Queer as Folkies
I love those moments when life hands you circumstances that are so ludicrous, they may as well have been authored by Monty Python.
A couple of weeks back, Aengus Finnan and I left my hometown of Parry Sound at about 12.30 at night for Toronto in a rented car. In a bizarre twist of fate, we had to drive north of town about 5 miles to gas up because everything in town was closed.
5 miles north of Parry Sound is an Esso with a Tim Horton's and a Wendy's. It's right across Highway 69 from Murray Pt. Road, where I grew up. I'd been to that Esso about a million times as a kid, when there was a Voyageur restaurant there with the only video game between Parry Sound and Sudbury. It was sort of neat to be back there, randomly, with a buddy from another life.
So there's me, with a giant puffball of curly hair and a black turtleneck. There's Aengus with his ponytail and corduroy jacket. We're both wearing dress shoes with neatly pressed trousers. There is a pair of white roses with baby's breath sprays on the dashboard of the car, beautiful tokens of thanks from the benefit we've just played. There are also little plates of squares and strawberries and cheese that some kind ladies have made up for us to munch on our late-night ride home.
We're headed to the OCFF conference in Guelph the next day. As Aengus starts to pay for the gas, I holler "don't you dare! It's my turn!" He turns around and says "no way, you're paying for our room tomorrow night, I've got it!" We do this kind of thing a lot.
Except normally, when we do it, we're not in the sticks north of Parry Sound, at a gas station where every one of the half-dozen other vehicles is a pickup truck full of hunters. I'm not kidding. The truck and trailer next to us was actually carrying an ATV and several large storage bins presumably full of deer meat. Men with orange hats were filling up with diesel everywhere, just staring at us and grinning.
And as we generously waved our credit cards at one another and nibbled our strawberries and laughed our damn fool heads off, it belatedly occurred to me that this is not how the men of Parry Sound usually behave.
Queer as folkies. If they don't get it, it's their problem.
A couple of weeks back, Aengus Finnan and I left my hometown of Parry Sound at about 12.30 at night for Toronto in a rented car. In a bizarre twist of fate, we had to drive north of town about 5 miles to gas up because everything in town was closed.
5 miles north of Parry Sound is an Esso with a Tim Horton's and a Wendy's. It's right across Highway 69 from Murray Pt. Road, where I grew up. I'd been to that Esso about a million times as a kid, when there was a Voyageur restaurant there with the only video game between Parry Sound and Sudbury. It was sort of neat to be back there, randomly, with a buddy from another life.
So there's me, with a giant puffball of curly hair and a black turtleneck. There's Aengus with his ponytail and corduroy jacket. We're both wearing dress shoes with neatly pressed trousers. There is a pair of white roses with baby's breath sprays on the dashboard of the car, beautiful tokens of thanks from the benefit we've just played. There are also little plates of squares and strawberries and cheese that some kind ladies have made up for us to munch on our late-night ride home.
We're headed to the OCFF conference in Guelph the next day. As Aengus starts to pay for the gas, I holler "don't you dare! It's my turn!" He turns around and says "no way, you're paying for our room tomorrow night, I've got it!" We do this kind of thing a lot.
Except normally, when we do it, we're not in the sticks north of Parry Sound, at a gas station where every one of the half-dozen other vehicles is a pickup truck full of hunters. I'm not kidding. The truck and trailer next to us was actually carrying an ATV and several large storage bins presumably full of deer meat. Men with orange hats were filling up with diesel everywhere, just staring at us and grinning.
And as we generously waved our credit cards at one another and nibbled our strawberries and laughed our damn fool heads off, it belatedly occurred to me that this is not how the men of Parry Sound usually behave.
Queer as folkies. If they don't get it, it's their problem.
Labels: Aengus Finnan, folk, parry sound, queer
posted by David Newland at 1.11.04
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