1. SMALL TOWN SATURDAY NIGHT

In these Covid times it sometimes seems I’m living groundhog days. Wake up, grab coffee, walk dog, eat supper, watch tv, head to bed, sleep, repeat. Music throughout of course. And intermittent writing which helps relieve the boredom. I found I really enjoyed putting together the series involving 60s music, so I’ve decided to do much the same starting here.

These are songs that always remind me of Flin Flon...

You may recognize this song from 1991. Taken from his first album, it was quite a big hit for Hal Ketchum. Here it’s performed by Pat Alger, who co-wrote the song. I prefer this video version mostly because of Pat’s stage banter. His introduction illustrates one of the reasons why I love live music so much. As Pat explains, the song’s lyrics are about growing up in LaGrange, Georgia, which is about 100 kms southwest of Atlanta.

Of course, music is personal, so having never been to Georgia (lights on or out) whenever I heard the song I could not help but think of my own small town. It still never fails to make me think of the Rex Theatre marquee which dominated the east side of Main Street when I was growing up. In the photo below it is on the left. The Orange Toad occupied the Royal Drugs location for a time.

The Northland Theatre was directly across the street. I remember the line ups at both theatres for the Saturday matinees. I have to confess that I wasn't that big a fan of Elvis movies but my Mom had to come an haul me out of "Son of Flubber" because I kept watching it over and over.

Flin Flon was pretty isolated in those days and if the world was flat it probably would have ended at Cranberry for most of us. The song no doubt rings true for a lot of small towns but whenever I listen, it makes me think of Flin Flon in the 60s and 70s. It was a lot different place back then, and the name changed, but "Bobby" was always gettin' drunk and lookin' for a fight. Saturday night in that old mining town was something special and for whatever reason, this song always brings it to mind.

2. SMALL TOWN

These are songs that always remind me of Flin Flon...

I got nothing against a big town but my bed is in a small town. A very obvious choice of course, but I defy you to watch this video, listen to the words, and not think of Flin Flon. I never tire of hearing it for that reason. Of course Seymour and Bloomington, Indiana, where John Mellencamp was born and lives, are considerably larger than Flin Flon, but size is relative and both are small towns compared to nearby Cincinnati or St. Louis.

John wrote this song in the basement laundry room of his home in Bloomington because his aunt was visiting upstairs. Pre-computer, he used an electric typewriter his wife had bought him that would ding with every spelling mistake. According to John, he could hear his wife and aunt laughing every time they heard it correcting him. When he was finished, he came up and played the new song for them. He knew from their reaction it was a good one. Can you imagine? Next day he called his band together and recorded it in his Bloomington garage. Makes me think of the song as genuinely small town through and through.

I’m convinced John wrote this song in that laundry room for June and me. We are both small town born and raised. Our kids grew up in that same small town and in a neighbouring one even smaller. June was taught about Jesus and I used to daydream here. We were both educated at Hapnot of course. All our friends are still sooooo small town haha. We do breathing exercises every day on our Who?Deenie walk, so yeah, we can breathe here. And of course, we are completely surrounded by people who love us. People who let us be just who we want to be, which means half an hour late in June’s case. Flin Flon is not where they’ll bury me, but where they’ll spread my ashes no doubt. Best for me though, is the line many people might think applies the least.

“Married an L.A. doll and brought her to this small town

Now she's small town just like me”

Which does not apply to me at all of course, but my son Kenton did EXACTLY that. Now there’s a story. And the spirit of my small town ashes will be smiling when he’s an old man telling it.

3. SIXTEEN TONS

These are songs that always remind me of Flin Flon…

Written by Merle Travis and a huge hit for Tennessee Ernie Ford in 1955. I’m a Beatles fan of course, so this era of music is not mine – it’s my Dad’s. This song always makes me think of Flin Flon because I think of him spending 35 years underground whenever I hear it. Thirty-five years! All but the last few mining, which for me makes that number even more incredible. When he retired he was a hoistman operating one of the smaller runs underground at South Main. I worked a few summers in a few different mines around here and for the most part enjoyed it, but carrying your lunch pail down that deep, dark shaft for that long is mind-boggling to me.

