Playground to Podcast: Reflections on Boyhood === [00:00:00] Cold Open --- [00:00:00] Degan: Sometimes I just want to be seen by other men. Silently nodded to. Their confidence settling around me like carpenters dust. And other times I want to rise up alone. Stealthy. Below radar. becoming speed, wind smoke. The whole Camelot. Today though, allow me my exquisite sensitivity. So we can draw out another dream of man.​ [00:00:34] Meet the Hosts: Chris and Degan --- [00:00:34] Chris: Hello and welcome to What Kind of Man Are You, the podcast about men, masculinity, and what the heck us guys are doing. My name is Chris Garbutt. I'm a writer, communications professional, and now, I suppose, a podcaster. [00:00:50] Degan: Hi, I'm Degan Davis. I published a book of poetry in 2018 with the same title as this podcast. I'm a writer and a Gestalt therapist and Chris and I have been friends for almost 30 years, and it looks like now we're co hosts. [00:01:06] Chris: Looks like it. 30 years, wow. In that time, we have been interested in this topic since we first got to know each other way back in the 90s, we've written about being men, read books about it, and spoken about it over many, many late night drinks. [00:01:23] Degan: It's true. Late night drinks, afternoon coffee decaf for me, hikes in the woods and also just to say in my writing world Chris and I have been exchanging and poems, stories for many years and the theme of masculinity has often come up in those exchanges. [00:01:40] Why this Podcast? --- [00:01:40] Chris: So a few months ago I brought the idea of doing a podcast to Degan and using some of his poems to kick off each episode. The one you heard at the opening was the title track from Degan's book, as you might say. [00:01:56] Degan: Yeah, what we'd like to do, what we're going to do at the start of each episode is, is use a poem to kind of begin a discussion, a talk around some element of men, boyhood, masculinity. So, first I want to say thank you, Chris, so much for inviting me to do this with you, for inviting myself and these poems in as a kind of starting point for discussion. [00:02:20] Chris: My pleasure. [00:02:21] Degan: And so the idea is we think about a topic, we do a deep dive and since it's right in our title, we're going to start with our own experiences of what kind of men we are, where we came from, how we got there, and hopefully some of this resonates with you. [00:02:37] Chris: Yeah, we do understand that sex and gender are complex, contested even. Some of this will be sharing our experience and insights, but I imagine just as much we will be exploring the meaning of masculinity, manhood, at a time when that exploration is happening in the wider world. If you're a man, woman, non binary, queer, two spirited, trans, or however you identify, we do hope you find something worthwhile here. And I hope Degan and I learn a lot. [00:03:08] Degan: We also want to hear from you too. We want to pose these questions, these experiences, and make it more than a two way street. Make it a busy exchange . So tell us what you think, what format we could take on in a future episodes, what topics, . If we get something that feels off or really on, we'd love to hear it. What guests you might want us to talk with. [00:03:33] Chris: I admit, Degan I'm a little nervous because I think one of the things I learned about being a man. Is that you don't talk about being a man. [00:03:43] Degan: Yes. The first and second rules of Fight Club. I just wanted to say we'll be mentioning books as we chat through this. And we've both been, reading books and movies and songs and all the rest of it. There's a great book on men by Terrence Real, very much on that subject, which is just called, I Don't Want to Talk About It. [00:04:00] Chris: Yeah. So I hope you'll go on this journey with us and we can't wait to hear your thoughts. So maybe let's start with Degan. Can you tell us how someone can get your book? [00:04:11] Degan: Sure. I mean, just thinking about the rise of, big box store, bookstores, it would be wonderful just to call a local bookstore and say, Hey, can I order this? I know you could be listening from anywhere in downtown Toronto, it's a Type Books or a great new bookstore, relatively new bookstore called Flying Books. Yeah. It's published by Brick Books, B R I C K, Brick Books. And if you Google that and my name or the title, that will come up. And you've probably heard of a place called Amazon. It is also there. [00:04:42] Chris: Hmm. Amazon. I think it's just a river in South America. But anyway, we'll put a link in the description and, and you'll be able to find it that way too. [00:04:55] Degan: Great. [00:04:56] Chris: Okay. [00:04:58] Boyhood: How we became what kind of men we are --- [00:04:58] Chris: So, each episode is going to have a theme, and the word for this episode is boyhood. And so, degan, do you want to say a few things that come to mind when you hear this word? [00:05:12] Degan: Sure. So, I'm just going to say a few sentences that evoke boyhood when I just hold that word. You know, swimming in the Mattawa River. I grew up in a place where the two rivers met, the Mattawa and the Ottawa, about 400 kilometres north of Toronto. So swimming in the Mattawa River outside of our house on endless summer days. Biking through my hometown of Mattawa after a snow melt. Putting hockey cards in the spokes to make it sound like a motorcycle. And, I think for me, boyhood is very much entwined with particularly the spring and summer is biking. And that sense of freedom after the long winter has passed and just pedaling across town. wherever I wanted to go and it, and I, it felt like one of the great sort of freedoms like I've come through another winter, which feels endless in its time. I think I'll say some of the harder memories and images too you know, fear of getting chased home from school. There were a couple of years for me that were that were that were difficult. And you know, that time, that kind of no man's land time, like school is ended, supper is going to be around five and your people, everyone's making their way home, right? If you're not taking a bus or even if you are, because then you still have you know, you're still getting from school to home. And for me, I just remember this kind of chaotic wild west time between 3:30 and five-ish. Where yeah, just, just, there's the sense too of really watching your back sometimes. Some other images pine trees shining in ice cover in the sun. The sound of Peter Gwoski's voice on the CBC. All through pretty much the seventies and I