All George Had To Do Was Use His Don Head June 25, 2008
George Stephen figured he should probably just forget about it. No one had heard about it, and most didn’t believe him. I figured he had probably inhaled too many fumes from the Powell River mill. But George insisted he’d seen it, only now he was thinking he might be the only one on the planet who had.
George would say often that one night, more than 40 years ago on Hockey Night in Canada, the Boston Bruins, in Toronto for a game against the Leafs, were issued a delayed penalty, and something odd happened. As soon as the referee raised his arm, Bruin goaltender Don Head, instead of skating to the bench for an extra attacker, smartly skated to the blueline, goalie pads and all, and played a short shift as a defenceman until a Leaf finally touched the puck, and back to his net Mr. Head went.
Hmmm. Sure, George. The goalie played out on the powerplay? Maybe Foster Hewitt sang the national anthem. Maybe Conn Smythe took on Whipper Billy Watson in a pre-game wrestling match. What, the Bruins didn’t have a defenceman who could go out instead? C’mon!
George insisted, though. When Chicago goalie great Glenn Hall came to Powell River, George asked him, but Hall had no idea what our man was talking about. A letter to the Hockey Hall of Fame garnered a reply. All they could say was they had no idea, but if it were true, it would make a great story. George even asked Powell River resident Andy McCallum, who had played with Head for the Ontario Senior Windsor Bulldogs, but all Andy could say was he wouldn’t be surprised because Head was such a good skater, even with goalie pads on.
There was only one last thing George could do. Ask the man himself, Don Head. If he could find him.
Through sleuthing that would do Dick Tracy proud, George discovered that Head was alive and well and living in Portland, Oregon, and on the phone he got. After mistakenly getting a few others of the same name in Portland first, the goalie was finally tracked down, and George asked that big nagging question. Did he leave his net and become a defenceman with his goalie equipment on?
Head thought for a second, and gave an answer George wasn’t really hoping for. “I don’t remember ever doing that,” he said, and after a few more pleasantries, George politely said goodbye. He was even more convinced to just forget the whole thing.
And that should be the end of the story.
But the phone rang the very next night at George’s house, and sure enough, Don Head was on the line from Portland. “Hello George,” he said. “If I’m ever in a trivia game and need an answer, I’m phoning you.” George asked why, and Head continued. “You were absolutely right. My daughter and I went through my scrapbooks and found the write-up of me skating up the ice and playing the point on the power play. It was a Saturday night, Hockey night in Canada, and we beat Toronto 4-3. I’d forgotten all about that.”
Head wasn’t finished there. He sent a copy of the news story to George and enclosed a little note that said: “Maybe this will convince everyone that you didn’t really inhale those fumes at the mill after all.”
It took more than 40 years, but George Stephen finally has proof that he saw what he saw. All it took was asking Don Head himself. It was all true. The goalie played the point, pads and all.
DK,
Why in the world George would be so foolish as to `prove’ he was right is beyond me. He shoulda left well-enuf alone - nothing people resent more than learning that the designated `village space case’ is in touch with reality, that he is in fact no spacier than all the other space cadets residing in PR. So now George can kiss all those `poor George’ freebies good-bye - no more free beers; no more kitchie-kitchie koos from sympathetic waitresses protecting you from Gaston and his bullying ilk; no more lemme help you out with that crossword puzzle George; no more, hey, help yourself to some fries, George. No more, that’s alright George, I/we understand when you do something really dumb (like you just did). The good ol’ days are finito, George. Now you’re just another Powell River space cadet, nothing special about you.
Yeah, but Habber. George saw something you and I have never seen. Think about it. The goalie, with pads and all, played the point on the power play. That’s gotta count for something.
And not only that, nobody believed him for years, and Don Head made everyone finally believe him. That’s gotta count for somthing too.
And also, what did George do wrong? Habber, are you sure you didn’t drop acid tonight?
DK,
The dood on acid was the Boston goalie … he was a real `Head’ case …hehehe.
My point was plural in that the fact that George DID see it and nobody else did was good, the fact that he told all and sundry was good, the fact that nobody believed him was even better, the fact that he proved that he saw what he saw wasn’t wrong as much as dumb for the reasons which I gave. (Course, you can always claim that they are bogus which I can’t dispute not living there. I mean, for starters I’ve gotta wonder if George’s existence is as dubious as that of Lawrence?) Hmm, who dropped a tab?
But, hey, George can repair the damage he’s done to his rep. I’m sure he’s seen a Sasquatch maybe even an alien or two …..
Phone him and ask him. He’s in the phone book.
And the goalie was told by his coach to stay out. And don’t be so miserable.
Or better yet, phone Don Head in Portland. I assume he’s still there. He’ll not only tell you about playing defence, he’ll tell you about George’s phone call.