Sixteen tons is about coal mining but Flin Flon miners all worked on a bonus system too. It’s more complicated, but basically the more ore, the more money for everyone working in the mine. Extra money is always nice and I know there were times those bonus cheques were more than their regular pay. They earned every penny imo. Hard, dirty, dangerous work, and contrary to what the song says, your mind better be sharp at all times too.

My Dad’s was. Despite only having his grade eight, Dad was extremely well read on all sorts of subjects. He would appreciate the opening line because of its biblical reference for example; “Some people say a man is made outta mud”.

Dad studied different religions despite being an agnostic. I always thought it amusing that when the Jehovahs came knocking he would invite them in for some of his tar-like black coffee so they could sit and have a scholarly discussion about the Bible. My sister Sheena and I usually made a quick exodus.

This song also calls to mind Ostry’s general store which used to be where Pioneer Square now stands. I think everyone in town ran a tab at Ostry’s which was paid off on payday then quickly run up again. It wasn’t affiliated with the Company in any way but I’m quite sure many owed their soul either to it or to Household Finance on the other end of Main.

Flin Flon in my day was always a hard rock mining town. The men worked hard, played hard, and fought hard so all the confrontational lines in this song ring true. Fighting was Main Street’s middle name. Fights were the norm, not the exception. In my memory either the Northern or the Maple Leaf always had a broken window.

None of this is to suggest Flin Flon was a bad place. Quite the contrary for most. My Dad rode the rails across Canada during the Great Depression and fought in WWII before arriving in Flin Flon. He was more than happy to be working for a solid, steady wage and I’m sure most felt exactly the same way. It was a different place in a different era in many ways; a time when the Company was a paternal presence in town, Phantom Lake being the classic example.

Hard work? Absolutely. Tough? Sure, that too. But then as now, Flin Flon was a special place filled with friendly, generous people who were kindred spirits. Then as now, people had a way of welcoming you, of putting an arm around your shoulder and making you want to stay longer than you intended. Didn’t matter what arm or what shoulder, if the right one don’t get you, then the left one will.

4. (DON'T GO BACK TO) ROCKVILLE

These are songs that always remind me of Flin Flon…

As a parent I did a lot of things wrong. I never made my daughter wear a yellow Cinderella gown for grad, for example. Long story, but she was goth at the time. She turned out alright. And not yellow, but I got the gown eventually.

I screwed up a lot worse with my son and he’s still a mess. Cheers for the Habs and likes baseball over CFL football to this day! One of the things I got right however, was music. Bought both of them guitars, enrolled both in lessons, and now they’re playing like Rory Gallagher and Bonnie Raitt. Well no, but at least they can’t say I never tried.

I also totally succeeded in getting them both off the hard stuff. Musically speaking, I mean. You know; Metallica and the entire Vans Warped lineup. I kept feeding them mixtapes (burned cds actually but mixtapes in spirit) containing music they liked but I’d sneak in good stuff like Springsteen or Damien Rice. Before you knew it they were more mature listeners, in fact stealing my “Gold” and “O” cds, and rocking with me in the front row to the Pixies. When that was going on, I will forever remember a conversation I had with Walks First Bear about this song before he ran off to university.

In an effort to get him to listen to some R.E.M., I told him this song always reminded me of Flin Flon because Flin Flon was a mining town literally built on rocks. I said it was Rockville to me and for about eight years while I was in Winnipeg going to school, I kept telling myself not to go back. He of course then asked me why I did? With just a hint of a tone in his voice, I might add. He’ll deny it now, but I thought I heard the question asked as; why did you fail to find what you wanted out in the larger world, Dad?

At the time I almost found that harder to explain than a much earlier talk I had with the boy about where babies came from. The problem wasn’t that I didn’t know. The problem was how do I explain it so a younger version of myself would understand? I knew he was tugging at his chains to get the f*ck out of this town and head to Box Elder just like I was when I was his age. The situation reminded me of the words from another song I had gifted him; “There's so much you have to know. Find a girl, settle down, if you want you can marry. Look at me, I am old but I'm happy.” Which was purely laughable because that meant I had become the father’s voice whereas I used to be the son’s.

