Of Nomads and Amazons © by adrian

I want you to know right off, I'm about 5 feet 9½ inches tall, I have no idea what that translates to in those other measurement number thingies that Prime Minister Trudeau bequeathed to us Canadians, but let's just say, I'm average height. I've pretty well stayed that height since my teens. When I bend over I'm a bit shorter, but when I stand up straight, I don't get any taller. I have a slim build, and since my teens I've weighed in at about 150 pounds. When I bend over, my weight doesn't change a bit.

There's something else I need to explain, but I want your help on this. You don't need to get up or anything, I'll get it myself, but I need you to believe me on this one (if not, for the sake of my story, just pretend you do). Women in general, are taller now than they used to be. In the fifties, sixties and seventies, if a woman was tall, she often stooped to minimize the impact of her height. It was rare indeed to find a woman who carried herself with the full grandeur her height would allow.

Damn, I just remembered something else. Cigarette Girls. If you're older, you might remember them. Some of you young whippersnappers might know them from old movies, or even parties. They became quite campy a few years back, so you may have seen them, or at least pictures of them. These women did tend to be a little taller than average, and often wore brightly coloured tight tunics with black fishnet stockings. Inevitably, high heeled spike shoes were added for more effect. They carried, and balanced in front of them, huge trays of cigarettes and cigars that hung from large straps that went around their necks and came down to their waists. They were hired to walk around in fancier bars selling, you guessed it, cigars and cigarettes.

When I was a puppy, I used to hang around in a bar called The Regency Towers, on Avenue Road near Bloor Street in Toronto. The legal drinking age in Ontario was twenty-one at the time. I was only twenty, but as long as you acted civilized no one ever questioned you or asked for ID in classy joints. This was a classy joint.

At that time, I was going out with my former brother-in-law's housemate. I met her when he invited me to a party at their place. She had a voracious sexual appetite and was driving him crazy with what he felt were unreasonable sexual demands. He reasoned that she might find me attractive, and I probably wouldn't think her enormous sexual appetite was something that needed to be avoided. Well, he got that right on both counts. She lived across the street from the Regency Towers and was fifteen years older than me. There is no question that lady was certainly a great experience in my life, but this is not her story. This is the story of me and my first wife, the beautiful nomadic Amazon I married.

I was sitting at a table in the Regency waiting for my girlfriend, when from behind my chair I heard a young lady walking towards me with the familiar chant of "Cigars? Cigarettes?", "Cigars? Cigarettes?".

I turned around in my chair to buy a pack (yes, I did smoke back then), and all I could see were legs. Above my head and obstructing my view of the rest of her, was the tray full of cigarettes. I could see nothing else, just legs and thighs. Unbelievably long legs, in black fishnet stockings and high heels, asking me if I wanted to buy any cigars or cigarettes. Now, I want you to know, I was a leg man back then, a true connoisseur of legs. I favour rear ends now, but at that time, I thought legs were the most beautiful body part that any women had (that was before I understood about minds). My present wife, Linda, occasionally reminds me that she doubts I've ever met a female body part I didn't think was my favourite. She does have a valid point. This though, was the most spectacular set of legs and thighs I had ever seen; lord forgive me, we called them "gams" in those days.

I remember asking those legs if they could step back a bit so I could have the pleasure of meeting their owner, and they did. She was gorgeous! Fine lovely features, slim, with long hair flowing almost to her waist, and she was about my age. I fell instantly in lust. If you have read any of my previous ruminations, you may have noticed I don't have much hesitation in being direct, and didn't back then either.

I told her I was in lust with her, that I would like to marry her, but if she couldn't make up her mind right away, then maybe we could do something else in the meantime. She said she was sorry, but she didn't go out with her customers, and if she ever did, the bar would fire her. So I explained that if that was the case, then I would never buy any cigarettes from her. I didn't, and we left it at that.

Over the next few months while we flirted with each other in the bar, I learned quite a bit about her and we became playfully friendly with each other. I discovered she was single, and didn't often have much success with men. You see, she was six feet three and one half inches tall, and also extremely independent. Most men, even the tall ones, were intimidated by her height. It seemed that everybody she met didn't quite know how to treat her. Female independence was not usually enjoyed or encouraged in days of yore either.

I have always been a great fan of strong, independent women. Among other things, it's always seemed obvious to me that if I was with a capable women, on the occasions that my brain stops working (which it does from time to time) my capable companion could guide our ship for us. I'm also fearless and not prone to intimidation. I don't mean to give you the impression that my thoughts were pure though. My god, when I was twenty I couldn't possibly ignore how good it would look on my resume if I was able to bed the tallest chick on the block. Well, I didn't bed her, but the flirting continued.

One day when I dropped into the bar she announced she was going to Europe in a few days. She planned on buying a scooter when she got there, and was going to travel around the country for a year or so. She gave me a forwarding address to write her if I wanted, and I gave her my address. We kissed each other goodbye hesitantly. This was our first kiss, and I don't think either of us thought we would ever see the other again.

A few months later I received a letter from her. She wrote that she missed me! I wrote back immediately, and we began an ongoing, increasingly intimate, communication. Seduction by mail is an easy road to travel, you don't even need to get up and wash afterwards. You can write majestic things, and they slide into the body with far more ease than the mechanics of sex allows. On the strength of our one kiss we became lovers by mail. It was extremely horny and exciting and went on until her return a year and a half later.

We got together as soon as she came back and acted like inexperienced teenagers with each other. We had consummated our relationship a hundred different ways by mail, and yet had only kissed each other once.

There was much fumbling about. It was so bad and amateurish that at one point we joked that perhaps we would have more success if we went to separate rooms and just slipped notes back and forth under the door. Eventually our bodies found their own way of communicating and we glided together. We were both very proud of ourselves, and became, as they used to say "an item".

Lord, we were a sight! As I said, women were rarely as tall as her, so when people saw us together it was cognitively difficult to understand that I was average height, and she was very tall. We were always referred to as "that lady with the really short man." I used to occasionally wear a beret, and if we were out together, I have to admit that standing beside her, with my beret on, I looked like I was about four feet tall. It was great fun; it added to our individuality as a couple, and we always enjoyed the gaping stares of others. I was way too young to be a sugar daddy, so others were forced to imagine all sorts of reasons what this gorgeous creature could see in a perceived little runt like me. It added immensely to what others thought must be my enormous sexual prowess.

We continued to enjoy being with each other, and a year or so later, we moved in together.

In 1965 we decided to move to California and look for the proverbial pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. We also hated the cold Canadian winters. As soon as we got our American immigration papers, we shipped our belongings to Monterey, California, got in our little British two-seater MGA convertible and drove off to greener pastures. Upon arrival, we rented a house in Pacific Grove, California and settled in. I started a photo-finishing company for other photographers, shot weddings and did jobs for the local Chamber of Commerce. She got a job as a switchboard operator.

California dreaming: At that time the singing duo of Sonny and Cher were just becoming famous. Cher has an average female height of about five foot six inches, but because she wore heels all the time, she always appeared to be much taller than Sonny. Whenever we went out, because of our height differences, people often mistook us for Sonny and Cher and wanted our autographs. Initially we protested and insisted we weren't them, but that just pissed people off and they would become verbally abusive. It didn't take long to figure out it was just easier to reach for our pens and get ready to sign away whenever we saw people running toward us. If you're a collector of autographs, I'd recommend you check the authenticity of any Sonny and Cher ones you might be interested in buying.

