I am hooked on politics these days. It's an addiction that I hadn't really noted until I realized it was the Grey Cup and I'd missed it. I haven't watched a single football game since the Trump Hillary sports extravaganza began. I didn't miss hockey. As a Canadian, missing hockey would be seriously uncultured.
I sometimes think that the ancient Greeks and Italians nvented their Gods to comment on politics. For most of the history of humans, Politicians have arranged for anyone who criticizes them to be killed or locked up. It's only in Democratic Countries which have 'free speech' and 'liberty' that the State doesn't control the media. In most countries of the United Nations 'journalism' is 'propaganda' like we have seen in the CBC.
Canadians call the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation News , the Communist Broadcasting Corporation just like Americans and even the BBC call CNN, the 'Clinton Network News'. The Winnipeg Free Press, once a non partisan source of facts and news is long dead. In it's place the journalists of the world have opted for Pravda.
The fact is,all of this is way above my pay scale.
Justin Trudeau is a millionaire. Hillary Clinton is a multi millionaire. Donald Trump is a billionaire.
The very thought that any one of these actually caring for me personally is grandiose. They are politicking about what's best for themselves and their friends but trying to convince everyone they care for the little guy.
The oldest law of the world is the Chinese Law of the Fish. There are Big Fish and There are Little Fish. Little Fish must be fast and numerous.
'
I'm slowing down. I'm getting older. I'm not numerous. I'm just a fairly anxious little Canadian watching the government tax my income year after year until with all my best work years gone, I'm wondering now about the security of old age realizing that all the promises about working hard and being taken care of in old age are probably no more likely to come true than all the other promises of politicians. There is however horrendous government waste and mismanagement.
But the government employed love their high incomes, low work load and great benefit packages. I don't blame them. But they don't realize that without Don Quioxtes like me and the Deplorables, they couldn't exist in their smug arrogance and luxury life styles. Oh to be a fatuous fat cat yuppie again!
The Serenity Prayer goes - God Grant Me the Serenity to ACCEPT the Things I CANNOT Change, the COURAGE to CHANGE the Things I CAN and the WISDOM to know the difference.
There is determinism or fate and there is free will. I don't really feel powerful like the Activists and Television Personalities. I don't even know if these new Gods and Goddesses of Celluloid are real. We 'assume' so much reality.
Each day I awake and truly have this 24 hours of likelihood.
What I 'cannot change' seems more considerable. I have hope and plans and goals and it all seems to go slowly forward most days, maybe 'slouching towards Bethlehem' or 40 days in the Desert or 2 steps forward and one step back. To paraphrase St. Paul it's mostly, 'what I don't want I do and what I do want I don't do' .
It really is quite possible that EVERYTHING is beyond my capacity to CHANGE it. Free will may well be an illusion. This THING may be a COMIC STRIP.
Listening to Justin Trudeau I feel like I am in a nightmare of karmic proportions. I'm old enough to remember his father. I'm watching him mouth his father's mistakes. I'm seeing myself when I was naive and young thinking Pierre, with his red carnation as 'hip, slick, and cool'. I was so 'smart' back then and actually thought everyone over 30 was likely an idiot.
I fear My punishment is to see Pierre's son doing the same communist totalitarian wasteful spending and swaggering that so offended my parents. Now I'm older I'm seeing the son do the same shit. What's changed is my perception. I'm being 'tortured' seeing the errors of my past. I'm having to confront the folly and arrogance of my youth. Everything that Pierre Trudeau introduced to Canada seems obscene to me today. And here I am old watching his son in this Twilight Zone/Black MIRROR fixed loop nightmare. I don't seem to have any control of it.
Meanwhile the Trump and Hillary fight it out like the Greek and Roman Gods of yesteryear. I see Trump triumph and feel after a year of the Political Verbal GAME there will finally be PEACE in the VALLEY no it's not over till January when Trump will be inaugurated. It's overtime. And the show gets crazier by the moment.
But all I have to change is MY PERCEPTION. It's clearly not a TRAGEDY. IT's a COMEDY. At Least a TRAGI COMEDY. Trudeau is a joke. The HILLARY OBAMA SIT COM is coupled with the Trump Family Show.
I can't change it. It doesn't really affect me today anyway. I could be hit by a bus tomorrow before the next episode..
Facebook is propaganda. Zuckerberg has admitted he's skewed the reporting left. All the mainstream mead 'cheated' with Hillary. People who are losers 'cheat'. These are losers, but who cares, its just ENTERTAINMENT and distraction. It's Carne and Magic and Politics. It's money and power.
Donald Trump is President Elect. Trudeau is Prime Minister. Neither of them is here in the Downtown Eastside Vancouver where I'm seeing patients. None of them are here helping me convince my patients to stop leaving this present reality for unreality. Every patient I see has missed a possible death of heroin.
I don't blame my patients their wanting to escape this reality. Any escape from TV /Facebook/Media Reality may well be worth it. I expect that Media is the cause of much of the rise in drug addiction in the world. That and the Climate Change fear mongerers. Everyone is pushing fear and fear's consumer antidotes.
World Politics is a new form of Sports. It's just another media event. Climate Change is just the weather girl on steroids shouting for attention. The corrupt UN wants more money for their segment of the NEWS.Merkel wants money. Trudeau wants money for his jet setting life style. It's all taxation, high costs, graft and promises. But it's not real.
Real is what I think it is. Real is my feet and hands. Real is this day. Real is my family and freinds. Real is this computer and my dog at my feet. Real is the really good soup I had today at the Heatley.
I will say the Serenity Prayer and hope to have the wisdom to focus on what I can change. I am the VOICE OVER on this COMIC STRIP.
I can change the VOICE OVER. I believe that the WORLD IS UNFOLDING AS IT SHOULD. I believe in a loving God who wants the best for me.
Everything else is way above my pay grade.
God is real and God is love. Thank you Jesus!
Tuesday, November 29, 2016
Saturday, November 26, 2016
Saturday Morning Journalling in Vancouver
I didn’t wake until nearly 9 am. Normally I’m up at 7 so that’s really called sleeping in. Laura was already up. She had taken my fur alarm clock for a walk and were just returning wet from the rainy outdoors while I was going into the apartment bathroom.
“He peed and pooped and then wanted to come right back home. It was pouring and I tried to cover him with my umbrella. He dragged me on the leash back here.” she said.
Gilbert is a comfort dog. When I’m hunting with Gilbert he prefers the truck to the ATV. He’s keen to romp in the woods but loves returning to the warmth and comfort of the truck. Smart dog.
Gilbert has been sleeping on the bed little feet twitching as he runs in the warmth of his dreams.
I’ve been sitting up on the bed Laura made while I was in the washroom.
She’s made me several coffees, brought eggs and toast with marmalade and generally spoiled me.
Meanwhile I’ve been caught up in Facebook.
Fidel Castro died on Black Friday, ironically the most capitalistic day of the year. He was 90. Only the good die young. A deeply evil man he killed thousands with firing squads and ran a one man police state. He was one of the great killers and dictators of the 20th century the century ever to be remembered by failed communist countries killing hundreds of millions and jailing more, over and over again. Stalin at very least saved his country from invasion by his former Socialist friend Adolf Hitler. But his reign of terror was like Castros’. Meanwhile Castro was a friend of Pierre Trudau, the worst prime minister Canada has known from his invoking the war measures act to his national energy bill to his economic debacle that impoverished the country for decades. Amazing what a red carnation symbol can do. Cigar smoking Castro was celebrated for his health care and education system by his leftist cronies who failed to mention his jails and firing squads and theft of all the wealth of the working man.
I saw the refugees who had escaped from Cuba having seen their families killed. I’ve talked to Cubans and am not surprised that there was dancing in the streets of Florida where the most Cubans live, thousands ,tens of thousands dancing and singing when they learned that Castro was dead. Trudeau naturally didn’t comment on this. And everyone in Cuba but the police live in fear. Cubans might well have been singing “Ding Dong the Witch is dead” because everyone knew of his killing and his despotism, except Justin Trudeau who skipped history to snowboard with his trust fund economic account.
There is always ‘romance’ with the rebel. The women can’t explain their sexual attraction to the ‘bad boys’. It’s like good men who fall for the classic honey pot of the hookers. Lust and death go hand in hand.
Cuba is freed from Castro though his family in classic despotism reign. Were Hitler to have won and lived no doubt we’d have seen his children taking power. Stalin’s wife killed herself, his daughter escape to the US, begging the Capitalist Pigs asylum from her brutal father.
Justin Trudeau loved his daddy’s killer buddy. One an effete communist intellecual, the other a murderous communist despot. Little Trudeau just flew to Cuba to see his communist second family. He’s already visited the Chinese despot. George Sorros the Nazi turned Communist , always capitalist billionaire has Justin in his pocket. The Multi Millionaire Canadian Communist Strong started the UN IPCC so Canadians must suffer under a snow boarder drama teachers ignorance of science and demonization of carbon the foundation of humanity, and CO2 the life blood of plants. As Trudeau skipped history and science classes Canadians are just stuck with his daily drama, all that he knows. Selfie’s clicking and another shirtless Trudeau sexting.
It’s all hypocrisy.
I read through my Face Book feeds and having listened to CBC news and am appalled that my taxes outrageous and exorbitant beyond belief worse than even full fledged communist countries go to such deceit and propaganda.
I can’t shake the feeling I’m in a pre WW3 time with my leadership backing HItler and Stalin and Mussolini. Merkel’s platitudes are dying in reality and Europe is turning against the ideological platitudes of the day. France remains under martial law because of Muslim jihadists and refugee sexual violence. All these intellectuals who smoke pot and do drugs and come up with ways for everyone to live to suit their fantasies are caught in the dying light of their once bright ideas. .
I did read a marvellous Psychology Today article on Misandry, the hatred of men, and a sub text on Feminism as Misandry. Feminist Trudeau says men should be as self loathing as him and I can’t help but remember that his mother was a notorious drug addict and sex addict. Now she’s cleaned up her history by claiming the generic term of ‘mentally ill’. But what was the chicken and what was the egg. The fact remains she was a drug addict long before anyone realized how crazy drugs could make a person. Now every drug addict is called Bipolar.
Meanwhile Laura has shown me the picture of her relative’s cat who likes to go hunting with him.He lives in Northern BC, a rural person.
Trump is picking his cabinet. So far all his choices have been incredible. I was really impressed with him when he picked Pence as his VP. I vowed to buy Laura an Ivanka dress, not just because we like her designs but because there was a call to boycott her work because her father Donald Trump had won the election. How petty and offensive the Left is with their riots and destruction of property still going on in Canada and the States. Nothing is more ludicrous than leftist thugs. carrying Gandhi and Martin Luther books while they break into Electronic stores to steal plasma tvs claiming it’s a ‘demonstration’. This is the fundamental problem of phenotype and genotype or rhetoric and logic.
Yesterday after work Laura and I did take advantage of the Black Friday sales. Ivanka dresses are sold at Nordstroms and the Bay. Laura found one she loved in crushed velvet on black friday sale for $79 dollars. At Moores I got two sport jackets for the price of one. I now have three lines of clothing based on my expanding girth. I have made an early resolution to exercise more, eat less, my body unlikely to last till the Official New Year’s Resolution time.
After shopping we stopped for coffee downtown enjoying people watching. Laura had a hot chocolate. The streets were lit up for Christmas. We caught the first packed show of Arrival at Scotia Theatre. Great “Timely” sci fi. We both loved it. After we walked Robson Street and had Sushi at Robson and Thurlow, Sushi Yan. We’d both not been there for years but it was still as good as ever. Quite a treat for us because we don’t eat out often especially in winter because restaurants aren’t dog friendly.
Gilbert was back home hanging out with George his cat buddy. Laura sees them playing ball together and lying together when she comes in and surprises them. When we’re around George acts all diffident though occasionally plays his game of blocking Gilbert getting to the food dish or sitting in front to his ball. When I go to see what’s happening George acts perfectly innocent.
I’m still struggling with my brother’s death. It’s like my life has been on hold and now it’s starting up again. Laura is reading a New York Guide Book. I’ve been enjoying the University New York Historical Society series on audio driving too and from work. I’m reading Edward Rutherford’s New York and was amused at the synchronicity when a patient told me this week he was reading the same and we were actually at the same place in the book and like a couple watching soap operas got chatting about the fictional characters and factual events. “You have to read Sarum. Rutherford is one of my all time favourite authors. I am loving New York but I really think Sarum is still his best.”
I’m loving New York and finding Rutherford to write like a modern day Michener. I’ve read all of Michener and loved them all so now I’ll probably start reading all of Rutherford. So many of my patients have been to or lived in New York and it’s been fascinating to hear how the city affected their narratives.
I am looking forward to visitting AA Central Office and Stepping Stones in New York.. There’s Trinity and St. Patricks and the New Year’s ball. I’ve got tickets on line to the Salome Opera, Philharmonic, CATS and Carole King and Presence with Kate Blanchete. I so enjoyed the art galleries in St. Petersburg and it was in New York more than 40 years ago I loved touring the Whitby and MET falling in love with Marc Chagall whose work I first saw there. My second wife and I saw Lauren Bacall and Jeremy Irons on the Broadway stage one of those unforgettable life moments and performances. I love live theatre and live performances. I loved especially going with my first wife to the theatre in London. We sat in the cheapest seats but got to see Noel Coward plays, and Alec Guiness and Maggie Smith on stage.
This week I had a true blessing, a gift of a Caroline Scagel print of Gilbert in a side car motorcycle in one of her whimsical Marc Chagall like Canadian settings. The painting is on silk and I just love this print. Caroline Scagel’s gallery is called Toller Studios on Maine Island.
Asking my brother what he wanted to do and hearing that all he really wanted was more time with his amazing and loving family, my sister in law and nephews, I thought of my own ‘bucket list’ and New York came to mind. It was tempting to go to Mexico or Hawaii again for the warm. But I went to Turkey ‘off season’ a couple of years ago and don’t regret it one bit though it was rainy and cold with snow in Cappadocia. The History and Art and Mosques and Capadocia country side with fairy chimneys and underground churches remains so unforgettably moving to me. This is not to say the most beautiful beaches in the world on the Mariana Islands could ever lose their appeal to a Canadian who has known real winter. Return as a tourist to Saipan is certainly on my bucket list.
I was really glad to hear my Democratic Congressman friend was re elected. When there are people as loving as caring as he is I am glad people can still vote for the man even if I don’t respect the leader. I was a Liberal for 20 years and am just really sorry that the party remained a Quebec party claiming national concerns. That’s not to say I don’t have my Liberal friends and despite thinking they have superego lacunae in this one regard admire them in all other aspects.
Laura’s never been to New York so it’s a real thrill for her. I took my timid second wife there, my first wife being by contrast a real adventurer and we bicycled across Europe together. My second wife loved cities though and was a great companion visitting art galleries.
I really have been blessed in life though have known great challenges, trials, tribulations and sorrow. So much work. I’m tired now I’m older and if anything the forces of evil , the atheists and the corrupt wasters seem more prevalent.
I felt safe when Harper and Martin and Chretien and Mulroney were prime ministers. I don’t feel safe today. I wonder if my own personal aging isn’t something I’m projecting onto government as the scientifically ignorant baby boomer leftist elite have projected their imminent demise grandiosely onto the planet with their silly theiving climate change cults and pre dementia return to pot smoking and hippy platitudes.
I hope my anxiety is just truly a measure of my distance from God. I feel I pray and meditate too little. I ‘m always so busy. I exercise too little. I indulge myself in food and entertainment and long for an advanced sex robot like a Cherry 2000 though really Laura is a great companion. Frankly I’ve had the sexiest women in the world as wives and lovers. But Cherry 2000 could be programmed to clean the house, feed her man grapes and provide daily desires at verbal command. When I’m in my intellectual mode I think of the laziest ways of sexual gratification because frankly as an intellectual I am forever angry at my mother for cutting the umbilical cord. That’s why Leftist intellectuals want to be on the State Tit.
I guess this is what Trudeau hopes from Muslim women. When he gets Sharia law legalized and beating women, the Muslim way, legislated in Canada we can imagine Sophie will stop exposing so much skin to the camera. One of the main reasons for the Niqab and Burka is for wives to conceal their bruises.
