Canada Customs

I cross the border into Canada at least once a week. The representatives of Canada Customs are invariably polite and friendly. They’ve never hassled me or suggested I wasn’t welcome in their country. 

Here are typical questions I get as I drive north past the Peace Arch, which marks where the 49th parallel runs into the ocean:

“Where do you live?" Bellingham.   

“What’s the purpose of your visit?” I sing in Vancouver Men’s Chorus, and we rehearse on Wednesdays. 

“Why do you sing in a chorus in Vancouver?” I used to sing in Seattle Men’s Chorus, but when I moved to Bellingham I realized the commute to Vancouver would be much easier.

“Are you bringing anything into Canada you intend to leave behind?”  No /  I’m bringing Trader Joe’s wine/peppermint cremes/eggplant as a gift for my host.

“When was the last time you were in Canada?” Last Wednesday. Or Sunday. Or Thursday. Whatever, Mary.

Many of the Canada Customs agents seem genuinely curious about the Vancouver Men’s Chorus. Some of the random questions I’ve gotten:

“What part do you sing?”

“What kind of a chorus is it?”

“What kind of music do you guys sing?”

“Where do you perform?”

“When are your concerts?”

“What’s the hardest part about singing?”

“Is it weird singing with only men?”

“Do you get paid to sing in the chorus?”

“Do you know a guy named Tony? I think he's a bass.”

“How often do you rehearse?”

“Isn’t it usually just once a week?”

“Does anyone else from the States sing in the chorus?”

“Is it true baritones are just second tenors who can’t read music?”

I’ve also gotten plenty of oddball non-chorus questions over the years. 

For example, last Sunday the guy from Canada Customs asked me "How did you break your driver's side mirror?" (A truck hit me and I couldn't afford to fix it, so I've been praying for a new car instead. It's only been two and a half years. Thoughts and prayers....)

Some questions at the border probably make more sense in context. For example:

“Do your parents know this man is taking you into Canada to ride roller coasters?”

FYI, Eleanor and her friends were on our way to celebrate her birthday at the PNE.

Last Wednesday I got another brand new question. It was a follow up to the regular “When will you be returning from Canada?” 

“Do you stay overnight every time you come up for chorus?" 

My answer:  “I have my kids half the time, so the weeks when they’re with me instead of with my ex I have to hurry home after rehearsal to relieve the babysitter.”

How about this preposterous question: 

 “Are you carrying over $10,000 in cash or negotiable instruments?”   

I’m an unemployed disabled single dad teetering on the edge of bankruptcy. Go figure. 

Only one person at Canada Customs has ever asked me to show him the money. In contrast, I regularly get this same tragicomic question from the overzealous Boy Scouts at United States Customs & Border Protection.

What's your guess for Canada Customs’ second most frequent inquiry, after “Where do you live”? 

This is no exaggeration. I get some version of this question virtually every time I cross the border into Canada: 

“Are you carrying any firearms?” (Or “Are you carrying any firearms, knives, or other weapons?” “Any Mace?” Etc.)

I’m amazed every time. I’m a middle-aged liberal driving his kid-ravaged minivan to gay choir practice. Do I match the National Rifle Association's profile of a typical gun-toting American? Or are Canadians just particularly gullible?

Besides, if I were planning to go postal, I wouldn’t be heading to Canada.

This next question from Canada Customs is officially the second most homophobic thing anyone in authority has ever said to me, other than my bigoted former employers. (My blog post last Sunday, "Adoption Stories: Flying the Friendly Skies," was about my most homophobic official encounter.)

I’ve gotten this particular question multiple times at the border in the past, although I haven’t had occasion to hear it recently. Nevertheless, other gay guys also complain about getting the same question, which I suspect is not routinely asked to straight couples:

“How do you two know each other?”  

A few months ago, the booth at Canada Customs was manned by an agent I’d never seen before. The new guy was a total dude, with shaggy Whistler ski bum hair. He’s the only person who’s ever asked me the following question:

“Are you carrying any firearms or cannabis products?”

This was on Wednesday, October 17, 2018, the day recreational marijuana use became legal across Canada. He was smiling.

