Too long in exile!

Well, self-imposed exile, really. And more really – I haven't posted a 5'19" in a while, due to being lazy and distracted. And a bit sore.

I had to look back into the dusty archives to see when last I did post ... it was almost a year ago.

Lots has happened since then! Many absurd things. Lots of good things, too. I will have to do an all-encompassing catch-up post soon, detailing some of those absurdities.

But today, it's all about a journey. A necessary trip.

Most recently, I had the sudden and sad need to embark on a meandering trail back to the homeland, the old stomping grounds ... to Ontario, Canada, to fête and memorialise my dad, John.
Dad was taken by cancer at age 85. It was a long and full life for dad, but still – even at 85, cancer is a filthy, demeaning, unnecessary, and rat-bastard way to be forced to bow out early.

The cover slide for a presentation slide show I made
for the memorial service. Dad is relaxing here, with his
trademark mile-wide grin. 

Some photos from across the decades. My mom Sally there with dad, top left. My
bro Dave and his wife Deb next to my dad, 2nd left, top. Various fish who
gallantly gave their lives for our bellies ... me age 5 or so on my dad's
lap (bottom left). Mom and dad all dressed to the nines, late '50s, bottom right.

Both my sister Kim and I had some extensive traveling to do when we found out dad was sick. Kim was coming from her home in Penticton, BC. I had a fair bit further to fly. And there was no way to make my journey from New Zealand to Canada a fast one – the Concorde is out of service now, and I don't know any military pilots willing to chauffeur my 'No way you're fitting that massive Wookie body into a military jet!' self, supersonically, around the planet.

And so began my experiences on various commercial airlines for (ideally) as short and painless a trip possible back to Ontario.

Such a journey involves visiting a few former homesteads ... the Gananoque, Ontario area where I grew up from age 12. Toronto, where I went to college in '78, then lived and worked for a few years until 1986 ... and Vancouver, where I spent 15 years prior to moving to Wellington, New Zealand.

And while it was a sombre and emotional reason to be firing myself across the many time zones in a jet-propelled metal tube (to honour and say farewell to my dad, in the fun-loving style my dad was so famous and loved for) ... I also logically plotted and planned to spend time with some of the important people in my life who are still above ground.

Mark Kennedy and I in a Napanee joint called
Shoeless Joe's. It's well past last call, but
we determined the secret to getting bars to stay open
a bit longer ... keep ordering!

As I began this blog post, I realised I have some great stories to tell from all stages of the trek – so this might be best posted in parts (a-la Peter Jackson's modus operandus for making monstrous movie mountains out of mole-hill sized books!)

I originally envisioned the first part of my trip to Canada to be one-way, to start – as when my bro Dave alerted Kim and I to the spiralling health status of dad, I thought there was a good chance I'd make it back while dad was still alive .... and booking a round-trip with a 'caste in stone' return date wouldn't allow for any time required to be on hand for a miraculous recovery, or even time spent with dad while he was still breathing. I'd work out a return flight later.

Some observations on long-haul flights (my first big one since coming to New Zealand in 2001) – There are lots of great airlines providing top-notch service for lengthy international flights. And then there is Air Canada ... a punkass pretender in the game.

Sure, they have planes that fly the distance, and you get to where you're going 'alive'. But compared to the excellence of airlines like Air New Zealand and Qantas, Air Canada is ... a polyester pretender in the world of fine wool, cotton and silk.
It's the wobbly rented mule, the evil, red-headed stepchild in the attic, the cheap Walmart knockoff. Suffice to say: if given the choice, fly proper airlines, and give Air Canada a miss.

In this "Part 1" of the adventure, I'm compelled to note how much hard work and emotional stress my bro Dave and his wife Deb undertook to handle all aspects of this tragic event ... from making sure my dad got to initial medical appointments, to taking him in to their home when his health rapidly declined, to nursing him as best they could as the cancer ruthlessly and rapidly seized him and spiralled him down ... and ultimately, to dealing with dad dying there in their home when the end came, far too soon.

Kudos to both of you,guys. On top of all that, you had your own jobs and families and lives to contend with. You also had our mom's needs to wrangle, in the care home, as Alzheimer's and Dementia took her mind away from us far too early. Dave and Deb also stepped up and managed dad's financial dealings, his house, and truck ... they organised the funeral home, the memorial service ... the EVERYTHING. Well done.

