HUMOUR ME

 
My friend Jeff — a social worker — was fixated on Canada. He watched “Hockey Night in Canada” on TV and studied the Canadian railroad timetables. He filled out immigration papers to Canada, waited several months for clearance, and moved to  Ontario.

The next day he came back to Cleveland. He didn’t like his social work job up there, he said, but he liked Canada.

Jeff definitely didn’t like Cleveland — blasting car horns, boom boxes, leaf blowers, people giving you the finger, and his parents pestering him. On Mondays Jeff’s father would say, “You’re going to move too far away.” On Tuesdays his dad would say, “You need to go out into the world and prove yourself.”

I subscribed to “Hockey Night in Canada” on cable TV for Jeff, so he would babysit my then-toddler son, Teddy, for free on Saturday nights.

Jeff moved to Canada again. This time to Nova Scotia.

It worked. I haven’t seen Jeff in 31 years.

I miss him, even though he verbally abused me. He was misanthropic and jaded, and I was OK with that. We held jadedness contests. Jeff said I was a thrill-seeking diner on a perpetual hunt for dishes my bubbe never made. He said, “You crave urban experience so badly you would eat flankn cooked directly off the seat of a cross-town bus.” True enough.

We listened to comedy records, played music together, and made fun of our fellow landsmen. Back then Jeff knew more Yiddish than I did. His favorite curse was Gey mit dayn kup in drerd. (“Go to hell.” Literally “Go with your head in the ground.”)

We attended High Holidays at Case Western University Hillel. I had to drive; Jeff was anti-car, anti-noise, anti-everything. He was so annoyed.

I schlepped Jeff to a hillbilly bar on the near West Side so he could jam with the house band. He played guitar and sang a couple tunes. Jeff was devoted to country music — anything “authentic” (the watchword of our faith). Jeff’s favorite player was Hank Williams.

Lake Erie gets you there: Canada, 57 miles. (Cleveland shoreline.)

Jeff’s sole East Side musical appearance was at the Heinen’s supermarket in University Heights for a cancer-awareness fundraiser. He played “Good Old Mountain Dew” in the soda pop section and “Hava Nagila” by the oranges. He had a sense of place.

And he moved to Canada.