Category Archives: VanRamblings

Stories of a Life | Summer Travels to Nova Scotia, But No More

November 14, 2020Stories of a Life, Travel, VanRamblingsRaymond Tomlin

In the mid-1980s a friend of mine with whom I’d gone to school at Templeton Secondary on Vancouver’s east side, and someone with whom I’d worked in radio — his achievements in radio were far greater than mine — met a woman, fell in love, and in 1988 the two were married, in Nova Scotia, her home since the late 1970s, where she worked as a librarian.
Now, this woman had in the 1960s, while in her teens and early twenties, had a very successful career as a model, and on the advice of her financial advisor invested in property in Nova Scotia — which to this day remains undervalued — and specifically in the community where her parents visited each summer when she was a child, the east coast township of Annapolis Royal, a beautiful waterfront community nestled in the Annapolis Valley.
Both my friend and his new bride — who had moved to British Columbia with her new husband and taken on a job as a librarian in a rural, waterfront community just outside of Metro Vancouver — were people I spoke with regularly and visited often. We were close, and whenever they were in town, we would go for dinner at a comforting restaurant where the food was good, somewhere in the city of Vancouver. For seven years, the two of them were a regular fixture within my social circle, and good friends.
In early March of 1995, when I called over to their home one Wednesday evening, quite surprisingly my friend Corinne did not answer the phone — Donald answered the phone. “Where is Corinne?” I asked. “Oh, she’s at a library Board meeting,” he answered. And so it went, twice a week, every week through near the end of June — Corinne never available, at a meeting or out with friends, or a walk, in town, or otherwise unavailable. Until …
One day in late June, I got a call from Corinne; she was back in Nova Scotia, had returned there from her home in British Columbia, had filed for divorce from Donald, and was as lonely as lonely could be, she told me. “Raymond, come visit me in Annapolis Royal. I miss you, and I need to see you. Come stay with me this summer, and I promise that the two of us will have a good time together, and that you’ll just love Nova Scotia.”

And thus began, the first of 15 consecutive summer visits I made to Annapolis Royal, Nova Scotia and environs, a lovely community, where I met everyone in town, during the summer months becoming something of a fixture in the community, where people pleaded with me to move back east, where I was repeatedly offered the job as general manager of the King’s Theatre, where I could purchase a house on 10 acres for $40,000, where I helped run NDP campaigns on three occasions (and where I met a callow young fellow by the name of Stephen McNeil who, as I predicted when speaking with him, would be Premier of the province one day — a prediction, quite obviously, which came to pass), where I fell in love with the community and all the wonderful people I met over the years, recovering from the hurly burly of my west coast life, over the weeks I spent each summer in the tranquil community on the Annapolis River.

All was well in each of the summers, until 2010, when I travelled back east to Annapolis Royal to celebrate my 60th birthday. Corinne, a decided personality, had over the years become increasingly dissatisfied with her life, both in Annapolis Royal, and with life in general.
As the years passed, she made it clear that my visit was to be shorter, more truncated, no longer than 10 days, after which I must leave. On my birthday in 2010, which we celebrated at a wonderful waterfront restaurant, Corinne insisted I pay for the two of us, a bill which far exceeded $150 — which for me was a lot of money, when added to the now $1000 airfare, my stay in Halifax on the way to Annapolis Royal, and on the way back, and Corinne’s insistence that I pay for all expenses for the two of us during my stay in her home, which was strange given that Corinne owned two large, revenue-generating apartment buildings in town, as well as thriving storefront properties, and her own, nicely-situated waterfront home.
In the summer of 2010, with Stephen McNeil finally having fulfilled his commitment to bring high-speed internet to his rural Annapolis Royal constituency, I also helped Corinne establish a stable Wi-Fi connection, set up her new laptop computer, got her on the world wide web, and placed a couple of thousand mp3s of her favourite music — like me, she’s a big fan of progressive country music — onto her newly acquired computer.
All was right with the world, as four of the nights I was in Annapolis Royal, the two of us were invited out for dinner at the homes of various mutual friends, enjoyed an incredibly bountiful church dinner on the Friday nights, visiting at the farmer’s market on Wednesday & Saturday, where I picked up a handful of hand-sewn wash cloths and nautically-themed cotton coasters, as well as a beautiful and a small, lovingly hand-sewn quilt, paying only $10 for the latter — all of which items I enjoy to this day!

