The Oppenheimer Report 10/12/20

When I moved to Canada in 1994, to celebrate the Canadian Thanksgiving was a little weird for me. The American Thanksgiving used to be our big holiday in Buffalo, and from the time I was a little boy, that was always the occasion when my family would gather. For the last 20 years of my parents’ lives, there were always at least 20 to 30 guests at our house for Thanksgiving dinner. Those guests included friends, relatives, and sometimes complete strangers. Our Thanksgiving celebrations were an excellent litmus test for the strength of a budding relationship. There is no better way to vet a potential spouse than to throw him or her into the middle of a bizarre family holiday gathering. If they survive, they may be keepers. I’m not saying MY immediate family was dysfunctional, but some of our relatives certainly fit the bill. Add alcohol to the equation and those Thanksgiving celebrations could be terribly entertaining. Thankfully, I did most of my foolhardy drinking in bars, after the family gatherings and far from the harsh judgment of a camera lens. Still, I sometimes wish I had taped some of the conversations I’d had with our guests. One uncle, proudly boasting of his son’s athletic achievements in high school, turned to me and asked rhetorically, “but you were never any good at sports, were you?” Every Thanksgiving, another uncle asked me how things were going in college, even though I’d been working in the family business for over 5 years. There was inappropriate kissing of the elderly, dogs throwing up after being fed hors d’oeuvres, red wine spilled on the carpet, and food fights at the kiddie table. I often sat at the kiddie table. Once, one of our younger (and claustrophobic) guests accidentally locked himself into the guest bathroom, and began to panic. Kicking the door violently, and screaming: “Open the goddam door!”, he was apparently unaware of the note on the door warning about the lock.  We had to remove to door to get him out. Such language from a child.

My favourite part of the feast were the after-dinner toasts. Every year at Thanksgiving, someone would be called upon to give a toast acknowledging our thanks and gratitude for our good fortune. My father was decidedly the most eloquent of the toastmasters, but no matter who got up to say something, the speeches were meaningful, emotional, and always well received. At the time, I took it all for granted and assumed I was being appropriately thankful. You don’t know what you’ve got ‘til it’s gone.

A habitual negative thinker, I am currently reading a book about changing that behavior. Especially considering everything currently going on in the world, the timing might be right for a little emotional tune-up. Two things are mentioned repeatedly as basic tools to combat negativity. One is acceptance and love of oneself. I am reminded of the Stuart Smalley skit (played by now disgraced Al Franken) on Saturday Night Live, wherein Stuart looks at his reflection in the mirror and affirms his self-love. I used to scoff at this kind of Pollyanna approach to life, but to older I get, the less inclined I am to make fun of it. The other main theme of the book is healing properties of gratitude and forgiveness. The fact is, I have plenty for which to be thankful, and the exercise of vocalizing it has been therapeutic for me.  In a song called “Scrapbook”, which I wrote when we began to build this house, and which last week went to #1 on the Hunters Bay Radio Top 20 chart (remember, self- affirmation is good), I speak of storing the good memories to shore myself up against the bad times. I’ve got a long way to go, but I am becoming genuinely more thankful for the good fortune I have experienced. First and foremost, that includes the love of my wife, my family, and friends, and the importance of music and writing in my life. Happy Thanksgiving everyone!    - Written by Jamie Oppenheimer ©2020 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

The Oppenheimer Report 10/5/20

This coming Thursday I will celebrate 65 trips around the sun, and wow is that ever a kick in the pants. Seems like just last week I was the idiot wearing the Lady Godiva wig and drunk dancing to Haircut 100 music at one of my wild Halloween parties. Decidedly no wiser, I am starting to feel older. So much has happened in the past thirty years, and it seems as if the more complicated my life became, the more out of touch I have become with the passage of time. To all you 20-somethings out there, be forewarned: time has a way of pulling the rug out from under you. Lately, when I look in the mirror, I see Festus from Gunsmoke looking back at me. Where did I go? I lost track somewhere in my 30s.  I wrote a song shortly before my 51^st birthday, out in Banff in the now famous room #421. It was a forbidding, cold, grey, wet mountain morning, and the wind was howling through the larch trees. I felt some kind of ominous vibe in the air (perhaps I was 15 years too early), and I wrote “The Wind Begins To Blow.” There’s a verse in the song which reads “Lately I’ve been thinking that my time is passing faster, and I feel some sense of dire urgency/ In a month or so I’ll usher in my 51^st year, and I’m nowhere near where I thought I would be.” Much has changed in the past 15 years; I try not to “sweat the little stuff” as much as I used to. I also try to avoid that to which I allude in the song; I try not to be disappointed by what I have not accomplished. As I write in an as-yet unfinished lyric: “Sometimes you’ve got to change your dreams before your dreams change you.”

Over the years, Shauna has arranged two surprise birthday parties for me. When I turned 50, she threw a surprise party for me at the Oban Inn at Niagara-On-The-Lake, where we first met. That was the last birthday I celebrated with my mom and dad attending, and there a lot of close friends and family at that party. It remains one of my happiest memories.  She arranged the second surprise party for me when I turned 60. I was at the radio station, broadcasting my Lyrical Workers show, and she secretly arranged for some friends to hijack me in the parking lot as I was leaving the station. The problem was, I wasn’t aware that anybody was waiting for me, I lingered at the station longer than I normally do, and people were shivering outside on a cold October night waiting for over an hour. I felt terrible. Both of those birthday parties were wonderful in their own way, but thankfully, I suspect there will be no surprises this year. Once again, I will celebrate this milestone birthday by presenting my Lyrical Workers show. It is something I love to do. This week, I’ve asked my listeners to suggest any unusual birthday songs they’d like to request.

I don’t really have many big regrets so far. Sure, I’ve squandered some of my time in life’s casino, but who hasn’t? I was going through an old photo album the other day, and I saw some photos I have not seen in a long time. One of the positive results of this self-imposed seclusion is that it has given me ample time to reflect. Last week, we Jews just celebrated Yom Kippur, our highest holy day of the year. It is a day we fast and atone for our sins. I am not a religious man, but I take stock annually of how I have fallen short, and that is a meaningful exercise to me. Everything has been going too fast in the past decade. In some strange way I am relieved that the world has slowed down. Now, I am not quite as attention-challenged, and a photograph of a bunch of my merry pranksters, launching a water balloons at the Comet roller coaster in Crystal Beach, makes me smile.  The guy staring back at me in the mirror might look like a grumpy old curmudgeon, but the guy inside those eyes is still waking up the neighbours with loud rock ‘n roll. As my late brother-in-law used to say: don’t postpone joy.

                        - Written by Jamie Oppenheimer ©2020 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED