Where Have All the Characters Gone?

Covid, and our direction to ‘Stay the blazes home!’ has caused me to rip out some old forms of entertainment – scrabble, reading, baking and even some good old fashioned joke telling.   A few evenings ago, I delivered my old (because I haven’t heard any new ones that are better) repertoire of jokes.  My audience member (of one) was in stitches – especially at the one about Jean Chretien wearing a fox hat to press conference in Shubenacadie.  I do a solid impression of Chretien – rough French accent, talk out of the side of my mouth and use a lot of intonation.  We laughed so hard I had to make a dash to the washroom.  Telling that joke got me thinking about characters.  Chretien was a character – he wasn’t typical.  I love the story about the Shawinigan Handshake (pictured above).  I admire characters; they make for the best stories, the biggest laughs and they often rock the boat.  A few years ago there was a bestselling book called ‘The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck’ – it directs people to let go, to stop thinking about what others think and just be yourself.  Characters subscribe to this notion without ever reading this book.  I notice, more and more, the disappearance of real characters in our society.  Everyone is quite, well, vanilla.

Like many small towns on the East Coast, the town I grew up in had a plethora of characters.  They were everywhere.  In fact, I think I lived with one – my Dad.  I can recall him saying ‘it’s no good to be just be ordinary.’   In the late 80’s/early 90’s floral leggings came into fashion and my Mom bought a pair.  Dad hates leggings.  Dad often made bread when we were growing up.  We came home one day to find him wearing the mentioned leggings while making bread.  Mom said something like  ‘Omg, what are you doing wearing those!  They look terrible.’  He said ‘Well, they don’t look any better on you.’  We died laughing.

I did some reflection on the characters I’ve interacted with over the years… I’ve literally been laughing to myself thinking about the stories I can tell.  So many people to think about: neighbors, relatives, teachers, customers at shops I worked at and local ‘special agents’.

There was a taxi driver who has so big he basically sat in the backseat with you.  He would pick us up at the local pizza shop after we had been out at the pub – upon getting into his cab with our wafting delights, he might ask for a bite.  Conversation with him often began with “Now who would you be?”  We would roar with laughter as we burned along some rural road in his Caprice Classic.

Church at the cathedral was always made more exciting by a very colorful local who  would barge into church a solid 20 minutes late and bomb on up the middle aisle of the church to one of the front rows.  Nothing subtle about his entrance.  His behavior was always more interesting to me than the sermon being given by the priest.

Mrs North Grant, a local woman who dressed up in fur, jewels, heels and sometimes also had rollers in her hair under a kerchief (while wearing all of the mentioned), used to saunter down Main Street on her way to her daily stop at a local restaurant.  I’m not sure what happened to her house, but it got knocked down.  I always wanted to get in there and see what life was like in her little pink abode.  I also wondered, how did she become who she is?

My elementary music teacher.  She had a powder blue Tempo Topaz – it was full up to the windows with sheet music and records.  She would eat tapioca pudding and put far too white powder on her face, while she played Bach and Beethoven for us.  I think she retired when I was in Grade 3, so I was bit young to appreciate classical music.  She used to make us write examinations on it – I can only imagine the in-depth answers we would have given at that age.  She loved music and wanted to share her passion for it with us.

Picking up hitchhikers was a common gesture  – usually 100% hit rate on picking up a character.   Our neighbor Freddy was often thumbing, and so we would scoop him on our way to town.  He worked for my Grandpa and Grandma for years and apparently could work harder in the woods than most anyone, he never married and he loved animals.  Our old lab Becky used to make a daily pilgrimage across the road to get a feed of steak from Freddy.  She loved his company.  He also had a penchant for ‘the drink”.  Hours after dropping him in town, you might see him thumbing his way back out of town – let’s just say some money may have been spent at The Legion.  Later in life, he needed to have a leg amputated and was in Halifax for the surgery.  Mom called and asked me to go visit him because she figured he wouldn’t have any visitors.  The visit was, let’s say, memorable.  He was a bit confused from drugs and such, upon explaining to him who I was, he thought I was my Grandmother.  He said ‘Fody, Lord Jesus you are looking good.’  My Grandma would have been around 90 at the time.  He also offered to show me his stump.  I passed.

Growing up, I loved going visiting.  I would get to hear the crazy stories about ‘that time when someone hauled off and punched a bull square in the nose’ or tales of crazy pranks someone played on their colleague.  My Dad had an uncle named Leo (who had eyebrows any aesthetician would have loved to get their hands on) – he would tell stories about farming in rural Cape Breton.  He would use his hands, and he would furrow his brow down over his eyes when he really got into it.  His brother Emile, another grand uncle, was also a character and he told fantastic stories.  One time he told me a wildly absorbing tale about when his father died in the 70’s.  Air Canada happened to be on strike, and so he wasn’t going to get home for his funeral from Thunder Bay.  At the time he was an RCMP officer, he told me how his fellow officers formed a chain across provinces – one car would meet another to take him back to Nova Scotia.  At the climax, he slammed his massive fist down and said ‘I goddamn well made it home for Papa’s funeral!’

My best friend is my cousin on my Mom’s side – her mother has given me more laughs than I can possibly count.  Stuart McLean from CBC’s Vinyl Cafe loved a story I sent him about an experience I had with her.  Unfortunately, due to his illness, the story never made it to air. It involved an untimely rolling of a ham from a grocery bag  in the back of the car to under a break pedal. This caused the brake pedal to jam!  The encounter culminated in a dramatic halting of the runaway car.  Upon inspection, we discovered the culprit.  A ham.  Aileen exclaimed “Can you believe we nearly died at the hands of a ham?”

As an adult, I still love a good character.  A few weeks back,  I was out with my dog (and my parents’ dog) on my way to get my haircut in the pouring rain.  A passerby said ‘wow those are beautiful dogs, can I pet them?’  My parents’ dog can tend to be a bit shy of men at first, but when this guy approached she went right to him.  I said ‘she really likes you, normally she is timid.’  I had a big umbrella and this guy didn’t – water poured down his face as he told me about how he has ‘a way with animals’.  He told me about the time a beaver came out of a lake in Alberta and sat on his feet, when a wolf-dog who was known for being cross became his devoted follower, and about the time when a raven landed on his shoulder and stayed for 4 days.  I honestly hated to cut off our conversation, but the rain and my haircut had me ready to roll.

I can’t think of that many characters in my generation – be it politicians, business leaders, people in my community, or family members.  It seems we have been somehow trained to be afraid of standing out, to be afraid of being different, and perhaps fear the backlash you will get for speaking your mind.   Curated.  Edited,  Just like everybody else.  I hate to think that characters are going to be a thing of the past.   If that is the case, what will we have to tell stories about?