Sharkboy

With this incredible weather we’re having in Toronto these last few days it’s hard to ignore Summertime and I find myself reminiscing about some of the good old days of my youth and the fun Summertime I’ve had. Here is, in no particular order, my favourite top 10 Summer memories:

#08 = July 14, 1987

I was at the movie theatre that afternoon. I was watching The Name Of The Rose with Sean Connery. It had been re-released a second time. I had not seen it and had heard very good things about it. It was my day off. It was a Tuesday.

Half way through the movie, the film stopped and we were left in the dark for a few seconds, then the emergency lights came on. Someone entered our theatre in the multiplex and asked us to gather our belongings and leave as there was a major storm outside thus the power being cut off. In a very calm manner, they gave us all passes to return on another day and all of us left. I was somewhat excited and curious to see what was going on outside.

When I got to the street level, looking through the large windows of The Bay store, I was totally amazed. It was pitch black, even though it was mid-day. The rain was coming down so damn hard we couldn’t even see across Ste-Catherine St. I turned around and made my way to the men’s clothing section to buy an umbrella as I had left home in beautiful sunny warm summer weather. I knew that a cheap umbrella wouldn’t sustain this apocalyptic rain, so I had to buy a nice solid one.

I love storms, so I really wanted to go outside and feel the power of this one. By the time I got out it had reduced in intensity but it was like nothing I had seen before. Parts of the street had exploded as the pressure in the drain pipes was too strong, you could see manhole covers on top of cars, pieces of asphalt and bricks had flown all over the place. It felt like the disaster zones I knew from movies.

It was only when I got home later on that day, watching the news, that I learned that 2 people had actually died. One was hit by lighting and the other, an 80 year old man had drowned, stuck in his car on one of the highway that’s built like a tunnel. His car had stalled and had been submerged by the fast flow of water. He couldn’t get himself out in time. They say that more than a 150 millimetres of rain fell within 2 hours. A state of emergency was declared for a large portion of the downtown core that day. The entire news cast was dedicated to this story. I was transfixed by all the damage shown.

I know a lot of people think of Bastille on July 14, but not me… I think of that amazingly scary storm.

By the way, I still have the umbrella and love to tell DR about that famous day I bought it every time I choose to use it on my way to work on a nice rainy summer day.

With this incredible weather we’re having in Toronto these last few days it’s hard to ignore Summertime and I find myself reminiscing about some of the good old days of my youth and the fun Summertime I’ve had. Here is, in no particular order, my favourite top 10 Summer memories:

#09 = Summer of 1978

I had just turned 14 years old, I was finally of age to go see the horror movies I was too young to see before. I know it’s pretty much the same for the rest of Canada and certainly the US of A with a rating that goes: G = General Audiences, PG = Parental Guidence, PG 13: Strong Parental Guidance, R = Restriced and NC 17 = No Children Under 17, but in Quebec it was a less severe rating but they did check at the door for ID to verify your age. The rating in Quebec went:
Pour Tous = All ages, anyone allowed.
14 Ans + = Needed to show ID for films with violence, some nudity… mostly the horror films I loved
18 Ans + = This was more for films of great violence or of sexual nature…

That Summer, I was eagerly awaiting Jaws 2, for obvious reasons, and Grease since my sister had bought the album and I was loving all the music in it… both films were schedule to open with a 14 yrs + rating and I was old enough to go. I couldn’t wait. Jaws 2 was great in my eyes, in fact, I have interrupted writing this post last night to actually watch the DVD… Bad special effects I know, but still a very suspenseful movie with some amazing shots… It made you want to go visit “Amity” if anything. Grease was phenomenal too, I remember knowing all the big songs by the time I went to see it and couldn’t believe that I had to go pee in the middle of it as I drank that giant large coke way too fast… To this day, I still watch Grease at least once a year.

Another movie I remember from that Summer was The Swarm. I was already loving the disaster movie genre and was thrilled that another one was coming, at least the previews made it look like a disaster movie. It turned out to be a disaster of a movie instead.

The great horror film Damien 2 also came out that Summer with my beloved William Holden whom I had just discovered in Sunset Boulevard… He was much older then of course, but my 14 yrs + ID card allowed me to go revel in all the great news ways to kill off characters… The Omen movies did it right, they never repeated the same type of death scene twice… Elevator cable death = priceless.

To top it all off, Eyes of Laura Mars also came out… I didn’t know much about it but had seen a preview for it while at the movies and couldn’t wait to see (no pun intended) it. I remember being a bit scared during that one.

And my beloved Disney also released The Cat From Outer Space. What can I say, even then I was a Disney geek. I had to see it.

In those days a double bill movie cost us only $3.50 and I had to rely on my parents to drive me to and from the cinema that was downtown. We lived approximately 15 minutes away by car… but because it was Summer and because of the bicycle path that existed between the island I lived on and the downtown area, I was able to bike there quite often. I was 14 yrs old after all.

With this incredible weather we’re having in Toronto these last few days it’s hard to ignore Summertime and I find myself reminiscing about some of the good old days of my youth and the fun Summertime I’ve had. Here is, in no particular order, my favourite top 10 Summer memories:

#10 = Summer of 1969

I was only 5 years old but I still remember quite a bit of it… I remember it was the summer that our big black and white TV was tuned to the lunar landing and for some strange reason I also remember that one of my favourite aunt and uncle were visiting my parents that day. I can still see myself in my bathing suit and rubber boots (they were the easiest things to put on, no laces) running from the backyard where I was playing in a kiddie pool to the living room where the tv was turned to face the kitchen so that they could all watch the big event while playing cards.

The Summer of 69 is also very infamous for being the summer I spent with a cast on my arm. One day, at the very beginning of the school vacation, we were playing hide and seek at my cousins’ place and when I was running to hide, I fell in a fairly large hole where a broken bottle had fallen before me. A large piece of broken glass lodged itself in my wrist and being a kid I didn’t know any better, I removed it. The blood started gushing right away and although I don’t remember feeling any pain, I started crying at the sight of it all. The other children got my aunt who called a friend of my dad who was a local policeman. He came to get us and brought us to a hospital where I received 36 stitches… and a cast that went from knuckles to my elbow that got filled with signatures throughout the 6 weeks I had it on.

I remember still wanting to go to the beach, which was the one good pastime we all had on the island I lived on. Apparently I was quite the site swimming in the river with a milk plastic bag wrapped around my cast and me under water still keeping my arm out of it, like some kind of shark fin following me every where my little feet would paddle. I was the “local celebrity” for those few weeks.

Here’s what that nasty scar looks like now: