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Life has taught me to control my temper or suffer the consequences. It does very little good for me to ‘go ape’ when things go wrong and life gets tough, although there is a brief dividend of relief when you take a bat to an empty barrel.
I was half way through writing that second sentence when my computer monitor gave up the ghost this morning. The Great Mystery has a dark sense of humour and enjoys testing me, it seems.
There was a time not so long ago, if something like that happened on deadline, I’d be picking up splinters of the shattered screen with a mushroom cloud of expletives echoing across the district.
It’s not the tranquility that comes with maturity, though, saving me from unnecessary troubles today. More likely I’m just too tired and bruised from a winter that doesn’t want to quit – that and a friend died on the weekend. The news came late Sunday afternoon and I’ve been venting rage and grief in spurts ever since, leaning on a friend or two but also in private, trying to process the loss and rationalize the impossible to answer: “Why?” There are stages to mourning and I sometimes get them out of sequence. Anger and sorrow come in alternating waves.
It’s scary how much toxicity can come bubbling up from within. One spark can ignite the unspent fuel laying dormant from past inflictions left unresolved. And the festering forces rise up in spits of scalding steam.
I am angry at myself for not making more time for him. I am angry at those responsible for reduced health care resources. I am angry at the world too distracted by Hollywood drama, selfish protests, and which billionaire will get to use Twitter for political and financial gain.
But anger doesn’t help much. It gets in the way of actually addressing the issues. And it delays healing, we all know this in our hearts. It’s also not fair to dump your misery on others. I think we embrace anger because it makes us feel strong and demonstrating the temperature of our emotions brings us back to our first language.
Filling a bucket with tears is one thing, kicking it over is another. Pouring it over the head of someone else and accessing blame is a place I’m trying very hard to avoid.
Last week, I did a polar dip at North Bay’s Lake Nipissing waterfront. It wasn’t a fundraiser or even planned, just stupidity.
Landscape photography is a specialty that many do much better than myself. Timing for light and shadows, foregrounds and shapes are blended into perfection by the gifted and skilled. Landscapes are an art form and I have no problem admitting it’s not my specialty. It requires more patience than my natural allotment. I tend to focus on photos that are part of my story-telling efforts, usually with people included – something pounded into me in journalism school.
Sunsets are probably the easiest of the landscape genre to achieve impressive results. Nature and atmospheric interactions provide unique opportunities for images every 24 hours or so.
Keith Campbell, North Bay’s ‘Sunset Man’ takes it to another level with the way he often frames the image with people, trees or benches included. It’s inspiring to see his Facebook posts almost every evening with extra shots from previous excursions when clouds put a damper on the light show.
Just south of the Old Chief, at the first bend of the walking path, there is a spot where the far break wall for the Chief Commanda II isn’t in the way of where the sun drops. And there were piles of ice along the rocky shore, a menagerie of frozen shards glinting from the solar pulse.
I hesitated before traversing the broken black rocks that divide the Goulet Golden Mile from the sandy bottom of the bay. Many are teetering on sharp edges and make for a treacherous path. One must be nimble and agile to avoid a turned ankle but I didn’t let common sense stop me. Like a feeble old mountain goat with inner ear issues, I descended to the water line to place my mini tripod and camera on a somewhat flat rock while kneeling on a boulder I thought was steady enough. It wasn’t.
Unfortunately, my weak left side was leaning toward Nipissing’s partially frozen surface and my right hand held my camera, so it was a matter of riding the rock into the drink. My left arm broke through the water and created the space for half my body to submerge before I could get my boots under me.
I remember feeling more calm than worried and was scolding myself as I accepted my soggy fate. I cursed, as I tend to do in such circumstances, a practiced expectorant of self-loathing learned from examples too numerous to count. It probably didn’t come out under my breath as much as I thought.
I dragged myself up onto drier rocks, my boots still in the water, and placed the video camera where it needed to be, and started recording before getting myself up to the grass. I was wringing out the bottom of my sweater when a couple came up behind me, stealing quick glances my way as they peeked over the rocks to see where I went in.
The guy whispered to his female friend that I seemed to be OK … based on the colour and tone of my utterances. Aside from some minor scrapes and bruises (to both flesh and ego), it was a cheap lesson.
I had forgotten that Keith had fallen into the water a few weeks earlier trying to get the best possible sunset photo. He reminded me when I posted my YouTube channel video on Facebook that he only soaked himself to the nether regions.
So, now I am that cautionary tale. Be wary of stepping onto the rocks at the waterfront.
It’s the kind of thing my buddy would have laughed about and used against me in a teasing fashion for years to come.
One time, he sat with my mom at a table during an Anglican Church fundraiser. It was my first real stand-up comedy gig in March 2018 and I was telling a few jokes that were more risqué and slightly more crude than the crowd desired (as well as out of my reach).
Of course, my mom was sharing with the table her thoughts after each punchline, cracking them up with the quick and acidic wit that comes naturally to her Ukrainian/German roots.
My chum heckled, “Your mom is funnier than you!” And it was true.
One day, I’ll give him a proper tribute. It’s too fresh of a wound and there’s no need. Everybody knows we lost one of the good ones.
If I can pull myself together, I’ll resurrect some of the comedy bits from that first church auction gig at the Lou Dawgs open mic Thursday. Fair warning, he nicknamed me ‘Dildo Dave’ after that set. Sign up is 6 p.m. if you want to try your own material beginning at 7 p.m. Andre Raymond is the organizer.
If not then, I’ll definitely be sharing some of those jokes and a few amusing tales at my upcoming ‘Food & Fun Spring Fling’ at the Moose Cookhouse on May 19.
Laughter is the best medicine, they say.
Dave Dale is a veteran journalist and columnist who has covered the North Bay area for more than 30 years. Reader responses meant as Letters to the Editor can be sent to [email protected]. To contact the writer directly, email: [email protected] or check out his website www.smalltowntimes.ca
