For the first time, I took advantage of the seniors discount, thanks to my grey mane. We went to Freakier Friday at the theatre in Jackson Square and I told my fellow moviegoer to punch me in as a senior on the computer ticket thingy.
I turn 56 in October but from here on out, I’ve decided I’m going to try to take advantage of the grey to get the discounts.
It actually already happened about seven (!) years ago, but at that time I wasn’t looking for it.
So today, I walked into the theatre for the matinee showing and looked that young female ticket taker in the eyes, handing her my discounted seniors ticket. I also pushed up my cap so she could see all that grey in case she had any doubt I wasn’t 65.
“Theatre 6, just down the hall,” she said with a smile, in a voice that indicated she was happy to see someone my age still getting out in public.
No questions asked. No flinching.
Now some of you may be thinking the teenage ticket taker obviously didn’t take a look at the price on the ticket. And even if she did – why would she care? She still gets to eat free popcorn on her shift (I would think, anyway).
Yeah, that could be it. But honestly, it just felt good to be treated with respect by a younger person. You know how kids are these days.
This was originally a Facebook post that received some interesting comments, so I decided to elaborate about what happened in my head at the time and make it a Reynoworld post.
Does that really warrant italics? Maybe not.
What a dream.
I was on the floor with my eyes closed, pretending to be dead during a mass shooting. I heard someone walk up to me and put a shotgun (my dream told me that even though my eyes were closed) to my head. They fired the gun, although I didn’t hear anything.
It’s difficult to explain, but I felt that my head expanded.
“I’m dead,” I thought in my dream. “This doesn’t hurt.”
Remarkable, considering I’d just been “shot in the head.”
People have spoken before about seeing a light, being called to the light in a near-death experience, but there was nothing like that in my dream.
There was no joy, but also no pain. No sunshine … rain. In my head, I was in a state of limbo. Or maybe a better way to say it is I was in neutral.
But I distinctly remember having the feeling that this neutrality wasn’t permanent. That I’d get another chance at life. Another shot, so to speak.
Then I woke up.
Obviously, I’m not offering any profound reflection on a potential afterlife or next life (no shit). I’m just telling you about my dream.
But, as silly as it sounds, I’m more likely to believe in reincarnation now than I was before the dream.
I’m psyched for the Live Aid documentary coming up on CNN within the hour.
I remember watching a lot of it in my bedroom in Herring Cove, N.S., when I was 15 years old.
Don’t you love it when math works out? It was 40 years ago today. I’m 55 years old. That’s like literally 55 minus 40 equals 15.
Now I’ve written about Queen at least twice in Reynoworld, so I don’t want to repeat myself. But the fact is in July 1985 they were NOT cool in North America. But they were still my band.
This anecdote from a previous post best sums it up: I was on the bus on the way back to Herring Cove from Halifax wearing a Queen T-shirt and a girl looked at it, looked me in the eyes and laughed in my face.
“As long as they don’t do anything from their last few disco albums,” that’s what a DJ on the rock station in Halifax said when previewing Live Aid.
Yeah. Ol’ Queen didn’t make many friends with the Hot Space album from 1982.
And Radio Ga Ga from the 1984 album The Works? Seriously? Could there be a stupider song?
My mom always liked it, though. I didn’t appreciate it until I saw Queen led by Freddie Mercury perform it at Live Aid.
We’ve all seen the footage. A packed Wembley enthusiastically doing the double clap back at Freddie on the chorus.
Wow! I thought watching in Herring Cove.
Now I get it.
“I wish we had a song like that!” That’s what the Spandau Ballet guy said in a previous documentary about Live Aid. I’m not going to look his name up, but he’s aces.
Who doesn’t like True?
Back to Freddie.
“Aaay-oh!”
We’ve all seen the footage. The call and response with a packed Wembley enthusiastically responding to the call. It was jaw-droppingly cool for me to see, and I never thought of that girl who dissed me on the bus ever again.
I’ve been writing the Reynoworld blog for more than a decade. I’ve covered all the family stuff (or at least all the family stuff I want to cover).
I used to link to previous posts, but the technology has surpassed me. I wish I had a home page with links to my various posts in various categories, but I don’t know how to do it.
Can someone please help me? If you help me, I will send you a pic of my cat Monty. (Here would be a link to a pic of Monty.)
All that is a verbose way of saying I’ve covered some of this post in previous ones.
Summary: I am the youngest of six kids, born to Garth and Patricia Reyno, raised staunch catholic in Herring Cove, N.S.
I was born on Oct. 24, 1969, and the closest sibling is my sister Clare, born five years before me.
I would be the poster boy for a “mistake,” though apparently not attractive enough to be on a poster.
