Column: Submarine captain or sheep shearer? Only your barber knows for sure.

By Thomas Winterhoff

First published on December 13, 2000
Copyright © Thomas Winterhoff

Don’t look up. Try not to catch their eye. They can smell fear, you know.

Sitting in a worn vinyl chair that looked (and felt) like it dated from the early Pleistocene epoch, I buried my nose deep into an ancient copy of Maclean’s magazine and waited my turn at the barbershop with bated breath and beads of sweat slowly forming on my brow.

I’d been putting off this haircut for a couple of weeks, as I usually end up doing. I’m generally not too concerned about the routine maintenance of my hair, but like most people, I like to find a place where I at least feel comfortable. At the very least, you hope to leave the shop not looking like you placed 23rd out of 22 aspirants in a Peewee Herman look-alike contest.

Column: Adventures in Babysitting: Part 2

By Thomas Winterhoff

First published on August 1, 2001
Copyright © Thomas Winterhoff

This past Canada Day long weekend, while my wife slept in the other room, I spent my mornings showering with a curvaceous blond.

It was not a particularly pleasant experience, however, since it would seem that the Barbie doll at my feet had spent many days lying at the bottom of the tub (along with a host of other children’s toys, bits of Duplo and various plastic incarnations of Saturday morning cartoon characters). She was looking a little the worse for wear, quite frankly.

Column: Need some light entertainment? Get yourself a nephew.

By Thomas Winterhoff

First published on December 13, 2000
Copyright © Thomas Winterhoff
 

My nephew has got to be the coolest three-year old on the planet.

I am in the enviable position of being either an uncle or a pseudo-uncle to a six-pack of kids belonging to sundry relatives or close friends. Since my wife and I are waiting at least a few more few years before starting a family of our own, all these wee folk essentially provide a pre-natal boot camp, if you will, to prepare us for what we may see in years to come.

The nicest thing about it is that we can revert to kids ourselves as we play with Lego and throw water balloons. It also gives us the very welcome option of quickly handing the little tykes back to their rightful owners once they starting oozing liquids or other noxious substances, or start destroying the house beyond recognition. It’s a very convenient arrangement – and offers up some premium entertainment value at the same time.

Column: A wee dram of the good life

By Thomas Winterhoff

First published on March 9, 2007
Copyright © Thomas Winterhoff

Throwing back a few shots of whisky at 10 o’clock in the morning will usually put you on the fast track to an irreversible “career adjustment.” When I did exactly that this past Monday, however, I got to call it research.

Man, I love this job.

Column: Hey, you should see the size of my lava rocks...

By Thomas Winterhoff

First published on May 8, 2002
Copyright © Thomas Winterhoff

Well, it’s that time of the year again. Hot-blooded males throughout the Greater Victoria region have cast aside their dog-eared copies of the annual Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue for something far more tantalizing. After weeks of eager anticipation, last month’s arrival of a much racier form of paper-based diversion was greeted with barely contained excitement and a kind of hushed reverence.

The guys in the neighbourhood soon had their attention riveted on the sleek model draped across the glossy centre pages of the new Canadian Tire catalogue: a propane-powered, quadruple-burner, digital ignition, double-decker barbecue, complete with optional side burners. Absentmindedly wiping drool from the corners of their mouths, their fingers languidly traced the outlines of the self-cleaning gas nozzles.

Column: It’s my summer and I’ll be stupid if I want to

By Thomas Winterhoff

First published on August 21, 2002.

Copyright © Thomas Winterhoff

If ever there were a season where people are inclined to leave their brain at the door, summer is the one. It’s usually during these long, sunny days that normally intelligent people will do the darnedest things – activities and stunts and they wouldn’t even think of attempting in any other season – that often result in one form of embarrassing injury or another.

July and August are prime temporal destinations on the space-time continuum to Stupidville. Witnessing all the self-induced, real-life summer bloopers that come along every year at this time is kind of like watching America’s Funniest Home Videos with the VCR stuck on fast forward.

Column: Maintaining the moron equilibrium

By Thomas Winterhoff
First published on September 26, 2001.

Copyright © Thomas Winterhoff

Praise be to Wal-Mart.

There is no shortage of less-than-bright people in the world, but one of the largest merchandising conglomerates on the planet has just discovered a method of flushing out all the hitherto undiscovered dim bulbs.

In a country where people have an inexplicable propensity for falling headfirst into abandoned wells and otherwise displaying their general ineptitude for dealing with life’s simpler tasks, Wal-Mart and a group of food researchers at Oklahoma State University have lowered the bar a few more notches.

Food science professor William McGlynn and his hardworking research team have come up with the ultimate in convenience foods: pre-sliced peanut butter. Similar in size to the plastic-wrapped "cheese food product" slices already found in your neighbourhood supermarket, they new slices will soon retail for the princely sum of $2.50 US for a 16-slice package.

Now I don't know about you, but I’ve never seemed to have much trouble making a peanut butter sandwich the old-fashioned way – i.e. sticking a knife in the jar and spreading the brown goop over a slice of bread.

Seems simple enough, doesn’t it? In fact, apart from mastering the highly taxing challenge of preparing a bowl of corn flakes, the overwhelming task of constructing a peanut butter and jelly sandwich is usually one of the first food-related triumphs experienced by the average five-year-old. Granted, not everyone is as clever as the average five-year-old, but surely any human being with at least two brain cells to rub together is capable of reaching this culinary milestone.

