Chapter 8
Elmer: Hi Colin, I’ll have a selection of sliced cold cuts please.
Colin: Okay, nice day out there, eh?
Elmer: Yeah, I heard you worked as a stripper in Edmonton.
Colin: You heard wrong.
Colin had moved back to Hanna and was working again at Central Meat Market. Every so often some jerk would come into the store, snickering or smug, and Colin was bound by loyalty to his family business so he pushed down the anger and the pain. He was still extremely paranoid from his first psychotic episode and he fought off the fragility with scotch, beer, and pot and the occasional magic mushrooms.
Betty: I'm all for equal rights for the gays.
Colin: But you think gays cannot be school teachers.
Betty: That's right, they should not be allowed around children.
Colin: But that's a negative stereotype - all gays are not pedophiles, there's straight pedophiles too you know. Pedophilia has nothing to do with being gay. I’m gay just like you’re straight and don’t forget pedophilia is a sickness that can be treated.
Betty: I'm just worried about the children, their safety.
Colin: So, you think I'm a pedophile then?
Betty: I didn't say that. You know what I mean.
Colin: Yeah. There's two kinds of people. Your people and mine. And yours are holding mine back because they're afraid of something they don’t understand. You’re all a bunch of stupid people.
Colin remembers watching his mother painting beautiful pictures in her art room over the years. His spark for visual art was ignited at Grant MacEwan College. They shared a love of creativity that sent them to Emma Lake, Saskatchewan where they studied art together during a week-long art camp with the accomplished artist Myles MacDonald.
In 1986 Colin became the Director of Family and Community Support Services for the Town of Hanna. He took FCSS Director training at a retreat just outside of Red Deer and began his career in human services.
He was ambitious and became the chair of First United Church Council, Founding President of the Hanna and District Allied Arts Association, Director of the Big Country Tourist Association, Member of the local Chamber of Commerce, Member of the Prairie Association for Water Management and a Director of the Chinook Progressive Conservative Association.
He soon became friends with Henry Kroeger, the local Member of the Legislative Assembly of Alberta. Henry was first elected during the Peter Lougheed years and he possessed a wealth of knowledge. There were many Friday nights when Colin would go over to Henry’s house and drink coffee and smoke cigarettes and ponder the fate of the world.
The main program of FCSS Hanna was its Boys and Girls Club located in the old United Church building where Colin was baptized and went to Sunday School as a little one. Chad and Michael Kroeger were both regulars at the Boys and Girls Club and they were grandsons of Henry so Colin got to know them a bit. They went on to form the famous Hanna rock band: Nickelback.
Now into his 30’s Colin had become arrogant and full of himself. He thought the cities were infested with communists and he supported the death penalty when Clifford Olson, the notorious child serial killer was found guilty and jailed for life.
Colin was so ambitious that after Henry Kroeger died and there was to be a byelection, Colin ran for the nomination to represent the Progressive Conservative party in the next election. One afternoon in a packed small country hall Colin gave a speech to the room full of rural faithful that was about to elect the next PC candidate.
“I stand before you, a single man, ready to work with you, ready to work for you.”
From the back of the hall some guy yells: “fag”.
I look down at my notes. Mind racing and then calm.
I look up at the front row.
Premier Getty looks embarrassed.
And it hits me like a tornado.
These are not my people.
I don’t want to be the Conservative MLA for Chinook.
My family looked uncomfortable. Grandma Simpson was smiling.
So I said it again:
“I stand before you, a single man, ready to work with you, ready to work for you.”
I paused and looked slowly over the packed room.
The TV cameras were rolling.
I thought: “Go ahead say it again.”
Nothing.
I finished my speech and finished dead last in the vote, of course.
A few weeks later a young rancher holding his toddler in his arms came into the butcher shop.
He wore a ball cap with the words: “AIDS Kills Fags Dead” made like the RAID insect repellent logo “RAID Kills Bugs Dead.”
Grinning and smug, he placed his order.
I served him.
I did not thank him.
(The above poem was published in Alberta Views magazine in October 2022 and in Montage Fragments zine, June 2023)
Colin lost the byelection nomination race by a landslide but was undaunted.
In those days it was not uncommon for him to drink a bottle of Scotch after work and he phoned kd lang’s mother one night when he was halfway to numbness. kd lang was rasied at Consort Alberta about 30 miles north of Hanna and Colin loved her music and especially her social activism. Colin told her mom that kd was an inspiration to him because she was out and proud.
He was still struggling with going back into the closet when he returned to Hanna. He felt his family’s business, their livelihood, would suffer if he was out and proud like kd and likely it would have. So, he struggled in silence.
One of the greatest influences in Colin’s life was his Grandma Simpson. During those years in Hanna Colin met with Grandma Simpson every Wednesday for lunch at the Canada Grey Motel. They shared stories of the week and most importantly their the love of family. Grandma Simpson knew in her heart that Colin was struggling and she offered love in return.
