tough as nails

as a kid i had a few local heroes i saw around that always made me want to be like them - even though it was most often purely based on the visual, jot for what they'd done or who they really were. freddy bag was one. all i knew about him, really, was that he drove an old pick-up around chetwynd - where we lived - and wore an engineer's type hat with polka dots on it. i knew nothing more. not really. but i loved freddy bag. i loved the name. i loved the hats. i loved watching him drive by.
gus was a guy who lived across the street from my grannie in port alberni who taught me how to use a hammer. and paint a fence. maybe he was just using me to get the odd jobs done around the house. he made me a footstool out of wood that i had for many years. i remember very little gus except that i spent a lot of time at his house and we were always working on something.
mike tarr was also a larger than life character in my life during my formative years - when are those really? and forming what? anyhow...mike tarr was a friend of my parent's when we lived prince rupert. a big man who, as i remember, wasn't about to suffer fools, or at least for very long. he had a look you'd not soon forget. one of his eyes was almost always half-shut and the vision from this eye was foggy at best. he had been hit in the eye by a bb from a gun when he was a kid and it had damaged the eye beyond repair. it made him look meaner than he really was - but mike tarr meant business. he was the principal at my junior high before i headed south to shawnigan lake school. my father was the director of education in prince rupert so it this that brought them together as friends.
i remember going to his house on saturday nights with my parents and my sister, sometimes, and after dinner, when it was time for the adults to visit, i'd watch tv in their den. it was here that i first saw dan ackroyd's impersonation of tom snyder on saturday night live. i hadn't yet seen tom snyder but i sure wanted to now. after seeing this - and i did. it was also here that i saw the movie, 'they shoot horses don't they?'. i remember nothing of the movie but remember asking my sister or someone what the title meant. i don't remember their answer.
mike tarr passed away recently and i just wanted to pay my respects to a man who i think, was tough on me sometimes at school, but fair and a great friend to my family. i hope this finds his family well.

g. xo