California was good for us, but that "it's cold, and it's damp" line from the Frank Sinatra song rings true. We went to be warm, and ended up unhappy with the mid California climate. After a year, it was time to move on. We still wanted warmth, so Houston, Texas became our next target. We didn't understand that although Texas is indeed warm, someone forgot to add air flow to the State, so unfortunately, breathing is rather difficult. I was also just beginning to notice that the nomadic life didn't appeal to me as much as I thought it might.

We hated Houston when we got there. It was a city that was intolerant of almost everything unusual, and we were certainly unusual. Among other oddities, I was probably one of only four people in the whole state who had a goatee. Eventually I got a job with Gittings Studios, a very upscale high society photographer. I soon became a novelty item for the rich and famous and started getting many requests to attend and photograph important functions. I was always encouraged to bring my girlfriend along. We weren't signing autographs, but we were once again in demand. During this high rolling period of success we decided it was time to make plans for marriage.

We had wedding rings inscribed with a Latin expression that roughly translates into "We can, because we think we can". In San Antonio, we found an accommodating United Church minister who agreed to remove the U.S. flag that was flown in his chapel, and he let us write our own words for the service (unusual in those days). We were married in a delightful and very private ceremony. A couple we knew joined us at the church to act as witnesses, and I had a friend from work join in to take pictures. After the service they left and we drove to Mexico for a two week honeymoon.

We eventually tired of America. In the States, it seemed that we constantly needed to explain ourselves, whereas in Canada, we found that people generally didn't care what you did as long as it didn't hinder them. Longing for this ideological freedom, we moved back to Toronto.

We didn't live happily ever after though, but we did have a great time that spanned ten exciting and wonderful years together. Over those years we both changed dramatically, me certainly more than her, (check my Image in the mirror © by adrian story) and we became incompatible. We still occasionally see each other, but long ago decided being good friends was a better deal for us than marriage.

Through all of the years that we shared a wanderlust together, her need to travel was much greater than mine, and she often went away on her own to exotic places to explore new experiences. She has spent her life searching for something. I found what I was looking for a long time ago.

Maybe it's more accurate to say that she always went out looking to find life, and I always preferred to wait and let life come and find me. It certainly always has!

Image in the mirror © by adrian

It's early morning, Linda and I are at the table, reacquainting ourselves with each other and the new day. For the past six months or so, since we bought a decent nineteen hundred dollar bed we mostly chat about the dreadful sleep we each had last night. During the two years before that, we mostly chatted about how, as soon as we got a decent bed, we would finally be able to get a good sleep. Prior to that, we slept comfortably on a seventy five dollar waterbed which I put together in 1967 and brought to Linda's house as part of my dowry when we were married. Apart from the occasional bag change over the years, it had never cost me any loss of sleep. Inexplicably one day, we both decided it was time to change to a regular bed, and neither of us has slept properly since.

I am drinking my first of two cups of instant coffee which will glide me through the day until late afternoon when I will begin to consider whether I am ready to ingest some food. I occasionally graze in the daytime, but for most of my life, my first food of any day starts at dinnertime. Linda, on the other hand, is busy doing things that she and other devotees of breakfast often do. Cooking oats, sometimes eggs, cutting apples, squeezing oranges, making coffee using complicated filter systems, and general preparations for her morning feast. With luck, whatever she does now will get her as far as noon before she challenges her stomach to once again get into action. For myself, and I assume many others that don't eat in the morning, it is a sight full of mystery.

In our current conversation, I mention that I have not heard back from the naked pregnant lady I photographed last week, nor have I heard back from the older Chinese lady that was interested in some sexy photos of herself before, as she put it "she fell apart anymore". I wonder aloud that I may have offended each of them in some of last week's emails. Linda looks up from the orange she is squeezing and smiles that delicious wry smile she displays when she has another insight into who I am and says, "So you think you offended another two people. I guess you would say last week was a pretty good week for you then."

It wasn't always like that for me. From adolescence to my thirties, I was extremely conservative in thought, dress, manner and deportment. I always saw to it that I was impeccably dressed whenever I went out. I always wore a suit and tie or ascot. The most casual I could accept of myself was if I was in the darkroom developing prints, I would occasionally take my suit jacket off, but never my tie. If I felt like really slumming, I would roll my sleeves up. I was, as they say, a tight ass. I was over thirty before I put on my first pair of jeans.

I was also in turmoil. I considered myself an intellectual, but I was filled with never ending lust. I could not accept that someone as intelligent as I could be so base and animalistic in my desires. I can't explain why I thought the two could not co-exist, I just did. I felt someone as smart as me should be able to control their instincts. I believed that life could only be appreciated fully as an intellectual experience, to be reasoned with, and not felt. I lived in dreadful fear of my inner self. I was convinced I harbored a monster that was determined to escape and overpower my intellect. I continually waged a war against my instincts to prevent this from happening.

Near the end of the sixties, when I was about to turn thirty, the rest of the world was busy going crazy on drugs and many people were trying to "find themselves". I decided it was time for me to try to face my monster. In those days, the road most easily traveled for insight was the drug LSD. So I took it. Without a doubt, that became one of the pivotal experiences of my life.

What LSD essentially does is temporarily modify the way one can process information. At the same time, you are given conscious access to immensely more information than you normally have. The information you get when under the influence of LSD is not reliably true information, but it is far more than we normally perceive. It overwhelms the senses and produces a very dreamlike state, but you are generally aware that you are the conductor of your own dreams and perceptions. Anyway, in a hallucinogenic state, filled with fear, literally trembling, I stared into a mirror and demanded that I should see my true self. I prepared myself as best I could for the most hideous vision possible, I braced myself, expecting to see the horrible monster I had hidden inside me come forth. Instead, I roared with laughter and ended up with me.

In that hallucination, I appeared to age very quickly, and among other things, my short dark hair grew out very long and white. I liked what I saw. I realized my internal engine was calm, and I was full of humour. I also realized that the animal I had been so afraid of was definitely harmless, and I decided at that moment if that was who I was, I better stop trying not to be that. Thirty eight years ago, in a mirror, I saw the guy that's in this picture here. I immediately decided that I would not do anything to create what I saw, I would simply stop doing things that might prevent me from being what I now realized was far more honest. So, for example, I didn't decide to grow my hair long, I simply decided to stop cutting it. I became determined to stop getting in the way of my own life's experience. I had "gone clear" without the need of Scientology. I was stunned that I had previously been so fearful of such a delightful and comfortable human.

I don't suggest that we should all march over to Wal-Mart, buy a tab of LSD from the drug counter and drop it. I know there is much urban myth about the dreadful things that drugs do, and I have no doubt that some of it is true. For me though, it was a life giver. Over time, I became free of my own self imposed shackles and realized that I could be sane and at the same time truly enjoy my insanity as much as I wanted. I no longer needed to care what the world thought about me. I understood that my fulfillment was completely my responsibility, no one else's. I was no longer dependent on what others wanted me to be or do. Finally free to experience life on it's own terms, beholden to no preconceived notions.

Candid Shots © by adrian Photographic memory: Episode Two

A few random, sometimes pointless thoughts from my life of pictures:

Photography for me is magic, it's like fortune telling. You show up at my door, I've never seen you before, we are strangers and yet you want me to present you with an insightful representation of your inner being. Forgetting about the sexuality of my particular specialty, even regular photography is a very intimate experience. In seconds, I need to get you to remove your pretence and mask, trust me, and reveal who you are. If I do it right, you end up showing me parts of yourself you didn't even know existed. How crazy is it that we both believe this is possible? I tell you, it's magic!

