Three Things from Edmonton podcast - Episode 56: sign of summer, Bill of goods, sign of spring

Here, for the week of noticing things that made me feel happy or grateful ending February 4, 2022, is the Three Things podcast.

1. Sign of summer 🌻

I love winter in Edmonton, especially when there’s new snow. It’s like a fresh comforter out of the wash. But there are cold days—I’m looking at you last Monday—when the north wind casts snow across the roads so the roads themselves appear to be in motion. The strands of white look like strips of cirrus clouds skimming at fast forward speed over the asphalt. The snow works itself into swervy shapes that bury the work of sidewalk shovellers. On those days, you open the front door to see four inches of snow lining the threshold.

There are signs this geometry of winter is not eternal. In fact, I saw one of those signs last week. It was in the middle of a field in the Rossdale Flats. The sign read: "See you on the hill 2022." This means the Edmonton Folk Music Festival intends to be back on Gallagher Hill this August. This is music to cold ears. See…you…on…hill—four strong words that blow away lonely.

Will the beer gardens be back? My buddy Fitz owes me four beers from last year, no, from two years ago, no, no, from the last time the Folk Fest happened, the year Covid brought the curtain down and turned the taps off, however many years ago that was. Driving by the sign, another feeling took shape. It was the Day-Four feeling at the Folk Fest, the sweet sluggishness of Sunday morning walking along the food pavilions, sore legs, sore head, but with a fresh coffee in my hand, a beaten program in my back pocket. I have a morning bike ride already in, and I’m walking with the knowledge that most of the music is already behind me for this year, but not all of it, not Sunday’s, so, it’s a slow, happy hike to Stage 6. It’s on that walk I feel most like myself. It’s on that walk I realize that the years go by faster than the pints go down, and it’s on that walk I promise myself that I’m not going to be a strict keeper of accounts anymore. I’m gonna be a better friend. Yes, Fitz owes me three beers. Two, if they’re as cold as last Monday.

2. Bill of goods ✉️

My friend Bill Gattinger has been dead for almost two years. He shows up unexpectedly. I was sitting at the dining room table, reading. It was late. The furnace had just settled itself. I was on page 158 of Bowling Alone where the topic was the pros and cons of organizations using direct mail. My focus loosened.

I met Bill at ATB. He had worked in ad agencies and knew marketing. I had worked in news and didn’t. He told great stories. His lower eyelids held a thin line of tears, just to the rim, like water in the gutters in a spring melt. You trust people who trust you to see them thawing. "Billy G.," I would say, "how many direct mail envelopes just get thrown out when they’re delivered?" Eight out of nine, Bill would say. Bill devised ways to get that down to seven or six by grabbing attention in clever ways. 

And, so, there Bill was at the table with me last week as I read about the practice of non-profit groups using direct mail to ask for money and keep members engaged. In the margin, I pencilled: This is interesting. Would be nice to ask Billy G. about it. And ask him about tax bills that arrive in the mail and if it’s possible for a municipality to get goodwill from the annual cash call. And about the Kansas City offensive line last Sunday. 

Direct mail, taxes, the NFL—these are not particularly profound topics. Bill and I didn’t become friends talking for hours about courage and justice. But I’d ask him anything I could think of when our paths crossed, just to be around his generosity, the half-life of which continues to shine.

3. Sign of spring 🌱

We shop at Andy’s IGA on 142nd Street. Andy still devotes a few square feet at the front of the store for the coin-operated riding-horse machine. People still leave quarters on the coin box so the next little cowpoke can ride free.

I can pick up a copy of the Alberta Jewish News. I can usually find a fresh loaf of sesame-seed-crust bread. I say hi by name to Mike, who helps manage the store. Yeast and flour were rationed at the start of the pandemic, but they were always there in aisle three. I can lock my bike right out front.

By the end of February, the MacKenzie Seeds stand shows up at the front of the store. Except for this year. This year the stand is already there. It has sprouted early in packets of radish and beet reds, carrot oranges and the greens of asparagus, lettuce, pea, cucumber, bean and onion envelopes. The magazine rack with its columns of colourful covers and screaming headlines is right there, but the seeds are the story. Grow our own veggies. Know our own veggies. Supply-chain them in from the back yard.

I dig it.