Verbal Medicine

A date which will live in infamy...

2011-12-06T13:06:00.001-08:00

Today December 6 2011 is the seventieth anniversary of the bombing of Pearl Harbor by the Japanese. As the event that brought the United States into World War II it is certainly one of the most pivotal events in world history. No American who lived through that day will ever forget it. For them it was an event so cataclysmic that it became one of those “where were you when…” events. It was one of those events so momentous that everyone remembers where they were when they heard the news; like later generations with the assassination of JFK or the events of 911. Several generations have passed since that day in 1941. Many young Americans have forgotten; if they ever knew, what happened that day. Yet there is still an understanding of how important the event was to the American Psyche. Americans have always been better mythmakers than Canadians. I don’t mean that in a derogatory fashion. They have always been good at taking events; crystallizing the spirit or essence of the event and preserving that. Americans still “get” Pearl Harbor Canadians don’t. I was there last month; in Honolulu and there was no way I would visit Oahu without visiting Pearl Harbor. You will never get the historian out of me. You can never understand Pearl Harbor without understanding what was happening in America and the rest of the world in December of 1941. Like most world events war was at the heart of it. The world had emerged from the First World War, bloodied, exhausted, sick (Spanish influenza) and broke. The victorious Allies (including the Americans) had inflicted a punishing peace treaty on Germany and were forcing her to pay back vast sums of money spent by the Allies on the war. Germany had been forced to surrender by mass starvation and had no money to pay reparations. The whole world descended into the great depression. All nations began to look inward. They were poor and starving and had no time to think of their neighbors in Europe and no money to do anything about their plight even if they did care. America especially retreated into “Isolationism” it was felt that America had been sucked into the First War by her European Allies the French and the English and that the war had been a waste of American lives and money. American politicians began to run on platforms of “No Foreign Wars”. While the economy was going south in America the Germans were starting to rebuild. Hitler rose to power and the world looked aside at his eccentricities because he was rebuilding the economy. When he began saber rattling the European democracies made deals backed up by vague threats that they were ill equipped to support. Had Hitler existed in a vacuum America might never have joined the war. But Hitler had made a pact with Japan and Japan had plans of its’ own in the Pacific that made conflict virtually inevitable. America remained neutral while Germany overran Poland and Belgium, Holland and France and bombed the great cities of Britain into rubble. The American President FDR knew that he should do something but he did not have the people of America behind him. He was a great friend of Winston Churchill (who was himself half American) and gave as much aid in money and materiel as he dared. In the Pacific the Japanese invaded Manchuria and were threatening the holdings of the European powers then at war with her German ally. The two great Pacific powers (the U.S. and Japan) were on a collision course. Japan had few natural resources and the Americans had gotten fed up the Japanese aggression and cut of exports to Japan. The Japanese formed plans to seize the resources that they needed. In secret they formed a plan to strike the Americans hard and fast. Admiral Yamamoto the great mastermind of the Japanese war effort had spent time in the U.S. he knew the awesome power of the industries there. He told the high command he could promise only six months of victory against the Americans. What the Japanese wanted on December 7th was to catch the American aircraft carriers in harbor. They knew the surface ships were there but they wanted the carriers. While the attack was a huge humiliation and blow to American prestige it was a limited victory for the Japanese. They did not get the carriers and they did not damage the naval facilities and fuel storage on Oahu. The Americans lost four battleships (three of which they salvaged and refloated). Six months later at the battle of Midway the Americans caught Admiral Nagumo’s flotilla and sank four of the carriers that were at Pearl Harbor. True to Yamamoto’s word he gave them six months of victory. Today when you go to Pearl Harbor it is still bristling with naval might. The museum dedicated to the battle overlooks Battleship Row where those four ships were sunk. You watch a very moving video put together by the U.S. Park Service then board a launch to visit the site of the USS Arizona. She is the only Battleship left at the bottom of Pearl Harbor. Aboard her are eleven hundred of her crew; they died that fateful day and sleep in her belly. When you look down from the memorial you can see the rusted hull beneath the waves. Oil still bubble’s up out of her seventy years later like the blood of the great lady. Do you remember the old joke about the plane crashing on the border and where do you bury the survivors? Well if you were a survivor of the Arizona you might have a choice to make. For if you are a survivor who was aboard her on Dec. 7 1941 you can opt to be cremated and have your ashes interred with your shipmates in her hull. If you served on her before Pearl Harbor the Park Service will scatter your ashes over the site. This day December 7 2011 they will inter the ashes of three survivors with their old comrades. This is a solemn place; a place of remembrance and reflection; of loss and of forgiveness. For out of the ashes of the Second World War came a different plan. Not to punish our enemies like the Treaty of Versailles did in 1919; but instead the Marshall plan where the Allies (largely the U.S.) helped pick her former enemies up and gave them back their dignity and helped them build two world class economies out of the dust and death of war. These men who are today being reunited with their comrades are heroes too, for not only the dead are heroes. The fact that I observed Japanese tourists on the memorial says to me that they didn’t die in vain. May they all rest in peace.

The miracle of flight

2011-11-23T11:20:00.000-08:00

I just came back from holidays. When you live in the north holidays involves a series of plane flights, usually on progressively larger planes on the way out and progressively smaller ones on the way back. I have started holidays in a four seater where I have sat in the copilot’s seat and finished up on a jumbo jet; where, oddly enough they did not ask me to sit in the copilot’s seat. We had a pilot who used to joke “There are two washrooms on this flight; one here in Tulita and the other in Norman Wells. The flight is too short for an in-flight movie but not to worry your life will flash before your eyes!” Bush pilots; you gotta love them.
At some point in time on any number of trips I have made over the years someone standing in the departure lounge staring out at a massive piece of metal and glass and rubber that is their aircraft and will remark; “I still don’t understand how they get them to fly.” It does seem quite unlikely that this massive object can slip the bonds of earth and soar into the sky. I have had the opportunity to witness many flyers who are totally unconvinced that it will happen as they sit in their seats feet plastered to the floor hands lifting the arm rests like they were holding the plane in the air. I feel like leaning over once we have landed and saying; “Thanks for the smooth flight!” But that might be a bit cruel. I do not recall ever being afraid to fly. In fact it is a bit of a rush. I love the feeling of G-Force when you are pushed back into your seats as the plane hurtles down the runway. Where else could you hit such speeds on the ground without blue lights flashing in your rear view mirror? I love this part of flying. The lack of leg room; the sucky food and surly attitudes of fascist flight crew who have studied every rule of flying and want to make you aware of every one of them on every flight is another matter. But the sense of speed and the sheer power of takeoff are great.
No; this is not the miracle of flight of which I speak. I have long ago accepted that the miracle of flight itself is a simple matter of physics; thrust and lift, weight ratios etc. Even those who claimed that it was impossible for a bumble bee to fly if you worked it out on paper are wrong. I once watched a television show where a physicist explained bumble bee flight and they are quite capable. No to me the miracle of flight is something else entirely.
What I find miraculous is when the gate agents announce “This is a pre-boarding announcement only. Will those people requiring extra time boarding and those flying with small children please board the plane now?” Fifty people will surge forward with all manner of physical impairments and board the plane early. As soon as those poor unfortunates have boarded the healthy ones will stand and form a line long before the gate agents voice comes over the speakers and says “ Ladies and gentlemen thank you for your patience we will now begin general boarding of Fascist airlines flight blah , blah, blah.” The rest of us board the airline. Now I would like to point out one salient fact to all who fly. It doesn’t matter when you board; that plane aint leaving until every last mother’s son (and father’s daughter) is on that plane. We have all heard the plaintiff voice of the gate agents as they butcher people’s last names over the pathetic public address system “Would passengers Hrzelsquatch and Spuzzerby please report to gate blah, blah, blah for the immediate departure of their plane? That is passengers Hrzelsquatch and Spuzzerby to gate blah, blah, blah for the immediate departure of your aircraft.” The poor sods are probably fifteen feet away but don’t recognize what the gate agent has done to their names. If even one person misses the flight they have to remove that person’s baggage before the plane takes off so what’s the rush?
So let’s say that all the passengers make the flight. You soar to twenty; thirty or even forty thousand feet on route to your destination and somewhere along the way a miracle occurs. Because lo and behold; when you reach said destination no matter how short the flight; no matter how high or low you flew, when the flight attendants come on the PA and say “Those passengers travelling with small children or requiring extra time deplaning please remain in your seats and we will assist you.” Behold the miracle; only the people flying with children remain. Somehow all the other people who limped on the plane have shaken their impediments and been cured mid flight. It’s a miracle!

Wringing the last drop out of a wrong number

2011-10-28T19:15:00.001-07:00

I wonder if Alexander Graham Bell got wrong numbers. I hope so. I hate them. There is nothing as loud as the sound of a phone ringing in a sleeping house at two in the morning. Lina got to it first on about the third ring. “Hello?” She answered weakly and groggily. “Is Wuzzername there?” Said a thick; slurred voice on the other end of the line. “You have the wrong number!” Lina replied, sounding more awake and a lot angrier. We put the incident out of our minds and went back to sleep. This time; when the phone rand Lina picked it up on the second ring “What?!” She barked. “Is Wuzzername there?” It was the same drunken voice. “You have the wrong number!” Lina answered with as much venom as she could muster. She slammed the receiver down even though it was cordless and that’s not what hangs it up.
Now this was far from my first late night wrong number. I remember when I was living in northern Alberta in the 1980’s. Back in those days there were no cordless phones. There was only one phone jack and it was in the living room at the other end of my trailer. When the phone rang at three in the morning I staggered ha length of the trailer in inky blackness stubbing my toe on the kitchen table in the process. “Hello?” I said still half asleep. “This is Alberta Government Telephones; I have a collect call from Henry do you accept the charges?” The operator’s voice sounded young. It figured only someone new would get stuck working at this hour of the night. I could hear a plaintiff voice in the background. A drunken plaintiff voice “Accept the charges Dad it’s me Henry.” Now Henry was a neighbor of mine. He was a sweetheart when he was sober. As there was no place to drink or buy booze in our little town he was usually sober. But every time he went to the nearest larger town he got drunk. Three a.m. was when the bars closed. “You have the wrong number.” I said putting the receiver down. I tried to get back to bed without opening my eyes.
I have had sober people call me back after a wrong number and I had barely put the phone down. I swear they hit redial. That is stupidity. Drunkenness is a different kettle of worms. Drunks have randomness to their thought process which allows their poor victim time to fall back into that deepest stage of REM sleep. The stage where young men are dreaming of waving a fly rod on a clear day in their favorite strip of trout water. A day so still and so perfect that the only flies are in your vest pockets and the only ripples on the water are trout rising to your fly. When suddenly with a deafening clatter the phone bell rends the air like the atomic bomb! I shot to my feet like I had been ejected out of bed. Again I thought I could stay asleep with the lights off so again I navigated the shoals of furniture without the benefit of the lights. I ran aground on a kitchen chair and hopped the last six feet my wounded toe in one hand as I scooped the receiver up with the other. “Hello?” I squealed into the mouthpiece. The same young voice as before; the same professional spiel “This is Alberta Government Telephones; I have a collect call from Henry.” I was stunned. There must only be one operator on duty at that hour of the night in northern Alberta. “Oh for crying out loud! It’s the same number as before lady; it’s still the wrong number!” I could still hear Henry sniveling on the other end of the line. “Well I am just doing my job! I have to put these calls through what if it was an emergency?” She sounded hurt and I immediately regretted my tone. “I’m sorry operator. But this isn’t his Dad’s place I am just trying to fish. I mean sleep.” As I hung up I made a mental note to look up Henry’s Dad’s phone number the next day.
I think the randomness is as infuriating if not more infuriating than the thing itself. I had actually hooked the fish this time when the phone exploded into action. This time I made no pretense of trying to stay asleep and I turned on the hall light which seemed to be a million candle power. It blinded me so badly I walked straight into the end table the phone sat on. “Hello?” I said dumbly into the phone. “This is Alberta Government Telephones; I have a collect call from Henry.” She sounded apologetic almost pleading. “I’ll accept the charges.” I said forlornly. She seemed stunned. There was a long silence only partly filled with the sound of Henry on the other end begging his Dad to accept the charges. “It’s the same guy; the same wrong number.” She said finally. “I know; but it is the only way I am going to get to sleep. “ I said. “I owe you.” She said kindly. For the next half an hour I got Henry’s life story. Once he realized I wasn’t his Dad he asked who I was. In time he figured it out. In time to he passed out. I hung up and grabbed the skinny phone book and turned to the half page that held our town’s phone numbers. Sure enough Henry’ Dad’s number was the reverse of mine. So Henry was not just an alcoholic he was dyslexic oot.
A month or so passed in which I slept well. Then; one night at three a.m.; the phone rang. I had learned a lesson and with a flashlight by my bed I walked the distance from my bedroom to the living room without incident. I picked up the receiver “This is Alberta Government Telephones;” A now familiar voice said. “I have a collect call from Henry for Greg. Will you accept the charges?” I was stunned. “Yes operator I will.” Henry and I had what would become our typical conversation. He talked about how bad his life was and I listened. We didn’t become friends but we became friendly. As the calls were only once in a while; and as they were no longer wrong numbers I actually grew to enjoy them; sort of.
When I moved about a year later my replacement asked me if he could keep the same phone number. We had shared the small trailer for some weeks and his parents already had the number memorized. I gave it no thought and quickly agreed. Some weeks later and in a somewhat testy voice he asked me; over the phone, of course. “Who is Henry?” “Probably a wrong number.” I commiserated. “A pretty damned persistent wrong number!” said he.
Meanwhile back in the present tense the phone rang again. I beat Lina to it this time. “Is Wuzzername there?” The voice sounded a little angry. “You have the wrong bloody number!” I thundered. Lina put her hand on my arm to calm me. “Look this is my own number; I ought to know my own number!” Said the boozy one. You should I thought but obviously you don’t. Just then an idea hit me. “Wuzzername is passed out. After you left she invited us all over and we drank all your booze and broke a few things, sorry!” There was a pause. I could almost see the look on his face as he figured out what that meant. “I am coming right home and you had better all be gone when I get there!” This time he slammed down the receiver. Lina stared at me. “So now he’s coming here?” She asked incredulous. “What do you call that?” I beamed. “Payback!” I rubbed my hands. “He isn’t coming here. He has no idea where we are. He is going home where a very surprised Wuzzername is no doubt sleeping. I’d give ten bucks to see the look on both of their faces.” I wish I had Graham Bell’s number in heaven. I’d love to ring him up and ask him if he has Prince Albert in the can.

The lure and lore of the northern lights

2011-10-26T18:50:00.001-07:00

Photo By Brodie Thomas

“When am I going to get to see the northern lights?” Sharon the newest member of our management team asked. Fresh from God’s country (Nova Scotia) she wanted to see the big show. I couldn’t blame her it is well worth the wait though. “Well you’ll have to wait until it gets dark at night which won’t be until late August. Some of the best lights are at the end of August and early September.” I was smiling as I said it her exuberance reminded me of my own when I first went north. I had seen it many times over the years everyone has a natural curiosity about the lights and they are magnificent; one of the great natural wonders of the world. I thought back twenty five years ago to when I first saw them on a bus headed into northern Alberta. I had asked the bus driver if the apostrophe shaped smudge on the northern horizon was the northern lights he said he wasn’t sure but if they were still there in an hour or two they must be. “Otherwise,” he informed me “it’s just smoke from the mill.” Big mill; I thought. As I got off the bus eight hours later they were still there. “Looks like they were the lights.” He said with a smile as I got. Off. They filled the horizon now. “You’re not in Kansas anymore.” I remember thinking.
“What are the lights?” Sharon asked. “That depends who you ask.” I replied. “The peoples of the polar world all have their own explanation. The Finns call it Fox Fire they say that a great fox painted the Arctic sky with snow on its’ tail. The Eskimo of Greenland say they are the spirits of babies who died in childbirth.” Sharon visibly shivered. “That’s so sad.”She replied. “The Sami of Scandinavia believe they are the souls of the dead. They have an icon for them and use it in the artwork and evoke their power in their magic. My people; the Scots, call them The Merry Dancers. Closer to home the Cree I have lived among called them The Spirit Dancers. They too believe they are the spirits of the dead.” “I never knew they had such power over people.” Sharon said in a hushed voice. “Wait until you see them. You’ll understand.” I said smiling at her naiveté. “Don’t whistle when you see them.” Said my wife quietly. My wife is Dene; Chipeweyan to be exact. “Why not?” Sharon asked. “They will attack you.” Lina said seriously. “Some native people believe that the lights will take you away if you whistle or call them down or trifle with them. I think it comes from the awe and reverence in which they are held. It’s like a mark of respect; to take these wonders seriously” Sharon seemed impressed. “They crackle too.” Added Lina. “Really?” Sharon sounded incredulous. “Yeah, to the Dene the lights are a multi media event. They believe that when the lights are low the crackle and they have a smell.” “A bad smell! Don’t breathe it or it will kill you!” Lina added. “There is a legend of five hunters near Hay River who were using the light of the Borealis to hunt. The sound of their dog sleigh bells brought the lights down on them and even though they lay in the snow they were killed by breathing in the vapor.” I added.
“I remember once I was hunting in the Peace country of Northern Alberta. I had just bedded down when my dog raised his head and started to growl. I looked up and the wall of my tent was lit up like daytime. “What on earth?” I thought as I scrambled out through the tent door; my dog beside me. When I got outside I realized that it was not a case of what on earth? But rather of what in Heaven? The sky was dancing with curtains of neon green waving as if in some great cosmic breeze. Then I heard what had made my dog growl. Wolves! Choruses of wolves over the distant hills were calling out to the distant lights. Answered by a lone wolf much nearer; no doubt a lone black male we had spotted earlier in the day. A shiver went up my spine. I petted my dog and stood in awe of the sight and sound. This was what I had come north for.”
“But what are they really?” Sharon’s boyfriend Bart asked; always the skeptic, always the realist. “Cosmic dust carried on the solar wind.” I replied as cryptically as I could manage. “No; seriously.” He added. “Yes, seriously. They are caused by energized ions of dust carried by the solar wind. They enter the upper atmosphere and react with the elements there. The color of the lights changes according to the elements that the charged particles react with. The upper atmosphere is mostly oxygen which makes them green. Other elements make them blue or rarely red. They are often visible further south but they appear lower on the horizon. The closer to the magnetic pole you are the more overhead they will appear. It is largely a magnetic phenomenon.” Like I said you have to see them. A month or so later I was on the phone to Bart and Sharon. “I saw them!” Sharon was saying. She was ecstatic. She was on facebook right away telling her friends. A month after that she was asking me if I had seen them the night before. I had. I never get tired of them.
“So tell me…” Said Bart; the skeptic. “Do you believe the legends of the lights?” I thought for a moment. “I believe there are legends about the lights.” I replied slyly. “That is not what I asked.” He replied. Another pause. It was a touchy subject. I have always believed that I am a guest here in someone else’s land; that I have been privileged to share in the culture of the people who do live here. This is their land and these are there beliefs. I do not take them lightly nor would I ever dream of mocking them. “I do not disbelieve them. I respect these beliefs and the rights of those who believe them. They are formed out of awe and respect for nature and the creator. I share that awe and I share that respect.” I said gravely. “Did you ever whistle at the northern lights?” He asked.

“Never!” I said and I meant it. “And I never will.”

Lord of the Maggots

2011-10-01T14:56:00.001-07:00

We grew up on the edge of the city. In what was then being called by a new term “Suburbia” ; a new term for a new age. Our parents had moved to the city from the surrounding countryside. Our fathers were back from the war. “Son; I see your back from the front!” ‘Oh my God!” he replies “It’s that army food! I must be skinnier than I thought!” Cities bulged. The babies were booming and those small; post war homes were popping up everywhere. Forests were cut down. A house or two would spring up and a neighborhood grew overnight. Small houses on big lots; big families in two or three bedrooms right on the edge of the city; up against the forest.
Kids were the order of the day. The depression was done; rationing was done; the war was done. The time for self sacrifice and grimness was over; it was a time to be fruitful and multiply. It was a time for laughter and the joy of youth. A youthful society set free from two decades of woe and care. A society that worshipped youth that wanted to hear the sounds of childhood. It was the sixties man! We were hip and cool and free! The world had probably never known a freer society. Set free by our parents who had tossed aside tyrants and opened the doors to prosperity. We roamed the neighborhood with impunity. We were legion. No play-dates for us just a game of baseball or road hockey at the drop of a ball. We rushed from the house with a ninety nine cent Superblade© on the end of an old broken hockey stick and made our own fun for hours at almost no cost and almost no fuss or arrangements. We were like our own subculture.
Like youth of all cultures we imitated our parents and our society and we formed our own societies with our own leaders and our own rules. Being that this was new ground we were like settlers or pioneers of sorts out here on the semi-civilized fringes of the city. We roamed around and explored the wilderness that surrounded our safe little suburban neighborhoods. There was adventure out there to be had; adventures that would; no doubt, have chilled our parent’s blood. We sailed the lake on an old raft powered by my swimming flippers. We climbed Miller’s Mountain and drank from a spring on its’ crest. We hunted suckers with spears in the swamp behind the school. We did boy things and had boy fun. We were like kids on a deserted island. Like “Lord of the flies” until we went home to our safe suburban one and a half story houses and were folded into our clean sheets.
One thing that boy society worships above all else is courage. There were many unwritten rules to this effect. Never let them see you cry would be number one. A tear or a crack in your voice could bring endless teasing; caustic rebukes and even the dreaded “Nyah nyah: nyah nyah nyah nyah!” the highest form of mockery! It was not uncommon to belong to different gangs of boys at the same time. You might be a junior member of an older boy’s gang or a senior member of a younger boys club at the same time. Important life lessons were learned while lighting firecrackers or climbing trees.
“What is it?” Jed asked as we approached the still form on the edge of the woods. Martin took a long stick and poked the animal gingerly; it didn’t move. “It’s a dead Bobcat!” Phil said with exuberance. ”Cool!” . Said many. We had come across the dead body of a Bobcat on the edge of the woods where it met the highway. We spent some time speculating on how it had gotten there. These woods were no longer connected to the greater forest where there were Bobcats. By consensus we determined that it had come from the nearby forest and been hit by a car and wandered here to die. It was a find of some importance. It was necessary to determine what to do with so sacred an object. There was only one recourse; we retired to the meeting rock. The meeting rock stood in a nearby clearing; it was enormous. In our primal world things of the natural world; things that stood out, were important. The rock; because it was huge had its’ own inherent power. It was a natural place to meet and to decide on things of importance.
We gathered in the lee of the rock safe from prying eyes and ears and sat in a circle in the clearing. “It’s splendiferous!” said one. “Its’ super cool!” said another. Choruses of “Cool!” resounded. It had been decided the Bobcat was officially “Cool!” There was some mumbling then a brief silence. Even brief silences among a group of boys are weighty things. There was some shuffling and then a cleared throat. “All right it’s cool; what do we do with it?” More shuffling; more silence. Then Phil opened his mouth “Why don’t we mount the skull on our clubhouse?” Pandemonium broke loose Shouts of “Skull!” and “Cool!” resounded in the little clearing in the woods. Phil lived on the other edge of the wood. His backyard held an old shed his Father had turned into a clubhouse for us boys. It was Phil’s home turf; of course so he was lord and master within it’s’ walls. A Bobcat skull would; it was decided look very cool over the door of the club house. We all saw it in our mind’s eyes; open jawed and yellowed with age (or maybe some varnish) emitting some silent roar that would instill fear into our enemies; foreign and domestic! It would be a symbol of our bravery and unquestioned badge of honor. Who could doubt the courage of boys who had bested such a creature? “It’s a little small; don’t you think?” said a voice from the back. Silence of a different sort fell over the assembled group. Not a silence of thought but a silence of disapproval and disdain. All heads turned in the direction of this lone voice of discord. It was Lorne one of the smallest of our crew but one who had won favor by being new to the neighborhood. No doubt it was this that saved him a pummeling. “It has been already decided that the skull is cool!” came the reply.
It was therefore decreed that the Bobcat would be placed in a garbage bag and be buried in a most memorable spot where it would later be dug up when nature had run its course and the bones had been picked clean. So we went about our normal summer routines; playing ball and road hockey and having adventures. The Bobcat was forgotten. Then one day, when the wind brought the first hint of fall one of the members remembered the Bobcat. A meeting was struck and the shovel was borrowed and with due pomp and circumstance we trooped down the path from the meeting rock along the trail already strewn with the first golden leaves of fall. Whether it was the leaves covering the ground or the passage of time; but the spot did not prove as memorable as we had first supposed it would be. Eventually the shovel stuck the shiny surface of the garbage bag and the bag was removed from the earth. It appeared unchanged. The bag was heavier than we thought it would be. We stood around it in a close circle as we awaited the first look. Like Carter opening Tut’s tomb or Geraldo opening Capone’s vault we waited with baited breath while the bag was torn open. What happened next was not spoken of in the club’s circle. I personally evoke images of the “Great Skedaddle”. The torn bag revealed a mass of maggots seething and writhing with no sight of the Bobcat whatsoever. Boys flew in every direction there was to flee. Bigger faster boys ran over smaller slower ones. The panic was universal. It spread like wild fire. Boys ran through the woods in all directions. As the mad dash subsided and cooler heads prevailed our societal rules returned and we all wandered back to the meeting rock. The crowd was hushed now and subdued. No one looked at each other. There was an uneasy silence. We were all waiting for someone to speak. No one wanted to bring up the subject of our behavior. This symbol was supposed to announce our bravery to the world. We stared at our feet and there was more shuffling. Then Lorne’s voice could be heard from the crowd. “It was kinda small.” He said meekly. “Yeah small!” repeated the crowd. “Kinda puny!” The poor Bobcat was reinterred and funnily enough the subject of the symbol of our great bravery was never brought up again.

It suits me to a tea

2011-09-19T14:05:00.000-07:00

As I sit here writing this my cup of hot water is slowly; magically being transformed. Floating in it is a tea bag; orange pekoe to be exact. There is no doubt a science to making a good cup of tea; but there is also an art and a touch of magic. There is alchemy in the simplicity of the chemical reaction or whatever it is that turns hot water and some leaves into the steaming; satisfying beverage that seems to brighten the day and soothe the soul. Keep your chicken soup; give me my tea.
Now when I have coffee I must have it white with sweetener. That’s because I hate coffee. I have to kill the taste because that’s the only way I can get it down. So why do I drink it? Coffee; to me, is the Buckley’s Mixture of the beverage world. It tastes terrible but it works! But tea I can drink in almost any of its’ forms. I can drink it black. I can have it black with sugar or white with sugar. It depends on the circumstances. Half of the thrill of tea is the circumstances in which you drink it. Tea is very versatile. It can be had with sleeves rolled up, in Styrofoam cups on a busy workday. It can be had in a favorite mug on a sleepy Sunday morning, sunlight streaming in on my pajamaed legs and slippered feet, chez moi. It can be sipped from fine porcelain at five pm for high English tea. It can be drunk from an old melmac mug while seated on a stump replete with embers from the fire and a pine needle or two and none the worse for that. I have had tea on the running boards of a fire truck at five in the morning brought by some blessed angel of a citizen for us haggard firefighters who had been fighting a fire since three. It was the best cuppa’ I ever had. Sweaty; tired and coming down off an adrenalin high, your throat dry from breathing bottled air; there is nothing better than a cup of tea.
There is variety in the way you whiten your tea too. Whether it is milk or cream or powdered whitener or canned milk each has a place. A splash of milk is always welcome. Cream is nice for dessert tea, sweetened with sugar of course. When you are not well black tea with a little lemon and honey is most efficacious. When in the bush; clad in mackinaw jacket with felt lined boots against the cold and damp a bit of powdered cow or better yet canned milk is nice. It reminds me of the tea my Dad made; strong and thinned with canned milk. It creamed into your stomach with warming tendrils. A little apricot brandy didn’t hurt either.
As varied as the ways of preparing and serving tea are the myriad forms of the beverage itself. Whether green or black; Oolong or Darjeeling; Orange Pekoe of Earl Grey. There are many types of tea as there are types of people drinking the beverage. I have tried many and liked most of them. But for the most part just give me an old fashioned Orange Pekoe. But on a cold day when I’ve stolen an hour from the month give me a hot cup of Blueberry Ice wine tea first given me by my best friend. Delicious; just like a warm summer breeze.
I am not fussy when it comes to the preparation of tea but here is what I do know. Good water makes good tea. Aeration is good too, stream water it better than lake water. The water should be boiling just before adding the tea. Let the water just come off a boil and then add the tea. Let it steep for a couple of minutes until the desired strength is reached, this is a matter of preference, I like mine strong. It should be drunk before it goes too cold and remove the tea bags once the desired strength is reached in case you want a second cup; and who doesn’t?
I am from the east coast and I think the tradition of drinking tea is still stronger there. I now live in the north where the tradition has survived the scourges of the automatic coffee maker (shudder!). I will always associate the smell of the tea kettle with my Aunt Violet’s kitchen, warm and sunny, her parlor empty her kitchen table packed. Whenever the screen door slammed another tea bag and some fresh water went into the kettle it was seldom dry. Tea; in my deepest lizard brain is always linked with laughter and friends, with warmth and joy; with sharing and contentment. One lump or two?

The tipping point

2011-08-22T15:41:00.001-07:00

This October 3rd will mark a milestone in my life. It will mark the point where I have been away from my native Nova Scotia for as long as I lived there. Exactly half my life spent in the north. I left Nova Scotia on a sunny morning with $150.00 in my pocket and three bags. I had never flown on a plane and had never been further from home than P.E.I. I guess it was the final rite of passage; I was leaving the nest and flying on my own. One thing for sure it was a long way home. I started as a Management Trainee for the HNC for the princely sum of $10,500.00 B&L (board and lodging) which meant that after the cost of my travel was taken off my first six months wages I took home just under $100 a week. Airfare to Halifax in those days was nearly $2,000 so going home really wasn’t an option.
But the weather was nice for early October in northern Alberta. Within a week I had made some friends, met some people from home and caught my first pike. I called home every week. I had a lot to say in ten short minutes that first week. Ten minutes was my ration. We often think that things have gotten so expensive over the years, but not everything has. A phone call in 1985 cost $1.70 a minute at the cheapest rate. Ten minutes a week was all I could afford. Saturday night was my time to call home. I hated when you couldn’t get a line out. The exchanges were crude and “all circuits are busy please try your call again later…” Was a frequent response; in that cold, business likes voice. Still; God bless A G Bell because there is more you can hear in the sound of someone’s voice than can be written in the most eloquent letter.
I wrote letters too; they were way cheaper. I sent pictures home of my new surroundings. When I got a part-time job doing guard duty for the RCMP I bought a truck. I proudly sent pictures home. I wanted them to think I was fine and doing well, prosperous even. I think I even believed it. Until Christmas eve I heard Stan Roger’s “First Christmas” and melted like a snowflake I felt every inch of the nearly three thousand miles between me and home. I may have gone over my ten minutes that first Christmas day; and what a job getting through; I think it took more than four hours. I wanted to thank Mom for the gifts; but most of all for the Santa Bag. She had always put together one as a stocking for us. It was a cornucopia. When opened it revealed a mixture of the practical (combs, toothbrushes and shampoo) the fanciful (Quality street chocolates, Candy chicken bones, and candy canes) and the sublime ( a small toy of some kind, no matter how old we were just to remind us I guess that we were still her little boys and girls). This continued for many years until I met my wife. Our first Christmas together my Mother sent us each a Santa Bag, I was delighted as it meant that Lina was officially “part of the family”. The only thing was I knew it was my last stocking from Mom. From now on Lina and I would fill each other’s stockings. At about the halfway point of the time since I left the little blue house on Third Street I had crossed another bridge; severed another apron string.
Back home communities are small and tight. Move into one and you will always be a CFA (come from away). No matter how long you live there you will always be “from away”. It is like that up here too. Small towns have that dynamic no matter where they are. Nova Scotia will always be the “away “ that I am from. But home we always be wherever Lina and I are together.

Watch Dog

2011-06-25T20:30:00.000-07:00

He came into my life slowly, almost by assimilation. When I first met him he belonged to my boss, Nigel. He was in his prime, a fully grown Golden Retriever, though you might have been forgiven if you mistook him for an Irish setter; from a distance at least. He was very dark; which is, so I am told, not uncommon in the breed. His name was Seiko. “He’s a watch dog; get it?” Nigel told me when I looked at him askance when he told me the name. “More people would get the joke if you named him Timex.” I said and over the years when I explained the name to others the joke had spawned at least four dogs named Timex. But Seiko he was. Tall and proud and immensely strong; he was gorgeous. I was new to the north and a long way from home and loved ones. The transition was made a little easier by the fact that Nigel’s wife Anne and I were from the same home town and I knew her family. We had attended the same high school but did not know one another. It was made easier too by this gregarious Golden Retriever.
We struck up a bond right away. Golden Retrievers are notoriously friendly and Seiko was the rule not the exception. He followed me everywhere. When I was working in the warehouse he would come in to get some attention and I was always glad to see him. On my days off I took to asking Nigel if I could “borrow” his dog. Seiko went fishing and hunting with me. We went on long walks together on every trail and back road that there was in the surrounding area. He was good company. If I ever had to go somewhere without him he would follow my vehicle for miles. The speeds he could reach and the length of time he could follow were prodigious. Three kilometers from home I could still see him in my rearview mirror. I spent a happy year and a half in Wabasca but then was transferred in the spring of 1987. I bid Seiko a sad goodbye and thought I would never see him again.
Happily that was not the case. A few months later Nigel called to say they were moving and they would not be able to take a full grown Golden Retriever with them. Would I be interested in taking him? It took about ten seconds to make the decision. I was about to own my first dog. I only had to get him there. Wabasca is over 500 km away but fortunately Nigel was coming to Fort Vermilion. Fort Vermilion was only a short flight away by Cessna 206. I just had to find a pilot willing to fly an eighty pound bundle of muscle and energy in a cockpit the size of a loveseat. I thought I’d better talk to the pilot in person so the next day I met the mail plane and when we’d finished loading my truck I said offhandedly “By the way I wonder if you could help me out. My dog will be in the Fort on Monday and I need to get him in here.” I looked at the pilot with my most pathetic look. “Eighty Pounds!” he exploded when I answered him how big the dog was. “Is he part horse?” I decided to go all in and play my trump card., I pulled a photo of Seiko from my pocket, one taken on one of our many walks. The pilot took it dubiously but a smile crossed his face as he looked at it. “A Golden Retriever; well why didn’t you say? My daughter raises them. He’s a beauty. Look how red he is! Is he a good flyer?” The question caught me flat footed. It hadn’t even occurred to me to ask Nigel if the dog had ever flown. Of course I couldn’t tell him I didn’t know so I stammered “S-S-S-S-rue he loves to fly!” I had to lie as anybody up here who owned a dog any length of time would have had to have flown with him. I called Nigel that night to let him know that arrangements had been made. “How’s Seiko in an airplane?” I asked “I guess we’ll know next week.” Nigel answered. He had never flown before. I was waiting with baited breath the next Monday when the little plane taxied to a stop, I waited for the prop to stop spinning then I ran over and opened the passenger door. “How was the flight?” I asked when the engine noise died down. “He was my Copilot.” Said the pilot with a smile. “He never moved, just sat in the copilot’s seat and stared out the windscreen.” I was worried that he might not recognize me after so long apart but once out of the plane he planted his hind feet on the gravel runway and put his front feet on my chest and licked my face. He was not a dog who did this often so I knew he was saying “Hello; sure I remember you!”
We embarked on a new life together both off us adjusting to a changed existence. I could not have been happier, I know he felt the same. As before we went everywhere together. He slept by my side. He seldom slept on the bed but when he did he took the whole bed, lying diagonally across it stretched out to his full length; I was forced to sleep diagonally too. Usually he slept on the floor by my head. Occasionally I would hear him vocalizing in his sleep his legs would twitch like he was dreaming of chasing rabbits. I would hang an arm over the side of the bed and pet him. His tail would thump, thump thump against the floor in his sleep. I wonder what he was dreaming and was he picturing me petting him? In the mornings when he was ready to go out he would stand between the bed and the wall and his tail would make an arc from the two objects. It would whack the bed frame and then the wall in a whack, ting, whack ting that became my alarm. I woke up every day to his smiling face. No one could roll over and go back to sleep after looking into those brown eyes.
My bass Andrew had a border collie named DeeDee and the two dogs became inseparable. Seiko picked up any number of habits from DeeDee including her habit of sticking her nose under your hand and kind of flipping your hand into the air when she wanted to be petted. Seiko also took to rolling in mud puddles, one of DeeDee’s favorite things. The maddening thing is that he would go for a three mile walk and stay totally clean. Then; less than a hundred meters from home he would drop into a mud puddle like a stone. I kept a garden hose at the back door. He loved the water. Being a retriever that is only natural I suppose. When we went walking by the river which was almost every day; he would plunge in and swim usually grabbing a piece of driftwood. But no matter how far from the river I stood he would inevitably walk to within ten feet of me before he shook himself dry; thus soaking me. It was a game we played and he loved doing it. I pretended to be mad but he always saw through me and I could not help but hold him he was so charming.
From Fox Lake I moved to beautiful Ft Liard. Seiko loved the river and the mountains. He loved walking the trails and chasing the rabbits. He was getting older and he began to appreciate the wood stove as he got quite arthritic, especially in his hind quarters. Golden Retrievers are prone to that. I used to take him for runs on my bike so I could tire him out better. That became less necessary. Soon our normal walks became too much for him. One night in late February I knew he was not going to see another dawn. I had been talking to a friend who was a wildlife officer. He had told me that he could give Seiko an overdose of Nembutal which he had for tranquilizing bears. I wanted to put it off until the last possible moment. The last night I called Jerry but it was too late Seiko did not make it until he arrived. With a loud sigh he passed. I let out a scream of his name and he momentarily opened his eyes and looked right at me as if to say “It is O.K. Old friend it is my time,: amd then he was gone. I wrapped him in his favorite comforter and put his favorite toy a pink “My Little Pony” that Jerry’s kids had given him,. I picked up the toy and remembered how he had gotten it. One night we ewre visiting Jerry and his family. When we got home I noticed that Seiko had the pony in his mouth. I took it back the next day but the kids were adamant that they had given it to Seiko and his tail wagged furiously when I returned it to him. It had no tail and was one the girls no longer wanted. He loved it. He carried it everywhere. Once when he lost the toy he was beside himself. I have never seen a dog so despondant. The girls again came to the rescue with a “My Little Pony” unicorn. He loved that too nut not as mush. That spring under the snow I found the original and he never touched the unicorn again.
I got my friend Rick to pick me up a pick at the hardware store and I buried him in the back yard that Sunday. Rick was going to help but I was finished before he got there. We sat and had coffee. “It was brutally cold today you should have waited for me.” He said . “It was the only trouble he ever caused me. He was worth all that and more.” I put a cross over his grave and nailed his dog tag to it. I buried him with his pony. I thought I was doing well after he died. One evening while walking home from work about a week later I met my friend Elizabeth; the social worker. She was walking her dogs. We had walked dogs together many times. She looked at me askance and asked “Wherever is Seiko?” In her British accent. I tried to get the words out but nothing would come. I stood there like an idiot and she instantly knew. She hugged me and said “I am ever so sorry. I didn’t know!” It must have been five minutes before I could tell her what had happened. Nearly twenty years later I have tears in my eyes. He still stares out at me from a thousand pet food bags. One day I walked into the store and there was a wet Golden Retriever in the porch. The smell is like no other breed. I got down on one knee and petted him. “Sorry, he’s a mess.” said one of my Mountie friends. “He is beautiful and he looks just like a Golden Retriever should look.” I said. I have had a number of dogs since; each one of them as different as each person is. The one common thread is the unquestioning love that I have had from each one of them. I never came home to find them grumpy or ungrateful or not understanding. They have only been a source of undying love. No matter how much it hurts to lose one I will never regret the commitment.

Ask a stupid question...

