Posted on by Ian Hanchet

Four Different Kinds of Teachers 

Over the last week including yesterday, I have been trying to resolve technical/and or electrical issues. 

Here is Ian’s electronic odyssey:

Our printer became a paperweight when it was most needed….. we both kept getting an ‘out of paper’ message which was b.s. Sharon wanted to replace the whole printer but I thought maybe we should call HP and try to see if they could resolve the issues.

Once I  ran the gauntlet of ‘what kind of device?….what model?…. Was it purchased in the last year…. Home or office? ….PC or Mac? ….’ And was rerouted several times and had to run said gauntlet for each reroute I had to find the serial number which was like one of those bibles written on a grain of rice and some other code from somewhere else needing a microscope, we finally got down to the problem. The person on the other end of the phone was very calm and methodical and patient on our one and a half hours together. During a lull I asked her where on our planet she was located. She told me she was in the Philippines and was so polite and her spiels so scripted that I imagined her chained to her desk and talking at gunpoint. We finally got my iPad to print when we overrode colour printing and after unplugging and/or restarting the printer, removing and replacing cartridges and/or the iPad several times, she got me to remove the colour cartridge and reboot the printer. It worked!

I said I could live with it in black and white until i got a new colour cartridgeand we ended the session and I headed off to the local Bureau en Gros to get the supplies. 

I put in the new cartridge and switched to colour printing and ….nada….back to the Philippines and only one gauntlet this time because I had a case number and a legible printout of the necessary answers… yay. The very similar sounding technician was very polite and we ran through the same calisthenics with a new twist. The blue didn’t print…it was about 20% . I got a step by step tutorial (including allowing her to access my phone’s camera) on cleaning the heads which needed to be done four times with me actually going in there the third time with a dampened lint free cloth. Finally got it to work and I was about to conclude the call when Sharon called upstairs and said her iPad was still saying ‘no paper’ and wouldn’t print. We had to then reinstall hp smart and reinstall the printer and finally got it working for her iPad, mine, both our phones, our desktops etc. I then thought about my stepson’s PC…… we kept the file open with the technician because Sean was at school and we had no access. Fortunately we did not need more tech support because he was able to print and hp actually sent an extra free colour cartridge by courier. That was a few half days gone, but a good result. 

The actual instruction was very methodical, evenly paced and well thought out. It was a good example of great teaching. Both technicians said “we will get it working” as if their personal pride might be offended if we didn’t (or their overseers might shoot them). 

That was only the first leg of the odyssey.

Yesterday was “special”. 

I had to replace my first MacBook about a year ago because I was having “storage issues”. About 6 weeks ago I started to have storage issues” again despite having bought a shitload of internal memory, extra iCloud storage and two external hard drives with tons of memory. 

I put out a distress signal last week on fb asking for help and within an hour my neighbour volunteered. I quickly deleted the call for help before the “clever” and silly messages and puns started to come in. 

My neighbour is very Zen. Looks like he could be Elvis Costello’s son. He is very confident and is no stranger to solving exactly the kind of problem I had. We both play music and enjoy each other’s company. He quickly analyzed and explained exactly what my problems were. When he actually started to open and close pages and delve deep into the bowels of my Mac he was like Steven Seagal whupping a dozen criminal asses, a real fast Aikido  fighter. He calmly explained what my problems were as he was breaking the dozen asses. He then got out of warp speed and explained what he did in real time and now we wait….

I really did not understand “paths” on computers. My computer was making multiple copies of stuff and then the “time machine “ saved my stuff. All of it….each time it saved….. he said it was like stacking books. A very dumb thing to do. But for a click in preferences, I was clogging my arteries. You would think a computer would save only what was new and add it to what was saved. Like throwing away first drafts and keeping the most recent version, but no. My computer is still deleting files right now. It has been at it for hours and is still not done. Periodic checks of my hard drives show me that the burden is diminishing and every once in a while it stops and tells me an operation can’t be completed because such and such is still in use even though all programs are shut. It may be because this device is linked and I am writing on it. I don’t know. I actually don’t want to know. I just can’t want it to work properly like a car; like a toaster;, like a musical instrument; like my body.

Ian (yes, same name as me) showed me how to continue several times patiently and slowly and asked me if I wanted him to write down the steps? I said “no, I think I have it.” He had to go and said he’d call back later to see how it was going. An hour later one of the functions finished and I panicked. I couldn’t remember the  order of his instructions. I texted and he kindly wrote them down. I am on the penultimate  stage of this journey. The next thing to do is shut er down when the trash is empty. We’re close to 1,300,000 items deleted, and that is not counting some other crap we bulk deleted before. It feels like emptying a hoarder’s house except the hoard crept up on me. 

All told, Ian’s teaching was cool, calm and collected. At no time did he treat me like the dummy I am when it comes to this. He even told me in a conciliatory manner that it just wasn’t my skill set. I agree. I do some things really well. This is not one of them. 

As I write, the computer is still deleting, but the last chapter in my odyssey is our wall mounted oven. A few years ago the broil element burned out and I took the element to a local shop that dealt only in oven and stove repair. The Septuagenarian running the shop (which hadn’t been dusted or swept in a decade) ambled over to a wall full of different shaped elements and laid his hand directly on the exact one. I remarked at his skill and he told me he was closing the business after 40 plus years because none of his children were interested in carrying on. Kind of sad, really. I fixed the oven easily. 

