Read The Vinyl Café Notebooks Online

Authors: Stuart Mclean

The Vinyl Café Notebooks

BOOK: The Vinyl Café Notebooks
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ALSO BY

STUART M
C
LEAN

FICTION

Stories from the Vinyl Cafe

Home from the Vinyl Cafe

Vinyl Cafe Unplugged

Vinyl Cafe Diaries

Dave Cooks the Turkey

Secrets from the Vinyl Cafe

Extreme Vinyl Cafe

NON-FICTION

The Morningside World of Stuart McLean

Welcome Home: Travels in Small-Town Canada

EDITED BY STUART M
C
LEAN

When We Were Young:

An Anthology of Canadian Stories

VIKING CANADA

Published by the Penguin Group

Penguin Group (Canada), 90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700,

Toronto, Ontario, Canada M4P 2Y3 (a division of Pearson Canada Inc.)

Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, U.S.A.

Penguin Books Ltd, 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

Penguin Ireland, 25 St Stephen’s Green, Dublin 2, Ireland (a division of Penguin Books Ltd)

Penguin Group (Australia), 250 Camberwell Road, Camberwell, Victoria 3124, Australia

(a division of Pearson Australia Group Pty Ltd)

Penguin Books India Pvt Ltd, 11 Community Centre, Panchsheel Park,

New Delhi – 110 017, India

Penguin Group (NZ), 67 Apollo Drive, Rosedale, North Shore 0632, New Zealand

(a division of Pearson New Zealand Ltd)

Penguin Books (South Africa) (Pty) Ltd, 24 Sturdee Avenue, Rosebank,

Johannesburg 2196, South Africa

Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

First published 2010

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 (RRD)

Copyright © Stuart McLean, 2010

Illustration of crow copyright © Dan Page, 2010

The Vinyl Cafe is a registered trademark.

All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

Manufactured in the U.S.A.

Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication data available

upon request to the publisher.

ISBN: 978-0-670-06473-1

Visit
The Vinyl Cafe
website at
www.vinylcafe.com

Visit the Penguin Group (Canada) website at
www.penguin.ca

Special and corporate bulk purchase rates available; please see

www.penguin.ca/corporatesales
or call 1-800-810-3104, ext. 2477 or 2474

For CBC Radio,

for giving me a place

to do what I love

All that I hope to say in books,

all that I ever hope to say,

is that I love the world

E.B.WHITE

CONTENTS

NOTES FROM HOME

Driving the 401

The Piano

My Palm Tree

Losing Paul

Watchfulness

My “To Do” List

Ants

Keepsakes

The Sentimentality of Suits

The Morning Paper

Radio

Peter Gzowski

The People You Love

 

CALENDAR NOTES

Signs of Spring

Maple Syrup Time

Early April 2009

Worms

Summer Jobs

September

A Letter to a Young Friend Heading Back to School

Autumn

Piano Tuners

Approaching Winter

Hibernation

Salt of the Earth

February

Snowman

 

NOTES FROM THE NEIGHBOURHOOD

Boy, Bike, Chair

Toronto

The Parking Spot

Garbage

Haircuts by Children

The World Cup

The Front Lawn

Kissing Contest

Small Decisions

Silence

George Learns to Swim

The Key

Safe Places

The Girl with the Globe

 

TASTING NOTES

New Year’s Eggs

The Tall Grass Prairie Bread Company

Apple Peeling

Watermelon

Ode to the Potato

The Bay Leaf

Cherry Season 2006

READER’S NOTES

Book Buying

The Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library

W.O. Mitchell

The Island of No Adults

Free Books

The Creation of Sam McGee

Quentin Reynolds

Leacock Country

 

NOTES FROM THE ROAD

The Way Which Is Not the Way

In Praise of Curling

Robert Stanfield's Grave

The Imperial Theatre, Saint John, New Brunswick

Biking Across Canada

Bridge Walking

Getting to Swift Current

Prairie Wind

Parliament Hill

Maynard Helmer

Motels

Meeting Famous People

Maxine Montgomery

Gander International Airport

My Favourite Photograph

Roger Woodward and Niagara Falls

 

NOTES TO SELF

My Hello Problem

Summer Jobs Redux

Rug versus Chair

Spelling

I Am Deeply Sorry

The Joy of Socks

On Beauty

The Wall Clock

Parking Lot Blues

The National Umbrella Collective

Bob Dylan’s Phone Number

The Girl in the Green Dress

The Desk Lamp

DRIVING THE 401

My dear friend,

I am on the road again. Just a short trip to Montreal and back. We left home yesterday morning and drove along the 401 in an old tour bus that Blue Rodeo used last week in the Maritimes. Our tour manager, Don, set off from London at eight in the morning and picked me up at ten in a shopping mall parking lot by the highway. We picked up Bill, who is doing the sound at tonight’s show, at a roadside hamburger joint in Port Hope.

Don and Bill are in the back of the bus watching a video as I write. I am alone in the front. I have Steel Rail on the surround sound stereo, cranked up loud. They are on the show today. You would enjoy them, I think. I am listening to them sing about the highway right now. While I listen, I am watching the highway slip by, and writing this note to you.

So many times we have made this trip together. You and I. I remember the time the snow began almost the moment we left. It didn’t look serious at first. It was blowing in fine wisps across the top of the pavement.

I said, “I bet that is the way sand blows across the desert at the start of a windstorm.”

By the time we got to Belleville, the snow was hitting the windshield on the horizontal and I was peering over the wheel. All that was left of the pavement was two black stripes. I wonder if you remember that trip? It was a long time ago. Come to think of it, I’m not sure we had even met. That drive was with someone else. I don’t think you would have liked it, though. There were hundreds of cars in the ditch. Hundreds! Cars were flying off the road all around us. It was as though someone were sweeping them away. I wanted to stop, but the person I was with, the one I thought might have been you, insisted we keep going. It took thirteen hours to cover what will take us five hours to cover today. God willing.

I remember another trip. This one was in the summer. I still had the old Toyota. It didn’t have air conditioning, and the gear box, which was right between the two front seats, used to heat that car up like an oven. I was driving with my boys, who were still young at the time. We stopped every half-hour for Popsicles and pop or I swear we would have passed out.

Everyone says the 401 between Montreal and Toronto is the most boring stretch of highway in the country. I guess they are right, but it holds a lot of memories for me. That is for sure.

BOOK: The Vinyl Café Notebooks
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