The Bridge with Peter Mansbridge - "the bridge" holiday episode -- The end of "last minute shopping"; and, dealing with "Ok Boomer"!

Episode Date: December 20, 2019

For years I tweeted "last minute shopping" on Twitter -- not this year. Here's why.And I finally had the "Ok Boomer" line dropped on me -- here's what happened and how you can have fun with it too.

And hello there, Peter Mansbridge here with The Bridge, last one before Christmas Day, possibly, quite likely, the last one before the end of 2019. Although, as we did during the election campaign, if something happens, something comes up all of a sudden, warrants some thoughts from me, I will definitely put out a special episode of The Bridge. But for now, this one will be it for, well, certainly for the time between now and December 25th. I hope you're ready. I hope you're ready. I hope you're all settled in and relaxed for a few days anyway.

Time with family, time with friends. One of those special times of year that we get to enjoy. And I hope you do as well in your life. If you've followed me on Twitter over the years, I think it was about five years ago, it was the first one five or six years ago, that I did something at the day before Christmas, Christmas Eve.

I called it last-minute shopping. And it was kind of a tongue-in-cheek look at what we go through. It started off like semi-seriously, because I'd always been a last-minute shopper. Throughout my life, I'd always been that guy who was in the stores at the last minute, not looking for deals, just simply hadn't done my work, hadn't done some gift buying for close friends and family.

And so I left it to the last minute, usually the last afternoon. And a couple of things you'd notice right away. There weren't a lot of people in the stores. You know, most people were smart. They'd already done their shopping. But in a way, these last-minute shoppers were smart too because there were no crowds. There were some deals.

But there was also this kind of stench of desperation because the clock was ticking. These stores were going to be closed soon. And so you had to find something. You had to find something. So you'd kind of scrounge around and look for something that was interesting, but you were really in a battle with the clock.

Your imagination, but it was not like you were going to a store because you knew what you wanted to buy. You were looking for something, so they kind of had you. They knew they were going to get you on something. So I started off, as I said, semi-seriously about last-minute shopping, and then it quickly turned into sort of this kind of a lark, and I had a great time with it for five years. I think I did it for five years.

And it became finding those really kind of crazy gifts, the kind of things you'd never buy except at the last minute. And my favorite place to do that was in Stratford at the Canadian Tire. I've been shopping at Canadian Tire since my dad first took me to a Canadian Tire in, I don't know when it was, late 50s, early 60s. And I love Canadian Tire. I know I'm not supposed to, you know, toot for anybody, but listen, I love Canadian Tire.

There's something about it. There was something about it when I was a kid because they gave you money, Canadian Tire money. That was pretty neat, and I've still got old Canadian Tire bills. But there's something about the store, too, is kind of the original thing about the store was, like, hardware. And I never, a good guy in shop at school, I couldn't build anything if my life depended on it.

But I'm always fascinated walking into the kind of hardware place, and I'd see things and go, wow, I've got to have one of those. So in my workshop, in my tool room, in our place in Stratford, Ontario, I've got stuff that still has the wrapping on it, the store wrapping. It's a plastic. Price tags. You know what I mean? I've never opened them, but they sure look good hanging on the wall.

Looks like, man, this guy is a real shop guy. Anyway, so that was one reason I was attracted to Canadian Tire, but also was this whole idea of, like, the crazy things you could buy that you'd never ever think of buying until you suddenly were confronted with them. I always used to talk about the K-Tel patty stacker. You know, how you stack hamburgers, freeze them with a patty stacker. Those kind of things.

You know, I can spend an hour along those kind of shelves at a Canadian Tire with all these things that I don't know. I've never seen anybody else buy them, but they're there. So I would spend a lot of time in the Canadian Tire at Stratford to the point where at the beginning,

when I first started doing this, I kind of went in thinking, man, I hope nobody recognizes me here. And I, you know, I wear my maple leafs too, can pull it down over my, over my, you know, pretty much right down to my eyes. But then I think over the years they kind of got, well, it's New Year's Eve, guess we know who's going to be coming here taking pictures of our stuff. And they let me, and they had a good time. We all got a few good laughs out of it.

And so did those who followed it. And I got lots of wonderful emails over the years and comments on my Twitter feed. But I packed it in. I threatened to do this last year, but got talked into one more year. But you know what? Kind of starting to look at repeat things at Canadian Tire. There's only so much kind of stuff like that.

