My first visit to Wonderland was during highschool with Shekhar and Harry. Our highschool, Merivale Highschool, was taking students on its annual Wonderland trip for, as far as I remember, $40 per person. Shekhar and I bought tickets in advance and were roaming around the school waiting to board the chartered bus when we saw Harry walking in the hallways all by himself. Somehow he had managed to shake off the numerous highschool girls that were stalking him. School ended at 2:15 PM back in 1999 and it was close to 4 PM so Harry had probably been engaged in some unmentionable activities with some of the females that he deemed worthy of talking to.
“Hey, want to go to Wonderland ?”
“Sure”
And so all three of us boarded the bus and went to Wonderland, 453km away.
It was grad night at Wonderland and students from all over the province, some even from Montreal, were at the park. We reached the park around 8 PM and stayed there until 5 in the morning before heading back to Ottawa. It was a fun and memorable night.
The 2nd time I went to wonderland was with Alidhooh, Ed, and Harry in 2002 and the 3rd time was with Lunato, Alidhooh, and Harry in 2003. Today we had a re-union with Harry in Wonderland.. after 4 years. As mentioned before, Alidhooh hadn’t met Harry ever since he left Canada in 2003 and Lunato and I last met him in Indonesia in 2004.
I guess it was an appropriate place to meet after all these years. The cool nonchalant casualness of the reunion sure matches Harry’s demeanour. Nothing fazes him. Nothing surprises him. Nothing brings joy to his life.. he has transcended the mortal plane and sees things as others do not. He sees the past, present, and future all at once so he knows laughter and enjoyment today doesn’t necessarily mean anything in the long run. Eons from now when all has turned to dust and the Big Crunch is imminent he will reflect at the sum experience of his existence and he will surely not remember that he met friends that love and care about him in Paramount Canada’s Wonderland on a sunny summer day on June 14th 2007.
Ocean’s Thirteen is an enjoyable movie but it didn’t need to be made at all. Pacino’s talent is wasted in this movie.
