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Notes from a Garage

With John Gardiner

The boys’ weekend; herding us along; and talking and seeing on Skype…..

Tuesday, September 21, 2010

Was off up to Sauble Beach for the big boys’ weekend this past weekend and had a really good time making crazy with old friends from high school. I get together with a few old buddies and we have a lot of fun pretending to be young again and sort of acting like it. We have been doing this for the past 18 years and it is a time for me to feel comfortable. We all notice it. That you can be apart from old friends for years on end, but when you do finally get together, it only takes about 30 seconds and you feel comfortable again. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again – you usually don’t make friends again like the ones you do when you’re young. And, of course, we always get to talking about how much the world has changed over the last 45 years since we all started hanging out together. Because the world really has changed. It is a much different place than when we were young guys. I think back when we were growing up in Hanover, there was a basic level of trust. You sort of knew everybody and so you knew where you stood with them. Today, most of us live in a world full of strangers and you just can’t tell who you can trust and who you can’t. One of the big reasons you feel comfortable with old friends is because you know exactly who they are and they know exactly who you are. Doesn’t matter who’s got money, who has the best job, who has the best this or the best that – we simply all know where we’re from and who we are – there’s no pretention. I really enjoy getting together with the old friends – it’s really the only time all year I can be who I really am and there’s none of that role playing going on. Even though this year is just over, I’m already looking forward to next year.

You know, it’s interesting. Away back when, there was a fellow by the name of Marshall McLuhan (sp.) – a 1960’s philosopher fellow. And one of his most famous sayings was, “the medium is the message”, and if you think about it, it really is. Just last week, I heard a radio commentator talking about how we now live inside one big commercial….our part of the world is now so commercialized that it’s hard to know where the commercials stop and reality begins. It’s become quite a thing, the way the retailing world hammers away at us to buy, buy, buy. Take those roadside signs that now clog up the side of every road everywhere. Years ago, it was enough to have a sign on the front of your business. Not today. Today you’ve got to jam another sign out by the road with some goofy special on it that nobody really cares about. But because one guy is doing it, everybody’s gotta do it. The sheer number of advertisements we pass every minute of every day whether we’re driving or walking or whatever. And everything is always on sale. You’re a total idiot if you ever pay full price for anything these days. No, the medium is indeed the message – it pushes and pulls us in every different direction, herds us along to where it wants us to go, gets us to buy what it wants us to buy….We are mere slaves to its wishes…We are consumed by obsession and obsessed by consumption. It’s the way of the world.

My daughter and her family are currently living away up in Thunder Bay where she and her husband are going to Lakehead University. I’m extremely proud of both of them for making such a jump but pretty depressed about them living on the other side of the world. But I’ve got Skype, a computer program that lets you not only talk to someone far away, but also see them on the monitor. Wow, talk about science fiction! A real, honest-to-goodness video phone right out of Flash Gordon. Wow! I generally question a lot of our new technology and wonder if we really need most of it. But this Skype thing is really cool and a chance to see my grandchildren who are oh, so far away. I wonder what’s next. But I’m hoping for teletransportation….like the transporter on Star Trek. Then I could actually go and see them. Wow!

Out of time for another week and not my usual rants. Still recovering from the big boys’ weekend. Take care and remember…”Hew to the line; let the chips fall where they may.”



John Gardiner is a 25-year-veteran of the community newspaper business, but he is also a prolific writer of moralistic short fiction he refers to as "emotional thoughtscapes" or "adult fables". Samples of his fiction can be found at:

He has also produced a noteworthy piece of humanist philosophy which can be found at: http://www.xs4all.nl/~aboiten/ad502.htm He welcomes comments on his work.