Phillip had the nasty habit of absentmindedly retrieving earwax from his left ear with his little finger and wiping it on the side of his favourite armchair which was now smooth and no longer porous as he had been doing this for years. The side of the armchair was now shiny and mottled like some sort of caramel freak batik.
He had never recovered from responding to a particular emergency call that had shaken him to the point of catatonia and necessitating his early retirement. As an EMT, Phillip had had his share of emotional and visceral experiences: births and deaths and everything in between.
The call that tipped him over the edge was from someone in an apartment complex in a neighbourhood that had gone to seed. Buildings that used to be respectable and well maintained had suffered from decades of neglect. There was a stagnant pall in this forgotten neighbourhood.
The caller had not seen his neighbours in the apartment next door in a while and was suspicious because if they were travelling they would have asked him to keep an eye on the place and gather the mail and the inevitable flyers that crowd out the minuscule mailboxes in the lobby.
When Phillip and his team arrived, they tried knocking on the door to no avail. They got the concierge to open the door with his master key but the door was also chained which didn’t stop the intense putrid smell from being released through the aperture. A bit of shoulder made short work of the chain and Phillip entered the apartment with his sleeve covering his nose. The blinds were closed and In the dusty murk he saw two decomposing bodies locked in an embrace like a distorted Romeo and Juliet in the middle of the floor. The only life left in the fetid air were the swarms of flies and maggots consuming the deceased.
The coroner eventually ascertained that the man had had a heart attack and died a week previously and the woman had lain next to him for three days and had actually successfully willed her own death from natural causes, mostly dehydration and grief.
Phillip, although a seasoned and somewhat hardened veteran of Emergency services became disoriented and dizzy upon experiencing this tragic scene. He stumbled to the outer hallway and collapsed in a heap. Another ambulance needed to be dispatched to the scene to deal with this new development.
Something like this can simply not be unseen, unsmelled, unfelt. The horror was etched permanently in Phillip’s brain. His ruminating and constantly reliving the scene consumed his waking hours and sent him entirely off the rails unable to function beyond the bare minimum. Obviously he was going to need therapy to return him to who he was before this incident.
Every time he seemed to be making a slight recovery he would be thrust back into his disturbing overriding thoughts of that final embrace. Was it love? Was it a sick codependency? Is it even possible to will one’s own death? Is the loss of will to live powerful enough to do that? All of the deaths he’d ever faced: his parents, his sister, his beloved pets and the numerous victims of car crashes he’d ever seen raced in and out of focus through his restless mind dislodged from time and any sense of reality.
He was tempted to undo his twelve years of sobriety just to anesthetize his brain. Tempted, but unable to act on it. He asked Siri to play Willie Nelson on his HomePod which was a welcome distraction until the song came on that had Willie singing “it’s not something you get over, it’s something you get through”
This awoke something in Phillip that he hadn’t felt in ages. He got up and poured himself a glass of water and drank it all in one long and cleansing swoop. He asked Siri to stop the music and went back to the living room and decided then and there to throw out his favourite chair which had come to represent a sort of prison to him and may have stalled his ability to get through this nightmare.
The chair sat on the curb for over a week as he had just missed the bi-weekly heavy items pickup. He didn’t care if anybody else took it, but even the most ragged of the trash pickers were not interested. Just as well, he thought as the robot arm swung the chair into the back of the garbage truck and the hydraulic scoop descended and crushed the chair never to be sat on again.
He received his new chair the same day he picked up a kitten at the SPCA. It was a motorized easy chair that moved like a dentist’s chair. The kitten eventually grew weary of the box the chair came in and crawled up Phillip’s leg and settled purring in his lap. He decided to name the kitty “Willie” and Phillip closed his eyes and slept peacefully for the first time in years.
A daily 53 minute ride each way to and from high school in a big yellow school bus can be tedious. There are many ways to fill the time: Sleep would be one, getting high, another. Reading or doing homework next to impossible on Quebec roads.
Then there is doing stupid stuff. Yeah! That’s the ticket Stupid stuff! Woo Hoo!
Young and stupid “gland jobs” as I refer to adolescents regularly like to flex feats of stupidity on a dare.
Hanging a moon used to be a thing. Variations included a ‘pressed ham’ (butt against a screen) and ‘hanging a rat’.. (don’t go there). Hanging a moon means to expose one’s buttocks as a derisive commentary to the “moonee”.
We, at the back of the bus who thought of ourselves as badass (pun intended) had a perfect launch pad for mooning. The rear (also intended) door window.
We started off rather mildly by mooning cars for a second or two, barely(intended) enough to be noticed, but enough to get our own hearts pumping. After a while this grew boring and the novelty waned. Until Tony’s car was following our bus one day.
Tony H. Was a geography teacher who we particularly disliked. He had an arrogant personality that conflicted with our teenage hubris like colours that clash. He was a prime target and merited two moons. My buddy Todd and I mooned in Tandem and made sure we were noticed. This elated us in that we had dissed a despised nemesis.
