Backstage at the Vinyl Cafe - Change - Stephanie Goes to University & Carl’s Retirement

Episode Date: September 20, 2024

“Carl didn’t want to retire.”Today on the podcast, two stories about embracing change. Dave’s neighbour Carl Lowbeer (and his wife Gerda) get to grips with a major change in their lives: retirement! And Stephanie starts her new life at university. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

From the Apostrophe Podcast Network. Hello, I'm Jess Milton and this is Backstage at the Vinyl Cafe. Welcome. I think one of the reasons fall is my favorite time of year is the expectation and promise of change. It's in the air everywhere. That's what we're talking about on today's podcast, change. In our first story, Dave's daughter Stephanie faces a huge change as she heads off to university for the first time. In our second story, Dave's neighbor Carl Lobier and his wife Gerda get to grips with a major change in their lives, retirement. Let's get right to it. This is Stuart McLean with Steph Goes to University. It's been more than two months since Stephanie left for university. Dave and Morley drove her down the Thursday before Labor Day.

All summer, Stephanie made it clear that she couldn't wait to get out of home. I can't wait to get out of here, she said over and over again. Ask her to do the simplest thing. Ask her to and over again. Ask her to do the simplest thing. Ask her to clear the table. Ask her to help with the dishes. Ask her the time. And all summer long, all Morley and Dave got was a sigh, a disconsolate roll of Stephanie's head, and the mantra.

It was like the Maharishi himself had instructed her. Here's your handkerchief. Here's your flower. Here's the road to eternal truth. I can't wait to get out of here. By mid-August, Newton's law of opposite reaction had raised its confusing head. She couldn't wait to get out of there. She didn't want to go. She worried that all her friends were going to other schools. She worried that she wouldn't make new friends. She worried that all her friends were going to other schools. She worried that she

wouldn't make new friends. She worried that she wouldn't enjoy her classes, and to her great surprise, she worried about missing her parents. Once she moved out, there was no coming back. Nothing would ever be the same. For the rest of my life, I'll be a visitor in my own house, she told her friend Becky one night as they sipped mochaccino chillers at a local coffee shop. A guest of honor, but a guest, you know. The week before she left, Stephanie began to clean her room. Morley watched with a complicated sadness. It's like a Greek myth, she said to Dave.

Hello, she said, pausingusing I can't decide if she's Sisyphus or Hercules Hercules said Dave I vote for the stable Stephanie would start cleaning as soon as she had finished breakfast around noon she'd shut her bedroom door put on a CD and settle amongst her piles of stuff, filling garbage bags and cardboard boxes. Every once in a while, a bedroom door would open,

and Stephanie would appear holding a household object that hadn't been seen in years. A bread knife. An old remote for the television. Someone's favorite scarf. All long ago written off as missing in action. All long ago written off as missing in action, all long ago replaced. Maybe, said Dave quietly one night after Stephanie had handed him an umbrella he thought he had left in a taxi, maybe we should alert the press. Any day now she's going to stumble on Jimmy Hoffa's body.

Sam was watching all this activity quietly, not comprehending at 11 years old why anyone would want to leave home. That won't happen to me, he told Morley one night as they snuggled on his bed. I'm always going to live here. Well, sweetheart, said Morley, watching the headlights of a passing car sweep across his ceiling, maybe one day you'll have children of your own. Sam was quiet for a moment. Morley could feel him wrinkling his forehead in the darkness. Sam said, couldn't my children live here with us?

As long as they could all fit in your bedroom, said Morley. As long as they could all fit in your bedroom, said Morley. That would be okay, said Sam. They wouldn't mind. What was making the parting easier for Stephanie, what in fact was making it possible, was that Stephanie was going to university with her best friend, Becky. Becky and Stephanie had requested, and to their great joy had been assigned, to share a room in residence. It was like a dream come true, the dream of all best friends. Stephanie and Becky had dreamed of living together ever since grade three. In grade three, they had tried to convince their parents to buy adjacent houses.