2011-06-04T14:41:00.000-07:00

Steve Martin the comedian once said “If you are studying geology; which is all facts, as soon as you get out of school you forget it all, but philosophy you remember just enough to screw you up the rest of your life.” I minored in philosophy. A light bulb is going on for a lot of my friends right now. “Ahhhh….” They are saying to themselves. “That explains a lot!” I blame Rene Descartes. “I think therefore I am!” He taught me to question everything; shook my belief system right down to it’s’ bones. I used to think I knew that I existed because I was hot or tired or hungry, “I crave a big greasy donair therefore I am!” But that wasn’t good enough for old Rene; no sir he said what if I just think I am craving a big greasy donair; the one from Revanna Pizza on Portland with the works and extra sauce on the side? In spite of the fact that I can almost taste that donair; with its’ toasted pita shell and donair meat glistening with that crusty skin on the outside. He stripped away all the unessential, all that was not pure philosophical logic. He said to himself “I might only think I am hot and tired and craving a donair! But I know this. I know that someone is thinking that they are hot and tired and craving a donair. So stripped to its’ logical essentials. I think I am hot and tired and craving a donair; therefore I am!” Existentialism in a nutshell. I just saved you three years of class time, not to mention tutorials and tuition and books and all that money spent on beer in the student lounge. I cannot however save you the cost of a large donair with the works and a can of Pepsi as they are the essential tools of the philosopher.
But now you see my dilemma. I constantly question everything. If you have to question your own very existence then what about; why do Ketchup chips have to be red they don’t have real ketchup on them and that dye gets your fingers all red. Why is suicide illegal? I mean if the guy dies what are you going to do to him? Why don’t they just lower the nets so that short people can play basketball too? If you ran a school for suicide bombers the only ones getting jobs would be failures and dropouts. What’s with those stupid commercials for automatic soap pumps? You wouldn’t want to touch a germy soap pump so it dispenses the soap automatically. You are about to wash your hands for Pete’s sake! What difference if there are germs on the pump; there are germs on your hands; that’s why you are washing them. The soap will kill all the germs, not just the ones on your hands but the ones from the pump too!That new sugarless gum, the one that brags that its’ flavor lasts forever why does it come in packs of five? Remember those deals on the packages of popsicles when you were a kid? Send in 200 wrappers and a dollar and get a Frisbee or something. Do you suppose they actually had people counting the wrappers? Imagine sitting in a room trying to prize apart 200 sodden sticky wrappers to see if some seven year old was trying to rip off some poor little multinational food corporation.
You can see what deep philosophical issues I grapple with every day. I like to share these issues with those around me too. No sense suffering in silence misery loves company. So it is for my long suffering wife and my employees at work. They get the distilled wisdom of four years of university and thirty years of experience on a daily basis. Sucks to be them. But every once in a while one of the great questions of life gets answered. One of the great mysteries of the universe is revealed; even to a pillar of dust such as I. But of course I shared it with the other human being who was there when it was revealed. It happened while in Winnipeg that center of the Canadian universe last month. I was driving along in a cab when one of those tow trucks with a flat bed on the back passed us with a brown cube van parked on it. I leaned around the Plexiglas shield and said to the cabbie “Well that answers a question I have always wondered.” He looked into the mirror and we made eye contact; in a fashion. “What question is that Sir?” he intoned politely. “Who delivers UPS trucks?” I said. Now if I could just figure out why there are no shocks in any of the cabs in Winnipeg?

Universal Remote

2011-04-25T08:37:00.000-07:00

There were just four of us in a passenger van designed to seat ten. We were scattered through the seats; as you do when the chance presents itself. Edmonton was streaking by the tinted windows of the van. Edmonton was bathed in splendid November sunshine. Little or no snow but little or no leaves too. The woman who had joined us last was asking the rest of us where we were going. She had; apparently only half understood our driver, though his second language English was very good. “Are we going to the west end?” She asked tentatively with a southern accent. “Yes.” I replied. “We will stop at the West Edmonton Mall, among other places.” I added. “Oh good I wasn’t sure what he meant by West Ed. I’m from Sacramento.” She intoned. “Not originally, with that accent.” I added with a chuckle. “I always forget.” She laughed. “Is it that bad?” “I like it.” My wife Lina added. “It reminds me of our trip to Nashville.” The lady turned and added “Close, Tupelo.” We might have sped through Edmonton without a word, as I have done dozens of times. But a chance remark had broken the ice and soon the lady in the back of the van was speaking of her home in Edmonton with an English accent. We were all, even the driver from somewhere else. The conversation wound as conversations do through different subjects; it started with Elvis who was also from Tupelo and went on to Graceland where we had all been. Then the lady from the south revealed that she had once dated a fighter and the conversation went on to the great fighters and great fights of the past. Lina faded out a bit as this was not her forte. I love boxing and know a lot about the fighters of the late seventies and early eighties.
We remarked on how, in the old days even the great fights were carried on network TV to be enjoyed by everyone who was inclined to watch. Nowadays you have to buy a ticket to a private screening or pay per view it on cable or satellite. We lamented the loss of the universally shared experience. “I remember the day after a big fight. We would stand around the schoolyard and everyone would have an opinion.” By virtue of the fact that it was free and on network TV meant that even the poorest of us could watch. Even the poorest and most ill informed could have an opinion and could voice it to all. “Something was lost…” she agreed “when great events became pay per views.” The conversation went on until we reached our destination. We parted; not as friends but at least as friendly and wished each other well as we parted.
I never fully forgot that conversation. It dovetailed with some thoughts I’d been having for weeks. You see we have satellite TV at home. One of the big Canadian ones. We have a big package, one of the biggest. I have long since given up on sports so we don’t have a sports package. But darn near everything else. We work long hours and often six days a week so when we get to watch TV I want choice. Even so; on a Sunday night recently I was regaling Lina with the available channels from the built in guide feature on the dish. “There’s never anything on when we have time to watch TV!” I protested. I was; as my boss was fond of saying “preaching to the choir” Lina felt as I did and needed no reminder of the fact. I was seeking commiseration. I wanted to have my opinion backed up; after all misery absolutely adores company. “You aren’t kidding. Even the game sow channel shows poker, POKER!” She replied dryly. “Watching poker is like watching paint peel.” I replied. “I thought the saying was Watching paint dry?” she replied. “Nah, these are reruns of poker games, that paint was dry a long time ago.” I turned off the TV and went to sit in the room where I do my best thinking; a windowless room with a large amount of porcelain. I had Bruce Springsteen’s 57 Channels ( and nothing on) running through my head. Two hundred channels of garbage! I kept thinking. Springsteen didn’t even know the half of it when he wrote his prophetic song. I pondered in my inner sanctum for a while.
“You know what is missing in society?” I asked as I returned to the room of the living from the room of the bath. Lina put down her magazine and was; I am sure, well and truly grateful for my minor in Philosophy. She knew better than to answer this rhetorical question. “We are missing the universal experience. “ I allowed sufficient pause to befit the depth and pithiness of this statement. “When I was a kid the school ground conversation was very much dictated by what we had seen on TV the night before. Mondays meant Hockey Night in Canada. We would stand around and discuss the one game that was on TV Saturday night. When there was a Wayne and Shuster special we all retold every joke the next day. Now we all go home to an entertainment extravaganza every night. There’s a channel for everything; game shows, cooking, shopping, religion, women, men, cartoons, you name it. Everyone goes into their little world and there is no commonality of experience. We are universally remote. Distant from each other; separated by the very medium that used to unite us in a common bons!” I was in full flight now.
“So you think we should have only one channel like the old days?” Lina said with a grin. “Remember when we had only CBC North?” I asked. “What are you talking about? I was born up here! I remember when there was no TV at all. I remember when we got four hours of TV a day, taped from earlier and replayed! Don’t tell me about CBC North!” Justly chastened; I continued. “Well back when we had only one channel we would all get together at the teachers place and watch Dallas.” I retorted. “The women watched Dallas,; you guys stood around the kitchen ate snacks and talked hockey.” She replied with a sarcastic tone. “Yeah but we shared an experience, that’s my point!” Just then the house gave a sort of shudder. The furnace sighed to a stop. The TV made a popping sound and went black. The water pump stopped and there was total silence. I looked at Lina; she shrugged. “Power failure!” I said. “Looks like it.” Lina replied. I flipped the light switch just in case. “Well I guess what’s on TV is a moot point now.” Lina said moving her chair over to the window and picking up her crossword.
The next day at work Gerry walked up to me “I was right in the middle of watching an interesting show on the Discovery Network when the power went off. I thought it would never come back on.” As he was speaking Darren walked into the room. “Yeah it sure was boring with no power I wanted to watch the Riders game.” “Count on the power to go off just when a good fishing show is coming on!” Piped Danny from the next room. I guess it just goes to show; be careful what you wish for…

My memory's good but short...

2011-04-24T13:24:00.000-07:00

“I’m going senile.” I said in disgust. My wife looked at me puzzled. I was standing in front of the office with a blank look on my face. “I just walked here from my office and I can’t remember why.” She looked at me and laughed. “Everyone does that; silly. Just walk back in your office and you will remember why you came here.” She was right; of course. I am sure everyone has those spells. You walk into a room for a specific purpose and you go blank. You cannot remember what the heck you walked in there for and that was the only reason for going into the room; whatever it was that you were supposed to do or get. A simple trick of the mind. But it certainly is frustrating. I swear sometimes I am going senile. What was I doing? What was I looking for? I walked back to my office and it hit me the minute I walked through my door. I knew instantly what I had set out to get. I was mortified.
“I can’t go out there and let them know this is what I forgot. I will never live it down.” I thought to myself. Whatever can I do? I leaned against my office door and glanced sideways at the general office. It was a beehive; as it usually was at that hour of the day. Damn; how am I going to do this? There was a lineup at the office and two people working there; my Wife and my Assistant Manager. There was a lineup at both checkouts. It never fails when you want to do something surreptitious there is always a crowd.” I should just be a man and walk boldly up and do this!” I thought. Then my cowardly alter ego said “No way dude; you are going to make a fool of yourself. Do it later.” But I had promised my boss to do this ASAP. I crept out of my office trying to avoid customers. But of course that didn’t work. “Hay Greg do we have a meeting tonight?” One of the guys on the Fire Department called out. “Yep, second Wednesday of the month.” I said as nonchalantly as I could. “You O.K.?” Roy asked, sensing my furtive movements. “Yeah; sure, fine.” I stammered. As soon as Roy was gone I worked my way closer to the general office. I tacked back and forth from one shelf to another. By now there was a lineup at the office and I took advantage of the distraction to make a dash for the showcase.
I fumbled with my keys. Why is it when you are in the biggest hurry you can never get the key to go in? There are two identical keys on my ring that fit the various showcases. Now the rules of probability state that there should be a fifty fifty chance every time I try them of getting the right key the first time. Balderdash! I have never gotten the right one first time. Finally I had my prize; now all I had to do was get through the checkout without my wife spotting me. As I stood up she was right in front of me. “Remembered what it was?” She asked. The words were like an exploding bomb. I stammered and stuttered and mumbled “Buzzerererahhhhhst” I said half under my breath hoping she would let it be. “What?” She repeated not letting it drop. “Mumble mumble wassisname.” I intoned. ”You are making no sense.” Lina said louder this time. I motioned for her to lean over and I whispered it in her ear. A grin split her face from ear to ear. “HEY EVERYBODY!” She yelled. I was making waving motions with my hands and mouthing the word NO over and over. “Greg forgot what he came out here for and had to walk back into the other room to remember it! Guess what he forgot?” She took the package from my hands and held it over her head. “A MEMORY CARD!” The whole building erupted in laughter simultaneously; both customers and staff alike. I walked to the till and paid for the memory card. There were people slapping my back and some people were holding their sides. I remember it like it was yesterday…

Just like Mom used to make

2011-04-19T11:42:00.000-07:00

Did you ever notice that some things taste better when someone else makes them? Seriuously; I think this is one of those things where If I were sitting down with a group of friends right now they would all be nodding and agreeing. I am alone at my computer but I am betting that you are sitting out there somewhere in cyberspace nodding and going “Yep.” Well all right maybe you’re not a “Yep” person; I sure am “Yep, indeed”. My Mother once remarked that salads always taste better when someone else makes them. I rest my case. You may argue with me but my Mom is always right. In many cases the thing that always tasted better is made by our Moms. They always know how to make stuff. What I don’t know is how they know all that stuff. Is there some kind of school for Moms that they go to? Is it genetic? Do they learn at their Mom’s knee? Rest assured that it is a universal truth right up there with “We find this truth to be self evident: That all men are created equal.”
But it need not always be your Mom; it could be your partner, or a friend or even a stranger at a church supper. Now I realize that there are those who will argue that the reason that it tastes better is that you didn’t have to make it. I like to think of this as the sheer laziness argument. Sure it tastes better you didn’t have to slave over a hot stove to get it. There is some logic to this. I used to work in a fast food restaurant I was good at what I did. I took pride in turning out a tasty hot, fresh burger. But when I sat down on my break I really didn’t feel like eating what I had been cooking and smelling all day. I would go miles out of my way to prepare something different. We would scrape all the breading off the filet-o-fish™ and pan fry it on the grill. We would cook the McRib™ patty and put Big Mac™ sauce on it, anything for some variety. We even worked out a scheme to take advantage of the proximity of competitors to our restaurant. I contacted a friend who worked at KFC and one who worked at the Pizza place. We all had similar benefits where we paid little or nothing for out food while working. So we would meet surreptitiously in the parking lot with bags of food under our coats and our uniforms hidden and we would swap our lunches. By Golly, it did taste better!
This worked fine until we got caught and the management of all three businesses got involved and kyboshed the whole scheme. Thos guys have no sense of humor. So maybe there is some merit to the laziness theory but I still don’t buy it. There is something to be said obviously for the effect of not smelling what you are cooking for hours and simply being tired of it by the time you have to eat. All these factors have merit but that doesn’t cover all the facts. Case in Point: even the simple things taste better when someone else makes them; even a bologna sandwich. I made one for my wife today which is the reason why all this ink is being spilt. Alright I know that computer screens don’t have ink on them. I am not like the person in the blonde joke with white out on my screen. But you cannot argue that a bologna sandwich is so time consuming that the making of it makes the sandwich taste bad. Now my Mom makes the best potato salad. No offense to my wife or others who have made me potato salad over the years, but Mom’s rules. It wicked cool! Is that expression still in? I never know anymore. I do know that groovy is dated, right? A potato salad is complicated there are many steps and many ingredients. Each salad may not have many ingredients but there are many different ingredients you could add. My Mom adds mustard. My Wife adds pickle juice, see what I mean. But bologna sandwiches are simple. Bread and margarine, mustard and bologna; not a whole lot of ingredients. Not too much wiggle room. Albeit the amount of mustard you use or type of margarine or bread will make a difference but let’s face it not that much difference.
I think I have solved the mystery. I think I have unlocked the secret that has puzzled mankind for years. I think the missing ingredient is care. That’s right care. I think when we make a sandwich or salad for ourselves we do it haphazardly. We slap the mustard on we give no thought to presentation or getting the coverage just right. We press too hard on the bread with our thumbs. We do not use a clean plate nor do we bother to present it with a pickle (when I make sandwiches for my Wife I often add little “eyes” made of olives on tooth picks that I stick into the top of the sandwich so that the ingredients form a face with a bread crust forehead and bologna tongue). We don’t take the extra measure of care for ourselves that we would for someone we loved or a total stranger at a church dinner. In fact I will go one better. Instead of calling it care, I will call it Love. What is missing when we taste our own sandwich is the Love that Mom put in. She always added just the right amount and she never ran out and had to go next door to borrow a cup. Thanks Mom; Bon apatite!

The Blob that ate Fort Liard

2011-04-18T14:25:00.000-07:00

No good deed goes unpunished; they say. I know it is true. I once scraped the side of my new car on a telephone pole when I was giving a friend a boost. “What’s a telephone pole doing in the middle of your driveway?” I asked as I surveyed the damage. “Holding up the telephone wires.” Eddy answered sardonically. Ask a stupid question… Another time I delivered some groceries for a customer and when I came out the company truck wouldn’t start and I had to walk back to work two miles in the pouring rain. Another time; well you get the point.
“Hey Barry; the bottom half of the pallet isn’t ours!” I said as I removed the last box of frozen foods. “What?” Barry said angrily. It was nearly midnight and he was tired. “This bread dough is for the IGA Bakery in Ft Nelson. I’m not going back that way. I am headed to Ft Simpson to drop this trailer and then I am Bob tailing it back to Edmonton. I knew his switch (the other driver who usually drives while Barry sleeps) was MIA so I knew he was tired. “Can I leave it and have the other driver pick it up on Thursday?” I looked into his eyes they were underlined by dark circles. We depend on these drivers in the north. We depend on them and we take care of them. “Sure Barry. I’ll keep it here, it will stay frozen like a rock. “Here meant the unheated loading dock at the back of the store. I could close the inside doors in winter and use it as an emergency freezer. Barry helped me pile the cases against the outside doors. At forty below they would be frozen better than in a commercial freezer. The boxes were about two cubic feet. That is to say about as big as an ottoman. There were a dozen or more of them. “Thanks man, you rule!” said Barry as we finished. “Yes.” I replied “But only here in my tiny kingdom!” I wished him goodnight as my assistant Ron and I went home for a few hours sleep. We had to be back here in less than eight hours.
“You ever hear of a comb?” I asked Ron next morning as I knocked on his door. This was our routine. Each morning I walked past his door on the way to work. Each morning I knocked d and waited for him to get ready. He never combed his hair and seldom shaved. “Only in legends” Ron added laughing. He was a cheerful kid. I say kid but in fact in calendar years he was only two years younger then me. In temperament he was light-years younger than me. He was like Peter Pan, he never grew up. We walked the short distance to the store in the crisp morning air. Ron was shivering. “How come you never wear proper clothes?” I asked for the hundredth time. “I want to look cool.” He replied. He looked very cool in a spring baseball jacket, unzipped with baggy jeans and sneakers to finish the ensemble. He was shaking like a leaf. I unlocked the deadbolt and pushed the front door in. As quickly as I had entered I ducked out and flattened against the side of the building. “What’s wrong?” Ron asked his eyes wide. “It’s as hot as the fire of hell in there!” I said loudly. Doubting me or wanting to see for himself Ron walked in. He was back out like a shot. He dropped to his knees and gasped for breath. “You weren’t kidding it’s roasting in there!” He was panting for breath. “What happened?” He looked at me like he looked at me for all things. I felt like a Father to him sometimes. I looked at him, my mind racing. “If I had to guess I would say the high limit went on the furnace.” I replied. Wait for it, I thought. “What is a high limit?” Ron asked. I knew it. “A high limit is a safety feature that shuts the furnace down when the thermostat fails.”
I was working out in my mind what to do next. The thermostat and emergency cut off switch were in the back room. To get to them I would need to shut off the alarm which was in the office. The place has very hot and the air was not breathable. “You stay here and keep the door open. I will crawl to the back down low where the air is cooler. I will shut off the alarm and kill the furnace. “I took a deep breath and made my way in. I shut off the alarm but had to make my way out immediately. I was bathed in sweat when I hit the minus forty air. I gulped huge lung full’s of air and sat on the step. “I can’t even hold the door open.” Ron said. He too was bathed in sweat. I made another dash and this time I killed the furnace. I returned outside, hugely relieved. “That’s killed the heat source. At least there is no more risk of fire.” We sat on the steps and cooled off. “It will take hours to cool down in there.” Ron said unhappily.” I have orders to do today. “I thought for a minute. “We could open the front and the back doors and turn on the fan.” I replied. The store was equipped with a huge fan that was meant to keep the place cool in summer. It didn’t but it kept the flies busy.
We waited twenty minutes for the temperature to drop a bit and walked in. It was like there had been a fire or something. I hadn’t considered what the high temperatures would do. There was a pool of molten shortening and lard on the floors in the grocery department. I picked up an Aero bar it was liquid inside the wrapper and dripped from the ends of the packaging. My mind paced. Every item in the store that had chocolate in it would have to be thrown out. Granola bars; chocolate bars, cookies lots of styuff went into the bin. But the shock I got when I opened the front door that morning was nothing compared to the shock I got when I opened the receiving doors. I had forgotten the favor we had done the night before.. I was trying to ventilate the place when I swung open the inner doors only to be confronted with what can only be described as “The blob that ate Fort Liard” for there in the previously unheated porch was a blob of bread dough eight feet high, ten feet wide and eight feet deep. As I opened the door it surged forward like a living thing. Which; because of the millions of yeast in it; it truly was. It flowed toward Ron and I; albeit it was a slow flow. We dashed back as a wall of dough slumped into the room and surged across the floor. We were up to our wastes in the stuff. The empty boxes stuck out of the mass like flotsam in some giant flood. “No one in head office is going to believe this!” I said looking at Ron. “I don’t believe this!” He said holding one foot in the air and picking dough out of his sock.
Our eyes met in one long glance and we realized how ridiculous each of us looked. We both began to laugh. We were standing up to our waists in bread dough roaring with laughter when my friend Rick, jack of all trades whom I had called to help fix the furnace, walked through the door. He looked at the two of us. He looked at the sea of bread dough. He shook his head. He turned and left. Ron and I laughed louder. Rick returned to the room. “I just had to be sure I wasn’t dreaming!” He added and he too began to laugh. Then we got snow shovels and dug a path to the receiving doors. We dug them out and opened them. The store was cooling off now. We pushed the bread dough onto the snow where it froze. Rick filled a dump truck with it using his Bobcat loader. We hauled “The Blob that ate Fort Liard” to the dump. Like I said no good deed goes unpunished. But look at it this way I am still telling that story over twenty years later, so it may have been worth it.

I am my own grandpa

2011-04-15T15:50:00.000-07:00

Like most people I had two grandfathers, my father’s father and my mother’s stepfather. I had two very different relationships with these two men. My grandfather Turnbull, my father’s father is my own blood relative. I am named after him. My middle name Earl was his first name. I am very proud of that. I have very fond memories of him; on one knee holding his thumb between his forefingers saying “I got your nose.’” Somewhere there is a photo of us; taken on my parent’s front lawn. He is leaning on a rock hammer and I am pulling a plastic dump truck be bought me, on a string. Granddad had just demolished a boulder the size of a Volkswagen with that hammer and a bucket of water. He first built a fire around the rock (something you could never do in Halifax today) then he threw a bucket of cold water on the hot rock and it split into pieces. He broke the pieces up with the hammer and the huge rock went away. He was not a big man but he could take a big problem and make it go away with that kind of determined effort his generation took for granted. He was a gold miner so it was second nature to him to go right through solid rock.
I haven’t seen the actual photo for years. I have searched for it every year when I am home. But the image goes with me everywhere I go. We distinguished (my siblings and I) between the two men by what we called them. Grandfather Turnbull was granddad. Grandfather Lewis was grampy. Even though there is no blood between us I am proud of him too. He built boats with his bare hands. In his younger days he built thirty to forty footers. Cape Islanders they were called. He built them in shops barely big enough to hold them. I never saw him work on big boats but I watched my Uncle Andrew build similar boats and I was in awe of these me who turned living trees into living boats that would flex with the waves and bring their crews home safely on those savage north Atlantic storms.
But there was always a distance between Grampy and me and my siblings. In his old age he built little boats, many in glass cabinets. They were models of boats that he had built for real when he was young. Just like he had years before; he built the smaller models with care and patience. True; no one’s life depended on it any more, or did it… Maybe his life somehow depended on it. The detail on the good ones was incredible. He would look for tiny pieces to fashion the rigging; the davits, the life boats and the portholes. He sculpted and painted window putty the exact color green of an angry Atlantic. The models seemed to pitch and roll as their bigger brethren had. He breathed life into these tiny models as he had built flexibility into the full size boats that allowed them to survive the gale.

When I first typed the moniker “grampy” it came up in red. Windows™ did not recognize it as a word. It suggested some possibilities; the first among them was “grumpy”. Now this is particularly poignant and this was a nickname we used for grampy sometimes, under our breath of course, me and my siblings. It was not meant in mean spirits but it reflected our frustration with him as he dealt with his frustration with us. In the summers my parents would take a week and we would drive to Yarmouth; where my grampy and grammy lived. My mother’s mother was a wonderful lady. She was short and round and we loved to visit her. She always had ice cream for us from Cook’s dairy in two quart bricks that you sliced with a knife usually strawberry and served with fresh berries. In those days ice cream was still made with cream; it was wonderful. I remember her eating lemon wafers and drinking what she called “White Rose Tea” which was hot water and milk. When we stayed with them grampy would stay in the porch and build boats. We were not allowed to move. He would get agitated if we broke his concentration. In time we took to camping when we visited grammy and grumpy.
The problem with grandparents is that they tend to leave you before you are old enough to truly appreciate them and I think this was the case with grampy Lewis. I now have a hobby; an avocation (writing) that takes a good deal of concentration… Oh bother what is that noise. “Hey you kids, why don’t you play in someone else’s yard?’” Where was I … Oh yeah, writing takes a good deal on concentration, train of thought you know… “Oh for Pete’s sake… Hey you kids I’m trying to work; don’t you have parents?” I think in time I would have grown to understand grampy and his need for peace and quiet. “HEY KIDS QUIET!!!” I mean he was just a guy who had worked hard all his life who wanted to make a statement about his life and values and …

Oh my God! I am my own grandpa!

Will eReaders Kindle a need to read?

2011-04-13T19:23:00.000-07:00

John Doull's in Halifax

First of all I am not a Luddite. What is a Luddite; you ask? Why you young whippersnappers. When I was your age I had to walk to school eight miles, uphill both ways. What is a whippersnapper anyways? Luddites were 16th century textile workers who often threw their sabots or wooden shoes into the wooden gears of the looms they were forced to work in order to intentionally damage them. This became known as sabotage. They were fighting the progress that was stealing the need for their talent and forcing them to accept a much lower standard of living. But I embrace change. I love gadgets. I own an eBook and an IPad and an IPod. I love them for what they are and what they can do. I love that you can download the latest book in seconds and often the old masters like Conan Doyle or Hemingway can be bought cheaply or even downloaded for free. I love that you can change font sizes, switch from single page to open book format and turn the backlight on and off. I love that you can have many books in one small device, eliminating the need to carry many heavy tomes. If you were; for example a businessman who enjoyed reading Harlequin romances you would not have to endure the disapproving glances of your fellow subway riders as the eBooks cover is totally generic. There is much to love about the new format. It’s shiny stuff attracts the jackdaw in me.
The eBook and the Kindle is only the latest format to come along in the modern; build a better mousetrap race to improve everything. There have been books on vinyl, books on tape, and books on CD. All of which had their followers. There may have even been books on 8 track, I don’t remember I was too busy blow drying my hair (yes I had hair) and gluing shag carpet onto the back dash of my Gremlin. I must confess that as much as I like to be thought of as the cool Uncle with the IPad. I also have a collection of books that fit into a different category. It has a lot going for it too. It requires no batteries, is recyclable, can be read in the bathtub and will not crash on you. They are called books on paper.
All right so I might be a bit of a Luddite. I once threw a pair of red plastic Crocks in the fan belt of my F-150 when it refused to start. I love BOOKS! I love the feel of a paperback in my back pocket, to be whipped out while riding on top of a wagon full of hay so I wouldn’t waste the five minute ride back to the barn. I loved leaning against a giant Oak on campus and stealing a few minutes from a busy school day to spend with anything other than required reading. I love the smell of new books their spines still tight and their pages crisp. I love the smell of old books their pages like cloth from repeated use. Used books and; ooooooooh, used book stores. I am drooling thinking of their cluttered stacks. Give me a good honest used book store any day. Like John W. Doulls on Barrington Street in Halifax. It is everything a used book lover could want. There are book shelves; to be sure, miles of them spread over two floors. But the books don’t end there. Books are over door frames and in piles in the aisles. There are boxes of new acquisitions in the front window, still unfiled. John is a man well suited to his calling he is bearded and bookish and ask him, just ask him for that coveted volume; that treasured tome. He will know exactly where to find it. In the world of used books I am a man with tunnel vision. When I approach most store owners cringe. They want customers with wide and varied interests. They wantmen and women who search the stacks with binoculars not a magnifying glass. They want multiple sales and wide interests. But they also need the guys like me. Guys like me who will shell out often more than a hundred bucks for the right book; albeit a very specific book.
I first crossed John’s path a fair many years ago. I had leant a copy of my favorite book to a friend and that friend had not returned to book. Now before you think my friend some sort of cad, some unfeeling bum let me explain. The book was what you might say less than great condition. It was a paperback copy of Fishing With Gregory Clark by the reporter and correspond ant Gregory Clark. It was the Totem Press edition and it had seen better days. Better days when it had been bleached by summer sun and soaked in spring rains. In battered my hip pocket while hiking back to the lake. It was stained with bug dope from days when the fish weren’t biting but the flies were. It’s pages were soft like cloth and it sort of wilted in your hand when you held it. It was tired but like I feel at the end of a long day, it must have been satisfied; proud, fulfilled. It had lived up to the promise of its’ author. It had provided me with countless hours of joy. I knew every story in it by heart. Stories like Bick’s Crick, The Purist or A Sportsman is One. When it was gone it was like a piece of me was gone.
My hopes were not high when I walked into Doullls. I made my way to the second floor where the sporting section was. I had spent a wonderful twenty minutes lost in the stacks of books. For books are everywhere here. They are on window sills and on door frames; in piles on the floors. The place smells, but not of must or even dust but of venerable age. It smells just the way a used/rare/antique book store should. When I handed my books to the lady clerk she said; matter-of-factly. “Did you find everything you were looking for?” “Well, no actually.” I replied a little hesitantly. She allowed her eyes to rise from the fly page she was penciling a selling price on as is the habit in the trade. “Oh?” she asked cocking an eyebrow. “I was looking for Fishing With Gregory Clark” I stated as if it were a can of Campbell’s soup. “Do you know it?” I asked. She did not; from the look on her face. It was then that I noticed John. He was standing behind her and he was beaming.”I do!” he said with some pride. I like a man who loves books. “Do you have it?” I asked hopefully. “I do.” He replied without the exclamation point. “There!” He pointed to a stack of boxes by the door. “Just arrived.” He whispered conspiratorially. “A widow clearing out her husband’s treasures.” He took the top off an apple box full of hardbound books. The revelation that it had come from a Widow did not surprise me. Clark had been a veteran of the First World War, a correspondent in the second and was one of the most widely read Canadians in the thirties, forties and Fifties. He had never retired not officially anyways. He died in his eighties about the time that I had discovered him. “First edition, hardcover with dust jacket.” John said proffering the book. I took it from him with reverence. It was like being handed the family Bible. I opened the cover. There was no notation yet on the fly leaf. John noted my glance and quickly added “I haven’t marked it yet.” “It is for sale?” I enquired. “They’re all for sale.” He said with a grin. “Seventeen dollars sound fair?” It did indeed and I nodded. John wasn’t finished. “You might be interested in these. He took three more books out of the box all hardcovers and all in as good condition. “I’ll do the three for forty five.” “Done.” I replied. He had sold four books in less than a minute.
There have been other memorable finds in Doull’s “Fun with Dick and Jane” for my wife. He would save many other copies of Greg Clark for me. I look for them every year. John has an inner sanctum where he keeps the good stuff. I have never been able to walk in but I have seen in when he has fetched a pricy piece of antique or collectable prose. The book is also an artifact. It has a story to tell that is writ large on it’s’ pages but not in ink; not leastways in the publisher’s ink. Books often bear inscriptions. Most are by their authors but also by people gifting a book to another. I have often found these moving or puzzling or both. An endorsement from a parent wishing that a child get as much joy from a book as they had; which begs the question “Did they?” An endorsement of a special book given on a special day; a graduation or a wedding or anniversary that leaves me feeling voyeuristic when I read it. There are sometimes student’s notes and underlined passages and I love to read these to see if the reader got the same thing out of the book or passage that I did. I often think of the widow who sold her husband’s books and how his once loved copies of Greg Clark had found a new and welcome home. I wonder what he would think of a second generation falling in love with the author’s works and would he be happy that they had found a good home. I once had to pack up the books and music of a deceased colleague and I could not help but feel a connection to a man I had never met because we owned so many of the same books and CDs. How that apple box was like a biography of that woman’s lost love. I wish I could have looked through it with more detail.
Very often I come across other artifacts in used books. So many things get used as book marks. I have found letters and bills, shopping lists and a photo of a child. I have found movie and theater tickets. One day I ran across Barrington in the rain while waiting for the bus. I bought a book from Doull’s and returned in time to catch the number ten Dartmouth which was always late when it rained. Inside the book was a bus ticket from exactly ten years earlier. It was for the very bus I was sitting on. Had someone read this very book on this very bus ten years ago that day? It sent a shiver down my spine. I once paid five bucks for a book only to find a ten dollar American bill inside the book. On another occasion in Doull’s I spotted a copy of “The Casebook of Sherlock Holmes” the exact edition that my beloved Grandmother had given me as a child. I had read it until it fell apart, and every other Holmes book that Conan Doyle had written. I scooped the book up with great joy and it still graces my bookshelf. It is a treasured memory of my Grammy.
None of this will ever happen with a Kindle or eReader. No one will hand their IPad to a friend when they are done with it, like they do a book. There will be no story written in the flyleaf of a Kindle. No tear stains on the pages. No poignant notes as bookmarks. I doubt the electronic media will kill the paper book no more than vinyl or books on tape did. They will do what they do best and hopefully spread the good word of great writers to a new generation. There is always a price for progress. The phone can keep you connected but it costs you some privacy. The jet plane gets you there faster but you lose some of the leisure of a trans-Atlantic voyage. Progress is good but I hope the new mousetrap does not kill the old one entirely. We still have the option to take a cruise or write a letter. Hopefully when I am dead and gone someone will walk into a used bookstore and ask for my copy of Fishing With Gregory Clark. Maybe there will be an owner like John whose eyes will sparkle when he opens the box. I promise the new owner not to cackle too loud when he or she opens the cover. There is nothing like good, old fashioned progress.

If ifs and buts were candy and nuts...

2011-01-27T18:19:00.001-08:00

Nothing marks the passing of time like Christmas. It is the exclamation point on the sentence that is the year. Each Christmas, like each year has its’ distinguishing features that mark it from all the rest. There are, for most of us the magical Christmases of youth. Defined and frozen in memory with the joy of the season. But in each passing year there is some moment which recaptures; or comes close, the magic of youth. The unspoiled promise that catches the spirit of the season. Even now; with childhood a distant memory I still seek out that moment. I usually find it too. Though not always where I might expect…
Being the manager of a former HBC post on the banks of the Liard River in the southern NWT I found myself living in a house that I have lived before and since. In corporate lingo it is colloquially called a DB12. I do not even know what the DB stands for. I do know they come in several different layouts. Most have four bedrooms. It was such a house that I lived in on the banks of the Liard. We also owned a tiny dilapidated trailer which the local children called the leggo block because of its’ blue color and the fact that it had virtually no windows. A flood had left the trailer somewhat the worse for wear and the company decided to build a new house for my assistant. When I heard how much they were going to spend I told them they were crazy. I could get them an existing house with land for less than half that much. They called my bluff. I knew of two houses for sale and about what the owners wanted for them. I put it in writing and sent it off to headquarters at the center of our universe and coincidentally, the center of Canada at Winnipeg. In due course they asked me to get a professional involved. I found a real estate agent who had always wanted to come for a visit I offered him a bed and a decent meal and he looked at the two properties and set a price.
We ended up buying a two story log home nestled in the woods. It had belonged to an old friend and helped him out of a scrape so it was a good deal all around. I would take the cottage in the woods and my assistant would have the venerable DB12. I loved the change. My first day off I wandered out onto my deck, coffee in hand and turned to my left to see a bull moose not thirty feet away. There is something surreal when you are half awake about staring at something that huge. I took another sip of java. I closed my eyes. I opened them again, he was still there, chin resting on my clothesline. “Cheers!” I said raising my mug. “Thanks for the welcome to the neighborhood.” As I walked the deck I planned where the bird feeders would go. I hung my black powder rifle on the wall, my Bearskin rug. It really was starting to look homey.
Summer had fled the arctic when one evening my friend Scott and I were sitting around the open plan living room a birch fire crackling in the woodstove. He pointed at the front wall with the neck of his beer bottle “You know you gotta have a big tree this year!” I was floored. I hadn’t even given Christmas a thought yet. Scott was famous for his trees. He too lived in a log house. A beautiful log house. He too had an open plan living room with a loft. He too had twenty foot ceilings. “There aren’t many of us who can. It’s your duty!” He said this like we were facing the Carthaginians at the battle of Zama. “My duty?” I repeated meekly. “Say it properly, MY DUTY!” he repeated. I was warming to the idea, the concept if not the logistics. “MY DUTY!” I declared and we clinked bottles. As I swallowed I was running the logistics through my mind. What had I gotten into?
Christmas approached as it always did, not on kitty cat paws like the fog, more like the piano or giant anvil in a Roadrunner cartoon, just boom a swirl of dust, the Roadrunner sticks his tongue out at you a few times and it is there. To tell the truth I had not figured out any of the what, where when and how of getting an eighteen foot fir tree into my living room. Scott was undaunted. At our every meeting he raised his thumb and gave me a surreptitious wink. It was like we were part of a fraternity. He would whisper to me “two weeks to tree day” then “Ten days to tree day.” It was like the doomed man watching his last hours ticking down. On tree day minus one Scott came over again. We were sitting in my living room like before so I came right out and asked “How the heck do we get a twenty foot tree into my living room?” He laughed. “I am the master of the Christmas tree. Do not worry grasshopper you are in good hands. I have it all worked out .We use my truck.” It was a 16 foot body job. “How does that help, won’t it be too short?” I queried. “Oh ye of little faith, am I not the master?” he said with a smile that some could have seen as a little bit twisted. “Yes master, but how do you get an 18 foot tree into a 16 foot truck?” I replied. He was glowing now. He seemed to take on the demeanor of a mad scientist. “The same way I got that 18 foot canoe in, remember?” I did in fact remember. I remember the same look on his face when he opened the door that time too. “Alright master how do we stop all the needles falling off in the cold?” We both had been up north long enough to know that in the extreme cold up here trees get very dry and can lose all the needles when suddenly warmed up. “Grasshopper, grasshopper, you have no faith in my powers. We put the tree in the truck. TWO FULL DAYS before we bring it in. We warm it up gradually with the space heater. We then bind the limbs when they are supple and we bring it in butt first through that!” He said this with a smile snapping around and pointing to the sliding patio door with a flourish like the prosecutor at the Salem trials yelling “Witch!”
I had to admit it sounded good. I couldn’t think of a rebuttal. As we parted he added “When you can snatch the pine cones from my hand it will be time for you to go.” I was shaking my head as he started his truck. I slept fitfully dreaming of giant evergreens busting holes in my roof and knocking over appliances. When I awoke Scott was already at the door. “What are you waiting for? I thought you were going to sleep all day!” he said brushing by me. “Just how long have you been out there?” I asked pouring us both a coffee. “Travel mugs, grasshopper!” He said handing it back to me. “We are burning daylight!” He added this last part in a very bad John Wayne impersonation. I dressed while he paced. He seemed a man possessed. When I came down stairs he looked me straight in the eye and said “I love the smell of balsam in the morning, it smells like; VICTORY!” He spun on his heel and fled. I followed as quickly as I could. He nearly bounced into the cab. I swung in beside him. “Do you have any place in mind?” I asked holding my hands out to the defroster. “Any place in mind?” He replied mockingly. “I have thought of nothing else since the night we hatched this crazy scheme!” He said his knuckles white on the wheel. We rose out of the valley, still shrouded in winter ice fog, its’ residents still asnooze in their beds as we left Whoville behind. “We are just cutting a tree.” I replied calmly. “We are not pulling off the great train robbery.” “But not just any tree!” Scott added with what can only be described as a maniacal laugh. “This will be a tree that people will talk about for years!” The truck reached the junction and Scott turned left towards Fort Simpson and punched the gas.
Now Scott brings our freight some weeks as he and his partner are our freight handlers. But he drives the road to Fort Nelson B.C. not the Fort Simpson road. If he had found a tree here then he had to have made a special trip to find it. At this point, half frozen and only half awake I wasn’t sure if I was impressed or scared by this realization. We drove quite a ways. The highway follows the contours of the valley, the land to the driver’s side falling off quite dramatically giving us a beautiful view of the picturesque valley the tree tops capped with marshmallow snow. Scott’s eyes followed the contours out his door. We came upon a stream, now just a strip of still white snow passing under the bridge we were crossing. “THERE!” Scott breathed more than spoke. “See it! THERE!” In fact I did not see it. But Scott had not waited for my reply. He had parked the truck set the brake and slid from the cab in one motion. He already had the back door open when I rounded the rear of the truck. He appeared above me in the box of the truck with the biggest power saw I had ever seen. He already looked huge as I stared up at him. The power saw made him look like leatherface from Texas Chainsaw Massacre. “That’s not saw mate!” He said in an even worse Crocodile Dundee than his previous John Wayne. “That’s a saw!” I had to laugh. It was a saw alright!
We followed a winding trail down the slope a piece. He leaned against a tree. “Look up, way up.” He said with a smile. “And I’ll call Rusty!” I added. “Is this it?” I said in awe. “None other grasshopper.” He replied readying the saw. I had to admit it was beautiful. He notched it and felled it expertly. He really had done this before. As I looked at the thing on the ground I said to Scott “Uh, Scott…” my voice trailed off. Scott got serious for a moment. He squeezed my elbow. “I am way ahead of you, buddy! I was a silviculturist remember? This tree is going to open up this area.” He said making an arc with the blade of the silent saw. “See these three little guys? Soon there will be three trees using the sunlight that just one tree was taking before. Trust an old hippy.” He had read my mind. We put the tree in the truck from corner to corner and damned if it didn’t just fit.
He dropped me at my place. “I can’t wait to see it up!” I said from the ground as he leaned across the cab to close the door. “Patience grasshopper, patience.” He said tossing me my mug. Two days seemed like two years. I had almost forgotten how time could slow down at Christmas. Like it had when I was a boy. But true to his word two days later Scott returned. When he opened the back door of the truck I could see he had been busy the tree was trussed up like a hostage. I had already prepped the living room and shoveled a path to the patio doors and shoveled the deck. We carried the tree to the back door and straightened it out to its’ full length. We had to take the door off the track as it wouldn’t quite go through but eventually we had the tree in the room. Steve untrussed it. I stared at it in awe. It was magnificent. Huge. “How do we get it to stand up?” It had just occurred to me that the butt of this tree would never fit the tree stand that I had. It had to be six or eight inches wide. “Oh ye of little faith.” Scott chided me. “You are thinking backwards. We will not stand it up.” He said cryptically. “What then? Lay it down?” I asked. He wagged a finger and tut-tutted. “We will not stand the tree up we will hang it!” I thought for a minute. The top of the tree would be less than two feet from the roof log. “Brilliant!” I exclaimed. “I bet no one will even know!” “Yes.” Scott replied “But this must be our little secret. I have done it this way for years and no one was the wiser.” It certainly fooled me. We dummied up the base and put the tree in a wash basin full of water. We then took braided wire and put an eye screw in the roof log and secured it to the trunk mid way down the stem. The tree would actually swing if you pushed the base. It was a thing of beauty. Scott held out his hand. There were two cones in it. “From the top of your tree.” He said. “Only fire will open them up. I will show you the seeds when we roast them open.” I took the cones... “My work is done here grasshopper, you have snatched the cones from my hands it is time for me to go.” I laughed. “You tricked me!” I said. “It’s late.” He said and turned to go.
I went to sleep with the whole house filled with the smell of evergreen. The reason that Scott had left early became apparent the next day. I called him. “As we speak I am staring at the pathetic box of decorations that usually fills my seven -footer.” I said. “Ah yes, there is one more rite of passage before you can be initiated into the two story tree club. That is the opening of the wallet ceremony. Good luck!” That night my friends gathered around and helped me decorate. I bought every string of lights and ornament in town. It still looked a bit Charlie Brownish, but everyone brought some decoration. Nothing new and nothing valuable I told everyone. There were hand-made decorations of paper and plastic balls of all sizes and colors. We hung all my Christmas cards on the tree. Dozens of candy canes, one of the nurses baked cookies with yarn in them that could be hung as ornaments, although a few did not make it to the tree. When we were done all gathered proclaimed it a good tree. Scott was the happiest of all. He got to turn on the power bar that lit the tree. Everyone oohed and ahhhed.
I stepped back to take it all in. Not just the tree but the whole tableau. Scott on the couch with a Santa hat on, beaming; he had just initiated me into his club. The nurses admiring their handiwork. My golden retriever curled up in from of the wood stove. More friends pouring punch from a bowl. There it was, the moment I was waiting for. In that room in that moment, thousands of miles from family. Thousands of miles from the Christmases of my youth. In the laughter of my friends; in the peace of that inky arctic night, snug in that wonderful house so far it seemed from the icy winter winds outside, there was what I had been looking for. The magic of Christmas. It is always the last place you look.