I know a lot of men who thought their Asia wives would work out for them this way. However there does seem to be a female genetic trait of individuality and reason which I have unfortunately admired. I do love freedom and I have loved that women have loved me freely. But then I’m an idealist and for a lot of men and women even marriage is just ‘institutionalized prostitution’ . Feminists see it as lust between adults whereas traditionally marital love was so akin to Agape that Pope Paul John wrote a bulletin describing it as sacrament. In the Bible the Song of Songs is the great book of erotic love.
I love the acceptance of my bible believing friends who trust authority as God’s and that there is a plan that will unfold and that we are saved. I am troubled though that most of Jesus’s disciples were martyred. And I really don’t like pain and am at core a coward despite the many occasions I’ve stood up, making myself a target and suffered for fighting the lonely fights for underdogs and the abused. On dozens of occasions I’ve risked my life to save the lives of others. I’ve faced gangs to stop women being raped fighting to pull girls from attackers and taking serious hits in the process. I argue strongly that if you haven’t any ‘scars’ you’re not going to heaven. If you have scars on only one side of your body you’ve only been at the sidelines.I’ve got scars everywhere because I waded into the middle. And now I look back and wonder why I did that. Older I’m trying to avoid the world.
I love my east indian friend who described picking up a baseball bat to fight off the bullies trying to hurt his wife and children.
Now the enemy just ‘takes my precious time’. Everyone in Canada is facing some time of beurocratic interference. When you count the number of regulations and realize how everything is taxed, see how many police, jails, and asylums, social “homes" we have and how many people are poor and struggling financially you really can appreciate how Castro taking over his country introduced his police state and demonic economic polices that destroyed the productive. But being communist it’s always somebody else’s fault. The left ‘blame game’. Canada is now so far left of centre as to tip over any day now. It’s that unbalanced.
I’m a failure to myself but wonder about my high standards. I still loved Oswald Chambers My Utmost for His Highest and admire the greatest humans like the mariner explorer, Shakleton.
In my personal life I’ve been blessed to have amazing mentors from Dr. Carl Ridd at University of Winnipeg, Dr. Allan Ronald, Dr. Arnold Naimark, Dr. Bill Bebchuck, Dr. Nady el Guebaly, Dr. Bernie, Dr. Hank , Dr. Williei, Dr. Phillip Ney, Dr. Dick, Dr. Art and Dr. Tom and James Houston. I read the biography of Colonel Hatfield our incredible Canadian Astronaut who not only went to space but manned the Space Station and sang David Bowies Colonel Tom from outer space. The men I’ve known have been of this ilk, So far beyond me in their personal lives and achievements but so kind as to share and help a fellow human. I’ve been truly blessed. I’ve known as many angels in my life like Cheryl, Carole, Bobby and closer to home, Maria Gomorri, Dr. Barb, Rev. Clark, Andria, but it’s the men I’ve tried to emulate. As my father taught me hunting, bicycling and shaving and my brother taught me motorcycles and canoeing so I’ve followed in the footsteps of these leaders of men and been truly impressed by their genius and big hearts. I’ve been blessed to know so many greater in my work and recreation. I’m so utterly thankful for all my education and a life of learning.
I told a friend that I truly loved the painting but the frame was sordid and that saddened me. These days I’m asking what stops me from being the best person I can be. There seems less and less time to be the best person I can be and I’ve really been trying to do this in a variety of ways all my life. I ‘m certainly skilled and I certainly have had a lot of awards and recognition. I’ve even had a bit of infamy which I don’t like but realize was what others have experienced who stood up. Being different gets a chicken with a black feather savaged by the other stupid chickens. Stupid people frighten me and there are a lot more stupid people than smart people. Worse the stupidest are made to think they are smart by the wiles of the smart who award and give the stupid badges. There’s nothing more dangerous than a stupid person in uniform.
I may be a stupid person. I’m always self questioning and self doubting. Even when I was going through medical school I was questioning my decision. I left university in undergrad because I thought that the administration was a propaganda organ yet I came back and went on to teach knowing that this was partly true but so what. I’ve learned to be less uncompromising and less judgemental. Aging is a real time of mellowing. I realize I was really stupid when I was younger but I sure had a lot more energy.
Now I’m quite satisfied but accept that life is suffering unto death and anxiety is a measure of my distance from God. I am ever crying out for God and leading my life in as Godly a way as I can but I’m soiled with life and age and pretty beaten down by the game. I really felt the Glass Bead Game by Herman Hesse captured this aspect of truth just like Walden Pond confronts our consumer society. I enjoyed hearing Zero Sum Game in the movie Arrival.
I’ve given all to the company store and now sucked dry I also have to accept that nothing is good enough for the State or the State Committees because they are insatiably addicted to power but equally suffer extreme inferiority complex which cause them to avoid personal accountability. Thats a weakness ethically in the corporate model, a modern medieval reinvention of the Lords and Ladies. I am waiting to be cast off knowing the callousness of institutions and institutionalized men and women. The Committee . It’s like Kafka’s Castle. But on a good day I hope to live as my father and mother lived long enough to enjoy retirement. But Trudeau has broken all his promises and the State promise of the reward of retirement is apparently no different than what the State has done for all too many of the Vets. Obama is even now demanding claw back from Vets after they served claiming he overpaid them. Hillary in Watergate destroyed the pensions of the med west farmers and workers without any thought but for her Chelsea who not surprisingly married a banker..
The closed ballot and the true election process was a cornerstone of liberty but today no one cares for freedom. it’s all about consumerism.
I like to consume too. I’ve experienced extreme poverty and sickness and prefer moderate well being. What I really must work more at is avoiding ‘comparing my insides with others outsides’. As Milton always said, “When I look in a mirror I realize the problem is me and I’m looking at it.” There is a farcical nature to Canadian politics right now so if only I could elevate my perspective I could be belly laughing all day at the foolishness of it all. That might get me locked up but it sure beats despair. And as the great pro life champion Dr. Ney would say, the world is full of bitter old people. Being positive in negative times is really rather original and creative.
Here I am today able to sit at this Apple laptop computer journalling, a day off from a hectic week, well fed , warm and with my dog and beautiful friend.
The world is unfolding as it is. Today is a blessing. Tomorrow is not yet here. I even have more adventure to consider today. Thank you God for all your blessings. Thank you for my family , friends, my work and all those I can help and serve. Help me in my work. Help me to be a better doctor. Help me to grow old more gracefully. Help me to take more care of my own health and better care for this body I have let grow fat and lazy. Help me to be a better master to my dog and a better friend. Thank you for rest as well as work. Guide me in the troubles that come with working with the most insane, and most addicted and the stigma of a doctor among society’s Lepers. Help me to help those marginalized by society. Help me to be wiser, more loving and more discerning.
Thank you esus for this day and all the wonders of God’s creation.
“He peed and pooped and then wanted to come right back home. It was pouring and I tried to cover him with my umbrella. He dragged me on the leash back here.” she said.
Gilbert is a comfort dog. When I’m hunting with Gilbert he prefers the truck to the ATV. He’s keen to romp in the woods but loves returning to the warmth and comfort of the truck. Smart dog.
Gilbert has been sleeping on the bed little feet twitching as he runs in the warmth of his dreams.
I’ve been sitting up on the bed Laura made while I was in the washroom.
She’s made me several coffees, brought eggs and toast with marmalade and generally spoiled me.
Meanwhile I’ve been caught up in Facebook.
Fidel Castro died on Black Friday, ironically the most capitalistic day of the year. He was 90. Only the good die young. A deeply evil man he killed thousands with firing squads and ran a one man police state. He was one of the great killers and dictators of the 20th century the century ever to be remembered by failed communist countries killing hundreds of millions and jailing more, over and over again. Stalin at very least saved his country from invasion by his former Socialist friend Adolf Hitler. But his reign of terror was like Castros’. Meanwhile Castro was a friend of Pierre Trudau, the worst prime minister Canada has known from his invoking the war measures act to his national energy bill to his economic debacle that impoverished the country for decades. Amazing what a red carnation symbol can do. Cigar smoking Castro was celebrated for his health care and education system by his leftist cronies who failed to mention his jails and firing squads and theft of all the wealth of the working man.
I saw the refugees who had escaped from Cuba having seen their families killed. I’ve talked to Cubans and am not surprised that there was dancing in the streets of Florida where the most Cubans live, thousands ,tens of thousands dancing and singing when they learned that Castro was dead. Trudeau naturally didn’t comment on this. And everyone in Cuba but the police live in fear. Cubans might well have been singing “Ding Dong the Witch is dead” because everyone knew of his killing and his despotism, except Justin Trudeau who skipped history to snowboard with his trust fund economic account.
There is always ‘romance’ with the rebel. The women can’t explain their sexual attraction to the ‘bad boys’. It’s like good men who fall for the classic honey pot of the hookers. Lust and death go hand in hand.
Cuba is freed from Castro though his family in classic despotism reign. Were Hitler to have won and lived no doubt we’d have seen his children taking power. Stalin’s wife killed herself, his daughter escape to the US, begging the Capitalist Pigs asylum from her brutal father.
Justin Trudeau loved his daddy’s killer buddy. One an effete communist intellecual, the other a murderous communist despot. Little Trudeau just flew to Cuba to see his communist second family. He’s already visited the Chinese despot. George Sorros the Nazi turned Communist , always capitalist billionaire has Justin in his pocket. The Multi Millionaire Canadian Communist Strong started the UN IPCC so Canadians must suffer under a snow boarder drama teachers ignorance of science and demonization of carbon the foundation of humanity, and CO2 the life blood of plants. As Trudeau skipped history and science classes Canadians are just stuck with his daily drama, all that he knows. Selfie’s clicking and another shirtless Trudeau sexting.
It’s all hypocrisy.
I read through my Face Book feeds and having listened to CBC news and am appalled that my taxes outrageous and exorbitant beyond belief worse than even full fledged communist countries go to such deceit and propaganda.
I can’t shake the feeling I’m in a pre WW3 time with my leadership backing HItler and Stalin and Mussolini. Merkel’s platitudes are dying in reality and Europe is turning against the ideological platitudes of the day. France remains under martial law because of Muslim jihadists and refugee sexual violence. All these intellectuals who smoke pot and do drugs and come up with ways for everyone to live to suit their fantasies are caught in the dying light of their once bright ideas. .
I did read a marvellous Psychology Today article on Misandry, the hatred of men, and a sub text on Feminism as Misandry. Feminist Trudeau says men should be as self loathing as him and I can’t help but remember that his mother was a notorious drug addict and sex addict. Now she’s cleaned up her history by claiming the generic term of ‘mentally ill’. But what was the chicken and what was the egg. The fact remains she was a drug addict long before anyone realized how crazy drugs could make a person. Now every drug addict is called Bipolar.
Meanwhile Laura has shown me the picture of her relative’s cat who likes to go hunting with him.He lives in Northern BC, a rural person.
Trump is picking his cabinet. So far all his choices have been incredible. I was really impressed with him when he picked Pence as his VP. I vowed to buy Laura an Ivanka dress, not just because we like her designs but because there was a call to boycott her work because her father Donald Trump had won the election. How petty and offensive the Left is with their riots and destruction of property still going on in Canada and the States. Nothing is more ludicrous than leftist thugs. carrying Gandhi and Martin Luther books while they break into Electronic stores to steal plasma tvs claiming it’s a ‘demonstration’. This is the fundamental problem of phenotype and genotype or rhetoric and logic.
Yesterday after work Laura and I did take advantage of the Black Friday sales. Ivanka dresses are sold at Nordstroms and the Bay. Laura found one she loved in crushed velvet on black friday sale for $79 dollars. At Moores I got two sport jackets for the price of one. I now have three lines of clothing based on my expanding girth. I have made an early resolution to exercise more, eat less, my body unlikely to last till the Official New Year’s Resolution time.
After shopping we stopped for coffee downtown enjoying people watching. Laura had a hot chocolate. The streets were lit up for Christmas. We caught the first packed show of Arrival at Scotia Theatre. Great “Timely” sci fi. We both loved it. After we walked Robson Street and had Sushi at Robson and Thurlow, Sushi Yan. We’d both not been there for years but it was still as good as ever. Quite a treat for us because we don’t eat out often especially in winter because restaurants aren’t dog friendly.
Gilbert was back home hanging out with George his cat buddy. Laura sees them playing ball together and lying together when she comes in and surprises them. When we’re around George acts all diffident though occasionally plays his game of blocking Gilbert getting to the food dish or sitting in front to his ball. When I go to see what’s happening George acts perfectly innocent.
I’m still struggling with my brother’s death. It’s like my life has been on hold and now it’s starting up again. Laura is reading a New York Guide Book. I’ve been enjoying the University New York Historical Society series on audio driving too and from work. I’m reading Edward Rutherford’s New York and was amused at the synchronicity when a patient told me this week he was reading the same and we were actually at the same place in the book and like a couple watching soap operas got chatting about the fictional characters and factual events. “You have to read Sarum. Rutherford is one of my all time favourite authors. I am loving New York but I really think Sarum is still his best.”
I’m loving New York and finding Rutherford to write like a modern day Michener. I’ve read all of Michener and loved them all so now I’ll probably start reading all of Rutherford. So many of my patients have been to or lived in New York and it’s been fascinating to hear how the city affected their narratives.
I am looking forward to visitting AA Central Office and Stepping Stones in New York.. There’s Trinity and St. Patricks and the New Year’s ball. I’ve got tickets on line to the Salome Opera, Philharmonic, CATS and Carole King and Presence with Kate Blanchete. I so enjoyed the art galleries in St. Petersburg and it was in New York more than 40 years ago I loved touring the Whitby and MET falling in love with Marc Chagall whose work I first saw there. My second wife and I saw Lauren Bacall and Jeremy Irons on the Broadway stage one of those unforgettable life moments and performances. I love live theatre and live performances. I loved especially going with my first wife to the theatre in London. We sat in the cheapest seats but got to see Noel Coward plays, and Alec Guiness and Maggie Smith on stage.
This week I had a true blessing, a gift of a Caroline Scagel print of Gilbert in a side car motorcycle in one of her whimsical Marc Chagall like Canadian settings. The painting is on silk and I just love this print. Caroline Scagel’s gallery is called Toller Studios on Maine Island.
Asking my brother what he wanted to do and hearing that all he really wanted was more time with his amazing and loving family, my sister in law and nephews, I thought of my own ‘bucket list’ and New York came to mind. It was tempting to go to Mexico or Hawaii again for the warm. But I went to Turkey ‘off season’ a couple of years ago and don’t regret it one bit though it was rainy and cold with snow in Cappadocia. The History and Art and Mosques and Capadocia country side with fairy chimneys and underground churches remains so unforgettably moving to me. This is not to say the most beautiful beaches in the world on the Mariana Islands could ever lose their appeal to a Canadian who has known real winter. Return as a tourist to Saipan is certainly on my bucket list.
I was really glad to hear my Democratic Congressman friend was re elected. When there are people as loving as caring as he is I am glad people can still vote for the man even if I don’t respect the leader. I was a Liberal for 20 years and am just really sorry that the party remained a Quebec party claiming national concerns. That’s not to say I don’t have my Liberal friends and despite thinking they have superego lacunae in this one regard admire them in all other aspects.
Laura’s never been to New York so it’s a real thrill for her. I took my timid second wife there, my first wife being by contrast a real adventurer and we bicycled across Europe together. My second wife loved cities though and was a great companion visitting art galleries.
I really have been blessed in life though have known great challenges, trials, tribulations and sorrow. So much work. I’m tired now I’m older and if anything the forces of evil , the atheists and the corrupt wasters seem more prevalent.
I felt safe when Harper and Martin and Chretien and Mulroney were prime ministers. I don’t feel safe today. I wonder if my own personal aging isn’t something I’m projecting onto government as the scientifically ignorant baby boomer leftist elite have projected their imminent demise grandiosely onto the planet with their silly theiving climate change cults and pre dementia return to pot smoking and hippy platitudes.