The next morning the boys of bus 41 were called to face the principal and a fuming Tony.
The inquest did not last long as the demand for the guilty parties to step forward was accompanied by the phrase “one had a yellow jacket”. Oops! I stepped forward, followed shortly by Todd.
We were both suspended for five days in winter. Some punishment! We lived in a village that is a ski resort and we had season passes. We were forbidden from going out, but all our parents were working in the city and gone for ten hours a day. Enough time to hitchhike to the ski hill and back after terrorizing the weekday slowpokes on the slopes.
This scenario is part of the legend of my childhood.
========================================
P.S. After I had finished my second stint of student teaching I felt I needed to make amends to teachers whose lives I had made harder. I drove to Lachute and rang the doorbell at Tony H.’s home. A lady answered the door and I asked to speak to Tony. She asked “who she should say is calling?”
“YOU’RE IAN HANCHET!!!!!” I may have gotten under his skin further than I thought.
I had a short speech of regret and how student teaching gave me a new look on the job of teaching. I apologized for having been a dickhead and told him that our field trip to view real examples of landform geography was pivotal in my school experience and despite our clashes, his lessons lived on inside me. He and his wife were speechless, but appreciative and invited me to stay for dinner. I declined, making up some excuse. I was sorry for my previous behaviour, but we weren’t about to become friends.
Tony died this last June, over fifty years since this story transpired.
I am sometimes surprised by random messages I receive from former students who have come across posts of mine or videos that I have made or they recognized me on stage and these former kids more often than not reach out and tell me I had a profound influence on their life. It is both heart warming and validating that that portion of my life was not purposeless and a waste beyond making a living. One encounter was with a young man with a beard who approached me after a set and called me “MR. HANCHET”. He asked me to guess who he was and I honestly had no clue who he might be. I asked for a clue. He said I taught him in first grade at a school I hadn’t taught at for around twenty years. He was disappointed that I still was unable to guess, but twenty years is a long time. I maintained my youthful appearance (eyeroll) but he went from being a mousy grade one kid to this bearded behemoth. When he told me his name, I actually remembered, but said to him: “Oh yeah, you haven’t changed a bit…” He missed the sarcasm.
As I age further away from my mostly cherished long and varied teaching career, encounters like this happen less and less.
Last night I dreamt that I was at a local restaurant called Sciroli’s which is a place I have only been to before to celebrate events such as birthdays or retirements. From across the room I made eye contact with a beautiful young woman who ,when we made eye contact confirmed it was me and put her two hands up to form a heart. She immediately came over to my table and we embraced. She had obviously been an important student of mine and judging from her age, probably ten years had passed since we last saw each other. I, for the life of me, could not conjure up her name. In my defence, this was a dream, so she may have been a composite of many students, and the last time we would have met if she was an actual student she was a pre pubescent girl. The shame and guilt I felt for not recognizing who this was beyond her being a student woke me from my slumber.
There are some students I still have correspondence with and some whose lives I am able to keep track of because I am friends with a parent or other family members, this apparition was not one of them.
I haven’t had any encounters from beyond the grave (either of us). I can wait.
I simply can’t be trusted to do the shopping. I invariably get at least one item wrong.
Let me explain: I am dyslexic. I am able to compensate for this most of the time and many people are surprised to learn this because I am well educated and an avid reader and quick with words.
Every once in a while it rears it’s ugly head and I will glean the opposite meaning from a sentence or I’ll skip a line of music I am reading or I’ll write a b as a d, etc. this occurs mostly when fatigued or if I am in the throes of a Migraine.
Back to shopping…..
The worst place is the pharmacy, although all big box stores are a challenge. This will be hard to write without using the word “fucking” as an adjective before every fucking item in the whole fucking store not to mention the fucking piped in music and the use of different fucking names for the same fucking thing.
I am tired of writing “fucking” just assume it is in front of each proper noun that follows.
Try buying toothpaste for someone else. My wife likes toothpaste with no whitener. Just plain toothpaste. It is usually hidden on the bottom shelf which is so convenient for a 6 foot tall man. It is far from the pimped up glitterati in the wall of toothpaste above it. I am guessing that there must be eighty to a hundred products in flashy packaging and different formats and sizes and brand names. Maybe 20 of these have a red tag in front indicating a sale of some sort with an arbitrary reduction from another arbitrary sticker price. Flavour is another option. Spearmint, peppermint, just mint, clean mint, fresh mint, regular, original, new, new original and on and on…. This is a nightmare for a dyslexic. In Quebec this is also compounded further by bilingual packaging and the price using different (English smaller by law) fonts. I hope you are still injecting my favourite adjective.