The memorial service and funeral for my dad was classy and well executed. We eschewed any religious connotations, and 

steered the overall theme to what Dad (and the rest of us) are all about. It went directly to the heart and soul of my dad: his love of life, family, and friends. His honesty and his 'good guy' ethic. How much he was loved and respected by anyone who knew him. There were tears a-plenty during the memorial service (and more Kudos to bro Dave for giving a speech a go,

amid the torrent of emotions) ... and the funeral shortly after, where a ceremonial portion of dad's cremated ashes were planted in Willowbank Cemetery near Gananoque.

Guitar maestro Ed Keaney (left), bro Dave and  whiz kid Jackson
collaborate for some great music at the Gan Legion.

What followed immediately after was much joy in the session at the Gananoque Legion, where my bro Dave was joined by cousins, friends (and a grandson!) on guitars. Many fine renditions of excellent songs were performed in dad's honour.

Just the way he would have wanted it.

It was an excellent, calm sunny day at Charleston Lake. Dave and Kim are out there on the dock, right ...
as we prepare to send Dad's ashes into the fishing spot Dad loved so much. 

Dave quietly sends Dad off for a final swim in his favourite lake.
That's Dad in the upper left there, the smallish brown cloud. 

Dave, Kim and I followed up with a nice moment the next day – setting dad's remaining ashes free in Charleston Lake, dad's favourite fishing spot (and mine!) It was a beautiful warm sunny day as we sent dad into to the beautiful lake. 

As I already mentioned, the trip also included catch-ups with old friends and relatives. I saw many rellies at the funeral home the day of the service. A few longtime mates were on hand, too – Heinz Stucke and Rick Phillips were at the wake and the Legion. Mark Kennedy drove up to spend an evening with me a couple of days later (he drove in from Peterborough to where Kim and I were staying in Napanee, near my bro Dave's house).

Kim and Dave at the excellent riverside pub in Napanee.

The patio table we chose as our HQ was right next to the river.
Peaceful, with various ducks and geese paddling by. 

It'd been nigh-on 16 or more years since I'd seen any of these guys! So it was good fun to catch up, as well as comparing notes on lost parents – all of the aforementioned friends and I have now officially have gone through that. On a plus note: I'd never been to Napanee before (nor had Heinz, or Mark!) and we were all well impressed by that little town – especially the pub/patio on the river. We had excellent weather, and the patio table next to the river was a great impromptu HQ for catching up with everyone.

Cousins! Almost all the clan from my mom's side of the
family showed up. Great to see you all!

I did jump ahead a bit there, chronologically, with the steps (flights) taken to get me from my home in Wellington, NZ, to Napanee, Ontario.

I spent a bit of time attempting to streamline my flights based on two priorities: 1) No super long layovers at the connection points enroute, and 2) No flying into the USA. The first one was obvious – nobody wants to spend needless hours cooling their heels (or in my case, my fake plastic psueudo-heels!) in connecting airports.

So I aimed for connecting times of about 2-3 hours at most (allowing for potential late arrivals/bad weather causing flight delays) ... and the whole "nyet to the USA" thing was to avoid the ridiculous and mostly pointlessly LONG security checks, courtesy of the TSA (demonstrating how the terrorists won, because they drove the USA into total, blind, mindless, crazy, needless panic).

This I managed by flying in to Vancouver from Sydney, Australia. (I learned that my fears of the USA were unfounded, on my return trip) – when I organised my flight on Air New Zealand, to avoid Air Canada, I had to accept a stopover at LAX , to connect to a direct flight to Auckland – that one of the many, many bonuses about not having both lower legs any more is: I rapidly and immediately shoot to the front of the (long, slow, agonising, needless) line when it comes to incredibly stupid queues in airports!

I'm now officially a gimp in the eyes of airports and airlines ... and gimps get preferred service! Which is sweet-AS!

My cunning plan worked precisely as hoped! I even managed to only need to wake up super early for one flight ... the first one (Welly to Sydney, Australia, 6:30 a.m. departure ... meaning my ass needed to be at Welly airport at 5 a.m. – thank you Gillian Topping for getting me there so early and on time!)

The rest of the flights were at relatively civilised hours ... as the crow looks at his stolen shiny watch, anyway ... but considering my sense of time, space and reality was already right-royally skewed the moment I took off from Welly, it really didn't matter what time the connecting flights took off. My brain was elsewhere, likely orbiting Pluto.

