Category Archives: Jude and Megan

Stories of a Life | Redux | Film | A Central Organizing Force In Tomlin Family Life

January 13, 2024Cinema, fixin to die rag, Jude and Megan, Pop Culture, Stories of a Life Redux, VanRamblingscinema, family, jude, megan, stories of a life, stories of a life redux, vancouver international film festival, vanramblingsRaymond Tomlin

Film has always been a central, organizing force in my relationship with both my daughter, Megan, and my son, Jude.

Our collective love of the cinema, attending film festivals and discussing what we saw following the various screenings we attended (usually at the Fresgo Inn on Davie, which was alive no matter the time of night or early morning) was, over the years, a central feature of our relationship — the relationship between son and daughter, and dad — that allowed us to delve deep into discussions of the meaning of life, and our collective responsibility to work towards creating a fairer and more just world for everyone.

Heart and deep caring for humanity was at the centre of our love of film, and at the centre of our loving familial relationship, informing the choices we made about how we would conduct ourselves in the world, and the projects and causes to which we would devote our time and our energies.

In the 1980s, when Cathy and I were going through a rancorous divorce, film brought us together.

When in Seattle — which we visited frequently, always staying on the non-smoking 33rd floor of the Weston twin towers — in 1984, we took in a screening of Garry Marshall’s The Flamingo Kid — the story of a working class boy (Matt Dillon) who takes a summer job at a beach resort and learns valuable life lessons.

Megan was seven years of age, and Jude 9 — both were uncertain about the efficacy of our trip south (without their mother’s permission — we called her upon arriving at our hotel), but the screening alleviated and, finally, repaired any of their concerns, and all went well that weekend. Fortuitously, too, upon our return, the divorce proceedings inexplicably moved forward into a more reasonable and thoughtful direction, reflective of all our collective concerns.

Whenever there was “trouble” in our relationship — generated, most usually, by their mother — film served to salve the wounds of dysfunction, allowing us to find our collective centre while healing the wounds that rent all of our lives during a decade-long, million dollar custody dispute.

Film spoke to us, made us better, took us out of the drudgery of our too often protean daily and, more often, troubled lives, and engaged us while putting our lives into a broader and more human scale perspective. Never once was there a film that we saw together when we didn’t come out of the screening feeling more whole, and more at one with ourselves and the world.

Such was true, at the screenings of Glenn Close and John Malkovich’s Dangerous Liaisons over the holiday period in 1988, or months later at the screening of Kevin Costner’s Field of Dreams, which we took in at the Oakridge Theatre, a favourite and comforting cinema haunt of ours.

When Megan wanted some “alone time” with me, it almost always revolved around watching a film together, although as Megan matured (and as her love for film matured), Megan made it plain that she was present in the theatre to watch the film, not “share time” with me, choosing always to sit in a whole other section of the theatre (it drove her crazy in the times that we were sitting together in a theatre that I would check in occasionally with her, looking at her to determine how she felt about the film — talking during a film was an unforgivable sin, so that was never going to happen).

Some days, Megan would call and say, “Dad, take me to a film.” And because I was a film critic at the time, and had a pass to attend at any cinema in North America, off the two of us would traipse to see Kathy Bates’ Fried Green Tomatoes (1991) or Johnny Depp’s Benny & Joon (1993) at the old 12-theatre complex downstairs in the Royal Centre mall.

Other times, post dinner and after Megan had finished her homework, I’d say to Megan out of the blue, “I’m heading out to attend a preview screening of a film. Do you want to come along with me?” Megan would ponder my question for a moment before asking, “Which film?”

In 1991, one very long film preview screening we attended was Kevin Costner’s directorial début, Dances With Wolves, about which we knew nothing other than it starred one of our favourite actors, and off the two of us went.

At screening’s end (Megan and I actually sat together at this particular screening, which took place in the huge Granville 7 Cinema 7, cuz the preview theatre screening room was just packed), Megan turned to me, and said, “Dad, I knew this was going to be a great film.” And it was. “And, you know what else? It’s going to pick up a raft of Oscars this year, too, and be considered one of the, if not the, best films of the year.”

Jude and Megan also attended film festival screenings with me.

