Meeting Gordon Lightfoot

this is the autograph i got from gordon lightfoot. it's in rough shape, i better get it into some kind of shrink wrap thingy. it says, 'to ken, best wishes, gordon lightfoot'.

thought i would tell you about the time i met him. it was pretty cool, although i wasn't really into him at the time. this was about 1980, and i was living in a really small town in northern ontario - really small - if you live in a large city, there are more people living on your block than live in this town.

anyway, hornepayne is a great place to fish and hunt................and drink.

actually, there is nothing else to do. so i guess gordon wanted to go fishing and hunting..................and drinking.

a buddy and i were bumming around the streets one night - the ONE street i mean (yes, it's that small) - and someone told us that gordon lightfoot was over at blah blahs, (i didn't know them, my buddy did). so i picked up the phone and called, yes, i did.

the man of the house answered, and it went something like this. i don't remember the conversation verbatim, so i am ad-libbing:

man: "hello."

me: "hi, is gordon lightfoot there please?"

man: "just a sec." (this was when i fell down for the first time)

gordon lightfoot: "hello."

me: "is this gordon lightfoot?"

gordon lightfoot: "yes." (this is when i fell down for the second time)

me: "can i come over?"

gordon lightfoot: "sure, as long as you don't bring a crowd."

me: (after getting up again) "OK, thanks."

it was that easy. this is a small town afterall, and i guess gordon wasn't worried about media hounds or assassins.

so my buddy and i went to this house and i rapped on the door. it was at that moment that my buddy ran - i'm still not sure why he did that - afraid of meeting a celebrity?

i was let in, i saw some people i knew, some i didn't. a beer was thrust into my hand (in hornepayne, they thrust beers into your hand. they are famous for that - "go to hornepayne, they thrust beers into your hand, and not just one, like five").

i sat down in the corner to watch the proceedings, all the while thinking i was dreaming. gordon lightfoot was sitting across the room from me. some people were jamming on acoustics, gordon wasn't. he said he wasn't there to play.

this is the late '70s remember, so he still had some meat on his body, and a cute curly kind of perm thing going in his hair. now he looks like walking death. i think he did his fair share of partying in his day, and it has taken its toll.

so the night unfolded nicely, and i ended up being able to talk to him, one on one, in a corner. i told him i was a drummer (don't remember what he said).

then later he did play (i forget what he played). then he told everyone that he mentions hornepayne (the town we were in) in one of his new songs on his 'dream street rose album'. that section of lyrics is here:

"....was it up in Hornepayne where the trains run on time

Was she drinking champagne when she made up her mind

North of the border or down in South Bend

And when all is said and done

Is there no rainbow's end....."

that was pretty cool.

and i do remember he had caluses (how do you spell that word?) as big as oven mitts on his left hand, from playing guitar for so long. they were huge.

earlier that day, or was it the next day? gordon was given a tour of the railway operations in town. the only reason hornepayne exists is basically because of the Canadian National Railway. i still have to ask my mom about this, but i do believe my dad, who was a big-wig on the railway, gave him the tour.

before i left that night, gordon was giving people free passes to his upcoming show at massey hall in toronto (it is a yearly event), but i declined, because travelling down to toronto for a show just wasn't something i would be able to do.

and i do remember after we all left that house that night, i was stumbling down the right side of the ONE street in town, and gordon and his girlfriend were walking? down the other, and i was saying 'goodnight, nice to meet you, blah blah blah'. and he was saying, 'yeah, yeah, yeah' or something.

so the next day i'm telling all my friends about meeting him the night before, and they didn't believe me. we were hanging out in the lobby of the motel he was staying in. next thing i know, gordon and his girlfriend come down the stairs and go to the front desk to check out.

my friends are looking at me like, 'yeah, nice story ken. yeah, you bloody liar'.

a couple of moments later, gordon turns around, and says hi to me! YEAH! redemption (not sure what that word means). my story proven.

it wasn't the 'hi' that someone will say to someone they have never met, it was the 'hi' that people who HAVE met before say.

my friends tucked their tails under their bums and went and hid in the corner.

it was great. he probably wouldn't remember me now. maybe, if i related the whole story to him.

rock on gord!