1981. There's a photo of me with my brand new used car, a 1976 Camaro 350 4-barrel. Tough
enough, but not quite the muscle car it would appear, especially not with its white vinyl
upholstery, automatic transmission, and tinny AMFM radio. So there I am leading on this car,
tough enough, but not quite. This photo was a bit of a joke with my family. Who's that guy? Nice
hair, and those shades. Mum's written on the back of the picture, Rob's macho period, as if I
need a reminding. The car was bought with the money I saved from the first job offered me out of
college, as a roughneck in a diamond drilling camp in northern Saskatchewan. Ask me what I thought
I'd be doing when I was 23, all green from the city, sweating it out in a noisy drill shack,
in the middle of nowhere, or at least nowhere I had imagined, this wouldn't have been it. But for
some reason, actually, for the lack of any reason in particular, I took the job. Then there's this
picture from my first hike in Banff National Park to Johnson Canyon. I'm a year older. I'd quit my
job in the skate west in that Camaro. Couldn't face the summer hanging out in my hometown,
playing baseball, drinking beer. I liked the macho shot. Ten years ago I was embarrassed. Now I'm
okay with it. But I think I like the hiking picture better. I got rid of the Camaro, never moved back
home, found a new job, went back to university, got married, got unmarried, moved on, stayed a while,
moved on again. My grandfather liked this picture too. It hung by his bed in his one room senior's
apartment, the only photo he had out before he died. Mum said it was his favorite photo, a reminder
to him of the trips he wanted to take, but never did. He wanted to be a sheep rancher in New Zealand,
stayed in England, a shopkeeper all his life. It seems there were things he wanted to escape from too.
I learned about those later.
And I know what I'm supposed to be. But who could know? The Infibrator, times are ever later.
They call it the Keeney.
