Middle East Observations

Middle East Observations

By Victor Epp

And another thing - this whole Middle East crisis is a prime example of how pathetic mankind has become in what a friend of mine calls ritual hunting. It's almost as though an evolutionary curve is taking place right before our eyes. We don't even have to rely on the expertise of archaeologists to trace the rise and fall of civilizations, or the splitting off of one species from another. We can watch it all on CNN.

From the time of Biblical records to the present television frenzy the decline of the Arab civilizations in general and the Israelites and Philistines in particular is easily visible to the naked eye. Mind you, it's a little dangerous to generalize like that, but the divide between those nations and the rest of the world is blatantly obvious. Maybe the rest of the world is going to hell in a hand basket and the Middle Eastern nations are maintaining the status quo, but there is a definite rift between 'them' and 'us'.

See there are a few things - a few basics that we have to understand here. First off, there is no real Middle East Crisis. That's TV talk, probably invented by arms manufacturers to make us think different so they can improve their bottom line. I think they're in cahoots with OPEC anyway. It's really all an advertising scam to bolster the economy and re - elect some world leaders.

You think I'm kidding? I guess you would if you believed in horse feathers. But if you can smell the coffee, you're bound to smell something fishy in the sate of Denmark. Well heck, them Israelites and the Philistines have been going at it for years - thousands of years in fact. That's what they do. They kill each other. No, no, that's not accurate either. They kill each other's women and children and old people. Oh, every once in a while they pop off a politician or two, but that's an exception - purely accidental.

All this seems pretty barbarian to us who place a value on human life. But what is life really worth in the desert? The only things that grow there are figs and dates and camels. How much of that can you put up with in a lifetime of misery? Jeez, you can't even go for a stroll in the country without getting your mouth full of sand. So you can see it's not too hard to convince these suicide bombers to accept martyrdom so they can enter Paradise. To them it's sheer poetry. Somebody ought to remind them that the rewards for both poetry and martyrdom are all posthumous.

That's a bit of a generalization, mind. Not everyone thinks that way. The sheiks and oil barons don't. The political leaders certainly place a value on their own lives as well as that of their so-called enemies. Look at what happened when the Israelites had Arafat surrounded in his bunker the other day. Oh no, they didn't want to kill him, they said. Of course, Arafat knew that or he wouldn't have been caught there with his pants down. Instead he made a big show for the TV cameras about being ready to accept martyrdom. Yeah right and the Israelites didn't mean him any harm. They were just looking for terrorists. It was like a bad World Wrestling Federation script.

You only have to turn the clock back a few thousand years to Samson's time to see how things used to be done when these guys took this stuff seriously. Now there was an Israelite! It would behoove these milk-toast meadow muffin slingers to pay a little attention to their own history if they want to get a job done. Samson just never put up with a whole lot of this petty bickering. When he decided he wanted to own Gaza, he just ripped up his gate in Hebron, hauled it over on his own back - posts and all and staked his claim by plunking it right there in Gaza. When the Philistines gave him grief over it, he just picked up the jawbone of an ass and slew a thousand of the buggers. That was that.

Gawd, if I think of it today, there's enough asses around the G - 8, flapping their jaws and making noises that Samson could have used the jaws of just a few of them to lay waste to all the Arab countries, all the way to North Africa. Instead, these so called leaders today can hardly even negotiate a government, much less make any decisions. Man, where is Moses when you need him? Somebody sure has to come along and take them Israelites for a stroll in the desert for about forty years or so.

Well, you've got to give equal time to the other side too. I mean, them Philistines are in just as much of a mess. At least in Samson's time they were smart enough to figure out his weakness for Philistine women and sick Delilah on him. That pretty well calmed him down for a while. But you can't keep guys like that down forever. He was a stubborn, sing-minded SOB. In the end, you might say he was the first suicide bomber when he pulled the pillars of the temple down on himself and the whole Philistine nobility. At least he aimed his power at where it counted. See these old timers were pretty thorough when they did a job. There's something to be learned from that.

Then there was King David. Now there was a sneaky little bugger. He spent years building his cover as an innocent young shepherd - a naïve country boy, as it were. All the while he was wrestling bears and lions that were dumb enough to mess with his sheep. Then just when Goliath figures he has King Saul on the ropes, David steps up to the plate and deep sixes him with a rock. While he's at it, he also separates the giant from his head. That way there is no doubt as to his intentions. That's where the Philistines learned about throwing rocks like you see young boys do on TV today. They just didn't remember about the beheading part, which is why they are in such a sorry state today. I mean, give me a break. Throwing rocks is just your basic harassment. Beheading, now that's a real definitive statement. And when it comes to being sneaky, at least Delilah had some sex appeal to distract Samson. You tell me who'd like to climb into the sack with old Yasser Arafat. Oh my stars, it's worse than I thought.

Just what is this three or four or five thousand-year old spat all about? Real estate - they're yammering about a stinking piece of real estate. Can you believe that? I know some deals take longer to close than others, but really - I mean really, this is downright ridiculous! It's all because of a misunderstanding in the first place. They all get so uppity about ownership of the Holy Land when they didn't even bother to find out that it's a misnomer in the first place. Holy Land, indeed! The facts are that the first people who washed up on shore out of the Mediterranean were so excited when they saw it, one guy yelled, "Hooooooooooooleeeeeeeeeee - Land!" and they all swam for it in a desperate attempt to keep from drowning. First thing you know, them gum flappers had it turned around and were calling it the Holy Land. That's just how easy it is to get off on the wrong foot.

You laugh, but it keeps happening over and over - everywhere. Why do you think, for example, that George Dubya often looks so surprised as he reads his own speeches? Look at his 'Our Cause is Just' speech as a for instance. After the September eleventh tragedy, he had one of them Texas mads on. Big George is still grumpy over Saddam Hussein and tells George Dubya he's got to do something. Asked why, he'll only mumble 'just 'cause.' So he says to Rumsfeld to get the army together, get some guns and tanks and planes. Of course Rumsfeld wants to know the reason, and what is it? "Just 'cause," says George Dubya. Did you notice that inverted comma right in front of the word cause? That's no quotation mark. It's how they say because in Texas. Now, his speechwriters knew darn well that you couldn't get away with saying such things anywhere outside Texas, or maybe Alberta. So they rearranged his quotation to say, 'Our cause is just!' You could just see his eyes bug out when that came out of his own mouth in front of an international audience. There would have been the deuce to pay too if it hadn't gone over so big in the ratings. First thing you know he starts to believe it himself.

I only mention this in passing because the Arab countries are looking to this Texas politician to broker a deal between the Israelites and the Philistines - something that nobody has been able to do for at least five thousand years. There's some concern though with George Dubya's image as an honest broker. Ha - there they go again! If ever there was an oxymoron that's got to top them all, except maybe for 'good government'.

As I say, five thousand years and they still haven't figured out that this is a real estate deal. They're still busy appointing foxes to guard a hen house that doesn't exist. That's like going to the plumber for open-heart surgery. If they really wanted to get this over with, they'd hire some hotshot agent from Remax Real Estate to broker a proper condominium agreement and within six months everybody would be happy. That is to say, everybody would be happy except the arms manufacturers and dealers, the oil barons, the military and the politicians. They'd all be unemployed. It's in their interest to let everybody think that somebody actually owns the place.

