I have had a very eclectic worklife. I have been very fortunate. In many respects, my most enjoyable occupation was being a criminal defence lawyer. For many years I found myself among the most sought after criminal defence lawyers in Kitchener. So, if you needed help you were fortunate if you could get my attention.
I will never forget a situation in which I was taking instructions from a potential client. In explaining the fact situation to me he suggested that his adversaries might've acted the way they did because he was black. I asked him to explain that again. He said that he thought that they were prejudiced
against him because of the colour of his skin. "But," I exclaimed, "you're not black."
I honestly had not noticed the colour of his skin. I dismissed his concerns in a very summery manner, even after he explained to me that his skin was in fact black. I tried to assure him that surely that would not be a factor. I went on to take the rest of my instructions, and left the interview very proud of myself for, once again, being colourblind. Shortly thereafter, I received a telephone call from the detention centre indicating that he no longer wished me to represent him. I was arrogant enough to think that it was a strange step for him to take but that it was his loss.
I remember another instance in which a black client of mine and I were preparing for a trial at the same time as the trial of O.J. Simpson was ongoing. This time, I could've told you the colour of his skin but, once again, I did not think it was relevant. When we were finished talking, he asked if he could ask me a personal question. I agreed. He asked me whether or not I thought O.J. Simpson was guilty. I said that we had only heard about the trial through the media and we had not heard any defence yet, but I thought that the prosecution had a very strong case. He suggested to me that if Simpson were to be convicted there would be rioting in the streets. He had to explain to me that the whole trial, as far as he and many other people were concerned, was about race. He had to connect dots that I had never seen.
Boy, have I learned a lot in the last few days. I confess now, that I spent the first eighty some years of my life wrongly being proud that I was colourblind. I am now beginning to realize that if you really want to help somebody in these circumstances you must try to get into his or her skin. Oh, opportunities were given to me and I ignored them. I remember once sitting around the campfire at my cottage with my friends, Jen and Chad Spalding. Myrta, who was more prepared than me to confront these issues brought up the subject of race. Chad is black. I recall his telling us that it is something he has to be aware of from the moment he gets up in the morning in his every interaction with people other than his family. He expressed the frustration of wishing that didn't have to be so. I think I dismissed his concerns, in part, because I thought that he had chosen occupations and friends who had white skin.
Why, in heaven's name, should that matter!
I now have a caregiver who has only been in this country a short time by the name of Gerald. Gerald is a citizen of Uganda and has very black skin. I asked him whether or not racism exists in Uganda. He told me that it does not, but that everybody knows from early childhood that if you were to ever visit or move to a country with people whose skin is white, you should expect them to treat you as if you were inferior.
Wow!! Is that ever a heavy indictment!
Greg Popovich is a very successful white skined coach of the San Antonio Spurs basketball team. Most of his players are black and he thought that he was very sensitive to them on this issue. Only in the last few days he says, have they been crying out to him about the reality of it. He says "it's much deeper than I thought.... You have got to work harder. You have got to be more aware. You have got to be pushed and embarassed."
Yes, I guess we do.
Sunday, 14 June 2020
Saturday, 6 June 2020
Donald Trump
Various commentators have reminded us, from time to time, that Canada's relationship with the United States is a very unbalanced one. I suppose we are like a mouse trying to avoid distruction by a dancing elephant. Much as we may not want to, we have to pay attention to what goes on south of the border.
During my political life, I had the opportunity to serve as the Chair of a select committee of the Ontario Legislature to look out for Ontario's interests in the discussion of the original Free-Trade Agreement with United States. I put a lot of effort into dealing with the Americans themselves. I tried to approach them as an equal. I talked to various legislators in the American Congress and cabinet ministers in the Reagan administration about what I hoped would be a give-and-take between us. They spoke as if, somehow, they thought they were being taken advantage of and they wanted to "level the playing field". I would counter by saying that we wanted to "level the ice rink", but I always felt that they didn't really want to listen to us.
In the end, after speaking rather loudly to the media, we were able to look after many of Ontario's interests and our federal government signed the original Free Trade Agreement. I never lost the sense, however, that the Americans all really wanted to bully us.
Tip O'Neill said that all politics is local and I like to think that that is really true. The reality is, however, that, not only is the elephant dancing among us, but their politics is much flashier than ours, much more entertaining, if you will. We are drawn to it. Unfortunately, the entertainment industry often projects a corrupt political system. I suppose that that is more exciting. In any event, I'm afraid that I believe that many Canadians assume corruption exists here in situations where, at least in the media, it seems to exist in the United States. Nothing can get my back up more than for somebody to say "I never vote because politicians are just a bunch of crooks" I have met many politicians in my life and well under 1% have shown any signs of willingness to consider bending to corruption should the opportunity ever present itself.
It is in this context that my friend Brian Murdoch has asked me to talk about Donald Trump. Now, a lot has been said about Donald Trump. He was a television entertainer and a very successful one, amongst other things, before he was elected. Through Twitter he has managed to keep the whole world transfixed by his entertaining style. I believe that when he was elected he was essentially prepared to use his skill as a con man to steal as much as he could for himself his family and his friends. He had no sense of history and, so, he had no awareness at first of the might and power the office bestowed on him.
Unfortunately, that has gradually changed. He has destroyed much of what made America great during the twentieth century, but he does not know that. He likes to think, and he hopes, that he can con the rest of his countrymen into letting him stay in office for another four years. He has always been able to avoid justice and he hopes that that will continue. Does he fear that someday he may be charged and convicted of offences? I don't know. Justice is seldom really meted out to autocrats and dictators, and he would like to be in that situation, but the United States was not built to be an autocracy. If there is any country in the world with the spirit for justice it is United States.
Why would somebody this bad be a serious contender for reelection? Andrew Coyne recently described Trump as "perhaps the least suitable candidate for high office in the entire United States - a petulant, insecure manchild, so wholly lacking in intelligence, competence, integrity or emotional stability as to be disqualified in most states from driving a bus, let alone leading what was once the most powerful country on earth." As a former bus driver, I take issue with the analogy. But that maybe the point that Coyne is missing. Despite the fact that he clearly is not capable, there may be a lot of bus drivers and others in the United States who find it refreshing to have somebody up there at the top that just does things off the top of his head without reference to any advice he may or may not be given. "How refreshing", they must think.
Canadians place a lot more trust in our governments but we are not immune to being conned, ourselves. "Vote for Doug Ford and your beer will only be a dollar a bottle!"
Trump will never take the blame for anything. He is known to say to his audiences "you knew I was a snake when you took me in". He is basically saying that he is not his own fault, rather, his existence, is really the fault of the voters.
Dale Beran, writing about misogynist men who adhere to the alt-right wrote as follows:
"Since these men, like Trump, wear their insecurities on their sleeve, they fling insults in wild rabid bursts at everyone else.
"Trump, the loser, the outsider, the hot mess, the pathetic joke, embodies this duality. Trump represents both the alpha and the beta. He is a successful person who.... is also the exact opposite- a grotesque loser, sensitive and prideful about his outsider status, ready at the drop of a hat to go on the attack, self obsessed, selfish, abrogating, unquestioning of his own mansplaining and spreading, so insecure he must brag about assaulting women....
"Trump supporters voted for the con man, the labyrinth with no centre, because the labyrinth with no centre is how they feel, how they feel the world works around them. A labyrinth with no centre is a perfect description of their mother's basement with a terminal to an endless array of escapist fantasy worlds.
"Trump's bizarre, inconstant, incompetent, embarrassing, ridiculous behaviour.... are to his supporters his strengths....
"Trump is loserdom embraced. Trump is a loser who has won."
It couldn't be said better. Therefore, the worker in the West Virginia coal mine, if he is still there and has not died from cancer, will vote for Trump again. Now, while the country is in great turmoil, it might be ready to vote for a revolutionary like Bernie Sanders but, alas, the Democratic Party a few months back decided to be cautious. They will be nominating Joe Biden, who seems to be saying "vote for me and I promise not to be around for very long".
Then, what will happen?
During my political life, I had the opportunity to serve as the Chair of a select committee of the Ontario Legislature to look out for Ontario's interests in the discussion of the original Free-Trade Agreement with United States. I put a lot of effort into dealing with the Americans themselves. I tried to approach them as an equal. I talked to various legislators in the American Congress and cabinet ministers in the Reagan administration about what I hoped would be a give-and-take between us. They spoke as if, somehow, they thought they were being taken advantage of and they wanted to "level the playing field". I would counter by saying that we wanted to "level the ice rink", but I always felt that they didn't really want to listen to us.
In the end, after speaking rather loudly to the media, we were able to look after many of Ontario's interests and our federal government signed the original Free Trade Agreement. I never lost the sense, however, that the Americans all really wanted to bully us.
Tip O'Neill said that all politics is local and I like to think that that is really true. The reality is, however, that, not only is the elephant dancing among us, but their politics is much flashier than ours, much more entertaining, if you will. We are drawn to it. Unfortunately, the entertainment industry often projects a corrupt political system. I suppose that that is more exciting. In any event, I'm afraid that I believe that many Canadians assume corruption exists here in situations where, at least in the media, it seems to exist in the United States. Nothing can get my back up more than for somebody to say "I never vote because politicians are just a bunch of crooks" I have met many politicians in my life and well under 1% have shown any signs of willingness to consider bending to corruption should the opportunity ever present itself.
It is in this context that my friend Brian Murdoch has asked me to talk about Donald Trump. Now, a lot has been said about Donald Trump. He was a television entertainer and a very successful one, amongst other things, before he was elected. Through Twitter he has managed to keep the whole world transfixed by his entertaining style. I believe that when he was elected he was essentially prepared to use his skill as a con man to steal as much as he could for himself his family and his friends. He had no sense of history and, so, he had no awareness at first of the might and power the office bestowed on him.
Unfortunately, that has gradually changed. He has destroyed much of what made America great during the twentieth century, but he does not know that. He likes to think, and he hopes, that he can con the rest of his countrymen into letting him stay in office for another four years. He has always been able to avoid justice and he hopes that that will continue. Does he fear that someday he may be charged and convicted of offences? I don't know. Justice is seldom really meted out to autocrats and dictators, and he would like to be in that situation, but the United States was not built to be an autocracy. If there is any country in the world with the spirit for justice it is United States.
