Advice for living a happy life

In September of 1971, I was randomly assigned a  high school locker next to a kid who would become a constant force in my life for over fifty years. Unlike the rest of us teens wearing dark t-shirts and surly expressions, Larry was always dressed in something bright to match his ubiquitous, engaging smile. Through all the highs and lows that a person experiences in a lifetime, Larry was there. He was the best man at my wedding and I was the best man at two of his. His friendship was unconditional. I could call him at two in the morning to say, "I need your help getting rid of a body" and his only response would be "Whose car are we taking?" In case any law enforcement officials are reading this, I never actually made that request - it wasn't even my joke, but that level of loyalty described my buddy, Larry. 

One of us was always percolating some adventure, outrageous joke or plain old stupid idea and the other was always ready to go along. It was the kind of friendship that became a core of your own identity; I have a profession, I'm a husband, a father and Larry's friend. 

In February of 2022, Larry was diagnosed with brain cancer. While in treatment, Larry met Ben Stelter, who was in his own battle with brain cancer. "That kid is my hero," Larry told me after meeting him. Over the long summer, he underwent radiation and chemo, fighting valiantly. I'd visit him and we would have many toasts of 'Fuck cancer', but tragically, it was less than a year later when he passed - January 1st, 2023. Of course, in lieu of flowers, he asked friends and family to make a donation to the Ben Stelter Fund.

He didn't have a traditional funeral - I'm not sure I could have delivered a eulogy. If he had asked me to, I would have done it, but it would have been about six hours long and there would have been a lot of blubbering. Manly blubbering, but yeah, I would have been a mess. Instead, I have decided to share a few worthy life lessons that Larry lived by. 

We said goodbye to my best friend, Larry McGale last night with an Irish wake for a proud Irishman on St. Patricks Day. What could be more fitting? Larry loved and embraced life and I think we could all benefit from being more like Larry. To that end, I've created a Top 5 List:

Top Five Ways to be more like Larry McGale!

Number 5 - Every chance you get… talk to Strangers. And when you do, be sure to tell them the most intimate details of your life. Nothing is off the table. If they’re walking away, the polite thing to do is follow them until you finish the story.

Number 4 – At least once a year, drop your drawers and moon someone Preferably - in public especially when someone has their camera aimed at you. Pre-drinking is encouraged but not mandatory. Canada flag on a stick between your butt cheeks is optional.

Number 3 - When faced with any new task, challenge, opportunity or double-dog dare - say this out loud: What could possibly go wrong?

Of course things are going to go wrong. Shit happens. Do it anyway.

Number 2 – Never EVER tell a story the same way twice. Each time you retell it, add some new exciting detail. Do not let your story suffer by being limited to the laws of physics or hindered by reality. One time Larry told a story that I had heard several times because it was about me. This particular version of the story involved girls lining up to kiss us while we were in school. When he finished, I took him aside and said, "Larry, I have no recollection of girls lining up to kiss us in high school and I think that's something I might remember." He was scandalized that I had challenged him. "Well..." he stuttered, "...of course I know you've heard that story! That's why I had to make it bigger. I didn't want you to be bored!"

Number 1 Way to be like Larry McGale: Live Large, Embrace Life, and Tell People You Love Them!

At some point in our lives, Larry and I started to say, "Love ya, man!" when we were leaving an event. The key was to be the first one to speak because "Love ya, man" sounds way cooler than, "Yeah, I love you, too". You never want to fall into that dreaded 'second speaker' position, it's like being in a meeting at work and your wife calls and you have to whisper "I love you, too" in front of your coworkers when you hang up. Blech! Nobody needs that.

Larry may not be with us in body, but he will live in spirit and live in our hearts forever. His kindness, zest for life and his unquenchable humour touched everyone he met.

I'm also certain he was with us last night - after all, the whole evening was about him and he was always a total attention whore, and I mean that as a compliment. In fact, I sense that he's here with me now as I'm writing this. I'm sure I can hear his voice. What's that, Larry? Did you say something?

Oh...

Thanks.

I love you, too.

Grant Fuhr's Most Important Victory

At the recent Edmonton premiere of 'Making Coco', Kevin Lowe, in a post-game hot stove setting, talked about a game that he considered to be Grant Fuhr's most important victory. It was the first game of the Stanley Cup Finals of the 83/84 season. 

