Remembrance Day 2021

Nov. 11 was a big day in my childhood. We all wore poppies.  In Flanders Fields by Major McRae was recited every year.  

My father’s RCAF suit from WWII hung in the closet. We had the clock on the mantel hanging between two spitfire cartridges dad had salvaged from a crash. He was a Spitfire mechanic and bombardier. His favourite story was learning to drive in the Rockies when told to take a jeep down the mountain and bring back supplies.  Dad was the greatest man I’d ever known. I didn’t know it when I was a child. I had to grow old and realize.  I suppose I loved my mom and dad as best I could. I wish I’d done more.  I did cause them grief and concern.  Not surprising I became a psychiatrist, the black sheep in the family.  My brother was my father’s favourite and grew to be his friend.  I was the baby.  They all loved me. Even the dog loved me.  I was different though.

When we were having drills during the Kennedy Missile Crisis, kneeling along the walls, our foreheads to the floor, ready to kiss our ass good bye, I’d asked ‘what about radiation? ». The pretty little elementary teacher burst into tears, spun like a top ,her hands to her face and off she went down the hall running, her high heels clackety clacking. . Back came the big dark suited principle saying, « Billy, you’ve upset your teacher. Don’t ever do that again. ». She stood in the protection of his false bravado.  But no one answered my question. As children we knew the adults were really afraid then.

Except my father. He’d turned the root cellar into a sort of bomb shelter.  Nothing was done except he put a large jug of water in there

. « I couldn’t put a door in that room I built or the city would have taxed me for another room. ». Now he hung a blanket over the door and called it ‘our bomb shelter’. All mom’s preserves were there already.  The full sized freezer where he kept deer and moose he shot was just outside the door.

« I don’t know, Billy, I guess we’ll have to face that when we come to it. ». I could tell he was a little scared too.

Dad had been in war but didn’t go overseas.  His service was across Canada.  Mom said he’d been through the depression before the war and saw men starving. In the service she said he  saw men burn in crashes. He didn’t talk about those things with us kids.  Mom comforted him.  After the war he told me the men in the services decommissioned   and looked for work that was scarce. He was scared then as he told me.  Looking away to the right, remembering tough times.  « I was glad I got work with Morris Crâne.  A lot of men didn’t.’  They lived with my mother’s parents till after I was born before they could afford a home of their own.  That was 5 years.  

Dad put on his uniform and marched each Remembrance Day. When he visitted me in Vancouver after Mom died, in his 90’s, he was so proud to sit with the few remaining men of WWII given seats in front at the Vancouver Epitaph.  I’ve been proud of my Dad so many times but that was one when I felt tears on my cheeks sitting there. The RCMP had come out in force that day in their red serge.  Canada’s flag was communist red, a maple leaf, the legacy of Pierre TRudeau, the evil little coward my father loathed.

I was liberal when I was young affecting a pipe and talking to him about politics.  Thinking I knew more.  My parents voted Conservative or NDP but not liberal.  I was teaching at the university at the time.  « Bill, for a man who can be very smart and has done well in school and is a good doctor, you still can be very stupid.  You don’t speak French and you don’t live in Eastern Canada.  Liberals have done nothing for Western Canada. ». He said

Looking back now I can see that Trudeau was a communist serving Quebec and the communist agenda of global war. At the time I thought he was intellectual. At the time I was an intellectual.  Today like my father I know the limits of talk and say ‘if you talk the talk, walk the walk ‘or ‘show me, don’t tell me’.  Dad liked other vets since they weren’t fooled by slick politicians.  He was a very discerning man. « You can’t believe half of what the politicians say, son. » he told me.  

I could tell Mom and Dad were concerned about the propaganda I was being fed in school but there was nothing they could do about it.  Mom was a Baptist and she’d say she lost me to ‘lust’. The fact was I was never the same after I knew the wonder of women and beyond reason when passion was an alternative.

