That's what friends are for...

Yeah sure, I could have put on those magnetic car signs myself but
why not enlist Kylie, the gifted beer technician at Rib Eye Jack's
Ale House (4045 Harvester Road, just east of Walker's Line) to
lend a hand? I'm certain more readers would rather look at Kylie
than me. So yeah, if you see a little black Ford Focus hatchback
driving through Burlington (where I live) and Oakville (where I
work) promoting the July 17-19 Burlington Beer Festival during
the next two months, that would be me. Just doing my part...

Well sonuvagun if Burlington Beer Festival co-organizer Wayne Brown didn't come through for me. Many months back, I was talking to him outside Rib Eye Jack's Ale House, a favourite haunt for both of us, when I spied his Ford Ranger pick-up bearing a couple of magnetic car signs promoting this summer's Burlington Beer Festival at Spencer Smith Park, running this year July 17 to 19. I was at the inaugural one last summer and even though I got caught for most of the Saturday festivities under heavy rain, I still had the time of my life. Beer's mostly water so a little on the outside wasn't gonna melt me. Many great craft breweries were on hand, as well as a healthy handful I hadn't heard of (Ottawa's Turtle Creek, Hanover's MacLean's Ale and Oshawa's All or Nothing). It was a day so jam-packed with beer sampling that by the end, I was so glassy-eyed and dazed, I looked at the Bee Gees tribute band and asked, "Who are these chicks? And why are there six of them?"

But back to Wayne. On that day he and I chatted outside, I said to him, "Get me some of those magnetic cars signs and I'll slap 'em on my car. I drive all over Burlington regularly and spent 40 hours a week parked outside an Oakville Beer Store." He said that he would take me up on that (I thought, in half-jest) and just last week, he Twittered me to say my magnetic car signs were ready. Not only that, he drove them out to my Oakville Beer Store so I could get them! Well, holy crap, he was serious! Never mind that he organizes one of Burlington's biggest Summer events, as well as countless other events in this city, he took time out of his day (and gas out of his tank) to get me those car signs?

Can't say enough about this guy, Wayne Brown,
one of the co-organizers of the Burlington Beer
Festival. He just never stops. People like this
are what make Burlington a very cool place...

My offer to him was pretty simple. I'm all about beer and I'm all about Burlington. I live here. I shop locally. I buy the great majority of my craft beer at our local Nickel Brook Brewery on Drury Lane and drink many new ones at Rib Eye Jack's Ale House on Harvester Road. Supporting your local economy, your local businesses is the smartest thing anyone can do. So it's my pleasure to help Wayne and the Burlington Beer Festival out, even in this smallest of ways. Frankly, those magnetic signs are the cleanest thing about my car at this moment. And while Wayne and I just met a short while back, I certainly consider myself a full-fledged friend to the Burlington Beer Festival. But his response and efforts, bringing me into the process of helping sell an event that's very worthwhile and important to me, well, that's 10 kinds of cool. That's what friends are for.

So while people such as Wayne and Kylie, my favourite young beer technician at Rib Eye Jack's Ale House certainly fill the bill for new friends, there's also a story of old friends to be told in this space. Well, not old, exactly. Let's just say "around for a while" friends. My high school friends. You see, this past weekend, my Oakville high school, White Oaks Secondary School, scheduled its 50th Year Reunion. Turns out the old gal was built and opened in 1965. Long before we went there, depending on your definition of "long". This is meant to be a huge Gala event, right?

That's our hard-working White Oaks SS Reunion
organizer Sandi in the front centre. Surrounding
her, from left, are Wendy, Laurie, Jim and me...

But here is the catch. One of our classmates, Sandi Richardson, looked carefully at the Saturday night Gala Dinner in some fancy-schmancy Oakville hall. It was something like $80/head. So Sandi looks at that and realized we would be breaking bread with graduates from the 1980s, 90s and 2000s, even beyond. Not to mention those who graduated 1965-1975. People we have never met. We were definitely a That Late-70's Show crowd.

So Sandi said to herself, "Hello? Screw that noise!" and organized a different Saturday night party at the Sixth Line Pub for our crowd, just a stone's throw from the actual high school. Trust me, our group has no place at a fancy dining hall. But a pub? Well, given the proper crowd control (think British soccer hooligans) and stringent alcohol distribution (that so didn't happened), yeah, we can do that. One simple Facebook event invitation to 250 people and man, we were on like Donkey Kong. She locked in Bob Sherwood's band, Project 360, as well as the Ford twins, Danny and Dennis, to provide the tunes - all musicians from our year - well, years, I guess. We've always kinda lumped the last few years of the 1970s together as one big group. The bar probably doubled up its keg orders and we were ready to rock.

