SOWERBY'S ROAD
On the Blurry trail
Weird encounters pop up everywhere on cross-country trip

After a week of driving around Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island and southern New Brunswick, I'm feeling quite settled in my 16-year-old, one-ton GMC Sierra pickup truck. It's loaded with about a 1,000 kg of books that I am delivering to bookstores along the way as I zig-zag the country. There's nothing like being strapped in behind the wheel of a loaded truck to substantiate one's validity as a member of the human race.

My goal is to get to Vancouver and back to the East Coast by Christmas. Not exactly a cannonball run, but my search for The Blurry Dozen is slowing me down.

Blurry People can't be Boogey Men, grumpy trolls or walking attitudes. Blurry People are good people, at least in the context of my chance encounters along the routes I have travelled in my life. You can check out my progress in finding these mysterious people on our Web site www.sowerbysroad.com over the next few weeks.

I came close to solving one of the mysteries last week when I drove up to the immigration office at the port in Yarmouth, Nova Scotia, where passengers disembark ferries coming from the U.S. It was there on November 16, 1980 that a perky, uniformed lady cleared our car back into Canada after driving around the world in record time. She was cheerful. She was welcoming and she didn't have a machine gun slung over her shoulder.

I think the present-day officers initially considered me with guarded suspicion as I waxed on about Blurry People. I haven't tracked down that cheerful immigration officer yet, but the Feds in Yarmouth have something to jaw about at the watercooler these days.

Another Blurry Person on my radar screen is actually a group of people. I'm looking for anyone who was in the bar at the Blackstone (or was it the Blackhorse?) Hotel on Granville Street in Vancouver on July 20, 1969. We felt like kin in there, cheering and whooping it up, watching Neil Armstrong on the television taking mankind's first step onto the moon.

Since leaving Halifax I've had my share of Blurry incidents and encounters; weird coincidences that are popping up at a surprising rate.

The other night after a meal in Moncton, New Brunswick, I went back to the truck, which was parked on a side street. As I unlocked the door, a man in his mid-20s approached. His name was Gus, and he was curious about the brightly-decaled Sierra.

I laid the story on him. Sixteen-year-old record-setting truck. The book tour. The search for The Blurry Dozen.

Showing him the book, I noticed the uncanny resemblance that Gus had to my 8th grade science teacher, Ralph Whitely. Same facial expressions, 'aw shucks' mannerisms and smile.

"What's your last name?" I asked.

"Whitely."

"Is your father Ralph?" I felt the chill of a 'Blur' coming on.

"No, he was my grandfather. He died before I was born." Gus leaned closer.

I turned to page 41 of my book and started reading.

"The Mustang went into storage while Larry and I went in search of a winter drift-jumper. We found it on Thanksgiving weekend during a visit home for the turkey feed when Larry spotted a car that had belonged to Ralph Whitely, our Grade 8 Science teacher."

Somewhat rattled, Gus Whitely examined the photos of his grandfather's 1961 Vauxhall Victor.

"What was he like? What was he really like?"

"A friendly, nerdy scientist with the same laid-back attitude you seem to have." I enjoyed giving a good report for one of my favourite grade school teachers.

The incident had lasted six or eight minutes. Blurry indeed!

I told the story to Brent Mazerolle, a reporter based in Moncton, the next morning.

"I have a Blurry Story about you, Garry." Brent grinned.

In the early '90s, Brent was living in Fort St. John, British Columbia, on the Alaska Highway. His mother had sent him a copy of the Moncton newspaper where he read that I was entering a car in an Alaskan road rally.

"A few days later I was driving around with my wife and told her you were on your way to Alaska," he laughed. "At precisely the second I spoke the words, you drove by!"

Another Blur came that afternoon.

I looked at the Sierra with its boring new licence plate and thought about the morning in 1987 that Janet Shorten, my trusty assistant at the time, arrived at work somewhat red-faced after a night of bar-hopping with her friends. We had been wrestling with the issue of what to put on the truck's plates for weeks. She scrawled B4 NE1 on a scrap of paper and promptly announced she deserved the day off.

I have not seen Janet in 12 years and was thinking about her when I stopped in Fredericton and went into a bookstore. When I returned to the truck, there was a note tucked under a windshield wiper.

It said: "Hi Garry, Janet's in Denver. Here is her number." It was signed by Janet's sister, Debbie Shorten.

Feeling a little creeped out I called my wife Lisa to tell her about it.

"Guess what I have in my hands?" she blurted out before I could get a word in.

"Winning lottery ticket?" I offered.

"Your new Nova Scotia licence plates. They gave you B4 NE1."