Let’s say that Pharmaprix doesn’t have what I am looking for, my neighbourhood has several alternatives within easy walking distance (in opposite directions. Northward there is Jean Coutu and southward a Jean Coutu and a Uniprix opposite arch other all on the same busy boulevard. Each store layout is almost the same, but usually there is at least one quirky difference. This difference usually involves the product I am looking for. Painkillers for example are so ridiculously separated. There are cold and sinus type painkillers and there are the regular and extra strength. Back pain, headache, muscular pain, etc. The really good stuff is behind the counter and some needs prescription. There are brand names to contend with and the generic equivalent. Some people swear by the brand name (costlier) and say the generic is not as effective. I say it is all a scam. When I was a kid my mum had Aspirin. She switched to A.S.A at some point which is one of those immediately forgettable meaningless acronyms that are anathema to dyslexics. The good stuff was 222. Fucked if I care what 222 stood for. Those babies worked on migraines.
While still at the pharmacy try the hair product section…..nightmare. I simply won’t buy for someone else. It’s like Where’s Waldo for masochists.
Needless to say, Pharmacies are not my favourite place. Soviet Russia is preferable. One product you line up for I can get behind…..
Groceries are also a pain in the ass. Let’s pick a product like yogurt. 1%,2%,full fat, Greek style, whipped, fruit on the bottom, natural, organic, I am sure I am only scratching the surface and I am not going to research it completely which would involve doing the very thing I want to avoid. While in the dairy section, different formats for milk. Skim is not even milk. Compound this with almond milk and oat milk and canary milk etc. ‘Full fat, Greek style, whipped, fruit on the bottom’ sounds kinda sexy put together like that…
I am getting tired of writing, so, you, the reader (if still here) must be as well.
Last week I needed to get black ink for our printer. Great. I went to Bureau en Gros (Staples) and upon entering an enthusiastic young man asked if he could help me. I disappointed him by saying I knew exactly what I needed and pointed to the wall of cartridges half a kilometre away. I went to the wall… HP65 black (good for hp envy 7000 series). I checked. Not my first rodeo. In and out in 5 minutes. Smug.
Sharon put the cartridge in, and it didn’t work. She put the spent one back in, didn’t work. She turned the machine off, same result. If there were tires, she would have kicked them. I was called, and I went into ‘hp help’ etc. and found a YouTube video and unplugged for 20 minutes and tried again. I tried to get hp on the phone but I forgot my password. After dealing with the password I found that my warrantee for free help was expired so I googled “life expectancy of printers” and realized that maybe it was time for a new one. I googled my model and Lo and behold there was one left at the same store I get my cartridges. This happened to be Boxing Day and it was on sale for the cost of several cartridges. O happy day!
I went to the store expecting to buy the same model thinking ‘I already have a full cartridge’ and they were offering 3 months of “free” ink. When I finally found a ‘clerk’ (dr. Livingstone, I presume?) he was a spiritless drudge who checked to see if the model was in stock. Turned out that the display model was it. I checked inside to make sure that the cartridges were still the same. The cartridge was staring at me with its name “hp64”. I left drudge boy behind and got an hp64 black off the wall. Brought it home and our printer works again.
This is a rather sensitive issue, you may want to skip it.
On a normal day no man gives his testicles a second thought.
One day a few months back I noticed that when I turned over in bed I had to adjust my crotch to achieve comfort. I thought at the time that my thighs must be getting fat. Same thing the next night. Weird. I got up in the morning and put the dogs out for a pee and plunked down on a stool to wait and let them back in. Felt like I’d had what I’ve called a “Charley horse“ but means “kick in the nuts”. Shortness of breath and extreme discomfort. Very Unusual to sit on one’s balls. They are not made for that. Still didn’t think too much about it, just carried on with my day.
Later, out shopping at the bookstore I went to the rest room and had some difficulty with my fly at the urinal. I reached in to facilitate the exercise and was alarmed that one of my testicles that was usually grape sized was the size of a plum. My mind was immediately in catastrophe mode imagining testicular cancer and I called my GP (doctor). It was just after four pm and the answering machine was on so I had to leave a message describing my problem. The secretary called back within the hour and I got an appointment for first thing the next day.
My doctor asked me when I first noticed the symptoms, and I truly answered that I couldn’t accurately say because I was long past adolescence and no longer in the habit of fondling “the boys”. He laughed. Upon inspection, he said he suspected a hydrocele but ordered an ultra sound just to make sure. I got an appointment for later that morning and went to the Montréal General Hospital and gowned up. I was waiting outside the changing room to be called and a nervous young man came in and asked “Mr. McLean?” I was the only person there and replied that that was my doctor’s name and I, being the patient was Mr. Hanchet. He apologized and explained that he was a “resident” I impishly wisecracked that the ultra sound was to be of my testicles (just to be clear). He was actually very professional and thorough and explained that after he was done another doctor would confer with him and then come and explain to me what they saw. The female doctor confirmed that it was indeed a hydrocele and that there was no evidence of anything else to be worried about. She said she’d send the result to my doctor and urology. I thought she said “neurology” and impishly quipped that unlike a lot of men I didn’t think with my crotch. Funnier to me than to her….oh well.
A week passed. No call from urology. I called my GP and asked what to do and the secretary said I could bypass the system and get seen by a doctor who was private (meaning outside of the Medicare system) meaning there would be a fee. I decided to wait, but another week went by and my situation was starting to affect other aspects of my life. Driving was becoming awkward and uncomfortable. I called the private urologist’s office and the secretary informed me that the operation would be $850.00. I said I had to think about it. I decided to wait.