think even early eighties, my mother and father would have the CBC on in the morning and his voice was like kind of like a cracked old stove, you know and he felt like a sort of grandfather in a way. And had that sort of grandfatherly love, although I think partly he sounded that way because he chain smoked. I think those are some some of my images. Tell me about you and boyhood. [00:07:24] Chris: Yeah. So a lot of what you said echoes my own experience. And it's funny cause we both grew up in small towns in the same province, but I think very different parts of the province, you were closer to Ottawa and I was closer to Toronto. But I was probably closer to being in the city than you. So a lot of my experiences were attached to that. But. Also growing up in a small town, being a little boy, I mean, some of it is that idyllic image you have of, going around on your bike and, and running around in the woods and playing with your friends on the street, all kinds of sports, like ball hockey, kickball, baseball, football and all informal, right? Like I did, I did play soccer and baseball as a little kid formally, but really my memories are more around street hockey and anything where we just got together and played with, played with a ball. So yeah, that's kind of my thinking around boyhood and, and just also I think a lot about how I'd watch what my father did. I'd watch what older boys did. I was spending a lot of time learning to be a man and a lot of trial and error, right? A lot of, thinking, feeling embarrassed or ashamed of, not getting things right and not knowing how to do things, even though, you had to learn it somehow. but the way you learned was, was a lot of it was just sort of mistakes and and feeling embarrassed by it. And so yeah, there was a that's sort of what comes out of my thoughts on boyhood is just that kind of watching and learning and trying and failing and succeeding sometimes, but feeling like you're failing more than, more than succeeding. But I can also relate to the fraught trip to school and home. There was, was always an element of fear and underlying violence, which we may or may not get into in the future. so I think what we're going to do for this inaugural episode is tell some stories about our own boyhood and how we learned to be men, how we learned about masculinity. [00:09:44] Degan: One of the things we had spoken of a month ago when we were sort of preparing for this was just to begin with some earliest memories and see what emerged from there. [00:09:54] Early Memories --- [00:09:54] Degan: And one of my earliest memories is of being a very young, probably a toddler or even younger. And seeing on the floor these two massive windmill looking objects turning, and these buttons. And this was my father's reel to reel tape machine, which, came in a kind of suitcase size with a big plastic lid, like speakers built in and a suitcase lid almost that you would close the whole thing up. So a very fascinating piece of machinery for anyone. But what made it even more magical was that you know, my father would press record And even now, just as I'm talking about this, I can hear our voices. And to hear our voices coming back. And I'll talk a little bit about, introduce my father in a moment, because he had quite a difficult childhood himself, and that resonated through my own early boyhood. But I have such a tender feeling thinking about this because his voice was so warm and he had a nickname for me, Deegs. You know, my name's Degan, but he called me Deegs and I could hear him saying you know, asking me a question and, and the warmth in his voice and then these huge windmill like reels moving and the brown shiny tape going through. And I think I'll pause and share a little bit about my father before going on. My dad grew up in London, England. He was actually a lot older than my mom. He was born in 1918. So around 1922, 23, he got diphtheria. And at the time that could be, deadly. So he went into isolation in a hospital and he was about five years old and I'm sometimes, just talking about boyhood, like what it would be like to be in a hospital separate from your family in isolation, strange nurses and doctors coming to and fro and in that kind of fever dream state. So I kind of imagine him there. He comes out of the hospital comes home and he lived in a middle class home in London, England seemingly happy from, you know photographs and things. And his father looks pale and he's running around saying, where's my mom? And he's going into the bedroom and looking in closets and under beds and over and over. And finally his father says, your mother passed away. Mother died. Which is, you know, his whole life in that moment must have, part of him must have shattered, something shattered in that. And to make matters even more difficult, this father worked on the trains, my grandfather, and he didn't have space or the time or ability to take care of his kids. So his little baby sister went to Canada. He and his younger brother were taken to an orphanage in London. And so he had this loss of mother, then loss of father, then an orphanage. And his way of dealing with it, and we were talking about this earlier, the remarkable things children can do when faced with enormous pain. And he, whether we do this consciously or whether this happens, he cauterized a whole part of his early life. And I think he, almost like a kind of brain surgery, what would you call it? Neurological contortion, turned off this whole theater of his early life and never spoke about it, had no memories of it. So anyhow, to come back to this tape machine and these early memories, that one's so special to me because of his warm voice, his gentle questioning, this remarkable machine. And for many of the really months and years after that, really until I was probably about 14, he was a very distant figure. And I don't know if it was that he had his own difficulty connecting to his own childhood, which he had sort of removed but he was very shadowy. I really have very few memories of him. But what was interesting was this whole idea of this tape machine and other objects. He was a science teacher. Your father was a teacher too, right? [00:14:19] Chris: Also a science teacher. [00:14:20] Degan: Also a science teacher. He would it's kind of funny, he would order all of these experiments to the school and then after he taught them, he'd just kind of bring them into our house. So we had this attic. filled with incredible science experiments. And even though he wasn't sort of teaching me in the way that your