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Tuesday, August 25, 2009

A Perfect Memory? Forget About it!

"Hey Honey, you seen my keys?" "They 're on the counter, hey what time did we say we would be there?" Ahhh memory. What a funny thing it is. I will be the first to admit that I don't have the greatest memory. Just like the joke, my memory is good but it's short. My wife has a saying "I have a photographic memory, but I am out of film." Funny stuff. I hear a lot of great jokes, I just can never remember them. What's with that. I sure wish I could have a perfect memory. I could remember where my keys were, where I left my wallet. I could remember my password to my old email account. Hey, what was the name of that guy, you know the one on that show? Oh come on, you know, the show. The one that what's her name used to be on before she went to that new show. For Pete's sake, she married that guy, you know the one from that place? Maybe a perfect memory would simplify life. Then again maybe not.

Be careful what you wish for, just ask Jill Price the 43 year old California woman can't forget. Literally. She has perfect recall. In an interview with ABC TVs Diane Sawyer she said "I always explain it to people like I'm walking around with a video camera on my shoulder. I walk around with my life right next to me." Great right. Like your life is on tape and you just have to rewind and there you are. Good if you need to find your keys, but what if you are trying to find; say, happiness. No, think about it. You couldn't remember anything without remembering everything! Everything. Every last thing. When we think back about; say, Uncle Bob. We remember the good things and forget the other stuff. Jill can't do that. When she remembers she remembers warts and all. They say that hindsight is 20/20. Yeah right. When we look back we are as blind as a bat. We remember exactly what we want to remember, nothing more. Our rose colored glasses are like coke bottles and bifocals to boot. Poor Jill is watching reruns of her life while we wax nostalgic, she remembers the pain and the sorrow, as well as the good things.


Let's face it if we could not wipe the chalkboard of our memory we would have trouble doing anything. Imagine never being able to delete anything from your computer. It would become so cluttered that it would be useless. There was a case of a man in the Soviet Union during the sixties who was an assistant to a medium level bureaucrat he too had perfect recall. They did intensive testing and were very disappointed to find out that he was of only average intelligence. It had been supposed that he would be highly intelligent as he could remember so much. Intelligence, it seems is more than just recall. It seems that most of us forget what we need to forget. We think our mind is like some great filing cabinet. It is not necessarily what is stored there that matters it is how fast you can access it and knowing what to access that builds intelligence. Whew thank god, otherwise I would be a idiot. My mind is a sieve. I forget people's names all the time. I would never make a very good politician.

So what we might suppose would be a key to untold happiness is; it seems, a burden not a benefit. Jill Price cannot reminisce. She is unable to appreciate nostalgia. Imagine that! Wow, where would I be? I mean I have been told that is what I do best. Think about it. When we reminisce we forget about the bad parts of the old days. We put on our rose colored bifocals and we filter out all the bad stuff.

It is funny too, what triggers an attack of nostalgia. Usually it is a smell. A whiff of woodsmoke may trigger a memory of Grandma's wood stove and the wonderful cooking she brought out of her oven. Meanwhile, forgotten is all the back breaking work of feeding the shiny stove with wood. The cutting and splitting and hauling. We forget how overjoyed she was when she got her first electric range. How she had heat at the flick of a switch. How the kitchen stayed cool in summer, while she baked a pie. Jill could tell you this, she can't forget anything. She is burdened by it. Don't get me wrong I would never want to join her. I love to reminisce. I mean really, just read my stuff. So what if I misplace my keys, or miss the odd appointment? If your birthday card is late, well sorry, my bad. I remember the really important things. Well most of them anyways. Maybe it's age related. I mean there is more to remember when you get older. These young people nowadays, what do they have to reminisce about anyways, now when we were young we had some good things to reminisce about. Nostalgia, it just aint what it used to be...

Thursday, August 20, 2009

Totally Awesome


Remember the eighties? They were awesome! Or maybe we just thought they were awesome, I mean we used that word a lot back then, totally, gag me. But when was the last time you stood in awe of something? I mean seriously? My online dictionary defines awe as 1)-an overwhelming feeling of wonder or admiration 2)- a feeling of fear and reverence, a feeling of amazement. Wow, one word two incredible definitions both of which apply at once. I love the English language! It rocks! I was awestruck recently and it grounded me. It was cathartic, almost an epiphany. It doesn't happen to us jaded modern humans often, but maybe it should.

