The illusion you alluded to eluded me...

A friend of mine who is a journalist recently returned to Southern Canada after working in the North. He sent me an email a week after starting his new job. Here is a short quote from his email. "I just finished my first full week and I'm loving it so far. It's a very different style of reporting... It's more... what's the word I"m looking for... accurate." How true that is. I love living in the North, things are so different up here. One of the things that is very different is the media. There can be little doubt that it has it's own inimitable style. I guess it is hard to write hard edged, incisive, investigative journalism when you have to go on living in that town with that same group of only a few hundred people. Recently a local paper had the following news bite, "An NWT man appeared in and NWT court charged with the sexual assault of a woman whose name is being withheld." Wow, talk about information overload.

Last spring a story appeared in a northern paper about the gas station at the Northern store being closed for repairs and that the Coop was being praised because it had not raised its' prices for gas. Great piece only problem is that the Northern store had never had a gas station before. It was not closed it had never been opened.It was just being built. If it had been opened and had temporarily closed it would have been illegal for the Coop to raise its' prices. Mere details. It made a good story, if you weren't so trivial as to be hassled by things like truth.


I remember listening to the radio news a few years ago. A group pf sailors had been rescued after their ship had sunk. According to the newscaster they had been picked up by a passing trailer. Trailer? I had visions of some short sleeved Bermuda shorted senior behind the wheel of an RV pulling over and helping the swabbies aboard. Unfortunately the truth is that it was probably a trawler, although there was no correction, not even on the next news.


On another occasion the news reader informed us that PLO extremists were holding hostages demanding the release of TOURISTS who were imprisoned in Germany. Wow remind me not to vacation there. I think perhaps the word she was looking for was TERRORISTS. Germany is more likely to arrest those people. It is funny how just a few letters can change the meaning of a sentence so drastically. It is so critical that society trains and employs people who specialize in words and communication, we call them, er, uh, journalists.


The front page of our newspaper is far more likely to have a photo of two boys holding up a huge trout than of some plane crash, or exploding bomb. Perhaps it is our relative isolation from such events that fill the front pages of the world's great papers. Or perhaps we are a breed apart, men and women of good will who want nothing but good news. Perhaps we care nothing of accuracy, perhaps we are apathetic. More likely we are tolerant.As long as you are sincere and you are trying, Northerners are willing to overlook some flaws. Living in a climate that is so unforgiving perhaps we are more generous of the flaws of our fellow humans. Maybe when you get home after a long days work in minus fifty weather you want to curl up with an article about a Ft Resolution store keeper or some kids in Tulita snaring rabbits.



Oh well, I don't expect the state of journalism in the North to change anytime soon. Oh, by the way, to my buddy who recently moved south; I saw a picture of the writer who replaced you. In the text of his first article was a photo of him. Underneath the photo in block letters, underlined, it read " Insert Name Here ".

This throwback's a keeper

Some places are evocative of a city or a time. Try to imagine Quebec City without the citadel, Ottawa without Capitol hill. Some places capture what it is to be in a given city, they encapsulate the very ethos of the place. They are the kind of places that you want to tell tourists not to miss. The experience would just not be complete without a visit. These places breathe life into the history, culture, or people of a given area. They also have to be different. No cookie cutter chain franchises allowed. These places have to have character, they have to make up their own rules, they are by their nature not necessarily for everybody. Those weak kneed tourists who complain how different everything is here need not apply. Hey buddy, want some place where the food and the service is just like home, I got one for ya! It' called home, STAY THERE!

Now Yellowknife is a unique place. A frontier town, born on the Canadian shield, a rolling carpet of bedrock scoured by glaciers and pock marked with small lakes. Tiny trees cling to the cracks in the rocks a true testament to the tenacity of life in the north. It is located on Great Slave Lake, the ninth largest lake in the world and the deepest lake in North America at more than 2,000 feet! Yellowknife takes its' name from the Yellowknives Dene who take their name from the tools they made of copper ore. The Dogrib name for the town is Somba K'e which means money town. It is a literal translation. Much money has changed hands in this town. Starting in the early days of Yellowknife, in the 1930s she is a young town with very old roots. She started as a gold mining town, with gold being discovered right under the town. It was said that Yellowknife was the place where the gold was paved with streets. Today not even one of the many gold mines is still operating. In the late nineties a new mineral rush started. Diamonds! A word to conjure with. The current economic problems have slowed the diamond rush, but they are still there and one day the world will want them again. Nothing new to Yellowknife she has known more booms and busts than a bass drummer in a Hooters.Yellowknife is a town more than a city. At only 20,000 people it is small. It also tends to be fairly high turnover. It has the reputation of a place that people hate to live but love the money that they can make there. It is expensive by southern standards. Yellowknife is a city in work clothes. Business suits are the exception. The preferred dress clothes usually have strips of reflective material on them and room for long johns under them. Fur hats and jack shirts are common. More people smoke than don't. People are different up here, they color outside the lines. Rugged individualists mostly. Ir is the only way to survive the long winter months. We like to say that we have ten months of winter and two months of poor skidooing.

If you want to come north and not look like a southerner you have to learn to talk like a northerner First of all they are ski doos. No matter who makes them, Arctic Cat, Kawasaki, whatever. It's like kleenex no matter who makes them they are all kleenex. A cat doesn't have fur it has tracks and a blade. A kicker is an outboard motor. A mickey is a pint bottle of booze going bootleg price is $50. Brew or home brew is a type of home made hootch usually made with raisins yeast and sugar. A gallon of it goes for the same as a mickey bottle and will get you about as drunk and gives you a funky smell. It takes 24-48 hours to ferment, although it will continue to ferment in your belly. Often making you foam at the mouth. . A musher is a dog sledder. An Otter or a Beaver could be a fur bearing critter or a plane. A honey bucket is a commode, and is more likely to contain pooh than to attract Pooh.

I have a love hate relationship with Yellowknife. I respect her but I really don't spend a lot of time there. When I am there there is one place I love to go. Yellowknife is famous for a couple of places, the Gold Range Bar and the Wildcat restaurant. Both have their charms. The range rocks on a Saturday night and is as raucous as any Bar in Canada. The Wildcat has charm, but it is only open in the summer. When i come to Yellowknife I head to Bullock's Bistro.