father did, with the oars and with the reeling the fishing rod, he had these objects around and he was obviously obsessed with them or very interested. So even though he was this shadowy figure, the objects were around and they they were like portals to him. So I remember once sometime around the age of four or five just collecting some of them taking them from this attic and putting them in my room. There was an oscilloscope that measured wave forms there was a Van der Graaff generator where you put your hand on this bulbous top and turn on the the motor that was and it would create static electricity in your hair would fly [00:15:16] Chris: Like that thing at the science centre. [00:15:17] Degan: Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Some of these mad scientists kind of, [00:15:20] Chris: So you had one in your house. [00:15:22] Degan: Yes. I'm a mad scientist and a mad scientist contraption. Yeah. I, there was, and I created this little mini science centre and that was this doorway to him even though he wasn't there. And I've just been thinking a lot about boys and men and others too, but, but particularly it seems like boys and men require some kind of mediation. I think that tape recorder at the beginning was in a way, this way for him to reach me. And I think after that I took these objects to reach him. And then I think about, I was just watching, I live across from Dufferin Grove Park in Toronto. And I was just watching some men hanging out. And they were, you know, most of them had something to do. Right. It was rare to see two men sitting on a picnic blanket and chatting. I mean, you may see it, but it was people playing catch. It was people playing some kind of game. And I think there's often a mediation something that allows men to be closer. And part of that I think is the script that we're given, but that's something we will talk about in later episodes, that idea of how, what it is we learn, how we learn to be men. But anyway, those are some of my memories. Do you have an early memory of yourself? [00:16:38] Chris: Well, you actually touched on it and you're drinking my, my [00:16:41] Degan: My apologies, [00:16:42] Chris: My sparkling water, but I guess we'll, we'll be intimate like that. But you touched on it with the fishing and, you know, it's funny you're talking about this reel to reel tape recorder. And I remember that well where I guess we're of a generation where we have seen those those old technologies and here we are with the new technologies recording ourselves. So there's a, maybe a bit of a full circle moment here. [00:17:12] Chris's Fishing Lessons --- [00:17:12] Chris: But I was thinking about something my father taught me. Like he really did know a lot of things that men were good at. Like he built my room in our house and he, he knew how to fish, right? And I kind of grew up sometimes thinking that men inherently knew how to do these things. And when I learned to do them, I was like, What's wrong with me that I don't know how to do them automatically? But the thing about learning how to fish it was sort of a combination of peacefulness and horror, you know on the one hand you had this experience where you're just on the water and and waiting for a bite but then at the end you had to, you had to well, you had to kill a fish if you wanted to eat it. [00:18:10] Chris: But, the peacefulness was real. My father would teach me how to cast. I never liked the worm thing. It was too gross for me. But it was a little bit fun when you sort of watch that bobber go under the, under the water. When I discovered that you could fish with lures, that was much more fun for me. So you know, where you cast out and then you reeled it in. And my favorite lure was called a popper. And it was one of these lures that you, that literally you would cast it out, float on top of the water and make little popping sounds that I guess the fish thought was some sort of food popping along the top of the water and they would jump for it. And we'd row out and sometimes it would be during the day, but often it was, dusk or late at night and, and if the water was calm and the only light was maybe the moon and, and some of the reflections of the lights from other cottages [00:19:14] Degan: did you, did you talk much in that kind of scene? Did you connect with him or was it more that quiet? [00:19:23] Chris: Early on when he was teaching me, obviously he talked a lot and he as we said, he's a teacher, so he really enjoyed that part of it. But, you know, those, late nights, once I knew what I was doing, we would just sit out there quietly and, those were magical moments, to be honest. I really, really have fond memories of that. And you know, I almost didn't want to catch a fish because that broke the silence and broke that magical experience of just being quiet on the water. but we would sometimes catch fish and I, don't want to, play down the thrill of that bite you get and then and then reeling it in and seeing how big it is and and you did pay attention to how big it was and we were not doing catch and release unless it was there were sunfish that were basically inedible but when we caught a good bass we would we would bring it home and have it for dinner and that's where the horror came in because we'd have these fish, my father would put them on a, I have this image of it being on a cutting board and he would just cut their heads off and, and these fish would still be breathing and I would watch their gills open and close and I couldn't, watch it for very long. It's a very strong memory for me you go from this peacefulness and you want to not think about what you have to do to turn that into your lovely dinner, you know. [00:20:55] Degan: There is something almost archetypal about both of those pieces that, sitting with your father on a rowboat and, here's how you cast. And also this kind of initiation into, violence of hunting or fishing and certainly we both grew up in small towns, right? Hunting, fishing. These were really big parts of small town, Northern Ontario. [00:21:16] Chris: Yeah, for sure. Yeah, less hunting in my life though. I knew lots of people who did go hunting, but you had to get out of Stouffville to be able to go hunting. And it, reminds me of this book review I wrote of Roch Carrier's he did a biography of Rocket Richard and he wrote in parallel with his own growing up as a boy in, rural Quebec and, Roch Carrier wrote the Hockey Sweater and he talks a lot about boyhood and there's a line I'll never forget where he said To be a man in my town, your father would