I was afraid of war too. I was afraid of being maimed.  I remember at the end of high school when I went off to march in peace marches and sang ‘All we need is love’, I was afraid. I remember my friend Kirk and I wondering if the Vietnam War would go global and we’d be called up to be soldiers.  I often think that Vietnam had something to do with Kirk becoming a monk and guru and me becoming a doctor. I actually worried I’d be maimed or I’d like killing. I’ve never worried too much about dying. When I had a calling into medicine it seemed to resolve the dilemna I faced. I liked working the same with everyone too, not making a decision outside the medical as to who deserved what care first.  I was a Christian to my roots. The unknown stranger was always Jesus. Every patient was like family. I was the prodigal son and my father and brother were in the story.  My life was one for service and I was most honoured and thankful when I was  a consultant to Veterans Affairs helping Vets.  I listened and recorded their tales and saw the military take care of their own over and over again.  

I never felt I belonged.  I loved when Dad would over and over again make instant friends with other vets, a band of brothers.  The service tested a man. You learned the mettle.  Dad admired courage and didn’t care for shirkers.  

I’m too old to serve now. I couldn’t carry an 80 pound pack or do a military obstacle course even if they gave me all day.  During the Cold War I dreamed of Cummunist Russian troops in white snow gear on our Winnipeg lawn and Dad taking his cowboy 30;30 out of the gun case and covering a window, my brother taking the 12 gauge shot gun covering the door and me with the 22 and the dog. All of us would defend Mom from home invasion by godless Communists. 

Later I’d become a wilderness doc and learn advanced survival skills, marksmanship and sniper skills shooting deer and Moose at 400 to 600 years with my Ruger 30:06.  I felt like it was important to be prepared,  Boy Scouts had taught me that. Working as a flyin doctor in the north and sub arctic and living in the rural communities I learned the limits and arrogance of government.  Self reliance is unknown in the urban centres but rural Canada is a different kettle indeed.

I miss my Dad. I miss my brother.  I miss my friend Dr. John Christensen who rode in cattle drives and motorcycled to sheep stations. I miss Vivian my aboriginal priest friend. My uncle married aboriginal Annie.  I miss them.  I miss George and Bernie and Hank .  My grandparents, uncles and aunts, parents and brother are all gone.  I feel alone at times.  I thank the men who like my Dad served because my life has been free of war. I worked for Refugee services and listened.  Communist Broadcasting Corporation, the CBC of Montreal and Toronto, is just not present when it comes to the truth I hear from soldiers, refugees and survivors from conflicts around the world.  

Bill Gates said that the greatest thing that happened to him was being born in the Pacific Northwest. For me it was being born in Canada after the war when the men who had served were respected and valued in Canada before the cowards of Quebec attacked Canada at it’s core with their Marxist weapons of betrayal and deceit, gas lighting the nation.   

Today Canada seems more a Quebec province with Sharia Communism as the values of Ottawa.  26 churches were recently burnt to the ground at the last count.  The government does nothing but if an aetheist government building, a synagogue or a mosque were burnt to the ground there might well be martial law.  We have the most unethical leader in history , a stoner snowboarder who likes little girls and lies like a politician.  My brother said « I’ll die if we have another liberal government «  And the second greatest man I knew died.  

Meanwhile the Security Council of the UN, America, China, Russia, France and England, are the principle arms dealers in the world.  They make war and profit from war and the construction after war.  We are a long way from Give Peace a Chance since communists and sharia are religions and idéologies of perpetual war.  Communist China has attacked Hong Kong , Vietnam, India and daily threatens Taiwan.  Britain, America, Australia and Japan have formed an alliance to counter the growing threat of Communit China since the release of Covid from the Wuhan Lab, their lies and cover up.  The UN itself is a dictators club.  It’s chaos and mercenary. 

« There’s a wet war or a dry war, » a British Vet told me. They’re the Olympic events of the war business. Desert Storm Arms Bazaar. The West tech beat Communist tech and the USSR fell. 

 I love people who escaped Communism.  Solzhenitsyn tells the truth like neighbours who say ‘we didn’t think Canada would fall this fast’. The Dalai Lama still pleads for Tibet, his country enslaved and genocided by the Comnunist Chinese. Canada or rather the Liberal government forgets Korea and how.the Communist Chinese killed hundreds of Canadian soldiers.  Canadians bravery at Kapyong turned the tide there. But Trudeau, his loose lips and pretty boy socks excludes Canada today. Even Liberal whore monger Mackenzie King believing his dog Spot channeled his dead mother was included in the war council of WW II Britain and America.  