I am a Marxist Lennonist

2010-12-08T19:33:00.001-08:00

I am a Marxist Lennonist. Groucho Marx and John Lennon. Yeah. I know; it’s an old joke. But today when I awoke and sipped my morning coffee while reading my emails; I hummed along to a John Lennon tune on the radio. Moments later another Lennon tune was played. By the time a third tune was playing it occurred to me that something was up. Hearing an artist that you don’t hear everyday; say, three times in one hour usually means one thing: he or she is dead. Thirty years ago today I was driving in my tiny red 1978 Honda Civic when; like today, I heard a third Lennon song. I was on my way home from Dalhousie University. I hadn’t been paying attention to the D.J. I was pulling in my Parents driveway when I put two and two together. I dashed upstairs and turned on the 12” TV in my room. There was a reporter standing on the New York street in front of Lennon’s apartment where he met his tragic end. I was stunned. I sat on the edge of my bed and felt the horrible irony of that moment.
So today’s playing of his songs made me flashback to that event. I remembered too the following summer when I was in the same car driving home from the Mall. When I had gotten into the car a Harry Chapin song was playing. A huge fan of his; I was delighted. But when I turned through the busy intersection towards home and another song came on the radio, I didn’t need to hear the D.J. say the words. I pulled off the road and rested my forehead on the steering wheel. I knew he was dead. When I was ready to drive; I went to work. Misery loves company. I sought out my friend Dave whom I had infected with the Chapin bug while we were unloading freight. I would play tapes on my boom box. “Did you hear the news?” I asked. “Harry Chapin is dead.” Dave was saddened to hear the news. I was busy that afternoon; I had a dozen things to do and this sad event was on my mind. When I returned to work for my nightshift I saw Dave again. Forgetting that I had already told him I called out “Hey Dave; did you hear? Harry Chapin is dead!” Always fast on his mental feet Dave called back “What: still?”
But the death of John Lennon had the added twist of his being shot down. The man who asked a generation to “give peace a chance” had been shot down in cold blood. To top off the irony was the fact that Lennon had just released a new album; Double Fantasy only three weeks before his death. It was his first work since his self imposed withdrawal from the business five years earlier. I had just bought the album a week earlier. I had only bought it because a guy I knew told me it sucked. He was a terrible judge of music so I felt safe in spending twelve bucks. In the aftermath of Lennon’s murder songs like “Starting Over” and “Watching the Wheels” tugged at our heartstrings and drove home the immensity of what we had lost.
Today when I heard the back-to-back Lennon songs I flashed back to that day thirty years ago and I understood what was happening. They were marking the thirtieth anniversary of Lennon’s murder. I say I understood what they were doing. It doesn’t mean that I condone it. I don’t think we should honor John by remembering his death. In his tribute song “Empty Garden” (Hey, Hey, Johnny) Elton John refused to mention the name of the man who shot Lennon. I agree with this. There is no need to immortalize him. In the song Elton says “its funny how one insect, can damage so much grain…” So much grain indeed. But I don’t think Lennon would have called him an insect. Only the day before he had signed a copy of Double Fantasy for him. Lennon would have understood that he was sick. In his diminished mental state it was almost no different than Lennon having been struck by a car. Lennon would have seen that they were both souls, both equals. If this man had been well he would not have done this terrible thing.
If you want to honor a man like Lennon, honor his life and what he stood for not his death and what it says about humanity. Celebrate his birthday not his death day. Celebrate his birth not his death. Today when I heard those songs it was a bit like he died all over again. It made me terribly sad. I never met John Lennon. In a very real sense he only ever lived for me on a speaker, on the TV and on the printed page. I can still listen to him sing and when I do he is alive for me. He will never write another song but no one can take away the ones he did write. For me that means part of him is still alive.

Riparian entertainments

2010-09-28T21:21:00.001-07:00

Riparian (r -pâr - n) adj. Of, on, or relating to the banks of a natural course of water. There that’s your educational tidbit for the day, kind of a vitamin for the brain. That is of course if you did not know what riparian meant. If you already knew I apologize for being so pedantic. What’s that; pedantic? Oh for Pete’s sake pe•dan•tic adj.: overly concerned with minute details or formalisms, esp. in teaching. Right enough of the Merriam Webster stuff. Where was I? Oh yeah, riparian. I must confess that I have only known the word these ten years past. I came across the word from that sage source of learning and culture Hyacinth Bucket; ah sorry, Bouquet. From the TV series Keeping Up Appearances. In typical Hyacinth fashion she had arranged a “Candlelight Supper” to take place on the river bank. Also in typical Hyacinth fashion it turns into a debacle. But the word has stuck with me. Where you live shapes your life in many ways; both subtle and obvious. You cannot live beside the ocean without it changing your day; your weather and your outlook; likewise the river. The Deh Cho or big river as the various native nations that dot its’ shores call it. Three weeks ago a retired Firefighter from Germany came paddling down the river. He showed up at our store a bit haggard. I engaged him in conversation and he informed me that he had been on the river for two and a half months. During that time he had been attacked by bears no less than six times. His tent was shredded as was some of his gear. He needed to call home and wanted to know if there was a pay phone in town that worked. Our phone was out of order so I offered him the use of my office phone. But first I had a treat in store for him. “Where are you from in Germany?” I asked. He replied that he was from a small refinery town twenty kilometers from Cologne. “I have someone I want you to meet.” I said as I walked him into our staff room for coffee. I introduced him to Gerry our Grocery guy who is a jack of all trades and was born in Cologne. It was like magic. The haggard look was gone. So too was his English which was very good; but not being his mother tongue I could see he was struggling. You don’t get a lot of practice on the river talking to bears. His face lit up as the two men talked. I excused myself and returned to work. I was smiling too. Every now and then I eyed the phone lines to see if he was using the phone. An hour later he still was not. I walked past and knew that the conversation was flowing from him like water. Having no one at all to speak to he was happy to tell someone of his experiences. Even better, it was in his first language.
Eventually he used the phone and talked to his wife. A very different man greeted me when he was done. He was at once elated and energized by talking with Gerry but also chastened by his wife’s concern. He was to have been done by now but the setbacks and bear attacks had cost him time. “How far to Inuvik, please?” he asked. “Well; I think it’s just over 700 kilometers. If you need to do laundry or anything you could use my place.” I offered. “You Canadians are so kind. Since I started in Jasper I could not get over how kind you all are.” He was very grateful. I told him to bring his water jugs and that Gerry would take him and his food back to the river. Gerry went one better he gave the man some warm dry clothes and his own compass as the man had lost his in a bear attack. He would leave by night as the days were still twenty four hours long. That evening I took the dog that I am looking after for a walk on the beach. I spotted his canoe and gear and made for it. Not surprisingly Gerry was there. “You all seem to congregate on the river”, he noted. It was true people in town use the river nearly as often as they use the roads. It is; in the most literal sense, a highway. It brings in the food and fuel that sustains the community. It is also the cheapest way to travel to adjacent towns. The town owes its’ existence to the river; or more accurately to the two rivers; the Bear and the MacKenzie. The community was built as a fur trading post and in those days the Hudson Bay Company chose the confluence of two rivers for purely mercenary reasons. It doubled the traffic and was an easy place to find.
In the evenings and on our days off my wife and I love to walk the banks of the river. Our riparian entertainments change as the seasons change. In the spring there is the breakup. When the river sheds its’ mantle of ice and snow and burst forth with crusting awesome fury. Huge sheets of ice weighing as much as a freighter crash into each other and the shore. The sound of boulders rolling along the river bottom sounds like thunder. The open water brings the ducks and geese and swans by the hundreds of thousands. Life is returning to the north. As we walk the banks we watch overhead as honking flocks of geese sing to us. The banks of the river are at that time piled high with ice. Huge plates blacked with mud soak the strengthening sun and melt into melodious “candle” ice which is ice melted into tapered icicles by the dripping melt water. The elongated pieces are tapered like candles. They break away and fall to the ground with a soothing tinkle. Then before you know it they are gone. About this time the trees begin to bud and the color is breathtaking. More neon yellow than green. Every year I take a hundred photos and none do it justice. One day perhaps I will pick up a paintbrush and try to do it justice. Summer brings wildflowers to the banks and children and pets. The laughter of playing children is music too, The river is shallow here and they play and gambol in the water when summer climes are here.
This season too brings a change of sound and color. The trees will go from the dark green of the arctic summer to the vibrant yellow of fall. The sun begins to set again for the first time in months and the near horizontal light comes through the yellow willows and poplar and gives the banks of old man river a glow that is so enticing that it is hard to resist. Lina and I took a long walk one Sunday and decided then and there to return the next week to spend the entire day on the river. We watched ducks playing amidst the drift wood. We listened as a flock of over one hundred and fifty geese flew not thirty feet overhead. We built a driftwood fire and roasted hot dogs. We lie on a blanket on the sand and let the river; the driftwood and all of our cares go by. We saw boats and barges. We looked up at a contrail in the sky. A rare thing in these parts and we wondered where it was going and dreamt that we were going somewhere exotic. We napped on the cool sand and let the last warm rays of sun warm our faces. Soon the giant that runs beside us will sleep too.
Today our old warehouse which once housed the store rises above the town on the highest ground. This is typical. It offers a great view to trappers paddling the river and was dry in times of flood. Smart guys those early Bay Boys. Even now the communities along the Deh Cho are few and very far between. The old buildings are still there still serving the purpose that there white walls and red roofs were meant for; to mark the existence of civilization. Our German friend was right the river still is the center of activity. I for one shall continue to take advantage of its’ riparian entertainments.

The ovation

2010-09-27T22:28:00.000-07:00

District tour. The words struck fear into the heart of a Hudson’s Bay clerk. The district tour was the semiannual time for the big boys to visit the chaps out in the trenches. We imagined them descending from ivory towers in the clouds to join us muddy footed peons at the front lines. The tour was their chance to see if we were toeing the line. Now I may be biased; but I feel we were toeing the company line. Whether they would have seen it that way depends on where in the sand you think that the line is drawn. We worked hard. Long hours in trying conditions. Doing stock checks and inventory in unheated warehouses for hours on end at minus fifty five. It was mind numbing work at hand numbing temperatures. Unloading freight planes on windy winter runways. Going home to ancient housing where the furnace worked when it felt like it. Putting up with power failures and brown outs; being eaten by flies; while you were working indoors! They; of course saw none of this. To them we spent the days skylarking; young slackers wet behind the ears. Not like in their days when it was ten miles to work; uphill both ways; blah, blah, blah…
Now of course while we were doing all this; unloading planes, putting together snowmobiles, bikes and BBQs. Delivering sofas to houses with doors too small to get them through. Carrying refrigerators up two flights of stairs that hadn’t seen a snow shovel all season. Doing all this in dress slacks, dress shirts and a smart tie. At least according to protocol. In fact; the first day on the job I had my best dress shirt practically torn off my back by a swinging door in the grocery department that had a jagged piece of sheet metal covering it. On another occasion the door tore the shoe off my foot. All I was left with was the laces tied round my ankle. The District Manager had been partly responsible for letting the door go when I had an eighty pound television in my hands. He did tell me to go charge out a new pair as it was the only pair I owned. I was making the princely sum of $10,500.00 per annum. No we were supposed to buy fur and mop floors in a shirt and tie. You know from the way I said it that we bloody well didn’t. But here’s a trick. Taught me by a canny older Manager whom I held in some esteem. You do wear a shirt and tie occasionally, randomly not every day; but perhaps on a day when you are not busy. You do it for a reason. You do it so the customers see you in them often enough that they do not walk up in the middle of district tour; in full earshot of the high and mighty and say “What the hell is that around your neck? Are the bosses in town or something?” Nothing changes the demeanor of a tour like such an event. Hours of waxing floors and filing paper can be flushed away in a minute by so hap hazard a remark. You must; in life, endeavor to learn from the mistakes of others so you do not have to suffer the feel of the lash yourself. The lash I refer to is not literal; but rather apocryphal. Although I have heard rumors…
You must remember that the Hudson’s Bay Company (or to be precise: The Governor and Company of Adventurers of England trading into the Hudson’s Bay) has a long and storied history. With that history comes a lot of baggage. Bags and more musty old bags full of traditions; protocols and precedents. The managers ate on red chine, the clerks on blue. You couldn’t fly the company coat of arms unless the Governor had visited your post. There were many rules going back into dusty antiquity. The district tour was no exception. There was a definite pecking order to these things. The lead would be taken by the Vice President, who was to be referred to by the affectionate moniker of “Mr. Vice President”. Next would be the General Manager who could alternately be referred to as “Mr. General Manager” as his wife did; or Mr. Insert last name here. The District Manager was likewise referred to as Mr. So & So. Then came the Store Manager; in those days a position of some importance and respect in the eyes of the locals but not in the eyes of head office to whom you were just Ralph or Peter or whatever. Me; I was at the bottom of the pecking order and was generally not referred to at all. Now there is a saying in plumbing; stuff runs downhill and pay day’s on Friday. Believe me the stuff really does run downhill.
The V.P.: as I will call him to save time, would turn to the G.M. as I will call him to save time and say “Wah Wah Wah.” (just think of it like the muted trombone sound from a Charlie Brown cartoon). Then the G.M. turns to the D.M. as I will call him to save time, and says (even though we all heard the V.P. as we are all five feet away) “Wah Wah Wah!” . The D.M. turns to the S.M. as I will call him to save time; and says “Wah Wah Wah!!” (Even though we already heard the V.P. tell the G.M. and the G.M. tell the D.M.)Then the S.M. turns to me whom I shall call me to save time and to protect the innocent; and says “Wah Wah Wah!!!” Even though we already heard the V.P. tell the G.M. and the G.M. tell the D.M. and the D.M. tell the S.M.) I then turn around and as there is no one lower than me on the totem pole I say nothing. There you have now experienced a District Tour of The Governor and Company of Adventurers of England Trading into the Hudson’s Bay whom I will call the H.B.C. to save time.
Now I remember one particular time when we were being graced with the presence of the V.P. on a district tour. Some days prior to the tour starting the D.M. (not to be confused with the G.M. or the S.M.) was visiting the store on routine business. We had an elderly gentleman who ran the gas station. It was the perfect job for an elderly gentleman. The hours were short and the pace was slow. Now I should give you a little background on this gas station. If you were thinking concrete with a roof and fancy pumps; forget it. The gas station was a flat space in front of a fenced tank farm. It featured a tiny shed big enough for a cash register and some oil. Inside that shed on any given afternoon were half a dozen elders. They sat on cases of oil and smoked (yes smoked) and played cards. The number of cases of oil on inventory in that shed had everything to do with the number of men playing cards and nothing whatsoever to do with sales. Around this on all sides was a morass of mud. Wheel ruts more than a foot deep carved through it. In spring and fall only the bravest or most fool hardy ventured in there on wheels. Most sensible folk carried gas cans in and filled their rides themselves. Silas our venerable old gas man frequently wore hip waders to work at this time of year. Oddly no one complained. It was how things had always been done. Now that evening when the D.M. saw Silas making his way into the back door of the store with his cash drawer to make his closing deposit he thought he would lift Silas’ spirits with the words he was most likely to want to hear. “We will be here next week for District tour!” The D.M. piped cheerily. Stony silence greeted him. “Don’t forget to dress for the occasion!” The D.M. meant it as a joke. But it is hard sometimes to frame a joke when you lack one crucial ingredient; a sense of humor. Silas turned in his deposit and left without a word.
On the appointed day the V.P. the G.M. and the D.M. arrived in the morning. They did the usual tour of the facilities. When we were ready to tour the outside of the property we filed out V.P. followed by G.M. followed by D.M. followed by S.M. followed by me. When we got there we were greeted by a sight that none of us would ever forget. There was Silas; all six foot four of him resplendent in a three piece blue serge suit with white pinstripes. A gold watch chain draped from vest pocket to vest pocket. On his head was a black homburg hat. On his legs was a pair of filthy green hip waders! He was slogging through the mud with a full Gerry can of gas in each hand. The suit on closer inspection smelled of camphor and I fancied I could see the bulge of a couple of mothballs in the breast pocket. I fancy that it was his demob (short for demobilization) suit that was given each vet when the returned to civilian life after the war. What could they do? The V.P. stood without so much as a “Wah Wah Wah!” He in his blazer and tie was totally outclassed. Silas would not have looked out of place on the cover of Gentleman’s Quarterly (albeit the 1946 edition). He was a magnificent sight. With his erect posture and grey temples he looked like a bank manager (from the waist up). Then the strangest thing happened. The V.P. looked at the G.M. and began to clap his hands. The G.M. looked at the D.M. and although the D.M. could hear the V.P. he too began to clap. The D.M. turned to the S.M. and although he could hear the V.P. and the G.M. he too began to clap. Then the S.M. turned to me and although I too could hear the V.P. and the G.M. and the D.M. he too began to clap. As there was no one else to look at and as the V.P. and the G.M. and the D.M. and the S.M. were standing there clapping I made it unanimous. Silas got the first standing ovation in the long and now even more storied history of the Governor and Company of Adventurers of England Trading into the Hudson’s Bay.

Taken for granted

2010-09-25T22:50:00.000-07:00

The things that you take for granted always surprise you; because, well, you take them for granted. Gumball machines for example. When I was growing up they were everywhere. Every grocery store had them often a small bank of them. They also popped up anywhere that people had to wait. The Canadian Tire had one in the service department where the auto bays were the room smelling manly like grease and cigarette smoke. I remember dad giving me a nickel to get a shiny blue gumball while we got the winter tires put on the Austin one year. There was one at the KFC except they didn’t call it KFC in those days just Kentucky Fried Chicken.; the advertising gurus had not yet thought up that nugget. You could stare at the brightly colored gum while waiting for your order. The Koolex Cleaners had twinned ones that had peanuts in it; barbeque and regular.
I remember once when I had found a dime in the K-Mart parking lot. Not a bright shiny dime, but an old dirty one with sugar from cotton candy on it, that is why everyone else failed to see it. Now a dime was a lot of money back then. My allowance was a dime twice a week. One on Dad’s payday; for he was paid every week, and one on Saturday so I could go to the corner store after baseball or road hockey with my friends. So an extra dime was a fortune to me. Plus it was found money. Now your weekly allowance was like your weekly wages; hard earned money anticipated for days. You had spent it many times in your mind; imagining how good the Popsicle or bag of chips would taste. Your allowance had to be spent on something of substance. Maybe the tiny black licorice flavored jaw breakers that were three for a penny at Leo’s store. Never around the corner where the other store only gave you two. What a rip-off! Mint leaves were two for a penny. Mojos; the tiny ones were three for a penny too. A licorice pipe was two cents and was a special treat when you were really flush like when you had a quarter. Those were rare times.
We could raise extra money by combing the ditches for pop bottles. Two cents for a small one a whole nickel if you struck the mother lode of a quart bottle! But found money was a different thing altogether. You had carte blanche! You were free to spend it foolishly; even morally obligated to use it for something you would never normally buy, not with your own money anyways. When I looked up the filthy, sticky dime in my hand I saw them, shiny chrome; glass and red painted metal. A bank of maybe six gumball machines. But not just gumballs. There were toys. Toys in tiny cunning capsules small enough to fit through the chute with the chrome door that read “Thank You” on the front. I made a beeline for the machine before my Mom could get through the checkout. She would not approve; would not understand the moral imperative of spending found money foolishly. She had grown up in the depression and knew the value of a dime. I dropped to my knees in front of the capsule machine and stuck the filthy dime in the slot. The machine had a picture of its’ contents on a cardboard card. There were soldiers and cowboys, plastic cars a lucky token and a tiny baby bottle. I turned the mechanism and opened the door expecting my treat. At first nothing came out so I began to jiggle the knob. The door was supposed to be closed to allow the toy to slide down. I did not understand. I began to turn harder and the wheel began to spin I kept turning. Nothing! I was appalled. My face got hot and I dropped the “thank You” door. I heard a clink as the toy hit the door and I opened it and removed it; stuffing it in my pocket without a look. Then I heard the same sound. I opened the door and another capsule was sitting there. I stuffed it in my pocket too. This happened perhaps a dozen times my pockets bulged with the booty.
I stood up and my conscience smote me. I went into the entrance where a lady stood behind a dais stapling shoppers other bags as they entered to prevent shoplifting. I stood there politely waiting until she was free. “I think your machine is broken!” I said with as much authority as I could muster. “That one!” I said pointing. The store was busy and she had more adults waiting to have their packages stapled. “Thank you dear.” she said patting my head. “I will put a sign on it when I get a minute.” I was frustrated; I stuck a hand in my pocket to show her all the capsules full of God only knew what. Before I could protest I heard my Mother. “Come on your Father’s parked out front.” She wasn’t mad but she was serious so I slipped away from the smiling lady who was waving at me. I put my hands into my bulging pockets to hide the toys.
It was like I had won the lottery, if they had lotteries in those days. My best friend Jed was totally jealous. There was a car and a truck a plastic ball glove of leather colored plastic with a baseball on a beaded chain that was for keys. I shared the duplicates with Jed to buy his silence not that he would have ever squealed. We were in hog heaven. We filled the capsules with fine dust and threw them at each other like they were grenades. The puff of dust like a puff of smoke. We had hours of fun.
So when we got the first gumball machines in the store in Fox Lake I wasn’t ready for the reaction; even madness that ensued. When the salesman called we placed what we thought was a big order. The machine arrived on the winter road. We bundled it into the store and set it up right in front. It was huge! Six candy machines and four capsule machines. We filled them all. There were gumballs and jelly beans and hard candies. There were capsules with toys and rings and one mix which contained digital watches. This was the most popular. Our office was overwhelmed with kids wanting rolls of quarters and dimes. We had to empty the machines sometimes three times a day as we ran out of coins. We spent hours wrapping and counting coins. At the end of the first day our janitor swept the empty capsules into a pile and filled a garbage can with them using a snow shovel. You were wading through empty capsules ankle deep. I watched stunned as an elder kneeled in front of the machine and fed quarters in until he had the digital watch for his granddaughter; it was like watching someone play a VLT.
After school the first day the teachers came to the store en masse to see the phenomenon for themselves. All day they had heard the stories of the wonderful new machines. Even the Nuns had to see it for themselves. The whole town was talking about the life changing event. By the second day we knew that the six month supply of candy and capsules would be gone before the end of the week so we placed a much larger order. The six month supply was gone in three days! It took more than a week for the fresh supplies to come. I thought that the ardor would be gone by then but the initial taste and the sudden famine only whetted appetites for the craze. But when supply kept up to demand the demand eventually slowed. We enjoyed the ride but were secretly relieved when the machines took a back stage to normal retailing.
The first week we got phone calls from head office asking why sales were up so dramatically. Imagine their disbelief when we told them it was because of a gumball machine. Until they processed the invoices I still don’t think it sank in for them. But like the hula hoop and the Cabbage Patch kids this fad too subsided. Shortly before I moved a year later I heard a local youngster talking to a kid from nearby Garden River. “Oh wow! A gumball machine. When did you guys get that?” the out of towner asked. “Oh; that?” replied the homey. “We had that since I was a kid!” Like I said its funny the things you take for granted.

You have to be lucky.

2010-09-25T00:20:00.000-07:00

It is the old argument; nature or nurture. Are true fishermen born or are they created? I have known both. I myself was born with a spoon in my mouth; not a silver one, more likely a Len Thompson #4, probably a five of diamonds. My Dad had me fishing as soon as I could walk. I was; pardon the pun “hooked”. But not all men and women are so lucky. Some were so deprived as children as not to be raised as piscators. (Pis`ca´tor n. A fisherman or angler) It has been my mission to convert some of these heathens, to bring some of the unwashed, the unholy into the inner circle of true anglers. To bring them to the light. But one must handle the unsaved with care. For if you leadeth them upon the waters of the Dead Sea (or dud sea) where the fish do not see fit to bite; you risk losing them as a convert.
Gerard was one of my fellow employees at the restaurant. He was young and enthusiastic. He came from a large family and I had known all his siblings who had cycled through the place over the years. I; being somewhat older than Gerard must have cut a more senior figure. A wise old veteran. A Yoda-like figure. He was as clay and I was the potter. I did not choose some easy venue for his first outing. I chose a lake I had found while researching gold mining in my father’s hometown of Mount Uniacke. The lake had appeared on several aerial photos I looked up in the science library. I found it on a map. “Any fish in there?” I asked my Dad one day. “Lots, I used to fish for them when I was floating log booms down the lake to the mill; there.” Dad said pointing to a foot shaped cove at the south end of the lake. “Looks pretty remote.” I said. “Batter fishing. We built a corduroy road back to it in the thirties” I studied the map and figured it a good seven mile hike. The only thing that worried me was a series of lateral lines with three vertical lines splaying out of each. Designed to look like lily pads the indicated a swamp. The road ran straight through it. “Bound to be fish. No one goes there.” Dad said reassuringly.
I planned the trip for late April, after exams. I thought it would offer a good chance of him getting his first fish. “You have had a deprived childhood. Depraved really. Your father never took you fishing! I should report him to child protective services!” Gerard’s father was in fact a fine man. A school teacher who went on to become school principal. ”Will we get fish?” Gerard asked wide eyed with anticipation. I tried to appear sage and inscrutable. “Ah well; there are no guarantees you know. Fishing is a sport of luck as well as skill. Even the best sportsmen are sometimes skunked.” I think I saw reverence in his eyes, but it could have been caused by the cigarette smoke in the break room, everyone smoked in those days. “Pack some garbage bags to keep your clothes and stuff dry. I had lent him a pack as he had none. How does one reach adolescence and not own a decent rucksack?
We left super early. The sun was still abed when we took our gear out of the trunk. It was a perfect day for a hike in the woods. When the sun rose on a clear sky the horizon was pink as a salmon. “I don’t like the look of that.” I said to Gerard, pointing to the horizon. “There’s not a cloud in the sky.” He answered cheerily. “Red sky at night is a sailor’s delight. Red sky in the morning and the sailor takes warning.” I said sagely. The day stayed clear as we trekked our way along the trail. The old mine road was firm and good going being built virtually on the bedrock. When we turned off it the terrain began to change. What had appeared on the map started out as a broken line which indicated gravel road. This part was a dotted line which indicated a trail. The lily pads on the map soon became a full blown bog. Dead trees stuck up out of it. The place had strange echoes and one could see why swamps figure so prominently in horror movies. You could hear birds calling but never saw them. Every once in a while a great splash; just beyond your vision. There was no question of pursuing the splashes as stepping off the trail by so much as a foot meant sinking to your chest as we both soon found out. The old corduroy road; a road made by laying tree trunks across the roadbed had long since been claimed by the mire. Beavers had dammed streams and the water covered the old road a foot or more deep. What was left of the logs was slippery and rotten so they often broke underfoot and caused you to slip and slide. We were soon soaked.
Gerard was a trooper he pushed on with no complaint. In fact I began to have remorse for dragging so innocent a young man on what was looking like a fool’s errand. I began to think of my act as the wise veteran and was racked with self doubt. But still the lake was there and we were going to make it. Eventually the road became higher and drier. We stopped and changed pants and socks. “Use the garbage bags for the wet clothes.” I told Gerard. We made good time the rest of the way and arrived at the lake before lunch. Gerard was keen to fish but there was something I did not like in the wind that had picked up. Nearly all the new leaves were upside down; a sure sign of rain. And there was something in the way that loon was calling that made me think rain. “Let’s pitch the tent and put up some firewood first.” I said. “The sky is clear, not a cloud.” Gerard said chipper as a schoolboy. He was in fact a schoolboy. Truth be told so was I; being a university junior. Gerard stood staring at the lake; an idyllic scene, water so clean you could drink it. Loons were swimming and diving in the cove. Beavers were carrying alder limbs to and fro. I unpacked the tent and put it up by myself. It was a poor excuse for a tent. One I’d had since junior high. Patched with thread it leaked like a sieve. The skies darkened as I finished. Gerard was not as chipper as he approached. ”You were right it looks bad” he said; a little quaver in his voice. “There’s a saying about Mount Uniacke weather. If you don’t like it; wait fifteen minutes. It will change.” I offered. We stored the gear and began to gather firewood as the rain started. It came down in sheets. We put what little wood we had under a tarp and went into the tent. We put on our rain gear and opened the food. “How about a cold lunch?” I asked. “We’ll build a fire when the rain eases and have some fresh trout!” Gerard brightened. We ate and made our way out in the rain to fish. We used floats but found the rain was hitting so hard that you couldn’t even see them so we just took to casting. The wind unfortunately was in our faces so the casting was impossible. We retired to the tent.
I produced a deck of cards and we played cards for a few hours. The rain lashed the tent mercilessly and the walls began to flap in the wind. It was hard to hear yourself talk. Water was constantly seeping in and I used a towel to mop it up. “Make sure all your dry clothes are in a good garbage bag.” I told Gerard. I began to regain some of my confidence as a woodsman. We used sterno to cook the supper as the wind was too strong for a fire. The warm food hit the spot and we lay out on our sleeping bags. The early start and long hike made for a good sleeping pill. We were soon asleep.
I awoke with a start as peals of thunder rent the skies. The tent floor was wet and so were the sleeping bags. I mopped up and went out and tightened the guy lines. The lightening lit the sky steadily. “Right over head!” I yelled as I re-entered the tent. “No space between the thunder clap and the lightening. There would be little sleep now. The storm went on for hours. The lightening quit before dawn and the rain slackened to a steady heavy drizzle. I used the sterno to cook eggs. “Sorry the bacon is rubbery.” I said as I handed Gerard his plate. “Sorry about the weather too.” I added. “Just wait fifteen minutes it will change.” He added smiling. What a trooper I thought, “Let’s fish!” I said and grabbed my rod. I baited up and cast my line. The lake was calmer now and my bobber hits the water with a splash. The line dropped and tightened as the bait descended. The float slid across the surface as the weight of the bait pulled it directly over the line. But the bobber kept sliding across the surface. I raised my rod tip and yelled “FISH!” Gerard came running. I was into a good fish and the water boiled. When I finally landed him I put him in Gerard’s hands. We stood over it like it was the crown jewels. “Look at that! Did you ever see anything more beautiful?’” I could tell by his eyes he hadn’t. It was a symphony of color. Its’ back so green it was nearly black. Its’ upper sides green yet gold at the same time, smattered with those dots with the iridescent blue rings like inset semi precious stones. The belly creamy with two fins at the throat as white as alabaster and tipped with blood red. What a sight! Three quarters of a pound of animal fury. So electrifying as to make all this worth it. A pang of guilt hit me. “This should have been your fish.” I said as I lay it in the creel. “There really is a lot of luck involved.” I said to reassure him. Not that there isn’t skill. The way you cast, where you cast. How fast you retrieve. What lure to use, what line to use. There are a thousand factors. But I have seen expert fishers with ten thousand dollars worth of gear bested by a kid with a willow pole and a bare hook with a piece of bacon on it. Go figure.
“Luck is huge. Without it; nothing, nada, zilch. Two guys fish together and one guy gets them all, the other guy often gets nothing. Even with my regular fishing partners. Same gear same technique, different results,” Gerard looked at his line hanging slack in the water. “How do you change the luck?” he asked. “I don’t believe in rabbit’s feet, the rabbit had four of them and look how he finished up! No; you want to change the luck? Spray fly dope on the other guys lure when he’s not looking. Step on his reel accidentally of course! Break his rod tip off in the trunk. Budda boom budda Bing; his luck changes!” I said this last part in a very bad Italian accent. “Thanks Don Vito but I meant how do you change your luck?” He was still laughing. Good kid. “There is one secret to fishing. You can’t catch a fish if your line is not in the water so keep casting.”
He did but his luck didn’t improve. Mine did I got a couple more. As darkness fell I put the truth to him. We had planned another night but I knew we were running out of dry clothes and sterno. “We gotta make a call. Do we leave in the morning?” I asked. “I have one more set of dry clothes thanks to the garbage bags.” He said. “Told you! Well we’ll see hat morning brings.” The rain stopped sometime in the night. We slept like babies. The lake was like glass when we awoke. We put on our dry clothes and flaked the wet ones on some bushes. I scoured the shore for beaver wood, stripped of bark it dries faster. I smeared some of the remaining sterno on the soggy wood and lit it. “An old boy scout trick.” I said. “Really?” he asked incredulous. “Yes, as soon as the scoutmaster turns his back!” U said with a chuckle. I soon had a lovely fire going. Hot food and hot coffee further buoyed our spirits. We finished the trip and still no fish for Gerard. I felt I had failed him. We took staffs of beaver wood and made our way home.
A couple of weeks later I suggested another trip, this time to a few places I knew not far from the highway. Gerard gratefully accepted. That morning at the first pool we reached he landed a lovely half pounder. As beautiful as any I had seen. I showed him how to clean it said “You are now a member of the fishing fraternity.” I didn’t need to ask him how it felt it was written all over his face. “See, I got nothing, all luck!”That afternoon we drove down the highway until I came to a place I often catch fish. It is literally right on the highway. There was an old man standing there with a piece of bamboo with an old rod tip jammed into it. He had tied thirty feet of line to the tip. At his feet was a bucket full of fish. “How many can I keep?” he asked when I stopped. I looked at the bucket. “Not that many.” I said. “Damn I am going to give these away. I will be right back, watch my rod!” He vanished with a shambling gait. The water looked unusual like it had been stirred up. The old man quickly returned. “What’s the deal?” I asked. “Lands and forests was just here they dumped a whole tanker truck full of stock trout. They are confused and the cove is full of them. I get one every cast, can you spare some bait?” I obliged and Gerard began to cast. It was like magic he had one every cast. We tried every lure in my box and got fish on all but one. I even tried the old man’s rig, at his insistence and caught fish. We had a magical afternoon and Gerard learned a lot about setting the hook and fighting a fish. On the drive home I thought I would drive home the point I had been making. Our success had re-inflated my ego. “See what I told you, all luck.” He looked at me with a new look in his eyes not of a student but of a peer. “What luck, it was like shooting fish in a barrel, literally, all we had to do was cast.” He thought he had outwitted the old master. “Nah, I've been to that spot a hundred times and this is the most I ever caught. Showing up right after a hatchery truck, now that’s lucky!”

O Christmas tree

2010-09-14T21:45:00.000-07:00

“YOU ARE TELLING ME…”
My friend said in disbelief. “THAT YOU; MAN OF THE NORTH, LIVING THOUSANDS OF MILES FROM ANYWHERE, HAVE AN ARTIFICIAL TREE?” I was showing him photos of life in Old Crow during my annual holidays. “An honest to goodness, painted, piece of Chinese imported plastic? You gotta be kidding me. Aren’t you surrounded by thousands of trees? Real ones?” He was right there were trees out there, thousands but there was more to it than that. In my childhood it had seemed simpler. I suspect that most things do.
When I was a kid my Dad and I would venture forth to pick the perfect tree to decorate the house for the festive season. Like most rituals its origins were lost in ancient mystery. What was involved was the donning of the dreaded winter attire; layers of scratchy wool. Wool sweaters, wool socks and hand-made wool mittens. By the time we were ready to go I was bundled up like an Egyptian mummy. We would head down the highway for one of Dad’s hunting spots where “I know there a good one!” he would assure me enthusiastically. We would drive down some icy snow covered country road that had never seen a snowplow. We would wade through drifts up to my chest. We would shake the snow from tree after tree until we found the one we wanted. The amazing thing is that there was actual magic involved. No seriously. For when we picked the tree, flushed with fresh air and brilliant sun the tree appeared perfect. An archetypal Christmas tree perfect in every way; devoid of flaw. However when it arrived in my parent’s living room to be presented to my little brother and the women folk who formed the judge and jury a transformation had taken place. The tree no longer seemed perfect. A bald patch or two appeared, the trunk seemed bent. The top askew. “That…” my Mom would say “is the best you could do?” Now I swear that it looked different when we tied it to the roof rack. Maybe more snow had shaken loose or maybe we had been victims of some state of euphoria brought on by the clear air and the exertion of the chase. In any case there was little doubt this was not the tree we thought we had.
Now if tree hunting in the south had its’ drawbacks the search for the perfect specimen in the boreal forest was another kettle of fish. I remember my first Christmas in the Northwest Territories. I borrowed a snowmobile and toboggan from a trapper friend of mine and set out to comb the hills for the quintessential Christmas tree. I found a beauty. Eight feet tall if it was an inch. I tied it to the toboggan and made a beeline for home. Now I’m sure that to people from the southern hemisphere the snowy hills may appear to be white fluffy clouds of cotton candy. In fact they are frozen hard as cement. When I arrived home I was the proud owner of an eight foot stick. It was nearly bereft of needles and the canvas skirt of the toboggan was full of them. The tree, seared by the forty five below zero cold and the constant pounding of the trail had shed its’ beautiful fir coat (pardon the pun). Hi I’m not only the president of the hair club for bald trees but I’m a member too.
I once cut down my Christmas tree with a rifle. No I didn’t beat it down with the butt. I was driving a winter road in Northern Alberta when I came across the most beautiful tree. There were two small problems first I had no axe. Second the tree was thirty feet tall. I sure wanted that tree; though. It was splendid. It had grown up taller than the trees around it which allowed it to be fuller on all sides. I coveted this tree. I knew if I did not grab it now I would probably never find it again. I searched my truck and racked my brain. Then it hit me. My rifle! If I started on one side of the trunk O could shoot the tree down! As a bonus I could shoot off only the top seven feet or so. I had only the shells in the clip but with a few good shots the top fell just as I planned. It must have been meant to be. As an additional bonus; without even additional shipping and handling, the tree was covered in cones. They looked great when the tree was decorated and people thought I added the cones.
But the further north you go the harder it is to find the perfect tree. Life is hard up here. The arctic is virtually a desert in winter cold and sere. It stunts the trees. They work very hard to cling to life. It takes them many years longer to reach the size that you would drag home and stand in your living room. A Christmas tree sized northern spruce or pine could be one hundred and fifty years old or more. Imagine cutting down anything that old to put up in your living room for a week. Sorry but it just aint happening. Yes I may be surrounded by trees but I would also like to stay that way. I do pick out a tree each year; though. I look for it when I am out walking. I find a nice one; whose imperfections are smothered in snow. I just don’t cut it down. I just watch it where it stands and think of what the Christmas tree once stood for. Originally the evergreen tree was associated with the celebration of the winter solstice not the later Christian celebration which adopted the symbol. It was chosen to represent the time of year when the days would start to get longer and life would return to the hibernating winter world. It was chosen because it was green and full of life when all the trees of the world were brown and apparently lifeless. Now we kill them and drag their carcasses into our living rooms and then throw them out with the trash. My living room may have a plastic tree but my real Christmas tree will still be alive next year and the year after. She may not have the curves of your southern manicured tree farm models; but she looks pretty good for her age. She may be one hundred and fifty but she doesn’t look a day over a hundred and twenty!

