[.ca] A Peter Gzowski Reader (ISBN 0771036949)

Purely Canadian:
For most Canadians, Peter Gzowski needs no introduction, especially after the publicity surrounding his recent passing. As the former host of CBC Radio's "Morningside," and as a journalist, he has in many ways been the embodiment of the voice of Canada. This book is a collection of his favourite essays, many of which appeared in a variety of newspapers and magazines over the course of a lifetime. His journalistic reach in these pieces is extensive, touching on almost all things Canadian. From professional hockey - "Eighty nights a year they do this, all of them, thrashing their bodies about at inhuman speeds, trying to focus on a bouncing puck while some of the best and toughest athletes in the world hack and pound away at them, and they, in turn, hack and pound back"; to baseball - "But our real heroes were the local boys who'd made good: Moth Miller, as quick as an antelope in the outfield, with his pants tucked in like plus-fours, running down every ball he could see, which, considering his Coke-bottled eyeglasses, was a remarkable percentage...."; to the disappearing landscape of his youth - "Many of the mills and foundries replaced by the humming prosperity of sophisticated technology - and one of them a restaurant too. Much of the countryside now scattered with subdivisions and shopping malls, with car-washes and fast-food franchises - the agricultural setting of my youth has given way to the growing, busy, modern world"; to his reluctance to let it go - "Do boys still play tibby \oa game similar to cricket, using a broomstick for a bat\c in the spring? Yes, I think, forever." There are tales, or rather confessions, of a young eager journalist grabbing headlines during a forest fire - "Every tree in creation seemed to be aflame. Except mine. \oOne on which he'd affixed a sign warning of 'the dangers of smoking.'\c I put the \ocamera\c on the ground, ran desperately to the very edge of the surrounding fire, ripped a small branch from a jackpine and plunged it into the flaming underbrush till it caught. Then I sprinted with my torch back to the tree I had prepared for fame and - how good it feels to tell the truth at last! - I set the perfect spruce alight myself. The picture, with flames framing the warning sign in terrible irony, won the Canadian Press Photo of the Month Award for May 1955...." He writes about being a "Canadian sex symbol": "I was approached, as I have been so many times, by a winsome young woman, fair of countenance, gentle of bearing. As so many others of her description have done, she approached me shyly. 'Excuse me,' she said deferentially, 'but aren't you Peter Gzowski?' and when, equally shyly, I replied that yes indeed I was, she said, as say her counterparts from coast to coast to coast, 'My mother is your greatest fan'"; and about being "unkempt" - "It's just that clothes and I don't seem to get along. Shirts sprout ink-stains on their pockets the day after I buy them and their tails seek daylight every time I put them on. Sweaters unravel. Trousers wrinkle and droop. Cuffs fray. Socks get divorces in my drawers. Though I seldom wear ties or jackets, burns and coffee stains appear on those I do as if by magic, like frost patterns on a winter window. Belt-loops dodge my fumbling fingers. Zippers languish at an embarrassing half mast, and buttons fall from anything I wear like the leaves of an unwatered ficus benjamina." There is much homage paid to Canadian writing - "it was a revelation for me, a signal that people could make drama and literature out of the same experiences that had formed me, that Canadians had something to say that was worth listening to...."; to memories of a Canadian childhood in winter - "A big dog that wouldn't stop chasing my sled. Soakers from a winter creek. Making angels in the snow. The way the snow matted in your hair and around the edge of your parka. Just being cold, the exquisite pain of nearly frozen toes and fingers, and the equally exquisite relief from a warming fire"; and ultimately, to Canada itself - "This is a great country, staggeringly beautiful, endlessly welcoming, constantly surprising. You have to know it as well as I have come to know it to know that no one will ever know it at all." There are anecdotes about, among other things, sailing mishaps - "The masts came down at 3:05 the next afternoon, both of them, as suddenly and swiftly as if God had flicked them with His fingers"; and finally, reflections on a full and wonderful life - "I've got to meet the Queen, eight prime ministers (nine if you count Margaret Thatcher, who had a cold and couldn't hear my questions but kept on answering what she'd have liked me to ask anyway), four governors general, two chief justices, two Nobel Prize winners, the world yodelling, whistling and bagpipe champions (all Canadians) and every winner and most of the runners-up of the Giller Prize for Literature. I've danced with Karen Kain (well, I made a lifting motion and Karen sprang in the air, light as dandelion fluff), sang with Leonard Cohen (well, Leonard sang and I chanted along to "Tower of Song"), played chess with Boris Spassky (I moved, he moved, I asked if he wanted to resign, he grinned, said sure and we shook hands), golf with George Knudsen, cribbage with Gordon Sinclair and...hockey with Wayne Gretzky." Pieced together, the essays provide so many snapshots of Gzowski's life and work the book could almost be considered an autobiography. Gzowski's writing is as Canadian as anything there is and it is our good fortune that he has left this collection for us to remember him by, to remember Canada by.