It might come as a surprise that this miserable piece of sand and camel dung really belongs to the guy who made it, and you don't really want to get him ticked off. History is chock full of examples of what happens when you do that. I'll tell you what. These stiff-necked Israelites and the Philistines would be a whole lot wiser to form a joint task force and keep a sharp eye out for some old bearded guy building a really big boat in his front yard. When they see people rounding up animals two by two, they'll realize they should have tried better to get along and not be so busy messing with somebody else's property. But by then it'll be too late. That whole sub species of humanity will become extinct. I wonder if that's what happened to the Neanderthals. Maybe all these fancy explanations about how they died out are all poppycock. Maybe the authority having supreme jurisdiction just plain got fed up with the petty bickering over a piece of real estate and pulled the plug on them.

Well, basically, there it is in a nutshell. History has shown us the way things go - you know - cause and effect. By logical extension, we can predict the outcome for that species of mankind. The last thing we need is some Texas Yahoo with a 'just 'cause' attitude joining in that fight, or we'll all get sucked down the same black hole of civilization right along with them. You'd think CNN would have caught on to this by now. You know how those news guys like to speculate on just about anything somebody might do or say and pretend that it's news. Shoot, to be able to predict the future of evolution before it even happens - and right there on TV - that would put their ratings right through the roof.

It just goes to show that even CNN misses the odd opportunity. As for George Dubya, or any other American president, he's got his hands full of 'terrorists' right there on Wall Street. At least there, he knows what he's up against. As sorry a state as the middle east is, he's got to recognize that he's just a babe in the woods and has got no real business messing with that civilization.

Phil and Izzy - A Parable - Sort of

Phil and Izzy - A Parable – Sort Of

It’s a story that started long ago with two men by the name of Phil and Izzy. Them two and their families was the only survivors of a ship wrecked in a mother of a storm on the Mediterranean Sea. The bad news was that they didn’t make ships them days like they do today. The good news though was that they was made out of wood, so they floated – more or less.

Well, there they was, afloatin’ on the choppy sea like a bunch o’ drowned rats, barely hangin’ on to life and limb – no food, no water – nothin’. For days they bobbed up and down in the waves on what was left of the boat like so much driftwood. And everyone was seasick to boot. Well – you would be too bein’ tossed around like that on an empty stomach.

Phil’s got to toss his cookies again, not that there’s anythin’ left to toss - when he looks up and suddenly sees a dark line on the horizon. He rubs his bloodshot eyes in disbelief and looks again. Sure enough that line is there and it’s comin’ closer. In fact, he thinks he spots a couple o’ little palm trees in the distance.

All of a sudden it hits him. “Holeeeee! Land!” he rasps at the top o’ his lungs.

Now you got to understand that these people have been on the water for days, fried by the sun, waterlogged by the waves and all that. And Izzy’s got an ear infection on top of everything else, so he don’t clearly hear what Phil is hollerin’ about. “What?” he says, pokin’ his grubby fingers in his ears to pop the water out.

Phil’s so excited he don’t even hear Izzy either. Pointing his hand at the shore, he yells it out again, “Holeeeee! Land!”

This time Izzy is payin’ attention, but what he thinks Phil is hollerin’ is ‘Holy Land!’ Soon as they get close enough, the two families swim for it, all kneeling on solid ground, thanking their maker for the miraculous rescue. For Izzy, its even better’n goin’ to heaven because not only is he still alive, but he figures he’s also in the Holy Land.

Well, it wasn’t long before they got things together and started to organize themselves in their new homeland. Not to belabor the whole begettin’ business, suffice it to say from there they went forth and multiplied. Man, did they multiply! Pretty soon there was so many people, nobody could keep track. So what they done to keep things straight was to call Phil’s descendants Philisteins, and Izzy’s bunch Izzyrealites. That seemed to solve the problem for the time bein’.

The Philisteins went into the transport business. They had a fleet o’ camels as long as your arm traveling the old Silk Route that no eighteen wheeler could ever manage even today, selling and delivering all sorts of things. It seemed a good business too, since they was always on the road.

The Izzyrealites on the other hand, went into sheep farmin’ since the parcel of land they picked when they first landed on shore had more pasture and water. It was a good business too. They raised flocks and flocks o’ sheep, and a few asses while they were at it. I guess I should call them donkeys, because today ‘ass’ don’t rightly mean what it used to. But you put one or two o’ them asses in a flock of sheep and they’ll kick the snot out of any predator or rustler comin’ within a mile o’ them sheep.

The reason I’m palaverin’ on about so much detail, in case you was wonderin’, is to show what happens when people go their own ways assumin’ their own self importance on points of contention. Take the business of the few watering holes right in the middle of the border that Phil and Izzy had drawn for their own properties. They was called oases. At first, there was enough for everybody – share and share alike. But the flocks bred like rabbits, using more and more water, and the camels – well you know how much water one camel can suck down at one gulp, never mind trains and trains of ‘em. The Izzyrealites got to complainin’ that every time a camel train pulled up to an oasis, it sucked up not only the water on their side o’ the hole, and took half of what belonged to the sheep to boot. The Philisteins told the Izzyrealites to go build a brick wall through the middle of the watering hole and they could keep their dammed water. Otherwise, just shut up and obey the laws o’ gravity.

I guess you can tell how that sat in the Izzyrealites’ craws. There was this scrawny little shepherd. His name was Dave. Spent all his time talkin’ to his flocks, singin’ songs to them and huckin’ rocks as far as he could, just for practice. He discovered that if he put stones in a sling that he’d invented, they’d travel at a hundred miles an hour, and soon he developed a wrist action the like of Tiger Woods or John Daly. He was so taken with his new invention that he kept on playin’ with it until he mastered a deadly aim. Well – he had a lot o’ time on his hands, what with them sheep just meanderin’ around out there.

One day, Dave has his flocks out on a pasture that crosses over the Philistein boundary and figures he’s goin’ to get even for the water business, so he lets his sheep graze on Philistein land. Wouldn’t you know that just then this giant of a man called Goliath who is head of the Philistein border patrol, is passin’ by.

“Get them sheep outa here!” he hollers. “This here’s camel country!”

Dave argues that it’s part of his own pasture that seems to have grown further than was intended and he’s just tryin’ to put it back where it belongs. Well – nobody’s goin’ to tell Goliath such a load o’ manure and get away with it. He goes to fetch his camel and stomp Dave into the dust, not noticing that Dave’s got his little sling with a rock resting in the pouch. When he turns to face this little pipsqueak, Dave lets her rip. Bull’s eye – right between the eyes! Goliath goes down like a lead balloon and, just to make sure that that big sucker don’t get up again, Dave ups and hacks his head right off with Goliath’s own sword. Needless to say, that don’t sit too well with them Philisteins. They see old Goliath lyin’ there, his head not where it’s supposed to be, caved in right between the eyes by a rock.

Well, if the Izzyrealites want to play that game they reckon, the Philisteins can play it too! They can huck rocks as good as any Izzyrealite, they figure. So now it comes to the two families throwin’ rocks at each other and the fight’s on.

That all started four or five thousand years ago. And they’re still at it, only now they’re usin’ hand held rocket launchers, ground to air missiles, and air to ground missiles. And it’s all over layin’ claim to a useless piece of desert they came upon by chance or by providence, that don’t belong to either one or the other. It belongs to the one who made it and will be there long after Phil and Izzy’s gang has become extinct. That’s the law of nature – the circle of life, if you will.