Mary, from the treasuresintheattic and a private workshop blog I belong to wrote in a comment to me once, "When I read your writing, I feel like I've signed on for a carnival ride."

During one period of my career, I kept coming across a photographer who had his own studio but wanted to work with me. Every time we would meet, he would repeat the same story, that he liked my style etc., and wanted to partner and work with me. He always explained that he was well off and could easily pay the bulk of my rent if I would allow him this privilege. I would thank him, and explain repeatedly this was not possible, as I worked alone. In a moment of weakness once, (maybe I was having trouble with my rent, I don’t remember why) I told him to come to my studio for a meeting, and we would talk about it.

My studios have always been an expression of my being, the studios themselves are theater. I always set my studios up as huge play rooms for grownups. This seems to help enormously in getting so much playfulness out of my clients, and thus onto the film.

I always had on display everything imaginable, and much unimaginable, all strewn about, in what I would call studied carelessness. Great flowing pieces of fabric, underwear of every description, heavy leather gear, satin, fur, whips, dildos, butter. In one period of time I even had a life size papier-mâché horse that I would occasionally put out onto the sidewalk in front of my studio. A little something for everyone. You knew you could act the fool if you wanted, be as free as you wanted, and no one would laugh or point at you.

I arranged everything so that the deeper you ventured into the studio, the more provocative my samples became. That way, you could stop at any point if you felt uncomfortable. If you asked to see something more revealing, I would show you samples of my special signature works that I create called "carnalsnaps" (if you Google them, visit at your own risk).

The other photographer showed up for the appointment he had sought for so long. He solemnly walked through my studio, constantly shaking his head. When he was finished he stared at me wide eyed and exclaimed "This isn't a photography studio, it's a carnival ride. I could never work in a place like this!" He then stormed out. His reaction gave me a warm and toasty feeling, and he never bothered me again.

Well, Mary's comment also made me feel warm and toasty, but this time for a very different reason. It's great to know that even in writing, I can sometimes still throw together a good carnival ride.

I have been on many strange journeys doing what I do for a living. I've seen things and been where it would have been impossible to be if it wasn't for my work. I suppose I have satisfied every imaginable fantasy a man could have, certainly any I ever had, at least three times in my life. The great part for me is that most of the time I didn't even get splashed. Everybody did most of the grunt work for me, and all I had to do was encourage, cheer, watch and take a few well timed snaps.

I have always been amused by peoples reaction to what I do. We constantly see photos of mayhem everywhere these days and hardly ever think about the photographer's involvement in what they have just witnessed. I'm sure it's safe to say we don't anticipate that when they return from their assignments they will refuse to take another picture unless there is a body nearby.

I used to do photojournalism shoots early in my career, dreadful fires, car accidents, that kind of stuff, no one ever wanted to talk about the event I had just witnessed. No one ever seemed to be the least bit interested.

Mix some sex into photography though, and most peoples brains don't seem to work properly. My experience is that you can't get people to stop talking about it.

I have earlier mentioned that I mostly live as a hermit. The friends I do have I've known for forty or so years and that's about it. I did end up with one extra photographer friend about fifteen years ago. The only reason that worked out was because he used to do still photos on the old porno movie sets in California. It was easy for both of us to become friends because we didn't have to waste each others time talking about sex and photography. We had both given at the office.

When I was younger and my ego lived in a different place I believed that my ability to get everybody naked was entirely because of me and my imagined sexiness. I eventually came to understand this was not the case. As I continued in my field, I realized that it had never been about me at all. Of course I contribute, I do seem to have an ability to give people permission to do whatever they want, and to have no embarrassment or shame about it. People do trust that I have no moral interest in what they do, and I will honour whatever their choice is.

I realize that I am dealing with a selective clientele, but it's always seemed to me that most people are able to abandon much of their moral restraint if given the opportunity. After forty-five years of this work, I still wonder what it is about photography that gives so many people the excuse to act differently than they normally do. I always enjoy challenging people to express that same freedom without the aid of a camera.

Accidentally black © by adrian Photographic memory: Episode One

It's 1972, I'm working in the basement of the studio/photo-finishing plant I run. Bill my friend and co-worker comes downstairs looking ashen faced and shaken. He says "There are two really serious looking black guys upstairs. They want to talk to the owner."

I go upstairs to the reception room, and rounding the corner see that Bill has not exaggerated. Two very intense looking guys are sitting there, both dressed in tight black suits, slim briefcases on their laps. These guys are definitely not Jehovah's witnesses. As I enter and say "Hello, I'm the owner." they stand simultaneously. It is immediately apparent there will be no hearty handshakes or "Hello's." to be had from this crew.

One of them walks over to the reception desk, flattens his briefcase, opens and starts rummaging thru it. The case is too small to hold a baseball bat. What is he looking for? Why did I come to work today?

The other walks up to me, very close, inches from me, into my space. Very intimidating. I intentionally move two inches closer to him, It's a defense mechanism I've always used when people try to crowd me. I think this lets them know I get their body language and it won't work on me. He almost smiles as he hands me his business card and says simply, "Don't you think it's about time you start advertising with us?" The card I've been handed has "Contrast" written across it.

Contrast is the name of a militant black newspaper in Toronto during the 70's. These are the days of the Black Power movement, Black Panthers, Black & Proud, and everything is "Soul".

These guys are not here to give me a sales pitch. In some strange way I understand I've just been invited. Normally, this would be the simplest of business decisions, advertise. This is different than normally. I would be reaching a market I knew nothing about and could never have had the audacity to consider. Taking this step alters much of the next twenty or so years of my life.

Listen to this...

I ran a photo-finishing company, had a staff of four and a very crowded house. I decided to move everything out of the house, and at the same time I would throw a little studio into the new location to play in. Photography for me is theater, all smoke and mirrors. Point a camera at most people, and they will smile or take their clothes off, or both, at the first hint, in an instant. What great fun!

I dug up some of my old sample photos and put them in the window. The early seventies in Toronto was the beginning of a large migration of immigrants from the West Indies and several African countries. In a short time, the black population grew to over two hundred and fifty thousand people. So, I found the requisite token black person shot I had, and added that to the window.

Photography is one of the few businesses that attracts exactly what you display. If I put pictures of little old ladies in my window, that's what will come inside. Babies in the window, that's what I'll get. Nothing could be simpler. It's like fly paper. What I didn't know, was that for most photographers, black people are a difficult photographic challenge. I had often heard that black people were hard to photograph, but I swear, I always thought it was some kind of goofy racial thing someone thought up, but it's true. It's also pretty obvious if you think about it, white objects reflect light, black objects absorb it. Put a dark subject on a dark background in a photo, and if not properly lit, they will likely disappear.

I almost always use dark backgrounds in my work, that's what appeals to me.

So, the token black person I put in the window wasn't part of any plan, it was just a simple portrait of a black lady. I had used a dark background in the shot, as is my fashion, and she showed up plain as day. I didn't consider for a moment there was anything unusual about it.

Soon, there were various clusters of black people outside the window talking amongst themselves about this shot. I'm still amazed this one photo started it all. This was "the face that launched a thousand ... " (oops, sorry, wrong story).