The year before, Edmonton had met the New York Islanders in the Stanley Cup Finals and lost in four straight games. 

During the regular season of 83/84, Edmonton met the Islanders three times and lost each game. Now they had to face them again and even though they had plowed through the competition on their way to the finals, there was not a lot of confidence in the dressing room prior to Game One.  

Throughout the season, the Oilers were winning games 7-5, 6-4... they'd get goals scored against them, but they'd usually manage to outscore the opposition. In this game, they were destined to only get one goal. To win the game, Grant Fuhr would have to play a perfect game - and he did. The Oilers won 1-0 and left the ice filled with confidence. Although they lost game two in Long Island, they came back to Edmonton and dominated games three, four and five as they won their first Stanley Cup. 

From there, the team continued it's dynasty, winning a total of 5 Stanley Cups in 7 years. In 1990, Edmonton teams won the Stanley Cup and the Grey Cup; the city declared itself the City of Champions and the whole town had a swagger. In a league that competed with teams from New York, Chicago, Toronto, Los Angeles, we upstarts were not just competing, we were dominating. 

Now imagine... 'what if?' 

What if Grant had allowed even one goal in regulation? If the momentum would have swung to the Islanders allowing them to win in overtime, the Oilers would not have left the game with the same confidence. If they had come back to Edmonton down two games, they might have clutched their sticks more tightly, second guessed themselves and could easily have lost the series. 

What if... the team had gone to the finals two years in a row, only to be sent away empty handed? They would be known as 'that team' - the one that plays well all season and tanks in the playoffs. Glen Sather would have had no choice but to make trades, never realizing he would be breaking up a core of players that was destined to be the best team of all time. 

The city would never have adopted the 'City of Champions' handle which grew to include much more than sports. We might still be searching for our first Stanley Cup, assuming we were lucky enough to still have the team. When the Oilers went through rough years in the 90s with low attendance, maybe the 37 individuals who joined to form the Edmonton Investors Group would have decided there was no appetite for professional hockey here and not have stepped in to save the team from being sold to Houston. 

For the record, although this 'what if' scenario came from Kevin, these are not his words. I took some liberties in telling the story and I realize it's pure speculation. There absolutely could have been hundreds of different outcomes had the team lost that first game. They may have rebounded and won after all, but certainly history could have written a much different story than we know today. 

     It was the summer I turned 10 years old. I was visiting my older cousin who lived on 149th Street on the west end. The land across the street had been the town of Jasper Place but on this day in August it was being annexed by the city of Edmonton.
     Across the street from my cousin's house, a strip mall was hosting an event to commemorate the occasion and we wandered over to check it out. One of the first booths we came upon belonged to 630 CHED. They were hosting a remote broadcast and passing out souvenir key chains. We eagerly got in line behind the other fans and eventually worked our way to the front. My older cousin was in front of me and was handed a key chain when he got to the booth. I moved up as he stepped aside and held out my hand for the coveted treasure.
     I still remember what happened next as if it happened last week.
     "Sorry kid," the disc jockey said. "That was the last one."
     I stared at him in disbelief but he had already turned away.
     There is a particularly bitter sting to disappointment when it follows the absolute belief you are going to succeed.

Flash forward fifteen years.
     Twenty five years old and I'd already been working at CHED full time for six years. My 8 week practicum with the Advertising and Public Relations had turned into a full time job and the old building downtown felt like my second home. On this particular day I was in a storeroom on the rarely-visited third floor looking for an envelope. I reached to the top of a shelf and accidentally knocked over a small box. When it hit the floor, a familiar looking key chain rolled out.
     I stood there looking at it as the memories raced back. The logo was now out of date and the original key-chain promotion was long forgotten, but to me it was the most beautiful thing in the world.
     Over the years, I've lost and re-found that keychain a hundred times. And it always seems to show up at some significant time when I need a reminder such as; never give up on your dreams, or some things are just destined to happen. So many years have passed and CHED is still a huge part of my life.
     On Friday morning I wrote a heart felt tribute to people I met through CHED. On Saturday I found the keychain in some obscure bowl tucked away in a cupboard. Perfect timing and perhaps a reminder to always keep your eyes open for the next keychain and the next opportunity.
     Like happiness and love, sometimes opportunity is not where it' looked for but where it's found.

Thank you

I was honoured last night for 40 years in radio and when it was my turn to speak I found myself overwhelmed by the emotion of the moment. If I could go back in time and have a ‘do-over’ on my thank you speech, it may have sounded like this:

First off, let me just say thank you to every one of you for taking time out of your busy lives to be here tonight. A number of you this evening have told me that I was an influence in your life, which is both surprising and gratifying. It may also be a surprise for you to know you were also an influence in my life. There is an interesting lesson I’ve learned in life, and I hope I’ve passed this on to my kids: everyone you meet has something to share with you. When you meet someone, try to make the most of the engagement.

I was fortunate enough to work in an environment that encouraged this. Under the mentorship of Jerry Forbes, 630 CHED was truly a family of people who genuinely cared about and engaged with each other. People were encouraged to explore new opportunities and were embraced for their strengths. Jerry cultivated an atmosphere in which people wanted to perform because they didn’t want to let down their leader or their coworkers.

Marty, thank you for your kind words tonight. You embody all the best qualities of your dad and have felt like a brother to me for four decades… whether your damn brothers vote to accept me or not ;) You have a passion for excellence and continue to amaze me with your drive and insight. It’s an honour to be worthy of your friendship.

Tamara, thank you for your continued friendship and thoughtfulness. The book you and Jen put together is brilliant. I’ve never been good at archiving memories but you’ve managed to capture my career perfectly. I can’t imagine how much work must have gone into that project but I appreciate it more than I can express.

Gord, thanks for your friendship. When I was a new Program Director moving upstairs to guide the juggernaut known as 630 CHED, I had no idea what I was getting myself into. You were always willing to spend time with me, share your insight and offer support when I needed it most. I always value the times we get to chat because I know it will be interesting and often lead to an exchange of stories and laughs.

Doug, thanks for your comments tonight and for being another valued mentor. It was an honour to serve on your senior management team. Under your leadership the team always felt comfortable sharing their opinions, knowing that our ideas would be well received and carefully considered. There was often passionate and heated debate and always with the best outcome for the collective staff as our objective.

To my wonderful family… where do I start? My time at work often meant that you were making a sacrifice so I could be there. I am so proud of all of you. Ben, you are pursuing your dreams with passion and showing everyone what you can do. You’ve always walked to your own beat and I love watching the journey. Alexa, you’ve always been an insightful, mature soul and now you’ve become an amazing mother. Both of you kids are the kind of people I would want as friends if we weren’t related. Jill, you are the best thing to come out of my years at CHED. We were great friends at the station for years before we fell in love. I still remember the day I was pulled into the Program Director’s office and given a raise unexpectedly. When I left his office I walked directly to your desk to tell you about it until I remembered that you had left the station a week earlier. I turned around, disappointed and realized that events in my life didn’t mean as much when I couldn’t share them with you. Thanks for being my wife. I’m proud of you and I love you.

To everyone I’ve worked with – thanks for allowing me to contribute and to be a small part of the magic. It really was magic… teamwork, passion, commitment and decades of memories. I treasure every day spent with you.  Carry on.

And as for me… stay tuned. The best is yet to come!

50 Steps To A Great Cup Of Coffee

At some point in my morning, I take time for a cup of coffee.  Here are the steps I took to get it done today:

1: decide to have a coffee
2: select flavour pod from my son's Nespresso collection
3: pick pod and open Nespresso machine to insert
4: realize the collector bin for used pods is full
5: get a bag from the wardrobe in front hall to collect pods for recycle
6: multiple bags fall out
7: decide to attach extra bags to dog leash so I'm ready for his next walk
8: find leash and attach bags
9: put dog leash away and realize I left broom in front porch when I answered the door earlier
10: return broom to basement
11: return to coffee machine
12: remember I need a bag
13: retrieve the bag I left in the front porch
14: empty used pods in bag
15: hang pod on front door handle so son 'might' see it and take it in
16: return to coffee machine
17: realize machine is out of water
18: disconnect reservoir and walk to sink
19: son has left empty milk carton in sink
20: rinse out milk carton and crush it
21: put milk carton in recycle in back porch
22: return to kitchen
23: fill water reservoir and attach to machine
24: can't remember if I've put a new pod in machine
25: open machine and pod falls into used pod bin
26: retrieve new pod from used bin and re-insert
27: close lid
28: select cup from cupboard
29: insert cup and press start
30: watch with eager anticipation as steaming coffee fills cup
31: answer phone
32: Sears delivery guys are early - new washer & dryer will be here in 10 minutes, not two hours
33: move car from front
34: disconnect washer and dryer
35: clear crap off stairs
36: lock dog in back porch
37: lock cat in bedroom
38: Sears arrives
39: old machines out
40: new machines in
41: re-connect washer and dryer
42: return to kitchen
43: pour out old, cold coffee
44: select new flavour pod
45: make a new coffee
46: answer phone
47: wife asks "So what are you up to?"
48: I respond "Having a coffee."
49: wife responds "Must be nice to have all that free time on your hands."
50: nod silently

Write Your Book, Dammit

When I was 12 years old the one thing I knew I wanted to do more than anything else was write a book.

When I was 19 I started working full time writing advertising for 630 CHED and I thought this would be a fun way to pass time until I published my first book in a few years.

At age 50 I woke up and said, “What the hell happened to my book?”

Sure, I had ‘started’ several books over the years but for one reason or another I gave up on them all. Lost interest, wrote myself into a corner, got lazy… the excuses piled up.

The solution

On that fateful morning of my 50^th birthday I realized that I was letting life pass me by. It scared the hell out of me and I swore I would write my book.

The first thing I had to do was identify everything that had been holding me back.

The discipline

Although a lifetime of advertising gave me the ability to be ‘creative on demand’, I still only wrote when I ‘felt like it’.  My commitment to myself was to devote a minimum of one hour a day without fail until the book was completed.

The story

I loved the writing process – it’s like painting a room of your house. Rolling the paint on is fun; it’s all the painstaking prep work that is not.  I committed to mapping out my entire story so I knew what would happen in each chapter before I allowed myself to write a single word. Working an hour a day this process took me almost nine months. Best investment of time I ever made on anything.

The characters

Every time I introduced a key character into the story, I created a detailed four page character profile for that character so he or she was vividly imprinted in my mind. I also had a better understanding of the character’s motivation utilizing backgrounds that were never revealed in the story, but critical to the continuity of the character’s actions.

The writing

The writing was glorious. Finally I was crafting a story with confidence. I wasn’t seeing a novel as a huge, daunting obstacle that had to be scaled all at once. I saw a series of small, manageable steps (chapters) that could easily be coaxed into existence. Never missing a day, no matter what, I worked for two years to complete the novel.

And if it sounds like I’ve taken the spontaneity out of the process, I was happy to find that wasn’t the case. Knowing where the story was going allowed me all kinds of freedom to play with the characters and make the story more detailed with every new element supporting the final outcome.

Goal setting

My biggest mistake. My goal had been to ‘finally write my novel’. The minute I was finished I breathed a sigh of relief and put it aside ‘for a few weeks’ before I picked it up again to begin editing.

A few weeks turned into six months. When I finally forced myself to pick it up again, I found out editing is even more painstaking than planning and the work went very slowly. Plus, I was not nearly ruthless enough with myself. At some point, I put it aside and forgot about it. My goal should have been “to write, edit and publish my book”.  Think big picture.

Another year went by before I finally picked it up again. I had ‘allowed’ real life to be an excuse for not following my passion. I made another commitment to myself: a minimum of an hour a day editing the book and researching the intricacies of self-publishing.

Editing

I started with the big picture, reviewing my notes and original story structure. My original investment of 9 months planning had produced a solid outline which required only minor tweaking.

Then, chapter by chapter, paragraph by paragraph, word by word, I went over my book, revising, correcting, cutting.

I shared the manuscript with a dozen friends who each came back with critical corrections, omissions and changes. My request to them was always the same – Don’t tell me if you ‘like’ it, just tell me which parts aren’t clear or don’t make sense. If you put people in an awkward position, the feedback you get will be of no help. Get them to focus on grammar and structure. Ultimately, if you can afford it, hire a professional editor. No matter how much you ‘self edit’, your book will end up going public with mistakes. (Deep sigh) Trust me on this.

