Cheers!

As a teenager, I frequently spent my weekends “camping” and “hiking” in the Gatineau hills near Ottawa. We were in fact drinking, toking and bonking, but whatevers…

Anyway, one Sunday afternoon I returned home after a two day “camping” trip I noticed a rather substantial hookah pipe sitting on the mantel place above the fireplace in the living room. The very same pipe had been buried in the backyard some weeks earlier, so I was somewhat surprised to see this ‘guilt bomb’ out in plain view of all and sundry.

The pipe remained on the mantel place for the next four days. Not a word until breakfast on Thursday morning, when my mother suddenly changed her usually friendly tone of voice and said “I guess you’ve been wondering why your hookah pipe has been sitting on the mantel place for the past few days….right?” I agreed that I had been wondering about this, and my mother motioned in the direction of our dog and said “Skippy dug it up”.

Skippy. Fricking dog done dug my me pipe. Just wait Skippy…just wait.

My mother’s tone suddenly became accusatory when she asked me who owned the pipe. “No, it’s not mine. It belongs to a friend of mine…”. I don’t think she believed me, but like your friend and his mum’s burnt knives, she just let it slide…

Entirely brilliant!

My friend used to hide his “hot knives” in Neil Young’s Decade album as it was a triple. His mother eventually found some of her dinner knives, charred and bent, in this record and asked him what was going on. He managed to convince her that they were part of a wood burning kit, or rather, he thought he managed to convince her that they were part of a wood burning kit when in truth she was probably just exhausted by him and let it slide as something she didn’t need to know about.

I’ll never forget Lou Reed, my mother and the discovery of my album collection in the garbage.

Returning from school one day, I was stunned to find many of my most cherished albums piled onto the patch of grass in front of the house normally used for garbage cans and recycling bins.

Apparently, my mother had stumbled upon my Velvet Underground collection and had read the lyrics to ‘Heroin’. Her response was to “throw that filth away immediately”…

Later that evening, I casually ambled out to the offending albums, removed the vinyl and placed them in a variety of more discreet covers, including one entitled “Don and the Good Times”. This proved to be an effective way of counteracting my mother’s inspections from that point onward…

I thank you both for sharing your wonderfully written connections to Lou Reed. He really did reach into everybody. His music wasn’t something you just danced to in a club or breezed by on the radio dial while driving to the cottage, it was carved into us all.

There are a group of four people who shaped my life greater than any other. I mean, I’ve been influenced by many, but there’s a group of four who were such an influence at an age when I was most open to be given ideas to help me start crafting this piece of art called a life. Heinlein, Strummer, and now, Lou, are gone, but Lou is making amends with Drella now, so that’s good. One left. The good news is they live forever for me.

I’ve decided I need to write a song this week. It will be called “Lou Says”. I just finished reading the lyrics for his songs Candy Says, Stephanie says, Lisa Says, caroline Says 1, and Caroline Says 2. I might be ready now.