My brother in law is an eye doctor and had told me that if I needed help he “knows a guy”. He called, but the dr. was on holiday. A follow up call got me an appointment for surgery. I will go under the knife at the end of August.
Meanwhile it was still growing. Now an avocado and every time I needed to sit, I did so gingerly on the edge of the chair and slide back. Hoping I wouldn’t need a wheel barrow soon. This was just nuts!
The avocado grew into a tangerine in a ski mitten as my problem expanded. My crotch entered the room before I do and my head is filled with quotations I have heard before that now have new meaning. “He must have big balls” meaning he was brave. The opposite of timid. I don’t see how the size of one’s nuts determine one’s bravery, but I digress. Cojones? Forget about it. Great target for an enemy.
The urologist gave me four options: 1. live with it. 2. drain it. 3. drain it and inject medicine. 4. go under the knife. One was out of the question and three and four needed to be done in a hospital. I chose #2.
At the urology clinic there is a small room set aside for these kind of “procedures”. I nervously was humming the same “The Dance Of The Sugarplum Fairies” under my breath. I had decided an apt nickname for this operating room was “The Nutcracker Suite”. The medical staff were all business as after a small prick (pun intended) I finally earned the sobriquet of “Numb Nuts”. The extraction took a minute or so, and it was all over. 220ml of gross fluid which is almost a cup. I stood up and immediately sensed the difference. Perversely I started to sing “You Make Me Feel Like Dancing” which I didn’t even know I knew. I did a Pierre Trudeau pirouette …(Pierreouette) in my relief.
It has been over a week, and the return to normalcy has been a relief. I am very grateful for this resolution to my minor issue and has made me more mindful and empathetic of those with less easily resolved medical issues.
I’ve been curious about my British roots since forever, but after joining Ancestry.ca and a previous trip to the UK where I mysteriously felt like I was at home on a molecular level I felt an urge to delve farther into our roots. As I was looking up stuff I encountered a facebook group called “World of Hanchett’s” which, despite the misuse of an apostrophe, opened my knowledge up exponentially. I met several Hanchetts and other variants (Hanchant) online who are much more passionate and skilled at this genealogy tracing than I am. Their interest and e-mails helped me immeasurably in planning and understanding. In particular, Leland Hanchett has written many historical books on this very subject.
It all started with this picture that was in my filing cabinet in a manila folder called “Dad”. I knew this was a photo of my great grandfather’s monumental mason business. I scanned the picture and started googling using clues like: Hanchet;stone mason; Finchley; East Finchley etc.
I found this next photo in Pinterest and bought it.
This photo had more clues. I got satellite views of High street and scanned up and down to no end. On a hunch I looked up East Finchley Historical societies or something like that and sent the picture asking if they knew the actual address on High Street. Within the hour I received a response… 79 High Road.
“Hello there.
My name is Ian Hanchet and I am writing from Montreal, Canada in search of my roots. My great grandfather was Walter Alfred Hanchet whose stone carving business was on High Road in East Finchley. Seeing as many of my ancestors apparently came from the area around Oxford, I am writing on the off chance that there might be a connection here. Thank you for your time.”
Within the hour I received a response… “79 High Road. Now a Lebanese restaurant.” I thought “how cool to go to England and have a meal there. Maybe they’d let us into the basement and see stuff that was too cumbersome to move out”… First I got brother Mark interested in this idea, then we invited brother Guy along.
The best laid plans of mice and men…. The pandemic bankrupted the restaurant and it was closed. Apparently squatters moved in and it is now boarded up and secured. It is “To Let”. Disappointing, but affirming as well. Everything changes.
The neighbourhood of East Finchley is a colourful, bustling place with visible minorities seemingly in the majority. Many foods from the middle east.
The Diary
Sunday May 14th -Monday May 15th I squeezed into a “red eye” sardine can with wings and promptly dropped a noise cancelling ear bud which rolled backward as the plane was ascending. I had to use my ipod earbuds, but music was impossible with the noise floor so high from the airplane.
They were set in Ireland and in England (I know Dunkirk’s in France)respectively. I used English subtitles to increase my understanding as the earbuds suck. It was a happy coincidence that as the soldiers and sailors evacuated from Dunkirk were arriving safely in England our plane was approaching the white cliffs on the English side of the channel. too far southwest to be Dover, but so what!
Monday May 15th I had a few hours to kill before Guy’s plane landed. Struck up a conversation with some Scottish travellers…oy vey.. Anti Maskers etc. Fortunately I found an escape before I had to go all Rob Roy on them… The train system is connected to the airport which is totally awesome. Direct train to Cambridge.
Train To Cambridge
Didn’t need “Findmybrother” Mark was where he said he’d be in Cambridge.
Mark was the only one insured to drive the rental, so he got to white knuckle it on the “wrong” side of the road. Guy and I got to practice our roller coaster yells as designated back seat drivers.
