An Irishman abroad

Canadian Road Trip - Part 5(b)

CANADIAN ROAD TRIP, NOVEMBER 2002
PART FIVE (c)

CANADIAN ROAD TRIP, NOVEMBER 2002
PART FIVE (b)

...Squinty was still looking at me and moved over to talk to Dee-Ann. I sat surveying the bar sipping my drink thinking that I would perhaps head home for an early-ish night. At this point Squinty came over to me.
- Hey it’s the fighting Irish!
- I wouldn’t know about that, I replied wondering what was going to happen next.

He put his arm around me. His aroma was a heady mix of sweat, booze and fags. (Now I know how Elke feels when I drag my sorry ass home in the small hours of the morning!).
- So what brings you here? He enquired of me. I then proceeded to explain to him the series of events that had led to me sitting in Rosie Magoo’s bar in Cornwall, Ontario approaching 01:00 on a Saturday morning listening to some third rate C&W band droning on and on.
- So whaddya think of Cornwall?
- I think it’s bloody cold but the people are friendly enough
- That’s a helluva accent you have there – we don’t get many Irish accents around here. Which is a shame – I like the Irish! Hell – I’m even half Irish myself!
At this point I’m sure I visibly relaxed. This was going better than I had hoped.
- Whaddya think of this girl here? He asked putting his arm around Dee-Anne. Her face screwed up in disgust
- I think she’s very friendly. Sue and her have made me feel very welcome.
- Cut the crap! D’ya wanna f**k her?
Well – I don’t mind saying it, Dear Reader, but I was a little bit taken aback, but before I could manage a reply – Dee-Anne had already taken it upon herself to elbow Squinty in the ribs and told him where to go!

I apologised to Dee-Anne and decided that I was not going to hang around for much longer.

But time has a way of passing and before I knew it was closing time. In the meantime I talked to whoever spoke to me and when no one did I sipped at my drink. I had been pestered a few times by Squinty and I have to admit that I felt less comfortable as I had done when I cracked the joke on stage the night before. Oh how I longed for the safe haven of karaoke!!
Squinty did pester me a few more times but it’s easy enough to play these situations without resorting to or inciting violence. And anyway, I couldn’t help but think that if something was to kick off, the management and doorman would always take the local’s side, so I did what I do best – blend in and not antagonise anyone.
So, for a second night running, I left Rosie’s thinking that perhaps I shouldn’t go back there the following evening. But you know me, Dear Reader, never one to shirk the experience of life, I was to find myself back in dear old Rosie’s less than 24 hours later, for my final visit before returning to the relative serenity of my hotel, just north of Boston, MA.

For the second evening of my stay I found myself sneaking into my aunt’s apartment trying not to make too much noise, so that she would sleep uninterrupted. Something that my practice of sneaking back to my better half after ‘staying for the one’ in the Dubliner had left me in good position to do. After all – practice makes perfect!

I fell into bed at about 02:30 and started to read (the same page and a half as I had read the previous night) before I fell into a deep sleep

***

- Jonathan – are you going for breakfast?, aunt Daphne cheerfully enquired from outside the bedroom door
- What time is it, I less than cheerfully asked
- 08:50!

08:50???!!!
Dear Reader – I’m sure you are aware by now that I am not one of these people that can just bounce out of bed and greet the morning with a cheerful tip of the hat and a merry 'Top of the morning to ya, world – what de ye have in store for me today???’
Oh no – it is far more complicated ritual than that! I have to build myself up to the day with my daily interaction with the snooze button. A kind of foreplay were I tease myself out of bed with a series of events that occur repetitively in 9 minute intervals:

Alarm goes off
I ignore it
Alarm gets louder
I continue to ignore it
Alarm screams at top of it’s voice “GET YOUR FAT ARSE OUT OF BED – YOU LAZY %^*(%&(^%!!!
[I know that it is saying this because during my years of early morning interaction with my alarm clock, I have learnt to translate the electronic rants and raves of my alarm].

I calm the situation down again by hitting the snooze button.
9 minutes of restless dozing ensue until the process is repeated again.