 Now the world is faces the newest ‘wet war’, the competition of navy and Air Force tech in hope of getting the world tech sales. If the west wins the Communist Chinese dictatorship will collapse but if it loses it will be as if Hitler’s National Socialism won.  I can only hope that the cost of war will contain this limited business adventure.  

CSiS says the Communist Chinese Military have infiltrated Canadian Politics, Media and Education to the highest levels.  I liked the Beatles song We don’t want a revolution.  

It’s all above my pay grade.  The Vets I’ve known have been the finest men, including my father of course. This is their day.  Celebrate with thanks. 

Remembrance Day

This morning is a hard start.  Hard start refers to an engine that won’t turn over.  It refuses to spark.  I’ve slept in.  First time in months.  Usually I’m in this robotic routine that gets me up and out of the house to work approximately on time.  Thousands of days of work. Thousands of before dawn days.  Today the sun is shining.
I got up and moved to a chair to meditate. My mind wasn’t on God, or Peace or Bliss. I wasn’t ‘mindful’.  I wasn’t even able to focus on prayers.  My soul had attention deficit disorder.  The monkey mind staggering through its various concerns.  Nothing compelling. Just distracting. No energy apparently to focus.  I lack the passion for God. I want my bed instead.
I am the monk who went back to bed.  
I napped on the couch.  Eventually,  the dog, impatient,  climbed all over  me.  I'm a dog mat.  He  licked my face.   Alright, already.
I got up again.  I let mutt out.  It's a crisp day.  He peed,sniffed,looked about and came back in when I called.
I have the day off. A tabala rosa day.  Remembrance Day. November 11.
Remembrance Day.  My father was RCAF.  World War II Royal Canadian Air Force.  Thanks to the sacrifice of the soldiers I’ve lived  a life of relative peace dealing only with self righteous smug and power abusing bureaucrats rather than facing the more judgemental nature of bullets and bombs.  All I have to complain about is the silly grade school officiousness of the stupid and arrogant.  Elsewhere, outside of Canada, children are being killed by random suicide bombers with bad hair and bad attitudes. Mothers and fathers are keening.
I remember my father at the cenotaph.  I was with Laura then.  The RCMP were resplendent in red serge.  Dad was proud to be among his fellow soldiers. He was a west coast bomber in WWII.  He said they  thanked him for bombing a submarine.
“I think it was a whale”, he said. The fog of war.  The humility of my father.
I’m thankful for the privilege of the years working with Veterans Affairs. I saw the old men and women,   heard their stories of being young.   They told me they knew no better than to do as they were told.  They followed orders and nearly died rescuing friends.   It was a hellish time.  They were heroes.  They held their heads high.  They knew the meaning of friendship.  They had solid values. Their houses were built on strong foundations.
Now the veterans I see are more often from forgotten wars of other countries where petty tyrants fought their neighbours, all of it more like medieval jousts with people as peasants.    They saw no glory in their service. Their countries have forgotten them. Regimes have changed.  They escaped.  They live here now.  In Canada.
Here the silly and stupid  forfeit the very rights my father fought for.  The leaders made promises. They've reneged on them now.  They hide behind  the fashion political correctness. They're all up the skirts of girls using them as puppets.
“We’ve aborted more of our own people than the Nazi killed in the war,” she said.  The nihilism of the atheism of our secular age is so in contrast to the robustness of the last generation.   I look around and see the  Germany or Russia of  1930’s.  Except we have shopping malls.  The cathedrals and temples go empty but the parking lots are full.
Dad believed in the working man.  He didn’t know his creed was ‘meritocracy’.  Reward those who work for the common good.  He actually liked the politicians of his day.  Mother celebrated the city leadership.  There was a pride in achievement.  They worried about the greed of their neighbour and were furious about the encroaching taxes. Overall they enjoyed life.  They were  family.
 I was a part of family, still am, even though I fall apart.   It's just the way I'm wired or maybe it comes with my work.   The existential angst.  The scream on a wood cut bridge.  I have some sort of spiritual seizure disorder. I see myself flailing about when everyone else seems a happy cabbage in the happy cabbage patch.
Right now I've attached my discontent to growing old. I could as easily stick it on a political party or a winter season, a lover or just about any fact of life.
Who is that hairy white bearded straggly haired wrinkled thing I see in the mirror.
I don’t think my father wondered at the mirror. His was a more accepting bent.  He complained about the aches and pains of labour but he wasn’t concerned with mirrors. His wasn't a selfie generation.  The facade was critical.  Their generation had the lawns and picket fences. Ours has plastic surgery.  No one is without pretention.  Even the priests like their gold laced robes.
I’ve saved a lot of lives.  I’ve been present and trained for a lot of crisis, emergency and mystery. I’ve repeatedly, thousands of times now ,convinced people not to die, either by cutting out something, physically tying off something, stopping the actual bleeding or starting up the lungs again by thumping on a dozen chests or more.  Sometimes I just took away a bottle of pills, or  hid the knifes. I've been forever convincing people it’s worth it to live.  I've fought morbidity and mortality daily sometimes hourly for 35 years.   I do hope I'm right.