All was well until the Saturday evening, when Corinne and I repaired to the King’s Theatre, to attend a student concert of a choir, musicians, and individual singers hailing from Annapolis Royal, a beautiful night of music and song celebrated with the townspeople, and visitors from across the Maritimes and the U.S. northeast — and me, of course.
On that evening, Corinne was working the front of the house prior to the concert starting, supervising the volunteer staff, making sure tickets were taken, the concession was working well & efficiently, and persons taken to their seats in readiness for the concert that was about to begin. One of the volunteers was a 17-year-old young woman, recently graduated with first class honours from Annapolis Royal Secondary and enrolled for the fall session at Dalhousie University, as becoming as could be, all primly dressed (as Corinne insisted) in a black skirt with a hem no more than two inches above the knee, and a starched white blouse, hair neatly kept, and all freshly scrubbed and presentable, a picture of innocence and sophistication.
As it happens, I first met this young woman when she was just a toddler, when Corinne and I visited at her parent’s home, which we both did each of the 15 years I travelled back east. So, I had watched this young girl grow into a woman of substance and no little élan, the apple of her parent’s eye and I’m sure they thought, a tribute to their superior parenting skills — which is to say, they loved her, brought her up with the values of service to the community, teaching her to express kindness and consideration for all.
Now, I hadn’t noticed it, but Corinne did, and as she was standing next to me, called the young woman over to angrily express her disdain at the …

“… entirely inappropriate nose ring you are wearing, which I will simply not have. You know the dress code, and have failed to meet that dress code. In consequence, I am suspending your participation as a volunteer, sending you home immediately, with an instruction that you may not return until I have spoken with your parents, and ensured that you have removed that damnable ring from your nose.”

The above said in a bitterly critical voice designed to embarrass this young woman, who by the time Corinne finished was in tears, the front of her blouse soaked, her nose running (I offered her a freshly-pressed cotton handkerchief, which I always have on my person), shaking, inconsolable.
The young woman left the theatre, people now seated, the concert began.
During the concert, I got up from my seat to repair to the lobby, during which time I called the parents of the young woman, both to check on their daughter’s emotional state, and to gain an understanding as to their position on their daughter’s nose ring, as to whether they approved or not.
They told me that although they were not necessarily thrilled with the nose ring, they saw the ring as an acceptable form of rebellion, and respected their daughter’s body autonomy, that as long as she was not engaged in an activity that would bring her harm, the two of them were just fine with her choice, and nothing as inconsequential as a nose ring would interfere with their love for their daughter, or her love for them. That said, it being a small town, neither would speak with Corinne about “the incident.”
Later that evening as we prepared for our overnight slumber, with warming herbal tea in hand, I addressed “the incident”, doing so quietly and respectfully, that had occurred earlier that evening in respect of the young woman and the “inappropriate” nose ring, asking Corinne, perhaps, if there might have been a better venue than the front of a packed house to address her concerns with a young woman she’d known since birth, and who had been brought to tears resultant from Corinne’s “intervention” to protect the heritage of the King’s Theatre.
Corinne was having none of it …

“Julienne came to the theatre dressed inappropriately knowing full well what the terms and conditions that have been set by me respecting matters of dress, she ignored the guidelines respecting her presentation, a slap in the face to me, and to the King’s Theatre. I could care less as to whether she is brought to tears — she ignored the rules, and if she wants to feel sorry for herself by crying, that’s her business not mine.”

No more was said that evening, but that was not the end of the matter.
The next day, I told Corinne that I wished to be heard on the matter of the young woman, and what had occurred the previous evening.

“I feel that what occurred last evening and your interaction with Julienne, Corinne, was entirely inappropriate and uncalled for,” I said. “You have, and had, no right to interfere with the bodily autonomy of Julienne, particularly when the item of her dress that so offended you was a barely perceptible nose ring, a bit of rebellion her parents told me last evening of which they both approve. Whether or not Julienne — appropriately dressed in a black skirt and starched blouse, wearing appropriate footwear, and as presentable as could be, the apple of her parents’ eyes, and a young woman, as you well know, who is celebrated for her many contributions to this community — meets the stringent requirements of a dress code you have established, a set of regulations for volunteers that I would suggest to you have been made by you arbitrarily and, as I understand, unilaterally implemented, to speak to this young woman as you did in a crowded theatre, causing her embarrassment, and for her to break down in tears, causes my heart to break, and offends every notion I possess on how those in our lives, and others, should be treated.”

Corinne did not respond, but simply got up and left the room. Later that day she approached me and said, “I’d like you to leave, first thing tomorrow morning.” Which I did, neither of us conversing again.
Upon arriving back in Vancouver, I received a terse, pointed e-mail from Corinne, which read, “You are no longer welcome in my home. Should I never see you again, it will be too soon. Please stay away from Annapolis Royal; it is my home, not yours.”
And thus my summer forays to Nova Scotia came to a close — although, annually over the December holiday season, I do post to Corinne my favourite progressive country music albums of the year, with a video of a song accompanying why it is I find the country artist to be deserving of both her time and my time, and the music transporting.
In 10 years, Corinne has not responded.