As with many questions from Canada Customs, the correct answer is a polite “No.”

Backing Up

Recently my parents’ ancient PC began making ominous noises. Then the screen went black. It came back to life a few days later, but you never know. Despite growing up with parents who lectured them about the Great Depression, my own spendthrift parents quickly went out and purchased a new HP laptop at Best Buy. I told them to finally buy a Mac, but they said it's too late to change.

They asked me to help back up all their data and transfer everything over to the new computer. It's been a fun week. My parents and I are smart, funny people. We enjoy spending time together. You could film a witty Netflix sitcom just of us backing up the computer at their house. I bet you’d be convinced they're Jewish, too. [Ed. Note: You remember they're Mormon, right?]

In fact, you could film a Netflix sitcom at my parents' house. When my father did the remodel, he insisted on installing heterosexual light fixtures so bright you can perform surgery or film a movie in any room in the house.

    [LAUGH TRACK]

Anyway, when it comes to actual computer skills, you’d think my parents would be able find someone more useful than me. I have three brothers, three sisters-in-law, twelve nieces and nephews, and three thoroughly plugged-in children. Two of my nephews are currently on Mormon missions in the African jungle, so they’re unavailable. Still, surely someone else in the family is more agile than me. There are lots of young folks who grew up in a world filled with miniature supercomputers. Frankly, most of them are addicted to their little supercomputers.

Plus I’m an oldest child. So everyone in the entire family is younger than me – except my parents. Including the two teenaged grandchildren who are currently squatting in the spare bedrooms at my parents’ house. 

Not to mention my brother the computer guy. Prior to working in IT at Harvard then programming for Google, he began his career as a telephone custom service representative for a Bellingham company that sold software.

Of course, my computer brother has lived in Boston for so long he cheers for evil sports teams. My lawyer brother moved to Africa years ago, so he’s no use. Even my insurance adjustor brother recently snuck out of Bellingham in the dead of night, this time moving to the hinterlands of British Columbia’s Okanagan Valley. 

I hate to be the one to say this. But why is it always the spinster daughter and/or gay son who gets stranded alone in the small town with the “aged ancestors”?¹

¹This is the term of endearment that Bertie Wooster uses when referring to his beloved Aunt Dahlia. Not to his nasty Aunt Agatha.

     

The truth is, I’m the only one who can help my parents back up their vintage computer and move its prehistoric data to the new laptop. Because I’m the only one in the family who remembers it all – DOS, 512k RAM, MS-DOS, Windows, Windows XP, Windows 7, Windows ME, the whole decades-long dysfunctional relationship among IBM, Microsoft, and their traumatized customers. Plus, as a person living with PTSD, I've developed special skills for coping with the day-to-day frustrations you can expect from any Kafka-esque situation.

Fortunately for my kids’ sake, our little family switched to Apple long ago. Over here at our house it's all iPhones, Macbooks, and iMacs. Nevertheless, because of various former employers’ misguided IT choices, I've never completely escaped the tractor beam pull of Microsoft’s Death Star. I still know my way around a Window. 

Unfortunately for both my kids’ and my parents’ sake, for the last couple of years I’ve worked at home on the iMac. I was also busy dealing with my PTSD diagnosis. My PC skills are a little rusty.

So this week I’m busy coming up to speed with Windows 10 – in between wrangling kids, and memorizing French and Hebrew carols for the Vancouver Men's Chorus concerts that begin Saturday. I've already made numerous house calls to the old homestead across town on Alabama Hill. 

Sadly, I’m the best thing my poor parents can hope for. As usual.

With the possible exception of my brother the computer guy. Who has a cellphone and is only three time zones away.

Obviously I’m not going to reveal any parental confidences about the actual backup-and-transfer experience at the Leishman house. (Unlike my home, their house is pronounced "Lishman" rather than "Leashman." No one's house is pronounced "Leischman." It's complicated.) Instead, I’ll conclude with my all-time favorite backing up story. It comes from when I was on my Mormon mission in Seoul, Korea.

