Let me tell you about Comet Jo.

My maternal grandparents were lost when Tampa Florida was wiped from the map when I was twelve. They were retired "Canadian SnowBirds" who wintered there.

My Grandfather was a very gregarious businessman. Although small in stature he was larger than life. He was a Cordwainer: Don't you dare say cobbler. Cobblers repair shoes. A Cordwainer makes shoes from scratch. He had a prestigious shoe store near the financial district where he did well making bespoke shoes. 


Whenever we visited or they called on us, he'd always bellow "Hello Josephs!"


As a toddler, I'd parrot it, saying "Hello Joe, hello Joe, hello Joe…"


Then he'd say a little rhyme " Hello Joe, what do you know? I just got back from Kokomo."


The "Hello, Joe" got me my nickname, Joe.


The summer I was sixteen and laid up with broken legs I had nothing to do. I wound up reading Dad's extensive library of vintage science fiction and fantasy books, or otherwise delving through the internet for information on portals, wormholes and transporter beams. Even some wild stuff about quantum entanglement.


My sisters teased that I had become a real Space Cadet. "Hey, Comet Joe! What do you know? Did you just get back from Pluto?" Of course Kate had started calling me Josephine because of my wearing her kilts, so Joe became Jo. It didn’t help that I was also growing my hair. It was long enough that my sisters would braid it for me.


The irony isn't lost on me either since my Mother had wanted to name me after her sister, my Aunt Caitlin. Being a boy, she chose to make the name more masculine by dropping the 'i' and going with Catlin; Cat, not Cait. 


Now, the nickname Joe is feminised to Jo, but I'm in good company because Comet Jo is also a character in Samuel R. Delany's novella, Empire Star, which is pretty cool.


Connecting my Grandparents to portals is another story.


After having had success after trial and error with building other portals in my usual manner I made another discovery.


The summer I was 18 I started on a new model railway project. An added challenge. I decided to create a streetcar line. Otherwise called trolleys, trams or electrified railways. In O Scale which is ¼-inch to the foot, or 1:48. Not to be confused with British 0 scale of 7mm to the foot.


I wanted to depict a section of Toronto's streetcar lines. The bit along King Street where my Grandfather had his shop.


Depicting a city street on a narrow shelf is different in model railroading. Instead of creating whole buildings, you just place their facades along the back wall of the layout. They're called building flats.


When I created the facade of my Grandfather's shop I felt that chill I get when I make a portal.


I couldn't help myself. I stepped through and out onto King Street, just like I was stepping off a streetcar. Nearly getting run over by a car in the process. I jumped a couple of paces to the sidewalk in front of my Grandfather's store and fell to my knees. I gotta say I wept a little. Thankfully it was late evening and the street wasn't busy. There weren't any witnesses, other than that startled driver, see me suddenly materialize out of thin air.


This discovery was going to make creating portals so much easier and I'd be able to carry a portal or two around with me without them being so bulky.


It was only a four or five kilometer trek home with the new store portal tucked in my sporran. When I got home I collapsed into bed and slept like the dead.


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