Located in Old Town, an area of town located on Back Bay. The Bistro isn't much to look at. An elongated log cabin it rightfully blends in to the landscape. It is a heritage building dating to the very founding of Yellowknife. There aint much in YK that's older. Not much that is non-aboriginal anyhow. Our hegemony seems like a blink of an eye compared to the time that aboriginal people have lived here. Aboriginal people being so much more environmentally friendly, do not leave big footprints. They can occupy an area for millenia and leave no more behind than some stones stacked on each other. They walk in moose hide moccasins and leave little in the way of relics. Relic is a good description of this place. Time has melted it into the muskeg. The permafrost has molded the floors and skewed the straight lines that the logs once formed. Like a well worn glove, it fits this place. There are two doors. Both open. One leads you into a part of the kitchen. That's O.K. there are few rules here, just come on in. Eclectic, I would call what meets the eye. Yeah, eclectic, only on steroids. My online dictionary denies eclectic as: composed of elements drawn from various sources, Heterogeneous. Thank God! I have always been kind of homogeneousophobic. The decor is a melange of postcards, business cards, foreign money, newspaper articles. The walls and tables and, well, every flat surface is covered in signatures. Plastic snowflakes hang from the ceiling. A sign says NO Clothing Permitted beyond This Point. A Caribou head serves as a coat rack. The caribou wears a toque and a ladies bra garnishes the antlers. Bumper stickers and fridge magnets plaster the hood over the grill. A large plastic Salmon hangs from the wall. Fitting. It is after all mainly a fish restaurant.

I arrived about 7:00 pm the place was just short of packed. Even in March in Yellowknife a good restaurant is busy. There are about 7 or eight tables, one large one and a half dozen stools at the bar. Being alone I sidled up to the bar and took an empty stool next to this guy with an obvious Aussie accent, he was sitting, not coincidentally I suspect, under an Australian flag that was stuck into the ceiling. There was a giggling group of Japanese tourists in the corner wearing the parkas that the hotel provides for them. You see them on racks in the foyer, under the jackets are rows of sturdy boots to complete the look. Thus armored against what must be a full frontal assault by the arctic climate they waddle about taking pictures of the Polar Bear at the airport and the Inukshuk outside the hotel. The same way I stood next to a Buzzbied British soldier in Red Serge at Windsor castle. Two people are speaking french at the first table. A guy in a big white cowboy hat sits in the front window. Quite the cosmopolitan crowd.

I hate eating alone. But seeing as I am alone, I settle down with a good book at await the server who is busy juggling plates at the table of joyful Japanese. How happy they look as they jump the language barrier and happily juggle the dishes back and forth to get the right meal in front of the right customer. Their laughter is infectious. I wish I spoke Japanese so I could figure out what was so funny. I think they are enjoying the very funny, funky nature of this place. It is different than the sterile, franchise, muzak atmosphere of most restaurants, in most cities. I settle into my stool and my book, almost oblivious, until a plate containing a huge, triangular bun, its' top dusted with flour. It was fresh baked and smelled delicious. My server was wearing an apron and a red check hunters hat. "I saw you here, I've just been busy! Want a menu?" She proffered a laminated single piece of white paper that serves as a menu. A word about that. This place is principally a fish restaurant. They do carry meat, some caribou, some Bison too, I think. But I am a maritime boy. I was here for the fish. When you do something and do it well, do that thing. Don't try to be everything to everybody. Nobody understands this better than the bistro. The menu is not exactly carved in store. What they got is what got caught. Catch of the day, literally. Don't get hung up on the menu and remember to ask before you get your heart set on something. "Nah," I answered. "What's the fish today?" I've been here before I just told her. "You're in luck today, I got Pickerel, Char and Trout." My mouth was watering. "I'll have the pickerel, pan fried!" I practically had to dab my mouth. "Feta or Herb dressing?" "Oh Feta, Please!" I dragged out the please. She smiled and pointed to a gray plastic container "The cutlery is there." I tore the bun in half smeared some of the butter on it and devoured it. I was famished. I fought off the urge to eat the second piece. I have something in mind for that. I picked up my book and started to read. Occasionally I would take in the scene around me. I watched as the lady cooking plated the salads. She heaped the dressing on top and the feta smelled wonderful. There was a lot of it too. She finished a couple of dinners for the french speaking couple at the first table. Turning to the Australian guy she handed him the plates and said "You mind handing these to that table?" He was laughing as he turned. "I'll be your waiter this evening!" He said cheerily as he set the plates down in front of the french couple who were laughing heartily. The Japanese table found this hilarious and a wave of laughter crashed over their table. The atmosphere of this place is so casual and so

The cook walked to the grill and turned a fish in a pan. The sound it made as the fresh fish hit the hot pan was magic. The smell is indescribable. I would love to know what is in the sauce that they apply to there fish. It is as addictive as crack cocaine. The spicing is perfect. By the time my fish arrived I was famished. took a fork full of fish and raised it, first to mu nose for a brief moment to savor the smell and then to my mouth where the senses go wild. First there is the warmth of the flesh which releases the flavor and the scent of the spices. Then there is the mouth feel of the seared surface of the fish which, upon meeting the teeth and the jaws responds with the feel of perfectly cooked fish, the caramelized surface created by the hot pan and the tender center, nut overcooked one bit. The flavor released is pure heaven. I enjoy every chew. I then raise my glass and with ice cold Alexander Keith's India Pale Ale, the pride of my native Nova Scotia, and washed it down with that cold clean taste. I am an unabashed homer. I follow that with a fork full of crisp greens, lathered in feta cheese, ambrosia. The fries, which had never seen the inside of a blast freezer, had only minutes before been potatoes. Potatoes! I had watched while the cook had inserted the potatoes in the chopper that had spat out the fries seconds before they had been put in the fryer. This is how french fries were meant to be made. There is no freezer in the equation. The fries too are perfect. the quintessence of their kind. Crisp, perfectly salted, Devinne. If I were on death row this would be my last supper, but thank the good Lord I am not so I can come back and have this same meal many more times.
By now some of the people are getting up to leave, there is conversation, among tables not just at tables. Fitting. For in the North, a place f immense size and tiny population, restaurants are meeting places as much as eating places. In years gone by people could go weeks or even months without even seeing or talking to another soul. So many restaurants suppress joy and conversation, to maintain a cold and controlled environment. Not here. This place is a throwback to another time when people treasured the company of strangers. The old saying "Strangers are just friends you haven't met." really suits this place.
Soon I too am finished and get up to wait for my cab. The sun is just setting in the spring sky. Back Bay is back lit by the amber rays. The Japanese are making there way to a waiting van. They are laughing and carrying on. My breath hangs in the air like smoke. My tummy is full and I have a glow from the experience that rivals the sunset. I am truly grateful that there are still places like this one. Places that defy the sterile uniformity of modern eating holes. Character, this place has it in spades. Yeah, this throwback's definitely a keeper.