Speciesism.

2010-09-13T11:07:00.000-07:00

Spell-check does not recognize the title of this piece, speciesism. In fact I thought I had invented it. But alas when I turned to my favorite righter of wrongs and oracle of truths, Wikipedia I discovered that I was not so original a thinker as I might have dreamt. In fact the origin is attributed; by the aforementioned sage, to a British psychologist named Richard Ryder who in 1973 coined the word to mean: the assigning of different values or rights to beings on the basis of their species membership. How on earth you may ask did I come to have delusions of original thought? It happened as so many of my musings do while I was out for a walk. There must be a physical pathway from the feet to the brain; or more to the point, my feet to my brain. I seem to have many reflections or musings whist I am walking. Perhaps the blood flows better to the brain. My wife might argue that my brain is starved of oxygen but nonetheless I get some great ideas while walking. I once walked, albeit on a fine July day the very route that Pierre Trudeau chose for his now infamous walk in the snow. There was a man who knew the effects of a good walk on the cogitative facilities. If it was good enough for Pierre it is good enough for me.
So what occurred to me while I was walking was the old expression that a day was “Fit for neither man nor beast.”In fact the day was rather cold and wet and unseasonal. It may not really have been unseasonal but it was at least a preview of the coming season. Although here in the arctic it is already fall. I thought about that expression “Fit for neither man nor beast.” And it dawned on me that man is a beast. Not in the pejorative sense of the word beast but in the flora and fauna sense of the word. Man is an animal. What makes us better than any other beast? Why would weather that was fit for a beast not be fit for us? It is a small indicator of the way we humans think. In gambling they call it a “tell”. It is a Freudian slip. That old Sigmund, do you suppose he really did wear a slip? Might explain a lot. Anyways; we do have a sense that we are better than the other animals. We are speciesists. Not easy to say and not easy to admit either. Just as racism is wrong, so folks is this one. I remember once I waded in on the issue of drift-net fishing on CBC Radio’s As It Happens. I called them in answer to another caller’s remarks about fish destroyed by these nets “Not being on the endangered species list anyways.” A foolish and destructive attitude I felt and I let my feelings be known. “My regard for the protection of another species,” I said testily “is not restricted to their position on some arbitrary scale of their relative order in the chain of animal extinction.” Or irate words to that effect. My blood is warming up just thinking about it and that was probably ten years ago.
The point is equally valid today. Other species are not ours to dispose of as we please. We have a place in the food chain, but we are not at moral liberty to destroy the whole chain. We need not all become vegetarians, but I respect those who do. I understand their feelings and I respect their commitment. If it weren’t for bacon I might be right there with them. Ahhhhh, BACON! Still we think that opposable thumbs and bipedal locomotion makes us better than the next guy. Even if the next guy is my neighbors German shepherd cross who eats my garbage I am not better than him. If we had more respect for the other creatures we share this planet with then we would be better custodians of it. I have heard the argument many times; what is it that separates man from other animals? All the usual answers too; bipedal locomotion, tools, fire, opposable thumbs etc. You know what I think separates us from other animals? Not that we are the only species that could make all life on this planet extinct but that we are the only species that would make all life on this planet extinct! End of rant! (At least until my next walk)

War Stories

2010-09-11T22:26:00.000-07:00

“Hey, hey, hey if you’re going to tell my war stories then get it right.” I said as I entered the conference room. It never fails when you get a room full of firefighters the stories start. Now first responders do not have the same sense of humor or lack the same filters than normal folk use when having a conversation. The term for it is Black Humor and outsiders would miss much of the humor of it. It is, however a very necessary thing. It is a coping mechanism. First Responders have to deal with situations that would level most people. Imagine not only having to deal with a grievous injury to a child but having to stay calm and dispassionate and still do your job. Not easy on a caring person. I don’t think that people migrate to the fire service because they are uncaring and naturally dispassionate. I think it is quite the opposite. I think that men and women migrate to being first responders because they care. We call them war stories. War stories are something that firefighters know well. They are a way of sharing an experience with others. Others who know what you are dealing with. Others who know what it means to be woken out f a sound sleep at three in the morning. At three in the morning on a night that is thirty below and to be plunged into a life and death situation before you are even fully awake. I have never been to war. But I have an appreciation, not of what it is like, but I have a greater than normal gratitude for what they have been through. I hope that they can forgive our appropriation of the name.
As I made the exclamation Victor spun on his heel and faced the doorway. “How the hell are ya!” He said extending a hand the size of a baseball mitt. It was a hand I knew well. Vic and I go way back. Nearly twenty years ago he brought the freight to the tiny store I ran in Ft. Resolution. He would make the five hour return trip from Hay River our nearest large center. He was a big guy with a great sense of humor and a willingness to try anything that made him invaluable to his employer. It also made him invaluable as a volunteer firefighter. Vic had joined the HRFD long before he was old enough to be a fire fighter. He hauled hose and filled air bottles and did all the inglorious jobs that are so forgotten by the public who see people showing up on a shiny truck and forget about the hours it took to polish that truck. They never see the guys scrubbing filthy hose or pouring over text books and spending weekends practicing in layers of sweaty bunker gear and clammy rubber face masks. Vic was a yeoman. He was the real deal. We knew each other quite a while before we found out that the other was a firefighter.
It happened just after the events that Vic was relating to a room full of territorial firefighters in Yellowknife for a course. Now I can’t blame someone for telling this story, even if it was rightly mine to tell. It was a great story. It wasn’t everyday that a fire hall burns to the ground. That’s right; I have a hard time believing it too and I was there. I imagine Vic had told the story before, he was a good storyteller. I have no doubt that he has told the story many times since. Vic put an arm around me and introduced me to the Fire Service members in the group. Some were in uniform, some, like me were in plain clothes. I shook hands all round. It was in just such a situation that we both found out the other was a Firefighter, over a handshake. With only a slight prompting from Vic I began to tell the story.
It had begun; as so many Firefighting stories do at three in the morning. Three o’clock of a frosty Easter Sunday morning. I had been deeply asleep when the wail of the fire siren sent me scrambling. This was not supposed to happen. The fire siren, an air raid style siren mounted on top of the fire hall was activated inside the fire hall. We were supposed to activate it after we arrived. What was supposed to happen first was that the fire phone was supposed to ring. The fire phone was a special modification to your normal phone. It was one long ring that rang until you picked it up. We were supposed to be able to activate the alarm from our home phone but that feature never really worked. It had to be pushed manually. At three a.m. there was no time to figure it out. I sprang from my bed and hurried down the hall toward the back door.
Standing on my back landing was the RCMP Corporal and the Nurse. I knew one thing for sure, this wasn’t a drill! I flung open the hall door to grab my parka. It had fallen down the basement stairs. There wasn’t time to get it now. I pulled on my boots as I opened the door. Since the nurse was there only one thing occurred to me, that someone was hurt. What greeted my ears was almost as hard to comprehend. “It’s the fire hall!” the Corporal said. If it wasn’t 3 a.m. I would have thought he was joking. As we dashed to the RCMP Suburban I looked toward the fire hall, I could not see any smoke. “I had a look, I don’t think it is too bad,” The Corporal said as we made our way to the hall. When I reached the door I put the back of my hand against it the way I was trained. Warm but not hot; I thought as I planned what to do next. No other firefighters had reached the scene yet. I crouched and opened the door. A wave of heat and smoke belched past my face. I stuck my head into the hall. Blinding smoke made my eyes water. I surveyed the scene and closed the door. Everything I could see was ablaze. Smoke was layered down nearly to the floor. The heat was terrific. The Corporal stood over my shoulder. I looked back “What is your definition of a bad fire?” I asked sarcastically.
A million things were going through my mind but one thing was apparent. I needed to get the truck out of there. If I did I could fight this fire. If not; the hall, the truck and all our gear was toast. Literally! I looked into the Corporal’s eyes. “I am going in. I gotta get that truck out,” I said in as calm and steady a voice as I could manage. “I’ve got to set up a perimeter.” He said. A towns’ person had stopped. I looked him in the eye. “I am going in there. Do NOT let this door close, you hear me? If it closes I am dead.” I tried not to let my voice betray my fear. He told me he would not let me down. I crawled in on all fours. The smoke was choking and the heat was reminding me of my bare arms and face. I crawled to the center of the hall. I knew without my personal protective equipment or PPE as we call it; I couldn’t stay ion here long. I felt naked. Normally when we crawl into a burning building we have layers of special fabric, we have masks and air packs and helmets and gloves. In my track pants and T-shirt I felt very exposed. I turned to the rack where I knew all that good stuff was hanging. It was all in flames. The gear was alight and the boots were dripping flaming drops of molten rubber on the floor. No help there I thought. I turned back to the task at hand. The tears were running down my face from the acrid smoke. As my eyes passed where the open door should have been I could see nothing. “Keep that damn door open!” I yelled. “It is open, Greg!” came the timid reply. Crap, I thought. I am in big trouble.
I made it to the pillar that separated the two bays of the hall. I stood up and took the chain that opened the door in my hands. It was oddly sticky as though coated in glue. Perhaps some sticky byproduct of the fire I thought as I raised the door. A welcome blast of icy minus thirty air hit me as the door came grudgingly up. I got the door to shoulder height. But it would go no further. I put my shoulder under it and heaved. No dice. I was out of air and my lungs were burning. My eyes were useless. I could see nothing. Nothing at all.
I knew I had to get out of there. Having gotten the chain out of the holder I knew I could close the door and still open it from outside. I reluctantly let the door close and grabbed my breath. I reached down and took the door in my hands again and lifted it to the shoulders. Still it would not open. I could see very little due to the smoke. It was then that things started moving in slow motion, the way they do in those Lethal Weapon movies. In slow motion I saw the Corporal running towards me. He grabbed me by the shoulders and pulled. As we were rolling on the icy surface of the parking lot I saw sheets of flame come down the inside of the garage door. As the door dropped the flame reached the ground and shot out towards us. The all hell broke loose. I had seen something parked in the usually empty bay of the fire hall. In the smoke and flame, even though I had passed within six feet of it I could not tell what it was. I had assumed it was the Hamlet truck, a five ton flatbed. It was in fact the Zamboni from the arena a block away. An ice cleaner. It was a tractor that towed a box and cleaned the ice. As the door closed I could see, through the three large windowed panes the tractor shot into the air. At the same instant the door started to buckle and the panels of the door began to idly towards us through the air. The Corporal and I scrambled on the ice, slippery and wet from the heat a huge mushroom cloud followed us down the driveway. Pieces of door flew past us through the air like tinfoil, twisting as they went. As the door vaporized the flames shot skywards thirty feet over the roof of the fire hall. We landed in a heap on the street. As we looked back it was obvious that there was no way to save anything. I looked at the Corporal, “We have to get the water trucks.” I yelled. “We have to save the surrounding buildings.”
Water is delivered in small northern towns. The water truck acted as back up to the fire truck. They have nozzles too. We found the water truck contractor awake and already in action. I positioned the trucks so as to protect the exposures. The rest of the firefighters were arriving and soon we had the situation under control. The Corporal showed up with an RCMP parka which he draped over my shoulders. I had forgotten how cold it was. “I’ll take you to the nursing station” he said. I was puzzled. What for? I asked dumbly. “Look at your hands.” He said nodding at them. I looked down. My hands were covered in black soot and angry red blisters were visible on all surfaces of the palms. They did not hurt at all. I tried to make a fist. No dice. The fire chief nodded and told me to go. I sat in the nursing station while a friend who was a male nurse worked on my hands. “I can’t get the black off. It’ll tear the blisters and it will get infected.” I looked at my arms. The palms of both hands were burned. Every joint was blistered on every finger and large patches of both forearms were one giant blister, from wrist to elbow. The areas that were not blistered were red. “Contact burns to the palms. Radiation burns to the forearms he said writing notes on my chart. “You must have grabbed something hot!” He added. “The chains, I guess.” I said. “No wonder they were sticky. They were red hot.” It was beginning to make sense now. “When the adrenalin wears off those are going to hurt. I am going to give you something.”
I left the Nursing station and walked back to the scene. “Get some sleep.” the Chief said “It’s going to be a long day.” Things had been moving way too fast. In my living room they were moving way too slow. I began to pace as the adrenalin indeed wore off. I suddenly felt intensely tired and I hurt so much. I did the only thing I could think of to do. I called my Mom. It made me feel better to talk to her.
Later that day we sat around the RCMP detachment debriefing. It was here that I got brought up to speed on what had happened. It is funny how little you know even when you are in the middle of something. The one thing that puzzled me the most was what had started a fire in the building that was essentially a big concrete slab. It seems that two young men had been siphoning gas out of the fire truck. They had two full five gallon cans of gas siphoned when one of them knocked one can over. They were; of course smoking. The flames shot in every direction at once. One of the guys had beaten the flames with his leather jacket, burning it badly. This is how they got caught. Meanwhile at three a.m. Easter Sunday morning the Nurse’s boyfriend was upstairs in the bathroom with a girlfriend who was not the nurse. They kept quiet until the guys who set the fire left and then they went and got the nurse and the nurse the Mounties and so on.
The Fire Marshall confirmed all this when we sifted through the wreckage later that day. I felt a little better. The fire had started under the fire truck and there was never any chance of my getting the truck out of there. I needn’t feel guilty. Later in the week the Hay River Fire Department agreed to lend us an old truck. They were parked in the parking lot of the Hamlet Office when I arrived. There was Vic walking towards me in a HRFD jacket his hand outstretched. I slid my bandaged mitts out of my sleeves and held them up like he was holding a shotgun. He laughed and gave me a chuck on the shoulder. The boys of the HRFD could not help but give us a ribbing. There were more than a few snide comments. The Fire Marshall, who knew what I had been through smiled but notably did not laugh. The Hay River Firefighters walked us through the operation of the old truck. My Chief walked up to me as I was talking to Vic afterwards. “Treat him with respect Vic he’s my new Deputy.” Vic laughed. “Try not to burn our truck down O.K.?” He said and automatically he extended his hand to me to say goodbye. Once again I slid my bandaged hands out and held them up. Vic instantly snapped to attention clicking his heels and raising his flattened hand to his cap brim. I raised a bandaged hand to my brow. Our eyes met and there was more in that moment than a conversation of an hour could convey. An understanding of one firefighter to another. Of one human being who knows what happens when you go into a burning building. Of someone who knows that there are no such things as heroes. No heroes who are invincible and brave beyond belief. Just mortals, doing what they know is right. Just neighbors who are doing the only thing they can do. The best that they can.

Nukon of the Yukon

2010-09-11T22:01:00.000-07:00

He was standing in the aisle his left hand rubbing his chin thoughtfully. He was holding an aluminum pot and turning it over in his right hand like he was looking at a pot for the first time. “Dick!” I said “You look puzzled. Can I help you with something?” Dick was a Gwitch’in elder. Over seventy but it was hard to say by how much, they are healthy people in Old Crow, an isolated community in the northern Yukon. Dick cocked his head and looked at me for a long moment before he spoke. Time is not in scarce supply in this part of the world and Dick was old and wise enough to know there was no real rush. “I need a special pot but I’m not sure you will be able to find one.” He said. I totally missed the twinkle in his eye. “I don’t know Dick, I’ve been doing this a while. Maybe I can help?” I was new to Old Crow, though. New enough to be grist for Dick’s mill. “I need a pot about one foot wide.” He said smiling. “About one foot wide and thirty feet long, I’m making Giraffe neck soup!” The sparkle in his eye was impossible to miss. “I set snares for them.” He added without even a trace of change in his voice. All right, I thought, I’ll bite. “Where do you set the snares?” I asked. “In the tops of trees of course!” He replied with a laugh. I had just met Dick, but I liked him already. “If I get a really long bowl can I have some?” I returned, showing that I could take a joke. Dick was bent double and was holding his sides now. He slapped my back.
I knew now that I was going to like my time in Old Crow. As people go, I have never met better. If laughter was the best medicine then Dick should live to a thousand. He had a sense of humor that fit him like his skin. He took life with a grain of salt. He was a sort of philosopher. Every time he walked into the store he made my day. I think when your life moves more slowly you have time to notice the humor of it. Sometimes, in the rush and distraction of modern life we lose sight of the little things. We not only forget to smell the roses we forget to have a darn good laugh too. While the pace in the lives of the locals was sedate: running the town’s only store, only Post Office and only Bank was not. There were order deadlines for produce and groceries, meat and hardware. There was payroll and cash to order. Mail and freight arriving at all hours. Mail that needed to be sorted and perishables that had to be put away even at eleven at night. Dick would shake his head and cluck at me. “You gotta slow down.” He said one day when I bumped into him at the airport. “I’m picking yup the mail.” I said. “Your pension check is in here.” His eyes widened and he rubbed his chin. “Yep, first thing tomorrow you should slow down.” We both laughed.
One day I was driving the company truck past Dick’s Cabin. Our company truck wasn’t much to look at and rather less than that under the hood. Prior to my arrival someone had taken it for a joyride and left it in the Porcupine River. The engine only ran when the steering wheel was tilted at a certain angle. The engine could not be cut by turning the key; you actually had to unhook the battery. Not much to look at, not much to drive. But in a town where the only way in is to fly vehicles were at a premium. Here this was a Cadillac. The speed limit in Old Crow is 30KPH except of course in the school zone. You could not have people screaming through the school zone at thirty Kilometers per hour. No sir, you must slow to fifteen Kilometers per hour in the school zone. You also have to watch out for kids passing you on their bikes. Life does; quite literally move at a slower pace in Old Crow.
Dick flagged me down. “Have you got time to take my boat to the slough?” He asked. “Sure!” I said swinging out of the cab. Dick was standing next to a beautiful Scott canoe. “Nice boat!” I said as I slid onto the seat beside him, having put the canoe in the bed of the truck. Dick was grinning ear to ear which was his usual state. He gently elbowed me “Have I told you how I got the canoe?” He asked with an infectious giggle. “No. Please tell me.” It was only a short drive so I slowed down intentionally, which was a very natural thing to do when in Dick’s company. You always want to slow down to his speed but seldom get there.
“One day I was standing on the bank of the river when these guys paddled up in that canoe. They were two guys from Europe. You know, over there.” Dick waved his hand vaguely in what he supposed was the direction of Europe. I had no reason to doubt his sense of direction. “We talked a while. They were very tired and asked me how the river was from here to Fort Yukon. I told them that once they got past the falls it was clear paddling. They said their maps didn’t show any waterfalls. I told them that the old maps don’t. They asked how far the portage was. I said only twenty miles.” His face was beaming and his eyes shone as he told the tale. “Dick.” I said. “You are a very bad man! You know there are no waterfalls on this river.” His smile split his face in two. He slapped his knee as he said. “I got the canoe for a hundred bucks and they were on the plane the next day!” He was in hysterics and it was impossible not to catch the bug. I was still laughing as I lowered the bright red canoe into the water.
Dick was a consummate prankster and only once have I seen him bested. He is the first to acknowledge his defeat. I first heard the tale on a beautiful spring day. Lina and I were on our way out of town for holidays. I had handed the keys of the store to my locum and was feeling very light indeed as the weight of those keys lifted a ton of responsibility of my shoulders. Dick was sitting on the boardwalk of the tiny airport terminal. He sat in the sun. The plane was late as usual. I had no connecting flights that night just a hotel room waiting in my beloved Dawson City and a dinner at Klondike Kate’s with my name on it; not to mention a nice cold bottle of Alexander Keith’s India Pale Ale. Dick patted the plank next to him. I slowed down to his speed as I sat down next to him. Lina smiled as she saw me relax.
“Dick, my friend. How are you?” I asked as I sat down. He was dressed as he always was in a pair of work pants, a faded plaid wool shirt and a ball cap; tilted back in spite of the sun. His weathered face looked wistful; even peaceful; almost beatific. He reclined back on his elbows. “See; I told you to slow down. You’ll live longer.” The spring sun was sublime. I was shedding layers of care by the second. The plane could take its sweet time my holiday was starting right here. “Longer than you?” I asked. Dick laughed. “I’m not perfect you know. I played a joke on that young teacher at Christmas time.” He paused in his conversation and cast me a long glance that spoke volumes. “Oh yeah? The curly headed kid?” I asked. Dick laughed again. “That’s the one. He sure is a funny guy.” Dick was hitting his stride. “He is so uptight. He was standing in there.” Dick pointed to the terminal with his hat brim. “He told me he had weighed all his baggage and was just under the weight limit.” The local lady who ran the terminal for the airline was a fanatic. She charged you if you were even one pound over limit. “He went into the washroom. I took a big rock and put it in his pack sack.” Dick was howling as he recalled his treachery. “I put the bags on the scale. You should have seen his face when she told him he owed sixty bucks in overweight charges.” Dick’s sides convulsed as he relived the moment.” I thought I had the last laugh.” Dick was shaking his head now. “When a C.O.D. showed up a few days later, I had no suspicions at all. It was Christmas. I thought one of the girls had ordered something for a present. I took the box home and unwrapped it on the table. There sat my rock! I had just paid sixty bucks for it!” He leaned on one elbow as he spoke. He looked into my eyes. I was smiling like a fool. “You know, it was worth every penny!” He laughed again.
Now I don’t get to travel the road of life at Dick’s speed very often; but when I do I enjoy the ride. Dick Nukon is one of those true Characters that seem to populate the north. Some; like Dick are born there. Others migrate there. Whether the north calls them or whether they are floating along in the ebb and flow of the world and are simply collected there in the backwater like some flotsam; I don’t know. But the north is full of them. So long as the north is full of these characters I will be there for I prefer there company to all others. They are true human beings. The way nature intended man to be. Maybe we can’t slow down to Dick’s speed all the time, but there should be stretches of life’s highway that are clearly posted with speed limit signs with Dick’s smiling face on them.

Of mice and men and well… more mice.

2010-09-11T19:53:00.000-07:00

When you live in the north you live somewhat closer to nature than most people. I am about as likely to see a bear as most city people are to see a neighbor walking a dog. On any given day I can see eagles and wolves a fox or a beaver. These don’t bother me. I admit you do make adjustments in your lifestyle. You are cognizant of the bears and you make noises as you walk through the bush so as not to surprise them. You watch the foxes as they can have rabies. But life goes on and you accept these as part of life in so remote a place. In fact I revel in their presence. I love to see a moose across the river. I love seeing a rabbit scurry across my path when I am out for an evening walk. This is one of the things that make life up here special. This close bond, this living side by each with the wild creatures of nature.
This is because we have a special love of cute furry critters. Or large majestic creatures like moose and caribou and wood bison. There is something breathtaking about watching a bison the size of a compact car cruising through the long grass only its’ head and humped shoulders separating the grass like a surfaced submarine. Or the sight of a moose sedately munching water plants at the edge of a northern pond, the morning mist making him look surreal in his ungainly glory. But what of those other creatures? Those critters without publicity agents and spin doctors to create warm fuzzy feelings when they cross our paths? What about the creatures who scurry and hide? Furtive and, well scary creatures. Creatures that not only share our world, but often share our house and God knows what else.
Ron was just out of the city. He was new to the north and was out on his own for the first time in his life. A fledging just pushed from his parents nest in Moose Jaw Saskatchewan. Young and still wet behind the ears. Thrust into the boreal forest in northern Alberta, as far north as you could go and still be in Alberta. This was throwing someone in at the deep end. Sink or swim. Fly or fall. When plunging from the nest to the ground the wind sailing past you as you fall that space behind the ears can dry pretty fast.
“Whaaaaaaaaaaaaayoweeeeeeeeeeeee!!!” Ron screamed as he shot into the living room. It was three in the morning and I was instantly out of my bed at the opposite end of the trailer. Ron was standing in the middle of the room in his Toronto Maple Leaf pajamas. He had his hands folded over his chest like he was shivering. He was shivering. “What’s up? Are you O.K.?” I blurted. Ron was stammering and looked like he had seen a ghost. “No I am not O.K.!” He said angrily. “I woke up and it was right there, staring me in the face!” My mind raced. What could have instantly struck terror into this young guy? What kind of beast had bared its fangs, roared in his face? What could strike terror into a grown adult male? There were no shortage of options, from grizzlies to wolves, from wolverines to coyotes, “There!!!” He yelled and pointed behind me. Oh my God, I thought as I turned, I hadn’t even had time to get my gun. As I spun I crouched spreading my legs so as to bear the weight of whatever might be about to set upon me. I eyed the knife block on the counter. Pe3rhaps I could get a few slashes in before it leapt. But when I stopped I saw nothing. My eyes were not fully adjusted to the darkened room. “Hit the lights!” I yelled and Ron sprang to the switch. The room burst into light. Then I saw it as it shot across the floor and ran along the base board. It disappeared down the heating register. “A mouse!” I yelled. “You woke me out of a sound sleep for a mouse?” I looked Ron right in the eye. “He was on my chest when I woke up! He was staring right into my eyes! I freaked!” He was still shaking.
I began to feel bad for him. “Look Ron, you are always eating in bed. The crumbs attract them. Don’t leave a half full bowl of cheezies or chips on the dresser. Put them away and you won’t see the mice. Not on your chest anyways.” Ron was calming down now. “Not see them? Does that mean they will go away?” He was pleading. “No that does not mean that they will go away.” I answered. “We live in a warm place, full of holes and nooks and crannies. They come from outside where it is forty five below zero. Where last falls seeds and nuts are covered in four feet of ice and snow. Where would you go?” Ron looked stunned. He looked like I had just told him I was from Mars. Obviously it had never occurred to him, not in his worst nightmares that he was sharing his home with a swarm, a flock or whatever a gaggle of mice is called. “I’ll never sleep again!” He said dejectedly. “Good luck with that.” I said flatly, turning to go back to bed. “Put out the lights.” I added as I walked away. “Wait! You’re not leaving me?” He said in a panic. “Yep, I’ll leave you my gun and I’ll sleep with my hunter orange vest on in case I have to use the bathroom in the night!” Ron was looking at me with a look that was somewhere between despair and rage. “Don’t look at me in that tone of voice.” I pleaded. “What am I supposed to do? Hold your hand?” Ron’s hands were on his hips now. “No, help me catch the mouse or whatever you do with mice.” I winced. I was tired and a little peeved. But obviously I wasn’t going to get any sleep until I helped Ron.
Mice are a fact of life in the north. I had accepted this a long time ago. Ron would have to accept this too, eventually. They were everywhere. They were, in fact amazing. I remembered when I fist started with the company. One of my departments was footwear. I was working in the basement of the old store in Wabasca Alberta. I was doing stock checks on rubber boots. I had to record the sizes in a brown binder with fake wood-grain covers. Boots, Rubber Men’s 18” red sole size 8. I had turned to boot over to see the size on the sole. As I did a cascade of stuff fell on the floor at my feet. There were M&Ms, sunflower seeds, grains of rice, popcorn kernels and other stuff. Lots and lots of them. The boot had been a third full. I stared at the pile in awe. “What the heck?” I said aloud. Lena the marking clerk stuck her head around the corner. She laughed. “A mouse’s winter stores!” She said. “They always use boots!” I stared. “How to they get in and out?” I asked. “I never really thought about it.” She said. “They’re mice they go where they please. I swept up the mess. I would repeat this over the ensuing quarter century many, many times. Usually boots, occasionally shoes or boxes. Amazing amounts of stuff. Always something that would not go bad over the winter. Seeds, candy, cereal and an amazing variety of things. Remarkable creatures. Still Jack the Ripper was remarkable and not too many people like him either.
Over the years I have tried all the methods of catching and disposing of mice. Patent and home remedies. Many work, most don’t/ One method I was assured was fool proof was to put a foam tray, the king meat and produce come on, on the floor and fill it with corn syrup. The mouse is attracted by the sweet mess and becomes mired in it and drowns. I am not sure how humane this is but it works to a degree. But if the tray sits out more than a day or two the syrup scums over and the trap becomes a feeding fest for the mice. Another one that worked was one a friend told me about. You take a bucket. tape the handle so it is erect. Lean a stick like maybe a chopstick against the handle, balanced on the rim of the bucket. Bait the end of the stick and the mouse will climb the stick and fall into the bucket which you have partially filled with water and drown. This worked so well I once had five mice in the bucket after one night. Unfortunately the next night I tripped over the bucket on the way to let the dog out. I have used patent traps of all descriptions, big steel boxes with a wind-up wheel in it that spins the mouse off into a live hold part of the box so you can catch and release. However a biologist friend said that if you release an animal that winter on stored food far enough from your house that he won’t come back; he will starve to death so you might as well just kill it. So much for the humanitarian approach. I have used commercial sticky traps and had the mice humping around the house, freaking my Wife out. I have used a trap that looked like a big metal clothespin which basically closed on the mouse’s midsection with such force it nearly cut the poor thing in half.
In my experience the best method is the old tried and true trap. The one we are all familiar with the rectangular piece of wood with the coiled spring. The one you always see in the cartoons. Unlike the cartoons however; do not bait the trap with cheese. Cheese is useless. It dries out in a day or two and becomes odorless. Mice may have big eyes but they use their noses to find their food. You need something that stays soft and smelly a long time. There is but one true mouse bait. Make no mouse stake. It is peanut butter. Mice can’t resist it. They will fall on it no matter how many weeks it has been waiting for them. Trust me. I have been on the trapline for years.
So it was that when Ron shamed me into helping him. I dug under the kitchen sink and pulled out a small box of traps. I showed him how to bait the trigger with just the right size blob of peanut butter. We set the traps along the wall; in corners and anywhere we had seen a mouse. We set about six traps and then went to bed. I hadn’t even fallen asleep when I heard a snap. Ron was up in an instant. “Hey, I think we got one.” He was as excited as if he’d gotten his first deer. It was the one closest the door and I bent down to retrieve it. The mouse was dead alright, the bar had caught him on the head killing him instantly he did not suffer. “Aw, he’s kind of cute.” Ron said as I took the mouse from the trap. “A few minutes ago you were ready to kill them all.” I reminded Ron. Then we heard another trap snap closed. Ron jumped. “You want a chair to stand on?” I asked sarcastically. “How many mice are there?” He asked. “No more than a hundred.” I said as I returned the first trap to the floor where it had been. I looked under the bed to retrieve the second. “A hundred? Did you say a hundred?” Ron was nearly frantic. I fished the trap out holding it up by the mouse’s tail. “Well ninety eight now.” I said with a laugh. “Are these things going to be going off all night?” Ron asked with resignation. “Just put them away. I’ll never get any sleep at this rate.” He wheedled. “I thought you were never going to sleep again?” I said my voice dripping with mockery. “Well I’ve been living with them this long; I guess that I can live with them a little longer. They are kind of cute.” Acceptance. It’s the final stage of grief. “Oh Ron, before you get too attached remember the company policy on pets!”

Building Bridges

2010-09-10T23:20:00.000-07:00

Bridges are amazing things. It is no surprise that they have inspired so much wonder. Take the Firth of Forth Bridge for example. Built in 1891 it is a Unesco World heritage sight. When it was built it inspired souvenirs. There were ashtrays and salt and pepper shakers; postcards and books. It is a truly impressive structure. Lina and I crossed the road bridge over the Firth of Forth in 2008. The bridge spans the Forth River and joins Edinburgh and Fife. You might say that we took the Firth of Forth to Fife where I bought a Fifth of Scotch (my Fourth). Sorry about that, I just couldn’t resist. Confederation Bridge which spans 12.9 kilometers from New Brunswick to Prince Edward Island. Do you think they cut a hundred meters off the bridge to keep it from being 13km long? I wouldn’t be surprised. It too has spawned many souvenirs. I understand the fascination. These are true marvels of engineering and rival even the pyramids as mega-structures.
I bring up the subject of bridges because I was watching the Antiques Roadshow the other night and they featured some souvenirs of the Forth Bridge. I remember how awed I was by the sight of it. I remember too how awed I was the first time I crossed the Confederation Bridge. I remember being surprised that it was not straight. I had expected the swell in height at its’ center where in goes from 40m high to 60m high to allow sea traffic to pass under it, but I had not expected that it would curve as well. Great bridges spanning great bodies of water. The span is what caught my attention. I had been thinking about my grandfather, Otis Larkin. My mother’s father. I did not know him. That is not surprising; neither did my mother. Otis died when she was only a year old. They say that no man is an island. But to me he was exactly like an island. A mysterious island to which there was no bridge. He was an enigma.
Frustratingly my Mom could be of little help. I knew some things about him. I had seen photos. I knew what he looked like. That he was tall and handsome. That he had huge hands and size fourteen feet. I knew that he was a Chef at Yarmouth’s Grand Hotel. He was, like most men raised in the south shore Nova Scotia town of Shag Harbor; a fisherman by trade. And sadly like most fishermen of his day he could not swim. It was this fact that caused his death. He had been fishing for lobsters for a dinner he was catering for the Oddfellows Club. Now I say that he couldn’t swim, but in the North Atlantic in March I doubt this contributed a lot to his death. These facts were known to me. I never thought to ask my grandmother about him until too late. Luckily for me I had a bridge. A human bridge. But believe me no less amazing than the twp bridges I have already sighted.
My bridge or actually bridges were sisters. Two entirely remarkable ladies; my Great Aunt (in every sense of the word) Marguerite Larkin and her sister Clarisse Hill. Aunt Marguerite lived to be 98 and Clarisse if memory serves 96. Two very remarkable women indeed. After my Uncle Mitchell passed the two ladies lived together, on their own until Marguerite was 96. Ill health and a broken hip forced them to move into a senior’s home. But don’t think for a minute that the years dimmed their senses. Not a bit of it, I would marvel at how the two ladies would argue over the minutest details. They would be discussing how some relative had visited just two weeks ago; “Why they stopped for lunch.” Clarisse would say. “We had a chowder (pronounces in the south shore accent “Chowda”) with some rolls.” Marguerite would add. “Now you see they-ah she’s losin’ it I tell you! Clarisse they weren’t rolls they were biscuits. She’s losin’ her mind I tell ya!”
I assure you neither of them had lost as much as one iota of their minds. They could talk in detail for hours of events that had happened years before. I loved to visit them and never missed a chance. Clarisse had been a school teacher and was very learned and well read. Both women were very articulate. I adored their accents as much as I adored them. I remember once arriving at their home to find out they were at a quilting bee at the local church. We tracked them down there. They were in the hall. “We have some foreigners here today.” They informed us. “All the way from Cawk’s Hawba” To the unmitigated that is Clark’s Harbor. Maybe five miles down the road. You could forgive them for thinking this was a long ways away, they could remember a day when no one had a car and the road was nothing more than wheel ruts in the rocky ground.
Aunt Marguerite once told me of the day my Grandfather died. It was not great day weather wise. Typical March weather in Nova Scotia, windy, choppy a cloudy sky with little sun. Nothing new to men who had taken a living for their families from the sea for generations. Staying home was out of the question. Otis had gone out alone as soon as it was light. Marguerite was making lunch when someone came up from the dock with the news. News that Shelburne County women had heard for two hundred years. An empty boat found adrift on a stormy sea. The community gathered round my grandmother and the family. Five long days would pass. No one would dare mention what they all knew. He wasn’t coming home alive. But at least they found him. Widows were common in those days. The sea gave but she also took.
Years would pass before I thought to ask for more detail. Marguerite too passed away. I wrote Clarisse and asked her a question that had haunted me. I know who he was, I know how he died. But what was he like? What made him tick? Was he serious, did he stutter? Tell me something, anything about him. Clarisse wrote back. In her typical school teacher perfect grammar she told me a little about my grandfather. No he was not serious. In fact he had a great sense of humor. He was hard working, and that is what drove him out in a dory on March seas. He was a big man but a very gentle man. He stood Six foot four which was tall in those days. He had hands the size of bread plates. He was a dreamer and he wanted better for his family. Better than the life of a small town fisherman. He had done well as the chef at the very Grand Hotel in Yarmouth. In fact he had won a coveted spot as the chef on a cruise ship in New England for that summer. He was filling in the days until he could take his family away to what he thought would be a better life. It was not to be.
I guess if he had taken my Mom away she and my Dad would not have met and I wouldn’t be writing this now. So many “what ifs”. I thanked her for the letter. She wished it was more. She had been quite young when it all happened. I looked at his picture as I read the letter and I thought I could read more in that face now. Perhaps a twinkle in the eye I had never noticed before. Maybe a laugh line I had overlooked. There was always a reserve in posed photos in those days. Long exposures meant that you had to hold the pose somewhat stiffly. You had to say more with your eyes. If he’d have known he was going to die maybe he would have written a letter to future generations. That is a bit presumptuous of course. Clarisse is gone now too. I miss them both. But before she left she gave me back a grandfather I never had. She bridged the gap between us. It is marvelous that we may meet people who lived long enough to bridge the gaps in our lives. I am old enough to have known veterans of the First World War and they were old enough to have known people who were alive for confederation. It was in just such a way that aboriginal cultures kept track of their history with remarkable accuracy. Stories passed from generation to generation. Who in your life spans the generations? It may be time to ask them some questions. Maybe to listen a little harder to those stories they tell. I am thankful that Clarisse and Aunt Margeurite were there to bridge the gap between m grandfather and me. I got a piece of him back. When I look at his picture I have a few less questions. No man should be an island.