In the seventies in Toronto, we didn't have the dreadful gangs that are around these days, but it was still pretty unnerving to have a group of black people gathered about and looking into my studio. It was all new, and when they started coming in for portraits, it was a struggle for them as well as myself. Many of these early immigrants had heavy accents and often spoke the Patois dialect, something I certainly wasn't used to, and at first I had great difficulty understanding them.

I make few decisions in my life with any thought about what the final destination or outcome will be. Climax simply doesn't interest me, never did. I'm far more interested in what I will discover on the trip to anywhere, not what I will find at destinations end. When the West Indians and blacks from other countries started showing up, and then Contrast invited me in, I signed on for the trip.

When I began this section of my life, if there was a group of black guys outside my studio window I would be wary. When I finished, if there was a group of white guys outside my studio window, I would be wary. Everything in my life eventually changed from what I had previously known, and turned completely around. Absolutely everything I knew became accidentally black.

The first ads were simple, nothing gaudy. I also advertised in a publication called Spear, which had a more militant approach to the thorny issue of our different cultures. Eventually I ran ads in the other black papers, Share, and then, Pride.

Black people started coming in for portraits. Saturdays they would line up outside, I would shoot twenty or more sittings a day. Prior to this, I would shoot a couple of sittings a week. Initially they were new immigrants and would come in wanting shots of their new watch, holding their first paycheck, anything, and everything, to send back home. They were having fun, and so was I.

White people would come in acting like they were at the dentists. Explain the photo being made was to shut up some relative they hadn't seen in years, and they didn't want to be here. I was instructed to just get it over with quickly so they could get back to their lives.

The blacks were consistently exciting and yes, colourful. Many would show up in outrageous costumes and plumage. This was during the time that the "hip" all dressed in flamboyant velvet suits, innovative hats, goofy platform shoes and that incredible afro hair cut of the time. If a group came in and I set up a pose they liked, everybody would spontaneously clap to show their approval. There was a "black is beautiful" mentality and they wanted me to capture the history of it.

During this period I began dressing pretty outrageously myself. Sort of a cross between early beatnik and late hippie. Long great frocks, beads, very long hair. I've always been a suit and tie man when shooting weddings, so I would make exceptions for that. The long hair with a suit was theater unto itself.

The whites on the other hand were bland and boring. They never hesitated to display how much they hated every minute of what was happening. The blacks I encountered were visceral. Communication was not tainted by hidden meanings. No euphemisms here, everything was direct, emotional and on the surface. It didn't take long to realize I had stumbled into an area that my Italian temperament was more than suited to, this was definitely where I belonged.

At the same time it was an enormous culture shock. Sometime scary. I would shoot a wedding, at the reception there would be a huge gathering and I would be the only white boy in sight. I would attend raucous church services similar to what I had seen only in newsreels, and there I was, up at the alter, recording it. In the beginning it was very weird, no question about it. For them too, I guess.

Seeing as I stuck out so much, everybody quickly got used to the strange white guy with goatee and long grey hair. As I said, photography for me is theater, I am fast on my feet and usually put on a pretty good show. I always do my best to entertain my clients, that way I know they will go out of their way to entertain me, for the camera. Soon the black papers started hiring me to shoot some of their work, and occasionally they would print stories about me. I was welcomed in.

Photography for me is magic, sometimes the magic works, sometimes it doesn't. With black people, for me, it almost always worked. It's about communication, not equipment, and once I got the rhythm of the speech and the personalities right, it easily fell into place.

I closed the photo-finishing section of my business and moved the studio to the middle of what was then the "black section" of town, Bathurst and Dupont Street.

I started advertising on black radio programs, and began using the catch phrase, "The Almost Soul studio" in my ads. It was nervy and all very presumptuous. I now used black people exclusively for samples, with one token white person in the window. We joked that the only time a white person came into my studio was if they needed change for the parking meter. As I said, all unplanned and very weird.

As the community expanded and changed, I moved my studio to follow it. I moved to Jane & Lawrence Ave., and then eventually settled down on Eglinton at Oakwood Ave. This area is still a hub of black activity in Toronto.

For the reader that may have been wondering if I would ever get to it, yes, there were the women. Up till then in my life, my contact with black women had been by way of National Geographic magazine. Well, I found out that in real life, they are way more fun than in the magazine. Who knew?

Photographers get turned on by various things. Some of us get excited about buildings, hillsides, rocks, babies, horses, whatever. Black women photographically intoxicate me. I can't explain it, would be a fool to try. They just knock my socks off. Doesn't matter what shape, how old, how tall or any of that stuff, many just seem to have an attitude that drives me nuts. More fun!

I don't know if I drove them nuts too, but for many years almost all my female companions were black. It was just a natural progression of my life at that time. All the people I knew, met, worked with and saw on a daily basis were black, so naturally that's where I would meet my lovers. Eventually I started a semi-permanent relationship with the sister of a black lady that worked in one of my studios, and we lived together for quite some time.

Later, into the 80's, the area around Eglinton and Oakwood Ave., started to get run down. The shops nearby were deteriorating, taxes were becoming unmanageable, and that section of Toronto temporarily fell apart, so it became time to move on.

Many clients followed me to my new location on Bloor Street West, but it was never quite the same as the intense activity during that twenty year hit. By that time, I had also realized that although it might be initially distasteful, I may as well try to get used to doing business with, and taking money from, the white folk...

They talked a little different than me, but I figured in time I might get used to the idiom of their speech patterns and be able to learn how to deal with them. I even began to notice that some of their white women didn't look too bad either. Not as much "Junk in the Trunk" as I was familiar with, but isn't there something about "a change is as good as a rest".

The squirrel whisperer © by adrian Episode one: Lurch

I can't think of any easy way to tell you this, I've twisted it about in my mind for days trying to find the words that could even come close to explaining it. I can think of nothing to prepare you. You've heard the expression "horse whisperer", there was a book, followed by a movie. Well, this is so much worse. Here it is then, do with it as you will.

I am a squirrel whisperer!

Really, everything is fine, I've taken my meds today, no need to worry, it's simply not that big a deal. It just happens that's what I am. Lord knows, I didn't choose this, it's just been there all my life. I found this out when I was very young. The discovery was sort of like when you're trying to explain something to someone who doesn't speak your language, there is always much gesturing and carrying on, and all of a sudden everybody "gets it". There are smiles all around, sometimes even laughter, and everybody feels good... same thing, just like that, that's exactly how it happened.

Listen to this...

I am known in the squirrel population as Big Grey, I have occasionally heard them refer to me behind muffled snickers as Big Grey Two Legs, I assure you, squirrels are not without humour.

I have lived with three different squirrels in my lifetime. If you don't understand, you may think I mean three squirrels have lived with me. You are confused, if there are squirrels in your house, apartment, or life, you live with them, not the other way round. I don't jump from branch to branch, but even lately I have spent time up ladders in trees, feeding and talking to a few of them.

This story is about Lurch. I did not live with Lurch, but we eventually became unbelievable friends.

I was cutting some wood in the backyard when I saw my bride Linda coming down the driveway. She was in obvious distress and crying. Before I could ask, she cried out, "It's Todd, he's been hit by a car." Todd was the name we had given one of the local young grey squirrels that frequent our back porch for peanut handouts. "He's lying in the middle of the road." she said. I comforted her as best I could, got some gloves and a bag and suggested we should pick him up and bury him.