Why would somebody this bad be a serious contender for reelection? Andrew Coyne recently described Trump as "perhaps the least suitable candidate for high office in the entire United States - a petulant, insecure manchild, so wholly lacking in intelligence, competence, integrity or emotional stability as to be disqualified in most states from driving a bus, let alone leading what was once the most powerful country on earth." As a former bus driver, I take issue with the analogy. But that maybe the point that Coyne is missing. Despite the fact that he clearly is not capable, there may be a lot of bus drivers and others in the United States who find it refreshing to have somebody up there at the top that just does things off the top of his head without reference to any advice he may or may not be given. "How refreshing", they must think.
Canadians place a lot more trust in our governments but we are not immune to being conned, ourselves. "Vote for Doug Ford and your beer will only be a dollar a bottle!"
Trump will never take the blame for anything. He is known to say to his audiences "you knew I was a snake when you took me in". He is basically saying that he is not his own fault, rather, his existence, is really the fault of the voters.
Dale Beran, writing about misogynist men who adhere to the alt-right wrote as follows:
"Since these men, like Trump, wear their insecurities on their sleeve, they fling insults in wild rabid bursts at everyone else.
"Trump, the loser, the outsider, the hot mess, the pathetic joke, embodies this duality. Trump represents both the alpha and the beta. He is a successful person who.... is also the exact opposite- a grotesque loser, sensitive and prideful about his outsider status, ready at the drop of a hat to go on the attack, self obsessed, selfish, abrogating, unquestioning of his own mansplaining and spreading, so insecure he must brag about assaulting women....
"Trump supporters voted for the con man, the labyrinth with no centre, because the labyrinth with no centre is how they feel, how they feel the world works around them. A labyrinth with no centre is a perfect description of their mother's basement with a terminal to an endless array of escapist fantasy worlds.
"Trump's bizarre, inconstant, incompetent, embarrassing, ridiculous behaviour.... are to his supporters his strengths....
"Trump is loserdom embraced. Trump is a loser who has won."
It couldn't be said better. Therefore, the worker in the West Virginia coal mine, if he is still there and has not died from cancer, will vote for Trump again. Now, while the country is in great turmoil, it might be ready to vote for a revolutionary like Bernie Sanders but, alas, the Democratic Party a few months back decided to be cautious. They will be nominating Joe Biden, who seems to be saying "vote for me and I promise not to be around for very long".
Then, what will happen?
Wednesday, 3 June 2020
I have to say it. Christ died for my sins and I am forgiven.
I don't know why this is the case, but for the last two months I have delayed writing anything in my blog because I seem to be obsessed with the need to explain my belief that Christ did indeed die for my sins. This obsession carried through all of Lent and the Easter season. Pentecost is now come and gone, and so I should perhaps get on with it as well.
The only education I have in metaphysics is 10% of a first-year course in philosophy at the undergraduate level. So, I feel very inadequate. I have put very little intellectual energy into this at least until I met Myrta, when I was in my late 50s. In our family, we did not talk openly about these things and, indeed, I did not talk openly with Myrta about them. I don't know why I felt compelled to start now.
In any event, I write this blog knowing that there is no point in attempting to handle it intellectually. I should report to you that I bought and read very carefully a beautiful book by the theologian John Dominic Crossan. My wife used to read Crossan a lot but I never even asked her about what she was reading. My Minister warned me that he is pretty dry and uninspiring to read. She is correct.
The book I bought is called Resurrecting Easter. I thought, surely, that would give me some inspiration. It was a very dry travelogue about a number of trips that the author made along with his wife to look at various depictions of the resurrection in the Middle East, Turkey, Italy and France. The argument he makes and seems to prove from these pictures is that the early depictions of the resurrection showed Christ taking all of humanity with him. Eastern Christianity never forgot that concept. Somewhere between the eighth and thirteenth centuries the West forgot it and proceeded to depict Jesus going up alone.
Of course, the debate is very important. As I say, I don't have the wherewithal to be involved in it. I do feel, as I get closer to my eighty-third birthday, that I will be okay. If you will, I will come out just fine on the other side. We don't know for sure, but I have faith. I am prepared to let go of what sometimes seems like now to be an isolated existence for the sake of deeper union.
There, I said it and now we can get on with some further blogs in the near future about more frivolous stuff.
The only education I have in metaphysics is 10% of a first-year course in philosophy at the undergraduate level. So, I feel very inadequate. I have put very little intellectual energy into this at least until I met Myrta, when I was in my late 50s. In our family, we did not talk openly about these things and, indeed, I did not talk openly with Myrta about them. I don't know why I felt compelled to start now.
In any event, I write this blog knowing that there is no point in attempting to handle it intellectually. I should report to you that I bought and read very carefully a beautiful book by the theologian John Dominic Crossan. My wife used to read Crossan a lot but I never even asked her about what she was reading. My Minister warned me that he is pretty dry and uninspiring to read. She is correct.