To answer his question, I did my best to explain that although the town hadn’t changed much in those eight years, I had. Nearly all the things I once hated about this small town, I had come to value in their absence. I even started hearing the song differently, listening beyond the refrain, and realizing Rockville is a place “where nobody says hello”. In other words, Rockville is the big unfriendly city and the song is saying not to go there and waste another year.

My son is smarter than I ever was and loves music almost as much. He learned to enjoy R.E.M.. I think his favourite song by them became “Nightswimming”, but I could be wrong. He also didn’t take near as long as me to appreciate the small town he came from, although he loved L.A., and enjoys his life in Saskatoon.

Rockville is in Tennessee. Ingrid Schorr was taking a four hour bus ride to go back. Mike Mills of R.E.M. didn’t want her to leave Athens, Georgia. So he wrote this song.

None of that matters to me. I still think of Flin Flon as Rockville. I’m still glad I came back. And I now know Kenton understands why I did. Plus I look forward to listening in on similar conversations he will undoubtedly have with Elliott. No wasted years here.

5. OUR TOWN

These are songs that always remind me of Flin Fon...

Sad sad sad. I think of this song every time I drive down Main, Hapnot, or Hill Street these days. Really the rest of the town still looks pretty good, but the oldest part is looking its age and then some. That cuts deeper for me because I was an uptown kid after moving there from Birchview in 1958.

Our old house on Hill is still standing and looks comparatively well kept. The house we rented for a year that was on Main is now the Credit Union and 26 Hapnot is now the LC. The old Friendship Centre building, where I lived while attending high school, still looks much the same, though no longer the Centre. There are other houses and buildings scattered around that have weathered the years comparatively well. The library still looks good and is in a terrific spot. After all these years, the community hall is a real super trouper looking solid and still becoming a focal point many nights. But really, you don’t have to look very far to see, as Iris DeMent sings, that the sun’s setting fast on our town, our town.

To my mind, the Flin Flon Hotel is the worst. It’s like a visible testament to the decay. The slowly rotting corpse of a pioneer across the street from a shiny new square dedicated to them. At the other end of Main I mourn the Co-op store’s departure despite loving the new one in Birchview. And in the middle of the street, I now find myself dreading the night the red neon of the Royal sign goes out forever.

As I age along with our town, I realize change is inevitable. Old joints are everywhere uptown as well as in my own knees and hip. But while the simple passage of time guarantees growing old that doesn’t prevent growth in other ways. I love 60s music but I still listen to new songs. And our town’s growth is most clearly evident with the Renaissance that had been occurring pre-Covid. Flin Flon will never be the same as when I grew up, but that doesn’t mean we have to kiss it goodbye either. We just have to accept change.

Still, I know nostalgia is heart breaking sometimes. Just ask anyone who has returned to town and visited Phantom Lake. This song captures that love of place and that sense of loss. I miss my past every time I drive down Main Street. Never when I’m sitting on my stool at Johnny’s though.

6. SUMMER OF '69

These are songs that always remind me of Flin Flon...

Some might be wondering about including this song. It’s not as if I played anything until my fingers bled. I was never really dedicated about much. I did really try hard at darts but never wrote a song about my elbow aching because I suspected that had more to do with hoisting beers than trying in vain to score one ‘underd and eightee! No, there are two reasons why this song reminds me of Flin Flon.

The first is a short story. Yay! The line; “bought it at the five and dime” always reminds me of Woolworths which seemingly was always either across the street or across the back lane from us while I was growing up. Big Island is mentioned in the song too of course.

The second is the actual year of 1969. Longer story.

That was my grad year from high school. Also I am 69, so this year will literally be my summer of 69. And both are equally pivotal imo.

The year because I finally escaped from the imprisoning confines of Hapnot High and got a job which led to scaling the walls around this little burg and heading south to university. I was 17 in 1969. So was Jim Valance who cowrote the song with Bryan Adams.

