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

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

As I was saying, music was dominating my life, but now I was also driving and dating, so School was a train wreck.
Noticing my disinterest, some of my teachers had hinted that intellectual pursuits might not be my cup of tea.
The only teacher at TCI who appeared to give a damn about me was George Derenchuk. (pictured above)
Mr. Derenchuk, a rookie teacher during our first class together, said, “Ok, I want the brains to the back, and I want Johns, Quail, and Ringach upfront with me.”

We knew nothing about him, but apparently, he’d done his homework on us.
Once we were up there, he said, “Ok, here’s the deal, if you jokers give me 20 minutes of your undivided attention at the beginning of each class, we’ll spend the next 20 minutes talkin’ football.”

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

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 us, so we spent the whole time talking about him.

Candis had gotten it right because not long after Jim and I had left school, Mr. Darrenchuk became the Principal and then Superintendent of Schools. RIP, sir. 
While growing up, I spent a lot of time playing baseball and hockey, but the sport I loved the most was football.
Unfortunately, there was no football team in Transcona, so when I heard that they were starting a  team in the fall, I was very excited.(I’m on the far left of the second from the front, holding a football in the photo above)

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.