I'm Confused. Am I Proud of Canada or Not?

I admit to not following the Olympics. Actually, I don't follow any sports at all. I do, however, understand their importance, especially in terms of national pride.

Now according to the BBC, Canada came in 21st place. I've always been rather proud of Canada because we strive so hard to make everyone in the country feel like they belong, we try to take care of our poor, and we are pretty successful in ensuring that nobody suffers from lack of medical care.

But really. 21st place? As Olympic coach Michel Larouche said, "I'm hoping people feel disgraced now."

And I do. All this patriotic pride I've had and it all turns out to be a lie. For crying out loud, we're worse than Romania, South Korea, and China.

Of course, I can take some comfort in the fact that Team Canada won against, uh...whomever they were playing against. This means that once again we can take pride in ourselves as Canadians. Which many Canadians did following the victory by holding up any vehicle without a Canadian flag, even overturning some taxis going about their business.

Yes sir, it makes me proud.

On Talking to Strangers

I don't think of myself as being a particularly unfriendly man.

I've been known to give strangers the time of day, directions to the CN Tower, and, on occasion, permission to sit at my table in a crowded eatery.

On the other hand, I'm not overly sociable either. While perfectly capable of carrying on a pleasant conversation in the appropriate circumstances, I won't go out of my way to initiate one. I am terrible at "mixers," and (most damning of all) I feel no pressing need to respond to every solicitation on the street.

The problem is, I would appear to have something about me that causes other people to confide in me, even though I'm a perfect stranger (or at least as perfect a stranger as I can manage).

It worried me, then, to recently find myself on the subway without the buffer of a book while, across the aisle a man with a large package kept smiling at me. To postpone the inevitable, I read all the advertisements and carefully pondered a puzzling piece of graffiti ("Don Pardo call home").

While checking the floor for religious tracts, political pamphlets, or even a shampoo ad dropped from a magazine, I became aware of his presence standing over me. With resignation I looked up. In one quick move, my friendly stranger deposited his package in my lap: a large, economy-sized bag of Italian cookies.

"Uh...," I said trying to hand them back, "No, that's okay."

"I want you to have them."

"But why?"

He looked me calmly in the eye. "Because. I want you to have them."

He was grinning, probably enjoying my discomfort. There didn't seem to be anything crazy about him though, and, much to my relief, he immediately sat down again.

We pulled into St. George and I started to think over the past couple of decades.

I wasn't always this restrained. In the late sixties and early seventies I frequently organized sing-a-longs on the Airport Express or the Hamilton GO bus. I talked to anyone and everyone, often getting happily sidetracked for hours. I investigated people doing interesting things, visited the hobos under the Sherbourne Street bridge, and engaged in serious philosophical discussions with complete strangers in restaurants.

Back then it seemed the world was populated by any number of fascinating people; a wonderland of infinite adventure.

But in the late seventies or early eighties things began to change. While it had once been safe to assume that people were, by and large, sane (even if they were singing, whistling, or occasionally muttering to themselves in surprise or disgust), suddenly it seemed that the city had been infiltrated by hordes of crazy people.

There was that night a woman reading poetry out loud at the corner of Avenue Road and Bloor attacked me with her book when I stopped to listen. A gentle young man with whom I struck up a conversation ended up staying three weeks with my wife and I in our small studio apartment in order to escape laser-gun toting Italians the Pope had sent to kill him. (He could also predict earthquakes.) Even eye contact had become risky. Just glancing at some loud-spoken man in a pub could result in that most puerile of all exchanges: "What are you looking at, bub?" with its inevitable follow-up: "You think you're better than me?" (to which there is only ever one honest answer -- and I, unfortunately, have been cursed with honesty.)

As a result, I was completely unready for this spontaneous act of kindness on a westbound subway train between St. George and Spadina.

It brought to mind the last time I had acted impetuously myself.

It was about three years ago. I was standing in line at the Second Cup on the corner of John and Queen West. Behind me was a young woman who, in both looks and movements, reminded me strongly of my own wife, Barbara. I got my coffee, sat down and read for about half an hour. As I was leaving I noticed that she was still there, sitting at a table near the front door.

Now it happens that back in 1982 I witnessed what to me was the single most gallant gesture I had ever seen. Barbara was driving us down Jarvis Street one night when suddenly a well-dressed man began waving frantically from the sidewalk. My wife stopped the car and I rolled down my window. "I just had to tell you," he said, "that you've got the prettiest chauffeur I've ever seen."

