Born in Winnipeg
and educated at TCI.
But school wasn’t my thing
cuz I was a music guy

Most of what I know
I learned while shooting pool
But all I ever cared about learing, 
was how to be cool

As I was saying , music was dominating my life but then I also start driving and dating so School was a train wreck.
Noticing my disinterest, a few of the teachers were already hinting that perhaps intellectual pursuits may not be my cup of tea and some of them were even suggesting that I should consider becoming an apprentice at the CNR.
The only teacher at TCI who appeared to give a damn about me was George Derenchuk. (pictured above)
Mr. Derenchuk who was a rookie teacher, said to us in his first class, “Ok, I want the brains to the back, and I want Johns, Quail, and Ringach, up front here with me.”

We knew nothing about him, but it was apparent that he’d done his homework on us.
Once up there, he said to us, “Ok, if you jokers will give me 20 minutes of your undivided attention at the beginning of each class, we’ll spend the rest of the time talkin’ football.”

Not only was his class fun because of all the football talk, but the first twenty minutes were pretty interesting too.
Hell, I even ended up with an ‘A’ in his class which was the only A I ever gotHowever, my daughter Candis claims he was probably the only teacher smart enough to give me one. 

A few years ago when I was back in Winnipeg for an overdue reunion at CKY, my good friend Jim Quail arranged a surprise lunch for us with Mr. Darrenchuk.
Once again, he knew everything about the both of us so we spent the whole time talking about him. Candis had gotten it right about his smarts because too long after both Jim and I had left school, he went on to become the principal and then the Superintendent of Schools. RIP, sir. 
While growing up, I spent a lot of my time playing baseball and hockey but the sport I loved the most was football.
Unfortunately, there was no football team in Transcona so even though I’d quit baseball because I was more into music, when I heard that they were starting a team up in the fall, I was very excited.

The new team was called the Transcona Nationals and Mr. Cockburn was our coach.
Coby as he was known, didn’t have any problem handling a bunch of Transcona “tuffs” with authority issues, but the one he rode the hardest was his son Huey who was our Quarterback

Hugh had a gun for an arm and consistently threw 60-yard touchdown passes to our “Touchdown Twins,” Jimmy Harrison and Ermanno Barone.
Before long, not only were we one of the best teams in the league, we were also the most penalized.

I have no idea why the referees always had problems with us?
I think Lo Lo explained it best after throwing his helmet at a guy’s head which brought him to his knees when he said, “Hey, what was I supposed to do? He’s a track star; there was no way I was going to catch him.”

Was it our fault that the uppity prep school team we were leading 53 – 0 at halftime refused to come out for the second half?
It was just as well; I guess because they were taking so many timeouts so they could drag their injured players off the field, the game was taking forever.
I also think it showed very poor sportsmanship like conduct when their parents booed us as we were getting back on our bus.

Unfortunately, when the championship game rolled around, the referees were waiting for us.
They had grown weary of our antics all season and took their revenge out on us early. They penalized us on almost every play, and they even went as far as to eject some of our best players.

Being a Transcona National was a great experience, not only was I proud of being one, but it also gave me my first taste of fame.
The fame came about when Bill Burdeyny, the sports editor for the Transcona News, began writing about us. Bill was a great writer, but I suspect that we may have given him some exciting stuff to write about.

One of my favorite things that Bill wrote was, “Not only are the Transcona Nationals, a good football team, they’re also great Canadians. They’ve figured out how to bring a little hockey to the game.”

The Transcona News came out every Thursday, and every Thursday, there we were lined up waiting for the paper to come off the press. (and yes, some 60 years later, I do still have all the clippings)
What with Bill’s writing and our swagger, we were beginning to create a small buzz in Transcona, and before long, we had lots of folks at our games.

Even though the refs put an end to our unbeaten season, we didn’t go down without a fight, but then again, fighting was why this story doesn’t have a better ending.
Even though we were disappointed, the arrival of our team jackets lifted our spirits, and we wore them like badges of honor.
Even at our 50th team reunion, a few of the guys were still wearing theirs with pride. Mine had disappeared long ago, but my good friend Jim Quail surprised me with a brand new one which I proudly wore as we discussed that final game, perhaps for the last time.
(Sadly, of the four Transcona Nationals shown in the team jackets above, I’m the only one left standing. RIP guys.) 