About four months ago, maybe longer we have had a rough year of: illnesses, a death in the family, and the aftermath and oth Sharon and I have had some grounding health issues. I went to bake something and I turned on the bake and set it to 350. Nada. Broil did not work either. The clock worked, the displays all lit up. I thought it must be a fuse. I looked everywhere I could access and could see no fuse on the oven. I started unscrewing the plates hiding the rough edges of the wall it was set into. Nada. I went online and searched for this pre internet model and found nothing. I went downstairs and checked all the breakers in the breaker box and the  fuses in the other (older) fuse box. Nothing I could see. I went on Facebook and put out a call for anyone with experience with this kind of thing or a reputable electrician who specialized in appliances. Some response, but none of it useful. Some phone numbers, but often led to a dead end or electricians not interested in a small job. 

We lived without an oven for a while. Not the end of the world, I have a slow cooker, a pressure cooker a stove and a microwave, a toaster, I got a small convection oven, but have hardly ever used it. 

Baking season is upon us (almost over actually) and Sharon said we should either fix the oven or replace it. The dream of remodelling the kitchen in a big way has evaporated. I thought one last try was in order. I called some guy and he said he’d call “next week”. He didn’t. I called after a week and left a message. He called back and said he could come “tomorrow “ which is today. I didn’t want to get my hopes up, but through texting he said he’d be here between five and seven. He came at around five. I don’t think his eyesight is very good because he called me from in front of the house and the number is lit. I told him we are the house with blue lights in the two square front windows. He struggled up the drive with a tool box and I led him to the kitchen. His accent was south Asian and very strong and told me he wasn’t from Canada originally, but he came with a 4.9 star rating. 

He looked at the oven and I explained again what was wrong an what I had done. He looked about and asked if I had taken the oven out of the wall. I told him I had only been able to get it half out of the wall as there was a metal encased wire holding it back. He said it was impossible. Unless they built the enclosure around the oven. His brusqueness and arrogance were starting to get on my nerves. I pulled the oven out of the wall using a chair and upside down frying pan  to make a platform the same height to rest it on. The manufacturer’s pamphlet was there as were the screws I had removed. He told me I should not store things there. I explained that they were only there because the oven didn’t work and I didn’t want to misplace them. He seemed miffed. He said to pull it more to which I replied “this is only how far it can go because of the power wire” he looked inside the display panel and shone the flashlight around and instructed me to push it back in. No words to indicate “you’re right.” Next we went downstairs to re check the fuse box. The fuses had handwriting beside some strips, but not all. I went upstairs as he unscrewed fuses and switch breakers to yell down if the oven display was on or off. All of these steps I had done before. The next step was for him to come upstairs and he turned on the oven. Lo and behold it worked. Then the broiler and eureka, success. I asked him what he did?and he said he’d tell me after I answered a question. He asked me back “do you agree I fixed it?” I replied in the affirmative. He showed me a plastic panel with two fuses on it. He pried them out and determined that one of them was blown and needed replacement. He said he took the other panel out and exchanged them. Very simple solution. He asked me if I had a spare fuse. I didn’t know. I knew there was a container downstairs with fuses in it, so we went downstairs. No 30 amp fuses. He was dressing me down patronizingly for not having extras. I tried to explain that the house was functioning a long time before I moved in. He looked disgusted at my lack of knowledge and preparedness as the ‘man of the house’.

We went upstairs and he started to put away his tools before the oven was back in place. He said “you do it” I asked him to at least do the screws he had taken out as he had a cordless power drill with a light. He begrudged me that and I did the rest after he left. I asked him how much we owed and Sharon paid him. As he was putting on his boots he said “with all that gym equipment in the basement how come you have a big belly?” 

I am thankful that he was able to figure out the problem that eluded me because I was unaware of the “hidden” fuses, but could have done without the critical and patronizing attitude. After he left and I closed the door Sharon said “that’s how my father was as a teacher using blame and shaming you for not knowing something already. Your lack of knowledge.” 

This made me meditate on the three problems and the three methods used to solve things that are low on my skill set. I asked Sharon if I ever did that while teaching her vocal or guitar parts? She quickly replied in the negative. I know I have not always been patient as a teacher in my career, but I think I got things done in a kind and loving way. I remember laughter and dedication and tears and headaches and love. I think I always came from a loving attitude.

I used to tell the kids who asked me why I became a music teacher that: “I love music, I love children and I love sharing what I know to make the world a better place, this must be the right place for me.”

Posted on by Ian Hanchet · 2 Comments

Party at 495

In the early 1980’s My friend Dan lived on the third floor in a rear corner 6 1/2 apartment that he shared with two others at 495 Prince Arthur Street in the McGill Ghetto in Montreal. I loved the marble entrance, the marble stairs and the style and location. I envied his apartment. I wished I lived there.

At the time I was in a tiny crappy bachelor apartment with a very noisy neighbour. She left her AM radio on all day while she was gone to work. Requests to have her turn it off so I could study and/practice in peace were ignored. I needed to move.

Dan called me one day and asked if I knew anyone looking for a place because his roommate was moving to another province. I jumped at the chance and made the arrangements to move. I did not have much stuff, a stereo and some guitars and a mattress. Frugal student living. Selective poverty.

Not long after I moved in Dan found a smaller cheaper place across the street where he did not need roommates. I had a series of replacements come through at various times including my brother, my best friend at the time, my future wife and many others.

