Me and Possum Lodge

Good day, I'm Chris "Bob" Odorjan, and I've been a fan of the Red Green Show since it begain in 1990. I can't quite recall when I first watched the show, but I enjoyed it enough for my mom to send in for a membership to Possum Lodge (these were free at the time). So here's my membership card; as you can see, I'm Possum Lodge member #209.

I'm sure you've heard the story before, but Steve Smith himself related it to me; Possum Lodge members can give a wedgie to anyone with a higher number than they have. Red is obviously number 1 (so he can give wedgies to every other lodge member), and I can give them to all but 208 other people. I never thought to ask what Harold's number was. Probably infinity.

I've been to three tapings of the show, once for each of the third, fourth, and fifth seasons. All three were are CHCH in Hamilton, the big ugly metal building where all of their production was done at the time. The first was with DavE; already there were several thousand members of the fan club, and for my membership ranking I received a Possum Lodge T-shirt. After the taping, audience members were invited forward to meet the cast for autographs, so I had Steve "Red Green" Smith and Rick "Bill Smith" Green autograph the shirt; I've never worn the shirt, nor washed it for fear that the signatures will be wrecked...

The other two tapings were with my family. There were many more Americans at these tapings, since PBS had just picked up the show a year or two before. I was surprised at the amount of time some of them had travelled, especially considering that I only had a little over an hour drive from my house to get there. There was too much of a crowd to see the cast, so I didn't go down. However, I literally bumped into Ian "Dougie Franklin" Thomas in the studio lobby afterwards. Graham "Edgar Montrose" Greene was at one of these tapings, and the famous "Dances With Wolves" bit was done on "Ask the Experts". In case you're wondering, Graham played the native American in the movie; but Edgar thought that "the native guy was good, should've won the Oscar. The rest of the movie was a yawn!"

When The Red Green Book: The Wit And Wisdom Of Possum Lodge, Plus 100 Pages Of Filler was released, there was a book signing with Steve and Rick at a mall in London, Ontario (probably White Oaks, but I'll have to check with someone who has a better memory than me; I also need to get copies of the photos we took there). Both guys signed the book (hmmm... I also need a scan of this to paste here). Unlike the T-shirt, I read the book enough times to wear it down. I also took it camping; the dead mosquitoes between some of the pages are really appropriate for the lodge...

Both of Steve's sons attended the University of Western Ontario (also in London), so Steve was invited to speak at Alumni Hall there in 1999. DavE and I went, and we took these photographs (where'd I get that ugly sweatshirt? At least I fit in with other lodge members). Steve looks kinduv stunned, himself... I flashed my card, and he related the story told above with respect to rank and wedgies.

Even though I'm right in the middle of Red Green country (45 minutes from London, a little over an hour to Hamilton, and two hours to Toronto), I haven't gone to a taping since the three in the mid-ninties. I've thought about going to the CBC for a taping in Toronto, but haven't had the time; maybe now that I'm finishing with my studies I'll actually be able to afford to go... until then, I'll leave this page without an ending, as I'm sure to encounter Possum Lodge in the future.