This daily dance with the devil takes me through a good one hour of my life each day. Some things are just not supposed to be messed with. This Dear Reader is one of those things. What my dear aunt didn’t seem to appreciate is that to face breakfast with her and her friend at 09:00 on a Saturday morning, I should really have been woken up at 08:00, so that I could indulge myself in this little routine.

As it was, I was faced with a 10 minute ‘window of hope’ , where I hoped that I would be able to make myself presentable without the benefit of overworking on my personal hygiene. Indeed today, dear Reader, was the time to become bloody French.
I am referring to that what is known as ‘The (Bloody) French Shower’. Now, what I mean by this, dear reader, is no racist slur, no tarring a whole race of people with the same brush. It is merely just an admiring reference to the nation of bloody France as a whole and it’s ability to greet the world without so much as looking at a bar of soap, bottle of shampoo or container of shower gel but simply by dousing themselves with a bottle of cologne or eau de toilette in copious quantities in a manner befitting a fireman called out to douse out the candles on Zsa Zsa Gabor’s birthday cake (if she were to ever admit her age).
Fact: The people of Bloody France use less soap per person than any other country in Europe, but they use more perfumes and aftershaves than any other. I will leave you to draw your own conclusions.

So a quick visit to the bathroom, a splash of water round the face, a cleaning of my teeth, a brush of my tongue, a spray of deodorant and a squirt of after shave and I was back out in the world, less than seven hours after leaving it.

When we arrived at the cafe, Claudette was already sat there waiting for us. (I guess I wasn’t quick enough with my French Shower). I ordered a jumbo breakfast and gamely attempted to finish it as we regaled Claudette with tales from the previous night’s quiz. I decided not to mention too much about my time in Rosie’s other than to say that I had met a few ‘interesting’ characters.

After breakfast we went back to my aunt’s apartment. She was giving a small party at lunchtime for her friends and colleagues. As Daphne busied herself getting ready for the luncheon feast I continued on the travelogue. Great Big Sea was playing, I had a glass of red wine in my hand, I was in Canada, the snow was falling and I was trying my best to get something creative churned out on the PC.

When people started to arrive I left the PC and took part in that most enjoyable of past times - being a social butterfly.
During one of the conversations, I heard from one of the librarians that the woman who I had followed to ‘La Maison’ had been in the library the day before inquiring after me. I had already made an impression! Made a mental note to avoid library at all costs for rest of weekend.
Some of the people that I met that lunchtime, I would see later that evening at the Cornwall Library Christmas dinner where I was to be my aunt’s escort. A few glasses of red wine later as well as more than enough food to eat the last of the guests had left.

The rest of my time before leaving for the party was spent working on this (never ending) travelogue.

So for the second night running we found ourselves arriving at the Best Western Hotel around 18:00. Because my aunt, along with her colleague (whose name escapes me) were the meeters and greeters, we had to be there quite early. As they waited to meet and greet, I went to busy myself downstairs in the ‘Winners sports bar’, which was situated in the basement of the building.

Please allow me the indulgence of another true story:
Once I realised that I would be in Cornwall, Ontario, Canada whilst Liverpool were playing ManYoo I decided that I should check in advance for a suitable venue to go watch the match. So I searched the Internet for ‘SPORTS BAR CORNWALL ONTARIO’ and I got a ‘hit’ for the bar that I now found myself sitting in.
The website address is http://www.cornwallhotels.com/winners/. I recommend for the next part, you should visit the high-tech website.
On the website they bill themselves as “The Best Little Bar in Town” and somewhere “To meet your friends”. The website goes on to say “Ron invites you drop in (and) watch all your favourite sports on our Large Screen TV’s via satellite.
And when I went there, Dear Reader, who should greet me, none other than Big Ron himself (in a similar pose to the one you’ll see on the website).
It also advertises “Billiard table, shuffleboard, darts and just plain good company.” (I like that line – a stroke of PR genius if you ask me). But still, dear Reader – cheesy grin and even cheesier lines aside – this place sounded like a possible venue for the game. After all it had a satellite (and as if to highlight this point – there is a picture of a satellite on their website. Spirits suitably raised, I fired off an email to Big Ron. It read as follows:

Dear Ron,

I see that you have a sports bar called Winners. Do you know if the bar will be showing live English soccer this Sunday at 07:00am? In case you have never heard of them, Liverpool would really fit the theme of your bar, because they have won the English League more times than any other team.
I am visiting my aunt in Cornwall and would like to find somewhere that may be showing the game!