Their plan was to get adjoining bedrooms. Their plan was to cut a hole in the bedroom wall so they could crawl back and forth from one house to the other. They began to share clothes in grade seven. They still do. Sweaters, shoes, makeup. They might as well be sisters. They met in the park, in the sandbox. They met in the park, in the sandbox. Their friendship, which began in sand, sunk its unshakable roots through the limbs of a Norway maple tree,

a tree they have thought of as their tree ever since they could climb it, ever since they were seven. They each have a branch they think of as their own, a branch that's perfect for sitting. They've sat in the tree for hours, for years. They sat in it this summer, the night before they went to university. At first, they called it the sitting tree. They'd say to each other, do you want to go to the park, which really meant, do you want to go and sit in the tree? When they were 12, they called it the sister tree. When they were teenagers, they'd go at night, which was fun because they were invisible at night, and whenever someone

walked underneath them, they'd shake the branches as hard as they could, just for a second, just a fast shake, and the people walking below them would inevitably be startled, would often jump and stare up into the darkness, but no one ever saw them in the darkness sitting on their branches, hiding amongst the leaves. One August evening, they were hiding in the branches and two teenagers sat underneath them. They were holding hands. It was obvious the girl wanted the boy to kiss her. It was obvious that he was scared. He held her hand for the longest time. He even put his arm around her shoulders. He told her she was his love. I love you, he said.

It was so beautiful. It was true love. Here it comes, whispered Becky. But she was wrong. The boy was too scared. He should have kissed her, said Becky. She should have kissed her, said Becky. She should have kissed him, said Stephanie. Another time they were up there and Ronnie Tomlinson's mother and father had a big argument

right underneath them. That was horrible, said Becky. When I get married, we're never going to fight. For better or for worse, Stephanie finished packing for university the night before they were supposed to leave. The plan was to leave early the next morning. The plan was to find Stephanie's room, unpack, and then have lunch with Becky and her parents. By the time they got to the dorm, Stephanie had worked herself into a complete lather. All the other girls on the floor looked weird. There were no other parents around. The room was unbelievably small. It was an economy double, a single room with bunk beds,

a room so narrow that when Stephanie sat at her desk and Becky sat at hers, their backs were touching. In fact, when Stephanie and Becky were both in the room at the same time, they were always within arm's reach. There was nowhere to go where you couldn't be touched. Stephanie didn't feel like going to lunch with her parents. She was going to grin and bear it until Dave spotted her old boyfriend, Doug, and he opened her bedroom window and called out across the quadrangle, Doug, hey, Doug, up here. Stephanie looked at him with mortification.

She said, you have to go now. I want you to go. They walked downstairs in silence. When they got to the parking lot, there was a bare-chested man wearing cutoffs sitting cross-legged on the hood of their car. He was playing the bongos. His gray, thinning hair was pulled back into a ponytail. He was the oldest hippie Dave had ever seen. Dave walked up to the car and smiled thinly at the man and pointed at his car keys. The man with the bongo said, I'll be finished in a minute, man. Morley and Stephanie were crying, and Dave didn't want to make a fuss. We have to go, he said under his breath to the bongo player. The man playing the bongo sighed, stood up, and jumped to the ground. The hood of Dave's car popped with a loud twang. Far out, said the bongo player and flashed dave a peace sign

stephanie and becky spent their first weekend decorating their room they put a barbarella poster on their door and a bulletin board for messages and around the bulletin board they stuck pictures of themselves when they were children. Baby pictures. Pictures from elementary school. They spent hours on the door. It was just like they had planned. It was better. There were no classes the first week. Instead, there was a never-ending program of parties, picnics, and parades. There was even a panty raid. By midweek, Becky decided orientation was boring and too rah-rah, and she stopped going. Steph had met a girl named Anna from Nova Scotia. She said, it's stupid, I know, but I'm meeting people.

Anna and Stephanie danced until 2 o'clock in the morning at a toga party. From midnight until 2 without stopping. Becky stayed at home. They had a phone on the wall of their bedroom above a little fridge, and from the middle of the first week, it rang constantly. Mostly, Becky answered. Mostly, the calls were for Stephanie. The guy from Montreal called, she said. So did Anna. She wants to know if you're going to join the film society. she wants to know if you're going to join the film society. They saw Metropolis and the original Frankenstein and a movie called Waking Dreams.

Stephanie didn't go to her first class for a week and a half. A Tuesday morning at 10 o'clock, room H110, as big as a theater. There was raked seating, chairs for maybe 500 people. When Stephanie walked through the double doors, she thought she had made a theater. There was raked seating chairs for maybe 500 people. When Stephanie walked through the double doors, she thought she had made a mistake. But there was a chalkboard at the front of the hall, and on the chalkboard it said Sociology 101, and under that, How Society Works. She chose a seat on the aisle. There was a table in front of the blackboard, and on the table there was a watermelon, a squash, and a pumpkin. There was a man sitting beside the table.

