We’re Just Bozo’s On This Bus

Old fossils never die, do they Sonja Wood ? – pt. 4

Living with someone like Sonja Wood is like fishing through a giant toy box you didn’t know was there. This not just a story populated with highlights and milestones, like the stuff discussed in the first few blogs: life is simply not going to be a glamour-filled succession of civil disobediences, nor an endless fantasy of rock-n-roll shows and big city lights, but you sure do get to know some curious people along the way. There’s a lot of hilarious stuff in there that has never yet been recorded for posterity, much of which will prove to be just as important as any milestone or achievement in our ongoing efforts to illustrate the many sides of Sonja (the recurring theme of all the crazy people you get to know; the way everything can go from cool and collective one second, to circumstances next that strain the limits of imagination, or I daresay, the fabric of belief).

If you ever wind up hanging out in the Maritimes with Sonja E. Wood (which I most certainly have), you will probably come to witness something you’d never conceive or predict. When this happens, it will likely be so weird and improbable you’ll agree with this much at least; this kind of thing could never happen twice on the same planet…

As you read the following story, note that sometimes people become absolute legends in their own minds. The two McCluskeys are (or were) very real people from our neighborhood, and I have to explain them in this context. Oddly, while the events relating to the two men took place in the same small town, these two shared not a sliver of common ancestry. Both collectively fell under that ‘crazy’ category, with no wiggle room. Today we are mainly concerned with the matter of McCluskey number one.

The first McCluskey is a large man. I met him for my first time a couple years ago. He was back in the province for a short time, I’d guess visiting his old haunts. He pulled up to the fossil museum in a curtain of dust, shutting off the very loud and noticeably overheated motorcycle at once. He climbed down off the smoking bike, and with these thick, black leather chaps creaking stiffly, and with size-thirteen Civil Army War Boots in the gravel crunching ominously, he approached and stood in the doorway.

At this point, several parties inside the museum who were innocently roaming around the displays develop this common goal: to extricate themselves out that door and back to the cars. That’s enough adventure time for today, they must have been thinking. He bore a resemblance which immediately struck me: he compared to either the grim-reaper after his makeover (trying to look like a biker, or even a hit man); or maybe some real leather-cutout, b-grade, attention-starved pulp-fiction guy. I’d swear he was sensing our apprehension for a moment longer, savoring it, before finally speaking. “Is Sonja here ?” This he says without showing the faintest trace of a smile.

Okay, this is when I need to vet the solicitors. Out comes my most effective and time-tested response: “She is, but she’s in a meeting right now”, (share a sad moment with him while he grasps this). “Who may I say is calling ?”

That’s when he told me his name was McClusky (number one). I got it the first time, and immediately associated all of the dubious legends with the man himself. His appearance, on the whole, managed to live up to his reputation, and it is hard to say with certainty which one was more extreme. As if I were a hapless idiot, like nothing bad could ever happen in the world today; (as if it was perfectly okay to treat this guy like some lost kitten that needed milk), I marched him into our humble home.

I learned this response a long time ago: don’t be surprised who comes calling up from Sonja’s past. She knows a lot of people from all over the place, but when the first fact they add habitually goes something like “I’m an old friend of Sonja’s”, no matter how unlikely they may seem at first glance, you know they are just like the rest of us. You know they l.o.v.e. Sonja and would follow her to Mordor and back if that’s where the next gig was scheduled. So I walked him straight to the kitchen door and never gave it another thought.

This particular McCluskey had been a professional wrester for years, but he was also a drummer, and had filled in at times with Sonja’s band. On one occasion, they were playing the tavern Friday night in Wolfville, and he had been ordering drinks all night. After they had played three sets, the bar was absolutely hopping, and by then he had run up one hell of a tab. When the bar manager brought the band its pay, with the big tab deducted, it was pretty obvious (especially to look at him), most of it was McCluskey’s doing.

Sonja divvied-up the money and gave him twenty bucks. He looked at her with a stunned expression. “Where’s the rest of my pay ?”

“You drank your pay. What do you want me to do ?”

McClusley one went from Mr. Happy to Mr. Flippie in a second. For at least the next 15 minutes as the band was packing up their gear, he stormed around like a thundercloud, ranting constantly; getting pissy with everybody. He never relented, right up until they were leaving.

Sonja was just in the process of maneuvering into the van through side door, when the drummer ended up doing something very regrettable. As Sonja started to get in the van, he reached across and grabbed her two little wrists into his massive hands. Each went all the way around her arms like a clamps, and she couldn’t do nothing. He was holding her arms so she could not even grab at a wheel to move herself, or even to stop her chair from rolling back out of the van.