Thanks for your help and I look forward to our meeting.
Regards
Jonny Black
‘You’ll Never Walk Alone’


Not a bad email, I think you will agree, Dear Reader. Appreciating that ‘soccer’ is not a big sport in North America, I thought I would convince him to open the bar a little bit earlier in the morning by building up his enthusiasm.

This was the rather disappointing reply that I received:


Dear Sir,
I am sorry to inform you that Winner's Sports Bar does not open until Noon
on Sundays.

Sincerely,

Sandy Taylor
Sales Manager

Best Western Parkway Inn
1515 Vincent Massey Drive
Cornwall, ON
K6H 5R6
www.parkwayinncornwall.com
Ph: 613-932-0451
Ph: 800-874-2595
Fax: [phone]

I’m sure Sandy must have pissed her pants writing that one! Short and to the point! Ouch!
But not one to hold any grudges, I sat at the bar, giving Big Fat Lazy Ron one of my friendly grins. Come to think of it – I probably looked like some gormless loon – but I digress.

If you never, ever find yourself in Cornwall, Ontario, Canada, (hopefully not as a direct result of my travelogue), I will do you the favour of painting the scene:
It was a standard American sports bar them with plenty of TV’s and a pool table. It was quite quiet, so I had my pick of the stools at the bar. I chose one beside a couple of newspapers. The various TV’s were showing ice hockey, American football, basketball and, err, more ice hockey. I sat down and scanned through the newspapers. I was amazed by how many stories actually concerned the UK, or the Royal family.
Still a few glad to be part of the Commonwealth round these parts it would seem, unlike bloody Quebec.

I sat sucking on my Labbats Blue Lite contemplating how it must be to be a North American. Their love of sports is admirable in the extreme and a concept that I can whole-heartedly agree with. It’s just a shame that the sports are sooooooo tedious. Bear with me, Dear Reader as I endeavour to back this comment up:

Take their four main sports:

Baseball
A long drawn out affair that involves tobacco-chewing Neanderthals, playing rounders in their pyjamas.

This is a sport where something like the Seven Inning Stretch gets to be a major feature in the game. Let me explain:
Popular memory has been unkind to William Howard Taft, 27th President of the United States, who surely would have wished to be remembered for something nobler than his weight. At 300 pounds, he is the heaviest president on record. Rumours circulated about his lifestyle. For example – his bathtub, which was spacious enough to accommodate four average-sized men, was specially built for him in the White House.
Baseball history has accorded him somewhat more dignity. (Which I feel is already enough to have us worried about the state of baseball as a game).
Watching a game between the Washington Senators and the Philadelphia Athletics in 1910, the rotund, six-foot-two president reportedly grew more and more uncomfortable in his small wooden chair as the game wore on.
[Something I should tell you, Dear Reader. A baseball match can last for anything up to four hours!!!]
By the middle of the seventh inning he could bear it no longer and stood up to relieve his discomfort — whereupon everyone else in the stadium, thinking the president was about to leave, rose to show their respect. A few minutes later Taft nonchalantly returned to his seat, the rest of the crowd sat down, and the "seventh-inning stretch" was born. Riveting stuff indeed.