take you to the slaughterhouse. And it was interesting [00:21:54] Degan: to see what actually, happened in slaughtering of animals. [00:21:57] Chris: Like you had to come to grips with mortality, but also this is how food gets on the table. And so interesting to match that with hockey. And, we're going to talk about hockey in a future episode, I think. This peacefulness and yet this horror happening all is part of the same thing. It's all connected [00:22:18] Degan: and this preparation for the physicality of being a boy or a man. And I just wanna say too, of being seen as a boy or man, right? You, you inside you, your gender may be something other, right? I mean [00:22:31] Chris: Oh, sure. [00:22:31] Degan: But, the script, if you appear. As a man are seen as a boy or a man, the script, the preparations, the initiations for this whether they're conscious like that, like, I'm going to take you to the slaughterhouse. I'm just thinking for myself, I'm writing a memoir as well which you know, but you've helped me, Chris and I have been exchanging writing for a long time. And really, there's a couple of times where I thought, this is as much your book as it is mine. [00:22:57] Chris: We're co writers of both our writings. [00:23:00] Degan: Absolutely. And there's a section where I'm friends with, this is when I'm more about 10, but friends with someone who is literally, I mean, mean, actually, I'm going to be reading a poem about him later on. Really, you know, and again, of course, his own history plays a big part in that, but he was pretty cruel at times. but in the section in the memoir, I remember saying, why was I friends with him? And list all these becauses and some of them were because I needed to learn a certain level of cruelty. Or I needed to be able to turn away. I had some other difficult things happen in my life and I needed to be able to, withstand, in a way, some of the pain that had happened or was coming. I don't think I was a particularly cruel person, but it's a kind of a building of a skin, a kind of a tolerance of, I don't know at times brutality. I mean, that's what it is in a slaughterhouse, right? And the truth is men are so often defined by their bodies and what their bodies can do. And so it still kind of gives me shivers to think i've hung out with this person I haven't seen them now for a long long time and i'm curious how he's sort of turned out but there was this intensity, and there was this violence, and there was this way he acted that I think part of me was learning from. And, I wouldn't have stated it to myself in that way, but a kind of curiosity, like, wow, okay, is there something here I can use? And I think that was very wordless [00:24:39] Chris: I think, that's really interesting how, we were talking about learning to be a man in boyhood is a lot of it is watching what other people do. And you know, there were people in my life who were cruel to me. they were always around. those football games we played, we needed them to play football with or hockey with. And that was just the nature of it. And they were awful during the hockey games, as much as they were awful in other ways. [00:25:12] Degan: I think we're going to take a break. We're going to talk more about boyhood in a moment. We're going to share some older stories and, and sort of flesh out boyhood as we're getting to like 6, those kind of ages. [00:25:37] Joyous Destructiveness: Paper Planes and Fire --- [00:25:37] Chris: Degan, you once told me this story about paper planes. [00:25:44] Degan: Yes. So this kind of segues nicely at what we were talking earlier about. I was talking about cruelty. This is kind of about, I guess, destructive urges, but there's a kind of joyousness to this. So let me set this up. There's this friend and he and I probably we were about eight or nine or ten or something like that. And we, with great obsessiveness, made as many paper airplanes as we could. So we sat there, if you would have watched us, no one had ever seen us so focused. And we made many paper airplanes. We put them all in this big garbage bag. And we stole a big carton of matches, and we walked to this train bridge. We had a train bridge that was, only about a kilometre from my house. You could see it going over the Ottawa River. And it was, it was like our second playground in a way. And so we carried this up. So I'm gonna read this poem. It's a relatively short one, but it gives, I think, a little sense of this joyous destructiveness. ───── It's called Burning Things. Fold the fins up like a bomber, 90 degrees, so it flies good. I made 67, Michelle a cool 50. Garbage bag for a hangar, six boxes of waterproofs each. There's nothing but fizzle in a thrown lit match, but paper airplanes. Each a bleached dam buster, collapsed spectacularly off the bridge down to the black water. Fireworks obsessed, we run from flashes again and again. Hands warm, smelling of Canada Day gunpowder, we perfect the igniting of summer. We lose, in this order, fingertip, palm, half a head of hair, gain a constellation of scars. The sun overhead, a flag with just the slightest warning. Distance from its centre makes us possible. [00:27:48] Chris: You really burned those planes, like , if, if you lost half a head of hair. [00:27:53] Degan: Well, it's funny talking about these memories, right? If you light them just a little, they're going to go out in the, in the throw. So we had, but I remember turning and I don't know if you've ever smelt burnt hair. It's a very particular smell. And I'm not the one that you smell very often, and I remember, I think it was, it was Michel, watching some of this, this hair curl up. It might've been my own, but I'm remembering it as his. Yeah. But I think what I'm remembering here is the joy of this. And I wanted to say, I was reflecting on this biking over here to do this and I was thinking about how our parents are gods for a long time, like they can't help but be gods, sometimes just the expression on your mother's face or the hand gesture of your father can change the universe in the house, so we live through that for a long time. But I think as we get to this age, 7, 8, 9 we start to feel our own agency. And I have this image of us really as kind of playing with our power, playing with what, okay, we're coming into the universe. Now we're expanding beyond the bedroom and this yard and going out. [00:29:05] Chris: I'm interested in the obsession with fire because, that's not what you're talking about, but where you would get a spray can. And it was always Lysol and you would. And you created