Ray ratcheted up Bayview’s social life several notches

Though Ray Ratchford lived west of Bayview Avenue on Balliol Street for the past 29 years, for many in the neighborhood Ray’s presence among us didn’t really register until Ray got his motorized scooter something like five years ago.

Put a character like Ray, with his ebullient personality, on a scooter and there’s no way not to take notice. With that pronounced mustache and goatee, hair flowing down his back, and enrobed sari-like in white, he quickly became a Bayview icon.

The scooter itself was a conversation starter. For me I believe it was on the front patio at Rosie’s. No one had alerted me as to Ray’s gift for embellishing the truth for the sake of a better story.

Why the scooter, Ray?

Twin hip-joint replacements at Sunnybrook, he explained.

Ouch!

A total fabrication, alas.

Then another: What did he play in Rita MacNeil’s band?

He was the band’s flutist.

Not.

Since then I have seen a photo of Ray in full bagpipes regalia, but I can’t imagine MacNeil working bagpipes into much of her repertoire. Apparently his role in her band was more as a back-up vocalist and a confidant whom MacNeil could bounce ideas off when song-writing.

One song, “Tell the World,” was a bona fide MacNeil-Ratchford co-write, a clarion call for closeted gays to come out.

But as I learned at Ray’s memorial upstairs at Originals the afternoon of Nov. 8, Ray’s crucial role was as MacNeil’s handler. Hers was a tortuous, albeit highly successful, career trajectory, and it would surprise few to learn she needed plenty of moral and emotional support along the way.

She and Ray both had deep Cape Breton roots, with secondary roots in Toronto. During her show “Rita and Friends” in the mid-1990s, MacNeil even had a house in Leaside for awhile. According to Ray, it wasn’t her inability to remain incognito in Leaside that drove her back to Nova Scotia, but the raccoons. Uh-huh.

Ray thrived behind the scenes in MacNeil’s life. The resulting trove of hilarious (and sometimes sad) anecdotes were grist for Ray’s gifts as a raconteur. And the beneficiaries were often the denizens of Bayview whom Ray befriended effortlessly. A party atmosphere erupted wherever Ray parked his scooter.

But as in his role with MacNeil, Ray served as therapist to anyone ready to unburden themselves of their unhappiness. Ray was there for them. Surely he could have made a great living as a shrink. But two and a half years ago MacNeil died on the operating table, and the air went out of Ray’s tires. Add the physical trials of asthma, aggravated by his smoking, diabetes and other ailments, and Ray began a slow fade.

In the weeks before his heart gave out, he had told relatives he was not long for this world. They were alarmed but hoped he was just going through a rough patch.

Now it is all Ray’s friends and relations who are going through a rough patch.

And Bayview certainly won’t be the same without him.