A couple of years later when I moved to Indianapolis to become the National PD of Fairbanks Broadcasting, Jack now owned a research company called Ram Research but before buying any of his stuff, I insisted that he cut me some promos.

It’s bad enough that radio executives today get to pay themselves exorbitant salaries, but the worse part is that they also get to decide how much the rest of us make.

When Sputnik went up into the sky years ago, it changed the way we lived because we realized that we were now on the world stage.

Are addicts the best liars in the world or what?

Being a so-called privileged old white guy, I’m wondering when all those privileges are gonna show up?

Had Germany and Japan had won the war, do you think the same wealthy people would be running America that runs it today?

Why do they call it “sleeping around” when sleeps not involved?

Why do women feel safe saying things that a man would be deathly afraid to say to another man?

Do the Pats refer to themselves as being from New England or Boston?

If white people are responsible for all the bad things that have happened, then they must be responsible for good things too?

Unhappiness is the result of your expectations exceeding your talent.

You never tire of reliving a happy memory.

You usually have to take a detour around failure on your way to success.

My folks bought a new home
in a suburb called Transcona
That’s where I started High School
and began dating Lana

Even though I couldn’t dance, I spent my first summer in Transcona going to every dance I could find. Once there though, I would just stand in front of the speakers listening to the music and could actually feel myself going through some sort of metamorphosis. My parents never realized that the guy who left home that hot night in July for his first dance, never returned.
When I started high school at TCI that fall it was already too late, the music had got to me which meant that any educational aspirations my folks may have held for me were done for. However, I must admit that even though I was only at the dance to hear the music, I did notice all the “pretty things” out on the dance floor. Back in those days, other than trying to sneak in a slow grinder in now and then, none of the guys knew how to dance so the girls had no choice but to dance with each other.
My friend Rolly Blaquiere and I soon figured out that if we ever hoped to capture the hearts of some sweet things, we needed to learn how to dance. However, learning to dance required that we do it hidden in my basement because when you’re from Transcona, there’s no way we could be seen dancing with each other. We spent many a night down there stumbling around to Elvis and Fats Domino records before finally becoming dancin’ fools.
Our learning to dance worked like magic and soon all the young ladies were asking us to dance so we took our act on the road. I don’t know what we were thinking but we were lucky the locals didn’t beat the sh*t beat out of us when the girls all over Winnipeg, lined up to dance with us.
Rolly and I spent the whole summer just dancing our asses off with no idea that in a few years the folks would be dancing their asses off to our music when we formed The Jury.
Even though I was really into music and dancing, I still loved baseball and remember the day when even that began to change. Our coach gathered us around him at baseball practice one day and then pointed his bat out to centerfield where some pretty girls were hanging out. In no uncertain terms, he said, “You stay away from the likes of them because they’ll ruin your baseball career.” Even though we had no idea what the hell he was talking about, sure enough, about halfway through the season, most of us were out in the field chatting them up instead of taking batting practice. Our coach wasn’t a brilliant man, but he was right about one thing, I never played baseball again.
Being fifteen was a terrible age, you’re too old to ride a bike and too young to drive so you had to walk everywhere. One late afternoon near the end of the school year, I popped into the Oxford Grill to load up on some fries for my long walk home. While standing there waiting for my chips, once again my destiny showed up. However this time it was in the form of a girl who I spotted in the adjoining banquet hall celebrating her graduation from middle school with her classmates.
After finding out that her name was Lana, I decided right then and there that I would stay another year in the ninth grade so that I could help guide her through her year in High School. Hey, it was the least I could do for the girl who would become my wife and eventually present me with the precious little thing who would cause me to dream yet another dream. Well, that’s my story, and I’m sticking to it.

Geo’s Life-Liners.

Philosophical
Thinking you know something is what keeps you from learning anything.

Hearing good advice requires more smarts than giving advice does.

A good friend is somebody who laughs at your bad jokes and sympathizes with you even when your problems add up to nothing.

The only thing that’s limitless is our imagination.

If we could get politicians to stop dry humping Big Business, America could be great again.