Uh yeah!
We checked into our rental in Steeple Bumpstead which brother Mark found for us. It was an excellent choice! We were hungry and thirsty so we hiked the hundred yards to the Fox and Hounds
Lovely reception from the locals, but sadly their kitchen was not open on Mondays. A customer called The Red Lion for us and ascertained that their kitchen was open. A kind gesture. We went over to what was to be the first of many Red Lions we encountered on our travels. The beer was better than the “Bangers and Mash” which we had nostalgically mis-remembered as a delicacy from our grandfather. To make matters worse, we paid for it twice by mistake. Glad it wasn’t paid for by deservedly getting indigestion!
The food helped us get a good night’s sleep until the wee hours of the morning when the birds…
da Bumpstead boids
Tuesday May 16th the roots trip gets under way. On our trip to Shudy Camps we passed a sign for Hanchett toys. Had to stop! The toy store is no more, it specialized in wooden apparatus and other specialty items. We spoke to someone at the attached equestrian school who said it didn’t survive the pandemic. One of my reprobate friends altered (photoshopped) the picture an improvement which I cherish.
We found Shudy Camps which is little more than a crossroads with a church. We were walking around the graveyard looking for ancestors…turns out they were all dead and their name tags faded or fell off….Hanchet Hall in the upper right corner
Hanchets lost in time.Dust to dust.
Extract from ‘Magna Britannia – ‘Cambridgeshire’ by Daniel & Samuel Lysons, first published 1808.
SHUDY-CAMPS, in ancient records, called Shudee-Camps, and Scode-Camps, adjoins to Castle-Camps, being 14 miles south-east of Cambridge, and about 13 south of Newmarket : it was sometimes called Parva-Camps; and appears to have acquired its present name form the family of Shudee, who, in ancient times, possessed the manor, and gave the hamlet of Northoe to the monks of Ely.
The manor of Shudy-Camps was held by the family of Hanchet, in the reigns of King Edward I. and King Edward II. of the family of Playz, as heirs of the Montfichets : at a later period, it was successively in the families of Cholmeley and Bentley
A short walk from the church is the Hall. Obviously the Hall has been added to over the past half a millenium, but the land and part of the structure would have been my family’s. I wanted to knock on the door, but my brothers felt I should respect the present owner’s privacy.
Next stop was Saffron Walden where it was Market Day. The library faced the market so I went in and found someone on site whose volunteer job is to help with the archives. I found some stuff, but saved the site for later.
We had lunch at the Crown an upscale pub. We were in an annex whose walls were covered with pictures of bombers from WW II. There must have been an airfield in the vicinity during the second world war.
We had passed Hanchett Hall, Haverhill on the way back to our base. We had seen a picture of this house in our book “The English Ancestry of Thomas Hanchett”, My brother Guy’s log has a more complete accounting I have put the link to it again. https://guyhanchet.wordpress.com/2023/05/31/hanchet-brothers-roots-tour/
– We ate at yet another Red Lion in Sturmer. We needed groceries, so headed back to Haverhill for some silly photos of Hanchet End and Hanchett Village. Throughout all the reading and archival stuff I have been through it seems that One t or two t’s or several other variants were common. Someone told me that a T was added to the Hall fairly recently to be in line with Hanchett End etc. Easily rectified…lol. Again, my brothers didn’t think it’d be “in good taste” to hang my rear end out for a gag shot. So?!?!?!?
On Wednesday May 17 we went to Bury/St. Edmunds in the morning and met with Kevin Emsden who runs “Hanchets Monumental Masons” Kevin’s father and my great-uncle Walter Arthur Hanchet’s son were partners. He had some interesting tidbits. They kept the name because it was respected and Hanchet had cachet..
On to Cambridge University.
Cambridge University
Renovations at King’s College precluded our visiting this hallowed hall. We did hear another choir through an upper window rehearsing an anthem. All three brothers have choral experience, so it hit us viscerally.
Why we really came to Cambridge was to re-enact the beheading of our ancestor. They wouldn’t let me on the plane with an ax…(philistines) and I couldn’t get one in time in Cambridge so Mark improvised with a baguette.
In Cambridge Market Square where John Hanchach lost his head for his part in the 1381 Peasant’s Revolt.
“Following the peasants’ uprising in 1381 and John Hanchach’s subsequent beheading, it is not surprising that members of the Hanchet family kept a low profile. As a result, the living members of the family started to spread out to places not formerly associated with the family name.”
We are up early on Thursday may 18th to get to Oxford University where we are to meet our private tour guide for our C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien tour that we brothers unanimously decided was worth taking a day! Guy has great photos on his blog, so I’ll only post a few. https://www.nytimes.com/2023/02/28/travel/cs-lewis-oxford-narnia.html
There is a faun above Mark and Malcolm’s heads. Mr. Tumnus? The lamppost of Narnia behind them.
I love Oxford. I could spend a year or two here! I was super impressed by Blackwell’s Book store. 2 and a half miles of shelving…https://blackwells.co.uk/bookshop/about
We had greasy fish and soggy chips from Chippy’s takeaway.