The building was built in 1911, so it pre-dated both World Wars. I was told the building was created as diplomatic quarters and the smallest room was servant’s quarters though the plumbing was removed. There were two dedicated bedrooms at either corner of the apartment. The Salon Double had been split into two separate rooms using 2×4 lumber and gyprock (drywall). There was a non-functioning gas fireplace in one of the rooms and I put my stereo components in the recessed area of the fireplace where the flames would have been. There was a tiny kitchen (kitchenette really) that barely had enough room for a small table and chairs. You could stir a pot on the stove at the same time as accessing the refrigerator opposite. just outside the kitchen was a built in pantry which was a counter space with cupboards below and a glass case on the wall above.

The McGill Ghetto was a student Ghetto and was fully populated while classes were on Most of the other apartments in the building had been chopped up and renovated into single unit dwellings to maximize the profitability of the place. Ours was a “Grande Dame” of a bygone era. I don’t recall the amount of our rent, but I think it may have been $420.00/mo. Split three ways, it was quite affordable for full time students and part-time musicians.

At one point, we were only two in the place and it didn’t stretch our resources all that much. We decided to throw a party. I told my roommate that we should tear down the drywall and make the place more party worthy. He agreed.

I pinged some holes in the wall and we started to remove the drywall. Messy job, this. To dispose of the detritus, we acted like the tunnellers in The Great Escape. little amounts smuggled out in garbage bags and left next door on garbage days. The 2×4’s were a bit trickier. One person acted as lookout for the concierge and the other beetled away and left them in a removed alleyway. Once all the scrap was gone and the place was washed, you would almost never know there had been a barrier.

We invited too many people (as kids in their twenties do) and it appeared that we were headed towards not just a party, but a “bash”. We got in several cases of 24 and we had tons of food. As a precaution I thought we had better warn our neighbours. I put a sign up in the vestiaire saying there would be strange faces in the building and to please come to us directly if there were any complaints. It seemed like the right thing to do.

About an hour after posting the sign I got a phone call from the owner of the building telling me that parties are forbidden and to call it off To keep the peace I untruthfully told him we would cancel and hung up. I remember that just after hanging up I muttered “Fuck off and die you old prick!”

Our party went ahead as planned with about 50 guests and there wasn’t too much noise or fuss and we rolled into bed at 5 AM. No complaints.

When I awoke and started cleaning up the empties, the butts, the spills, etc. I ran into the concierge downstairs. He told me that “something terrible had happened last night… the owner (who lived far away)had died of a massive heart attack!”

I sort of felt guilty that my last words to him came true.

When I told a sanitized version of this story to my dad, without skipping a beat he replied half questioningly: “I guess you believe in prayer now!”

Posted on by Ian Hanchet · 2 Comments

Decade

We had never met. What first attracted me to her was a photo of her on Facebook with a Telecaster and her pithy little blurbs about her day to day life. Little nothings. Bagatelles. Vignettes. We became virtual friends. Her humour and kindness made it easy to become friends. I needed friends at that time of my life and the basket I had put all my eggs into had no room for any of my friends, and by this time no room for me. The internet brought me in touch with new people, new ideas and a release from the pain of my reality.

One day the friend disappeared. All traces gone. Unbeknownst to me she had decided to take a break from her social media. No way to communicate at all. I knew from what little I knew about her that she had been a victim of a cyber bully and I figured that maybe the threats had escalated and she put herself out of harm’s way. I was concerned for her, but also had a feeling of loss. I missed her. I reached out to a facebook friend we had in common who knew her in “real life” and I asked him if he knew if she was alright? He relayed the message and Sharon was touched that someone cared. She messaged me and we resumed our playful interchanges on line. She let out that she was going to watch our mutual friend perform on the 24th of November. I was already curious to see this fellow perform his comedy and so we agreed to meet up at the venue.

At the time I was separated but cohabiting with a highly unpredictable long time partner who had grown to hate and resent me. It was a lonely time and a punishing time. It was beyond repair. Going out and doing something for myself was something new that I was just getting used to again.

I entered the nightclub and espied from behind a thick mane of wavy hair and a small woman wearing a jean jacket and I made my way towards her. I am sensate. In tune with my senses, and especially my olfactory sense. Her perfume hit me when I was several meters from her and she turned around and stood up and gave me a big, genuine hug. Cupid hit me. I am pretty sure Cupid hit Sharon as well, but she has something called “logic” and “facts” and “tangible evidence”. All things that I either espouse or ignore depending on convenience. “There’s no such thing as Cupid, stupid!”

I don’t remember the specifics of what we talked about that night, but I do remember I wanted it to continue. She confessed that she had not changed the strings on her guitar for many many years and I immediately went into rescue mode and offered to change her strings. We made a date to do just that.

The day I changed her strings was one of the happiest days in my life, and Sharon has said the same. Our time together simultaneously felt like it had been nanoseconds and years. Leaving was hard. We had agreed to meet again for coffee soon.

My memory is foggy about the exact sequence of events, but we were rapidly becoming very close friends letting our darkest secrets out in a safe space where we knew it would be honoured. We agreed to see each other again and share our experience with two particular problems. She wanted to know about Al-Anon and I wanted to know how to get a divorce. I had experience with the one, and she, the other.

“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of light, it was the season of darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair.”- Charles Dickens

Neither of us have or will philander. We had things to settle and put in order before our relationship could continue, let alone enter a new phase. The stress and entanglement that had to be dealt with at the time could have easily destroyed either of us, but the two of us together traversed the rugged terrain and came out smiling if not unscathed or completely untangled.

Ten years since that nascent time. Ten years with different challenges as we age, the world and our priorities shift. Publilius and later Chaucer said: “Familiarity breeds contempt”. It is difficult for two people with differing ways, habits and customs and differences in diet, levels of hygiene, etc. I think contempt sets in when acceptance of the other erodes.

