Mike W. Bryant
Northern News Services

NNSL (July 12/99) - What's the secret to staying on top during one's middle age?

Well, Red Green -- Canada's beloved TV personality and ambassador to all couch potato, spare tire-wearing survivors of the baby boom generation -- has a few helpful pointers in his new column, North of 40, to shed light on some of those mid-life questions, or at least generate a chuckle or two over your morning coffee.

As an introduction for Green's new column, which will be featured in next week's issue of News/North, we thought we'd enter the mind of the man we know most for his funny voice and outdoor follies with sidekicks, Rick Green (no relation) and Pat Mckenna.

"Out of all stages I've been through, mid-life is absolutely the best I've had yet," Green said, "because I know I'm getting there, I'm getting to the finish line.

"I'm not looking at having to make an income for 80 more years. That's what I was looking at when I was 13. Now we're down to 20-25 years, and I'm thinking 'Geez, I might make it.'"

Green entered show biz at an early age as a rock 'n roller in a cover band in the early '70s, which while proving to be a lucrative affair, did not offer the creative freedom Green was seeking.

"The people in the band weren't that excited about taking a cut in pay to try and be creative," Green said.

"So the band carried on while we starved to death for four or five years until we got into TV and away we went."

With his wife, Bernice, Green started the comedy show Smith and Smith (Green used his given name, Steve Smith) in 1978, which ran until 1985. It was during this time that the colourful comedian and part-time fisherman developed the character he is known by today, Red Green.

"I was making fun of Red Fisher," Green said. "My wife decided to semi-retire, so I decided to do a show out of the Red Green character because it had always been a fun character to do."

The Red Green Show aired in 1991 on CBC and has carried on ever since -- delighting viewers with his offbeat portrayal of the bungling outdoorsman and handyman. Over the last eight years, he's given viewers advice on everything from cars to recipes for fish.

"I have a recipe for carp," Green confided, referring to the fish most commonly found within the proximity of his Hamilton area home. "They're hard to cook and even harder to eat, but what you do is take a couple shingles off year roof and you put the carp in the shingles and cover it in horse manure.

"Then you put it into the oven for six beers (the time it would take to consume them), then you take it out, scrape the manure off, throw the carp away and eat the shingles."

As it turns out, unedible fish recipes are only one of a few of the hijinks that make it on to his show. While in Yellowknife last November, Green couldn't resist having as much fun with the locals as possible.

"Ya, we did a Christmas special up there," Green said, hardly able to contain the laughter. "We got the whole Yellowknife package.

"We had snow, we had northern lights, people were really friendly, then we had the duct tape event on a Friday night. The whole gym was packed with duct tape. I think 65 U.S. stations picked it up, so it was great exposure for Yellowknife. It was a really successful trip."

As a guy's kind of guy, Green had a few things to say about Yellowknife's high ratio of men to women and some of the problems that might occur between the sexes living in Canada's Far North

"Women don't play hard to get, they are hard to get," Green said.

"What you got to do is find some sad girls somewhere and airlift them to Yellowknife, because two sads make a happy, right?"

Sure enough, Red.