Yessir!

That’s my pops sitting there on that pony looking all pleased as shit.  The picture was taken outside his family home in a small, quiet suburb of St. Catharines, Ontario, known as Merritton.

I found it only recently while rifling through boxes of old forgotten photographs and random family memorabilia – of which, it is worthy to note the lengths we dedicated step-fathers will go to (i.e. the utter depth of humility that are will to subject upon ourselves) in order to keep the family peace in these times of extreme “cabin fever”.

What else can I say?

‘Quarantine Living’ is a bitch.

But back to the story …

Existing as far back as the 1840’s (then a part of Grantham Township), the area located at the bottom of a naturally occurring Escarpment that runs through the heart of the Niagara Peninsula, was originally home to the original generations of canal workers building the nearby Welland Canal, then in its first and second phases of reconstruction, as well as the legions of factory workers that operated the multiple paper and grist mills that dotted the canal banks, and the new railway workers for the Great Western Railroad which passed through on its way to Niagara Falls in 1852; these were hard-working, ‘salt-of-the-earth’ types with a strong work ethic and a ‘no frills’ approach to life.  Everybody knew everybody and long-standing families in the area will still proudly insist that they are from Merritton – and most likely always will – and into this humble and proud community dropped my father on July 9^th, 1942.

Albeit, not on a pony.

Anyway, proud small town folks that they are, ‘Merrittonites’ still maintain a webpage dedicated to the sharing of their local memories and, I suppose, staying in touch with each other.  In other words, the history of Merritton certainly isn’t going anywhere anytime soon.  The history of Merritton largely still exists today through the telling and retelling of these old stories and recently, posting them through social media.

Figuring then that others would like to enjoy this discovery of mine, I posted the photo above to the Merritton Memories webpage and, low and behold, to my utter amazement, many others began to post very similar pictures of themselves, or as it was in some cases their parents and even grandparents, on other ponies.

In fact, it became very obvious that in many cases the photos had been taken on the exact same pony.

Not really riveting ‘The Curse of Oak Island‘ kind of stuff, but I was still pretty delighted with the whole unraveling of this particular discovery.

The resulting story that I would come to understand from sharing this old photograph, is that this poor pony was more or less walked up and down the street, quite randomly on otherwise ordinary summer afternoons and evenings, and the ponies owners, or whomever the ultimate brainchild of the totally legit sounding The Home Portrait Co. was anyway, would stop and knock on doors on the off chance that anyone at home would want to have their picture taken on a pony because, well – it’s a pony – I dunno, but many people in Merritton obviously did.  It was the hardest working pony in show business.

Well, in Merritton anyway.

But how cool is that?

I like this photograph because not only is my old man quite dashing sitting there with a huge beaming smile underneath a full face of freckles and a cool, slicked back 40’s hair-do, but it hearkens back to a day when things were simpler and something as seemingly insignificant as getting to sit on a pony and pose for a photograph in your front yard is a huge deal; ‘Simple people – simple pleasures’, I guess.  And while I feel that the art of the ‘pony picture’ hasn’t necessarily been lost, people certainly aren’t walking random ponies up and down residential streets and banging on doors anymore.

I’m sure ‘there’s an app for that’ nowadays.

I can only imagine, in lieu of this years’ many turn of events and resulting sociopolitical climate should someone attempt this bold feat of entrepreneurial-ship now.  The first neighbor the pony’s owners knock on would inevitably scream “ANIMAL CRUELTY!”, while the second neighbor would ask the pony’s owner to respect a 6-foot social distance and express their concerns that the pony isn’t wearing a mask, before the next neighbor over claims ‘fake news’ and threatens to defend his front lawn against other Leftist, free-thinking pony lovers, and before you know it, the entire neighborhood is rioting in the street with lit torches and pitchforks.

Anyway, there’s a picture of my father on a pony.

You might recall that recently seem to be on this very unintentional quest to be the living barometer here on earth for how shitty things have been so far this year, as represented through the steadily growing mop of untamed COVID hair on the top of my head.

(Click HERE). 

It’s far worse now, of course, entering now into a completely whole new level of fashion failure – something I am now referring to as “Homeless Chic”.