People usually wish and want to see that their loved one is a reflection of themselves. They become critical of things that used to be overlooked. Less tolerant of major differences. I am as guilty of this as the next person. It is human nature. I override these judgements most of the time, and I am sure Sharon overlooks so many of the fundamental things where we differ. For example; Sharon is uber tidy. I can walk over a pile of dirty laundry for weeks before picking it up. Sharon is an introvert and is happy to sit at home with a cup of tea and a book. While I am content to do that some of the time, I do like human interaction and broken routines. We have a balance when we honour these differences in each other. I pick up stuff more often, she lets things slide more often. I honour her solitude and she honours my extroversion. Namasté. I do things for her because I love her. I am willing to change and vice versa.

This is not to say “I wish he/she were more like…” is ignored or disappears, but it is the source of unnecessary and unwanted friction. The power of a couple that maintains a successful relationship is the ability to forgive, to overlook, to respect choices. When these qualities are less present, it is always purely a question of will: “I want you to do this the way I would do it!”, “I want you to react to this song the same way I would”.

Today, on the tenth anniversary of the day we met, I still feel the arrow from Cupid. It always reminds me to treat my love, my partner, truly my other half (even though we are both complete) the way I did in those first moments together.

I look in the mirror and I see me. I love me and I don’t want to see Sharon in my mirror, although her love radiates through me. I look at Sharon and I see her, she is beautiful inside and out and is not an extension of me. I love her.

Posted on by Ian Hanchet · 1 Comment

Frequency

  from Nov. 2018

This is a story about frequency. Not the kind measured in Hertz, such as in the frequency of A=440 hz, or the frequency on the radio where you find your local CBC station. It’s not exactly about the other main definition either, which means “rate of occurrence”. It is about Frequency in the medical sense, which means “occurrence of urination”. 

Some of you may have already experienced the “joys” of what seems to be a shrinking bladder. 

I am a music teacher in a school, so my working day is divided up into little half hour chunks called “periods”. I am also an enthusiast of a beverage called “coffee”.  Typically I teach three periods in a row before a break such as recess affords me the opportunity to use the washroom. 

I used to be able to work comfortably for an hour and a half without leaving my classroom. Those days are over. About half way through the second period my brain receives the first gentle message from my bladder that I should relieve myself fairly soon. Message noted, but not acted upon because the class can’t be left unattended. Usually as the classes transfer, there is an opportunity to ask the other teacher in charge if they would just take over for a minute. 

Sometimes I don’t get to see either the teacher picking kids up, or the one dropping kids off which means I can’t take the time to go and the gentle messages becomes more frequent (pun intended) and increase in intensity like an alarm clock on snooze. No problem. “Mind over matter” right? A little discomfort is no big deal, I know that I will be able to go at the bell. 

Things don’t always work out smoothly though, because there is only one male staff washroom in our school and there are several men on staff whose breaks coincide. My colleague has a class that faces the washroom and she remarked yesterday how she loves to see my reaction to whether the door is locked or unlocked. I guess you could say we get our pleasures where we can. 

Outside of school I have to gauge things accordingly. A two hour trip to Ottawa requires a pit stop about half way. I am now in the habit of going before going anywhere. 

Except yesterday. 

Yesterday I left work in a hurry because we had a staff  meeting that went long and I was left with exactly 25 minutes to drive the 25 minutes it takes to get to a private student’s home to give him a lesson. I tried the handle on the washroom….locked…. I hadn’t received the message yet, so I just drove off in order to make my lesson on time.

The music lesson was fine and we actually lost track of the time. I love teaching the theory behind chordal choices and their practical application to the guitar.

As I was leaving his home the small message from my bladder came in. It is sort of a half hour warning. I took note, and drove the 15 minutes from the Plateau to downtown to meet friends and watch my daughter perform in a jazz club. Did not factor in parking…..oy! The streets around the club were all under construction and almost all of the spaces were not open for parking. I knew that in 15 minutes the bus lane on the boulevard at the foot of the street would close and I would be able to park there. My alarms were coming more frequently by this time. I felt like an expectant mother might when the contractions are 5 minutes apart and the hospital is not in sight. If I parked before 6:30 the meters would not work, so I had to wait. 

When 6:30 finally dragged along, I went  to use the meter which wanted $7.50 to legally park until 9. I had $4 in coins, so I tried my credit card. Put it in wrong…..re-set…tried the other way….put it in wrong in the dark again(like a teen-ager trying sex for the first time…lol). I switched to coins figuring I could come back later and feed the difference. 

As I fed the first coin into the meter I received a very strong message to pee NOW!!!! I put another coin in which the machine rejected. Had to think fast….what to do? I opened the car door to see if there was any loose change on the floor (there was a two dollar coin!) and I realized that if I did not do something immediately I would pee my pants for the first time since I was a little boy and would have to miss my daughter’s show.

It was already dark and there were no pedestrians, so I opened the rear door on the passenger side and retrieved a paper coffee cup from the floor and, hidden from view between the two doors, I opened my fly and let loose into the cup. As I was peeing, I had the fear that perhaps the cup would not hold what I had to offer. It felt like I was expelling an ocean, no need to worry…it was more like a kiddie pool….. and the cup was a “Venti”

The desire to avoid wet pants and to alleviate the discomfort overrode the inhibition of being exposed in a place where I knew I shouldn’t be urinating. I was discrete and undiscovered, so I guess it was a success. I disposed of the cup and it’s contents in the proper manner and went on with the evening. Close call.

As I relievedly walked towards the club, the words of my mother demanding that I “go to the bathroom before going out” were echoing in my head as were the thousands of times I had implored my own children to do the same.