Another little anecdotal tale about the national sport of the US (not Canada I hasten to add!):

On a previous visit to Boston, I went for a Sunday afternoon drink in The Purple Shamrock, across from the city hall on The Freedom Trail, downtown Boston near to Faneuil Hall (to be precise). I took a stool at the bar next to a guy who had obviously had one or two too many Miller Lites too many. (I know Dear Reader, I should just walk away from these sorts of people but I cant help it!).
He was dressed head to toe in Boston Red Sox gear. (For the uninitiated or uninterested – and let’s face it – who can blame you? – the Red Sox are the baseball team in Boston) He was wearing the whole uniform - the cap, the T-Shirt even a bloody necklace!
So we got talking (as normally seems to happen to me in these occasions) and as soon as he found out I was from Ireland he gladly replied “Seriously?! I’m half Irish!”.
Changing the subject I said that I had hoped to go see a baseball game in the following week. [Purely for research purposes, you understand, Dear Reader]. I also asked him did he watch baseball (sniggering to my self as I did).
“Are you kidding me, he says – I love the sport!!”
“So who do you support?”, your rapier-witted travel correspondent asked him, barely able to contain my mirth.
“The only team there is – The Boston Red Sox – pointing at his chest (which was all puffed out by this stage).
“Do you think I could get to see a game this week?”
“Sure you can – they’re playing at Fenway Park this Tuesday.”
“What time’s kick off?” (I don’t know what the start of a baseball game is called, but my new friend didn’t seem to mind)
“To which game?” he asked
This threw me.
“Err, to the Boston Red Sox game on Tuesday”
“The afternoon game or the evening game?”
“They’re playing twice on the same day???!”
“Sure they are – they need to catch up on their schedule after having a recent game abandoned”
“And they’re doing this by playing TWO games in one day??! What kind of a sport is that?!. There can’t be much physical exercise involved if they can play two games on the same day!!”
“Do you mean compared with soccer? - that freakin’ game you Limeys call sport. Soccer’s a game for poof’s with no physical contact”
“Then you haven’t seen Roy Keane or Vinnie Jones in action” (I murmured under my breath).
I was left genuinely gob-smacked.
A short time later, I left to contemplate what kind of a professional sport can this game called baseball be where the competitors can actually feel like taking part in two games on the same day?? Needless to say – I did not make it to a game – either the afternoon or evening ‘game’.

American Football
OK – a few facts:
The game is divided into four quarters of 15 minutes, yet a match takes 3-4 hours to complete.
Each team is made up of three ‘units’: Offence / Defence and Special team so players hang around doing nothing for large periods of the game.
Each player is wrapped up to the eye balls in full body armour as if preparing for doing the annual Christmas post-run, up the Falls Rd, Belfast.
Although each play lasts 3 to 8 seconds, the team has a thirty second window in which to make it.
It is called ‘Football’ though very rarely does foot connect with ball
A score is called a touch down but the ball does not need to be touched down.
Need I go on???

Basketball
2 teams of 7 feet tall human freaks run up and down a court so small that they arrive from one end to the other in half a dozen strides. ???????
I rest my case....

Ice Hockey
The only game in my book that constitutes sport, but still only played seriously in this world of ours by the North Americans, and a few Eastern European nations - which should be warning enough.

Two things I love about the game of Ice Hockey:

1. Canada kicked self-styled ‘Team USA’s butt in the recent Winter Olympics IN THE UsofA!!! Both male AND FEMALE and both Gold medal-winning teams fielded players who were born in Northern Ireland!
2. When a fight ensues in the game of Ice Hockey, the referees don’t step in to stop it until one player hits the ground. Brilliant!! Ice Hockey – the national sport of Canada – I salute you!

So I watched a bit of the Ice Hockey. They were previewing the big game that night – the Montreal Canadians were playing.
As it turned out one of my aunt’s colleagues had a ticket to see the game, second row at a cost of 120 Canadian dollars!!! And she went to the Christmas dinner instead!! Still, it was a good excuse to nip away from the dinner table for a few minutes whilst we went down for a swift drink and an inhale of the smokey atmosphere. Apparently Dear Reader, this was the only place in the hotel were you could smoke. So lots of people from various other functions were nipping down to this bar to catch a fly smoke and also to see some of the game. Seemingly as of next year you will NOT be able to smoke in a bar in the province of Ontario!!! Something I think would never catch on in Ireland or Belgium!...

Incidentally, Dear Reader, the Canadians were beaten 2-1 in overtime with the last strike of the game.

to be continued...