Almost inevitably, Vancouver International Film Festival founder, and co-owner of Festival Cinemas Leonard Schein was present with his wife Barbara, and at a screening’s end, Megan would make her way over to wherever Leonard and Barbara were sitting to enquire of him whether or not he intended to book the film into either the Varsity, Park or Starlight.

Following screenings of Neil Jordan’s 1992 putative multiple Oscar award winner, The Crying Game or, that same year, Baz Luhrmann’s Strictly Ballroom, Megan marched over to Leonard, and asked him boldfacedly, “Well, what did you think?”

When Leonard indicated that he thought the films were not quite his cup of tea, both films would have difficulty finding an audience, and it was unlikely he’d be booking either film into one of his cinemas, Megan lit into Leonard with a passion and fury that I had rarely observed as coming from her, saying, “Are you out of your mind? Strictly Ballroom (or, The Crying Game) is a wonderful film, and just the sort of film that not only should you book, but that you MUST book — these are both groundbreaking films that will only serve to reinforce your reputation as an arts cinema impresario, but will also make you a tonne of money, and we all know that you’re all about the money. Either you book these films into The Varsity, or believe me when I tell you that there’ll be hell to pay when you see me next.”

And with that, Megan marched off.

At the 1990 Vancouver International Film Festival, I’d caught a screening of Whit Stillman’s directorial début, Metropolitan, in preview, and knew that this would be a film that Megan would love (and be astounded by, at the revelation of one of the characters, mid-film). I made arrangements to pick Megan up from University Hill Secondary at 3pm sharp on the day of the festival screening, we drove downtown, found a parking spot, and rushed over to The Studio Cinema on Granville to catch the 4pm screening of Metropolitan — which as I had predicted, Megan loved.

In early December 1993, on a particularly chilly and overcast day, at 10am in Cinema 2 at the Granville 7 theatre complex, I caught a screening of Jonathan Demme’s groundbreaking new film, Philadelphia — a film about which I knew little, and a film that knocked me out (along with the handful of film critics in attendance — the Vancouver Sun’s Marke Andrews and the late Michael Walsh, long the lead film critic at The Province, as well as the late Lee Bacchus, soon to join Michael Walsh as a film critic at The Province) all of us at the theatre for the screening.

Emerging from the theatre just after noon, making my way onto Granville, I looked for the nearest telephone in order that I might call Megan at school.

I called the office at University Hill Secondary, and asked them to find Megan and bring her to the phone. When Megan asked, “Dad, is everything all right?”, I told her about the film I had just seen, and that when it opened in January, I wanted to take her and Jude to a screening at the Granville 7. We talked about the film for a few minutes, with her saying about 10 minutes in, “I’m holding up the school phone, and calls coming in. Let’s get together after school. Come and pick me up, and we can continue our conversation. I’ll see you then, Dad. I love you.”

There are gifts we give our children. From my parents, it was what would emerge as a lifelong love for country music. For Jude and Megan, my gift was a love of music, a love of the ballet, and an abiding love for film.

Stories of a Life | 1974 | Cathy & Raymond’s European Vacation

August 28, 2021Jude and Megan, Stories of a Life, Video & DVDRaymond Tomlin

In the summer of 1974, Cathy and I travelled to Europe for a three-month European summer vacation, BritRail and Eurail passes in hand, this was going to be a summer vacation to keep in our memory for always.

And so it proved to be …

On another day, in another post evoking memories of our cross-continental European sabbatical, I’ll relate more stories of what occurred that summer.

Only 10 days prior to the event I am about to relate, Cathy and I had arrived in Lisbon, Portugal, alighting from a cruise liner we’d boarded in Southampton, England (passage was only 5£s, much cheaper than now).

After a couple of wonderful days in Lisbon, Cathy and I embarked on the first part of our hitchhiking sojourn throughout every portion of Portugal we could get to, finally traveling along the Algarve before arriving in the south of the country, ready to board a train to Spain. Unfortunately, I developed some intestinal disorder or other, requiring rest and fluids. Once Cathy could see that I was going to be fine, she left the confines of our little pensão to allow me to recover in peace, returning with stories of her having spent a wonderful day at the beach with an enthusiastic retinue of young Portuguese men, who had paid attention to and flirted with her throughout the day. Cathy was in paradisiacal heaven; me, not so much.