Now, where was I? Oh yeah – nowhere in particular. Anyway, in the evolution of the Philisteins, they developed a permanent mad-on for Izzyrealites. You tend to do that talkin’ to the wrong end of a camel day after day – makes you downright ornery. Besides, them puny little Izzyrealites are always inventin’ somethin’ or other to show up the Philisteins. Who wouldn’t be grouchy?

And the Izzyrealites veered off in a different direction. I mean; they just got lucky with Dave and Goliath. It could easy have gone the other way. Same with Samson when he pulled the temple down around everybody’s ears. But then apparently somebody told them ‘knowledge is power’. Somebody else had already told them they were ‘the chosen people’. They took all this kind of seriously and started buildin’ what they called Schuls and universities and studyin’ and prayin’ like all get out.

First thing you know they’re turnin’ out scientists, doctors, lawyers, musicians – you name it and they’ve got it. There seems no limit to what they can do. They can turn ocean water into fresh water; they can irrigate their pastures and gardens, turning the bald-faced desert into a beautiful garden. ‘Ha ha’, they laugh. ‘Look at them poor slobs walkin’ behind their crummy camels! We’ve got it made.’

First thing you know a few of them hot shot scientists are playin’ with stuff like DNA and genetic tinkerin’ and such. Before you can say ‘King Solomon’, they’ve put together a sheep out of a test tube. Is there no end to what they’re capable of? No wonder they’re the chosen people they tell themselves, and livin’ in the Holy Land to boot!

One day a swarm o’ scientists are workin’ away in the laboratory, makin’ a human person - confident as all get out, when who should show up but God his self.

“What do you want here?” the head honcho bellers out. “This is a restricted area.”

“You know who you’re talkin’ to, sonny?” asks God.

“Yeah, yeah,” grumbles the head honcho. “But we don’t need you no more. We can do everythin’ ourselves. Look and see, we can even make our own humans – just like you done!”

“Oh, really!” smirks God. “Just like me huh? Do you really even remember how I done it in the first place?”

“Oh yeah,” says the head honcho. “Nothin’ to it. Here in the lab, we can do everything.”

“Just like I done it?” God wonders out loud.

“Of course.”

“So show me, smarty pants,” says God.

The head honcho takes God outside into the garden and picks up a mitt full of dirt to take back in with him.

“Hey, hey, hey!” God hollers. “Get yer own dirt!”

Okay – now do you get the parable – sort of?

City Slicker

City Slicker

Starting from the premise that I was born into a world about two sizes too large for my coping skills, it shouldn't come as any surprise that moving away from the backwoods of prairie farm country to the big city would be another mysterious adventure. It was more like a misadventure, which was kind of becoming normal for me. I was just barely getting a handle on all the trouble I could get myself into on the farm when dad ups and decides things might be better in the city for us.

Well, he had a point. He was thinking of my mom when he made up his mind. Having two kids who weren’t much help to the household and a brand-new baby to take care of wasn't his idea of how a woman who was even smaller than him should spend her life. What with an acre of garden to take care of, chickens to feed, a cow or two to milk, and now another mouth to feed it was getting close to the limit. Of course, he never discussed it with me. I might have advised him different. That being the case, he took a bus to town and stayed with a friend until he found himself a job and a place for us to live.

Needless to say, things didn’t get off to a good start. Dad was gone for an awfully long time - probably about three months or so. Well, he had a job soon enough. It was the war years so that every able bodied man available could get work. He worked in a foundry as a helper to start off with. All he did all day was shovel sand. Twenty-two hours on and twenty-two hours off, that was his shift. For the size of him, he was in way over his head, but that was dad for you. It seemed it wasn’t much of a challenge unless it was more than he could rightfully handle.

Finally he’d got enough money together and rented a house in the north end of the city. Next thing you know we’re packing everything up and moving in to town. I’m a little vague about that because as I said, some of these things were just a little out of my grasp.

But I clearly remember the day we got ourselves to the big city and to our new life. We were all at my grandparents’ place saying goodbye and waiting for the Greyhound bus to take us into town. My aunts and cousins were all there to see it and us off. It was kind of emotional and exciting at the same time as the big bus approached. That was exactly when my world started to unravel.

My Tante Lise says, “Well, you're not going to be a farmer anymore. Now you’re going to be one of those City Slickers.”

Oh my, how could she say such a terrible thing? I had absolutely no idea what she was talking about in her good-natured way, but how could she be so cruel? She might as well have driven a wooden stake through my heart as tell me I wasn’t going to be a farmer anymore. Didn’t she know that at the age of seven I was already half way there for criminey’s sake? I don’t think I made a scene or anything like that because I don’t remember any big ruckus about it. Finally we did get loaded onto the bus and headed for a new chapter in our lives.

In the big city, things didn’t get any better. In fact, they got a whole lot worse. Bag and baggage, we were unceremoniously dumped right in front of the old city hall. From there it was a walk of what seemed to me to be at least a hundred miles. Of course you couldn’t just go to the bathroom along the way either in the city what with houses and people all over the place. This was just not going well at all. It was just one long, miserable trek.

You’d think that once we got to our ‘new’ house, everything would be just fine. Well, wrong! Tired and hungry from all that good bye-ing, mom sought to make things right with our first city meal. We’d have some nice hot soup with bread and butter. That sounded comforting enough. Mom could make soup along with the best of them. Well, surprise! This soup came out of a can for heaven’s sake. I'd never heard of such a thing before. And that wasn’t the worst of it. It was pea soup - green pea soup! That's what it said on the label. What it looked like was ground up army pants or our new sister’s runny diapers. Anything looking like that couldn’t possibly taste good.

Bread and butter sounded more like something you could get satisfied with so I asked for some. Mom hauls out this package and pulls out a couple of slices of what she says is bread. Holy Toledo! It’s already sliced! Then she gets another package and peals it back to expose a lump of what she calls butter. Well, I never! Now to be fair in retrospect, this was our first day in the big city and even mom needed a little time to get herself organized. This alleged ‘bread’ was probably made out of the cardboard boxes the army pants pea soup came in according to my reckoning. Things were just going down hill at a serious clip.

Then there was school. Oh my, how I would ever survive that would be best left to providence. Of course we had to go to school. That was the law. Dad’s law was that you obey the law no matter what, so we somehow were registered in the closest school there was - St. Joseph’s catholic school. This was some sort of alien institution that reminded us of a place in the bible we weren’t supposed to talk about. The teachers were all women (at least we thought they were) dressed in these long black robes and hats pulled over their heads. All you could see of their mortality was the eyes, nose and mouth. They sure liked to pray a lot too, and sing Oh Canada and God Save the King. In between they would teach us sort of normal stuff.

They were mean there too. The very first day there, I had to miss recess twice because I was late getting to my classroom. When I explained that I couldn’t find the dad blamed thing, they didn't believe me. Heck, the biggest building I'd ever seen in my life was our barn and you could see how to get in or out and everything just by opening the dad-blamed door. This school building was like a maze with me as a brand new experimental rat. The simple truth was that every time I got in the front door, I was just plain lost.

Then there was these ‘catrol boys’. They were a bunch of older bullies who stood on the street corners at lunchtime and at four o'clock. They made you stand there on the corner until they said it was okay to cross the street. If you made a mistake and started crossing anyway, they yelled at you. These ‘catrol boys’ were sure bossy, but they looked good with their white belts and shoulder harness - almost like being a soldier. I'd sure have liked to get one of those harnesses.