a flamethrower and like, it was like scary and exciting at the same time. And, and [00:29:24] Degan: It's like science experiments. It's informal, wild science happening right in front of us. Well, you know, on that, you know, talking about fire and this, when we talk about losing half a head of hair on a palm and a, a finger and a palm this same friend, we, well, we started launching model rockets. [00:29:45] Chris: Oh, okay. [00:29:46] Degan: And, you know, and I remember going into the store in North Bay, which is the closest big city and saving up for these rocket engines and I remember the bearded man at the hobby store who looked sort of like Old Testament, prophet saying and intoning in this voice thousand times more powerful than a firework. Work and we would say this, you know? [00:30:09] Chris: Yeah. Right. [00:30:10] Degan: He might have been exaggerating, but, he was sort of a god to us. Right? He had all this firepower. And so we began to launch these model rockets, and first we were supervised, but as I said, my father would go and I disappeared into his own world. So we were left with these things. And one day, this friend, in the same way of the Lysol flamethrower said, let's unwrap one. And I remember him pouring out the pink powder inside, almost like this sort of dark anthill, you know, and us hiding behind rocks. There was not a lot of sense. There was a lot of adventures and he couldn't hide behind a rock and throw the match. He couldn't get that far away And just to say before I say what happened, he had also, this is the strangeness of, I guess, boyhood and any kind of upbringing, he had busted a finger you know, somehow, maybe in a bike accident or playing hockey or something. So we actually had a metal cast on one of the fingers. I think it was broken pretty badly. So he had this, cast and this metal piece. And. As he threw the match, I mean, it, I remember this incredible white light, incredible explosion and his hand caught on fire. And luckily, because he had already damaged it, something of this metal, he sort of got like half Darth Vader'd hand, you know, something of this metal protected him. And I'll never forget his hand going into the water because we were right by the river and the sizzle of it. He was okay in the end, but there were scars. But just this incredible fascination with. with power, with, this is agency well beyond ourselves. And [00:31:48] Chris: This train bridge, [00:31:50] Dangerous Adventures and Imaginative Games --- [00:31:50] Chris: I've seen train bridges, how high up off the river were you? [00:31:54] Degan: You would walk up a steep sandy kind of path. It was definitely about 40 or 50 feet, of, of the river. And that was an absolute universe. And I remember once, there was some structure, maybe it was an old part of a train bridge that had just collapsed and they rebuilt around it. So you had these huge chunks of concrete with rebar sticking out and, truly dangerous and beautiful. Brilliantly fun. [00:32:23] Chris: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. [00:32:24] Degan: And I remember one thing we would do to play you get us to play imaginative games There was a piece of rebar sticking out and the drop down was was the 30 or 40 feet, to rocks and a bit of water. It was would have been a deadly drop. And I remember us stepping from one section over this drop onto a piece of rebar sticking out, which did hold our weight and then coming up through it. And we said that was a portal to another world. And we would sometimes with, with friends say, once you've gone on that, you're in another place. And we would go into my mother and say We would like peanut butter and cheese sandwiches, but we'd whisper like, don't talk to us. We're not really here. We need them from Jupiter or whatever, and we'd go on to this world. Did you have any of that imaginative kind of play or what did you do for games? [00:33:16] Chris: I think probably I did. I mean, I also kept to myself a lot, so I had a lot of imaginary games in my own head that I did but I'm pretty sure I must have done some of that. I mean, there was a lot of cops and robbers kind of role play games, but portals to another world. That would have been cool. I mean, we, pretended things were spaceships and stuff like that, but yeah, we didn't stay in other worlds as long as you did though. We're talking about playing, right. [00:33:52] Hockey Cards --- [00:33:52] Chris: In my town, it was hockey cards. We did marbles sometimes, but hockey cards were really the big thing. And I remember I wasn't really into it, but then some guy, he was running towards the school and, He was like, I just came from the store and I got 22 packs of hockey cards. And I was so jealous. I was so, I wanted that so bad. They were 10 cents each. So that was a whopping 2 and 20 cents [00:34:28] Degan: With the stick of gum. [00:34:29] Chris: Yeah. With that weird stick of gum. And it, you know, I didn't realize till later that this was a gum company trying to sell gum with hockey cards. Cause I don't, I mean, maybe we chewed that gum, but it was gross. It was lost its flavour really fast. So one day I think I got my hands on, like a dollar and 30 cents. So I went and bought 13 packs of hockey cards myself and you go through them and you're looking at the time, the guy you really wanted was Daryl Sittler, right? Yes. He was like the captain of the Leafs and you know, the Montreal Canadians were really good. So, you know, if you got Guy Lafleur or or Ken Dryden, Ken Dryden, Steve Shutt, all those Yvon Cornoyer, all those guys were good too. But I remember I got Darryl Sitler and I was so excited. I think I got Guy Lafleur too. So, you know, the quality of the player was a, was a real that was a, a jewel. But then you'd play games to win hockey cards from the boys in the school yard. I remember farthies and closeys who could get it farthest from the wall or closest to the wall, bounce backs knockdowns where you would lean a card against the wall and the first person to knock it down got all the cards that had been thrown. I don't know if I was particularly good at it, but it was something that boys did and girls didn't do. And I don't know if that would still be true today . But getting the right player and then, and you would also compare, I don't know if you ever did, got him, got him, need him. [00:36:09] Degan: No. [00:36:10] Chris: Oh, okay. So you would, you would compare your cards and, and people would look through and say, yeah, I got that one, got that one. Oh, I need that one. And it would be