Good to have you on board Todd.
Sometimes it's hard to remember the times we once existed in, but the bonds of friendship are forged in those recesses, and friendship, deep and genuine, is the result.
Duane and Todd and I go back. Way back. All the way to Dauphin, and of all the people I knew and grew up with from that small town, only Duane and Todd and I remained constant, true, and together over the years. The rest of my friends, primarily, are derived from the people I met through them in Winnipeg.
Yes, I too recall meeting Todd, who is undoubtedly Duane's oldest friend. I had never met a wild Irishman before, and none ever so wild since. I won't tell tales out of school . . . just yet. In Dauphin we were pretty much a set: Duane, Todd, Dale. We had one thing in common: none of us really fit in with the "norm" in that community. It's hard to explain, but you would have known it had you been there. As I said before, Duane preferred coffee, cigarettes, and conversation above all else, but we did stretch those perameters on occasion. I'll still recall one long overnight ramble which ended with the three of us in Vermillion Park at dawn trying to open a bottle of Mateus that Todd had lifted from his mother's care. Without a corkscrew, the solution was to jam the cork down the neck of the bottle (no easy task) until it floated freely in with the wine, at which point we could enjoy some nice warm bubbly liquor. Nothing's tasted quite so fine since, but then, I haven't been drinking at dawn for about 35 years now, give or take.
More than anything else, I think, our common bond was music: Led Zeppelin, Supertramp, Bach, Alice Cooper, Kiss, The Beatles, The Doors, Beethoven, Yes, Pink Floyd, The Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band, Elton John (okay, for me, anyway), the Jesus Christ Superstar soundtrack, and just about anything that crossed our paths. We were willing to listen to, and share, just about anything. And it was always an experience to listen to something at Todd's, particularly when he hooked up these gigantic Yamaha speakers to his system so that we were bombarded with sound.
Maybe we were just crazy back then -- I don't know. We did a lot of stuff that I'd go back and do in a minute, and some other stuff that I shake my head and wonder at today, but if I had to do it all over again, yes, I'd happily make the same mistakes. Somehow I survived and it made me a better person. Of course, I did have two good people to help me stay in check.
It's funny: I mused earlier on whether or not I would still be living in Dauphin if I hadn't known Duane. I wonder if it wasn't similar for Todd. I moved to Winnipeg, it didn't take, I retreated and tried again a year later, moving in to share an apartment (the Gaspe) with Todd, who had relocated and had secured a job with Metropol Security at the time. What if, instead of Winnipeg, Duane had moved to Montreal, or Halifax, New York or Berlin? What if, indeed?
Would Duane have had that much influence? Possibly. After all, I wasn't spending most weekends in Winnipeg, on a four hour Grey Hound commute, to take in the "big city." I wouldn't have made the trip if my friends weren't there and first Duane, then Todd, made the move, and eventually, so did I.
And how much influence did Duane have? Well, let me put it this way, although he couldn't get me to read War and Peace, he changed how I drank coffee: when I first met him I took it with cream and sugar, at which he was appropriately disgusted, and had me soon convinced that the only proper way to drink coffee was black. And so it's been ever since. In fact, I wonder how many of his friends he influenced in that regard, especially after I discovered that Robyn had switched to black coffee also at Duane's insistence. In fact, we could probably subtitle this web page as "The Black Coffee Society."
Of course, we influenced him back. He was pretty much the leader of our little group, but we still managed to hold our own, and bring our own interests and philosophies into our circle to share and debate and consider.
It was a good time. I thought it would always last: why look to the future when this is forever? Of course, it wasn't, isn't, and can't be. I know I'm always going to miss Duane, miss our friendship, and wonder why the hell he had to be in such a hurry to go. I'll always think, too, of the words of the great haiku poet, Basho, who once wrote this imperfect rhyme:
The world of dew
is the world of dew
and yet . . . and yet . . .
Later, Judas.
Sometimes it's hard to remember the times we once existed in, but the bonds of friendship are forged in those recesses, and friendship, deep and genuine, is the result.
Duane and Todd and I go back. Way back. All the way to Dauphin, and of all the people I knew and grew up with from that small town, only Duane and Todd and I remained constant, true, and together over the years. The rest of my friends, primarily, are derived from the people I met through them in Winnipeg.
Yes, I too recall meeting Todd, who is undoubtedly Duane's oldest friend. I had never met a wild Irishman before, and none ever so wild since. I won't tell tales out of school . . . just yet. In Dauphin we were pretty much a set: Duane, Todd, Dale. We had one thing in common: none of us really fit in with the "norm" in that community. It's hard to explain, but you would have known it had you been there. As I said before, Duane preferred coffee, cigarettes, and conversation above all else, but we did stretch those perameters on occasion. I'll still recall one long overnight ramble which ended with the three of us in Vermillion Park at dawn trying to open a bottle of Mateus that Todd had lifted from his mother's care. Without a corkscrew, the solution was to jam the cork down the neck of the bottle (no easy task) until it floated freely in with the wine, at which point we could enjoy some nice warm bubbly liquor. Nothing's tasted quite so fine since, but then, I haven't been drinking at dawn for about 35 years now, give or take.
More than anything else, I think, our common bond was music: Led Zeppelin, Supertramp, Bach, Alice Cooper, Kiss, The Beatles, The Doors, Beethoven, Yes, Pink Floyd, The Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band, Elton John (okay, for me, anyway), the Jesus Christ Superstar soundtrack, and just about anything that crossed our paths. We were willing to listen to, and share, just about anything. And it was always an experience to listen to something at Todd's, particularly when he hooked up these gigantic Yamaha speakers to his system so that we were bombarded with sound.
Maybe we were just crazy back then -- I don't know. We did a lot of stuff that I'd go back and do in a minute, and some other stuff that I shake my head and wonder at today, but if I had to do it all over again, yes, I'd happily make the same mistakes. Somehow I survived and it made me a better person. Of course, I did have two good people to help me stay in check.
It's funny: I mused earlier on whether or not I would still be living in Dauphin if I hadn't known Duane. I wonder if it wasn't similar for Todd. I moved to Winnipeg, it didn't take, I retreated and tried again a year later, moving in to share an apartment (the Gaspe) with Todd, who had relocated and had secured a job with Metropol Security at the time. What if, instead of Winnipeg, Duane had moved to Montreal, or Halifax, New York or Berlin? What if, indeed?
Would Duane have had that much influence? Possibly. After all, I wasn't spending most weekends in Winnipeg, on a four hour Grey Hound commute, to take in the "big city." I wouldn't have made the trip if my friends weren't there and first Duane, then Todd, made the move, and eventually, so did I.
And how much influence did Duane have? Well, let me put it this way, although he couldn't get me to read War and Peace, he changed how I drank coffee: when I first met him I took it with cream and sugar, at which he was appropriately disgusted, and had me soon convinced that the only proper way to drink coffee was black. And so it's been ever since. In fact, I wonder how many of his friends he influenced in that regard, especially after I discovered that Robyn had switched to black coffee also at Duane's insistence. In fact, we could probably subtitle this web page as "The Black Coffee Society."
Of course, we influenced him back. He was pretty much the leader of our little group, but we still managed to hold our own, and bring our own interests and philosophies into our circle to share and debate and consider.
It was a good time. I thought it would always last: why look to the future when this is forever? Of course, it wasn't, isn't, and can't be. I know I'm always going to miss Duane, miss our friendship, and wonder why the hell he had to be in such a hurry to go. I'll always think, too, of the words of the great haiku poet, Basho, who once wrote this imperfect rhyme:
The world of dew
is the world of dew
and yet . . . and yet . . .
Later, Judas.
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