When I die I could meet a whole lot of angry people in paradise hating me for keeping them in their jobs and marriages, paying taxes and supporting the latest liberal regime.  In that personal nightmare of mine it doesn't matter how you got 'there' .  There are no conditions. You just have to get out of 'here'. The babies are the greatest winners in that afterlife. In that dream I'm the greatest evil there is. Satan selling life in this materialist secular Platonic shadow world when over the hill in the promised land, with no conditions. Unconditional love for all. Kill yourself and you still get a harp. Everyone has a personal cloud. There is no hell.  No hell. No purgatory. No loss or grief. But rather you awake in wonder and hate that 'fucking psychiatrist' who kept you chained to misery all those years.  And here I thought I was a saviour when really I was nothing more than a prison guard making sure everyone filled their allotted sentence, my own fear of death, holding others here.
Mostly these days I use all my training in motivation, analysis, hypnosis and pharmaceuticals to convince people to let go of the needle. I counteract the slavery of the pin prick.  It's all in the ritual. The blood letting, the injecting, the heating, the transaction, the sleep, the passion to avoid the pain.  The myth of Sissyphus. And then again the vultures come to pluck at the eyes of another Graecian hero.  They’re as fixated on their self made myths as my dog is fixated on his yellow tennis ball.  Their lives are reduced. Obsessions.  Compulsions.  Addictions. Slaves to the drug dealers.  I ride in on my white pony, more a jack ass, a harley davidson actually. I wrestle the man from the dealers. The dealers are actually kind of  glad to give him up now that they've taken his house, his home, his wife, his kids, his job, his dog, his health. There's so little money and will to live that our struggle for this remnant is ritual itself. They're interested in a new loser. They want a celebrity or a banker, maybe a doctor, or a lawyer, a younger heiress. That's who they'd rather devote their time to. So they let this one go.  I good samaritan him back to wholeness and hope he doesn't look back knowing he'll turn to salt if he does.
And I must reassure myself that I should live each day.  Each day I must reaffirm life. Sometimes many times in the day I must do this.  All day long my office is an argument for defeat.  It’s about suicide or addiction or leaving a marriage or a relationship or getting into another abusive marriage or relationship or not working or working in an abusive relationship with a satyrical boss or becoming a terrorist, or slashing.  Losing direction or faith and not knowing where the detour occurred. I come into the abyss and join the darkness to find you thn hope we  find our way back together.  You bitch and complain all the way and when you get into the light and have the strength to stand on your feet you will curse me forever for taking you out of your rabbit hole. There will be enemies of mine who will join you. Those are the ones whose finances I've affected by criticizing their hypocrisy.   I believe I'm  helping rebuild in a world bent on destruction.  I'm  helping lose  the needle back in the hay stack.  I'm suggesting we look for love and work instead.
What is the meaning? What is the reason?  
Death is stalking me.
I’ve been in the shadow of the valley.
I’ve held the dying in my arms. Now I am the dying. We always were. But didn't think of it that way. A daily dance.  A song of songs.  A cruel or kind embrace.
I’ve known the last words.
I’ve been the last face.
I’ve had little reason for doubt in those times.
There is a certainty in reality. I’m among ideologues, talking heads who can’t find their ass with both hands.  I’m unduly judgemental. I know their fear is like fingernails on glass. There’s a whine and screech I hear. I see it in their bodies. Their hypertension and the organ failures speak to the war they’re waging. It’s hard for everyone to go on.  I don't imagine others can know the sheer volume of experience, the screech of emotions as they talk and shout so many things, yet really think they're being 'discrete'.  The ones in uniforms are the loudest. They have the shortest fuses.  They judge themselves as they judge others. Harshly.
Even the rich and privileged come to their ends, face death.  The money men and women lack the equanimity of philosophers or poets.  "You can’t take it with you.", they even say ,unknowingly.   I hear their screams in terror in the anger of their skin. I see the pulsations of troubled arteries. The vessels in their eyes betray them. Their pupils are worth a thousand words.  They lie to themselves.  There is such terror in the death of materialists.  I’m bolstered by my spiritualism. I’m comforted by my faith.  The faithless flounder before life and death.   Lies no longer serve them in that last encounter.
He hung himself.  I knew him well.