There are two kinds of folk stories: myth and history. My favorite history story from my mission really is one of the true ones, or at least as true as anything can be after being filtered through thirty-five years of memories. I had ocular proof, from my own file cabinet when I served in the mission office. 

But I’ll save that story for another day. This is my favorite Korean missionary myth:

On your mission you have all kinds of amazing and miraculous experiences that let you tell stories decades later. Nevertheless, being a missionary is stressful. You’re away from home, in an alien country, living a regimented lifestyle, sharing the gospel with strangers, because God himself told the Prophet to call you to this exact time and place. That’s a lot to process. It changes you, mostly for good. 

You also pick up lots of useful life skills, like cooking, foreign languages, public speaking, and operating heavy equipment. For example, when I was a teenager in Utah and Washington, I never got around to learning how to drive a stick shift. All our cars had automatic transmissions. Besides, my parents live on the top of a steep hill, in a rain forest – I was terrified of stalling and sliding back down Alabama Street. Instead, I learned to drive a manual transmission at age twenty, when the Seoul Mission President called me to help out at mission headquarters. Unlike Mormon missions in other parts of the world, only the mission office staff ever drove cars. All the other missionaries walked or used public transit. In our very urban mission, riding a bike would have been suicidal.

Driving was pretty fraught, too. In 1984, the roads of Seoul were like something out of a Mad Max movie. The lines between lanes were newly painted, and uniformly ignored. There were no speed limits other than the laws of physics. Nevertheless, this is where I first learned to drive a stick shift. In rush-hour traffic outside the central post office. In the rain. In a Bongo minivan.²

³Hmm. Do you think my current Kia minivan triggered my PTSD symptoms? [Ed. Note:  No.]

As I recall, the mission Bongo was manufactured by Kia, but it could have been Hyundai (which is Korean for “Modern”) or Samsung (which is Korean for “Three Star”). All the vans in Seoul looked the same. And they all sounded the same. For example, most Korean vehicles played the same sound whenever you backed up. Not a beep, but a song. Beethoven’s “Fur Elise.” 

Anyway, I heard this story from another missionary, not long after I landed in Korea. It's about an Elder who left before I arrived. But not long before, because supposedly there still was some missionary in Suwon who served together with this guy when he was a greenie.

Although the other missionaries in the district could tell this Elder was struggling a little, his companion hadn’t noticed anything out of the ordinary. Then one morning as the other Elders in the apartment were eating breakfast, they heard the faint sounds of Fur Elise:  “na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-nah.” Then a little louder: “Na-Na-Na-Na-Na-Na-Na-Na-Nah.” Then “NA-NA-NA-NA-NA-NA-NA-NA-NAH!” Continuing his loud chant, the Elder began to back around the apartment like a truck. They had to call the Mission President and a doctor.

As with the Shady Dame from Seville in the musical Victor/Victoria, "the rest of the tale’s not a pretty one." The missionary was sent home. Supposedly he tried to castrate himself with a spoon in the airport. No one seemed to know what ultimately happened to the mythic Elder.

Most have you have seen The Book of Mormon. Or you’ve illicitly listened to the soundtrack when everyone else was at church, and you stayed home “sick.” I went with my mother for her birthday. 

                          

There’s lots of mythmaking involved with both Mormon missions and Broadway musicals. In most ways, my experiences in Korea were very different from what the play portrays as the experiences of Elder Price and his brethren in Africa. (With the obvious exception of Elder McKinley, the repressed gay missionary who told you how to “Turn it Off.”) Nevertheless, part of the reason audiences respond to The Book of Mormon is there’s at least a kernel of truth in all good stories.

I hope the part of the Korean story that’s true is the backing up. 

Adoption Stories: Flying the Friendly Skies

Here's the story of the most horribly homophobic thing anyone ever said to me.

My ex is ten years younger than me. We were 41 and 31 when we adopted Eleanor. 

When Eleanor was a couple of months old, we took her on a plane for the first time. We were visiting friends and family in the Midwest. Our flight left out of a crowded Seattle-Tacoma International Airport. Obviously we flew with both an overstuffed diaper bag and a bulky car seat. 