The most terrifying thing came when one day I had managed to avoid being yelled at by the nuns and the ‘catrol boys’. Just when I was finally getting the hang of things, they sent us down to the gymnasium to watch a movie. Now you have to appreciate that I had never seen one of those before. I couldn’t have told you the difference between a movie and a nun for that matter. Well, the lights went down and this huge picture appeared on the wall - and the people in it were moving! There were a couple of guys on one of those railway jiggers, pumping the handles on it up and down for all they were worth. A giant train appeared out of a rock tunnel and was bound to mow them down in no time flat unless they could pump fast enough. I couldn’t bear to watch, and there was no escape for me. It was awful!

Things obviously didn’t go that smoothly for my folks either. To start with, our rented house was not, to say the least, Buckingham Palace. It was right next door to the main CPR Railway lines, which will give you some idea of the noise adjustments we had to make. Not only that, but mother’s English was even worse than mine. That made it all the more difficult for her to get her household in order. I guess she and dad must have had a little chat because it wasn’t long before we were out of there and in the upstairs of a quasi rooming house right across the street from a regular school. The landlady was a Mennonite woman, so at least mom could communicate with her.

Now this had possibilities, I thought. The first morning we were awakened by a commotion out on the street below at about six o'clock. When we peeked out of the window, there was a whole column of army recruits marching in formation. Holy cow - real soldiers! Now this was more like it!

That street, it turned out, was good for much more excitement than soldiers. I had made a friend in no time and he liked to play in the schoolyard across from our house. When he’d call, I’d run across to join him, never thinking about the cars squealing their brakes to avoid splattering me all over the pavement. Some would say I had a guardian angel watching over me, but I think now in hindsight, the poor unsuspecting car drivers had their own guardian angels to prevent them from turning me into road kill and ruining their day. The ever-present danger of this just never dawned on me.

The thing that got my attention finally, was the chain link fence around the schoolyard. Usually, after running blindly across the road, I would obediently walk to the open gate to get into the playground area. My friend saw the folly in this waste of steps and convinced me to just climb over the fence. Well, you must know that an eight-foot chain link fence is no match for a seven-year-old farm boy. It wasn’t until I got to the top that I ran into a problem. Somehow my left hand got stuck on it. Quite naturally, instead of looking to see what the trouble was, I started to yank and pull until it got unstuck. I was about to go over the top when I noticed a whole lot of blood coming from the stuck hand.

Blood oozing from parts of your body - that spells trouble! I knew that much. What I couldn’t figure out was that there was no pain. That wasn’t normal. The only thing to do was head for home. Across the street I went with my eye on our front door. The cars that had to squeal their brakes were of no concern to me. Neither was the substantial trail of blood. What was on my mind was that I’d messed up again, and now I’d be in for it.

As luck would have it, mom was at the store and my long-suffering sister was in charge. Well, her and blood outside the body never did get along very well at the best of times. Now here she was with a sleeping baby to look after and now a broken brother who had blood where it hadn’t ought to be. I probably felt sorry for her even then ‘cause she couldn’t stand the sight of blood. Mercifully, mom finally got home and soon figured out that I’d skewered my hand on the top of the fence where it had been cut, leaving sharp barbs sticking up. What with all that pulling and yanking, it had gone from a simple puncture to a tear that resembled the outline of a slingshot. Well, within a couple of days my whole hand and wrist were all swollen with the telltale red streaks indicating blood poisoning. Old Doc Oelkers managed to patch it all up and give us some medicine for the blood poisoning and the whole affair was more or less behind us.

There was something sinister about this place too - just like the place on the farm near that Indian burial mound. First I got punctured on the chain link fence, then another time when mom was trying to have a visit with an old friend of hers, I accidentally sat on the crochet work she had left on the couch and ended up with a crochet needle stuck in my rear end. Getting that out of me was a whole lot more painful than the fence incident, probably because the ladies were trying not to laugh at the sight of me.

Well, the place held no magic for mom either. The landlady might well speak our language, but she and the other boarders weren’t fussy about a baby crying at night. To show her disapproval she would leave the floor in front of our rooms soaking wet every time she washed it. If you weren’t careful when you went out in the hall, you could have an embarrassing fall. That wasn’t the worst of it though. Mom could put up with grouchy people who didn’t have the courage to tell you what they thought. But she was terrified of the kitchen stove. The place was equipped with central gas and every time you needed to light the dad-blamed thing it would make a poof kind of sound as it flamed up. That was just too spooky for her. I think she and dad must have had another chat.

Of course dad had another solution. He had the uncanny ability to ignore the fact that he’d fallen short of the mark again and optimistically searched for new answers until he got lucky. Not that mother would ever put him down for some of his colossal misadventures. There were lots of things they didn’t have, but devotion to one another wasn’t anything they were ever short of.

Well by this time dad was already an apprentice molder. Firstly, he was starting to earn a decent wage - somewhere in the neighborhood of forty dollars a month. Not only that, but he was also working a regular shift fit for humans. So he splurged and rented a house in the suburbs for twelve dollars a month. The place had a yard and everything. There was a little garden that pleased both of them no end. Unfortunately it also had a lawn that I was in charge of. How many hours didn’t I spend on my knees with the hand clippers to keep it in order? But that was just one of the chores. We also had to haul our water from two blocks away at the municipal pump, chop our own firewood and haul our own coal. As I say chores are chores. They are like breathing. You got to do them anyway so what’s the point of grumbling about it? There were much bigger things to think about anyway. Adventure lay around every corner. There was enough room here for a person to focus on the important things in life.

For once dad got it exactly right too. Mom was back to her wood cook stove with its water reservoir and warming oven. Now she could make a decent meal and start baking again. It wasn’t long before the normal thing around our house on Sundays after church was a house full of dinner guests.

It had been a bumpy start to this monumental change in our lives. I never really did get over not being a farmer anymore, but I soon forgave my Tante Lise. After all, I got to spend a lot of my holidays back there anyway. Not only that, but our place was also a safe haven in the big city for her kids. Come to think of it, we kind of ended up with the best of both worlds. Maybe our dad was just a little bit wiser than we gave him credit for.

Aboriginal Justice - Last Rites

Aboriginal Justice – Last Rites

By Victor Epp

Whatever they say about not talking religion or politics with company that you want to keep is probably true. Sooner or later though, somebody's got to say it out loud. Might as well come from one who's not all that popular with them clerics anyway - makes for a better mutual admiration atmosphere. There's a time when that whole brew that's boiling and bubbling in the cauldron is bound to spill over the top anyway. This is one of them I guess. When that happens, you might as well pour out the whole mess.

Wellsir, before you go getting all excited about speaking out against this church or that religion or the other sect, you might as well know that equal opportunity's at work here. Once you start on one you've got to provide the same service for them all. Heck, there's enough ammunition to go around for the whole dang bunch. Mind, you can see they're doing a good enough job themselves without outside help if you're a little observant.

No, all I'm trying to do is to figure it all out. See, you never think of these things until something happens to trigger your curiosity. Then one thing leads to another - and another - and another. First thing you know you've got a whole mess of questions on your hands.

It all started to unravel at a funeral I attended recently. As impressive a funeral as I ever was at. It was a traditional Ojibway ceremony held for one of their most respected Elders - truly a fine and fitting tribute. But while all this was going on, an Anglican priest was officially conducting the service. The strangest thing I ever saw, this dual dispensing of the last rites. Each culture numbly responded to the other while carrying out it's own ritual simultaneously. You got the eerie feeling that two ghost ships were passing in the night, headed to the same destination but unable to collide and meld in to one.