Still, I was feeling better, almost recovered from my intestinal malady, and the two of us made a decision to be on our way the next morning.

To say that I was in a bad mood when I got onto the train is to understate the matter. On the way to the station, who should we run into but the very group of amorous men Cathy had spent the previous day with, all of whom were beside themselves that this braless blonde goddess of a woman was leaving their country, as they beseeched her to “Stay, please stay.” Alas, no luck for them; this was my wife, and we were going to be on our way.

Still suffering from the vestiges of both an irritable case of jealousy and a now worsening intestinal disorder, I was in a foul mood once we got onto the train, and as we pulled away from the station, my very loud and ill-tempered mood related in English, those sitting around us thinking that I must be some homem louco, and not wishing in any manner to engage.

A few minutes into my decorous rant, a young woman walked up to me, and asked in the boldest terms possible …

“Do you kiss your mother with that mouth?

“Huh,” I asked?

“Do you kiss your mother with that mouth? That’s the filthiest mouth I’ve ever heard. You’ve got to teach me how to swear!”

At which point, she sat down across from me, her lithe African American dancer companion moving past me to sit next to her. “Susan. My name is Susan. This is my friend, Danelle,” she said, pointing in the direction of Danelle. “We’re from New York. We go to school there. Columbia. I’m in English Lit. Danelle’s taking dance — not hard to tell, huh? You two traveling through Europe, are you?” Susan all but shouted. “I come from a large Jewish family. You? We’re traveling through Europe together.”
And thus began a beautiful friendship. Turns out that Susan could swear much better than I could; she needed no instruction from me. Turns out, too, that she had my number, and for all the weeks we traveled together through Europe, Susan had not one kind word for me — she set about to make my life hell, and I loved every minute of it. Susan became the sister I wished I’d had, profane, self-confident, phenomenally bright and opinionated, her acute dissection of me done lovingly and with care, to this day one of the best and most loving relationships I’ve ever had.

Little known fact about me: I love being called out by bright, emotionally healthy, socially-skilled and whole women.

The summer of 1974, when Cathy became pregnant with Jude, on the right above.

Without the women in my life, Cathy or Megan, my daughter — when Cathy and I separated — Lori, Justine, Alison, Patricia, Julienne or Melissa, each of whom loved me, love me still, and made me a better person, the best parts of me directly attributable to these lovely women, to whom I am so grateful for caring enough about me to make me a better person.

Now onto the raison d’être of this first installment of Stories of a Life.

Once Susan and I had settled down — there was an immediate connection between Susan and I, which Cathy took as the beginnings of an affair the two of us would have (as if I would sleep with my sister — Danelle, on the other hand, well … perhaps a story for another day, but nothing really happened, other than the two of us becoming close, different from Susan).

J. D. Salinger's Nine Stories, an anthology of short stories published in April 1953

Danelle saw a ragged copy of J.D. Salinger’s Nine Stories peeking out of Cathy’s backpack. “Okay,” she said. “In rounds, let’s each one of us give the title of one of the Salinger short stories,” which we proceeded to do. Cathy was just now reading Salinger, while I’d read the book while we were still in England, about three weeks earlier.

Cathy started first, For Esmé — with Love and Squalor. Danelle, Teddy. Susan, showing off, came up with A Perfect Day for Bananafish, telling us all, “That story was first published in the January 31, 1948 edition of The New Yorker.” Show off! I was up next, and came up with Uncle Wiggily in Connecticut. Phew — just barely came up with that one! Thank goodness.
Onto the second round: Cathy, Down at the Dinghy; Danelle, Pretty Mouth and Green My Eyes; Susan, showing off again, De Daumier-Smith’s Blue Period, “turned down by The New Yorker in late 1951, and published by the British Information World Review, early in 1952.” Me? Struggling yet again, but subject to a momentary epiphany, I blurted out, Just Before the War with the Eskimos. There we were, eight stories down and one to go.