Pracitically every joke is practical

"While you're in town we should get together!" My friend John said with his usual ebullience. You get these invites but usually they never happen. "I'll call Mark , Scott and Peter. How about calling Richard and Ken?" "Sure !" I said. "What about my wife?" "Bring her along, we'll meet at my bar and I'll put on some snacks." It sounded great. I would love to see that old gang, or most of them anyways. Time and the tides of life had cast us adrift over a very large coastline. We had washed up on disparate shores from Toronto and B.C. to Newfoundland and the NWT. Still here we were a band of brothers brought together by virtue of having worked at the same McDonald's on Main St. in Dartmouth N.S. in the late seventies and early eighties.

It truly was a remarkable place. Perhaps a remarkable time, but we formed a bond that has stayed with many of us. I think it was the environment. The pressure of working in that high speed world. It was also that fact that our restaurant was special. We received a Triple A rating from the franchise that few restaurants could match. The building itself was old, being the first one built by the chain east of Montreal. The floors were sloped and the building was falling apart. But we kept it clean and we painted everything every year. The service was fast and we took pride in what we did. If you did something to let the side down you heard it from your coworkers before you heard it from the boss. Before you decide that I am still working for the Golden Arches, I credit the people for the success of the restaurant. They were a phenomenal bunch.

The shifts were long, the wages low, the pressure intense. You could go one of two ways. First you could let the pressure get you and quit in a huff. Or you could let off steam and have a laugh and carry on. We did carry on and we had some great times.

On the appointed night we met at the small bar that my friend John ran. It was a cheery place the walls festooned with Polaroids of patrons, a smile on every face. John was born to do this, run a bar and restaurant, he made you smile with his exuberance. We congregated at the corner table. As each arrived there were heartfelt handshakes and high fives. John jumped up and talked to customers, flitting back and forth with trays of hot wings and garlic fingers, all delicious. We had a great time and the years melted away. Once more we were back in time, sharing the moments that had forged these bonds. Once again peeling back the layers of separation, underneath the laminated layers of care and the reinforcement of laughter that had built the fiberglass of friendship so much stronger than steel. "Remember the time you made the Lard Sundae?" Richard said, more of a statement than a question. I smacked my forehead with my open palm. I had forgotten. Like so many other details, I had forgotten the minutia and remembered only the whole happy ethos of those times and that place. "Tell Lina!" Scott chimed in. "Tell us all, I would love to hear it!"

The sundae story was one of a thousand such tales I could tell. It was a relief valve. A safety feature of life in that pressure cooker. I was older than most of this group. Not much older but a year or two is a lot when you are twenty. I was the boss, or the assistant manager of their shift. I set the tone. It is not in my nature to be a tyrant. I want to keep up the standards by making those around me want it too. Keep it light, keep it positive. You get more flies with honey than vinegar. Except I didn't collect flies, I collected remarkable young people like these who did so much and did it well and did it with a smile on their face. We had fun.

I have always had a bizarre sense of humour. If we started telling stories we might never leave this place. Some jokes were one of's. Mostly there was a theme. I remember when we were all on breakfast shift. We started at 5:30 am. Breakfast set-up it was called. My friend Steve did it, he would arrive two hours after I started. I therefore had two hours to set the most diabolical traps you have ever seen. They started simple and got more complex as time passed. Once I took a pickle can. This was the size of a 2lb coffee can. I tied a string around the bottom of the can. I tied another around the top of the can. I tied the bottom to the shelf above the maintenance room door The top string I tied to the top of the door. I filled the can with ice and waited. Two hours later the ice had melted, mostly. Steve had to open the door to get his tools. When he did the string on the top and bottom of the can came taught suspending the can in mid air above Steve's head. Sending a cascade of water as cold as the glaciers down his back. At 5:30 this was a rude shock indeed. I had been doing my job when I heard "TURNBULL!" A cry I would hear many times over the years. Steve flew around the corner still dripping wet and threw a bucket of water over me. I laughed as we stood their each in our own respective puddle.

You can't leave it at that. So the following week I removed everything from the two huge cupboards over the back room sinks. I hid them in boxes in the stockroom. I filled the cupboards with water balloons made from the balloons for children's birthday parties. There were well over a hundred of them. I had to come in an hour early, but it was worth it. Steve arrived a little groggy from the party he had attended the night before. He opened the door and was positively bombarded with balloons full of cold water. "TURNBULL!" He bellowed, rounding the corner lobbing two huge balloons that had somehow survived the fall. I was soaked and laughing, so was he.

On the night shift there was a guy named Robert who drove a motorbike. He always wore leathers and looked the part, but he drove a smallish bike I think it was a 150cc. That poor bike became the bane of his existence. One night we rolled his bike into the lobby while he was on his break. I hung a handwritten sign on it that read "Buy a Big Mac get a free motorbike" when he rounded the corner from the break room he flew over the counter "Hey, that's my bike!" "Yeah and so far no takers!" I quipped. Another time we wrestled the bike into the men's bathroom and put the rear tire in the toilet of the single stall, knowing that he would have to use the washroom, before returning to his shift. "TURNBULL!" Is all I heard when he passed through the door. The piece de resistance, though was the night that I enlisted two other friends or maybe fiends to drag the bike up on the roof. We tied it to the sign on the front of the restaurant. It sat there for hours, drawing quite the crowd. Finally Rob had to do a lot pick up. He dashed back in the restaurant "Get that thing down right now!" He said. He tried to look mad but he was smiling, ear to ear.