He was wearing a mauve shirt with a wide collar and massive bell-bottom jeans with an embroidered ribbon stitched around the cuff. He had beads and Birkenstocks and a Fu Manchu mustache and a floppy hat. He looked vaguely familiar to Stephanie. There was a black button on his brown vest. Stephanie was too far away to read what it said on the button. The man seemed completely oblivious to the class. He was sitting at the front of the hall as if he were in a trance. At ten minutes past ten, he abruptly stood up and walked shakily to the lectern and peered out at them, and the room slowly fell quiet. As soon as the man had stood up, Stephanie had recognized him. He was the bongo player from the parking lot. She could make out the button on the vest now. It was a peace sign. You could have heard a pin drop. Professor Bongo leaned into the microphone.

He said, my name is Brian Michaels. Then he looked down and he consulted his notes and he said, this course is called How Society Works. And then without another word, he reached under the table and brought out a mallet and lifted it over his head, and he swung it with startling force into the center of the pumpkin. He destroyed the pumpkin in three quick blows and quickly turned his attention to the watermelon, which lasted just a little longer. All of the keeners in the front row were soon covered in seeds and juicy pulp. A girl in a blue cashmere sweater stood up and started to freak out, brushing her sweater as if she was covered in bugs.

The boy beside her lifted a large piece of melon off his notebook and started writing notes furiously. Brian Michaels didn't flinch. He stood at the podium covered in vegetable matter, seeds and all sorts of gunk dripping from his hat. And when the class quietened down, he said, I just did violence to those vegetables. And he left the classroom without another word. The girl beside Stephanie was frowning.

Are you okay, asked Stephanie. I don't understand, said the girl looking down at her notebook. Isn't a watermelon a fruit? The next Tuesday, the hall was packed for Sociology 101. Earnest girls sitting in the aisle near the front, engineers and hockey players standing at the back. He bought a hookah and his bongos to pub night, and he collared Becky when he saw her standing alone

and told her about his novel, chapter by chapter. He lived in a rambling house in town, and he invited Becky to a poetry reading on Sunday night. Becky was too scared to go. Stephanie went in her place. When she arrived, there were 40 other students crammed in the living room. Professor Michaels was sitting in a beanbag chair explaining his novel to a doe-eyed grad student from Maryland. When Stephanie came home, she was bursting. He has a goat in the backyard called Hendrix

and a pet goose named like after a writer, Kerouac or something. He makes his own yogurt from the goat's milk. There was a beaded curtain in the kitchen door and candles and he lives with a PhD student from the States who's like 16. In the 1990s, petitions had circulated around the campus to have Professor Michaels fired. I'm just coming back into my own, he said the night at the poetry reading as he passed around a plate of brownies. I think I'm going to tie-dye some t-shirts, said Stephanie, flouncing onto her bed. The chaos of the dorm was unbelievable. Once a week someone brought bulk popcorn from the campus store and tried to microwave it in a paper bag.

The bag inevitably caught fire and set off the fire alarm, and they had to evacuate, and the dorm would smell like burnt corn for a week. Andre, a boy from New Brunswick, broke the floor vacuum cleaner trying to vacuum up water after a 45-minute shower. broke the floor vacuum cleaner trying to vacuum up water after a 45-minute shower. And there was Ruth. Ruth, a private school girl, began freaking out over her grades at the end of the second week. Ruth showed up in Stephanie's room on the second Friday and asked to borrow a suitcase. I'm leaving, she said. I can't stand it anymore. I'm not coming back. Stephanie spent an hour trying to talk Ruth out of leaving, but eventually gave up and loaned her a suitcase. Ruth was back on Monday morning.

My mother wouldn't let me quit, she said. They went through this every Friday for a month and a half. After the third Friday, Stephanie didn't try to talk Ruth out of leaving anymore. When Ruth showed up in her room on Friday afternoon, Stephanie pointed to her suitcase without being asked. It's there, she said, not even looking up from her computer. See you Monday. Stephanie and Becky loved living together. They'd sit at their desks at their computers, their backs touching, and they'd send emails back and forth as they did assignments. Do you want to have a break? Becky would type. I'll meet you at the hub. Steffi would type back. Becky's boyfriend goes to university out west. She has a phone plan that encourages midnight calls.

