Pretty sure it wasn't Jesus.
I think it was his brother-in-law Rod.
That would be the brother-in-law of Jimmie, not the brother-in-law of Jesus.
That would be the brother-in-law of Jimmie, not the brother-in-law of Jesus.
Rod had a gas station in downtown Walkerton, and he was a big fan of German Shepherd dogs. He actually collected magazines devoted to the German Shepherd dog.
I was devoted to my own German Shepherd dog, but I had not the slightest inkling that there might be magazines devoted to such devotion.
Rod's gas station used to be the Ford dealership in Walkerton. Rod's dad had let that franchise go for reasons unknown.
One day I pulled in there for gas with my beautiful German Shepherd in the back of the truck. It was around the time of the Walkerton water crisis.
Folks were dying from drinking the water.
Rod and I get to talking, and before you know it, he's got me calling up his brother-in-law Jimmie, because Jimmie runs up to Owen Sound every day and by God, that's exactly where I'm going!
That's how the homophobic redneck and the queer-friendly commie got to be car-pool buddies.
The one thing I really respected about the redneck homophobe was that he was the best car mechanic I'd ever encountered. He had parlayed his expertise into a teaching gig at one of the high schools in Owen Sound.
They'd take in an engine transplant on a Monday, do the swap by Tuesday, and by Wednesday evening the customer would be driving the car home with the new motor.
In most high school shops you're lucky to have a tire changed in that time, never mind a motor.
So me and Jimmie get to car-pooling. Turns out he hates fags and I've got half a dozen in the extended family.
It's about an hour drive to Owen Sound so obviously we have to find other stuff to chat about.
Soon we're doing this twice a day.
Turns out there may be a couple of Sodomites in his family tree too...
But what really gets him is I used to be a welder in a shipyard. Had every welding ticket you can imagine. Eventually he asks if I mind going to his home shop to check out the welds on this trailer he's building.
A friendship is forged out of mutual respect, even though these two guys have nothing in common.
He respects my welding skills.
I respect his mechanical wizardry.
One day we're heading to Owen Sound in the dead of winter and the sun is just coming up in one of those polyglotal cloud-bespeckled skies that lets beams of winter sun poke through and it is all looking surreal and majestic and magical.
We drive in silence for a couple of minutes, clouds glowing ever brighter with the back-lighting of the morning sun... till finally Jimmie, looking at the sky, says "you don't think we're gonna see Jesus, do ya?"
Not long after that Jimmie got a transfer to a school closer to home, and that was the end of the car-pooling. But whenever I had a serious issue with an internal combustion engine, be it in a car or a boat or a snowmobile, he'd be there.
All I had to do was make the call.
Some time early last year I went to his funeral.
He was still a young man; early fifties. Didn't smoke, didn't drink. The cancer didn't differentiate.
Keep a spot there for me Jimmie. I'll be along soon enough.
Rod's gas station used to be the Ford dealership in Walkerton. Rod's dad had let that franchise go for reasons unknown.
One day I pulled in there for gas with my beautiful German Shepherd in the back of the truck. It was around the time of the Walkerton water crisis.
Folks were dying from drinking the water.
Rod and I get to talking, and before you know it, he's got me calling up his brother-in-law Jimmie, because Jimmie runs up to Owen Sound every day and by God, that's exactly where I'm going!
That's how the homophobic redneck and the queer-friendly commie got to be car-pool buddies.
The one thing I really respected about the redneck homophobe was that he was the best car mechanic I'd ever encountered. He had parlayed his expertise into a teaching gig at one of the high schools in Owen Sound.
They'd take in an engine transplant on a Monday, do the swap by Tuesday, and by Wednesday evening the customer would be driving the car home with the new motor.
In most high school shops you're lucky to have a tire changed in that time, never mind a motor.
So me and Jimmie get to car-pooling. Turns out he hates fags and I've got half a dozen in the extended family.
It's about an hour drive to Owen Sound so obviously we have to find other stuff to chat about.
Soon we're doing this twice a day.
Turns out there may be a couple of Sodomites in his family tree too...
But what really gets him is I used to be a welder in a shipyard. Had every welding ticket you can imagine. Eventually he asks if I mind going to his home shop to check out the welds on this trailer he's building.
A friendship is forged out of mutual respect, even though these two guys have nothing in common.
He respects my welding skills.
I respect his mechanical wizardry.
One day we're heading to Owen Sound in the dead of winter and the sun is just coming up in one of those polyglotal cloud-bespeckled skies that lets beams of winter sun poke through and it is all looking surreal and majestic and magical.
We drive in silence for a couple of minutes, clouds glowing ever brighter with the back-lighting of the morning sun... till finally Jimmie, looking at the sky, says "you don't think we're gonna see Jesus, do ya?"
Not long after that Jimmie got a transfer to a school closer to home, and that was the end of the car-pooling. But whenever I had a serious issue with an internal combustion engine, be it in a car or a boat or a snowmobile, he'd be there.
All I had to do was make the call.
Some time early last year I went to his funeral.
He was still a young man; early fifties. Didn't smoke, didn't drink. The cancer didn't differentiate.
Keep a spot there for me Jimmie. I'll be along soon enough.
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