WRITER - Vancouver Lifestyles -
Oh September
“When I was a young man courting the girls,
I played me a waiting game.
If a maid refused me with tossing curls,
I let the old earth take a couple of whirls…”
That’s the beginning of my mother’s favorite. Kurt Weill wrote it for a show called “Knickerbocker Holiday. It’s called “September Song.” When she got tired of playing that song, or a little Chopin, or a little Mozart and went into the kitchen to fix the tea, her kid sister, my Aunt Toby, would sit down at the piano bench and launch into Hoagy Carmichael’s “Stardust.” These are both iconic tunes, melodies that linger on and find new expression in new voices in every generation. Today we say to these great composers and to my mother and my aunt, “May they rest in peace.”
Now, that it is September, October, November, the morning and afternoon frenzy at Our Lady of Perpetual SUV’s has returned. One tiny mother, one perfectly dressed little kid. They seem miniaturized by the giant mega-super-truck in which they arrive to the new school term. The older kids racing to class at UBC scream up 10th Avenue, ignoring utterly the rules of the road or even what has become uncommon courtesy: No Passing in a School Zone; Slow Down, School Zone; Don’t Change Lanes, School Zone. Nah! Who cares? Poli Sci starts in 20! I told Glenda I’d meet her at the SUB.
The beautiful almost naked boys and girls have largely abandoned Kits Beach. A few die –hard bronzed sun freaks still dot the lawns, leaning against their folding chairs, and the perennial doubles tennis players-cum-pot dealers have never left. Never will. Even in the rain and snow they bring big push brooms to maintain their private/public club privileges. Nobody at the Terminal City or Vancouver Club is this dedicated.
Just as the tennis and golf seasons come to a close, just when we were afraid we’ve run out of excuses for sitting on the couch, the National Football League lumbers back onto the field. The New Orleans Saints have nowhere to play; every game will be an “away” game. The Oakland Raiders, the Cleveland Browns and the Dallas Cowboys have no reason to play. The Patriots were early picks for a third consecutive Super Bowl, which would make it four out of five years, and then who could deny them the moniker “dynasty?” The Patriots sublimely unflashy quarterback, Tom Brady, who does nothing remarkable other than win, win and win again, will be more revered in Beantown than the Kennedys.
Back at home, the Lions can’t lose. They’ve got 32 quarterbacks. They’re picking guys up on Granville Street, showing them how to grip the fingers around the laces, and they’re still laughing. Go figure. Go Lions!
Vancouver City Council – the Cirque de Silly – is in its own special grip. Larry’s off to the red-plush Batcave, known as The Senate, in the Nation’s Capitol, so he’s handed the reins over to The Dark Force, Jim Green, who believes somehow that he is owed the mayor’s chair. This naked ambition has so alarmed the Federal and Provincial Liberals – who themselves have a certain sense of entitlement about practically everything Canadian – that they cranked up Christy Clark to be the NPA candidate from Port Moody, oops, Vancouver. Sam Sullivan, the wily veteran council member, who knows more about the hidden and exposed textures of Vancouver in his sleep than Ms. Clark could possibly learn in a decade of Tuesday nights, startled everyone, won the NPA nomination, and now may take home the prize.
Which leads up back to the soon-to-be-forgotten summer. Was it ever so sunny and hot for so long in Our Town? Did we ever have so many friends and relatives descend upon us?
First there was my cousin from the Very Big City in America. She’s the lesbian Rabbi. The orthodoxy doesn’t even recognize women as potential clergy, so you can imagine how far she’s had to go to be guiding her own congregation. She and her partner wanted to stay in my spare bedroom and bath. And that would’ve been fine, but I was incredibly busy during August and since my heart “procedure” (angioplasty) in early June, I now have this fabulous new excuse for bowing out of anything that’s even mildly inconvenient.
Murray, the doctor, arrived from Cleveland; his sister, the retired computer wizard, from Toronto. Aaron, the composer arrived from Israel.. That was fun. He passed his bassoon concerto on to me and I passed it on to the VSO. Hey, he’s originally from Winnipeg and Bramwell Tovey was the conductor in Winnipeg for ages, and the VSO has a new bassoonist, and if you don’t try, it doesn’t happen, right?
Robert, whose late father, Queenie Yip, was one of the legendary soccer players here in Vancouver two eras back, arrived from Ottawa with Lisa and the girls and we managed to sneak in a lunch a favorite local diner.
Now, it’s Deep Fall and to step from the sunshine to the shade is to experience two different climate zones in a split second. The nights are cooler. Perfect bicycle weather. It’s the season to take those postponed projects off the shelf. O.K. Which of these things do I really want to do?
What time is the Vikings game on? I wonder if Culpepper will be any good without Randy Moss?