That kind, unknown man gave my wife a present that would last for years, and his generosity so impressed me that I determined to pass it along, should exactly the right opportunity ever come up. It seemed that here, at a coffee shop some thirteen years later, with a woman so much like the one I loved, that the right opportunity had finally arrived.

I ran across the street, bought a bouquet of flowers and gave them to her saying, "You are very beautiful." I then walked away so she'd know it wasn't a pick-up.

And now, sitting on the subway with a package of Italian cookies in my lap, I mourned the loss of that spontaneity. Where once I had looked upon the world with innocence, now I was nothing more than a cynic.

We had reached my stop, Bathurst, and I felt ashamed that I hadn't responded with more grace. As I stood up, however, I saw my benefactor already at the door. It was like being given a second chance.

We got off the train together and I told him how much I appreciated the gift. We began to talk; me with a stiff dignity born of chagrin, he with an attitude that seemed almost awe-struck.

On the escalator he said, "You know, I am really honoured to meet you."

"?" I thought.

"Do you mind if I ask how old you were during the crucifixions?"

The what?

"You mean, the Roman crucifixions?" I said.

"Yes. How old were you then?"

"You mean the crucifixions two thousand years ago."

"Yes."

Okay, so I'm not a young kid anymore, but I'm only 51 and friends say that in the right light I can still pass for 50.

I looked at him more closely. He wasn't kidding. God, what legendary ancient did he think I was? Ahasverus, the Wandering Jew? John, the Beloved Disciple? The Roman centurion condemned to forever wander the earth?

Keith Richardson?

I answered as neutrally as possible.

"Actually, I didn't have anything to do with the crucifixions." Illogically I suddenly felt like a war criminal denying the charges.

"Still," he insisted, looking like an eight-year-old girl meeting Posh Spice in person, "You must have been quite an age even back then."

"Well, like I said, I didn't really get involved." No, your honour, I had nothing to do with the Nazis and besides, I was somewhere else at the time.

We parted company on the street, he in one direction, I in another, but before he left he shook my hand while telling me once again how honoured he was.

So.

Now I carry a copy of Walton's The Complete Angler at all times. It is entertaining without being compelling, and when necessary I can open it to almost any page and become engrossed in its quiet narrative. Most especially, however, its final line strikes me as peculiarly appropriate:

"Study to be quiet."

I agree.

Quietly, of course.

Please be advised...I'm about to bloody your nose!

"Please be advised that this information is important to us in order to serve you better."

"Please be advised that the fire alarm will be tested next Wednesday between the hours of 3:00 and 4:00 in the afternoon."

"Please be advised that the community centre will be closed for renovations."

I want people to stop telling me to "be advised." I can't just "be advised!" Someone has to advise me. And if that's what you're doing then just do it, don't go making announcements about it.

Absolutely no meaning is imparted by the phrase "please be advised" except to turn a communication of information into something vaguely like a demand. If you tell me "This information is important to us in order to serve you better" then I have been advised! There you go! You've done it!

And while you're at it, maybe you could stop telling me to "please be assured." If you want me to be assured, tell me something assuring.

Cranky. I'm just cranky.

Goodbye Jim

It's almost two years now since Jim Mackin died.

Mackin, of course, was the controversial, obstreperous, exuberant publisher of The Outrider, Toronto's first newspaper for the homeless. I don't really know why I'm thinking of him again, except that my wife and I recently passed by the old Rochedale College building where the Outrider offices had been.

Jim and I met in 1994 when I joined with him in the early days of The Outrider, where I also got to meet and work with Rod Goodman of the Toronto Star and his wife Jan Hayes of the Globe and Mail. It was an exciting time and a great learning experience - on many levels.

Ours was a complex relationship. Part mentor, part father-figure, he was, for a time, the most important man in my life. On the other hand, I never knew when he was lying and when he was telling the truth; although the way to bet was on the lie. But Jim, Jack, Geordie and myself succeeded in putting together the most widely popular "homeless" paper in Canada. It was Jim's brilliant idea that while the paper was meant to help the homeless by providing a source of income, the content should be accessible and interesting to the public at large -- in other words, to the people actually buying it. To this end we covered general news, unusual news, and peppered the publication with unique features. Among these was: "Al the Alien," who looked at society from a uniquely outsider viewpoint; "Blaise Meredith," advertising pundit and satirist; and "Dumpster Dan," a supposedly homeless restaurant reviewer who based his reviews on the refuse tossed in the restaurant dumpsters. ("I wouldn't recommend the salmon, since most of the ones thrown out are only half eaten, but the spare ribs would seem to be delicious since there's nothing but bones left in every instance.")