Perhaps this was my mum’s posthumous way of saying “I told you so!”

Posted on by Ian Hanchet

Nobody Home

The other day I heard a radio announcer (Tom Power if you must know) interviewing a popular musician and a certain phrase jumped out and struck me as a subject worth discussing. He said to her: (essentially) “this was a pivotal moment for you. Before this you were “a nobody” and then you were suddenly thrust into fame and superstardom.”

From this perspective all or most of us are nobodies unless or until we are famous. That discounts a huge number of people in the world. Namasté, baby. 

What an absurd hierarchy. 

My respect for general historical knowledge is growing as I become more aware of where in one’s life one is. I already follow many musicians and authors and artists and can recognize the different eras of each and , so I am aware of their growth and or decline at a macro level. I love comparisons of people and places separated by time. 

Many “non nobodies” we only know from photos or film. We picture them in our heads from one of their photos frozen in time. Ever see Sigmund Freud without a beard? Mark Twain without grey hair? Film actors are trapped at the age the film was shot. When I picture any of the Beatles, it is usually from the sixties.

People change.

The average age of human cells is seven years. Some regenerate in a matter of days and others last for more than several decades. I know this now, because I was thinking about how much people change over time and I googled it. The idea that we are completely different at a cellular level is false. The key word being “average”.

The way I see it, I have significantly changed, pivoted or transitioned probably a dozen times or so in my 66 years on this planet.

There was the young Ian before school; the schoolboy/chorister who lived in TMR; the troubled adolescent me who lived in St. Sauveur. A year at a boarding school in Montebello. Then the college me for two years at Acadia; then the “finding out a direction me” as I discovered a love for jazz and I spent an inordinate amount of time practicing and developing and getting a degree in music, then getting my teacher credentials . The years I spent with a woman who became my first wife. Four in Winnipeg, then back to Montreal and a decade doing music therapy with children with autism. then Kids. The Dad years, houseowner. There is considerable overlap in some of these “eras” or “stages” of my life. Back to teaching. The death of my father. There is the transition from childhood to adolescence of my daughters and the pitfalls of negotiating what had become an untenable marriage. The new marriage; Space to create; retirement; time to create.

Ten years ago I had just gone through a burnout, no music, my marriage was on the skids (we were separated but co-habiting- I don’t recommend it) and I was transforming. Waking up to who I was and who I wanted to be. The only constant throughout this and forever is my love and commitment for my girls. 

My yoga teacher, my therapist and my own hard, truthful appraisal of what was really going on in my life led me to start accepting and believing in myself as I found out who that was and who I could become.  

“I love myself, I love my body, I love my life just the way it is, it is perfect!”-Dr. Bali

Most of the friendships I have now I have developed over the last ten years. The major upheaval of divorce and the huge difference of going from middle aged to golden aged have contributed to this. Most of my current friends have never seen me clean shaven or wearing a tie….. pictures of me from “before” are as alien as pictures of my ancestors from 100 years ago. Their image of me is as I am now. 

Some of my “before” friends were able to keep up and accept me as I am now, some died, some just disappeared. My kids are a constant as are my siblings who have “known me” the longest. I put “known me” in quotation marks because they know only a part of me, like reading a Wikipedia biography. Loads left out, loads of assumptions. They shine a light on what fits their historic assumptions, gloss over the iffy bits. 

There are skimmers everywhere….”Europe in 30 days”…..as if….  People who make snap judgements like taking snapshots of a moment and thinking they have some whole story. Headline readers, “Best of…..” listeners. 

I suppose we are all surface dwellers to a certain extent.

I was re-acquainted recently with a friend from grade school. We had met 61 years ago in Kindergarten. I could have easily picked him out of a line up, and vice versa. He told me I haven’t changed a bit. I jokingly said to him: “I had a beard and grey hair in Kindergarten?!?!?” He remembers me differently from how I remember me, but not by much. We always think worse of ourselves in retrospect. I do, anyway.

Each of those eras is still in me. I am a product of the times. White middle class post-war baby boomer smartass punk. The hopes, the pains, the lessons learned, the lessons ignored, the mistakes made, the roads taken. All of this experience still in me even though many of the cells in my body have been replaced.

I am sure I still exist. I am not famous, but not a nobody. I will continue to exist until I don’t. When I die, there will be some memories of me held by my loved ones, some crap I have acquired, the body of work I have left behind, and that’ll be it. Back to carbon like everybody else. Mortal.

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Presence of Absence

I miss my dad. Not always, and less often than at first, but today. It has been over twenty one years since he died. I had young children then and my grieving was balanced by the duties of fatherhood. I have mementos. Things that I inherited that were his. Things that remind me of him and our connection. Things that recall his presence.

I was listening to a radio program called “Ideas” on the CBC yesterday and the episode was called “Haunted”. One of the interviewees was Daniel Goldstein who made art from various things that reflected his feelings of loss as a member of a community that was ravaged by the AIDS epidemic. He used a phrase that I may have heard before, but this time I was prompted to retrieve the episode and listen more closely to make sure I was understanding him correctly.

The phrase was: “presence of absence” to describe his haunting artwork. My spine tingled. This oxymoron hit home. He put into words much of what I love in life. I love deserted spaces, liminal spaces. I love things that have been tossed aside, but remain. I seek out ruins and cemeteries. My pinterest “likes” feeds me rusty train engines and deserted theatres, abandoned subway stops, classic cars and trees growing out of cars and the like. I am waking up to the fact that the reason I like all of these things is my predilection for presence of absence. I imagine what was there before, I may romanticize what was there, because there is no real way of knowing.