“Take him back, he looks like a skinned rabbit,” my Dad reportedly said when I was born.
The reason I know this is because I was reminded of it in the family. Not every day, but … enough.
Oddly enough, I was never offended by it. And in hindsight as a journalist/writer, I’d say it’s an accurate description from Garth Leonard Reyno.
And as the last of six kids, what else is he going to say?
“Oh my heavens! What a miracle! I was hoping for more expenses.”
Yeah. With six kids in the bungalow and one parent getting paid, we never got to Disney Land.
But we did get to Crystal Crescent Beach in Sambro. I remember bodysurfing the waves, loving it as a kid.
The best times were after a hurricane, when the water was warm and the waves were huge.
Catch a wave, and you’re sittin’ on top of the world.
I recall one time, I was between the ages of five and eight, I’d spent a long time in the water, enjoying a lot of big waves.
But the waves were getting bigger, and I was getting more exhausted. Like, on my hands and knees trying to reach the beach.
I tried a couple of times, but when I was getting close to getting out of the water, another wave would pull me back.
I didn’t know what to do. I couldn’t even stand up and walk out of the water.
Bring on Super Garth!
Next thing I know, Dad had me in his arms, out of the water, safely on a beach towel. I don’t remember, but I’m sure Mom resuscitated me with a mouth full of Oreos and a can of Coke.
“We need a Coffee Crisp bar on standby – stat!” Mom probably said. Sugar was her thing.
Actually, sugar was a family thing. There are few things I loved more than a bowl of Shreddies loaded with sugar soaked in 3% milk (can I get 4%?).
Here I am, I’m guessing six years old, shooting the shit with Mom and Dad in the Herring Cove kitchen, digging into some sugar Shreddies.
Hang on – sideways?
A Shreddie gets stuck in my throat and I flip out of my chair, not being able to breathe, grabbing my throat.
Squirming on the floor, Super Garth picks me up and pounds my back –
Once! Twice! Three times!
The Shreddie dislodges.
Ahh … ahh.
I can breathe again. …
Ahh. …
Then he gives me another shot for wasting a Shreddie.
Once upon a time there was a stomach. This stomach was born in Nova Scotia and raised on donair meat.
Now this stomach moved to Toronto in 2008 and that was it for donair meat for a while. By the time Stomach got to London, Ont., a couple of years later, donair meat was like a dream, like did that really happen?
When Stomach moved to Hamilton more than 10 years ago I’m happy to say donair meat made, not a comeback, but a reappearance.
But everyone knows straight-up donair meat in the traditional pita presentation is just one interpretation of this delicacy.
Why limit donair meat? Would you take a paint brush from Van Gogh?
Look at this. This donair pizza is from Moody’s here in The Hammer. They nailed the sauce, the meat and look at those tomatoes shine! Delicious!
I haven’t had a donair pizza since I left Nova Scotia 16 years ago.
Shortly before … I’m walking through Lime Ridge Mall here in Hamilton past this skin-care kiosk (I guess that’s a thing) when a young, bespectacled woman with long, straight black hair shoves an upside down sample cup at me with a white concoction on it.
“What’s this?”
“It’s hand moisturizer,” she says in a thick accent I can’t place.
“Oh, thanks,” I say and begin rubbing it over my cold, dead hands.
“Can I ask you a question?” she asks that question.
“Sure.”
“What are you doing for your eyes?”
She means the bags under my eyes. Obviously, I say nothing (the actual word, not the lack of action). Next thing I know I’m sitting in her office, as she calls it, in the middle of the mall and she’s rubbing this brown substance under my right eye. Now she’s done and she’s pointing a small fan at my eye and blowing air on it to speed up the drying process.
While this is going on, she asks me a lot of questions.
“Are you from Hamilton?” (Nova Scotia)
“What brought you to Hamilton?” (work)
“Are you married or happy?” (nice one)
“Do you mind if I ask you how old you are?”
“I turn 50 in a couple of weeks.”
“Ooh!” she looks surprised. “You don’t look 50.”
Pause.
“You look good.”
I love how she sets the two statements off like they’re opposite. 50 equals … Not good.
Just to conclude the story, she’s happy (not married) and Russian. I thank her for the kind words, but I never even get a price on the eyebag treatment. She offers to treat the other eye, no thanks, and I leave the mall with one eye that looks 45 another that looks 55 so let’s cross eyes and call it 50.
50.
Holy smokes. Look at that:
50. 50! That’s a mean lookin’ crooked number at the start.
I can’t believe I’m this old. On my 50th birthday, that’s what I feel mostly – I can’t believe I’m this old.
I don’t feel old, but I know I am. I’m 50.
