Although I grew up in Whitby at the same time as John, we never met as kids. He lived in town; I lived on the rural edge. He went to Henry Street High; I went to Anderson Collegiate.
Our introduction finally came in 1979 when I met his Whitby-ite wife Elaine at Harrowsmith magazine (in eastern Ontario) where we both worked. (Her for the summer and me for the next decade.) I immediately liked John a lot because of his "aw shucks" approach to life and it's various challenges. I've never spent as much time with John as I'd like but our various meetings have always been fun.
I only attended one movie with John and, in retrospect, that might be a good thing. I was in Toronto on business in fall 1979 so we decided that dinner and a movie were in order. We chose "All That Jazz" because it had lots of music and I had a little bit of pot with me. After dinner, we smoked a joint in the parking garage next to the movie theatre and were suitably entertained for the next couple of hours. It must have been good stuff because I was still feeling a bit of a buzz when we returned to the car.
So much so, in fact that I got lost in what was perhaps the smallest downtown parking garage in the city.
After about 10 minutes, Elaine noticed that we were simply going up one level and following the arrows back down to where we had started.
In the spirit of the day, of course, I was driving incredibly slowly, a la Cheech & Chong, as we did the circuit about a dozen times.
If it hadn't been for Elaine's keen eye starting to recognize the cars we kept passing, John and I likely would have spent another hour happily chatting and laughing away.
John, you're a heck of a guy, and I don't see you enough. Take care and have a great 60th birthday.
Frank Edwards
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