Rick Ranson

I lived on my boat in the Florida Keys for three winters. I wrote, tried to rid the world of alcohol, repaired my old boat and generally laid back and loved my life. There’s a lot to be said for watching the tropical sun go slowly down over a Keys beach accompanied by the sound of ice-cubes clinking and bruising the rum in your glass.

My next door neighbor Nelson, was an old Cuban who lived in a trailer. I didn’t ask and he didn’t say, but it was understood that Nelson had somewhat of a fuzzy hold on United States citizenship. Every time the black uniformed Border Patrol drove by, Nelson had something important to do out in the mangroves; way out in the mangroves.

Nelson and I would sit around the barbeque, watch the sun go slowly by, and talk about the important things going on in the world. Like families. For instance: what’s more important, the Iraqi War or  a cousin that was married seven times. “It was only cuatro times married inna church, the other tres, were justa long term lovers.”

One night in a fit of good will towards my drinking buddy,  I went back to my boat and picked out one of my books and handed it to Nelson. Because he was the closest thing I had at that moment to a friend. Nelson couldn’t read English, probably couldn’t read Spanish either, but he was genuinely touched. He thanked me profusely.

“How’s the book coming Nelson? “I’d ask.
“Page by page.” He answered back.

After that every week or so Nelson would offer that the book was coming along nicely and he would thank me for my generosity. In my mind I imagined Nelson in his rough cot inside his trailer pouring over the English words to my book night after night, like some studious college student cramming for exams.

One day I was passing by Nelson’s trailer and the door was open. In the sunshine was my book in a place of honour on the table. With about a dozen pages left. All the rest had been ripped out. The ashtray was overflowing.

“HEY!” I held up that Award Winning Book in my friendly Cuban’s face.
“Works good.” Nelson said. “Works better if you wet the pages first.”

“We’re running low. Got any more books?”

For a whole decade, from fifteen to about twenty five years old I followed the herd. I drank the Kool-aid. I swallowed the party line, hook line and stinker. Algebra, accounting, phycology,  sociology you name it I wasted my life learning it.

Sales? All you had to do was be enthusiastic. So I was super enthusiastic until I read about a young British Army Lieutenant called Winston Churchill. He and 250 British Soldiers went up against an army of 30,000 Dervishes. These Dervishes were told by their medicine men that if they spun around in circles or ‘whirled’ they would be immune to the  English bullets.   The faster they whirled the more protection the Dervishes would have.

Except against these Whirling Dervishes the British had Maxim machine guns.

When the battle was over the English casualties numbered about 4 or 5 soldiers. But the battlefield was covered with 30,000 once very enthusiastic Dervish tribesmen that were now very, very dead.

So much for enthusiasm.

With a bitter taste in my mouth I realized that I should beware of old men in business suits that nod sagely and talk stupidly. You’d be surprized how many of these old men call themselves ‘self-made’ as they step into Daddy’s business.

So I asked myself a simple question. Who do I know that was truly self made, and how did they start? Turns out it was my Uncle Gil Henderson and my brother-in-law Paul. Both of which started out as an apprentice in their father’s shops.  Both of which retired multi-multi millionaires.

My father was in the Air Force but my Father-in-law Jim Mason had connections. Those connections were working at the CNR and it just so happened that the railway was just then looking for apprentices. I did the test and was told I had the marks for either a Pipefitter, Boilermaker, or Blacksmith Apprenticeship.

My first day I stood looking around the Boiler Shop and asked myself, ‘What the Hell have I done?’ It was the first time I had gone against the expectations of other people and thought for myself. I was that ten-year-old kid on the ultimate high diving board.  I stepped off the high board and punched my work card.

Thinking for myself bought and paid for homes, put daughters into university, paid for a wife to become a nurse, gave my family a good living and got myself a pretty good life while doing it.

‘Find out what everybody thinks is a great idea, and then don’t do it.’

 

 

 

 

One day I was down at the dock in Marathon Florida when a couple of fellow Canadians sailed off over the horizon.  I threw them their last line, waved and yelled my good-byes.  They then puttered slowly down the canal in their powerboat towards the Caribbean side of the Keys and off into adventure.

And I got to drive back and then fly into -38F below McLean Lake, Northern Saskatchewan. McLean Lake is easy to find. Its in the middle of the province 45 miles by ice-road from The North West Territories. Right at the freezing top of the province.  Where I welded on a tank outside in the crackling cold for all of January, February, and most of March.

Then I flew out and drove back all the way to the Florida Keys. I just had enough time to unpack my gear and who comes puttering back up the canal but those two other Canadians back from their winter’s cruise. They threw me that first line and then tied up the boat to the dock.

After the greetings I asked the obvious.
“Anything exciting happen?”
“Oh yeah.” His wife looked meaningfully at her husband.
“What?”
“A couple of days out of … (pick an island) … we see this black ‘thing’ bobbing in the water. So I call my wife on deck and we sail over to it. Its a bale. A square plastic wrapped, square-cornered bale.”
He looked at his wife.
“We circled it. For almost an hour; just circling it. Going round, and round, and round.  Looking at it. Thinking about it. How much it was worth. How many years we would get if we got caught with it on board. Whether it was a trap, a set-up. Or a Lotto.”
“So?”
“Its out there.”
He and his wife looked at each other.

Me? I don’t know what I’d do.

What would you do?

 

 

 

I walked into a pub called The Ship and Whale right by (appropriately) Canada Waters in East London. Right across the Thames River from Canary Wharf . I bought a pint.  Okay maybe a couple of pints.

When it came time to pay the cute barmaid I pulled out a $5 pound note, stared at it dramatically and near-shouted,

Holy Shit!!! You guys got the same Queen I do !!!
Alcohol might have been a factor.

In 1969 Johnny Van Landeghem and I paddled a canoe from Winnipeg to New Orleans. About a hundred miles north of New Orleans we paddled into a small bay under the cliff at the historic city of Natchez Mississippi.

We tied our canoe up and walked across the street to what looked like a run-down hotel, and asked to use their phone at the bar.

Johnny’s talking to the Mayor of Natchez announcing our arrival and I’m sitting beside him looking around at the bar and it’s patrons. There were some women sitting around at the tables and a lot of  naughty lady pictures on the wall. Suddenly I put two and two together and near-shouted to Johnny…

“Tell him we’ll meet him at the dock!”
“Why?”
“Because this is a whorehouse!”

Eventually the Mayor showed up at the dock. He looked across the street and those nice ladies all waved. Smiling he waved back.

“Where did you two boys phone from?”

John pointed north, I pointed south.

That Mayor of Natchez Mississippi laughed so hard he wiped away tears all the way back to his friggen’ office.

 

“As easy as cuttin’ butter.”

“Count Basie taught us all, about time and space.”

“I felt like a whore in church.”

Two Engineers looking at an extremely dirty project. “This job is going to be a bucket of spiders.”

“He played his instrument fast; like two rabbits running over a hill.”

“He had a sound ‘devoid of pity’.”

“Well that was a bit of a damp squid.” English lady talking about disappointment.

“You would have to get better to be crazy.” Dr. Phil

“Not the brightest bulb in the chandelier.”

“His one ambition was to become a burden on society.”

“Before you get married travel together.” John Tesch.

“He had visions of adequacy.”