I don’t feel old mentally. But now that I think of it, physically … yeah. I’m 50.
I’m not as strong as I used to be, my workouts are a shadow of what I did years ago, I have to constantly guard against beer gut (wish me luck), and I’m sore. I’m sore. My favourite cologne is Rub-A535.
My feet hurt all the time – and I already have orthotics. Getting out of bed to start the day and at work when I’ve been sitting for a while and get out of my chair, those first few steps are tortuous. I look like I’m walking on hot coals.
A few times my supervisor, who sits behind me in the open-concept office, has seen me hobblewalk and looked at me puzzled.
“I’m 49 years old,” I’d say.
Can’t say that anymore. I’m 50. I’ve already received the seniors discount, for fuck’s sake.
And my neck is always stiff. I can’t turn around properly. I have to kind of half waddleturn my whole body to look at something behind me or on the periphery of my sightline.
Periphery. A young man wouldn’t use that word.
But mentally … I’m so young! The theme of this blog is to celebrate the small stuff, and I do it every day. I try to be optimistic. Like I said in my 49th birthday post, I love nothing more than getting a laugh from people, especially those in the service industry or retail who I know get their share of humourless cranks.
I recently went to buy a new duvet and duvet cover. Considering it’s most likely the last duvet set I’m ever going to buy … this is an adventure!
I go across the street to Linen Trends in Jackson Square in full goof mode (don’t leave home without it). I’m joking around with the Arabic owner and his wife, and they’re giving it right back to me.
The guy knocks 20 bucks off the duvet cover and another 20 off the duvet. And they give me a free hand towel! Is it because I’m friendly and having fun with them? Yeah, I think it is.
Here’s the best part – when I ask for a bag for the duvet cover, the owner’s wife who rings me up at the cash deadpans:
“It’s 10 bucks for the bag.”
I crack up, shake the owner’s hand, and she gives me a fist bump.
I never get tired of stuff like that. But I do get tired of other stuff. Like, doing stuff.
A friend of mine climbed Mount Kilimanjaro when he turned 50. Me? I’m going up the street to my favourite bar, The Ship.
It never occurred to me in 50 years to try to do something like climb a mountain for my 50th. I felt guilty for a while, like I should try to accomplish something, till my wise sister Clare weighed in:
“You’re wired how you’re wired.”
Here’s how it ends. It doesn’t end.
This post was originally titled Birthday No. 50: It’s A -30- because -30- is the old school way journalists would indicate they were finished filing a story. This was going to be my goodbye Reynoworld post.
But now that I write this one and realize how lucky I am to be 50 and be in good health (I do binge drink but what am I supposed to do, climb a mountain?) and how much I appreciate the support, I may as well still post the occasional post.
And I realize mine is an important voice that needs to be heard. Probably the most important voice in the history of the world. The small, ridiculous things in life must be documented. Celebrated, even.
Imagine how empty your life would be if you didn’t know this post was dedicated to Dave Poole. I met him once, a few weeks ago while I was standing in front of Aout ’N About on Augusta, waiting to be picked up. He was sitting on the front deck, a heavyset, bearded white guy about my age. He was the only person out there.
We chatted for a bit, then out of the blue he brought me a shot.
My friends Jack and Kayla had a cool idea for gifts for their first born due in January: give a book instead of whatever else.
I picked a book, and I included this note (handwritten, I haven’t had a printer since the second divorce more than a decade ago).
Happy reading, my friends.
Harrison,
Your wonderful parents Jack and Kayla have asked that instead of the usual baby gift, their friends give you a book.
You will obviously find your own path, as we all do. You will find inspiration from sources no one has ever even thought of.
Inspiration is always personal. So let me take a moment to explain why my book for you is The Grapes Of Wrath by John Steinbeck, first published in 1939 (I was born in 1969).
Some background: The Dust Bowl drove farmers out of their livelihood and led to the Great Depression. Imagine in your life now – whatever you choose to do – you can’t do it anymore. Not only can you not do it anymore, you have to move to find work.
And when you get to the next spot, still no work. Keep moving. Just surviving becomes a full-time job.
I’ve read The Grapes Of Wrath at times in my life when I’ve felt sorry for myself, for whatever reason. The novel is inspiring to me in that it helps me realize that as crappy as I think I have it – things could be much, much worse.
Also, just from a writer’s perspective (I write, but I ain’t Steinbeck), the first chapter where he sets up the conditions of the Dust Bowl is the best prose I have ever read. It flows, advances the story, and touches the heart.
You can’t ask for more from a novel than that.
I wish you a long, prosperous life of finding inspiration and also inspiring others.
