As I settled back into bed, my senses took stock of my surroundings. I heard Betty stirring peacefully in her sleep beside me. My eyes flicked over the dim shape of CoCo, who was also resting quietly, unafraid and unworried. I then looked up at the ceiling and sighed contentedly, finally at peace. As I drifted off to sleep myself, I couldn’t help but think back a year, to when my life had been different, very different indeed.
One of the largest youth movements in the world is the Scouting movement. It is truly international in scope and casting a massive shadow on pop culture, i.e., being mentioned in the theme music to the classic TV show “Car 54” as well as coming up in figures of speech that we use on a daily basis. ( “He’s a good scout!”) Of course, like every human endeavour, it can be subverted by those who seek power. In Germany in 1937, the Scouts were outlawed and every Aryan boy was expected to join “The Hitler Jugend”, a Nazi youth movement which eventually was used to form a Waffen SS Panzer division which fought fiercely in Normandy after D Day.
This week I am going to write about some of the encounters I had while playing over by the Leacock Home. Having shared my column with 3 Orillia Facebook groups, I was pleased with the positive feedback. I appreciated the “great column” remarks a) but also the comments about reawakening long forgotten memories. Especially nice was reading the reactions of old friends. It was also interesting to read of at least one “dodgy character” whom I didn’t run into. (Maybe those people are cyclical in nature.)
An old friend of mine presaged the colder temperatures that Toronto experienced a couple of weekends ago. I was at Lois’, and when getting up, winced when I put my weight on my right foot. Lois asked what was wrong, and I explained that I had “rolled my ankle” playing basketball 1). Her curiosity aroused, she asked when that had occurred, as in 16 years, she’s seen me hold beer cans and ballpoint pens, but never basketballs.
This week’s column will cover a bumper crop of “music from the ‘shoe”, as I attended two shows there over the course of the last week.
On November 21st, I went to the Horseshoe Tavern at the invitation of Jennifer Hall to catch an evening featuring Marlon Chaplin, Rebelle and The Commoners. I have had the pleasure of seeing The Commoners several times, and I had heard good things about Marlon Chaplin, so I leapt at the chance to attend this show. I knew that I would not be disappointed.
While my main interest in music is “indie music”, I also like some mainstream music (even I had a copy of “Zeppelin II”), and have attended various concerts which apparently qualify me to say that. I do not pretend to be in the “Sharon Vernon triple figure concert attendance superfan category”, although the most recent “Trews” show she went to eerily included “Fortunate Losers” on the bill, a band which has been mentioned in my column before.
Bullseye Records of Canada
Segarini: Don't Believe a Word I Say 