Or are they? Remember the story circulating last year about a guy in Trinidad who tried to make a sly getaway with some stolen sheep by dressing them up in old clothes and placing them in the passenger seats of his car? He’ll likely be the first person in line for the peanut butter slices once stores begin to stock the darned things.

How about the people who routinely get squished by vending machines after they’ve pulled the behemoths over on top of themselves when frustrated by the loss of a quarter or two when the mechanism malfunctions? (Then, naturally, they try to sue the vending machine company for compensation.)

Then there’s the guy who picked up a 1999 Darwin Award nomination – created to recognize individuals who did the most for the human gene pool by removing themselves from it – by going bungee jumping near Fairfax, Virginia. Unfortunately, he used a bungee cord that was considerably longer than the height of the railroad trestle he had jumped from. Needless to say, Einstein didn’t fare too well.

The makers of Sunlight laundry detergent may have already identified a key market segment for the guys peddling peanut butter slices at Wal-Mart. On the side of the product box, the manufacturer warns users that the powder can be an eye irritant, but they also offer a helpful precautionary measure: "Avoid contact with eyes."

Thanks. I would never have thought of that myself.

Even though I’m now a fairly good cook (at least according to my long-suffering wife), I remember my early bachelor days when macaroni and cheese, beer, spaghetti and beer comprised my understanding of the four basic food groups. Apart from one memorable occasion when I somehow managed to burn salad, I’ve developed my skills considerably since the time when sandwiches (including peanut butter ones) made up a substantial part of my diet.

But recent disturbing developments in the world of convenience foods include microwavable Kraft Dinner (How much simpler could the old version be?) and pre-made (!) Rice Krispie squares.

Then again, at a time in our history when some people’s IQ ratings hover dangerously close to their shoe size, perhaps Wal-Mart is providing a valuable public service after all. It may well turn out to be the packaged food industry’s preferred method of determining the lowest common denominator for those of little brain.

But who would actually have the nerve to admit that they can’t handle the space-age technology of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, sidle up to the grocery checkout in a pair of dark glasses and actually purchase the wretched things?

A former colleague once told me about a theory he maintained about Mother Nature needing a way to separate the wheat from the chaff as far as human intelligence goes, given that future Darwin Award winners were being born every minute. He referred to the process as “maintaining the moron equilibrium”. Incidents involving vending machines are tailor-made to deal with the situation.

Please note that the researchers at Oklahoma State are already bent over their workbenches perfecting the next logical extension of their efforts so far: a “crunchy” version of their peanut butter slices. 

Oh, yum. I can hardly wait.

The good folks of Oklahoma and Texas will have the first opportunity to buy the new product, with the rest of the civilized world – presumably – to follow. Let’s just hope y’all remember to take off the plastic wrapper before eating ’em.

Column: A return to the school daze of my youth

By Thomas Winterhoff

First published on September 1, 2004.

Copyright © Thomas Winterhoff

I love this time of the year, with the crisp morning air providing a tantalizing preview of autumn and people everywhere emerging from the lazy, hazy days of summer with a renewed sense of purpose.

Unlike many people, the notion of the New Year getting underway in the frigid, early morning hours of January 1 has never really resonated with me. Instead, September has always seemed like the most appropriate time for fresh beginnings and new challenges.

Back in my high school days, the approach of fall meant wrapping up that summer job, making the obligatory trip to Lougheed Mall to buy new school clothes and trying to come up with novel ways of persuading the basketball team not to lock me inside my locker every Friday afternoon. Although I’m thankful that the latter happens much less frequently nowadays, I sometimes miss the energy and excitement that comes with embarking on new academic adventures after the Labour Day long weekend.

Over the past few months, I’ve spent a lot of time reading, cheering on my wife as she’s played in her first-ever cricket season and sitting on the Dallas Road waterfront watching boats navigate the waters of Juan de Fuca Strait. I’ve also taken a really good look at how I’ve spent my life so far and determined that I should probably figure out what to do with the rest of it.

Essentially, the brilliant and virtually foolproof plan that my wife and I eventually came up with involves writing a couple of multi-million-dollar screenplays so that we can go and live in a sun-drenched villa in the south of Spain till the end of our days. Once there, we’ll write in the mornings and then spend our afternoons tending the vineyard, hunting for truffles or trying our hand at skeet shooting with Sean Connery and the rest of our new Costa del Sol neighbours — or whatever it is that rich, semi-retired people do in those parts.

The only nagging question remaining after making that important decision was how to get from where I am now to sitting poolside in a small Andalucian village, sipping a cold cerveza and working up the energy to attend yet another Cannes Film Festival.

Twenty-three years ago, after spending two months working in Berlin and then backpacking all over Europe, I came to the conclusion that 17th-century German literature (which I was studying at the University of British Columbia at the time) just didn’t do it for me anymore. I promptly withdrew from school that fall and temporarily put my academic aspirations on hold.

By way of a somewhat circuitous route that involved several aborted career paths, I eventually fell headlong — and happily — into journalism. I’ve won a number of regional and national writing awards over the past four years and I definitely want to continue working in the profession, but I also want to try my hand at other writing disciplines: novels, screenplays, travel writing, weighty treatises on the back of cereal boxes, etc.

