Still Moving

The last post I wrote here was pretty silly, I will admit. Today's is quite different, but I like where I end up this time. And I'm both shocked and grateful that this is the case. It's a clash of past versus present, and as it must, present wins out. Remember, all you kids out there...don't look back. At least be very careful if you do. And don't linger there.
I'm pretty sure that everyone reading this will understand, but you may get it even more if you're Canadian, around my age, and male (or formerly male, maybe?). Let me get right to it: I'm talking about Don Cherry. This is a sports post, a hockey post, and NEITHER of these things. The events from Saturday night to yesterday have taken away something I loved, and that sucks. But it needed to happen. It should've happened a long time ago.

Yesterday, Don lost his job as a hockey commentator. In that, I'm reminded of two other situations that affected me similarly, and still linger a bit. Time makes it a lot better. And again, I realize I'm better for it. Make lemonade from lemons, they say.

I would not call any of the three men I'm going to mention here as heroes, but they had a stature that just kinda stinks to look back and see where they ended up. The first of these is O.J. Simpson. I used to watch NFL football, and "The Juice" was a commentator. Million-dollar smile, personality, all that. Commercials. I liked him on football, but to me, being my age, he was the injury-prone cohort of Lt. Frank Drebin in the Naked Gun movies. We all know what happened to O.J. To this date, it's hard to watch those movies that are so dumb and funny. This one is a bummer, but I can easily work around the disappointment in this person.

The next one is Bill Cosby. To my generation, he was Heathcliff Huxtable. America's dad. The wearer of shoes in the house.* Pudding pops guy. Etc., etc.

(* - Always noticed on The Cosby Show that they wore their shoes in the house. That was so foreign, literally, being in Canada as I was. Now, I get it, but it seemed so strange back then.)

Cosby was so funny. The sitcom was great, we all loved seeing that TV family every week for so many years. I remember seeing one of his stand-up specials once, and I think I've rarely ever laughed so hard. We all know what happened to Bill Cosby. Another bummer, and unlike O.J., I really wish it wasn't so with him. I want to be able to watch his old TV shows and enjoy them. But, I can't. None of us can. Both these guys did some very bad things, and so pieces of our memories are warped now, forever tarnished.

There are tons of others, unfortunately, that forced us to look back with less fondness on the past. And I guess that's the lesson. Satchel Paige really was right when he said to not look back. He was talking about time and age creeping upon us all, and to keep moving forward. I'm not sure how it was when he was young, but surely the ability to capture our media and keep it forever has created more of nostalgia culture. I imagine that back then, stuff happened, and you either wrote about it or had it in your personal memory until it faded. Not vivid and watchable, hearable like everything is now. It seems great to be able to preserve the past. But not always, it seems.

I feel like I learned from those who I used to think were good people, being duped along the way, as millions were. And I feel a bit silly even spending time on these specific individuals. But, I believe it all ties together, and while I am not really moving forward too much in my own journey these days, I am still making progress. And I should recognize that, as we all should. I've been struggling for weeks to find something to say here that wouldn't sound so negative. It's ironic that what has happened in the past 72 hours in a Simpson/Cosby-esque moment, would see me recognize the progress I thought wasn't there.

I'll try to keep it brief (yeah, right!), but I need to try to describe the past some more to make the present moment more understandable, from my perspective. Being Canadian, born in the mid-'70s, coming of age as "all boy"* in the mid-'80s, Don Cherry is a larger-than-life character, if you like sports, hockey to be specific. Like so many things in life, we are shaped by those around us in those early years, and I'll admit that in this case, I didn't realize what was going on at the time. I was a kid. It was a less "PC" world. This guy was SO popular. I mean, he was voted the 7th-greatest Canadian ever.

(* - My mom's words, not mine.)

There are lots of reasons why. Go back several generations. Don Cherry was, until yesterday, primetime viewing on the most iconic program in Canada. Until the cable television explosion, you had to work hard to avoid him on a Saturday night. And, why would you want to avoid him? Where I'm from, on Saturday, you either got the Leafs (my team) or the Canadiens (NOT my team) every week. Cherry was so popular, myself and many, many Canadians would turn on Hockey Night in Canada each week, even if we DESPISED the featured team, just to see Coach's Corner at the end of the first period.

Don called it like it was. He called his co-hosts dummies, mostly in jest. He showed the hockey fights! He showed the goals. As a former coach, many kids learned lessons of how to play from him. Especially a kid like me who didn't play organized hockey. I guess you could say he was my coach. Every year, way before the internet, YouTube, and all that, there was a video you got for Christmas every year. You'd watch the tape over and over and over. He was everywhere.

As I got older, you started to hear that some adults didn't like him. He was polarizing from the start, I guess. But I didn't notice. I was firmly in the "love Grapes" corner. And I have been. For like 35 years. Until now. Now, it's different. And I hate it. But I realized from what has happened, I have grown. I'm not a little boy who will laugh at things that will offend others, whether said with malice or not.