Jason went through the metal detector first, carrying our daughter. I wrestled the bags and car seat into the x-ray machine.

Admiring my amateur efforts, the perky TSA Security Agent said “And you must be the grandfather!"

Click here for more episodes of Adoption Stories.

High School Musicals

What’s the opposite of “triggering”?

Last Friday, my daughters and I went to see cross-town rival Squalicum High School’s fall musical, 9 to 5. I’ve always loved the classic 1980 movie, but I’d never gotten around to seeing a production of the recent Broadway musical. 

I don’t think I’ve seen an actual “high school musical” since the 1980s. There was no need – my own kids have only made it to middle school so far. I thought I had at least another year before I would have to accompany them to, and/or watch them perform in, a high school musical.

There were good reasons to wait as long as possible. (Hush, not your typical philistine or deadbeat dad reasons.) Although my PTSD symptoms burst out only three years ago, they were rooted in trauma that occurred three decades before, during my overachieving-and-closeted Mormon youth. Musical theatre was at the center of my life when all that trauma was occurring.

High school musicals should be triggering. 

from the 1979-80 BEHS yearbook

As it turns out, I didn’t need to worry. 

Squalicum High School’s production of 9 to 5 was like a magically updated version of all my fondest memories from high school. There were the same divas, dancers, excitement, and enthusiasm I remembered from thirty-five years ago.

However, there also were some obvious differences from Utah in the 1980s. Squalicum High’s beloved drama teacher is openly gay. His husband leads the battalion of community volunteers helping the students put together an amazing show on a miniscule budget. The diverse crowd on stage, in the crew, and in the audience included nerds, jocks, Mormons, gay boys, lesbians, and transgender students – all having fun and supporting each other.

Virtually all of my happy memories from the early 1980s involve either theatre or family. Watching 9 to 5 at Squalicum High School with my daughters evoked the same glow we used to get from the affirming and trauma-free moments in Glee. 

“Trauma-free” is not the same as “drama-free.”

High school musicals are filled with drama. They're also filled with Drama Queens. I already live with one in training.

One of the chorus members from 9 to 5 arranged for our tickets. We originally planned to attend a matinee last week. But it turns out my daughter Eleanor’s best friend from Lutheran summer camp goes to Squalicum High, and she had one of the show’s three staring roles. Because the leads were double cast, we had to switch our tickets to a night with the correct ensemble.

Friday dawned on the brink of tragedy. Eleanor’s friend had lost her voice, and she would never be able to go on that night. Snapchat buzzed. We would have to inconveniently change performance dates once again.  

Fortunately, as the father of a Drama Princess, I was pleasantly unsurprised to hear Eleanor’s friend in full voice at Friday’s production of 9 to 5.

She was amazing. All three of the show’s leading ladies, playing the roles originated by Jane Fonda, Dolly Parton, and Lily Tomlin, were amazing.

Now my daughter is concocting schemes for moving into her grandmother’s overcrowded boarding house. For my parents’ address. Eleanor wants to transfer to Squalicum High School so she can be part of Mr. Parker’s amazing high school musical program. [Ed. Note: Not going to happen.]

In one of the blog’s all-time most popular essays, I wrote about the many times “Drama Therapy” saved my life. Starting in high school.  

After my family moved from Vancouver to Utah, I found my first life-saving island of misfit toys at Palace Playhouse. An over-enthusiastic drama teacher at Box Elder High School had somehow convinced the school administration and the owners of the historic bank building in downtown Brigham City to give us the use of the cabaret space on the bank’s top floor. For decades, Palace Playhouse was a student-managed theater company that produced musicals and plays year round (until the principal and the fire marshal finally pulled the plug ten years ago). Palace Playhouse redeemed high school for generations of awkward BEHS grads.

Since graduating from law school, I’ve channeled my dramatic urges into a series of excellent gay men’s choruses in Chicago, Seattle, and now Vancouver. Last Sunday, Vancouver Men’s Chorus did our annual out-of-town outreach performance in rustic Chilliwack. The regular run of Christmas concerts begins next week in downtown Vancouver. 