Calls after midnight are so cheap that they talk most nights. By the beginning of October, Stephanie had learned to sleep through anything. Happy phone calls, sad phone calls, the lights on, the lights off. Becky began to stay up later and later. She stopped going to early classes. There was no one looking over her. She didn't have to do anything. For three weeks, she didn't do anything at all. They had their first fight in the middle of October. Becky picked up one of Stephanie's sweatshirts off the floor and dropped it on her desk. She said, your clothes are always on my side. Stephanie hadn't considered sides before.

She had been thinking of her bed and her desk, but she thought of the rest of the room as shared space. Becky had been thinking otherwise. Why is the garbage can always on my side, said Becky, waving her arms and smacking her wrist on the top bunk. They agreed to divide the room into two. It took them an hour to decide where the line should go. The room was so small it was like dividing a raisin. They got two garbage cans. Then Becky said

she wanted to get an answering machine. I can't keep taking all your messages, she said. I'm not a social secretary. They owned a set of encyclopedias together which they had bought at a yard sale when they were in grade 10. They had been saving them for university. The encyclopedias were stacked by the door on Becky's side of the room. One day, Stephanie found the pile of encyclopedias had been pushed over to her side. the pile of encyclopedias had been pushed over to her side. She had come to the room with a disastrous English essay, a C-. She threw the English paper onto her bed and she stared at the pile of encyclopedias and she shoved the books back where they had been and stormed out of the room.

She didn't come back until after dinner. Becky was nowhere to be seen. But the pile of encyclopedias were back on Stephanie's side. Stephanie pushed them back again. The next morning when she got up, the encyclopedias had been moved again, but not as far, just onto the border, straddling the line. Neither of them said anything. That afternoon, Becky said, why is your garbage pail always full of garbage? That afternoon, Becky said, why is your garbage pail always full of garbage?

Stephanie didn't answer. She wasn't talking to Becky. She wasn't going to talk to her ever again for as long as they lived. She had taken a pledge that afternoon. For the first time, Stephanie felt homesick and alone. This is ridiculous, said Stephanie, and she was right. a day and a night passed and then another day 48 long hours during which not a word passed between them and then at 10 30 on the second night there they were in their cubbyhole sitting back to back at their desk clicking away at their

computers furiously save for the chattering of the keyboards, a chattering that was growing louder by the minute, the silence in the room was frightening. In the middle of the silence, Stephanie typed something quickly, pressed enter, and then put her arms on her keyboard and lay her head down in her arms. Becky's computer beeped. Becky clicked on the message. It was from Stephanie. computer beeped. Becky clicked on the message. It was from Stephanie. Brief and to the point. Four simple words. I miss our tree. Becky leaned over the keyboard and typed her reply. She pushed enter and almost immediately Stephanie's computer beeped. Me too, she read. They wrote back and forth like that for over an hour and a half, the two of them backs touching, typing like maniacs,

the words erupting out of them as if they hadn't talked for years, like twin sisters separated in a war. Stephanie came home for Thanksgiving, and it wasn't like she thought it would be at all. It didn't feel like she was a guest. She felt like she'd always felt, but everything else seemed to be changing. The food tasted better than it used to, and her bed felt luxurious. Her parents were different, too. They seemed more mature,

mellower. Even Sam was charming. Everything was the same, but it was different. Like Becky, Becky was changing too. Their friendship was changing. They talked about it the night before they came home, lying in their bunks in the darkness. Next year, they agreed they'd live off campus in a house with other people so they could have their own rooms, so they could have more privacy. Just as they were drifting off to sleep, Stephanie said, I love you into the darkness. When Becky didn't answer right away, she added in a more hopeful tone, we're going to be friends for life. I know, said Becky, I know. Thank you very much. That was the story we call Steph Goes to University.

We're going to take a short break now, but we'll be back in a couple of minutes with another story. So stick around. Welcome back. Time for our second story now. This is Carl's Retirement. On Saturday morning of the long weekend, Thanksgiving weekend, Carl Loebier showed up at Dave and Morley's house just before dinner, unexpectedly. Flannel sports shirt, corduroys, a blue windbreaker standing on the stoop, looking embarrassed. Carl's not the sort of person who drops by unannounced.