I knew him and could not convince him that there was more to life than a needle in his arm.  I failed him as much as I failed the woman when I held her dead baby in my hands.  Oh I know there were others.  It takes a village to raise a child. The baby was dead before I was called to the hospital.  I was only there to witness. I recorded the man's passing as well. Our conversations about the 'culture of addiction' and the need for 'self medication', his 'right to die' and all that other stuff.  Armchair philosophers love to talk. He was a wonderful man.  So young. A mere 50 year old. Old for the dark ages but so young today.  So sad. Such tragedy.  The dealers had long ago stopped giving him money and fast cars. The good time girls had gone.  He was so sick he hardly stole enough for his needs.  He was alone in an SRO when they found him.  Hanging.
So many live their lives in jail or asylums. I don’t know how I could go on with out the wilderness or the sea.  I escape to these empty wild and full reaches where sometimes hardly a bird or an animal interrupts my solitude. The hum of the anthill city is far away. The illusion of the substance of crowds is behind me. I’m hanging on a mast or sitting in a clearing with a rifle watching and waiting.  The solitude washes over me healing like gentian violet.  The sickness leaves for a while.  The suffering is less. God the chimney sweep has taken away a load of soot.
Desire remains.
I miss her scent, her nakedness, the loveliness of her.  I miss the dying between her legs that resurrected and restored my faith as much as any time in the wild.  Before she lost her faith and way.  Before we slid apart.  Sweat is slippery.
He told me of the men on the upturned life raft in the North Atlantic, the freezing numbing cold, others slipping into the dark, then later the sharks.  He remembers the faces of the men..  He didn’t know why held on or why he lived.  Remembrance day is special for him.  He gives thanks and mourns his comrades long lost.  One day he expects to meet with them again.
I don’t know why, he says. I don't know why I never let go.
She thought it was all ‘luck’.  Mine was good. Hers was bad.  She was a victim. I was a victimizer.  I just remember the work.  I don’t like that they deny the work today.  Fatalism.  I prefer ‘karma’ and ‘retribution’.  Yet I really don’t know why I was born to parents who loved me or why I decided to always to work for the benefit of my fellow man while she set out to serve herself and her own and today is lonely.  I explain today it's for the money. That's the reason they understand.  It's only when I explain how to make money they see the reason in my serving. Was it only about the money?  How can they understand that it was little about the money. If you can save a life you can make a million but what's a million to a dying man.  I dream of being alone at sea again crossing oceans facing challenges and adventures, but going where.  It's always here.
I don’t know why I didn’t rest when there was ‘enough’. Like my grandfather and father I worked longer for the times of trouble and saved as they did.  All around me there were parties.  All around me there were ‘easy schemes’ but instead I just got up before dawn and went to work and returned long after dusk.  When I was "taking time off" I was learning other skills.
The government gets votes with redistribution schemes.   Steal from the rich and give to the poor.  More and more I see my counterparts working under the table,  working scams.   The rewards gone out of honest work. The sacrifice and work are no longer  redistributed.  Only the rewards are redistributed. The pay off is in the complaining.   The thugs steal the potatoes of the farmers till all is like Africa where no one ‘saves’ because ‘savings’ are stolen.  Like children.   It’s become that here with the banks and the greed of bankers.  My father told me of the men who hid coins in mattresses because they couldn’t trust the banks of his day.
Only the nouveau rich flaunt their wealth.
I’ve stored my earnings in education and now am aging towards dementia.  All the lessons of survival and success I’ve learned will be fore naught when my mind is lost.  Forget about the banks.  Insaniety erodes all much quicker.
So what is dementia. Not the silly materialist explanation. But Lethe.  What is the forgetting.  The stupid are always happier than the smartest.  There’s blessings in mediocrity that the mediocre cannot know.  Intellectuals are a morbid lot.
God doesn’t want our ideas as much as he loves our dance.
It’s not called the ‘song of creation’ for naught.  The celestial spheres make music.  I may lose my mind but I’ll not lose my inner ear.  I’ll always dream.  To dream that is the rub.
These days my dreams have been happy and adventuresome.  The nightmares still occur but less so.
I did like this coffee.  What a miracle the world of distribution is.  This global product is my miracle. My fridge is sacred. It runs on propane or electricity.  I have this wonder of a gas stove I’ll light again and make another cup. To savour a morning cup of coffee. This is true wealth.  It’s not the myriad of things but rather the ability to enjoy them. To have the presence and peace of mind to languish in the moment and love the celebration of creation. That is the elixir of youth.
What will I do today?  I’ve been reading this brilliant book by a new French Canadian author. I’d surely like to finish it before I see him next.  The dog definitely wants a walk.  There are meetings to go to, church services and gatherings of those who are honouring our soldiers.  It’s Remembrance Day.  I can’t help but remember my father.  I miss him.  We all missed my mom when she went first.  I was such a fool when I was younger.  There was so much I wanted to know.  But he knew I’d learn it soon enough.  There’s somethings one can’t learn with words alone.  Experience has taught me his wisdom.

