Squeak and the Mustangs (Part 3)

Squeak screamed
like every other coach I had
but somehow I don't think he was afraid of the four horsemen of the apocalypse
even if he did remind me of ring wraith
Nazgul
with his smoker's hack
and colourful vocabulary

Squeak often entered the dressing room after the First Period
and told us we were skating like old ladies
and that our scoring production was horseshit
and that we weren't hitting
and it was hitting that won games
because it tired the other team out

to prepare for Squeak's training camp
the Calgary Mustangs

Image result for "calgary mustangs" vintage hockey

named after the car
that was hoisted on a pedestal

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prairie public sculpture
advertising art
the way we called crude oil Texas Tea
and it had nothing to do with the Beverly Hillbillies

and sponsored by the local Ford dealership

Maclin Ford
then on McLeod Trail
we took power skating with Howie Meeker's Hockey School

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at Rose Kohn Arena

after that it was Deal Cassidy'sCalgary Booster Club Hockey School
and getting chased around the rink by Calgary Dinos coach Schneider

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in a game of rabbit
you got a head start from the hash marks to the blue line
and if he caught you he slapped your ass with the blade of his stick
all the way around the ice
which was motive enough to hustle

and when you had made the cut
and played the season
and got hives from a chocolate milkshake
somewhere on the road
maybe Three Hills

there was time to enjoy
Stampede Wresting at the Corral

where Squeak made the ice
and watch Ed Whalen from CHCT (2&7) whack
any number of dummies

over the head
with his mike
every week it was somebody different who got clobbered
it didn't really matter who
whether it was Gene Kiniski or Killer Kowalski

Image result for stampede wrestling vintage

Klondike Bill or Man Mountain Mike

Antonio Argentina Rocco or Angelo Mosca

Image result for "stampede wrestling" and "Antonio Rocca"

the British Bulldogs or the Kiwis or the Wild Samoans

Image result for "tag team" and Stampede wrestling

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Sweet Daddy Seki or Archie the Stomper

ex football players all

it was all just wrastlin'

good clean fun

and apparently acting

although I never noticed

and didn't know anybody else who did

still in those days there was no question of making fun of somebody else's culture
everybody did a good job of dissing their own

and so I learned the lessons of Squeak
being smoked at in the dressing room
and having my skates sharpened between periods
because that's what the pros do
and skating better than a granny
and bending my ankles less than a possum
and going in the corners
for the cherry picker in front of the net
and otherwise being Jonah

"Jonah and the Whale", Folio from a Jami al-Tavarikh (Compendium of Chronicles), Ink, opaque watercolor, gold, and silver on paper

for the chance to get the puck

and score a goal

or get an assist.

Things always end in the Summer

In the middle of the second major heatwave of the season, the City cut the wildflowers along the footpath. I mean they cut everything 30 inches on either side of the pavement, but since the flowers were my friends, all I saw was that they cut the flowers, even though they actually mowed indiscriminately. And it must have been a chore for the labourer in this heat, so his feet were heavy when he made hay of the prettiest parts of the Summer. But I can't get to that right now; I'm still reeling from the loss of chicory, and the other pinks and yellows and blues whose names I was just beginning to learn. "Program, get your program", I heard the barker call on my way to the bleachers. I turned once and caught his eye, and looked at the program in his hand and back into his eyes--all the while his eyes following mine--but then he looked back to his hand, and again into my eyes and he said "You can't tell the player without a card"! Did it matter that ...

The city mover beat me to the chicory this evening maybe if I had passed by earlier I could have caught a glimpse of them but they will rise Phoenix like from the close cropped pile of grass and weed and present their brash and uneven beauty once again before the need for carpet and trimming loops of magic made by subterranean rug weavers is once again mandated and duly executed by the city crew in the burnt orange cabs of their ride along mowers browning the backs of their hands and letting the heat weather beat their faces to match the cabs and fulfill some unspoken contract between landscaping and maintenance and the gods of Chance Fortune as ever favouring the bold there will be other routs of the mover before the Summer is done and more rain hopefully if I can contain the fear of thunderheads building and more returns of visible biodiversity Nature never surrenders unconditionally but like a lover choosing her battl...

We're past that now

First to arrive and last to leave the robins make you think you're in for an Indian Summer but I believe we're past that now still it was nice to see a group of four splashing in a puddle on the driveway when leaves have already been raked and first frost settling in to nightly routine unlike the English robin these are apparently a species of thrush still dainty in their own way their russet breasts matching the pumpkins on the steps I had a silly thought perhaps with their entreating chirps they were trick or treating perhaps they were old residents of the street come back in disguise to tease and remind us they're still here though much changed and diminished in size but tall yet in spirit as they tugged at the lawn for worms or whatever was going when life was already draining from the trees and the whispers of the dawn.

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