In the beginning, he slipped... [1 Life Story]
This is the section where I examine the things I've done, and some of the events that have had impact in my life. Or, a life history, if you will...:
- In The Beginning - I suppose if I were to start this thing, it would be at the very start. I was born a dark and dreary October night
way back in 1977 when the nights were even colder and darker than they are today. I came into this world fatherless;
not so much due to the fact that I didn't have a father - because I did, and still do, and he's a wonderful father - but
rather due to my father deciding he was going to go duck hunting while my mother struggled through
a brimstone-and-fire labour to come up, eventually, with me. If I was the remebering sort, I would
say that I was probably disappointed, but heck, I can't really remember past last week, so I'll just state - for the
record - that it was a wonderful birth full of joy and love for all.
Being born in Fort Vermilion, Alberta - a town of about 800 in the far north of Alberta - is as exciting as it might sound. We lived in a nice yellow School Division house, and we had two dogs; Irish Setters, I think, and as ugly as they were we loved at least one of them, Lady, because she didn't bark the way that Rusty did. I had lots of little friends on my block, and we enjoyed such novelties as crazy-carpeting down the big gravel hill behind our yellow house, and trying to break puddle ice until our gumboots flooded. I guess the highlight of this period of my life was trying to collect as many scrambled eggs in my plastic bib as humanly possible, and succeeding to the point that my mother simply gave up and gave me dry cereal.
- School Days (Elementary) - I was kind of a geek in my younger days, preferring the comfort of a good book (like
the Hardy Boys...then Tom Clancy) and a warm mullet (hey, it only lasted about a year,
and back
then all our favourite hockey players were wearing them...wait, they still are!). Yet, I was a smartish
geek, one that made money doing math homework for lazy goons. I parlayed this entrepreneurial spirit into an investment
into a button-making machine that didn't, unfortunately, make me any money but delighted my family
to no end (one of my buttons was even featured on the CBC News when Fort Vermilion *almost* got
flooded back in the 80s). About the time I was making it big in the promotional button
business, my brother - Stephen - was making quite the career out of being a drugstore cowboy. Here, he's sitting
on the steps of Martin Stanner's IDA Drugstore in Fort Vermilion with a newly "acquired" lollipop.
Now, let me think...surely to God I must have achieved something else significant during my younger school
days...
Oh, I once had a drawing of a dinosaur published in a province-wide book of school kid dinosaur drawings (while
my equally talented sister Audrey had a poem published in one of those teenie-bopper magazines; yes, we were such
a family of unabashed talent...), and I think I once placed second (out of three) in a public speaking contest! All in
all not much, but when you consider that our family drove a baby blue pinto for several of these years,
let's just say... "I did alright". - School Days (Junior High) - By this stage in my life, I was a hopeless
luzer, engrossed in Vanilla Ice, silk shirts, and cataloging every CD, book, and movie
I owned. I did, however, get to travel to Vancouver to buy some acid washed jeans and watch
the Calgary Flames (ala Lanny MacDonald) defeat the Vancouver Canucks in a thrilling hockey
game with my uncle Don. I never did get the courage to ask a girl to the dance, but I did
have major back surgery that kept me hospital-bound for a couple of months. My doctor told me
that I would only ever have a desk job, and nothing manual, and I've tried my best to heed his
advice, as much as a career as a rock-splitter has its appeal.
- School Days (Senior High) - Aah, the formative highschool years. Well, I moved from the
cold confines of Northern Alberta to the East Coast, and the move did me well. It must have been all that
salt air, and the abundance of house parties every weekend. Ditched the silk shirts, bought
my first ball cap, found a girlfriend or two, just about killed myself for one of them (bad head-on
car accident that broke both my legs and hospitalized me for a couple of months, wheelchaired
me for a couple months more), got slightly over-average marks including a 100% in Angus
Sutherland's boisterous Geography class, started a career deejaying high school dances and
worked several jobs, including as an underage traffic control person, Tim Horton's coffee
artist, and Brosha's Short Stoppe cashier extraordinaire, and managed to get a $250 bursary
to St.F.X that I didn't apply for. The highlight of the whole high school experience was how
smoking I looked in my spiffy tuxedo for the prom, which I didn't take off until 10 o'clock the
next morning.
- University Meanderings -
I bounced from my little Antigonish enclove of Lower
South River to a charming little room in MacDonald House on the St.F.X campus, and became immediately
corrupted. So much to do, so little time for things like classes.