I am reminded of photos of derelict barns that my friend Percy takes, the realist art of Alex Colville, Edward Hopper and Winslow Homer. Songs like “Torn Screen Door” by David Francey also come to mind.

Perhaps I love to bask in melancholy. I don’t necessarily feel melancholic or nostalgic, but to witness others that recognize this beauty gives me comfort.

As I googled “presence of absence” the word “Saudade” kept popping up

Saudade is a Portuguese word that is almost untranslatable. The best way to describe it is: the presence of absence. It is a longing for someone or something that you remember fondly but know you can never experience again.

I love word play, and in 2004 when I first looked up the word “Saudade” (a word I had seen in Bossa Nova titles (Chega de Saudade, etc.) I realized that the feeling actually was embodied by a song I was writing then called “So Dad…” which was a conversation with a ghost. I was hoping that they were pronounced the same to complete the pun. Apparently in Portugal they pronounce it “SO Dad Jay” which annoyed me, but the Brazilian version was close to “so dad”. I am with Brazil on this one.

Saudade / So Dad…
Ian G Hanchet

So Dad… I look in the mirror some days
I look in the mirror some days and I see your face
Looking back (2x)

You lived your life well and As far as I can tell 
I got the best of you, I got the worst of you
Right here

So Dad… I can hear your voice some days
I can hear your voice some days 
When I’m yelling at my kids (like you did) (2x)

Then I remember  To treat them warm and tender
But with a firm hand, I understand

So Dad… the shadow that you cast  Is pretty big
The shadow that you cast is pretty big
But it isn’t all dark

So Dad… the fire in your veins went out
The fire in your veins went out 
But though we part, you left a spark

             (chorus 1) 

So Dad… I grew up under your wing
I grew up under your wing 
And I may have stayed too long
So Dad… you gave me a voice to sing
You gave me a voice to sing
But you let me sing my own song

You did your job well and As far as I can tell 
I got the best of you I got the worst of you
Right here

So Dad… the last time I kissed you
The last time I kissed your forehead
It was already cold
You’d stopped… Growing old…

So Dad… A little bit of you lives on
A little bit of you lives on
in your prodigal son

	I’m only a little boy, Just a little boy 
	I’m your little boy still, I’m your little boy still

©2004 IGH
Posted on by Ian Hanchet

“It doesn’t get any better than this”

A memory of an experience I had around twenty years ago just popped into my head and I thought I’d write about it.

I was assisting in a music therapy session, getting frail elderly patients to engage and/or participate at their level in the activity. My job was to try and animate (mostly wheelchair bound) people in the live music experience. One elderly gent sitting near the back of the room was tapping his hand to the music, so I approached him and asked if he’d like to play a percussion instrument along with the music. His caregiver piped in with the obvious and said “he’s blind”. I ignored that redundant information and placed an instrument (a hand drum) in the man’s hand and he scanned it manually and played a gentle and appropriate accompaniment to the live music. His mien and posture shifted in his wheelchair and he dug in, adding some flourishes as the verses changed to choruses. His smile was palpable. More than a mere smile, he was beaming. As the activity drew to a close he proffered his drum to me and grabbed my hand and said to me in all earnestness: “it doesn’t get better than this!”. 

Here was a man who had lost his sight, in a diaper, in a wheelchair, appreciating a simple activity whose purpose was to stimulate a rather passive and sedentary group while simultaneously providing me with grocery money. I looked him up and down while thanking him and then I noticed the tattoo….. He had survived the holocaust.

We talked a bit. His wife of fifty years had died a few years back and he was all alone. His children had all moved far away and seldom thought of calling. One might be bitter…..

Imagine if the sentence had read like this: 

He said to me sarcastically: “it doesn’t get any better than this?”

Same words….. totally different meaning.

Posted on by Ian Hanchet · 2 Comments

I Wonder

As we age, more and more people disappear. Some just go, and others are eroded slowly through the various things that beleaguer us as we grow older. This song is written from the perspective of someone (not me)who was just diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease filtered through my own musings on aging.

“Wonder” is a noun and is also a verb. Both are wonderful. I am thankful that my wonder and playfulness are still in evidence, but I wonder how I’d be if they weren’t.

I know the song is long, this is not pop music, but meant to convey ideas and a feeling. Worth 6 minutes and 14 seconds. It took a lot longer to write and record…

listen here: https://ianhanchet.band camp.com/track/i-wonder

I wonder where the wonder went
More miles travelled, they came and went
Our Wonder years already spent
Wondering what anything meant
-Oh-oh-I wonder

I wonder Who I was meant to be
If I’ve seen all that I was meant to see
Or was it all just fantasy
I wonder if I’m really me
-oh-oh-I wonder

I wonder what this is all about
If anybody anywhere could have bailed me out
If I ever bought in, or did I drop out
Hey, Alfie, what’s it all about

I wonder when I can feel it again
If I’ll ever be relieved of residual pain
If I ever figure out what’s been driving me insane
And where I’ll get off this runaway train

I wonder where my my serenity went
The worries in my head should be paying me rent
All of my joy has already been spent
I wonder where everybody went
Oh, oh, I wonder

I wonder why things turned out like they did
Some things in the open, some things hid
I wonder was my offer the winning bid
I wonder if it’ll be the same for my kids
oh, oh, I wonder

I wonder how I’m going to cope with these things now
If I’m going to have a smile or a furrowed brow
I wonder where I’m going to point my prow
Am I going to take everything that life will allow

I wonder why this all seems so strange
Why all of my targets are out of range
I wonder if I’m willing to change
Pretty sure something can be arranged
oh, oh, I wonder.....
Posted on by Ian Hanchet · 1 Comment

Tunnel Vision

I miss maps. 

