Three Things from Edmonton podcast - Episode 68: airshow, in time, all aboard!

 

Here are three things this week that delivered some happiness and gratitude this week:

                                    

1. Airshow 

The dying tree looked fuller than usual. It had stuff in it this time. I glance at the old spruce whenever I pedal home across the bridge on 142 Street. That day it looked like its top branches were lined with cones. As I crossed the street for a closer look, the top of the tree exploded into pieces that twisted up and blew away like a dirt devil—a giant, wavy ribbon that flashed with light when the sun caught the underside of the birds’ wings. What I thought were seed cones were scores of birds flocking off together. I said wow out loud, and waited to see if the birds returned. They did. One by one, they re-attached themselves to the branches. Behind me, cars streamed by. 

With little puffs of energy, the birds changed positions, like an org chart taking shape after a department shuffle. The virtuosos in the flock took turns doing quick sorties, up and up and back. More birds dropped in, and more. I waited. For 11 minutes  I waited and watched, pointing my phone at the branches, wondering if the birds would again fly away as one. I made a note to ask Nicola what kinds of birds these were.* I considered waving my arms or yelling out or tossing a rock into the air to trigger a launch, but didn’t. Nicola would not accept such manipulation of nature to get the shot. I waited.  On the bridge at a red light, a bus exhaled. 

After 11 minutes and 34 seconds, at the unseen signal of a little flight commander, the squadron suddenly lifted off again, executing together their individual turns and climbs and banks in a spectacular three-second air show over the MacKenzie Ravine. 

*Bohemian Waxwings, Nicola has since told me. :) 

2. In time  

On the third base line just shy of home plate in the Parkview School field, two players sat on the ground, their backs to 91 Avenue. One was on trombone, the other on what looked like a small tuba. I stopped pedalling and listened to their music on the wind. They concentrated on getting their timing right on the final notes of the piece they were working on. I could see the tuba player’s right hand sway like a little metronome over the closing beats. I complimented them on their playing, they swivelled their heads around to say thank you. I asked jokingly if they had gotten kicked out of the house to practise. I remembered how band class was, for Auntie Shelagh and me as young parents, a way to send our own boys out into the bigger world. 

“Two of the most famous and influential musicians of the bop era were Dizzy Gillespie and Charlie Parker. Dizzy Gillespie was a trumpet player and Charlie Parker was an alto player, who, unfortunately, had some serious addictions and we lost him very young. Before he died he amassed an incredible amount of music and he and Dizzy Gillespie worked together for years.”

That’s what I mean. 

That was our boys’ high school music teacher Arthur Milan at the Christmas jazz concert at Archbishop MacDonald High School—Mac—in 2006. To the Matthew, Mark, Luke and John quartet, Mr. Milan added Dizzy and Charlie. The saints got some Salt Peanuts. 

The day after I came across the brass pair practising in the field last week, I pedalled by again. They were gone. The baseball diamond was again what it was, a baseball diamond, except for one slight modification. For the first time, I saw the chain link backstop as a bandshell. 

3. All aboard! 

A train timetable was a treasure for me. I would get one at the downtown station back when there was a downtown train station at the CN Tower, and study the names of the communities and the times we were due to move through on our family trips east. Edmonton, Viking, Wainwright, Unity, Biggar, Saskatoon, Wattrous, Melville, Rivers, Portage la Prairie, Winnipeg. Looking ahead, the timetable was a table of contents. Looking back, an index. What’s more like reading than moving by train? I get the nostalgic timetable feeling these days reading the Environment Canada report as weather systems approach and pass through…Partly cloudy with 30 percent chance of showers this evening and after midnight. Clearing overnight. Wind west 20 km/h gusting to 40 becoming light this evening. Low plus 2…Last week’s snow here was the April weather train barrelling through right on time.

Three Things podcast, episode 68: https://podcasts.apple.com/.../three.../id1550538856... [5:09] has sound of the brass brothers, Mr. Milan and the jazz band, along with original music by Edmonton pianist and composer Brendan McGrath and bells by Slavo Cech, one of the great metal artists produced by O’Leary High School in 1982.