The book I bought is called Resurrecting Easter. I thought, surely, that would give me some inspiration. It was a very dry travelogue about a number of trips that the author made along with his wife to look at various depictions of the resurrection in the Middle East, Turkey, Italy and France. The argument he makes and seems to prove from these pictures is that the early depictions of the resurrection showed Christ taking all of humanity with him. Eastern Christianity never forgot that concept. Somewhere between the eighth and thirteenth centuries the West forgot it and proceeded to depict Jesus going up alone.
Of course, the debate is very important. As I say, I don't have the wherewithal to be involved in it. I do feel, as I get closer to my eighty-third birthday, that I will be okay. If you will, I will come out just fine on the other side. We don't know for sure, but I have faith. I am prepared to let go of what sometimes seems like now to be an isolated existence for the sake of deeper union.
There, I said it and now we can get on with some further blogs in the near future about more frivolous stuff.
Tuesday, 7 April 2020
"To be or not to be"
I expect that a lot of us have close working relationships with our family doctor. I know that I do. In this time of isolation, I am happy to report that my family doctor, Derelie Mangin, has taken to telephoning me every few days to see how I am and to ask for an update on how my retirement residence, Caroline Place, is handling things. So far, I am happy to give her positive reports.
The other day, she asked me a very difficult question. She asked me whether or not, should I contact the coronavirus and should I be in need of a ventilator and should there be another patient in need of a ventilator who is half my age but should there be only one ventilator, would I be prepared to let the other patient receive help to my own exclusion.
Now that question really stumped me. Fortunately, in that circumstance there would be a health care team making those decisions. One factor would be that I am eighty-two years old. My friend, John Lockead, tells me that, at eighty-one, he would be prepared to stand aside for someone half his age. My nephew, Robert Cooke, a fifty-year-old firefighter who is the father of two teenage boys, says that he thinks he should have preference over a twenty-five-year-old who might already be abusing his body with drugs. Those decisions are being triaged in Italy at the moment but I have not heard anything about how it is being done.
History suggests that human beings are not always kind to each other in these circumstances. There was a cholera epidemic in Hamilton in 1854. The city had 20,000 people and 550 of them died. (Imagine those figures.) Apparently, they were not always kind to each other during times of panic. David Brooks, writing in the New York Times, speaks of a plague in Florence in 1348 and quotes a book written at the time as saying "kinfolk held aloof, and never met... nay, what is more, and scarcely to believe, fathers and mothers were found to abandon their own children, untended, unvisited, to their fate." He quotes a journal writing about the London plague of 1665 as saying "the dangers of immediate death to ourselves, took away all bonds of love, all concern for one another." There are similar stories about the Spanish flu of 1918 and Brooks offers the opinion that "there were few books or plays written about it. Roughly 675,000 Americans lost their lives to the flu, compared with 53,000 in battle in World War I, and yet it left almost no conscious cultural mark. Perhaps it is because people did not like who they had become. It was a shameful memory and therefore depressed."
I don't see it like that today. I have caregivers coming in here three times a day and going elsewhere to help people in need. In doing so, they are putting their own health and lives in danger. Yet, it is not uncommon for a caregiver to leave here at 9:30 PM, wait for a bus on the system that has reverted to Saturday schedules, go home, shower, get ready for bed, get a few hours sleep, and get back on the bus to come here to get me up at 730 in the morning. Many of them move back and forth between Caroline Place and a neighbouring retirement residence in which there has been an outbreak of the virus. Those caregivers have had to isolate themselves for fourteen days because they were in contact with people who had the virus but, nevertheless, needed their help. They know they are in danger but they come to work every day because they know I need their help.
I am very grateful.
The theologian Dr. Barbara Holmes tells us that when communities are in crisis, first comes the fear and, after the fear, the wondering "where is God?". Yet, "during a crisis of this magnitude, you do not have the luxury of responding as an individual. Suffering cannot be absorbed by individuals, no matter how tenuous and invisible the bonds of community are. Individuals cannot respond. You must do it as community, for safety, for comfort, and for survival." Fr. Richard Rohr, the Franciscan writer who is currently influencing me quite a bit, echoes her final point when he says "we cannot face large-scale crisis as individuals; we cannot carry the pain of this reality on our own, nor can we only look out for ourselves. The pain is communal and so must be the response."
I haven't, yet, told you my response to Dr. Mangin's question. I admit that I wasn't as forthright as John Lockead. I answered that I understand the final decision needs to be made by the healthcare team in place at that moment but that I would sure like to stay alive.
She said she understood.
The other day, she asked me a very difficult question. She asked me whether or not, should I contact the coronavirus and should I be in need of a ventilator and should there be another patient in need of a ventilator who is half my age but should there be only one ventilator, would I be prepared to let the other patient receive help to my own exclusion.
Now that question really stumped me. Fortunately, in that circumstance there would be a health care team making those decisions. One factor would be that I am eighty-two years old. My friend, John Lockead, tells me that, at eighty-one, he would be prepared to stand aside for someone half his age. My nephew, Robert Cooke, a fifty-year-old firefighter who is the father of two teenage boys, says that he thinks he should have preference over a twenty-five-year-old who might already be abusing his body with drugs. Those decisions are being triaged in Italy at the moment but I have not heard anything about how it is being done.
