The Absolutely True Adventures of Orphan Bob and The Killer Strawberries-Chapter 2

Chapter 2- Orphan Bob Enters The Raffle Ticket Sweepstakes

It took a day or two to marshal all the arguments I wanted to use to get the waffling Vice to choose me to accompany him to the big Senators-Leafs match set for February 2. After many rewrites, here is what I sent to him by Special Delivery.


Raffle Sweepstakes Entry

January 14, Year of Our Lord MMMMXXOX

Re: Orphan Bob’s Plea To Accompany His Hero to The Upcoming Sens-Leafs Match

Dear Excellency, Mr. Vice,

I have been waiting desperately by the phone, hoping beyond all hope that I might possibly be chosen as the lucky fella to attend the BIG GAME with my superhero, Red Greentree (aka you,The Vice), the man without whom the earth would not revolve about the sun. It was only two days ago that I learned there would be a formal application process for this glorious honour. Perhaps you may have told me earlier, but I guess my whole body and brain were still frozen from scraping and watering the big rink we’ve been building together since New Year’s Day at The Compound For Minor Vice, the gorgeous roost you share with Madame Lachaise. I know it was only 45 below on most days. I should have worn a third toque. The horrible head cold I have been fighting at the “rink building work bees” hasn’t helped much either.

As I humbly perceive the situation, this honour would be best bestowed upon a constant fan who has, for innumerable arid years of desperate cheering, supported the Leafs in their quest to repeat the glory of 1967. I understand, ex post facto, the idiocy of such hope, but that’s what true fans do, despite decades of overwhelming evidence to the contrary.

February 2nd is a very special day in my life. Approximately 11 months after I was born (my birthday is March 10, 1955 for those of you who send cards and small heartfelt tokens of friendship like $2 tickets for hockey raffles), my parents perished in a terrible catastrophe. I was left an orphan with no relatives anywhere in the world. My parents were orphans themselves and mere children on their wedding day. Somehow, on February 2nd, 1956, I ended up on the steps of the Turk Broda Sisters of Mercy Orphanage and Charm School on Church Street, just across from the Carlton Cash Box, also known as Maple Leaf Gardens. I was swaddled in a couple of tattered tea towels placed inside a crisp new Hush Puppies shoe box. Although I cannot recall the exact temperature, I have been told that it was about minus 72F outside that day. Fortunately, there was no wind chill.

The Sisters took me in and educated me, pro bono, until the age of 15. During my stay at the orphanage, we were visited weekly by one of the lesser stars from the Leafs, and one time ,even Harold Ballard came by to hand out penny candy emblazoned with the Leafs’ logo. You could not believe how this cheered us up. I still have all that candy in my Tickle Trunk of Treasures. The treats were a very rare occurrence at the Broda and I would dearly have loved to eat just one. Treats were uncommon, not because the Sisters were cruel, but because they were strict vegetarians with a fetish for perfect teeth.

We were never given any tickets to actual games as a result of the rampant TB and pneumonia which seemed to never leave the premises. Luckily though, in 1965, a small 4 inch black and white TV was donated to the orphanage and we all got to watch the first two periods of Saturday Leafs games, 9 pm being our curfew. We always managed to keep up with our favourite team from information gleaned at the infrequent player visits, shortened Saturday viewings, and from reading reports printed on the old newspapers used as curtains in our building. Sometimes the articles were three months old, but we were happy to have this small contact with the outside world.

The happiest day of my life (February 2, 1960) was when I learned I was going to be adopted by one of the Leaf alumni. Some speculated that it was to be Bill Barilko. I know now that this could not have been possible, since he went missing well before that time. In any event, the adoption never did occur, leaving me crestfallen and shaken. Perhaps it was for the best because, instead of getting to stay at the orphanage with its close ties to the Leafs, I could have ended up as a child labourer on some farm in the backwoods of Kemptville, the Smoking Capital of Canada, where every new mom is given six cartons of cigarettes by the Health Unit to ensure she still has enough money for formula for the first month. Don’t get me wrong. I am not afraid of hard work. I’ll shovel anybody’s rink, under any conditions, especially if that rink belongs to a friend.

We did not get formal schooling at the orphanage. There was very little time between the constant chores which I gratefully accomplished in return for my warm refrigerator box bedroom and that wonderful single square meal-a-day of carrots and slightly smelly tofu. We drank rainwater by sticking discarded straws, found on the sidewalk just outside the front doors, into the eavestroughs of nearby buildings. The water was not good but there was plenty of it.

Despite the lack of schooling, I was able to write a university entrance exam when I turned 14 and was accepted to Harvard, Western and Oxford. To pay for the entrance exam, I had to sell, for cheap, almost all the Leafs memorabilia I had managed to collect over the years. The buyer was some guy named Stavros. In turn, Stavros sold the goods to rabid fans and purchased a grocery chain with the proceeds. What can you do? I wasn’t then the businessman I am today.

Sister Perpetual Suffering helped me get a full scholarship to Western, where I dedicated myself for four years to the study of Anatomy, Nuclear Physics and Competitive Batik. I was also able to establish Leafs fan clubs at every university and college in Canada (Alberta and Quebec excepted), as well as in Mali and the United Arab Emirates. I designed the under-the-bench pyramids used successfully by coach Red Kelly in the 1975 playoffs against Philadelphia and the Islanders. (Note: my favourite players were Darryl Sittler and Errol Thompson). I singlehandedly ended the Harold Ballard Reign of Error, helped Cliff Fletcher acquire Dougie Gilmour, talked Molgilny into signing with Toronto and I continue to advise Paul Maurice on a daily basis. I do this last duty while holding down two jobs: head of the Einstein Children’s Science Development Project at Sick Kids during the day, and late night doorman at the Brass Rail. My anatomy education has not gone to waste.

Mr. Vice, I guess this is just a long-winded way of saying that I believe your Sens-Leafs game companion on February 2 should be someone who bleeds Leafian blue and who has an extremely strong attachment to February 2. This trip, not to put too fine a point on it, would be the highlight of my life.

Thank you most magnanimously for considering my candidacy.

Humbly yours,

Orphan Bob

P.S. The Brat is stealing your beer when you are not home.


Well, I’m not sure what swayed the Vice to my point of view. Maybe it was the missing beer. Maybe it was guilt. Maybe it was the strength of our friendship. No matter. We went to Ottawa together. Our Leafs won 4-3.