The next time I saw him, I reminded Coby that he’d promised to tell me how he met Jane.

“Yes, I did,” he said, “and what better day to tell you than today—it’s our 10th anniversary.”

I congratulated him and asked if they’d made any special plans. He said, yes, they planned to meet for a hug in front of the Shoppers Drug Mart over on Yonge Street at 2 o‘clock, then follow the fun.

“It’s where we first met,” he said, “in front of that Shoppers Drug Mart—on a day very much like today, in fact—a really beautiful Spring day—a Saturday. Everybody who could be was outside and Yonge Street was overflowing with smiling, happy people, myself among them. You know how it gets. You wish, on days like that, they’d close the street to traffic and set up a carnival.

“Anyway, I’d just downed a couple of beers with an old friend on the Duke of Kent patio and, pleasantly buzzed, was grinning my way north along Yonge, when, approaching through the crowd, I spot this woman.

“It’s her red dress first catches my eye, then the woman, herself, who, the closer we get, the more convinced I become is an old girlfriend I haven’t seen in years. Same walk, same face, same build—it has to be her. She doesn’t appear to recognize me, however, so when we’re nearly adjacent, I jump in front of her with my arms out like this, yell ‘Surprise!', and give her a great big hug.

“I know, immediately, I’ve made a mistake. Her scent? Her feel? I don’t know. I can just tell. And I feel like a idiot. But you know what she does? She steps back, looks me up and down, and says she has no idea who I am but hasn’t had a hug like that since the summer of 1996 and could she have another one, please. I’m more than happy to oblige, and it’s a wonderfully warm hug and, as we draw apart, I tell her it might have been the best hug I’ve ever had but, to make sure, can I have one more. To make absolutely sure, she says, one more might not be enough, and, to make a long story short, we’ve been hugging ever since. How about you?” he said. “Got a woman to hug?”

“Nope. No woman. But I’ve an idea, now, how to meet one.”

For a change of scene, I took Island Girl to a different park, today, so wasn’t expecting to run into Coby. But we’d only just rounded a bend in the trail and there he was, a familiar figure on an unfamiliar bench, smiling broadly as we approached, his right hand bandaged and suspended in a sling.

“What’s with that?” I asked.

“I broke my thumb shaking hands with my nephew.”

I couldn’t help laughing, which got him laughing, as well. “It’s a risky business,” he said, “shaking hands with the younger, cooler set.”

“And don’t I know it. I’ve had the good fortune, myself, not to break anything, yet, but, last fall, I twisted my wrist pretty badly at a party I was too old to be at. And I’ve jammed a finger more than once. I’m only cool when it’s cool not to be,” I said, “though, in moments of weakness, I’ve occasionally tried to be.

“Once, while being introduced around, as the friend of a friend, at a ritzy party on Forest Hill Road, I attempted to double-kiss the hostess, as others were doing, but started with the wrong cheek and broke her glasses. There was a lot of blood and it was thought, at first, I’d also broken her nose, but I hadn’t."

We were both laughing. “Reminds me of the first time I ever, purposely, hugged a man,” said Coby. “Happened way back in the late 60s when all that flower-power and lovey-dovey stuff was going on and, before long, everywhere you looked, men were hugging one another. Young men were, anyway. It was the cool thing to do. You remember.

“The idea of hugging another man didn’t appeal to me in the least—still doesn’t—and I avoided it every chance I got. Mind you, I wasn’t rude about it—if I couldn’t ward off a hug with a handshake, I’d go with the flow, but I’d never initiate one.

“I was weakening, though, and one warm summer evening, after a few too many toasts to the bride in a beautiful old back garden in Rosedale, I got to feeling pretty sociable and decided to give it a try. It was the other guy’s first time, too, I think, and he was feeling pretty sociable, himself, and, as we came together, we trampled each other’s feet, banged our heads together, and pitched ass-over-tea-kettle from an arched walkway into a rose bush.” He laughed and rolled his eyes. “I still have scars.”

“The dimple?”

“Yup, that’s one of them.”

Getting up from the bench, he said he had another hugging story I might enjoy—about how he’d met Jane—but had an doctor’s appointment to keep, so would tell me another time.

I took this picture of Island Girl just after he left—