Well, that aside, Father Joseph was doing his level best to tend to his flock in this time of bereavement. Sizing up his audience as folks with plain, no nonsense kind of taste, he launched right into his sermon with evangelistic zeal. With a captive audience of this size, he could hardly resist the chance to make some new believers. In his big booming Jamaican voice, why, he even read out the lines of 'Amazing Grace' during the singing, just like you'd expect at a good old-fashioned revival meeting. I was half expecting him to shift into high gear and let fly with some hellfire and brimstone.

Where it started to come unglued was during the Aboriginal drum songs. Well I don't care how much theology anybody might have studied there just isn't enough to of it counteract genetic instincts. There is something very compelling about the music that flows from these drummers and singers. It inspires a definite connection to spirituality, so to speak. But the good Lord seems to have played a trick on Jamaicans in particular. It's like an invisible string connects their feet to any drumstick within their hearing. It doesn't matter what the occasion, when a drum starts to beat, the feet have got to move. From where I was sitting I couldn't help but notice the inner struggle going on under Father Joseph's robes. All I can say is that he must be one heck of a priest to be able to contain himself so admirably - well, everything but his toes. You could easily see that there was a battle of the titans going on in his head and it went on for two hours and a half.

But that wasn't the greatest trial for poor old Father Joseph. See, after the interment, everybody comes back to the hall for a big feast. Well in order to finance a feast for six hundred people, it's customary to pitch in - only natural. So what they do is take four people, one on each corner of one of them big star blankets, and go through the whole crowd taking up a collection. Wellsir, no words can describe the look on Father Joseph's face when he saw the size of that makeshift collection plate but I could have sworn he was thinking about changing religion right then and there.

By this time there wasn't much he could do about anything. It was another hour or so that he had to stand there looking reverend while everybody stopped to pay their respects to each member of a very large family and say one last good bye to the dear departed. In one last-ditch attempt to preserve the dignity of the church Father Joseph decided to invoke the Apostles Creed and the Benediction, not that anybody was particularly interested.

Well now, you'd think a person would have the decency at such a time to keep his mind on the gravity of the occasion. To a degree I did too, but the incongruity of it all got me started. Maybe if you'd known the kind of man my late friend was you'd understand, but I'm coming to that.

It was the Apostles Creed that was the trigger for me. How does that go again? Oh yeah - the last part which says ‘I believe in the Holy Ghost; the holy catholic Church -’ The holy WHAT? What's that coming out of an Anglican's mouth? - The holy CATHOLIC church? Can you imagine what good old King Henry the Eighth would do if he ever caught one of his own saying something like that? I looked around at the assembled gathering. Nobody even so much as raised an eyebrow. They were all pretty well focused on getting back from the cemetery and diving into the feast. To tell the truth, I wouldn't have paid any mind either except that I'd been down this road before myself.

A number of years ago I was at a United Church baptism where the self-same creed was recited by all and sundry. One of the grandmothers who was a Mennonite lady said after the service, ‘What was that catholic nonsense the minister was saying.’ Well, I didn’t know so I asked him. He said catholic really meant ‘universal’- that there was no connection with the Catholic Church. Well now, think about it for a minute. You can profess to believe in the holy Catholic Church without having any connection with the holy Catholic Church. How could that be? To tell the truth, I didn't believe him for one minute, so I looked it up in the dictionary. You could have knocked me over with a feather when there it was, staring me right in the face – ‘universal’. Well, I'll be -.

Now there's a stroke of marketing genius - the holy catholic Church! Wow! The guy who started up that organization sure knew his onions. He was right up there with them Xerox people, or the Kleenex makers. He knew darn well that some day there'd be competition, so he chose the name carefully. Even the most radical reformers pledge allegiance to the holy catholic Church. Only, they think they're talking about some generic universal church - even the Anglicans. In the meantime, the Catholics are smiling reverently all the way to the bank. And it's no accident that all their services and business was always conducted in Latin. Who the heck would ever know what they're talking about anyway? So long as there's a fair bit of Gregorian chanting going on, it must be more or less sacred.

Well now, it's not that some of them reformers didn't know they were being bamboozled. Heck, most of them had been part of that organization at one time or another themselves. They just cashed in their chips and tried to build a better mousetrap. Some of them did a pretty good job too. You take that Martin Luther guy - he did all right for himself. There's a whole whack of Lutherans around these days. Anglicans - well that doesn't count. I mean - if you got this king that's liable to put a broad axe in the back of your neck unless you're an Anglican, what's a person to do?

Of course there were others with other approaches. The Swiss and the Dutch had kind of a down home attitude. Fed up with the mysticism and double-dealing of the Catholics, they figured if they could get right neighborly and personal, they might get somewhere. They started to call their religions after their own first names. The Anabaptists were a particularly rancorous bunch. There was so much infighting over market share that they were splitting off left, right and center.

Probably the best known was Menno Simons' outfit - the Mennonites. See what I mean - first name religion. Old Menno was the guy who was particularly annoyed with infant baptism. He figured you should be old enough to make up your own mind just who it was that would stick your head in the river to be baptised. It turns out that he had a whole lot of other opinions too while he was at it. Well, one thing led to another and soon you had more splitting off going on. There was the Davidians for instance. Some dude named Dave didn't happen to agree with old Menno so he started his own outfit. That's the bunch that came to a fiery end in Waco, Texas a while back.

Then there was a new movement called the Pietists. Now that was a confusing name. See I was still in the mindset of first name religion. Now if you know any Dutch, you'll know that the way they spell the name Peter there is Pietr - Piet for short. So naturally you would assume that Piet (or Pete) was ticked off at something and went his own way. Not so. No, this was a new trend. It was named after a way of thinking. It had to do with piety or piousness. Who would have thought it? It had to do with being as pious if not more so than your neighbor. Pretty soon it turned into a contest like something out of a Monty Python skit - you know – ‘You think you're pious? Well I'm so pious that -’. It turns out I'm not the only one that saw this as a big mistake - the name, I mean. Oh, they're still around. These days though, they call themselves Evangelists. They're a pretty successful bunch too. I guess all that energy and hype gets them all cranked up so they can go about the business of screwing everybody who isn't one. Well, it's a natural progression anyway since they're already busy watching to see who's not Evangelical; they might as well make a few more observations while they're at it.

Do you see yet what all this is about? Everybody is busy espousing one thing at the top of their lungs while in the background they're even busier doing something else. Thing is, they're all so preoccupied with their own agendas, they don't even notice when somebody puts one over on them.

Wellsir, my good friend who lay serenely in his coffin right under Father Joseph's nose wasn't quite finished yet. See, he had been one of the people in the residential school system who'd been jacked around by the church. Instead of making a federal case out of the whole affair, he just bided his time like the hunter he was. This was his moment and he made the most of it, knowing full well that his own people would give him a proper send off no matter what. It went off like clockwork too, slick as you could want, at the expense of poor old Father Joseph who was way out of his league anyway. I kind of felt sorry for him in a way. He's probably a fine upstanding guy. But the way the Anglicans looked that day reminded me of the king's new clothes. Now that's Aboriginal justice!