We knew we'd made it when we were parodied by Frank magazine.

And then it came crashing down.

At the height of The Outrider's success, with a major advertising company creating a city-wide campaign for the paper, Jim indulged in a series of firings, and some very questionable activities involving finances. When I stood up to him about the firings (I was Assignment Editor) he dismissed me in a pique. The upshot was an abrupt end to my return to journalism -- a goal I'd had since having to give up my column in the Welland Tribune back in 1975 -- and my wife and I almost lost our apartment.

He was one of the few people (perhaps the only person) in my life against whom I ever held a grudge.

I swore I would never talk to him again.

Nor did I. Until he found my e-mail and contacted me many years later.

He said he was dying.

Such was his reputation that I doubted him. When I wrote to a few others who had shared in the "Jimmy Mackin Experience" they too doubted him, and warned me not to get involved. I wrote back anyway and, after a time, finally arranged to meet him. Despite my anger, and despite my best intentions, I really couldn't keep away. Jim has always been a likeable cuss - sort of like James Mason with Sean Connery's voice.

We met at The Daily Express, a coffee shop across the road from the old Outrider offices, and as soon as I saw him I knew his story was true. He really was dying. And as far as he was concerned, I was one of his best friends.

Sad to say, I probably was.

During the last months, as Jim steadily lost his battle against cancer, I came to know him from a new perspective: part P. T. Barnum, part Tony Robbins. He was convinced right up to the end that there was a gold mine in the old Outrider, and even sold me the rights and title to the newspaper for a dollar (which he then gave back telling me to give it to the first homeless person I met - which I did).

And whatever had passed between us in the past, in the end I'd have to say that he died as a friend. A difficult friend to be sure, but a real one.

I miss him.

Even though life is easier without him.

---------

For anyone interested, the basic story can be read in The Ryerson Review of Journalism. I must, however, point out a few peculiar inaccuracies. For instance, David Paddon, who appears in the article, was unknown to the rest of us. Not only was he not Assignment Editor (it was a small office -- I would have noticed someone else sitting at my desk), but he also didn't craft the JobsOntario grant proposal, which was in fact entirely the work of Jack Mersereau and Frencesca (can't remember her last name). In fact, Paddon's entire "career" in the Outrider was a fiction he created for the Ryerson journalist's benefit.)

Spreading the Dark

I blow out street lights.

I don't mean to. It's not like I carry a slingshot or air-rifle and take potshots to amuse myself while waiting for a bus. I just walk along and watch the lights go out — sometimes accompanied by a quiet little "fizzle-pop."

Nor does it happen all the time, otherwise Toronto Hydro would surely have caught up to me and I'd be doing five to ten for interfering with public works. The truth is, I can go for weeks, sometimes even months, without witnessing a single streetlight "shuffle of its mortal coil" (a phrase particularly apt for incandescent lights).On the other hand, it's not unusual for me to inadvertently assassinate as many as three lights in the course of a half hour walk.

The first time was in my teens. It was in the late fall or early winter of 1969 and I was coming home from my girlfriend's place. I lived in Malton at the time and was walking down Morningside Drive when suddenly there was a little popping sound. I looked up just in time to see a fading glow in the lamp directly above. Although I didn't attach any importance to the incident, it stuck in my mind because it had never happened before.

Ah, but that was then.

The next light was roughly a year later, once again directly above my head. Having a vague sort of interest in science and statistics, I set about determining the odds. Several hours spent with a slide-rule (no hand calculators back then) brought me to the conclusion that I'd be wise to pursue a career that did not involve science or statistics.

Over the next few years the phenomenon continued intermittently. It was still happening when I moved out of Malton shortly after a gas line exploded outside my home and blew up the central shopping district (an incident I still say I had no part in), but around 1978 it stopped. For ten years the only lights that blew were the run-of-the-mill household lights and I pretty well forgot about the matter. Then, in 1988 it started again with a vengeance. By 1989 I had racked up an even half-dozen street lamps and decided it was time to start establishing some rules to this game.