I’ve found journalism to be a very satisfying and rewarding career (intellectually, if not financially), but I’ve also come to realize that I’ve left something unfinished for far too long. So I’ve decided, at the ripe old age of 43 and after reviewing my career options, that it’s time to go back to school part-time to fine-tune my writing skills, study history and finish my degree.

I want to expand my horizons, learn a few new tricks, revel in unfamiliar life experiences, topple a few governments and – most importantly – embark on a highly scientific investigation of the fluid dynamics of UVic’s student pub.

I’m excited about going back, but I’m also a little nervous. I’ve pretty much forgotten everything I ever learned about differential calculus, organic chemistry and irregular French verbs, not to mention having to sit up straight, play nicely with the other kids and pay attention in class.

I’ve been driving my wife nuts over the past three months by pulling dozens of dusty old textbooks from our bookshelves and stacking them up in little piles all over the house, with the intention of re-reading them all and getting back up to speed — all in the next seven days or so.

Over the summer, I’ve also been busy tracking down decades-old transcripts, confirming all my UBC transfer credits and planning out my course load over the next two or three years. (Whatever happened to Music Appreciation 101 and Advanced Basket Weaving 218? I couldn’t find them in the UVic course calendar anywhere.)

I’m also a little concerned about how I’ll fit in with the much younger and much more groovy — oh, what a giveaway! — group of students with whom I’ll be attending classes. I recently took a bus up to the campus to meet with a program counsellor and to buy my textbooks and school supplies at the bookstore, where I got unnaturally excited by all the blank pads of paper, high-tech pens and shiny new geometry sets. I spent over an hour in the bookstore but, no matter how hard I looked, couldn’t find where they kept the inkwells, slate tablets or Latin exercise books.

On the bus that day were a couple of girls in their late teens who were discussing clothes and talking about pop bands I’ve never heard of, and giggling about cute guys they’d seen recently. (My name didn’t come up in their conversation.) There were also some young lads talking about hot girls and hot cars, with one of them regaling his friends with tales about how he managed to get hold of a whole case of beer the previous weekend.

Oh, dear.

I harbour no illusions that I’ll simply be accepted as a cool, mildly eccentric and just slightly older student in my classes — perhaps someone who’s just arrived from an exotic, foreign country where it’s customary to hold off attending university until your mid-40s. However, so long as I don’t get mistaken for a professor (or a janitor), I’ll be happy.

I’ll only be going back to school on a part-time basis for now, but I’d like to be able to go to UVic full-time somewhere down the road. In the meantime, I’ll continue to scribble stories on behalf of the News Group – and keep an eye out for those darned inkwells.

Column: Embracing your inner caveman

By Thomas Winterhoff

First published on September 17, 2003.

Copyright © Thomas Winterhoff

Civilization has come a long way since the days when mankind’s very existence depended on the ability of every fur-clad troglodyte to venture out into the hinterland and hunt down animals to keep his family fed.

Nowadays, of course, city dwellers have no pressing need to load up the fishing spears, bows and arrows or buckshot and head out in search of prey. Most of the meat and fish we eat today is produced by large-scale agricultural conglomerates, which deliver their goods to the supermarket already wrapped up in shiny plastic.

So when I was presented with the opportunity over the B.C. Day long weekend to get back to my primitive roots and go foraging for food as my forefathers once did, I just couldn’t turn it down. A friend of mine who lives up-Island invited me to go fishing with him for spring salmon, which were just starting to show up in local waters.

Even though I don’t eat a lot of meat or fish, there was something very compelling about the idea of slipping into the role of “the mighty hunter”, bringing home a huge chunk of raw meat and slapping it down on the kitchen table to the astonishment of my adoring wife.

Although I’ve spent quite a bit of time in the great outdoors camping or hiking over the years, my fishing experiences have been few and far between – and not entirely encouraging. The first such outing I can recall was with my Dad in Penticton when I was a lad of only five or six. At that age, I couldn’t quite understand the point of standing around for two hours in a frigid wind waiting to hook an elusive trout, especially when the concession stand down the road already had delicious-smelling hot dogs ready and waiting on the grill.

A few years later, my father and I sought out a trout pond near our home in Port Coquitlam. It had reportedly been well-stocked with fish, almost guaranteeing us something for the dinner table. But despite watching dozens of fish swim over, under and around our hooks (probably snickering at us all the while), we didn’t get a single bite.

In fact, the only death toll registered that day was when our 1966 Chrysler ran over a “herd” of tiny frogs that were inexplicably leaping in all directions on the gravel road as we squished our way through them on our way home.

My next fishing expedition, at the age of 13 or 14, was considerably more successful. Not only did I catch an eight-pound chinook salmon while fishing from a small boat in Howe Sound, but I also learned how to drink wine from one bottle while simultaneously disposing of the end results of a previous bottle over the vessel’s transom – a surprisingly useful skill that has served me well on a number of other occasions.

I arrived in Ladysmith that holiday weekend to find my friend already preparing for the trip north. His newly acquired 1984 Toyota Corolla was parked at the curb and we soon had it loaded up with fishing rods, hip waders and a tackle box full of lures and other gear.