My GPS told me where to go

2010-08-18T02:50:00.000-07:00

My company has a very long tradition of annual meetings. You can have long traditions when you are three hundred and forty or so. Is it even worth counting anymore? Talk about outliving all you friends whew! I bet the Northwest Company has been to a lot of funerals. I wonder; is there really anything after “Old as the Hills”? We recently took back the original name of the meetings. “The Wintering Partners Conference.” The men and women who run our stores; scattered across four thousand kilometers of the Canadian north are a remarkable bunch. The conference is a logistical nightmare with Managers coming in from eight provinces and three territories on dozens of different airlines. Some take as long as three days to reach Gibraltar House our Winnipeg Headquarters. There are Managers of all ages and levels of experience. Many are old friends who see each other but once a year. It is a week of intense meetings, classes and a trade show. But these Norwesters as diverse as they are have one thing in common. They are coming to the big city from tiny, isolated, far flung communities with little or no amenities.
For most of the last decade I have shared a room with an old friend. We are noted for coloring outside the lines. We are also infamous for getting lost. We have; over the years become familiar with many different neighborhoods in Winnipeg. We have gotten lost there. Shane; who is a bit of a techy and loves his electronic toys. Proudly revealed his latest acquisition. “It’s a GPS.” He said proudly as he whipped it with a flourish from his parka pocket (it can be mighty cold in Winnipeg in February). “Check this out! Color screen, accurate to one meter, it even talks!” He said proudly, tilting it back and forth so I could see the color screen. “Great, now when we get lost we will know exactly where we are lost.” I said sarcastically. “Mock if you must, but this is a marvel of modern technology; listen!” He pressed a button and a woman with a pleasant sounding accent gave his street position. “Pretty Cool!” I had to admit. “Nah!” Shane replied “She isn’t cool, she is HOT!” He was holding the palm sized device over his head like it was the Stanley Cup or something. Shane had rented a car as he often did.
Now, a word about that. Being relatively new to the city we had experienced some “difficulties” in the past. Once, while walking we had gone to the theater to see a movie. In fairness to ourselves we were dog tired and had both dozed off during the movie, we were that tired. We had memorized the route to the theater while on the way. Unfortunately the theater is designed so that you enter on one street and then when the movie ends you are ushered out the side of the building on a different street. It was dark and we got turned around and ended up walking five kilometers out of our way, when we were exhausted. Usually Shane gets a car and a map. As he is driving he is forced to leave the navigating to me. Now I am no dummy, but I am blind. Well, legally blind anyways. Reading a map with a magnifying glass is somewhat more difficult than you might think. Try it sometime. We once found ourselves smack in the middle of Assiniboine Park. On another occasion we found a great shopping spot. It was; however five miles and ninety degrees out from where we set out for. We were definitely not living up to the tradition of our Coureur des bois predecessors. They could travels thousands of miles with little more than the stars and a pocket compass to guide them. We couldn’t get to the mall.
Those days were over now thanks to Shane’s latest gadget. We walked to the car rental lot and picked out the car. Shane proudly mounted the new device on the windshield. As we left the lot he programmed our first destination, the hotel only a few blocks away. In a sweet British accent the lady purred. “Turn left in two hundred meters.” Proceed along Notre Dame for 400 meters.” Shane was in his glory. “Now watch this!” he said with glee as he drove past the hotel. The GPS did not miss a beat. “Recalculating.” She replied. “Turn left in 75 meters.” Shane slapped the dash. “See, she is as quick as she is sexy.” We put the car in the lot and went inside. Our days of wandering the side roads of Winnipeg were over.
The next day we would put her through her paces. We had a number of errands to do. This is inevitable when you live in the middle of nowhere and you suddenly find yourself in the middle of somewhere, the middle of anywhere actually. There was banking to be done shopping, of course and the usual myriad of other things. We set off my high hopes and our invisible companion taking direction from over head satellites to guide our course. In our own way we were using the stars to navigate just like our Metis brothers two hundred years ago. Only in reverse, sort of as we would fill our twenty first century canoe with trade goods.
Now we had not been silent about our exploits. We had taken a lot of ribbing over the years on account of our wayward activities. We sat at the breakfast table Shane had his head in his hands. The Boss and a Vice President approached. The V.P. leaned on the table with both hands. He leaned in, anxious to hear of our latest exploits. “So how did yesterday go? Did you manage to stay out of trouble? Didn’t end up in Brandon?” Shane was rocking his head from side to side not his usual ebullient self. “Not hung over are you Shane?” The Veep inquired. I looked at Shane and realized he was too disconsolate to reply. “The people of Winnipeg tried to kill us yesterday!” I replied vehemently. The group recoiled slightly. “What on earth…?” The V.P. interjected. “I can explain.” I replied and I began the sorry tale of our fall from grace. We had of course fallen victim of our own Hubris. Pride goeth before the fall. Apparently it goeth after the shooting off of the big mouth too.
It had started out well. We were in high spirits. We had a new car, clean and shiny among the slush stained sedans that were stalled in traffic at Portage and Main. Shane took the GPS from his coat pocket. The prairie winter sun had set and the screen cast a glow on Shane’s face as he turned it on. “See this menu? I just choose shopping then select a store and presto, it tells us how to get there!” Shane was fairly beaming. “We are the gods of navigation!” he said cockily. He was reveling in his new found ability. “Marvelous, it is truly amazing what the mind of man hath wrought.” I added. “But shouldn’t we grab a bite first?” Shane raised a finger like Sherlock Holmes. “Just so, my good man!” His thumbs were flying on the touchpad. “Let’s see, restaurants. What do you feel like having?” He asked. “Nothing to frilly froo froo, just some good honest burgers.” I replied. We had not been in civilization for months so everything was new to us. “How about the fare at Ron McDonald’s? Let’s see if our British honey can use her nose to sniff out some Big Macs.” The screens scrolled and Shane worked out in his head which restaurants were closest. He programmed one in and the voice purred to life. We crossed the Red River on the bridge indicated and sure enough we could see the golden arches, tight where our English honey had said. We ate a most satisfactory repast and strutted to the car. We were the masters of all we surveyed, truly masters of the universe.
“Such is the folly of the overconfident.” I warned the assembled crowd. All were hanging on my every word. Shane still had hold of his head. “We next programmed our first shopping destination. We proceeded along one of the main thoroughfares. We were supremely confident. We had the magical box that would talk to the stars in silent binary code and would talk to us in the tones of some beautiful exotic creature. It was then the people of Winnipeg sprung their dastardly trap!” I struck the table with my fist for emphasis. My coffee cup sloshed and my spooned clattered on the arbourite. “Surely not!” The V.P. said adamantly. “Do not underestimate the people of this good city. They were but fulfilling their role in the revenge of the Gods for our Hubris and of course; play their role in the origin of the species. The survival of the fittest. For we should have foreseen the flaw in our armor. We had both read the manual for the cursed device. It was right there in black and white. As we drove the voice, calm, educated and seductive turn right in one hundred meters. Indeed a road appeared in the headlights although it seemed closer than one hundred meters we saw no problem and made a turn. We went along a couple of hundred meters and approached an intersection. Now right away something seemed strange.” Shane was rocking gently back and forth his head was practically in his lap. “The traffic was stopped in the other direction.” I continued. “On Both sides of us at the cross street. I could clearly see the red glare of the traffic light as it reflected on the pavement wet with melted snow.”
Our little group had swollen as other drew around. I looked around as I continued the sorry narrative. “Now we looked and looked hard but there was no traffic light at all for us! We slowed but as traffic was stopped going the other way we proceeded cautiously through the intersection. Horns sounded in both directions. Loud; baring nasty horns. Horns of admonishment. Self righteous horns, if I do say so. We threw up our arms in a simultaneous shrug. We looked at each other as if to say what now? Perhaps the light was not working. Perhaps workmen had taken it down. Damn Winnipegonians, or is it Wonnipegers? Barely a block later was yet another intersection. Incredulously the same phenomenon confronted us. How could it be? Are the city workers of Winnipeg so slow that they can’t fix something as important as a traffic signal? Once again the traffic was stopped the other direction. And once again the blaring of horns greeted us as we proceeded through the intersection. Shane yelled back in frustration that we were trying to obey the traffic signals. If they would just put them up. In a blinding flash it hit me. The realization swept over me why there was no traffic signal in our direction. The people of Winnipeg, in their infinite wisdom and in accordance with the rules of the gods who judge those who walk the earth with excess pride. I yelled to Shane ““Turn right, turn now! Turn into that parking lot!””
The people of Winnipeg in keeping with the rules of survival of the fittest do not put traffic signals up at intersections for those who are driving the WRONG WAY DOWN A ONE WAY STREET! “Shane flung the wheel right and we slid into the empty parking lot. Shane pumped his fist at the GPS “”YOU BRITISH BITCH!”” he cried. “The next day the voice that came out of the device was a man’s. It was a nasty nasally mid-western whine. After all those stupid enough to break the rules take their chances. For in the owner’s manual it did say in black and white “Drivers must obey the laws of traffic at all times.” So why admit to our error so publically? Well like I said pride goeth before the fall. Our pride was definitely gone.

Sun on my heels

2010-08-15T20:25:00.001-07:00

I hit Edmonton International Airport at supper time on a Saturday evening. My bag was slow coming; as usual. I got a return ticket for the shuttle downtown. It is a lot cheaper than a cab as the EIA is nearly in Calgary it is so far out of town. I loved the old Muni the municipal airport. It used to be that flights from the north always landed there. It was right downtown. This was; oddly enough where my hotel was. I could see the old airport, now called City Center Airport from my hotel. They are going to close the old place, unless irate petitioners can stop them. I came here four years ago on a medi-vac flight. How long will it take ambulances to get here from the International?
I took the shuttle as I was not in a hurry. My timing was good; one was boarding as I bought my ticket. That would shorten things a lot. I put my bag in the rack and took a seat. It was filling up fast. The baggage rack was packed and the poor driver had to keep moving bags to make room. Eventually he got the bags settled and started to collect the tickets. There was a problem. One guy could not locate his ticket. He turned to the driver “You saw me buy it! You know I paid.” The driver picked up a radio mike and spoke into it. “You saw me!” The guy continued. “Man I am already having a bad day! I had a hassle with the airline too!” His face was flushing and he was pacing the aisle. The driver was polite, but firm. “We need your ticket sir, where did you pit it?” The guy went through his pockets and wallet. Nothing. He started his chant again. “You saw me pay!” People were looking at their shoes trying desperately not to make eye contact. I looked out the window. The lady who had sold me my ticket arrived. “There, she sold me the ticket, tell him!” The guy was practically begging. “Sir the driver needs the ticket to get paid if you can’t find it you will have to pay for another.” She too was polite but unflinching. The guy was losing it. He started t swear then looked around at the children present and apologized. “You know I paid! What if I was a little old lady? Would you still charge me double?” The lady was not budging. “Look in your bags sir if you can’t locate your ticket you will have to pay for the ticket when you reach your destination.” The guy was not a little old lady. He was a big guy. But he didn’t seem violent just agitated. “This sucks! I am having a terrible day!” He started to rifle through his bags. Within minutes he found the ticket and handed it to the driver.
Then he turned and scanned the bus. There were only two open spots left. One was beside me. Now I remember when I was single I used to kill time while flying by looking around the departure lounge. I would wonder who had the seat beside me. I would find the prettiest girl in the room and secretly wish that she had the lucky ticket. Lucky for me that is! Sadly in all my years of traveling it never happened. On the flip side of this I would pick the person I least wanted to sit beside me. “Not the big guy who is already snoring.” I would think to myself; not him! Inevitably I would be sitting comfortably. The flight attendants would be closing the overhead bins. I would glance at the empty seat beside me and think “Well I didn’t get the cute blonde but I didn’t get snoring guy either. Then it would happen. Snoring guy would come hustling down the ramp and stand in the aisle beside me “I think that’s my seat!” I never won these things. Right now I was repeating a silent mantra “Psycho-guy don’t sit here! Psycho-guy don’t sit here!” Too late. He flops down beside me. Our eyes meet. I was truly doomed. We had made eye contact. I had opened the door of communication. He had complete license to give me his life story. He wasted no time.”I am not normally like this you know! I am normally a nice guy! They pushed me to it! These big companies; they always stick to the rules. What about the customer? Where is the customer in all this. Do they ever think of the customer?”
He looked around desperately but he could not catch another eye. People stared at their shoes, busied themselves with their children; pretended to read, fussed with cell phones. “I am a nervous flyer.” He said staring full at me, the only one trapped in his minute but intense sphere of influence. “I had a long day, a four and a half hour flight.” I did not mention that I had been on three planes and would be travelling more than twice that time. “A long day, it could happen to anyone. We’ve all been there!” I blurted. I too scanned the crowd for a sign of support. No one would meet my gaze ether. OH MY GOD! I was becoming guilty by association! I could see the scene clearly in my mind. The shuttle bus pulled over on the Whitemud highway, an Edmonton Police paddy wagon parked behind it, lights flashing, rear doors open. The entire passenger population pointing at me as they lead psycho-guy off in irons. “They’re in this together!” I snapped back to reality “Huh?” I heard myself say. “Well what would you do?” psycho-guy repeated less than an inch from my face. “Ummm; er, ahhhh…” I heard myself stammer. “I’ll tell you what I’m going to do! I’m going to write a letter. I’m going to write to the president of the airline and the shuttle company. They may be able to push old ladies around but they can’t push me.” I wanted to remind him that the old lady was a figment of his imagination. I imagined that by the time he finished writing the letter he would have named her and given her a complete back-story.
“I am doing this for all the little people!” He was reaching full stride now. In his mind he was leading a populist uprising against the oppression of the bureaucratic oligarchy. He raised his fist in some sort of Black power salute. No one moved. They continued feigned indifference. He pumped his fist. “I am striking a blow for the little guy.” I looked at him again. He was six foot four and three hundred pounds. “Little guy?” I almost said it. Quickly I looked at the floor of the bus. The driver called out the name of a hotel from the front of the bus. Psycho-guy stopped in mid rant. “Oh, that’s me.” He said to me meekly, almost apologetically. “Here’s good, you don’t need to go up to the front doors. He got off pulling his bags behind him.
I cursed myself as a coward. I should have spoken to him. I should have challenged him. Instead I was just glad he was gone. I should have told him my trick for turning around a bad day. I think back to when I was a child. When I was a child I hated stormy rainy days. I always imagined that bad things happened on such days. I guess it comes from the scary movies I would sneak down stairs to watch when my parents were out. They always take place on stormy nights. I imagined all terrible things happened on such days. When I was about thirteen and was working on the farm of my Mother’s cousin I was loading a trailer with 100 pound bags of limestone from a room in an old barn. There were stacks of it; over eight feet high and row after row. I moved one bag and everything started to move. I was alone in the room and being thirteen and bullet-proof I threw my puny 160 pound frame against the tons on shifting limestone. I thought I would be like Big John in the song and hold back the deluge like a mighty oak. I didn’t. Bag after bag crashed into me onto me and around me. My hard hat was torn from my head, my watch from my wrist. I fell forward and the bags fell on top of me layer after layer. They barked off skin from my face and arms. They tore off my right sneaker and sock. They pinned my arms and crushed my chest. I couldn’t even raise my chest to breathe. In fact I couldn’t move a muscle. It happened so fast I didn’t have time to be afraid but I would have. The bags broke open and fine limestone dust settled cool on my sweaty face. It ran over me like water. Just like water it filled my nose and throat. My mouth was trapped, squeezed open by the weight on my head and I felt the dust settling in my throat and lungs. I remember having only one thought. I was going to die! No doubt about it. So young and so far from my family. My one thought was what is this going to do to my Mother? Nothing else just a flash in perhaps a second all this flashed in my mind. I was dead and what about Mom? I was only a kid but I understood just what it means to die. So many others had died in just such a way as this. So this was death. And then nothing. I blacked out I guess. In my little cocoon world I could see nothing, my eyes were full of lime. I could hear nothing for the same reason. The world faded quickly to black.
While all this was happening to me, my world had shrunk. All my attention had been focused on an event so horrific that it threatened my very being. But fortunately for me other things were at work. When the limestone had hit the ground it had shook the ground so much that dishes rattled in the two adjacent farm houses. My Mother’s cousin was doing laundry when she heard the dishes rattle. They must be blasting she thought. Her Daughter was closer. She knew right away something was wrong. At the same moment as I had been buried a huge cloud of choking dust had come through the barn door. She felt the thud ad knew instinctively I was in trouble. She got her Father and he, in spite of three crushed disks in his back; began throwing 100 pound bags of limestone like they were pillows.
The first that I knew of all this was when I felt sunlight on my right heel; left bare when my shoe and sock were torn off. I don’t have a clue how long I was unconscious or what caused me to regain consciousness. Was it the movement of the bags on my back performing some sort of artificial respiration? All I know is that the feel of sun on my ankle told me that I was going to live. It took further minutes to free me. When I was free those gathered and there were a number of people there helped me to my feet. Mom’s cousin; her husband and son were there. So too were her daughter and daughter-in-law. I was filthy and bloody with one shoe off, no watch (which was still ticking when found, a Timex of course). They asked me if I was alright and I remember saying “Yes.” Then I remember taking one step and crumpling like a rag doll against the barn wall. They carried me inside and put me on a daybed in the sun-porch. I threw up big clumps of limestone and it ran from my nose for days.
The thing that puzzled me is that it was beautiful that day. That is how I felt the sun on my ankle. A bad thing, the worst thing that had happened to me to that time, and I guess it has o be tied for the worst thing until now, because I am not dead yet, had happened to me on a nice day! A nice day like today. Today when psycho-guy had a bad day. I should have told him that story. I should have told him that sometimes; when I am having a bad day, and it is nice like it was today; I take off my shoes and socks and walk in the grass or on the sand. I let the sun fall on my heel, because it hardly ever does. And when the sun hits my heel I am transported back to when a foolish child thought he was bullet-proof. Who thought that bad things only happen on bad days. I like to do this because it reminds me that no matter how bad my day is, it could be worse. And no matter how bad what I am going through is; it could be much worse. It centers me. It reminds me that I am alive! Now it is not a cure-all. You couldn’t do it at forty below or even when it rains. But maybe that guy wasn’t a psycho at all. Maybe he was just having a bad day on a beautiful day. A perfect day to take off your shoes and socks and let the sun shine on your heels and remember that you are alive.

Bushed

2010-08-13T20:35:00.000-07:00

“Look Buddy a trip to High Level is just what you need.” My boss Anthony said when I told him I was planning to take the weekend off. It had been a while since I had been to the outside world. When you live in an isolated town in the north, seeing the same faces; day in and day out, you need to get out once in a while. You go crazy. Bushed. That’s what we called it. Cabin fever they would have called it in the old days. The old days, wow. Think about it. In those days Hudson’s Bay clerks came mostly from the Hebrides in northern Scotland. There was a good reason for this I suspect. First of all we of Scottish extraction are noted for being thrifty. No, not thrifty, what’s the word, oh yeah, cheap. To the HBC cheap was good. “A penny saved is a profit turned.” Was the motto of the day. But perhaps more importantly and only perhaps they were used to isolation. The Hebrides are not exactly cosmopolitan. Life there would differ from life in the far north by degree (and degrees, Brrrr) but not in kind.
I imagine those young men were made of tougher stuff. I imagine them toughing out their three year postings. Three years! Well it could take a month just to get to these towns in those days. Hell there were many older store managers and district managers with accents of the homeland who could tell you tales of getting to their first posting by dog team and canoe or by boat. Believe me in those days the rich tones of mother Scotland were well represented in the company. In fact there was at some point in our evolution a sea change. It occurred when the telephones stopped being answered with a hail “Och Aye Laddie, what can I do fer ye!” to “How’s she going skipper!” That’s right our HR department, ever resourceful, ever vigilant went from snatching young men from the distant Hebrides to impressing young men and women from Canada’s answer to the Hebrides, Newfoundland. There are still a few old timers around mix in the new newfies and you’ll need a universal translator to have a conversation.
Nonetheless I had to admit I was definitely bushed. But the answer to my prayers was at hand. Anthony had with a few quick words granted me my escape. The winter was winding down but the winter road that connected Fox Lake to nearby Fort Vermillion was still open. More importantly Fort Vermillion was on a real road and therefore connected to, well, the world. High Level is a typical northern town. A “corridor” town we call them. It parallels the highway. It is a child of the highway and owes its’ entire existence to the highway. The streets go back in layers from the main road. They tend to be transient towns. With no great history people move to them to work and from them when the work ends or they have earned enough to move on with their lives back where they came from. They were fine, but different somehow. A little less permanent. A little less welcoming. People tend not to want to make friends as readily, they know what is coming and going.
But High Level had everything we didn’t; restaurants, stores, a liquor store and bars. I will repeat that lat one; BARS! To a young man who had just survived a winter looking at the same nine hundred faces it was Mecca, Nirvana and Valhalla all rolled into one. If you’ve ever been there you will know just how badly off I was. Bushed. Now I had been planning out my trip to the bright lights for weeks. I knew where I was going to stay, what and where I was going to eat. I had a shopping list of things I was going to buy. Baguettes, fine cheeses and fresh deli meats. A couple of steaks that had never seen a freezer. Lobster tails. Then there were the other things. The impulse items. I would browse those shelves the way a starving Moose browses a forest of new growth poplars. I would be a retailers dream! I would break all the rules. I was going to throw caution to the wind and shop hungry! That’s right I was going to do the thing that all merchants know you should never do, shop hungry. A hungry shopper is normally asking for trouble. He is vulnerable to any trap a sharp retailer may lay for him. Like a rat to a trap, a trap bated with a bit of cheese. Ahhhh, cheese waxed Gouda perhaps or a bit of creamy brie. Perhaps a sharp chunk of cheddar or a smelly block of blue stilton. I could here the trap closing already. Heck, I shook my head, I owed this to myself.
But perhaps the most important thing of the entire weekend was Sunday morning. Sunday morning I would enact a ritual I had dreamed about for months. I would slip down to the hotel restaurant. Not a fancy place, more of a family diner. But just the place you want for a breakfast. Not just any breakfast but your first real breakfast in months. A long, slow, lingering breakfast. A breakfast with all the courses; eggs, sunny side up, hashbrown potatoes, crispy and brown. Whole wheat toast with real butter. Hot coffee, a whole carafe. Cold juice, preferably apple. And bacon, crisp salty and delicious. Maybe ham too, why not! I would be driving all day the next time I would be eating would be supper. So bacon and ham! Two or three cups of coffee. One while breakfast was being prepared, one with breakfast and one afterwards as I enjoyed the best part of the breakfast. The desert to my great repast. A current newspaper! Not some glossy tabloid cut down rag with a page three girl and horoscopes on the front page, but a real authentic work of journalism. The National Post or maybe the Edmonton Journal. And current! Not some two day old hand me down folded funny and creased from being brought back by a friend from the civilized world where newspapers were like running water. You just opened your morning door and there they were fresh and crisp and unread. The news of the world with comics and opinion for less than a buck, heaven. It was the crowning event of my weekend. A cold beer at the bar was nice, but a crisp newspaper and an hour or more to linger over it, that was heaven. This time of year the restaurant would not be busy. A good tip and a friendly smile would assure that I would have an uninterrupted blissful repast. All of this was running through my mind as I listened to the expected words. My boss was giving me the one thing I needed, permission.
The words were still tricking into my brain, still playing over my consciousness like massaging fingers when he added “Hey, why don’t you take Ryan with you?” In my mind tires were screeching and my plans and dreams were slamming into the dashboard of my imagination. Ryan was the new guy. A rookie who had just arrived in town. He had walked into Anthony’s office just as we had started our discussion. Now don’t get me wrong, I like Ryan, he’s just not the guy I wanted to spend the weekend with. I had not noticed Ryan coming in the room. When Anthony suggested taking Ryan I started a long loud rebuttal “Noooooooooooooooooooooooo!” I said as my head swung in Ryan’s direction. Now; a word about Ryan. Ryan has big round cheeks, the kind that Grandmas just love to pinch. He has eyes that any puppy dog would kill for. They are pathetic and heart breaking. It is impossible to hate the guy but having him along seemed like taking your little brother on a prom date. Our eyes met. I am an old softy. “No problem is what I meant to say.” I said with zero conviction. “Whoo hoo!” Ryan yelled “Road trip!”
The rest of the week was torture. Ryan’s enthusiasm was like salt in an open wound. The night before we left I told him. “Pack a sleeping bag a warm coat and spare socks and winter boots. Ryan had his permanent smile plastered on his face he nodded enthusiastically, but then he nodded to everything. I told Ryan to be up early as we had to get on the road if we wanted to get everything done. The next morning he was at the door in sneakers and some stylish but flimsy coat. “Where’s the sleeping bag and winter coat?” I asked. “I phoned the hotel, they have sheets.” He replied obviously very proud of himself. “And the forecast is for fine weather.” I shook my head. “The clothes and the sleeping bag are in case of a breakdown.” His eyes narrowed. “Oh I see.” He patently didn’t. “I can pack some things.” At the speed Ryan moved spring would be here first. “Never mind, just get in the truck.” We made good time getting to the Fort. The roads were still frozen and the truck was running well. From there to High Level was clear pavement and smooth sailing. We were there by lunch.
Ryan insisted on buying lunch. But he wanted to pick the spot. At my usual haunt there was a steak with my name on it. The place he picked I had never been to before, I have never been there since either. The first five things I ordered elicited a litany of excuses from the waiter. “We aint got any.” Or “The deep fryers down.” I ordered soup and a sandwich. The soup was cold and canned. “This is a great start.” I thought to myself. Ryan got the first thing he ordered. It looked hot and surprisingly good. After the lunch ordeal we started shopping. Ryan wanted clothes and music. I told him where we’d meet and headed for the deli. “You are not messing with this part of my trip.” I said under my breath as he walked away. I grabbed two baguettes whose crusty flesh was just right. I found some Monterey Jack with real Jalapeños. A block of passable Edam and some Gruyere wedges in foil. I got the butcher to shave some smoked meat so thin you could see through it. I picked up some proscuto and black olives. None of this stuff was on the shelves where we came from. At the liquor store I got two bottles of red and some Chardonnay nice Chablis and a small bottle of port, the good stuff. For a small town the liquor store was well stocked.
When I got back to the truck Ron had an armload. New CDs and a bright neon green pirate shirt with billowy sleeves. A bright blue ball cap and a new hairdo. He looked like he was headed to a disco. Too bad he was 15 years and 1500 miles too late. Supper I said “Is on me!” I wasn’t feeling generous; I just wanted to choose the spot. My usual waitress was not there. When I inquired i was told she had moved on. “Oh well.” I thought so long as the service is fast and the steaks are good. The new waitress seemed distracted. I ordered without looking at the menu. The waitress spun on her heel and left. The place was surprisingly busy. Fifteen minutes passed, then twenty. “You don’t suppose she forgot our order?” I said to Ryan. He was listening to his walkman. “What?” He yelled. “YOU DON”T SUPPOSE SHE FORGOT OUR ORDER?” I repeated. “Nah, it’s just busy!” he replied. Well it was busy. By the time forty minutes had passed I was ready to eat the sole of my shoes. I hadn’t seen our waitress in twenty minutes. I flagged another. “We haven’t got our food.” I told her. “The little red head was waiting on us.” I said a little testily. “She was off twenty minutes ago, I’ll check with the cook.” She returned a few minutes later. “He’s got no order for this table you still want something?” I stood up. “Come on Ryan we’re leaving.”
Out side Ryan looked at me. “It’s getting late I wonder what’s still open.” I walked to the gas station across the street and asked the attendant. The first place he named was where we had eaten lunch. “The only other place stops serving at nine, you better hurry.” Our luck held; they were turning off the sign as we closed the truck doors. I looked at Ryan. He was beaming. “I am having the same thing I had for lunch, it was delicious.” Appalled beyond words we returned to the restaurant where the same waiter gave me the same excuses. I decided to have what Ryan had eaten for lunch, it was appalling. No doubt about it we were different people “Delicious!” He said with gusto as he dropped his fork on his plate. “Dessert?” Our waiter inquired. I picked up the menu. “Before you do that we have only got pie.” He was looking right at me. “What kinds?” I asked meeting his stare. “Apple.” Short and sweet. “Can I get a cup of coffee too?” Asked Ryan. The waiter smiled. He obviously liked Ryan. “Sure, you?” he said scowling at me. “Just milk.” I replied. I didn’t want to stay awake for one more hour than I had to. After Pie I drove to the hotel. I took my bag and went to the desk. Ryan was beaming. I was wilting. “You going to the bar?” he asked more a statement than a question.” I think I’ll pass.” I said. I bought a pocket novel and a can of coke at the gift shop and made my way to my small but clean room. Tomorrow was, as they say, another day and morning still had the promise of a gorgeous leisurely breakfast with my treasured paper. I hoped that Ryan would close the bar and sleep in. I just wanted to be alone.
At seven the next morning Ryan was at my door, in the neon green pirate shirt and bright blue ball cap. It was a bit like waking up with a policeman’s flashlight in your eyes. “How was the bar?” I asked. “Really cool, I stayed until three.” Ryan was almost bouncing. His enthusiasm seemed to evaporate my own. “I have to get a paper first.” I said as we headed to the lobby. The white wire rack beside the front desk was empty, every shelf. “Where’s the paper?” I asked the clerk. “Sorry the bus brings the dailies from Edmonton, it hit the ditch near Peace River.” I stared blankly in disbelief. “You must” I said in dead monotone “be kidding.” He seemed not to appreciate the gravity of the situation. “They’ll be here this afternoon.” He added cheerily. I didn’t share his cheer. “They will be here this afternoon, but I will not.” He was doing his best. “We have the weeklies. Weekly World News, National Enquirer, enquiring minds want to know!” I resisted the urge to choke him. “Hey look!” Ryan said grabbing the Weekly World News “Elvis had an illegitimate son with an alien! Looks like him too!” He paid for the paper as I found my seat.
At least the food was good. I skipped the ham but enjoyed the rest. As we ate Ryan regaled me with stories from the paper. Nostradamus had apparently predicted the downfall of Peewee Herman. The big three auto makers were squashing the patent of a car that got a thousand miles to the gallon and Michael Jackson was being haunted by the ghost of Charlie Chaplin. “Good for Chaplin." I said.
As we got up to leave a trucker walking ahead of us put a crumpled newspaper on the top of the garbage can beside his tray. “You done with that?” I asked. “Help yourself.” He said. I looked at the date. Yesterdays. Oh well, I put it under my arm and found my keys. The roads were slushy on the way back to the Fort. Spring was coming to the boreal forest. Already small birds that had been absent for months were returning to the willow groves. Open water was trickling on top of the frozen streams. The sun was starting to have warmth again. When you passed a window it warmed your skin. In Fort Vermillion we stopped at the convenience store for something to drink. We were almost home only a couple of hours of winter road left to go.
Now a winter road is not really a road at all. In summer you would not even be able to walk it. In reality it is just a clearing in the trees. Wherever possible it takes advantage of lakes and stream. They don’t require any brush cutting. Swamps work well too. Early in the winter the contractor starts packing the snow and flooding the river crossings to build up the ice. New ice is stronger and more elastic than old ice. Three inches of fall ice will give and stretch and take the weight of a small vehicle. In the spring six inches of porous, ice full of honeycomb pockets created by melt water will snap and give way with no warning. I never drive on one without taking some basic precautions. “I wish you had brought those spare clothes,” I said to Ryan. “I thought you were kidding. You know; just being dramatic to scare the new guy.” “If I wanted to scare you I’d hold up a mirror.” I said smiling. “Har, Har” he replied. It really was impossible to not like him. I turned towards the Red Earth road and started towards the winter road.
Now there are two winter roads into Fox Lake. One goes from Ft. Vermillion, the other goes from John D’or Prairie a small native community. The road to the Fort was paved back then but the pavement ended a few klicks out of town. It was a longer drive than the way we were going but most of it was on good road and there was only one river crossing; the Peace River. The way we were going was shorter over all but most of it was winter road. There were two rivers to cross; first the Wabasca and second the Little Red. It was hilly and it was wild; but it was beautiful and somehow it always soothed me to go this way. I turned on to the winter road and headed for home.
We were approaching the first river crossing. The sun was beating down on the road turning it to a skating rink. As we started down the river valley I knew we were in trouble. I had no steering whatsoever and absolutely no brakes. At the bottom of hill was a ninety degree turn. I turned the wheel but the truck went straight anyways. In a cloud of snow and a swooshing sound we came to a halt twenty feet off the road in a clump of willows. It had been like slow motion and was so soft a landing there was no question of either of us being injured. I put the truck in reverse but there was no movement. Thinking all we had to do was push; we got out and tried. It was no use. The truck was high centered on the willows and the wheels were not touching the ground. “What do we do? Ryan asked. “We wait.” I said. “Someone will come along.” “It’s not cold why not walk back to town?” He was standing there in sneakers a thin fall jacket and that damn pirate shirt. “It will get cold, long before we reach town. You didn’t bring boots remember?” I was smiling a few minutes ago. Then I was relaxed. Now I was stranded one hundred miles from anywhere with a rookie in a neon shirt. I had to keep two of us alive. “Never leave the vehicle.” I said. “No one is going to touch it.” Ryan protested. “You aren’t in the city now. People don’t steal out here. Don’t leave the vehicle, it makes us easier to find. If no one comes along Anthony will send help in a few hours. The vehicle is dry and we have a full tank of gas that can keep us warm for days.” Ryan looked stunned. “Days! We could be here for days?” He had a touch of panic in his voice. “Don’t worry.” I said. “I have an axe and a shovel matches and a pot and we have food. I’ll make tea and we’ll have a bite to eat, you’ll feel better.”
I packed down the snow in a circle near a fallen tree. I built a fire and got out my survival gear. I had a billy can under the seat. Made from an old juice can it had a clothes hanger handle. In it were some sugar and some tea bags, a lighter and a couple of candles. An emergency blanket and some plastic. It helps to be a former Boy Scout. Ryan sat on the log and watched. “My feet are cold” he said. “They’re wet.” I said. “Put these on.” I gave him my boots. “I can’t take these your feet will get cold.” Ryan said; it was almost a question. “You take them, my feet are dry.” The fire crackled and the water soon boiled. I cut some forked sticks and we toasted some baguette. I ate mine with some of the Jalapeño cheese. The sun set. We sipped sweet hot tea made from ice water. “It gives more water than melting snow.” I told Ryan. “What if nobody comes for us?” He said disconsolately. “C’mon it’s only been a couple of hours. This aint the autobahn y’know.” He laughed but it was a nervous laugh. In spite of the fire he was shivering. I gave him the sleeping bag to put around his shoulders. “I am being a pain.” He said. “Nah, you’re way past that!” I joked. He laughed for real this time. “What makes you want to come here?” H e asked. “Well, look around.” I spread my arms. The night was still and the sky was full of stars. With only the light of our fire you could see millions of stars. “This is a gift. There aren’t too many places like this left.” I said. “If it doesn’t kill us first.” Ryan added. “You worry too much. If we die here it will be our fault.” “My fault, you mean.” He added. “Nope, we are fine. Lie down in the truck and get some sleep. I’ll wake you when someone comes along.”
Ryan lay across the back seat and pulled the sleeping bag up around his neck. I started the truck and ran the heater until the truck warmed up. I would run the truck ten minutes an hour to keep the battery up and the truck warm. Hours passed. Then in the wee hours of the morning a pair of headlights appeared on the other side of the river. The unmistakable sound of a semi gearing down could be heard. I woke Ryan. I stood by the side of the road. The trucker stopped. “You finish that paper yet?” He asked as he got down from the cab. I laughed just the sport section. The habs got a new defenseman.” He looked my truck over. “Out her in the weeds, eh? I’ll get you out of there directly.” He hooked chains to my towing lugs. In a few seconds my truck was in the middle of the road. “Thanks!” I said extending my hand. “Next time you’re in Fox Lake come look me up.” I watched the trailer’s lights disappear. The night was cold now and the road had lost some of it’s’ iciness. We made good time getting back to town.
We reached the trailer about four in the morning. Anthony opened his bedroom window. “You guys had a good time?” He called. “Yeah sure, we just spent 12 hours on the side of the road. You can call off the search,” I replied. “I wasn’t expecting you two until morning. I figured you were drunk.” He said laughing. I shook my head. “Well you got your cure for being bushed?” He asked. “Sure did, I may never leave here again!”
Bushed. What is it? Why do some people get through it and others don’t? I got through it with the help of lot of more veteran northerners. Many invitations to dinner. Many nights spent watching the one channel we got on TV with others. What was on TV was irrelevant. In this case the medium was not the message it was the catalyst. It brought us together and allowed us to interact as neighbors and friends apart from our daily rolls as teachers or nurses of store clerks. If I have any sanity left I owe it to those people. People who I may never have hung around with in a bigger place. Good people, remarkable people. I can’t name them all; I doubt I could even remember them all. So this is my way of saying thanks. I ; like the Beatles “Get by with a little help from my friends.”

The Conservationist

2010-08-08T15:51:00.000-07:00

I like to think of myself as an environmentally conscious person. Most likely I am as big a contributor to global warming as any human. But no worse, surely. I do not own a motor vehicle. I use reusable shopping bags. I recycle. We have a low flush toilet, a low flow shower head. We have a front load washer. We get water delivered by a truck so we know we have saved water as the truck doesn’t come as often. We now use less than half the water we used to just a year ago. We turn down the heat at night and when we are out of the house. We do it religiously. My carbon footprint is much smaller than my real footprint which is size 13. But as a species we are not keeping pace with other primates, not even close.
“Hey honey…” I said the other day as I leaned into the fridge, the fridge lighting my face as I stood in the kitchen. “We used to say that orangutans were lazy…” “I don’t recall…” She said closing the fridge door. “Saying anything of the sort!” “Not us personally, I mean us humans.” I said popping a couple of grapes in my mouth which I had snatched as the door was closing. “Why would we humans say such a thing?” she said taking a grape for herself from my hand. “Anthropomorphism.” I replied. “Anthropo-who?” Lina asked popping the grape in her mouth. “Anthropomorphism. It’s when we apply human characteristics to animals, other animals, I mean. Like Orangutans. We think they are lazy because they spend a lot of time doing nothing.” Lina cast me a glance that I could read a lot into. I ignored her unspoken jibe. “It seems…” I continued “that the orangutan has evolved over millions of years; to adapt perfectly to the environment it evolved in. It seems that the rainforest goes through seasonal changes when food is in scarce supply. It seems that the orang has evolved a state of torpor where they can go into a condition which is beyond relaxed. Where they can operate on less than twenty percent of their normal energy levels. You know when their normal diet is not available. It is the ultimate in energy conservation.” Lina was smiling now. “Imagine…” she said distractedly. She was moving away now.
I returned to the fridge as she left the kitchen. “We could take a lesson from the orangutan.” I said the light once again shining on my face. “No doubt you could learn lots from a monkey!” Lina added sarcastically. “They’re not a monkey, they’re an ape!” I added ignoring yet another barb. “I meant that we could reduce our energy footprint by reducing our need for energy. We got any pie?” I called a bit louder now as Lina was busy tidying the living room. “You know we don’t.” she replied. “Hmmm, maybe I’ll take a nap!” I replied. Darn smart critters those Orangutans, way ahead of their time.