Dave answered the door. Carl stared at him awkwardly. This went on for longer than was reasonable until finally Dave said, come on in, Carl, come on in. I wasn't thinking of actually coming in, Dave, said Carl. I was wondering if I could speak with Stephanie. I was wondering if I could speak with Stephanie. Carl Loebier, 66 years old, a year and a half into retirement.

Civil engineer. Husband of Gerda. Carl of the sourdough starter. Carl Loebier calling on Stephanie, Dave's 19-year-old daughter. Chapter two. Carl at work. Carl didn't want to retire. He'd watched guys around him getting ready. Jack Merriweather, for instance. Jack had a digital calendar on his desk that ran backwards, counting down the days. You walked into Jack's office, the first thing you saw was this red digital readout that said 274, the days he had left. Can't wait, he said. The calendar made Carl uncomfortably avoided going into Jack's office. Carl didn't want to think about his retirement.

Jack Merriweather, who was building a ferro-cement boat in his backyard and planning to sail it around the world and damned if he didn't do it. His wife Judy starting with him but bailing in Hawaii. And Jack kept on going. Was in New Zealand last time Carl had heard. Or Greg Jones, who took up golf on his 50th birthday. Joined a club, took lessons. I hate it, said Greg to Carl one Wednesday afternoon as he was heading out. I hate the damn game.

But you have to have something to do when you leave this place. Not Carl. Carl just kept working. Carl loved his work. He couldn't believe they'd make him stop. He figured if he kept busy, if he was busy, if he was in the middle of something important, what were they going to do? Make him leave? When he was 62, he started to take on jobs with long timelines. Summer of his 64th birthday, he was working as hard as he had worked when he joined the company,

working weekends, working nights. When he finished his own work, he started working as hard as he had worked when he joined the company. Working weekends, working nights. When he finished his own work, he started in other people's. One Monday, startled clerical staff discovered an entire week of filing had mysteriously vanished. It seemingly filed itself. And then the janitor noticed that someone was using his Windex. That the garbage cans had often been empty by the time he showed up. In the PR department, Lori Beeman wondered if her mother was sneaking into the office at night to organize her in-basket. And then Carl got a phone call from Marilyn Struthers, Human Resources. Marilyn told him he had to start passing files to a guy on the 43rd floor. Guy was only a kid, barely 50 years old. It's the law, Carl, said Marilyn. Carl couldn't

believe it. He didn't believe it. He kept working. He was still the first person in every morning, made coffee, put a post-it note on the machine with a time it had brewed. How else would anyone know it was fresh? Figured they would change their minds. They had to change their minds. There was too much to do. Chapter 3. The retirement party. Forty years. Two months short of 41 if you wanted to be accurate.

So you might as well call it 41. Carl would have called it 41 if he was in charge. But in the program it said 40. The buggers. They gave him a set of golf clubs. Golf clubs. What was he supposed to do with golf clubs? He couldn't believe it.

They made him clear out his office the next week. Well, they didn't actually say he had to clear out. No one actually said anything. But one day a guy in blue coveralls appeared with a load of cardboard boxes and began to show him how to assemble them. I'm an engineer, damn it, growled Carl. Grabbing the box from the guy in the coveralls. Later that week, Ross Harrison, who was always complaining about his windowless office across the hall, poked his head in the door and said, do you mind if I look around? Carl sat at his desk as Harrison

moved around his office as if he was buying a condo. Nice view, he said, looking over the rooftops to the park, running his hand along the edge of the desk. He was fondling my desk, damn it. Couldn't get his hands off it, said Carl to Gerda when he got home. Carl came in the next weekend and went through his desk. It would have been too humiliating to do it while everyone was there to watch him. He found a brown paper bag at the back of one drawer. There was a little fire engine and a box of crayons in the bag. He used to keep stuff in there for his kids in case he went on an unexpected business trip so he'd have something to bring home. He took the red crayon and crawled under his desk. Lying on his back, he wrote his name on the bottom of the middle drawer. Carl Loebier, chapter four, the first morning. Put on a suit like he always did,

