Saturday 21 September 2013

My Father-in-law the Scoundrel

My ex-father-in-law was a sailor, but mostly a scoundrel. He was rather bright in some areas—he built Canada’s largest tall-ship, the Empire Sandy, from a World War Two steam driven tug boat—but somewhat naive in others.

Norm was not a popular man around Toronto Harbour but he did earn my admiration for some of his antics.

At one time, he was running a private ferry service between Toronto and the harbour islands. His vessel was steel and didn’t leak a drop so he had no cause to use his bilge pump. But for the annual Coast Guard inspection, a working bilge pump was a requirement.

The night before this annual inspection Norm discovered that the pump didn’t work. Attempts to repair it failed, and the inspection was to take place first thing in the morning.

Norm’s devious mind came up with the solution.

As the Coast Guard inspector—a chap by the name of Wyberg—asked Norm to demonstrate the functionality of the various components on his list, Norm would comply with a military repetition of the request.

This must have disarmed the inspector—this civilian’s apparent respect and deference to his authority.

Wyberg might ask for navigation lights, and Norm would respond with, “Navigation lights on,” as he moved the switch.

When it came around to the bilge pump, Norm once again made his announcement as he switched the appropriate switch. “Bilge pump on.” At this time a crew member who’d been crammed into the bilge took his cue by making slurping sounds from beneath the floorboards.

“She’s a rather dry vessel,” Norm commented proudly as Wyberg ticked ‘Bilge Pump’ off his list.

But Norm couldn’t resist crowing about his deception and in due course it got back to the Coast Guard, earning him the enduring enmity of that organization.

Around Toronto Harbour, a non-functioning pump became known as a ‘Wyberg Pump’.

Norm was in my wife Cathy’s office one morning (she owned the party boat ‘River Gambler’ which I worked on), when I mentioned that I was going to Woolfe’s, the scrap metal dealer, to get a piece of pipe.

Norm, having had frequent dealings with this outfit chirps up. “Mention my name and they’ll probably do something for you.”

I followed my father-in-law’s advice and Mr. Woolfe offered to shove the pipe up my rear end.

Norm was never a modest man regarding his achievements or knowledge. Whenever the opportunity arose I derived great pleasure in taking the wind out of his sails. He was only a year older than me so I felt I owed him no paternal respect.

One such opportunity came about with a visit to a Canadian Tire store. I mentioned to Cathy that I was going there to buy a few things and Norm, once again in the office, pipes up, “I’ve got some stuff to pick up there. I’ll come with you.”

Well, ‘some stuff’ included a bench drill and other heavy items that required the loan of a dolly to wheel out to the truck. When we’d unloaded his purchases, Norm threw the dolly onto the truck as well.

A few days later I was talking to Cathy on the phone and she mentioned that Norm was in the office—he spent more time there since he’d handed the company over to her, than when he was running it. A plot came to me. “I’ll call right back,” I said. “Tell him the call’s for him and watch his face.”

When Norm came on the phone I put on my best French accent. “Ahh, Mister Rogairs, zis is Jacques La Pierre of Canajan Tire. I am wondering when you will be returning ze dolly you ‘ave borrow.”

“What dolly?” he demanded.

“The one you have put in your red truck.” I then rattled off the license number.

“THIS IS PREPOSTEROUS!,” shouts the pater-in-law into the phone. “I haven’t borrowed any dolly.”

“You ‘ave been seen to put this dolly in your truck,” says Jacques. “But it is okay if you are wanting to keep it. We ‘ave your credit card numbair, so we will just add the dolly to your bill.”

“YOU CAN’T DO THAT!” Norm shrieked.

“Ave a nice day Mister Rogairs,” Jacques said. “We much appreciate your business.”

Cathy told me later that Norm’s face was red as a beet and the veins of his neck were standing out like hawsers. He apparently fumed for a good half hour after our little conversation.

A month or so later I was at a party where the host wasn’t aware that I was related to Norm or that I even knew him. He began to introduce us. “Norm Rogers,” he announced. “This is…” But before he could finish, I thrust out my hand. “Jacques La Pierre, Canadian Tiare.”

Much to our host’s surprise, Norm loudly proclaimed I was illegitimate.


Edited by Davina



Saturday 14 September 2013

It’s only a F’ing Wind—famous Last Words (almost).