My personal summer of 69 upcoming is significant also. I will likely get my second vaccination and I’m still hopeful the Covid prison we are all in will gradually disintegrate.

FREEEEEEDOM!!! In both cases, no disemboweling even.

Of course this song is nostalgic which I seem to be permanently these days. It’s an age thing no doubt. I hear this song and I long to be driving one way down Main checking out all the cool cars angle parked, each one distinctive from the next. Better yet, none of them would have to be locked. Theft was unheard of back then. Of course I’d also be stopping at intervals to chat for five minutes with someone jaywalking and everyone would be patiently waiting behind me because they’re not in any real hurry either. They might be doing the same thing further on up the road.

On the other hand, in 1969 I never had a girlfriend and I wanted one badly. In 1969 I felt trapped by this town. I was sure it was the cause of all my problems. In 1969 I was restless alright but I was also young and stupid.

Not yet pining for the fjords, I now find myself longing for more recent times for those reasons and others. Perhaps the summer of ‘019. Especially that year’s Blueberry Jam. I mean; the music was great, I had my girl, plus a nice reliable automobile, so I could go anywhere anytime. I was wiser too, in addition to being retired, parenting done, and totally free.

After a year of Covid house arrest, I am longing to be listening again to others who once made their fingers bleed. Johnny hasn’t quit and Imrianna’s already married, I would guess not gone too far. Oh when I look back now, those were the best days of our lives.

It was the summer, the summer of oh-one nine. Oh yeah!

This video reminds me of FF too...

7 DIRTY OLD TOWN

These are songs that always remind me of Flin Flon...

Short stacks, smelter smoke like fog you could chew on with an aftertaste that would stay with you ‘til you drank a pop, deep dark open pit, Ross Lake dead and stinking up the middle of town, acid rain, burned grey tree stumps on barren bedrock, ever-increasing tailings containing a chemical soup, nightly molten lava pours, Company Row where the mucky mucks lived separate from common people like you, giant red headframes South and North Merry Xmas, the Main Gate silently declaring work will set you free, train tracks scarring the south end of Main Street and train wheels screeching all hours on Company property, poisoned uptown gardens, your clean wash soiled on clothes lines, Company whistles shortening the fun telling you to get home for supper, the smell of damp ore following a summer rain even out at Phantom Lake or on the golf course, weathered sewer box sliver factories often used as sidewalks, dust from the tailings gathering in miniature drifts on windowsills or falling in feathered clumps of ash onto your freshly polished shiny white push-button automatic Dodge sedan and forever staining it with Dalmation-like spots.

FF really was a dirty old town.

I loved it all, although I confess to filling the air with my own brand of pollution when I saw my beloved car that fateful morning.

This song was actually about another industrial town; Salford, Lancashire, in the north of England. It was written by renowned Scottish folksinger Ewen MacColl, who also penned “The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face” and discovered the traditional “Scarborough Fair” well before Simon & Garfunkel. His daughter Kirsty gained considerable fame singing, “you scumbag, you maggot”, with the Pogues on “Fairytale of New York”.

The first time ever I heard “Dirty Old Town” it was on Rod Stewart’s initial solo LP released in 1969. You know - back when he was really good. It’s been recorded by many artists since, the Pogues most successfully imo. I’m a sucker for Shane.

I’m not sure if it’s my work history or not, but I find there’s a kind of stark beauty in the ugliness of industry. The actual gas works wall from the song (above) has now been preserved which to my way of thinking demonstrates the power of music. The arts actually, because I am reminded of Noelle Drimmie’s photographs of rusty derelict items or Mike Spencer’s linear paintings of the Company’s walkway grates, both of which I was attracted to. Every time I drive the perimeter, I glance towards the old Zinc Plant changehouse where I once showered and I marvel at the pure ugliness of it. A rugged and foul mixture of ancient and comparatively new structures surround it. Dirty. Old. And while the town could certainly have done without the pollution, there likely would never have been a town at all had it not been. I think there’s a strange form of beauty to some of it. I think you can hear a bit of fondness for it in this song as well.