I hope my anxiety is just truly a measure of my distance from God. I feel I pray and meditate too little. I ‘m always so busy. I exercise too little. I indulge myself in food and entertainment and long for an advanced sex robot like a Cherry 2000 though really Laura is a great companion. Frankly I’ve had the sexiest women in the world as wives and lovers. But Cherry 2000 could be programmed to clean the house, feed her man grapes and provide daily desires at verbal command. When I’m in my intellectual mode I think of the laziest ways of sexual gratification because frankly as an intellectual I am forever angry at my mother for cutting the umbilical cord. That’s why Leftist intellectuals want to be on the State Tit.
I guess this is what Trudeau hopes from Muslim women. When he gets Sharia law legalized and beating women, the Muslim way, legislated in Canada we can imagine Sophie will stop exposing so much skin to the camera. One of the main reasons for the Niqab and Burka is for wives to conceal their bruises.
I know a lot of men who thought their Asia wives would work out for them this way. However there does seem to be a female genetic trait of individuality and reason which I have unfortunately admired. I do love freedom and I have loved that women have loved me freely. But then I’m an idealist and for a lot of men and women even marriage is just ‘institutionalized prostitution’ . Feminists see it as lust between adults whereas traditionally marital love was so akin to Agape that Pope Paul John wrote a bulletin describing it as sacrament. In the Bible the Song of Songs is the great book of erotic love.
I love the acceptance of my bible believing friends who trust authority as God’s and that there is a plan that will unfold and that we are saved. I am troubled though that most of Jesus’s disciples were martyred. And I really don’t like pain and am at core a coward despite the many occasions I’ve stood up, making myself a target and suffered for fighting the lonely fights for underdogs and the abused. On dozens of occasions I’ve risked my life to save the lives of others. I’ve faced gangs to stop women being raped fighting to pull girls from attackers and taking serious hits in the process. I argue strongly that if you haven’t any ‘scars’ you’re not going to heaven. If you have scars on only one side of your body you’ve only been at the sidelines.I’ve got scars everywhere because I waded into the middle. And now I look back and wonder why I did that. Older I’m trying to avoid the world.
I love my east indian friend who described picking up a baseball bat to fight off the bullies trying to hurt his wife and children.
Now the enemy just ‘takes my precious time’. Everyone in Canada is facing some time of beurocratic interference. When you count the number of regulations and realize how everything is taxed, see how many police, jails, and asylums, social “homes" we have and how many people are poor and struggling financially you really can appreciate how Castro taking over his country introduced his police state and demonic economic polices that destroyed the productive. But being communist it’s always somebody else’s fault. The left ‘blame game’. Canada is now so far left of centre as to tip over any day now. It’s that unbalanced.
I’m a failure to myself but wonder about my high standards. I still loved Oswald Chambers My Utmost for His Highest and admire the greatest humans like the mariner explorer, Shakleton.
In my personal life I’ve been blessed to have amazing mentors from Dr. Carl Ridd at University of Winnipeg, Dr. Allan Ronald, Dr. Arnold Naimark, Dr. Bill Bebchuck, Dr. Nady el Guebaly, Dr. Bernie, Dr. Hank , Dr. Williei, Dr. Phillip Ney, Dr. Dick, Dr. Art and Dr. Tom and James Houston. I read the biography of Colonel Hatfield our incredible Canadian Astronaut who not only went to space but manned the Space Station and sang David Bowies Colonel Tom from outer space. The men I’ve known have been of this ilk, So far beyond me in their personal lives and achievements but so kind as to share and help a fellow human. I’ve been truly blessed. I’ve known as many angels in my life like Cheryl, Carole, Bobby and closer to home, Maria Gomorri, Dr. Barb, Rev. Clark, Andria, but it’s the men I’ve tried to emulate. As my father taught me hunting, bicycling and shaving and my brother taught me motorcycles and canoeing so I’ve followed in the footsteps of these leaders of men and been truly impressed by their genius and big hearts. I’ve been blessed to know so many greater in my work and recreation. I’m so utterly thankful for all my education and a life of learning.
I told a friend that I truly loved the painting but the frame was sordid and that saddened me. These days I’m asking what stops me from being the best person I can be. There seems less and less time to be the best person I can be and I’ve really been trying to do this in a variety of ways all my life. I ‘m certainly skilled and I certainly have had a lot of awards and recognition. I’ve even had a bit of infamy which I don’t like but realize was what others have experienced who stood up. Being different gets a chicken with a black feather savaged by the other stupid chickens. Stupid people frighten me and there are a lot more stupid people than smart people. Worse the stupidest are made to think they are smart by the wiles of the smart who award and give the stupid badges. There’s nothing more dangerous than a stupid person in uniform.
I may be a stupid person. I’m always self questioning and self doubting. Even when I was going through medical school I was questioning my decision. I left university in undergrad because I thought that the administration was a propaganda organ yet I came back and went on to teach knowing that this was partly true but so what. I’ve learned to be less uncompromising and less judgemental. Aging is a real time of mellowing. I realize I was really stupid when I was younger but I sure had a lot more energy.
Now I’m quite satisfied but accept that life is suffering unto death and anxiety is a measure of my distance from God. I am ever crying out for God and leading my life in as Godly a way as I can but I’m soiled with life and age and pretty beaten down by the game. I really felt the Glass Bead Game by Herman Hesse captured this aspect of truth just like Walden Pond confronts our consumer society. I enjoyed hearing Zero Sum Game in the movie Arrival.
I’ve given all to the company store and now sucked dry I also have to accept that nothing is good enough for the State or the State Committees because they are insatiably addicted to power but equally suffer extreme inferiority complex which cause them to avoid personal accountability. Thats a weakness ethically in the corporate model, a modern medieval reinvention of the Lords and Ladies. I am waiting to be cast off knowing the callousness of institutions and institutionalized men and women. The Committee . It’s like Kafka’s Castle. But on a good day I hope to live as my father and mother lived long enough to enjoy retirement. But Trudeau has broken all his promises and the State promise of the reward of retirement is apparently no different than what the State has done for all too many of the Vets. Obama is even now demanding claw back from Vets after they served claiming he overpaid them. Hillary in Watergate destroyed the pensions of the med west farmers and workers without any thought but for her Chelsea who not surprisingly married a banker..
The closed ballot and the true election process was a cornerstone of liberty but today no one cares for freedom. it’s all about consumerism.
I like to consume too. I’ve experienced extreme poverty and sickness and prefer moderate well being. What I really must work more at is avoiding ‘comparing my insides with others outsides’. As Milton always said, “When I look in a mirror I realize the problem is me and I’m looking at it.” There is a farcical nature to Canadian politics right now so if only I could elevate my perspective I could be belly laughing all day at the foolishness of it all. That might get me locked up but it sure beats despair. And as the great pro life champion Dr. Ney would say, the world is full of bitter old people. Being positive in negative times is really rather original and creative.
Here I am today able to sit at this Apple laptop computer journalling, a day off from a hectic week, well fed , warm and with my dog and beautiful friend.
The world is unfolding as it is. Today is a blessing. Tomorrow is not yet here. I even have more adventure to consider today. Thank you God for all your blessings. Thank you for my family , friends, my work and all those I can help and serve. Help me in my work. Help me to be a better doctor. Help me to grow old more gracefully. Help me to take more care of my own health and better care for this body I have let grow fat and lazy. Help me to be a better master to my dog and a better friend. Thank you for rest as well as work. Guide me in the troubles that come with working with the most insane, and most addicted and the stigma of a doctor among society’s Lepers. Help me to help those marginalized by society. Help me to be wiser, more loving and more discerning.
Thank you esus for this day and all the wonders of God’s creation.
Wednesday, November 23, 2016
Political Phobias and Politician Denial
DSMV is the diagnostic and statistical manual of the American Psychiatric Association.
There is no psychiatric condition called "Islamaphobia". There is also no psychiatric condition or disorder of Climate Change Denial.
Yet in both cases the politically motivated are using 'pseudoscience' terms to create validity by association for their spurious idealogies.
Phobias that are acknowledged by the DSMV include social phobia, agaraphobia, phobia of flying, seeing blood, receiving an injection, animals, heights as examples.
It is critical to understand that while just about any 'thing' or even 'person' can be a source of 'phobia' such as Trumpphobia or Jesusphobia or Clintonphobia or Buddhaphobia these have not been clinically investigated as such because the diagnosis contains a specific 'exclusion' criteria.
It says that the disturbance is not better explained by the symptons of another mental disorder. Mania especially Megalomania are however recognised by DSMV. Indeed this condition with associated grandiose delusions and extreme entitlement and various other accompanying behaviours has been recognised since the 19th century. Kraepelin described the diagnosis.
Consequently those who cry "Islamaphobia' are more likely suffering Megalomania because they are by these psychiatric diagnosis of others who disagree with them presuming arrogantly and smugly that the world as a whole made them God Psychiatrist.
As a humble psychiatrist, I would simply point out that there is no Islamaphobia. If there were Christanophobia would be the more frightening condition since Christians are the most persecuted group in the history of the world.
Climate Change Denier is a ludicrous expression. It's hate speech inherrent. Because everyone knows the weather 'changes'. What it is meat to represent is 'global warming' predominantly by human endeavour. Again those who cite it are far more likely to be suffering megalomania becaue they put their enemies as more powerful than the Sun. The Sun is the principle heat source.
If the government and others continue to use psychiatric terminology would they kindly seek psychiatric help themselves. I'm not sure we have sufficient asylums to accommodate them but really they should consider what nonsense they speak and at least study science before speaking about something they are obviously wholly ignorant of.
There is no psychiatric condition called "Islamaphobia". There is also no psychiatric condition or disorder of Climate Change Denial.
Yet in both cases the politically motivated are using 'pseudoscience' terms to create validity by association for their spurious idealogies.
Phobias that are acknowledged by the DSMV include social phobia, agaraphobia, phobia of flying, seeing blood, receiving an injection, animals, heights as examples.
It is critical to understand that while just about any 'thing' or even 'person' can be a source of 'phobia' such as Trumpphobia or Jesusphobia or Clintonphobia or Buddhaphobia these have not been clinically investigated as such because the diagnosis contains a specific 'exclusion' criteria.
It says that the disturbance is not better explained by the symptons of another mental disorder. Mania especially Megalomania are however recognised by DSMV. Indeed this condition with associated grandiose delusions and extreme entitlement and various other accompanying behaviours has been recognised since the 19th century. Kraepelin described the diagnosis.
Consequently those who cry "Islamaphobia' are more likely suffering Megalomania because they are by these psychiatric diagnosis of others who disagree with them presuming arrogantly and smugly that the world as a whole made them God Psychiatrist.
As a humble psychiatrist, I would simply point out that there is no Islamaphobia. If there were Christanophobia would be the more frightening condition since Christians are the most persecuted group in the history of the world.
Climate Change Denier is a ludicrous expression. It's hate speech inherrent. Because everyone knows the weather 'changes'. What it is meat to represent is 'global warming' predominantly by human endeavour. Again those who cite it are far more likely to be suffering megalomania becaue they put their enemies as more powerful than the Sun. The Sun is the principle heat source.
If the government and others continue to use psychiatric terminology would they kindly seek psychiatric help themselves. I'm not sure we have sufficient asylums to accommodate them but really they should consider what nonsense they speak and at least study science before speaking about something they are obviously wholly ignorant of.
Saturday, November 19, 2016
Hunting, Clinton and Caribou Lodge
Bill , my old hunting buddy from Gold River and Campbell River, first took me hunting to Clinton. We stayed at Circle H Ranch. It was 30 years ago. I shot my first moose there with Bill.
Mostly Bill and I would hunt deer in Sayward with his son Allan or one of his many friends. Once every year or so he’d make a trip up to northern BC to hunt “Big Mule Deer” or Moose. Mostly we went up by Vanderhoof. The Big Mule Deer are everywhere on the mainland. The Vancouver Island deer are about half the size, a black tail strain of red deer I seem to recall. They’re mule deer but not like the majestic creatures you see in the coastal mountains. “My son, Allan, just loves hunting these mule deer.” Bill died a few years back and hopefully some day Allan and I will follow in the tradition and hunt the Big Mule Deer.
Ever since that first moose I shot in Clinton I’ve liked going back there. I love the cowboy country. I love the sage. I love the rolling hills. I been up there dozens of times over the year and yes I’ve shot a deer or two but mostly I’ve come back with grouse. That moose I shot must have been a miracle of Bill’s incredible power of attracting wild game. Everyone knew, if you hunted with Bill, you were always going to have game. He’d begun feeding his single mother and sister shooting deer in Quebec between age 12 and 16, when he lost his father.
He’d known his sorrow. Hunting isn’t much about killing. The nutbars who know nothing go on and on like they know things but they know nothing. Men hunt and fish to talk for hours to each other. When we’re hunting we’re silent. When we’re fishing we’re not talking. But when we are driving to and fro the hunting and fishing places we’re the worst chatty Kathy’s. I heard all about Bill’s first wife, the love of his life, how he visited her as often as she could until a nurse seeing what a great man he was took him for herself. He never forgave himself for that. He beat himself up a whole lot. He talked of his sons and daughters and his sister. He loved his family.
Bill didn’t drink.
I drank when we met. On one trip I felt and was injured. We drove home with me half drunk and every bump causing me exquisite pain. I cursed so much that trip I was surprised that Bill wanted to hunt with me again. We went on to hunt a decade more.It was always fun. He loved the outdoors and taught me how to call deer. They’d walk right up to him. I loved doing my ‘tai chi’ in the woods and walking up to sleeping deer to startle them awake blowing in their ear. Bill was a great guide and coach.
When we came north we’d stay in his camper and he’d have us up before dawn serving his god awful percolated coffee with the greasy bacon and runny eggs and toast. Thanks to him I learned to carry ‘wet ones’ in the woods. “You’ll thank me after you shit in the woods and use your wet ones.” All the guys hunting with Bill had their wet ones along for the inevitable crap in the woods.
Younger I’d come up to the north and tent but then I stayed at Caribou Lodge. I was hooked. What a great place. Terrific rooms , great service, wonderful people catering to hunters and cowboys, miners and loggers. It’s upscale with fine decor. A bit like a woodsy Hilton decor but rustic. Clean. So no longer liking roughing it lying hard and cooking around a campfire I’ve become older and enjoyed the Caribou Lodge.
When I got my Honda CRF 230 motorcycle and then the 250 CRF I’d bring them up to the Caribou. I’d load my gear on the back and sling my rifle over my shoulder and head out of town on gravel roads loving driving around the back woods. I shot every can for miles around but didn’t ever shoot anything living. That’s just what hunting is. For me it’s just getting away from work and everything after that is Grace.
The last time I’d been at the Caribou was last year with Laura and Tom. That was the weekend Gilbert hurt his back and we had to come back in fear thankfully to find that Gilbert responded to steroids and antiinflmattories. Now here we were back again.
I’d shot a deer in Princeton so was able to enjoy the trip and hunting in a way one does once there’s meat in the freezer. Tom by contrast was still eager. I’d have slept in that first day but Tom was adamant we were up before dawn.
So dressing in the dark we got the thermos filled at the gas station and headed into the backwoods. A half dozen other hunters were there too. Everyone dressed in camo with belt knives and gears driving 4x4 trucks is a pretty good give away as to what we’re all doing.
I always like that sportsman pay for 95% or more of the Conservation Costs for the Province. Rifles cost thousands. Ammunition costs thousands. The vehicles cost tens of thousands. As a ‘sport’ its the most expensive, costing more than golf and skiing. It’s not elite either. Rural men and women shoot game every year with little effort since the deer and moose are pretty much in their back yards. My friend just carries a gun in his truck and invariably gets a deer on the way to or from work each year. All the farmers complement their winter fare of beef and pork with much appreciated venison or moose. It still costs to have the rifle and ammo and to get a firearms license and hunting license. The courses for firearms licenses can cost hundreds of dollars as can the courses for hunting.
I got my first marksman award at 12 yo , my ‘Bronze Rifle Safety Award.’ My brother got his ‘Silver’. I began accompanying my dad hunting at 6 years old but only began shooting a 22 when I was 10 or 12. My brother, 4 years older, was my Dad’s companion hunter shooting ducks and geese. I did the plucking and loved being along with the ‘men’. Later after medical school I got back together with my dad hunting ducks and geese and wild chickens. Borrowing my brothers Irish Setter, Tartan, those were some of my fondest memories.