George is a helluva a nice fellow. I hope he doesn’t read your comments.
DK,
Miserable? UH? I’m being thoughtful here. Helpful, even. Hey, It seems to be pretty much standard in human nature to resent anybody who stands out in a positive way, in a way that makes them appear `better’ than those around them, even in the most banal of ways. It is also human nature to resent those whom they consider to be inferior to suddenly morph into the opposite of what everybody thinks. The Poster Boy for these truths is the 1st C Roman emperor Claudius. As long as everybody `knew’ he was a doofus supreme, he was safe and secure, he could go about the biz of ruling the known world in peace, do what he wanted on the side and everybody was happy and more importantly Claudius stayed alive. BUT as soon as he started doing normal emperor stuff such as conquering & killing, pillaging, raping & enslaving foreigners, i.e the Brits, offing & exiling some nay-sayers, boffing younger women,he was doomed. Yup, ol Claudius, who, incidentally seems to me to have been a decent sort of fellow, didn’t last long as soon as people started to realize that he had been fooling them with his `doofus’ persona. Now, I’m not saying George is an emperor or anything, or that now that he’s shown everybody up that he’s gonna shortly be `fed to all the fishes’ out there, or even that local blockheads like Gaston will stop talking to him. What I am saying is that, if you must stand out, it is a far far better thing to do so in a non-threateningt way, in a way that permits others to chuckle at the sound of your name, to shake their heads with bemusement, to patronize and humour you. This way, the free beer keeps flowing and the girls are always friendly, nothing like a harmless doofus to make one feel empowered in a arbitrary and often dangerous world. If George HAD to let people know he knew not only what he knew but what they didn’t and what they mocked him for, then he shoulda got somebody else to spill the beans so that way he gets the credit without losing his highly desired doofus status. So, if you’re really concerned for him, maybe you should let PR know that he’s seen, well, whatever he’s seen that nobody else has. Hey, if you play your cards right you just might be able to get a cut of his action.
Powell River does know he saw what he saw because this blog is now a link on a new part of the newpaper The Peak’s website at prpeak.com on their new thing called peaklive. George’s story was also one of my columns in The Peak awhile back.
George,
Hi! There’s a moral to this exchange: It’s better to be a live doofus than a dead emperor.
Habber, personal attacks on people like George, who is a good guy and a friend, and name-calling, is a bit out of line, don’t you think? If it’s going to get nasty, I won’t allow it.
DK,
Personal attack? UH? Dk, remember when you `blamed’ your wife (then all wives) for a Canadien’s loss? You were, of course, being `absurd’, making a preposterous cause-effect connection that couldn’t possibly exist in the real world. The key to this kind of `humour’ lies in accepting the `absurd’ premise not only as real but as relevant and operational which is what other participants in the blog did. I was joking about this `fan bonding’ dopiness with a couple of friends and the wife became indignant, accused me of male chauvinist attitudes. LOL. In fact, it had nothing really to do with boy-girl relationships which was merely the vehicle with which to express the much more sophisticated awareness that being a fan can be/perhaps intrinsically is essentially absurd (hehe,and it seems to me that most women can’t be bothered with `fandom’ unless it involves their kids - oops, there’s the chauvinist in me!) which attitude I think is healthy as it keeps us `fans’ grounded and certainly inhibits us from confusing the performance of our `team’ with our personal lives which fact is often lost on many `violent’ fans of such sports as soccer. I mean, it is of the same order of preposterousness as Charlie Brown who, overwhelmed by the weight of an indifferent world, bangs his head on the wall and wails `It’s all my fault!’ My point? Of course I’m not `attacking’ George in any shape or form. I mean, this is pretty obvious when I talk about Gaston as if the little wooden wanna-be Pinocchio is a real person, eh? PERSONALLY, I really get a kick outta the visual image of Don Head out there on the point in his goalie kit. And when I first read about the `anecdote’ my first inclination was to `riff’ on why George’s `memory’ is so valuable - because it does encapsulate a slice of `personal’ history that is relevant to us all, to wit how in certain ways, the `good old days’ really were just that, how a smaller scale, a less intense marketing environment, a reduced financial pay-off made for better more intimate entertainment from a purely `human/personality’ aspect - we could identify with players, often fans across the country knew them well even played with some of them growing up and who then worked at a summer job alongside their friends and fans. Perhaps, even more importantly, it expresses a kind of cultural bonding that transcends political and economic concerns, a positive healthy reassurance that whatever our interests, our jobs, our location, we pretty much shared the same values and expectations, we could for the most part trust one another. Hmm, can we say the same today? In fact, palm trees notwithstanding, I would venture to say that perhaps the most appealing thing