But I somehow managed to wrangle an 8 pm (Toronto time) arrival into Pearson Airport, to avoid rush-hour traffic, where my mate (and fellow Humberite) and cohort (and fellow rabid IPA beer-loving fool), Don Redmond, would scoop me up upon arrival.

And that's where the crafty-beer-fuelled fun began in earnest ...

Don agreed to 'collect me' (as the UK/Aussie/NZ expression goes), and ferry us back to his Burlington pad (with a nice collection of chilled, crafty IPAs in a cooler in the back seat for me!) And fun ensued ... once we persevered through a demanding night of "science"*, Don drove us both down to Napanee the following day, to meet the rest of my amassing family. (Kim would be getting into Napanee that first night).

Now, about that first evening where some science* went down – the testing of a collection of fine New Zealand beers I brought for Don (*as the TV Mythbusters say: the difference between science, and just screwing around? Write down the crazy stuff you do!)

Shouting beer notes into a smartphone's
audio recorder? Scientific brilliance!

While Don didn't precisely "write down" our tasting notes on these amazing beers, he did deploy the more modern, hi-tech version of this activity (that I suggested he deploy) – using the voice recorder on his smart phone to shout notes and observations on said beers as we progressed. And shout we did!

(You see, this makes jotting down sciencey notes about beers unnecessary, as the old pen/paper method tends to get ... illegible ... and damp ... as more sciencey samples are consumed. And, listening to the increasingly crazy shouting that ensued into the smart phone's recorder the next day? Priceless!)

That was a night of high-octane fun for us (and we even somehow managed to save – untouched! – 3 of the beers intended for Don's beer technician friend at Rib Eye Jack's, the lovely Kylie!)
It is worthy to note here that I have a supplementary

The New Zealand motherlode of god-like elixer!
Don, Kylie and I indulged ... and soon, Glenn will too!

mission to complete, now that I'm home again – to compile a collection of said beers for fellow Beer Musketeer and Humber Journalism compadré Glenn Hendry. He sadly missed out on the elixers of the NZ beer gods I brought ... or we just greedily swilled them. Or something. The notes and shouting weren't entirely clear on what happened there. I blamed gypsies and pikeys. And the Dutch.

We did manage to leave for the 3+ hour drive to Napanee the next day at a fairly (and surprisingly) reasonable time – putting us in to the sleepy little town on the Napanee River about 4 pm-ish. The hangover demons had remarkably left us alone, so the trip was a fun and painless one.

Don stayed overnight in our 'stylish' motel (no, it wasn't stylish ... in fact, it was grim to the point of hilarious, that someone so "eclectic" would be put in charge of designing the rooms – but, it was cheap!), and joined in that night's fun – the first official catchup at the River Pub HQ Patio, which involved an impressive number of tasty local crafty beer being "scientifically tested" (I'm certain someone wrote, or shouted something down, or into, a phone!)

Now we've bounced back to the point where my dad's memorial service had come and gone, dad's ashes were joined with the mighty Charleston Lake, all mates still living in the area had been met and had fun with ... and now, it was time to target my ass into organising my return journey to NZ. It was going to involve a couple of stopovers, though ....

I'd been slowly plotting the trek (which was made extremely easy due to catch-all websites like WebJet). Job one: return to Don's place in Burlington for a few more days, to meet up with some other old friends and college pals who live in the area ... to meet beer technician Kylie ... and to take stock of how many peanuts the local chipmunks had eaten. (More science ...)

Planes for midgets! I put this one on and flew to T.O. ....

This time I opted for the one-hour flying option, a short hop in a VERY tiny plane (I didn't so much board the thing, as I put it on) from Kingston to Toronto airport. Once again Don scooped me up (cooler of hoppy ales in the back seat, at the ready again!) and we began 4 or possibly 5 days of more beer science, bbq'ing, lazing about on his funky patio in the warm summer sun, and general shenanigans and tomfoolery – including one officially planned gathering where the old college mates and pals could amass for one semi-organised night of ... testing ... yeah, that's it!

And that, folks, is what Part 2 of this travelogue will be all about! First and foremost, the times and fun had at Don's in Burlington ... the Humber gang ... new friends from Don's work and his apartment complex.

Then, coming soon, after, to a FacePlant post near you – Part 3, where I inspect Vancouver (and the many and varied changes therein), Whistler, Steveston, and launch myself at the wilful, shameless and unbridled destruction of my mates' Richard and Steve's livers. Oh, and Dale's too.