With all of this emotional outpouring toward Gord Downie, the musician, I thought I might give a few reasons to love the guy for things other than his music.

1. He’s got a lot of fingers scratching on his hull. I once made the mistake of telling him he’s a very sensitive guy, to which he replied, “I’m not sensitive. Why would you say that?”2. What’s this river that I’m in? I doubt he would admit to being funny, but it’s actually his reactions that are the funniest, falling over silently, choking a laugh into himself.

3. We’d climb a tree and then maybe we’d talk. Late, after a party, Gord was getting ready to go to bed and was being followed around by Bill, all through the house, up the stairs, into his bedroom, talking all the time, story after story. Gord never told him to leave, instead just turned off the light, laughing here and there, and let Bill talk on in the dark.

4. There’s nowhere that he’s really been. His dream of dreams is not to be on stage, but to be sprawled out on the ground, his children crawling all over.

5. He’s not from downtown. He knows what he knows. Not what he doesn’t.6. He worked it in to look like that. He does the work, a fourth line player, the guy you want on the ice with a few seconds on the clock.

Yeah, Gord’s a good guy, all right. Angst on the planks, spittin’ from a bridge.