Two decades after the release of A Christmas Wish by Rob Carriere, a campaign is underway to distribute the remaining CDs.
“After 20 years of the CD release, I still have people I know, and people I’ve never met, come up to me and my parents to say that it is their favourite Christmas recording,” said Carriere from Comox where he now lives.
In November 1995, the story of the Christmas CD launch was published in the first issue of the Powell River Peak. “People say it has become their family tradition, having my CD playing at specific occasions over the Christmas holidays,” said Carriere.
Carriere still has a family in Powell River that phones him each year to let him know they are baking their traditional Christmas cookies, and he can hear his CD playing in the background over the telephone.
Carriere was born with Beck’s Muscular Dystrophy and spent a lot of time in BC Children’s Hospital.
“I learned as a young child that while I would walk into the hospital in Vancouver and then walk back out, so many kids couldn’t walk out,” said Carriere. “So my motto in life is, ‘Don’t complain, because there is always someone else worse off.’”
One childhood experience engraved in his mind was tobogganing down his backyard hill in the snow on a cold, crystal-clear night. He was dressed in a one-piece snowsuit and once when he got to the bottom, he rolled off his toboggan, proceeded to get up on his left leg and stood.
“I stood there motionless for a few seconds, realizing what just happened,” remembered Carriere. “I had stood up without using my arms. That was the one and only time in my life that I have stood up without crawling up with my arms. I still wish to this day that I stood there just for a little longer to enjoy that weightlessness freedom. Those always-heavy chains had been released.”
With his typical nature, he kept falling back down and trying unsuccessfully to get back up without using his arms.
“Not a chance,” said Carriere. “I guess with the one-piece snowsuit had given me the perfect amount of support. I was so exhausted trying to experience that freedom again I had to crawl back up the hill to the house.”
Carriere has always kept positive, hoping that one day he was going to wake up and have strong muscles.
“I laugh because I still have those dreams, but now that I’m 52 years of age, time is getting me,” he said. “That’s a good thing, as so many people with muscular dystrophy don’t get to 52 years of age.”
With the help of the Muscular Dystrophy Association, Carriere now has two new braces for both feet, which helps him with standing and walking.
One of Carriere’s favourite memories of the whole experience of the making his CD was when the recordings were taking place in Powell River for the Powell River Academy of Music choirs. There were tryouts for two soloist who would sing in “Away in a Manger.” Elke Grimsrud and Jody Rodonets were chosen.
“With all the positive and challenging excitement I was going through, having never made a recording of this magnitude, I was putting stress and pressure on myself to do the best I could do,” explained Carriere. “All that was put aside when I witnessed the sheer joy and happiness that Jody exuded when her name was called as one of the soloists. With all the massive challenges Jody had to endure in her short life, to see her for that one moment has been transfixed into my memory bank for life. It put an exclamation mark of complete satisfaction and pride for me in the making of the CD. Priceless!”
To this day when Carriere listens to Rodonets’ voice on “Away in a Manger” he sheds “a sad tear and a happy tear at the same time,” he said.
Carriere said he is having a great life with his loving parents and family. He also has been married for 12 years to his wife Karen whom he described as “an angel.” They live in the Courtenay area.
“I haven’t sung in any choirs since leaving Powell River, but I do keep my wife entertained with singing in the mornings when the routine coffee gets those old vocal chords active,” he explained.
The last time Carriere sang in Powell River was at Harold Long’s celebration of life.
“I’m sure very few of the hundreds of people who were there that day knew that I just wasn’t the singer, but I was singing for my boss,” said Carriere.
Carriere said his childhood fantasy was to be a truck driver and Long fulfilled his dream.
“Many years ago when I must have been eight, my mom and I were dropping bottles off at City Transfer,” recalled Carriere, “and Harold could see that I was in awe of the big tractor-trailer. He said, ‘Why doesn’t Robbie come with me on the beer run to Vancouver?’”
Carriere’s father would walk with him up to the corner of Joyce and Marine near what is now Pacific Point Market at 5:30 am to catch a ride with Long in the freight truck. Carriere estimates they must have gone 10 times over a four-year period.
“I distinctly remember the last time, when he told me while we were going over the Second Narrows Bridge heading home, that when I turned 16 I was to come to City Transfer and start practicing driving the trucks. The day of my 16th birthday who was on the phone but Harold, saying, ‘Robbie, get your ass up here and start driving trucks.’”
After school Carriere would head up to the freight yard and practice shifting gears. He acquired his Class 1 licence at the age of 18 and happily worked for City Transfer for nearly nine years. When his body was not able to handle the workload any more, he had to call it quits.
“So it was a very emotional day for me singing at Harold’s celebration of life,” he said.
Powell River Professional Firefighters are assisting with the CD re-launch as muscular dystrophy is its main charity.
CDs are now available at River City Coffee, the Knack, the firehall on Courtenay Street and the Powell River Peak office.
Firefighters also will be accepting donations in exchange for CDs at Safeway on December 1’s customer appreciation day and at the Santa Claus Parade on December 6.
