I lived in Edmonton, Alberta, on and off for about a dozen years.
Oh, stop. It's not as bad as you think. Sure, it's pretty far north, but the winters aren't actually as bad as, say, Winnipeg, even with the annual week-straight-of-30-below-Celsius.
Every February. and that doesn't include wind chill.
There were lots of great things about Edmonton. Aside from meeting my wife there. Summers are pleasantly hot, and the sun stays up a long, long time.
While that doesn't bode well for drive-in theaters - and yes, it turns out those are still a thing - it's very good for street festivals.
Edmonton has a lot of street festivals in summer. I attended them sometimes.
The riskiest street festival for shy, retiring types like me is the Street Performers festival. Usually runs a week in Mid July, all over downtown and Whyte Avenue. The cool places to be in Edmonton. They absolutely thrive on crowd participation.
I may have mentioned in the past that I tend to stick out in crowds. It has to do with being five-foot-sixteen and having not seen the underside of 200 pounds since before I could drive.
Back when I was still The Guy With the Calves, we decided to meet my friend Pats, from school, on Whyte, and head over to the Gazebo and catch a street performance. Dr. Wilbert McIntyre Park in old Strathcona features a paved gathering area with a low, grassy hillside, forming a shallow bowl, with the eponymous gazebo set atop on one side. I selected a position opposite the gazebo up slope on the grass, facing the (very slightly raised) stage, and sat.
Pats looked at me. "Will we be able to see?" Pats, tiny slip of a blonde at 5'1", worried about things like that.
"We're fine," I said. "besides - if I stand up, they'll pull me out of the crowd," I told her. I had a history of that sort of thing, and had learned to at least try to take steps.
Turns out it didn't help.
"Okay, good," Pats told us. "I have to try not to laugh. I just had gum surgery yesterday, and it still hurts."
It's these little hints about oncoming calamity that I routinely get - and don't realize until afterward - that stick with me the most. It's the "shoulda saw that coming" effect.
The show started. My anonymity in my crouched, knees-up seat and my wrap-around gargoyle sunglasses lasted maybe two minutes.
One performer was narrating, and introduced the story about a Terrible Bear. The other, a little wiry guy, had strapped a pair of wooden platforms to his feet, giving him a six inch lift and a LOT of surface area to satisfactorily clomp around on.
He was accosting members of the crowd, towering over them intimidatingly on his clompers and dressing them down, as the rest of the crowd laughed. And he was heading in my direction.
He clomped up the gentle slope to me. "GET UP!" he screamed.
I gave him That Look, over the top of my sunglasses. It didn't work. "I SAID GET UP!!"
"You really don't want me to do that," I said, Very Quietly, in my Calm Voice, so only he could hear.
Pats could too, and was making strange noises trying to suppress giggles.
But that didn't work either. He was quite insistent. So I rolled on to my feet and stood up.
Slowly.
His expression started to change as my eye level reached his... and kept going. The crowd was dead silent - except Pats - she was trying not to choke, since she saw it coming.
The guy was amazing. His expression drained into shock and then it only took a beat for him to switch gears when I finally stopped growing in from of him. "Warned you," I said.
He reached way up and patted me on the shoulder in a Very Friendly Way, and asked me if I was having a good day and enjoying myself, in a Very Pleasant Tone.
The Crowd absolutely rolled. Pats had tears streaming down her face.
I said of course I was, thank you. And sat back down.
The story was about how the Terrible Bear wanted to enlist a bear army to take over the forest. He pulled two conscripts out of the crowd . There was NO way I was going to get away with not being one of them. I just rolled with it. One of the hands offered me a mike.
"Don't need it" I said. The Bear shot me a look. Ten yards away up the slope, Pats was still tearing up laughing so hard. She knew what was coming there, too.
About a thousand years ago I was in another army - the Canadian one. They used to have me call drill as the entire 130-strong formation could conveniently hear me. Once, in formation, the Sergeant yelled out for me to call time - we were marching in place and his back was to a long, brick wall. I pointed my voice at the wall, and started. Nearly knocked him over - to the point that he looked over his shoulder.
Microphones. Pish.
The Bear wanted us to repeat the Bear Oath. "Repeat after me," He shouted into his mike. So I did.
The Crack of the first word that followed was recorded by the University of Alberta Geology Department, some 15 blocks west, as a Six on the Richter scale.
Well, okay, maybe not. But the Bear, his back to me, Flinched. The Crowd roared even more, some gasping for air. Pats was rolling around on the grass, holding her mouth.
We eventually managed to complete the story, capturing princesses, and resolving the plot to the absolute hysteria of the assembled mass. Once complete, the Bear and the Narrator - and a number of people from the crowd - still laughing - were lavish with their praise. I told The Bear that the standing up thing worked only because he was a little down slope from me.
It took a while before Pats could stop laughing at me, let alone talk. She might even have forgiven me by now. She's a successful professional; still lives... well, in the suburbs. She works in downtown Edmonton, though.
Wonder if she still hits the street performers. I wonder if her mouth feels better yet...
