Temper And Tenacity

A Short Memoir of Allan Doner (1948-2004)

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1. Something Big

On a Monday morning in the spring of 1960 I arrived at Richardson elementary school to behold my first childhood glimpse of seditious graffiti. The previous evening an anonymous artist working with apple pulp on white stucco had scribed a short statement on our schoolhouse wall which had oxidized overnight into a highly visible burgundy. It was next to a large tarmac-surfaced play area. This location had obviously been selected for maximum public exposure.

I was the first student in the schoolyard that morning and thus the first witness. There was a window of opportunity available to alter history. I could have wiped off the dark pulp or somehow rendered the letters illegible. But that would have run the risk of being seen and possibly mistaken for the perpetrator. So I did not act. Instead, I stood by while other students began entering the schoolyard. They also saw firsthand what I realized in my adulthood was as a superb example of genuine home grown rebellion. But at the time, my nine-year-old brain had only the intellectual capacity to sense the deep conviction contained in the message before me.

In a breathtakingly short time the news traveled to the school principal Dr. Brown who rushed out to see the great proclamation: "Shit on Martins". The letters were two feet high in a striking bold font. The correct spelling and capitalization served only to deepen the insult. Before classes began other teachers randomly appeared to observe in somber-faced silence. Then finally, Mr. Martins himself who was also expressionless. By day's end not a single student remained unaware something highly irregular had occurred.

Mr. Martins taught one of the grade 5 classes. He was a relatively young man but nonetheless known as difficult and authoritarian. In fact he was a tyrant. In the course of the nearly completed school year he had managed to provoke someone into a shockingly defiant act.

None of the students in my small circle of grade four classmates had the slightest idea who could have been responsible. But as usual in cases of outrageous schoolyard behaviour, somebody told someone something and the identity of the insurgent was soon revealed.

Over the following three weeks I noticed a boy washing school windows for about two hours each night after class. He seemed too big to be an elementary school student and yet too small to be an adult. He was not particularly enthusiastic about his work. I wondered why he got stuck with unnecessary school maintenance.

There was no way to know that this oversized preadolescent boy up on a ladder, with bucket and rag, swabbing away at already spotless windows, was the graffiti author himself, Allan Doner. Nor could I conceive that he would become my partner in childhood mischief, my collaborator in both science and music, my fearless protector and lifelong friend.

2. Ink Blots and Outer Space

I began grade 5 the following September in Miss Olson's class and counted myself lucky. The seating arrangement had me near the back of the room. In fact, there was only one student behind me. That was Allan who was repeating the fifth grade for reasons you may have already guessed. Curiously, he was not selected for Mr. Martins class that year. Allan had also repeated the second grade and therefore was two years older than myself and most of the class. Naturally, he was quite a bit bigger too. And he was a big lad to begin with.

In those days elementary school students were not trusted with ballpoint pens or even fountain pens. It was believed learning to write properly necessitated old fashioned scratch pens dipped incessantly into small bottles of watery ink located in holes at the corner of each desktop. It was a messy business that did nothing to improve penmanship Many pints of ink were wasted, most of which ended up as hideous blotter stains.

Allan was as a classic bored student but he occasionally made productive use of his time by blotting his ink pen on the back collar of my corduroy shirt. He found he could produce some interesting designs resulting from the capillary action of ink soaking into cotton fibres. Allan was fascinated by this.

My mother wasn't quite as impressed. She eventually pried out of me the name of the boy who had marked up my shirts. "You are not to associate with this 'Allan Doner' boy and you are to tell your teacher immediately if he does it again", she said. Given Allan's size I found the thought of having to tattle on him disturbing. I knew by then that he had been responsible for the 'Martins incident' of the previous year. I decided to simply ask him to please quit doing it.

It worked. Before long Allan found other ways to deal with the day-to-day tedium. He begin to take an interest in what was happening in class. Needless to say Miss Olson was far more appealing than Mr. Martins. She was young, smart, attractive and understood the psychology of handling a class full of rowdy kids. Somehow she managed to instil in us an interest in science. The timing was perfect. By the spring of 1961 President Kennedy, in a belated response to the 1957 launch of the Soviet satellite 'Sputnik', had just declared that America should devote itself to landing a man on the moon before the end of the sixties.