See?

I look like a John C. Reilly stand-in for God sakes.

Anyway, this whole bad hair bullshit got me to thinking recently of the other, shall we say – “interesting” – looks that I’ve assumed over the years.  Lord knows that I’ve never been a fashionable person, embracing popular trends much in the same manner a vampire might welcome the glare of the midday sun, but looking back, I probably don’t look half as stupid now.

For example, I give you Exhibit A:

My wife’s exact comment upon seeing this the other day was this:

What in the actual fuck honey?  Tell me, where did you bury the bodies?

And she’s not wrong in going there. 

This photo was taken not long after arriving home from living abroad for nearly a decade – rather transiently I might add – and, let me tell you, the last two years or so of living “discretely” in order to appease UK Customs & Immigration officers, were not comfortable ones, as is more or less accurately reflected in this driver’s license portrait.  Let’s just say that showers and haircuts were few and far between at the time. 

I call this my “Serial Killer” period. 

Funnily enough, it was supposed to be my mother taking this photo as she happened to work at the Service Ontario location where I was renewing my license at the time, but she refused and instead took a lunch break so she wouldn’t have to endure the indignity of capturing her eldest son for all posterity looking like a hill-billy.  In hindsight, I might have spruced myself up a bit as this photo would have me inevitably pulled over at every border crossing for the next four years. 

Also, this is still the profile picture on my personal banking account with the Meridian Credit Union, and I have refused the tellers on multiple occasions to update my account with a more “current” photograph.

Then there’s this beauty four years later:

Yeah, my border crossings did not get any easier.  Less hair, maybe, but there’s still that whole “where did he bury the bodies” vibe that my wife accused me of. 

However, my mother did relent in taking this particular picture this time, not because she necessarily approved of this “disheveled fugitive on the run” look (her words), but more so because she approved of any look rather than the one on current record.  Honestly, I could have had come in with a dead polecat on my head and my mom would have happily snapped the shot and replaced the old one before anyone had batted an eyelash in my direction; little did she know that the original picture would continue to live on in my personal banking profile.

(Gotcha! old woman!)

Anyway, as uniquely bad as these two “looks” are, it is already a well established matter of historical record that I do, in fact, take really, really terrible ID photos.

I always have.

Check out this nugget from university:

No folks, that’s not a helmet on my head.

Don’t ask me why, but for whatever reason, I decided that in my graduate year of university (1994) it would be a novel idea to dye my hair black and style it in such a way that it looks like my entire head has been molded out of black clay.  C’mon!  Its looks like there’s an entire tray of brownies sitting on the top of my head but, really, it’s the KMFDM t-shirt and cardigan sweater combo that really brings out the ‘cry for help’, don’t cha think?

But I had other interesting looks in university too, like this:

Really, it’s the mauve pajama top that brings the whole sad, poor man’s Rastafarian ensemble altogether.

This was probably the ultimate of my “Slacker Terry” look.

Years later, however, after many more years sleeping on floors and foldout cots – not to mention far too many kilometers to count on the road – I decided to pack up my life again after only a year or so at home and hit the road once more; this time as part of the mobile traveling circus that was “Phish Tour”.

Now there’s a good look, amiright?

In fact, “Festival Terry” takes on a few different forms:

That’s right, folks …

Whether you’re shamelessly begging campers for beer at 10:30AM, skipping day surgery to stand in line outside a Porto-Potty, or just standing around backstage in a tie, rain jacket and long johns, I have the ability to blend into the scenery like some sort of hippie chameleon. 

I will however defend myself here by going on public record and stating that sarongs are far more comfortable than pants, as you’re basically “free balling” it 24/7 and that shit feels amazing!  Seriously, if more uptight people just wore sarongs, our current social and political climates right now would be radically different; conversations would flow, understandings would be reached, common grounds would be achieved, and EVERYONE would feel light and breezy.

How awesome would that shit be?

But, hey, shame me if you have to.

Oh, by the way, that red lumber jacket belonged to my father, and I suspect even my father’s father judging by the amount of stains on it (seriously, some of these stains have become so embedded in the fabric over the years that you could probably bore out samples from them and submit them to a laboratory for a proper Dendrochronology analysis in order to accurately predict the jackets true age), and I still wear it while out fussing in the garage now. 