Bob Sherwood, the rowdy bass player
for the band Project 360, is probably
best remembered as the dude who drew
spot-on caricatures of both WOSS staff
and students for the annual yearbook

So here's the thing. The actual big Gala White Oaks Secondary School 50th Year Reunion tanked. Got cancelled. No idea why. "Maybe next year" is all we heard. But Sandi's WOSS Reunion Party? Oh yeah, still on! Sandi doesn't need someone who graduated in 2007 to tell her how to organize a reunion. Our chick's a pro, baby and this ain't her first rodeo. She's done this before (10th and 20th reunions - huge parties in big halls) and she can do this reunion thing in her sleep. There would be no cancelling of our event. Hey, back in high school, we all wished we were grown up and had great jobs. After a few decades of working, we all wish we were back in high school again. And for one night, well, we were.

The women all looked as beautiful as they did back in the day. Every one of them. And the guys? Well, I have little doubt the women looked at the men, especially the ones "who got away" and likely thought, "Wow, did I dodge a bullet there!" In our defence, we were all butt-ugly back then, too so at least that didn't change.

As expected, it was a night to relive old memories, create a few new ones and hey, maybe even learn a thing or two. My oldest friend, Dave Schaus, asked me if I remembered how we met. Other than sometime in Kindergarten, I had no clue. He knew. Having just moved into the neighbourhood, his father had no idea where our public school, Munn's, was. Remember, this was long before Google Maps. So he simply followed the bus to school on the first day. As Dave recalled, even though we had never met, I was in the back of that bus, waving to him during the entire trip. He was waiting for me as I got off the bus and our friendship has remained since that first day of Kindergarten. I'm just glad we've never had a Kindergarten Reunion because I've put on at least 150 pounds since then.

Despite sitting down at the keyboards for the first time
ever, Dennis Ford showed us he was pretty adept at it.
Joking, of course, he's been playing for decades now.

Dennis and Danny Ford kept us all on the dance-floor (as did Bob's Project 360) and hell, despite my aversion to dancing, I even got up there a few times. The first was to share a slow dance with an old girlfriend, Julie Brown. When I pointed out that we had dated for, oh, about 10 minutes back then, she corrected me quickly. "It was at least 15 minutes," she said with a pretty smile. I also got a chance to dance with Lisa Charters, who offered up another memory. Back then, she was dating Danny and one night we were watching the band play in some low-rent bar. Well, the cops showed up that night, as this place had something of a reputation for serving under-agers. Which *ahem* Lisa was. According to Lisa, the police had barely come through the front door when I quickly had her spirited out the back door. I don't claim to have many skills but leaving the scene of the crime before it becomes one? Yeah, I have that one down. And then there was Jill Etherington. Well, by the time we hit the dance floor on this night, tequila had reared its ugly head. Several times. So the pair of us showed all the dexterity of a new-born giraffe trying to stand for the first time. I am sincerely glad that no one filmed that. Or if they did, they were courteous enough not to You-Tube it.

"Thank you, thank you," Danny acknowledged. "We'll
be here all night. Try the veal sandwich. It's great."

When I told my Mom about the reunion, she quickly asked if Dennis was there. You see, Dennis, Dave and I were roommates back in our second year of university/college. Many moons ago. But she still remembers Dennis. One time, he drove over to get me at my Mom's, wearing a bowling shirt with the name, Ernie, stitched into the pocket. She asked why his shirt had that name on it and with a perfectly-straight face, he replied, "What? Don't you name your clothes?" His sense of humour remains intact to this day. That night, Dennis told the crowd that he and Danny had a disagreement over which Eagles song to pay. "Dan wanted to do Hotel California while I wanted to play Desperado. So we compromised." With that, he launched into the opening chords of Desperado. The youngest twin always gets his way. My Mom still remembers Dennis ("He was the funniest kid!" she says) flying off to Europe to play piano back in the day, something I had completely forgotten.

While many of us posted pictures on Facebook the next day (y'know, once we shook out the cobwebs), our lovely friend, Sandy Jakubowski decided to collect a lot of them from various people and create one huge Facebook Photo Album.

I have no idea what Rob, aka Doley, and I are doing here,
other than the vague recollection that it's some sort of
weird dance we did in High School. I have no recollection
how it began but I'll wager Monty Python was the reason.