came downstairs for breakfast, fixed coffee, and sat there reading the paper like he always did. He wiped up the last bit of egg yolk from his plate and he carried his plate to the sink and he said, well, I have to get to it. Gerda wasn't about to ask, get to what? Carl took one more swallow of coffee, kissed Gerda and stood up and then instead of heading out the back door to the garage, Carl headed down the stairs to the basement. It set up a desk down there. All the boxes from the office were stacked up around it. At lunch, they ate tuna sandwiches

at the kitchen table. Carl said, this is working out better than I thought. There are no interruptions. You can get so much done. What are you doing, said Gerda. I'm getting everything organized, said Carl. You know, like paper clips and all that stuff into the right drawers. I never had time to do that before. It was always a mess. Gerda went up to the bedroom and began to cry. After lunch, Carl took the red crayon and wrote the date on the bottom of the desk drawer. Carl Loebier, he wrote. April 15th, 2002. Chapter 5. Day 2.

At 9.30 on Tuesday morning, Carl came upstairs and emptied the coffee maker and made a fresh batch. He put a post-it note on the pot. 9.35, it said. Chapter six. Day three. At 10.30 on Wednesday, Gerda called downstairs. I'm going shopping, she said. Do you need anything? Carl bounded up the stairs. I'll look after it, he said. You relax. He took the car keys out of her hands and was gone before she could say anything. Chapter 7. Carrots. By the end of the first week, Carl had taken over groceries. He'd go several times a week. At first, Gerda liked this idea, Carl doing the shopping.

She had done groceries for 40 years. She was glad to give it up. The trouble was, Carl didn't do the cooking. Trouble was, Carl didn't know what to get. A couple of times, Gerda said, let me make a list, and Carl had got prickly. I can do it myself, he said, as if a list was something you'd only give to a child. The truth was Carl found the grocery store bewildering, found some sections completely overwhelming, like yogurt, for instance, and beef. There was way too much of both.

Bacon was easy. Bacon he could do. You just had to find the package that Gerda always bought. Cheese was easy. And so were carrots. Carl loved buying carrots. Carrot wasn't like a squash. You could stare at a squash and pick it up and scratch the skin and never be sure what color the flesh would be when you brought it home and cut it open. and scratch the skin and never be sure what color the flesh would be when you brought it home and cut it open. Same with melons. Carl standing in the fruit section staring at the melons, trying to remember which was the green one and which was the orange. Carrots, on the other hand, were forthright.

Couldn't make a mistake with a carrot. So to play it safe, Carl always picked up a bunch of carrots. Which would have been all right if Carl wasn't going to the store two or three times a week. Gerda, who didn't want to discourage him, started serving carrots at lunch and supper. They ate them sliced and grated and shoestringed. They ate them roasted and sautéed. Gerda made carrot cake. She made carrot breads and carrot soup.

She made carrot oatmeal cookies. She made carrot jelly. She found a recipe for carrot marmalade. By Thanksgiving, Gerda had 22 carrot cakes in her freezer. When people dropped in, Gerda would make them coffee and say, Do you want a carrot with that? And still, there were always carrots in the fridge waiting for her. It's making her crazy.

Chapter 8. Carl's First Hobby. On the basement wall over his desk, Carl has a large print of the Fernie train station circa 1950. A winter afternoon, blue skies and bright sunshine on new snow. The eastbound Kootenai Express stop beside the station. A white plume of smoke rising over the lizard range of the Rocky Mountains. Carl, born in the dying days of the steam locomotive, has always loved trains. One night at supper, carrot ginger soup, roasted chicken with roasted winter vegetables. Gerda said, Ross Hainline's husband, Roy, belongs to a model railroad club. There's an open house this

weekend. Carl thought, what the heck? The club met in a rented warehouse in an industrial park by the airport. They had a huge layout, bigger than a football field, said Carl when he came home. Miniature neighborhoods with a miniature downtown, a miniature industrial area, a complete universe. So complicated it took three guys to get it up and running. Seven of us, if you want to run it properly, said Roy proudly, like on schedule. Roy walked Carl over to the table. There were cars and trucks in the streets, people walking in and out of stores, a model layout that seemed to have everything.

And a very small man picking up after his dog. Except there weren't any trains, or come to think of it, train tracks anywhere. Where's the train? asked Carl. Roy smiled and kneeled down, motioning Carl to do the same, and there was a labyrinth of PVC pipes suspended under the table. The tracks are in the pipe, said Roy. It wasn't so much a model train club as a model subway club. But you can't see it, said Carl. Just like the real thing, said Roy. Oh, said Carl. Gerda said, give it a chance. You might like it.