The real cost is for city folk. It’s the hunters and fishermen who buy the trucks and RV’s or support the rural economy staying in the motels and hotels and spending a fortune on gas and restaurants.
When I told my Yukon friend I’d shot 8 moose, he said, “that’s pretty good for a city boy. I’ve shot 40 but I shot them out the kitchen window while they were walking through my vegetable garden.”
I’ve shot more grouse than I can remember and tell everyone I only shoot big game if it comes upon when I ‘m out hunting grouse. I have a 22 for shooting the chicken’s heads off. My present love is the new break down stainless steel Ruger 22/10 rifle. Hunting with Luke I learned about the Ruger semi auto. On our trip to Fort St. James Luke was the most proficient grouse hunter with his Hawkeye accuracy and the Ruger 22/10 that Gilbert our grouse dog stopped hunting with the rest of us and latched on to Luke as obviously the best hunter among us. On another hunter Sonny had a 20 guage and I loved watching him take down a grouse on the fly. I loved shooting skeet and ducks but with a 22 I only shot the grouse on the ground or in the tree. A 12 guage is too heavy for grouse, pellets embedding deep in the meat. By contrast the 20 guage 6 or 7 shot is light enough that it drops the bird but doesn’t mess up the meat. So now I carry the 22 and the 20 guage on a rack on the ATV. My stainless steel Ruger 30:06 which Bill called the “Sexcaliber” when I first got it rides in the Honda Pioneer’s cab with me. When I bought the Ruger is was one of the earliest stainless steel rifles. I wanted the stainless steel because I was living on a sailboat. When I took it out of the box at Bill’s cabin in Campbell River, it was so shiny, I said, “It reminds me of Excalibur.” Sherry said it looked ’sexy’ and Bill laughing said “It’s the Sexcalibur”. The name stuck. It’s been an amazing trustworthy reliable rifle for 30 years. I used 180 grain bullets for everything on the mainland, bear, moose, and deer. On the Island I’d switch to 120 grain. Bill turned me on to Nossler Partition bullets for big game, twice the cost but having dropped a charging bear and a charging moose in my time I’m thankful for the knowledge about bullets Bill shared.
I love the delicacy grouse is, similar to cornish game hens but bigger and better. This weekend we didn’t even shoot a grouse. I had three take off before I could get the gun out. They really were skittish which could be expected given it was the end of the season. Tom and I drove out before dawn and unloading the Honda 500 Side by Side ATV from my Ford F350 at dawn. With Gilbert on my lap Tom drove us back into the woods. The only trouble was that we picked a short road. So back we came. We crossed the road only to drive along another short logging road. We decided to bring along the truck and go a little further. Tom got in the truck with Gilbert. Gilbert really likes the truck. He ’s a suck for luxury and warmth so at first opportunity he’s in the truck happy to be standing on the centre between the men eyes peeled for grouse. I drove along the ditch about 500 yards finding the next logging road. The only trouble with being camouflaged Tom drove by me and thought I’d kept on going.
We had our very effective little yellow motorola radio communicators but Tom didn’t have his turned on at first and I was calling on the wrong frequency. After realizing he wasn’t coming back anytime soon I headed off into the woods. That’s when I saw the smart grouse who’d survived thus far and by being paranoid about cammo geared men carrying long guns lived another day. I thought if I’d had Gilbert I might have got one. Meanwhile Gilbert and Tom were watching does in the woods hoping that a buck would join the does but none did.
Getting the radios right and me on the right frequency, I called Tom. Gilbert was ecstatic to find me. We loaded the ATV which we’ve named “Charles’ and headed down to the Big Bar Ferry. It’s all posted now. Much of Clinton is off limits to hunting now. So much farm land. Lots of dude ranches. Everywhere I go I see the development.
We did see a whole flock of turkeys’ “Are those wild turkeys?” Tom asked. I quickly check IHunter an amazing app I have that works with the GPS puts up the hunting regs for the region one is in. “Not in season here.” I said.
“Besides that farmer is giving us a really mean look. Tom looked to where I was pointing and there was a farm house and a farmer had come out of his kitchen to watch us watching what obviously must be his turkeys. The turkeys picking up on our unhealthy interest had turned about and scurried across the road back to farmer who had a rather prominent sign posted saying “No trespassing. No hunting”.
Tom said, “I guess that pretty much ruins a good turkey hunt.’
We headed back to Clinton after that. That night we had great pork roast in the restaurant. They were singing karaoke in the bar. The Trump election win was playing on the tv with the media still acting like the left hadn’t run. CBC news was the worst, calling on every Trump hater to denounce him and singing the praise of Hillary and Bernie despite the fact that the majority of Americans and American Colleges and States had voted in Trump. To hear the media there’d been armed coup. Meanwhile the Democrats were hypocritically staging riots after days before saying they were afraid of the violence of Republicans. Black leaders kept coming forward complaining that they couldn’t see any reason that black Democrats should break into their stores and steal their VCR’s and TV’s as a ‘demonstration’. It was chaos on the news and we were glad to be out in the simplicity of the country.
Tom or I said Grace each meal.
The salisbury steak the second night was so delicious , a spicy sauce to die for. The non fattening home made apple and berry pies with non fattening vanilla ice cream really topped off the meals. Gilbert loved the all beef paddies the chef cooked up especially for him. When we got back to the room relieving him of his guard duty he was very happy to eat his delicious dog reward. When we go hunting we all have to rough it.
We found a fabulous place in the hills where deer trails became highways became freeways. So first thing in the morning before dawn we were back there. A fellow had shot a white tail deer along the trail the day before. We’d seen the remains. Now we unloaded Charles the Honda Pioneer ATV. Tom headed up the little trail to where we’d found the trails leading up into he hills. I took Gilbert and we began an epic exploration of the surrounding area. I got off Charles back on a mountain side and Gilbert and I climbed up into the tree line to watch a clearing for an hour before cold and stiff I went back to the ATV. All I’d seen was a Whiskey Jack.
Then we drove all over this incredible land , sometimes slow, sometimes fast, just enjoying seeing the terrain. A white rabbit appeared in the woods alongside the trail I was driving along. It was probably thinking it was really stupid to have traded in it’s brown fur coat for the white fur coat too early. It really stuck out. I thought of shooting it with the 30:06 but it was too big a gun and there was too much chance of missing the head and simply wasting the fellow. So I let Gilbert out and the two of them had an epic chase in the woods the rabbit eventually winning with Gilbert returning tongue lolling.
In some savannah high country I spooked a flock of ptarmigan. I thought at first they were ducks the way they rose up from a hollow and burst out ahead of me at high speed. It was only when I watched them in flight I realized they were ptarmigan. Over the years I’ve shot a few but they’re a whole lot smarter and more wiley than grouse.
The law is you can’t have loaded rifles in motorized vehicles. When you’re transporting rifles on public roads you need a trigger lock on the vehicle. I take the trigger lock off in the backwoods logging trails or when I’m hiking in the mountain. But shooting game then requires getting the trigger lock off, loading the rifle and shooting. If the game sees you first, naturally they’re not likely to wait for you. I’ve missed so many deer and moose and birds and bear because of the tight laws that hunters have to abide by. If we don’t we risk forfeiting all our equipment. It’s certainly not worth losing the right to hunt and tens of thousands of dollars of gear. But for those nutbars who have never hunted know nothing about hunting and don’t know the restrictions we hunt under or how the animals aren’t just waiting to be shot like zoo animals well it’s not at all like the CBC stories tell it. I bow hunt and that’s even more difficult because you have to be closer than with a rifle. I’ve shot deer at 50 yards whereas I shot moose at 300 yards. Distance is all the difference. That and timing. Most of the time the deer have gone from where I hoped to see them. They don’t keep appointments well and obviously get tired of waiting for this aging hunter.
BC is God's country. I loved travelling about the autumn back woods. I loved the winter chill in the air. I loved meeting men out back chain sawing their winter supply of firewood. I love the country. It's so incredibly beautiful in the fall with leaves changing to browns and yellows falling off trees while the pines and evergreens remain. I love the rolling hills and plains, the rivers and the mountains in the distance.
When I was ready to go back to the truck I called Tom on the Motorola and we coordinated our return. I was there first so drove on to pick up Tom walking back along grown over logging road. Gilbert was ecstatic to see his long lost friend, barking and running in circles. Tom is Gilbert’s favourite ball and stick thrower. Gilbert can do this all day and Tom is pretty happy to indulge him. So back and the truck Tom threw stick and Gilbert fetched. I actually shot he was showing us that he really was up to fetching game if only we did our bit shooting it. If Gilbert could switch to a different hunting team he would have. He knows he’s all star and that Tom and I this weekend were farm team.
Back at the Caribou Lodge we loaded up, dropped of the key and headed back to Vancouver. We took the scenic route through Lillouete down past Pemberton. Arriving in district 2 before dusk we drove along a longing road looking for grouse only to realize that it just kept going up and up. I turned around when I could remembering previous experiences with high altitude roads and winter conditions. When we got back to the highway it was dark and the sleet had begun.i was thankful I’d turned around. We drove down to Pemberton through thick fog and hail and sleet. It was good to get below the weather and off the slippery slushy road. The drive down Whistler to Squamish was busy with traffic. Night driving in rain wasn’t too much fun but better than the sleet. I remembered how many times I’d driven this sea to sky highway for skiing or hunting or motorcycling. In the day time it’s one of the most beautiful words in the world but this night it was work.
At Squamish we stopped at Gilbert’s Golden Arches. He loves MacDonald’s. We got burgers and he was so happy to have his little paddy. Back on the road the traffic had passed. We somehow must have caught a rush hour because the rest of the way back was clear of cars and the rain actually stopped.
Back in Vancouver we unloaded the guns and ammo at the gun storage and then in Burnaby unloaded all the hunting clothing, chain saw, ropes and binoculars and radios and such. Tom was going to take Charles and the Truck out to his place.He was staying the night on Naomi his yacht before heading back to the country. I had to get myself ready for work the next day. Winding down. Shifting gears. I watched some tv, had a ginger ale and fries.
Soon enough sleep came. It was a great weekend. Too bad we hadn’t shot anything but Gilbert had the time of his life and Tom and I had a good go of getting some game. We’d done all the right things. Another time. I figured this would probably be the last time I hunted this year. I really was thankful for the deer I shot Thanksgiving when out in the country with Gilbert and Laura. I’d sent Tom home with some of that venison and sure was enjoying barbecuing steaks and eating the stews I made. Victor had shot a moose and given me some moose meat which I was looking forward to in a big way. All in all a good year. Tom and I still have rabbits we shot early in the year. I love my rabbit stew.
Thank you Lord for all your blessings
Mostly Bill and I would hunt deer in Sayward with his son Allan or one of his many friends. Once every year or so he’d make a trip up to northern BC to hunt “Big Mule Deer” or Moose. Mostly we went up by Vanderhoof. The Big Mule Deer are everywhere on the mainland. The Vancouver Island deer are about half the size, a black tail strain of red deer I seem to recall. They’re mule deer but not like the majestic creatures you see in the coastal mountains. “My son, Allan, just loves hunting these mule deer.” Bill died a few years back and hopefully some day Allan and I will follow in the tradition and hunt the Big Mule Deer.
Ever since that first moose I shot in Clinton I’ve liked going back there. I love the cowboy country. I love the sage. I love the rolling hills. I been up there dozens of times over the year and yes I’ve shot a deer or two but mostly I’ve come back with grouse. That moose I shot must have been a miracle of Bill’s incredible power of attracting wild game. Everyone knew, if you hunted with Bill, you were always going to have game. He’d begun feeding his single mother and sister shooting deer in Quebec between age 12 and 16, when he lost his father.
He’d known his sorrow. Hunting isn’t much about killing. The nutbars who know nothing go on and on like they know things but they know nothing. Men hunt and fish to talk for hours to each other. When we’re hunting we’re silent. When we’re fishing we’re not talking. But when we are driving to and fro the hunting and fishing places we’re the worst chatty Kathy’s. I heard all about Bill’s first wife, the love of his life, how he visited her as often as she could until a nurse seeing what a great man he was took him for herself. He never forgave himself for that. He beat himself up a whole lot. He talked of his sons and daughters and his sister. He loved his family.
Bill didn’t drink.
I drank when we met. On one trip I felt and was injured. We drove home with me half drunk and every bump causing me exquisite pain. I cursed so much that trip I was surprised that Bill wanted to hunt with me again. We went on to hunt a decade more.It was always fun. He loved the outdoors and taught me how to call deer. They’d walk right up to him. I loved doing my ‘tai chi’ in the woods and walking up to sleeping deer to startle them awake blowing in their ear. Bill was a great guide and coach.
When we came north we’d stay in his camper and he’d have us up before dawn serving his god awful percolated coffee with the greasy bacon and runny eggs and toast. Thanks to him I learned to carry ‘wet ones’ in the woods. “You’ll thank me after you shit in the woods and use your wet ones.” All the guys hunting with Bill had their wet ones along for the inevitable crap in the woods.
Younger I’d come up to the north and tent but then I stayed at Caribou Lodge. I was hooked. What a great place. Terrific rooms , great service, wonderful people catering to hunters and cowboys, miners and loggers. It’s upscale with fine decor. A bit like a woodsy Hilton decor but rustic. Clean. So no longer liking roughing it lying hard and cooking around a campfire I’ve become older and enjoyed the Caribou Lodge.
When I got my Honda CRF 230 motorcycle and then the 250 CRF I’d bring them up to the Caribou. I’d load my gear on the back and sling my rifle over my shoulder and head out of town on gravel roads loving driving around the back woods. I shot every can for miles around but didn’t ever shoot anything living. That’s just what hunting is. For me it’s just getting away from work and everything after that is Grace.
The last time I’d been at the Caribou was last year with Laura and Tom. That was the weekend Gilbert hurt his back and we had to come back in fear thankfully to find that Gilbert responded to steroids and antiinflmattories. Now here we were back again.
I’d shot a deer in Princeton so was able to enjoy the trip and hunting in a way one does once there’s meat in the freezer. Tom by contrast was still eager. I’d have slept in that first day but Tom was adamant we were up before dawn.
So dressing in the dark we got the thermos filled at the gas station and headed into the backwoods. A half dozen other hunters were there too. Everyone dressed in camo with belt knives and gears driving 4x4 trucks is a pretty good give away as to what we’re all doing.
I always like that sportsman pay for 95% or more of the Conservation Costs for the Province. Rifles cost thousands. Ammunition costs thousands. The vehicles cost tens of thousands. As a ‘sport’ its the most expensive, costing more than golf and skiing. It’s not elite either. Rural men and women shoot game every year with little effort since the deer and moose are pretty much in their back yards. My friend just carries a gun in his truck and invariably gets a deer on the way to or from work each year. All the farmers complement their winter fare of beef and pork with much appreciated venison or moose. It still costs to have the rifle and ammo and to get a firearms license and hunting license. The courses for firearms licenses can cost hundreds of dollars as can the courses for hunting.
I got my first marksman award at 12 yo , my ‘Bronze Rifle Safety Award.’ My brother got his ‘Silver’. I began accompanying my dad hunting at 6 years old but only began shooting a 22 when I was 10 or 12. My brother, 4 years older, was my Dad’s companion hunter shooting ducks and geese. I did the plucking and loved being along with the ‘men’. Later after medical school I got back together with my dad hunting ducks and geese and wild chickens. Borrowing my brothers Irish Setter, Tartan, those were some of my fondest memories.
The real cost is for city folk. It’s the hunters and fishermen who buy the trucks and RV’s or support the rural economy staying in the motels and hotels and spending a fortune on gas and restaurants.
When I told my Yukon friend I’d shot 8 moose, he said, “that’s pretty good for a city boy. I’ve shot 40 but I shot them out the kitchen window while they were walking through my vegetable garden.”
