Once, When I Was In Moncton….Never Mind
Moncton Casino
The two-hour and forty-five-minute drive from Halifax to Moncton was uneventful. This was a travel day only. The Casino was supplying us with rooms for two nights in its adjoining hotel.
Barry rode with me, and we took it easy. No rush. Rick T-Bird Haynes, as usual, was way ahead of us.
Discussions about nature versus nurture are trendy these days at cocktail parties, coffee shops, and pubs. The partially educated hoi polloi have opinions and examples up the wazoo as to why one is less or more important than the other.
To say someone is “hard-wired” is to comment on their nature rather than on something they’ve learned.
Richard Andretti Haynes
Rick is hard-wired to speed as if winged monkeys were chasing him. He also has an uncanny ability to find the fastest route to the airport (usually), hotel, or the next city with all the proper exits and turns, even if he’s never been there before. It’s as impressive as it is spooky.
For most of the forty-four years I’ve been working with these guys, our routine has been to land the jet at a convenient airport and then rent two cars.
We called the cars Hog One and Hog Two.
H1, with Gord, Terry and Rick, went straight to the gig, and H2, with Barry, PeeWee, and me, went to the hotel. We relied on our own resources to find our way around. When PeeWee left in 1988, I moved to the front seat and became the navigator. Even before GPS, we got pretty good at finding our way around.
We were free to be on our own a lot of the time. One exception was the epic journey back to the airport each morning. Every time we did that, we planned to stick together (this was by Gord’s request) with Rick in the lead. And almost always, we’d lose him.
Why It Was Such A Long Trek
We had to use airports with long runways.
Our jet needed a mile or so to gain enough momentum to be shot into the air like a cannonball.
That meant that many smaller airports were out of the question, so most of the time, we would use the same facilities as the giant Airbus and Boeing aircraft, whose terminals were located miles out of town.
It didn’t matter what time of day it was; Gord always thought he was running late. He didn’t want us getting lost and holding up the flight, so he expected us to stay together.
The Rule Less Followed
But it rarely took more than five minutes for us to totally lose sight of them. Rick long ago ceded control of his accelerator foot, submitting to the call of his true nature: race car driver, something he actually did for a number of years.
If he happened to notice us missing from his rearview mirror, he would pull over so we could catch up. That worked occasionally, but more than a few times, we found a different route and got to the airplane before him. We were like, “What took you so long?”
Back To The Tour
This, as I said, was a travel day. No show. How did I use my blessed night off? I went to Walmart. I bought some treats (mental health food) and ginger ale to mix with the vodka stashed in my suitcase, then, on the way back, I stopped for pizza. Let me paraphrase an old logic maxim that usually employs a duck: If something looks like a pizza and quacks like a pizza, it’s probably a pizza…. but this wasn’t even a reasonable facsimile. I bet the cardboard box was tastier and more nutritious.
The show the next night in Moncton was another great one. I can’t remember what story I told. Was it the one about the ham sandwich? Maybe someone who was there could email me and jog my memory. The brain fog that settled in near Trois-Rivieres during the trip out hadn’t lifted yet.
A quick note: We have no rules or restrictions concerning photography and/or recording, but if you like to do this, be considerate of the people around you. How’s this for a deterrent? Anyone caught raising their phone above eye level will be paraded from their seat to the mosh pit on the shoulders of half a dozen fetid unwashed roadies in Black Sabbath T-shirts.
A Lesson Learned
The next day we were to be heading to Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island, and my first trip across the eight-mile Confederation Bridge. With just two lanes and no shoulder, it would be a terrible place to run out of fuel. So before I went to my room for the night, I drove my Escape to the gas station next door and filled up.
Continued…..soon.