On a separate closing note, I found it amusing that while I wrote this and was listening to the song, I occasionally got interrupted by a post from the “Mother’s Day For Mother Earth” FB group. Seems people are inspiring one another to clean up all the litter here, there, and everywhere.

Consequently our dirty old town is less dirty. And from the photos of all the ages involved, not that old either. They do us all proud. I FF!

8. LIFE IS A HIGHWAY

These are songs that always remind me of Flin Flon...

I drove the LIfe is a Highway highway once. Not all night long.

I went during the day as far as Nelson House for a temporary teaching job. The roads were rough, but you can tell ‘em I’m a survivor. Lynn Lake, where Tom Cochrane was born, is another couple of hundred kilometres further north on the highway named to honour him.

That song really has nothing to do with Flin Flon, or Lynn Lake for that matter. There’s no mention of small towns or mining or rocks or even Woolworths. Tom just uses a highway as a metaphor for life. Still, music is personal and whenever I hear it, I can’t help but think it is a good metaphor for life in Flin Flon, especially during the era I grew up.

Flin Flon is comparatively isolated and was even more so in the past. At first there were no roads at all out of town, then #10 was built, paved, and named after a C.C. Trubiak song. No, not really. It was named after explorer Henry Kelsey and called the Kelsey Trail, but wouldn’t that have been cool if it had been? The Guts and Grit Highway sounds great to me. I say let’s start a petition before Pallister names it after himself.

Anyway, if you’ve lived in Flin Flon for any length of time I guarantee you’ve spent a lot of your life driving on highways. Trips to Winnipeg, now mostly using #6, are commonplace. Younger days I once went just to pick up a pizza. True story. Trips to Saskatoon on #106 are even more frequent if you have grands on the Rider side.

In the good old days getting out of town meant ten hours on number ten; through Swan, Dauphin, and Neepawa, rolling past houses, farms and fields, and the graveyards of rusted automobiles. It’s now less time going via Ashern or heading west through P.A., but I don’t find these modern routes near as colourful. I mean, where's The Bog?

Whenever such trips come to mind, I always think of Walks First Bear’s Saturday morning cartoon show He-Man which had a lesson at the end of every episode. My favourite was; “Each journey’s end is but a doorway to another. Live the journey!”

Wise words. No wonder he was master of the universe.

So I always revel in the journey no matter the route. I love driving first of all. I also make sure the soundtrack is always primo of course, often with a cassette or CD or playlist made special. The food’s good too, with June packing my favourite sandwiches, a real treat these days when we normally avoid bread. I also never ever, not once ever, forget to appreciate being surrounded by family. A small enclosed space filled with conversations with everyone you love - for hours. You cannot buy that. I pity city dwellers who just hop on planes and travel anywhere in the world. Give me the Easterville crossover and peeing by the side of the road any day.

I am convinced “Life is a Highway” is a truly Canadian song and not just because the original video was shot in Drumheller. LIfe just isn’t a highway in Europe for example. You could probably drive through a dozen countries in the ten hours it used to take us to get to Winnipeg. In that time you would probably reach other destinations at least every hour. In actual fact, you would probably just take a train. You’re a-peein’ but not on the side of any road.

More specifically, I feel “Life is a Highway” was written for northern Canadians, and for Flin Flonians(?)... Flonners(?)... Josiah Witnesses??? It was written for me and you! Who else spends as great a part of their lives on any highway? So it always reminds me of Flin Flon. Alanis not Tom, but I would say that’s a little ironic, because “Life is a Highway” is actually my go-to song for heading OUT of town.

That said, I enjoy sharing so... if you’re goin’ my way, when we’re Covid free and the songs are back, I wanna ride with you, all right along...

9. HOME

These are songs that always remind me of Flin Flon...

What is home?

Most people would name a place, likely a city or town, but if you think about it that’s just a geographic location on a map. And even that answer might be time related. For example, what if you grew up in Newfoundland but lived most of your adult life in Flin Flon? At what point does the latter become your home? What happens if you return to the former for Christmas? Do you tell people you are going home even though you are leaving home? What exactly is “home”? Is it simply the place you were born or is it the house where you live or maybe it’s where you feel the most comfortable? The question of what makes somewhere home was raised in one of my favourite movies, “Garden State”, and it occurred to me even then, that I didn’t have to give my answer a second thought. Other than thinking about how lucky I was.