There were thousands of other incidents too many to remember or to relate. Water balloons full of big mac sauce down jacket sleeves that had been tied off first. Shoes full of ketchup packets. Lockers rigged to propel bowls of mustard. Lots of laughs, lots of reprisals. Even our host had been a victim. He used to drive an old rust bucket. You could not unlock the doors with the key so John never locked the beast. One night we crept to where he parked his car in front of his parents place. We knew he was on the early shift The next day the boss thought we were psychic. "That'll be John." we predicted when the phone rang a few minutes before his appointed hour."Locked out of his car, eh?" "I didn't say that!" said the boss. "hey, what goes on here?" he didn't have so good a sense of humor so we didn't elaborate. on chuckling when he got to work.I would have loved to have heard his cry of "TURNBULL" We had left the window down a millimeter or two. Lots of fun. We built the bonds that still endure.

"Tell her!" Scott repeated. "I love it when you tell it!" So I told Lina and all present, most of whom had been present that night. Although I had been told that the story had become a legend and that if everyone who claimed to be there had been there there would have been standing room only. We worked with a guy I will call Stan. Stan was a nice enough guy but he had a few annoying habits. One habit was to come into the break room, grab your cigarette and "suck it out" meaning to draw so hard on it that it took all the good out of the cigarette. The other habit was to come into the break room while you were eating and "ask" if he could have some fries, a bite of your burger or a spoon full of your dessert. He always "asked" as he was scarfing down a wad of fries that would choke a hippo. Or scooping all the topping and nuts off your precious sundae. I was determined to put him in his place, once and for all. All great works of art take time. To become a legend you have to pay your dues. I started before my shift, long before Stan even got to work. I took shortening, as pure and white as driven snow. I filled a sundae cup. I took a butter knife and sculpted the perfect curl, just like the swirling crest that the soft serve ice cream machine created. "What on earth are you dong?" Ken asked his voice tinged with incredulity. "You will see, my friend, you are in the presence of the master!" I said in my best radio emcee voice. As I sculpted a small crowd formed. I heard the word shortening so I swore them all to secrecy and let them in on the purpose of my labor. Nearly all had been victims of Stan's larceny and all were rapt with glee at my scheme. I took my creation to the sundae station and added caramel sauce and peanuts. I then snapped on a lid and put it in the freezer. It was so good I had to hide it so no one save my intended victim fell into my trap. As the evening progressed I was worried that someone would spill the beans. But not a soul did. In time I went for my break. I had arranged for Stan to be asked to do a lot pick up, thus sending him past the staff room. Timing is everything. It had to be after I had eaten my burger and fries. It was text book. He dashed into the room with his usual zeal. He saw the sundae looking so inviting its' creamy head poking out through the caramel robe that covered her beautiful shoulders. She sported peanuts like diamonds. This sundae could have graced on of the posters in the lobby. Stan grabbed the sundae, as usual he would ask permission as the first mouthful descended his greedy throat. It seemed as if he slipped into slow motion. I can still see the gleeful look on his face as he scooped the entire quantity of caramel and nuts and a good healthy scoop of lard cream into his mouth. He set the cup down and half turned to leave the room. He never made it. The next thing I knew Stan was on his knees spitting cold lard into the garbage can. The entire restaurant was in pandemonium. Everyone filed past for a look. It had been so simple yet so perfect. It had relied only on one thing, human nature. Everyone around the table was laughing, including my wife who was hearing the story for the first time. We spent a wonderful evening, which, all too soon was at an end.

As had happened years before we had to go our separate ways.The old restaurant is gone, they built a new one on the site. In September of 2005 John and I both suffered heart attacks. I made it, John did not. It makes that night even more special. We all miss him. I miss his smile. I know he knew who locked his doors. He got the joke. He got that it was done because we loved him. I know too that he is up in heaven right now and he is probably planing something big. If I am lucky enough to make it there I will be watching what I eat!

The Break In...

You really shouldn't listen in on the conversations of others. That's a given. I wasn't raised to do it. But like all the great rules that keep the planets aligned in our universe there are exceptions . Shane and I have been friends for years. Each year our company has a conference, In the interest of economy we are asked to double up. The first year we roomed together Shane's wife warned me about his snoring. It is legendary. Like in a Flintstone's cartoon the drawers in the room go in and out and the curtains move. No, seriously! Well I am known to saw some wood at night myself so no harm done. Shane also has the remarkable ability to fall asleep the nano second that his head hits the pillow. This precludes the idea of getting to sleep before him. I swear that there is an electrical contact on his ear lobe and the second it makes contact with the pillow the pressure completes a circuit and BLAM! He is unconscious, AND snoring. It truly is one of the wonders of the modern world.

So it was that last week we wound up together in the windy city (Winnipeg, Brrrr!). Now Winnipeg prides itself on being the geographical center, not only of Canada but of North America as well. While in location it may be in the middle in terms of climate it lives on both extremes. It can be hot and muggy in summer and brutally cold in winter. "It's a dry cold Winnipergers (Winnipegonians?) will tell you. You should slap these people. They are the same crowd who, in the summer, say "It's not the heat it's the humidity!" Actually it is neither the heat nor the humidity it is foolish government laws that prevent normal human beings like me and you from shooting inane motor mouths who peddle such dribble.

In any case, I digress. Back to the call, back to the overheard news that froze my blood worse than the twelve thousand kilometer per hour wind in fair Winterpeg that gave us a a windchill factor of forty degrees below absolute zero kelvin. Shane's phone was on the bed. I heard it whir and buzz as he had it set not to ring so as not to wake anyone during the endless hours of meetings we must endure every year as our penance for getting a free trip to sunny Winnipeg in March.

I think that Wireton Willy not only saw his shadow he met his maker. I am sure that someone killed the poor little bugger and buried his fuzzy little carcass good and deep. Spring might not come for six months, let alone six weeks.

Shane and I are old veterans of these meetings. We have developed a patented method of dealing with the afternoon nod offs that inevitably come from the sadistically early 6:30 starts. When I say 6:30 that means you must be there at 6:30 with a roommate you must be up and in the shower by 5:30. If you are to have a hope of getting an elevator. Not too bad if you are only a floor or two above the lobby. But the eighth floor is actually 10 floors up due to the upper lobby and mezzanine. Each floor has three flights of marble stairs as slippery as an eel`s keester. What do we do to counter the mid afternoon nods. It is called the snort and snap. The moment your snoozing chin hits your chest you let out a micro snore which wakes you from your reverie and your head snaps up with alarming speed. If you wear reading glasses, as I do you must be care full that you do not propel them through the air as this is a dead give away to ever vigilant Vice Presidents who may be watching.