Music Sundays | Sorrowfulness | Burt Bacharach & Elvis Costello

November 1, 2020Music, Pop Culture, VanRamblingsRaymond Tomlin

The perfectly matched, heartbreaking, heavenly collaboration between Elvis Costello and Burt Bacharach, Painted from Memory, the pop-music masterpiece, was released on the 29th of September 1998 — slightly old-fashioned, yet insistently clear and capable of flooding the heart with all the awful beauty of love’s highs and lows … mostly lows … “In the darkest place,” it all begins, “I know that is where you’ll find me” — remains to this day one of my favourite albums ever, one I go back to again and again.

The people we meet on the album who move through these 12 perfect pop songs aren’t teenagers tasting first-love tears.
They’re grownups who know what they’ve done to themselves, their hearts broken, who are now enveloped in a realm we’ve all visited from time to time, a dimension where time ticks away just a bit more slowly and the world passes by at a remove. They are displaced and disconnected, seen only in fine silver frames, distant cities or watching from afar. They live in empty houses, waiting for sleep to come to take them somewhere else, and all this they do to music meticulously crafted by two experts of the form.

Neither producer Burt Bacharach nor composer Elvis Costello is a stranger to collaboration, but together they are a singular pairing, as Costello brings discipline and edge to Bacharach’s lush melodic outpourings, while Bacharach returns the favour by setting Costello’s exacting progressions and taut wordplay in soundscapes that are both intricate and silky smooth.
Take, as a spectacular example, the gorgeous ballad What’s Her Name Today?, a Costellian pondering on the ruin brought about by those in pain that’s not so much backed by Bacharach’s purposeful grand piano as admonished — you’re a fool it declares, before sweeping up the whole affair into a whirlwind of strings and human wreckage.

Other times, they’re more sympathetic, deploying Bacharach’s famous mellow trumpet to harmonize with the vocals on the tricky tale of infidelity Toledo, or winking at the conceit of The Sweetest Punch by threading the tune with chimes, a lovely instrument you have to hit, with mallets.

In the song above, the horns say a little prayer, below … the bells chime.

The sum of this artistic one + one is more than strictly musical. By coming together when they did, each man underwent a kind of recalibration whereby the sheen of kitsch acquired by Bacharach’s body of work since his ’60s heyday was stripped away, and Costello, then in his mid-40s, shed the last lingering remnants of his image as an angry young man.
In turn, Painted from Memory itself became a bridge, connecting classic works of love and loss — think Frank Sinatra’s ninth studio release, 1955’s concept album, In the Wee Small Hours — to the wave of pop-jazz new schoolers (Norah Jones, Michael Bublé) that followed closely in its wake.

Costello and Bacharach know that opening yourself up to the sentimental side of life exposes you to its cruelties as well; it takes courage, so Painted from Memory concludes with a plea for fortitude and grace.
God Give Me Strength — which they wrote over the phone lines — is the first of the pair’s dual efforts and it remains one of the best, an achingly gorgeous last-stand waltz through the end stages of grief. “That song is sung out,” it concedes, “this bell is rung out.” Except that it isn’t, because there’s something in all of us, the part Painted from Memory renders so well, that will always wait for the bell to ring. That damned, beautiful bell.

Stories of a Life | 1983 | A Sad Political Story | Every Vote Counts

October 24, 2020BC Politics, Politics, Stories of a Life, VanRamblingsRaymond Tomlin

In 1983, while teaching in the Tri-Cities, I also sat as Education Chair on NDP MLA Norm Levi’s Coquitlam-Maillardville riding executive.

Now, I’d known Norm dating back to his days as Minister of Human Resources in Dave Barrett’s groundbreaking NDP administration, when he was the government’s liaison to the grassroots Tillicum and Fed Up co-operative movement where I was the Executive Director, a co-operative movement which not only initiated the distribution of organic and natural foods across the province, but fundamentally changed the eating habits of British Columbians, and was instrumental, as well, in establishing the first worker-run co-operative: provincial recycling initiatives, child care centres, organic orchard, vegetable and poultry farming communities, bakeries, car repair, furniture building, housing construction, and an import wholesaler.

By the time Dave Barrett called a snap election on Monday, November 3rd, 1975, Norm and I had already lost touch with another, when earlier in the year I had accepted a teaching job in the Interior, Cathy, our young son Jude, and I travelling north, where we bought our first home, settling in.