Remembrance Day and St. James Church, 2012

Dad served in the RCAF during WWII. I remember his blue uniform as a child. Remembrance Day was important to him. He loved the Ottawa Air Museum where in later years he liked stand by the Lancaster Bomber and remember . Occasionally he mentioned friends who didn't come back. I'm reading GAS! The Battle for Ypres, 1915 by James L. McWilliams and R. James Steel, a well written, well researched, moving history indeed. I was honoured to have treated a Vimy Ridge survivor in my first year of country general practice. He was a very intelligent elderly gentleman who I saw for lung disease. He'd been only a little scathed by gas attacks. On his visits though he'd share stories of those long past days when his Ross Rifle jammed. "It wasn't so bad though because I could pick up an Enfield off one of the many fallen Brits around us." Today is Remembrance Day. My friend told me his grandfather rode in the Canadian Cavalry in WWI telling him he figured he survived because on a horse he was above the height everyone was shooting at. I was reminded of the brilliant novel, Soldier of the Horse, by Robert Mackie based on the stories his family told of the 'Great War'. Our friends' son was in Kundahar, Afghanistan. She was sharing this summer a mother's pride in his service, achievements and advancement. When he was over there, t was a hard time for him and for those who loved him. She admired his courage and his sense of duty. So many young people lack purpose or meaning. I see the drug addicts and alcoholics whose lives of pleasure and deceit are so shallow in comparison with the friends I've known who understood the truth and meaning of service and altruism in contrast to the utter narcissism of the "party scene". Over the years I've treated Vets from all the wars of the 20ths and 21st century. Men have told me over and over of the horrors they encountered in Europe, Malaysia, Vietnam, Cypress, South America, Central America, Africa. Some volunteered. Some were conscripted. A white South Afrikaner told me "I killed them in the night when they were trying to kill my mother and father asleep upstairs." "Kill or be killed", was the law of the jungle for many and war was a return to the very jungle we all came from. Thanks to our Canadian soldiers, the Brits, NATO, and especially the American soldiers I've known a life time of relative safety and civilization for which I'm truly thankful. All the refugees I've seen in my office remind me how lucky we are to be in Canada with the governments we have had and their concern for defence. For so many who have not faced those who want your life and all you possess because they believe their might entitles them to it ,they probably don't understand what all the unsung heroes of Remembrance Day talk is about. It is the very success of the Canadian soldiers that we don't know what it is that they have done for us. That said, I can also say the Canadian media, especially CBC, has been utterly nauseating in it's coverage of Canada's military service overseas these last years. Thanks to the ignorance of the Canadian media the average Canadian doesn't even know where the Canadians have been deployed and what their part has been around the world in countless peacekeeping actions.I only learn from the men and women themselves who tell me what the media fails to report. Thankfully there is Remembrance Day each year. Poppies go on sale. I remember the poem Flanders Fields written by a doctor sleepless after days and nights on the front serving. I was thankful for the genius writing of Kevin Patterson, Canadian doctor, whose book "Outside the Wire" remains a classic of the Afghanistan war telling the story of that conflict in the words of the participants. At church today I was grateful to catch the end of Father Mark Greenaway Robbins sermon of thanks this important day. Tom, Gilbert and I were glad to be there for Remembrance Day. It was a blessing to join with the choir and congregation singing "Our God Our Help in Ages Past, remembering all the years of church with my now departed father and mother as we sang this very hymn in days gone past. Dad and Mom met during WWII, were married for 60 years, 'till death do us part'. Dad was proud of his service in the RCAF. I was proud of my Dad. Today I'm thankful for all the soldiers who have served so that we can know peace. It was good too to see AJ and 3 week old Alex, so full of promise in his new life. After church we congregated downstairs for conversation, coffee and cookies. Gilbert visited with the other dog that had come to church that day.