Well, there's just a little footnote to the whole affair. At the end of it all, I went outdoors to get a perspective on the events of the day. It's a habit for me to park myself out on the balcony of our apartment and mull things over while I'm having a smoke. There's a favorite spot out there where I can look out over the northern sky. This was kind of a cool fall evening and the northern lights were unusually active on this particular night. The way they danced was something to behold. Suddenly, they all gathered together to form a single huge crescent, just hanging there, not moving. Slowly, another group gathered together in a moon-shaped circle just below the crescent, smiling. It was like a halo over a friendly face. I knew in a moment that it was my friend, smiling down at me. He seemed to be saying ‘Now that was a party.’

Yep, Aboriginal justice.

If The Good Old Days Were So Good -

If the Good Old Days Were So Good

By Victor Epp

That’s what I’d like to know. If the good old days were so dad blamed good, why the heck aren’t we still in them? Now there's a question for you.

Of course, it’s a tad awkward to sit here at my computer and bellyache about all the new fangled ideas, ideologies and contraptions not being worth a tinker’s dam. It lends a certain air of hypocrisy to the argument. Well nothing could be further from the truth! If I had my druthers, I'd go looking for my old India ink well and nib pen, and write all this out in long hand just to prove it. The very thought sends shivers of excitement up my spine. Now don't get me started on that. I'll bet Annie Morison’s mother still hasn't forgiven me for all the ink stains she had to wash out of her daughter's pigtails, not to mention her tunic.

But that's another story. It wasn't the one I was going to talk about anyway. Come to think of it though while I'm on the topic, there's a point to be made about such activities - writing with pen and ink I mean. Here I am more than sixty years later remembering with picture perfect clarity. I usually had to pay a heavy price at the hands of this tomboy who had as much fun getting even as I did playing the prank. Why I'll bet if we met on the street somewhere, we'd be sure to recognize each other and pick up our friendship right where it left off, so to speak. Now that's got to be worth something.

See, that's what I'm talking about - something that means something. Now if you were to take pen and ink in hand for something more serious than to dunk Annie Morison’s pigtails into and sit yourself down to write somebody a letter or something; that would mean something. First thing you know; you'd be worried about spelling things right the first time because you can't rub ink out that easy. There's no pen nib I know that has a delete button on it. Then of course, you've got to write so that whoever has to read that stuff can actually make out what you scribbled. Before you know it, your pen and nib are just sailing along the paper, making little frills and curlicues in the letters that suit your personality and the mood of your missive. When you're done, you got something to be proud of. You'll have put a little piece of yourself on a sheet of paper that nobody else can duplicate. Whoever gets it will know exactly where it came from even before they read the return address. Let's see them computer geeks top that one!

Now there I go again, gumming on about the pen and ink thing. What I really want to talk about is these scientific dingbats running around their laboratories (or whatever it is they run around in) like kids in a candy store. They grab everything in sight 'cause they figure it's new and therefore has to be better and they want it before anybody else gets it. It doesn't even matter if it's got any use or not, as long as its new. Well, I've got news for these geniuses. Everything they can come up with to put on the market has a consequence - cause and effect you know.

Here's a perfect example. After the war - WWII that is, the push was on to electrify the country. Hydro dams and hydro lines were going up everywhere. Lakes were being flooded, rivers were being diverted and communities were displaced indiscriminately. Nothing mattered as long as we could develop hydroelectric power. Well, develop it we did until it got so big we couldn't manage it at a profit. So now it's being privatized and pretty soon nobody will be able to afford it.

Well, that's only half the equation. Here we are in the second largest country in the world with huge hydroelectric power resources, and nobody's living in it. The saying, “the lights are on but nobody's home” takes on a whole new meaning. On top of that after we pretty well decimated the Aboriginal population and wiped out a hundred thousand or more military types in the various wars, we've had to rely on immigration just to keep even. And now with all that terrorist activity going on, that looks pretty dicey too. Pretty soon were going to be a real good target for “Lebensraum” advocates. You still recall that one don't you? That's what got us into WWII in the first place.

Well, I can remember a fellow telling me once - he was a schoolteacher on an Indian Reserve in Northwest Ontario back in the early sixties - the minute they turned on the hydro, the birth rate on the reserve dropped by fifty percent. There you have it in a nutshell - cause and effect. Men have got no more time to cut firewood for the winter or clean the stovepipes or anything like that. Women have no more time to put up preserves and supplies in the root cellar. No, they're too busy watching television, or listening to the radio, or playing video games for that matter. They haven't even got time to sit down and write a letter in pen and ink for crying out loud! How anybody expects a person to have time for the serious business of nation building with the TV on or the radio blaring all the time, I'll never know!

Of course, these dam builders couldn't just turn off the lights and let the rivers and lakes go back to where they were meant to go anyway. Oh no, they couldn't ever do that! It seems that there's no going back once the die is cast on so called progress. What would the Americans think if they couldn't buy our hydropower? Well if they want it so all fired bad and we're the ones who’ve got it, why don't they just immigrate to Canada so they can have use of it? At least that way we'd be solving our nation building problem and not giving away our resources at bargain basement Canadian dollar prices.

And while I'm at talking about bargain basement Canadian dollar prices, what's all this yammering and jawing about this softwood lumber fooferrah about anyway? We've got to pay the American government twenty nine percent kickback to be able to sell our softwood lumber in discount Canadian dollars? Doesn't that one smell a whole lot like that airbus thing a few years back? Seems to me that a whole lot of people were doing a heap of apologizing over that one!

What I'm trying to get at here is that instead of playing the American payola game and making two by fours for California is we ought to be cutting firewood for us Canadians and just turn off the electricity. At ten cords per household, that ought to provide a few jobs in the lumber industry. If we're going to give the stuff away anyhow, why not give it to Canadians?

I don't think the environmentalists would have a leg to stand on of they started griping about air pollution and whatever else they tag on to it. Mother Nature has been doing the self-same thing for a whole lot longer than we've been making two by fours. We'd just be lending a hand that's all. In fact, if we picked the right kind of wood to burn, our forest fires wouldn't get so dad blamed out of control either. Heck, even the boys in the oil patch would turn out to be heroes. They'd have that much more crude oil to turn into fuel at reasonable prices. All we'd really need for our homes is a little bit of coal oil for our lamps and lanterns.

Too labor intensive, you say? Not at all, not at all, in fact it's labor saving if anything. Well, what do you think all them kids who seem to appear when there's no electricity are for? Finally there’s a legitimate excuse for the existence of these obnoxious little buggers again. You teach them how to swing an axe and haul water at an early age, and they get to do it all while you supervise. Why, the first thing you know there's no more youth problem. All them glue sniffing, pot-smoking hoodlums are all of a sudden too busy piling up cordwood for mischief while the parents are walking around like a pair of peacocks and giving orders. The trick is to start teaching them early. That way they'll never know there's anything different and they'll be wanting to grow up fast and have their own brood to supervise.

Well, I guess there might be a few disgruntled people like them high priced movie stars missing all that attention they get on the TV if we turned off the hydro. To listen to them go on about it though, their first love is the stage anyway. What an opportunity! On top of all that, you got another place to put all that softwood lumber - building stages! What in tarnation must we be thinking about with all this new fangled stuff anyway?

Now where was I? I haven't even found my ink well yet and already half the country's problems are solved before I even get to the point of this whole tirade.

Oh yeah, I was talking about whatever happened to the good old days and why aren't we still in them. It seems to me, if we're going to invent something new, we ought to be looking at a kind of hobble for some of them scientists and inventors. Now that might be something worth considering.