History suggests that human beings are not always kind to each other in these circumstances. There was a cholera epidemic in Hamilton in 1854. The city had 20,000 people and 550 of them died. (Imagine those figures.) Apparently, they were not always kind to each other during times of panic. David Brooks, writing in the New York Times, speaks of a plague in Florence in 1348 and quotes a book written at the time as saying "kinfolk held aloof, and never met... nay, what is more, and scarcely to believe, fathers and mothers were found to abandon their own children, untended, unvisited, to their fate." He quotes a journal writing about the London plague of 1665 as saying "the dangers of immediate death to ourselves, took away all bonds of love, all concern for one another." There are similar stories about the Spanish flu of 1918 and Brooks offers the opinion that "there were few books or plays written about it. Roughly 675,000 Americans lost their lives to the flu, compared with 53,000 in battle in World War I, and yet it left almost no conscious cultural mark. Perhaps it is because people did not like who they had become. It was a shameful memory and therefore depressed."
I don't see it like that today. I have caregivers coming in here three times a day and going elsewhere to help people in need. In doing so, they are putting their own health and lives in danger. Yet, it is not uncommon for a caregiver to leave here at 9:30 PM, wait for a bus on the system that has reverted to Saturday schedules, go home, shower, get ready for bed, get a few hours sleep, and get back on the bus to come here to get me up at 730 in the morning. Many of them move back and forth between Caroline Place and a neighbouring retirement residence in which there has been an outbreak of the virus. Those caregivers have had to isolate themselves for fourteen days because they were in contact with people who had the virus but, nevertheless, needed their help. They know they are in danger but they come to work every day because they know I need their help.
I am very grateful.
The theologian Dr. Barbara Holmes tells us that when communities are in crisis, first comes the fear and, after the fear, the wondering "where is God?". Yet, "during a crisis of this magnitude, you do not have the luxury of responding as an individual. Suffering cannot be absorbed by individuals, no matter how tenuous and invisible the bonds of community are. Individuals cannot respond. You must do it as community, for safety, for comfort, and for survival." Fr. Richard Rohr, the Franciscan writer who is currently influencing me quite a bit, echoes her final point when he says "we cannot face large-scale crisis as individuals; we cannot carry the pain of this reality on our own, nor can we only look out for ourselves. The pain is communal and so must be the response."
I haven't, yet, told you my response to Dr. Mangin's question. I admit that I wasn't as forthright as John Lockead. I answered that I understand the final decision needs to be made by the healthcare team in place at that moment but that I would sure like to stay alive.
She said she understood.
Sunday, 22 March 2020
Write if you get work; hang by your thumbs.
As a very young child, I became obsessed with the radio. In those days, we had never heard of FM and while we had heard of TV we were never exposed to it. No, this was plain old a.m. radio.
Back then, radio played a much bigger role in everybody's life, perhaps similar to what TV eventually did. As I say, I was obsessed with it. When I was six years old, I dreamed of being a radio announcer. I don't think I could've imagined anything in life that would've been more important.
During the daytime, radio was dominated by what we called "soap operas". They were fifteen minute programs, five days a week, with heartwarming but cliff hanging stories that begged loyalty. Almost invariably they were sponsored by soap companies. We had "Oxadol's Own Ma Perkins, Pepper Young's Family, the program that is brought to you by Camay the Soap of Beautiful Women, and Lucy Linton's Stories from Life, brought to you by extra soapy Sunlight. Even the ever popular Happy Gang urged us to "keep happy in the Happy Gang way, keep healthy with Palmolive each day."
Eventually, I became a preteen and entered my early teenage years. Of course, I became cynical. I discovered a hilarious comedy duo by the name of Bob and Ray. Apparently, they started as a morning combination on a Boston radio station, but I was able to catch up to them along with the rest of North America on WSYR Syracuse (I grew up in Kingston).
Bob and Ray pretended that they were serious radio announcers, often doing newscasts and other important things on their radio station. Ray, the anchor, would send Bob out as Wally Ballou to cover such things as traffic accidents. They had an ongoing soap opera called The Lives and Loves of Linda Lovely. The announcer that for that program, with a great baritone voice, identified himself as O leo Lahey. From time to time, they would interview the National Director of the American Say a Song Society who would, with a soprano fake English accent, announce that we should say songs such as "You Ain't Nothing but a Hound Dog"rather than sing them. You get the point.
Bob and Ray would solemnly sign off every program with the following words "this is Bob Elliott reminding you to write if you get work" "and this is Ray Goulding reminding you to hang by your thumbs." There was never an explanation as to why they said it, but as a true disciple I have always said goodbye to as many people as I could with one or other of those phrases.
As a young lawyer I got to know Margaret Day, a grandmother who told me, amongst other things, that the phrase "right if you get work" was said as a goodbye in the depression of the 1930s to people getting on boxcars to go out west looking for a job. Maybe. I don't know. She remembered those days; I didn't.