Friday May 19th -off day Mark had to work. Guy and I walked around , ate at the Fox and Hounds caught up on some sleep and went into Haverhill for a Turkish dinner which provided us with leftovers for the next evening.
Saturday May 20th -trip to Edgeware (North London)to visit our second cousins at Alice’s home which was her grandmother’s (our great auntie Daisy).
, east finchley -souvenir photos- the old pot’s business- turkish leftovers
Sunday may 21st. hike to Helion Bumpstead the three horseshoes- hike back -mark forgot his phone with the name of the Nepalese/indian resto…in Saffren. by the time we figured out the resto was called Yugo Google maps sent us down two way roads that resembled a paved golf cart path or a one way country driveway lined with hedge that two bicycles could barely pass each other on. The place was a remote semi-rural location and no cars in the lot. we were worried the food might be scrappy because there were so few diners. No need to worry, the phone in, walk in Take Away business was hopping! probably the best Indian food I’ve ever eaten.
Monday may 22 -packing up and drive to Cambridge and train to Liverpool Street station. I find a hat that fits!!!
We had a big dinner planned at Sishoom Shoreditch with nephew Malcolm and niece Simone and Sharon’s 1st cousin Renu and Mark’s wife Denise.
Tuesday may 23 The big item today is a visit to Darwin’s cottage.
We returned to London and walked across London Bridge. It wasn’t falling down. Walked through Whitehall where there is a Jack the Clipper barber shop and a Jack the Chipper Fish and Chips stand. That evening we had reservations to Ronnie Scott’s which is to London what the Village Vanguard is to NYC. Jazz Mecca.
Woodstock. This band and the singers are great
Wednesday my quest was to find Halcyon Gallery for a Bob Dylan Exhibit and get an Art Book of his work. I remembered after the fact that it was Bob Dylan’s birthday.
I then meet Renu at 2 at the Victoria and Albert Museum where she bought me lunch and we walked around the garden and the main floor. This art gallery is amazing, and Renu is a great tour guide and friend! I put my phone observations into this little video
I realized early on in our trip that our scope and time was limited. The Ancestry we followed was strictly Patrilineal. The tree, although interesting is impossible to ever complete. For every male Hanchet there were other mothers, sisters, . I think that on any given day in the UK we probably passed dozens of cousins, but we were unaware of it. I believe everything and everyone is interconnected and if I follow the Do Unto Others… Love thy neighbour as thyself. It’s good.
The diaspora is huge and my Hanchett buddies who narrow things down and seek out headstones are better at it than me. Tombstones don’t talk anyway.
Thanks for joining me on this lame account of our very fun and interesting journey.
The train from the Town of Mount Royal to Central Station takes less than ten minutes. It travels in a straight line from the center of what was once called “Model City” to a hole at the foot of the “mountain” where there is a brief stop and then the train is swallowed and eventually finds the platform under Central Station in the heart of downtown Montreal. I was always amazed that this hole went right under the mountain and came out the other side. I would stay up at night and think about how they might have achieved this. I think my one way fare as a student was 10 cents. Maybe 15. It was a while back.
Some of my most vivid and fondest memories of my childhood are of that train. At ten years old, My parents were trusting enough in me and in society to let me go downtown by myself. I was required to go to choir practice at Christ Church Cathedral on Tuesdays and Thursdays after school. I also had to go early on Sundays before the service.
I was one of six charter members of the boy’s choir which started in 1966 the same year Montreal got it’s Metro. At its peak the boy’s choir had around 24 choristers who came from various parts of the city to sing. There were several from Town of Mount Royal and at least one from Ville St. Laurent (one stop past TMR). Many came from “the Point” (Point St. Charles) or “Little Burgundy” and Verdun. These last three neighbourhoods could be described as “inner city” or “disadvantaged” although I knew nothing of that as a young boy. We were all just “kids”.
Sunday morning was my favourite commute. There was hardly anyone on the train or at Central station and there was no Sunday shopping, so there were no shoppers along the boutique lined passageways of Place Ville Marie which had been built in 1962, so was relatively new when I frequented these passageways.
The rays of the sweep light atop Place Ville Marie were visible from my home and kept a steady beat in the sky. I loved watching it while lying on my back in the back yard accompanied by the smell of apple blossoms in Spring, thick honeysuckle and ripening apples in summer and dead leaves and rotting windfalls in fall. I am trying to recollect a winter memory of ozone and damp wool, but given Canadian winters I doubt if I lay in the back yard after dark. I saw the light anyways from my bed. Sweep…..sweep……sweep….sleep.
Exiting PVM on Cathcart street, I made my way to University Street (now named Robert-Bourassa after a politician who had not yet become Premier of Quebec).
I would head north on University towards Ste. Catherine Street which was essentially the core of downtown. Big department stores, delis, churches, banks. On Sunday morning the street was bare. Hardly a soul. It is how I imagine a city would look after an evacuation or a rapture. Only me and maybe a street cleaner or a stray pedestrian wearing a fedora huddled against the wind and sheets of newspaper wafting around empty curbs. Being alone in such a large desolate space made it mine. I own it to this day.