A Thousand words

2010-08-03T23:05:00.000-07:00

A picture, they say, is worth a thousand words. What then are a thousand words worth? Are they devalued by a picture? What is the current exchange rate? Might I wait until a picture would only cost me 997 words? I am a northerner. I am a writer. A storyteller. A wordsmith if you will. I would love to paint a picture of the north for you in flowing colors; with perspective and line and form. But I cannot. I cannot draw. I cannot paint. I can barely make a straight line. Truth be told I can barely write. Were I born three hundred years ago I would not even be able to make my thoughts known as you would probably not be able to read the drunken scrawl that is my pitiful handwriting. But today I accept the challenge and I will attempt in one thousand words to tell you something of what it means to be a northerner. I will paint you a picture without paint. But most assuredly with perspective and line and form.
I once heard a Yukon artist say that when she painted the summer landscape it was almost monochromatic; being dominated by only two colors, blue and green. The blue of sky and water, the green of the hills and the water. She had to look for color. She found it in the foreground, not the far ground. It was there where she least expected it, at her feet. It was in the crevices of the rocks and in the thin and nearly non-existent soil. But it was there. In the form of tiny plants and passing butterflies. In the north life is said to cling. It does not cling. It bounds forth from every nook and cranny. It bounds and abounds, it is verdant, blatant, adamant, even rampant. It does not shirk or cling like some furtive thing. It does not skulk or cringe. It bursts forth. In every spring it surges forth with the first crack of the frozen river. The crack becomes a fissure and the fissure a lead. The pent up force of stream and river cracks and breaks with a force that awes the viewer and the listener alike. The blind would have no less a sense of awe when they witnessed the Mackenzie’s break up. To hear the huge sheets of ice, weighing more than a luxury liner; grating and crashing into each other and the shore. To hear them crushing trees and rolling boulders then size of Chryslers on the river bottom.
For here as anywhere water is the fountain of life; if not of youth. And once unlocked from winter’s grip water transforms the north. It beckons the migrations, the return of Swan and goose. It beckons them back to the land of their birth to once again complete the cycle and bring forth even more life. If you have ever seen the sky full of geese in wave after wave to the distant horizon you would never think that life in the north clings. Likewise the caribou. In herds that pour through the Yukon’s mountain passes like grains of sand through a child’s fingers. Caribou surging through the breaking Porcupine river; so full of the driving force of life that they plunge into the frigid waters amongst the sheets of broken ice, to complete the journey home. I have even seen groups of animals climbing onto an ice pan to use it as a lifer-raft to reach the other shore; in a race to reach the calving grounds before the birth of their young. Pursued to the tree-line by another animal; another factor in the equation of life for the caribou, the wolf. But the wolf itself must find a place to have its’ young.
All the while that the fauna struts and frets its’ brief hour upon the stage the flora is bursting forth. If that artist found summer a monochrome of green; she could find; in the arctic spring a polychrome in just that one color. For in early May the long days bring the sun that unlocks the soil and frees up the trees to paint the hills in vibrant and verdant profusion. In greens that are so bright in the new-found sun that they are almost yellow. Nearly neon in their brightness. When backlit by the morning light the hills themselves seem to glow. Likewise at dusk the hill; like the moon itself take on a light, though not their own. Soon, so soon that the snow has not even fled the field of battle, its’ head bowed by the soft but relentless rains, the crocus appears. I have seen it smother an alpine hill north even of the Arctic Circle. The vibrant hues of magenta as sweet as any orchid in any hot-house. No skulking here. The hills are fairly blushing crocuses apologetically almost for such an ostentatious show of life’s profusion.
As soon as the water pools in the awoken soil the insects return. The air will soon carry the buzz of the bee; feasting on a banquet of bouquets. The air too will be home to the drone of mosquitoes and black flies; not to mention the aptly named bulldog that will bite you through a pair of blue jeans. If you questioned the tenacity of life up here then stand at the edge of a swamp at twilight. You will have more life flying around your exposed skin than you thought possible.
Life does not cling up here. It defies the climate whose extremes would deny it. It flourishes with a flourish. It starts with a bang in the opening act as the house lights go up. And what lights they are; in full glory around the clock. As the lights fade and the stage goes dark the flora and fauna have already laid the seed; already raged against the dying of the light. This is my picture, my thousand words

A bush pilot’s Boxing Day

2010-07-22T12:41:00.000-07:00

There have been some great ones. Wop May, Max Ward, Martin Hartwell to name but a few. Bush pilots, real characters all of them. Flying little planes the way that men used to sail makeshift boats of leather and wood. They flew through the foulest weather to bring supplies to tiny remote northern communities. Carrying the sick and the injured to medical attention hundreds of miles away, while most of us were still abed. A rare breed; especially these days. Flying planes older than they are with not much more than luck and a pair of vise-grips to keep them running. They are our lifeline. I have spent many hours in cramped cockpits, buffeted by wind and thermal columns over scattered lakes in summer. I have flown in planes as small as a two seater Cessna 152. I have flown in most of the real classics of the north; Norsemen, Otters (twin and single), Beavers and many others. On floats and skis and wheels. I have ridden with sled dogs at my side and a case of eggs in my lap. I have seen them carry everything from caskets to baby carriages. And I have met some of the most unforgettable men and women who flew them.
I remember a Christmas over two decades ago. I was living in the tiny Hamlet of Ft Liard in the southern NWT. Although it was then on a brand new road, the airport was still a hub of activity. Through a mutual friend I had fallen in with the local pilot and his wife; Grant and Elaine. They were wonderful outgoing people whose home; an old single wide trailer which had seen better days, was a drop in center for everyone. Mounties and Priests and trappers mixed and mingled. As someone would leave another person would arrive. The coffee pot and tea kettle were never dry. Ashtrays overflowed and so did the conversation. The bush radio crackled as trappers hundreds of miles away called in to book charters or give Grant a shopping list. The trailer stood at the end of the town’s small runway. Outside planes sat on the gravel waiting for the next trip. It was bitter cold so canvas shrouds covered the engine. When the time came Grant would fire up a diesel heater called a Herman Nelson and warm the engine up. But only the engine would be warm. In these small planes; in winter the compartment seldom got warm. You can always tell the bush pilot. He or she has a fur hat of some sort usually huge and snug looking. Wearing winter coveralls with several layers underneath; and boots, good boots.
I had fallen into a routine of stopping by after dinner with my golden retriever in tow. He would sit at my feet if the place was crowded, but would sit on the old couch if there was room. There would be a hot drink, tea for me and some kind of treats too. Cookies or some homemade cake, yum! Seiko my dog always scored a treat too. I would catch up on local gossip and take away the lists that had come in to be filled at the store, if I could read Grant’s scrawl which was worse than my own. An hour often turned to two and usually I was a lot later leaving than I had planned. Christmas was approaching and it was brutally cold. “You hanging around for the holidays?” I asked as I put on my coat. “Not us,” Grant said genially “Vancouver is calling me!” “I wonder how it ever got through; your line is always busy. I’ll see you when you get back.” I said as I opened the door and stepped out into the inky blackness of an arctic winter night. My boots squealed as my feet hit the snow at forty five below. Seiko was heading straight for home a sure sign it was cold.
I spent a wonderful Christmas day with other southerners stranded in the north by the need to work. Christmas was our busiest time of year. I awoke to the sound of the phone on Boxing Day. I patted Seiko’s head as I picked it up. I figured it was friends or family calling to wish me a Merry Christmas. It was; sort of. Grant’s booming voice filled the earphone. “Merry Christmas!” he said cheerily. “This sure is a good line!” I said “You sound like your right here!” “I am right here. There was a change in plans, Elaine’s Mom got sick she had to go east.” Grant had been here for Christmas. “Well why didn’t you say? We had turkey and everything!” I said feeling bad that my friend had been alone for the holiday. “I had two charters. It was late when I was done. Besides I missed the store, what are the chances of getting some coffee and some grub?” he asked. “About one hundred percent! How about I join you and help you eat some of that grub and we’ll call it a late Christmas dinner?” I replied. “Sure, Turkey TV dinners are my specialty! Meet you there in fifteen minutes?” I waited for him at the front door. The company truck came down the road the headlights stabbing through the ground fog that seemed to always hover at these frigid temperatures. “Change in plans, buddy.” Grant said as he slid from the cab, the engine still running, no one ever locked a vehicle or shut one off in winter if he didn’t need to, not in those days. There was always a change in plans when Grant was around.
“I got a charter to Nabu. Some folks are going back and I’m picking up a couple of Elders who want to shop. Can you help them out?” “Sure!” I replied. The store was closed on Boxing Day but who could refuse an elder, especially one from Nahanni Butte which was tinier than us and had only a small store. “You ever been to Nabu? Wanna come along?” Grants asked. “No and yes!” I replied enthusiastically. I was always up for an adventure. Grant picked up his shopping and we returned together to the tiny trailer that served as his home and office. We dragged out the Herman Nelson and fired it up. Working without gloves at those temperatures we had to keep blowing on our fingers to get the grommets done up on the hood. We put on coffee and waited for our fares. We didn’t have long to wait. Arms loaded with packages a young couple arrived by toboggan pulled by a small snowmobile. As the snowmobile pulled away we filed toward the small plane.
I took the co-pilot’s seat. “Don’t take off until I get back!” Grant said slapping my knee as he pulled the chalks and did his walk around. He got back in and we began our taxi for takeoff. Grant spoke into the mike as we headed down the runway. He read my look and said to me “I gotta give my call sign and direction in case there is other traffic.” The small terminal building was dark and still, there was no radio operator working today. I nodded. We were soon airborne and flying out over the Liard River, just a smooth white strip below us. The couple in the back were chattering away, still full of the Christmas spirit. They seemed excited and I was glad to be doing someone a kindness on this cold winters day.
We had not travelled very far when I noticed that the plane was visibly slowing. The single engine was snarling even louder than normal. I cast Grant a sharp look. He was busy fiddling with some knobs and seemed distracted but not worried. If he was calm the couple in the back was not. They had taken a death grip on the headrests of each of our seats and were holding on for dear life. The easy banter had stopped and they were shouting over the snarling engine “What’s wrong, what’s wrong?” over and over and over. It was a bit unnerving. Grant raised his head and turned to them “The prop pitch is frozen! It is too thin we will move very slowly but we are fine!” This shut the couple up but did not do much for their mood. They held each other’s hands tightly.
I took my cue from Grant. He seemed calm. After all last week he had set a plane down on the highway when a newly installed engine had torn out of the mounts that someone had installed improperly. If he could land a plane safely with the engine sticking out at a ninety degree angle this should be a cake walk. The flight should have been less than an hour but with the frozen prop took more than two. When we arrived the couple got off the plane, kissed the frozen ground and dashed away like scalded cats. Grant sought out a local teacher who owned his own plane to borrow a Herman Nelson. I got directions from some heavily bundled kids with sleds as to where the elders lived who were supposed to be going back with us. As I approached the home the young couple was just leaving. “This could be interesting.” I thought to myself as I knocked on the door. A little old lady answered. I told her the plane would be ready to go in half an hour. She was adamant. She was not going anywhere in that plane, her sister either. I wished them a Merry Christmas and headed back to the runway.
“Ah, you are alone!” Grant said his steaming breath almost hiding him in the still air. “Brilliant deduction, what was your first clue?” I said cockily. “Well you’re a big guy but not even you could hide both Sisters. No luck, eh?” “None, you would have a better chance of getting them to fly by flapping their arms.” I said with a smile. “Sorry, pal you just lost a fare.” I added. “Well then, it’s turkey time!” He said beaming. Soon we were in the air, the engine sounded fine. It was easier to talk as he gave me a headset. “Variable pitch prop froze, that’s all, it usually breaks loose.” He said into the mike. “It sure is a beautiful day!” I said as I glanced around. The river lay below us, snowmobile trails snaking off in every direction. Smoke curled from tin chimneys sticking out of the picture postcard log cabins below, their roofs pillowed in deep snow. The sun was starting to set on this, one of the shortest days of the year. The winter solstice had just passed. We landed at the airport right on time. Seiko was asleep on Grant’s couch where I had left him. I lit a fire in the old wood stove while Grant put the dinners in. He made a pot of hot water for coffee and tea. As we ate he looked at me sideways. “Were you scared?” he said curiously but not accusingly. “Nah! I took my cue from you. You were calm so I figured it was O.K.” He brightened “You have that much faith in me?” he asked. “I’d put my life in your hands.” I said and I meant it. After all I just had.

No magic words

2010-07-22T12:20:00.000-07:00

To me words are everything. No writer no storyteller would tell you different. The right word, the right combination of words can mean everything. There are thousands of examples of this. Who cannot think of a great statesman and the quotes that are connected to him or her? Kennedy’s “Ask not what this country can do for you. As what you can do for your country” Churchill’s “I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears and sweat.” Regan’s “Mr. Gorbachev tear down this wall!” just words, right? Just words; in a way that Jesus, Moses and Mohammed were just ordinary guys. Words have a power to move us, to soothe us, to excite us, to change us forever. We may not be world leaders on the order of these but there are times when I wish I could have a speechwriter standing by to choose just the right words for me.
I have never really been scared to show my emotions. I am not a big believer in the old fashioned idea that a man should hide his emotions. Not that one should lose control in a crisis. I have been a store manager and I have been a firefighter and am now Fire Chief. I know better than to flinch when the going gets tough. That’s different. But there is a time to let people know how you feel. To let them know that you care and that they are not alone. Easier said than done sometimes, though.
I left home twenty five years ago and in that time I have never ended a conversation with my parents that I do not tell them that I love them. I never even gave it a second thought until one day a friend I will call Ryan who was in the room when I was talking on the phone to my Dad some years ago (sadly Dad has left us). “Good Bye Dad.”: I said cheerily “I love you, I’ll talk to you soon.” As I hung up Ryan looked at me “I have never told my Father that.” He said rather matter-of-factly. “What?” I replied “Good Bye?” “No fool, that I love him.” He replied wryly. I was floored. “Never?” I replied incredulously.“Ever?” “Nope, never ever!” he replied firmly. “What about your Mom?” “Not her neither.” He added. “But you do love them right?” “Well of course I do!” he added testily. “Then why not say it?” “Why, they know. They never said it either.” I was aghast.
Now my Mom is not the mushy type, not on the outside anyways, but she always tells me she loves me. I on the other hand am a big mush ball. My Dad was too. But none of us has had a problem with saying “I love you.” But the idea that Ryan had never told his folks he loved them gnawed at me. Some time ago I had sat down with my Father and told him I was proud of him. It is not something a son often does, I suppose. Especially at that time of their life. A time when the generation gap often distances men. There had never been a distance between us. We did lots of things together. “I wouldn’t know what to say.” Ryan told me when I again brought the subject up. “Just say I love you. What could be simpler?” I said. “I don’t know it just isn’t like us.” Was his reply.
Not long after this conversation occurred the small town we lived in suffered an unspeakable tragedy. In the entire long history of that community only five people had graduated high school and all of them had lived outside the community for many years prior to graduating. We were, in a few weeks time about to celebrate the graduation of a young woman who, although she was then attending school in a nearby town, still lived in our little town. We would have celebrated, but instead a mere two weeks before graduation got news of her tragic death in a car accident. Her father, a man only a few years older than I was, had the task of organizing and paying for a funeral when he should have been helping pick a prom dress. At the funeral, which was packed with townspeople and classmates, I wound up standing near the hearse when the body was brought out. The father turned to me and I extended my hand; our eyes locked and I fumbled for words but none came. A tear burned hot on my cheek and I felt that he was consoling me. Words had failed me and I felt awful. I had wanted to have the perfect words. Words that would sum up how I felt; how I shared his loss. How we all had lost a remarkable young lady with her life stretching out before her like the trans-Canada highway. I would later join the Community Education Council and would fight to bring grade twelve to our local community. Too late for her, though.
Wisdom comes with age, if you are lucky. If I have one pearl of wisdom to pass on to younger people; it is this’ life is short. Too short. Too short to carry anything as unbelievably heavy as a grudge. Tell those you love that you love them. Nobody, not even the children of the stars has ever written in their whiny autobiographies that their parents scarred them for life by telling them that they loved them. And hey, here’s an idea; when you are in the middle of an argument and I mean right; smack-dab in the middle. With someone who is close to you, and lets face it those are the people we really hold all that pent-up angst for. Let fly with it. Say it. Those three words that will drop like a bombshell. Say it plain and so matter-of-factly that they can’t think it is just a cheap way of winning an argument. “I love you.” I bet that argument will go by the wayside mighty quick. Sometimes in life it pays to call it a draw.
I lost my Dad a few years ago. It was a long way home, and the whole thing was a long sleepless blur. A blend of loss and grief and self pity. When the funeral was over, in the basement of the church where I had gone to Sunday school friends and neighbors poured out stories and love and grief and support. Not a writer or wordsmith among them. No statesmen, no speech writers. I never heard a word from any of them that did not make me feel better. No Hallmark sayings. Just good old fashioned words. Ordinary words from extraordinary friends. There would still be many dark days ahead. Grief is a process. But I was on my way. The blur was beginning to come into focus. I later heard a man being interviewed about a terrible plane crash where he lost his only brother. He spoke of how friends where scared to speak to him after his loss; scared they would not know what to say. The answer he said is simple; say something. “There are…” he said “no magic words…” Just words. Say what you feel. I am a firm believer that no one gets tired of hearing that you care.

Nostradamus should ‘a been a weatherman

2010-07-18T13:47:00.001-07:00

A cloud of dust from Windy Island billlows along the Mackenzie river in front of Tulita

The wind whipped across windy Island pulling up a plume of dust that carried down the MacKenzie river for half a mile. It looked like the dusty wake of some speeding boat. ”Looks like a change in the weather.” I said to Lina as she folded towels. She joined me at the window and glanced out at the huge cloud of dust swirling down the valley. “Wow it sure is windy.” She said as she closed the kitchen windows. I had learned, when I had arrived in Tulita that the elders could tell what the weather would do by watching what the wind did on Windy Island. I respect this. These people have depended on their ability to judge the weather for ten thousand years. On a river as big as the MacKenzie your life depends on it. I respect this and take counsel from their advice. I remember I once had an elder remark to me “Those guys on the radio, they always tell us what weather is coming. But we always get what comes.” He was right, of course. The amazing thing about most native elders is not the wisdom that they pass on, it is the understated and offhanded way they do it.
Now I am sure that there is a lot of science that goes into weather watching and prognostication. Satelite imaging, Dopler Radar, anomometers, barometers, thermometers and lots of other meters too. Kilometres of meters. But I also suspect that there is an equal measure of artistry that goes into predicting the weather. What I am saying is that someone, some subjective, suggestible, fallible human has to look at all the data and tell us gullible human beings what it all means. This is where the voodoo or flim flammery comes into it. I am by nature a bit of a skeptic. I resist believing in anything until I have given it a good mental hashing out. I am not alone. I have a cousin that I used to work with on his father’s farm. Now farmers are somewhat more tied to the weather than most. They work in it all day. “Make hay while the sun shines” is a lot more than some useless aphorism. To the farmer, especially in 1973 it was the law! No plastic marshmallows full of Haylage ( a corruption of the words hay and silage). Where the hay is baled green in giant bags. No big round bales that could be left in the fields either. We baled good honest square bales. We cut the hay in the sun and we raked, tedded and baled it in the sun. If rain, or worse, yech, fog should occur when the hay was down it would be ruined. Either the hay would bleach and lose all its’ goodness or it would mildew and rot and brun your barn down. Serious stuff that gave more than one farmer grey hair. So this weather stuff was serious business.
Now a farmer’s life is one of routines. You rose before the sun, you put feed out for the cows. You brought in and milked said bovines. You cleaned your milkers and your barn and you turned bossie out into good pasture. In the summer days you made hay. Lots of hay. Then each night you did the routine all over again. Then you went to bed and prayed for sun. But before you tucked in you consulted the oracle. The sage. Like pilgrims at Delphi we surrounded the black and white console Zenith and watched the weather from Halifax. His name was Rube Hornstein. He was tall and thin with a good honest face. A useful trait in a weatherman. No day was complete until Rube had spoken. While his Father gave Rube a lot of weight, my cousin did not. “The only way to tell the weather by the TV is to put it outside. If it’s wet then it’s raining.” He was the ultimate skeptic.
Now poor Rube was telling weather before the greatest innovation in weather forecasting. What would that be you ask? Doppler? Satelite imaging? The blue screen? No way. The greatest revolution in all of forecasting was stolen from Astrology, Palmistry, Phrenology and Nostradamus his ownself. It is simple chicanery. The greatest invention in modern weather forecasting is the percentage chance of precipitation. Huh? No,seriously. Think about it. How do astrologers keep you coming back? They speak in such generalities that anything is possible. “You will meet someone interesting today.” Well when don’t you? “Be cautious with financial decisions.” Well when would that not be a good idea? The same was true of old Nostradamus. I once watched a TV show about Nostradamus and some guy in the garb of an Eastern Mystic was trying to spin one of old Nossie’s quatrains into the story of the rise of Adolf Hitler. He said that the rules of the quatrain allowed you to transpose every so many letters and to take the letter before or the letter after in the akphabet and make the word work. What a load of fertilizer! With rules like that I could be the greatest prognosticator in history. Nostradamus was a sham.
So too are these modern hocus-pocus purveyors of the “percentage pretense”. Allow me to explain. The forecast will say there is a 20% cahnce of rain right? So if it doesn’t rain they can say, “We told you so.” Because they said that there was an 80% chance it wouldn’t. If it does rain they can still say “I told you so.” Because they said there was a 20% chance that it might rain. See, they can’t be wrong. Flim-flammery of the highest order. “What’s that honey? Yeah I’ll bring in the clothes.” Well dear reader it is starting to rain so I must go. “Those guys on the radio, they always tell us what weather is coming. But we always get what comes.” Truer words…

Shave and a haircut

2010-07-01T00:59:00.000-07:00

I love Barbershops, always have. I don’t know why. I never really gave it a lot of thought. But there must be a reason. I just seem to relax when I am in one. I walk through the door and I relax. If there is a line up, I relax even more. Where else on earth would you do that? Not at the bank, that’s for sure. Nor the post office or pharmacy either. In those places I just want to get out,as fast as I can. But at a barbershop I prefer a line. A line gives me leave to linger. To take a seat, to pick up a two year old Newsweek and to flip the pages and unwind. It’s a guy thing I think. I mean I never spent much time at the hairdressers to see if the women have the same kind of experience, maybe they do. I hope so. I love the barbershop.
The relationship that a man has with his barber is unlike his relationship with any other profession that we interact with. Take your Doctor for example. You never feel as relaxed with a Doctor as you do with your Barber. Doctors always seem to be judging you. Sizing you up. Have you put on weight? How’s your cholesterol? Have you been following your diet, taking your medication? Have you been sneaking a smoke? Judgmental, see? Like that. Same can be said for your mechanic. If something is wrong he looks at you like it was your fault. “If you wouldn’t ride the brakes the pads would last long!” Who needs it? Your tax guy is always going to point out something you could be doing to put more money away for a rainy day. Hell it’s pouring most of the time in my life.
But my Barber what is he going to do, get mad because my hair grew? No way. He is accepting. I wonder whether guys migrate to Barbering because they are of a certain, understanding disposition. Or is it the long hours on their feet with sharp objects poised above our throats that make them so. I have found most Barbers to be of such a temperament. Good listeners, good conversationalists. Perhaps the ones who are not just don’t survive. Maybe they fall by the wayside. Maybe the world of Barbering is a cut throat business. Uh, let me reword that. Perhaps the trade thins out the weak practitioners. In any case I have a lot of respect for Barbers. Good people.
Now this may date me or make me seem sexist but I must admit a preference toward a male member of the profession. I think it goes back to what I said about the whole thing being a guy thing. Typically, over the years I would arrive at the barber with a woman. When I was a kid it would be my Mom. Now it is with my wife. And when we would arrive and find a line up a smile involuntarily crosses my face. I proceed to a comfortable seat, close to the middle of the place, if possible. Close to the center of activity, the heart of the action, or inaction as the case may be. I wave of my female accompaniment “You go do your shopping check back in an hour.” I pick up a paper or an aging magazine. They are props. Merely there for looks. For once the women are gone, once the intrusion of our man cave is over the conversation resumes. Manly talk about manly things. Hockey, baseball, boxing, fishing, hunting anything manly really. We all revel in the time spent sharing guy stuff. It is a place we have to go to after all. If we go out to a bar or a buddy’s house we arouse suspicion and resentment the moment we walk through the door. We are on a timer and the women no matter how understanding are watching the clock the whole time. Be even five minutes later than the time that she expected you and you will never hear the end of it. Want to know what that time is? The arbitrary time that your significant other has determined and which she expects you to be exactly on time for? Well take the shortest amount of time you can imagine staying and divide that by a factor of four. That’s about it. But when you stroll into a Barbershop that is a beehive, on say a Saturday afternoon or a weekday evening and you can relish in a stolen hour. Stolen and totally guilt free. You have to be here, she doesn’t want you looking shabby does she?
There is a hedonistic aspect to it too. There are pleasant sights and smells in a Barbershop. There is the feeling of the chair. You sit in the barber’s chair and you recline. A fresh piece of tissue around your neck. The chair pumped up, you are elevated above the crowd of men waiting for the same pampering. You are special and you can show it, you are above all the other seated men in the room. Your Barber, your special servant is pampering you. He reclines the chair and runs a comb through your hair. No one else ever does this for you. Except when you were a kid and your mother would wet your fair before school. On Sundays she would put some of your father’s Brylcream in it, making you feel grown up. He asks you how you want it cut, but he already knows the answer. You have only to say about four words and the business part of this transaction is all but over. That is what makes this relationship so unique. When you see your Doctor you never know what He or She will say. What revelation they will make what horrible thing they will diagnose. With the aforementioned mechanic there is always the threat of a big expensive bill. But with you Barber, no surprises, you know where you stand and how much it will cost.
The whole process is tactile and satisfying. The pleasant buzz of the clippers, so more sedate than the whine of a dentist’s drill. The warm feel of the trimmer on your neck. The soothing balm of the hot lather and the tingling scrape of the straight razor. The pleasant smells of the tonics and the bright colors of the liquids in the various old fashioned bottles. The Barber’s world is one with much to stimulate all the sense. The conversation is good and is varied enough to allow most men something to say. Even if you are not a sports fan you have merely to listen to the sports the day before to have an opening gambit. “How about those Habs?” “When will So and So pack it in? He’s way past his prime.” In the Barbershop everyman is an expert and all have the right to an opinion. In many ways it is the most democratic institution ever.
I have been across this country from east to west and north to south. I have had haircuts in Yellowknife, Winnipeg, Vancouver, Edmonton Halifax and Whitehorse. In fancy boutiques and in Barber training schools. But there is one place to which I aways return. Always that is until Yesterday, Friday June 25th 2010, for that is when my favorite Barber and my friend George Wotten of Clarks Barbering and Hairstyling hung up the trimmer for good. George and I go way back. He has been cutting my hair since I was a kid. More than forty years. I must confess that it doesn’t take much time anymore; I don’t have a lot to cut anymore. In fact my friend Shane is always encouraging me to “Give it up!” and shave my head. The biggest reason I never did is that it is my only membership card into the joys of the haircut. The pleasures of the chair and the shop. A link to the bond George and I have shared these five decades. He has cut the hair of three generations of my family. Four generations of many other families. His little shop is a hole in the wall in a strip mall that has seen many changes over the years. Let’s start with the name. You may have remarked that George’s surname is Wotten while the shop he owns is called Clark’s. Forty four years ago George left his native P.E.I. and came to Dartmouth Nova Scotia, my home town, to work for his Uncle and learn the trade. The shop was on Portland Street in those days, closer to the downtown area. Times changed. Downtowns died and the suburbs prospered. George was young and forward looking. Malls were springing up and he saw the writing on the wall. He set up shop in the K-Mart mall in Westphal at precisely the time that my Barber was retiring. I say my barber but I was about seven so I had little say in the matter. George was close and he was good, enough said.
The shop changed little over the years, a neat row of seats. Three chairs at it’s’ height with a fourth in a room at the back where women could get a set. But mostly it was a guy place. Over the years the walls became adorned with photos of local sports stars whose hair George had deftly cut. Like I said it was a guys place. There was a glass case with some hair products for sale and some antique hair cutting tools. George went about his business quietly building a good clientele with a reputation for good haircuts at a fair price. He has a great smile and remembers almost everything. Even if I don’t need a haircut I would stop in. Outside the shop the world turned, and morphed and the big box stores came and went. The K-Mart became a Canadian Tire. Canadian Tire became Sobeys. In George’s little corner of the mall the fish got bigger, the Leafs still disappointed and shot that took the trophy buck got further and further. No matter where I roamed, no matter who cut my flair, whether it was a good, honest man cave or a barber shop or some frilly froo froo place that gave unisex designs, I still had a place to come home to. A sanctuary. In this changing world that is no small feat.
Well at about 7pm Atlantic Daylight Savings Time last night that all ended. I couldn’t resist calling George on the day. I couldn’t let it go by without a word to an old friend. I am not the only one. The local news “Live at Five” showed up for an interview and while there another old customer Premier Darrel Dexter showed up to pay his respects. How many mechanics of Doctors get that treatment when they retire? Not many I suspect. There truly is something special about the bond between a man and his Barber. I wished George the best. He really deserves a long, healthy and happy retirement. All those years of long days standing on his feet cutting hair are over. I must find another sanctuary, another man cave to crawl into. I must find someone else to pump up the chair and make me feel special. I will not need to feel guilty as I have low these many years whenever I slunk into another Barber’s shop. But I will always compare that individual to George; he will always be the benchmark, the non plus ultra. I should have asked him the sixty four thousand dollar question, nature or nurture. Are real Barbers born or do they become that way from years of hard work. I think I already know the answer I suspect it is a bit of both.

Forty two postcards

2010-07-01T00:54:00.000-07:00

I am a sinner, no doubt about it. We all have our shortcomings, I guess. I admit it though and I think that is half the battle. The thing that will surprise my friends is what my sin is. I am one of the greediest people I know. See, I knew it; they are shaking their heads already. I don’t own a vehicle, not a car or truck. No quad or snowmobiles. I don’t own my own hou

se. I am wearing a pair of sneakers I paid $15 for. I seldom buy a shirt if it is more than $20. I don’t carry money, unless I am on holidays. My wallet will go six months without ever having twenty dollars in it. Greedy? My friends have stopped scratching their heads and are now holding their stomachs as their sides are starting to hurt from laughing. Yet there is something I covet more than anything else. It is something that goes back to an investment I made more than a decade ago.
It started the year I met my wife Lina. It was in the community of Ft. Resolution on the shores of Great Slave Lake. I was single, but not really looking. It was late spring. The weather gets pretty nice in Ft Res that time of year. The store I ran was in a pretty good spot. Located on a point of land that was bordered by a sandy beach on one side and a swampy area of rushes on the other side. In May the days are long with sunlight until nearly midnight. The lake sparkles and the children ride bikes along the beach and hunt frogs in the rushes. It was on a sleepy spring day; I was working in the office when my friend Dave McNabb breezed by, down the main aisle of the store fumbling with his post office keys. Beside him and before me passed a vision. It was like a blur. Like something half seen, out the corner of your eye. Where you are not quite sure what you have seen. It was a woman, to be sure but no one that I had ever seen before. She seemed short, with the most amazing hair. She was unzipping her jacket and was moving as fast as Dave. I stopped and stared. “How on earth did Dave snag a woman like that?” I thought to myself. A ringing phone snapped me back to reality and I was taken away. When I was free again she was gone. I wondered whether I had seen her at all.
Some time passed, before I saw her again. This reinforced the belief that I had seen a vision, or that she had merely been visiting. Fate, luck, kismet call it what you will but a wind was blowing through my life. I didn’t know it but I was about to feel its’ effects. All went on as normal; I had about forgotten the brief encounter when one day, one sunny beautiful day she walked through the door again. She was with a small girl carrying a beach towel. The sunlight poured through the open doorway surrounding her like an angel’s aura. I must have seemed dumb struck. She took a bottle of lemonade to the till. Our faithful cashier Christine was busy, bless her. I nipped to the till as quickly as a flash. “Can I help you?” I said. She was as I had pictured her, small and slight; beautiful with a crown of amazing hair. I dragged the transaction out as long as I could, chatting about the weather. I then felt Christine’s hand on my elbow. I looked down at her. She was smiling wickedly. I excused myself and slipped outside and stood on the steps. Shortly she passed from the store and we chatted again. I was on cloud nine when I returned to work. Christine met me at the door her arms folded and a huge grin on her face. “What” I said “are you smiling about?” She looked at me in her best motherly fashion and turned away. As she left she said, over her shoulder “Somebody’s smitten.” “What are you talking about?” I said to myself as she was already back to work.
A few days later, in the evening there was a knock at my door. There she was, with a mutual friend. They were just walking back from the beach. I invited them in for coffee. I finally learned her name; Lina. Lina with an “I” not an “E”. Too soon they were gone. Then I saw it, a small bottle of bug dope. I had seen it in our friend’s hand when they arrived. I slid the bottle in my pocket when I went to work the next day. All day I waited for her. When I saw her I followed her. She seemed to dart about like a minnow in the current. I thought she would slip away so when she went down one aisle I slipped down the next and we met suddenly and unexpectedly on my side of the aisle. I took the bottle from my pocket and gave it to her. “You left this behind.” I said hoping to sound convincing. “It’s my friend’s but thanks.” She said cheerily. She turned to go. “Would you like to come to dinner tomorrow might?” I said far too fast and a lot louder than I had intended. To my immense relief she smiled and said “Yes.” “Seven O.K.?” I asked. “I am going to barbeque.” “Sure. That sounds good!” she said and was gone. I felt light as a feather as I turned; whistling. Christine was standing in her usual spot arms folded. She was beaming. “What now?” I pleaded. She shook her head and turned away without unfolding her arms.
Late spring turned to a beautiful summer. On Canada Day I was cooking hot dogs for kids at the Fire Hall. “I’ll have one of those!” Lina said; she had snuck up on me from behind. “You bet!” I said picking out a good one. We had been seeing one another for a week or two. I had filled in some of the details. I knew who she was. She was Lina Sayine. I knew her brothers; Robert, James, and Charles. She had come to town to work for Dave, but things were slow in Dave’s auction business so she had taken a job at the community hall, making burgers, fries and BLTs. She was living with family members and they had different schedules it made it hard for her to sleep. After a time I asked her to move in with me and she accepted. I took to cooking meals at home and taking them to her while she was working. She didn’t care for the fried fare offered at the Hall. I tried out every dish in my bachelor’s repertoire; chili, home baked beans, Fish chowder, stew, barbeque and spaghetti. Lina would open the bag of steaming goodies and inhale “MMMMMMM! It smells so good!” she would say. The elders who migrated to the community hall each evening to play cards began to make comments. “Lina he never came to the hall until you started working here.” As well the ladies began to comment on the food I was bringing. Lina being a tiny thing did not eat the portions I was cooking so she began sharing the leftovers with the elders. Soon I would be hearing comments at the store “I loved the chowder.” “When are you making the beans again?”
A small town loves to have something to talk about, in fact in Ft Res there is a saying. “If you don’t hear a rumor by noon, start one.” Lina is originally from Ft Res but had not lived there since she was 17. The whole town was match making us. In fact it had started even before Lina and I had met. Lina’s niece Paula is married to my assistant manager and she had once tried to “fix me up” with her Auntie. I had visions of someone in a white sweater and skirt with a shawl. The elder women who haunted the hall were gossiping overtime. They love Lina; she is so vivacious and so loveable that everyone wanted her to come home to stay. They saw me as a means to that end.
Once Lina had moved in with me my routine became entrenched. Thus began one of the strangest courting rituals ever. I would go home at the end of the day. I would call Lina and see if she wanted anything special then cook supper. Then I would go down to the Hall and see her. I would help with any chores she was behind on; running garbage out to the bin, mopping spills, stacking chairs etc. Then I would play pool with my friends, wander from table to table watching card games and shooting the breeze with the male elders on the front verandah. Then I would go home and catch an hour’s sleep. I would return just before closing and help Lina clean the grill, sweep up or cut onions for the next day. We would cash out and head home. By then, with Lina’s topsy turvery schedule she would be hungry. Usually I would heat up a can of soup or stew or meatballs and gravy. We would eat it in bed watching our favorite late night shows. They were British sitcoms on PBS. First we would watch “Are you being served?” followed by ”Keeping up Appearances.” Patricia Routledge who plays the annoying and upwardly mobile Hyacinth Bucket (pronounced bouquet, but only by her) became known as “our lady”. That is how entrenched this routine was in our courtship.
Now I should mention that as delighted as I was when I found out that Lina was not my friend Dave’s girl; there was another fly in the ointment that kept me a bit ill at ease. It was the fact that Lina was in Ft Res only for the summer. She was attending college in Ft McMurray Alberta. Summer is as short as it is sweet in the Arctic. All too soon August was there. I was scheduled for four weeks vacation and at the end of my holidays I was to take a two week course in Winnipeg where our company has its’ headquarters. The deadline hung over us like a cloud. Neither of us wanting to bring the subject up. I was at once happier than I had ever been in my life; having met the woman who was my soul mate. Yet, on the other hand it was all temporary, all fleeting. Like the bliss of a summer breeze all too soon an icy winter blast was coming, remember I said a wind was blowing through my life. This wonderful woman might be swept from it like the leaves that were already turning yellow on the poplar tress on the point. One night we were on the sofa eating and watching TV. Lina, exhausted after standing on her feet all night had asked me to get her a few things, some salt a piece of bread, I forget what all. She looked into my eyes and asked “Am I being a bug?” It was my greatest pleasure to do these small things for her; I wanted to do so much more. I have a quick mind; it works in a flash and has sometimes gotten me in trouble more often something else happens. At this moment something simple yet magical happened. I replied, as quick as a heartbeat “Yes, you are a bug, a Ladybug.” Her eyes sparkled. “I like that, Ladybug!” In that instant I knew I had my affectionate name for Lina. Ladybug. It summed her up perfectly. Small; beautiful and loved by all. The Ladybug. Remember I said fate was at work here.
Unfortunately there was something else at work here. Time and tide seemed to be against me. So did past history. I have not had a great track record with the ladies; hence I was single at 38. I was luckless, always ending up alone. I felt a bit like my favorite Peanuts cartoon. It features an equally luckless Charlie Brown chatting with Linus while leaning against a brick wall. In panel one a smiling Charlie Brown says to Lines (paraphrasing) “For one brief moment today I thought I was winning in the game of life.” In panel two Charlie Brown, now frowning adds “But… there was a flag on the play.” As I packed to go I could clearly see the slow motion of the flag leaving the ref’s hand and arcing towards the ground, the referee raising the whistle to his lips.
“What is going to become of us?” I asked Lina through the egg sized lump in my throat as we parted at the airport. “I don’t know yet. Call me.” She returned to Ft Res. to stay with her niece while my house was occupied by my locum. Usually I was elated to visit my family. But now a cloud was over me. A decision had to be made a decision that would change both of our lives forever. The worst part was that, as usual it was not my decision to make. I resolved to call Lina every day. Yet somehow this did not seem enough. I needed to do something physical. I could only talk to her at night when I could call her at the hall. I needed to do something else, something tangible something that would push her towards staying, towards being my partner in life. I had half a lifetime of being single and I wanted this more than anything I had ever wanted. I may not have known I was looking, but sometimes you don’t know what you want until you find it.
I had to overnight in Edmonton. While waiting for the shuttle to the hotel I passed a newsstand. My eyes caught a revolving rack of postcards. Like I said my mind is quick, in a flash my mind seized on a plan. I always send a postcard from holidays to my staff, although I often get back before the card arrives. What if I sent Lina a postcard every day that I was gone? I knew that there would be a lag; that some time would pass before she got the first one. But after that I imagined the effect of a postcard arriving every day for six weeks. A postcard that would feature something about what I had done that day, from the place that I visited or was staying. It would give me a chance to summarize my thoughts and to have at least a one-sided conversation with her at a time of day that I otherwise would not have an opportunity to do so. I would write and mail the cards every morning. I bought a card and some stamps.
There is a Yiddish saying “Man plans God laughs”. I had envisioned the cards arriving one a day everyday, after the initial lag. I didn’t mention the cards to Lina I wanted to hear her reaction when the first one arrived. Time passed days turned into a week and then longer. Even the one I had mailed from Edmonton had not arrived. I had not calculated the fact that mail moves very slowly in the north and, of course Ft Res gets mail only three times a week. Then, one day Lina walked into the store and made her way to the Post Office at the back. One of my staff stopped her and said “Look at this; we got a postcard from Greg!” Lina meanwhile opened her mailbox. She removed the contents and flipped through them casually. “Oh did you get one too?” cooed my staff member. “No” Lina replied beaming; I got seven!” I had envisioned the effect of one card a day arriving. That was the plan. Like I said; fate. I had never considered the cumulative effect of seven cards arriving at once. When I called that evening Lina was ebullient; she described the encounter at the store and seemed to revel in the event. God was laughing, but I had a smile on my face too.
We were only a week or two from D-Day, decision day. I seized the moment and I asked her the question we both were dreading. “What about us? What about you? Are you going to stay?” I was fighting to keep my voice steady, not to pressure her, not to break down like a fool. A short pause occurred and when she answered her voice was as thick as mine. “Oh, my love, I thought you knew I can’t leave now. “ I was jumping up and down. Somewhere, wherever God acts these things out someone was waiving off the flag on the play. Another referee was holding two hands above his head palms facing each other. I had scored the winning touchdown.
Sometimes even Charlie Browns like me get the girl. Thus it was that 42 days after I left her at the airport I was squeezing her in my arms and spinning her in that same airport. She was staying and we were about to embark on the greatest adventure of our lives, together. The wind was blowing through my life but this time we were both being swept along and I was prepared to go along for the ride. In the same community hall where I had swept the floors for love, I got down on one knee and asked Lina to marry me. I did it on Valentines Day 1999. We were married one year later on May 20th 2000 this was the source of my greed. I have become "A squeezing, wrenching, grasping, scraping, clutching, covetous, old sinner” to borrow a line from Dickens. What I treasure, what I want to hoard, to keep just for me and no one else, what I covet is time. Most specifically is the time I spend with my wife, Lina. Not just special moments. Not just moments like standing atop Blarney castle waiting to kiss the Blarney stone. Not just moments like standing on the stage at the Grand Ole Opry, or sitting on Citadel Hill on a beautiful clear Halifax night singing along to “Give Peace a Chance” with Paul McCartney. Not just these. But the simple moments too. Like the day I came home for lunch and Lina said we are having “Grilled cheese sandwiches” except I didn’t hear her right. “What are grouchy sandwiches?” I asked. When she explained we both laughed so hard we hurt. I still call them grouchy sandwiches. It is these simple moments that I cherish, that I covet. Lina often asks why I love her. It is hard to say. There are a million reasons, almost literally. I love her for the way she talks with her hands. I love her for the way she dances about when there is no music. I love her for the way she always thinks of me first and I of her. I love her for all the silly things she does that make the elders laugh and the children giggle.
How do you guide someone to make a decision like this? What can you do that will move someone so much that they would change the course of their entire life? I took a gamble, made a gesture, made an investment. Forty Two postcards cost $61.42 postage with tax $22.02 total cost $83.44 a lifetime of love together…

Priceless.