While I was writing about the previous song on this list, which was about life being a highway and leaving town, it occurred to me I should post this song next. Very recognizable, it’s about missing home while on the road. We all know the feeling. We don’t have to be Michael Bublé famous or traveling in Paris and Rome.

It was actually the first original song Michael recorded. Until then, he had been singing familiar standards. He wrote the lyrics while on tour in Europe and missing Debbie Timuss, the woman he was engaged to at the time.

That aside, I always say music is personal and this song often stirs up a very old memory of mine I may have shared before. It took place following the summer June and I got married. Our plan was for her to return to university in Winnipeg the first week of September while I kept working for the town here until I was laid off, likely in late October. Good plan I thought. Balanced and responsible. Mature even.

I drove June to the city, helped get her set up in what would become our new apartment, then I left my wife of about a week behind to return north. I will forever be haunted by the sight of her standing in the middle of the road waving goodbye in my rear view mirror.

After two or three weeks of us making many long phone calls, sadly June’s grandpa died. Tom Hood was a fine gentleman I was privileged to meet at our wedding. He and June’s Grandma Marion lived in Portage La Prairie. I asked to get laid off early and drove down after my last day of work to meet June there for the funeral. She was staying at a hotel with the rest of her family. Pulling in late, June met me just as I got to her room. She was wearing her cotton pyjamas as she opened the door. We hugged and buried ourselves in one another’s arms for what felt like forever. And I tell you now, even after all these years I still remember that feeling. I knew I was home.

For me, home is a feeling.

Over 40 years now and we’ve never been apart that long again. Last year after much discussion and wavering, we agreed she should go without me to NYC with the choir. I love Manhattan and originally thought I’d tag along, but for many reasons, we decided that would not really work the way we wanted it to. Her flights and hotel were booked when Covid hit. I’m not saying fate intervened but instead we ended up spending this past year closer than we’ve ever been. Admittedly the walls of our house have been closing in on us at times, but home is still where my heart is.

Of course, June and I have always lived in and around Flin Flon. It has always been our hometown. It is synonymous with family and friends, good times, and of course; love. I enjoy Michael Bublé and recognize this is his song to sing, but William Prince performs it here differently and in a manner that appeals to me even more. It seems simple and pure and genuine. He almost speaks the words. For me.

Because I’m lucky I know. I’m home.

10. PINBALL SONG

These are songs that always remind me of Flin Flon...

I’ve played my fair share of pinball including a few games at the Pinball Hall of Fame with Lyle Bryson, but I spent more time at the pool table, and even more playing shuffleboard, preferring bank over straight. Doesn’t matter, this song perfectly tells the tale of games we played way back when. From free beers at the tavern with Mike Coderre, to Bolt and the infamous Beaver Lake brawl over table rights, to a day at the Legion with my Core 4 vets, we had good times playing games and this song always brings them to mind. It also makes me want to head on down to the local twist and shout we affectionately call The Hooter and have a glass or two or four. The story told in this song could have easily taken place in the Flin Flon of my yesteryear imo.

It was written by Brent Best fronting the late great Slobberbone from Denton, Texas. I trust everyone celebrates International Slobberbone Day on May 12 as I do. Slobberbone was basically a regional band that deserved a better fate, which is probably why I couldn’t find a very good performance video. Poor sound quality on this one but it still succeeds in illustrating why I love live music.

Brent sings the story better than I could ever tell it, but do read the lyrics as you listen. They are poetic imo. If I had become a university prof instead of an elementary teacher, I would have given a lecture on them right alongside some hoity-toity Shakespearean sonnet.

Test to follow btw. No free game but maybe you’ll get a gold star!