Rule number one: I can only count lights which blow out either directly above me or one lamp post away.

Rule number two: I have to be able to see the dying glow.

Rule number three: lights which show a tendency to go out repeatedly, or have some obvious physical cause for expiring (such as a gas main explosion) don't count.

Over the past ten years I can confidently state that, like some sort of cockeyed Dr. Kevorkian, I have been present for the deaths of over 57 street lamps.

When I was younger I looked for an emotional pattern, Did it happen when I was angry? Happy? Sexually frustrated? Sexually satisfied? As I got older I looked for more mundane explanations. Maybe it happened to everyone but they just took it in stride, although nobody I asked could recall having been under a street lamp when it blew out. (Nor was it simply that they didn't notice, since they would invariably comment if they were with me when it happened. "Hey, look at that. The light just went out," they'd say. "Huh, imagine that," I'd answer and change the subject.)

So it isn't psychic, but neither is it a shared urban experience. What's left?

Damned if I know.

There's certainly nothing I can do with it. Putting out street lamps seems completely devoid of any positive benefits — except maybe to drug dealers and other criminal types.

Furthermore, my own special ability comes with subtle, psychological drawbacks.

The first, and most obvious of course, is the fact that I get blamed for every light that blows anywhere near me. I am of the opinion that only streetlights are in danger from my destructive emanations and any other form of illumination is perfectly safe. This distinction, however, is often overlooked by those who know me. If I visit a friend's house in which the bathroom light dies three days later, it's a safe bet I will get the blame. But while I feel this is distinctly unfair, it causes me no undue distress.

Well, not quite true. A light blowing out when I'm depressed, for instance, acts as a confirmation of my internal darkness; whereas when I'm feeling happy it just reminds me that "this too shall pass."

My main worry, however, is what will happen when I die. Like most people, I draw much of my spiritual guidance from popular movies. I know that to ensure a happy afterlife we're supposed to "go to the light."

But what if, just I get close, I blow it out?

So Why Is Mother Nature Such a Wimp?

In Genesis 2:5 it talks about the time before all the plants had grown. And why hadn't they grown? Because "the LORD God had not caused it to rain upon the earth, and there was not a man to till the ground." That always puzzled me. Not the rain part, but the "man to till the ground" part. Did this mean that plants couldn't grow without our help? Nonsense, I thought.

And then my wife started this garden in our backyard and I learned different. The truth, it would seem,is that after millions of years of practice, nature is still really lousy at growing without our help.

We have these seeds, you see. I forget which particular plant they're supposed to turn into, but before they can be planted they have to be "germinated." And how do you germinate seeds? It turns out you plant the little suckers inside your house. We have these special planting things, they look like egg cartons made from really emphatic recycled material, the kind that looks like it's recycling right before your eyes which is pretty much what it's doing. The idea is to fill each compartment with dirt (preferably designer dirt, of course) and carefully plant the seeds.Once they start to grow we take them outside and plant the entire biodegradableegg carton in the ground.

Is this really the way the wilderness grew? Ridiculous.

On the other hand, there was Johnny Appleseed.

Actually, his name was John Chapman, born 1774 in Leominster, Massachusetts. His father was away from the family for long periods of time, first as a volunteer soldier in the Revolutionary War shortly after John's birth. During this time John's mother died and after the war Mr. Chapman remarried and began a new family.

In the 1790s, John, along with his half-brother Nathaniel, went west and by the 1800s Nathaniel was settling down to raise a family.

John, on the other hand, had become a convert to the Swedeborgian religion and a member of the General Convention of the New Jerusalem, the name by which it was incorporated in America. In fact, it was in an issue of the Society
for Printing, Publishing and Circulating the Writings of Emanuel Swedenborg, dated January 14, 1817, that we get one of our earliest reports on Johnny's activities:

There is in the western country a very extraordinary missionary of the New Jerusalem. A man has appeared who seems to be almost independent of corporeal wants and sufferings. He goes barefooted, can sleep anywhere, in house or out of house, and live upon the coarsest and most scanty fare. He has actually thawed ice with his bare feet. He procures what books he can of the New Church, travels into the remote settlements, and lends them wherever he can find readers, and sometimes divides a book into two or three parts for more extensive distribution and usefulness. This man for years past has been in the employment of bringing into cultivation, in numberless places in the wilderness, small patches (two or three acres) of ground, and then sowing apple seeds and rearing nurseries.

