Life never ceases to amaze me! From my public school days I remember very clearly The Mayor of Casterbridge by Thomas Hardy. Its memorialization of coincidence and the significance we are to derive from it has never left me. Perhaps it is the romantic element in me that causes me to embrace, and even at times champion, coincidence and to a lesser degree its sister destiny. But rather than viewing coincidence as anything as foreboding as fatalism, I prefer to see coincidence as an opportunity in life to profit by the concurrence of events, to bring about an ultimate conclusion which is a correspondence of substance, nature and character, not merely fate.
This seemingly esoteric introduction is meant to lay the ground-work for the day I met Alan S. Diner. It was a hot summer day in late August in Ottawa, about 1995 or 1996. I was sitting along side the Ottawa River, having a pic-nic of bread and cheese mostly. My dog, Monroe, was with me, occasionally stealing bits of cheese, as he cautiously waded in and out of the water's edge. Sometime during this tranquil event, a jogger came along. It was Alan. He was scantily clad in a pair of red onion skin shorts, and of course the statutory pair of running shoes, which always look to me like something one would use to outfit a small truck. Alan had obviously been running for some time, because the sweat was pouring off him, and whether it was that or Monroe that caused him to stop, I am not sure. But Alan clearly had an interest in Monroe, and I then engaged in what had by now become a thoroughly standardized explanation of what type of dog he was, that, No, he wasn't growling, He just can't breathe; discussion of his age, etc., etc., etc. I then turned the conversation to a discussion of the interloper, and when I asked him whether he was from the area, he said he lived here for the past summer, but he was returning to Toronto tomorrow. This immediately prompted me to ask what law firm he had articled with. This observation caused Alan to step back a little, and he replied that in fact he had been clerking to one of the Justices of the Federal Court. I asked which Judge in particular, and he replied Mr. Justice Hugessen. Jim and Mary Hugessen!, I proclaimed. Wonderful people! They go to the same Church as I do in Almonte (I suppose I should have put it the other way around, That I go to the same Church as they do, especially considering Mary's family - the Rosamonds - built it!).
This flurry of conversation, the sudden recognition of something so totally unexpected, had the effect of opening up a floodgate of possibilities. I then indicated that I had plans to have some people to Almonte that evening for one of the last summer evening barbecues, and would he care to join us. He hesitated a moment, since he had apparently made arrangements with certain friends to spend the last few hours in Ottawa with them; but, he accepted the invitation, and we then made plans for him to meet other friends in Ottawa before heading out to the country.
As so often happens in circumstances such as these, where spontaneity and coincidence are at their playful best, the evening turned out to be a smash hit. Alan was of course the star of the evening, not only because of his charm, good looks and worldly interest; but he stunned us all at the end of the evening when he sat down to the Steinway grand and played numerous classical pieces at the level of a concert pianist. As it turns out, his mother had wanted him to be a concert pianist, but of course he opted for law. To jump ahead a bit on this point, as recently as September of 1999, Alan had determined to head back to Toronto again (he had in the meantime been with law firms in both Toronto and Ottawa) to take up digs as in-house Counsel for a firm specializing in entertainment
This seemingly esoteric introduction is meant to lay the ground-work for the day I met Alan S. Diner. It was a hot summer day in late August in Ottawa, about 1995 or 1996. I was sitting along side the Ottawa River, having a pic-nic of bread and cheese mostly. My dog, Monroe, was with me, occasionally stealing bits of cheese, as he cautiously waded in and out of the water's edge. Sometime during this tranquil event, a jogger came along. It was Alan. He was scantily clad in a pair of red onion skin shorts, and of course the statutory pair of running shoes, which always look to me like something one would use to outfit a small truck. Alan had obviously been running for some time, because the sweat was pouring off him, and whether it was that or Monroe that caused him to stop, I am not sure. But Alan clearly had an interest in Monroe, and I then engaged in what had by now become a thoroughly standardized explanation of what type of dog he was, that, No, he wasn't growling, He just can't breathe; discussion of his age, etc., etc., etc. I then turned the conversation to a discussion of the interloper, and when I asked him whether he was from the area, he said he lived here for the past summer, but he was returning to Toronto tomorrow. This immediately prompted me to ask what law firm he had articled with. This observation caused Alan to step back a little, and he replied that in fact he had been clerking to one of the Justices of the Federal Court. I asked which Judge in particular, and he replied Mr. Justice Hugessen. Jim and Mary Hugessen!, I proclaimed. Wonderful people! They go to the same Church as I do in Almonte (I suppose I should have put it the other way around, That I go to the same Church as they do, especially considering Mary's family - the Rosamonds - built it!).
This flurry of conversation, the sudden recognition of something so totally unexpected, had the effect of opening up a floodgate of possibilities. I then indicated that I had plans to have some people to Almonte that evening for one of the last summer evening barbecues, and would he care to join us. He hesitated a moment, since he had apparently made arrangements with certain friends to spend the last few hours in Ottawa with them; but, he accepted the invitation, and we then made plans for him to meet other friends in Ottawa before heading out to the country.
As so often happens in circumstances such as these, where spontaneity and coincidence are at their playful best, the evening turned out to be a smash hit. Alan was of course the star of the evening, not only because of his charm, good looks and worldly interest; but he stunned us all at the end of the evening when he sat down to the Steinway grand and played numerous classical pieces at the level of a concert pianist. As it turns out, his mother had wanted him to be a concert pianist, but of course he opted for law. To jump ahead a bit on this point, as recently as September of 1999, Alan had determined to head back to Toronto again (he had in the meantime been with law firms in both Toronto and Ottawa) to take up digs as in-house Counsel for a firm specializing in entertainment
-127- law, which perhaps combines the two occupations.
Alan has always made a point of including me in his visits to Ottawa. Most recently, he and his delightful lady friend, Lisa Cameron (to whom he is now engaged to be married), visited for a couple of days in Almonte. They are both considerably younger than I, but we do not seem to get bogged down on that point. Alan is also good about reuniting with Jim and Mary Hugessen, and we (including Denis Arial) have on more than one occasion foregathered on a Sunday morning at the Victoria Woollen Mill in downtown Almonte for brunch.
Alan has always made a point of including me in his visits to Ottawa. Most recently, he and his delightful lady friend, Lisa Cameron (to whom he is now engaged to be married), visited for a couple of days in Almonte. They are both considerably younger than I, but we do not seem to get bogged down on that point. Alan is also good about reuniting with Jim and Mary Hugessen, and we (including Denis Arial) have on more than one occasion foregathered on a Sunday morning at the Victoria Woollen Mill in downtown Almonte for brunch.
No comments:
Post a Comment