4 - Wednesday, December 23, 1987 ~ North Shore News 1 AM, of course, one of the world’s greatest singers. Mais oui! This was evident to me from as far back as I can remember. Even now as I warble Figaro, Figaro, Figaro in the shower, the angels themselves pause in whatever little ditty they might have been hum- ming 10 keep the Big Lady in the Sky happy, and listen to me in- Stead, When I sing, the world seems to sing. The cosmos itself seems to sing. Singing releases the oneness in the universe. Singing is a religious expericnce in itself. I love singing. I don’t just sing in the shower or the bath, I sing in the garden, the pool, while driving, while out on the boat, while going down to my office, in my office, and some- times while just wandering around the house. I sing with clothes on, naked, and sometimes while dressing. Why not? I have this bizarre repertoire of songs in my head, go- ing back to Depression-era tunes like Halleluja I’m A Bum. There are some, taught in school like A British Grenadier, that harken back, amazing enough, to the height of the Empire. And then there’s the cacophonous detritus of stuff from the ’40s onward. What a jumble of noises and lyrical fragments to have inside Old age security benefits increase OLD AGE Security, Guaranteed Income Supplement and Spouse’s Allowance benefits will go up in January, Health and Welfare Minister Jake Epp recently an- nounced. Effective January 1988, the maximum Old Age Security pen- sion will be increased to $310.66 monthly from the present $308.19. The maximum supplement (GIS) for single, low-income pensioners will go up to $369.21 from $366.28 and the maximum for low-income married people will rise to $240.47 for each spouse from $238.56. The maximum Spouse’s Allowance — paid to needy people between 60 and 64 who are mar- ried to GIS recipients’ — will in- crease to $551.13 from $546.75. The maximum ' Widowed Spouse’s Allowance will rise to $608.46 a month from $603.63. All of these benefits are adjusted every three months based on changes in the Consumer Price In- dex, Statistics Canada’s cost-of- living measure. p <= WINTER rele @ strictly personal ® your head! 1 think that it only makes Sense to sing, just to shake some Of the load out of your memory banks. My dog is quite used to it, [ should say. She often sings along with me. We make quite a duet in the back yard. Alas, no one else really quite en- joys my singing the way the dog and I do. I still think it’s because everybody else is tone deaf. They just claim it’s the other way around. From the very start, in the choir in church, my earnestly-felt hymns were slightly out of whack with the rest. Somehow, I was always posi- tioned in the back row, off to one side or the other, where my off-key praises to the Lord were least likely to be heard by the congregation. My mother is a fabulous piano player who tried to pass her knowledge of music along, despite’ my tone-deafness. It wasn’t easy, but I had picked my way through the scale and could play Cherry Pink and Apple Blossom Time when the 1950 Red River flood came along and drowned piano, At that point, I figured the river was on my side. Mom couldn’t af- ford another piano so I was off the hook. No more lessons, yea! . As for singing, .who needed lessons with a voice like mine the. anyway? A. brief period followed where my a cappella performances found a small but appreciative audience: around the campfire in scouts, when the scout master wasn’t around. Whether the tune carried or not, I could remember the words for the dirty songs, you see. This magnificent stage of vir- tuosity and comradeship passed all too quickly, It was just not a skill you could take into dating with you much. Girls weren’t that cranked by songs like On The Other Side of France Where the Ladies Wear No Pants... Maybe 1 should have kept up those piano lessons. _ The worst was yet to come. By the mid-’50s, it was evident to every pubescent boy, even me, that if you couldn’t at least play a guitar you were never going to amount to anything at the ultra- gonad level. By now I had grudgingly come to accept the fact that my singing, in itself, did not appear to have any measureable erotic influence _on girls. It still felt good to sing, but it wasn’t advancing the cause of my Jove life at all. I went through seven guitars in all, never learning more than four chords, and could not remember them now to save my life. Ah, but there was one golden moment ... someone had to imper- 15 - 5x7 Professional Portraits $4.99 * Different poses taken » Ready in 4 days * $20.00 sitting fee ¥ <= —~ wy ax eS The F32-S Ice Radiat is Goouyear’s premium winter radial that delivers the ultimate in winter traction on ice and sonate Elvis at a high school Christmas concert, and I was the only kid with sideburns yet, or at least who was wiiding to make a fool of himself. So they played a couple of hits over the sound system, loud, and I pretended to strum and sing and did gyrate a bit. The girls, obliged by screaming. Well, in comparison, the rest of my life has been a hill of beans, as my French-Canadian grandfather would say, ch? Was it worth living this lifetime to have that one moment of glory as a prototype Elvis clone? OF course. No question! Settling into the humdrum ex- istence of a two-fisted reporter, 1 learned to accept the fact that even at drunken media brawls, | would be asked to goldfish it rather than sing along with the boys. For a sensitive young artist, you can imagine the pain. Oh well. You can't let them get you down, can you? Besides, you can never tell when a talent scout might be cruising by with the win- dows of his limo open, looking for a different kind of voice, perhaps something uniquely Canadian... Figaro, Figaro, Figaro! On the North Shore since 1955 DARTS & SERVICE ~~ PARTS & SERVICE FOR WACUUM CLEANERS Parts Dept. open 9:00 to 5:30 Mon. to Fri., Sat 9 to S Vacuum parts, bags & tools or bring your cleaner tn for servicing. 1629 Garden Ave., North Vancouver 987-2251 in-nome service for all major apptiances ts as near as your phone. Stu Meadows Westlynn Service Centre 1270 Lynn Valley Rd., N.Van. Gerry Regier Capilano Service Ctr. & CarWash 1980 Marine Dr., N.Van. 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