iF iT hadn't been for Ted
Reynolds the former CBC
sportscaster f would never
have known about John
Rowland, who lives in West
Van. And I would never have
read John’s fascinating hook
— Slipping the Lines.

Ted told ine about iC one day
und I nodded and promptly forgot
about it. Lots of people write books
and lots of books are boring. But
then, through Ted, } met the writer,

Slipping the Lines — the
expression is a marine term. mean-
ing casting off — isa gem, it’s the
story of John's life and is a
Canadian saga of the years before
the blight set in. It shows a Canada
that has disappeared and a type of
Canadian who is in danger of join-
ing the dodo, having been replaced
by freaks who show their knees —

~ through their pants and other

é . .
» Strange ones who wear rings in

“their ears and noses.
+ John Rowland beat the odds
veven in che Dirty Thirties. He
“became a magazine subscription
salesman and made a damned good
living at it. So good that he was
, able to travel the world in style,
“Selling as he went. And he has the
photos to prove it.
He was devilishly good-looking

and had a genius for making
“friends. He roamed Canada and °
‘Alaska, order book in hand, meet-

ing people who are now household
names And Having: a ball with

“Klondike Kate, for instance.
‘And Grant McCorachie the great
pilot, later the head of ;
Canadian Pacific Airlines. Plus
gold miners, girls, princes and =
Tooks.”
“One of the laiter, a hotel owner
in Dawson City, he quotes as say-,
ng, “I'm so crooked, John, that
when I cry the tears run down my.
back.”
Jn Fiji he made friends with the
»British colonial bigwigs (selling,
“Magazine subscriptions to them:
00), and hobnobbed with native
ijians whose grand- -daddies Ahad
been cannibals... 4,
In Hong Kong he watched the.
first Boeing China Clipper touch
own on the Asian continent. It ;
was there, also, that he became
‘buddies with the then world-
‘famous travel writer Richard :
-Halliburton, Halliburton invited

olin to join him on a Chinese junk: 7

e planned to sail to the 1939
World Exposition in San Francisco.
Advised by ‘an expert who said the
junk was unseaworthy, John |

clined, with thanks”.
The junk went down with ali-
ands...

“Tn New Zealand (where he. | ,
““made'as much money in a day as
most New Zealanders earned in a

‘Felix von Luckner, the German
“sea-raider of World War One, who

teated him “‘as the son he had j
ever had.

Von Luckner had sunk M4 Allied, :

hips without taking a single life.
“The crews were always picked up,
‘as were the ships’ mascots.
fentloma the German was a

ON THE OTHER HAND

Australia, Singapore, the
Philippines, Egypt, Fiji, France. the
UK — John Rowland saw them all
in the sane — or saner — days of
Empire, which he seems to have
preferred to the present mad mess.

When the big blow-up cume he
applied join the Royal Canadian
Navy, but at first they didn’t want
him. So he took off again for the
North, where it was often “so quiet
it made my ears throb.”

Telling an obstreperous steam-
boat captain to get stuffed, he came
back alone in a smali boat on an
800-mile journey down the danger-
ous Stewart and Yukon rivers. And
was lucky to make it. He was also
lucky not to be nabbed by the large
and powerful lover of a girl in

‘DRAPERIES B

Fairbanks who asked hin ta read
bed-time stories to her. (Or so he
claims.)

“She was no oil-painting.” he
writes, “but Fairbanks ean be it
lonely place and she looked better
every time | passed her in the hall
and said hello.”

It was “under the bed for John
Rowland” when hob-nailed boots
were heard in the hall,

The owner of the boots was no
candlelight and wine operator, he
says, “and in no “ime at all the bed
springs were coming down like the
piston rods of a Ford V8 engine. |
was certainly thankful that he could
only spare a short visit..."

Finally he b.s.'d his way into the
RCN as an officer. The bull was
necessary because he didn't have a

"university education or even full-

blown high school credits. But that
didn’t stop him getting better
marks than most at Royal Roads
naval college. He wound up doing
corvette duty on the Atiantic, but
dwells mainly on the fun parts; He
once had to heave a live, 60-pound
bomb into New York harbor, and
now tells the mayor of New York
“whoever you are”, that the thing is
there. ;

What the younger people are
reading these days | don’t know.
But if they read Slipping the Lines
they will not only get many good’
laughs. They will see a nobler,
more patriotic and culturally intact
Canada. :

.The book was published in 1993
by Turner Warwick.

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