I’ve shot more grouse than I can remember and tell everyone I only shoot big game if it comes upon when I ‘m out hunting grouse. I have a 22 for shooting the chicken’s heads off. My present love is the new break down stainless steel Ruger 22/10 rifle. Hunting with Luke I learned about the Ruger semi auto. On our trip to Fort St. James Luke was the most proficient grouse hunter with his Hawkeye accuracy and the Ruger 22/10 that Gilbert our grouse dog stopped hunting with the rest of us and latched on to Luke as obviously the best hunter among us. On another hunter Sonny had a 20 guage and I loved watching him take down a grouse on the fly. I loved shooting skeet and ducks but with a 22 I only shot the grouse on the ground or in the tree. A 12 guage is too heavy for grouse, pellets embedding deep in the meat. By contrast the 20 guage 6 or 7 shot is light enough that it drops the bird but doesn’t mess up the meat. So now I carry the 22 and the 20 guage on a rack on the ATV. My stainless steel Ruger 30:06 which Bill called the “Sexcaliber” when I first got it rides in the Honda Pioneer’s cab with me. When I bought the Ruger is was one of the earliest stainless steel rifles. I wanted the stainless steel because I was living on a sailboat. When I took it out of the box at Bill’s cabin in Campbell River, it was so shiny, I said, “It reminds me of Excalibur.” Sherry said it looked ’sexy’ and Bill laughing said “It’s the Sexcalibur”. The name stuck. It’s been an amazing trustworthy reliable rifle for 30 years. I used 180 grain bullets for everything on the mainland, bear, moose, and deer. On the Island I’d switch to 120 grain. Bill turned me on to Nossler Partition bullets for big game, twice the cost but having dropped a charging bear and a charging moose in my time I’m thankful for the knowledge about bullets Bill shared.
I love the delicacy grouse is, similar to cornish game hens but bigger and better. This weekend we didn’t even shoot a grouse. I had three take off before I could get the gun out. They really were skittish which could be expected given it was the end of the season. Tom and I drove out before dawn and unloading the Honda 500 Side by Side ATV from my Ford F350 at dawn. With Gilbert on my lap Tom drove us back into the woods. The only trouble was that we picked a short road. So back we came. We crossed the road only to drive along another short logging road. We decided to bring along the truck and go a little further. Tom got in the truck with Gilbert. Gilbert really likes the truck. He ’s a suck for luxury and warmth so at first opportunity he’s in the truck happy to be standing on the centre between the men eyes peeled for grouse. I drove along the ditch about 500 yards finding the next logging road. The only trouble with being camouflaged Tom drove by me and thought I’d kept on going.
We had our very effective little yellow motorola radio communicators but Tom didn’t have his turned on at first and I was calling on the wrong frequency. After realizing he wasn’t coming back anytime soon I headed off into the woods. That’s when I saw the smart grouse who’d survived thus far and by being paranoid about cammo geared men carrying long guns lived another day. I thought if I’d had Gilbert I might have got one. Meanwhile Gilbert and Tom were watching does in the woods hoping that a buck would join the does but none did.
Getting the radios right and me on the right frequency, I called Tom. Gilbert was ecstatic to find me. We loaded the ATV which we’ve named “Charles’ and headed down to the Big Bar Ferry. It’s all posted now. Much of Clinton is off limits to hunting now. So much farm land. Lots of dude ranches. Everywhere I go I see the development.
We did see a whole flock of turkeys’ “Are those wild turkeys?” Tom asked. I quickly check IHunter an amazing app I have that works with the GPS puts up the hunting regs for the region one is in. “Not in season here.” I said.
“Besides that farmer is giving us a really mean look. Tom looked to where I was pointing and there was a farm house and a farmer had come out of his kitchen to watch us watching what obviously must be his turkeys. The turkeys picking up on our unhealthy interest had turned about and scurried across the road back to farmer who had a rather prominent sign posted saying “No trespassing. No hunting”.
Tom said, “I guess that pretty much ruins a good turkey hunt.’
We headed back to Clinton after that. That night we had great pork roast in the restaurant. They were singing karaoke in the bar. The Trump election win was playing on the tv with the media still acting like the left hadn’t run. CBC news was the worst, calling on every Trump hater to denounce him and singing the praise of Hillary and Bernie despite the fact that the majority of Americans and American Colleges and States had voted in Trump. To hear the media there’d been armed coup. Meanwhile the Democrats were hypocritically staging riots after days before saying they were afraid of the violence of Republicans. Black leaders kept coming forward complaining that they couldn’t see any reason that black Democrats should break into their stores and steal their VCR’s and TV’s as a ‘demonstration’. It was chaos on the news and we were glad to be out in the simplicity of the country.
Tom or I said Grace each meal.
The salisbury steak the second night was so delicious , a spicy sauce to die for. The non fattening home made apple and berry pies with non fattening vanilla ice cream really topped off the meals. Gilbert loved the all beef paddies the chef cooked up especially for him. When we got back to the room relieving him of his guard duty he was very happy to eat his delicious dog reward. When we go hunting we all have to rough it.
We found a fabulous place in the hills where deer trails became highways became freeways. So first thing in the morning before dawn we were back there. A fellow had shot a white tail deer along the trail the day before. We’d seen the remains. Now we unloaded Charles the Honda Pioneer ATV. Tom headed up the little trail to where we’d found the trails leading up into he hills. I took Gilbert and we began an epic exploration of the surrounding area. I got off Charles back on a mountain side and Gilbert and I climbed up into the tree line to watch a clearing for an hour before cold and stiff I went back to the ATV. All I’d seen was a Whiskey Jack.
Then we drove all over this incredible land , sometimes slow, sometimes fast, just enjoying seeing the terrain. A white rabbit appeared in the woods alongside the trail I was driving along. It was probably thinking it was really stupid to have traded in it’s brown fur coat for the white fur coat too early. It really stuck out. I thought of shooting it with the 30:06 but it was too big a gun and there was too much chance of missing the head and simply wasting the fellow. So I let Gilbert out and the two of them had an epic chase in the woods the rabbit eventually winning with Gilbert returning tongue lolling.
In some savannah high country I spooked a flock of ptarmigan. I thought at first they were ducks the way they rose up from a hollow and burst out ahead of me at high speed. It was only when I watched them in flight I realized they were ptarmigan. Over the years I’ve shot a few but they’re a whole lot smarter and more wiley than grouse.
The law is you can’t have loaded rifles in motorized vehicles. When you’re transporting rifles on public roads you need a trigger lock on the vehicle. I take the trigger lock off in the backwoods logging trails or when I’m hiking in the mountain. But shooting game then requires getting the trigger lock off, loading the rifle and shooting. If the game sees you first, naturally they’re not likely to wait for you. I’ve missed so many deer and moose and birds and bear because of the tight laws that hunters have to abide by. If we don’t we risk forfeiting all our equipment. It’s certainly not worth losing the right to hunt and tens of thousands of dollars of gear. But for those nutbars who have never hunted know nothing about hunting and don’t know the restrictions we hunt under or how the animals aren’t just waiting to be shot like zoo animals well it’s not at all like the CBC stories tell it. I bow hunt and that’s even more difficult because you have to be closer than with a rifle. I’ve shot deer at 50 yards whereas I shot moose at 300 yards. Distance is all the difference. That and timing. Most of the time the deer have gone from where I hoped to see them. They don’t keep appointments well and obviously get tired of waiting for this aging hunter.
BC is God's country. I loved travelling about the autumn back woods. I loved the winter chill in the air. I loved meeting men out back chain sawing their winter supply of firewood. I love the country. It's so incredibly beautiful in the fall with leaves changing to browns and yellows falling off trees while the pines and evergreens remain. I love the rolling hills and plains, the rivers and the mountains in the distance.
When I was ready to go back to the truck I called Tom on the Motorola and we coordinated our return. I was there first so drove on to pick up Tom walking back along grown over logging road. Gilbert was ecstatic to see his long lost friend, barking and running in circles. Tom is Gilbert’s favourite ball and stick thrower. Gilbert can do this all day and Tom is pretty happy to indulge him. So back and the truck Tom threw stick and Gilbert fetched. I actually shot he was showing us that he really was up to fetching game if only we did our bit shooting it. If Gilbert could switch to a different hunting team he would have. He knows he’s all star and that Tom and I this weekend were farm team.
Back at the Caribou Lodge we loaded up, dropped of the key and headed back to Vancouver. We took the scenic route through Lillouete down past Pemberton. Arriving in district 2 before dusk we drove along a longing road looking for grouse only to realize that it just kept going up and up. I turned around when I could remembering previous experiences with high altitude roads and winter conditions. When we got back to the highway it was dark and the sleet had begun.i was thankful I’d turned around. We drove down to Pemberton through thick fog and hail and sleet. It was good to get below the weather and off the slippery slushy road. The drive down Whistler to Squamish was busy with traffic. Night driving in rain wasn’t too much fun but better than the sleet. I remembered how many times I’d driven this sea to sky highway for skiing or hunting or motorcycling. In the day time it’s one of the most beautiful words in the world but this night it was work.
At Squamish we stopped at Gilbert’s Golden Arches. He loves MacDonald’s. We got burgers and he was so happy to have his little paddy. Back on the road the traffic had passed. We somehow must have caught a rush hour because the rest of the way back was clear of cars and the rain actually stopped.
Back in Vancouver we unloaded the guns and ammo at the gun storage and then in Burnaby unloaded all the hunting clothing, chain saw, ropes and binoculars and radios and such. Tom was going to take Charles and the Truck out to his place.He was staying the night on Naomi his yacht before heading back to the country. I had to get myself ready for work the next day. Winding down. Shifting gears. I watched some tv, had a ginger ale and fries.
Soon enough sleep came. It was a great weekend. Too bad we hadn’t shot anything but Gilbert had the time of his life and Tom and I had a good go of getting some game. We’d done all the right things. Another time. I figured this would probably be the last time I hunted this year. I really was thankful for the deer I shot Thanksgiving when out in the country with Gilbert and Laura. I’d sent Tom home with some of that venison and sure was enjoying barbecuing steaks and eating the stews I made. Victor had shot a moose and given me some moose meat which I was looking forward to in a big way. All in all a good year. Tom and I still have rabbits we shot early in the year. I love my rabbit stew.
Thank you Lord for all your blessings
Death, Remembrance Day and Leaving Hope
My only brother died. It was his funeral. I felt guilty for not returning to be with my family, giving support and caring. But I’m all sapped out. Grief doesn’t become me. I trained with Elizabeth Kubla Ross. She was amazing. I have seen too much death. I’ve sat holding hands of dying patients in ICU’s. Gunshot wounds, industrials accidents, car crashes. I’ve known too many near death experiences in my life. I was with my brother last year and the year before and the week he died. We talked into the night. My nephew and my sister in law were the finest humans in the whole world. My brother knew a good death. The doctors and nurses in Kingston and Napanee were remarkable. I couldn’t have asked for anything more. But my brother did say he wanted more time with his family. And I regretted all the time I’m not been with my family. All the years of training as a doctor then a specialist then nights on call and divorces and the courts and the persecutions and ignomy. My brother shared the sadness of living. My brother shared the persecution. We talked of his work late into the night, his fears for his family.
I think I’ve spent my life crying in silence. Kierkegaard said, “Life is suffering unto death.” Buddha said, desire is the root of all suffering. And I have desired. I’ve known passion and love and agape. I’ve been blessed and known grace.
I was remembering my father sitting in his wheelchair at the epitaph with fellow old vets. Laura and I had taken him to the Remembrance Day ceremony in Vancouver. I was so proud of my father that day. I’ve always been proud of my father. RCAF Bomber. He flew the West Coast. “They said we bombed a Japanese submarine,” he’d laugh. “I think it was a whale.” He also was a spitfire mechanic and made the frame of a picture of my beautiful red haired mother and he, in his RCAF uniform the day of their wedding. Two Spitfire bullet casings framed the picture. It sat on the white mantle piece till they left their home of 55 years to move into the apartment where they’d celebrate their 60th wedding anniversary.
My brother cared for my father in the last years of his life. I’d visit every few months but Ron and my nephews and sister in law Adell were there every week, sometimes every day. Dad had cared for mom till she’d died. Her last year in the hospital he’d take an hour bus ride in summer and winter to get her dressed so he could wheel her around the hospital in her wheelchair. She liked to sit and watch the little birds in the garden visitting even when it was 40 below, snow was all around and roads were ice. I flew back and forth to be with my mother in her dying. All the while my staff were stealing from me and doing drugs while I was away. It was a horrid year. I’ve never much believed in government. Arendt talked about the Banality of Evil after Nuremberg. I’ve know those kinds of bureaucrats. Little Hitlers and Little Stalins.
In Canada when you are vulnerable the rats attack and are savage. They smile compassionately as they stick in the knife and twist. Beurocrats in communist countries are the meanest and lowest. They are entrenched and their security gives them license. They have no freedom, given their bitter hearts, but they have license. The authorities love their loyalty even if they lack any merit.
My brother talked about the French Canadian mafia and government corruption. I blamed the government for his cancer. I blamed everyone and everything and God too for his cancer. As Elizabeth Kubla Ross taught in the stages of grieving there is ‘anger’. I’ve known my share of anger.
Christians are the most persecuted people in the world. If you stand up you make yourself a target. My colleague says that ‘telling the truth’ is the most daring and dangerous act in Canada today. I’ve been a truth teller all my life. I’ve also fought for the underdog, defended the weak and sick and experienced the full weight of the stigma against the mentally ill and the addicted.
My brother spoke of the fears of a father raising children in a society gone mad. He and his wife did an amazing job. The boys are handsome, smart, compassionate and wise before their years. Amazing nephews I don’t deserve.
I keep my distance from people. When my life was threatened for speaking out national radio against antisemitism my brother and his family’s lives were threatened as were my father and mothers. Right now a man has been threatening my life and my dog’s life repeatedly . The windows of my house were shot out. The windows of my girlfriend’s car were smashed by beer bottles one year. I’ve been pilloried in the papers and courts for my stand against marijuana and for diagnosing addiction which results in people being required to get treatment. I’ve been very troubled this last year when patients say, “The Prime Minister smoked dope and he doesn’t have to be drug tested. Why are you forcing me to be drug tested. It’s medicinal marijuana.” Just last month a person didn’t say, “I’m feeling suicidal.” They said instead, “I’d like physician assisted suicide.” He was in his 30’s. The heroin addicts are 20 year olds now. I know the fentanyl deaths.
Death is a drama. The one time when you can hope to be centre stage is at your birth and at your death. Family made space for my brother’s soliloquy. We gathered round and I felt so helpless. My brother wanted to live. He planted flowers and fruit trees. For years I’ve convinced people to live who wanted to die. There’s more money in suicide. I delivered babies and did abortions. There’s more money in abortions. Death is rewarded in our death culture. But my brother wanted life. He was one of the most alive people I’ve known.
As a child he wondered at all things natural. With my father we’d walk in the woods and Dad would tell us the names and uses of the wild plants. Ron and I and he ate rose hips. “Full of Vitamin C’. We picked blue berries with mom and dad. Ron and Mom loved gardening. I hunted with my dad. We lived one foot in the city and one foot in the country. Mom was the city girl from Toronto. Dad grew up on his father’s ranch. We rode horse’s together. My father was an amazing horseman. Like I rode a bicycle. My uncle a full fledged cowboy. My cousin raised Appalusa’s. My Aunt was the executive assistant to the the Canadian Ambassador to the US in Washington in WWII. Mom worked as a Toronto executive assistant when she met dad. They were called ’secretaries’ then.
It’s been a couple of years that I’ve been visitting my brother and his family. A busman’s holiday on one hand. The closeness and kindness and love of family, the honour of being close to one so great. My brother was a great man, the quiet sort. Understated. Loved. Always a smile. I’d gone to him a few times when my own life collapsed and his love held me. We fought as kids but he defended me against any outsider. Then we were separated, his work and family, my work, marriages, divorces, and more work and more work.