(Excuse my f’ing prudishness, but some office computers reject the language of sailors).

After my first couple of winters in Canada I got to thinking—when falling leaves began threatening my Australian bones—what the hell am I doing up here?

So I packed my bags and headed for Florida.

I ended up in Coconut Grove, South Miami, where I managed to get a job as a sailing instructor at an outfit called Biscayne sailboats—owned by an eccentric old salt by the name of Alan Bliss.

Captain Bliss
Sailing was anything but blissful though at the Bliss establishment. Why the Coastguard didn’t condemn his entire fleet remains a mystery to me to this day. Almost every voyage involved a breakage of some kind.

One afternoon Alan, a couple of his cronies and me were standing on the dock swapping stories and quaffing beers. Business was slow because the weather appeared a little threatening, with the sky gray and scowly.

As we looked out across the bay, a ridge in the clouds developed a kind of tail that slowly extended itself down to the water and started coming toward us. “Waterspout!” Alan exclaimed, grabbing his cash box. “Let’s get out of here.”

Never having seen the likes of this before, I was curious. While the other three ran for Alan’s car, I held back.

“It’s a f’ing tornado,” Alan yelled. “Get in the car!”

With no experience of tornado’s before, I yelled back, “It’s only f’ing wind.”

Alan jumped into the car and sped off.

In front of the dock was a bunch of moored sailboats, the nearest perhaps 100 feet away. Behind them stretched a low island covered in scraggly Australian pines.

Path of the Waterspout
The waterspout appeared to be attracted to things that stuck out of the water. When it reached the island it paused to thrash around and uproot most of the trees, sending branches flying up into the air amidst clouds of sand.

It was then I realized that this was no ordinary wind.

Having virtually leveled the island, the tornado went on to attack the moored vessels—fixed keel boats of around thirty feet in length—instantly turning all of them over onto their beam ends and sinking about a third of them.

It was then I realized I should have gone with Alan.

Fortunately for me, the monster spied more attractive prey further up the dock. As I watched, it pounced on a two-storied houseboat of around forty feet in length. Plucking it rather delicately from between two other boats it sucked it some fifty feet into the air where it twirled it around a few times. Tiring of this sport, it dropped the unfortunate vessel sideways onto a wooden piling which skewered the thing right through.

When the spout moved off in search of other mischief, I ran up the dock to see if anyone was inside the houseboat. As it turned out there wasn’t. But a rather confused-looking German Shepherd poked its head out through a shattered window.

Amazingly, the two boats on either side of the houseboat suffered little damage.

The bay ended up covered with debris from wrecked vessels and it wasn’t long before small boats of all descriptions ventured out in search of treasures. As they picked through the wreckage, some wag on shore yelled, “It’s coming back!”

Well, you should have seen the thrashing of oars and paddles. The water was churned white.

I watched one guy desperately trying to get his small outboard started. He’d obviously left it in gear and was too panicked to take the time to put it in neutral. He must have propelled himself some twenty feet by pulling on the starter cord before the engine kicked in. 


Edited by Davina

Saturday 7 September 2013

’Twas An Ill Wind

One of my earliest memories is of my father’s morning bathroom performance—of which he appeared to be rather proud. In our house, it was considered impolite to expel wind in any other room. Dad made the most of the bathroom exemption. Looking back, I can’t imagine how he managed to contain the volume of gas his innards generated over the course of a night, but his rendition each morning attested to the fact that he did.

My family’s particular euphemism for the act of expelling personal wind was known as ‘making a gun’. I guess it was either my brother or me who coined the term—Dad’s morning sessions reverberated through
the house like a naval bombardment.
Mum, Me & der Vater

I remember once innocently asking my mother why she never ‘made guns’. “Ladies don’t do such things Peter,” she replied primly—and it was years before I discovered otherwise. Not from  Mother of course—she always acted the lady.

At North Sydney Technical High School I took German. Had I gone to a regular high school I would have been given French as a second language. As it was a tech high though, it was German—presumably because of that nation’s engineering prowess—and one of the first phrases we learned was der Vater (the father). Vater was pronounced with a soft ‘v’ that sounded more like an ‘f’. How wonderfully appropriate, I thought.