So I'm going to say a good thing is past and it's it's now just a memory but it is always that special time of year when the giving is often more fun than the receiving and as i would always close out those feeds remember others at this time of year and whether it's a donation to a your favorite charity or whatever it may be um that will give you a feeling of the christmas spirit so uh enjoy and uh enjoy that time with your family now one other thing i can't let this pass. One other thing happened to me this week. And, you know, it's not really a kind of Christmassy holiday season thing, although it is sort of the way generations look at each other.

And usually around Christmas, the older generation is, you know, fascinated by finding things for younger generations. Anyway, this wasn't about the holidays. It wasn't about the season, but it is something that, you know, I've kind of thought about a little bit lately and suddenly I was confronted with it the other day. You know, I'm a baby boomer. I grew up, you know, I was born in 1948. I was one of those lucky kids who was born after the Second World War and who got to live a life without a conflict where you were encouraged to join the forces to go to war, to go into conflict on a global stage.

And so I went through, I served in the Royal Canadian Navy for a year and a half, close to two years. So I did some service and I learned a lot from it. They were not entirely happy with my performance, but nevertheless, I thoroughly enjoyed it and I have enormous respect for those in the forces. But there was never an issue about having to go into a conflict. We thought at times as we were growing up, kids, teenagers,

that, oh, man, are we going to get suckered into going to Vietnam like our American neighbors? And while a lot of Canadians went and joined American forces to do it, the Canadian government and the Canadian forces did not go to Vietnam. So there was never a call up for that. And that was right in the time that I was in the Navy. Anyway, we were like proud to be boomers. We were the lucky generation. You know, our parents had made enormous sacrifice and our grandparents, and we were benefiting from those sacrifices with a lifestyle and opportunities that they hadn't had.

So being a boomer was a big deal, and it always has been until suddenly recently, like boomers, like the last thing you want to be called, as I was in the past week. And somebody clearly in there, you know, a generation or two below me. And it was in jest. It was sort of kidding around.

Say, okay, boomer. Okay, boomer. And I said, what is this stuff, this boomer stuff? Like, tell me about it. Why is that now seen as such a, you know, difficult thing? Oh, listen, that's Google. Cancel Google. Okay, Google.

Thank you. Bye. That didn't work. No problem. Take care. Oh, you too. Merry Christmas. It's good that that happens because I haven't noticed that.

I'd forgotten all about that little thing in the corner for months. That's the first time it's gone off. Anyway, enough on that. But so, I'm asking about boomers. Like, what's the deal? Why are you sort of talking about my generation in kind of derogatory terms? So the answer came back that, hey, boomers have screwed everything up for us, us millennials.

I said, what do you mean, screwed everything up? He said, yeah, you've screwed everything up. The economy, look at the housing market. Job security, student debt. You screwed up the planet. You know, we've got climate change. You killed the planet with your single-use plastics. Well done, boomers. We've got climate change. You kill the planet with your single-use plastics.

Well done, boomers. And then it sort of went on from there into, you know, questions about identity and self-worth and, you know, that we created kind of self-centered monsters. So it was getting off, way off into the deep end. But, you know, the first couple of things I thought, well, you know, maybe they have something there. Millennials. You know, I think that's sort of, I get these things mixed up,

but I think they're sort of roughly 20 to 40, right? Somewhere in there, that range, 25 to 40. Those are millennials. And you know millennials because they've had an enormous contribution for us. You know, like avocado on toast. I don't know how we would have got away without having that opportunity to have avocado on toast. But I think they're being somewhat unfair to us. I mean, it wasn't all easy being a boomer.

My first house I owned, 1980, I think I bought it, had a mortgage rate of 12.5%. That was the mortgage rate. And that was a deal. You know, it went up in the next year and the next year, and it was upwards of almost 20% for some people. Their mortgage rate. You try and explain that to a millennial today

who's got a mortgage rate of what? 3%? Or lower? Hey, we didn't have it easy. We were battling huge inflation numbers, which kind of cut both ways. First of all, goods and services were so, you know, we were rapidly increasing in cost. But so were, I concede, our wages were going up in big increments each year with, you know, depending on where you worked and whether you had union protection or what have you, your, you know, your salary was going up considerably.