We went down the block to where he lay, and I realized as we got closer it wasn't Todd, but an older grey squirrel we had never seen before. His back end had been crushed and he was still alive. I put on the gloves, went over, picked him up and put him in the bag, we then walked home with him. I didn't look at him closely until we got home. He was a mess. Not only his back, but his jaw was also damaged. My original thought was to finish him off to stop him from suffering more. In theory, that's always a good plan, but much harder to do in actual practice. However, he didn't seem to be in actual pain, just numb and in shock.

I ended up wrapping him in blankets, putting him in a container and leaving him in our garden shed for the night. It was early November, still warm, so the weather was not a factor. He was only able to lie on his side, and I went out to him frequently in the night, petted him and fed him bits of liquid food from an eyedropper. Eventually I went to bed, assuming that in the morning I would find him dead and that would be the end of it.

Next morning he was alert and still very much alive, but still only able to lie on his side.

In Toronto, and many other cities, we have an amazing volunteer animal rescue hospital that will take in injured wild animals and care for them. I arranged to bring this squirrel there. When we arrived, there were many questions about where he was found etc., because if an animal recovers they like to release them near where they originally lived. They also offered to call me and let me know if he didn't make it if I wanted, I didn't, and was done with it.

In late December during a snow storm, I looked out in the backyard and saw an old grey squirrel stumbling across my porch. I grabbed some peanuts, slipped on a jacket and went out. I crouched down to see if he would take a peanut and he looked at me for a moment and then staggered over, crawled up my pant leg and snuggled into my lap for protection from the storm. I could see that most of the fur on his back and belly had been shaved off, and what seemed to be stitches ran down his back. This squirrel looked as if he had just come back from a surgical procedure. He stayed in my lap about ten minutes, eating and warming up and then crawled off and went out into the storm.

Linda tried to convince me this had to be the same squirrel we had taken to the hospital, but I refused to believe it. The chance that squirrel had even lived was beyond possibility as far as I was concerned. I could not offer any reasonable explanation for this experience, but St. Francis of the elders didn’t fit my profile either. The next five days were bitterly cold, and we assumed a squirrel with little fur wouldn't have much chance of survival.

I built a squirrel house about twenty feet up a tree in my backyard a few years ago in an as yet unwritten story. I'm in my yard two weeks after I fed the squirrel on the porch, and see an old weathered squirrel looking out the doorway of that house. As soon as he sees me he starts to come out the opening and promptly falls to the ground, landing in a snow bank. He gets up, staggers over to me, and crawls onto my lap. Linda brings us some walnuts and I feed them to him. Twice the next day when I go outside he comes to the edge of the squirrel house doorway, falls to the ground, staggers over to me, and gets on my lap.

It's pretty obvious by now that the squirrel house needs renovation, and a piece of wood is salvaged from a corner of the yard so I can add a porch for him to better navigate. I've decided that if I screw a flat piece of wood to the bottom of the house that will jut out six inches or so in front, he will have a ledge to help him get oriented when he tries to leave it.

Even though it's snowing, I set a ladder against the tree and start up with tools and wood at the ready.

I get up to the house and he sticks his face out it's door and starts watching what I'm doing. He looks at me incredulously, almost as if he can't believe it took me so long to figure out what he needed. He is six inches from my face, staring at me as I start to screw this board onto the bottom of the house he’s sitting in.

This is really weird, even for a nutbar like me. I haven't taken LSD in years, I'm weeks away from receiving my first Old Age Pension check. I'm twenty feet up a tree in a snowstorm, casually explaining to a wild squirrel what I'm doing, while he's watching me like he's the family pet. I wonder if he will offer to hold my screwdriver for me. While this is going on, from inside the house, I can hear another squirrel that I didn't know was there, squawking. Scolding him, or us. In my head I hear Grace Slick of Jefferson Airplane fame singing, "Tell them a hookah smoking caterpillar has given you the call." I'm a star in my own Alice in Wonderland movie.

When I finish and return to the ground, I comment to Linda, "I wonder how the neighbours feel about the harmless, crazy long hair down the street now."

The porch doesn't help much. He now comes out on the porch, but because his hind quarters are still not in great shape, his balance is dreadful. Every time he tries to sit up or scratch, he falls over and to the ground. I just keep shoveling as much snow as I can around the base of the tree to help break his fall. Linda and I have decided that in view of his constant staggering and falling, we will name him Lurch. We also decide it will be emotionally easier on us to refer to his falls as jumping, instead of falling, as in "Oh look, Lurch just jumped out of the tree again."

I have by now finally conceded this is indeed the squirrel that had been run over a few months ago. The body shaving has obviously been done professionally, and there are definite stitches left over from some delicate operation he must have been given. His complete disinterest that I am a different species also suggests that he has gotten very used to dealing with people in his two months of rehabilitation.

As the Winter went on he got progressively better at navigating the porch, he still jumped, but not as much, his upper body was very strong and he developed an incredible ability to grab on the edge of the porch when he slipped, and pull himself back up. It was not uncommon to look out and see him dangling from the edge, he would look like an athlete doing his pull-up exercises as he dragged himself back to the safety of the flat surface. He still had a lot of trouble climbing back up the tree, so I built what we referred to as a wheelchair ramp for him that went from the bushes to the tree, and he started using that with great success.

Most mornings I would go out and sit on the steps of our back porch and he would come out of the house and down the tree to visit. I would feed him, and he would lean against me for balance as he ate. Sometime he would stay a bit when finished eating and I would pet him and rub his ears. Almost every afternoon at about three o'clock we would repeat the same dance.

In the spring his fur began to grow back. He still staggered about and fell over constantly but he started to look like a normal squirrel again. We found out that the other squirrel he had in the house with him was a female, and when he found out he quickly got her pregnant. He stayed around and constantly visited with me until May. As the weather started warming, whenever I was on the porch he would come down, find a sunny spot and just lie out with me for long stretches of time as I sat reading. I would talk to him, and sometimes he would come over to be petted and at others, he would just lie there and ignore me. He seemed to just hang around for the companionship. I never knew if he thought he was keeping me company or if I was his company.

Summer arrived, and we simply didn't see him anymore.

Other squirrels moved in and out of the squirrel house during the following seasons. It had been eleven months since I last saw Lurch, and one day I looked out and saw a familiar face looking out the squirrel house doorway. I thought, no way, not possible, and then he came out. He sat for a moment, started to scratch, fell over the side and grabbed on to the edge and pulled himself up. Lurch had moved back into the house! This time, he was very skittish, and nervous, but after about four days we reacquainted ourselves and returned to back porch feedings complete with petting and ear scratching.

During this stay he reconnected with the squirrel he previously lived in the house with, they mated again, and she produced another fine litter.

Lurch certainly brought a lot of pleasure to Linda and me (yes, worry too). He also helped remind me of the squirrel named Peanuts I lived with for a year and a half when I was eleven and twelve years old. He would curl up at my neck and sleep in bed with me every night.

The picture I use in my profile is of Lurch. That picture was made two years after he had his accident and we first met him. If you click on it, you will see a larger image. Look at the joy and glee in his face, listen, and you will almost hear him laughing.

My Mother, the Sister © by adrian

Twenty-one years old, decked out in my ever present ascot and beret, sophisticated, svelte. I'm in a fancy restaurant/bar I frequent named the 5th Avenue, where I'm so well known, I even get my mail sent here. I'm a good looking boy, all the waitresses treat me as their darling and I frequently date some of them. The restaurant's owners often sit at my table. I am invited to the kitchen for New Year's and other special occasion celebratory toasts. I am on top of the world.