Jim Reyno
November 2025
A book that after he read it, inspired a U.S. president to change policy. Imagine a U.S. president reading a book.
I know I’m too old to look like this. And when I say look like this, I mean ridiculous.
But I also know I’m too old to be anything but true to myself.
And the truth is, I’m happiest when I have scruffy curly hair sticking out from every angle under a ball cap.
It reminds me of when I was in university and living at home, playing recreational slow-pitch softball.
Actually, calling it “recreational” is giving it too much credit. Our bases were rocks.
But I fondly remember those hungover Sunday afternoons, when after mass I’d call my buddies and we’d meet at the field behind Herring Cove Junior High in my Nova Scotia hometown.
For me, it was cap on, flow in full effect.
I liked feeling the wind in my flow as I rounded the bases after hitting a tater over that short, chain-link fence in left field. I’m not boasting about my skills – all of us right-handed batters hit taters into the spruce trees beyond that tantalizingly short, left-field fence.
“The Green Monster of our own,” texts Scott, my brother-in-law and fellow RH “slugger,” as we reminisce about the Herring Cove Hungover Softball League. #HCHSL
Jeez, that was a long time ago. I haven’t hit a tater in decades. And Herring Cove – then to Spryfield, to Dartmouth, to Halifax, to Timberlea, to Toronto, to London, Ont., to the heart of downtown in The Hammer – seems very far away.
And not only have I not hit a tater in decades, I haven’t even swung a bat in decades.
BREAKING NEWS: My slow-pitch softball career is over. I know I’ll never round the bases again.
But you know what? I’m at peace with all that. Because … there’s no reason to have to make peace with any of that.
Time marches on.
All Things Must Pass.
Taters fly, we all still die.
But until then, I want to feel the wind in my flow. Even if I’m no longer rounding the bases.
I would like to donate all my taters to the Toronto Blue Jays.
There was an Art Pepper boxset of late-in-life concert dates released a few years ago, six CDs and extensive liner notes.
Right up my alley. I really wanted it, but I couldn’t find it for less than $115.
Then I found this. Four albums (two CDs) for $15. Yeah, I can budget for that.
Check out the album title at bottom right: “Smack Up.” Gotta love it when a musician names an album after his heroin habit.
I Reynoworld posted about this years ago (what you don’t remember?), but Pepper’s autobiography Straight Life (ironically titled) is a captivating read. A harrowing, unapologetic account of a musician/addict/jailbird life.
But it’s not all sex and drugs, though there’s a lot of that. Pepper was also a baseball nerd and invented an elaborate dice game about baseball. I did the same thing, and I still play nerd baseball with cards and dice.
I’m that cool.
Oh and as for Pepper’s alto playing? Like honey and sugar and that first warm narcotic hug that you can never recapture, no matter how hard you try.
So I hear. I’ve never tried. I’m old school. I like chocolate.
My cat Monty just got back from the vet. She had a seizure earlier when I was giving her treats before I left our Hamilton condo, as I always do.
I’m so glad I was there for her when it happened. The vet doesn’t know what caused the seizure, but most of the tests were fine – especially for a cat that turns 18 this year.
I’ve posted about this before, so a quick reminder. Monty was born in front of my eyes in 2007 in Timberlea, N.S., when we had a stray cat we didn’t know was pregnant.
Monty has been with me since then. From Timberlea to Toronto to London, Ont., to The Hammer.
And about seven years ago, she was deathly ill. Like, talking to a friend about being able to bury her in her yard deathly ill.
But I nursed Monty back to health. Medicine, food and water several times daily with a syringe. For two weeks, every time I came home from work I expected to find a dead cat.
I never did. Today’s seizure was the first medical event since then.
The vet today gave me some meds for her, and she just had her first dose, mixed with delicious Fancy Feast.
I honestly thought when I brought her to the vet, I’d never see her again. One more cat life. Stressful afternoon. I’m going to have some wine now.
As a journalist and regular human, I’ve seen enough live shots of TV reporters standing in hurricane winds and rain. Like, 40 years’ worth.
To me, it smacks of, “Look at me! I know there’s a hurricane and the devastation is piling up, but look at me! Look how dedicated I am and how my wet hair blows in the wind!”
As I said, this has been going on for 40 years, at least.
It’s time to mix it up. We’ve all seen the shot of the dedicated reporter in a hurricane hundreds of times. It’s time to embrace modern technology.
Show me a reporter in a housecoat sitting back in bed, lights off, with a rainbow-scented candle burning in the background. Maybe you can hear a cat purr as they check the hurricane progress online whilst reporting via Zoom.
Maybe they’re also munching on Cool Ranch Doritos.
Reynoworld 