Sonja saw there was this one fraction of a second, as his momentum came forward, she knew just what to do. Perhaps you get used to using that second sense. It probably comes from twenty-seven years of living in a wheelchair, when you deal with your own poor center of gravity and physics doing everyday mundane tasks. She jerked her arms back in a quick but effective move.

The former wrestler (a man who had gone to Russia to fight with very big men, but who Sonja says probably used to get his head rubbed into the mat too often), wasn’t ready for all 130 pounds of her. He smacked the doorframe with his mouth, and his tooth flew off to one side in a very graceful arc. He released her immediately, and he never got around to asking about that money thing again.

Years later he would still recount, even after all his fights in the gym, that the only time anyone ever knocked out one of his teeth, it was by a woman in a wheelchair.

Plowing Up The Weeds

Old fossils never die, do they Sonja Wood ? – pt. 3

I remember very early on in our relationship, my girl told me I was going to have to get used to my life becoming a little more public. I didn’t really appreciate to what extent she was predicting the future, and was thinking, like, maybe more cocktail parties and gatherings. Never saw it coming. Later that evening I was watching myself on the TV news walking Ms. Sonja Wood into the Kentville courthouse where a judge would be considering the matter of Wood vs. Ron Russell, Minister of Transportation.

The year was 1999, and I had already moved about six thousand pounds of fossils into Sonja’s ‘barn’ - a steel Quonset building which is the Blue Beach Fossil Museum of today. We both shared a vision for this museum, understanding what a great thing it could be for so many. We still have a vision, but that’s for real. The fossils have outgrown their home and yet cannot be asked to leave. Old fossils never die (they just get lovingly curated).

As you probably know, Sonja quickly wore the John Hamm government down, and the movement to spur our leaders to action began gaining momentum. Soon there was a unified voice, calling from the streets and commerce chambers alike, to twin Highway 101; and they finally did it. Not all of it, but a significant segment (with construction costs these days, who can afford to build more than a segment at a time?).

I don’t know exactly why Sonja went from musician to activist, but I think it was just her reaction to the incompetence. She didn’t agitate about the dangerous highway because she was it’s victim - she saw herself as a mascot who could help impact an issue and apply a little of her media savvy.

It all started when she saw a piece on the news about a family involved in yet another fatal accident, and thought “how can I do something about that?” She had been scheduled to perform at the Country Music Awards, in Toronto, so after finishing her show Sonja jumped back on a plane to Nova Scotia to started making her placards and plans.

Don’t laugh, the thing that worried her most was she had to let the other band members pack up the gear and drive back without her. A van full of rowdy men…

Incidentally, Sonja did amazingly well in her music career, and was nominated twice for the East Coast Music Awards. Along the way she also enjoyed working with some of the best musical talents in the Maritimes. She is especially noted for her fine voice. I think what stuns me most is the sheer entertainment which ensues after she gets on that stage.

Although she started out doing her shows off the back porch with her sister, Tammy, and having the other half of Mt. Thom for an audience, Sonja had years of frustration after buying herself a mandolin, and then getting nothing good-sounding out of it. She sure could sing, but she couldn’t play worth a pinch (which more-or-less describes my own efforts). A short while after her accident, one day sitting by herself, suddenly playing came easy. Well, at least that’s how she describes it.

The first official tune she learned on the mandolin was shown to her by an old-time player who called himself “Back Alley John”; the song is “Saint James’ Infirmary”, and still brings up goose bumps every time I hear it. Sonja was a fast study, with a natural ear and perfect sense of pitch. If you don’t believe me, you can ask anyone who’s worked with her. I’m proud to tell you my baby really rocks the Kasbah !

So when she packs away her guitar or mandolin and comes home to Nova Scotia, to sit on the highway for seventeen days and nights, it’s safe to say she was sorely missed. It was at this point the promoter lost his patience, and then dropped her from his portfolio, which Sonja characterized as an unfortunate piece of attrition. If you want to make yourself an omelet, you have to break a few eggs along the way…

A lot of those eggs were politicians; a few reporters and editors also got an ear-full. In fact I know of a few old boys who came darn close to threatening her. Listen boys, she knows enough karate to make you think twice about that! (Her left hand was trained in China, the other hand in Japan !) More importantly though, Sonja E. Wood pushes her wheelchair through the valley of darkness, and don’t you try to stop her; she is proud to tell you she carries the biggest stick of all – and that happens to be her faith in the Lord God.