For only the second time in three decades, I will be braving my anxieties to sing a four measure micro-solo. It's actually more of a dramatic role. Just like last year, I've been faux typecast as the outnumbered Jewish guy.

Occasionally I point out some of the preposterous coincidences in my life. As I wrote this spring in "Take that, Logoskeptics," I am comfortable describing myself as a Black Swan Event. 

For example:

My mother and my nephew have been recommending a new barbershop in Bellingham. I finally went on Saturday for my pre-concert-run haircut. The chatty stylist revealed he graduated from Brigham Young University the same year I did. I ended up getting my beard trimmed too because we had so much to talk about.

My new barber and I had never crossed paths in Bellingham. Nor in Utah thirty years ago. To the contrary, we exemplified two of the common closet strategies of that era. He avoided all politically active students, while I avoided all potentially gay students. Guess who got laid in college.

The most interesting dish involved my stylist’s first boyfriend. I knew him. Or rather, I knew of him. The boyfriend's father was a prominent Mormon leader. According to Facebook, the son is still in Utah, now married to a man. We share five Facebook friends – three eminent gay Mormons and two fellow travelers.

Thirty years ago at BYU, I already knew this guy was gay. I don’t remember how I knew, I just did. Primitive gaydar? In any event, I avoided him like the plague he represented. 

Watching a high school musical together with my teenaged daughters recalled the magical theatre experiences of my youth – except without the toxic proportion of Mormons everywhere, and without being warped by the entire culture’s pervasive homophobia. Sharing an evening with all those straight and queer Bellingham teens felt amazing.

Sadly, gay life today in Brigham City and Provo is still very Mormon, and still very warped. For example, I previously wrote about the attorney-turned-senior-apostle who has taken up the Mormons' anti-gay mantle. Just last month, Brother Dallin gave yet another grotesquely homophobic sermon during General Conference.

I barely noticed. As they say in a proverb Mormon leaders are fond of quoting, “The dogs bark, but the caravan moves on.” Unlike poor clueless Roger in 1980s Utah, any young gay Mormon growing up today can easily see he is not alone. 

It’s not just the brave new gay world that arose after the advent of PFLAG, Will & Grace, Affirmation, and online dating apps. Today there is a visible army of saints who unconditionally love and accept every young LGBT Mormon, no matter what Dallin Oaks says. Even in Utah. 

All three leading ladies in Squalicum High School’s musical 9 to 5 belted her solo numbers out of the park. Many other moments in the show displayed similar flashes of brilliance. 

That's what you get when you combine talent, a staggering amount of hard work, a supportive community, an effective arts program, and the well-founded delusion you can do anything. The result is unadulterated joy. 

It’s the same joy you see in Vancouver Men’s Chorus, regardless of whether you’re watching or performing. It’s the same joy you see with Seattle Men’s Chorus, and with the new gay men's choruses in Newfoundland and Nova Scotia. It’s the same joy I felt while doing drama in high school – even in Utah in the 1980s. And it’s the same feeling I experience as Squalicum High School and Fairhaven Middle School embrace my family today.

The opposite of “triggering” is love and joy.

Postscript

The ways of the Web are mysterious. I can’t resist sharing this research anecdote. 

I wanted to end my essay “High School Musicals” with a photograph of a bosomy Dolly Parton drag queen standing in front of a gay men’s chorus. However, I couldn’t find a single such photo out there online. Shocking, right? I ended up settling for a cute pile of Santas in front of the San Francisco Gay Men’s Chorus. ’Tis the season.

But here’s another photo I found among Google Images’ top suggestions when searching for the words “men’s chorus” together with “9 to 5”:

Reach Farther: October 2017
rogerleishman.com

This is a photograph of Oliver and me in 2012. We’re in Denver for the international festival of LGBT choruses. Compare the photo with one of me today. Back then there was no white in Papa’s hair, and I still had imaginary bangs on both sides of my forehead. 

I blame the children. And/or prejudice. For everything.

Google Images’ green-striped photo comes with a link to “Sure of You,” my heart-warming tear-jerker about the time my adopted son attempted to send a Mother’s Day card to his birth mother. Go figure.