“Six weeks on the road now, I'm feeling kind of spent

There's a few things I need and one’s a friend

A few good games of pinball and a double whiskey sour

I'll rinse it with a beer and repeat again

You know I couldn't find you in the place you used to be

I'm a sucker for the old times, that's me

But I asked around the bar and they said you were gone for a couple of days

On a vacation in the drunk tank so they say

Seems you were walking down the street looking for relief

Your bedroom seemed a hundred miles away

The dark side of a dumpster seemed the perfect place to sleep

Cops woke you up and cuffed you where you lay

Yeah, so what’s the price of stolen sleep?

I guess it’s pretty steep

Two hundred fifty dollars for your bail

They tried to raise the money to get you out of jail

And I guess they did their damnedest but they failed

Well I saw that girl you used to know at the other end of the bar

I never thought she'd ever get that far

She said you two were through, it seemed you were driving for different things

I said I understood, I've wrecked that car

So now there's thirteen empty bottles, a glass or two or four

The lights came on, we headed for the door

But the night was adolescent and she said she wanted more

And that's what she kept the Apple Blossom for

So up the stairs to her apartment with the Christmas lights that blink

It's the second week of May but that'd be okay

Except that under those blinking lights we opened a big old can of stink

And you’ll smell it soon enough in one more day

Saturday, the twelfth of May, the policeman turns the valve

And the first drunk of the weekend dribbles out

Collect all your effects and take a cab straight to the bar

You're wondering what the whispering’s all about

Well I'll tell you...

It's about the easy sheen of alcohol, of better-not-do's done

Of blinking lights and the curse of roomates' tongues

An entire bar's worth holding theirs, but it only takes just one

And then it's pass that can around, it's your turn, son

Because this pinball game I'm playing, you know it's not the same

Times used to be you and me could always match

Yeah and the multiball came easy just like the replay game

And the wagers won and tossed hard down the hatch

So now I nailed the free game and there's a bottle across my head

My table tilts, I'm headed for the floor

Went out to find an old friend but I lost me one instead

I lost it all for just another score”

TEST:

1. What are both the singer and Keith a sucker for?

2. During a normal game of pinball, what usually causes the machine to tilt?

3. When do you take down your outdoor Christmas lights?

4. What is “multiball”?

5. Describe one better-not-do you have done.

6. Bonus question: “Who” is the pinball wizard?

11. YOU'LL NEVER LEAVE HARLAN ALIVE

These are songs that always remind me of Flin Flon...

I’ve written about this song at length before. “You’ll Never Leave Harlan Alive” was written by Darrell Scott. I’ve listened to his original version as well as to ones by Brad Paisley and Dave Alvin. Scott wrote it, the others sing it well enough, but Patty Loveless owns it. You can hear it in her voice. You can sense it in her soul. “You’ll Never Leave Harlan Alive” belongs to Patty Loveless.

Patty Loveless’ father worked the coal mines in Pikeville County very near Harlan, Kentucky. He died of black lung. Simplified, black lung is what happens when coal dust enters your lungs and literally turns them black and useless. Over time it is fatal. Your ability to breath is slowly destroyed which then leads to problems with your heart. Sufferers say it’s as if your lungs slowly turn to concrete.

Patty’s first album of bluegrass music has a photo of her father with a dirty face after one of his shifts underground. She actually sang to a photo of her dad propped up in front of her as they recorded this song. The back of the CD cover also has a picture of his metal lunch pail which is identical to the ones we all used underground in Flin Flon. Indestructible, it kept your lunch safe and dry, and if you set it down vertically, you could sit on it quite comfortably which came in handy at times. Not a lot of IKEA furniture down there.

Coal is a comparatively soft rock. Flin Flon mines copper, zinc, gold, and other minerals found in the bedrock of the Canadian Shield. Flin Flon has hard-rock miners. There’s no coal dust in our mines but ventilation is still important and early on, that’s why there were only two shifts underground. Day shift from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. and evenings from 7 p.m. to 3 a.m. if memory serves. That was the reason our table was always set at 4:30 p.m. for supper at five. Day shift Dad would be home from work and he no doubt expected a hot meal, evenings it gave him time to eat then relax a bit before he left for work.

