Tag: friends

I Can’t Wake Up…5

…Just like Woodstock there was the requisite pond. There were already fans playing in the water, peeing in the water, shitting in the water. I decided to avoid the water. There were also tents, conveniently called pavilions scattered willy nilly about the grounds. Hippy entrepreneurs sticking it to the man by charging exorbitant prices for the basic necessities of living in a farmers field with twenty thousand of your closest friends. There were craft pavilions; classes on how to make tie dye pavilions; bong pavilions; know your grass pavilions and not the garden variety type either; the ever popular oxymoronic sounding pavilion on how to take acid safely. It was at one of these pavilions that I ran into Sandy, who was already stoned out of her mind. I think she recognized me as she came over to me and stood in front of me looking studiously at me and at me face. Studying every facet of my facial expressions, I could only imagine the contorted psychedelic images rummaging and racing through the dark and warped cornices of her mind as she inspected the blackheads on my cheeks. She smiled, then grinned, then grimaced, all of the time about five inches separating me from her bulging eyeballs with their dilated pupils.

“Hmmmm” was all she could muster in profound conversation.

I asked her if she brought her bodyguard with her, y’know, the guy with the sawed off shotgun.

“Hmmmm,” was all she could say. Still looking at my facial expressions. Head bobbing from side to side.

“Hmmmm” She lifted her fore finger, pointing it at my face, making imaginary circles in the space in front of my face from my forehead down to my chin.

“Hmmmm” then she giggled, started to laugh then in flash, stopped, grinned and ran off with one of her cohorts.

I turned to Timmy and said “Let’s get the hell out of here. There’s going to be trouble”

We left immediately. The hippy lifestyle just wasn’t for us.

That weekend was something of a turning point for Timmy and I. I don’t know why but just as our business was about to take hold Timmy turned weird on me. He began to stay up very late at night, which was a toxin to our particular line of work. It became increasingly difficult to wake him up in the morning. Night after night he would be up, later then later, sometimes staying up all night long.  I’d ask him where or what he could be doing at that time of night but all he could say to me was, “you know how it is.” I didn’t.

He would sleep in till noon, then two, then three in the afternoon. I couldn’t wake him up. And I was shit out of luck as he had the car and that car was central to our business. I tried and tried to get him out of this funk but to no avail. Finally, after about a month of this, I had had enough. I told him that if he didn’t turn this shit of his around that I would have to go back home. He just shrugged his shoulders, turned over and went back to sleep.

Saying goodbye to Mrs Redfern, Robert and Mr Johnston, I was gone the next day, taking the train home to my shit city of a city.

Timmy stayed on the wet coast for the next forty five years. He is currently retired, unmarried and still stays out all night long. Or so I am led to believe. I have barely spoken to him since. To this day I don’t really know what happened to cause him to act like this. Perhaps it was those tie dye shirts and skirts, or those hippy hippy shakes.

Sandy eventually returned home. Today she is somewhat of a recluse, suffering from various mental disorders. She never married. Perhaps it was the drugs or the drug counterculture that set her off. So sad!

Madness man!

I Can’t Wake Up…4

…A tie dye convention was suddenly before us. Young women in their tie dye ankle length skirts, gum boots, tits hangin out of their tie dye tees, smiling, waving, weaving and smokin, laughin at no one in particular. Bare chested, long haired men, dirty faces, filthy fingers and knarling nails quaffing booze, smokin joints, hauling ass – literally and figuratively.  It was a lice lover’s paradise. Dante himself would have been impressed but challenged to describe this scene. He must have had Strawberry Fields in mind when writing his Divine Comedy and its depictions of Heaven, Purgatory and Hell, especially hell. Strawberry Fields must have played an important part of his allegorical travels through hell.  Whatever, St John’s volunteers were sure to have a busy two days, and, Johnny on the spots, while well dispersed throughout the grounds, would be sorely lacking with an estimation of about twenty thousand visitors expected per day. Shit everywhere man! And lots of it! I made a mental note to get the hell out of here before darkness set in.

We made our way toward the large staged scaffold. It was impressive: large amps everywhere, lights strewn about the structural framework, drum sets, guitar racks, mics, black staging curtains and men and women scurrying about like ants on the stage itself. Organized commotion in disarray. It looked as if they knew they were well behind schedule. Timmy and I must have looked a sight standing there before the stage watching all of this unfold.  Here we were, two guys with relatively short hair, conservatively dressed, prepared for the inclement weather. We were square. We knew it. Pat Boone like. Completely out of place…man. We did take a gander at the musical playlist beside the stage. Never heard of any of these bands. Locals no doubt but it didn’t really matter as no one would be able to hear the music anyway. And just like Woodstock they would be too stoned…

I Can’t Wake Up…3

…Speaking of the hippy lifestyle, Woodstock had just occurred this very summer. August 15-18, 1969. It was all the buzz among the hippy counterculture, but even more so with music fans like Timmy and I. Not to be outdone by the East Coast, some copycat festivals began to spring up here on the wet coast, everywhere it seemed, every weekend, on some non descript farm in the farmland east of here.  It had to be on a farm you see. Such originality! Most were abject failures, but it provided hippy food for thought and something to talk about.  It must have been tiring for the hippies to talk about the alphabet all day long.  As it turned out that there was a music festival planned for a farmstead not too far from this coastal city.  I believe they were calling it “Strawberry Fields,” or something equally profound like that.  Timmy and I decided to check it out.