One thing that helps is that Shane rents a car and we drive ourselves to the venues. Along the way, of course we have a few extra minutes as we are not lined up with the plebes on the buses provided by the company. They are herded in like cattle, we crank the stereo and head for the Timmy`s drive through. We show up a few minutes after the buses arrive, imparting just the right amount of tension into our boss. We pat his back and congratulate him on his skill at kitten herding. We in his district are a willful lot of old sinners and young mavericks and are about as easy to round up and a bucket of quicksilver on a gravel hill. We sport our steaming cups of Tim`s finest and make a slow deliberate motion as we suck back the lovely nectar. "What's that?" one of the new guys asked as we both emitted deep mocking sighs. "That my young friend is the rarest of creatures at the Wintering Partners conference. That is a large double double!" He stepped back "You buggers! How did you get that?" "That is one of the advantages of being a vet. Do I have any Maple dip on my face?" I asked sounding like that cat that ate the canary. "I takes mine black, if you should happen to slip out at lunch!" my boss added cheerily.

At lunch we of course slipped out and availed ourselves of the local fare. On the way back we stopped and filled our bosses order for a large black coffee. This time when the rookie manager eyed us enviously I quipped. "Do I have anything on my nose? Anything brown?" Again he shook his head and walked away, while Shane and I laughed. "It;s all about the comfort!" Shane postulated, loud enough for all to hear. Our compatriots are used to our shenanigans. Shane and I color outside the lines. We have what they call character. My wife would say that we are a couple of cards and that we should be dealt with.

Anyways none of this is getting us any closer to the overheard conversation. Shane scanned the room once it occurred to us what the noise was. Our room could not be described as a mess, but we must have been a bane to the cleaning staff. Shane seldom travels light. He brings robe and slippers. His own coffee mug, pillows from home and quite often his own travel coffee maker as this hotel is too posh to provide one in the room. Finally he decided that he had left the phone in his pants pocket. Retrieving it he said hello. We have an understanding.if the call is private we retreat to the bathroom and close the door. We seldom do this. Usually the calls are of a mundane nature and we simply have the entire conversation with comments being chimed in by the party not on the phone. "Tell Lina to go home, the store is closed!" Shane will pipe when Lina complains about working late. "Shane the peelers are here, get off the phone with your girlfriend or I will tell your wife!" He is on the phone with his wife, of course, the whole thing is done for her benefit. Listening in is simply practical, it saves us repeating the entire conversation after we hang up. Five thirty comes early you know!

Shanes wife likes to talk about the time that Shane and I were driving around in Edmonton. She called and since Shane was driving I answered. She gave me a brief message to pass on, I then hung up. Or at least that's what I thought I did. I have a flip style cell phone. You just close it and that's it. On Shane's cell phone you have to press a button to hang up and in my ignorance I pressed the wrong button. For the next two hours we drove around Edmonton with an open phone line. Apparently she tried yelling but we were so busy yakking that we did not hear her. "Any worries I had about you fooling around on me were completely assuaged." She told us later. "You guys are the two most boring guys in history." As we had discussed such racy subjects as concentrated detergent and the latest Phil Collins compilation. "You guys could put Evel Kneivel to sleep!" she added.

Anyways, where was I, oh yeah the cal ll... "What's wrong honey?" Shane said his voice raised out of it's normal laid back tone. "Two of them?" he said. My ears perked up. "Right in the porch?!!!" He sounded serious now. "It's O.K. dear calm down!" He was doing his best to sound calming. I swung my legs over the side of the bed and sat up. "Don't worry I'm sure they won't be back tonight." I was transfixed. "Right in the porch?!! Bold as brass, eh?!!" My mind raced. What should we do. Had she called the police? Was she alone? Had they left or were they still in the house? Were they armed? A thousand things went through my mind. "You do know how to bar the porch door right?" Oh my GOD! Bar the door? I looked around for my cell phone, in case Shane wanted to stay on the line while I called the R.C.M.P. I motion towards the phone and made the numbers 911 in the air with my finger. Shane waved his palm at me, to tell me to wait. I stood poised. My senses tingling. "What are you going to do? Are you going to sleep there tonight?" Oh man, it must be serious, she's thinking of moving out! "Staring right at you, eh? Poor baby!" Shane consoled. Man, eye to eye, I thought. How frightening. No wonder the poor girl was upset. Still Shane seemed to be calming and now he was in full consolation mode. "You poor thing. Just go to bed and call me first thing in the morning. Good night dear!"

Shane put the phone back in his pants pocket and tossed the pants on the back of a chair. "Poor girl, she came home and they were right there in the porch, big as life. Not the least bit scared! Just staring at her with those beady eyes.They didn't even run until she stamped her feet!" "No kidding!" I added trying to sound supportive. "Yeah, she really hates mice and they were fat ones!"

"Mice?!!!!: I replied. "Yeah, she's terrified of them." Maybe there shouldn't be exceptions to those rules after all. Maybe we should just mind our own business.