I'm sitting with my three older sisters drinking a liqueur and espresso. At the top of the landing I notice a Roman Catholic Nun standing there with a large battered suitcase at her side. She is dressed in the full regalia. Habit, head covering, huge rosary dangling at her side, a tattered black prayer book in her hand. The outfit she's wearing is blue in colour, signifying a different order in the hierarchy of the Church, not the traditional black you may be familiar with. We all turn to look at this woman of the cloth who is so obviously out of place. As if rehearsed, we each exclaim in unison our own personalized variation of "Holy Fuck!", and our jaws drop.

Listen to this...

None of us has seen or heard from the woman we're staring at with our mouths open in over six years. The nun standing at the top of the landing is our mother. I'm not talking some symbolic Christian mother here. We are her spawn. This is the woman from whose loins my sisters and I were wrested.

She bellows out across the restaurant "I knew I would find you here."

I am mortified. Concerned that I will never be able to explain how the goateed, libidinous, dark and intense young man women find so fascinating ended up with a mommy who is a nun. I am a mere twenty-one, and my life is now completely, irrevocably ruined, I will never be able to set foot in this place again.

My mother is a large woman, this is magnified by the enormous outfit she is wearing. She picks up the worn suitcase and trudges towards us. She looks like a huge blue Penguin. As I watch her, I quickly realize this will not be the problem I first anticipated. I will simply tell anyone who asks, "Oh her? she's my mother." and everybody will laugh and say what a card I am, and that will be the end of it. Who would believe such a thing!

Women have always been extremely kind and giving to me. There have only been three women in my life who have ever caused me any difficulty. There was the sister who tried to stab me in my back with a pair of scissors. After that event, we were able to officially forgo the pretence of sibling love and move on. There was another lady along my path that caused me pain. As an existentialist, in order to congratulate myself for all the good things that happen in life, I am determined to accept responsibility for most of my misfortunes. I understood that I contributed to that experience by mixing my life with hers, and survived.

My mother was the third. It started in her pregnancy. We were at war long before I was born.

I had what is called RH-factor or hemolytic disease, which simply means that my blood is RH-Positive, hers is RH-negative, and they do not mix. Her immune system saw me as a foreign object and for her protection produced antibodies to try to destroy me. Because of our incompatibility, I wasn't able to get any nourishment from her body and was slowly wasting away. We spent the entire pregnancy trying to kill each other off.

This incompatibility is not a problem these days, medical procedures deal with it fairly easily, but in 1939 it was an almost certain death sentence for one or both of us. As it turned out I was one of the first in the world that a new procedure was tested on. Immediately after birth the bad blood was drained out one leg as new good blood was pumped in the other. When I was young, I would proudly display the scars on my legs to show where the pumps that gave me succor had been attached. I loved the image that my belly button had in effect been attached to some Frankensteinian machine, and not to my mother.

As she descends on the table, there is much shuffling and moving about. None of us knows whether to flee or make room for her, she's never really batted a home run with any of my sisters either, but for different reasons. We take the easier choice, and shuffle over to make room for her. I have a brief image of us bolting from the booth in different directions as this lady of the cloth arrives.

She now hovers over the table and while staring at me, screams, "Well? How are you?" I intend to answer "Good, thanks." in my finest enunciated voice. What I hear tumbling loudly from my mouth is "Gooth." as I glue bits of the words together. I have been struck dumb by a minion of the Catholic church.

My mother and I have never forgiven the other for the physical suffering we both endured during and immediately after the pregnancy. Every time we face each other, we are forced to re-learn we are part of the same flesh. So, here we go again, only this time, I seem to be stuck on, "When is the sound of a blue nun not German wine?" and "Is blue nun a German wine or a virgin ?" Have the Catholics accidentally sent me a Zen Koan? Am I about to receive enlightenment? Should I order another espresso?...

I am thirteen years old, my father and I are going to church. I have been commanded to attend a meeting with my mother and her spiritual advisor at the church she attends twice daily. It seems because of my age I am the only thing standing in the way of my mother's wish to obtain an annulment . If she can prove my sinfulness to the church she will be allowed to formally request her marriage be dissolved. She desires to remove herself from the drudgery of parenthood so she can become a more religious and saintly being. We meet in the Bishop's office. After ten minutes of my mother and father shouting at each other the bishop orders them to stop. I expect to be asked questions about my beliefs, or lack thereof. I wonder if he will ask my name? I wonder if he knows I'm even in the room? Having not spoken to me, the Bishop announces "Seeing as the boy has obviously already lost his soul, I understand completely there is no point in maintaining this marriage." He looks at my mother and says " I will send my approval of your request to the Holy See in Rome." He stands, smiles, makes the sign of the cross, and blesses my already lost soul. He dismisses me saying, "Go in peace." and I am sent from the room.

Catholics don't allow divorce, in order to get around the sticky business of marriage breakdown they grant annulments. In the eyes of her church, they sort of pretend the marriage never took place. With annulment, they are able to comfortably claim that the marriage was essentially invalid from the beginning. My sisters and I were born in a marriage the Catholics deem didn't, or shouldn't have, existed.

When I last saw my mother six years ago she had been granted her annulment, and was on her way to Rome for a special audience with the Pope. No Bishops this time, she's going to see the Boss. If she can get Him to agree to her new request, she will be given a special dispensation that will allow her to join a convent and eventually become a nun.

Her wish has been granted, and she now belongs to an order that wears a blue Habit in honor of the Blessed Virgin Mary. What a perfect choice for a women with four children. She has arrived at this restaurant with impressive armament... She wears uncontestable proof that God is on her side!

My mother now sits with us, her children, wearing a costume of her faith, dressed as a representative of chastity and virtue. Rome has seen fit to dismiss her marriage. Her children are no longer a hindrance to her calling. Her virginity has been restored by a decree of the church, and she is a nun...

I promise myself I will write a story someday...

Everything is empty. Everything is full. Surely in this moment I could start my own religion!

Submerged in the shock of seeing my mother as one of the Sisters of the church I sense there must be something of great gravity and significance that I should say. That I must say! I must find something so profound, so esoteric, so meaningful that it will be written about in history books for eons to come. Could I trust that life will ever allow me to face such a mystical opportunity again?

Yes! Yes! I have it. There is no other choice. I know now exactly what I must say!

"Would you like a pastry, Mom?"

The Hermit goes to Florida © by adrian

A few years ago, Linda, my bride of three years said “Lets go to Florida in February. It will be fun to get away and have a rest in the sun for a few weeks.” I stared at her, dumfounded. She now claims I went to my room, curled up in a fetal position on the floor and would not come out for 3 days, that may be correct. I have no other memory of the event.

I’ve spent most of my life on my own, venturing outside my cave only when I needed to forage for food or other sustaining things, I am a hermit. Not the “Mad Bomber” type of hermit, quite different. I can be social and charming if need be. If you ever get me started (I urge you not to), I will regale you for hours with stories filled with laughter and pathos. You might even be fooled into believing that I am very social. That would be incorrect. I like to be alone.

I don’t mean to give the wrong impression. There have been four spectacular women who at different times in my life have decided to be equal co-pilots with me and we’ve lived together in long and wonderful relationships. There have also been many tourists who have dropped by for visits at other times.