Even Mum couldn’t complain about my use of Vater in referring to Dad—I was simply improving my German. In time, with frequent use, the word lost its unpleasant connotation and simply became Dad’s nickname. Even Mum came to adopt the name in the more endearing form of ‘Fartley’.

Gug
When my brother moved to New Guinea, his room was taken over by Mum’s mother—affectionately known as Gug. She was even more proper than Mum. The other resident was our dog Sac, who was not so proper, being prone to rather malodorous emissions. Sac did not adhere to the ‘bathroom rule’.

After supper, we’d all retire to the living room to watch TV (except Sac of course who’d just lie there, usually snoring). Occasionally an unpleasant odour would befoul the room and Mum would turn to Dad. “Alec, was that you?” (Whenever she switched from Fartley to Alec it signified mild rebuke). I don’t know whether Mum had a nose that was capable of distinguishing between human and canine wind—but it was normally Dad who came under suspicion.

The unfortunate Sac
His straight-faced reply was invariably, “It was the dog.” Then, turning to the unfortunate beast, he’d order it from the room.

There’s no telling who was actually responsible for these discharges—I might even have snuck in an occasional quiet one myself—though I am certain that nothing of this nature would have come from Mum or Gug.

It got to the stage where Sac, upon detecting an unpleasant odour in the air would, without being told to do so, rise to his paws and, growling softly, stalk from the room.

An ill wind, it is said, blows nobody any good. In this case though, it was always poor old Sac who bore the brunt of the blow.

Edited by Davina

    

Monday 2 September 2013

Wine Tasting in Brest


Must have been the end ’78 when John Morris and I were holed up in Brest, France aboard the Dutch fishing boat De Toekomst, waiting for a break in the weather to allow us to cross the dreaded Bay of Biscay. We were headed for Gibraltar where we planned to give the vessel a lick of paint prior to crossing the Atlantic. Haiti—where John had some sort of fishing business—was our final destination.

Low tide in Brest
We’d entered Brest at the height of a gale—with waves crashing over the bow, sweeping the deck and slamming into the wheelhouse. Before gaining the relative calm of the port, we passed a number of fishing vessels being hammered by the storm yet with crews still working their nets.

To this day I have a mental picture one of those fishermen’s faces—a young man of perhaps twenty with long blond hair thrashing wildly off to the side of his face in the shrieking wind. He was clinging to a rope staring at us—mouth agape as he sucked air through the flying spume.

“Those bastards are mad,” I remarked to John as we struggled toward the port entrance. He nodded agreement. We later learned that five of the boats had gone down with all hands. I wondered if the young man had been among the drowned sailors.

We’d been stuck in Brest for over a month as storm after storm pounded its way through. One morning a battered freighter limped into port, its bow bent to one side by huge waves out in the Biscay. ‘The Bay’ is reputed to be second only to Cape Horn in its ability to send both ships and men to the sea floor.

In Brest we met Ronald, a Scotsman living there. On a number of occasions he acted as translator for us. Just after Christmas he invited us to a New Year’s Eve party at a farmhouse owned by one of his friends. It turned out to be a place out of history with thick fieldstone walls, slate roof and a hard-packed earthen floor inside. When we arrived, a pig was roasting on a spit in the huge fire-place.

Around twenty people were there—none of whom possessed more than a smattering of English—but they made us instantly welcome. We sat at trestle tables in front of the fire and began tucking into the delicacies heaped before us—truffles, oysters, shrimp, mussels and a variety of cheeses.

Me and John--local celebrities
At one point, as I attempted to take a swig of wine after downing an oyster, the man seated next to me, lightly grabbed my wrist. “No Monsieur,” he chided me. “You must ‘ave zis wine with the oystair!” He then proceeded to pour me a glass of the correct grape.

At this early stage of the event, I learned much of French etiquette from my table companion—which wines were suited to the various foods; which foods should precede or follow other foods.

But by the time we got to the pig, all protocol had gone by the board—wine was being haphazardly gulped from bottles; raucous singing filled the air, and the unfortunate pig’s head was flying around the room. A couple cleared a space on one of the tables and danced until a trestle gave out and the table—along with its burden of food and wine—crashed to the floor. It was becoming my kind of party.

The moral of the story is this: If you drink enough of the right wine with the right food, in short order you won’t give a rat’s rear end what you’re drinking or what you’re eating—or for that matter, what day it is.


Edited by Davina