I can remember a couple of the last times I was stricken with awe. The first was Wednesday May 13th at 5:30 pm. Precise enough for ya? The source of this phenomenon was the annual break up of the MacKenzie river or Deh Cho (Big River) in the local Slavey language. When you live beside a great force of nature like the MacKenzie you do so with some trepidation. You must always be cognisant of her. She has taken many lives over the years and only infrequently does she give back the dead. The body of a man from Ft Liard washed up in Tulita this spring. He died last year and over 530km away as the crow (or raven) flies! She is a huge living thing, like some great snake she wends her way from Great Slave lake to the Arctic ocean over a 1,000 miles away. Still all winter she sleeps lying under her white winter mantle her waters, her power, hidden from view. Out of sight but not really out of mind. Not in the mind of those who have seen what she can do anyways. Maybe I am too old a dog, maybe I have seen too much, lived so much, survived so much that I cannot sleep as soundly as I did in the ignorance of my youth. I have seen and survive; earthquake, flood, fire, explosions, and a hurricane. I have seen nature in full cry. We lull ourselves into a false sense of security, into an illusion of control.

For how can you control such a force of nature? How can you tame the wind? Or the sea? But unless you stand there and watch nature doing its' thing how are you to know? Well last May the 13th I did just that. I watched the Deh Cho shake off her winter mantle and surge headlong into spring. A week or so earlier my Assistant Cesar had asked "When will the river break? I can't wait to see it. Someone said it could go today. It sure is warm." "Well I doubt it will go today." I proffered. "The river has to rise first. It is the water that comes down the river that will make it break, not the sun or the rain falling on it. Not here anyways," "Really?" He protested. "It's been very warm." "It will need to be warm upstream in order for the river to break. The small streams melt the big brooks melt, the small rivers melt and all that water flows into the mother of all rivers." I said pointing at the river laying there white amid the long thawed banks of mud. "When she's ready she will rise and let you know. People upstream will be squawking hours if not days before it breaks." And so it came to pass that the river broke at twelve mile (Which is, oddly enough twelve miles upstream) and this brought us to the banks of the MacKenzie at 5:30 that Wednesday. The river creaked and cracked and moved. In great sheets the ice came our way. Sheets as long as a football field moving along at a few knots. Now, this is a sheet of ice that is six to eight feet thick. So there is considerable weight involved. Logs the size of telephone poles were crushed into splinters when the sheets of ice plowed into the shore. Awesome... Watching this spectacle humbles you. We watched as the winter road (or Ice Road as they say on TV) broke into pieces and went by, you could still see the tire marks made a few weeks ago. The water rose and flooded the yard of my friend Walter, a local elder. It flooded the yard of another elder on the other side of the road. It did considerable damage, but I have seen much worse. The rest of us breathed a sigh of relief.We had dodged a bullet, been spared the wrath of the river. We stood, chastened, humbled and put in our place.

Rivers can do that. This summer I went to visit my Aunt Katherine in St Catherine's which is appropriate because she is a saint! While we were there my cousin Lori asked if we would like to see Niagara Falls. Neither I nor my wife Lina had ever been there before so we said yes. It had rained all weekend but the forecast showed a brief spell of sun for about three hours. We took advantage of every minute of it. We took a drive through Niagara on the Lake and approached the falls. We parked and Lina and I took a walk. It was awesome! There's that word again. The sheer power of it. The thunder at the horseshoe falls was amazing. They were selling ponchos in the gift shops, but I told Lina "Uh uh, I want to get wet! I want to feel the falls on my face." We did too. We were soon soaked. The mist rolled off the falls and fell on the road behind us. I can only imagine what Father Louis Henepin must have felt when in 1677 he became (arguably) the first European to see the falls. He used words like surprizing (his spelling) and unparalleled but not awesome, too bad. No wonder he used such superlatives at its' height more than 6,000,000 cubic feet of water pass over the falls every minute. Now that is awesome! I have been to Virginia Falls in the Yukon. It was amazing, it plunges over twice the height of Niagara but at a much lower volume. Still impressive. Especially when we went to fly out. My friend Shane, the pilot said "You want a great picture of the falls?" We replied eagerly that we did. He turned the float plane toward the falls and took off in the direction of the falls. We left the surface of the water just shortly before the crest. "It saves fuel!" He added, "The speed of the river is added to the speed of the plane." He explained. We got a spectacular view as we soared over the cascading water. Then we dropped down into the valley below and yes we got some great shots.