Allan and I became partners in a class project involving the study of astronomy. We read everything typical grade 5 students could get their hands on concerning our solar system, galaxy and universe. Our project required us to gather all newspaper and magazine clippings that were even remotely connected to the goings-on at NASA. We came to care deeply about the space race and followed its progress fanatically. We desperately wanted to play some kind of role. Eventually we did, even though it was pure fantasy.

3. Brooke Road

We both lived on Brooke Road. In some ways it might as well have been Tobacco Road. It was a rural environment with relatively few houses situated on multi-acre lots. Our houses were about a quarter mile apart on the leading edge of the residential development of North Delta at that time. Beyond Brooke Road to the west was largely undeveloped bush and bog we both spent time exploring. Until I became an adult I lacked a full appreciation for the now diminishing treasure we had just beyond our backyards. It was our private turf completely devoid of adults. Technically, we had no legal right to wander on this land. But just being kids granted us effective title. There were endless ponds, trails, trees, hills, gullies, streams, train tracks, trestles, and all manner of insect and reptilian life. Much more than either Allan or I could fully encompass within a single boyhood.

It was very safe by today's standards. This is not to say we didn't come up with innovative ways to risk serious injury. But the dangers we nowadays associate with the evil adult world were not present. Parents thought nothing of sending out preadolescent children unsupervised into the weeds for an entire day with a the full expectation they would return intact at dinnertime.

Allan lived in a frame house with two bedrooms on the main floor. It had a full basement and a steep roof where his father, Keith, had built two attic bedrooms. Allan's sister Arleigh had one of the bedrooms. Allan shared the other with his younger brother Dale. Keith was a very handy man and had done a fine job on the construction. Allan and Dale each had their own side of the bedroom with identical built-in dressers that conformed to the slope of the roof making maximum use of the available space. The floors had shiny slippery tiles and each brother had a narrow bed under the low sides of the ceiling. A single window on the gable end of the house offered a view of the cleared portion of the Doner's land. This is where Allan and I would conduct several future escapades.

My family lived in a ranch style house on a large building lot about a quarter of a mile down the road. The first time Allan came to my house we both realized there was a problem regarding the matter of ink blots and culpability. My mother already knew that Allan Doner was the 'ink blot boy' but she had never met him. We had become fiends in spite of the shirt markings and I didn't want her tossing him out of the house the moment she saw him. This turned out to be a serious misreading of my mother's nature although we didn't realize it until later. We decided to introduce Allan to my mother using a bogus surname. "Mom, this is Allan Huisken". The name was supplied to me by Allan himself. I thought it had a nice believable ring to it. Actually, the Huisken's were a local pioneer family which my mother had probably heard of and would probably soon meet. Clearly, we hadn't thought the plan out that well.

Mom was on to our deception immediately. I'm not sure how, but she knew this was Allan Doner, the actual ink blot boy himself. Fortunately, she was a very forgiving soul. She realized we had become friends and understood the logic behind our childish reasoning. In fact, she found the whole incident rather amusing and to our relief she decided to let it drop. "What did you think I was going to do to" she asked me later, "slap him across the face and make him do a few loads of laundry"? My mother grew quite fond of Allan and he was always welcome in our home after that. Allan always felt that my mother was an extremely kind person.

4. Rocket Science

We conducted serious scientific research in Allan's basement. That's where we designed and built our rockets. Allan's dad had one of those heavy thick wooden workbenches with a large vice on one end. There were two toolboxes. One contained the tools we were allowed to use and the other was locked and contained the tools we were to keep our hands off. Keith was very particular about the difference. Regardless, we were resourceful lads and had at our disposal all we really needed.

We built rockets by soldering together tin cans. Not just any tin cans. They had to be baby food tin cans because they were the right shape and diameter for technical reasons I have long since forgotten. Empty baby food cans were scarce. We found ourselves raiding the garbage cans of a family whom we knew had infant children. Eventually we tried just asking them if they would save empty cans for us. They assumed (somewhat correctly) we were involved in some unimaginable form of tomfoolery and refused. We reverted back to raiding their garbage cans after dark.