got him, got him, need him, you know. [00:36:20] Degan: Right. And, and you might trade after that, right? [00:36:23] Chris: Sometimes you would trade but mostly you would play for them. And it was both really fun, but also heartbreaking if you lost one of your, you know, you tried to play the cards you didn't need, but the one that was say leaning against the wall, that would be one that was in demand because you had to play for something that mattered. [00:36:43] Degan: I remember friends and I really just practicing our our throw. Right. Having the cards between your fingers and almost like skipping a rock over and yeah, and trying to really control it. And if you had a windy day and the card flapping or if you just get it and knock down six cards And that feeling of elation. [00:37:04] Chris: And, and it was all in the wrist. I remember that. [00:37:20] Crying --- [00:37:20] Degan: Okay, Okay, so we're back. We're coming to the third topic that we want to chat about around boyhood. And it's the subject of tears of crying. And I'm going to just share a couple of stories. Obviously we have, movies called Boys Don't Cry. That's, a huge part of the script, of, being a boy or a man which, runs really deeply. And I'm going to share a couple of stories about it. I should also say I'm a therapist. I mentioned that at the beginning. I've been a therapist for 17 years. I know, Chris, you've worked in many different areas in the university, and there were times where you certainly heard your share of tears. And I certainly believe that tears, they actually release toxins from your body and they certainly, we have a sense of relief afterwards. But the male script, particularly as a boy, is, you do not want to be seen crying. And one of the scenes that really brought that home to me, of how powerful this script, which is policed so strongly, one of the scenes that brought it home to me was, I was in phys ed class when I was probably about 10 years old. It's amazing the things that happen when you're about 10, like when the world opens up to that, you're beginning to come into sort of early manhood, right? Teenagehood. And this day I think we had one of those substitute phys ed teachers, and there was a movie we were supposed to watch. And so I remember just the boys, maybe the girls were separately learning about, whatever they were learning. And the boys were in this relatively small kind of vestibule type place and there was one of those old reel to reel projectors. And the movie was about dogs. It was about an older guy with a beautiful, probably Labrador. And I think there's something about being nine or ten as a young person and the connection to animals, we were there, we're watching this and You know, I think probably some of us were exchanging hockey cards talking about the Dukes of Hazzard episode we'd seen the night before. But something in this narrative really grabbed us. And in short, the story was there's an older fellow with this beautiful dog, and something happens and the dog is separated from him. And I, from what I remember, the dog helps this younger man, I think maybe even fight off a bear or something. And whatever it is, there's a real connection. And they hang out. And by this time, all the boys are silent. Like, we're in this movie. I think the bear would have really helped that. [00:39:54] Chris: You're invested. [00:39:55] Degan: We're, we're absolutely invested and there. And what happens is, as far as I remember in the end, is that the dog sees, finds the old, the owner, the older owner. But the new person has really connected with the dog. But what I'm remembering now in these last scenes, it's very archetypal. It's the, it's the two roads that never meet. One, the one, the older man is going off in this direction, And the younger is going off here. It brings sort of, it sort of makes me feel a little teary just thinking about it. And the dog runs after the new man and then gets confused and comes back and then runs after the owner and back and forth. And there's a moment where the dog has to choose. And if I'm remembering the dog goes with the younger man. But all I know is, in the moment of this dog's indecision, myself and about four other boys hid under these benches. We were crying and doing anything in our power to stop ourselves crying, however we could contort our bodies myself some other friends. Even one of the big guys who was the toughest and I remember him saying at the end like stupid effing dog or something like that, but really just to mask this, and I remember thinking wow the places we will go to contort from feeling And I just want to say as we engage in these subjects going forward in these episodes. I'm very, very interested in what happens when we do subvert these natural expressions. Because in a way, what that is, is that's an interior life that we have. You know, in the beginning, in the poem, we talked about this exquisite sensitivity. Really, we're just human beings. It's just human beings who, who see this story unfold here about the dogs and say, Oh my gosh, this dog is caught, is really torn between these wonderful people, where are they going to go? What's exquisite really are these contortions that we had to do and how much I believe that, that, that those worlds underneath those remarkable caverns are not seen not delved into. [00:42:17] Chris: Yeah. So it's, it, it is a sad moment. I, I joked with you that like, it seems like the only time a man can cry is maybe at your wedding. And maybe if you're a professional sports player who's retiring, but you better be a famous sports player. And it's like all other times seem to be not okay. And I'm talking as someone who like, if you put me in front of a movie, I will cry at any remotely poignant moment the tears will just stream down my face. But I think it took me a long time to give myself permission to do that. [00:42:58] Degan: And do you think in a way that was a release for all this other stuff that's down there that the movie allowed us? [00:43:04] Chris: Yeah. And you're in the dark, of course. So you can sort of hide it at first, but now I don't care anymore because like I'm too old to worry about that kind of stuff now. But when I was a kid, you know, you, when you're a baby, you can cry. When you're a little kid, you can cry. Crying was was a form of getting what you needed. But then sometime you got the message that boys don't cry. I don't even know where I got it, but I think I was a pretty sensitive little boy and, and so a lot of my natural instincts, I just kind of held to myself