I must have set the record for
the most classes missed with somehow still pulling off a reasonably successful initial year. Besides
annoying the neighbouring priests with my 500-watt speakers, I learned a lot about Celtic folklore
and "vintage" wines during this first year of my elite education; the highlight of the year was learning
that I was to be the Golden X Inn's deejay the following year. The following year came and went, as did
several others, and two good things came out of the entire experience: a degree (Bachelor of Arts, major
in English), and a girlfriend that I would eventually call my wife. Oh, Erin's her name, for those
reading this and keeping track of such things. - Out In The World -
So, after graduating - both Erin and I - from our prestigious school and not really all that full of
either piss or vinegar, we decided the next natural progression for us was naturally Taiwan. So, off to
Taiwan we moved, where we decided we were going to enlighten the children of this world with our deep
and wise knowledge of the English language. We found ourselves a 36-hour flight from Halifax in a tiny city
of 3.5 million called Kaohsiung. There, we taught the little Taiwanese children and the occasional
adult like there was no tomorrow, and immersed ourselves in the finer aspects of Asian cusine, like Kentucky
Fried Chicken and Pizza Hut, on our off-hours. Life was grand, and we were earning money hand over fist...
until the ground rumbled, and we got scared. Yes, Erin and I were living in Taiwan for the disastrous earthquake
of 1999; the one where over 1500 people tragically lost their lives. We woke up at just after 4AM to find
our apartment walls swaying like they were feathers in a spring breeze (and we were over a 100 miles from
the epicenter!) and the floor buckling up and down. We were fine, as with the city of
Kaohsiung, but uncountable elsewhere where not. Taiwan was a different place for us after that.
We moved home within a month.
If there was a happy ending with our Taiwan experience, it was that I was all-the-while stashing
money away for a big shiny engagement ring, which I purchased - and used! - within a month
of arriving back in Fair Nova Scotia. She even said yes, and I - the little boy who just
10 years previous was wearing acid-washed jeans - was soon to be married! Even my father got into
the pre-wedding excitement, springing for some nasty good steaks at Mother Webbs in Lower South
River at the wedding-eve celebrations.
So, on December 30, 2000, I made perhaps my biggest lifetime accomplishment, and that was marrying
Erin Boyle in an absolutely amazing ceremony in Tracadie, Nova Scotia, with all our family and closest
friends as witness (they still wonder if I got the better end of that one...). We laughed,
we danced, we cried, and we watched my sister Angela party like it was 1999. Life was worth living
on December 30, 2000. After the crowd had kicked us out with a stiring rendition of the Irish
staple "Black Velvet Band", we booted 'er back to the hotel (I shan't get into the details here)
and off on our Dominican Republic honeymoon the next week. This was the start of two great traditions:
heading south to regenerate the batteries with a few jim-dandy Banana Mommas, and a no-brainer - namely us...married...
yup, I'm swift...
- Out In The World, II -
So, there we were, out in the world, married and such, with nothing but a whim and a prayer
keeping us going through those long, poor nights. Halifax is where I think we were living, and
I tell you, we had to wade through waist-deep snow, shoeless, to get to our shiny silver Pontiac
Sunfire in the parking lot behind our two-bedroom Clayton Park apartment (or something similar, ala
"when I was a boy..."). Halifax was the best of times and the worst of times. I worked as a "content
developer" for CanEHdian.com, a site I started to have something
interesting to do while Erin was studying, and it was a hell of a fun job. Hey, I got to
interview famous people and have all the large record companies mail me their newest
releases, for free. At its peak, CanEHdian was getting close to 25,000 page views a day. Unfortunately, I soon realized that people need money in order to afford
the essentials of life, like Tim Horton's Iced Cappucinos, and after the internet economy crashed
in 2000 or 2001, I just couldn't buy my double-doubles any more. Despite the fact that we thouroughly
enjoyed going to see Dave Gunning sing the theme to the Littlest Hobo down at the Fife & Drum pub in Halifax,
the time was ripe for a move, so move we did. - The Weiner Years (or, more specifically, the "Weiner Five Months") -
I'm not going to get into all the gory details here, as you really don't need to know the entire
history of Heinz condiments, but let's just say my concise history of Dave's Barbeques
holds the entire, bitter truth. It was an epic tale, and perhaps I would be to hotdogs what Colonel
Sanders was to chicken, if we hadn't taken that call that sweaty August night asking if we wanted
to move close to the North Pole. Sick joke, some might say, but we believed everything they said,
and a couple of weeks later we were onboard a dilapidated First Air "jet" flying north (north!) of the Arctic
Circle, where my wife was the newly-crowned bigshot of the Resolute Bay Housing Association.
- The Cold and Shrivelies -
For two years we toiled and (I would like to say with a straight face) sweated in the harsh
tundra of Resolute, eating only mucktuck and the occasional feast of poached seal meat, lighting
our little iglu with a seal-oil lamp and passing the time away scrapping bits of fat off
our polar bear skins with our homemade ulu (knife)....
Okay, you got me. But it does sound pretty Resoluteish, doesn't it? Truth is, we enjoyed the comfort of our apartment with Bell ExpressVu Satellite and our choice of not one - but two - internet ISPs, good friends, and plenty of "liquid warmth". While 'it had its moments', Resolute was the inspiration for not only this passion, but me forgetting about life as a poor creative mind and instead, getting a real job as well. Getting my start with them in Resolute eventually lead to a transfer to the metropolis of Yellowknife, where I currently live and write this drivel.