Eventually, we had enough cans to build a few three-stage rockets but we had no idea how the stages might separate in flight and what fuel might be used for propulsion. Allan didn't seem to care. First and foremost they had to look like rockets. Neither of us felt shame in placing form ahead of function.

In addition to the main body we needed a nose cone, fins and of course, the fun part, 'propulsion jets'. The nose cone and fins we fashioned from flattened out pieces of ordinary cans. These were soldered to the main body using a propane torch, which was another of Keith's tools we weren't allowed to use, but he finally caved in on that.

We never got around to actually building propulsion jets but we still wanted to power our rocket somehow. Compressed air seem like an good idea. We attached a bicycle tire air valve and pumped in pressure until the rocket bulged precariously close to the bursting point. We opened the valve. The air rush out. The rocket went nowhere. We tried loading the rocket with various gas producing concoctions of water mixed with baking soda or fruit salts. All we achieved was a foamy mess beneath our glorified tin tube. The rocket failed to budge.

As luck would have it we managed to obtain a box of dynamite. I wasn't actually present when the dynamite was 'procured'. I was never really sure where it came from since Allan had found it 'somewhere in a shed' with another guy who shall remain nameless. But it was real dynamite. Or rather, 'Stumping powder' to be precise. This material was only 20% nitro-glycerine but we felt that if this didn't get one of our rockets off the ground it was time to switch careers.

We cracked open a waxy stick and poured the coarse powder into a rocket. It was about that time we discovered inhalation of nitro-glycerine fumes yields a rather bad headache. But neither of us were going to let trifles stand in the way of real science. We ignored our pounding heads and fashioned a short fuse out of gasoline soaked paper which extended from the bottom of the rocket. We set the rocket on our launching pad. This was actually a giant flat boulder in Allan's backyard (which was ironically dynamited for real 10 years later when a subdivision was built on Keith's property). We didn't perceive this as the outrageously stupid behavior it clearly was but we did realize this thing could blow if we weren't careful. It had happened at Cape Canaveral more than once. We lit the fuse and ran for cover behind the nearby chicken coop.

The fuse burned vigorously up to the bottom of the rocket, smouldered for a while and then... nothing. Apparently the fuse had extinguished itself before igniting the propellant. Damn! I finally decided to approach the rocket and blow vigorously at the bottom attempting to re-ignite the fuse. It didn't work. Allan was always fond of recalling my stupidity that day and claimed it was positive proof I was beyond crazy.

Severely disillusioned, we started a fire and burned the remaining sticks of dynamite. That seemed a reasonable method of disposal. I recall that stumping powder burns with an attractive blue flame. The only other time we came as close to engineering our own self-destruction was when we fashioned a working flame-thrower from a weed sprayer filled with pressurized gasoline. But that wasn't science. That was just dumb.

We brought our space program to a close. However, before we packed it up for good we tore the electronics out of an old transistor radio and mounted it to the inside of one of our rockets. We managed to convince some gullible local kids that it was a remote control radio system we had under development. They ran off to tell their friends that we were geniuses Allan felt that image was an important component of the space race. He was right about that.

5. The Fort

We next became involved in a very ambitious construction project known as 'The Fort'. Most boys who grow up in a rural environment build some kind of fort in their career. But try to clear your mind of the tacky little cardboard and haywire structures usually knocked up by your average 12-year-olds on a Saturday afternoon. This was an entirely new order of backyard construction and we weren't joking around.

Within a decade or so much of the Doner's land would be sold and the trees mowed down to make way for the expanding subdivisions of North Delta. But in 1962 Allan and I were responsible for the original improvements. We built a bona fide log cabin. We cut down trees by hand with an axe and a bucksaw. No chainsaws for us. Just as well given the cavalier attitude we had already demonstrated towards our personal safety.

We tied ropes around our waists and dragged logs from the far reaches of Keith's land to our building site. We laboriously notched each one by hand and began wall construction. The logs were long and heavy taking every scrap of strength we could muster to lift and lever them into place. Stage one was completed in about a year. We laboured through the summer and fall of 1962 and through the summer of 1963 until just before we started high school. We worked like slaves on the project for the better part of two years.

