11/11/11 - Give Peace a Chance

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In December of 1980 I was working in the radio industry.  It was an era when pop country was stepping over dying disco for airwave radio dollars.  Rock and roll was floundering into the eighties with punk popularity and princely confusion.  Where I worked, we were making profit, with an "F", riding on the crossover from rock to country with acts like Alabama and Waylon Jennings.

We worked long hours and drank lots. On December 8, for some reason, I was late at the station. It might have been ilicit, or it might actually have been legit.  I didn't work news and in a small market station, there was never more than one person in the news room. Usually in the evenings, the person spinning tunes was the one reading the news wire copy.

I am not a thief.  I am an archivist.


I heard the DJ deliver the news of John Lennon's death from within the station.  Ten minutes later, I relayed  the news to my friends at the bar.  There were no tears shed.  But there was disbelief.

I don't recall any special tribute that night.  Today, I am reminded of the controversial photograph of young people sitting on the Jersey shore one warm September day, while the twin towers were imploding behind them.  They knew it was a horror, again, on Manhattan Island, but they were young and had a world of living ahead of them.  There was no need for them to wallow in the horror of the moment.

 

The next morning I went to work.  Across my desk came the new Billboard magazine, a mainstay in the music industry.  So I delivered it to the newsroom to replace the earlier edition.  As I lifted the back issue from the bunk I was faced with the back cover. Gulp. A lump floated from my chest to my throat.  Such a gentle kiss.  Dateline November 22.  Double Fantasy.  Full page ad.

Then I looked at the paper trash, there was no recycling in those days.  The morning news crew had dispatched yesterday's news into the circular file, and there were three teletype print-outs.  I slipped them into the magazine and carried the package back to my desk.

Okay.  I stole it.

But I have protected it.  And now I am sharing it.  1980 was pre-fax, let alone, pre-internet.  Teletype was monospaced courier font allCAPS on paper one step above toilet paper.

I rescued these historical records.... and stored them in the magazine, until today.

The first and second wire copy show the Lennon story unfolding.  The third one gives a bit of context about what was happening in the world, besides the death of John Lennon.  The cold war was in full swing and Pierre Trudeau was our Prime Minister.

Today is remembrance day.  11/11/11

Give Peace a Chance.

Beyond Thunder Bay

Access to this beautiful park was closed when I travelled east, unsure when I'd be back that way.  As I picked my way through the heavy construction of the Ontario highway crews twinning the blacktop east of Thunder Bay, the Green Sign God pointed me toward a memorial.  My eyes glanced upward, across the oncoming traffic limping through the roadworks.  I saw something.  A flash of something, high above the granite cliffs that had been blasted out of the sloping Superior coast to make the road bed.  It was just a glimpse.  I was not even sure what I had seen, but it put a lump in my throat and choked me up.  I got goose bumps.  Then I was past.

Weeks later, indeed, I found myself heading west, across the same stretch of highway, now smooth and freshly lined.  The workers had done themselves proud.  The further behind I put Nipigon, and the nearer I came to Thunder Bay, the more frequent the cliffs and the sense of the big peninsula creating  The Lakehead Harbour, and the more determined I became that I would visit this park.  It had left a sense in me.  Nobody had recommended this place.  I had past easily thousands of signs along my 15,000 kilometer journey enticing me in to visit, taste, view, stop, buy, and sleep.  I had learned to ignore the promotional media along the road.  But this was different.  

The first time I had driven through a wave of something.  I remembered.  And I wanted to get closer, and see it with my own eyes.  Truly, I was drawn.

So, I took the exit.  The new entrance way gracefully  circled me around the park, and up a gentle slope to a most beautifully groomed park and interpretive centre.  People had dogs, threw frisbees, looked at the sea.  Mostly, they just spoke quietly and stopped for a few minutes, (not many stayed long) to bask in the ominous presence created there.

People were not there to pay tribute.  This was a place where we were given grace.

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