Grapes is one of a kind, and we all knew it would end this way

National Post, 13 November 2019

Did Don Cherry say something out of bounds? Incendiary? Are you shocked, shocked that there is gambling going on in Casablanca?

We know how this goes; it just took a long time for it to get going.

Did Don Cherry say something out of bounds? Incendiary? Are you shocked, shocked that there is gambling going on in Casablanca?

Could he have clarified and apologized? He has done so in the past and should have done it this time, as Ron MacLean did. But 39 years on, perhaps it was thought that it was high time for how this goes to get going. After all, a lot of people had been waiting a very long time for this.

So I leave it to others to pile on with the ginned-up outrage. Permit me, as Don Cherry loosens his outlandish tie, unbuttons that neck-brace of a collar, hangs up his jacket in the world’s most spectacular wardrobe, to simply say thank you.

It was somehow suitable that the firing of Don Cherry, a few months shy of his 40th anniversary as a TV commentator, fell on Remembrance Day. He is the most prominent and vocal supporter of our armed forces. For nearly four decades Cherry has expected to go out in a great ball of flames, and so that the proximate cause was an eruption about poppies and honouring the war dead was just right.

Canada is a big country, with a big heart. It is not without blemishes, and neither is Cherry. But he lasted as long as he did because, week in and week out, he was that part of Canada that rarely gets attention elsewhere, and often is disdained when it does.

I don’t play hockey; never did. So I don’t share that with Grapes, as Cherry is more commonly known to his fans. But I do share Fabricland in common with him, which is pure Canadiana.

After I got my driver’s licence, whenever my mother had a sewing project, she would dispatch me to Fabricland to pick up whatever small thing she needed to get on with the work. Those small things are called “notions” by the way, if you should ever find yourself in Fabricland not having a clue about where to look. She sent me there a lot, ensuring that I had her Fabricland card to get the discount for regular customers.

Don Cherry has a Fabricland card. He buys the material for his suits there. For all the flamboyance and sartorial splendour, he is not a haute couture man, but shops at Fabricland, which is as homegrown a Canadian company as Tim Hortons. Very few of Canada’s television stars are regularly at Fabricland, but a large part of the country is, and that part doesn’t get much attention.

When Cherry and Ron MacLean were inducted into Canada’s Walk of Fame in 2015, MacLean told the story of visiting Cherry’s boyhood home in Kingston, Ont., on Albert Street not far from the Memorial Arena. He recalled that during the Depression there would be a chalk mark on the sidewalk, indicating to the hungry that Cherry’s mother would be ready to make a sandwich for those in need. Fabricland opened much later, but it’s the kind of place where Mrs. Cherry would have felt comfortable.

I owned that house for about eight years, and used it for students. It was a point of pride to know that the Cherry family had lived there. We called it Grapevine House. Grapes was happy about that.

Continue reading at the National Post:
https://nationalpost.com/opinion/raymond-de-souza-grapes-is-one-of-a-kind-and-we-all-knew-it-would-end-this-way