Three Things from Edmonton podcast -- episode 106: comma, streeter, jerky

Happy end of the week, y’all. Here is my weekly offering of some of the gifts that came my way last week, things that made for some happiness and gratitude.

Three Things, episode 106: 

                           

1. Comma 

For a year or so I worked editing copy at the Edmonton Journal. It was my job to lay out pages, size and crop the photos, check spelling and grammar and punctuation, write headlines, that kind of pre-automation stuff. The day that a Jamie Hall column ran without a headline, that was me who forgot to write a headline and then pressed send. I did write one good headline. It was the night in January 2006 the Columbus Blue Jackets hosted the Pittsburgh Penguins in a clash of  phenoms. Rick Nash got a goal and two assists, Sidney Crosby was held pointless in a 6-1 Columbus victory. Nash stills young Crosby. It was good enough to get Bill Sass to walk over from Business to say good job. 

That was one of the unexpected memories that took shape after the news broke that David Crosby had died. It’s strange. The death of musical heroes has the effect of bringing home not just the fact they are gone, but the more surprising fact that they were actually here. Mediated from the beginning, they were immortal from the beginning. I first heard the C-S-N harmonies in drama class in Grade 7 where we had to learn the parts of a popular song and then pantomime our instrument parts and lip sync the lyrics for an audience. Our group’s song was Our House. 

Teach Your Children was one of the first songs I learned to sing and strum on a real acoustic guitar. It was the song that taught me that the B-minor chord feels wistful. I stayed up late a couple of nights last week strumming the guitar and singing wistfully again. And, you know what? The line Don’t you ever ask them why, if they told you, you would cry, has a comma between the second and third yous, right? If they told you comma you would cry, The They are not telling you that you would cry. The singers are telling you that you would cry if the they told you, right? This reading gave me a jolt as I sat alone with my guitar at the dining room table last week. Well, not quite alone. For a second, the singers were there like never before along with their editor, who brought the, wait for it, comma. 

2. Streeter 

I could see them taking aim at me. On the sidewalk ahead, right next to Rogers Place downtown, a TV news reporter and a camera operator were coming my way. There was no way to avoid them. I was going to be asked to do a streeter. 
I deserved it. For years as a TV news assignment editor, I sent reporters and shooters out onto the sidewalks of Edmonton to get reaction from people to the news of the day. What do you think about the price of eggs? What’s the biggest issue in the election? How about the new guideline on alcoholic drinks per week, how feasible is that for you?

The City TV crew wanted my take on the province’s anti-inflation payments.  I tried to talk my way out of it. I recognized Rod holding the camera. He let me off the hook. But we did spend a few good minutes standing there on the sidewalk, in downtown Edmonton, in January, stopped and standing there, face to face, talking about the pros and cons of streeters. Are they schlock? A lazy way to fill out a story? A vital glimpse into public opinion out there? Hardly scientific, but somehow valuable? A way for the powerless to be heard? No news value? 

I pulled out a section of the Sunday Times from my back pocket and showed our little bouquet of conversation how the Grey Lady frames its streeter interviews. People living the news, the paper calls the practice. Interesting, interesting, send me that. Will do, I said. It was a refreshing way to spend a couple of minutes— talking, going back and forth, trading stories and opinions right out there, in public, on the street. 

3. Jerky 

Over from the honey ham and one row up from the Montreal smoked meat in the deli case at Andy’s IGA sit pieces of my boyhood, priced at $83 a kilogram. This is the price of nostalgia. This is the price of beef jerky.

On summer Saturday afternoons we rode our bikes to the Edmonton Journal shack off the Fort Road. That’s where the neighbourhood newspaper carriers gathered, waiting for that day’s extra papers that we’d carry and add to the bundles dropped on street corners back on our routes. The air smelt hot and stale in that shack. We’d play darts there, learned to count down from 301, and try out new swear words there. There was a single light bulb inside and a ledge along the walls where we’d sit, legs swinging free. We’d stroll a block down the road to Bob’s Sausage House and amble back with beef jerky. 

The clerk at Andy’s held up six pieces of jerky and asked if that was enough. Enthusiastically, I said yes, yes, thank you, yes, thank you. She nodded and smiled, but, I gotta say, looked a bit puzzled. Indeed, who knows what we’re actually buying? 

Thanks for being out there, friends. Here's a bonus streeter.