So Carl went back the next Thursday night. You're on suction, said Roy. Suction, said Carl. They gave him a blue peaked hat and an orange safety vest and a wrench and a vacuum cleaner hose. The hose was attached to an air compressor. 550 CFM, said Roy proudly. Roy told him if there was a derailment, the head engineer would call for suction. Carl was supposed to hustle over with his vacuum hose, open up the pipe,

and suck the train to the nearest junction. Carl nodded and wandered over to the table. He was thinking he would watch what was going on until he was needed, except there was nothing to watch. After a few minutes, Roy came over and pointed to a bench on the far wall. The suction man usually sits there, he said quietly. There was a sign over the bench that read, I suck. Carl sat there for the whole night without being called. I am not going back, he said to Gerda. Give it another chance, please, she said. There was desperation in her voice.

The next Thursday when Carl arrived, he wandered over to his bench and started to put on his orange vest. Roy shook his head, said, not tonight, tonight's maintenance. You have electric trains running through a couple of miles of PVC pipe in an abandoned warehouse, you're going to get dust on the tracks. How do we clean it, asked Carl. Rommel, said Roy. Over by the water cooler, two men were spraying Gary Stevens's daughter's pet rat with end dust. Chapter 9. Second act. Over the year, Carl tried bridge, square dancing, and golf. None of them worked out.

He began to go for walks. He'd get up in the morning and put on his slacks and a windbreaker and head out. He walked all over the city. He felt like a ghost. He felt like he was disappearing. Carl walking around the city. Carl browsing in bookstores. And more and more often, Carl sitting on a park bench, staring into space,

wondering how he got there. A year ago, he'd been busy all the time. Now he had time on his hands. He was unsure. He was unsteady. He was just another old man wandering around. He was full of questions. Is this all there was to life, years of hard work, and then you peter out on a park bench? Did Simon and Garfunkel have it right? Wasn't there more to life, years of hard work, and then you peter out on a park bench? Did Simon and Garfunkel have it right? Wasn't there more to life than this? He felt like something was missing. It was not the first

time he'd felt this confusion, felt questions bumping around inside his head like bees in a beehive. Carl was born in Kitchener, Ontario, German descent. His father was a carpenter, a cabinet maker. He had a workshop in an old broom factory on the edge of the river, just past the bridge where the river curves. There's an outlet mall there today, mostly furniture stores. Except for a few years in the mid-60s when he hired two men, Carl's father worked alone. He made kitchen cabinets and windows and from time to time kitchen tables and wardrobes. He always had a piece of wood in his hand, a pencil behind his ear. He was always working.

Carl's mother was a chipper woman of boundless energy who lived in her kitchen. She put up jams in the spring, pickles in the fall, baked bread all year long. Idle hands are a devil's workshop, she'd say as she greased her bread pans. Carl had to show her his homework every night. If it wasn't neat enough, she made him do it over again. If it's worth doing, it's worth doing right, she said. Carl would be the first of his family to go to university, the first to have the privilege of education. go to university. The first to have the privilege of education. But as deadlines for applying to universities loomed, Carl found himself adrift in uncertainties. He didn't know what he wanted from life. Didn't know where he should go, what he wanted to learn. Now that a world of possibilities

was open to him, the questions seemed to grow one from another. Flipping through a university catalog one day, he came across these words in the description of the philosophy courses. Philosophy is not a theory, but an activity. Ludwig Wittgenstein. Carl was delighted by the notion that philosophy, questioning the world and its meaning, was an activity, something that involved energy and work. It struck him that what he wanted to do was wrestle with these questions. He wanted to read great books of literature.

He wanted to expose himself to the thoughts of writers and philosophers. He wanted time to think. Carl's mother and father were appalled. His father had no time for riddles that had no answers. You've wasted too much time already in that high school of yours, said Carl's father. Reading poetry and God knows what. That isn't work. Work is work.

His mother, too. God helps those who help themselves, she said. School was for children, they said. It was time for Carl to choose a profession. Choose a profession or keep fooling around. Ludwig Wittgenstein had studied mechanical engineering for his first three years at university. Carl enrolled in engineering.