But do you think any one of us could come up with the title to the 9th tale in Salinger’s 1953 anthology of short stories? Nope. We thought about it, and thought about it — and nothing, nada, zero, zilch. We racked our brains, and we simply couldn’t come up with the title of the 9th short story.

We sat there, hushed. For the first time in about half an hour, there was silence between us, only the voices of children on the train, and the clickety-clack of the tracks as the train relentlessly headed towards Madrid.

We couldn’t look at one another. We were, as a group, downcast, looking up occasionally at the passing scenery, only furtively glancing at one another, only periodically and with reservation, as Cathy held onto my arm, putting hers in mine, Danelle looking up, she too wishing for human contact.

Finally, Susan looked up at me, looked directly at me, her eyes steely and hard yet … how do I say it? … full of love and confidence in me, that I somehow would be the one to rescue us from the irresolvable dilemma in which we found ourselves. Beseechingly, Susan’s stare did not abate …

“The Laughing Man,” I said, “The Laughing Man! The 9th story in Salinger’s anthology is …” and before I could say the words, I was smothered in kisses, Cathy to my left, Susan having placed herself in my lap, kissing my cheeks, my lips, my forehead, and when she found herself unable to catch her breath, Danelle carrying on where Susan had left off, more tender than Susan, loving and appreciative, Cathy now holding me tight, love all around us. A moment that will live in me always, a gift of the landscape of my life.

Christmas | A Guide to Spending Christmas Alone | Comfort & Joy

December 23, 2020Diversions, Food & Health, Jude and Megan, Stories of a Life, Vancouver, VanRamblingsalone, christmas, denny's, turkey dinner, vessiRaymond Tomlin

Many of us spend our lives surrounded by people. On the 25th of December, we can embrace the quiet and enjoy Christmas undisturbed.

There can be so much pressure around Christmas and other holidays — pressure to celebrate, pressure to socialize, pressure to follow traditions, pressure to eat too much and drink yourself to excess. Ultimately, there is pressure to be happy. And that’s an awful lot of pressure to lay on anyone — especially as we know that Christmas isn’t an easy time for everyone.

The purpose of today’s VanRamblings column is to help you come to terms with what will be for all of us an unusually quiet, and near — if not actual, in many cases — solitary Christmas & holiday season, following Dr. Bonnie Henry’s plea that we hunker down alone during Christmas season 2020.

‘Tis the season for attending parties galore (yes, Zoom celebrations count, too!), decking your halls — and, of course, your Christmas tree — with festive decorations, checking out all the magical light displays, and binge-watching classic holiday movies. Not to mention spending Christmas Day (and Eve!) listening to holiday songs on repeat, partaking in time-honoured traditions, and doing it all — ideally — while wearing your pyjamas.

So it’s no surprise that the prospect of spending Christmas alone — whether for the first time or the twentieth time — can feel, well, not always so merry and bright.

But here’s the thing: You’re not alone. The reality is that plenty of people spend their holidays solo. Some people have demanding work schedules that make it difficult to travel, while others might not have the money for expensive round-trip tickets, and others simply want to spend Christmas alone. That’s true in a normal year — but perhaps even more so in 2020, when many of us will be celebrating Christmas without friends or family due to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic and social distancing guidelines.

And while, yes, you’ll probably miss your mom’s legendary bread pudding, there are plenty of things you might be happy to skip, like faking your surprise (and excitement) when Aunt Sue gives you yet another gormless polyester tie, sitting through the same political debates, and having to get dressed up just to eat at your own dining room table, to name a few.

Whether by choice or circumstance, there is plenty to do on Christmas Day that you can enjoy doing alone, from catching up on the acclaimed and award-worthy Netflix or Amazon Prime TV shows you’ve heard so much about, to indulging in some much-needed self-care — like going for a walk in the neighbourhood, where you’re bound to run into friends — to starting a new tradition, whatever that may be that will provide you solace.

You don’t have to stand by and have a blue Christmas.

Which is exactly why VanRamblings has rounded up 9 simple ways to spend Christmas solo, all of which will bring joy to your world.

