Golden Years

It may as well be a million years ago, if it were a day.  Memories of my youth are fleeting at best.  They were scarce when I had a fully functional brain, but are mostly gone since my accident.  What I've learned about memories, recently, is while they may be gone, they're not always one hundred percent disappeared.  Some glimmer of them remain, secluded in some dark passageway within our minds, just waiting to emerge into present day, once again.  Earlier this week, I happened to glance over onto 2nd Avenue, downtown, noticing a pile of rubble where the old Baldwin Hotel used to stand.  Then it hit me with a wallop -- Andre the Giant.

There's not much written about the old Baldwin Hotel.  I was unsuccessful in digging up much dirt on the location, short of actually visiting the Saskatoon Library to dig through old archives.  I believe it was built in the early 1900s, stood for nearly a hundred years before falling into disarray and finally demolished.  As a kid I remember going to the restaurant in the basement of the once distinguished hotel, to visit my aunt, Jacquie.  There she'd share tales about her encounters with wrestlers when they'd wander over from shows put on at the old downtown arena.

As a kid, I remember going to the old arena when it was located downtown on 19th Street.  Long since gone, it's footprint looked tiny compared to the incredible size of the arena.  Then again, I was a tiny child, so everything looked gigantic.  I recall going to Blades games with my grandpa.  I remember going to the circus with thousands of other screaming kids.  Seemed like our parents weren't there.  Just dropped us all off to run amuck within it's overwhelming confines.  I remember having full reign over the premises, roaming through all the halls, past the dressing rooms.  I remember encountering a dressing room where all the clowns were, applying their various facial designs.  This is where I came to realize that clowns aren't necessarily a happy bunch.  Many are only as happy as the makeup they apply.  Most are sad, miserable or angry, all characteristics well masked by coloured grease paint.

In addition to the circus and various sporting events and concerts, the Saskatoon Arena would also cater to the cavalcade of professional wrestlers who'd travel throughout the western provinces via Calgary's Stampede Wrestling.  The owner, Stu Hart, was born and raised in Saskatoon, before joining the army and rushing off to World War II, when he returned home, he took up residence in Calgary, Alberta and founded the infamous wrestling company and it's many stars.

Before folding up and closing it's doors in 1984 after being sold to Vince McMahon of the (then) World Wrestling Federation (WWF), there were many big stars who cut their teeth in the infamous Stampede Wrestling.  The British Bulldogs, Davy Boy Smith and the Dynamite Kid, Bret Hart and Jim Neidhart, as well as a few appearances of Andre The Giant.

After nights of bashing the hell out of one another, a gaggle of wrestlers would clean up and mosey on down the street to the Baldwin Hotel and grab a bite to eat.  My aunt, Jacquie would often find herself working on many of the nights with this motley crew of performers would conglomerate for food, drink and wild conversations.

My aunt would marvel us kids with stories of chatting with, chumming around and sharing laughs with the wonderous personalities who'd grace her with their presence.  While I don't recall any of the stories in detail, I do remember Jacquie sharing her amazement with one wrestler in particular, who would nearly eat the restaurant out of every morsel of food they had in stock.  He was a colossus.  Hell!  He was dubbed the "Eighth Wonder of the World" for good reason.  Andre was a bona-fide giant and was billed as such.  Pictured here with Bruce Hart (L) and Dynamite Kid (R), Andre stood at a towering 7'4".  His hands, I'm told, were the size of catcher mitts.  When he shook my aunts hand, it disappeared well within his gentle grasp.

My aunt would pass away in the late eighties.  A brain aneurysm, which put her in a coma for a very long time before my grandpa made the difficult decision to remove her from life support, thus ending her suffering.  I remember him making that decision, speaking to the doctor over the phone in my very own living room.  The sorrow on my grandpas face on having to make that choice, but it had to be done.  My aunt suffered from migraine headaches for most of her life.  I do, as well, which always had me concerned for my own well being.  I don't suffer as frequently as I once did, having undergone an experimental treatment which had the headaches virtually disappear completely.  That is until I took that fateful tumble and completely destroyed my brain as it once was.  The migraines have returned, thankfully not as frequent as they were.

My aunt passed away quite young. Still in her thirties, if I recall correctly.   Andre the Giant would pass away young, too.  Only 46 years old when his heart finally gave out.

Gone are they, just as the old Baldwin is gone and the Saskatoon Arena.  Many of the aspects of the downtown area of the city is gone or reimagined.  There are towering business buildings where "The Barn", as it was affectionately referred to as, once stood.  Across the street from there, used to be a car dealership, if I remember correctly.  My dad bought a car from there, but now it's only an empty parking lot.  Where the parking lot is in the photo above, now stands the Scotia Center Movie Theater, formerly known as The Galaxy Theater.  I wanna say that "Folks", pictured in the lower right of this photo, still stands, but I think my memory is pulling tricks on me.  I can't remember. 