We had no trouble understanding how log walls should be built but proved quite unskilled at constructing a roof. After several attempts we were left with a feeble, leaky structure that we didn't dare walk upon. It was then that Allan's dad took pity on us and showed us how to build a roof properly. Keith showed us how to level off the top of the log walls and position rafters. He instructed us in the proper application of sheathing, roofing paper, joint sealing and of course, the correct use of his tools.

It was no secret to me that Allan and his dad did not get along particularly well. I personally felt that Keith was a distant and difficult fellow. But I knew he was smart and extremely capable. To this day I'm confident I can build a rafter roof on a small structure if I'm ever called upon to do so. That much I owe to Keith.

The project moved into phase two. This was essentially an extension to the existing fort equal in size to what we had already completed. It involved yet more logs dragged in from ever further afar. It placed new demands on our limited human boy-power.

Anyone who knew Allan also knew he had a quick temper. Whenever a log wouldn't fit, a tree wouldn't move, a tool wouldn't cooperate or a board wouldn't fit, he began a slow burn which I learned to take as a solid sign to stand clear. Sometimes a hammer or a saw would fly by. Sometimes a plank was hurled deep into the bush. Or he would just curse angrily and I would make myself scarce until he regained his composure. I learned that comments like "well… it's your own fault you know" were entirely counterproductive.

Allan was no quitter. He had a tremendous capacity to work like a bull in the midst of his own frustration. He believed that uncooperative tools and ill fitting material could sense his anger and be intimidated into proper behaviour. I began to believe it myself because things actually got done. Allan willed it so. I did my best to be productive because you don't want to dampen that kind of spirit in your friends. He never went quite so far as taking out his frustrations directly on me. He came close a few times perhaps but always stopped short of crossing that line. Lucky for me. Not so lucky for a few less favored guys he came into contact with in the coming years.

The fort was finished and the science continued. We'd developed quite a penchant for chemistry. This followed naturally from our earlier work with dynamite. At school we were beginning to do some practical experiments. We were seduced by the look and feel of the apparatus involved in much the same way we were influenced by B-movies on black-and-white television depicting the laboratories of demented scientists. We stocked our fort workbench with whatever test tubes, flasks, beakers, condensers, burners, rubber hoses and chemicals we could find.

These things were very expensive. You could pay upwards of two dollars for a decent Florence flask. Even a two-holed rubber stopper was going for over fifty cents in those days. Allan was the only one with any income to speak of. He had a paper route best described as 'inconvenient'. It ran along the river and doubled back a few times. There were long distances between houses. Several customers were always slow to pay their bills. Nevertheless, I often helped Allan with his papers. Him on his heavy 1940's style bike with fat tires and an enormous front carrier. Myself on a candy-apple red three-speed. Each month we would use a small amount of Allan's $20 profit to buy a beaker or few feet of glass tubing. Or indeed, anything that looked vaguely scientific.

Our research usually involved the hunt for a compound that would either explode or burn a hole clean through the middle of a piece of plywood. We got our hands on the formula for gunpowder but we never produced anything that functioned to our satisfaction. But the lab looked pretty cool. Allan felt that image was an important part of chemistry. I agreed.

Throughout the entire fort experience we remained unaware that we were not actually building a hideaway made of logs. Piece by piece we were forging our individual bridges to manhood. Now we had the best fort ever built in North Delta. It was brimming with cool scientific looking stuff and no one ever came around to tell us we had to shut it all down. It didn't get any better than that. At least it wasn't going to get any better until we got some girls out there.

Puberty had already called upon Allan and it was knocking furiously at my own door. We manage to convince a couple of girls, Jeannie and her cousin Joan, to visit the fort. They were from our grade seven class at school. At first, it was an awkward experience and they didn't seem overly impressed with the laboratory angle but they thought the fort itself was quite impressive. They were kind enough to flirt with us in very innocent ways and we pretended there was more to it than there really was.