I have loved and embraced the years I've been with each. Those who stayed were intelligent, beautiful, mysterious, and full of themselves. They’ve needed those qualities to share time with me. My life’s work is unusual to say the least. Any women who feels she can find comfort with me must know who she is. She also needs to be capable of whacking me over the head with a newspaper and command our ship by herself during the times I get stupid. I have completely enjoyed sharing my life with them.

I just happen to completely enjoy spending time with myself. I like to be alone.

I do not like to go outside my cave. Almost all my life I’ve created, worked and lived in the same environment. I would prefer to be paid for my services with food and dry goods. You’ll save me a trip to the store. I am a hermit.

Going to Florida involves flying in airplanes. For the Wright brothers, a dream. For me, a nightmare. Not only must I leave my cave, but I will be flying above the clouds in a container that weighs thousands of pounds, full of thousands of pounds of flammable fuel. That’s asking Mother Nature for a lot of co-operation. I will also need to go through U.S. Customs, and spend hours with strangers in airports and airplanes. That's asking me for a lot of co-operation.

The airline limo picked us up on time at 4.30 a.m. Linda and I thought this was a good omen, our trip was starting off great.

After waiting in the wrong line for twenty minutes we are sent two hundred yards away to get in the line for United States flights. We trudge over there, wait another twenty minutes and after booking in are sent to a different line. This new line is huge, consisting of about eight rows of people snaking back and forth like a bank line that slowly moves us to our potential doom. We are now waiting to experience the joy of U.S. Customs.

Half an hour later we arrive at the counter for interrogation This part of the experience isn't too bad. Sharp unfriendly questioning, minor baggage disruption, a little roughhousing, nothing unexpected. As we leave this section, Linda dumps her suitcases, coats, bags etc., on the floor with the sensible intention of repacking so that everything can be carried to the next trough without dragging it along the floor. As she throws her stuff to the floor the guy who just dealt with us starts yelling at us to move along (no one is behind us, so we aren't holding anything up). Linda starts to explain to him she just wants to get a better grip on her belongings when two other guards with hands on their holstered guns descend on us from different directions, running towards us, both screaming that we could NOT stop there AT ALL and have to keep moving, NOW!

Realizing we are outnumbered I help her gather up her strewn belongings and we drag them along the floor to the next section.

The next line is smaller, (perhaps some of the unfortunates in front of us have been killed off) and we place our watches, shoes, belts etc., in an X-Ray machine... all pretty uneventful until we get to the next section.

A gun belted uniformed woman of formidable girth is in charge here, my friendly "Hello" is ignored as she waves a metal wand over our portable computer. It’s an old Macintosh that I resuscitated from some workroom corner so that Linda could get her e-mail (a hermit who never leaves his cave doesn’t have much need for a viable portable). Well, this guard immediately drops the wand. She reaches into a lower drawer, pulls out and puts on a pair of rubber gloves and screams out "We need a supervisor over here." He arrives and they have a very animated conversation while pointing to various dials on their machine, the supervisor says there's a problem, and commands us to "Wait here!" and leaves. I think I hear a drum roll, but I can't be sure.

It’s now about 7.30 a.m., we’ve been in various lines for two and a half hours, the plane will be leaving soon and we're not even close to getting on board yet. We’re old, we’re tired. Even I am beginning to lose my sense of humour (that’s quite a ways down the path for me).

The supervisor returns with a clipboard and explains we have to answer some questions because the computer and case show traces of explosive material on them. The rubber gloves are to protect the agent from getting explosive dust on her hands. Linda had been carrying the portable at the time of our capture, so he asks her if she's used the case lately to carry any bombs, explosives, or makeup. I interrupt and explain the case is mine and I got it from my basement where I don't make bombs and I haven't used the case or computer for a couple of years.

The supervisor now gets agitated about whether anybody else in our basement could have added any bombs to the case or computer. I explain no one has access to our basement, that I am a photographer and just grabbed one of the many camera cases I have in my basement to carry this in, and I want my mommy and were sorry and we promise to never do whatever we did again...

Eventually, after opening and closing the computer repeatedly, the gal with the gloves, holding the opened computer, stares at me and demands "Open it up for me." I meekly mention it is open and she loudly repeats "Open it up for me." We do this a few more times as she gets testier and testier, for a moment I wonder if she means I should take it apart, but finally figure she might mean “Turn it on.” I ask, and she yells "That's what I’ve been telling you to do!"

Macs are turned on by the keyboard. No simple on or off switch for Macs, nothing anywhere that says ON. I'm convinced that if I don't remember what the stupid key is, I will spend the rest of my life in an American prison, being really friendly with a guy named Bubba. I resist the urge to start humming and suck my thumb, I sense this might be very counterproductive. Finally, I notice a key that has a squiggle on it that might be it. I explain this is an old computer and will take some time to start up. I push the key and the supervisor, guard, Linda and I, in a state of transcendent awe stare motionless at the blank screen for at least thirty seconds until a little Mac happy face appears and it slowly starts to come alive... everyone is happy now, and we hold hands and dance around the table in a circle. The supervisor concludes that recharging the old battery probably produced some gasses that the sniffer machine detected.

We are freed from our detention and sent to another holding area. More waiting, and then we're finally allowed to board the plane. We take off and fly above the clouds and eventually the hermit and his bride arrive in Florida.

As the plane is landing, Linda asks, if she is ever able to talk me into leaving the cave again, would I prefer to drive next time? I make a mental note to remember to check what my bride means by the words "next time".

Six months later, my bride has again talked me into venturing from my cave. I'm sitting outside a drug store in St. Sauveur, Quebec waiting for her to come out when some old guy comes up and sits on the bench beside me. He start to chat with me about my tan, his tan, what parts of Florida I went to, and what parts of Florida he goes to.

My life of solitude is ruined. I am no longer a monk. I have become a caricature. I am now the other half of a duo of geezers sitting on a bench in Quebec, calmly talking about their trips to Florida. The only thing that's missing from this scene is a cane to thump on the ground while we cackle. Maybe I'll be able to talk Linda into going to Florida again next year. I remember seeing a fine walking stick in a store when we were there...

Taking back the empties © by adrian

As a man, I am incomplete, a total failure. I have never been able to find the missing gene that would allow me to identify with my fellow brothers, there is absolutely no other possibility. I am a failure.

I am almost 70 years old, and I have never in my life seen a complete game of any sport played on those fields or courts or ice men use for such things. I don't beep my car horn at women with big breasts. I don't wear my cap on backwards, I don't even wear one. I don't adjust my private parts in public places.

I spent most of my youth curled up in a big easy chair reading Dostoyevsky, Sartre, Plato, Freud and Jung while I listened to Tchaikovsky and Beethoven, I wore an ascot and a beret, I was disgusting!

Wait, it gets worse... I cook, I do my own laundry, I sew. If there is a problem in my relationship with my lovely bride of 7 years (much to our surprise, we both re-married late in life), I am always the first to state the obvious "we need to talk". I will discuss my deepest feelings and inner thoughts with anybody, I will happily open up to the bus driver, I am not afraid of what others think of me. When I get served badly, I tell the person involved that their actions are unsatisfactory, and if served well, I never miss expressing how much I enjoyed what just happened. None of that "have a nice day" stuff, but real solid contact and thanks.

