How To Move A Friar In Nine Days

My parents gave him a cheque for $150.00, partially for gas, but also as a bit of compensation for dragging my lucky tuccus along for the ride. It was also for some "Iced Capps" on the road, but he had countless Tim Hortons certificates already that he'd amassed over the years of Christmas presents from parishioners who knew the dude liked his coffee.

Iced Capps were a way of life back then. Helping him move, we'd be working for about ten minutes before he sat down, his collared shirt already soaking wet, and ask me in his New England accent, "Wanna get an Iced Capp, Willie?"

The original plan was flawless in my eyes. I had just been accepted into Vancouver Film School's Acting For Film & TV program when just days later Father David told me he had an offer to move to a Parish in Richmond, BC, which was just south of Vancouver. I don't recall why exactly, but he had the idea to drive out there. I think the reason was, why not? When would he get another chance at this? And when would I? I'd load my stuff in his new, grey Saturn VUE, save on the cost of a plane ticket, and get the trip of a lifetime. I was eternally grateful he let me come with him, but he keeps insisting that he's the grateful one; and he's got a point, it would be a lousy trip to make by himself.

However, I wouldn't be loading all my stuff in the VUE; just enough stuff for nine days of travel, and a week and a half in Richmond. Y'see, my parents didn't want me going to VFS that year, but that's another Blog for another time. I will spoil the ending for you and say that making me wait was one of the best things they've done for me.

Father David (FD, as I shall henceforth call him) let me come along anyway, for the aforementioned company and camaraderie. He even used some airline points he had to book me a flight from Vancouver back to Halifax after my stay. I never understood why he like me so much, despite what I've put him through:

In 2003, after my failure at Dalhousie University (again, another Blog for another time) he hired me as a summer work student at the church. I knew some friends that did it before, and a nice, easy-going day job would fit well with my night job at the video store. I'd be rolling in the Sir Robert Bordens by summer's end. I started in May, and it went downhill from there. I was there to do odd jobs, and what I ended up doing for the rest of the summer was sit at the computer in the counting room and enter hundreds of Baptismal records from some old church books, going back as far as the 70's. It was heinously boring and sooner than later I found other uses for the computer I was using. So many uses that eventually there were days that I had entered ten or less records. Couple that with my being late every single day and the fact that I was spending all my money as soon as I made it, and I was not shaping-up to be a model employee. And that wasn't the worst part.

The position I was hired for was paid for by a government grant, one of the requirements being you need to be a student IN BETWEEN school years. I had the before part taken care of, despite my grades, I just needed the after. However, because of my grades, I was put on academic dismissal. Read that last word again. Not probation. Dismissal. This meant that I could not go to Dalhousie for a full year and if I applied to any other school, or even to re-enrol at Dal after the year, they'd have to review my file. So in this situation I did the smart thing and ... waited until the last minute to apply for some programs I sort of wanted to do. At the Community College. And if you've heard Chris Rock's opinons on Community College, you've heard my views as well. Needless to say I did not get accepted into anything I applied for, and I ended-up costing our church, with a $99,000 roofing bill debt, another couple of thousand dollars because I didn't meet the grant's requirement. And the Priest I did this to was letting me ride shotgun and stay free in hotels all the way from Dartmouth, NS to Richmond, BC. Ladies an gentlemen, I give you forgiveness. He'll be here all week, try the veal.

He got the Saturn VUE specifically for the trip. He got a new car every two years or so, and he loved his Saturns. I still think it funny today that he drives an SUV. He made the back windows super-tinted so thieves couldn't look in and steal all our stuff. It was also a standard. He's always driven a standard, and he got to telling me about his first car. It was previously well-used, with a rusted-out floor, so if it was raining that day, chances are your pant legs know it by the time you got to your destination. Also, the sun roof's seal was broken, so if there was water on the roof when you braked suddenly, the back of your neck would get a nice cool surprise. On top of this, you couldn't operate the left turn signal and windshield wipers at the same time without blowing a fuse. He bought it for something like $100 and sold it for the same amount. He would have broken even on it, if you didn't consider all the fuses he had to buy.

We planned for me to do some of the driving, having gotten my license a few weeks before we left. My first driver's license, at the tender young age of 20. FD was giving me a crash-course in stick-shift in the church parking lot a few weeks before the trip. I didn't feel at all ready, but I didn't want him to be stuck driving for who-knows-how-long, so if relief was needed, relief I would be. From the thousands of kilometres we logged on that trip, I ended-up driving a grand total of five metres.

We left from my house, and stopped at his before we split town. There were still boxes everywhere and a maid was cleaning. We crammed some more boxes in the VUE, and Father David finally left his home for six years with a casual "Bye, house." Man, that guy gets way too attached. One last goodbye with his now former church staff, and we were on our way.

We didn't have a concrete plan, but we did have a route in mind. He had wanted to get there in ten days, and had no reason to rush. We wanted plenty of time to make the most of it.

