Tag: youth

The Two Stooges…4

…When I returned home from my first west coast sojourn I was quite vocal about my experiences regaling all who would listen about the majestic awesomeness of the mountains and the Pacific Ocean. I never did tell them about the greyness and soul wrenching loneliness that came over my entire psyche out there like some wet mouldy blanket. It wouldn’t have played very well in a macho sense to say I was really homesick. Yet, by the time spring came along Timmy and I thought about ditching everything we had and heading west to seek our fame and fortune. It never seemed to dawn on me or us that geography was not a determinant for personal success and glory. Going west was just an excuse for us to delay the inevitability of personal responsibility and commitments – growing up. At that age and during those heady days of drug induced comas and out worldly consciousness it seemed like a good plan.

It was a Sunday afternoon. Timmy was over at my place when we decided to go, on the spot. Timmy had a 1965 Galaxy 500 at his disposal, a very large family car with a very big trunk. Enough to hold 4 or 5 spare balding tires, which we felt we would need given that all of the tires on that car were bald. We had sufficient funds for gas, food and smokes. No need for accommodation as our plan was to drive continuously until we reached the coastal city. Hare brained scheme I know but that is how immature dudes like us thought in those days.

I immediately went in to tell my parents that I was off again to the coast, only this time with Timmy. They were non-plussed about this as I think that by now they had just about given up on me and my irresponsible ways.

“What about your job” they asked

“I quit”

So off we went. Of course to hide our fears and anxiety we joked about the whole thing thinking and jesting that the area where we lived was just too boring and flat. We had to find the mountains. So we did.

We made it out there early Wednesday morning, after about 56 hours of driving, taking turns at the wheel while the other slept in the back seat. Lucky for us there were no mishaps. Even our tires held up. The plan now was to find some 24 hour diner and wait it out until the city came to life later in the day.

It was raining… of course it was….

The Two Stooges…3

…Of course it didn’t come to that. Being juvenile in mind and in body both of us were placed on probation for six months with a stern warning. It worked as it was extremely embarrassing for us, especially me, given that the Morrison name was fairly recognizable in the hallowed halls of justice in this shit hole of a city. My Grandfather Morrison was a cop, his son-in-law was a cop and every cop of Scottish, Irish descent in this Orange shit city knew about this case. The Gaelic, Celtic grapevine was faster than today’s Internet. Like Minority Report, they all knew about me and this particular indiscretion before I did or before it even happened. I was doomed for in those days having any sort of record, misdemeanour or felony, was a fate worse than death as manual labour was about all one could hope to acquire in the employment world if one had a record such as this. As it turned out the son-in-law cop was very high up there on the cop scale so unbeknownst to me my name was expunged of any record. Whew! That would come in handy later.

Timmy always had a lot of money. Wads of it. His mother had him and his other siblings modelling for the various catalogues and magazines that were popular with the locals. He was paid very well for these showings. In fact his mother preferred these modelling outings to his schoolwork. He missed a lot of school and barely got by in Elementary School but in High School he had to repeat Grade 9 and 10 a plethora of times. Nevertheless, his financial largesse to us was his way into friendship, or so it seemed to him, as he played on this financial pecuniary card to fraternize with his so called favourite buds or eviscerate the feelings of those of us that he thought unworthy of his attention. In this way I felt sorry for him.

My mother was empathetic when it came to Timmy. He would show up at our door in the winter with the top part of his shoes missing, toes open to the elements, or wearing a thin summer jacket when temperatures were well below zero. It was obvious that he was neglected but at the time this never occurred to me. He was fun to be with, crazy in his outlook on just about everything and most of all he had money to burn! And, he loved the Stooges.