Life Has a Sea of Challenges

Considering how we should perceive the world around us, I think perspective is sometimes more important than the events themselves. Something can happen to us, but it’s our choice to decide how we’re going to let it affect us. We have a choice to either let something drag us down, buoy us up, change our path in life, or remain unaffected.

When we can make positive things come out of bad news we know we’re really getting a grip. Sometimes you just have to let it go, like water off the back of a duck, and carry on.

(photo credit: Google)

Then there’s my wife, Sonja E. Wood of Nova Scotia, about whom I think most people claim no true understanding. As I said in the last installment, she was ripped in half and put back together again, and despite the reality of now being paralyzed from the waist down, she shot out of the rehab centre like a vivacious cosmonaut, leaving so many concerns behind and they just fall back to earth unnoticed…

I confess, Sonja was already somebody ‘on a mission’ before her accident happened; in fact, already a force to be considered. In one instance, she found herself living in an apartment in Wolfville, and all they had was some dry macaroni and a dry heel of bread. Feeling slightly sorry for herself, she watched the evening news and munched back the discouraging dinner, and on came the story of starvation happening in Ethiopia.

The news outlets didn’t cover the story for long, and it was quickly learned that our middle-class TV-viewing audience in Canada did not wish to be subjected to scenes of starving foreigners in their living rooms after supper. The Canadian relief organization sent only one cargo plane of supplies to Ethiopia, and claimed they had done their share. Sonja said we should do more, we can do more.

The year was 1985, and two very notable things were going on: (1) Terry Fox was in the spotlight for his run across Canada, for cancer awareness; (2) Sonja Wood was walking around the Province of Nova Scotia, raising awareness for the famine in Ethiopia. Incidentally, Sonja didn’t know anything about Terry Fox or his run when she made up her mind about setting up her walk. During one of the many interviews she gave at the time one reporter asked her if she was doing this because of Terry Fox, and her reply was an honest one, “Terry who?!”

Sonja, and her sheepdog Sampson completed their walk, and money was sent to Ethiopia, but more important, Sonja got the famine back into the news every time she did another sound byte, and kinda showed them up a bit. They said she couldn’t make it; she wasn’t strong like that; It would take some pile of determination ! Looking back, Sonja was apparently just getting started.

But fate doesn’t arrange for a nice straightforward voyage, and life has a sea of challenges like nature you can’t tame. Three weeks after her walk ended, slightly deflated and coming off the high of being ‘all about the walk’, she was studying music at Acadia and joining a rock band, and all of the sudden her life-changing accident.

Against all odds she bounced back, and became, if anything, bolder. Some believe when you get a second chance at life you come to appreciate every moment like never before. Sonja ‘went to the light’ there she tells of her experience with the afterlife.

She was approaching the typical reassuring glow that many others have claimed is waiting out there for us, and says she heard her mother’s voice telling her something she told her once when just a little girl. They were explaining that grandma had died and had ‘gone to the light’, but when Sonja asked if they could go to the light sometime to see her, was told the words Sonja heard again: “sometimes when people go to the light, they don’t come back.” She turned away from the serene light, and with a gentle calming sensation she remembers falling back to her body. 

But life after the accident was especially challenging. One thing you have to learn is a new kind of patience. Try to make a cup of hot tea and then wheel yourself over to the table without spilling it… and the list is endless. Sonja’s uncle noted this was going to be a particular challenge for his niece, because she was never one to sit still long enough for any moss or mosquito to take advantage of.

To date, this still holds truth, and Sonja Wood has gone on from one cause to another, and always has something cooking on the burner. I will be reporting these stories over time, and will continue to chronicle the indefatigable personality of Ms. Wood as have witnessed it. Join us again, and note that in my next post I am pretty much ready to say: “and now for something completely different.”

Funny How Life Evolves...

My name is Christopher Frederick Mansky, and I have been the curator for the Blue Beach Fossil Museum in Nova Scotia for seventeen years. But I am not here to tell you my story, for that would not be half as good as what I’ve been keeping under my hat. My wife and what she’s got going on is a far more fascinating case in point, if you ask me (or if you ask Hana Gartner, former host of CBC’s Fifth Estate).

Her name is Sonja Elizabeth Wood, and it’s not just her mercurial life history, or her amazing talent as a musical performer; it’s not even her moral-fiber that quite explains the way she makes you see the world. After a while you come to realize it’s all that plus her ambition under fire you’ve come to like so much, and nowadays respect like that is hard to find in a world gone mad.

