Hasses aren't only avocados.: July 2020

Pater: Messin' about on the river

Posted by Pater , Wednesday, July 29, 2020 7:36 PM

There are super famous singers, who stay in the minds and hearts of fans well after they exit stage left from the concert stadium of life. And then there are completely unknown singers, whose only claim to fame is a couple lines that randomly stick in the mind of random people. Josh MacRae was such a singer and of the three singles he released (none of which got higher than #15 in the charts), one had the following lines which played repeatedly through Pater's head like a scratched record, this summer:

When the weather is fine, you know it's the time

For messin' about on the river

If you take my advice, there's nothing so nice

As messin' about on the river

(Evidently the song also stuck in the mind of Terry Jones of Monty Python fame, since he had Rat sing it at the beginning of his equally terribly-received 1996 film adaptation of Wind in the Willows).

But what caused this blink-and-you-missed-it verse to penetrate the thick skull of Pater's noggin? With COVID precluding a normal summer of camp, day trips, and close proximity with friends and family, Mater reached out to Uncle Toronto to ask him if we could make use of his cottage, which he graciously agreed to. And so off we went, the car packed to the hilt, the Avocado Jnrs squeezed in alongside food, clothes, toys and enough equipment to satisfy a sherpa about to climb Sagarmatha.

And once we were arrived, 5 years after our previous stay when only three Avocado Juniors were in the world, Mater and Pater started questioning each other as to why we didn't frequent cottage country more often. Was it fear of traffic? The hassle of packing and unpacking? Horse fly as big as your fist? Or just life in a normal city with a plethora of normal activities to do on a hot summer day meant we were happy to stay in Toronto? Whatever it was, within a couple hours of arriving, we went native and fell back in love with the peace and tranquility of messin' about on (and next to) the river. Ok, ok, Pater knows it's a lake, but poetic license folks!