and, my teachers always referred to me as quiet. I'm definitely an introvert, but I think also Showing my real feelings was dangerous. Like it made you too sensitive and you weren't going to be a real man, and I don't even have a story around it because it's, it was just sort of there in the culture, but it's funny cause it's like, boys don't cry, but boys also don't kiss, right? And I remember one time a friend of mine, this is around seven or eight, he wanted to kiss me goodbye. And it was around all these adults. And everyone was like, boys don't kiss each other goodbye. And it was like, who cares? Like what, what would have happened if, if that had happened, but it was stopped and we learned our lesson, you know, and why, like what, what difference to anything. Yeah. I don't think it was going to change my sexual orientation, but it was so, so there, that message was so part of it. [00:44:43] Degan: You know, I find that so interesting that when parents or adults make a decision like that, how it reverberates through us, but then how we take that into the schoolyard ourself or into our friends and say, we don't do that. It's like we are deputized or we deputize each other to be this police force of this script of how you be. And, you know, I think, this is a strange piece, right? what I wanted to say, we talked about this earlier, we don't have the answers. Right. This podcast is not saying, okay, even though I've worked with men for a long time, we've really been thinking about this for 30 years. It's not about having the answers, but we do need to live in this society. We do need to manage it. And certainly later on, I'm very interested in the concept of shame, right, in a number of ways. But, you know, I could have used some more tools. [00:45:37] Chris: Right. [00:45:38] Degan: Like my father certainly wasn't a teacher to me and you know do this, don't do that. He was very hands off. So for me it was always like realizing, wow, I actually can't do this. And, there were a couple of years where I learned it way too late. And then I had to really catch up. And then I gathered the tools, some of it was talking back, some of it was using swears to kind of that. Perhaps that earlier cruelty that I was trying out until I could find a way to defend. Not saying it's right to say, don't kiss because how do we invite this? How do we talk? There's different ways to just say that, but there is this learning because and the pain of being ostracized, which is some of my story I'll share in for a number of years that I'll share in other episodes, was devastating. And so to learn these rules, how can we learn them? What is a healthy way to say the script is real? [00:46:33] Chris: Right. [00:46:34] Degan: The script is real and also how can I express myself in ways, know this culture that's around and find a way to mediate it and maybe, yeah, maybe turn it upside down, challenge it here, but not also be so deeply impacted by this policing or ostracization that it's hard to function. [00:46:53] Chris: Right. [00:46:53] Degan: And that, that happens for people. Yeah. There's the trauma piece. [00:46:56] Chris: Yeah, that's a really good point. Like, the world is the world and, and we have to navigate it. So, how do we talk to our boys? And, people I've talked to about this podcast have said, How do you raise boys now? And, I mean, I don't have an answer, I don't have boys. You have a boy. So that's something we'll talk about in the future. And it's a question I really want to address. So let's leave it at that. as you said, Degan, we don't have the answers except we feel that answers come out of talking about it. And that's why we're doing this podcast. So we'll take a break and we'll come back for a final segment and see you soon. [00:47:46] Chris: Okay, welcome back. Before we go, we wanted to have a little fun and do a segment we're calling Question of the Day. Degan and I have each prepared a question for each other, but neither of us knows what that question is going to be. [00:48:07] Degan: And, okay, and I'm going to go first. Or am I? Let's see. We're living in the unknown here. [00:48:14] Chris: You know what? You go first. [00:48:16] Degan: Okay. Okay. I'm going to go first. I know I have like six questions, but I'm going with just one. I'll choose one. Okay. Just to say listeners that Chris and I talk about music a lot and sometimes we'll meet and he'll play a song. I'll play a song and we'll just go on these musical journeys. So I'm curious, Chris if you have a time when music became a force in your life particularly early on, if you have any memory of a band, a song, singing something that, that kind of opened something up for you. [00:48:52] Chris: It's funny because the answer is yes. And It's not like my favorite band now I still like them and it's not my favorite song now, though I still like it, and it would be The Logical Song by Supertramp It's a little bit hokey because it's like when I was young, everything was magical and then I grew up and everything got complicated. [00:49:14] Degan: It's a beautiful boyhood connection though. [00:49:16] Chris: Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And you know, the questions run too deep for such a simple man and, and, you know, this sort of lying awake at night, wondering, wondering who you are in all of this. And it's a really good song too. Like I really, really like listening to it. But I do remember, also kind of being very private about because [00:49:41] Degan: About your love of it you mean [00:49:42] Chris: my love of the song, but even my love of popular music for a while, I was quite private about it because I didn't want anyone to ruin it, you know, cause different people had different tastes and some people didn't like Supertramp and thought they were bad or whatever. And so I held onto that for a long time. Even just listening to the radio I would do in my room by myself. It really wasn't till I was in high school that I shared my love of music. It was the 80s. There was a lot of different music. I was really into 60s music, the Beatles and I was into classic rock and those were the big things. But I was also into the contemporary stuff like the Smiths and Howard Jones and all that kind of thing. But it was really The Logical Song that, [00:50:30] Degan: do you remember what age you were? 