The great Banking conspiracy

Banks! PFFFFF! I am not surprised that they have created an international crisis. I never trusted them. It also doesn't surprise me that it happened on George W. Bush's watch. The whole problem is that there are a whole bunch of very rich people trading debt and speculating on debt. The rich making money off the poor. The American market had been off limits to the poor and lower middle classes.Well meaning activists and legislators had formed organizations like fanny Mae and Freddie Mack. People who never thought they could afford a house now found that they could. Cynical bankers gave mortgages to people who would never have received a mortgage years before. They then promptly sold these high risk mortgages to speculators who sold them to pension funds that should not have been investing in high risk loans. The rich got richer and the poor lost their homes and got the boot. The world lost billions, nay trillions and the poor get poorer. All due to George W. and his deregulation and his rich friends.
International financial institutions were shaken to the core. Many closed. The huge American banks floated along on clouds of hot air. Soon their balloons deflated and the rich plutocrats came back to earth on huge golden parachutes, while the victims were turfed out onto the streets. Scumbags all. Now I won't pretend that I was smart enough to foretell all this in advance. I am not a savant. I did however know that banks were not to be trusted. In fact I have known it for quite some time. Since I was quite a child. I was, at a very tender age, a victim of the international financial cartels and their avarice. Oh I know, I hear you scoffing, but hear me out. I will tell you the sad details of how I became a victim of the heartless banking empire.
When I was young I was a callow and capricious fellow. This did not go down well with my Mother. She wanted me to know the value of a dollar. She had been raised in poverty and she wanted her children to escape its' clutches. She did her best to teach us the value of a dollar. Lord knows she could stretch a dime to a dollar. She shopped for a bargain and was very wise, never one to fall victim to a salesman's pitch. I remember watching an encyclopedia salesman's routine as he plied his trade on my parents. "Imagine buying this fine set to state of the art encyclopedias for less money than you would pay for the daily paper. Surely your children's future is worth more than a lousy newspaper? In order to make it easier for you, however we will allow you to pay more than that newspaper so you can be the proud owner of the incomparable set of encyclopedias!" 'allow us to pay more?" My Mother wasn't buying it literally or figuratively. He left with his tale between his legs. Lucky he still had a tail. My Mom was no fool. I would have bought the encyclopedias and the annuals that went with them.
Part of our education was to do odd jobs to make extra money. Shoveling driveways for elderly couples who needed someone to do it. This brought in a few dollars. I already had a piggy bank. A plastic Colonel Sanders bank that I had waited for in the parking lot of our local KFC on a sweltering August day when Colonel Harlan Sanders himself had come to town to be Grand Marshal of our local "Natal Day Parade" the city's birthday celebration. He was smaller than I expected and he looked exactly like his picture on the bucket except that he was even whiter. White hair, white beard white suit. He was very gentle and he spoke funny. He gave me the bank, a Balloon with his picture on it and big paper feet and a comic book which had a coupon in it that my Mom cut out and used, which kind of toasted the comic book.
My Colonel Sanders bank was getting full. Full of left over pennies. fifty cent pieces that I had been given by my Uncle. It also contained a few silver dollars I had gotten for Christmas and three silver dollars I had been given for perfect attendance by my teacher at school. My teacher mind you, not the school itself. AND not for not missing an entire day. I hadn't even missed ONE class. I was very proud of them. I was upset when Mom insisted I take them out of the card and put them in the Colonel's belly. The problem with the Colonel was that he was solid plastic. There was no cap or cork. No way to take my money out and look at it. Those silver dollars had canoes on them with men paddling them. I loved to look at the picture on the silver dollar. But no, into the Colonel's belly they went.
Before too very long the Colonel was full. When I drew this to my Mother's attention she said it was time to put the money in a real bank. Great I thought a bank like my sister had. One that you could dump the money out of and look at it.. Play with it. "NO!" My Mother said "A real bank. A building where you take your money so it will be safe." "Safe?" I said what do you mean?" "The people there will look after your money, even pay you money to do it." Really? This was something I could not comprehend. We got a old knife and cut the bottom off the Colonel. We dumped my money on the kitchen table. My Mother set about counting and rolling the coins. The few Silver dollars went into an envelope. I had only a few seconds to look at them. "There's over twenty nine dollars here!" My Mother told me. "Is that a lot?" I asked naively. "Yes, it is." The next day we walked to the K-Mart shopping center (Malls were not big at that time). We walked into a big place that I had always wondered about. Mom had often gone there but we sat outside and she never bought anything there.
This time she took me in. I held on tightly to the paper bag that held my twenty nine dollars. It was in fact quite heavy. We waited for what seemed like forever. Finality we got to the front of the line and we approached a tall woman with a thin face and dark hair. She towered over me looking down intently as my Mother told her I was here to open an account. "What is your name son? " She asked sweetly, looking at me the way my Grammy always did, as if she was about to pinch my cheek. "My name is Greg, and I have twenty nine dollars, my Mom says it is a lot of money!" She smiled "Why yes, it is.n What kind of account do you want to open?" She cooed cloyingly. "Savings." My Mother said. "Fine." She said and she took my bag and went to another counter behind the one I was at. At that counter was another lady at another wicket. My bank lady pointed at me and laughed. The other lady was laughing too. They opened the bag and spread the rolls of coin on the counter. They opened the envelope with my silver dollars in it. The lady filled out a long piece of paper and brought it over to my Mother. Mom wrote on it and signed her name. She got me to sign my name. she gave the paper back to the lady who walked over to the other counter. The lady there gave her a small blue book. She inserted the blue book into a typewriter of some kind and the machine made a noise and the lady behind the counter took the book and stamped it. Then the lady came back. She opened the blue book to the first page and handed it to me. "There you are." She cooed "Twenty nine dollars." I looked at the page. It did say twenty nine dollars and it had the date. The book had a stiff cover that felt like leather. The cover had an elongated slot in it and a number printed on the first page was visible through the slot even when the cover was closed. My Mother took the book and thanked the lady. I waved and she waved back a lot longer than she should have, I thought. I looked back after we had left and she was talking to the other lady and they both were laughing. I was a bit stunned I wasn't really sure what had just happened. We left the bank and did some shopping.
That night when Dad got home my Mother said "Tell your Father what you did today." I turned to him a little unsure of what to say. "I gave my twenty nine dollars away to a lady at the K-Mart." I said. "Well not exactly. You put your twenty nine dollars in the bank." she corrected. "Oh, yeah." I said. "So you are a rich man!" My dad said picking me up and squeezing me. His whiskers warm on my cheek. He had five o'clock shadow by three o'clock, my Dad. I loved it when he picked us up like that. I loved the feel of his whiskers on my soft cheeks. Supper was a while away so I looked in his lunchbox to see if he had left any goodies. He always left me something, even if it was a lukewarm bologna sandwich.
"Hey Mom, tomorrow I want to go back to the bank and see my silver dollars!" "You can't do that." My Mother said. "Why not?" I asked, with some trepidation. "Well they won't have your silver dollars anymore." "I thought the lady said I could take my money out when I wanted it?" "Your money yes, but not the actual coins that you gave them." "But what about the silver dollars Mrs. Lynn gave me?" "Someone else will have those." My Mother said. She was smiling. I wasn't. "BUT I want MY silver dollars!" "Well you can get other dollars but not those same dollars." It had never occurred to me that those silver dollars and fifty cent pieces I had given them would not be there when I went back. In my mind I had imagined that there were hundreds of drawers and each person's money was put in a separate drawer and when you went back they opened your drawer and gave you back your money. I had no idea that someone else, some total stranger would be walking out of the bank with my silver dollars. My perfect attendance silver dollars. The ones that still had the tape marks on them where Mrs Lynn had taped them to the card before she had called me up, in front of the whole entire school to get them. And folks to this day, I have never gotten those silver dollars back. They are gone. Gone even surer than they were in the Colonel's belly. I can't even get a knife and cut open the bank and get them back. Another faceless victim of the huge, faceless heartless financial institutions who eat up poor people like me and spit them out. I saw visions of those two tellers laughing as I walked away. They knew what was to come, that's why they were laughing. Oh they knew all right...