These become valuable as the settlements approximate, and the profits of the whole are intended
for the purpose of enabling him to print all the writings of Emanuel Swedenborg, and distribute them through the western settlements of the United States.

Although the story of Johnny Appleseed planting seeds all across the country is true, the image of him doing so freely and at his own expense is not entirely accurate. Johnny was essentially a nurseryman and while he apparently did give away seeds and seedlings, it was on condition of future payment. Still, the fact remains that he created thousands and thousands of apple orchards across the countryside.

So maybe the other thing is true too.

Maybe the wilderness does need us to keep it going.

For those interested, more information on Johnny Appleseed is available at these
sites:

Appleseed.org

Johnny
Appleseed's Biography from Pennsylvania State Department

Yahoo's
Johnny Appleseed Links

Daylight Saving Time: Proving P. T. Barnum Right Again

Well, it's spring time again and my personal regards go out to the mayor and the people of Pickle Lake who have refused to knuckle under to the decades-long boondoggle known as "Daylight Saving Time." Part of my childhood was spent in Windsor, Ontario, where we never bothered with such nonsense (and the only spot in Canada where the States is actually north of us, so we could blame the cold north winds of winter on them), and I have never been able to discover what the purpose of this exercise is. According to the Daylight Saving Time section of "WebExhibits," the primary purpose is to save energy by having more daylight in the evening, thereby cutting down on the number of hours we need to turn on lights and such. Fair enough, and according to the U.S. Department of Transportation, this practice "trims the entire country's electricity usage by a significant, but small amount, of less than one percent each day." But in that case, why don't we do it in the winter time when energy consumption is at an all time high, and the evenings are even shorter?

And are we really saving energy in the first place? Perhaps we're saving a bit of electrical energy, but we're sure adding to our personal burden. In the Sunday New York Times Magazine of April 7, 1996, James Gleick published an article titled "Manual Labor" bemoaning the effort required to change each and every one of our numerous timekeepers twice a year. These include ovens (both conventional and microwave), TVs, stereos, VCRs, computers, pagers, and photocopiers among others.

Another common claim is that DST makes it safer for people to be out and about in the evening because the daylight lasts longer. But once again, wouldn't it make more sense to do this in the winter? The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration of the United States DoT issued a special report on (get this) "Making Daylight Savings Time Safe for Kids." "Over half of all pedestrian fatalities and over one fourth of bicyclist fatalities of school age children (ages 5 through 18) occur in low light or dark conditions." And of course, the problem, as they point out, is that as the days begin to shorten, we suddenly shift from DST to Standard Time thereby sending kids home from school in low-light conditions. In a study of traffic accidents throughout Canada in 1991 and 1992, Stanley Coren of the University of British Columbia discovered that there was an eight percent jump in traffic accidents on the Monday after clocks are moved ahead.

Oh, and let's not forget the farmers. Whenever I've asked people why we switch to DST every year, the most common answer is that it helps the farmers. Farmers? How exactly did this bit of folklore get started? Farmers wake to the sun regardless of the time of day, and cows sure wouldn't appreciate waiting an extra hour every fall to get milked. Moreover, wherever there is opposition to the practice, it generally comes from the farmers.

One interesting proposal is not to discontinue DST, but rather to extend it throughout the entire year. The American Journal of Public Health published a report showing the dramatic increase in pedestrian fatal crashes following the change to Standard Time between 1987 to 1991. In fact, there have already been two years in which DST was extended in the States far beyond it's normal span. It lasted for ten months in 1974 and eight months in 1975 in an attempt to save energy during the OPEC oil embargo. And it worked, not only for energy saving (which would be expected since the extra hour of daylight was extended into the winter where it would do the most good, but also cut down dramatically on traffic fatalities. So why didn't they continue the experiment? Because of opposition led mostly by ... uh, the farmers.

If you're interested in finding out more about Daylight Saving Time, here are a few sites:

WebExhibits' Daylight Saving Time. Learn about its history, rationale and various changes and irregularities.

End Daylight Saving Time. An intelligent rant by someone trying to Stop the Madness.

An Economical Project. Excerpts from Benjamin Franklin's original essay. Actually, old Ben never really meant it seriously.

The Costs Outweigh the Benefits. An examination of the many costs of DST.