Continuing on our holidays we went to Nova Scotia. I had long wanted to go to Brier Island, out Digby neck on Nova Scotia's Fundy coast. It reputedly has some of the best whale watching anywhere in eastern Canada. The weather for our trip was sunny and beautiful. This is where my Celtic blood shows through and I turn a tartanny red. If getting there is half the fun then we were in for a thrill of gargantuan proportions. Apparently the whales were being elusive this year. They were being unpredictable like, well, wild animals. Damn this nature! Why can't it be natural in a moire controlled way? Maybe an invisible glass wall to hold these creatures like some giant fishbowl. My brother Larry, the computer programmer seemed to favor this solution. I shrugged. What the heck? Maybe getting there is half the fun. We motored three hours out into the mighty Bay of Fundy, home of the worlds highest tides. The sun blazed. My skin glowed like an oven element. But then there were whales. At first we saw a Minke. Now the Minke is one of the most commonly seen whales, because it is curious and approaches boats. I had seen them before on other whale watching trips (this was my fourth) The Minke measure up to 35 feet(10.7m) and weighs 20,000 lbs (9200kg). Let me repeat that 20,000 lbs! This is a big critter. The fact that it is curious says volumes about this animals intelligence. They say curiosity killed the cat, but I'm still waiting for the autopsy results. We watched the Minke surface and blow for a while, but then the young lady narrating the tour announced that Humpback whales had been spotted a few minutes sailing away. We cheered it was these brawny buggers we had come to see. at 57 ft (17m) and 90,000 lbs (40,000 kg) these whales are twice the size of the Minke. I had never seen a Humpback before and I had always wanted to. I had been fascinated by these huge mammals since I first saw a dead whale beached at Crystal Crescent beach as a child. Our neighbors had driven us there to see this behemoth. Majestic even in death. I stared enthralled. I love the sight of these leviathans, of course I would rather see one alive any day.

The book "Whale Watching on Canada's East Coast" describes the Humpback as curious as well. I would go one further. The Minke is curious and approachable. The Humpback is a shameless exhibitionist. They love to put on a show. The lady doing the commentary felt it necessary to explain some of the whales behaviour. "They often splash their flukes in the water, we are not sure why they do this. Some people speculate that it is done to dislodge sea lice." We humans need to explain everything. We need to see animal behaviour as all being entirely logical and as mirroring human behaviour. There is a big fancy word for this it is anthropomorphism. There I get to use that degree again, whew it only cost about ten grand, that was worth at least seventy five cents. If i keep this up I'll get my money's worth. Anthropomorphism. There used it again. Ch-Ching! Why can't animals do things for no reason. We do. We snap our fingers, whistle, sing, make fart noises with our arm pits. Someone tell me what practical purpose these serve? I mean unless you are one of a limited few who can earn a living making fart noises with your armpit. Why can't a Humpback thrash the water with its' flippers just because it wants to?

Because that is exactly what Quixote did. Oh yeah, they name the whales. Cool, eh? Each whale has an identifiable tail and they all have names. In fact the boat keeps a binder with photos of each whale and they photograph each encounter and keep track of it. They can even tell you how old some whales are and if not they can tell you when the whale first appeared and when it was last spotted. Very cool. Right, a word about those flippers or flukes as they are called. They are 5 metres or 17 feet long. They are the longest limbs of any animal on earth. Imagine having 17 foot arms. Wow! More than five times longer than your arms. You would never have to get up to get a beer, uh, I mean pop. Only problem is that closets would have to be three stories high or your sleeves would get dirty. But just imagine, you could scratch anywhere! Enough silliness. We watched Quixote and his partner frolic in the bay. They surfaced and dived and lay on their backs thrashing the water while we watched. Stunned! Amazed! And , Yes Awestruck! Once the whale dived near the boat and sprayed us. You could smell their fishy breath. Whale breath. A whale breathed on me. You don't soon forget that. Partly because it smelled a bit like the sewer truck. But also because you don't get that every day. Unless you've gotten really rich making fart noises and you can afford to go whale watching every day, but apart from those lucky few the rest of us mere mortals don't get to do this. Awesome. No, really awesome. Not in the gnarly eighties way, but in the Merriam Webster Collegiate sense of the word awesome! Fear, amazement, reverence. That kind of awesome.