Don't get me wrong, I am a capable individual... I could do a pretty good job of wiring your house, I can do your plumbing for you, not just changing a washer, but big grown up stuff with blow torches and the like, I could even present you with a fairly good plumbers butt. If something mechanical is broken, there's a pretty good chance I will be able to fix it.

As I said though, as a man, I just don't measure up, I just can't do any of that "guy" stuff that men do so well. I am a failure.

I almost forgot, I don't drink beer very often, and if I do, it's always one of those honey brown beers, you know, the kind that, to use Arnold Schwarzenegger's words a "Girly Man" would drink.

In the city I live in we have just started a returnable wine bottle deposit system, an almost fine idea, except for one tiny, tiny flaw... you are required to take your wine bottles back to a beer store, so for those of us that don't beer much, it's a non event and sadly they simply go in the recycle bin. This though, has created a new "cottage industry" of people that go out on recycling days with huge shopping carts and roam the city picking up bottles so that they can return them and enjoy the refundable deposit for their efforts.

It's been about four years since I was last in a beer store and my cousin, bless her soul, brought us a six pack the last time she came to dinner, so now I had 2 six packs and a twelve pack of empties to return, I even had 3 wine bottles in the recycling bin that could go back. I was ready. I threw the empty wine bottles in a plastic bag and the cases of empties in the car and drove off to do my deed. I was pumped.

As I arrived at the parking lot of the Plaza where the beer store was, I realized my grip on the steering wheel was tightening, I could feel a nervousness building, I was slightly nauseous as I started remembering just how "manly" beer stores are, how totally incapable I have always been at navigating these places... the minute I open the door, they all know my secret, they all know that I do not belong there, that I am not one of them.

On parking, I noticed that my brain had stopped working and I could no longer remember what brand of beer I drank. I sat for a few minutes and then convinced myself that this had to be done, I would at least go in and look around, maybe I would recognize the bottle in the displays they have on the wall of all beer stores and if my vocal cords stayed paralyzed with fear, perhaps I could just point and some kindly clerk would help me.

Well, as you know, life does not always unfold the way it is pre-imagined. Apparently since the last time I was in a beer store they changed the interiors rather dramatically and failed to notify me. There was no row of bottles on the wall for me to point to, everything was bare except for a check out island in the middle of the store, one at the back, and a long row of those roller things I recognized where I would return my empties to if I had not cowardly left them on the front seat of my car. To one side I saw a cavernous room that men were casually walking freely into and strolling out with cases of beer under their arms. Everybody was staring at me, they were all waiting to see what the Gringo would do, I found my voice and said to the clerk standing in the centre island "Is this self serve, do I just go in there and get what I want?" "Yep" he answered.

I am now in the largest refrigerator I have ever seen in my life... it is stacked with hundreds, possibly thousand of cases of beer, I am in what I perceive is "Man Heaven". I wander about aimlessly, I cant find what I want if my life depends on it, I know if I stay in here much longer, I will be found in a corner, humming quietly and sucking my thumb... I retreat. As I flee to the exit door the clerk calls to me "Couldn't find what you were looking for?", "No, it's OK, this was just a practice, I will come back next week" I reply. I get to my car and without looking back drive away.

It's Wednesday now, and I have been driving around with my empties crashing and rolling about the car floor, reminding me of Saturday's folly... I must do this thing, I must return these bottles, I must be strong. I must also remember the name of the brand I drink when I go into that dreadful place! I will buy 24 bottles this time, I won't need to return for another 4 years. If I can cut back on my drinking, I might be able to squeeze 5 years out of this new case before I have to return it.

Full of resolve I jump into the car. I even understand the lay of the land this time, I am ready, I am pumped. Life is good!

I live ten minutes away from the beer store. After driving 5 minutes or so I notice on the sidewalk the occasional street person clanging up the street with his/her cart full of bottles, I think how sweet that they have been able to take advantage of this new system and find some spare change without the need to beg.

I turn down a side street about four blocks from the beer store and notice more people with their loaded carts. For a brief moment I think that I am a jerk, and maybe I should stop and give these bottles to someone, they certainly can use the money more than I, but no, I am challenged and want to overcome this fear of the dreaded beer store, I need to do this, so I drive on.

I round the final corner, I'm about 3 blocks from my destination and finally confronted with the insanity of it. The scene is like every End of Days movie I have ever seen. As far as I can see, in the direction I am traveling, and coming over the hill from the other side is a long endless shuffle of disheveled people and carts & bottles clanking, falling, spilling... everybody funneling into the mouth of the beer store parking lot. Everybody has arrived today to collect their prize. Today is recycling day!

At first I think I should just keep driving and try again some other time, but I know I might never be able to prepare myself to do this again, so I soldier on. Anyway, I reason, I'm fairly shopworn, used and disheveled looking myself, with my wine bottles and a few loose beer bottles in a plastic bag I will just blend in, I will be in a store full of others that don't belong there either. God has created this cover for me so that I can return my empties unnoticed.

Wait, it gets worse... I park the car and as I'm walking toward the front door clutching my sad offering of empties I notice a fellow who owns a bar just down the street from where my studio was a few years ago. We were neighbours for 15 years. He is loading up his empties to take back and replenish his restaurant stock for the day. He sees me for the first time in 4 years and I can see in his face he is embarrassed for me, for a brief moment I'm sure he wonders if he should ask me if I want any of his empties to help me out. He must think that I can certainly use the money more than he. Instead he decides the way to deal with his former indigent neighbour is to look away and pretend he hasn't seen me. Just as well, because I am now swept in the maelstrom of people and carts and empties sliding into the store. To try to turn back now could precipitate a disaster.

I am pushed into the store by the moving crowd, everybody with their carts and boxes full to the brim, all anxious to get this transaction finished, so they can go back out and find more treasure. As each arrived at the front of the line I notice that every bottle they are claiming is being argued over and fought for. The clerk reaches into bags and boxes and various other offering that he is presented with and rejects many and hands them back to the surprised supplicant. I am never able to determine why the various bottles are rejected and I doubt that the people they are returned to know, but suffice to say that for every pile of bottles that is inspected, more than half are handed back to the presenter as not refundable. They turn around after they get their money, shuffle outside and dump the bottles that are not accepted into the closest garbage bin, sometimes simply on the lawn beside the beer store and then go on their way. None of this seems particularly useful for the cities recycling plan.

My turn arrives and I hand my submission to the clerk and wait for my gold. I have no idea what the amount of loose change I am given totals, it wouldn't do me any good to count it anyway, I don't know what the empties are worth. I do feel a sense of triumph and am delighted that I have passed inspection, I've shown myself to be a worthy scavenger. They have accepted my humble offering, for a brief moment I am part of a group, I am one of them!

I panic briefly as I realize that I still need to get my new case of beer, but pull myself together and aim for the "Cold Room". I am able to quickly find what I need, snatch it in my arms and boldly stride back to the counter beside where I was a minute ago. The fellow that had served me interrupts his sad task of returning unacceptable bottles to the people that have reached his counter and calls into a microphone for "front counter checkout". Someone eventually arrives, takes my money and sends me on my way.

I figure in about 4 to 5 years I'll have some empties to return, maybe by then the scavengers will have cell phones on their carts and I can phone ahead for a pickup, I'm pretty sure I will never be able to do this again.

On telling this sad story to my bride, I asked her if she would give me a son, so that I would have someone to help me learn the ways of manhood. She just smiled, and then asked me if I would like a beer.