The Cathedral sits between University (Robert-Bourassa) and Union. It was usually described as the big church between Eaton’s and Morgan’s (now The Bay). The two largest department store chains in Canada. Just North of the Cathedral there was a grey stone building that housed a number of church related activities. This was attached to another building which housed offices and a hall called Fulford Hall. These buildings in turn were connected to the Cathedral itself by a long tunnel. At the end of the church service the officiant (usually the Dean) would say “let us depart in peace” and the choristers would reply “in the name of the lord” and we’d all say “amen” together and the boys would tear through the tunnel taking off our surplices, ruffs and cassocks as we flew back to the croft and gave them to be hung away for another week. We would then either go back home or go to Fulford Hall for overly sugared and milked tea and cookies depending on how we had arranged to go home.
The music we sang in church was wonderful. Motets, Anthems, hymns and psalms. I will always love this music. It has permanently altered me at a molecular level. Because the Cathedral was “high Anglican” there was a lot of very serious liturgical stuff and candle lighting and standing and sitting. Not quite incense swinging and everything in Latin, but close . We learned:The Apostle’s creed, the Nicene Creed, Benediction, bunch of stuff in Latin. My favourite being the Kyrie Eleison. Music was better for Morning Prayer than the Eucharist. Probably to keep people in the pews. The Eucharist (Holy Communion) had a part where the choir would sing softly as people went up to the Altar to receive the body and blood of Christ. Usually when everybody was done and after the officiant honked the last of the “blood” (apparently it was a sin to waste blessed wine) we would sing an anthem. Often this would be A Capella (which translates as “in the Chapel”, but means “unaccompanied”.) Being in the midst of this glorious reverberant sound of men and boys singing music that is the acme of western civilization is one of the greatest feelings I have ever had. It is easy to believe there is a God when in the middle of a good choir.
Once a month we had to sing “Evensong” so the boys would be treated to lunch and we would have some sports activity between services. Evensong was almost all music, so even though the sermon was an abbreviated rerun the music was fresh and good. My favourite restaurant that we might go to at the time was Mr. Steer which is still around. Their #2 which costs $12.25 plus GPS and TPS today, was $1.10 then. It was a steerburger and Suzy Q fries with a soft drink. The price was just before the tax cut in, so was popular with businessmen for lunch. Very clever incentive. My dad explained that to me after talking to the owner who I referred to as Mr. Steer. His real name was a very Jewish sounding name like Katz. Most of the delis in Montreal at that time were owned and run by Jewish immigrants from Europe. They probably still are, but there is more competition from the delicacies of more recent immigrants’ cuisine as well. We had to sing for our supper once at Dunn’s delicatessen. Helped the church pay for our Smoked Meat sandwiches.
Trains, music and food. The sights and sounds and smells of my youth that still affect me viscerally. Memories like these help me be grateful for such a long life well-lived.
I was sitting alone in my favourite daytime café today half daydreaming and half listening to an over loud monologue (I originally typed nonologue lol) by one of the patrons (an overeducated older white male blowbag) reminiscent of the lobby scene in Woody Allen’s Annie Hall where a man in line is spewing off theories about Marshall McLuhan and Woody calls him out and the guy says he teaches a course on McLuhan and Woody brings Marshall McLuhan into the scene and McLuhan completely refutes and debases the professor. “If life were only like that” said Woody. This story is not about him, the patronizing patron.
As I was daydreaming/eavesdropping, a large man in a large, worn winter coat walked into my field of vision and sat in front of the window I was staring out. As he arranged his posture he looked directly at me and said “Hi!” in a booming and overly loud for the space voice. I mumbled “hi” back and went back to thinking and waiting for my double espresso to cool down and also waiting for my phone to ring as I was killing time while Sharon was at the vet’s. Not for herself, of course, but one of the birds had her “annual” bank account draining check up.
The man was quite unusual looking. He looked perhaps like an Australian aboriginal man with curly tousled hair and a scruffy beard and missing a few teeth. He had kind, intelligent eyes and looked like he spent a great deal of time outdoors. I am pretty sure most people’s snap judgement of him if they met him on the street would be that he was homeless and to avoid him or brace themselves for a demand for alms because his size and appearance could be considered daunting.
As I pondered his greeting, I thought that maybe he thought I was staring at him and was offended and that is why he said “Hi”so loudly like it might have been a “Here I am… Want a picture?!?” but there had been no trace of sarcasm in the monosyllabic greeting, just volume. I know many people with Autistic Spectrum Disorder who sometimes use their “outside voice” inside, but this did not seem to be the case either.
I soon got my text to pick up Sharon and the bird, so I quickly downed my defibrillator espresso in one gulp and got up and put my coat on. As I approached the table where the man who had greeted me was sitting I said to him “I am sorry if you thought I was staring at you, your greeting surprised me and I was unsure if it was a friendly conversation starter or if I had offended you.” He was most affable and assured me that he was just being friendly and he thanked me for approaching him to be understood clearly.