We had a good two hours of driving ahead of us, so I became a little apprehensive when he started to point out some of the more unusual attributes of the aging vehicle. For one thing, the trunk springs had given out long ago, forcing him to use a piece of equipment that has never appeared on any “options” list provided by the good folks at Toyota. However, the Chunk-o’-Wood 3000 worked pretty well holding the trunk lid open – when it isn’t threatening to give way at any second and separate our fingers from the rest of our bodies.

The other unique feature was a gas gauge that didn’t actually provide you with an accurate representation of how much fuel was sloshing around in the tank at any given time. The needle would still sit on “empty” even when the tank was completely full, but for some reason would slowly creep up to the halfway mark just as the last vapours of fuel were being sucked into the gasping engine – a trick that proved to be a bit unsettling as we travelled further and further away from the main roads.

Despite the somewhat unnerving prospect of running out of gas when we least expected it. we hit the road and arrived a short time later at Nile Creek, a decidedly grandiose name for such a modest stream. There, we engaged in what I was to learn was a time-honoured fishing ritual: talking with other anglers about the prevailing conditions and the likelihood of hooking a big fish. I stood by, observing with interest as my friend touched base with a couple of people who were just packing up to leave. To my untrained ear, one portion of the long and drawn-out conversation went something like this:

“So, Bud… Is the bite on?”

“Ain’t so good. I’ve been rigging a 20,000-pound test line with a triple bypass leader and a bivalve universal spinner and Sonic Booster out on the deep shallow flats, but I ain’t caught nothin’ – not even a bull finch.”

“Ya, ain’t it the way? Too early for bull finches to be moving upstream anyway.”

Armed with that utterly useless information, we decided to drive further north and reached the mouth of the Oyster River just as the tide was turning. We waded through the cool, shallow water and joined a dozen or so fellow anglers who were spread out along the far bank and on a couple of sand bars at the river’s estuary.

It had been the better part of two decades since I last picked up a fishing rod, so it took me a few minutes to regain my casting skill – much to the consternation of the guys on either side of me, who were sent running for cover by my unorthodox technique.

But it all came back to me before long and I soon settled into a nice, relaxing rhythm while I gazed at the hypnotic movement of the water, marvelled at the eagles soaring high overhead and watched my buddy’s tackle box floating majestically out to sea on the rising tide.

Over the next three hours, I repeatedly cast my pink and silver lure out into the river, slowly reeled it back in and removed several pounds of bright green seaweed off the hook after each cast. I did manage to hook two little sculpins (ugly little critters with no redeeming qualities whatsoever, either in the frying pan or out of it), but I was beginning to think that the pink salmon we had come in search of would forever remain tantalizingly out of reach.

Just as I was starting to reminisce about that Penticton hot dog stand, my rod dipped sharply and a moment later I saw a flash of silver belonging to a fine, three-pound specimen. It made a few cursory attempts to make a run for the open sea, but it stood no chance of escaping in the narrow channel and a few minutes later I pulled the five-pound brute from the water and up onto the bank.

A couple of quick knocks to the back of its head with a handy rock (hey, no one ever said fishing was pretty) and the eight-pound leviathan was mine.

As it turned out, I was the only guy to successfully land a pink salmon that afternoon while we were there, although a couple of others hooked (and lost) a few. We eventually made our way back to the car, carrying the massive 12-pound fish in a plastic bag barely large enough to contain its 15-pound bulk – drawing to a close one of my most successful fishing trips ever.

After all, how can anything compare to the primal thrill of wrestling a 20-pound beast to the ground using nothing but one’s own bare hands and the innate skills of a born predator? My cave-dwelling ancestors would have been proud.

Neither my wife nor I got to taste its flesh, as it turned out, since its 40-pound carcass was much too large to fit into the trunk of our small car and we didn’t relish having it as a travelling companion for the two-hour trip home. I also thought it would be a nice diplomatic gesture to leave it behind for the enjoyment of our hosts, seeing as it was the only thing we caught that day.

But now that the blood lust of my primeval ancestors has been reawakened within me, it’s only a matter of time before my friend and I will be drawn to the water once again. But my wife isn’t taking too kindly to wearing her new bearskin clothes around the house so far, so I’ll have to take it one step at a time.

Column: I’d give her the shirt off my back

By Thomas Winterhoff

First published on June 12, 2002.

Copyright © Thomas Winterhoff

Ah, the things we do for love.

As regular readers of this irregular column may recall (if they manage to read it before the budgies embark on their latest Jackson Pollock impersonations), I recently took a few weeks off from bruising my fingers on the ol’ keyboard to get married.

Although we planned from the outset to keep the reception fairly casual, we also (naturally) wanted to ensure that  the ceremony itself would be a very special one — as well as make it user-friendly for the dozens of international paparazzi that were expected to descend on the secret location where we would exchange our vows.

My wife had her wedding outfit all organized months before our wedding day, since her maid of honour is a very accomplished dressmaker in her own right and had offered to sew her a dress from scratch.

I was not quite so lucky, however, since my best man can barely tell one end of a needle from the other. So about a week before the big day, I dug deep into the back of our bedroom closet to see if anything in my stash of “good clothes” might be suitable to get hitched in.