Most of the time I enjoy the view from the top of the food chain. I think most humans do. We roll along in the club car of the ecological gravy train, seldom thinking about the rest of existence. Every once in a while we need to be knocked down a peg. We need to be shaken out of our secure little world into the world of reality. We need to know that we are but a small cog in a very big wheel. It is a vast universe and we are but cosmic dust. We need to lose the smugness to get humble, to be belittled. We are not the masters of the universe. We are no less than the trees and the stars, but no more than them either. Being humbled, being belittled by nature means knowing your place. It does not mean that we do not have a place. Seeing things like the raw power of lightening or a forest fire calms me. It lets me know that I am a part of nature, that I am of this world and not just in it. This world that is ours for just this moment of time, this world is not inherited from our parents it is borrowed from our children. We are not masters of it but guardians of it. Awe, it is a very cool thing like a natural reset switch. It restores the defaults, blows away the inflation of our collective egos that we have gained at the expense of a million other species. Species with as much right to live and thrive as us. We search the stars for a sign of life, while we destroy the miracle of life right here. Species we don't know or understand disappear every day. I would love to think of a boy, generations from now, standing on the banks of the MacKenzie or Niagara and being awed by the sheer power of nature. To feel the blow of a whale and smell the breath of so great a being. You know what that would be, well it would be....



AWESOME!

Monday, August 10, 2009

Puppy Love





It's a funny old thing life, you never know what simple decision is going to change your life drastically. Some seemingly simple thing you did without thinking that moves your life in a direction you couldn't foresee. It was one of these fleeting decisions that led to a furry fellow joining our life's journey.


When I had grown up in Nova Scotia we never owned a dog. We lived in the city and there simply wasn't the room. I cannot even say that I had always wanted a dog. We had dogs when I lived on the farm in the summers and I enjoyed their company but it was not a pressing thing. When I joined the HBC my boss owned a golden retriever and he was a marvelous dog. He and I went everywhere together, hunting, fishing anything. When I moved away I never gave owning a dog a second thought. Then one day my phone rang. It was Nigel, my former boss. He wanted to know if I would take Seiko. He was moving to the city (my former hometown) and was getting an apartment so he couldn't take the dog. I hadn't thought about it but found myself saying yes and staring at the phone afterwards wondering what I had gotten myself into.


Eight years later there was no question of what I had gotten myself into. A deep enduring bond of friendship and love. There is something about coming home at night to an animal who is always glad to see you and who returns every bit of affection without question. We were inseparable and when he died at age 11 of natural causes I was devastated. I thought I was putting up a good front, fooling everyone. I thought I was good, you know, I was on my way home a week after Seiko (Yeah, Seiko he was a watch dog, get it? More people would have if Nigel had called him Timex) died. When I ran into a friend of mine who also owned a dog. We sometimes walked our dogs together. She asked me where Seiko was. I looked at her and my eyes welled and I tried to speak but no words came out. I blubbered like a total idiot. She knew instantly, as an owner of an older dog it was something we both lived in fear of. She said "Oh I am so sorry!" and she put her arms around me. I was ashamed that I was so emotional over an animal. Why? Our children , our parents our siblings are all animals. Why be ashamed of loving an animal, nearly as much as we love our own kind. If not why have them? Why else have such strong bonds developed over the years between animals and humans.