Timmy, Jimmymum, O’Grunts and I became inseparable in those drug induced summers of love days of the 60s. While everyone else it seemed had lost their collective minds to sex drugs and rock-n-roll we just carried on, squarely, boringly normal. We did form a band at one time with visions of rock n roll glory, had a few gigs, then disbanded as Jimmymum’s car was his real guitar, O’Grunts became somewhat of a druggie; a hipster in his Nehru jackets and exceptionally wide bell bottomed slacks. Bruce, our lead guitarist, left for India to discover himself. I told him that all he had to do was look in the mirror. Timmy and I just hung out…

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”…

The Two Stooges

Hey Moe, hey Larry, nyuk,nyuk,nyuk.

I first met Timmy in Grade Six. I didn’t really hang out with him but just knew of him. And the fact that he was an alter boy, so I used to see him carrying on up there on the alter during some of the Sunday services I went to. Sitting there on a side bar of pews by the main alter joking, giggling, snickering with the other alter boys making fun of the priests and members of the congregation. He was a bit of a jester in that regard.

We sort of became good friends, not close though, in Grade Eight, just as the Beatles made their debut in North America, February 1964. We both loved their music but also the other bands of the so called British Invasion: Rolling Stones, Animals, the Kinks, The Who, Dave Clark Five, Moody Blues, Gerry and the Pacemakers, Herman’s Hermits, well not really Herman’s Hermits. Of course there were other American Bands that were also making an impact around that time such as the perennial favourite Beach Boys, Sam and Dave, Vanilla Fudge, Sam Cooke, Jefferson Airplane, Bob Dylan, Three Dog Night. Supremes. Temptations, Ugly Ducklings. Unfortunately Elvis was caught up in all of those crappy musicals at the time and wouldn’t really make a statement until his triumphant come back concert of 1968. And as the 60s progressed the music became even more awesomely progressive with the likes of David Bowie, Pink Floyd, the Doors, Procol Harem, The Moody Blues, Jimi Hendrix, Marvin Gaye and CCR. Musically, it was a great time to be alive.

Timmy and I had a great deal in common in that regard. We both liked the same stuff, were big fans of the Three Stooges and along with O’Grunts and Jimmy-mum carried on like Curly, Larry, Moe and Shemp. It was pure immaturity, sprinkled with a bit of idiocy that kept us sane in those days of great transformative culture in music, fashion, film and morality. From the romantic, wholesome and family fantasy world of Pat Boone, Perry Como, Doris Day, Rock Hudson, Andy Williams, Roy Rogers and Dale Evans, Laurence Welk, World of Disney to the likes of Alice Cooper, Janis Joplin, Big Brother and the Holding Company, Joe Cocker, The Faces, Cream, Led Zeppelin and on and on it went. Movies such as 2001: A Space Odyssey, Rosemary’s Baby, Easy Rider, The Great Escape, Pit and the Pendulum, The Dirty Dozen, Cat Ballou, Bonny and Clyde, Wild Bunch, Lolita, and The Graduate were radically challenging censorship and violence while pushing the boundaries of the established mores of the day. TV may have been minimalist in its content and selection in those days but it was incredibly entertaining expanding the limits of creativity and freedom of expression.

Finality

Finally graduated from Catholic elementary school. Did seven years. Seems like a jail term in some sort of perverse way.  It would have been eight but I skipped a year, grade three to grade five: Ms Upper to Ms Keller.  Come to think of it now, in all of those years, I only had one male elementary school teacher. Mr Bowner. He was great: very theatrical and entertaining.  Why was that? So many female teachers and so few male?  Is it because youngsters in those early years still require the nurturing attention that can only be provided by the female sex? Feminists today would kill me for even suggesting such a thing. I don’t really know.  Even in todays so called enlightenment school boards are trying to deal with the matrification of our Elementary School system, that boys are getting a raw deal.  So they say! That they are becoming whusses, feminized, losing their religion. So they say!  I don’t really think this is the case as this was the norm when I was in Elementary School some 55 years ago. If one were to check I do believe that one would find that women dominated the profession at this level for over a hundred years, two hundred maybe. I even remember reading about the explorer David Thompson and his schooling by the Grey Nuns of London back in the 1770s.  Why are we so concerned about it today? Don’t know, don’t care, I don’t have an opinion on this.  It seems to have worked…