Don`t mess with these kids

Don`t mess with these kids a photo by Rob Hoey on Flickr.

In New York, where I used to live, they would use milk jugs as planters, and maybe an occasional beer can as an ashtray. But in Canada, it's the hockey stick that is used for things you'd think hockey sticks were not made to be used for. Take automotive repair--hockey sticks can be used to hold open the hood of the car, substitute for a chock for the tire (in Canada, they misspell it 'tyre,' which I know is misspelled because my Spell-Check tells me so), to keep the car from rolling when you jack it up using another hockey stick for the jack handle. But in the photo here of the "Tim Bits" or hockey kids who are sponsored by Tim Horton's Coffee, they use the hockey sticks as canes--to keep from falling as they skate. Now don't get me wrong, these kids probably skate better than me by a long shot, but in the game of hockey, where your opponents are trying to knock you onto your butt, the stick helps to keep your balance. And if you're just learning to skate, the stick is like a ski pole for a beginner and keeps you from falling. Next year I plan to buy a pair of used skates for the Rideau Canal and will most likely buy a hockey stick to pretend I'm practicing, when all along I'm just trying to stay alive, stayin' alive.

my gym: this photo is blogged

my gym: this photo is blogged a photo by Rob Hoey on Flickr.

Ahh, Brooklyn. Land of "fageddabowdit" and "are you tawkin' ta me?" Land of the definitive style of Americana and patriotism. Brooklyn is where you will find Coney Island, named by the Dutch for the multitude of rabbits that inhabited that spot of land near the Atlantic Ocean where the waves gently washed ashore used condoms from our friends in New Jersey. Ahh, Brooklyn, land of where I was born. Home of the free and the not so free lifestyles of those who went on to greater things--Barbara Streisand, Bobby Fisher, Tiny Tim, and me.
This photo is my gym that I belonged to as a Brooklynite, wanting a body that could only be hurt by kryptonite. But this gym is owned by a suckworthy guy who makes his living off of the innocent. No more will I beat a dead horse or say about the gym and how I was screwed, except that moving to Canada has given me enough time and distance to look at the matter with emotional distance and maturity. That f**k**g guy deserves to rot.
But enough about him and why he reminds me of pond scum. Let's instead reminisce with a walk down Memory Alleyway.
I moved to the neighborhood where this gym is located when I was 8 years old and the gym was actually a carpet factory. Across the street were clay tennis courts where I got all my balls, you should pardon the expression. To the right of the gym were trees on the outside of the fence separating the tennis courts from we "normal" non-tennis-playing-no-faggots-here Brooklynites, and in those trees I spent one afternoon refusing to go to school. I played "the hook" or hookey, as we say, (in India, it's called "bunking class"). Playing the hook was not a regular habit of mine, I was generally an obedient servant of my parents--garbage boy, paper-getter (we didn't have a dog), and generally nice kid. But just this once I played the hook because I hated my teacher so much, that I felt my failure to go to class was her failure to get me to go.
Of course, the rest, as they say, is history--"his story" that is, and I'd like to believe that growing up in Brooklyn was a phenomenal learning experience.
Moving to Canada, on the other hand, is a phenomenal hockey experience for which I am now a fan and will be until the day I'm pushing up snowballs. 'Nuff said.

Dear Dad

Dear Dad,

I haven't thought about you in a long time. When I came home that day from the Marine Corps, after that shocking phone call, I believed that you would be in my thoughts daily, for the rest of my life, but time has a way of having us get on with our lives and we forget those who meant so much to us. I'm sorry, Dad.

I just got out of the shower and after shaving, I put on an aftershave that was given to me by Mom after Joe died--it was his, but he never got to use it. I know he was your friend and once you were gone, he was Mom's companion and a friend to me, but he was not like the father you were--nobody could be. But Joe also died--he's buried with his sister in Pine Lawn--and I still have that bottle of Sierra, which I rarely use, but I put it on. But instead of thinking of Joe, I thought of you.

I miss you a lot.  I miss the drives we shared when you came to pick me up from our summers "in the country."  We drove back to the city because you had to take care of the apartment and you wanted me to come along for the ride.  I remember the coffee and crumb buns we had together, and even though I was only around six or seven, you taught me to drink coffee like a man, and you taught me about respect because you respected me. My most vivid memory of us  in the car was when we drove along the Belt Parkway on a windy day and I said jokingly, "Look at the lumpy water," and you laughed so hard at my joke that I burst with pride inside. And I will never forget the time upstate, when we drove around the grounds of the summer cabins and the passenger door flew open (because I probably played with it) and the look of panic on your face as you shouted, "Just hang on--I'll stop the car slowly."  And I did hang on for my life, and you did stop the car.