They visited us several times before Allan and I finally outgrew the fort scene. Instinctively, we realized that cars would be the next step if we wanted to make inroads with the local girls. What we didn't realize is that they would eventually supply the car. Two years later, Jeannie's 15-year-old cousin Joan, the more radical of the two, stole her mother's Chevy and took it out for a joy ride one Saturday night. The girls stopped by and asked us if we wanted to take a spin with them. Hey. Is the pope Catholic?

We drove all the way to South Delta. On the way back Joan put the car into a ditch by a farmer's field at about 50 miles an hour. Allan, who was sitting beside Joan in the front seat had the presence of mind to reach over and crank the steering wheel hard left. This caused us to bounce out of the ditch and come to rest on the opposite side of the road facing oncoming traffic. Fortunately, no traffic was oncoming at the time.

We jumped out of the car in a slightly dazed condition and surveyed the damage. About 100 pounds of wet grass sods clung to the bottom of the car and some minor dents and scratches adorned the passenger side paint. We took a few minutes to compose ourselves and Joan managed to drive us and herself home without further incident. We never found out how she explained the damage to her mother. She soon moved way to another school district and we never saw much of her after that. Jeannie stayed in North Delta for years and married her high school sweetheart which was neither Allan or myself.

6. Photography

When I was about fifteen I had a job caring for a neighbour's house while they went on vacation for couple of months. One day I took Allan over there with me while I cut the lawn. I took him downstairs to show him the homeowner's photography darkroom. I had a passing interest in it since it looked vaguely 'scientific' and I thought Allan might like to have a look.

To say he was quite taken with the darkroom would be an understatement. I couldn't pry him out of the place. He told me it was the greatest thing he'd ever seen. Imagine shooting, developing and enlarging your own pictures. I tried to imagine it but drew no particular inspiration. I had always felt that pictures were something my mother took on her cheap Kodak Brownie camera. But Allan had just found a terribly important calling. In the years that followed he began to buy ever more expensive cameras, lenses and associated equipment. He built his own darkroom and produced hundreds of unique artistic black-and-white blowups. In a few more years he would be teaching night school courses on the subject.

In the early seventies he dropped out of site for two years working in a lumber mill on steady graveyard shift. He saved nearly every dime he earned. He used the money to buy a failing photography studio on Kingsway in Burnaby which he somehow turned into a profitable venture. The previous owner had burned himself out in the business and let it go reasonably cheap. I have no doubt that Allan willed that studio back into viability. Although a serious amount of hard work and sacrifice was also in the mix.

Weddings are the bread-and-butter of the photography business. Allan must have shot a thousand of them. One day he explained to me the purpose of the photographer at a wedding. It had only an incidental relationship with the mechanics of taking pictures. That main tasks are to quell the atmosphere of anxiety, suppress the inevitable dysfunction and gently herd uncooperative extended families into appropriate positions so the blessed event could be duly recorded. But you still had to take some damned good pictures or you weren't going to get paid. I had trouble wrapping my mind around the concept of not paying Allan for his work.

Self-employment is an extremely difficult way to make a living. We both tried our hands at it. Allan was far more successful than I and he remained in the photography business for about 15 years. There should be a law that each year of self-employment is counted as the equivalent of three years in a cushy government non-job with a pension to match. Under those rules Allan could have retired at the age of 40. In my opinion he would have deserved it.

7. Rebellion

Allan was an overt rebel. I understood early on the essential component of his personality. Courage. He feared no one. He didn't feign bravery. He was born with the real thing. I never saw him shy away from a fight. I never knew him to back down from a confrontation with anyone. He told me once that he couldn't respect anyone just because they held a position of power. His respect could be earned only with actions and deeds. It was unfailingly true for teachers, employers, police or any face of authority.

In elementary school they often felt the need to subject Allan to corporal punishment. He possessed high intelligence but simply did not fit into the crude educational models of the time. That was problematic. Today, he would be recognized as a very bright boy with behavioural problems but nothing that couldn't be helped with some encouragement and understanding. In the early sixties he was unjustly miscast in the role of 'bad seed' and given up upon by the public school system. It was their failure, not his.

