I never used to answer my phone.

Part of it was because I was being stalked by a crazy girl for a while. Somehow she got my number and called a few times, but Trolley picked up and was able to warn me.

The other reason was because I used to be stoned almost every minute off work. Dealing with people in the outside world was an instant buzz kill.

It’s only recently that I’ve started taking calls again. The languid process of rehabilitating my social skills has been rather slow. Sometimes I get so busy that I don’t have time to check my messages, and they build up into strange archives like this, circa last month.

Henry Seeto, Orr’s

Henry was the self-proclaimed “Pi Man”. He could recite the numbers of pi to 40 some-odd digits, and enthusiastically enjoyed the opportunity to prove this once in the middle of class, oblivious as to how fatal it could be for a reputation when doing such things in high-school.

He was a total dork. He wore regular socks with shorts, pulled straight up of course, on his lanky frame. Sang in the choir. Was a member of the science club, computer club, and mathematics society. Under his picture in the yearbook is Euler’s equation, “e-1 pi = -1″, and he even clarified the way the name is pronounced.

I imagine that he had no contact with females whatsoever. One time, someone happened to have a porno in English class. We were supposed to watch King Lear, but they swapped the tapes when Mr. ______ was out. As soon as he came back, Henry’s edge-of-seat giddiness completely gave us away; the potential to see boobies turned him into a giggling schoolgirl. Mr. ______ knew what we were up to but played the tape anyway. It was in medias res, and Mr. ______ only stopped when the guy pulled out completely and brandished a seven inch dong.

When I arrived at UCC, Henry was my first “friend”. We came from similar backgrounds, had the same interests, and both lacked social skills. It was a natural kinship. But when I started redefining myself, as most kids do in high school, he came to represent everything in myself that I hated. I started picking on him and mocking him. He didn’t deserve it. I don’t think it hurt him, because of how oblivious he was, but that’s no excuse. To this day, I still can’t stand his type of person. As nice as they are, they’re all too clichéd and predictable.

John’s Notes:

“Henry was the archetypal geek. There were a lot of geeks at UCC but even amongst that crowd, he stood out. He was a genius with computers, but he had no other qualities that I can recall. No redeeming coolness at all. None. He was a savant. But he was OK with that. I’ve always aspired to be above the views of others, but Seeto mastered this. He was the kind of guy who wouldn’t think twice about wearing the school uniform, be it for class, gym, or more formal occasions in such a way as to “out” his geekiness to the world.

That’s the kind of place UCC was. A place that toughened you and armored you. You either survived and became comfortable in your own geeky skin, showing it to the world and daring the world to say something, or you just didn’t survive.”

Andrew “Bunny” Bunston, Jackson’s

Even though we were in the same house, I didn’t get to know Bunsten at all. He was a jock, but not one of the mean ones, which I came to appreciate. A smallish guy, he more than made up for his small frame with an iron toughness. Under the hockey section of the yearbook, he’s quoted as saying, “I hate neckguards. I’d rather die.”

John’s Notes:

“I can remember Andrew when we were 12 and he had shoulder length, curly hair. We were in the same form 5 class with Mr. Boyko. He was a real troublemaker, always with a mischievous look in his eye. He had the same look in his eye last weekend at the bar, when we were recounting stories of our misspent youth.

I think his nickname was derived from his relatively small stature (for a hockey player) and high speed on the ice. He still plays, and was captain of the Windsor Law hockey team that won — for the fifth consecutive time — the Law Games hockey tournament. He’s totally on that UCC Old Boy power track, up through the ranks of Bay street corporate law.”

The Old Boys of ‘99 Series

1. Introduction
2. Another Perspective
3. Seeto and Bunston
4. Mungovan and King
5. Providing Ignorance as Bliss
6. My Perspective

At the Tai Chi studio, bathrooms are shared with an accounting office in the same building.

Yesterday I found out that the keys aren’t labeled “Men” and “Women”, they say Yin and Yang.

So I got a fish.

A Siamese fighting fish, or Betta, named Connor to be exact. I wanted something lively in my room, since I spend so much time in it. When I went to the store with Pat and Jen, they noticed that one fish was constantly flaring and swimming in circles, almost like he was pacing. The fish in the cup next to him (to keep them separate or they fight to the death) kept setting him off, so naturally, he was the one. As a clowntail variant, his fins are extended long like a comb.

I also got some live plants with which came a tiny snail, so small that he was transparent at first. After a few weeks, he grew considerably bigger, and survived a couple hours out of water while I was cleaning out the tank. Bronwen named him Humphrey, but he has since died, found dried up at the top of the tank one morning.

Bettas are funny creatures. Supposedly, they have personalities (for fish), but I can never tell with pets I can’t touch. Sure, he swims towards me every time I turns on the lights or enter the room, but for all I know he could think of me as food. I can only tell that he’s very aggressive, flaring out his body and swimming back and forth whenever something gets near enough. It’s like he’s a caged gladiator, restless about his next battle. Dolly likes to sit in my chair and watch him go.

I named him Connor, after the immortal Connor MacLeod from Highlander, because THERE CAN ONLY BE ONE (Betta in a bowl at a time).

When Jeff asked me to write about the “Old Boy system” at UCC, the first thing I asked was, “what system”? To me, “system” implies some order or plan or organization, and the alumni of UCC have no special kinship or bond. An “Old Boy system” connotes one that is different from the ones that exist in every graduating class from every school I know of.

I had mentioned to him that one of our classmates is in my year at law school and Jeff wondered aloud whether I would have mentioned it, or noticed it perhaps, if that classmate and I had not gone to UCC. I replied that I would have noticed him notwithstanding our attendance at UCC, as long as we’d been a part of the same high school class as I’m sure most people would.

My perspective on the “system” is that there isn’t one.

I find it interesting that many people seem to think that one exists, and note that the main evidence used to prove their case is the seeming prevalence of UCC alumni in the halls of power in this country. In response, I would point out that the two things, attendance at UCC and later professional success, more likely have the same root cause — money, family connections, or dare I say it, intelligence.

The likelihood of those things being the cause of one’s professional advancement is greater than or equal to the likelihood that some system of quid pro quos or school ties. Ockham’s Razor is a principle that I would bring up in this context to dissuade those who would claim that any system is behind the rise of Old Boys in their occupations, the tenant of that principle being that the simplest explanation is more often than not the accurate one, and in this case which explanation is the simplest and most elegant.

Or is it simpler to say that chaos reigns supreme and individual old boys make their own way in the world, without the kind of help that the phrase “Old Boy system” connotes?

The people singled out in Fitzgerald’s book are just that — singled out. There are, if I’m not mistaken, 71 old boys profiled in the book who graduated from the 1920’s to the 1990’s. In that time more than 5000 boys have graduated. The idea that 1.4% of those graduates are somehow a reliable and representative sample is ludicrous. Such a sample should not be used to draw any conclusions or to make any generalizations.

The Old Boys of ‘99 Series

1. Introduction
2. Another Perspective
3. Seeto and Bunston
4. Mungovan and King
5. Providing Ignorance as Bliss
6. My Perspective