1. Let’s start with the obvious. Dive into a book.

Picking up a book (whether it’s a thriller, that book written by a friend of yours, or that political book you became aware of thanks to another friend), can help you escape into an entirely different reality, and one that you don’t usually have time to explore. Didn’t plan ahead? Download a reading app. iPhones and iPads have a built-in reading app, allowing you to buy books from Apple Books. Amazon, which started out as a company marketing books, has a huge library of downloadable books you can read on your Kindle App. Imagine, there you are snuggled up in bed, toasty warm, a warming beverage by your night stand and maybe a snack, as well, ready to read that book you’ve been meaning to get to. Joy indescribable!

2. Cook a feast, or have one delivered.

A friend was asking the other day, “Where could I order a great turkey dinner, and have it delivered?” The answer, in Vancouver, to that question offers you near limitless opportunities.

In 2020, all of the Denny’s Restaurant locations are offering a traditional turkey dinner for four, for only $59.99. Tender carved turkey breast, savoury stuffing, garlic red-skinned mashed potatoes, turkey gravy, cranberry sauce and your choice of broccoli or sweet petite corn. In this case, they’d like you to pick up the dinner, allowing you to reheat the dinners when you arrive home. You could have Uber or a taxi deliver it.

In 2020, Denny's is offering Christmas diiner for four, delivered, for only $59.99

Click on the graphic above to order your Denny’s turkey dinner for 4.

Holiday hours may apply so you’ll want to check your Denny’s location to confirm hours of operation. Orders can be taking over the phone. The offer is available from December 22nd through 28th, valid as take-out only. The dinner is served family style. Re-heat at home.

Denny’s a little too déclassé for you? Hey, there are alternatives out there.

You’ll want to read Miss 604 for more information on Holiday Meal Kits.
Steffani Cameron, who recently completed a 4-year worldwide adventure that she chronicled at FullNomad.com, for Christmas 2020 has written a column suggesting …

Homer Street Café and Bar has a three course dinner for two for $85 ($42.50 pp). This classic turkey dinner starts with butternut squash velouté and ends with seasonal shortbread and molasses cookies. The turkey dinner is traditional with mashed spuds, stuffing, roasted sprouts, honey-glazed carrots, and country-style giblet gravy.

The other restaurants Ms. Cameron suggests are, well let’s say, somewhat more dear, like Take out dinners from Forage, that will set you back $375.
The good folks at The Daily Hive also have a number of suggestions.

As for VanRamblings, we’ll cook something simple, like a roast turkey breast in our Instant Pot, which we’ve done previously to good effect.
With dinner, we’ll serve an old family recipe for dressing (which we’ll place into a hot oven), candied parsnips and carrots, brussel sprouts, mashed turnips, mashed potatoes (both with gravy, which we’ll also stream over the turkey), a roasted yam, and lots of cranberry sauce. We’ll enjoy a fine wine with dinner, and for dessert treat ourselves to pumpkin pie, ice cream, and some chocolate treats from Purdy’s Chocolates, and shortbread cookies.

3. Watch a movie at home, or a Netflix / Amazon series.
In the evening, we’ll watch one soon-to-be-nominated / award-winning film — like Beanpole or Never Rarely Sometimes Always, and maybe catch an episode of The Crown, on Netflix, or one of the films in Steve McQueen’s Small Axe series, on Amazon Prime, like Lovers Rock or Mangrove.

Before bed, we’ll prepare an artisan loaf of bread, for baking the next morning. Why? So, on Boxing Day, we can make the best turkey sandwich in the world, with thick slices of fresh-baked bread, stuffed with turkey, dressing, lettuce, cranberry sauce, and the veggies of our choice. Yum!

VanRamblings’ remaining suggestions to make this a Merry Christmas …

4. Test out a new hot chocolate recipe.

5. Go for a walk in the neighbourhood, during the day & in the evening. When you’re out for your walk, make use of the empty streets and take photographs of the day; in the evening photograph holiday light displays.

6. Enjoy a bath in the evening, with candles lit, and quiet music playing in the background, of all of your favourite songs on Spotify, or on iTunes.

7. Connect with others virtually. If you’re spending the season alone, try connecting with loved ones, or friends, virtually. It might not be the same as face-to-face interaction, but it can certainly help to ease the pangs of loneliness. There are lots of ways to talk to folks online, including with others who may be spending Christmas alone.