Allan once was a participant in one of principal Brown's rare group strappings. This involved five boys who had been responsible for some disturbance the full details of which escape me. But I do remember Allan was the first to take five very hard whacks across each open palm. He remained calm and made no sound. In the meantime, the remaining tough boys who waited in line for their turn had regressed into a chorus of pathetic blubbering. I suspect Dr Brown may have had at least one bad night dreaming about the steely resolve in Allan's blue eyes as he brought down his leather strap.

I had to admire it. I still do to this day. The principal had failed to earn Allan's respect and there was no chance that he ever would. Many years later when Allan was displaying his photography at the Pacific National Exhibition, the elderly Dr. Brown happened to pass by. Maybe he was surprised that Allan had not found his way into prison. Allan took the opportunity to remind the good doctor that his life became a success in spite of the school system and not because of it.

I was a rebel too. Also a coward. It was mighty handy to be tight with a guy like Allan. I was completely inept in the confrontation department. Being his obvious close friend, it never became much of a problem. I was spared many potential beatings and harassment throughout high school. To thump on me was tantamount to a poking at a sleeping pit bull with a sharp stick. The average palookas walking the halls of North Delta High School just wasn't that that dumb.

One Saturday we met up with three thugs from another school in front of the local general store hangout. They didn't care much for Allan. It was an alpha male dominance issue. They were ready to fight. I was ready to run. Allan was ready to make a point.

At first they had a modicum of honour. They would put forth their best guy to fight Allan, one-on-one, fair and square. They didn't pay much attention to me. I clearly wasn't a contender. Allan had their guy on the ground in a flash and reformed a few facial features with his adept fist work. When the other two realized their buddy was certain to lose badly, their honour fizzled out and they piled on. I tried to pull at least one of them off but without much success. The possibility of a clean fight had evaporated. The guy already on his back wasn't going to be getting up for a while. Allan now had little choice but to use his boots. One deft kick sent one of them into an instant gender identity crisis. The third punk wisely conceded defeat at that point. He would have his hands full helping his pals limp home in disgrace. You see this kind of scene in the movies and don't believe it for a moment. That day I saw it for real.

Just before Allan left us I made sure he understood I was aware of taking shelter under his bravery in our formative years and thanked him for it. Even today, when some fool is disrupting an entire neighborhood with irritating antisocial behaviour it occurs to me how quickly peace would be restored if only we could send Allan Donor over for a short friendly visit. Al is gone but that thought somehow still brings me comfort.

8. Booze

Although we never took up tobacco smoking, as we approached our middle to late teenaged years we did experiment with alcohol in its capacity as a social lubricant. Allan had a special talent for looking very much of legal drinking age in the dim light of a Saturday night. It was most convenient. A local boy named Arnold whose parents never seemed to be home on the weekend had a large unfinished basement area where we could party. He was very generous with it.

On many weekends 15 to 20 of our contemporaries, both male and female, would have Allan call the local taxi company and place an order for a variety of liquor store items. When the taxi arrived Allan would greet the driver in Arnold's driveway and pay for the goods. This kind of thing he did with exquisite confidence. The drinking age was 21 in those days. Allan looked close enough to 21 to satisfy the minimal requirements of any taxi driver who had already dropped $50 of his own money on booze for clients of questionable legality. Allan would tip the driver handsomely and the festivities began.

One night, after consuming a copious amount of vodka, Allan became fall-down-drunk and it was my duty to deal with the situation. I managed to drag him the 2 miles back to my parent's house after everyone had gone to bed. Like Allan, I also had an attic bedroom albeit not quite as well finished. We stumbled our way up there without rousing either of my parents. But there was another problem. Allan developed a serious case of the dry heaves. And they weren't so dry at first. Taking him downstairs to pitch up in the one and only bathroom next to my parents bedroom was out of the question. So I removed the small trapdoor that provided access into a side storage area, pushed Allan in and let him chuck on the rock wool insulation between the floor joists. He had quite a night. I thought he might leave behind a few internal organs. But the night passed and no one ever found out about it although Allan discovered what a hangover was all about.