Building a Fire

You have to remember it was the seventies. We were a generation hot on the heels of the sixties rebellion against the established order. Nixon had brought the world's mightiest government into question. Authority everywhere was suspect. We, the youth were more distrustful than our parents generation, which had been raised in time of war or depression or at least in the stability and conformism of the fifties. Then came JFK's assassination and Bobby Kennedy and Martin Luther King. Vietnam, Mi Lai, the quiet revolution the FLQ crisis. We were supposed to be jaded and cynical. This is what was happening around us. This was our prologue. Yet we were young, and optimistic. Yes John Kennedy had been killed in Dallas, but not the dream that was Camelot. Not the hope that was Trrudeau-mania. If the world was not perfect it seemed to be a better place. The depression was over, tyrannies had fallen. It still seemed possible that things would be better for our generation than they had been for our Fathers'.

In 1976 I was one year away from graduating High School. Prince Andrew High School in Dartmouth Nova Scotia, to be exact. . One year away from going our separate way. To university and college for some, to trade school and work for others. All of us were facing the world of adulthood. We were one year away from leaving the relative comfort of the only world we had ever known, the world of the hallways of public school. Friends, some of whom we had known all our school careers and some even longer would be scattered to the four corners of the earth. With promises to keep in touch, that were well meant but never kept. Gone too would be our teachers. Good riddance to some. Fond farewell to others. But for now there was one year left. Our final year.

There was still the grade twelve courses to choose. I loved history and there was never any doubt that I would take history in grade twelve. The only thing that remained was which teacher I would be assigned. Unlike University, in High school you don't pick your teacher unless they are the only one who teaches that subject. I resigned myself to the fact that I would have whoever was chosen for me. I was fond of my grade eleven history teacher. A man named Gordon Watson. He was different. He made history even more fun. Not just for me I love it anyways. But for other students, students who normally hated the subject because they thought it cold and boring. It was late in the year and I was sitting in the class, secure in the fact that I had an exemption. Soon I would be enjoying a free class while the rest of these plebes studied for exams. Mr. Watson read a list of names. As he read each name he made some snide remark and then bid them each a genuine farewell. The list was alphabetical, so I bided my time as my name is at the end of the alphabet. However, soon he had read the W's and finished. He settled in to the class and proceeded with the course material and what was to be on the exam. I was dumbfounded. I had aced every test, gotten A's on all the assignments. Had I missed something? How in heck had I missed an exemption. My face must have been a mask of confusion and disappointment. I was too shy to put my hand up. My world had screeched to a halt things seemed to be spinning off in space. I looked around the room. The door had long closed after the last of the exemptees had left. Mr. Watson was pacing the center aisle with his notes in hand as he always did. He passed my desk on the way to the back of the sunlit class. He spun on his heel and started back toward the front of the class. I was still reeling. He paused and looked down. A look of devilish glee on his face. A smile from ear to ear. "Oh yeah," he said slyly, motioning over his right shoulder with his thumb "take a hike. You are exempt too!" I shot from my desk as the class howled with laughter. "I couldn't resist it Greg you looked too smug! Have a great summer! You taking 312 in the fall?" "312?" I stopped in mid stride. "Yeah Local studies you'd be perfect for it!" "You bet." I said leaving the class. I was ecstatic, a chance to keep Mr Watson as my teacher was something I couldn't resist.

Local studies was something new a kind of advanced history course based on primary research. "The kind you'll do in College." Mr. Watson said, when I button holed him in the Hall after school. "How can you be so sure I'll go to college?" I asked. "If you don't it'll be a waste, you love this stuff as much as I do!" There could be little doubt that he loved what he did. It oozed from every pore of him. The way his voice rose as he spoke, the way his step quickened as he paced. I was tired of teachers who were putting in time. Using their tenure to max out their sick days. Counting the years to pensioned bliss. There was none of that with Gordon. He didn't just tolerate my questions when I hung back after class. He answered than with questions. "Why not look into this?" he would say suggesting an alternate explanation to my queries. Making me work for an answer he could have given. It might have been a cop out you might think. Why not a straight answer that would have taken a few seconds? Because he knew that someday he wouldn't be there to answer the next question. Teaching is not about filling a young person's head with knowledge. William Butler Yeats put it best "Education is not the filling of a bucket. It is the building of a fire." I think he saw in me a spark of that fire. I think he saw a kindred spirit.
History 312 was magic. We did a survey of the oldest cemetery in Halifax. We visited Cape Breton and went to the Alexander Graham Bell Museum in Baddeck. We went down in a coal mine in Glace bay. We went to Fortress Louisbourg. We built a float for the Joseph Howe Parade. For you heathens who were not blessed by being born on the sacred hallowed ground of Nova Scotia, Joe Howe was a Father of Confederation, former Premier of Nova Scotia and the man who won freedom of the press in Canada. We won first prize for that float for the non commercial category. We won because we did it with vigor and elan. Some teachers might have thought that our time would have been better spent on books and reading about history. Not a bit! I remember the jubilation I felt when going through an old copy of one of Joe Howe's columns, I came across the quote than was on the side of our float. "That Nova Scotia shall have a free and unshackled press!"
There was the project I started about the West Nova Scotia Regiment. I found the original roster of the regiment in the archives. My Dad had served in the regiment in the Second World War. I had encountered a roadblock as the archives of the military units are open only to members of the Armed Forces or by special permission. I consulted Mr Watson. "Why not call them?" "I'm researching there past not their present." I said. "Call them ." He said simply. I did. I found out that the unit is now a militia unit. I explained my inquiry to the secretary that answered. "The Commander is at work right now." she explained. I was staggered to think he had a regular job. He called me back the next night. He was delighted to help. He invited me to spend the weekend with them at their headquarters in the Annapolis valley. I had a great weekend playing soldier and eating at the officers mess. I got exclusive access to primary documents, like a receipt the unit had for the first German Soldier captured in WW2 by a Canadian unit. The Colonel was delighted to know that the original roster for the regiment still existed. He had never heard of it. I got him a low light photocopy. Some of the men in the unit had the same names as some of the men on the roster form the 1700's. The fire in me burned a little brighter. "Uncle Gordy" as we called him was delighted with my work. "I told you!" he gloated.
I am writing this by way of telling "Uncle Gordy" thanks. Thanks for lighting a fire in me and so many other students over so many other years. For it is a mighty fire. A fire that will burn down walls of ignorance. A fire that will clear the fields of our minds of old stubble and clear the way for new growth. A fire that cleanses. A fire that radiates and warms. I should have told him in person. I would have if I had run into him on my trips to Nova Scotia over the years. I shouldn't have left it to chance. I should have looked him up and told him face to face. Woulda shoulda coulda... The point is moot now. Uncle Gordy passed away this week. Way too soon. He should have had a long and happy retirement. He deserved it. Yeats was right education is the building of a fire. There are too many teachers out there filling buckets. When you meet one that lights your fire, tell them, please. I know it's too late, but thanks Gordon.

