Twin set

I'm trudging up the hill in the late afternoon, and am overtaken by two women. I'm barely registering them until I notice that one is clad in a "Canadian tuxedo": denim jacket and denim trousers, both, in this case, dark blue. 

 I haven't seen a Canadian tuxedo in ages, and then, only on men. I watch the women stride ahead and notice that they have matching hair, that straight chin-length bob - fresh from the hairdressers - which doesn't quite match their age. And they do appear to be of an age, anywhere from late fifties to early seventies. They also share height and build: medium and slim.  Both are wearing trainers, not identical, but the same type, though different colours.  The companion of the Canadian Tuxedo clad lady is wearing a jacket and trousers of a similar style, though not in denim.

I find myself wondering if they are sisters, and when I catch up with them at the light, discreetly glance sideways.  No, they don't look related.

As they briskly enter the crosswalk ahead of me, I remember pairs of girls in my high school, the ones who had evidently conferred by phone, either the previous evening, or in the morning before getting dressed.  They'd show up in outfits of the same style, with colours carefully chosen to go together.  I don't recall ever doing this with my friends, but then I was never known for my fashion sense.

Do those matching school chums continue to do this throughout their lives?  Is that what I was witnessing?  Do high school girls still do this today?  I'd set myself up by a secondary school to see, but I have neither the time, nor the inclination to seem creepy.

The truth of the matter

I'm working at the computer when I hear an unfamiliar familiar sound.

It's the strange dropping swoop of a Facebook Messenger notification.  Years ago, I read on a internet security blog that it's unwise to have a Facebook Messenger app, due to the fact that you have to allow it an alarming amount of access to your personal information.

This means I can only access Facebook Messenger from my computer or laptop.  It also means that if I'm being contacted this way, it's usually someone who doesn't know me well enough to have my email address or my phone number.

Glancing at the name, my heart sinks just a little.  It's someone from my high school, who only gets in touch when a) she's planning a high school reunion; or b) she's lost track of someone she really wants to talk to -- I have a reputation for knowing where people are. 

It's a bit of both.  I supply her with an address, and she politely expresses the hope I'll be able to come.  I am courteously noncommittal.

"I don't know if you know," she texts, "but Buck Rogan died."

I did, of course.  As I've mentioned, I know where people are.  Buck is, presumably, in heaven.  

I've cudgelled my brain, but I have no memories of him, although I remember him.  He was one of the jocks, and I don't recall his saying a word to me.  

That's okay.  His obituary has a reasonably long list on online tributes, as is usual with one who dies before his time.  Clearly those who mattered to him, and to whom he mattered, are grieving.

I've kept in touch with those who matter to me.  I trust I matter to them as well -- although I may be mistaken.

This is the reason I don't go to high school reunions anymore.  I don't tell my correspondent that, because it might sound as if I don't care.  I wish I didn't -- which is also why I won't be going.

Junior hierarchy

Earlier this week, I lay in bed, trying to drift off to sleep, disturbed by the coverage I'd seen of Christine Blasey Ford testifying against Brett Kavanaugh, thinking of the courage this takes, a woman speaking out against an influential man, and, as a result, being exposed to accusations, ridicule, and threats.

I wondered if I'd have the courage. I doubt it. I can remember incidents in my girlhood and early womanhood, none as egregious as that failed rape Dr Ford was talking about, but disturbing enough.

Then, unbidden, the incident of Sam the Soccer Ball floated into my consciousness. I was either fifteen, or about to turn fifteen, so roughly the same age as Christine Blasey was when she was attacked. (And yes, I believe she was attacked.)

Our junior high was small, and thus not as clearly "cliqued" as the enormous high schools of the United States, but there was a vague sort of hierarchy, based mostly on looks, grooming, and economic standing.

Near the top, you'd find someone like Dylan.

I wouldn't describe him as popular exactly, but he was athletic, intelligent, and musically adept. He lacked the clumsy, thoughtless cruelty of the average adolescent boy. His brand of unkindness was sly and calculated, usually conducted where there were no witnesses, or only those he wished to impress.

He also had the gift of charm and flattery - which he turned on and off like a tap. I had been on the receiving end of both the charm and the meanness, mostly the latter. Through the sting, I couldn't help but notice his skill.

Somewhere in the bottom layer of the hierarchy was Sam.

Sam was relatively new to the school, unlike Dylan and me, and like Dylan and me, was in the school band, as about a quarter of the students were -- it was a small school of about 450 students.

