Sonny’s Dream

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Sonny don’t go away, I am here all alone
And your daddy’s a sailor, and he never comes home
And the nights get so long, and the silence goes on
And I’m feeling so tired, I’m not all that strong

— Sonny’s Dream, by Ron Hynes

 I’m foregoing the usual Five-for-Friday with a musical interlude.

A guy you’ve never heard of from a place you’ve probably never been who is famous for a song I’m guessing you don’t know the words to died yesterday. I owe him much.

I never met Ron Hynes, the Newfoundland folk singer who among hundreds and hundreds of songs wrote a barroom howler called Sonny’s Dream.

If you read the lyrics sober, it is a profoundly sad and moving song about a young man trapped in the service of his mother, long abandoned by his father for life on the seas. She implores him to never leave; he stares down the road to the cities he’s never seen and dreams of something better.

If you sing the song in a pub in a less-than-sober state, you will make friends, have a grand time, completely miss the sadness of the song, and possibly marry someone you sang with.

They met in a hurricane …

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“They met in a hurricane,
standing in an Airbus out of the rain …”
— with apologies to Blue Rodeo

It took two tries, but we landed safely in Halifax, our Airbus pushed by massive tailwinds that were once a Hurricane Patricia in Mexico.

Rain lashed the plane on our final approach and winds buffeted the craft, moving the metal beast not just in a turbulent up and down bounce but also left to right. Wisely our pilot bailed out on his first attempt to land and circled and tried it again, this time with success.

Boarding the flight held its own adventure. The Canadian folk rock band Blue Rodeo were on the flight and crooner-in-chief Jim Cuddy was seated in business class, row 1 on the aisle.

To say Laura is a fan of Jim’s would be a disservice to 50-something women everywhere. She knows all the words by heart, has seen the band multiple times and likes the cut of his jib, shall we say.

She boarded ahead of me — the miracle of Air Miles may have allowed us cheap flights, just not seats together — and as she walked by Cuddy she noted the seat next to him was empty.