Tom and I were hunting. We’d stopped on the logging roads, heading up to Clinton. I couldn’t attend a funeral even worse a ‘celebration of life’. I just wanted to be out in nature. There is so much noise in the city on every level. People are so walled in and defended they don’t notice it. City people are so very loud. The city is always humming. A great aunt hill. I sit face to face with people and hear their pain like nails on winter window panes. I share spinal columns. I fight with their demons. I beg, coddle, entice, and every once in a while I win one back from the death devil. Early in my career work was easy. I loved general practice. I loved surgery. I was happy at the end of the day. We won all the cuts and bruises and even the myocardial infarctions. I lost them in the Emergency after the crashes when they came in dead. I resurrected some of the dead even but I’ve moved on. In training it was easy. We were in headquarters. It was Washington in WWII. A great party. Lots of time and endless resources and all the planning went well. Then there were the hospitals, great troops of healers and masses of doctors and nurses working together and everything a protocol and acceptance. Everyone agreed there was no hope for the dead. We did our best. No one blamed anyone. We were collectively immune. It was so easy. We were all so full of ourselves.There was never any humility. You learned to swagger with the best of them. It was exhilarating. But I went off to the front lines. I went out beyond the timber line. I was so often alone and alone so often wanting. It’s at the bedside of the dying in a room in a blizzard on the tundra that one knows humility. It’s on a little island with a screaming child that one learns to pray. I used up all the textbooks over and over again. I began phoning the heads of universities decades ago. I’d read about someone who knew what I didn’t about a sick patients I’d call them in the middle of the night. I was a hacker once. I hacked all the government computers early pc to learn if someone had an answer. I didn’t accept death. I didn’t accept disease. Not on my watch.
Meanwhile life and death happened and all I did was delay the inevitable. I remember we’d get them out of the most expensive ICU int he country only to see them die a week or two later on a medical ward. I resuscitated an old man a half dozen times. I resuscitated my father and my mother. They wanted to live that bad. Near to death they came back from the edge to be a little longer with the nephews. Mom and dad loved the babies. Ron got out of bed and walked when they said he wouldn’t. He went home to sit by the window and watch the ducks and geese land on Hay Bay.
Tom said as we left hunting in the valley to head north to Clinton where I’d booked rooms that we could go to the Hope celebration. We parked in Hope. It used to be a great town for outdoorsman. For years I’d stopped and bought thousands of dollars of groceries and gear in the hunting store, always filling up with hundreds of dollars of fuel, lunching in the town, loving the welcoming atmosphere, feeling that after Vancouver, Abbotsford and Chilliwack increasingly suburbs of the megalopolis, I was getting out to the country. I liked the Canadian values outside of the city, what had made Langly, Cloverdale, Abbotsford, Chilliwack and Hope so different from West End Vancouver. I liked the West End, lived there, but it wasn’t any different from New York, or LA. There was nothing distinctive about the city. Perhaps the people made it different but it wasn’t like London or New Orleans where history make it so attractive. The location was everything. And there were so many good things that people were doing. Space age. But I think of BC as god’s country. It’s in the towns and country I come face to face with God in a special old time way, the traditional. The city is a whirlpool and only time will percolate the best then something will stay like a Steam Clock or Granville Island. I loved being in Istanbul recently and seeing the layers of civilization going back thousands of years in a site where they were going to build a high rise hotel. Palaces and brothels had been buried there before. Vancouver is just a new Constantine. It’s not like Hong Kong even. it’s a great harbour and it’s aging well but it’s a wild west of corruption and grief. The Chinese say, “may you live in interesting times.” It’s a blessing and a curse. Vancouver is a blessing and a curse.
With Gilbert at my side I stood listening to a hymn being sung by the epitaph. I couldn’t remember how long it’s been since I heard a hymn being sung in public. I thought of my sister in law Adell’s angel voice. When we were young she sang solo in the church. Everyone loved her when she sang those hymns of praise to the Lord. My brother Ron loved her more. I remember him radiating when he was with her.
Dad’s last year of life he ate with three other men. They were all Vets. One had been with the Royal Navy. Another had been in the Artillery. The third had been a French Canadian who’d volunteered to fight for Canada with the Infantry. Dad was air force.
I remember them saying, and all agreeing and all shaking their heads saying, “If we’d known Canada would become what it is today, we’d not have fought in WWII, “ they said that.
Pierre Trudeau was a communist. The Liberals never liked Anglo Canadians. Mom and Dad didn’t like when they took the blue out of the flag. It was like the country once red, white and blue was reduced to just red and white. The blue was killed at the stroke of a beurocratic pen. My brother used to laugh at the thought of flag that celebrated a maple leaf, a tree that only grew in the east. We’d been born in Toronto and grown up in Manitoba and Saskatchewan. I went west. Ron went back to Ontario and spent his life in Ottawa. He had a fine sense of irony. He loved Hockey and had a great sense of humour with a real appreciation for hypocrisy.
“Sir, could you come over here, sir.” The RCMP officer was asking me to move away from where I was photographing the laying of wreaths at the epitaph.
Walking with my little dog, following the young officer I wondered what the problem is.
“Sir, is that an ammunition pouch on your belt.” he asked.
“Yes, my friend and I were just hunting on the logging roads back there. He realized the time and we just came in for the ceremony.”
“People have been complaining about your wearing that. You can understand can’t you?” he asked.
I can understand people complaining. Canada is a country of complainers. Canada is famous the world over for it’s complaining. I wasn’t always that way.
“is it against the law?” I asked.
“No. You don’t have a gun do you?” he asked very politely, somewhat embarrassed.
I opened my sweater and showed him I didn’t have a gun. “My rifle is locked in the case in my truck. I ‘m sorry I didn’t know I was doing anything wrong. I always try to obey the law. I’m a law abiding citizen. I didn’t know there was any problem. It was under my jacket. I didn’t think anyone could see it. If they did it must have been when I bent over to play with my little dog.That’s the only time it would even be visible.” Gilbert was beside me being a very good dog.
“Can I see some identification?"
I showed him my Driver’s license and my Firearms and Ammunition Acquisition Permit.
He wrote down my name in his little black book. I spelt it out for him.
“Can I have a phone number we can reach you?"
I gave him my phone number.
“It would be best if you put that in your pocket out of sight so it doesn’t upset so many people."
I said, “I’ll take it back to my truck. I ‘m sorry I didn’t know I was doing anything wrong."
I walked back to the truck, leaving the epitaph.
I sat in the truck.
Tom found me later. I was crying. Sometimes I feel so afraid and alone I can’t help it. Gilbert was trying to comfort me licking away the tears, cuddling.
Tom drove us out of the valley. I felt better leaving Hope.
I think I’ve spent my life crying in silence. Kierkegaard said, “Life is suffering unto death.” Buddha said, desire is the root of all suffering. And I have desired. I’ve known passion and love and agape. I’ve been blessed and known grace.
I was remembering my father sitting in his wheelchair at the epitaph with fellow old vets. Laura and I had taken him to the Remembrance Day ceremony in Vancouver. I was so proud of my father that day. I’ve always been proud of my father. RCAF Bomber. He flew the West Coast. “They said we bombed a Japanese submarine,” he’d laugh. “I think it was a whale.” He also was a spitfire mechanic and made the frame of a picture of my beautiful red haired mother and he, in his RCAF uniform the day of their wedding. Two Spitfire bullet casings framed the picture. It sat on the white mantle piece till they left their home of 55 years to move into the apartment where they’d celebrate their 60th wedding anniversary.
My brother cared for my father in the last years of his life. I’d visit every few months but Ron and my nephews and sister in law Adell were there every week, sometimes every day. Dad had cared for mom till she’d died. Her last year in the hospital he’d take an hour bus ride in summer and winter to get her dressed so he could wheel her around the hospital in her wheelchair. She liked to sit and watch the little birds in the garden visitting even when it was 40 below, snow was all around and roads were ice. I flew back and forth to be with my mother in her dying. All the while my staff were stealing from me and doing drugs while I was away. It was a horrid year. I’ve never much believed in government. Arendt talked about the Banality of Evil after Nuremberg. I’ve know those kinds of bureaucrats. Little Hitlers and Little Stalins.
In Canada when you are vulnerable the rats attack and are savage. They smile compassionately as they stick in the knife and twist. Beurocrats in communist countries are the meanest and lowest. They are entrenched and their security gives them license. They have no freedom, given their bitter hearts, but they have license. The authorities love their loyalty even if they lack any merit.
My brother talked about the French Canadian mafia and government corruption. I blamed the government for his cancer. I blamed everyone and everything and God too for his cancer. As Elizabeth Kubla Ross taught in the stages of grieving there is ‘anger’. I’ve known my share of anger.
Christians are the most persecuted people in the world. If you stand up you make yourself a target. My colleague says that ‘telling the truth’ is the most daring and dangerous act in Canada today. I’ve been a truth teller all my life. I’ve also fought for the underdog, defended the weak and sick and experienced the full weight of the stigma against the mentally ill and the addicted.
My brother spoke of the fears of a father raising children in a society gone mad. He and his wife did an amazing job. The boys are handsome, smart, compassionate and wise before their years. Amazing nephews I don’t deserve.
I keep my distance from people. When my life was threatened for speaking out national radio against antisemitism my brother and his family’s lives were threatened as were my father and mothers. Right now a man has been threatening my life and my dog’s life repeatedly . The windows of my house were shot out. The windows of my girlfriend’s car were smashed by beer bottles one year. I’ve been pilloried in the papers and courts for my stand against marijuana and for diagnosing addiction which results in people being required to get treatment. I’ve been very troubled this last year when patients say, “The Prime Minister smoked dope and he doesn’t have to be drug tested. Why are you forcing me to be drug tested. It’s medicinal marijuana.” Just last month a person didn’t say, “I’m feeling suicidal.” They said instead, “I’d like physician assisted suicide.” He was in his 30’s. The heroin addicts are 20 year olds now. I know the fentanyl deaths.
Death is a drama. The one time when you can hope to be centre stage is at your birth and at your death. Family made space for my brother’s soliloquy. We gathered round and I felt so helpless. My brother wanted to live. He planted flowers and fruit trees. For years I’ve convinced people to live who wanted to die. There’s more money in suicide. I delivered babies and did abortions. There’s more money in abortions. Death is rewarded in our death culture. But my brother wanted life. He was one of the most alive people I’ve known.
As a child he wondered at all things natural. With my father we’d walk in the woods and Dad would tell us the names and uses of the wild plants. Ron and I and he ate rose hips. “Full of Vitamin C’. We picked blue berries with mom and dad. Ron and Mom loved gardening. I hunted with my dad. We lived one foot in the city and one foot in the country. Mom was the city girl from Toronto. Dad grew up on his father’s ranch. We rode horse’s together. My father was an amazing horseman. Like I rode a bicycle. My uncle a full fledged cowboy. My cousin raised Appalusa’s. My Aunt was the executive assistant to the the Canadian Ambassador to the US in Washington in WWII. Mom worked as a Toronto executive assistant when she met dad. They were called ’secretaries’ then.
It’s been a couple of years that I’ve been visitting my brother and his family. A busman’s holiday on one hand. The closeness and kindness and love of family, the honour of being close to one so great. My brother was a great man, the quiet sort. Understated. Loved. Always a smile. I’d gone to him a few times when my own life collapsed and his love held me. We fought as kids but he defended me against any outsider. Then we were separated, his work and family, my work, marriages, divorces, and more work and more work.
Tom and I were hunting. We’d stopped on the logging roads, heading up to Clinton. I couldn’t attend a funeral even worse a ‘celebration of life’. I just wanted to be out in nature. There is so much noise in the city on every level. People are so walled in and defended they don’t notice it. City people are so very loud. The city is always humming. A great aunt hill. I sit face to face with people and hear their pain like nails on winter window panes. I share spinal columns. I fight with their demons. I beg, coddle, entice, and every once in a while I win one back from the death devil. Early in my career work was easy. I loved general practice. I loved surgery. I was happy at the end of the day. We won all the cuts and bruises and even the myocardial infarctions. I lost them in the Emergency after the crashes when they came in dead. I resurrected some of the dead even but I’ve moved on. In training it was easy. We were in headquarters. It was Washington in WWII. A great party. Lots of time and endless resources and all the planning went well. Then there were the hospitals, great troops of healers and masses of doctors and nurses working together and everything a protocol and acceptance. Everyone agreed there was no hope for the dead. We did our best. No one blamed anyone. We were collectively immune. It was so easy. We were all so full of ourselves.There was never any humility. You learned to swagger with the best of them. It was exhilarating. But I went off to the front lines. I went out beyond the timber line. I was so often alone and alone so often wanting. It’s at the bedside of the dying in a room in a blizzard on the tundra that one knows humility. It’s on a little island with a screaming child that one learns to pray. I used up all the textbooks over and over again. I began phoning the heads of universities decades ago. I’d read about someone who knew what I didn’t about a sick patients I’d call them in the middle of the night. I was a hacker once. I hacked all the government computers early pc to learn if someone had an answer. I didn’t accept death. I didn’t accept disease. Not on my watch.
Meanwhile life and death happened and all I did was delay the inevitable. I remember we’d get them out of the most expensive ICU int he country only to see them die a week or two later on a medical ward. I resuscitated an old man a half dozen times. I resuscitated my father and my mother. They wanted to live that bad. Near to death they came back from the edge to be a little longer with the nephews. Mom and dad loved the babies. Ron got out of bed and walked when they said he wouldn’t. He went home to sit by the window and watch the ducks and geese land on Hay Bay.
Tom said as we left hunting in the valley to head north to Clinton where I’d booked rooms that we could go to the Hope celebration. We parked in Hope. It used to be a great town for outdoorsman. For years I’d stopped and bought thousands of dollars of groceries and gear in the hunting store, always filling up with hundreds of dollars of fuel, lunching in the town, loving the welcoming atmosphere, feeling that after Vancouver, Abbotsford and Chilliwack increasingly suburbs of the megalopolis, I was getting out to the country. I liked the Canadian values outside of the city, what had made Langly, Cloverdale, Abbotsford, Chilliwack and Hope so different from West End Vancouver. I liked the West End, lived there, but it wasn’t any different from New York, or LA. There was nothing distinctive about the city. Perhaps the people made it different but it wasn’t like London or New Orleans where history make it so attractive. The location was everything. And there were so many good things that people were doing. Space age. But I think of BC as god’s country. It’s in the towns and country I come face to face with God in a special old time way, the traditional. The city is a whirlpool and only time will percolate the best then something will stay like a Steam Clock or Granville Island. I loved being in Istanbul recently and seeing the layers of civilization going back thousands of years in a site where they were going to build a high rise hotel. Palaces and brothels had been buried there before. Vancouver is just a new Constantine. It’s not like Hong Kong even. it’s a great harbour and it’s aging well but it’s a wild west of corruption and grief. The Chinese say, “may you live in interesting times.” It’s a blessing and a curse. Vancouver is a blessing and a curse.
With Gilbert at my side I stood listening to a hymn being sung by the epitaph. I couldn’t remember how long it’s been since I heard a hymn being sung in public. I thought of my sister in law Adell’s angel voice. When we were young she sang solo in the church. Everyone loved her when she sang those hymns of praise to the Lord. My brother Ron loved her more. I remember him radiating when he was with her.
Dad’s last year of life he ate with three other men. They were all Vets. One had been with the Royal Navy. Another had been in the Artillery. The third had been a French Canadian who’d volunteered to fight for Canada with the Infantry. Dad was air force.
I remember them saying, and all agreeing and all shaking their heads saying, “If we’d known Canada would become what it is today, we’d not have fought in WWII, “ they said that.
Pierre Trudeau was a communist. The Liberals never liked Anglo Canadians. Mom and Dad didn’t like when they took the blue out of the flag. It was like the country once red, white and blue was reduced to just red and white. The blue was killed at the stroke of a beurocratic pen. My brother used to laugh at the thought of flag that celebrated a maple leaf, a tree that only grew in the east. We’d been born in Toronto and grown up in Manitoba and Saskatchewan. I went west. Ron went back to Ontario and spent his life in Ottawa. He had a fine sense of irony. He loved Hockey and had a great sense of humour with a real appreciation for hypocrisy.
“Sir, could you come over here, sir.” The RCMP officer was asking me to move away from where I was photographing the laying of wreaths at the epitaph.
Walking with my little dog, following the young officer I wondered what the problem is.
“Sir, is that an ammunition pouch on your belt.” he asked.