Sturges North 2011 & Veterans Motorcycle Run

Friday morning was the sign up for the Veterans Motorcycle Run in support of the Canadian troops.  Everyone had to sign a waiver and show proof of valid motorcyle license.  When I left my motorcycle to go sign up, I asked the fellows near me if it was okay to leave my motorcycle there.  With smiles, a big fellow answered, "Don't worry we'll protect it."  My Honda 230 CFR was by far the smallest bike there.  I'd given up telling everyone I couldn't bring the Harley Electraglide on the back of the truck towing the RV.  Instead I just called it my 'baby'. "Looks like it could be a trouble maker, " a Gulf War Vet commented.  The rest of the bikes ranged from 600 cc to 1600 cc and maybe more.   At the Sturges North grouns Azzkikr had a custom built motorcycle  with the biggest car engine Chevy ever made.  As this was a Veterans Bike Run I wouldn't put it past some of these guys to have rigged their machines with military ordnance to enhance performance, maybe even Stealth technology.
When we 'd signed in and got our Sturges North "Ride with Honor" t shirts, the ride captain told us the route. I couldn't hear so would depend on staying with the group. That was my first mistake.  Then we all bowed our heads when the chaplain said a prayer for the ride.  I find motorcycling is a great catalyst for prayer and like that these rides begin with the sacred.  Then someone called out "Mount Up".  Another shouted "Lock and Load".  The women and men got on their bikes and a collective throbbing roar filled the air.  I couldn't hear my little bumblebee so had to trust to the feel.  We rode out in double lines.
On the flat the Honda CRF does 110 km but as soon as there was an incline I had to lie down over the top of my bike to reduce wind resistance.  I'd say I started on point and drifted to rearguard but in fact I just slipped a little back in the middle of the pack when the space opened a bit in front of me and some big bikes behind would pass and fill it up. I had a definite advantage with gnarly tires when we hit the road repair before Sorrento   but then we took the uphill turn at Monte Creek. I was reduced to 80 km with guys and gals flying past me. You could actually see my feet pedally furiously to keep up.  On the downhills I'd make 120 and close the gap. I had no idea where we were going.  I actually thought I was the last bike.  It was only when I pulled into Falkland for the buffet lunch at the Falkland pub that I found out there were a whole lot of bikes behind me. They must have got caught behind traffic.  That happened to me and even with the passing lane I didn't have the get up and go to pass this one car that thankfully turned off somewhere letting me get back to making my maximum 110 km/jr speed.
The scenary was tremendous along the winding roads with lakes and evergreen, cattle on rolling grass pastures. Falklands Pub was welcoming , a famous Hog destination with a lot of biker paraphernalia on the walls from previous rides.  Great roast beef , ham and chicken wings, roast potatoes and salads for $10/  I sat with a fellow who said he had got chilled without any windscreen. I said, "I know what you mean. I don't have any either on my Honda 230.  I got chilled plus  I got bugs up my nose. I also think I'm the smallest motorcycle here."
"Then I'm the second smallest, I'm riding a 600 cc Buell Blast."  he said. He was up from Vernon.  Since I'd had a Buell and loved it we got along just fine.  I left early though figuring that even though I couldn't ride fast I could eat fast and get the jump on most of the other bikers.