Engage other writers

As I was writing my book, a friend of mine was writing his first novel as well. He beat me to the punch with self-publishing and, once I overcame the urge to break into his house and smother him in his sleep, he proved to be a valuable resource. Most writers I’ve met or talked to via social media love to talk about their experiences with writing. Engage them. Ask lots of questions. Take notes. Learn. Share.

Daryl

Last year I uploaded my novel "The Ghosts of Sundown" on Amazon. 

http://www.amazon.ca/Ghosts-Sundown-Chronicles-Book-ebook/dp/B00IVYC3QG/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1422642452&sr=8-1&keywords=The+Ghosts+of+Sundown

The 'Sin' of Boredom

As my 'once vibrant' father sits withering away with Alzheimer's and dementia, unable to dress himself, eat properly or even turn on the TV, I am reminded of all the people who have ever told me they were bored. Really? Boredom in any able bodied person with a sound mind is a sin. Damn it. Read a book. Go for a walk. Visit a friend. Learn to dance. Buy groceries for a senior. Paint a picture. Change the batteries in your smoke detector. Perform a random act of kindness. Have your prostate checked. Find a hobby. Adopt a cat. Count the stars. Plan a project with your kids. Set an impossible goal. And then achieve it. Check your tire pressure. Make someone feel beautiful. Write a letter. Plan a trip to a destination on your bucket list. Master a musical instrument. Ask someone how to say 'I love you' in their native language. Laugh easily and often. Pick a wall in your home and paint it scarlet. Make eye contact with a stranger and nod knowingly. Visit a restaurant you've never been to and tell the server to 'Surprise me'. Have your mom teach you how to knit, then make a pair of gloves for a homeless person. Look at the glass as half full. Hug someone who needs it. And someone who doesn't. Make bread. Strike up a conversation with a stranger. Run. Blow bubbles. Watch a storm. Get a tattoo. Compliment someone on a job well done. Or do none of the above. But find a passion, large or small and pursue it. Think when you don't have to. Breathe just to feel your body respond and live because you can. And never, ever be bored. 

DC Hooke 
August 23, 2014 

Things I Hope I've Taught My Kids

1 Most rules are actually 'guidelines'

2 Every person you meet has something about him or her that is unique and interesting. Try to find that.

3 When someone hires you to do a job, give them more than they expect.

4 When you choose friends, look for people who laugh easily and make eye contact.

5 Find balance in your life. Work hard at something that matters to you but don't let it consume you. Life is short.

6 Your victories are my victories and your defeats are my defeats. If you don't always see that in my face it's because I want you to 'own' them first. I will share them when you've told me it's okay to do so.

7 If you have love in your home, you can make mistakes.

8 Age is a state of mind. That doesn't mean you shouldn't have your prostate checked.

9 I love you unconditionally. You have to earn my respect as I have to earn yours.

10 Spend your life doing what makes you happy, but set time aside to look after yourself. Finances are a fact of life. Invest time in yourself and your future.



And... The One Thing I WISH I Would Have Taught My Kids

That white thing, under the counter to the right of the sink... it's the dishwasher.

Time to sharpen our skates?

Before Wayne Gretzky joined the NHL, the patch of ice behind the net was a free flow zone. Gretzky turned it into his ‘office’ by making it a destination from which to quarterback a dangerous team attack.

With his natural creative instincts, Wayne Gretzky changed the game forever.

How many of us perform our jobs the way we were taught? Or worse, how many of us do it the same way it was done by the person who was there before us? How often do you schedule time to step away from the computer and the phone and just think about how you could change the approach you take to your job? Once a week? Once a month? Ever?

By not making (and keeping) an appointment to challenge the status quo, you could be depriving yourself of an opportunity to make the job more compatible with your natural skills, therefore – more enjoyable for you as well as more productive for your company.

It’s not only about finding the right position on the team; it’s about putting your own signature on the position.

Saba's Story

I’ve been struggling with the opening line of this story because it really touched me and I wanted to do it justice. 