I should say right up front that, as far as fashion goes, I tend to view clothing with a distinctly utilitarian eye. I use it primarily to avoid being arrested in the street, as opposed to trying to dazzle friends and co-workers with my sizzling sense of style.

Suffice it to say that I have never been approached to carve out a new career as a fashion consultant to the stars. No editor from GQ magazine has ever come pounding on my door looking for helpful hints on dressing the modern male. Nonetheless, I did want to look my best for my fiancée on our wedding day, so I tried my utmost to come up with an outfit that would look acceptable from at least one camera angle.

After a half-hour or so of haphazardly fiddling around with different colour combinations and “groom-to-be” ensembles (and almost asphyxiating myself with a particularly stubborn necktie), I decided that I was ready. Inordinately proud of the fact that I’d managed to dress myself somewhat respectably with virtually no outside assistance, I went into the living room and presented myself for inspection.

My wife has the sweetest demeanor imaginable, an innate sense of diplomacy and the unflagging patience of a saint, so you can imagine my surprise when she emitted a ladylike yet bloodcurdling scream when she got a good look at what I’d done to myself.

“Oh, no… No, no, NO! You are not getting married to me in that!” she exclaimed — or words to that effect.

Then, tucking me rather unceremoniously under one arm, she proceeded to march me downtown to buy a new wedding shirt.

This — like the fiasco we recently experienced while setting up a wedding registry — was an entirely new experience for me. I would have been quite satisfied to purchase a crisp, new shirt at any run-of-the-mill department store. But having gone this far (and catching sight of the determined and slightly manic look in the eye of my betrothed), I didn’t argue when we finally burst through the gleaming front doors of British Importers, an upscale men’s clothing shop.

As soon as we came to rest on the plush carpet of the very well-appointed haunt of the well-to-do (or better-to-do than me, anyway), I knew we were in trouble.

The salesperson who ended up assisting us was a very pleasant individual and extremely knowledgeable about menswear. He also very admirably restrained himself from recoiling in horror at my staggering lack of fashion sense when he saw what I was wearing.

Having never bought clothing in the rarefied air of this particular shop before (in which a well-dressed gentleman will bring you a freshly made cappuccino on request), I was a bit taken aback by the abundance of numerals on the small and discreetly positioned price tags.

My mouth went a bit dry when I saw that the sparkling white, Swedish-designed Eton shirt that my fiancée selected for me came in at a cool $215. It didn’t even include the mannequin. When she added a silk tie and handkerchief for another $100, I confess that I began to feel a bit light-headed. The shirt alone was probably worth more than my entire wardrobe at home.

But I soldiered on bravely, until we eventually walked out of the shop loaded down with enough haberdashery to put a radiant smile back on the lovely face of my bride-to-be, as I took her arm in mine and we slowly wound our way home.

Our wedding last month ended up being a great success (from several camera angles) and was everything that we had ever hoped it would be. But as I write this, I know that I will rarely have occasion to wear that stylish a shirt again. For the moment, at least, it hangs at the ready off to one side of my closet — freshly dry-cleaned in its plastic garment bag.

I bought that shirt in the name of love and, in part, to make my wife happy. Looking back now, it also serves as a reminder that — for one brief shining moment of fashion awareness — it made me happy, too. I’d do it all over again in a heartbeat.

Now if I could just get rid of all these darned paparazzi…

Column: Berlin offers up tantalizing blend of sex and sesame seeds

By Thomas Winterhoff

First published on August 9, 2000. (Also broadcast on CBC Radio.)

Copyright © Thomas Winterhoff

A few weeks ago, a good friend of mine kindly procured for me a small piece of seemingly innocent halvah — that obscure yet delicious treat from the Mediterranean made with ground sesame seeds and honey. I thanked her profusely, as it’s a favourite food of mine, but my face then flushed deep crimson with embarrassment.

I couldn’t quite bring myself to tell her why.

About a dozen years ago, I spent a summer working in Berlin as part of a work/study program through the Germanic Studies Department of the University of British Columbia. As you may know, Germany is still home to quite a large number of Turkish gästarbeiter (“foreign workers”), people who had been given work permits to come to Germany in the past during times of labour shortages.

Ahmed was one of these wonderful, down-to-earth people. He and I worked side by side on the factory’s packaging line and often talked about our homes and families. He was as curious about the Great White North as I was about his intriguing and mystical homeland.

Since he had expressed a wish to learn English and I was also interested in learning some Turkish, we began tutoring each other using our somewhat limited grasp of our only common language: German.

The best time to practise was during mealtimes. Whenever our workgroup would break for lunch, everyone would first tend to pass around some of whatever he had brought to eat that day. It was Ahmed who introduced me to Turkish tea, which has enough sugar infused into it to make even the most reserved practitioner of dentistry swoon.

It was during my first week on the line that he offered me a container of what looked like (for all I knew at the time) tinned tuna gone horribly wrong. Since Ahmed’s proficiency in English was about as well-developed as mine in Turkish, it took considerable coaxing and a series of bizarre hand gestures before I finally agreed to try a small piece.

I just about fell off the bench. After a Spartan student diet back in Canada that consisted primarily of beer, Kraft Dinner and beer, my first taste of halvah was the most sensual food experience I’d had in weeks.