So, really, what’s a little COVID hair? 

And, thankfully, I’m married now anyway and that shit means “for better, or for worse” (See, honey?  I listened), so if she didn’t manage to think about my differing bad hair trends over the years as a mitigating force in making her ultimate decision to say ‘Yes’ a few years back, then that shit is squarely on her and is definitely past it’s statute of limitations to revoke now.

Sorry, honey …

… you’re just stuck with me now.

Dear Dan:

I am currently penning the original draft of this post as the first snow of the season begins to fall, meaning that our cycling season is drawing to a close.  Of course, I’m not out cycling right now – it’s  pretty cold out.  No sir, instead, I’m sitting here inside all warm and cozy like on the indoor patio at my local Brimstone Brewing, enjoying one of your very generous contributions to my ever-expanding post-COVID waistline.

Truth be told though, I didn’t do much cycling this summer. 

While you were out cycling your 300 miles a week like the magnificent beast you are, I largely stayed home and dug holes in my front yard and fixed handle bars to my fence post (Lord knows why) in a desperate and failing bid to keep up with the rest of the Joneses in my neighborhood (click HERE).  In fact, the only legitimate “exercise” I managed to faithfully commit to this summer was drinking beer and playing Frisbee with Hailey.

(The Frisbee mind you, not necessarily the beer.)

Honestly, it has been difficult to allow my fitness to dwindle away this past year and I’m extremely envious of others who managed to keep their fitness regimens alive; more so of the many others who started a brand new fitness regimen in the midst of a global pandemic. 

Congratulations to them all!

For our own reasons, my family collectively decided to quarantine ourselves away from the rest of the world and, unfortunately, this meant giving up some of our (my) beloved pastimes … like cycling.  With more people venturing outdoors in the evenings and afternoons as a way of thwarting off the inevitable cabin fever brought on my days and weeks and months of self-quarantine, we simply felt that staying home was safer and I don’t regret that decision.  After all, experiencing bouts of road rage along the Friendship Trail with the multitudes of dog walkers and oblivious head-phoned pedestrians didn’t really seem like the ideal way to burn off my own pent-up pandemic anxieties.  Likewise, Hailey had some “issues” of her own this summer that more or less forced her into a short sabbatical off her bike – something called “Sleepyteen-itis”, or “Grumpy Teen Syndrome”, something like that anyway.

So, instead, we opted to play Frisbee. 

No special clothes, no fancy gear, no special arrangements, and you’re able to drop it all and come inside at the drop of a hat.  All we need, really, is an available bumper upon which to rest our beverages.  It’s the perfect social distancing activity, not to mention one of the few active pastimes where it’s not only completely harmless to drink beer while engaging in it, but where it’s actually encouraged! 

I thought you specifically might be interested in knowing all this, simply because it was you who largely funded this new “Daddy Daughter” past time.  It’s all good though, and Hailey and I aren’t giving up cycling together.  We’re just taking a very necessary break from it and, instead, indulging in a different summer hobby that achieves the same purpose as those rides – spending that all important time together.  For me, it’s a way to unwind from my mask anxieties over the work day before going inside for the evening and for her, well … who wouldn’t want to play Frisbee with their near-drunken step-dad?

I’m a super fun guy, dammit.

I jest (kinda), surely, but Frisbee has become an important and integral part of our current “stay at home” bonding process; no different all those after school naps to Dragon’s Den (click HERE), endless record fairs (click HERE), all our Daddy-Daughter rides (click HERE, HERE, and HERE), and let’s never forget our legendary “Tour de Ridgeway” (click HERE). 

That shit is all epic, of course, but it all ultimately served the same purpose: TIME TOGETHER.

However, in this case it also enabled me to get fat but, hey, it’s a long winter and soon it’ll be time to shed a few pounds and begin getting ready for next years’ riding season when things **fingers crossed** finally get back to normal and we can once again venture further outdoors together without fear of introducing any deadly pathogens into our (or others) lives. 

Until then, we’ll be sticking with our safe Frisbee outside our home in the evenings.

Now, about all that beer …