On Thursday, December 11th 1975, when the Barrett government was defeated by the right-wing Bill Bennett Social Credit party — when, earlier, the Socreds had made a commitment to B.C.’s Liberal & Conservative parties to join them in a coalition, offering their elected MLAs Cabinet positions in government — although Norm was re-elected as the Coquitlam-Maillardville NDP MLA, he was no longer in government, and could do little to promote the co-operative movement, as he’d happily done since 1972.

By the time 1983 rolled around, I had completed work on my Masters degree at Simon Fraser University, was sitting on the Coquitlam BCTF Executive, and was working as an English and Drama teacher in School District 43. And, of course, when Norm and I renewed our friendship, he asked me to sit on his constitutency executive as Education Chair.

All was well with the world when Premier Bill Bennett called a provincial election on Thursday, April 7th, 1983. Norm was a popular sitting MLA, as he had been since first being elected in 1968. The Socreds were running a low profile, virtually unknown car dealer by the name of John Parks.

Norm Levi, respected member of the British Columbia Legislature, 1968 thru 1983

The constituency and the provincial NDP immediately went into campaign mode, signing up more than 500 volunteers in Norm’s riding alone.

Money poured in, we had a first-rate, experienced campaign manager in Dawn Black, who would go on to run successfully as an NDP New Westminster federal candidate. Phone banks were set up, the campaign office was bustling, leaflets were printed and distributed by 400 volunteers, and burmashaves throughout the constituency became a fixture on the landscape through E-Day, some two months later, Thursday, May 5th, 1983.

My job on E-Day was to pick up voters for transport to their polling station, the operation efficient and finely-honed, the office buzzing with activity. Throughout the day, I delivered and returned home almost two dozen voters, who were thrilled to re-elect their beloved MLA, Norman Levi.

My final pickup of the day was an 86-year-old woman who lived in the Burquitlam area, with me arriving at her home shortly after 7pm. I went to knock on the door, helped her down the steps of her home and into my car, and off the two of us went to her polling station, gabbing to beat the band, both of us excited about election day and the opportunity to socialize and get to know new people. During our relatively short drive to the polling station, when I drove at a snail’s pace at my rider’s insistence, she gave me some shocking news: she told me that she’d thought about the matter, and as much as she liked and had voted for Norm Levi in the past, just that afternoon she had decided to cast her ballot for that “nice boy, John Parks.”

So, here I was with a Socred voter in my car, transporting her to the polling station so that she could cast her vote for Norm’s opposition. I talked with her about all of Norm’s fine traits, all that he had accomplished over the years, and how Norm was a much better choice for Coquitlam-Maillardville than that John Parks fella — but she was having none of, saying to me, “Are you telling me that I can’t vote for John Parks?”

No, I told her, you can vote for whoever you choose, but I know Norm Levi well, and know that he’ll make a better representative for Coquitlam-Maillardville residents than John Parks, who didn’t even live in the riding.

“Well, get moving,” she said to me, “time’s a wasting, and I want to cast my ballot for John Parks, and that’s all there is to it!”

Now, if I had my wits about me, and was more mature than I was at age 32, I would have taken her home rather than to the polling station, telling her that my job was to take NDP voters to the polls, not Socred voters, that she’d have to make her own way to the polls. But that’s not what I did.

Instead, I drove her to the polling station, and helped her into the polling station for her to cast her ballot. I waited through the time it took for her to vote, and drove her back home, with her full of smiles, and me with a frown on my face — then I headed to the polling station where I’d been assigned to work as a vote count, ballot box scrutineer.

When the final vote count was announced at 10:45pm that cool May 5th evening, Bill Bennett had scored a smashing victory, winning 35 seats to the NDP’s 22 seats, with just shy of 50% of the popular vote, to 44.94% for Dave Barrett’s third time defeated British Columbia New Democratic Party.

How did Norm Levi do in the 1983 British Columbia provincial election, running for re-election in his beloved Coquitlam-Maillardville riding?

John Michael Parks became the new Member of the Legislature for Coquitlam-Maillardville, where he went on to become Speaker of the House in Victoria. And what was Mr. Park’s margin of victory over Norm Levi?

One vote.

John Michael Parks won the riding by the single vote of the 86-year-old woman I had transported to her polling station earlier that evening. One vote had defeated Norm Levi, the incumbent, long-serving and well-respected Member of the Legislature for the provincial Coquitlam-Maillardville riding.

One vote.

So don’t go telling me that every vote doesn’t count — because, as may be seen in the “story” above, every ballot cast & every recorded vote counts.

Take it from someone who knows, much to my everlasting, persistent regret, heartfelt consternation, and ever sorrowful chagrin.

Stories of a Life + Music Sundays | Three Resonant Love Songs

October 18, 2020A & E, Media, Music, Pop Culture, Stories of a Life, VanRamblingsRaymond Tomlin

The first of the three love songs on VanRamblings today is sung by an American avant-garde musical group formed in 2003 by sisters Sierra Rose “Rosie” and Bianca Leilani “Coco” Casady, and may be heard on their 2004 album release, La Maison de Mon Rêve.
Having lead a nomadic life, in 2000 after residing in in New York City for two years, Sierra moved into a tiny apartment in the Montmartre district of Paris to pursue a career as an opera singer. Meanwhile, Bianca had moved to Brooklyn in 2002 to study linguistics, sociology, and visual arts. Neither sister had seen one another for a period of ten years.
In early 2003, Bianca made an impromptu visit to Paris to rejoin Sierra, and the two ended up spending months together creating music in Sierra’s bathroom which, according to them, was the most isolated room in the apartment and had the best acoustics, adopting a lo-fi, experimental approach to production, utilizing a distinct vocal style, traditional instruments, and various improvised instruments (like toys), recording with just one microphone and a broken pair of headphones.
By late 2003, the sisters had named themselves CocoRosie and created what would become their début album, La Maison de Mon Rêve, releasing the recording only to friends. However, word got out about the album, and by February 2004 CocoRosie was signed to the independent record label Touch and Go Records, and the album was released on March 9, 2004 to unexpected critical acclaim. The rest, as they say, is history.
The song Good Friday has meaning for me, as I sent it to Lori (who I’ve written about previously), expressing in the note I sent her that the song had particular resonance because it reminded me of her. After not having communicated with one another for almost a decade, posting the following song to Lori caused the two of us to, briefly, rekindle our relationship.

If 1988, the year I met Lori, was one of the great years of my life, the next great year in my life was 1995, and the summer of the gregarious 22-year-old Australian twins Julienne and Melissa, now all nicely married with great husbands, and two children apiece. That the three of us still communicate today I consider to be one of the great achievements of my life. I love them as much now as I did 25 years ago — both women (who I will write about someday, but employing pseudonyms) hold a special place in my heart.
1995 was also the year that my friend J.B. Shayne introduced me to the music of British singer-songwriter Kirsty McColl, whose 1989 album Kite became the soundtrack of my life that particularly warm and loving summer. I remember alighting from the #9 bus at Macdonald and West Broadway, as Julienne and Melissa were rounding the corner onto West Broadway, having just come from the Kitsilano library.
Spotting me, the two ran down the street towards me, jumping into my arms and wrapping themselves around me — the same thing happened later that summer, when I had just entered the west entrance of the Macdonald and Broadway Safeway, with Justine Davidson — then all of 15 years of age, and someone to whom I’d been close, and in whose life I had played a fatherly role for years — having entered from the east entrance, upon spotting me ran across the Safeway, jumping into my arms, wrapping herself around me, clearly happy to see me. There is no other time in my life when I felt more loved than was the case in the summer of 1995.

I was first introduced to the music of T. Rex (initially known as Tyrannosaurus Rex), the English rock band formed in 1967 by singer-songwriter and guitarist Marc Bolan, when working at LG-FM, by Bob Ness, one of the great all time radio announcers in Vancouver, and more than anyone else of my memory, the father of alternative music radio in Vancouver, when he brought the music of Marc Bolan to my attention.
By the early 1970s, I was a student up on the hill at Simon Fraser University, and arts and entertainment editor at the student newspaper, The Peak — where among my myriad endeavours, I was afforded the opportunity to review five albums a week, one of which was, in early 1971, T. Rex’s eponymous fifth album, and the first under the name T. Rex.
If you haven’t guessed, I am a romantic, always have been, always will be. For me, there is no greater joy than being in love — in which respect I have been very lucky, in platonic and other kinds of love (and even a marriage) with incredibly bright and empathetic women, who are responsible for all the best parts of who I am, and how I have brought myself to the world.
My first great love, of course (and the mother of my children) was Cathy Janie McLean, a striking 18-year-old blonde Amazon of a woman, possessed of a keen intelligence, and the woman more than any other who shaped me, in the early years loved me, and created the somewhat sophisticated wordsmith and bon vivant I’ve been for nigh on 50 years now.
T. Rex’s song Diamond Meadows was a song that was particularly resonant in Cathy’s and my life, a song we returned to for years, when I was at university, and later teaching in the Interior. For me, listening to Diamond Meadows reminds me of a time when I was truly loved, when everything was going well in my life, when I was surrounded by friends, politically and socially active, and a young man of promise and capable of much good.