6 October 2023 – Today’s rabbit-hole begins with a physical flash of pink, hops conceptually to the theme of loyalty, and scoops up a retired U.S. Army colonel and a Canadian pop-music icon in its digital trail before concluding with an Australian newsletter article quoting the 18th prime minister of Canada.

Here we go.

The flash of pink, glimpsed from almost a full block farther west, resolves into a graceful pair of bike racks at the intersection of Heather and West 10th.

I’m struck less by the racks than by their shadows. More precisely, the relationship between shadow and the object that creates it. “Ya dance with the one that brung ya,” I murmur, and have a quiet little giggle to myself. I am amused by the sudden memory, and applicability, of this folksy old Brian Mulroney aphorism about loyalty.

Shadows are loyal, are they not? They dance with the one that brung ’em.

Be it (as above) ovoid, or…

rectilinear, or…

lacey-loopy from a canopy of overhead leaves.

Back home, my old copy-checker training says, “Well, ummm, before throwing that attribution into a post, we’d best trace it to a documented source.” And down the rabbit-hole I go. It’s not that I think Mulroney invented the saying — it has anonymous folk wisdom all over it — it’s just that I want to verify he ever said it.

I shall spare you the many, oh the very many, slight variations on the wording, ranging from Good Grammar to Jes’ Plain Folks.

And I shall offer only two other sources before I circle back to Martin Brian Mulroney — the Baie-Comeau youngster who grew up to become a lawyer, a businessman and (1984-1993) a prime minister of Canada.

U.S. college football coach Darrell Royal thought it good advice, or so said a retired U.S. Army colonel in his 2016 article for Military Review, in which he offered career-transition guidance to Army professionals.

Lots more fun than that, back in 1993 Shania Twain released a song with those words as its title. The song became a hit single from her hit debut album, Shania Twain, and helped launch the career that has sold more than 100 million records and made the Timmins native one of the greatest country-pop artists of all time.

Then there’s the multitude of references to the phrase as a political adage — stay loyal to your party’s base — all of which credit Brian Mulroney as its source. Stylistically, they range from:

• a purported dream sequence in a 2005 Globe and Mail Opinion piece by Bob Robertson (involving shower caps and some vigorous gigue-dancing with the Bloc Québécois), to
• a stern 2016 Spectator Australia newsletter article by James Allan, which suggests that “Turnball’s Liberals have forgotten a wise old adage.”

So many options!

Personally, I vote for Shania Twain in my ears, and that bike rack in my eyes. But suit yourself.