570News Blog: Glenn Pelletier

I guess you could call it an extreme example of catching my second wind.

Nice weather the other day and I decided to take my Nishiki road bike out for a ride. Got off work at 11:30 a.m., feeling good, enjoying the sunny weather and headed down King Street from Water Street, toward my home on Betzner Avenue. About a kilometre-and-a-half. Home in six minutes.

Didn’t feel like stopping though and just kept going. King to Preston. Through Galt. Along highway 8 with the sun in my face and the wind in my hair. Flamborough. Rockton. Copetown. Heck, let’s keep going. Jerseyville Road. Ancaster. Never been before. Pretty town. Lunch at the Coach and Lantern. 60 km.

I have always marveled about how much distance one can cover on a bicycle with a bit of effort and determination. It is also gives you a sense of accomplishment when you cycle a long distance and finally arrive, get off your bike and sit down for a pint and some lunch or dinner.

Looking forward to my next destination, wherever that might be!

So the other day, I popped into an estabishment on my way home from work for a pizza and a pint, entering the place sporting my bike helmet (I cycled there), and ended up departing minus the head protection. Don’t ask me how I could forget. I’m the same guy who got a bass lure embedded in his hand at work in December.

Well, not only did I forget my helmet, I forgot that I had left it at the bar! I assumed that I had left it at work and that someone I work with ripped it off! Actually, I couldn’t imagine any of my co-workers deliberately stealing it….more like taking it thinking it had been there a while and that it didn’t actually belong to anyone at the station.

So I fire off an e-mail to all of my co-workers to the effect of “Hey, who ripped off my bike helmet?” Within minutes and in the ensuing days, concerned colleagues queried me on whether it had been returned. “No”, I replied, “someone has my helmet and they don’t have the +_*&^% to bring it back!”

So last Monday I’m sitting in the aforementioned establishment having a pint and a pizza, when one of the managers approaches me and says “are you missing a bike helmet?”

Now what to do? Fess up to my co-workers that they had been unfairly accused….that I had actually left the helmet in a watering hole? Or, make something up to preserve my dignity.

I came clean. Henceforth, if you see a guy at a downtown eatery having a pint and pizza whilst wearing a red bike helmet, come over and say hi.

I attended the Gordon Lightfoot concert at Centre in the Square the other night, drawn to the event by a deap-seated love and admiration for the man. And that’s a good thing, because if one had been dropped in from another planet merely hoping to be entertained, one might have wondered what all the fuss was about.

Unlike Mick Jagger and the rest his sixty-something bandmates who appear to be defying father time, Gordon Lightfoot is so clearly all of his 69 years of age, not to mention the fact that he cannot erase his years of hard living and recent flirtation with death. As Jagger appears to have gotten stronger and more powerful with age, Lightfoot’s voice is not what it used to be.

Still, he is an icon, and most people in attendance love and respect him for his vast musical contribution, and were merely happy to see him standing and singing in whatever voice he had left.

Lightfood is a legend, and a distinctly Canadian one. I have wonderful memories of being at the family cottage in the Kawartha Lakes in the 1970’s looking out over the lake, stubby in hand, listening to the call of the loon and the sound of Mr. Lightfoot. His music places me there whenever I hear it. God love you Gord. We love you.