'cause you were probably around 10 where you probably, , [00:50:34] Chris: maybe 11 Uhhuh. I remember it was the late seventies and, and actually it was our, our music teacher who played it for us. And I'm like. Oh, wow. Popular music is cool, you know? Yeah. And and so that was, that was yeah, that was a very defining moment for me. [00:50:52] Degan: I have to say, and this is sort of going to seem almost unbelievable. I've known that song for a long time and I learned the piano and the saxophone for it because it was a while back. But just last night, of all things, I went through almost the entire lyrics of that song. I'm going thin. Oh, really? And I went back through, that opening that you talk about, that boy had, like, when I was young. It seemed that life is so wonderful. And then, now you'll be calling me a radical and all these things. Yeah. And yeah, it is cheesy. There is a cheesiness to it, but there's a incre, incredible earnestness in the saxophone solo and the lines, and it's quite a minor song. So it has its undercurrent, but it's this very curious that I, of all days, I would go through the lyrics last night of that. [00:51:40] Chris: Well, you you set me up. Well, . So shall I do my question for you? Okay, so. If you were alone in the woods, would you rather run into a random bear or a random man? [00:52:02] Degan: Wow. As a kid, you mean? No. That's a really good question. [00:52:11] Chris: You haven't heard about this it's a whole social media thing that women were asking each other. [00:52:16] Degan: Would you rather run to a bear or a man? Yeah. Okay. Can I just ask you alone in the woods as in like very far North, like North really cut off from society or on a Bruce trail or? Well, Out of reach of any help. Out of reach of any help. I see. Okay. I am going to say a man. I would rather run into a man. [00:52:44] Chris: Interesting. [00:52:44] Degan: Yeah. And it's funny, as soon as you said it's a social media piece and women are, respond to this, I, I go into that world, right, of it's making me think of a, I will answer more in detail, but it's making me think of a poem by the late poet who wrote, What Does Narcissism Mean to Me? which is a lovely title what's his name? Tony Hoagland. It's a poem where he speaks about walking at night in a park and he can see that there's a woman approaching him alone, there's no one else around. And the whole poem is about how he doesn't make eye contact, how he wants to make himself not threatening, how he moves to the side, and how he says, this interaction even, he is the threat. He is the threat here. But I think if, yeah, if I'm in the forest and it's, Algonquin Park and I'm happening to be on my own and I meet a man, I will say this. I mean even when I walk in Dufferin Grove Park at night, if I go for a jog at 11 o'clock, that park has had, you know, there's some stuff that goes on there. There's, let's look at the city. There's a lot of addiction right now. There's a lot of mental health stuff. There's a lot of pain out in the city and there are a lot of people who are in that pain. And so when I go out after 11 o'clock, I will carry a set of keys with me and I will, just in case there's something happening, I've got a key and I think, well, you know what, if I have to put it in my fist and really defend myself, I'm not a big guy. I'm going to do what I can. And so I, if I were to meet someone in the forest, I would definitely. Be my my senses I'd be vigilant and I'd be what is this person and you can tell a lot very quickly, right? Some friendly dude who's like, oh lovely day, isn't it? Right or someone who? Who what for whatever reason is in another world? So in that way, I would be i'd be vigilant and i'd be ready. But yeah a bear, a bear is another thing altogether. And so I choose a man, [00:54:47] Chris: You know what, the majority of women answered [00:54:50] Degan: Bear [00:54:51] Chris: And men freaked out . [00:54:54] Degan: Aha. [00:54:54] Chris: And that's a whole that's a whole thing. That might actually start to inspire other topics [00:55:02] Degan: Absolutely. [00:55:02] Chris: For future episodes because, I get it, you know, like, you know. Even a friendly man. You and I might be, if they're friendly, that's, we can probably tell that they're going to be okay. But I think if I was a woman, I might go with the bear myself. [00:55:20] Degan: I mean, if we think about that poem, that Tony Hoagland poem, that's, that's in a park where if you scream, you might be heard. Right. But you put it almost makes sense. [00:55:28] Final Thoughts --- [00:55:28] Degan: Chris, we had talked about this before recording today, this idea of, we're two white guys talking about men. Right. And this is a time in history when when men have had the microphone for a long time. But I just want to say, the investigation and the exploration of men, particularly what we might want to call this other dream of man, right in the poem at the beginning invite out this other dream of man. Men are at the heart of a lot of pain. I think they're in a lot of pain and I think they're at the heart of a lot of pain, a lot of violence. And I think to go in and to look at this interior, to look at these places that kept us from tears, that brought us to a slaughterhouse to say, learn to be a man in this way. It's really worth investigating these caverns and finding out what's there. Yes, we need to be tough, but we need to also look at, I think, that sensitivity and that expression and find out what's down there. And that's certainly one of the interests that I think I am interested in, and that we can exchange back and forth in these podcasts. [00:56:31] Chris: Well, I think you've really summed up very nicely. I think we'll we'll end it there. [00:56:36] Degan: Wonderful. [00:56:37] Chris: So we will say, please give us a review on your favorite podcast platform. If you could give us five stars that would help us get more listeners and feel free to get in touch. I am at cgarbutt, C-G-A-R-B-U-T-T on X slash Twitter and Chris Garbutt zero nine on Threads. Degan. Is there a way our listeners can get in touch with you? [00:57:00] Degan: We would love to hear from you and the thought that this conversation can expand is wonderful. I'm doing a Master's in Creative Nonfiction and Fiction, and the email is degan, D E G A N. Period. Davis, D A V I S, at V C F A dot E D U, [00:57:23] Chris: we look forward to being in your speakers again soon. Join us next week for the next episode of [00:57:29] Degan: What Kind of Man Are You? What kind of man are you? Is hosted by Chris Garbutt and Degan Davis, produced by Chris Garbutt at VQC Media. You can support our venture at buymeacoffee.com/chrisgarbutt. You can buy Degan's book at brickbooks.ca and thanks to all our supporters and listeners.