About a month later I had my turn. After consuming a pint of gin one night I returned with Allan to his house were I stayed the night in his bedroom. I became sick in a way that rivalled his earlier performance. He didn't have the luxury of a private attic puke space but he generously offered up his aquarium for my convenience. Fortunately it was devoid of any aquatic life at the time. Allan's parents never found out. I likewise came to personally understand the term hangover. How many childhood friends can claim they secretly barfed in each other's attic?

9. Music

In the fall of 1964 when we were starting grade nine a boy from the Prairies named Malcolm appeared on the scene. He lived across the street from me and began hanging around with us. We involved ourselves in the usual pastimes available to teenagers in junior high school. This included a lot of bitching about having no tangible access to cars, money, girls, cool clothes or respect.

One day as we sat complaining in Allan's attic bedroom we started pounding on his old out of tune acoustic guitar. Malcolm discovered that by choking the neck at various points along the neck while playing a choppy rhythm on the strings he could make a sound vaguely like that of the rhythm guitar in the popular instrumental tune 'Wild Weekend'. That is, if we really put our imaginations to task. Allan thought Malcolm was on to something.

All three of us were rock and roll fanatics. We usually had our ears glued to Vancouver's CFUN radio which then was the only teenage music game in town. Allan was nuts about Elvis Presley and often dragged me down to the Paramount Theatre in New Westminster whenever his latest movie came out. I didn't mind Elvis music but I hated Elvis movies. He would sometimes make me sit through two showings in the hopes I would see the light and convert to the Church of Elvis. He was difficult to argue with on that particular point. He had several Elvis albums and he wore the grooves right out of them on his brother's cheap little record player.

Until that day in Allan's bedroom it never occurred to us that we might play some rock and roll of our own. Allan and Malcolm grew very hot on the idea and wouldn't leave it alone. I had my doubts about the whole thing but they kept on about it and I eventually agreed take part in the formation of a band.

Allan already had a guitar so we needed to decide what Malcolm and I would play. Malcolm was also partial to guitar. We couldn't have three guitar players and we really didn't know what a bass was so drums became the obvious choice for me. "OK", I said, "whatever". Today, drumming is an indispensable part of my life. I remain eternally grateful to the both of them for selling me on their harebrained idea.

Christmas was just a few months away. Malcolm and I knew that if we began working on our fathers immediately there was every possibility that drums and an electric guitar and amplifier would materialize on Christmas Day. We hounded them relentlessly. We had to convince them that we really intended to commit ourselves to music. I went so far as to take some drum lessons. Paid for by my father of course. I fashioned a very crude set of drums out of two empty 5 gallon paint cans and a rickety old magazine rack from Malcolm's basement. It sounded vaguely like a real cymbal if I hit it just the right way. I had beaten the whole works into oblivion by December.

Whining for expensive Christmas gifts was not a productive enterprise at Allan's house. So while both Malcolm and myself were granted our Christmas wishes Allan came out on the other side of Christmas with the same old acoustic he started with. He would have to come by an electric guitar by honest means.

An older boy who lived further down Brooke Road had a guitar for sale. It was a genuine 1958 Gibson Les Paul Junior. Today, wars are fought over such a guitar. They fetch thousands of dollars if you're lucky enough to find a seller willing to part with one. Allan saved up his cash for a few months and bought it for 50 bucks. Even that price was considered a bit steep at the time.

The guitar itself was stolen in 1970. I shared a rented house in Surrey with Allan for part of that year. He was trying to sell the guitar at the time we were moving out. A prospective 'buyer' phoned up who wanted to have a look. Allan told him "OK, but don't come between one and two o'clock today because WE WONT BE HERE!". Then he gave out the address just before we left with another load. When we returned the flimsy back door had been kicked wide open and the uninsured Les Paul was never seen or heard from again. Not by us anyway. We both got a quite a bit smarter after that.

By February of 1965 we had semblance of a band. It was a humble beginning indeed. We were fuelled by enormous heart and very little talent. We took turns practicing at each other's houses to spread the pain evenly among our families. We found it was a lot harder to play music than to listen to it. The lack of a singer put a serious restriction on repertoire. Malcolm and I tried to do some singing but we were both just plain awful. Allan didn't bother attempting any vocals.