At one point I was going to highlight my story with the juxtaposition of teens sporting meaningless tattoos, more concerned with fitting in than making a statement. 

After that idea was scrapped, I researched the historical significance of the Peacock according to Hinduism in the hopes of finding a natural bridge to the story, but it seemed a little contrived. 

So I settled on this. 

I would like to tell you a story. 

It’s a simple story of love and creativity, so I will tell it simply. My son has a friend named Saba, a confident young lady who makes eye contact and conversation easily. Recently, Saba was at our house when my son hosted a birthday party for a friend and I noticed that she sported a tattoo of a Peacock feather on her back, beneath her left shoulder.

I meant to ask, but got caught up in another conversation and didn’t pursue it. Fortunately, my wife Jill took the time to explore the history of Saba’s tattoo and uncovered an incredibly touching story. 

When Saba was a little girl, one of her best friends was her grandpa Al, or as she called him... ‘Baba’. Al was a simple man with a contagious smile who probably never thought of himself as being clever. He worked hard as a young man, and now as a grandfather his greatest pleasure was spending time with his granddaughter. Baba used to take Saba for walks in the park, treasured times for both of them but especially for Saba because on many of these journeys they would find a Peacock feather. Saba loved the brilliantly coloured feathers and was always amazed at their continued good fortune. 

Throughout Saba’s early childhood, her grandparents cared for her while her parents were working and her relationship with her Baba continued to flourish. Today, as a young adult, Saba considers grandpa Al to be the single most influential person in her life. High praise indeed for a grandfather to have played such a role. 

When she was in her early teens Saba made a discovery that revealed something else about her grandfather. Saba discovered that in the area in which she grew up, there were no Peacocks. 

Before Baba would appear for one of their cherished walks, he would go to the store and buy a Peacock feather. Then he would meticulously hide it along the route for Saba to ‘find’. 

It was an enchanting game for him, and it became a magical, unforgettable memory for her. 

Baba passed away some years ago, but he was still alive and well when Saba made this discovery. She was able to thank him in person for creating those memories although I suspect she had already given him the greatest gifts he could receive. Every giggle of uncontrolled delight and every expression of wide-eyed wonderment were no doubt precious snapshots that Al reflected back on fondly and often. 

 Without knowing it, Baba’s simple gesture of love and creativity forged a relationship that would never be forgotten and shaped a life that would forever be a tribute to him.

Thank you, Saba for letting me share your story. 

Daryl

Suburban Auto thinks outside the trunk

This campaign has been around for a long time but it makes me laugh every time I watch it. 


I don't know where they found the lead actor who appears in each of the commercials, but he is magnificent. 


Here are four spots for your viewing pleasure. 


Daryl

IT'S ABOUT TIME

One of the best lessons I learned in advertising is: don’t sell the journey, sell the destination.

You could spend a million dollars advertising “Air Botswana” – the airline may have the most luxurious airplanes, the most efficient hosts and world class cuisine, but if people aren’t interested in going to Botswana, you’re wasting your time.

Montblanc sells elegant, efficient and well crafted time pieces. You know… watches. Remember them?  I don’t know about you, but most people I know have stopped wearing a watch because they get the time from their cell phone. So, if you’re Montblanc, your challenge is to help people appreciate ‘time’. The value of a minute. The fleeting wonder of a second.

I won’t lie to you. I’m not getting a gut-instinct one way or the other about this campaign. I have no idea if it will rekindle an interest in wearing a timepiece again. I think it does a great job getting people excited about their promotion, and I think it makes them about time. Buying a watch may be another thing. It’s an exciting gamble and I’ll be interested to see how it turns out.

All I know is, when I watched this ad… for just a moment… I missed my watch.

Hey you... BEND OVER

Hey you… BEND OVER!

Sometimes advertising coaxes its target audience.

Sometimes it begs, seduces or even threatens the intended audience to sell a product.

On the odd occasion, to my delight, advertising will slap you upside the head, knee you in the groin and throw you down a flight of stairs to get your attention. You gotta admire spunk.

Why would someone have to take such drastic measures?

