[From the Ontario District's newsletter, The Trillium, issue 60-03, July - September, 2006 , Waldo Redekop, editor.]

McBride’s Geometry Lesson

By John Ford

Well he’s gone now. You might say that he’s finally escaped. The McBride left us last month but in his wake are a raft of anecdotes and limericks, practically none of which bear repeating here, lest this upright journal no longer be found in front parlours and dentists’ offices.

We all have our favourite reminiscences, and here’s mine.

Early in the days of the Thornhill Chapter, visitors from other chapters were quite common. Whenever we lacked a chorus director for the evening, a quick phone call to George or Al Shields or Ray Danley invariably resulted in a rich musical evening in the grand, old Heintzman House.

Barbershoppers were quite generous with their time in those days, and also, we cleverly met on Mondays when no other chapters assembled. McBride was often one of those who came to call and partake in after-chapter sociability at the local pub. On a particular evening, he arrived during coffee break time, around 9:15 - 9:30, and made his entrance through the kitchen door around the back, or, at least, attempted to.

A pick-up quartet was hogging the space near the door, so entry was a case of shoving them out of the way with the door. As he slowly entered, McBride noticed that the singer closest to the door, one Roy Cook, no longer with us, had recently effected a minor change in his appearance. Normally with hair as Rinso-white as Roy Keys’, his locks were now somewhat darker.

Our East York visitor did not have the benefit of a window to glance through, which might have given him the chance  to invent and mentally practise his remarks beforehand. It should also be entered into the record here, that The McBride had not progressed in formal schooling beyond the sixth grade.

The usual phrase is “Without dropping a stitch” and it is appropriate here. Billyboy quickly addressed Roy Cook, “Pi R squared, no, let me think,—the hypotenuse is equal to the—Roy, what is that Grecian Formula, anyway?”  Roy Cook enjoyed retelling this remark, at least after his hair had returned to its original blinding hue.

Class dismissed.     k