Thanks for the light....

Cottage Cheese

Fly Fishing, that most sacred art. To be practiced by only the most privileged anglers. When I was young I imagined it was the domain of men is tweeds and plus fours. Certainly not the purview of clay footed mortals like me. I was a bait fisherman, a meat fisherman through and through. My father never really did fly fish, though he kept a few in his tackle box. He too was a bait man. I never thought I would join the ranks of the initiated. Then one day the fellow who delivered the milk for the restaurant where I worked showed me some trout flies he had bought. I marveled over the tiny things, so small, so perfect. "You're a fly fisherman? " I asked. Taken aback by my tone he replied "Yeah, why?" "Nothing, I just have always wanted to learn. Can you teach me?" It was soon resolved that I would meet him that Saturday in the parking lot of the Volunteer Fire Department in Chezzetcook N.S.

We fished all day in some beautiful local streams. He landed a few beauties. I got nothing. I thrashed the water and spooked the trout for a thousand mile radius. Even if the fish weren't hooked, I was. I am sure that Roderick Haig Brown was rolling in his grave. I had borrowed gear for my first trip. I soon purchased a few items and was given others. I planned my next trip by myself. Armed with five dollars worth of flies from K-Mart I headed for a lake I have favored for some time in the same area as we had fished the week before.

The day was magic. I borrowed my Dad's chest waders, two sizes too small. My feet were cramped and throbbing but I was so enraptured I scarcely noticed. I had a great morning several fish rose to my dry fly but I managed to spook them or snatch the fly from there mouth. In the afternoon I switched to wet flies. I tied on a pattern called a McGinty that imitates a bumble bee as there were lots around. Folks I would like to tell you that my first trout on a fly was taken with the classic cast, the snap of the line with the fly settling on the water. The slow measured stroke of the retrieve. The tug as trout sipped my cunning fly gently offered in the classic fashion you see in early watercolors. Rod arched net proffered. I would like to tell you this good reader, but I cannot. Even the fisherman in me could not polish the lump of coal that was my first victory of man over beast into a diamond. It was rather a comedy of errors that broke the ice for me. Mark you, I was alone and I could have used my poetic licence to paint a prettier picture, but it would probably be revoked.

It happened shortly after lunch. I had an eventful morning and was determined to break the ice. I waded a good distance from shore. I worked the line out swishing it in a great arc over my head. Ten and two was what I had been told, but the line was doing more of a nine and three, slapping the water on each movement of the line, whipping up a foam on the still May waters of the placid lake. Behind me was a huge Birch tree it's majestic limbs stretched out over the lake, reflected in it's crystal waters. I felt my line touch a limb on the back cast. Fearing I had snagged my line I let it drop to the water behind me. Instantly my line went taut. Instinctively I raised my rod tip. A trout broke the water. My pulse raced. I turned and began reeling in line. As I had been mid cast there was a considerable amount of loose line and it was bellied to the water. As my rod shook it wrapped around my rod and the line came to a halt. The fish swam away from shore, toward me. The line went slack. I was going to lose him! I dropped my rod and grabbed the line where it came from the tip. I began to walk toward the fish hauling in line hand over hand. When I had taken up the slack I was delighted to feel the pulse of the fish at the other end of the line. I hauled him in hand over hand and held him proudly. A beauty of fifteen inches about three quarters of a pound. I looked around the lake which was dotted with cottages. No one stirred. I had gotten away with it. My first trout on a fly! Not pretty but hey, who was to know. Well, you, now. I slid him into my creel and retrieved my rod. As the afternoon wore on I got better and so did my score by the end of the day I had caught eight and released five. I had raised and lost quite a few too. My McGinty was just a couple pieces of twisted yarn barely attached to the hook. The more ragged it became the more bites I got.

Sometime later I learned to tie flies. I learned from a book with some advice from tackle shop owners. I am sure I drove some of them crazy with my naive questions. One day in the following spring I was standing in the hallway outside my philosophy class. I had removed a small aluminum fly box from my pocket and was showing my buddy Larry some flies I had tied. Among them were some McGinty pattern. He held the box in his hand turning it to the light as the Professor walked by. He stopped. He held out his hand. Larry passed him the box. He too held the flies to the light. "McGinty's , eh?" "Yes." I replied, "You fish?" "Oh yes my boy , in fact I love this pattern. It works great at the lake where I have my cottage." "Where would that be?" I asked, half expecting him not to tell me. "Big Mill Lake, in Chezzetcook. Do you know it?" "Know it? I replied."I caught my first trout on a fly in that very lake! On that very pattern! It's why I tie them." "There's a deep pool just in front of that huge Birch tree." "I know it!"I replied "It's my favorite spot!" "Well don't spread that around. My cottage is the green one on that little point." I smiled. "Ah, it is all clear to me now! I had always wondered about the crooked sign on the gate to your property." He returned my smile warmly. "My little piece of paradise! Who else but a Philosopher would give his cottage such a name. The perfect place for a thinker to take a break." He left us and headed to the dais. I closed the fly box and returned it to my pocket. As I started in the door Larry became animated. "Hey, what's the deal? What;'s the name of his little piece of paradise?"

"Moot Point!" I replied.