laughed so much. Actually howled with laughter in a few spots. To this day I can’t think of the word “eggsaronious” without grinning. But what made the movie all that much better was the fact that your Grampy and I would laugh at all the same parts! We were thinking and understanding on all the same wave lengths. I caught my old man looking at me a few times throughout the movie and as we were leaving the theatre, I believe he realized just as I did what kind of connection was made during the antics of Ernest P. Worrell.

Ernest came out with more movies. Somewhat of a machine in that regards actually. But none was ever good as that first one.

Your Grampy and I grew closer with each movie that made us laugh afterwards as well. We were no longer just Father and Son but friends as well.

Tree Climbing, GT'ing, Road Surfing, and other Death Sports... Part 1

Well I've done a lot of crazy things in my life but for the most part, it was only crazy and stupid now that I look back on it with older eyes and a bit more common sense (OK, road surfing seemed pretty stupid even back then but that's a story for another time!).


Today's little trip to the past involves one of my all time favourite hobbies... Tree Jumping!

Now a little background for this uber dangerous but, oh so enjoyable past time. I was living in Grand Valley at this point in my life and was still going to the local public school. I suppose around grades 6-8 which would make me... 10-13 years old I suppose. I know what you all are thinking and NO! I did not get held back in school! I was your average, run of the mill kid! Now, back to the story. In Grand Valley we lived on the outside of town with a backyard that backed onto a farmer’s field. This in turn backed onto the river with a nice, wide swath of trees between the fields and the river. Mainly cedar trees closest to the field which is important and I'll get to it later.

hmmm...

Screw it, I'll get to it now.

Cedar trees are important for a pro tree jumper such as myself and my friends for 2 reasons:

1. Cedar tree's have a lot of bend to them. They don't just "SNAP" when a 12 year old repeatedly tries bending the top of the tree to the ground.
2. The outside cedar trees in a forest grow sturdy branches ALL the way up their sides to make use of all the available light. If you were to walk into a forest of cedar trees, the ones on the inside don't tend to have that many branches from the base until about 20 feet up.

Now you know the tree of choice, onto some stories.

My first recollection of tree jumping occurred one summer with a bunch of friends and I biking some trails in the bush. Like all boys our age, the inevitable dare came. This particular dare was to climb some flimsy looking tree to the top. I'm a little foggy on who made the dare (it was probably yours truly for even back then, I was pretty good at manipulating my friends with such crude tactics). The dare-ee was my good friend "Jess". Jess was a crazy little kid who lived on a farm outside of town but occasionally was able to ditch his chores and come play with us during the summer months. Like any kid that age, the dare could not go unanswered so he dropped his bike and promptly shimmied up the tree like a spider monkey. To our amazement, he made it to the top of this flimsy tree which could only be a mere 25 feet in the air. Then to our glee, he started swinging the tree back and forth, back and forth. This was the coolest thing ever to a 10 year old until we realized what Jess was trying to do. He had his sights set on another tree about 10 feet away. If Jess could pull it off... THAT would be the coolest thing to see! Jess swung that tree back and forth in a rhythm, like he was a part of the tree and a part of the wind all at the same time. Back and forth, back and forth. His finger tips just brushing the branches of the next tree. On his final swing back towards the target tree, he had prepared to jump seeing that the tree he was on was NOT going to bend anymore. He reached out with one hand and had bent his knees. We yelled and hollered at him to "DO IT!" and "JUMP!!". It was poetry in motion to us! And that's when the tree Jess was on snapped at the center and Jess dropped like a rock with half the tree. Jess was able to grab a few branches on the way down and the soft, loamy ground probably saved his life. Once me and the rest of the guys pulled half a tree of Jess, he promptly jumped up, said a few curse words in his parents native tongue, then picked out another couple tree's that were a bit closer together that would more "safely" allow a tree jump to take place. The rest of us guys, seeing that Jess was no worse for wear, promptly joined him and started our long journey on the mastery of Tree Jumping.

My friends and I spent a good chunk of our after-school time for the next few years in trees. Whether it was tree jumping, building tree forts, or even just seeing how high we could climb. I know people can analyze us being most at home in the trees when we were kids and try linking it to our ancestors in trees, having a natural predisposition to being safe up in a tree. Or they can simply say young boys and monkeys have a lot more in common then jumping on beds. But who really cares?

From those humble beginnings based around a dare, my friends and I discovered a great past time that I’m sure young boys still do today (without their parents knowledge!). I’ve got several more stories about tree jumping which I’ll share at a later date.

To my kids... and everyone else reading

Hey kids,

As you grow up and start understanding/questioning your Fathers' sanity, look to these pages and you may get a glimpse of how your Father came to be and may even see some of yourselves in the stories.  I'm writing all this down from memory which we all know isn't the best in the world, but certain things do stand out more then others and I'll do my best to be as accurate as possible.  I'll also be jumping around in time and places quite a bit because I'll be writing what comes to mind at that particular time.

For everyone else, sit back, relax and enjoy the ride.  I'm going to change the names of my friends to "protect" their identities but aside from that, it should be a fun stroll down memory lane for most of you.  Topics will range from "Movies I saw for the first time" to "Crazy ass stunts".

One last thing kids.  Even though your Father did some crazy and stupid things... doesn't mean it's alright for you to do it as well!  See hun!  I can be a responsible adult too when I have to be!