Over the course of the summer, Ahmed brought in an increasingly delicious parade of halvah that his wife would prepare for him. After the original sesame seed and honey halvah came others containing chocolate, small currants, pistachio nuts and a variety of other incredible ingredients. I would savour every piece as I attempted to make good on my promise to teach him my mother tongue.

The only English book we immediately had available was one that Ahmed had bought at a flea market: a battered copy of John Cleland’s erstwhile banned Fanny Hill, a ribald and explicit memoir of a young woman’s introduction to sex and romance in 18th-century London.

The bookseller had apparently handed it over with a nudge and a wink, but as far as Ahmed was aware, it was simply a run-of-the-mill novel which would (given time) allow him to master the intricacies of the English language.

Ahmed was of a religious faith that tends not to discuss such racy matters in open company. I felt compelled to choose my words carefully, so as to not offend his sensibilities. Whenever we came to a particularly graphic episode, I would incorrectly translate the passage as a detailed description of the room’s furnishings — and scrupulously avoid commenting on the acrobatic activities taking place thereon.

Ahmed would methodically chew on his wife’s halvah and listen carefully as I read aloud to him, his eyebrows furrowed in concentration and his rough-skinned fingers slowly combing his thick, black beard.

It was during these long and rambling passages that I would sometimes see him glancing at me out of the corner of his eye with a puzzled expression on his face.

Perhaps he was wondering just what it was about mahogany table legs that made 18-year-old Canadians blush and squirm the way that I did. One can only imagine what went through his mind as I described the “group setting” in the living room.

My time in Berlin eventually drew to a close. As I punched my timecard for the last time, Ahmed came over to say goodbye, holding two small packages in his burly arms. The first was a half-kilogram selection of his wife’s finest halvah, given with her best wishes for a safe journey.

The other contained our English “textbook”, for (as Ahmed put it) he had not found it to be anywhere near as interesting as the bookseller had intimated. Besides, it seemed to him that I had enjoyed it considerably more than he had.

Perhaps, he said — as he shook my hand emotionally in farewell — he would take up Italian instead.

Column: The secret confessions of an adult Legoholic

By Thomas Winterhoff
First published in the Oak Bay News on February 19, 2003
Copyright © Thomas Winterhoff

"Hello. My name is Thomas… and I’m a Legoholic."

It's a problem I can't bring myself to talk about very often, since I'm now in recovery, but a benign-sounding incident that occurred in the newsroom last month brought one of my most serious personal dilemmas to the forefront yet again.

When a colleague passed along a small Lego set that had been given to him as a stocking stuffer at Christmas, I could feel my pulse start to race with excitement and anticipation. And I had been doing so well up to now...

As with many other kids growing up in the 1960s, there was no better gift to be found under the Christmas tree than Lego. In my youth, after plenty of badgering and whining in the months leading up to Dec. 25 every year, I ended up amassing one of the better collections in the neighbourhood.

In those days, of course, what tumbled out of the packages was significantly different from what's available today. All I remember from those early years are some very basic 2x2 and 2x4 red and white bricks, with a marginally bigger and highly prized building platform also surfacing occasionally. The very unconvincing roof tile pieces were none-the-less very coveted items within my limited social circle, as were the primitive doors and windows. But that was about it.

Nowadays, however, things have changed dramatically. In the last 10 or 15 years, the company's product line has expanded exponentially. Themed sets (pirates, knights, rescue teams, ocean divers, hard rock miners) are now the norm, plus tie-ins to all the Star Wars and Harry Potter movies.

Each of these more elaborate sets contains several hundred specially manufactured pieces, with nary a red roof tile to be seen. There are now even motorized and computerized sets on the shelves to keep even the brainiest of rugrats busy for hours.

Somewhere between my 10th birthday and the day I left home at the age of seventeen, my entire Lego collection disappeared — never to be seen again. For an extended period of time, the wonders of this most wondrous of toys remained nothing but dim memories. But that state of affairs changed dramatically about six years ago.

My dizzying descent into a rejuvenated Lego addiction began with the happy arrival of my nephew Nigel. With no kids of our own (at least not yet), my wife and I have spent many happy hours crawling around on the floor entertaining him and the other young offspring of friends and relatives who have already reproduced themselves.

To my mind, at any rate, one of the prerequisites for taking on the roles of loving uncle and doting aunt logically included the creation of a well-stocked toy box to help keep the wee ones busy whenever they came over to visit. Amongst the myriad colouring books, jigsaw puzzles, Hot Wheels cars and classics of children’s literature, there were also an obligatory handful of Lego sets.

The purchases were fairly small in the beginning, concentrating on a few basic sets that I thought children might enjoy. But my long-lost and now rejuvenated love for an enduring classic (and the highly satisfying precision of all those tiny, brightly coloured components) prompted me to buy increasingly complex sets. With them, I planned out and constructed elaborate dioramas of urban and rural vistas and recreated various scenes from history and children’s literature to engage the minds and imaginations of Nigel and the rest of the kids.

The result, of course, was that I began to accumulate much more Lego than anyone would consider healthy for a 41-year-old man to have. To my wife's growing horror, I was soon forced to buy several large plastic tubs and fishing tackle boxes just to hold and organize the hundreds of pieces.