Within a very short time, Sam was completely isolated. Within our tiny school, word got around that he had made a pass at someone in the mostly-male trumpet section where Dylan, of course played one of the first positions. From then on, Sam was a pariah. To this day, I don't know if he was actually gay, but homophobia was a predominant feature of this early adolescent bunch: a mild aversion amongst the girls, and a visceral hatred amongst the boys - a cover for the abiding terror of being treated the way schoolgirls were, and are, treated daily. They didn't view it that way, naturally.

One morning in late winter or early spring, I was packing up my instrument at the close of band period. As a clarinet, I sat in the lower tiers of the band-room. The trumpets were higher up, in the centre, in front of the percussion section. The room was emptying out, but there were still a dozen or so stragglers, chatting and getting ready to go. Our teacher had left.

I heard a sudden racket, and looked up into a surreal scene taking place just above my eye level.

Dylan was kicking Sam like a soccer ball from one side of the room to the other. Sam was curled up and rolling like a hedgehog.

It took me several seconds to register what I was seeing. I was frozen in shock, not only by the violence, but by the fact that Dylan was doing something so violent and so out in the open, which was not his style at all. His attacks were usually verbal, and on the quiet.

Peering down through the dim corridor of the years, I'm not sure exactly what I said, but I remember shouting, almost involuntarily and certainly without thinking, something like: "Cut it out! What are you doing???"

And Dylan stopped. He glanced at me blankly, and, as far as I can recall, simply walked away. I don't even know what Sam did next, or even what I did next.

I have no recollection of triumph, just of disbelief.

Dylan became a doctor. I have no idea of what became of Sam.

Technicolour

Younger daughter has been repelled by the steady decomposition of a squirrel in the gutter near our house. I introduced her to this, by the man who's now chiefly famous for being Rufus Wainwright's dad. My Grade Eleven Biology teacher used it for his theme on a module on molds. Good times.

Hello, I must be going

I hurried up Vancouver Street on one of my last evenings of this year's Victoria visit. It was an achingly beautiful August evening, full of golden light and memories.  I was, after all, passing through my old neighbourhood.  When I last lived in it, my children were tiny.

I was on my way to the Blue Bridge Theatre's production of Animal Crackers: a) because Blue Bridge does pretty damn good theatre - many of the actors have impressive CVs - and b) because I've adored the Marx Brothers since I was seventeen.  Groucho, Harpo, Chico, and (sometimes) Zeppo helped me survive high school.

During my final nightmarish spring of secondary education, I was staying in the dorms at the University of Victoria for a brief, province-wide drama workshop.

Our teacher had summoned us to a late-night reading of the riot act about drugs and alcohol at the conference.  (This was rich; said teacher was a notorious party animal.)  I had decided that, having partaken of neither, I was too damn tired to sit through a hypocritical harangue after a day of workshops and performances.  I was one of the few without a room-mate, so I was drifting off to the soundtrack of Duck Soup, when someone came hammering on my door.

It was Arty, a diminutive redhead in my sister's grade, whose voice had not yet changed.

"What is it?" I called out crossly.
"Mr Carr says you gotta come to the meeting."
"I've gone to bed, Arty.  I don't drink."

Pause.  The Marx Brothers were warbling "All God's Children Got Guns".

Bang-bang-bang.
"Are you coming?"
"No, Arty."

Pause. Oh hidey-hidey-hidey-hidey-hidey-hidey-ho....

"Please?  He says you gotta...."
"F*#& off, Arty!"

People told me afterwards that Arty was seen forlornly drifting into the meeting, muttering:  ". . . and she told me to f*#& off. . . ."

(About ten years later, Arty was killed in a freak accident involving something like a wood chipper.  I used to know the details, but frankly, I've preferred not to think about it.  Poor Arty.)

I shook off the past and entered into the past offered by The Blue Bridge Theatre's production of Animal Crackers - a version of the 1920s where there was swing-dancing.  Odd.

As in common in these days of little funds for the arts, most of the actors doubled up on roles with the exception of those playing Groucho (RJ Peters) and Harpo (Britt Small).  Wes Borg, playing Chico, also appeared briefly as a bum.  Like Harpo, the ingenue male lead was played by a woman, presumably for her dancing skills.  But you know, it's not like anything in the Marx Brothers' universe made a helluva lotta sense to begin with.

The play featured the elements that Animal Crackers is known for:  "Hooray for Captain Spaulding" with "Hello, I Must Be Going"; the "strange interlude" sequence -- and several elements that aren't from Animal Crackers:  "Everybody Says I Love You", which featured in the Marx Brothers movie Horsefeathers and "Three Little Words", which didn't, but like the other ditties, was a Kalmer and Ruby composition.

During the first act, I was grateful to not be seated in the front row, as they became Groucho fodder.  However, I was seated alone in the second row (it was a preview night), and as the lights went down at the end of the intermission, and a romantic duet began, Groucho plopped into the seat next to me.
Oh gawd, I thought.
"He's not bad, is he?  Sounds just like Michael Bublé." (This was a running gag.)
I nodded agreeably and wished he would go away.

At this point, Chico came hawking popcorn down the aisle, and shot a bag at Groucho.  I noted that not a single kernel had spilt, and gingerly pulled one loose when Groucho obligingly held out the bag to me.  I ditched it after he loped back on to the stage.

The extravaganza ended with a dizzying pastiche of parodies from recent Broadway blockbusters -- after the first curtain call.  Groucho appeared at centre-stage and declared:  "One of the advantages of being dead for the last forty years is that I haven't had to see any of these!"

I wished, once again, that younger daughter could have seen this.  She would have loved the singing, the dancing, the costumes, and the physical humour.

I managed to catch the 10:30 Quadra and set off at a race-walk from Pandora.  This had been a golden fifteen-to-twenty-minute stroll at 6:30, but now Victoria had turned into a spooky ghost-town, no one on the streets but the homeless trying to sleep against shop-fronts, and an occasional dark figure that seemed to be trailing me by half a block.  I made it back through the shadows to Demeter's in ten minutes.

I am telling you, I must be going.

All my trials, Lord

One thing they don't tell you before you have kids: you will relive the school experience for as many times as you have kids - the embarrassment, the cliques, the bullying… and the homework.

Younger daughter is studying The Crucible this year, so I have to remind myself how it goes. It just so happens that the recent Old Vic production starring Richard Armitage has just become available for download on Digital Theatre.

It's long - almost three-and-a-half hours - so I've only watched the first half so far, but, my goodness, it's good! There's a sequence featuring the minister John Hale and the slave Tituba which is particularly memorable. No clip available of that, of course. Hale is played by Adrian Schiller, who looked familiar to me (well, most of the actors do, that's why they're playing the West End, they have the experience). It turns out Schiller was the creepy Uncle in "The Doctor's Wife", one of the better Matt Smith Doctor Who episodes. Anyway, Hale starts out as the epitome of reason and mercy and without losing that persona, soon has Tituba and the other young girls swearing that they have dabbled in witchcraft and naming names. It's stunning and disturbing.

The following clip shows the crucial moment in The Crucible, when Elizabeth Proctor, not knowing what her husband has told the judges, is called to testify about the real reason for the dismissal of their former servant Abigal Williams. The actors use a kind of northern English accent (Armitage describes it as Lancastrian/Colonial) which makes sense as American accents would not have emerged yet.


The real Abigail Williams was an eleven-year-old, but Arthur Miller's play was never meant to be historically accurate; it's a parable about the post-World-War-Two anti-Communism hysteria in the United States. A more accurate dramatization of the 1692 witch trials in Salem and the surrounding area is possibly the 1985 television mini-series Three Sovereigns for Sarah which still takes artistic license, but sticks a bit closer to actual events.

I'll finish watching The Crucible tomorrow, so I can devise a plan for helping the Resident Fan Boy steer younger daughter through her assignment. She'll accept help from him, but not from me, possibly because she thinks I resemble a witch these days.

Goin' somewhere?

I woke up this morning rather dreading the day -- I've actually been dreading this day for some time.

However, the afternoon ended with the Resident Fan Boy, younger daughter and I making the long return by bus in sunshine that just about gave warmth, having made some decisions for the coming year. Whether we've made the right decisions probably won't be revealed to us for some time. Months, maybe. Years, probably. Days, if we're really unlucky.

When I got home, there were pumpkin pies to be made for tomorrow's pre-March-Break potluck at younger daughter's school. Well, they'll be getting one pie; the other was for tonight's dessert, because it would be cruel to make pumpkin pie and deprive elder daughter. While they baked, I folded laundry and ran smack into a memory from my own last year of high school.

It was the Christmas talent show and the last number in the darkened gymnasium was performed by a couple of brothers who were in the drama club with me. I remember them as being delightful, open fellows with a stinker of an elder brother who had, thankfully, graduated the previous year. Strumming guitars with ease and energy, they sang a ditty I'd never heard before, about going to see a film about Gunga Din. There was no internet in those distant days, so it took a while before I found out it was a Bob Dylan song, although from the sound of things, the brothers had based their setting on the version by the Byrds.

The following cover sounds a lot like how I remember that grey December afternoon. It was, as far as I recall, my last happy memory of high school.

(Singers Glen Hansard and Markéta Irglová, are, of course, the former lovers whose story is told in the motion picture Once.)