“Yes, my friend and I were just hunting on the logging roads back there. He realized the time and we just came in for the ceremony.”
“People have been complaining about your wearing that. You can understand can’t you?” he asked.
I can understand people complaining. Canada is a country of complainers. Canada is famous the world over for it’s complaining. I wasn’t always that way.
“is it against the law?” I asked.
“No. You don’t have a gun do you?” he asked very politely, somewhat embarrassed.
I opened my sweater and showed him I didn’t have a gun. “My rifle is locked in the case in my truck. I ‘m sorry I didn’t know I was doing anything wrong. I always try to obey the law. I’m a law abiding citizen. I didn’t know there was any problem. It was under my jacket. I didn’t think anyone could see it. If they did it must have been when I bent over to play with my little dog.That’s the only time it would even be visible.” Gilbert was beside me being a very good dog.
“Can I see some identification?"
I showed him my Driver’s license and my Firearms and Ammunition Acquisition Permit.
He wrote down my name in his little black book. I spelt it out for him.
“Can I have a phone number we can reach you?"
I gave him my phone number.
“It would be best if you put that in your pocket out of sight so it doesn’t upset so many people."
I said, “I’ll take it back to my truck. I ‘m sorry I didn’t know I was doing anything wrong."
I walked back to the truck, leaving the epitaph.
I sat in the truck.
Tom found me later. I was crying. Sometimes I feel so afraid and alone I can’t help it. Gilbert was trying to comfort me licking away the tears, cuddling.
Tom drove us out of the valley. I felt better leaving Hope.
Friday, November 18, 2016
St. James Church, God Kids and White Spot
Laura and I were glad to get to St. James Anglican Church on Sunday. Father Kevin was presiding. We joined the God Kids and Kevin and Anna in the ‘children’s section’ of the church. Gilbert believes he’s one of the kids totally. It’s a rather active part of the church and more noisy. Franciscan meditative sorts would be wise to sit more at the front. It’s hard to believe that for Kevin and Anna this is a peaceful time. Gilbert joined right in with the kids play, though didn't understand the colouring book deal.
A lovely church service as always. Gilbert took great interest in the preparation for communion. He’s usually only so attentive when there are other dogs in church. Something about this particular preparation had his attention. He’d also been a bit miffed because the children didn’t share their biscuit with him and he was a bit pouty being excluded from the feast. Not one to hold a grudge for more than a second he was delighted to join us as we all headed up for communion. Gilbert’s been blessed by the Bishop. Often there are 2 or 3 other dogs attending, all very well behaved.
After church there’s usually a coffee. I used to attend these more when Bear, a black lab friend of Gilbert’s presided at the coffee and cookie affair.
Today though, we all went off to White Spot. It’s always such a great time to get together with these amazing two people, Kevin and Anna, their fabulous children. Anna and Laura talked mother talk, Anna a mother of three pre schoolers while Laura has 3 adult children as well as grandchildren. Kevin and I talked politics, theology and philosophy. The kids crayoned. Then we all feasted, burgers, fish and chips and other choices. White Spot is a great Vancouver after church tradition. Family oriented but not the "free for all" some ‘kid oriented’ places are. We had a wonderful time. I sure did. Even when Anna beat me to the cheque paying. That was very nice though we insist on paying normally. The Christian tradition has always been to support the young family. When we as elders are unable to walk or work then the young people can pick up the slack.
I loved seeing my own young nephews caring for my brother and sister in law last month when my brother was in palliative care. Those young people were truly incredible being there for my brother always. He told me before he died that all he wanted was time with his family.
Laura and I talk of the love that Kevin and Anna share. We all met through Elizabeth and Phil, another couple of the great loves of our time, a marriage made in heaven. So here, we were after church enjoying, Sunday and family and friends.
I’d dropped Gilbert off on the way there. Restaurants haven’t quite caught up with Christian wisdom, which acknowledges a dog's place being under the dining table. (Mark 7:28)
Jesus Christ was present though. That made all the difference.
A lovely church service as always. Gilbert took great interest in the preparation for communion. He’s usually only so attentive when there are other dogs in church. Something about this particular preparation had his attention. He’d also been a bit miffed because the children didn’t share their biscuit with him and he was a bit pouty being excluded from the feast. Not one to hold a grudge for more than a second he was delighted to join us as we all headed up for communion. Gilbert’s been blessed by the Bishop. Often there are 2 or 3 other dogs attending, all very well behaved.
After church there’s usually a coffee. I used to attend these more when Bear, a black lab friend of Gilbert’s presided at the coffee and cookie affair.
Today though, we all went off to White Spot. It’s always such a great time to get together with these amazing two people, Kevin and Anna, their fabulous children. Anna and Laura talked mother talk, Anna a mother of three pre schoolers while Laura has 3 adult children as well as grandchildren. Kevin and I talked politics, theology and philosophy. The kids crayoned. Then we all feasted, burgers, fish and chips and other choices. White Spot is a great Vancouver after church tradition. Family oriented but not the "free for all" some ‘kid oriented’ places are. We had a wonderful time. I sure did. Even when Anna beat me to the cheque paying. That was very nice though we insist on paying normally. The Christian tradition has always been to support the young family. When we as elders are unable to walk or work then the young people can pick up the slack.
I loved seeing my own young nephews caring for my brother and sister in law last month when my brother was in palliative care. Those young people were truly incredible being there for my brother always. He told me before he died that all he wanted was time with his family.
Laura and I talk of the love that Kevin and Anna share. We all met through Elizabeth and Phil, another couple of the great loves of our time, a marriage made in heaven. So here, we were after church enjoying, Sunday and family and friends.
I’d dropped Gilbert off on the way there. Restaurants haven’t quite caught up with Christian wisdom, which acknowledges a dog's place being under the dining table. (Mark 7:28)
Jesus Christ was present though. That made all the difference.
Monday, November 14, 2016
BC Ballet Program 1
BC Ballet’s Program 1 show cased the works of our resident choreographer Cayetano Soto. I love the ballet and especially love the beautiful people who attend the ballet. This was no different with as usually the best dressed folk of Vancouver stood about chatting in the foyer lounge before the show began.
The works tonight were impressive and enjoyable with interesting choices of music and constumes. Obviously Cayetano Soto is an accomplished choreographer I thought as the evening progressed, the dancers as usual, simply incredible.
But that last work. I’ve attended ballets for 50 years and I’ve seen nothing like it. Utterly delightful, incredibly original. It reminded me of the first time I saw the works of Martha Graham and Alvin Ailey. Here was the very best of modern and contemporary dance. But I also couldn’t help but think of the work of Paddy Stone’s, such popular work, so engaging with the audience. Sometimes modern dance like modern art can be self absorbed but then along comes someone like Cayetano Soto who truly delights in pleasing his audience. To say there was standing applause is an understatement. The audience roared. Later I said to Laura, that one performance alone was worth the season’s tickets. It was the most unusual performance I’ve seen in decades. What would one call that, “John Travolta channels Mr. Bean on a Mediterranean set by Monty Python?”
Like every one else leaving we were beaming. The ballet had definitely uplifted us. We had been touched by genius and knew it. Thank you BC Ballet and especially thank you Cayetano Soto.
The works tonight were impressive and enjoyable with interesting choices of music and constumes. Obviously Cayetano Soto is an accomplished choreographer I thought as the evening progressed, the dancers as usual, simply incredible.
But that last work. I’ve attended ballets for 50 years and I’ve seen nothing like it. Utterly delightful, incredibly original. It reminded me of the first time I saw the works of Martha Graham and Alvin Ailey. Here was the very best of modern and contemporary dance. But I also couldn’t help but think of the work of Paddy Stone’s, such popular work, so engaging with the audience. Sometimes modern dance like modern art can be self absorbed but then along comes someone like Cayetano Soto who truly delights in pleasing his audience. To say there was standing applause is an understatement. The audience roared. Later I said to Laura, that one performance alone was worth the season’s tickets. It was the most unusual performance I’ve seen in decades. What would one call that, “John Travolta channels Mr. Bean on a Mediterranean set by Monty Python?”
Like every one else leaving we were beaming. The ballet had definitely uplifted us. We had been touched by genius and knew it. Thank you BC Ballet and especially thank you Cayetano Soto.
Wednesday, November 9, 2016
Donald Trump, President of the United States of America
I am so happy that Donald Trump has won the presidency of the United States. I am so dissappointed in our Prime Minister of Canada, Justin Trudeau.
It is so painful still to listen to the media, especially the absolutely horrid CBC news. CBC has been as biased in this election as CNN, the Clinton Network News. Both deserve the Goebbels Press Award for the smost propagandistic new reporting of the year. We continue to see a whole lot of Hillary Clinton and Obama despite the fact that Trump is the present and the future. Move Over Hillary and Obama, your day is done and Donald Trump deserves centre stage. This is his time of victory, you stage hogging poor losers. I want to hear and see the new President. Not yesterdays news!
The media, Trudeau, the Clintons and Obama, to use Obama’s phrase, are “on the wrong side of history.” While I appreciate, given their elitism, privilege and arrogance, that this is hard for them to comprehend, it is still so painful to watch them clinging desperately to the past.
The media keeps repeating out of context scripted sound bites and ad hominems that sounded hollow and hypocritical when first they were spouted but now sound downright sick and pathetic.
Donald Trump simply is not sexist, racist, misogynist or not qualified for the office of the President of the United States. The media elite, Hollywood drama queens and all those millions of Saudi and Wall Street dollars did not convince people yesterday. Today they are utter tripe. Hillary Dumpty fell and all the Corporate dollars and UN horses could not put Hillary together again.
I feel like I’m at V day in WWII. CBC instead filming the Canadian victorious troops has chosen to talk to the Nazi about their failed plans for world dominion. America and Britain have voted for democracy instead of a Kafkaesque beurocratic dictatorship centred in Brussels.
There is fresh air flowing into the room but the stale air clings like old cigar scents and spilt promises. There is new light in the darkness while the shadows scurry in the corners.
"The media refused to take Trump seriously but they insisted on taking him literally.” This is the day that Political Correctness died. Unfortunately we will spend years clearing the rotting carcases left soiling our schools and society.
There was no climate change denial, but there certainly is Donald Trump Denial. Donald Trump is President Elect of the United States of American. Wake up Media!
There’s a new president of the United States of America, Donald Trump. Finally we can all hope Justin Trudeau will have adult supervision.
It is so painful still to listen to the media, especially the absolutely horrid CBC news. CBC has been as biased in this election as CNN, the Clinton Network News. Both deserve the Goebbels Press Award for the smost propagandistic new reporting of the year. We continue to see a whole lot of Hillary Clinton and Obama despite the fact that Trump is the present and the future. Move Over Hillary and Obama, your day is done and Donald Trump deserves centre stage. This is his time of victory, you stage hogging poor losers. I want to hear and see the new President. Not yesterdays news!
The media, Trudeau, the Clintons and Obama, to use Obama’s phrase, are “on the wrong side of history.” While I appreciate, given their elitism, privilege and arrogance, that this is hard for them to comprehend, it is still so painful to watch them clinging desperately to the past.
The media keeps repeating out of context scripted sound bites and ad hominems that sounded hollow and hypocritical when first they were spouted but now sound downright sick and pathetic.
Donald Trump simply is not sexist, racist, misogynist or not qualified for the office of the President of the United States. The media elite, Hollywood drama queens and all those millions of Saudi and Wall Street dollars did not convince people yesterday. Today they are utter tripe. Hillary Dumpty fell and all the Corporate dollars and UN horses could not put Hillary together again.
I feel like I’m at V day in WWII. CBC instead filming the Canadian victorious troops has chosen to talk to the Nazi about their failed plans for world dominion. America and Britain have voted for democracy instead of a Kafkaesque beurocratic dictatorship centred in Brussels.
There is fresh air flowing into the room but the stale air clings like old cigar scents and spilt promises. There is new light in the darkness while the shadows scurry in the corners.
"The media refused to take Trump seriously but they insisted on taking him literally.” This is the day that Political Correctness died. Unfortunately we will spend years clearing the rotting carcases left soiling our schools and society.
There was no climate change denial, but there certainly is Donald Trump Denial. Donald Trump is President Elect of the United States of American. Wake up Media!
There’s a new president of the United States of America, Donald Trump. Finally we can all hope Justin Trudeau will have adult supervision.
Tuesday, November 8, 2016
Evolution, Reincarnation and the Bible
Evolution names the development of more complex entities from simpler ones. The gene essentially becomes the genome becomes the evolutionary basis of life on earth. Evolution is a ‘method’, not a religion. Science is a ‘method’ , not a religion. A lot of confusion is created by unscientific or pseudoscientific declarations about matters of religion.
A meme is the genetic like precursor of an idea, the bit of an argument that begins a train of thought. It is an ideological equivalence to the material gene.
“Evolution of God,” by Robert Wright is a seminal theological text exploring the history of God in the three Abrahamic religions. It’s not that God, omniscient, omnipotent, omnipresent ‘evolved’ but rather that our ‘understanding’ of God evolved. Further Dr. Wright argues rather convincingly that the Holy Bible was altered to accommodate the development of ideas.
Montheism, that there is only One GOD, developed from Polytheism, the idea of many Gods. “Thou shalt have no other Gods but me.” is a statement in the Bible that holds within it the idea of ‘other gods’ or ‘polytheism’. The Evolution of God says that our understanding of God is dynamic and that our Holy Bible, once a developing work like ‘science’ texts became ‘fixed’. Today rather than adding ‘books’ to the Bible, which was the ‘norm’ until Constantine made the Bible the State Legal Book approximately 300 ad, ‘commentaries’ are added to the main book. The Gospels are the 4 main books are the main ’teachings’ of Jesus. Jews similarly have the original text of their creation story, covenant and tribal beginnings as the Talmud. The Apostles and Paul are ‘commentaries by this early understanding so that even today the ‘inclusion’ and ‘exclusion’ of what is ‘holy’ from what is ‘human commentary’ is a matter of much human debate in the three Monotheistic religions.
Similarly the Bible contains the previous ‘idea’ of reincarnation. At the simplest, Christians believe they will be ‘reincarnated’ on death, given a ‘new body’ in the afterlife as do Muslims. The Hindu idea of ‘evolution’ from insect to man is not part of biblical tradition. Indeed the Hindus have the idea of forward and backward evolution based on deeds and this is not anywhere in Christianity. No interspecies reincarnation and no becoming a dung beatle if you mess up in this life. Clearly ‘reincarnation’ is not ‘orthodox’ Christianity today. However it was accepted in the world of Jesus and in the early Christian church.
Philo Judaeus, the Jewish philosopher, described souls coming and going in human bodies while Flavius Josephus held that ‘good’ souls had the capacity for reincarnation. Rabbi Simeon ben Jochai taught the ‘transmigration’’ of souls. Rabbi Manaseh ben Israel taught that the belief in the ‘transmigration of souls’ is the belief of the church.
In the Holy Bible the disciples indeed asked if Jesus was Messiah; how come according to the prophecy Elijah had not come before him ,”Why then say the scribes, that Elias (Elijah) must come first.” Jesus responded that ‘Elias is come already and they knew him not.” This reference is to John the Baptist. The was the insight of writer/philosopher Robert Graves. The people themselves, suggesting the common reincarnation belief of Jesus’ judaism, said ‘some say thou art John the Baptist, some say Elias, and others, Jeremias, or one of the prophets.'
Scientists have reviewed the Bible noting that ‘words’ used in ancient times did not ‘translate’ into the meaning we give them today. For instance if there was a Hebrew word ‘gay’ used in the Bible it would not refer to homosexuality as the word ‘Gay’ does today So many words which come out of the ‘time’ of Jesus no longer hold the same meaning. It has been argued by scientists that the word ‘infinity’ comes truly out of the mathematical sense made clear by Descartes. Agricultural societies don’t have this notion of ‘forever’ but rather the better translation of these terms is ‘for a long time’. So much is lost and sometimes gained in the translation of words and further ideas.
Today ‘linear’ time is superseded by the ideas of quantum existence and the multiverse. Every possibility exists for God but the human conception is limited by the limitation inherent in the human state. The idea of ‘reincarnation’ doesn’t ‘change’ the central thesis of Jesus is Lord and Jesus taught first Love God and Love your Neighbour as yourself. Indeed Christ is. The Gospel means the ‘God News’ and supersedes all ideas at they relate before it.