Why Trader Joe's is True

Recently I posted this photograph on Facebook, with the following note:

Even if Facebook never does another good thing in the world, which seems likely, I will always bless it for overcoming my nearly-irrebuttable aversion to flavored potato chips in time to take advantage of a briefly seasonal Trader Joe’s product: Yes, Shawn, these are life changing. — in Bellingham, Washington.

Certain Trader Joe’s products make me go all evangelical. Much more than when I was a Mormon missionary.

I’m actually blessing Trader Joe’s for its bounty, and my college friend Shawn for his recommendation – not praising Facebook itself. To the contrary, Facebook is the subject of an increasingly wordy draft essay saved under the name “People with PTSD should avoid dealing with Facebook.” (But they already know that, don’t you Facebook?)

I began shopping at Trader Joe’s when we still lived in Seattle. The grocery store chain is a cultural icon with a unique business model. They have a more limited and quirkier inventory than Safeway or QFC. But the products are uniformly excellent, particularly the produce and prepared meals. The prices are much better than Whole Foods. And each store is packed with its own thoughtful notes and recommendations from the staff, like an old-fashioned independent book store. 

Here are some of the Trader Joe’s items in my grocery cart each week:  mushroom & black truffle flatbread (Oliver); chicken pot pie and fettucine alfredo (Rosalind); $0.99 sourdough round mini loafs (Eleanor); almond butter granola and pasteurized tangerine juice (Papa).

Trader Joe’s is a perfect fit for Bellingham’s hippie culture. The parking lot, which is filled with British Columbia license plates, is microscopic. Yet it brings out our pathological politeness in the face of intractable traffic dilemmas.   

And did you know you can bring your eggplant and melons into Canada? We wouldn’t want anyone to lose their NEXUS pass for smuggling grapes across the border.

I have a strict no-Christmas-stuff-before-Thanksgiving policy. Other than rehearsing carols with Vancouver Men’s Chorus, which is unavoidable, the only exception I make is for Trader Joe’s Dark Chocolate Covered Peppermint Cremes. They are that good. And only $2.99. (That’s like $8 Canadian.)

Last November I found myself in the checkout line with five boxes of Peppermint Cremes, behind a little old lady with just as many. We exchanged sheepish but knowing smiles.

Philosopher/evolutionary biologist Robert Wright’s most recent book is called Why Buddhism is True: The Science and Philosophy of Meditation and Enlightenment. As I recently described in my essay about Pixar movies and brain anatomy, “Inside Out,” Wright argues that traditional Buddhist meditative practices can help us learn to overcome the impact of emotion and bias and see the world more clearly. 

Desire leads to suffering. Dukkha, or “suffering,” can be translated as “unsatisfactoriness.” According to Wright, “What’s fundamental to the Buddha’s teachings is the general dynamic of being powerfully drawn to sensory pleasure that winds up being fleeting at best.” The ideal path involves “neither clinging to the good feelings nor running away from the bad ones, but rather just experiencing them straightforwardly and observing them.”

When we achieve vairagya or “non-attachment,” we stop identifying with our thoughts and feelings, and begin seeing the true reality.   

Trader Joe’s teaches the concept of non-attachment more vividly than Robert Wright, mindfulness meditation, or the Buddha.  

Some seasonal Trader Joe’s items regularly return, like peppermint cremes and turkey stuffing potato chips. Other ephemeral products – I’m thinking of the delicious mango salt water taffy a couple of summers ago – make a brief appearance in our lives before disappearing, apparently forever.

My children’s favorite pasta sauce is puttanesca. Trader Giotto’s puttanesca. Unfortunately, it was discontinued. We’ve tried other brands, but they’re not the same. We get by with Trader Giotto’s Arrabiata sauce. But occasionally on spaghetti night, one of the kids will wistfully ask when we’re having puttanesca sauce again. 

Enjoy life’s pleasures. But don’t get attached to things.

Postscript:

Today is only November 26, but the Bellingham Trader Joe's is already out of both turkey stuffing potato chips and peppermint cremes. Just sayin.