Don Cherry told it like it is. At least how he thought it is. And we (most of us) went along with it. He is Uber-Canadian. He stood up for us against everyone. In the '80s, he stood for Canada against the evil Soviets (as they were often seen at the time. Perception is everything.). He refused to feel like a small Canadian in the enormous shadow of the USA. He gave Canadians a sense of PRIDE. And, if you're at all objective, he went too far. Often.

His opponents were after him from the start. And often they were right. But, he was powerful in the viewers he brought the HNIC juggernaut. So, when he'd act up, people would grumble, maybe send some letters to the CBC (his employer, the public broadcaster in Canada), and like Leafs/Habs, people would argue about him back and forth, sometimes all week. Until the next Saturday, when we all watched again.

I hope that gives some context. On Saturday night, as I have done hundreds of times since I was 11 years old, I sat on the couch and watched him. He's old now, 85 I think. I knew he wasn't really relevant anymore. I knew he should've retired by now. But like your favorite pair of slippers, you don't want to give him up. He was an old man, doing what many old men do. Not all, but many. Set in their ways, opinionated, often way too blunt, but generally, they mean well.

There were three things he said on Saturday that were his last straws. One broke the camel's back. First, he mentioned insulin in reference to a diabetic player who he likes and is promoting a book, but couldn't come up with the word. I think he said, "the diabetes stuff." I'm 45, I can't recall words half the time. I'm diabetic. People thought it showed a lack of sensitivity to not know the word insulin. It didn't bother me a bit. An old man is an old man.

The second one, I chuckled when he said it. Because it put me back to being 12 years old. I knew what he meant when he mentioned Tourette's syndrome about the head gyrations of the famous goaltender Patrick Roy. I recalled the goofy young goalie when he said it. That was one of my few defenses against my Montreal Canadiens friends back then. Roy looked goofy. One of the best of all-time as it turned out, but he looked goofy. So, I chuckled at the old memory. I did not think about how someone with Tourette's, or someone with a family member or a friend that has Tourette's might be offended and feel bad hearing that. It was a non-PC flashback to the past. Gotta be careful in the past, kids.

And then, the literal kicker. As in kicked off the air, fired after 40 years. I sat there, and I kinda recognized what he was saying, I'll admit I don't pay the same attention as I used to when he rambles. I knew what he meant. I understand what he was trying to do. Being pro-Cherry, I kinda had an inkling that it was bad what he was saying, but it didn't totally register until I saw Twitter not long after the segment ended. I'm just as guilty as his Coach's Corner co-host, Ron MacLean. I brushed it off. He didn't attack me. It was just Don being Don.

The thing was, and I'm not being apologetic here on his behalf, but I know what he was trying to do. The Canadian Legion and the oldest generation of Canadians still living, are VERY important to Don Cherry. As they should be. To all of us. As there are less of those heroes still around each year, and yes, people forget. He was trying to protect his perception of that generation. The generation he grew up in. And that was the mistake. By trying to uplift some, he pushed down others. Many others. In fact, many more others than he was uplifting.

He pitted his vision of Canada against the reality of what Canada is now. An amazing melting pot. Far more diverse than when he was growing up where the vast majority of Canadians were white. Canada is much more diverse than when I grew up, too. The days of your only enemies being the French Catholics (or English Protestants) are LONG gone. It's different now, and an old man, stuck in a time warp, with a VERY public pulpit to still speak from, presented his views. Views that completely denigrated a large swath of today's Canadians.

Blame can go in many directions. Most of it has gone where it should, to Don Cherry, a guy I loved for many many years. It's so surreal to speak about him in this way. But as I said earlier, I have learned. I had to. Look at me. I am transgendered. I belonged to the majority-white, male population that grew up idolizing Don Cherry. But how can I now stay on that side when I am so different? He was WRONG and HURTFUL. I don't hate the man, I wish he could've apologized but I knew he wouldn't. The backlash, to a degree, while certainly deserved, makes me a bit sad. Gotta be careful trampling on another person's grave, kids. If we are now better people as a whole, let's show it.

I have read lots of tweets and articles about all this since Saturday night. And I realized how many people that Don targeted were hurt by his words. They were cast aside on possibly the largest stage in the country. He attacked cultures. Going after one group to protect another is divisive. No matter what you think of other groups of people, you should not cast them aside or chastise them. Because one day you might have the same done to you. Not to mention, it's just plain WRONG.

I can't make jokes about others like I did growing up. I never meant anything by my jokes. It was cultural. I know what it's like to feel like you don't fit in now. It's a terrible feeling. I don't want anyone to feel like they don't fit in; like they don't belong. To be cast aside.

So, the positives I take from this is that, when I don't feel like I'm making life any better or different, which can get me really down, I realize that if I look closer, things ARE moving forward. They might be slow and glacial, kinda like continental drift. Imperceptible often, but still moving.

Maybe old Willie Nelson had it right many years ago when he sang this song:







Comments

  1. Great blog topic. Thanks for letting a US citizen in on things happening North of us.

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