Photograph taken just off Locarno Beach, the “middle beach” along Spanish Banks, in Vancouver. Photo credit: Laura Stannard.

8. Go for a drive. The other day, VanRamblings friend, Laura Stannard, went for a drive, stopping near Locarno Beach, along Spanish Banks. Is there anything more revitalizing than a calming drive alone along the beach, and on the near deserted roads of the city, all the while lost in your own thoughts, and when you get home, bliss. A perfect alone Christmas.

9. Treat yourself to a gift, or two or three you can buy online.

VanRamblings’ new marine blue 100% waterproof Vessi sneakers. Made locally.

Don’t forget to do something nice for yourself. Get yourself that gift online that you’ve been hankering for. VanRamblings has been very bad this holiday season: we bought ourselves a new iPhone 12 Pro Max ($328, plus $20 a month), which takes great photographs; we bought a new iPad Mini, traded in our old iPad Mini, and sold some tech equipment, and pretty much came out ahead. And, we treated ourselves to our fourth pair of Vessi sneakers, made locally, the only 100% waterproof shoe in the world, comfy as all get out — with great arch and heel support, it’s like walking on air — and, you can order the waterproof sneakers online.

Yes, it’s true, it can feel strange waking up alone on Christmas Day with no pressing reason to get out of bed, the hours about to stretch out in front of you. Where are the usual text messages and telephone call interruptions?

Loneliness is never too far away and this is especially true when, in the lead-up to Christmas Day, we’ve been bombarded with images of families packed around dining tables and scenes of children opening presents around a tree. But being alone at Christmas doesn’t necessarily have to be a lonely experience. Here’s a motto for a solo Christmas Day: being alone and being lonely are not the same thing. Honest, it’s true. Think about it.

When you’re on your own, you can celebrate Christmas however you decide, without having to cater to the traditions or routines of other people. (And you don’t have to feel guilty about buying yourself presents, either).

As much as we’d all love to spend time with friends and family, sometimes it just isn’t possible, and with coronavirus restrictions in place many of us will be unable to see our loved ones over the festive period.

Having total control over what you do during the Christmas season can mean a stress-free time for each of us. The holiday season should be a time of year for you to enjoy, a time for reflection and fond remembrance, as you traipse through your days leisurely, and at a pleasurable pace.

In the midst of our current, unusual pandemic holiday season, it’s easy to get caught up in thinking about all the things you ‘should’ be doing. Take the pressure off — you’re already doing really well. Pace yourself, and do things that bring you joy. Above all, be kind — most of all to yourself.

Stories of a Life | Raymond & Cathy Marry 50 Years Ago Today

December 19, 2020Jude and Megan, Stories of a Life, VanRamblingsRaymond Tomlin

Cathy Janie McLean and Raymond Neil Tomlin were married at Pilgrim United Church in North Edmonton, the church Cathy had attended with her family since moving to Edmonton to begin high school, on a near frozen Edmonton Saturday, December 19th, 1970 afternoon, at 1:30 p.m.
Outside the sun shone, the weather a nippy but not unseasonable -35°. There were several in attendance who expressed their dismay that the sun was streaming into the church during the ceremony, something which I never quite understood. For me, it was like being blessed by God.
The marriage occurred almost a year-to-the-day since I had first met a bedraggled dirty-blonde, long-haired Cathy, very much a hippie, huddling with her friend and University of Alberta roommate, Joy, who were at the Royal Towers Hotel in New Westminster, as we waited for the Greyhound bus to transport us into Vancouver. Long story short, Cathy and I, and Joy and my friend Charles, hung out over the next few days, prior to Cathy and Joy returning to Edmonton. In the spring of 1970, I hitchhiked out to Edmonton, without any prior notice to Cathy of my intention to do so, and stayed with Cathy for a week, when we made love for the first time.
Cathy travelled out to Vancouver with her mother that summer in 1970, and rather than return home with her mother, Cathy remained in Vancouver. By mid-August the two of us were living together. Four months later, on Saturday, December 19th, 1970 the two of us were married.