to, hehe, PRites is just this shared sense of community that seems to be basic to human nature and that at one time did encompass the country but which now, as official government policy, has been deliberately broken up into special interests and ghettoized fragments all supposedly in the name of virtue. Furthermore, it is my belief that the potential for realising principles of social justice for all people(s) are enhanced when mores, values, standards of conduct are shared rather than divisive to the point of explosive conflict a la Yugoslavia and Ruwanda, for example. All this forced patriotic stuff is just empty bs, the slogan shouting: Canada’s Commitment To Diversity .. whatever the hell that means, I mean, it seems to me there was plenty of that around long before it became the so-called lynchpin of our `new’ Cdn identity which is causing us to convulse, perhaps fatally in the long run; the flag waving - look ma! we’re NOT American! look ma! we’ve got a plan which means we’re better than the rest of the world so we won’t do any of the mean stuff everybody else does; the jejune displays of touchy-feely togetherness, & etc etc. All this means zilch - a culture is not an artificial construct, something that we can patch together like a tinker-toy sculpture (those that are such as the totalitarian states inevitably sink into brutal dissaray)but an organic thing, it IS alive and growing, naturally sensitive to and able to adapt to changing circumstances in a positive and natural way sans all the rhetoric and fervent protestations of contrived identity that our current crop of oh-so-concerned and caring ideologues so vehemently promote in the name of ideals that, as is always the case with ideologies, end up by undermining, betraying, sabotaging the very ideals they supposedly espouse, in this case the vigour of a healthy culture. According to these Xs (whatever you choose to call them)Don Head represents the `bad old days’ of imperialist national self-interest that did nothing but oppress minorities and generate WWs not like the brave new world that is currently being created (LOLLOL - just look around at things without the bs ideological blinkers on!)by our current caste of self-annointed social engineers. As for George, why, in these terms, he’s at best an anachronism, an old fogie hankering after an elitist past that only exists in the nostalgic memories of the intolerant racist ethnocentric xenophobic white colonial purists who had everything and had it their way. Yeah, right. So, no, DK, I wasn’t `attacking’ George. On the contrary, I was celebrating him and if ever, by some miracle, I should get to PR I would be most pleased if he were to permit me to buy him a beer on the condition, of course, that he hold forth on what he `remembers’ from the `old days - both good & bad’ because to me whatever he has to say, warts and all, will likely be a helluva lot more honest, more true, more human/humane, more relevant than much of the superficial reflexive pc bs that is currently being passed off as Canadian culture.
Hehe, I could go on .. and on about culture and sport in general and hockey in particular but I think you get my drift here: my initial absurd stooooopidity was, if nothing, else, lighter than the above and, reading between the lines, it pretty much said the same thing.
That said, I must admit that I do, with unabashed glee, pummel la P and that quintessential canucklehead Lawrence - hehe, even in absentia. Why? Primarily because they aren’t Habs fans and as such richly deserve the verbal beat-downs they get not only from me but from all self-respecting Habbers such as Mike who, granted, is somewhat less militant than me but who, if you noticed, jumped to the defence of Gaston (I followed his lead) - a living? exemplar of Habdom -in the face of your scurrilous assault on his virtue … who’s the bad guy, here? I mean, did you diss Gaston just to score points with the waitress? Hehe, if so, I hope that `she doesn’t read your comments’.
Hmm, George, you’re not a Boston fan, are you?
DK,
Ooops, the `she’ above is meant to refer to your `wife’.
DK,
Ooops, `she’ above refers to, hehe, your `wife’ but, hey, I guess it can also refer to the `waitress-who-spiked-Gaston’s-drink?’
p.s. George, if you’re a Leaf fan, then I take all my `nice’ words back. IF SO then you’re NOT a noble court-jester/doofus but a twinky-eating doofus doofus. And, if you are a Leaf fan, then I hope that, hehe, you do read these words.
Now-Now boy’s let’s get along, But habber don’t take Dennis to the petting zoo,young children could be Traumatized!!! Cheers from the EAST !!!!La P just cross the border & pickup some Mott’s Extra spicey Ceasar mix or if available the bar tenders mix with a dash of horseradish & then tell me how it kicks a Bloody Mary in the arse,once tried you will never order just a plain old Bloody-Mary.I hope by the time this post arrives you guy’s have kissed & made up,if not shame on you Habber !!!!
Mike,
Hehe, I am not in the least upset. This is fun, mind you, not as entertaining as putting the metaphorical boots to la P and Lawrence et al. As for shame, I have none. Indeed, the `devil’ in me is hoping that George turns out to be a closet Leaf fan in which case DK will be drenched in shame for defending the indefensible. I wonder, will Gaston leave him?
Gastons too waisted to reply,thats why I think it’s Lawerance in diguise!!Look closely & you just might see a broken wine glass behind the Canuklehead!!!
Les Canadiens Sont La !!!!!