We, as a society, are so quick to destroy, rather than refurbish, replenish and reserve.  Built in 1937, I'm sure the arena couldn't be saved, just as the Baldwin Hotel couldn't be saved.  All that once was prestigious in the downtown district has now gone to ruins.  Plagued by the homeless and the downtrodden.  Seems like the city would rather throw money at new development rather than take care of it's lost citizens.

As a transit operator, I've been witnessing the city in a brand new way.  Like shining a black light on a hotel room, I'm discovering hidden truths about our fair city and it isn't looking good.  I've watched "The Walking Dead" since it's debut in 2010 and viewing the folks who line the streets in the downtown isn't too far from the atrocities seen on the television program.

So many memories, lost to the annuls of time.  Was it a better time, then? Were they truly golden years? Who can say for certain?  It was different.  More innocent.  Or maybe it was just me.  Viewing the world through rose coloured glasses.

Smoke & Mirrors - Chapter Four: Coping Mechanisms

I did a lot of homework before I bought my truck in 2008.  I wanted bang for my buck.  I wanted to get as much as I possibly could for one price.  Initially, I was going to buy the Honda CRV, crossover, but I read that the vehicle didn't offer much by way of good gas mileage.  Then I considered the Ford Escape Hybrid, but read that if taken on the highway, the fuel consumption was higher than the V6 model.  Then I set my sights on the Honda Ridgeline pick-up truck.  The gas mileage was great.  It was a unibody, it rides great.  It's all the comforts of a car, including a trunk located in the box.  It had a lot of umph!  Get up and go.  I test drove the Ridgeline a number of times, then when the day came to buy, I went into the dealership, knowing exactly what I wanted, and called out "no bullshit".  My research was so precise that when I requested the gold accents on the logo and name placard, I knew the order code.

So what does this have to do with coping with stress, anxiety and depression?  I'll get to that eventually.  My point is this.  I don't do hardly anything without looking into every possible avenue.  I want that umph.  I want the most bang for my buck.  I want to tackle everything efficiently.  And I feel I have.

As stated in Chapter One, I suffer from something that I call "Seasonal Depression".  I've never formally been diagnosed by my physician for depression, but I'm not a f*cking idiot.  If it looks like a duck and it quacks like a duck, there's a 99% chance (+/- 1%) that it's a f*cking duck!  So if for more than ten years I've been gloomy, sad and depressed from Halloween through to just after my mom and sister's birthday's, chances are I suffer from depression.

This year I decided to try something new.  I began listening to online podcasts about a year and a half ago, with a majority of it culminating in the last year.  I listen to a great many different podcasters, of whom include, Adam Corolla, Kevin Smith & Scott Mosier, Ari Shaffir, Joe Rogan, and I especially like Bert Kreischer (though I constantly f*ck up the spelling of his name) and Doug Benson.

In addition to his love of movies, Doug Benson is a notorious pot smoker, and like Joe Rogan, promotes the positive medicinal attributes that marijuana provides.  The more I listened, the more I began to wonder.  I wondered if smoking marijuana would improve my "seasonal depression", so I set forth to do my due diligence.  I researched the f*ck out of the benefits of smoking marijuana and any negatives that it might create.  After all, inhaling smoke is not a naturally occurring phenomena, although the first nations people have been smoking different plants in their rituals for hundreds or even thousands of years, so... Who knows?

Everything I read on the subject reflected nothing but positivity, zero negatives, other than putting on a few pounds.  So I moved forward with this "experiment" and yes.  I'm coming out in this chapter of this blog series, that I smoke pot, but just for the medicinal purposes.  I'm not a daily smoker.  I only use it as needed.  I've not used any in a couple of weeks, and the effects of not using have been tremendous.  I've been sad and depressed for more than a week.  My friend made a remark the other day and it broke my heart.  I was truly hurt.  That's my downfall.  I can seem fine, then one off remark can send me spiraling and it's every ounce of courage to regain my composure.  The remark was in reference to my blogs, my subject matter and though they were enjoyable, they were equally inappropriate.  We've made amends, not that we were squabbling, but it's taken me every shred of confidence and will to dig myself out of this hole I find myself in.  I think this is, in part, due to my not medicating myself.  I have a lot of stress on my shoulders.  Unemployment being one.  Health issues are in the back of my mind.  Loneliness, despite having a cat, is still loneliness.

Since starting this new chapter of smoking pot, I've found it beneficial in overcoming most of my "seasonal depression", the migraines that plague me throughout the colder months have been VERY few and far between, which I relish immensely, and much to my surprise, my asthma has improved, as well.  I usually have to rely on one inhaler a month (roughly) to combat my breathing issues.  During the more frequent usage of marijuana, my asthma was not an issue, hardly.  Maybe a puff every other day.  Put it this way.  I got an inhaler just before Christmas, and I'm still on the same inhaler more than a month later.  In recent weeks, with the decline of smoking, I've had to rely on it a little more, but it's still pretty impressive I think.

So I did my homework and got the best truck for me.  I did my homework and got the best television SmartTV, that I could get.  And I did my research to learn that marijuana in addition to a plethora of other advantages, also quashes my depression.  I don't know why it's illegal.  I really don't.