Well… someone would have to do this when the target audience is very resistant to the product or service that is being promoted. The message I’m referring to in this blog is ‘long life and good health’.  Yup, someone is selling ‘long life and good health’ but the target audience (men) isn’t interested. In their minds, someone is selling them ‘a finger up the ass’. Naturally, the only way to get through to these guys is to take their childish fears and anxieties, stomp on them and throw them right back in their face to show them how foolish they are.

Enjoy.

The Encounter

At 5 AM one July morning in 2007, I awoke to the sounds of my daughter screaming. I flew down the stairs to her room on the main floor and found her sitting up in bed, staring at the foot of the bed and still screaming.

She was yelling that someone had grabbed her foot. A quick search of the room confirmed that no one was hiding in the closet or under the bed. The alarm was still set. No one had entered or left the house. At the time, my daughter was 17;  she had always been very responsible and we had no reason to believe that she was lying.

She recounted the story for my wife and I. A few moments before the incident, she had woken up and was lying in bed on her back, relaxing. Suddenly, she felt a distinct pressure on her right foot. At first she wasn’t alarmed because she thought it might be her cat, Mozart, reaching up and pulling on her to get her attention.  Mozart often slept in her room and let her know when he needed to leave. What my daughter didn’t know was that Mozart was in our room at the time. When she sat up, intending to shoo him away, there was nothing there. She could still feel the firm pressure pushing on her foot, but there was no cat clinging to her. In fact, it felt like a human hand was holding her foot and when she started to scream, it let go.

My daughter was so convinced that this wasn’t her imagination, she didn’t sleep in that room for several weeks.

This is why we believed her.

When we first moved to our current neighbourhood, we lived in a smaller house just down the street. Over the years, we got to know Mark and Sandra in the ‘big white house’ down the street. They had made a number of improvements to their house including the addition of a large back porch and a bedroom for their oldest daughter. We always admired their house and when Mark got a job offer in the states, they offered it to us before they listed with a realtor.

Two years after we moved in, we received a phone call informing us that Mark had been killed in a plane crash. The crash happened in June, 2007, one month before my daughter’s paranormal encounter.

For the first few weeks, none of us spoke about our thoughts concerning the encounter; we didn’t want to make it more ‘real’. But when we did start discussing it, we all had the same feeling. If there is such a thing as spirits, it would make sense that Mark would be drawn back to the house he lived in for so long… to a room that he had built for his oldest daughter. If the essence of the person we knew was suddenly ripped from his corporeal existence in a violent crash, he could be forgiven for being confused and returning to the wrong home. He probably felt it was his daughter he was reaching out to, in a comforting sense to let her know he was there.

Although she always believed that the encounter was not hostile, my daughter was uncomfortable returning to her room. I had to sleep there for a few nights to show her that the ‘haunting’ had passed. I have to admit though, for the first night, I kept my feet away from the end of the bed.

Eventually, my daughter resumed sleeping in her room again, and to the best of our knowledge, Mark has never returned. 

Recently, we had another bizarre experience with more sinister overtones, but that’s a story for another time.

Out of respect for our friends, their names in this story were changed. However, all other facts in this story were recounted as accurately as possible.

Hey... catch this!

My mind is reeling with old adages to get this started.

Truth is stranger than fiction.

Don’t tell them how it works… show them.

Wash your hands before you eat.

If you keep making that face, it’ll stay that way.

Okay, that last one has nothing to do with this blog, but it’s memorable for me because it was the comment that made me realize my parents may not have been 100% truthful with me for the first five years of our relationship.

Is truth stranger than fiction?

Probably not.

Is it scarier than fiction?

Maybe.  

The people who marketed the movie Contagion realized that the premise of the movie was grounded in some truths that we all take for granted.

We are surrounded by germs.

They grow.

They can do bad things to humans.

The genius of this campaign is that they didn’t just tell the movie-going public, they decided to show them. And, with the beauty of a good viral video, they didn’t just impact people who passed the sign on the street.

Sadly, the video didn’t get the attention it deserved. When I watched it, there had been just over 357,000 views. I’m not sure what they used to get people to the video, but it deserved a better fate. Maybe the germ threat didn’t resonate with the heavy user younger demo. Maybe they prefer their horror to be masked and wielding a chain saw.

Check it out… and then, go wash your hands.