Judge not that ye be not judged

2010-07-01T00:52:00.000-07:00

In the army they say never volunteer for anything. There’s a lot of wisdom in that. Good advice. Too bad I never seem to take it. One of the things about living in the north and not being from there is that you will always be an outsider. It is the same with small towns all over, I suspect. “You’re not from here” that’s what people think. Well there are rules to living in a small northern town. Some are obvious, some are more subtle. Obvious or subtle you have to learn them all if you are to survive. It has always been so. Three hundred years ago my predecessors at work (I manage the local Northwest Co. trading post) would have learned to build a fire, or how to portage white water. Skills that meant life or death. Today maybe the risks are less. Maybe no one dies if they don’t learn these skills, still…
Let’s start with the mundane skills you need to survive, what shall I call them? How about life skills? The first rule of life is that you can live longer without food than you can without water. Now when you live in the city you turn a tap and water comes out. If you walk away while the tap is open and come back an hour later there will still be water coming out. You might have a flood but you will have water. Not so in the north. We have water delivered by truck. We have a tank of some sort in our house and; in theory; it gets filled on some sort of schedule. Like anything else in the north it is more a theory than anything. One thing I learned early on was that you never, never want to tick off the water guy. In my first posting in the north the water guy was Mark, a big affable fellow who was never without a ball cap, tilted rakishly over his left eye. My roommates and I had one water tank and we got water once a week. Three adult guys could go through a whole tank of water in just two days. Monday was water day. By Wednesday the sink would start to fill with dishes. By Friday we would be drinking coffee out of anything clean, saucers, ashtrays, you name it. Paper plates and foam cups filled our wastebasket to overflowing. Laundry piled up and the pile never went away. Even when we had water there was never enough to wash everything. I took to bathing up in the lake, but it was November and the cold water gave me a headache when I was washing my hair.
“Other people get water more than once a week.” I exclaimed one night to my roommates. “Why not ask Mark if we can get an extra load?” Darrel looked at me briefly pulling his attention from the hockey game. “I’ll do it tomorrow. Back me up O.K.?” he asked. “Sure!” I agreed enthusiastically. Darrel explained that Mark was not in favor of twice a week delivery, he wasn’t paid by the load, just by the day. The next morning we sought him out and found the truck in a neighbor’s yard. Darrel strode up confidently, he had a cocky side. “Hey Mark” he said loudly. “What do you think about bringing us water twice a week? There are three of us now.” Mark turned and cocked his head. He was looking at us suspiciously, like we were asking him to take a strange package through customs. “What are you doing with all that water? Playing in it?” he asked. “No!” Darrel replied “We take a bath once in a while you should try it!” We melted snow for water for a month.
Later on Darrel moved to a new house and my other roommate was transferred. I was alone and one tank of water was fine if I was careful. One day I was walking through the yard. I waved at Mark as he pulled in. He leaned out of the cab. “Hey you know a lot of people get water twice a week, would you like me to come back on Fridays?” I was stunned. “Sure!” I replied trying not to sound too enthusiastic. And so it was that I had more water than I needed. It was like heaven. The pile of dirty clothes went away.
Another skill that I have acquired; over the years, is the skill of not being in the wrong place at the wrong time. This is critical. Like I said we are not from here. You make the perfect candidate for a judge. A judge of anything. From science fairs and costume contests to talent shows. I have judged them all at one time or another. Diplomacy on the level of Henry Kissinger is required. Pick the wrong person and you will know it. When attending such functions arrive late. How late? Well take fashionably late and add a bit. Under no circumstances be early. Also know when such events are happening so you do not wander into the free fire zone by accident. I have spent five hours listening to off key music, forgotten lyrics and scratchy fiddles. The best advice that I can give is to stay clear. There is no worse feeling than the staring eyes and scornful gazes of the parents of some youth that was spurned in some local competition.
I am a bit pedantic (look it up, I did). I like to pass on my “wisdom” to greenhorns who find themselves in the north for the first time. I play the role of the veteran. It helps if you dress the part. Don’t overdress for cold weather. I laugh at these southerners who pile off the Twin Otter with their $700 parkas. They look like they are wearing a tent. I am standing there in a jack shirt with a hoodie under it. Unbuttoned. They are wearing boots that come so far up their legs you wonder how they can bend their knees. I am wearing sneakers. Start a conversation. Keep them outdoors a few minutes they will start to get uncomfortable quickly. This breaks down the barriers to learning that many people bring with them from the south. Call it smugness or what you will but it can be dangerous up here.
A number of years ago I got a new management trainee, or associate as we call them now. He arrived in town mid week and after a brief orientation and tour of the town I left him to unpack and settle in. The next morning he seemed subdued. I asked him if he had slept well. “It wasn’t the sleep, I think people hate me!’ he said dolefully. This was a revelation. “It usually takes weeks for the town to hate someone.” I informed him. “What happened?” It seems that he had finished unpacking and decided to take a walk. “I was walking past the arena when this lady asked me to call bingo.” He said. “Uh Oh!” I said a sinking feeling sweeping over me. “I told her I knew nothing about bingo but she seemed desperate.” He related a story of how he started calling the first game; the room was packed with more than fifty women. “It was called the letter X.’ he said in tones as if he were relating the details of the death of a close friend. “We had a winner. Someone called BINGO! So I did what I thought I was supposed to do…” his voice trailed off. “You dropped the balls back in, right?” I asked my voice showing my sympathy. “Yep!” In my mind I could picture the scene. An exultant winner standing in her seat holding up the winning card while my new clerk reached up for the handle that would dump the balls back into the hopper. Then as if in slow motion every woman in the room shooting to their feet the sound of their cries dragged out by the slow motion, “Noooooooooooooo!” The balls hanging in air briefly like Wile E Coyote hanging in air before he plunged into a canyon. Fifty women storming the stage where he was seated eyes red with bloodlust. “Let me guess, it was a Go-Go Bingo?” I asked. “Yeah and I had no idea what a Go-Go Bingo is.” He replied. I bet you know now; I thought. A Go-Go Bingo for the uninitiated keeps going after the initial winners until there is a blackout. You need the balls to keep track.”I was lucky to get out of there alive!” he said a look of lingering terror in his eyes.
Now I like to impart these skills to my new trainees. There just wasn’t time. I hadn’t anticipated a life threatening scenario like this happening on the first day. Most people don’t tread those waters for weeks after getting to the north. So I don’t feel totally responsible for what happened. He did survive and he did learn a valuable life lesson. That which does not kill you makes you stronger after all.
Like I said there are skills to staying alive in the north. Minus forty makes steel as fragile as glass. At minus fifty skin can freeze in thirty seconds. Bears can climb trees and can outrun you any day of the week. Always take extra clothes when driving on the winter road there may not be another vehicle for five days. Oh yeah, never rile a room full of Chipeweyan women when they are in full Bingo mode. I gotta get them to put that in the brochure.

On the other side of the fence…

2010-01-17T17:27:00.000-08:00

Two boys, two families, two diverging roads. Who would ever think I would thank my Mother for all those rules? Need a gift for the kid who has everything? Give the gift of love. Give them boundaries.

The voice on the phone was hauntingly familiar but I couldn’t quite place it. “Know who this is?” the voice said coyly. My mind was racing. A pause that was way too long to be comfortable passed after I had said “NO, I am sorry, I don’t.” “It’s Donald. Don O’Connor.” You could have knocked me over with a breath. This was a blast from the distant past. Don had disappeared from my life sometime in high school. He slipped away almost unnoticed and yet I had always wondered what had become of him. Now here he was, big as life on the other end of the line. But where? And why was he calling me now, after all these years?
Don and I had been close, once. We did boy stuff. We lit surreptitious firecrackers; we fished suckers in the swamp behind the school with sharpened sticks. We threw snowballs and raised harmless mischief as boys are wont to do. The sixties were a great time to grow up. Yet we came from very different homes. It was that difference that would ultimately drive a wedge between us. In the woods behind the school we were equals. We were both free; we roamed as pirates and hunters. We made believe that we were cowboys and Indians, we re-fought the battle of Normandy, we stormed the beaches and we took Pork Chop hill, just like our heroes on the big screen. Then we went home…
“Of course I remember you Don. How the heck are you?” my mind was still racing. “Well I guess that’s why I am calling. I messed up Greg, I really messed up my life.” his voice was taught and faltering. I knew the words were hard to come by so I left pauses for him to continue. “I am going through counseling and part of my therapy is to call people from my past and talk to them about what kind of person I was... Is it O.K.?” a lump swelled in my throat and now it was my turn to have a hard time speaking. “Of course it is! How can I help?” There was a choked sigh on the other end of the line. It is amazing sometimes in how much you can read in a voice. Especially if you know the voice. I knew this voice; even if it had been a quarter century. How could I forget, we had stormed the beaches together?
Going home was what separated Don and I. Two more different households you could scarcely imagine. My Mom was old school. She had been raised in a strict household, a household that knew scarcity. My Grandfather had died when my Mom was not even two. My Grandmother moved in with her sister also a widow and the two women set about raising two families in a world without much for safety nets. But they were both women of faith; they raised the kids in a house filled with love and prayer. Mom and Dad weren’t rich either and when I was young it often seemed to me that other families had more than we did. Their lives seemed better somehow. Other friends including Don had more freedom that I did. In fact in Don’s house it seemed there were no rules at all. He had no fixed bedtime, no fixed mealtimes, his hair was long, and he wore clothes my Mother would never let me wear. He never had to go to Sunday school.
“I always envied you, did you know that?” I truly did not. “Me?” I said incredulously. “Yes, I always thought of your family as the Cleavers from Leave It to Beaver.” The Cleavers? That was certainly a thought that had never occurred to me. “You guys had it all, regular meals, regular bedtimes and a Father that worked and a Mom that stayed at home. You had structure and faith and direction. I had none of that. Because of that I wandered into a life of drinking and drug abuse. I was messed up for a very long time. Only now in middle age am I starting to put my life together.”
I thought back to the time when we had drifted apart. Don was already on his way to a life of dependency. He was drinking in High School. He smoked he did drugs. We had less and less in common and one day he just wasn’t there anymore. He slipped from my radar. I heard rumors of him overdosing. It was a world I couldn’t relate to. He was right I had a very good childhood. When you are in the middle of it; on the inside looking out it didn’t seem so hot. Rules seemed like chains. I saw others doing things I wasn’t allowed to do and I was envious. I hadn’t given it much thought since; but a seed had just been planted. I had just experienced an epiphany that would change my view of my childhood. What had once seemed boring and limiting now seemed stable and enabling.
“I went off the tracks.” Don continued. My life became a train wreck; no a series of train wrecks. One after the other. Booze, drugs and failed relationships. I didn’t like what I became. Do you remember me as being a violent person?” The question stopped me in my tracks. We had a nickname for Don. We called him the Marquis de Sade. He was always doing things to others, hurtful things, physically or otherwise. That was not the Don that I knew and it was one of the things that pulled us apart. I waited longer than most to break the ties, but eventually even I drifted away. I wanted better from life. “I needed to talk to someone from my past. Someone I admired.” Don said. “Admired?” I repeated dumbly. “Yes, I admired your family. You were what I needed.”
I thought of the image of a train wreck. I thought again of the rules my Mother had laid down. They didn’t seem so bad anymore. The rules were the rails that my train ran on. They hadn’t carried me to a train wreck. They had kept me out of the danger that Don had been mired in. He suddenly didn’t seem so free to me anymore.
“I called you because you were easy to find. Your Mom and Dad still live in the same house; so I called your Mom. I hope that’s O.K.?” I was smiling as I thought about what that meant. I had grown up in that house. Don and I had played in that yard. “Of course it is.” I replied. “Are you going to be alright?’ I asked. I was starting to see a glimpse of the little boy that I had been friends with. “Yeah, I think so. I mean it’s day to day; but I’ve got someone special now and I’ve got something to live for.” He said with confidence. “I’m glad, thanks for calling.” This stunned Don. “Thanks, I should be thanking you.” He added. “God works in funny ways. You seldom do anything good that it does not bring some good back to you. Talking to you has shown me just how special my boring little life was. “I said. “I’d take boring any day, Greg. Thanks for being there for me.” “Thank my Mom. If she hadn’t been the person she was you probably never would have even found me.”
Life is about changing perspectives. If the view doesn’t change you are going around in circles. Life is also about rules. Boundaries can be very important to a kid. They can make all the difference in your life. I may have been on rails but I was going somewhere; college, a career and a life that could make a difference to my community. Don would have to endure a pile of pain before he would get his life back on the rails. The next time I got back to that little two story house I am going to take a walk in that yard. Maybe the grass is greener on this side of the fence.

The cone of silence, make mine a double scoop

2010-01-17T17:22:00.000-08:00

I was in another place entirely. The book I was reading had me so engrossed I was on another plain. By the magic of the printed page I had been transported from the tiny cramped living room of the run down single wide trailer I shared with my roommate and fellow trainee Dan. It was a Sunday the one day that the Hudson’s Bat trading post in the isolated northern Alberta town was closed. We had only CBC North and Sunday afternoons meant opera music. I was sitting on a black leatherette love seat which was excruciatingly uncomfortable. The matching sofa had been destroyed by a previous trainee who had gone round the bend and burrowed himself into the stuffing with a soup spoon. He had been “sent out” as the saying went. I wish they had let him finish the job first, I hated that love seat. Dan was on the ugly but much more comfortable sofa. The rest of the furniture in the tiny living room consisted of a pressboard coffee table which was a slab of wood with four screw in legs. The matching end tables consisted of two plastic milk crates each shrouded in green cloth pinned with safety pins. Two old lamps topped these, they did not match. The TV sat on four milk crates which no one had bothered to cover.
“How do you do it?” Dan asked. The words exploded into my world like a hand grenade. I fought desperately to keep my concentration, trying not to be sucked back to the present by this verbal vortex, like some sort of wormhole back to the reality of that drab trailer and that drab Sunday. I wanted to stay in my warm dimension like a sleeping child pulling the covers around him as his mother tried to drag him off to school. I left a pregnant pause after the statement. It was a very pregnant pause. It was a pregnancy of elephantine proportions. Eventually Dan delivered the follow up by caesarian section. “How do you go off into the bush by yourself and stay there? All weekend, sometimes three or four days without seeing or talking to another person?” Under the weight of this verbal onslaught, I conceded the field and closed my book, marking my page and tossed it on the coffee table. I wish it was a huge leather bound tome that would have struck the table with a thunderous clap to let Dan know of my displeasure. Alas it was a paperback and made virtually no noise at all.
“I am not alone.” I said sliding my hand down to the head of my golden retriever ruffling his fur. “Seiko goes with me.” “Oh, I suppose he is a stimulating conversationalist?” Dan replied mockingly. “Compared to present company…?” I asked. “Har har!” he replied. Seriously, how do you stand to be alone like that? Don’t you get restless?” he persisted. “We are very different people.” I pointed out. It was true, we were very different. I remember when I picked Dan up at the town’s desolate, wind swept dirt airstrip. No one looks graceful getting out of those tiny single engine planes. You have to put you foot on a tiny step no bigger than a drink coaster and take hold of the wing strut and lower yourself down. Dan was not aided by the way he was dressed. He wore no toque or gloves. He had on a brown sheepskin lined jacket, which was warm enough but he had dress slacks and leather-bottomed dress shoes on. When his feet hit the frozen, packed, icy surface of the busy runway he was slipping like a pig on skates. The oversized blond afro on his head did not add to his image. Hey, it was the eighties. When he regained his balance he extended a bare hand. I took it; he shook hard, for two reasons. First to keep his balance and second for a bit of heat as his hands were red and cold as ice. “I’m Greg!” I yelled over the screaming wind. “Dan!” he yelled back. The pilot shook his head as I took Dan’s bags to the truck. He tucked his head in close and said quietly “He won’t last a week.” He thumbed towards the odd looking young man. “Greenhorns.” I said knowingly. I was a veteran with two full years under my belt.
In spite of first impressions Dan managed to settle into the town without burrowing into sofas. He was different; to be sure, but the locals accepted him because of his inherent good nature. He would never be described as a typical northerner. He was a city kid through and through. He preferred indoor activities to spending time on the land. I spent as much time on the land as a hectic schedule would allow. With my golden retriever at my side I drove and hiked every road, trail and goat path for a hundred miles. Local people would come to me and ask how the roads were for traveling.
“No seriously.” Dan persisted “What’s so great about going off into the bush all by yourself?” “Well; if I had to sum it up I would say peace and quiet!” I said loudly. “Peace and quiet? How can you get more peaceful than around here?” Dan said totally missing the hint. “You have to like your own company. You also have to know how to build a fire, pitch a tent, and do a hundred other things that you don’t know.” I replied my voice dripping with sarcasm. “I could do it!” Dan replied. I looked at him hard; he had surprised me once. But could he do it again? “Maybe.” I said skeptically. I liked Dan a lot. He had grown in my estimation since that first day on the frozen runway. He still had a long way to go; but an agreeable personality makes up for a host of sins.
Fate changes things with haste and I very shortly found myself moving on. Temporary jobs called relief assignments had opened up and I had to go. Dan and I stayed in touch. He was looking after my dog until I found a more permanent home so we needed to. I could; of course, understand his mystification with my love of solitude. It is not for everyone. But there are those who share my enjoyment, even if they may be ascetics, hermits and monks. We share something. Something most of us have lost. I frequently misplace it myself. It is not silence in the true sense of the word. For those who know the land know there is no silence there. The noises and sounds are natural ones. The wind in the leaves, the water over the rocks, the drumming of a partridge, the chatter of a squirrel. There are even much more subtle noises. The thing is that when you storm the bush on a snowmobile or four wheeler; commando style, weekend warrior style, with rowdy friends and boisterous talk there is no way you can hear it. It is the heartbeat of the earth. All this sound. Unless you are still, probably alone; certainly in a state of mind to hear it you cannot appreciate the miracle of it. You must be still enough to hear the beating of your own heart. Not the frantic beating that happens when you are stressed or exerting yourself; but the quiet calm beating of your heart when you are at rest, at peace. When you are propelled into the wilderness by a two stroke motor it would take an hour for your ears to recover enough to even hear it.
But carried into the wilderness by the effort of your own feet; carried on feet that make an effort not to disturb every creature for miles around; thusly immersed into the wild, you may hear the beat of nature’s heart. We are after all creatures; a part of nature not apart from nature. Go there. Settle. Settle on some rock or stump. Become part of the forest. Sit. Be still. In a time; perhaps an hour, perhaps longer nature will resume around you. You will hear pine needles fall to the forest floor. You will hear the wing beats of the birds flitting from tree to tree. You will see the rabbit stare at you in awe as he makes his way along his beaten path. He will stand on hind legs and sniff the air. If you are still he will perceive no threat and move on with no more fuss than if you had been a squirrel or a deer. The longer you stay in the bush the more likely this is to happen. The more naturally you fit in, the more practiced your ear becomes and the less the stink of civilization clings to you. It is a perfect time to relax; to lie in your tent and read; for contemplation and prayer; to cleanse your soul. Nothing eases tension like the sound of running water and I invariably make camp beside a source of it. I had favorite campsites in that country. Not surprisingly they had been used many times before I came there. I had shown Dan some of them on his rare trips with me.
So when my phone rang one Monday morning I was not surprised that it was Dan. “I took a page out of your book and went camping this weekend! “ He said jovially. “A whole weekend!” I replied “I am proud of you!” There was a brief pause “Well not a whole weekend. I went to that campsite overlooking the Little Red River.” Dan said his voice a little less confident now. “Ah, I know it well; I can picture it in my mind’s eye.” I replied a sense of calm rising in me at the thought of it. “That’s a long hike; it must be the better part of fifteen klicks.” I said incredulously. “Yeah; I biked it.” Dan replied. The mind boggles. “Biked it? Man you can hardly walk it, with all those potholes and deadfalls.” I was amazed. “Yeah it was an ordeal, with the pack and the tent and the gear.” Dan added. “I was exhausted.” I didn’t doubt it. “Well I am impressed. How was the weather, did you get bored?” I asked. I had a million questions. “Well, I didn’t really have time to get bored. I lay down for a while then I headed back to town. I guess I am just not cut out for solitude.” He sounded so down I felt I had to do something to lift his spirit; to recapture the mood he had been in when the conversation started. “Tell me; when you were there; when you were resting in the bush; did you hear it? Did you hear the heartbeat of the earth? “I so wanted him to at least experience the feeling of peace that I had known. “Um, well. I had my headphones on the whole time. AC/DC blaring. I couldn’t hear a bomb go off!” As I hung up I shook my head. A bomb going off indeed; I thought. The final shot in the war on solitude; civilization one silence no score.

Someday we’ll look back on this and laugh

2009-12-01T21:47:00.000-08:00

The wind swept in off Great Slave Lake. It came up the beach across the open space between my house and the lake, including the parking lot of the store. The store I run. It whipped snow against the sun porch windows in a hissing sort of sound. Still it was a sort of pleasant sound. When you have no place to go, no place else to be, the sound of inclement weather can have a soothing effect. Soothing is what I needed. It had been a long haul. A long six week build up to this. Christmas eve. I stood in the sun porch looking at the waves of white snow, slashing at the front of the house. Lina came and stood beside me. She was puzzled; I suspect at what I was looking at. It was not actually snowing. It snows a lot in November in Fort Resolution, lake effect snow they call it, people in Ontario would know what I mean. The snow that was blowing around now was the loose layer of snow that skirls constantly in winter in the subarctic. It is hard and granular like cornmeal. It circulates like water, flowing with the wind like some restless river of white. When you are walking into the wind it lashes your face and bows your head. Sometimes it is easier to walk backwards. But tonight, this blessed night. I had nowhere to go and nowhere else to be. I looked down into my beloved Lina’s eyes. The lights on the tree made her eyes sparkle even more than usual.
“A penny for your thoughts?” She said breaking the soothing sound of Mother Nature. “I am the happiest man on earth!” I said putting my arm around her. “Listen to that out there. There is no place I would rather be in all the world this night than here with you.” I said, and I meant it. She smiled. I looked around the room. It was full of Christmas, strings hung in the doorways with Christmas cards draped over them. A beautiful real tree stood fragrantly in the corner, festooned with lights and all the meager ornaments that I owned. There was a bowl of mandarin oranges on the coffee table and a plate of chocolates too, in case company came by. My house had never looked so good at Christmas. This was our first Christmas together. I had never made a big fuss over the holidays before. After all I was single. I usually got invited out for dinner. A year earlier my friends Andrew and Dixie had driven three hours out of there way to pick we up and take me to spend the holiday with them in Hay River. With home cooking and a glass of homemade wine and a wood fire it was swell. People always take care of single men on Christmas. They know there is nothing mote helpless than a single man. For without them my yuletide feast would have been a turkey TV dinner. The single man’s Christmas in a box.
This year would be different, yet not dissimilar from earlier ones as Lina and I were invited out for the holiday feast. “How perfect!” I said when Lina told me of the invitation.” No big meal to prepare. We just show up, eat, and leave.” I was beaming. Lina seemed less smug. “I doubt it will be that easy, everyone wants us to be there it will be difficult too get away.” I was unconvinced. I had visions of an early evening a comfy sofa, a holiday movie on the TV a glass of eggnog and my beautiful companion. How perfect could you get?
In the meantime there was midnight mass. We bundled up and headed out into the night. Lina was in her handmade pink parka with her white “bug” mitts. I call Lina Ladybug. She had a pair of white puffy mitts that made her hands look cartoon-like. Like the paws of some cartoon bug. I called them her bug mitts. She wore her mukluks and with her long hair flowing over the pink parka she looked angelic. I wore my muskrat hat and an old army surplus parka that Lina hated. We walked the short distance to the wonderful old Church. As we stepped outside the bell began to ring, the sound bright and crisp in the frosty air. We could see the front door of the church opening and closing as the crowd filed in. The place would be packed. The windows spilled light out onto the snow the stained glass making beautiful patterns. The smell of wood smoke hung in the air; it was one of those northern nights where the smoke only goes up so far then hangs like a shroud over the town. The power lines were cloaked in frost, looking like white ribbons strung gaily between the poles. The parking lot of the church was full of trucks and snowmobiles. Friends and neighbors were crowded on the steps waiting for the rest of their party to arrive. Everyone was ebullient and handshakes were the order of the day. We found a pew in the back and took off our Jackets. A stiff draft went right up our back every time the door opened and that was often. The service was wonderful, partly in Chipeweyan, partly in English. We sang many of the old carols. Of course at midnight we all exchanged handshakes, hugs and kisses. Then we all filed out into the black arctic night.
We were frozen when we got home. The wind was in our faces and the thin Sunday clothes we had on under our parkas weren’t up to the job. We were soon in our “comfies” as we call them T-shirts and pajamas bottoms. We still has some wrapping to do so we turned the TV to the seasonal music channel and wrapped gifts. We finished about three a.m. and headed to bed, beat, tired like we had never been, yet very happy that tomorrow meant no work, no ringing phones or trucks to unload. I was delighted too that there would be no dinner to prepare. We slept like logs. In the morning Lina woke me when she stirred. She is a tiny little thing and I am a big man she only woke me when she wanted me to wake. . We prepared a special brunch of eggs, hash browns bacon and toast. Then we opened our gifts. We made phone calls after the gifts were opened to wish distant family a Merry Christmas and to thank people for the gifts. My Mom had sent Lina a stocking full of gifts just as she had always done for me. It was Mom’s way of saying “Welcome to the family.” This touched us both very much. Soon, of course we would be getting each other stockings. This would be my Mom’s last hurrah. She was good at it. Always picking such an eclectic mix of the functional and mundane, and the impractical and luxurious. There might be a toothbrush and a deck of cards. A miniature box of fine chocolates. Always there was a toy, a car or a top, or a kaleidoscope. These last items would bring a smile and would often be the thing that brought the most joy on Christmas morning. It was Mom hanging onto a bygone time and for us it was pure nostalgia and joy. For a brief moment I was back in my parent’s living room opening my stocking while waiting for my Dad to wake up and shave.
After we had finished our phone calls we sat on the couch and had coffee. It was mid afternoon and we awaited the phone call that had been promised for the signal of when to go for dinner. Lina laid beside me her head on my shoulder her hair smelling wonderful. “I could lay here forever.” I thought to myself I almost wished the phone would never ring. And it never did. We drowsed and napped. Time went by. The short arctic day had long since passed. Lina got up and stretched. She glanced at the clock on the wall as she turned on the lamp. “They should have called by now. I wonder if something is wrong.” She took the phone and dialed the number. “No answer.” She said with a puzzled tone. “I’ll call next door.” She dialed that number too and a brief conversation ensued. Lina looked at me her face looked pained. “What’s wrong?” I asked standing. “Well nothing serious, but dinner is off, what will we do?” She looked so scared and so sad. She looked as though Christmas had just slipped away. I on the other hand was in a space of such great joy that only a natural disaster would shift me out of it.” I wanted our first Christmas to be perfect.” I put a finger to her lips to quiet her. “I will be right back.” I said and I put on my coat and went to the store, sometimes it is nice to be the Manager. I returned in a moment with my purchase. Lina met me in the kitchen. With a flourish I withdrew two long flat boxes and fanned them like a hand of playing cards. “Christmas in a box!” I said waving two turkey TV dinners in the air. “You learn a few tricks as a bachelor.” I said smugly. “But I wanted our first Christmas dinner together to be special.” Lina said still sounding a little down. “Someday we will look back on this and laugh.” I said taking her in my arms and rocking her back and forth. And so we sat in our beautiful living room, had a glass of wine and enjoyed a dinner of turkey, gravy with mashed potatoes, stuffing and cranberry sauce. I looked at Lina with a funny look on my face. She smiled and we both laughed. In the decade that has passed since we have had some wonderful Christmas dinners. But Lina got her wish and my prediction has come true, it was a special dinner. If we had gone out to dinner it would have been great but I would not remember what we ate. I will never forget that TV dinner. My prediction that we would look back on it and laugh has come true with every passing season, at some point when we are alone, particularly if the snow is lashing the windows the subject of that dinner will come up and inevitably we will both end up laughing just as we did that blessed, memorable, holy night.

Life's little rewards

2009-12-01T21:43:00.000-08:00

Andy was standing at the store bulletin board. He was flattening a bulletin against the cork board, as I had breezed through the door the icy wind that followed me had lifted the bottom edge of the piece of paper Andy had been tacking up. “Bit cold for a yard sale!” I said sorting through the mail I just picked up at the post office. Now Andy is a teacher at the school. Andy is a first year teacher at the school. They are a breed apart, these new teachers. They come to tiny northern towns like ours from universities across this great land with new sheepskin diplomas and shiny faces with ruddy cheeks. They show up every fall, full of enthusiasm and brimming with idealism. They are set to change the world. They can’t wait until the first day of school. They are young and hip and expect that the kids have just been waiting for someone like them. Someone who listened to their music who understood the way they spoke. Someone cool. They were full of the brave foolishness of the young. They are bullet proof.
I admire them, I do. I admire their enthusiasm, their bravado. I admire them and I pity them. I have seen them come, a week earlier than the older teachers. So keen and so full of energy. And I have seen them on the last day of school, standing on the apron of the runway, less than five minutes after their last class. The school door still swinging behind them. They had been packed for a week as they stood there waiting, straining to hear the sound of the single engine charter that was supposed to be waiting for them. Oddly enough a few come back. Most don’t.
Andy turned and looked at me forlornly. “I am trying to find Hagar.” His voice was reedy and tired. Now Hagar is a dog. Well sort of. Hagar is a stray that wandered into the school one afternoon. Andy took pity on this odd creature. Hagar was a dog of indeterminate breed. Usually people will pin it down to two breeds, you know like, it’s a shepherd, husky cross. Or maybe a terrier, spaniel mix. Hagar could never be summed up in two breeds. He had the head of a St Bernard, the body of a sheltie. He had a tail like a Golden Retriever but short legs like a Dachshund. He had a coat of many colors to match. I gave up trying to categorize him. If I had to choose two words I would call him an ugly, mutant cross. Not that I am a snob. Most of my dogs have been mixed breed and none the worse for that. But poor Hagar was another kettle of fish altogether. Andy was an English teacher. A literature major who had named the dog after Hagar Shipley from Margaret Lawrence’s A Stone Angel. The kids thought it was named after the Viking character from the cartoon of that name. So Hagar was missing.
I was a bit surprised that the dog was missing, it followed Andy everywhere. I liked Hagar. As ugly as he was he had a way about him. His body moved in a queer corkscrew motion, his tail was outsized for his tiny abdomen and it spun his body like some kind of gyroscope. Andy put in the last thumb tack and turned his face to me. His eyes were swollen and he had obviously been crying. I had been about to make a snide remark about Hagar seeing his own reflection and taking to the hills. Instead I put my arm over Andy’s shoulder. I glanced at the bulletin. It was a reward poster. It offered a $100 reward for the safe return of Hagar. There was a photocopied picture of the beast himself. The grainy black and white photocopy was no improvement on the original.
“Feel like having a coffee and telling me all about it?” I asked opening the inner doors to the store I manage. “Sure, I guess.” said Andy sullenly. He looked like he didn’t have a friend in the world. He was a quiet sort so it was almost a literal truth. The older teachers had been together for a while and the local guys his age were too busy to seek out the company of the young, bookish white guy. Andy would show up at my door on Saturday nights he would have the latest thing he had read under his arm and Hagar would be trailing behind. I would make a pot of coffee and we would discuss history or literature or politics or philosophy. I think he liked the fact that I had taken many of the same courses in college. When he left hours later Hagar would rise from my deck, shake off the snow or damp and follow behind him with that queer corkscrew gait.
“He was just gone when I got home last night!” Andy was practically wailing. “Gone?” I commiserated. “Was he chained up when you left?” I inquired. “Of course!” he said with disbelief. “You think I would let him ruin loose?” “I guess not. I am sure he will come back. I’ll help you look for him after work.” I said reassuringly. “I looked all night. He isn’t anywhere.” Well that explains the dark circles I thought to myself. I left Andy at the door after our coffee and went back to my work. We walked the streets for hours that night. There was no sign of Hagar. Andy was disconsolate. “Maybe he’ll be back in the morning.” I said as we said good night.
At lunch the next day Andy was back at the store. His eyes were clear; his cheeks were ruddy once more. He was bouncing as he walked. “I got Hagar back!” he shouted. He almost looked like Hagar; he seemed to be developing a corkscrew motion of his own. “Well I’m glad!” I said. “Did he show up at your door?” “NO!” Andy said pointing to a young man with an armload of junk food making his way to the checkout. “He found Hagar he just returned him.” The kid seemed to be as pleased as Andy he was struggling under the weight of pop and chips and gummy bears. He had a few chums tailing behind. I rubbed my chin and then shook my head. I was having suspicions. I thought it was my paranoia. I’ve been up north too long, I thought. I wanted to share Andy’s moment of joy. All was well for a week or so. Then in one of those déjà vu moments I came through the porch doors of the store to find Andy putting up another bulletin. I recognized the slope of his shoulders and the pallid cheeks and sunken eyes. He didn’t have to say a thing. “Hagar again?” I said. Andy nodded his downcast head. “Coffee’s on.” I said. “Tell me about it.” The story was the same. Andy had come home the night before to find Hagar’s chain outstretched the empty snap laying in the snow. He had once again spent the whole night walking. “Same reward?” I asked. Andy nodded again. “I have a feeling you will see him by lunch tomorrow.” I said my suspicion hackles standing on end. “You will help me look tonight?” I looked at Andy. They say that we start to look like our spouses after years together. Andy looked every bit as pathetic as his pooch. How could I say no?
That night was windy and cold. Snow lashed our faces as we walked every road and goat path in that tiny town, not twice, but three times. Nothing. I said goodnight and went home. Sure enough the next noon Andy was back in the store looking like He’d just had a baby. I congratulated him. A few minutes later a young guy came to the cash register with a pile of munchies. I took the till myself this time. I rang up the items and sure enough the young guy pulled out five crisp twenties when it came time to pay. It was a different boy, but the first lad was in line behind him, not buying anything, but they were definitely together. I stared hard at the youth and he began to shift his weight from foot to foot. “Let’s get outta here.” He said to his friend and they left post haste.
A routine developed. Every few weeks Andy would come home to an empty yard. A reward would be offered and the dog would magically appear. A boy would come into the store with five new twenties. Finally I had to do something. “Andy…” I said one Saturday as I poured coffee. “Do you trust me?” “Of course I do!” he replied emphatically. “Why?” “The next time Hagar disappears, and believe me there will be a next time, let me handle it.” Andy got pale. “How do you mean handle it?” he asked. “Just trust me I said. Andy got quiet for a second. He sipped his coffee before saying, hesitantly “O.K., I guess.” I nodded. “Good. The next time will be the last time.” He eyed me very strangely. He downed his coffee and took his coat. Hagar was already on his feet when Andy opened the door. He never even said good night. I watched the pair as they walked into the snowy blackness as they passed the last streetlight.
I didn’t have long to wait. Tuesday morning Andy dashed through the front door that familiar look on his features. “He’s gone!” he wailed. I sprang into action. I pulled a bulletin out from under my desk blotter. I had taken Andy’s last one and cut the bottom two inches off it. I photocopied it with my one and only change. Andy followed me to the bulletin board, perplexed. He stared at the poster. “You can’t be serious?!” he asked sounding a bit angry. “Oh yes, very serious.” I said turning on my heel and walking back into the store. Andy was hot on my heels. “You can’t do it!” He demanded. “You said you would trust me. So trust me.” I said firmly. Andy stopped, he looked at the ground. “At least help me look tonight.” He pleaded. “Uh-uh we have a deal. You are going to trust me and I am not going to waste another evening walking the streets.” I left him so suddenly he knew the conversation was over.
Andy didn’t come to the store the next day, so I went to his trailer that night. Hagar was on his chain in the yard. He jumped on me as I approached and I rubbed his big head. I slipped him a soup bone I had been saving for him. Andy met me at the door. “Well, how did it go?” I asked. “He was in the yard when I got home, on his chain no less.” He was a little down for a man who just got his best friend back. He had the look of a child chastised. “I think your problems are over now.” I said. I hadn’t taken off my boots or coat. It was obvious he didn’t want me to stay. I was turning my toque in my hand as I spoke. “I told you to trust me. I hate to say I told you so.” I said. “Well it sure doesn’t sound like you hate it. How did you know it would work?” he said tentatively. “Economics!” I said boldly. “Economics?” Andy snorted. “Yeah, economics. For a hundred bucks I’d kidnap your dog myself. For the ten bucks I offered no one in their right mind would kidnap that creature.” I let myself out. Hagar followed me the length of his chain. I stopped. He put his short legs on my tummy and I leaned forward so he could lick my face. I ruffled his fur. “Well boy, you may not be a purebred but you are the most expensive dog in town.” His tail was wagging a mile a minute as I walked under the streetlight and disappeared into the snowy dark.

Civil War to Civil Rights, nothing much civil about it.

2009-11-10T10:41:00.000-08:00

I was juggling my coffee cup from hand to hand trying not to burn myself. The paper walls of the cup were too thin and the coffee was too hot. Still; as we were in the shade and it was just nine o’clock the warmth felt good as Lina and I walked across the parking lot of a Jonesboro Arkansas McDonald’s. The tour bus doors were still closed, meaning the driver hadn’t gotten there yet. It was still fifteen minutes before our morning coffee break was over anyways. A small knot of men, mostly retired prairie farmers stood in a semi circle around a white shield shaped plaque. It stood on a strip of grass that ran to a few trees under which were clustered three or four white tombstones. They were slightly tilted their inscriptions faded with age.
"Was that the Civil War?" asked one of the men. I glanced at the plaque. "Soldiers of the War for Southern Independence" it read. I stopped and glanced at the headstones again. I took a pull on the coffee cup. "Yep." I said putting on my historian hat. "But don’t use the C word too loudly." "Aw c’mon. They are still worried about that after all these years?" Said one of the men. "Then why is that grass cut and this plaque still has the look of fresh paint? Don’t look too forgotten to me." "I was hoping to see a Civil War battlefield." Said another guy. "Look around." I said taking yet another sip of coffee and making a sweeping motion with my arm. "Here? In a fast food parking lot?" "Yes, here in Jonesboro Arkansas. You think they carried those boys here to bury them?" I deliberately dragged the sound of the word bury out. Burry like the word hurry. Like they might say it here. "They may as well have forgotten them. They died for nothing." Said an older man on the edge of the group. He kicked at the leaves lying on the pavement as he said it. "They were fighting for slavery." I walked a ways closer to the graves. I studied the names on the stones. After a few seconds I turned and walked back toward the group. "I guarantee you one thing," I said breaking the silence. "None of those boys owned any slaves. They were privates 18 to 20 years old. I’d be very surprised if any of them ever got farther from home than the county seat, before the war anyways. I guess you could argue they died for nothing. But, I think what they fought for was to preserve what they knew. Isn’t that what most men fight for?" "You said this was a battlefield?" said the guy who’d brought the subject up earlier. "Uh huh, battle of Jonesboro. Late in the war I think. Around the time Sherman burned Atlanta. The date on the stone says August 31 1864, I guess that was it. I really don’t remember the exact date. I know the Union won." My four years of history in University and a lifelong fascination with the Civil War were paying off. Well sort of, no one was actually paying me. "Then they really died for nothing, the war was virtually over." It was the older guy again. He half turned towards me his hands in his pockets his jacket open. "Well I guess you could say that about everyone who died in the whole war. It has, after all been called The Lost Cause." My head swiveled as another voice asked "Why was it called that?" "I guess you have to consider the odds. When the war started the north had more than twenty million people, the confederacy less than 9 million and four million of those were slaves and there was no way Jeff Davis was going to arm them. As well the entire Confederacy produced only one quarter of the manufactured goods that was produced in New York State alone." "Whoa, then why do it? Why go to war." Said another guy. "Well these are proud people. Just look around you. You see nearly as many stars and bars as stars and stripes. Check out the flags of Tennessee and Arkansas. They look familiar. They look like the confederate flag. Before the war began a guy by the name of John Brown took over the town of Harper’s Ferry he was going to free the slaves and start a war to end slavery. It the end he wound up being hung for treason. He didn’t say a thing from the gallows but he left a note that said something like this (paraphrasing) The sins of this guilty nation will never be cleansed but with blood. I think he knew then that the only way to make so great a change was to inflict this big a defeat."
"You think the South still hasn’t forgiven the North for Sherman’s drive to the sea?" "Forgiven, yes. Forgotten no. On the fiftieth anniversary of the Battle of Gettysburg the survivors of both sides met on the battlefield. They camped there several days renewing old acquaintances and visiting fallen comrades. The veterans were old men. The fallen were forever frozen in time. The last day the veterans of both sides reenacted Pickett’s charge where thousands of young Confederates lost their lives. On that day fifty years earlier the Southern troops let out a moan as the Union boys opened up on them. A half century later the Union veterans let out a moan as their aging foes crested the hill. The Union men broke their line that day and rushed their one time enemies. When the two sides met it was not blood that flowed but tears as the two sides embraced. These men knew just what the other side had endured, the disease that killed more men than shot. The starvation and loneliness. The silent tombstones that had once been friends and brothers. They say there are no atheists in foxholes, I suspect there are damned few politicians too. I suspect that the survivors buried their ideology with their fallen comrades."
"What do you think these rebel boys would have thought of a Black President?" asked one of the farmers. Farmers are a philosophical bunch, I guess it comes from many long hours hunched over the wheel of a tractor with nothing to do but think. I like that about farmers I enjoy their company. "I suspect that the Union boys wouldn’t have differed much in that regard. An African American historian said once that the only thing the Slaves won was freedom. They had nothing and couldn’t even vote. They traded a Civil War for a much slower fight for Civil rights and there wasn’t much civility in either." "Huh." Said the older gentleman. "I guess we did see a battlefield. Do you think the war’s really over?" The driver had returned and opened the door of the bus we began to file aboard. I took another drink of coffee. As we passed the crooked fading stones I touched my hat brim. There really was a long ways left to go. "Only for them." I said softly. "Only for them."

