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Thank goodness for a good book
Commentary by Joe McWilliams
South Peace News
It’s a funny thing, but all the years I’ve been playing hockey I don’t think I’ve had a single dressing-room conversation about books.
Not that I think my oldtimers hockey pals don’t read.
But dressing room banter tends not to run along literary lines. I’ve been wondering why, and I think it may just be that reading is one of the last things that come to mind when you’re talking to a half-naked guy in a garter belt.
Then again, I’ve tried striking up conversations with fully-dressed players on the ice – opposing defenceman, for instance – and they usually just tell me to eff off. Must think I’m trying to distract them from the play or something.
Why would I start a column about books by making fun of hockey players (remember, I’m one of them)?
Because hockey is on my mind, having recently played in a 24-hour tournament. But books are on my mind too, especially one I’m reading right now by the musician Dan Hill. It’s about his father and his relationship with his father, and how that relationship drove him to be who he became.
It also tells an interesting tale about racial attitudes. A bi-racial couple in white-bread Don Mills Ontario in the 1950s might have gotten an easier ride than if they’d lived in, say Detroit, but it wasn’t all smooth sailing by any means. Hill tells of how, when his parents first came to Toronto, his white mom would take along white male friend, posing as her husband, to rent an apartment. The Hills learned from experience they got better results that way. If black people wanted equal treatment – or even close to equal treatment, they had to behave flawlessly. And they absolutely had to excel in the educational field. Dan didn’t, and this led to endless conflicts with his father. His dad, a vigorous human rights crusader, had taught young Dan to use his fists if he heard the word ‘nigger.’ Imagine his confusion, when his Grade 1 teacher pulled out a set of fingernail clippers and told the kids it was time ‘get the niggers out’ from under their nails.
Young Dan experienced shame for being half black, and then guilt for feeling ashamed. He grew into a rebellious, intense young man, who sought a career in music and didn’t go to college as his father had hoped. The rest is history.
Stories like this are great, first of all because they are moving and entertaining, but also because they have lots to say about the kind of people we are and have been.
Another recent read of mine also has lots to say about another slice of Canadiana. It’s Joseph Boyden’s ‘Three Day Road’, a fictional account of two Cree boys from James Bay who end up fighting as snipers in Europe during the First World War.
Three Day Road actually starts with one of them, the narrator, returning from the war in very bad condition. His auntie, a traditional healer, meets him and tells him stories on the long canoe trip back to their home territory near James Bay. Along the way he reminisces about his wartime experiences. It gets pretty grim, but it’s a good story, with plenty of food for thought and not without a bit of hope amidst the gloom of human folly.
So there you go. A couple of good Canadian stories to read in the off-season.
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