Now it's not all doom and gloom as you might think. There's always hope. You remember that Trudeau guy who kept whipping his opposition with his slogan of “a just society”. He was Prime Minister for just about as long as he felt like. A visionary, they called him. Well one of these days we’re going to get another visionary who's going to campaign on “the good old days”. He'll get elected too. See, the thing is, that he'll be able to campaign and get his hype across in time for everybody to vote for him just before he turns off the hydro.

Fatherhood

Fatherhood

by

Victor Epp

Listen, I wouldn't even be telling you this if it wasn't the absolute plain bald-faced truth! But the fact is, as painful as it might be coming straight at you out of the blue like that, is that dad's are generally about as incompetent as it's possible to get.

Now before you go off in a huff, harumphing on how some people don't know what they're talking about, just bend an ear a bit. You might just learn a thing or two. I speak from experience. You see? Right off I'm letting you know I include myself in this pathetic bunch of wannabes. Truth be known, this is probably more about me than anyone else.

Not that dads don't have the desire and affection for their offspring. No, not at all. They got lots of that! They got so much of it in fact that at the first sight of their children, the go all out of shape with pride. Sometimes they're so full of it you think they might blow up.

Wellsir, it's a good job they got that, because that's about all they got going for them. That's about the whole enchilada. Well, okay - enthusiasm then, but that's it. That's absolutely it! And don't you kid yourself, it's a lucky thing the dad's have the love and affection to hang on to. The desire and enthusiasm gets so many holes poked in it's sails so fast and so often, it usually ends up turning to raw fear - sometimes even outright terror. No more forceful was that point ever brought home to me than by my own pride and joy, my first-born number one son.

Not long after the arrival of his own pride and joy, his first-born beautiful daughter, we happened to be visiting there along with a number of friends, sort of celebrating this new addition to the family. Of course, we could have just been celebrating the fact that it was Saturday night for all I know. Anyway, we're standing out on the moonlit deck in the warmth of a summer evening, just he and I. When he turns to me with that terrified look I hadn't seen since he stepped into the bath tub with his socks on. He frankly admitted that looking back over his own life growing up had given him a glimpse of what lay ahead and he had absolutely no idea of how he was going to cope with it.

It was one of those nostalgic father and son moments and I told him that anybody could make a baby, but it takes a real man to be a father and if anybody was up to it, he was. He wasn't so sure. Secretly, I said to myself, 'What goes around, comes around' and hoped my smile didn't show.

Well, he had plenty to worry about, given the number of times he ground me into a useless piece of frustrated fatherhood. He wasn't even finished teething before I had some concept how this was going to go.

Now to be fair, I have to put this in proper context. The kid didn't really have all that easy a start in life. I mean, there's a heavy price to pay for his lofty place in the hierarchy. Here he was the first-born child, and a son to boot. That was a million-dollar start to our brood. Added to that, being first grand child on either side of the family was the crowning glory. He was going to be the patriarch of his generation some day - on both sides! With all the attention that got him, I wouldn't have been at all surprised if the three wise men had shown up at our place,

Say what you like, but celebrity like that is hard on a kid - causes severe colic from time to time. Our boy sure had his bouts on a pretty regular basis. You could never say he did anything in half measure. By the time I'd get home from work, his mother would be crying as hard as the kid was, and so would most of the neighborhood women. He could get everybody so upset they all felt like a helpless bunch of amateurs. Of course once he had everybody at the end of their wits he would drop off to sleep and leave us all ringing our hands.

You might say he went right from colic to teething. Well, that's what it seemed like anyway. These things of course, can't be helped. You have to deal with them the best you can. Quite frankly this 'best' deteriorates in direct proportion to your own sleep deprivation. And it isn't helped by all the advice from grand parents on all sides either. The point is that it's got to come to an end sooner or later. Any dad worth his salt has to step in and start building some character in the boy. After all, with the whole world at his feet, the kid has to start taking on some responsibility don't you think? He's going on two years old and if you don't start now, well - who knows?

So one night some friends are over visiting and they see this erratic sleep/cry pattern we are enduring. They've been through this before. They know the answer. Put the kid in his bed and if he acts up, don't pick him up. Take all your clothes off and go stand there over his crib and stare him down. Works every time.

Why hadn't I thought of that before? It's only natural. I've done it with angry dogs, even cattle. Well, I didn't have to take my clothes off for them, but I sure could send them into a corner with the 'Evil Eye'. Perfect, I think. At least now I have a plan, so the evening improves and we have a fine time visiting. I can't wait to try this out. In my mind I'm almost daring the kid to make a fuss. Now we'll see who's the dad around here!

Sure enough, that very night I get my chance. I rip off my pajamas and stomp noisily into the kid's room like a naked ape. Actually I'm about a foot shorter than my friend is but still I think I'm towering over the bed like a wounded bull and I stare. There is total silence but the eyes are still open so now I glare. I don't want to break the spell so I say nothing.

The kid looks at me like I'm some weird kind of apparition. It looks like it's going to work. He'll want to close his eyes just to spare himself from this alien authority. Then he starts to laugh! Can you believe that? He actually starts to laugh.

Wellsir, that's it! Now it's fight or flight. I go storming back to our bedroom with a great gaping wound in my ego, passing the mirror on my way. The obvious doesn't hit me until I see the wife laughing too. The humor of it was lost on me at the time, given my vulnerable state.

By now you see what dads are up against. The whole world is snickering while they are left alone to deal with the awesome burden of bringing up a child the right way. A dad needs every last ounce of love and dedication just to survive. I mean the kid has to behave right doesn't he? He also had to look right. All of that put together is what'll make a real man out of him.

Right along about this time, what with getting out of toddler's clothes, I notice that maybe the boy needs a haircut. I sure don't want him looking like a girl - not my boy! Well he's still too young to go to the barbershop. Nope, I can do the job myself. After all, my old man cut my hair when I was a kid. What was good enough for me will be good enough for him. So I go and borrow the hand clippers.

As usual there's a catch. I forgot that you've got to be coordinated to squeeze the clippers to a rhythm while moving over the head of hair. Otherwise you tend to pull a lot of it out and cause all kinds of discomfort. You also end the project in yet another failure. Humiliation is quickly becoming a way of life. Will I never get the hang of this dad stuff?

It helps to admit defeat, especially when it's staring you in the face. Oh, you don't have to give up the moral high ground. You just change tactics and forge ahead. Perhaps the kid is old enough for the barber after all.

Maybe 'Seven Minute' Gus wasn't quite as good as old Charlie, but then Charlie was long gone and Gus was not. Gus got his moniker in the army during WWII. He could do a little better than nine haircuts an hour, so they called him 'Seven Minute Gus'. I figured if I took the kid with me a couple of times while I got my own haircut, he'd get the idea and wouldn't make a big stink about it when he finally got around to having his own ears lowered. Gus thought it was a good idea too. He even filled the kid full of candy and gave him pennies and everything. The two of them got on like a house on fire.

Well, the moment of truth comes one day when we figure the kid is comfortable enough. With two fists full of candy, the kid lets me hoist him onto the kiddy platform on Gus' chair. Gus is yakking away so fast the kid doesn't seem to take any notice. He even lets him wrap the big towel around him. This is way too easy! Then Gus turns on the dreaded electric clippers. Wellsir, the scream that cut through the barbershop and the dry cleaners next door would have wakened the dead. I never knew a quiet electric hum could create such a ruckus.