But it's not like I was the only one suffering from this affliction. There are dozens of websites devoted to the art of building with Lego (...um... so I understand). There is even one site (...er... apparently) that consists of an exhaustive, fully illustrated catalogue of every single set and every type of piece ever produced by the company, right down to the rarest and tiniest components.

As ashamed as I am to admit it now, I occasionally smuggled new purchases into the house under the cover of darkness — only to be opened later when my wife was busy outdoors installing a new muffler on the Firefly or safely up on a ladder cleaning out the gutters.

It was exactly the sort of behaviour that makes clinical psychologists rub their hands with glee and that would normally prompt friends of such an addictive personality to immediately convene an "intervention" on his or her behalf.

All along, of course, I would tell my wife that the collection was "for the kids". The only problem with that feeble excuse was that, whenever they would come over to play, I would slyly spirit away all the "good" Lego and only bring out the 1960s-style pieces for them to play with.

I am not proud of my actions, brothers and sisters. I know that my wife and I would probably be living in a mansion on Beach Drive by now if I had only been able to curtail my penchant for buying Lego. But I do take heart in the fact that I have been "clean" for two years now — apart from the most recent lapse triggered by the generosity of my newsroom colleague.

One of these days, I'll become a stronger and more giving person, so that I'll feel comfortable letting my nephew play with all of the pieces in my collection. Maybe when he's in his 40s... and mature like me.

Column: Surviving the pseudo-reality of "Survivor"

By Thomas Winterhoff
First published on July 5, 2000
Copyright © Thomas Winterhoff


Television is a strange and temperamental master.

For all the quality programs that entertain, amuse, inform or enlighten us, there are at least an equal number of programs that appeal to our most base and superficial instincts.

One of those instincts is to indulge in TV’s guilty pleasures: the shameful little secrets that you would never admit to partaking of – not to anyone you work with, not a valued member of your family, not even the most liberal-minded priest in a soundproof confessional booth.

I have a pure and untainted soul for the most part (ya, whatever), but one arena where I occasionally fall from grace is the type of television programming that is so appallingly bad that you can’t help but watch. Almost against your will, your remote control trigger finger comes to a screeching halt in mid-air and you greedily soak up all the electronic sludge, all the while glancing over your shoulder for potential witnesses.

For a colleague of mine, his poison of choice is Xena: Princess Warrior. My sister tearfully confesses to faithfully watching Relic Hunter week in and week out. Although the mind-numbing blandness of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? has never caught my fancy, its cheesy theatrics continue to enthrall millions throughout North America each and every night.

Someone in our home besides myself (whose identity I have sworn to protect, under threat of her doing me a painful injury as I sleep) can’t miss a single episode of Making the Band – a pseudo-documentary about the next big, superstar boy band (that hasn’t even cut a record yet).

No one whom I know can claim total immunity from this descent into total, time-wasting pap, and I’m no more virtuous than anyone else. For a few misguided and embarrassing weeks, I fell victim to the highly questionable taste and transparent morals of Blind Date – a TV show based on the premise of “let’s select two egocentric sociopaths, send them racing towards each other at 100 km-h (fuelled by a few dozen umbrella-topped alcoholic drinks) and sit back with a jumbo-sized bag of microwave popcorn to watch the emotional carnage.”

Blind Date is hosted by a smarmy little pinhead who quite literally rubs his hands in poorly disguised glee when the borderline civility between the participants begins to break down. The couple usually ends up hurling expletives at each other, accompanied by strident “What the hell was I thinking, going out with you?” undertones – before parting with a mutual slamming of doors.

Granted, the couple has been paid a substantial amount of coin to bare their drunken souls and baboon-like courtship behaviour to the masses, but it still amounts to the social equivalent of a 30-car train wreck. It’s very sad – and makes you question your own morals for watching it – but you just can’t help it (for the first half-dozen episodes, at least).

If this show accurately portrays the state of dating today, I am eternally thankful for the faithful presence of my long-suffering wife – and I hereby solemnly swear never to divulge her Making the Band addiction to anyone. Her secret is safe with me.

Just when I had sworn off Blind Date forever, along came the latest entry in the parade of “reality-based” programming…Survivor.

The premise is deceptively simple: take a grab bag full of 16 contestants, split them up into two “tribes” and set them loose on a (somewhat) deserted tropical island. Supplied with some basic tools and first aid supplies, the tribes are left to make their own shelter, catch whatever slithering and still quivering prey they can for their dinner, and deal with the hodgepodge of diverse temperaments and attitudes of their fellow tribe members.

If you you’ve ever seen an episode, you’ll already know that once every three days the tribes are set against each other in a test of skill, leadership and team spirit, while competing in some variation of an obstacle course (or collectively staving off man-eating sharks with cocktail toothpicks).

To the winner may go a bit of survival gear – fire, a snorkel or a fishing spear. To the loser, nothing – or a summons to a meeting where each tribe member must scribble, with a stick of charcoal on a piece of torn sailcloth, the name of the one person in the tribe whom they wish to vote off the island. Needless to say, the participants get a tad testy (or sycophantic, depending on how they fancy their chances at the polls) in the hours preceding the vote.

The first person sent into purgatory was a sweet, older poet/musician. Initially, she was probably good for the morale of her tribe, but she ran into difficulty when her dulcet musings didn’t help put food on the ol’ banana leaf or contribute to her tribe’s quest for fire. She never stood a chance.

