Author: mckillop_vfr@yahoo.ca

The Trip – a beginning

February 25: For many years I harboured the dream of spending an extended period of time in Europe. With parental / family duties continuing, I realized several years ago that this dream was not going to be possible for the foreseeable future.

In 2010, we had a reunion of sorts for the “Inglewood Gang”, a group of friends that I have mostly known since high school. gangI half-jokingly said that the next reunion would be in Paris to celebrate our 65th year on the planet. And in the intervening years I’ve been quietly bugging them about going. I figured that, even if nobody else went, I would have a personal objective to meet.

Over the last 6 months, plans have been firmed up and it looks like there will be 10 people making the trip. In December we booked a place to stay just south of Carpentras, and today I booked the flight, a car, and a motorcycle.

Arriving in Paris, I have a month in a car, then a month on a motorcycle, before a week at the house we rented. I’m hoping to start out in northeast France, and then wander through Alsace, the Black Forest and central Germany to northeastern Italy. I want to scout out the Dolomites – maybe for a future motorcycle trip. I get the bike in Nice and I’m thinking of a loop through the Massif and western France before a longer time in the Pyrenees. My cousin James, brother-in-law Joe, and my good friend Chris are joining me for the last week of the bike trip, probably through southeast France. Then a week at the house with the whole mob, and a few days in Paris before coming home.

As a friend said, it will be long enough to be a journey rather than a trip. I can’t wait…

Ed Murphy

January 28: We all have pictures like this: a moment frozen in time: the self-aware awkward glance at the camera perhaps hoping that if we don’t acknowledge it, it won’t get us. The man is wearing full Scottish regalia: kilt, shirt, and sporran – the works. He is striking and handsome. He is dancing “the old white man dance” as his daughter calls it, and he is laughing, perhaps caught in embarrassment. Behind him, emerging into the frame is a second man, also in full regalia.

Russo

These are my friends David and Ed in happier times – a wedding. And the picture seems to reflect how they were as friends: David always outgoing and the life of the party. He was the guy that told the stories. If David was around, we were laughing. Ed seemingly liked to hang back. More reserved, he was analytical and good with a trenchant comment that summarized his thoughts, deflated the pompous, and enlightened us mere mortals.

Sadly, David passed away 6 years ago, on Halloween – a day that will forever evoke his memory in me. His passing left a hole in our lives that has been impossible to fill. And today we learned that Ed too has died, unexpectedly and far too soon. Someone once said that Ed seemed to have a lot of unhappiness around him, and I suppose that is true. He certainly had problems in his life that had recently dominated his thinking. Yet he seemed hopeful and ready to make a change and I believed and hoped that he had many happier years ahead.

A year that started with such positive energy for me, and I think for him, has suddenly turned grey and cold. My consolation is the hope that that these two fine, handsome, strong men are still dancing together somewhere – enjoying a Tennant’s, a “wee Goldie” and laughing at the rest of us.

Godspeed bhoys…

 

The Move

January 22: The movers arrived at precisely 9:00AM and were finished by noon. Everything I own in the entire world (OK that’s a stretch – I left a lot for Marisa to sort out) moved from one end of the City to the other in 3 hours flat. Having spent almost 25 years in the house, I am surprised at how it feels to leave it behind so quickly. I had expected it to be more emotional and difficult, but in reality, it felt like simply turning a page. Making a welcome change.

The process of sorting through rooms of stuff forced me to confront the uncomfortable fact that the keepsakes that are so meaningful to me, are essentially junk to someone else. The souvenirs, the talismans and ephemera are all pretty much meaningless to anyone but me.  Yet I kept them.

The other process, just beginning, is figuring out this new place to live ….

Why ?

This is a bit of a vanity project that started in 2015. I’m sharing things as they happen in the hope that they will enlighten, entertain, or just let you know where I am. A diary of sorts, but not a day-to-day blow-by-blow account of events. I hope it will also be about the significance of the events, rather than just the events themselves. We shall see. So happy reading.

And happy 2024.

There is no shortcut to life. To the end of our days, life is a lesson imperfectly learned.

 Harrison E. Salisbury