Graceland part 3

2009-10-18T13:55:00.000-07:00

Day three and a chilly one in Winterpeg. We head south, to the U.S. border and to NASHVILLE! We headed south past many fields full of Canada geese doing the same thing. The sky was full of them in places. In other places the fields were covered in Geese like some living down comforter. Fields of corm were still standing tall, the stalks drying in the fall wind. The skies were a mackerel grey and the wind had the taste of winter to it. We didn’t seem to be getting any warmer as we traveled south. But my God, what beautiful country. Huge farms, the size of ten farms in my native Nova Scotia Stretched away in both directions from the highway. Some gad farm buildings in the distance, while others were so big I could see no buildings whatsoever. We passed distributors for farm equipment, with combines lined up in huge rows. Tractors, trailers and balers were also in profusion. As we approached the border at Emerson North Dakota the talk in the coach increased as people fretted over how tough the border crossing would be. People exchanged nervous jokes about secret terrors they have had about customs agents. Others told tales of difficult crossings. People joked about making ridiculous statements. The tour director made sure we all knew that border agents do not have a sense of humour. It is true even though the crossing was routine and even easy. The agents made no eye contact and would not return the driver’s cheery wave. But in a few minutes we were in the U.S.A. land of the free, home of economic collapse. The terrain again didn’t know there was a border for it didn’t change.
We didn’t stay in N.D. too long we slid across the top corner of it then headed into Minnesota. Again the farmland looked the same. Apparently Minnesota is a native word meaning “funny talking white people”. We stayed at Prior Lake at a casino so big that in order to reach the restaurant you need to pack a lunch. Every Casino wants you to get a Players Card. They always ask for photo ID apparently they are checking to see if you always looked this stupid. They still smoke in hotels and casinos down here which came as quite a shock especially to the people who were on fire. The portions are huge down here. I don’t know why all Americans don’t weigh four hundred pounds. I couldn’t finish any meal so that says something. We will see Chicago tomorrow I can’t wait. Well it’s another early start so TTFN.

Greg

Going to Gracekand part 2

2009-10-15T20:25:00.000-07:00

After spending the night in Swift Current we headed east to Manitoba. The prairies are in the grips of a fall freeze. The mercury was 14 degrees cooler than normal, which is a coincidence because so was the temperature. The fields were cloaked in a skiff of snow. Bales of hay lay in the fields covered in snow like giant Frosted Mini Wheats. We crossed the border into Manitoba. The landscape doesn’t know that there is a border so, not surprisingly it changed little. I think that the thing that grabs me most about the prairies, even after all these years, are the skies. Big sky country they call it, with good reason. The skies are enormous. Fluffy cotton ball clouds hang over the stubbled fields. Trucks pass us on the highways taking the crops to market. Trucks line up at local grain elevators waiting to be weighed and drop their cargos. Farmers are waiting to get paid. At a sugar plant huge piles of sugar beets lay on the ground in huge heaps. Trucks with trailers behind pulling literally tons of softball to football size sugar beets pass us. Full ones going our way empty ones coming towards us. It is thanksgiving and it seems there is a lot to be thankful for.
Being on a tour bus with a dozen farmers you can just sit back and listen to the running commentary. “Boy those fields are sure dry, just look at the dust that combine is kicking up.” “Boy the sure seed every acre with corn around here.” “That must be fodder corm; it sure is late to be harvesting corn” “That sure is a nice crop of flax!” I have a special affection for farmers, having worked on a farm as a boy. They have certain honesty and a philosophical bent that comes from spending a lot of time hunched over a tractor wheel. We pass through Brandon on the way to Winnipeg. I wish I had been here years ago; I had an Uncle here once. As we get closer to Winnipeg the scenery starts to get familiar. I have been to Winnipeg many times as our company has its’ headquarters here in fact I have stayed at this hotel before when it was the International Hotel. Oh well, it is an early start tomorrow. So I must get to bed. Tomorrow the U.S.A.!

Greg

Going to Graceland part 1

2009-10-13T21:23:00.000-07:00

l
Lina and I are embarked on a 16 day pilgrimage to the holy land. The holy land of music, anyways. We both love country music and rock n roll has some of it’s’ roots are in Memphis. We are looking forward to seeing the Grand ‘Ol Opry (the old and the new) and Graceland too. Branson Missouri is home to a lot of hot acts and we are looking forward to seeing some great shows.
Day one takes us from Edmonton Ab. To Swift Current Sk. Bright and early this morning, 5 am, that is, we crawled out of bed. Now I usually only see one 5 o’clock a day and that aint it. In the freezing cold (it was minus 6 and snowing) we made our way south (thank God). To Red Deer and Calgary, picking up more tour members as we went. We are the only people from the Nt on the tour. I love driving through Alberta. Especially southern Alberta, it is the first time I have been there in over twenty years. I have never been to Lethbridge or Swift Current. Let me say this, Wow! Coulee country rocks! The foothills are awesome. The prairie landscape carved into rolling hills, the native grasses drifting with snow leaving lines like the brain is some gigantic sheet of wood. And what would the prairie landscape be without those icons of life in southern Alberta and Saskatchewan; the iron horse and the grain elevator? I love grain elevators especially the old wooden ones. The newer metal ones have no soul, but what is more iconic than those peeling, painted behemoths that dominated the landscape for a century and marked the presence of the next town. Oh, about those towns. I love them. You cruise the bald prairie passing individual farms, often miles apart. The buildings clustered together. Huddled like huskies sleeping in the snow, relying on each other for warmth in the constant winter wind. A row of trees usually marks the edges of the property, planted to shelter the constant shifting snow. In the predawn they sit, lights burning in the semi dark. A dairy farm appears out of the gray black dawn. The barns are already lit and a farmer ducks his head in the wind as he walks briskly from building to building, his hands dug deep into jacket pockets, the brim of his ball cap white with snow. The out of the undulating golden fields of chaff left by the combines a town appears. First a gas station, empty and silent at this hour. Then a few older homes empty and abandoned their paint peeling, the driveway empty. Then a cluster of newer homes. An old railway station, renovated now into some other use tells of the importance of the ribbon of steel that follows the highway. An old wooden grain elevator proudly marks that this is, or at least was, a place of importance, of commerce. A newer steel elevator rises alongside the tracks too. It has usurped the role of the old wooden structure but these new ones don’t cut it with me. I hope they keep the old ones standing. Main street features old brick stores, built in the thirties with the western style false fronts designed to make them more impressive and certainly creating a purely prairie ambiance.
A word about the prairies, many people describe the prairies as flat and boring. This does a great injustice to this area. There are many words to describe the prairies, an entire prairie vocabulary. Words like; level, smooth, plane, horizontal and even leap to mind. And boring? Come on! What about; unexciting, dull, monotonous, dreary and tedious. That’s better, give the prairies their due! Seriously though, you would have to see this splendour every day for years to find it dull. I am from the east coast so maybe it is all new to me but I love it! It makes me want to re-read “Who has seen the wind” W.O. Mitchell’s classic piece of prairie prose. So far the Canadian part of our trip has been fun. Tomorrow we hit Manitoba, we’ll see if my love affair with the prairies continues. TTFN

Greg

I don't need your rocking chair, but I'll take the sofa and love seat

2009-10-10T15:01:00.000-07:00

It was Christmas Eve and my Wife and I were entertaining the staff of the department store which we run. My wife Lina had just come back from seeing George Jones in concert in Yellowknife. While there a friend took a photo to George and had him autograph it to us. It sits proudly on our wall unit. It is signed on the back so it is not immediately obvious to someone who doesn’t know country music who he is. One of our younger staff and not a country music fan picked up the photo. “Is this your Dad?’ She asked innocently. Her boyfriend Nick, who knew who was in the photo snorted with laughter. I suppressed a smile and explained who George Jones was. I flipped the photo over and showed her the autograph. She had heard of Jones but did not know what he looked like. I let the matter rest but I have a strange sense of humour so no one is ever really safe. The next day, Christmas day the staff joined us again for dinner. Lina was busy in the kitchen. “Boy was my Dad mad at me.” I said to Anna as she entered the room with a cup of egg nog. “Really, on Christmas?” “Well that’s the whole thing. He hated the Christmas present I got him.” “You’re kidding!” She exploded “He got mad over a Christmas present?” “Yeah.” I replied “He said I don’t need your rocking chair!” signing. Nick spit his egg nog back into his glass he was laughing so hard. I was howling. Anna chided me saying “You’re terrible!” So after that I always referred to the photo as “Dad”.
Well I thought I would never get to see the man in person. He had said that the tour where he signed the photo would be his last. But this year he came back to Canada. Not back to Yellowknife but to Edmonton among other stops. Lina and I had three weeks of holidays coming so we booked tickets months ago. Even though we booked well ahead we didn’t get the best tickets in the house but we did get to see it all. Now some might say that “The Possum” is past his prime. You might say that his voice is cracked and he can’t keep up with the faster paced songs. Truth is George probably wouldn’t argue with you. He jokes about slowing the faster songs down into waltzes and he apologizes that his voice is hoarse. But he needn’t do either. The fans aren’t here to hear some pimple faced kid singing in perfect tones they are here to see the man, the legend. You see there are many people out there who have perfect voices and I wouldn’t walk across the street to hear them. There are others like George Jones or Neil Young or even Johnny Cash at the end of his career whose voices were not the best but who know how to sing. Knowing how to sing and having a great voice are two different things.
What George Jones has, in spades, is authenticity. George has lived the life that he sings about. His fans know that. That is what they come for. The jubilee was packed tonight with country music fans from all over Alberta. “You think we’ll see anybody we know?” My wife had asked on the way to the theatre. “Are you kidding? I bet we’ll see a dozen people we know. “ Northerners love George. They grew up on him. Every trappers cabin had a radio in the old days, it was the only thing they often had connecting them to the outside world. Country music was a natural fit and George sang songs about the types of lives that people lived. George lived that kind of life too. You could read it in the words of his songs and in the sound of his voice. That is what his fans relate to. They know George is the real deal. What you see and hear is what you get. George also never let fame go to his head. He remembers where he came from and knows what his audience wants. He doesn’t take a lot of time preaching, he gives them all the oldies, all the tear jerkers and honky tonk songs. That is what they came for.
There are signed CDs in the lobby and George laughingly points out “I don’t need the money. But my creditors doo!” the audience roars. During the concert someone throws a note on the stage. One of “The Jones Boys” reads it. “It says get out of town by noon!” he quips, then hands the note to George. What it really says is that it is the birthday of two ladies in the audience and George sings an a cappella version of Happy Birthday to You. That is the way he is. That is what country music is all about really, isn’t it? Singing about what everyday people are all about. Make fun of it all you want. Like the old joke about the country and western song played backwards where the guy gets back his girl his truck and his dog, Country songs are about life and George, for better or worse, has lived life. Lived it to the fullest, hard drinking, hard driving, hard living. He is a survivor and so are most of the people here. No Dad you don’t need my rocking chair. But feel free to come back anytime and pull up a piece of stage we’d love to spend another evening listening to you sing your life. alf the north will be there.´In a way I wish I could have seen George in Yellowknife like Lina did because I know the response, though smaller in number would be twice as boisterous and heartfelt. Not that the audience here was not appreciative. But there is a special bond in the north, where people grew up listening to George Jones. Even young people idolize him and it is hard to argue with them. I too grew up with country music. My Dad loved all the early country music. People like George, Hank Snow, Hank Williams, Ferlin Husky and so on. Sure there was a lot of grey hair at the co

Labor Day Pains

2009-10-09T15:58:00.000-07:00

To me he is the king of the animal kingdom. Without equal or better, he reigns supreme. The most sought after of all game animals. More pursued than the overrated Lion or the vaunted Grizzly Bear. Who is he you ask? Where are my manners? Reader meet Salvelinus fontenalis, Salvelinus fontenalis meet the reader. Now old Sal here is a shifty sort. Well, perhaps I am being a bit uncharitable. Let’s call him elusive. Words can be so pejorative can’t they? He has a number of aliases. He is alternately known as; Old square tail, coaster, speckled trout, brook trout and eastern brook trout. Very slippery fellow this. In fact he is not a trout at all. He is actually a member of the Char family most closely related to the arctic char. Now were he easy to peg, easy to catch, slow of mind or slow of body he would not have a following. He would not have reached royal status. The grouse has his followers, those who crave his flesh enough to brave the bracing breezes of autumn to pursue him. But I don’t expect to see a lot of ink spilt about the pursuit of the “fool hen” as my father called the grouse. Even the much touted Salmo Salar or Atlantic salmon must be fished for only with flies, because he would be so easily taken on a metal lure that fishing him wouldn’t even be sporting. But the Brook trout, he is so elusive, so hard to fool you can fish for him with just about everything short of dynamite. But he is not just hard to get on the end of your line. He is hard to keep there. Once he has taken the lure, after no doubt hours of effort, he rails against it. He lunges obliquely, diving, thrashing, he rushes to create slack so he can spit the hook. He jumps thrashing the water with his square tail in a mad attempt to throw the hook. You know his bite it surges down the line like an electric shock. There was no mistaking it. There is nothing else like it in the sporting world. Ounce for ounce and pound for pound there is no creature like him. He is the King of freshwater sport fish.
The pursuit of the brook trout is not an activity for the timid. I emphasize the word pursuit. For there are no guarantees in the fishing world and we as do it are a superstitious sort prone to avoid tempting the fates. We would never be so presumptuous as to start a fishing trip by planning what to do with our catch. So valiant and noble is our opponent that we would never assume, never insult him by presuming that we would be successful. The pursuit is the thing. It is the chase that brings us. Us, the initiated. Us who have bonded, been united by tempting the fates by pursuing the Brook Trout. Like friendships forged in any great trial; war, fire fighting or some enormous physical effort, these make for the deepest ties. Friendships that have formed and thrived under these trials run the deepest. My Dad fished with the same guy for more than fifty years. They were so close they barely spoke. There existed between them a Zen like state which was wholly beyond such feeble things as words. I would watch them with awe. I knew they enjoyed each other but they usually fished in silence.
My greatest fishing friend is John. Fitting really, it was my Father’s name and his best friend’s too. John and I have fished together since we were in our teens. John is from Ontario, but his Father was born in Malta. He never really fished with his Dad. He and I started fishing together and I showed him some of the things my Dad showed me. We talk more than Dad and his friend John did. But we haven’t been fishing for fifty years, not yet. We have had many adventures, though. We have sweated and froze. We caught beauties and we have been skunked. We have, as Winnie the Pooh would say, “Done nothing together, for there is nothing better than doing nothing together.”
Now old Sal being a cousin of the Arctic Char is rather wont to take a hiatus in the summer. Like s snowbird in reverse he heads for deeper, colder climes when the dog days of summer are around. So too do his pursuers take a hiatus, from fishing brook trout anyways. We may pursue other species, like smallmouth bass or rainbow trout, which have no arctic blood in their veins. But old Sal is never far from our thoughts. Our fingers itch to play with a fly line. We false cast in our heads, picturing a swirling stretch of water on our favorite stream. Or we dream of the slurp of oars the rhythmic chunk of oars in locks. The lines trailing behind the boat as we rowed a favorite lake shrouded in mist with the promise of a sun written in a yellow spot in the haze. We dreamt of cooler days ahead.
“What about the labor day weekend?” I asked one evening in the staff room when John and I were working night shift. “Sure!” Said John, my boss. “It should be cooler by then. Where should we go?” There was no need to question what I meant. Fishing. Pure and simple. Fishing for brook trout. “Granite Lake. I’ll get permission to use the boat.” Dad and Johnny had a ten foot rowboat on a lake that was as close to heaven as there is on this earth. “Great, we’ll leave right after work Friday and spend the whole long weekend “Now next to fishing there is the planning of the trip. It is as good as or even better than the fishing itself. There would be a trip to the store for grub. A trip down the shore for bait. A trip to the NSLC (Nova Scotia Liquor Commission) for some beer. We packed our gear and put it in the car. We worked like dogs all day and changed into our bush clothes for the drive.
Unfortunately things were already not going as planned. “It’s a bit warm.” John said in an uncertain tone. “Warm? It’s hotter than the surface of the sun!” I said wiping my brow. “It’s over 100!” John said rolling down the window of my 1978 Honda civic, which had no air conditioning. He stuck his head out the window as I drove, like some sort of pathetic Airedale. Even in the approaching dusk it was sticky, sweaty, and hot. We reached Mount Uniacke and I went to Johnny’s house and he handed me the keys to the boat and camp. “It’s too hot boys.” He said as he passed me the key ring, “I know, but we’ve been planning for two months.” “Your Dad and I always went back on the long weekend, but it was never this hot.” I thanked Johnny and he wished us luck.
We drove to the spot on the highway where we would leave the car. We piled the gear on the side of the highway. “There sure is a lot of it.” John said morosely. “Yeah, a lot.” I echoed bleakly, wiping my brow. There was the tent, sleeping bags, pots and pans. Food, beer boots, and of course rods reels and tackle. We loaded up for the more than two mile hike to the lake and the boat. We struggled into our packs and handed one another the gear we were carrying in our hands. We started up the hill that leads to the cut line where the power grid ran. I had climbed his hill a hundred times but it had never noticed just how high and long it was. We were both bathed in sweat by the time we started down the other side. Now the break stops on this hike were well defined. Defined by Dad and Johnny and the literally thousands of trips back to the lake. I knew the rest break spot, with its cool shade and sweet, fresh spring water was still a half mile away and I groaned under my breath. I stumbled on, my feet barely coming unstuck from the ground, they seemed so heavy. Each lump of stone seemed like a stair on an endless staircase. Each step forward seemed like a step up. I knew too well that the trail was a connected series of hills of which this was only the first. I plodded on. Eventually we did reach the rest stop. Fully ten minutes later than normal. This could not be. This trail was like a tram line. Not only were the stops fixed, so was the length of time to reach them. You could set your watch by them. Man it was hot.
We flopped to the mossy ground. The shade was a blessed relief. Normally I don’t take my pack off. There was nothing normal about this trip. I slid the heavy pack from my back which was drenched. John had already done the same. Normally we stayed there only long enough for a quick drink of water and for my Dad to have a smoke. We slid to the ground and slurped heavily the cool clear water. Thank God for the water, it was as cold and clear as ever. Pure and perfect. I took off my bandana that I wore around my neck to keep the bugs off. I dunked it in the stream and tied it around my neck the cool thing was like a breath of fresh air. We donned the packs and started off again. There was only one more stopping pointy and it was a dry one. When we reached it we were nearly done. “The only good thing is that the rest of the trail is down hill.” I said sardonically. John already knew he had been here many times. He said nothing. He was fanning himself with his hat. The sun had nearly set.
We soldiered on. We reached the shore of the lake, I took the oars from there usual spot and headed for the huge maple tree where the boat was chained up. There was the tree alright, but where was the boat? I picked up the rusty old chain and stared at the broken lock. It was gone, stolen. “Great!” I said “Now what?” John said looking over my shoulder. I sat on a stump, too tired to take off my heavy pack. I looked John straight in the eyes. “Now we have to make a decision and make it quick. It’ll be pitch black in twenty minutes. We can leave now and be safely on the wide part of the trail or we can camp right here and spend the night.” “In a swamp?” John said incredulously. “I know, I know. But this lake is hell to fish from shore and we’ll never make dry ground by dark. “Well what else then?” John asked. “Well, we head back to Mount Uniacke and stay at my Aunts place and find another place to fish.” John stared at the broken lock. He felt the trip was slipping away. The beautiful trip we had waited for all summer. All through the long hot summer we had waited and dreamed, now, it seemed the dream was slipping away. He turned and started up the hill. I threw the lock as far as I could and put the oars back where I got them. It was well past dark when we reached the car.
I returned to Johnny’s place. He wasn’t surprised when I told him the bad news. It wasn’t the first time someone had stolen the boat. But it was the last. This time it never showed up. Whoever stole it probably sunk it. It wouldn’t have been worth dragging it out. Dad and Johnny had drug it back in the winter like a big toboggan. For them it was an ending of sorts. They had fished the lake for over forty years. In the old days it was a seven mile hike, involving two boats. They had built two cabins over the years but lately, since the new highway had gone through people had been coming back to the lake. Unsavory people, who stole boats, burnt the firewood and didn’t replace it from the piles outside. Eventually someone took the prop that held the roof up against the winter snow load. The cabin collapsed. Johnny and Dad only made day trips after that, they were too old to sleep in a tent. An era was gone.
“In the old days people had respect!” Dad said later when he heard of the theft. “I remember a time in the fifties when a rabbit hunter came across the camp when he was lost in a blizzard. He ate some food and used some fire wood. He left a twenty dollar billon the table under a rock.” I guess he was right. These were different times.
I headed to my Aunts house; she was delighted and surprised to see us. “Sure, come on in,” She said. “No, Aunt Violet, we’ll just camp out in the yard.” “You have to be kidding” she said. My Aunt Violet was as nice a human being as ever walked the earth. We insisted so she relented and told us to join her for breakfast. We spent a fitful night sleeping on the ground, in the heat. By morning we were sweaty, tired, unshaven and unkempt. We cleaned up before a delicious breakfast. Aunt Violets jam and a fresh cup of tea did wonders for our mood. The day had dawned bright and it was already getting hot. “Well,” said John after breakfast. “Where to?” “You’ve never been back to the mines right?” “Mines, what mines?” John said puzzled. “Gold mines!” I said. “They mined gold in Mt. Uniacke for nearly one hundred years. Just a couple of miles in that direction." I pointed. “Any fish?” he asked. “Well there are a couple small lakes. Must be fish.” I said ever the optimist.
“At least we can drive.” I said enthusiastically. It was already climbing to one hundred degrees. John was doing his impression of an Airedale again. The road to the mines was old and unmaintained. There was a ridge or crown to the center of the road. A crown of solid granite. I tried to straddle it as best as my little Honda could. We drove along then there was a crunch. “I didn’t like the sound of that.” John said. We slid under the car. The corner of my gas tank had a fresh scrape and a dent. A steady drip, drip, drip of gas was coming out. We exchanged glances. John was chewing gum. He took the wad from his mouth and stuffed it in the dent. He pressed it flat and the leak stopped. I looked at him and shrugged. We got back in the car. We made it to the first lake with no further problems. The patch was holding. I took the meat from the car and placed it in a cool stream. We pitched the tent in a small clearing at the lake shore. “This used to be a saloon right here in the old days. My Dad told me.” I said handing John a cool beer. “Cheers!” he said clinking my bottle. We sat down and cast our lines into the idyllic little lake. It was hot but we had no place to go right now so we had a good afternoon. No fish, not even a bight but a good afternoon. I told John some of the history of the mines. How there were two saloons, churches, a school and a telegraph office. Stages came in from the Mount twice a day, carrying passengers and mail.
Toward night fall we built a fire, not that we needed it for heat. We turned in early and spent a quiet if hot night. I awoke early and unzipped the tent. I stuck my head out the door and found myself staring directly into the eyes of what is possibly the biggest raccoon I have ever seen. He was twirling his whiskers in his hands, or paws. He cocked his head and looked at me like I was crazy. He ambled off and I stood up and took a step. “Whooooooooo!” I shouted as I slipped and fell and rolled down a small hill. John stepped out of the tent. “Crap!” I yelled. “You hurt?” he said hearing my cry. Then he too slid in exactly the same spot and fell and rolled down the hill. “No.” I replied. “I meant I stepped in crap! Raccoon pooh! Big bugger too!” “Well thanks for the warning!” John said standing up and hopping to the waters edge to join me washing the raccoon pooh from his foot. “Hey. I tried.” John was looking at me and laughing. It was contagious. IO started laughing too. The cool water felt good and I dried my feet and went to the stream to get our bacon for breakfast. “Crap!” I said when I saw the bacon. “What now?” John said. “You didn’t step in something else did you?” “No, but we aren’t having bacon for breakfast. I guess that raccoon beat us to it.” The bacon had been opened and what was left of it was writhing with leeches. “Yum!” said John as I held up the bacon. He started to laugh again and I did too. I sat down my side were still sore from the last laugh. We ended up slicing up wieners and frying them crisp and they weren’t half bad. The eggs were good and the toast made over an open fire was great especially with some of Aunt Violet’s jam.
After breakfast I turned to John. “Wanna explore?” I said. “Yeah, I think we fished this place out. I looked at the car and then at the road. “Maybe on foot, eh?” John laughed, “O.K., O.K.” he said as we started down the narrow road. Alders had filled in the edges of the clearings that once held houses and fields. Amid the alders and wild flowers Lilacs and Roses bloomed. Not wild roses but actual rose bushes. Apple trees were in fruit. Old basements and foundations showed where people had once lived, loved and toiled. Ghost town is a good name for them. It feels as if there are eyes following you everywhere. Grouse and deer graze among the apple trees, though there were none this day. “Kinda spooky.” John said, breaking the deafening silence. “Yeah. “ I said turning over a bit of broken porcelain with my foot. Across the road stood one of only a few houses still standing in the mines. Tattered white curtains fluttered in the broken window. There was a well in the front yard, a bucket still sitting beside it. “When did they quit mining here?” John asked. “In the early war years, but it took some time for the last families to leave. My Aunt Violet was among the last to leave. Her house once stood over there.” I pointed to a small hill on the opposite side of the road. Lilac bushes still grew in the yard. The lilacs in my Mothers yard were cut from them. Well cut from ones in Violet’s yard which were cut from them. Generations, I thought. Generations of lilacs like generations of people still connected genetically to this place. This place that I am connected to, too. Just as surely as these lilacs, like them my roots were in a different soil but my genes were here too. “Come with me.” I said “I’ll show you something.” We walked the road to a place where it forked and curved. When we walked around the curve there was a faint trail leading to the left up a small hill. There in the ground was a suitcase sized hole. It was full of water. “That” I said “Is want is left of the Hogan mine where my Father worked as a boy. In this blacksmith shop.” I said stepping into a square of stones on the ground. “You have to use your imagination.” I said. John smiled. “It has seen better days.” He said “Once a week they sent the gold to town.”
We sat down and took it all in. Right here I thought. Right here my Dad, a little younger tan I am now worked for his Dad and dreamed as did my Granddad about the seam “Of quartzite in a serpentine vein that marks the greatest yield.” As Stan Rogers had said in his song “The Rawdon hills once were touched by gold”. It was like I could still here the ring of the hammers and the sound of the steam whistle that marked time in the mines. Now the wind was silent save the hum of bees and the smell of lilacs. The alders were slowly eating the fields and clearings. The scars of man’s folly, the shafts and pits were still there and you had to be careful, for they were partly hidden.
Far from hidden was the open pit. It was full of water to within twenty feet of the top. It was almost half the size of a football field we walked to the edge and started in. A fish jumped. I looked at John and he looked at me. Then it jumped again, with a splash. We hadn’t brought the rods. We were half way back to camp so we dashed off and grabbed the rods and gear. We baited up and tossed bobbers in to the pit. “How are we going to land them?” I asked. John Shrugged. “Look we haven’t caught a thing yet so we’ll burn the bridge when we get to it!” He was right. But soon he had a fish one. John is a good fisherman. That is to say he is lucky. He reeled in a small silver fish with a lateral line down its’ side. It weighed less than half a pound. “What is it?” he asked. I stared at him blankly. “I don’t know. Maybe its’ just a big shiner, you know, a big minnow?” I said. “How’d it get here?” he asked. Good question, I thought. I had read about herons and shore birds carrying fish eggs from pond to pond on the mud on their legs. Or maybe somebody let them go. We discussed it over lunch, the rest of the wieners.
We caught a few more but let them all go. They were too small. At one point a fish took John’s bobber under for a good thirty seconds but when he got to it the fish had spit the hook. “That was no little one!” John said his voice shaking. I heartily agreed. I still wonder about that fish. We stayed for a few hours then headed back to camp. “I hereby declare the saloon open!” John said handing me a cool beer from the stream. It was still a scorcher. I slid to the ground and took off my heavy hiking boots and put on my camp shoes. I felt like I was floating on air. That’s why I carry them. John looked at the dried Raccoon pooh and started to laugh. We were both in hysterics. “What’s for supper?” John asked. Supper had been two New York strip loins that were now in the raccoon’s belly. I dug in my pack. I took out a can of corned beef. “I’ll cut it into steaks!” I said with gusto. John howled even louder. Just feed it to me without reading the label and I’ll pretend.” He said. It went into the pan and it tasted surprisingly good. We did dishes and watched the sun set over the lake. “Tomorrow’s Monday want to fish the lakes around the Mount?” I asked from under my hat, tilted low across my eyes to keep out the setting sun. “Sure.” Said John “How about a real meal at that little take out?” “What do you mean real meal?” I said feigning offense. But John was already asleep.
We awoke early and skipped breakfast. We packed the car and carefully threaded our way out the mines road. Aunt Violet was hanging clothes. We told her of our adventures and that we were sorry there was no fresh fish. “It’s too hot.” She said. We stopped at the gas station and replaced the gum with some body putty the guy had. We grabbed some snacks and headed for the railway tracks. The old D.A.R. (Dominion Atlantic Railway) had once been the lifeline of the community. The station had still been there when I was a kid but it was gone now. I parked not far from where it had stood and we walked the tracks. We walked the tracks towards the Uniacke estate. Built in 1813 by Richard Uniacke as a summer home, the estate sprawls on the dappled shores of Martha Lake. It is as beautiful as any English country estate. The estate fronts onto Martha Lake. Named after Richard John Uniacke’s beloved wife. When you are rich you can do that, name a lake after your wife. Well I guess you don’t have to be rich to do it, I mean I could name a lake after my wife but nobody would pay any attention, though she deserves it. We stopped on the shore opposite the estate and fished in the beautiful lake. In spite of the view the fishing sucked. The sun beat down like a blacksmith’s hammer. When Richard Uniacke was Attorney General he could jump on a train in Halifax and get off right where we parked the car. Servants would be there with a carriage to pick him up. Him and no doubt a pantry full of fresh foods from the city, those that didn’t come from the local farms. The Attorney General could take high tea on the veranda under the portico while looking out over the perfect lake. “I bet it teamed with trout back then.” I said wistfully. “I’d have servants swimming the lake herding the trout into my end!” said John with a smile. “Let’s move.” I said and we picked up our gear. We took a break for lunch and I had fried clams and chips at the little take-out on the old highway. They were delicious. John had fish and chips. “I am eating fish this weekend if it kills me.”
After lunch we made our way back down the tracks. Further down this time and the opposite side of the tracks. We found a small lake whose bottom was strewn with sunken logs. A beaver’s paradise. I baited up and cast. John put on a float and reached back to start his forward cast. There was a click of plastic on plastic then John started the forward cast it was smooth as usual and just as sudden. But there was a weird sound like an open window in a car at highway speed. And by my head, in my peripheral vision flew the dull orange plastic tackle box that John was using. It sailed high into the air and halfway across the small lake. In an arc not unlike a rainbow went the contents. Lures, flies, hooks, floats, spools of line, leaders, spinners and all the paraphernalia that fishermen collect and covet and garner over years of cruising tackle shops and department stores. In an instant years of cruising discount bins. Numerous yard sales and flea markets dozens of lucky finds along the banks of lakes and streams. All this came to an end as every single piece of tackle that John owned headed for the convoluted bottom of a lake strewn with logs. No hope of even pursuing it. The tackle box hit the water upside down. As the trays filled with water it righted itself briefly and like a submerging submarine it headed for the bottom. Its brown plastic handle the last thing visible as it sank like some sad conning tower. John looked at me with eyes wide and wild. “Wait!" I shouted and pointed. A flat package was drifting to earth. The only piece of tackle except the hook on the end of his line that John now owned. It landed on the gravel at the side of the railway tracks. John picked it up and turned over. It was a package of snelled hooks with a yellow clearance sticker on it marked 25 cents. “Great! Of all the things to be saved it would have to be the cheapest thing in the box.” His eyes were looking at the ground. I half expected him to be crying when he raised his head. Instead he wore a smile; from ear to ear he had the look of a man too stunned to cry. We both started to laugh. We laughed and laughed. We continued to fish, John using my tackle when he wanted to try something else. At dusk we headed back to the tracks. We put the gear in the Honda’s tiny trunk. I closed it firmly there was a crunch. I quickly reopened the trunk and took out my two piece fly rod. “I guess it’s a three piece fly rod now!” I said holding the wreckage up for John to see. He was in the passenger seat. We laughed all the way home. “That was the most disastrous trip ever. I punctured my tank.” “A raccoon ate our food.” John added. “We both slipped in that same raccoons pooh.” “I lost all my tackle.” “I broke my rod!” “Where do you want to go next weekend?” John asked. “I hope it cools off before the season ends!” I added.
Now here is proof that the Speckled Trout is the king of fish. We never once in that weekend disaster considered turning tail and going home. Nor did we stop fishing. Through it all we kept casting, kept hoping.

Happy New Year!

2009-09-08T13:38:00.000-07:00

September is a special time. For us, in the far north it marks the change of seasons. It is already well and truly fall up here. The trees have been golden for two weeks now. One night we were just out for a walk and there it was, a single tree, a small poplar, alone amongst the spruce and Tamaracks. A golden signpost to let us know that the change was coming. It was a beautiful day, hot really. The road was dusty and the sand flies were fierce. Suddenly there it was all alone and looking odd, its' limbless trunk adorned in yellow leaves looking odd amidst the dark green of the the spruce. Lone beacon. The days that came brought more yellow to his neighbors even the Tamarack which is alone among conifers in shedding it's needles each fall in the boreal forest. The days are getting short err and night is returning to the arctic. The summer long day is almost over. The mornings are crisp the days are warm and splendid, except for the Sand flies.

Years ago September was special too. All summer long we marched to the tune of a different drummer. We still had a routine, to be sure. I mean I still had my paper route, six days a week. But there was swimming afterwards/ Baseball in the mornings and evenings. The days were long and carefree. July was heaven, fall with its' tighter schedules and increased responsibilities was a long way off. When you are twelve a month is a very long time. Your life could still be measured in months. Just a gross of months. A month might as well be a year. Today a month might as well be a minute. Months slip by so fast that you can scarce remember them. Remember the month that lead to Christmas when you were twelve? It seemed like a long endless tract less expanse. The way the prairies must have seemed to Thompson or the arctic to Franklin. A thing so vast that time stood still. But eventually it did pass. Leading inexorably, to August. August was good, but not quite as good as July. Like a car that has lost that new car smell. By August there was a dent in the door of summer and the sidewalls were rubbed by the curb of care. You lost your pride of ownership of summer by August. In August summer was a tarnished thing. No longer new. Frayed, faded somehow less precious. You stopped thinking in terms of months. Summer had now shrunk to weeks. And a week is something a twelve year old can relate to. I love summer. I always have. In fact I measure my life by them. Another summer marks the passing of another year.

That brings me to the point of this essay, if that is what this rambling string of sentences is. Maybe a rant is a better description.When I saw that little tree, that tiny yellow harbinger of fall, it was like the passing of another year. Another summer had come and gone. I have always wondered at the arbitrary nature of January first. Why on earth is January first new years? What is different about January first , Different I mean from December 31st? Nothing I think. It is still winter. The winter's solstice is marked by the celebration of Christmas. I can see this being a start of a new year, as it marks the point where the days will again start to get longer. But why the first of January there is something artificial about it. Why not make the first day of spring the first day of the year? For most people the spring is the beginning. When life begins anew. Or why not the first day of summer? The change of a season. The beginning of what is for most people the most popular season of the year.

Or, if I might be permitted, why not the first day of September? Bear with me a few moments and I will try to explain. I will try to sell you on thing strange idea, that is not so strange as it might seem. What is different about January first, I asked? After the holiday we go back to work and school as usual. The winter day will still be short and dark. In fact it will be the start of the longest, bleakest part of the winter. The longest wait until the next holiday. Especially here in the NWT where we don't get another holiday until Easter, whenever that will be, its' date being so arbitrary and fickle. No January first marks no real event for me, except that it is my Wife's birthday. If you'd consulted me, and I know full well that you didn't. But if you had taken leave of your senses and consulted me I would have chosen September first.

The first of September because it is the first of the month. But September because it is the perfect time for a new year. For a new year is at once a joyous time, a new beginning, a clean slate, and fresh page, a blank canvas, choose your metaphor. But it is also a time of reflection and, I think, a little sadness. It is after all the end of an old year. A passing of time. An ending of sorts. September is just such a time. It is the ending of summer The morphing of summer into fall. Of carefree life into the structure of fall. It is the end of another summer. A time of some sadness. For we all love summer. It is a time when vacations are done. For students and parents alike. And for others too. For most of us, parent, student or not have structured our holidays during the less cluttered days of summer. Si there is closure in September. There is an ending of sorts. But there is a beginning too.

Perhaps it is most clearly felt by children and those who have a second chance at childhood, parents. For parents experience childhood again, vicariously, through their children. Through there eyes they will see the world anew. We think of children as being unable to focus. To do what we take for granted. We ignore all things around us. All distractions and we focus on a single thing, a single task. And we, in so doing, feel superior like we are better than children because we can focus, we can ignore. For children are like strangers in a a strange land. They look at the world with eyes wide open, eyes of wonder. Eyes that are seeing things for the first time. Do you remember the last time you were in a foreign country? I bet you could write a five page letter about the first time you walked down the street. About how the mail boxes were a different color. How the parking meters were solar powered. Try to do the same thing about the last time you walked into your place of work. Not so easy is it. Kids aren't distracted. They are seeing everything, they are focusing on everything the way you would if you were seeing it all anew. Parents get a special gift. They get to see the world fresh, through the eyes of their children. Through eyes that have not lost the wonder of the everyday.

Children are usually of two minds about September, the way that you always are about a new year. Summer is over, but fall has a promise too. A new year a new school year. Last years friends, who live too far to play with in summer. Those who took the bus, or a different bus, anyways. They would be waiting for them. There would be new kids too. Maybe a whole new school for kids going to middle school from grade school. New kids who had moved into the area. New teachers for most, with all the threat and promise that this entails. New clothes. For me a new pair of Dash sneakers, those black canvas topped ones with the rubber caps on the ankle bone. New scribblers and new campfire notebooks, with the two guys sitting outside their tent in front of the two tome campfire, blue and red ink. New erasers, the pink ones, unsmudged by the graphite of mistakes. There would be new textbooks, a new plaid zippered bag full of new pencils, not even sharpened yet. Their was in the newness the potential of perfection. For a fleeting moment you could imagine a year when you never used the pink eraser. Never left the curled shards of rubber, never smelled the burnt rubber smell of failure. Never left the mark of error on the page of life. New, like a new year.

September also marks the new TV season. After the reruns of summer a new season begins. No such thing in January. What fool picked January for new years? Move labor day to January. Who cares when you celebrate labor day? Actually when better to celebrate labor than in the dark days of winter? When you go to work in the dark and come home in the dark like some pit pony that never sees the light of day! When better to take a day's labor off to see the brief minutes of daylight. When better to take a lazy day? To linger over a second cup of coffee. To put up your feet and trade the morning paper for a trashy book, like the guy in Stan Roger's song "Workin' Joe"

So join me in this campaign. This sacred crusade. Write you M.P., your MLA, your town councillor. Add your voice to what will soon be a chorus. A chorus of right minded Canadians. Who know a new year when they see it. And who know when we really need a day off! Maybe someday we can straighten out this world.

Workin' Joe

by Stan Rogers Fogarty's Cove Music

I used to love these lazy winter afternoons;.

Starting out too late giving up too soon;

Coming home to coffee and a trashy book;

Never paying any mind if things were never done on Time

was when a fella could just let time slip away;

No worries car or telephone just rent and food to pay;

And every night with single buddies boozing at the bar,

Living for the minute, taking every hour in it!

But now there's just too much to do in any given day;

The car phone the kiddies shoes too many bills to pay;

Running from the crack of dawn 'til Knowlton reads the news,

And falling into bed too wiped to even kiss the wife good night.

Oh, oh, oh...just another working Joe.

The baby's in the Swingomatic, singing Rock and Roll;

My Sweetie's in the kitchen, whipping up my favourite casserole.

I knocked off work at ten o'clock, the kids are still at school.

The coffee pot is perking...to hell with bloody working.

Oh, it sure is sweet to sit at home and let time slip away,

Through tomorrow I'll be scratching through another working day;

But when I start to come apart from all the things to do,

I know that I'll be taking soon another lazy winter afternoon.

Oh, oh, oh...just another working Joe!

A Perfect Memory? Forget About it!

2009-08-25T17:46:00.000-07:00

"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...