Mr. Green Thumb

I'm a fan of the musical group Cypress Hill.  They have a song entitled "Dr. Green Thumb" which speaks of growing marijuana.  So why is there a picture of a purple thumb to the right?  An explanation will follow, trust me.

I was not familiar with the "why" 4:20 is affiliated with the consumption of marijuana.  According to Wikipedia, it has something to do with students in the early 1970's who would meet up at 4:20pm to blaze up.  Eventually, the term was used for smoking pot in general.  Kind of like my use of "a new hat", which never really took off.  Or my love of "toast", which did catch on with a small group of us, back in the day.

All day long, on the radio, there was a debate of whether or not legalization of marijuana would be a wise decision.  Most who oppose it, are likely the ones least likely to have ever tried it.  They're the same people who swear up and down that marijuana is a gateway drug to bigger, badder and worse off drugs.  Drugs like cocaine, heroine, and worse.  I, personally, don't see it.  I believe that people are presupposed into addiction.  That, and the weaker the mind, the more prone they are likely to fall victim to their addictions.  I truly believe, in all my heart, that if you choose to quit something, you can.  No amount of counselling is going to help you, if you yourself don't decide to allow it to work.  Simple mind over matter.

"Marijuana is a drug, and therefore shouldn't be legalized" is the usual banter.  However, caffeine is a drug.  Tobacco, for all intense purposes, is a drug.  So is aspirin, ibuprofen, and whatever they put into cough syrup.  I've heard of a lot of kids who get hopped up on f*ckin' cough syrup.  I don't know why.  It tastes like shit, but there you have it.  Stupid kids, doing stupid shit!

I think marijuana should be legalized.  For one, it'd be a f*ck of a lot easier for me to buy it then.  Secondly, it could be regulated, in that it wouldn't be spiked with other drugs... (I'll share a story about that in a moment.)  And the government could tax the shit out of it, make some money in the process.

I would like to use it in a medicinal capacity, as a way to combat my migraine headaches.  There are some nights when the pain is so intense, I'd just like a way to relax and go to sleep.  I have heavy duty meds for the headaches, but it is a highly addictive narcotic, so my allowance of use is very limited.

I'm no stranger to smoking up.  I've never really been a "Cheech" (or a "Chong") about it, but when the opportunity has arisen, I've partook.  And nothing bad has ever happened.  I think the worst that has happened was I obliviously dumped mustard down the front of my shirt.  I [vaguely] recall, staring off into space and chewing on a hamburger.  The next thing I knew, I looked down to find my work shirt was ruined by a long-ass streak of bright yellow mustard.

There was a anti-drug video a few years back that depicted two friends sharing a joint on their couch then getting the idea of driving out of town, to tip cows.  One guy climbed over a barbed-wire fence, followed by the other, giggling the whole time.  The end result of this ill-planned adventure was one of the teens being mowed down by a raging bull who was also in the pasture that night.  The reality of this scenario is, if you smoke a joint, chances are, you're not going to have the energy to get off the couch to go tip cows.  Or do anything, for that matter.

I remember another night, I was with friends.  We'd passed around a joint or two and was having a great time.  I decided to get up and go to the kitchen to fetch myself a drink.  Apparently, I'd been gone for about an hour when someone came to the kitchen to see what had happened to me.  They found me in front of the kitchen sink, with a can of grape drink mix in one hand, and a purple thumb.  I'd been standing there for an hour licking my thumb and dipping it into the juice mix.  Today, and even this very moment, this fact still brings me to tears of laughter.

Alcohol is a drug.  You get pissed up and chances are you're either going to get into a fist fight, or do something worse.  Drive drunk and wrap your car around a pole.  This is why alcohol is regulated.  If you get high on marijuana, chances are the worst thing that's going to happen to you is, you're going to gain a couple pounds.

Regulation is the key to successfully legalizing anything.  I mentioned earlier that regulation would prevent other drugs being introduced into the marijuana.  I had a bad experience with a batch that someone had spiked with I don't know what the f*ck.  But I remember the experience vividly, like I was watching the whole thing go down from outside my body.  This was also the last time I'd ever consumed marijuana.

I was with some friends at another friend's house.  Some people I wasn't familiar with came into the party as well, and with them, they had some "party favours".  Being they were friends of my friends, I thought nothing of it when a joint was passed to me.  I had only a couple of hits off it when my whole world began to spiral out of control.  I suddenly had turned from my usual healthy fleshy shade of caucasian to a deep red.  I though I was on fire, literally, I was burning up and sweat poured off my head like someone was pouring a bucket of water over me.  I was burning up so bad, and despite an open door just a few mere feet in front of me, leading into the cool night, my legs wouldn't move.  I was so helpless, and if it weren't for the fact that my friend "Bubbles", and host of the party, jumping into rescue-mode, I'm sure I would've died that night.

I've not touched marijuana since that night.  It's been, I-don't-know-how-many years, since I've smoked pot.  If it became legal, I'd definitely dabble a little in it.  I won't lie, but until that day comes, I'll remain sober, just to be on the safe side.

So for those who do smoke.  Happy 4-20, folks!  And have a nice day!!!