On the first day we drove to northern New Brunswick, a town called Edmonston. New Brunswick was probably the least interesting portion of the entire trip, probably because I've seen a lot of it before. We stayed in Edmonston with some friends of FD's, and proceeded to Quebec the next day.

Quebec was a belle province, but FD with all his learned languages (Spanish, Japanese, and pig latin) and a french last name, knew as much french as I did. And I didn't know beaucoup. I never took immersion, but I knew enough from school to get by OK. Fortunately it never became an issue, as most of the locals knew enough english that they put us to shame. Quebec City reminded me of a french Halifax, with the citadel and Oldey-Timey feeling of the portion of the city we stayed in. After sleeping on the floor of the small room at the Chateau Fleur-De-Lis, we made our way through some hectic Montreal traffic (my role as a navigator was going as well as my summer student job) on our way to Ottawa, but not without embarrassing myself trying to order some Timbits in french at a Tim's near the Ontario border. "Une de chaque" means "one of each" in case you were wondering.

I met with a long time friend of mine who was working for the Minister of Veteran's Affairs as a summer job. Some guys get all the summer job breaks. He was able to use his Ministerial hook-ups to get us a free tour of the Parliament building. It was something else. The view from the tower was amazing, and just being inside that building is something I will never forget. We bid adieu to my friend, and went to stay with another friend of mine from back home. While FD went to bed early, my friend and some of his went to their favourite watering hole where beer pitchers were on special. That night I shared an intimate heart-to-heart with his toilet. I woke up the next day hungover, which FD just found amusing. After all, this is the guy who mixed me zombies and gave me cigars, all in the company of my folks.

Ottawa was one of the high points, and from the time we entered until the time we left, we were in Ontario for four days. The width of the province coupled with having to drive around the Great Lakes contributed to the never-ending province. We stayed in Sault Ste. Marie, then drove through Thunder Bay to a town in northern Ontario called Kenora.

After Kenora we made one of the longest hauls of the entire trip, blowing across Manitoba, and through Winnipeg in one day, and ending up in Regina that night. My aforementioned five metres of driving entailed me daringly pulling away from a gas station pump back in Edmonston at a blazing 20 km/h. FD, with me supplying his fuel (coffee) was a driving machine. I was really surprised at how long he could go. We were pulling 8-12 hour days on the road, always with him at the helm.

I remember when I was a kid, driving to PEI with my family crammed in the back seat of a Toyota station wagon for three hours with no AC, thinking it was agony. Back then, my butt hurt and I was bored and sick of being jammed with my bros in the back. But this trip was different. I was riding shotgun (which, when I was little, was my mom's spot, and she enforced a strict "no callsies" policy), and we had AC, although we used it sparingly to save gas, which actually wasn't bad. We both had our iPods with FM tuners so we could pipe our tunes through the car radio. He had his classical music and Broadway show recordings, I had my Queen and Led Zeppelin. I believe we listened to Zepp's entire catalogue twice during the trip. And then there was FD himself, who knew everything about anything you could think to ask him. He is one of the smartest and well-educated men I've ever met, and will likely ever meet.

In Regina, we had to try a few hotels before we found a vacancy. It was Saturday after all, and when we finally found a vacancy,it came with a compromise: There was only one Jacuzzi in our room. On a trip like this, you have to take the good with the bad. We never ended up using the Jacuzzi, but the room was suite. That morning we made our way out of Saskatchewan and into Alberta. This was Sunday, and travelling with a Priest meant going to mass was a priority. After poking around for a church in league with Rome, we came across a Ukrainian church, but by the time we got there, the only available mass was in Ukrainian. Not wanting to have to bust our our Ukrainian/English dictionaries so soon, Father David went to plan "B".

For dinner I wanted an authentic Calgary steak dinner experience, so we ate at The Keg. Can't get food like that no where else in the country, I'll tell you what. FD asked to get our remaining bread boxed-up for us, and we headed to the liquor store for a bottle o' red. We drove out of Calgary and headed for the mountains, easily the most breath-taking part of the whole trip for me. I'll never forget seeing the haze of a huge mountain range as far as the eye could see on our approach into Calgary. FD asked if I saw them and when I asked if they were mountains, he said yes. I said "They're not so big". He kept telling that to the people in Richmond after we arrived. He knew I was joking. He told people in praise of my wit, not to showcase my ineptitude. I had no idea The Rockies started in Alberta, but hey, I took history, not geography.

The Rockies were especially beautiful because it was sunset when we were leaving Calgary. We were looking for a place to saty before it got too dark, but Canmore had some sort of folk festival happening, so we continued on to Banffffff (I never know when to cut-off the "f's"). FD had to shell a lot for our room, which wasn't anything spectacular, but y'know, location, location, location. In the room that night I celebrated my first hotel room mass. He was technically still Pastor at Pope John XXIII at the time, and I was honoured to celebrate his final mass as my home pastor with him. For the Gospel Reading he rattled-off a passage from Matthew from memory, and then we offered-up our mass intentions for the world, for us, and for our journey. Then he consecrated the Keg bread and liquor store wine, and we celebrated the Eucharist.

