Those of us of a certain age will remember the hypnotist known as Reveen.  He used to tour all over Canada, even hitting the little town of Osoyoos in the late 50’s.  I know this because my brother’s best friend, Stu, told us about it at a party at my mom’s on the weekend.

Mom had invited 16 people for dinner as my brother was in town.  The boys and I had driven down separately for the party.  Uncle Freddie is their favourite uncle, and as usual, they weren’t disappointed with the visit.

That’s because whenever my brother and Stu are together, just reminiscing isn’t good enough.  Instead, they decided to try out one of Reveen’s tricks.  My brother, aged 63, put his head on one chair, and his heels on another, body suspended between.  Then Stu commanded, “stiff as a board” and climbed onto Freddie’s stomach and stood there!  There was roaring, screaming, high-fiving and general hilarity.

Two weeks earlier for my birthday at mom’s, Denis had come along as the kids were home to take care of Arnie.  So now Denis had to stay home while the boys and I went to Osoyoos.  I drove off early to help mom with dinner prep, and the boys arrived a couple of hours later.  Their harrowing tale of the drive made me wince.

They said that at one point speeds of up to 160 km per hour were reached.  My sister-in-law just looked at me pityingly because her two girls are in their 30’s.  They also said that before they left their dad was singing at the top of his lungs.  I said, “He’s giddy because he’s all alone in the house.”

Sure enough, he phoned Osoyoos later that afternoon asking mom for “my lovely young wife.”  We all then decided that he had probably started drinking very heavily the moment the kids went down the driveway.

But that’s just the way things are going to have to be with Arnie deaf, blind and requiring two insulin injections a day.  We will have to tag-team events and basically I think Denis is pretty damn good with the idea.

I’d been praying for inspiration, and speaking of good ideas, I finally found one.  I decided than an area in which I might get some good response is in corporate and convention gifts.  Without marketing outside of my website, somehow I’ve been the fortunate recipient of some big corporate orders, such as Nokia.

So imagine if I start actively networking around the business community and marketing to businesses.  I actually started at a Chamber event last Thursday, and it felt really promising.  Impossiblist? Maybe.