You were my hero. 

I joined the Marines to make you proud of me and I remember how proud you were at my graduation.  My platoon did "Dress Right" and there you were, taking a million photos of me marching along. Mom was there too, but I remember you best.

I was destroyed inside when I got that phone call in Jacksonville that you died suddenly.  No warning. I was in a fog, dazed and miserable, and I spent the entire night at the airport until I finally got a flight home.

Well, the good news is that I'm getting old and I suspect it will not be very long before I will be in the same place as you.  (People have no understanding of how life is so short.) The bad news is that I suspect as well that this place is simply a place we call "eternity" and it simply means that I, like you, will just be part of the universe that we were always united with--forever. That's where you are, that's where Mom is, and Ellen, and Joe, and Crazy Jean, (she was the first death I remember in my childhood, but I don't remember her at all), and everyone who came before us.  Everyone. Isn't that amazing just by itself?

I can't believe how long it is since I saw you last. You don't even know Thasneem or Shabana. You would be blown away with how much the world has changed, for better and for worse, and that I am living in Canada. Can you imagine that--Canada.

Wouldn't it be wonderful if you could actually read this? Better still, wouldn't it be great if I could see you again? Imagine that--I'm older than you lived to be.

I love you, Dad.

Rob

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Canadians Defy the Laws of Physics

Global Warming: this photo is blogged
Originally uploaded by Rob Hoey

As we left the house this morning my wife, Thasneem, said to me, "This ice is freezing." I couldn't hold back my wise-ass response to her observation: "If it wasn't, it wouldn't be ice." But what she was really saying was how cold it was this morning with a temperature around -19 C degrees.

One of the things I've realized since moving to Canada is how Canadians defy the laws of physics. When it's freezing out, Canadians are just getting cooled off. When it's around -10 C degrees, they put on their coat to go out for long periods of time, but still prefer throwing out the garbage in their tee shirt. When it's -20 C degrees, they admit that it's starting to get cold and those two little round blue things hanging between that guy's legs aren't Christmas tree ornaments. No wonder Canucks kick butt in winter sports and call members in the Polar Bear Club a bunch of pussies. Canadians are impervious to the cold.

Well, maybe not all of them. There are still reports of poor people freezing to death in the streets here in Canada, so I should point that out that if you live in a town where they accept donations of overcoats, you might want to think of getting rid of that ugly monstrosity that has been sitting in your closet for the past five years never to be worn again because it's out of style and as ugly as a butt pimple.

Now getting back to the subject of cold--I plan to buy a pair of hockey skates to go along the canal. Thasneem plans to do the same, though she has never skated--the ice melts too quickly in India, and just as you're all laced up, it's gone.

Hope you are having a wonderful winter. If you aren't, you better do something abooot it, eh.

eyes

eyes
Originally uploaded by Rob Hoey

Today was Super Sunday and there was an Ottawa 67s game too. I'm all sported out after going to the hockey game and then watching the Big Game on TV. My son-in-law was my partner in crime today and we had a gentleman`s bet on the game--no money just chosing a side to cheer for--I chose Green Bay and won the bet. Half time with Black Eyed Peas was interesting in that it reminded me not of peas, but of a black hole--sucking up everything in its vicinity. I felt that if Frankie and I were on that stage singing with electric breasts and lightbulb butts, our voices and actions would not have been any less entertaining than what was on that stage. I mean it--the half time entertainment totally sucked. I don`t understand how people get paid such incredible sums of money to do what was done there in Dallas. Peas be up in you.

Well, maybe next year it`ll be more entertaining--maybe we`ll have a wardrobe disaster that`ll make the news.

Big TV Chick--this photo is blogged

Big TV Chick--this photo is blogged
Originally uploaded by Rob Hoey

Nothing seems real anymore. The media has taken everything we've known about humanity and buffed it up to look good, even though we know that reality doesn't even come close to what we're seeing on the tube. But here in Canada they don't do that sort of thing--at least not all of the time. The people are real--they have Canadian accents and say a boat when they mean about. They don't look like Hollywood glamor queens--they look like that chick sitting across from you on the bus eating a Big Mac and washing it down with a slurpee. They are totally real and I like that a boat Canada.

Please don't get the impression I have anything negative to say about full-size people; I don't and I happen to be in that category myself. I'm just saying that they choose people to represent the news here based on their brain size, not their waist size, and I like it that way.

I don't know the lady in this photo but she seems bright and knew what was new, or news, that is.

Anyway, I had to get this off my chest. And speaking of chests . . . never mind.

Next time I want to talk about winter photography from the comfort of your couch.