In that photo album is a very blurry Smartphone picture of me greeting my old friend, Lubin Bisson, at the reunion. And as fuzzy as that shot is, one thing is clear - I'm pretty damn happy to see him. You wouldn't even know it's me but that smile? Well, it's unmistakable. I got a chance to meet his pretty wife, Marie-Claude, for the first time and she was delightful. Lubin, who's always been fluent in French, has long since set up shop in Montreal with his wife and two children. I, on the other hand, know just enough French from high school to engage French-speaking people in the worst, most awkward conversation they've ever had.

Greg Cheesewright was there with his beautiful wife, April, who graciously extended an invitation for me and another friend, Andrea, to come visit them in Grosse Pointe Farms, Michigan (near Detroit) this Summer. Greg has told me there's a nearby bar with over 100 craft beers on tap. So in case there was any doubt - we're going! But at one point in the night, I was chatting with April and a stranger came up and asked her if they attended the same school. "No," I quickly answered, "This is my trophy wife. She's American." With that, she laid her head on my shoulder to give my lie some authenticity. April knows how to play this game.

Greg steals away my "American trophy wife" April. I
tell ya, you have to watch this Cheesewright fellow!!

But here's a story that Greg, who's been in this space before (he brought me up a Goose Island Barleywine Ale on a previous trip), well, let's say it's a story April has probably not heard. Back in High School, we often had to give speeches in English class. So Greg decided to give a speech on "Getting Embarrased." Except while he was giving his speech, he slowly took off all his clothes, finishing in nothing but his tighty-whiteys. I wasn't even in that class and word of the speech swept the school inside the hour. I have no idea how he looked in his underwear but about 15 girls asked him to the Spring Formal afterwards so let's assume "good."

Ironically, the first person I met there with a fellow named Brad, the boyfriend of the afore-mentioned Created-A-Photo-Album Sandy. But here's the thing. He and I have never met before. Well, thanks to Facebook, which has allowed me to graduate my high school "He's a distraction to the rest of the class" onto a global platform, I know him. So I happily shook his hand and introduced myself. And while Facebook makes things less awkward for significant others, as they may feel they already know the people to whom they are about to be introduced, it does have its downside. Such as, "Hey Bob, I haven't seen you in 15 years! What have you been up to since you golfed today at 3 pm?"

Once Cindy Lalonde gets over her painful
shyness, she'll learn how to whoop it up a little...

All in all, it was an unforgettable blast and we have Organizer Sandi to thank for this. There's a scene in the movie Pretty Woman where Richard Gere and Julia Roberts are in an elevator on their way to see an opera. Because, well, hookers can't get enough of that opera. Big fans. And she turns to him and says word to the effect of, "In case I forget to say it later, thank you for tonight." (Hookers are also very renowned for their courtesy.)

Well, I have little doubt that she heard it many times that night and likely since. But here's one more. Sandi, thank you for that wonderful night that allowed all of us to see each other again. If you want any help doing it all over again next year, hey, just ask as there would be no objections from any of us. That was a night we would gladly relive over and over again. Sandi, thank you once again for illustrating to us all very clearly, that's what friends are for...

Other than that, I have just one question. Where were all those hot 26-year-old teachers who have sex with their male students back when we were in high school? This doesn't seem very fair to me. Geez, Hot Teachers, I'm sure I would have been very fast, if nothing else.

Hey, that's us! I knew our high school class would
be on a marquee one day, rather than the usual
"Wanted" posters seen in Canada Post offices...

Anyway, I have taken up far too much of your time, I'm sure, so let's wind this bad boy down. First of all, my Beer Bro Glenn and I will be at the Burlington Beer Festival on July 19. We already have our tickets ($35) for the Sunday and trust me, when the ticket says "Rain or shine", they ain't kidding. I'm still trying to get the water out of my ears from last year. But join us if you can.

On a different note, I'll be picking up my other Beer Bro Stevil St Evil, who lives in Wellington, New Zealand, late in the evening from Pearson Airport tonight. He heard his father was in a poor way late last week and got back to Canada as quickly as he could. The game plan was for him simply get to Toronto as fast as air travel allows while I took some days off so I could shuttle him by car to Napanee the next morning (so tomorrow) to visit his Dad one last time. Well, sadly, his father passed quietly on Monday morning so as quickly as we all moved, we weren't quite fast enough. That's pretty sad but I suppose he'll still get to see his Dad that one last time. So there's some closure there for my old college buddy. I'm still happy to get him home because, well, that's what friends are for... I recognize that this beer blog had little to do with actual beer so let me say this. Man, we drank a lot of it at the Reunion and I am expecting a couple of bleary beer-addled heads on the road to Napanee tomorrow. But guys and dolls, that's it, that's all and I am outta here!! Until next time, I remain...