Anyway, it's an interesting discussion. And as I said, this was a friendly discussion. We had a few good laughs about it. But there's clearly a thing in there about the boomer stuff. And it's interesting because here I am now in my 70s, and it's the first time I've ever heard boomers being described in a way that would make you wonder about that generation and its contributions. And when you do hit this age,

you do start thinking about what your personal contribution has been to life and to society, but you also think about what your generational contribution has been to society. And so it was an interesting discussion, and I enjoyed it. How it fits in the holiday season, I don't know, but it might be something. If you don't want to talk about Trump at the Christmas table,

and some people, including me, are getting sick of talking about it, then maybe talk about that. It's an interesting discussion. So, that's the main body of the bridge today, but it's time to take a break for a second before some closing thoughts. Okay. Okay, before signing off for this year, I wanted to read one letter from the mailbag. There have been a few nice ones lately,

and as I've said a number of times, I'm sort of kind of searching for a thought as opposed to a question, but we'll open things up to questions as we head into the new year. But this was kind of nice, it was very nice because it reminded me of a great colleague, a great friend, not just to me, who knew him and worked with him and taught with him at

Ryerson back in the 1970s, but somebody who was your friend too. And I know for a lot of you, he was a key part of your week each week. Anyway, this letter comes from John Swinomer at True North Country Comics. So John writes this. Hi, Peter, I had to write to you and thank you for your weekly podcast. Every Saturday morning for the last couple of years, there's been a silence and a void in my car when I would run errands and do chores. By the way, that's exactly the reason I've been doing this podcast and releasing it on Friday nights.

It's something that on the weekend, whether you're driving in your car doing errands or just sitting by the fire, whatever you may be doing, just something to listen to and something to think about. Anyway, marching on with John's letter. I was an avid listener of Stuart McLean's Vinyl Cafe every Saturday morning. I can remember listening to his show with my dad when he was still around.

I realized no one can take the place of Stuart McLean. You're right about that, John. No one can take the place of Stuart McLean. He was an institution, as you say. But I do want to thank you for doing your own thing, telling it like it is, telling your own personal stories and reading mail from listeners. Heck, if you want to throw in a musical performance or two

from a Canadian, please do. So thanks for the podcast and waving the Canadian flag. You can check in on John at truenorthcountrycomics.com. But I love that letter because obviously it reminds me of Stuart and we think all of us back to the great times we had with Stuart, either listening to him or working with him or watching the amazing professionalism of the way he went about telling stories. And the way he was able to translate some of his gifts

to younger journalists who wanted to learn from him. He was a key part of the Ryerson journalism department and he hired me to work there for a couple of years. When I could, it was hard, given my schedule at the National. But that went, not the 70s, the 80s, 87, 88, somewhere in there. But it is that kind of time of year where you have the opportunity to think back to things that have impacted your life and things that you enjoy doing. And one of them is learning about our country,

which hopefully we'll all have some time to do over the next few days and weeks. So I sign off with John's letter, and I sign off with wonderful thoughts to you, the best of the season. Not everyone celebrates Christmas, but they all understand and celebrate the fact that we have a time of year when we think of each other and care about each other.

And that's what we're doing and hopefully doing through the next couple of weeks. I wish you safe and wonderful holidays. And I hope that we'll touch base again early in the new year. I'm probably going to take next week off, and we'll get going again early in January. But as I said, if something comes along that I want to talk about, a few things are happening in the conservative leadership race.

Jean Charest now, rumoured to be thinking seriously about it. Ronna Ambrose, remember I warned you last week. She's a very popular person. Could be a very popular candidate, but does she really want to get back into politics? Peter McKay, does he? Doesn't he? Mark Mulrooney, who I gave the big bump to. This is why the candidates are saying, God, don't mention my name. Don't say you think I should

run. I mentioned Mark Mulrooney should run last week. He's dropped out of any serious consideration of running for the leadership, so that won't happen. I still think he would have been a great candidate, and he does have lots to contribute to Canada, and I'm sure he'll find different ways to do that. Anyway, so there are things to talk about, and we will talk about them in the coming episodes of The Bridge, but in the meantime, I want you to have a great holiday. If you want to write, don't be shy.

The Mansbridge Podcast at gmail.com. The Mansbridge Podcast at gmail.com. Have a wonderful and a safe holiday season. We'll talk to you again soon. Thank you.