Well, you've got to give Gus his due. He tries three more times over the next few months. After all, he's used to battle hardened infantrymen. He's not afraid of some little tousle head. But finally he gives up too. So I go home one more time with my tail between my legs. The kid in the mean time, bounces along beside me with a big lollipop in his mouth, his long blond curls blowing in the wind.

Now you'd think I'd be happy when one of the grandpas decides to take over. Let him deal with this I think. He'll never make it - probably disown the kid before the day is out. Go for it, I say and secretly laugh to myself. A couple of hours later he delivers the kid back to our house brand new haircut and all.

There is just no way to win at this game - no way at all. But I notice something else though. See I've been busting my butt at being the best dad I know how to be and failing miserably at every turn. Yet when grandpa takes over, it's as easy as pie. While that doesn't solve my immediate problem, I've suddenly got a lot more use for grandpa - in fact, both grandpas. They got tricks of the trade I never even heard of. It turns out with this haircut business that the barber, just like our boy and grandpa, is a huge wrestling fan and he's got a whole wall full of picture photos in his shop of a local ring hero. This wrestler also happens to own a restaurant in town so Grandpa says if they quickly get a haircut first they can maybe go down and meet him, maybe even have a cinnamon bun or two. No problem. Suddenly the kid just wants the barber to hurry up so he can go meet a rassler.

Lucky for me I not a sore loser. By now I've got absolutely no ego left. From now on whatever happens, happens. What doesn't, doesn't. All I can do is give it my best shot however bad my aim. But I got one ace up my sleeve. The time will come when I'm the grandpa and he gets to deal with his insecurities.

As I said, what goes around, comes around.

It was worth the wait.

Rankin Inlet Journal

This journal, submitted to us by a Dr. A.M. Biguous, was found at the Rankin Inlet medical station, apparently left behind by a patient who cannot be named because of doctor –patient confidentiality protocol. It is posted here in hope that its owner will claim it. If not; at least we’ve done our civic duty.




Rankin Inlet Journal

NOVEMBER 1, 2007 - MARCH 12, 2008





Our Winter Wonderland Experience at Rankin Inlet, Nunavut


Nov. 2: 6:00 p.m.

It was snowing when we arrived. April, Christine and I with our glass of wine sat for hours by the window watching the huge soft flakes drift down from heaven. It looked like a Grandma Moses painting. So romantic we felt like newlyweds again. I LOVE SNOW!



Nov.3

We woke up to a beautiful blanket of crystal white snow covering every inch of the landscape. What a fantastic sight! Can there be a more lovely place in the whole world? Coming here was the best thing we’ve ever done. Shoveled for the first time and felt totally invigorated. I did the driveway even though we don’t have a car, and the sidewalk all the way down the street. This afternoon the snowplow came along and covered up the sidewalks and closed in the driveway, so I’ve got to shovel again. WHAT A PERFECT LIFE!



Nov.6

The sun melted all our lovely snow. Such a disappointment. My neighbor tells me not to worry; we’ll definitely have a white Christmas. No snow on Christmas would be a terrible disappointment. Martin says we’ll have so much snow by the end of the winter that I’ll never want to see snow again. I don’t think that’s possible. Martin is such a nice man. I’m glad he’s our neighbor.



Nov.10

Snow, lovely snow! 20 cm last night. The temperature dropped to minus 40 Celsius. The cold makes everything sparkle. The 30-km/hr wind took my breath away but I warmed up by shoveling the driveway and sidewalks. THIS IS THE LIFE! The snowplow came back this afternoon and buried everything again. I didn’t realize I would have to do quite this much shoveling but I’ll certainly get back in shape this way. I wish I wouldn’t huff and puff so much.



Nov.12

50 cm forecast. Bought three pairs of snowshoes and two more snow shovels, one for Christine and the other for April. Alice sent us by greyhound bus, a fur coat, extra heavy parkas, scarves etc. We stocked the freezer. Christine insists I cut down some trees at the edge of town and drag them back on the sled for firewood in case the electricity goes out. I think that’s silly. After all we’re not at the North Pole.





Nov.14

Ice storm this morning. Fell on my ass on the ice in the driveway while putting down salt. Hurt like blazes. Christine and April laughed for an hour. I think that was very cruel.



Nov.15

Still 40 degrees below zero. Roads and sidewalks are now too icy to even walk on. Electricity was off for five hours. I had to pile on five layers of blankets to stay warm. Nothing to do but stare at Christine and April and try not to irritate them. Guess I should have bought a wood stove for the firewood I lugged home but I won’t talk about it. God I hate it when she’s right. I can’t believe I’m freezing to death in my own living room!



Nov.16

Electricity is back on but had another 50 cm of that damn stuff came down last night. More shoveling. Took all day. Goddamn snowplow came by twice. Tried to find a neighbor kid to shovel, but they all said they’re too busy playing hockey. I think they are lying. Called the only hardware store in town to see about buying a snow blower. They were sold out but might have another shipment come in March 15. I think they’re lying. Martin says I have to shovel or the town will have it done and bill me. I think he’s lying.



Nov. 25

Martin is right about a white Christmas because another 30 cm of the white shit fell today and it’s now so cold it probably won’t melt before August. Took me 45 minutes to get dressed warm enough to go out to shovel and then I had to piss. By the time I got undressed, pissed and dressed again, I was too tired to shovel. Tried to hire Martin who has a plow on his truck for the rest of the winter but he said he is too busy, I think the asshole is lying.



Dec. 1

Only 10 cm of snow today and it warmed up to minus 30. Christine wanted me to decorate the front of the house this morning. What is she - nuts? Why didn’t she tell me that three weeks ago on the day it warmed up to minus 25? She says she did but I think she’s damn well lying.



Dec. 24

Snow is packed so hard by the snowplow I broke the shovel. I thought I was having a heart attack. If I ever catch the sneaky weasel who drives that snowplow, I’ll drag him through the snow by his balls. I know he hides around the corner and waits for me to finish shoveling and then comes down the street at 120 km/hr. and throws snow all over where I’ve just been! Tonight Christine wanted me to sing Christmas Carols with her and open our presents, but I was busy watching for that goddamn snowplow.



Dec. 25

Merry Christmas. 50 cm more of the rotten white slop tonight. SNOWED IN. The idea of shoveling makes my blood boil. GOD I HATE THE SNOW! Then the snowplow driver came by asking for a donation and I hit him over the head with my shovel. Christine says I have a bad attitude. I think she’s an idiot. If I have to watch “It’s a Wonderful Life” one more time, I’ll kill her.



Dec. 29

Still snowed in. Why the hell did I ever come to this mean-spirited wilderness? It was all Christine’s and her parent’s idea. They are all really getting on my nerves.



Jan. 15, 2008

Temperature dropped to 70 below with the wind chill. All the pipes froze.



Jan. 27

Warmed up to minus 50. Still snowed in. That bleepin wife of mine is driving me crazy!!!!



Feb. 4

25 more cm of that freakin white stuff. Martin says if I don’t shovel the snow off the roof it will cave in. That’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard. How dumb does he think I am?



Feb. 20

Roof caved in. The snowplow driver is suing me for a million dollars for the bump on his head, Christine and April flew back to Winnipeg a couple of days ago and 20 cm more of snow is predicted.



Mar. 11

Set fire to what is left of the house. NO MORE SHOVELLING!



Mar. 12

I feel so good. I just love those little white pills they keep giving me. WHY AM I TIED TO THE BED?