By now, almost no-one has maps (or gloves, for that matter)in their glove department.

I have had several recent experiences with GPS (and lack of….). 

The first experience I will relate was when I returned my daughter to her new home about an hour north of Manhattan. My daughter was in the car and obviously knew the way, so I followed her instructions and we got there without incident. The return trip back to Canada without her was another matter. Both she and her husband gave me instructions (which differed….) and I set out, confident that I would remember the left turns, the bridge crossing and the route numbers, etc. 

I didn’t. 

I got hopelessly turned around and knew I was going the wrong way when I passed a sign saying “Entering New Jersey”.

When in the US I turn off data and roaming etc. on my cell phone because I am “cheap” that way. One time I didn’t and my bill was stupidly large…. I am from another era and never figured out how to use my phone properly while travelling. My eyes glaze over when someone tries to explain stm cards and dilithium crystals and warp factors etc. 

I found a café and got a coffee and asked how to get to the I87. They said “just check your GPS. I explained that I am from Canada and I did not have GPS (further propagating the myth that we live in igloos). The person then said “I’ll send you the directions by airdrop”. Great, I thought. I got her airdrop and headed out to the car confident I knew what to do. The instructions for the route back had about ten significant turns. The first three I had in my head, so did not refer to the air dropped instructions. When I did turn to them, the file wouldn’t open unless I downloaded some other quackery requiring internet and some password or the other…. So, up Shit Creek without a paddle again.  I decided to proceed anyway. I saw a sign that referred to I 87 and turned. One turn just before I was supposed to….. Misled. There were two choices and I took the “road less travelled” just to spice up the trip…..not.

After several other miscues and inquiries at a doughnut shop (Donut in the US) I got on the highway pointed north and the rest was easy. 

I miss maps

This morning I checked an address on my computer for a celebration of life that is in a rural area of Quebec that is unfamiliar to me. The initial map was a dot on a tiny sea of green. I zoomed out twice to see if I recognized anything (I didn’t) so I scrolled out further and saw the big picture which made sense to me and I have a clearer idea of where it is. 

This got me thinking about tunnel vision which is the absence of peripheral vision. I realized that almost all of us spend a huge amount of time looking at screens and only seeing a focal point. It is like looking through a lens of a camera or a telescope or binoculars. One can see a part of what is there completely, or stated another way one can see completely a part of what is there. 

Standing on top of a mountain, one can see a spectacular panoramic view. Through a lens, the view is limited.

Two weeks ago I went to Varennes to visit dear friends for the first time ever. I checked the route online and it seemed easy and direct. I thought that I had better check Waze on my phone to see which bridge or tunnel to take or avoid because they are always doing renovations to things on weekends. I put the destination in my phone and I took the Champlain bridge and the 138 east towards Varennes. I drove along enjoying the view of the St. Lawrence River from the southern shore. I got to Varennes and the Waze told me there was a railroad crossing ahead, but it didn’t tell me I was ‘there’. I drove about 10 km past Varennes and pulled over at the next town. Surely enough, Waze did not tell me I had overshot my destination. I then put the address into google maps and the annoying female voice that can’t pronounce French names got me to my friend’s home. 

I miss maps.

This week I took the kids in my “Out and About”,(pronounced Oot and Aboot)(to further propagate Canadian tropes for American readers). activity to a small museum. The assistant for one of the children asked if she could drive there as she had to go to another job after the activity. I told her exactly where it was and that I would meet up with her at the statue of strongman Louis Cyr at the intersection of rue Saint-Antoine and rue St. Jacques. We, who had taken two city buses and had walked for another ten minutes, got there before her. She should have been waiting for us. She was relying on GPS instead of looking out the window. The name for Montreal should be “Detour City” because traffic cones and barricades pop up everywhere and  send previously sane drivers into rubber rooms. This girl drove everywhere in further widening circles and had passed the spot we were to meet four times!!! Tunnel vision. Her trajectory reminded me of a Beagle which was once our family dog. Fergie (named after the Duchess of York….my father claimed “our Fergie had a better lineage”….lol) was the worst beagle in existence. She was so stupid (but loveable and loyal) that I saw her catch the scent of a rabbit and tore around ridiculously back and forth and this way and that while the rabbit, as cool as Bugs Bunny, was frozen in plain view. The bunny was camouflaged, but visible. Fergie ran right past the bunny within a metre several times..lol. Soon Fergie gave up without her prey (Royals have little work ethic) and the rabbit lived to see another day. 

When we only rely on only one sense, or one source of information (the assistant with her GPS, the dog and her nose, or me with my memory trials and an app that didn’t do what I wanted it to). We can get lost. 

People smothering their senses of the moment is another form of tunnel vision.

A young man passed me on the sidewalk the other day. He had headphones on. Not earbuds, but “cans” that completely enclosed his ears and he was also staring intently at his phone. I said to my walking companion that I felt sorry for that guy. My walking companion asked why and I told him that the man missed hearing the song sparrow, the blue jay and the chickadee that we had heard in the last 30 seconds, blocked out the jackhammer we had passed by and was unaware of the bicycle traffic he was sharing the path with.. My companion said he hadn’t hear them either. I said that he had heard them, but he was not listening for them. Hearing is passive and listening is active. Headphones dude was actively listening, but importing his own sonic reality and missing out on actual reality.