Civil. The workload was heavy, but he enjoyed it. Carl enrolled in engineering civil the workload was heavy but he enjoyed it there was always some way to push yourself at school there was always something to read something to think about but gradually all his questions faded away like newspapers left out in the sun too long after university there was his first job

in his first five years out of school he worked in eight different offices. In Montreal, Ottawa, Calgary, and Toronto. And then he got married, and then his son was born, and there was no time for anything but the business of living. But now, here he was, 40 years later, with time on his hands, and all of those unexplored questions were rising to the surface. He was like a loaf of his mother's bread resting on the radiator.

He was rising. Epilogue. On Saturday morning of the long weekend, Thanksgiving weekend, Carl Loebier showed up at Dave and Morley's house just before dinner. Unexpectedly. Flannel sports shirt, corduroys, a blue windbreaker, standing on the stoop looking embarrassed. Dave answered the door. Carl stared at him awkwardly. Carl's not the sort of person who drops by unannounced.

There was an awkward beat of silence and then Carl and Dave started to talk at once, talking over each other. They both stopped and stared, each motioning for the other guy to continue. I said, Carl, I was wondering if I might speak with Stephanie. Carl Loebier, 66 years old, a year and a half into retirement, civil engineer, husband of Gerda,

Carl of the sourdough starter, Carl looking younger than he had for years, Carl in a brown corduroy jacket, a backpack over his shoulder, Carl calling on Stephanie, Dave's 19-year-old daughter, calling on her to talk about his first ever philosophy essay. I was wondering, he said shyly to Stephanie a few minutes later, if you might have any advice. I've done a lot of notes, but I'm having trouble getting started. I always have trouble getting started, said Stephanie. It's always hard work. Yes, it is, said Carl, a smile spreading across his face. Yes, it is. And so on Thanksgiving Sunday, Carl Loebier sat in Dave's kitchen, and Carl and Stephanie drank coffee, and they talked

about John Stuart Milne and the roots of modern liberalism. That was great, he said when he got up to leave. Great. Walking to the door, almost bouncing. Thank you very much. That was Carl's retirement. We recorded that story back in 2003. All right, that's it for today, but we'll be back here next week with another Dave and Morley story, and it's one of my absolute favorites. It's about dogs. Surprise, surprise. Dave said, oh, I was just thinking about my old dog. Sam said, how did he die? old dog. Sam said, how did he die? Dave said, I wasn't there. I was away. Scout, a mutt,

black and white coat, strong legs, built for running, probably had some border collie in him, the loyalty and the focus, but not the brains. Definitely not the brains. Scout was one dumb dog. He was one dumb dog, said Dave. This was back when. Back when Dave was a boy and living in big narrows. Back when people built their own homes. You'd start with the basement and live in the basement until you could afford to go higher. Scout, born in some basement, always stayed close to the ground. Scout hated water, which drove Dave's dad, Charlie, a duck hunter, to distraction. Dogs should know how to swim, he'd say every year as duck season approached. One spring he decided to do something about that. They drove to town and Charlie threw Scout off the government pier. He sank like a stone. He didn't even try. He went straight down until he reached a point of stasis about three feet below the surface, and he hovered there looking up at them sorrowfully. Oh no, said Charlie, down on his knees,

peering into the water, calling the dog. Scout's mouth appeared to be opening and closing. Looked like he was barking underwater. Oh no, said Charlie again. Dave and his sister Annie were both there standing right beside their dad, pointing and crying. And there was nothing for Charlie to do but stand up, yank off his jacket and jump in. This was Mother's Day weekend, Broad Door Lake in May. Not even the teenagers were thinking of swimming. When Charlie hit the water, he gasped. He almost sank himself. When he told the story later, that's the part he'd start with.

It was close, I'll tell you. And that's just when he hit the water. He knew it was going to be colder below the surface. But he couldn't let the dog drown, not with the kids standing there bawling their eyes out. Not with witnesses. So Charlie sucked in a lung full of air, ducked under, grabbed Scout by the tail, and swum him over to the beach. So we saved him, said Sam.

That's next week on the podcast. I hope you'll join us. Backstage at the Vinyl Cafe is part of the Apostrophe Podcast Network. The recording engineer is definitely not afraid of retirement, Greg DeCloot. Theme music is by Danny Michelle, and the show is produced by Louise Curtis, Greg DeCloot, and me, Jess Milton. Let's meet again next week. Until then, so long for now.