The best man at my wedding was Bren Traff. Here’s a very brief, 6-second clip of Bren recorded in 1967, as he was starting off his CKLG 20-20 newscast. Later Bren would take over weekend CKLG-AM mornings, and later still, with almost every other deejay in town, move to a renewed CFUN — which had dropped its money-losing CKVN, Vancouver’s Voice of News format, returning to a tried-and-true rock ‘n roll format in the 1970s. Bren had been my best friend from 1966, right through until February 1972, which is a story to be told on VanRamblings another day.

In addition, another friend of mine, Hal Weaver — who, at the time, was the morning rock jock at CKVN — asked if he could be a co-best man at the wedding; I asked Cathy if that was alright with her, and she said it was fine. At some point, I’ll write about the last show, on CJOR from midnight to 6 a.m. Hal performed, a show he called Sunday Morning Coming Down, flat out the best radio programme in all of Vancouver radio history.
Hal Weaver is considered by many to have been one of the best, straight ahead Canadian-born rock jocks — a title he shares with others, including Daryl B. and Terry David Mulligan. Hal had a dynamic personality and voice to match. In 1968, J. Robert Wood hired him at CHUM Toronto, where he stayed for two years before moving to Vancouver’s CKVN in 1970. Hal died of throat cancer at the age of 28 in December, 1971, in Surrey, B.C. At the time Hal asked to be a co-best man, he’d already been diagnosed.

Cathy mother’s Myrtle insisted that Cathy stay at her home, just down the street from the church, in the days leading up to the wedding, while Hal, Bren and I stayed at a nearby hotel. The only time Cathy and I saw one another in the week leading up to our wedding, was when we met with the church pastor to talk about our vows, and our commitment to one another. Most of those meetings with the pastor had Cathy and I arguing with one another — if I recall correctly, the arguments were a consequence of an utter lack of maturity (not to mention, quite a bit of insecurity) on my part.
Cathy also insisted on changing the vows to read, “As long as we both shall love“, from “As long as we both shall live,” a change the pastor opposed, but Cathy dug in her heals on the issue, and of course got her way. That particular changing of the vows should have been the first hint I recognized that this was a marriage not to last for the long term — but I was so head over heels in love with Cathy that the thought never occurred to me.
[A digression. I would like to present photos of our wedding at this juncture in today’s story, but I have no photographs of the wedding in my possession — when we divided up our belongings in the early 1980s, Cathy took possession of the wedding photos, more to please her mother than for any other reason … my children tell me she still has the wedding album]
Nonetheless, Cathy and I were married, spending our wedding night at a fancy downtown Edmonton hotel, a gift from her mother (along with a brand new car she’d bought the two of us — recently, I’ve written about my daughter being a little too bourgeoise for my tastes; that well-practiced bougie aspect of how Megan presents herself to the world, and lives her life, comes directly from her mother & grandmother, the latter a Southam).
As you can see in the photo atop today’s column, I was pretty much smitten with Cathy (I think the only other person I know who looks at his wife as I do in the photo above is Seth Klein, when he looks at his wife, Christine Boyle). Once at the hotel, Cathy and I did what we usually did — we got stoned, which was a major feature of our life together during my university years in the early 1970s, along with a very active sex life.
Together, the two of us watched a Peter Sellers movie (although he had only a small part), The Wrong Box, on TV, snuggling with one another on the bed. About half an hour into watching the show, and nicely buzzed, Cathy retreated to the washroom, emerging in a blue, diaphanous and very short silk negligee — which, as you might imagine, did not remain a part of her dress for very long. We woke up the next morning very tired, indeed.
The marriage was a tempestuous one, not troubled exactly, but demanding at times, and overall for the first seven years, a great deal of fun, filled with love, betrayal, travel, an immense amount of sex (five times a day, every day for a decade, sometimes more), and on my part, a great deal of learning on how to be a productive and influential person in this world, as for all the years we were married, Cathy dressed me (“This is what you’re wearing today.”), edited my essays and other writing, and transformed me from an east side slum dwelling kid devoid of social skills into a presentable, and sometimes erudite young man. No Cathy, no Raymond Tomlin, at least not the Raymond Tomlin you have all come to know.