I tried to drink some of the left over wine that night, but it wasn't my thing. I stepped outside, thinking that the stars in the clear night sky would look incredible from where I thought was the middle of nowhere. Banffffffff smelled like a Christmas tree, but had no lights in the sky. I suppose I underestimated the light pollution where we were. It also bothered me to see people walking around with bulging shopping bags, like this beautiful mountain town was some sort of shopping mall. Was this the best thing people could think to do there?

We were getting on the last legs of our trip, and the next day I would bring my "visited-provinces" list to a whooping nine. Whoo, doggy.

The next day we drove through Banfffftheletterf National Park because that's where the Trans-Canada Highway took us. This drove FD crazy because the road was two lanes the whole way through, and everyone drove like the were a float in the Orange Bowl parade, taking in the sights. Throughout the trip, whenever FD would get behind a slow person on a two-lane, he'd start to steam. At one point in our travels, we passed an RV from Quebec, only to come across it again way down the road the next day. I played the role of sight-seer, using FD's digital camera to take pictures of the mountains, which were very beautiful. It was a clear blue day, and with a slight blue haze, the mountains in the distance looked like a painting in real life. Some people had stopped to look at some elk, and I took a picture, but mistimed it. "There, now you have a picture of an elk's ass," he said. I sure did. We stopped at Lake Louise, again, beautiful. I took some more snaps of the fake-looking blue water and a squirrel and we hit the road again, making for the BC border.

BC began as beautiful as it would remain, and I knew their license plates weren't lyin'. (Fun fact: when I was a kid, I though "Canada's Ocean Playground" was a theme park somewhere that I didn't know about. To this day, I still wish it were true). FD wanted to stop at a place called Radium to soak in the hot springs.

This was a destination he had planned from the onset of the trip, and something he was very much looking forward to. When he told me about it I had expected a craggy, rocky place with steaming geysers and pools hot scalding water, somewhere in the mountains. Maybe there would be some large eastern European men laughing at me complaining about the hot water while they doused theselves with the boiling liquid that would have some strange natural healing qualities or something. What I got was a big hot tub that wasn't anything special other than the fact that it was near a hot spring, but I never saw one. The place was pretty busy, a big touristy attraction, the type FD hated. But he wanted to soak, and after all the driving he'd been doing, maybe a massage wouldn't be too bad either.

So with his glasses off, and being blind as a bat with no eyes (dude wore trifocals), I led him to the hot tub, where we soaked for a good fifteen minutes. We then went to check on massage prices, which were far too rich for our thinned blood.

After that we were off again, stopping at a small town called Salmon Arm. We were going to press-on and head to Richmond that day, but we both thought it better to rest first and do the last six hours the next day. The place we stayed was cottage-style, with little bunnies in cages out outside our room. How cute. Before going to bed that night, I saw a small creature on the floor scurry out of sight. How not cute.

The next day we checked out of our last hotel of the journey and made for FD's new home, and hopefully near where my future home would be.

We pulled into Richmond in the afternoon with the front of the VUE sporting a hot, dried-bug collection of specimens from across the country. It looked like the VUE had a mustache. FD got acquainted with his new staff, and introduced me as his old Parishioner to everyone he met. I was honoured to share the trip with him, and the destination made all the road hours worth it.

During my days there, I'd make day trips to Vancouver just to walk around and get familiar with the city. It helped me get through the next year working at the Call Centre knowing where I would be going after. My academic advisor at VFS met me for a tour of the acting campus where I met Bill, the head of the acting department. I liked Bill the first time I met him, and my respect for him would only grow as I worked with him throughout my school year.

The day I was leaving, FD and I went to gorgeous Stanley Park in downtown Vanouver. On of my favourite things about the city is it's conservation of the nature that surrounds it. I had the idea to dip my right hand in the bright blue Pacific Ocean, and within 24 hours I was back home dipping my left hand in the Atlantic.

From ocean to shining ocean.

So that's where it ends. Living in downtown Vancouver now, I sing in the choir every week at FD's church in Richmond. I've gotten to know some great people there, people who make living here a joy, but I don't hang-out with FD nearly enough. It's a very big parish, and he's very busy, but very happy there, and I'm busy with my own life. It was much easier when the church was about a ten-minute walk (and yet I couldn't make it for a 9am mass ... ), and not the hour-and-a-half bus ride it is today. Plus, even with being in the choir, I'm not nearly as involved with the church as I was in Dartmouth. I missed him when he left, and now that I'm near him again, I feel like I take him for granted.

As for the trip, it's something I'll remember for the rest of my life, and even though I just sat there enjoying the sights and sounds, it's one of my biggest accomplishments, with tales I love to tell people.

In summary, Canada is big, but not impossible. It gave me a better appreciation for my country, and an appreciation for just how far from home I would be in Vancouver. Nine days by car, and eight hours by plane.

And although those eight-hour flights are no picnic, they're completely worth making just to see home again.