Time Keeps on Slippin'

Even though the days are getting shorter and the nights cooler, it is not that easy forgetting the past summer. I seem not to be the only one that has been looking back at that time of year, several publications have run columns for people to reminisce about their favorite summer.

When I think back among the summers that I have had, it is very hard to place my finger on which one was the best. It is kind of like asking me which of my kids I like the most. They are all special, they are all unique and the are all memorable. To me summer is not that of time but of place and attitude. I spent my summers from the late fifties until the early seventies at our cottage at Grippen Lake. Those years where filled with 'firsts' which make them so memorable. From my first kiss, to that exhilarating feeling of dropping your ski when you first slalom ski. It was evenings just spent with your friends late at night watching the sky as it filled with falling stars. It was meeting people from a different walk of life who turned out to be the closest friends I would have throughout my life.

I have tried to think of a year that was far and beyond the best and I can't do it. The summers run on in my life. One becoming a blur of the next. There was the last summer we spent at the cottage with my Mom before she died, and the look on my children’s face as they first played on the beach. Then there was it the summer of the UFO sightings, or the first summer I spent there alone with my two best friends (now that was a story in itself). I remember sitting there with Paul on one side and Mark on the other seriously debating whether or not we should buy new dishes because the other ones were used. Thank goodness for the kindness shown by 17 year old girls.

Corn roasts, barbecues, fireworks, the canteen, the fresh cold, cold water from the creek, the double and even triple dares we made to see who cold stand the longest in the creek's naturally ice cold water. The loons, the swims out to the Rock, the sojourns to Treasure Island by boat at moonlight (running out of gas also works in a boat). The first beer... I still remember my initial revulsion at the taste. At least I'm glad that changed. The enchanted walks late at night with the girl you wanted to hold hands with...but never did.

As with most people, music marks time in my life. And summer and rock n' roll go hand in hand. I mean who could go through a summer without a Steve Miller album? I hear songs that instantly conjure remembrances of my summers, the things that happened, yeah, the things that were. Can it all be confined to the Summer of Love? No. There are always movements in style, there is always accounting for tastes. But we move on, we graduate, we keep adding to our collective summer memory. It is a constant flow.

I was at a party a while ago, it was hot, there was quite a mix of people there. People my age, people older, people younger, much younger and the music was blaring! I was just groovin' with the tune, a little Bob Seger to make the feet move. My wife and I danced with each other the way we danced back in '76 when we met, oblivious to everything and everyone. But suddenly the music changed and I heard a driving base beat start up, followed by a repetitive back beat that was then accompanied by falsetto singing. A roar exploded from the crowd and people, mostly young people rushed to the dance floor. A crowd of gap mouthed people were edged out of the way by people, young people, wanting to dance to the insipid beat of 'Stayin' Alive'. Disco apparently still lives. As the other survivors of the seventies sat around and watched this phenomenon, I could only shake my head.

As I age though, the series of first has slowed to a trickle. Instead of a summer of exploration, I seem to be getting comfortable in watching my children's summers. So here we are, just kicking back. Summer’s gone, autumn’s here and I’m already looking forward to the next one. And to help me along, I've just popped Steve Miller into the CD for a couple of tunes. "Time keeps on slippin', slippin', slippin' into the future..." It certainly does Steve, it certainly does.

Tripping to Halifax

A few years ago my wife and I had a chance to fly out to Halifax for the weekend without the kids. Just a short hop out to the coast to visit with my wife’s sister and her husband. We thought we would move with the times and bought our tickets over the internet and paid for them in the same fashion. We received an email telling us our electronic tickets would await our arrival in Ottawa. Then I sent our hosts an email relaying the flight information.

On our drive to Ottawa, I kept wondering, how real were those electronic tickets anyway? I have been exposed to computers long enough to know that a) computers do screw up and b) the front line operators usually don’t believe that a computer can screw up. I had visions of an Air Canada attendant telling me that they had a seat for a Platrick Scott but nothing for a Patrick Scott.

Fortunately, we didn’t have to confront these problems, for when we arrived in Ottawa, our electronic tickets were there. However, they were also tantalizingly out of reach, until we started in a series of new procedures before boarding the flight. First, we had to show picture identification that matched the name on the tickets. That done, we were asked if we packed the suitcase ourselves and did we know what was in it. I suppose that questions of this nature could get a little uncomfortable, seeing how we were a married couple getting away from our kids for the weekend. We just smiled and nodded. We were asked if we left the luggage unattended anywhere. I said, “In our trunk”. Humour does not work well these days. We had to “affix” (couldn’t she have said “put”?) a label on our luggage. I thought about using a funny name, but the idea of spending my weekend in a small jail cell with rough looking characters instead of my wife and the contents of our suitcase in Halifax, eliminated that idea and I quickly wrote my name and address on the label. We then proceeded (couldn’t have I just said, “went”?) to the metal detector, showed our picture ID again then I had to turn the digital camera on and off, I had to turn the cell phone on and off, then had to turn my patience on and off. Finally, I emptied my pockets and as I stepped through the detector, the alarm went off. Then I really emptied my pants pockets, my sport coat pockets and even my outer coat pockets and still the alarm went off. They finally checked me out with a handheld unit and allowed me to go on. It was only when I was putting everything away that I realized I still had my wrist watch on. The scary part was all those security people staring at me and waiting for me to do something stupid (quiet out there) didn’t notice my watch either.

We went to the ticket counter and as we stood in line for our seating assignments, we had to show our picture ID again. Then, as we walked the 6 feet to the desk to get our boarding passes, we had to show our picture ID yet again. Now, I don’t know if they had mistaken my wife and I for David Copperfield and an associate, but for the life of me I don’t know how they thought we could turn into someone else in the space of six feet. But we dutifully showed them our ID and boarded the plane.

The flight was uneventful except for the guy right behind us who saw some vapour from the air conditioning unit start pouring out of the ventilation slots. There is something unnerving about racing down a runway at a couple of hundred miles an hour with a guy right behind you mumbling softly that the plane was on fire and that we are all going to die and blow up. Which, I guess, is preferable to blowing up first and then dying. He settled down quickly though, either that or he passed out from fear.

Our stay in Halifax was wonderful. We had some delectable meals, my wife got her fill of fresh seafood and I got my fill of smelling the saltwater air wafting in over the shoreline. The flight back was like all flights back. They seem a little longer than when you were leaving. Albeit, we did have two 18 months old twins with runny nose beside us, but compared to the death-wish guy, they were a bed of roses. The other thing my wife and I vowed to do when we got back was to have ID pictures that don’t make us look like inmates from one of our area penitentiaries. Heard that joke once too many times.