We played some instrumental songs but the three of us never became a true band. We didn't even have a name. (We all laughed at my mother when she suggested 'The Deltones'. Today, it seems like a pretty good name to me). I eventually went on to play drums in a band from Burnaby called "The Shades of Black" that actually got paid to play. Malcolm started a band with schoolmates from North Delta high. Allan chose to concentrate on mastering the guitar. It was very frustrating for him at first but he finally willed himself into an excellent player. A lot of hard practice also involved. He soon was teaching local kids. By the mid-seventies I was playing drums in a professional band started by one of the kids who learned his first guitar chops from Allan.

Unlike Malcolm and myself, Allan spent quite a bit of time on music theory. He also played saxophone in the school band. By 1969 after the Shades of Black had disbanded for the final time I finally found myself together with Allan in a real band. We had teamed up with a bass player from Richmond named Bill and had our own little 'power trio'. We played heavy blues, Led Zeppelin and Jethro Tull covers. It was very challenging music and in truth we weren't really that good at it. But you could fake a lot of things in those days and the young audiences weren't too discerning.

We played at high schools, recreation centers, outdoor events, and often at our favourite concert venue, the 'Bear Creek Arts Center' in Surrey. We were paid little or nothing for our efforts but we had smashing good time through it all.

It was a lot simpler then. Electronic equipment wasn't nearly as complex as it is today. The focus was squarely on the music itself. The super slick marketing and imagery that now permeates the sorry state of the 'music industry' was still two decades away. Our friends were fans of the same kind of music we loved. They often came out to add their support. They appreciated it when we tried to stretch ourselves by trying something at the limit of our capabilities. Admittedly, it was sometimes lacking. But occasionally we would really shine and remind ourselves why we bothered playing at all. Nor did it escape our notice that the young women of our peer group tended to show a special interest in aspiring rock musicians.

The same short temper I witnessed in Allan while building our fort was manifest in our group rehearsals. We would get partway into a difficult song and fall apart at the same complicated chord change. It would happened over and over. The tension in the room would rise after each false start. Throwing expensive guitars around the room was not an option. Giving up and trying something simpler was not an option. When Allan wanted a result there was no stopping him. Bill and I had no alternative but to hunker down for the storm. Eventually we would find our way to the end of the song and the crisis would pass. Allan had willed it so. The cycle repeated each time we tried learning a new tune just beyond our musical reach.

The three of us split up within a couple of years. Allan pursued his love of photography. Bill heeded his dad's advice and took up a trade as an industrial pipe fitter. I went on to play in professional band in the mid-seventies before finally going to BCIT then settling into an honest job as an electronics technologist and programmer. Music remained the key that kept Allan I connected in the years that followed. Like veterans of a long ago war we belonged to a group of musicians who were in the trenches while music was forming an integral part the social transformation of the sixties. Each time our paths crossed in the years ahead it was usually under a musical pretext.

10. Gifts

Allan was an unusual mix of equal parts temper and tenacity. His gift to me was the demonstration of unmitigated courage. My gift to him was inexhaustible patience. I believe that's why our characters blended so well.

In our early youth, using deeds and actions, I said this to Allan: "I know that small minds have failed to recognize your enormous potential. I have not. I see the person behind the persona. I am aware of the excellent man waiting inside. I am privileged to be your friend while that misunderstood soul emerges." And so he did. Allan went on to fill his life with the pursuit of his many dreams. He worked hard and faced huge challenges but he ultimately snatched a successful life from this cold world. I believe he willed it so.

In deeds and actions Allan said this to me: "I know the world has scared you. I am here to demonstrate that its really not so bad. Much of what you fear is smoke and mirrors orchestrated by small people. If any real threats appear I will face them with you. Now come on with me and let's get on with this business of life."

And so we did.

We had much less contact after our adolescence and early adulthood. Our life paths still had many intersections although those contacts were always more brief than they should have been. But I never forgot Allan was out there somewhere and knew I would never really lose track of him for long. And that's still pretty much the way I see it.

Dan Harrison - September, 2004