Canada – my country, our country, their country – is one of the richest in the world. Yet, the people of Pikangikum, a remote, Aboriginal community where nine people died last week in a tragic house fire, are living in conditions that would be considered deplorable by any world standard, let alone Canadian.
By all accounts it is not living, not in any way most of us should think right and proper in this country. Continue reading
So, this morning is an opportunity to count my blessings.
The morning after in the backyard at Cathedral Farm
I guess I was one of the lucky ones. The freezing-rain and snow storm that yesterday and last night went through this part of Ontario was much worse farther south, where 100,000 electrical customers are without power this morning, so the news says. Hopefully, for their sakes, their power will be restored.
It’s March in Ontario after all, so anything can happen; and it will.
It’s not over yet, Mr. Massey Too
The forecast today for the Bruce Peninsula area calls for freezing rain, ice pellets, snow and north-east winds for the next couple of days. Environment Canada’s weather forecasting service has issued a “winter storm warning” for the area. School buses are cancelled all over the Bluewater School Board area that includes all of Grey and Bruce counties. I understand from the news it’s the same story all over southern Ontario.
And here I am at the end of long and vulnerable phone and electrical lines, down Cathedral Drive and through the forest along an unopened road allowance. I’d say the prospect of fallen lines and a power outage is more than likely, for me here, and possibly lots of other people on the peninsula. We’ll see. But our local “hydro” crews always do all they can to help us get back on line. Continue reading
I must have spent the night of July 1-2, 1961 in Salt Lake City, in a bed in a small YMCA on a downtown side street. That makes sense. I remember getting up early in the morning there, reaching the outskirts of the city by about 8 a.m. and picking up a ride, and then another fairly quickly. I look at the map of that area now and I figure I could have made it to that highway crossroads in southern Idaho by noon.
An ash tree reaches for the sky in the Hope Bay Forest
I remember being hung up there unable to get a ride for maybe two hours. There were no trees and the junction of the two highways was at the top of a plateau from which the highways fell away in several directions. And after a while it was too hot standing under the sun so I walked over to a truck stop about 100 yards away. There was a counter with bar chairs and some tables. A clean-cut, casually dressed man who looked to be in his mid-30s was eating his lunch at the far end of the counter. A couple of truckers sat talking at a table. I noticed there was a sign on the wall above the counter that said “we reserve the right to refuse service to anyone.” I was just 18 at the time, so what did I know, and when the large man in a white apron behind the counter asked me what I wanted I ordered a coffee and inquired about the sign. Continue reading
Canadian voters chose a hopeful future not a hateful one when they elected the country’s new Liberal government last October 19.
“Sunny ways, my friends, sunny ways, this is what positive politics can do,” Liberal leader, now Canada’s new Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau, said that night in his victory speech. He had led his party from third place to first, in terms of the number of seats in Parliament, with an election campaign that was markedly different from the divisive one the now-former Conservative government ran. Continue reading
It has been said, “Beauty is in the eye of the beholder,” as if all that matters is who’s looking. But this partially moss-covered rock formation that caught my eye this morning beside the Bruce Trail surely must have a beauty in its own right.
Sometimes you just have to persevere, keep moving, and wrestle the Gods of Chaos to the ground rather than go back to bed.
It’s pathetic how a little thing can bring me down. Know what I mean? Like this morning when I lost that plastic, false tooth the World’s Best Dentist had made for me, oh, about two years, maybe three years ago – quite a while, anyway. It was supposed to be temporary, until I was ready to spend enough money to buy a used pick-up to equip my mouth with a single-tooth bridge. The temporary front tooth has sufficed, thank you, though it was pricey enough in its own right.
This morning wasn’t the first time I’d lost it. Last summer I was picking corn and, as I do sometimes, eating the odd cob right-off-the-stalk raw. Don’t laugh; sweet corn is pretty tasty seconds after it’s picked. But removal of the false tooth is necessary to avoid breakage. Continue reading
A good friend of mine starts each day by counting her blessings. She finds lot to be thankful for, of course, so she effectively launches herself into positive territory. And thus, no matter how the day goes, she gives herself the edge.
I, on the other hand, woke up yesterday morning on the wrong side of positive and stayed there most of the day. Yes, I know, that’s pretty ironic considering Finding Hope Ness is supposed to be about realizing the promise every moment offers, and living with hope. For, as you may have gathered by now, Hope Ness is more than a place; it’s a state of mind, or rather, a state of being.
This blog is called “Finding Hope Ness” for a reason, though. My friend is already there; in a way she’s an embodiment of it. She fit right in as soon as she arrived here years ago: the birds knew her, the trees knew her; my goodness, even the bear she heard “huffing” not very far away as she picked wild raspberries one day, probably knew her. Continue reading
Mr. Massey out in the snow again, in need of restoration
Well, setting aside for a moment the idea that it wouldn’t bother me one little bit to find out I was the “Owen Sound area” person who won a $60 million-dollar lottery jackpot, I’d say Joan Patterson sounds like a good winner. And I have absolutely no ulterior motives for saying that.
Not that I’m a bad loser; you can’t win if you don’t buy a ticket. But who knew the lottery-winning vibes were in the local stars, or winds, or the ground underfoot.
It is fun, though, to see somebody local win; all the more reason to play with various “what if it had been me?” scenarios. Continue reading
In my last blog, “We’re all pilgrims looking for home,” I mentioned having lived for a while at Rolling Acres Ranch when I was a boy of 12. That brought to mind a carpenter I remember now as “Old Tom” who came there for a few weeks in the fall to build a couple of camp cabins.
Old Tom – I think his last name may have been Thomson, or Thompson – was about the age I am now. (So, he wasn’t that old, eh.) He was tall and lean, rather reserved and dignified, and always impeccably dressed even in his work cloths: dark, sensible, broadcloth pants, vest, clean white shirt, and armbands that kept his sleeves safely up. I believe his background was Scottish Presbyterian, like a lot of born-and-raised people then in Egremont Township.
In the evening after dinner, he and “Dad” Brush would retire to the living room, where Old Tom always sat in the same rocking chair. Because I was the oldest of the boarding kids, but mainly I think because I did so much work down at the barn, I was allowed to take an after-dinner seat there too.
A few of my well-used carpentry tools
Old Tom had a routine: first, he would have his cup of hot water (for some reason, possibly for health reasons, he didn’t drink tea or coffee); then he’d play his fiddle for a while, with the Brush’s pet cocker-spaniel howling along as he played; but that never fazed him. Then, he and “Dad” Brush might talk for a while. I remember once Old Tom looked at my long, lean feet and predicted I’d grow up to be a “six-footer.” Well, I stopped about an inch short, but nobody’s perfect.
The one evening that stands out the most in my memory is when Old Tom took a notion to tell a story. I’ve often thought of it over the years. I’ve come to realize it was a piece of local, oral folk history, doubtless based on actual events that happened during and just after pioneer times in that area.
Old Tom told it better than I ever could, but I’ll do my best: Continue reading
Finding Hope Ness 