After losing Seiko I planned to get another dog. Planned to do it but never did. I was scared. Scared of the commitment, scared of putting my heart on the line again. Then one cold day the fall following the loss of Seiko I heard a scratching noise at my door. I looked out the peephole and saw a medium sized dog that I recognized sitting there. She was frozen into a lump, someone had thrown a bucket of water on her. It was well below minus thirty and the water had frozen solid. I threw open the door and brought the poor shivering animal in to curl up by the fire. "Just don't feed it." I reasoned. "Just don't feed it and she will not stick around. I let her out in the morning and walked the kilometer or so to work. When I got out twelve hours later there she was curled up outside the store door. She followed me home and curled up outside my door. I kept checking the peephole and she was still there. I left her outside and didn't feed her.


The next morning she followed me to work again and home at night. I am a softee so it was tearing me apart mot to feed her. "Alright, she not eating a thing. "I thought. "I have to feed her!" I did. That Saturday I tracked down the guy I thought owned the dog at the gas station where he worked. "Is this your dog?" I asked. "Well, the kids don't want her anymore, so it looks like she is yours now." My reaction surprised even me. "Right! That's it then." I said and went to the store to get a collar and some food. She was a wonderful dog. A weird mix of husky and German Sheppard. She had one blue eye and one brown eye. Her fur on her head was soft and silky. Her hair on her back was course and wiry. She had this way of putting her paw in your hand when she wanted attention, she would look at you with her ears back and would vocalize. Not a bark but a weird little low yowl that was almost like words. I always wondered what she was saying, but she never failed to melt my heart. The problem was that her neck was big and her head was small and she could slip out of her collar and go running.


One day I was doing jury duty and she slipped out of my latest invention. I had taken two collars and put the shackle through both. This made the two bind up and kept the collar in place, usually. This time it didn't. I came home to find two empty collars at the end or her chain. I searched the streets calling her. "Brandy, Brandy!" a neighbor saw me and put on his coat and followed me. I saw him and stopped he caught up and looked at the ground. "The dog catcher shot your dog." He said. I was stunned. No warning, no second chance, just gone. I went home and cried. I vowed not to get another dog, not to care again. That summer I met Lina and fell in love By that fall we were living together. By the next spring I had fallen into a comfortable routine. I had been accepted by her extended family and was about to meet a newcomer to our little family.


It all started with a simple question. Lina's cousin Raymond, nicknamed "Skinny Man" called to ask if we could take care of Lina's nephew Craig's new puppy. The puppy was from a litter of a dog owned by Lina's Aunt Mary Jane. Mary Jane was the matriarch of her family and was a much loved part of our family. She had wanted to get the puppies away from their mom, Brownie. How could I refuse? It was a favor for both Lina's Auntie and her Nephew. After all it was only a week or maybe two. Skinny brought over the puppy. A tiny blond terrier cross that fit in my huge hand from wrist to finger tip. Simple enough, right? No strings. Just a brief baby sitting job.


A week went by then two. No sign of Lina's sister coming to pick up the puppy. Soon a month had come and gone. "Lina," I said "You had better call PouPonne and ask when they are picking up this dog." PouPonne was a family nick name for Lina's sister Margaret, I think it means a baby chick. I had a reason for forcing the issue. I knew I was growing attached to this little fellow and Ii didn't want my heart broken again. She made the call. When she came into the living room she gave me that look, a look I already knew well. The first time she had given me that look she had asked me "What is your favorite T-Shirt?" That's an odd question, I thought. "I suppose the one I got in the Dr Jim Smith Golf Tournament." I replied. It was a white T-Shirt with Alexander Keith's India Pale Ale logo on it. "I was afraid so..." She said holding the T-Shirt aloft, she had been hiding it behind her back. It was now a shade of pink. She looked scared and embarrassed at the same time. I dropped to the sofa and began to howl with laughter. Soon I was on the floor my sides aching. "I thought you would be mad?" She said. "How can I be mad?" I asked. "this is hilarious. I'll still wear it! I'm not that insecure in my sexuality!" In time the shirt faded back to nearly white.