I had to fill up with gas and riding wide open throttle had to add a litre of oil.  Then I was back on the road way out ahead of the crowd.  The salmon valley with the horses and cattle and rolling hills was a treat to ride through.  I came out at the place where we began and as no one was there thought I'd just beat everyone.  So I drove 5 km back to Pierre's Point Campground, shut down the motorcycle outside the trailer, hailed Gilbert and Laura, regaled them about my exploits as a great motorcyclist only to have Laura say, "It's on the radio, the Veterans ride, ends in Sicamous.  I just heard the first bikes were arriving." I gave Laura a hug and chucked Gilbert under the chin. Then I had to get back outside to the bike and climb wearily back in the saddle.
Crossing through Salmon Arm there were bikes going everywhere. I took the road to Sicamous and arrived in a town flooded with motorcycles. There were bikes parked on the sides and down the middle of the main street.  The band, "Lead Painted Toys" was belting out rocker tunes at the open beer garden. The Canadian legion was open and inviting visitors. Ice cream vendors were doing a hot "cold" trade. Harley Davidson had some big bikes there and the firemen were out watching the big "burn off' event.  I definitely got into the ice cream.  I took a picture of myself and my motorcle dubbing it the "little motorcycle that could'.  Picking bugs out of my nose I missed the windshield on my Harley Electra glide and the comfort but there was a strange sense of accomplishment in just getting there. I thought it appropriate for a Veterans ride given that often the Canadian troops had done the really big jobs with the least and certainly not the latest equipment.  Canadian troops got the job done regardless. I was glad too that they'd finished their tour in Afghanistan doing Canada proud.
Siccamous has a great marina and given all the power boats here I expect there's great fishing. Driving back at a reasonable 80 to 90 km/hr pace, not pushing my bike to the limit I enjoyed the magnificent lake and scenery thankful that the ride had given me a chance to see what wonderful country lies around Salmon Arm.  Sturges North picked a great place to have the rally.
When I got back to the RV  I was exhausted. All my muscles ached and all I could do was lie down and watch another episode of Sons of Anarchy starring Charlie Hunnan, Ron Perlman and Katey Sagall, Kurt Sutters television series about an outlaw biker gang.  Very apropos viewing material.  I'm reading a Louis L'Amour western novel too which seems an equally good fit. .

Jake's Gift

Jake's Gift is playing at Pacific Theatre (www.pacifictheatre.org) Hemlock and 12th. Written and performed by Julia Mackey with Director Dirk Van Strallen and Lighting Designer Gerald King.  The story is of a French girl meeting an elderly Canadian WWII vet who has returned to the 60th Anniversary remembrance on the Juno Beach landing.  He was one of three brothers who fought there, 2 survived, one was left on the beach. It is a survivor's story. A story of remembrance and regeneration.  I wasl rivetted to my seat  by the extraordinary acting and transformation in this moving one woman show.  At then end, the standing ovation, silenced the sobs and sniffles.  It seemed we were all crying.  Tears of sadness. Tears of gratitude. Tears of joy.  As we left we saw an white haired man wipes his eyes.  It was only last month I breakfasted with my father and his 3 friends, all WWII vets, air force, army and navy. I believe they all would have liked this play.   Julia Mackey honoured them with  her writing and her remembering.  I would recommend it to all who have like Canadians been touched by war.
http://members.shaw.ca/junobeach/index.htm
http://www.junobeach.org/main.html