Never mind that a half-dozen camera crews dressed in Tommy Hilfiger T-shirts and L.L. Bean sandals nibble on catered hors d’oeuvres as they shadow each contestant’s every move. Never mind that the setting for the council meetings looks like something out of Raiders of the Lost Ark. This is television voyeurism at its absolute best.

In the weeks to come, depending on their proficiency at the game show challenges put to them, the tribes will either remain strong and united or descend into mere bickering rumps of their former glory. At some point, the remaining members of both tribes will be brought together to form a single group and then it’s everyone for themselves in the competitions that follow, until a single survivor remains.

That person, whoever he or she may be, will leave the island with a cool $1-million cheque for his or her trouble. Those who were voted off the island will share amongst themselves (in varying amounts) another $500,000.

It’s crass, it’s emotionally predatory and it’s incredibly manipulative – sort of like Lord of the Flies meets Gilligan’s Island. It also makes for irresistibly watchable television.

I’ve just arrived home, just in time to watch it, but for some curious reason my key no longer fits in lock on our front door. And what’s this? It looks like a tattered piece of sailcloth with a name scribbled on it in charcoal...

Column: A fine and noble bird? Not in my neighbourhood!

By Thomas Winterhoff
First published on July 23, 2003
Copyright © Thomas Winterhoff

Every neighbourhood has its own "signature" attributes – elements that make it stand out from other areas of the teeming metropolis and provide it with distinguishing charm and an individual flair.

For a community like Surrey on the Lower Mainland, it's the attractive arrangements of rusting car carcasses and broken beer bottles strewn with loving care across the front lawn. In Port Moody (where I spent much of my misspent youth), it was the distinctively jarring, yellow backdrop of piles of sulphur awaiting shipment overseas and the delicately pungent aromas of the mud flats of Burrard Inlet.

The neighbourhood where my wife and I now live, however, has none of that raw, industrial appeal that offers enchanting sensory stimulation to residents of those communities. In fact, the street where we reside is positively pastoral – some might say mundane – by comparison.

Instead of being dragged abruptly into the conscious realm by the dulcet tones of motorcyclists roaring up our street at the crack of dawn (as was often the case when we lived in East Vancouver), we now usually awaken to the gently melodic sounds of small songbirds who’ve made a home in the many flowering shrubs and trees that dot the neighbourhood.

When we first moved into our street some six years ago, the change of scenery and auditory atmosphere took quite a bit of time to get used to - say about 3.4 seconds. Nowadays, we can barely remember when whooping car alarms served as our morning wake-up call.

Lately, however, the memories of tough neighbourhoods gone by have come flooding back with a vengeance.

Our neighbour (who in all other respects is a fine, upstanding human being) maintains a very large and magnificent cherry tree on his property whose branches stretch amiably over the fence and into our yard. For most of the year, the tree is very pleasant to look at and provides welcome shade from the sun in the warmer months.

But at about this time every summer, it also attracts a seemingly endless parade of "undesirables" to the neighbourhood.

Like the avian version of Marlon Brando and his unkempt cohorts in the The Wild One, flocks of menacing-looking crows take up temporary residence in our block to feast on the luscious, bright red fruit as it ripens. Their threatening, gang-like presence dominates the street.

Our tiny songbird companions are left to cower nervously in the shadows and hope that the bullies will soon tire of their sport and move on (much like the residents of the towns that Brando and his ilk terrorized in that 1953 motorcycle movie classic).

But for weeks on end, their raucous cawing and unruly behaviour are the scourge of the neighbourhood. Knowing that no other species of bird will trifle with them (apart from the occasional eagle or ill-advised seagull), they spend their days lounging around and generally making a mess of the place. If the bird world had an equivalent of the beer-swilling, pot-bellied loser who steadfastly remains parked on the couch in his underwear, the crow in yonder cherry tree would be it.

Don’t get me wrong. Ravens and crows have a cherished place in West Coast native mythology and Western literature (to wit, Edgar Allan Poe). I suppose that the species also forms an ecologically important component of the local bird population.

But for the love of Pete, they can also be insufferable, annoying boors when they want to be.

At no time is this unsavoury side of their nature most evident than mid-July, when the juicy, vibrantly coloured cherries are just past their peak. I suspect that the summer sun begins to ferment the juice in the latter days of the season and turn it into a mildly intoxicating brew, because the crows begin to get even more surly than usual – even amongst themselves.

Remember that guy in the beer parlour who would toss back way too many glasses of cheap draft beer in the rush to get drunk before closing time? (Again, remnants of my misspent youth). He'd then greet every figure that would come within blurry eyeshot with a gruffly mumbled, "Wadya lookin' at, punk?"

You get the picture. It's no wonder the robins and sparrows have been lying low these days.

But this morning, for the first time in what seems like an eternity, there was an eerie silence outside our window when we woke up. Then, almost imperceptibly, the tentative calls of one small bird broke the silence. A minute later, he was joined by another – and then another.

Soon the air was filled with the sound of birdsong, with nary a caw to be heard. Brando and his band of thugs had apparently moved on – and none too soon. I was beginning to long for the sound of whooping car alarms just to drown out their incessant cries.

Oh, well. There’s always next year.