After a while, I added the phrase "see you next Sunday'. These words were always uttered by Andy from Amos and Andy on the radio to remind people to tune in again the following week. This was a little more commercial and I can't tell you why I added it to the other two phrases.
The same above-mentioned Margaret Day, ran an organization called Young People in Legal Difficulties. I had recently bought a cottage and was feeling guilty that most city folk never see such things. Margaret Day convinced me to take some of her charges up to the lake. One of them was a redheaded kid. All I remember about him was that he had a few mental health issues. If he was impressed with something he would say "far out, heavy duty, wired for sound, artificial hippie". I am sure a psychologist would be happy to analyse why he said that. I won't get into it here but that is why those phrases were added to my mantra.
My nephew, Malcolm: McCulloch, may not have heard what I was saying very well. He started to say Owen Sound instead of wired for sound, so I added that to my mantra.
When my two grandnephews, at about the age of seven, tried to play monopoly before they grasped the rules, Callum was really out of it while his twin brother, Quinn, seemed to grasp the purpose of the game. Quinn said, in explanation,, "it's all about the money". He said it in such a funny way that I added that to my mantra. My wife, Myrta, added "button up your overcoat" so why not throw that in permanently , as well.
So there you have it. The reasoning behind why I say such silly things when I am saying goodbye to people. My niece, Elspeth, says she intends to repeat some of this at my funeral. She won't have a chance. I intended to out live her.
Back then, radio played a much bigger role in everybody's life, perhaps similar to what TV eventually did. As I say, I was obsessed with it. When I was six years old, I dreamed of being a radio announcer. I don't think I could've imagined anything in life that would've been more important.
During the daytime, radio was dominated by what we called "soap operas". They were fifteen minute programs, five days a week, with heartwarming but cliff hanging stories that begged loyalty. Almost invariably they were sponsored by soap companies. We had "Oxadol's Own Ma Perkins, Pepper Young's Family, the program that is brought to you by Camay the Soap of Beautiful Women, and Lucy Linton's Stories from Life, brought to you by extra soapy Sunlight. Even the ever popular Happy Gang urged us to "keep happy in the Happy Gang way, keep healthy with Palmolive each day."
Eventually, I became a preteen and entered my early teenage years. Of course, I became cynical. I discovered a hilarious comedy duo by the name of Bob and Ray. Apparently, they started as a morning combination on a Boston radio station, but I was able to catch up to them along with the rest of North America on WSYR Syracuse (I grew up in Kingston).
Bob and Ray pretended that they were serious radio announcers, often doing newscasts and other important things on their radio station. Ray, the anchor, would send Bob out as Wally Ballou to cover such things as traffic accidents. They had an ongoing soap opera called The Lives and Loves of Linda Lovely. The announcer that for that program, with a great baritone voice, identified himself as O leo Lahey. From time to time, they would interview the National Director of the American Say a Song Society who would, with a soprano fake English accent, announce that we should say songs such as "You Ain't Nothing but a Hound Dog"rather than sing them. You get the point.
Bob and Ray would solemnly sign off every program with the following words "this is Bob Elliott reminding you to write if you get work" "and this is Ray Goulding reminding you to hang by your thumbs." There was never an explanation as to why they said it, but as a true disciple I have always said goodbye to as many people as I could with one or other of those phrases.
As a young lawyer I got to know Margaret Day, a grandmother who told me, amongst other things, that the phrase "right if you get work" was said as a goodbye in the depression of the 1930s to people getting on boxcars to go out west looking for a job. Maybe. I don't know. She remembered those days; I didn't.
After a while, I added the phrase "see you next Sunday'. These words were always uttered by Andy from Amos and Andy on the radio to remind people to tune in again the following week. This was a little more commercial and I can't tell you why I added it to the other two phrases.
The same above-mentioned Margaret Day, ran an organization called Young People in Legal Difficulties. I had recently bought a cottage and was feeling guilty that most city folk never see such things. Margaret Day convinced me to take some of her charges up to the lake. One of them was a redheaded kid. All I remember about him was that he had a few mental health issues. If he was impressed with something he would say "far out, heavy duty, wired for sound, artificial hippie". I am sure a psychologist would be happy to analyse why he said that. I won't get into it here but that is why those phrases were added to my mantra.
My nephew, Malcolm: McCulloch, may not have heard what I was saying very well. He started to say Owen Sound instead of wired for sound, so I added that to my mantra.
When my two grandnephews, at about the age of seven, tried to play monopoly before they grasped the rules, Callum was really out of it while his twin brother, Quinn, seemed to grasp the purpose of the game. Quinn said, in explanation,, "it's all about the money". He said it in such a funny way that I added that to my mantra. My wife, Myrta, added "button up your overcoat" so why not throw that in permanently , as well.
So there you have it. The reasoning behind why I say such silly things when I am saying goodbye to people. My niece, Elspeth, says she intends to repeat some of this at my funeral. She won't have a chance. I intended to out live her.
Saturday, 14 March 2020
A whole bunch of stuff I want to tell you
Let us settle something first before we get into other parts of the diatribe. My ego is such that I hope that you are all wondering how I am doing in this coronavirus season. There are a whole bunch of rules were set down by the Ontario Retirement Communities Association (ORCA). We have them all in effect as well as a few directives is coming right from the Ministry of Health. We received an email from the ministry overnight indicating that, unless a resident is very very ill, only healthcare workers, including PSW's, can enter our building at all. We can have no outside entertainment of any sort; our newly hatched chickens have been whisked away. For now, at least, there is not even an exercise program in the mornings.
Personally, however, I am doing very well. I have a very large room; I have a lot to read; I have my computer. I have the luxury of knowing that my urinary tract infection which started last November is now completely cleared up. I am a healthy man and I can only say to COVID19, I may be part of your target demographic, but you won't get me.
That being said, I do miss the fact that every outside diversion has closed down. I particularly miss going to McWheelers, the wheelchair gym at McMaster University which I attended two or three times a week. I will also miss a choral concert and a philharmonic concert which I had hoped to attend this month. But all of humanity must fight this thing together and there will be light at the end of the tunnel.
About ten days ago I saw a film. I saw it in an old-fashioned movie theatre which has had a complete restoration to the way it was when it opened in 1935, the Westdale Theatre in the trendy Westdale section of Hamilton. I am very impressed with this theatre. It has pretty well all of the attributes of the old theatres that I used to go to as a child. You enter from the street to an Art Deco lobby complete with a place to buy popcorn. There are 350 seats in this theatre, so it is unlike those which happy cut up into two or more screens. It was a lot of fun. The movie I saw, Parasite, was okay.
Did you know that the movie chain, Cineplex, is being sold to foreign interests? A number of films that are made with Canadian government support get that grant money on the basis of a guarantee from Cineplex that they will show the movie. A lot of producers are worried.
I received a whole bunch of books for Christmas and I have started them all, but it takes me a long time to read a book and so I have not finished most of them, yet. My friend Hal Mattson, doesn't actually give me books but reports to me that he has read a book that I just have to read because he keeps thinking of me all the time he's reading it. I guess that is a complement.
One of the ones he recommended to me is "The 100-year-old Man Who Climbed out the Window and Disappeared" byJonas Jonasson. It was written in Swedish but I read an English translation because my Swedish is not very good. It is hilarious. I laughed openly on a number of occasions.
It is a story of a 100-year-old man who climbed out the window of his old age home in order to avoid his 100th birthday party. He proceeds to meet a number of strange people and in the process of a few days manages to commit a couple of relatively violent homicides. This story is interspersed with the story of his life, between the years 1905 and 2005. It turns out that he, without any planning whatsoever, lived a Forest Gump -type life, travelling around the world east to west and then west to east. Because of a drinking binge that he has with Harry Truman he gets to meet all the great leaders of the twentieth century in similar circumstances. As I say, it is hilarious and, because it is a relatively old book, written in 2006 , practically everybody who I speak to about it has already read it and that is kind of neat. We can reminisce about it together.
Well as I often say on occasions when it's time to say goodbye "write if you get work".
Personally, however, I am doing very well. I have a very large room; I have a lot to read; I have my computer. I have the luxury of knowing that my urinary tract infection which started last November is now completely cleared up. I am a healthy man and I can only say to COVID19, I may be part of your target demographic, but you won't get me.
That being said, I do miss the fact that every outside diversion has closed down. I particularly miss going to McWheelers, the wheelchair gym at McMaster University which I attended two or three times a week. I will also miss a choral concert and a philharmonic concert which I had hoped to attend this month. But all of humanity must fight this thing together and there will be light at the end of the tunnel.
About ten days ago I saw a film. I saw it in an old-fashioned movie theatre which has had a complete restoration to the way it was when it opened in 1935, the Westdale Theatre in the trendy Westdale section of Hamilton. I am very impressed with this theatre. It has pretty well all of the attributes of the old theatres that I used to go to as a child. You enter from the street to an Art Deco lobby complete with a place to buy popcorn. There are 350 seats in this theatre, so it is unlike those which happy cut up into two or more screens. It was a lot of fun. The movie I saw, Parasite, was okay.
Did you know that the movie chain, Cineplex, is being sold to foreign interests? A number of films that are made with Canadian government support get that grant money on the basis of a guarantee from Cineplex that they will show the movie. A lot of producers are worried.
I received a whole bunch of books for Christmas and I have started them all, but it takes me a long time to read a book and so I have not finished most of them, yet. My friend Hal Mattson, doesn't actually give me books but reports to me that he has read a book that I just have to read because he keeps thinking of me all the time he's reading it. I guess that is a complement.
One of the ones he recommended to me is "The 100-year-old Man Who Climbed out the Window and Disappeared" byJonas Jonasson. It was written in Swedish but I read an English translation because my Swedish is not very good. It is hilarious. I laughed openly on a number of occasions.
It is a story of a 100-year-old man who climbed out the window of his old age home in order to avoid his 100th birthday party. He proceeds to meet a number of strange people and in the process of a few days manages to commit a couple of relatively violent homicides. This story is interspersed with the story of his life, between the years 1905 and 2005. It turns out that he, without any planning whatsoever, lived a Forest Gump -type life, travelling around the world east to west and then west to east. Because of a drinking binge that he has with Harry Truman he gets to meet all the great leaders of the twentieth century in similar circumstances. As I say, it is hilarious and, because it is a relatively old book, written in 2006 , practically everybody who I speak to about it has already read it and that is kind of neat. We can reminisce about it together.