We drove out to the prospectus. And just like Woodstock it was automotive gridlock. We decide to park our car a few miles away and walk in. Turned out to be a good plan as many of the autos became bogged down in the mud and sludge. Yes it was raining, just like Woodstock.  There was a great deal of cussing, yelling, pushing and shoving going on among the various drivers and bikers, especially the bikers. It was automotive pandemonium, definitely a frightful, fitful, love-in man as the fists came out from every which way from Sunday. And this was only Saturday.

We skirted around the problems, found the main gate, paid our fee and walked in. And what a sight to behold. Utter chaos. The end of the world as we knew it. This must be what Armageddon is going to look like. A sparse, barren, rain soaked, mud caked, garbage strewn landscape. Passchendaele couldn’t have been worse. Probably around 10 thousand hippies all gathered together in one place. All smokin, all tokin, all jokin, all smilin with their coke-ins and love-ins.  Stoned out of their ever lovin minds. And the music hadn’t even started yet….

I Can’t Wake Up!

…With Scotty gone a new tenant appeared. He was young, brash and a few years older than Timmy and I. He was also a drug user and an abuser of alcohol. Consequently he was often sick and soiled himself many, many times along with the second floor hallway carpet and a great deal of the washroom itself.  He always missed his mark. For me it was getting a bit too much and would soon be time to leave.

What of Timmy and I? Well, our window cleaning business really took off. I could not believe how successful we became in a very short period of time. Perhaps it was because nobody like us had ever canvassed this neighbourhood up until now, given its propensity for rain and heights. Or perhaps other purveyors of our trade felt that there was really no point. When we began canvassing and cold calling potential clients they seemed to come out of the woodwork on our behalf.  Then again, perhaps there was something about these homes that was didn’t quite grasp.

Timmy was good with the gab so I left him to chat things up with potential clients, that being the housewives. When we won over a customer it was my job to look at the place and provide an estimate. Normally I was way under. Inexperience perhaps. On some occasions I estimated a job just by looking at the front of what appeared to be a one floor bungalow or a rancher only to find out later that the house went down three levels at the back. All glass with a cedar beam for separation at all levels. No wonder these people were so anxious for us to take on these jobs. Then again it wouldn’t have taken a rocket scientist to ascertain how these houses were built on the side of a mountain for heaven’s sake. I must admit there were many times where I took my life into my hands, hanging there on the top rung of the ladder, holding against all hope that the ladder would not give way. I operated like some circus performer, acrobat and contortionist all rolled up into one. Often I had to balance myself on the top rung, holding on for dear life on the one side while attempting to wash down, squeegee and dry each of the window frames with my free hand. How on earth I didn’t fall was beyond me. I survived. But my life was only worth about ten bucks!…

The Two Stooges…2

…Ed Sullivan dominated Sunday evening’s showcasing new musical talent, including the British Invasion that revolutionized the music industry. There was also Shindig, Dick Clark’s American Bandstand, Saturday Night Hockey, Wrestling…real wrestling, Wide World of Sports, Sonny and Cher, Smothers Brothers and Laugh-in, Beverly Hillbillies, Green Acres, Hee Haw and on and on it went and all covered off by just three national networks instead of the three hundred plus specialty channels that we have today with its paucity of talent, inventiveness, innovation and creativity. The sexual revolution was about to explode upon us in 1964 but damn it all anyway, at the tender age of 13, we were just a bit too young to appreciate what was going on or coming our way. The drug culture was also about to detonate like some psychedelic undulating, modulating explosive mind game but that only scared the bee-jee-zus out of us. No matter, the music was awesome and we spent many a Saturday afternoon at one of our houses, in the basement, or at the local restaurant, pool hall, plying what seemed to be an endless supply of nickels or dimes and quarters into that jukebox.

It was this sort of musical magic that got Timmy and I into a spot of trouble. One afternoon at the local mall, Timmy decided to lift a few albums that he had his eye on, placing them down the front of his pants. It wasn’t so much the square flattened bulge of his pants that gave him, us, away but his stiff legged robotic gait in getting the hell out of there. It was as if he had a large load in his pants. I am sure that they had us on their monitors as it came as no surprise to us that we were cornered by security on the way out. Timmy, the perp, and me, guilty by association.

We were charged and had to go to court. Timmy being Timmy had a brilliant idea. He didn’t let me in on his intent but before we came before the judge and prosecutor Timmy had his toothbrush ready to go, just in case. It was a standard brush but he attached a little bit of string to it with a small handle attached. It was kind of funny to see. One had to be there to see the humour in it. He was also ready with a retort if it came to that:

“So Mr Saunders” said the Judge “What do you have to say for yourself?

“Not much yer Honour”

“Given the evidence against you I do find you guilty and charge you with either 5 days detention or 50 dollars. What is your decision”

“Oh, that’s easy yer honour. I’ll take the fifty bucks: Nyuk, Nyuk, Nyuk”…