We say among Christians that when we accept Christ as Lord and Saviour, we are ‘reborn’. Spiritual rebirth and even the very idea that we leave behind the notion of a material being and take up the idea of being a spiritual being, a son of God, living in this spiritual/material world following the teachings of Jesus is what is always most important. Evolution of ideas, such as the evolution of the idea of God as Trinity, three persons in one, and the ‘personhood’ of God is a new meme, a new beginning for inward study of external scripture.
From genetics we learn that the fruitfly has 70% of the human genome. The concept of fractals suggest a mathematical god idea inherent in the shapes of reality. Scientists see science as showing ever more evidence of the genius of creation and the interconnected harmony and celebration of God in creation. That a monkey with all the time that the idea of the Big Bang Theory gives it could not make up Bach teaches us that God is active and working in creation as String Theory itself allows for such 'miracles'. Indeed Celtic Christians believe that the physical world shouts God’s love and celebrates Jesus as much as scripture does. The discord lies with man.
There are many methods to know God just as there are many roads to acceptance of Jesus as saviour. However it’s sad but we also say that the road to hell is broad and the road to heaven is narrow. So we depend greatly on the spiritual directors and advisors and elders who have lived longer and walked more deeply in the wisdom of the lord for their guidance.
Hallelujah! Christ is Risen.
A meme is the genetic like precursor of an idea, the bit of an argument that begins a train of thought. It is an ideological equivalence to the material gene.
“Evolution of God,” by Robert Wright is a seminal theological text exploring the history of God in the three Abrahamic religions. It’s not that God, omniscient, omnipotent, omnipresent ‘evolved’ but rather that our ‘understanding’ of God evolved. Further Dr. Wright argues rather convincingly that the Holy Bible was altered to accommodate the development of ideas.
Montheism, that there is only One GOD, developed from Polytheism, the idea of many Gods. “Thou shalt have no other Gods but me.” is a statement in the Bible that holds within it the idea of ‘other gods’ or ‘polytheism’. The Evolution of God says that our understanding of God is dynamic and that our Holy Bible, once a developing work like ‘science’ texts became ‘fixed’. Today rather than adding ‘books’ to the Bible, which was the ‘norm’ until Constantine made the Bible the State Legal Book approximately 300 ad, ‘commentaries’ are added to the main book. The Gospels are the 4 main books are the main ’teachings’ of Jesus. Jews similarly have the original text of their creation story, covenant and tribal beginnings as the Talmud. The Apostles and Paul are ‘commentaries by this early understanding so that even today the ‘inclusion’ and ‘exclusion’ of what is ‘holy’ from what is ‘human commentary’ is a matter of much human debate in the three Monotheistic religions.
Similarly the Bible contains the previous ‘idea’ of reincarnation. At the simplest, Christians believe they will be ‘reincarnated’ on death, given a ‘new body’ in the afterlife as do Muslims. The Hindu idea of ‘evolution’ from insect to man is not part of biblical tradition. Indeed the Hindus have the idea of forward and backward evolution based on deeds and this is not anywhere in Christianity. No interspecies reincarnation and no becoming a dung beatle if you mess up in this life. Clearly ‘reincarnation’ is not ‘orthodox’ Christianity today. However it was accepted in the world of Jesus and in the early Christian church.
Philo Judaeus, the Jewish philosopher, described souls coming and going in human bodies while Flavius Josephus held that ‘good’ souls had the capacity for reincarnation. Rabbi Simeon ben Jochai taught the ‘transmigration’’ of souls. Rabbi Manaseh ben Israel taught that the belief in the ‘transmigration of souls’ is the belief of the church.
In the Holy Bible the disciples indeed asked if Jesus was Messiah; how come according to the prophecy Elijah had not come before him ,”Why then say the scribes, that Elias (Elijah) must come first.” Jesus responded that ‘Elias is come already and they knew him not.” This reference is to John the Baptist. The was the insight of writer/philosopher Robert Graves. The people themselves, suggesting the common reincarnation belief of Jesus’ judaism, said ‘some say thou art John the Baptist, some say Elias, and others, Jeremias, or one of the prophets.'
Scientists have reviewed the Bible noting that ‘words’ used in ancient times did not ‘translate’ into the meaning we give them today. For instance if there was a Hebrew word ‘gay’ used in the Bible it would not refer to homosexuality as the word ‘Gay’ does today So many words which come out of the ‘time’ of Jesus no longer hold the same meaning. It has been argued by scientists that the word ‘infinity’ comes truly out of the mathematical sense made clear by Descartes. Agricultural societies don’t have this notion of ‘forever’ but rather the better translation of these terms is ‘for a long time’. So much is lost and sometimes gained in the translation of words and further ideas.
Today ‘linear’ time is superseded by the ideas of quantum existence and the multiverse. Every possibility exists for God but the human conception is limited by the limitation inherent in the human state. The idea of ‘reincarnation’ doesn’t ‘change’ the central thesis of Jesus is Lord and Jesus taught first Love God and Love your Neighbour as yourself. Indeed Christ is. The Gospel means the ‘God News’ and supersedes all ideas at they relate before it.
We say among Christians that when we accept Christ as Lord and Saviour, we are ‘reborn’. Spiritual rebirth and even the very idea that we leave behind the notion of a material being and take up the idea of being a spiritual being, a son of God, living in this spiritual/material world following the teachings of Jesus is what is always most important. Evolution of ideas, such as the evolution of the idea of God as Trinity, three persons in one, and the ‘personhood’ of God is a new meme, a new beginning for inward study of external scripture.
From genetics we learn that the fruitfly has 70% of the human genome. The concept of fractals suggest a mathematical god idea inherent in the shapes of reality. Scientists see science as showing ever more evidence of the genius of creation and the interconnected harmony and celebration of God in creation. That a monkey with all the time that the idea of the Big Bang Theory gives it could not make up Bach teaches us that God is active and working in creation as String Theory itself allows for such 'miracles'. Indeed Celtic Christians believe that the physical world shouts God’s love and celebrates Jesus as much as scripture does. The discord lies with man.
There are many methods to know God just as there are many roads to acceptance of Jesus as saviour. However it’s sad but we also say that the road to hell is broad and the road to heaven is narrow. So we depend greatly on the spiritual directors and advisors and elders who have lived longer and walked more deeply in the wisdom of the lord for their guidance.
Hallelujah! Christ is Risen.
Saturday, November 5, 2016
Hockey: Canucks versus Oilers
The guys and I went to a hockey game with the Canucks playing the Edmonton Oilers. The Oilers won 2 to 1. There were a whole lot of zealous oiler fans at the game. After the Fort McMurray fire and the second time the Federal Liberals, the time Justin Trudeau, just like his father, Pierre Trudeau, had thrown the province of Alberta under the bus. The Trudeau energy decisions as always ruined the western provinces for the sake of Quebec. Quebec had taken 45 billion in transfer payments but now wouldn't even allow a pipe line to cross the province so Albertans could keep their jobs. Hence the Albertans, Canada’s own uncared for refugees, were migrants to British Columbia. So it was kind of good to see these Canadian refugees, displaced and betrayed, cheering their home team as they no doubt wondered when, if ever, they would get back to Alberta.
Hockey has always been dear to me. I grew up playing it with my brother. My nephews in Ottawa are big Senator fans. Whenever I visit at Christmas NHL hockey is playing on the television.
When my brother Ron and I were kids, we’d walk to the outdoor rink through waist high snow. We’d shovel off the rink to play. There’d be a wood stove we’d sit around in the old club house putting on our skates. I’d always have freezing toes. My mom would help me get my skates off and warm my feet holding them in her hands. Boris Tyzuk and his father were always there. Other than the coach it was always just Boris and my mother who seemed to be there cheering us kids on. I’ve always thought that explained why Boris became a Rhodes Scholar and I ended up in Medical School. We were just like any other kids but we sure had a whole lot of love and support from our parents.
Walking home with my brother, my mother always had a Wagon Wheel she’d give us for the walk home. I’d be so tired. I played hockey age 5 to 12. My brother played till he was 16.
Hockey Night in Canada was a great time. My brother and I would put on our hockey sweaters, mine the blue Toronto Maple Leafs and his the red Montreal Canadians. Back then when we were kids Quebec was part of Canada and not separated by Trudeau’s polices. Dad was in high spirits. We’d all be shouting at the game. Mom would have pop corn or mandarin oranges, always thinking of what would make her boys happy. She was as much a hockey fan as the rest of us and the whole family shouted at the TV screen, so much so that the dog would start barking. Dad would be laughing so hard and we kids would be squealing and Mom would be trying to keep order while laughing herself. Sometimes in intermission Dad would roll off the couch and start wrestling and tickling us kids. Naturally the dog would join in. Bedlam in the Hay home until the intermission ended and the hockey game began again. Dad always had the couch. Mom had her comfortable chair. Ron and I usually sat on the floor up close to the tv. It was in black and white in those days.
Later I’d play in the Old Time League in the country, in the Comox Valley. A former NHL hockey player who had had a few cardiac bypass operations would skate circles around us at supersonic speeds. It brought home better than anything could the difference between amateur and professional.
The Canucks and Oilers are the best professional teams. Tom was talking a week before of the incredible playing of the new Oilder player, McDavid. “He’s the new Goreski. I’m looking forward as much to seeing him play as I am to the game.” Watching McDavid play surely was worth the price of admission. Dave loves hockey too. His eyes never left the game once the puck was dropped.
I love Canuck’s Sedin brothers. Watching them skate and stick handle is like watching ballet on ice. The game was so well played by both teams that it took on a choreographed quality. Getting the puck, passing, skating, lots of shots on goal and great saves by the goalies. The Oilers just had the edge. Miller, the Canucks goalie, was terrific, only letting one shot through. The other goal was on a power play when no one was in the Canucks goal.
James and Kevin, a couple of fathers of young children sat together while I sat between Tom and Dave, a couple of older guys like me. We’d hear the young guys screaming their heads off at times. It’s amazing the energy at a hockey game. Great music. Lots of fun filming that showed up on the big screen. Michelle sang O Canada so beautifully I had tears. We all stood and sang along.
I love Zamborni Machines. Just watching them cleaning the ice and all the young kids coming out with shovels warms my heart. Then the kids there with their parents. It’s such a family event, hockey games. And this one was so close to Halloween that a whole lot of people came in costume and the best won a contest they richly deserved, the girl a perfect zombie if she wasn’t so beautiful. Dave and Tom and I liked Wonderwoman a whole lot too. She was with a guy. All we could for was some major crime happening so she would rescue us.
When people talk about Canadian culture and multi culturalism like Canada is an uncultured place, I point to hockey. America has its football. The rest of the world has it’s soccer. Canada has hockey and the game defines us. I believe it’s the greatest game in the world and there’s a philosophy, theology and poetry that affects the northern soul playing it but also just watching it. Admittedly cave men played soccer and football but hockey like baseball involves a tool so it didn’t develop until people were far more advanced culturally mentally. There’s teammanship in other games. Yet hockey is extremely fast. Only polo with horses is faster. It’s highly dangerous too and not at all for politically correct easily offended not yet off the breast sorts of adults. Girls play hockey but it is akin to rugby in it’s contact capabilities. Everything about hockey is marvellous. I truly believe it’s God’s game. In Canada we say, we’re not doing something till hell freezes over. A true Canadian, a man of high culture, will skate his way through any challenge.
All too soon the game was over. It was great to get together with the guys. I’ve been going to Canucks games over a quarter of a century, given the cost, maybe one or two ever year or so. This group of guys make it a whole lot of fun. Looking forward to the next time.
Hockey has always been dear to me. I grew up playing it with my brother. My nephews in Ottawa are big Senator fans. Whenever I visit at Christmas NHL hockey is playing on the television.
When my brother Ron and I were kids, we’d walk to the outdoor rink through waist high snow. We’d shovel off the rink to play. There’d be a wood stove we’d sit around in the old club house putting on our skates. I’d always have freezing toes. My mom would help me get my skates off and warm my feet holding them in her hands. Boris Tyzuk and his father were always there. Other than the coach it was always just Boris and my mother who seemed to be there cheering us kids on. I’ve always thought that explained why Boris became a Rhodes Scholar and I ended up in Medical School. We were just like any other kids but we sure had a whole lot of love and support from our parents.
Walking home with my brother, my mother always had a Wagon Wheel she’d give us for the walk home. I’d be so tired. I played hockey age 5 to 12. My brother played till he was 16.
Hockey Night in Canada was a great time. My brother and I would put on our hockey sweaters, mine the blue Toronto Maple Leafs and his the red Montreal Canadians. Back then when we were kids Quebec was part of Canada and not separated by Trudeau’s polices. Dad was in high spirits. We’d all be shouting at the game. Mom would have pop corn or mandarin oranges, always thinking of what would make her boys happy. She was as much a hockey fan as the rest of us and the whole family shouted at the TV screen, so much so that the dog would start barking. Dad would be laughing so hard and we kids would be squealing and Mom would be trying to keep order while laughing herself. Sometimes in intermission Dad would roll off the couch and start wrestling and tickling us kids. Naturally the dog would join in. Bedlam in the Hay home until the intermission ended and the hockey game began again. Dad always had the couch. Mom had her comfortable chair. Ron and I usually sat on the floor up close to the tv. It was in black and white in those days.
Later I’d play in the Old Time League in the country, in the Comox Valley. A former NHL hockey player who had had a few cardiac bypass operations would skate circles around us at supersonic speeds. It brought home better than anything could the difference between amateur and professional.
The Canucks and Oilers are the best professional teams. Tom was talking a week before of the incredible playing of the new Oilder player, McDavid. “He’s the new Goreski. I’m looking forward as much to seeing him play as I am to the game.” Watching McDavid play surely was worth the price of admission. Dave loves hockey too. His eyes never left the game once the puck was dropped.
I love Canuck’s Sedin brothers. Watching them skate and stick handle is like watching ballet on ice. The game was so well played by both teams that it took on a choreographed quality. Getting the puck, passing, skating, lots of shots on goal and great saves by the goalies. The Oilers just had the edge. Miller, the Canucks goalie, was terrific, only letting one shot through. The other goal was on a power play when no one was in the Canucks goal.
James and Kevin, a couple of fathers of young children sat together while I sat between Tom and Dave, a couple of older guys like me. We’d hear the young guys screaming their heads off at times. It’s amazing the energy at a hockey game. Great music. Lots of fun filming that showed up on the big screen. Michelle sang O Canada so beautifully I had tears. We all stood and sang along.
I love Zamborni Machines. Just watching them cleaning the ice and all the young kids coming out with shovels warms my heart. Then the kids there with their parents. It’s such a family event, hockey games. And this one was so close to Halloween that a whole lot of people came in costume and the best won a contest they richly deserved, the girl a perfect zombie if she wasn’t so beautiful. Dave and Tom and I liked Wonderwoman a whole lot too. She was with a guy. All we could for was some major crime happening so she would rescue us.
When people talk about Canadian culture and multi culturalism like Canada is an uncultured place, I point to hockey. America has its football. The rest of the world has it’s soccer. Canada has hockey and the game defines us. I believe it’s the greatest game in the world and there’s a philosophy, theology and poetry that affects the northern soul playing it but also just watching it. Admittedly cave men played soccer and football but hockey like baseball involves a tool so it didn’t develop until people were far more advanced culturally mentally. There’s teammanship in other games. Yet hockey is extremely fast. Only polo with horses is faster. It’s highly dangerous too and not at all for politically correct easily offended not yet off the breast sorts of adults. Girls play hockey but it is akin to rugby in it’s contact capabilities. Everything about hockey is marvellous. I truly believe it’s God’s game. In Canada we say, we’re not doing something till hell freezes over. A true Canadian, a man of high culture, will skate his way through any challenge.
All too soon the game was over. It was great to get together with the guys. I’ve been going to Canucks games over a quarter of a century, given the cost, maybe one or two ever year or so. This group of guys make it a whole lot of fun. Looking forward to the next time.
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