The more we stare at screens and dull our senses with entertainment, the less we experience the gift of life and the beauty and ugliness that surround us.

Moral of the story? Two choices: Glance at a map, but be here now? or stare at the virtual and be somewhere else? 

I miss maps.

Posted on by Ian Hanchet · 3 Comments

A Picture Is Worth A Thousand Words (or so)

‘Hijack a truck” he says. “We’ll drive her across the continent and sell the cargo when we reach the coast. You do know the backroads?” Brothers Eli and Colton had hatched a plan to swap a trucker’s uppers for downers. 

This is how it started. 

At Joe’s Café the truckers would gather, swapping lies and popping the pills they got from Joey (another one, not the owner) to get in another 300 miles or so before pulling over for the night. 

The brothers saw a rig pull in hauling four brand new 1957 Cadillac Fleetwoods. The driver, Mortimer (Morty) Hassock was making his first interstate delivery and as he entered Joe’s Café there were at least four eyes watching his every move. Morty chose an empty booth and ordered from Sarah a middle-aged waitress who looked and acted like she had been a part of this Café for centuries and there was nothing new that she hadn’t already seen. As Sarah retreated into the kitchen to deliver the order, Morty made his way to the John to relieve himself. As he passed Joey’s booth just before he reached the washrooms Joey enquired in a whisper if he might need some “helpers” to help him get to his destination sooner? Morty shook his head, no, but thought some more about this as he was relieving himself and when he emerged after washing and drying his hands he agreed to buy $10 worth of amphetamines so that he and his rig could eat more pavement and he could return home to his fiancé after his delivery in time for the Friday dance.

The tiny paper bag holding the pills was very easy to swap out by Eli who came to Morty’s table and made some small talk. He drew Morty’s attention to a very comely young lady in the parking lot and not only switched the bags, but managed to slip a sleeping pill into Morty’s coffee as well. 

Morty got up after his huge “all day breakfast-$1.29” paid, and left a tip for Sarah and proceeded to the parking lot where he did stretching exercises for his neck and shoulders as he walked to his truck with Eli and Colton stealthily pursuing.

At the wheel, Morty was beginning to feel the endorphins from all those carbs and the sedative was also beginning to take effect. He popped a couple of the treats from his paper bag to counter this, and pulled out onto the blacktop.

Of course the pills had the opposite effect on him and soon Morty found himself nodding at the wheel. He pulled onto a side road and made a pillow from his jacket and spare clothing. He was out cold when the brothers pulled up behind the rig and approached the driver’s side door. Eli had a gun “just in case”, but it wasn’t needed as Morty could not be woken up. They pulled Morty out of the cab and covered him up with his jacket and left him snoozing by the side of the road. 

Colton started the rig and pulled onto the road. The idea was to follow the road to a crossroads or a place wide enough to turn around with Eli following in their car. The road was getting narrower, and there were no intersections, so Colton kept on driving for perhaps thirty miles with the occasional homestead or farm appearing every mile or so. Colton stopped and waited for Eli to catch up and they both conferred on what to do with this “hot” rig. It was decided that turning around might not be safe as Morty may have been discovered by now. It was decided that Eli, who had a map would lead the way and they would take several detours across pretty wild territory until they met with a rural route marked as a county road several miles to the south of where they were. 

There was only one problem with this road, unbeknownst to the brothers. There was a small bridge about 20 miles ahead that a car could easily traverse, but the width and weight limitations meant the truck would not be able to. 

When they reached the bridge, they knew they could progress no further. Not only that, but there was still no place to turn around. Colton backed the truck up gingerly for about 200 yards and noticed a derelict field to his left that, if he was lucky, he could finally turn the truck around. he pulled onto the field and started the wide arc to finally get the truck pointed in the right direction. He was successful, but was about to rejoin the path to the road when his brother frantically signalled him to stop. Eli had heard a car rapidly approaching while he was watching the manoeuvring and had the presence of mind to drive his car out of sight. If they were lucky the passing auto would not notice either of them. The car was a police cruiser and it zoomed past them towards the bridge. Eli knew that the car would be returning soon when the police realize the rig could not have gone that way. Colton realized it too, and backed the rig up into a copse of saplings hidden from view to any road. He parked the truck and he and Eli sat in the sedan waiting for the cruiser to return. 

The police did not see the hidden vehicles and vanished back from whence they came. Eli decided that they had to make a plan B. The truck was an unwieldy burden now and the police would be on the lookout for it. Plan B was to return home and wait a week. return to the truck and take each car singly to a town in the next state where they could be “chopped for parts”. Not the bonanza they had originally planned, but a decent payday nonetheless. 

Eli marked the site on his map and the brothers returned the way they had come. They decided to go into Joe’s Diner and grab burgers and fries before heading home. Nobody raised an eyebrow when they walked in and ordered, so the boys relaxed until they saw Morty get out of a police car in the lot. Colton nudged his brother and they both skedaddled out the back door. Better safe than sorry.

Fearful that they might have been made, Eli pulled out onto the highway and they drove above the speed limit for ten miles. On their left was a long freight train running parallel to the road and Eli decided he wanted to get on the other side of it and raced toward where he knew there was a railroad crossing. Not wanting to be stuck at the alreay flashing crossing, Eli took a chance and gunned the engine, determined to sneak through ahead of the train. The car was going very fast and was about ready to make the left turn and hop the level crossing when the car blew a tire and careened onto the tracks. 

The impact was huge and drastic. The fireball consumed both brothers and their schemes and the map. The truck was only discovered fifty years later.

internet photo that inspired this story.