Well as I often say on occasions when it's time to say goodbye "write if you get work".
Monday, 2 March 2020
A lost chance to have a philosopher king as leader of the western world
The Democratic Party in the United States seems to have closed the door on the possibility of giving the western world an exciting new leader. I am referring to the withdrawal last night from the campaign for Presidential nomination of Pete Buttigieg (or Peter, as he was known before he got involved in politics) .
I carved out a certain luxury during the course of my life by involving myself in a number of political campaigns where I got to know the candidate very well or, in some cases, I knew people who knew the candidate very well – people I trusted. I like to think that I played at major role in convincing cerebral people, deep thinkers if you will, such as John English and John Milloy to enter the political arena.
I do not have that luxury when it comes to American politics so all I know is what I gather from the media.From the media I have learned that Peter Buttigieg is, indeed, a very cerebral person. Might I suggest that until he got involved in politics he might have been known as a nerd. His parents were both middle-class academics. He got a chance to study history and literature at both Harvard and as a result of a Rhodes scholarship, Oxford. He has taken a major interest in international affairs. I cannot discern to what extent any of the other candidates have done that. His advocacy has always been what I would call left of centre. He chose to serve in Afghanistan, apparently to educate himself so as to better understand his own advocacy for world peace.
You may have watched some of the debates, as I have. When it got down to the last six candidates it was very interesting. The others seem to have been enjoying badmouthing each other. While he did a little bit of that himself, it did not seem to come naturally. In a very noisy atmosphere, he looked calm and, yes, cerebral. I notice that at one point he said "I am the only one on the stage who is not a millionaire, I think". Nobody challenged him on it. Why should they? Except for Michael Bloomberg, who is obviously a billionaire, the rest of them have spent their whole adult lives in Washington in elective office and, strangely, accumulating fortunes. (That does not happen in Canadian politics). Clearly, Buttigieg would have been a breath of fresh air to American national politics.
Would it not have been delightful to have something of a philosopher king as the "leader of the free world", a man who relys on his religious convictions when talking about matters such as climate change
If I am not mistaken,Buttigieg would have been the youngest president in the history of United States, a record now held by John F. Kennedy. By contrast, either Saunders or Biden will be the oldest, a record that, if he is reelected, could become held by Donald Trump.
So what is to become of this young fellow? Saunders says that he will not choose "an old white guy" (those are his words) as his running mate, and it does not make sense politically for either he or Biden to choose Buttigieg for that role. The timing of his withdrawal, perhaps based on finances as much is anything else, is clearly a boost for Biden and Biden owes him "big".
I wonder if he would make a good Secretary of State. Just a suggestion, Joe.
I carved out a certain luxury during the course of my life by involving myself in a number of political campaigns where I got to know the candidate very well or, in some cases, I knew people who knew the candidate very well – people I trusted. I like to think that I played at major role in convincing cerebral people, deep thinkers if you will, such as John English and John Milloy to enter the political arena.
I do not have that luxury when it comes to American politics so all I know is what I gather from the media.From the media I have learned that Peter Buttigieg is, indeed, a very cerebral person. Might I suggest that until he got involved in politics he might have been known as a nerd. His parents were both middle-class academics. He got a chance to study history and literature at both Harvard and as a result of a Rhodes scholarship, Oxford. He has taken a major interest in international affairs. I cannot discern to what extent any of the other candidates have done that. His advocacy has always been what I would call left of centre. He chose to serve in Afghanistan, apparently to educate himself so as to better understand his own advocacy for world peace.
You may have watched some of the debates, as I have. When it got down to the last six candidates it was very interesting. The others seem to have been enjoying badmouthing each other. While he did a little bit of that himself, it did not seem to come naturally. In a very noisy atmosphere, he looked calm and, yes, cerebral. I notice that at one point he said "I am the only one on the stage who is not a millionaire, I think". Nobody challenged him on it. Why should they? Except for Michael Bloomberg, who is obviously a billionaire, the rest of them have spent their whole adult lives in Washington in elective office and, strangely, accumulating fortunes. (That does not happen in Canadian politics). Clearly, Buttigieg would have been a breath of fresh air to American national politics.
Would it not have been delightful to have something of a philosopher king as the "leader of the free world", a man who relys on his religious convictions when talking about matters such as climate change
If I am not mistaken,Buttigieg would have been the youngest president in the history of United States, a record now held by John F. Kennedy. By contrast, either Saunders or Biden will be the oldest, a record that, if he is reelected, could become held by Donald Trump.
So what is to become of this young fellow? Saunders says that he will not choose "an old white guy" (those are his words) as his running mate, and it does not make sense politically for either he or Biden to choose Buttigieg for that role. The timing of his withdrawal, perhaps based on finances as much is anything else, is clearly a boost for Biden and Biden owes him "big".
I wonder if he would make a good Secretary of State. Just a suggestion, Joe.
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