The two-shift mine schedule allowed for blasting at the end of each shift followed by a few hours for the dust to clear before another crew would enter the working areas. Even at that, my father had one story of earlier times when the ventilation was poor. He says dust in the air literally caught fire. The only thing that saved him and his partner from breathing it in and dying was they never panicked, instead picking up pieces of wet, muddy rock which they held to their faces as they ran.

This song may reference a similar type of shift schedule as Flin Flon had.

“Where the sun comes up about ten in the morning

And the sun goes down about three in the day”

While those lines might refer to the shadows of neighbouring hills shortening the hours of direct sunlight, it’s more likely that they describe an evening shift. The miner would go to work around three, go down in the mine to work in the dark, come home in the dark, and wake up to sunshine around ten in the morning. To my mind, Flin Flon miners had it worse in that regard during the winter months. Working the day shift, they would barely see sunrise before they went down into the dark, then after working by the light of their head lamp for eight hours, they would come up, only to see the sun setting because of our short winter days.

This song always makes me remember working underground and Dad and Flin Flon. June says she always thinks of my father when she hears one line in particular.

“And you'll fill your cup with whatever bitter brew you're drinking”

She says whenever we visited Dad, he would pour her a cup of his ridiculously strong coffee that had been sitting on the warmer plate for who knows how long.

She says normally she drinks her coffee black but the only way she could drink his was by adding a lot of sugar and by diluting it with milk from the can of Pacific Evaporated he always had on his kitchen table (see photo).

And it was still a bitter brew she laughingly tells me. That same line just makes me think of cheap whiskey.

12. MONTEREY

These are songs that always remind me of Flin Flon…

Music is personal and I know I’m being repetitive. This is a very personal song written by Jay Aymar about his old neighbourhood in Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario. The details in the song are very particular to that place and time. And yet it is universal. And that universality causes me to have a very personal response of my own to it. Great songwriters cause that to happen all the time. Guy Clark and John Prine are a couple of the more recognized ones, but Jay Aymar has earned his seat at that same table imo. He writes some of the greatest songs seldom heard.

First, I’m going to expand step by step on what Jay is singing about. The song opens in the Sault Ste. Marie neighbourhood of Monterey Gardens with a gang of kids about to play at a lighted outdoor rink. It cuts to an old man in the same neighbourhood, presumably watching, who survived WWII then came home to work in the local mill where he threw out his back. Back at the rink, the kids divide into teams using their sticks in the time honoured Canadian way, then emulate their NHL heroes Howe and Orr, and notably the Esposito brothers, who grew up in the Soo. Cut to the tale of a neighbourhood girl who got pregnant in grade nine, her "showing" supposedly kept secret. A short chorus similar to oli oli oxen free, which was a chant from a childhood game. John Lennon was shot December 8, 1980, which upset the singer’s brother who becomes disillusioned. The song ends with a list of specific reminiscences which link each person to the neighbourhood they all love.

Second, I’m going to expand on how I relate to the song.

I’ve never lived anywhere near Sault Ste. Marie and never learned to skate, so no hockey for me. Yet until adulthood, I still spent a lot of time with a stick in my hands. I played in back alleys and late night wearing my boots on outdoor lighted rinks. Once in high school I slipped on the ice and landed on my hand along the boards splitting my thumb wide open for several stitches.

Flin Flon had many veterans including my own father. Bad backs and hearing aids were commonplace. Our local hockey heroes were the Bombers, many of whom made it to the NHL. You likely know most; Hampson, Pearson, Ginnell, then later Clarke, Leach, Burwash, Hart, Worthy, Arnason, Andrascik, Martynuik, Carr, Hammond, Reichmuth, Stoughton, and many others. And of course there’s probably an even longer list of girls who got pregnant in high school over the years. Almost as if there was something in the water around here. The two main childhood games I remember were ante-i-over and tin can cricket, playing the latter endlessly all summer long. Everyone loved the Beatles. The senselessness of John’s death was soul crushing to us all. My cousin Jimmy lost a part of his brain in a car accident. Our next door neighbor Sharon lost her life to diabetes. Tom gave his away. I still love Monterey – only for me it was named Birchview then Uptown.

Jay Aymar’s song never fails to remind me of my anytime nights in nowhereville.