I felt mildly ashamed at my train of thought and wished I had had more time to engage this gentleman in a proper conversation. He looked wise and kind, his life full and his stories most assuredly would have been better than the one I had involuntarily been listening to before.
There is a view I have from the armchair in our living room that I cherish. I look into my office/studio which right now is fairly uncluttered (at least the part we see here lol.) I have been organizing and sorting and finding things that I knew I had, but had misplaced or, rather, changed the place of so I’d find it better when I needed it…. Right…. My vape machine has been missing for several months. i use it infrequently, only when my migraine is unbearable. I forgot that I had given it a new home in it’s own artsy box and had put it on a shelf of its own meant to hold a dozen or so CD’s. The second thing was several gifts I got on sale at Chapters. Not books, but clothing items for my girls who I didn’t see in person this year at Christmas. Bought them at 30% off last year Boxing Day (week). It is not like me to think that far ahead. I have lost and found them 3x in a year. This time I wrapped them and labeled them and put them in a bag on the back of my studio door hanging with dozens of guitar cables. I can always refer to this blog now in case I forget where they are. Trouble is, these items are like passwords on the internuts. Don’t get me started.
I feel like an archaeologist several times a year shuffling stuff around. Maybe it’s a game like our cockatoo plays until she changes the rules from boredom. She is a real character! Incidentally her cage is directly behind the chair from where I took this photo.
Above the door is a street sign I bought in Liverpool. Favourite song by favourite Beatle. Just down and to the right is a stylized portrait of Bob Dylan that Sharon bought for me from our artist friend Susan Shulman.
I love it ‘cause it’s weird. Bob has three arms. Two on the Fender bass and one holding a cigarette.
Down to the right and partially obscured by a candlestick is a lovely picture of a cuddly roly poly Sharon with dancing eyes and mischievous smile. Other objects on the table is a lamp with a dog on the vase and dingle berries hanging from the shade. Retro chic. There is a cut glass candy tray filled with white tail feathers from one of the other birds: Betty White. There is a woodcut of a cabin in the woods and in front of that a tiny brass claw foot bathtub with pretty rocks I had collected on my travels as a younger man and gave to my mum. Each with a story. My mum gave them back as she neared her final voyage. Treasures.
The table itself had been my grandmother’s passed on to my parents and fits perfectly right there. Under the table I stashed my Martin guitar, having just returned from teaching a private lesson. Mundane details, they are merely objects, but they give me comfort. Small stuff.
“Nice eyes!” The woman ahead of me at the post office was sending money overseas to her family. She was dressed in a bright green Kameez under a Kanuk overcoat. Obviously from the Indian subcontinent.
I said “Pardon me?”
“You have nice blue eyes.” she clarified. “And kind eyes. Where I come from we all have dark eyes.” I said “My wife was born in India and she says the same thing about her eyes.” I told her what I would have told Sharon: that she should be thankful for her eyes, they see! I also told her it was a nice way to end off 2022, to be complimented by a pretty lady.
She apologized for the long wait and told me she was sending money home, and I told her I wasn’t in a hurry and that my package was part of a funny mistake. I told her this story:
My wife’s mother is Welsh and quite elderly. She has one surviving brother still in Wales whose wife had sent her a gift via us, as my mother-in law’s address has recently changed. As Jennie was opening her parcel and then the wrapped gift inside she saw an address book. Upon opening the address book, my mother-in-law was confused. “There are names and numbers already in here.” We quickly figured out that her sister-in-law had wrapped her address book up in the present and sent it to Canada by mistake. Everybody had a good giggle over this miscue. Sharon fired off a message to one of her Welsh cousins who confirmed that his mum had wondered where her address book was and had turned the house upside down looking for it. Sharon repackaged the book and I took it to the post office this morning.
Everyone within earshot at the post office had a good giggle and we went our merry ways.
On the way home I reflected on how close we came this year to Sharon almost losing the sight in one eye, the death of her father who was legally blind for the last few years of his life. I was grateful for my eyesight, all the doctors (including my brother-in-law) who took such care to get her into and through a difficult surgery. We so often take our senses for granted in our day to day doings. I am thankful for this lady in the Post Office for bringing my attention to bear on something that is so important to me and for which I am grateful.
I remembered this poem I wrote in reply to Sharon saying to me in 2017 that I was lucky to have such nice blue eyes and that her eyes were “ordinary”. Her eyes are especially beautiful in my eyes. All eyes are beautiful; they are conduits to the world and facilitate our movement in it, and our appreciation of it.
ORDINARY EYES
You say your eyes
are ordinary
Ordinary eyes....
Melanin loaded....
Common....
Mine are a fluke of
Tyndall scattering
in the stroma
and larger
deposits of collagen
But they see
Mine see yours
Yours see mine
unique, oblique, boutique
probes and globes
A sight for sorry eyes
Anything but common
Vignettes and Bagatelles 