Most people who know about Sonja Wood realize they are dealing with a miracle. She shouldn’t actually be alive today. In 1985, just when she was emerging as a young East Coast singer-songwriter, fate dealt her a cruel hand, and she was nearly torn in half by a violent head-on collision on the highway. She had been a passenger in the back seat of a Ford Pinto, and late at night, black ice had coated the road. The driver of the other car lost control and helplessly plowed into the little Ford Pinto she was in. It struck them with such force, it threw the smaller car back into the guard rail, pinning it there.

Three other people were in the crash, but they all walked away. Sonja’s seat belt, in those days the sort which only went across your waist, failed to hold her in place. She travelled forwards at about 80 km/hr, until the belt ran out of slack. It tightened with a jerk and her body, by this time in the front seat with her fellow musicians, jackknifed around the thin strap, was finally stopped.

It nearly cut her in half, and would have surely done so were it not for a fluffy wool sweater all bulked-up under a serious ‘biker jacket’ (a jacket she somehow wrangled the week previously off a local chapter member). The only thing holding her upper body and everything south of her waist together was the skin; inside was nothing but lacerated tissue and crushed bone. Amazingly, all the major organs had been shoved up out of the way by the sweater when the belt did its worst, and nothing else was damaged.

Sonja remained conscious and trapped inside the wreck, in a snowstorm, while the ambulance took nearly two hours to find the accident site; then to extricate her using their jaws-of-life. If it were me I know I’d have bled to death, and there’s something called the ‘golden hour’, which first-responders say is how fast a trauma victim needs to get to a hospital. After that, one’s chances go downhill very quickly. Sonja can elaborate and tell you all about her emergency surgery, and describe how the doctors and nurses got up to some pretty fancy mucking around inside her abdomen, and how her intestines were draped all around the room (on the other hand, it might best if the remaining details were left unsaid).

Incidentally, Sonja got the jacket which saved her life for thirty bucks ($30.00). Her father was Chester Wood, and he liked to do his share of horse-trading, and I think a lot of Chester rubbed off on his girl. He would have approved of the jacket deal, and worried about who she bought it from, and have to admit she was still one smart girl. She had already paid ten dollars down-payment and took the coat before the accident changed her life. Afterwards, in the hospital and recovering, she got a visit from her biker friend; she insisted he take the twenty-bucks she still owed for that jacket. Meanwhile, he was probably thinking one thing: he’s so glad you’re alive and isn’t there for his twenty bucks ! That’s the Wood’s for you.

The Wood family adopted Sonja and her sister when she was three; Tammy was just a baby. Sonja then grew up in Mt. Thom, Nova Scotia, where the Wood family made up about half the population. They always liked to kid their father that he was “the mayor of Mt. Thom, (population nine).”

Their father Chester was an honest man, religious and hard-working. He had Mi’ kmaw running through his veins, and couldn’t stand to see someone picking on another who was weaker. That’s kind of ironic because what he didn’t always realize was that his little girl endured years of torment at school at the hands of the cruel ‘cool kids’.

Sonja Wood describes her’ younger self as a skinny little tom-boy, who worked in the barn, smelt of barn residue, and struggled with learning. She was just too precocious and A-D-D to focus and relax. When she was tasked to any sort of ‘paperwork challenge’, she froze!

She had a natural way of communicating with animals though, and aspired to become a vet one day. Her teachers failed her there, a recurring theme that says “Sonja, you have to count on yourself; you can’t be banking on others”, and told her she “was never gong to be smart enough for veterinary school.” They could be partly right, but are mostly wrong about that. Sonja is too smart for normal assessment: she’s smart enough to do anything she wants, but on her own terms. She is not destined to become a vet, so however she got herself through grade ten Math or English is not important.

In one of her now ‘classic’ songs there’s a line that goes “…she makes something good come from everything…” After the accident that left her parapelegic, she leant her voice to the legendary Ralph Nader, lobbyist crusading against the automobile industry and seeking to improve safety standards for motorists. She was one more important testimony to be heard for improving seat belts; today we all take this for granted. But this was not enough. Then she took herself back to the Highway 101, to the scene of her accident, in her wheelchair, and held a vigil in plain sight of the daily travelers. She hung banners, waived signs of protest; she challenged government’s back-pedaling; they were to twin this dangerous highway as promised! Sonja then summarily filed civil suit against the Provincial Minister of Transportation, then wound up in Ottawa negotiating a deal to see our highway twinned. She may not be available to give your cat or dog its annual checkup, bit she saved lives here in the Valley, and that’s because she made something good happen.

That’s why I think it’s funny how life evolves. There aren’t a lot of things you can imagine that really prove to be impossible. So for more twists and dips than a good roller-coaster, watch my blog for part two of the saga of my wife; Nova Scotia’s best-known activist, Sonja Wood.

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