I saw the same look on her face when she returned. "So?" I asked. "What's up with the dog?" Lina screwed up her pretty face and said "I don't think that they want it anymore, the boy's Dad got them a purebred Scottie." She looked like she was about to cry. I jumped into the air. She flinched and stepped back. "WHOOOOO HOOOO!" I exclaimed. The dog scampered around the corner, excited by the noise. I scooped him up and looked into his little brown eyes. "You need a name little man. I think I'll call you Bear!" Lina was smiling now. "You're not mad?" "Of course not. I couldn't give him up now. I just needed to know." "You can keep him, but you can't call him Bear he's not going to look like a Bear when he grows up." "What then?" I asked. "I don't know but I will tell you when I do." I got down on all fours and began to play a game with the dog that we would play many times over the years. I rolled him on his back and pinned him to the floor and ruffled his belly. He nipped playfully at my fingers. I quickly took to spoiling him rotten. I bought him a Stuffed ladybug. Which he promptly emptied of all its' stuffing. I had to pick it up from all over our yard. He carried the empty carcass everywhere. Prancing proudly along like he had slain a lion.


"Buttons!" Lina said one day. "What's that?" I asked. "Buttons, that's what we'll call him. He is cute as a Button!" And he was. "Yes. It suits him." "Better than Bear!" She said mockingly. "Yes, better than Bear.Right Buttons?" He jumped and barked his approval. He was part of the family. Around two years after we had met and a year after getting Buttons we got married. We became a family, Mom and Dad and Buttons. The happiest moments of my entire life were the simple moments. Lying there watching TV on a cold winter night. The wind howling outside. The three of us together in our warm living room. Safe under a sturdy roof. Just the three of us. Lina 's head on my shoulder my hand dangling over the side of the sofa ruffling Button's soft fur. I had never known such total bliss. You can have fancy cars, foreign beaches, and mansions. I was never happier than on a winter's night snug in our humble little abode with the ones I love most.


The years passed. We moved to the Yukon and Buttons, Lina and I walked the banks of the Porcupine River. Buttons loved to plunge into the water, no matter how cold it was. Even when the ice had just broken he would plunge in among the ice and stand their with his little pink tongue hanging out. We moved to Tulita in the NWT on the MacKenzie river and he did the same thing there, wading in the icy water and loving every minute of it. He turned ten this April, just as I turned 50 today. He was showing his age a bit but still had a lot of life left. Small dogs, especially hybrids live longer. How much longer he would have lived we will never know. His little life was cut short this Sunday when two loose dogs came into our yard and attacked him. They were much bigger dogs, more than twice Buttons size. I was asleep when I heard Lina's terrified voice. She was telling me that he had been mauled. I couldn't believe it. I ran into the yard to find his motionless body on his back, his feet in the air. With the help of my Assistant and neighbor Cesar I carried him into the house. I nursed him as best I could but as game as he was he didn't make it. He lasted about five hours. I was on the phone with the nurse when he took his last breath. There was never any chance really, but I felt guilty. That I had failed him somehow.


The next day one of the dogs was caught and destroyed. My friend Paul the Bylaw officer told me the news. I took no comfort from the news. I had no desire for revenge, only a huge hollow spot. Now two dogs were dead. Then today my friend Urban the Fire Chief told me that the second dog had been destroyed after it had threatened to attack some kids. "It was foaming at the mouth." He said "Rabies I think." "Good thing you got it then." I said solemnly. I was relieved that the public was safe but it changed nothing for me. I couldn't turn time back and get my little buddy back. Cesar and I buried him on Blueberry hill beside the old HBC store which now serves as a warehouse. It overlooks the MacKenzie where he loved to swim and whee he had been swimming the night before he died. It is a nice spot. Some small comfort. I felt very empty as I lay in bed last night. I held Lina to me. "Our family has shrunk." I said sadly, a huge lump in my throat. "I miss him too." She said. "We'll get another." I said matter of factly. Another dog, not another Buttons. There was only one of him. A lovable little rascal who snuck into my life by the merest of chances. Circumstance. Fate. Kismet. Call it what you will. But for ten years he enriched our lives and blessed us every day with his presence. I pray that it was mutual, I never doubted it when he licked my face and used his little nose to lift my hand and get me to pat him. I read somewhere that a pet takes up so little space in your home when they're alive and leaves so big a hole in your life when they're gone . Truer words were never spoken. He was tiny but he left me so empty. Empty now, but someday I will be able to remember the way he lived, not the way he died. Someday...

Buttons Beaulieu-Sayine-Turnbull

April 1999-August 9, 2009

Much Loved, Much missed