tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-42515752517340282012024-03-12T17:01:25.620-07:00Each new dayHere & now with Sharon FraserSharon Fraserhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06484421511625293763noreply@blogger.comBlogger224125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4251575251734028201.post-74466821691942844902023-01-11T19:53:00.003-08:002023-01-12T09:27:42.630-08:00Two Miramichi winters<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The house was on the shore, about 100 feet from the water, right where the Black River flows into the Miramichi.
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">It was a pretty house, weathered grey with sharply pointed gables and gingerbread trim. It looked a little worse for the wear. From a certain angle, it looked as if it were leaning back on its haunches; it had been built many years ago, with no foundation, and was "settling", especially toward the back, where the kitchen was. From the front, it looked as if it were hunching its shoulders against the northeast winds that swept around the point, blowing in from the Miramichi Bay.
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> It was a cold old house.
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
<a href="http://www.sharonfraser.ca/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/Black-River-house-winter.jpg"><img src="http://www.sharonfraser.ca/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/Black-River-house-winter-300x296.jpg" alt="Black River house winter" width="300" height="296" class="aligncenter size-medium wp-image-1626" /></a>
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><em><strong>February 17, 1976</strong></em>
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><em>I forgot to push the rolled-up blanket against the door before I went to bed so there was snow on the kitchen floor this morning. The wind battered the house all night. It's some cold. The glass of water I took to bed with me was frozen when I got up — frozen solid, not just a little skim of ice like sometimes.
The water in the kettle on the stove was frozen too. I got the fire going and waited for the water to melt so I could prime the pump — at least I remembered to drain the pump last night.
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">After I got the pump working, I filled the big copper boiler on top of the stove to get some hot water. It was wash day and I wanted to get an early start to get the clothes hung outside while there was still some daylight. I had a few dishes to do so I started on them first. The dishwashing detergent wasn't frozen but it had turned into a gel so stiff, it was almost solid. I had to use a knife to get some out of the bottle. I suppose I'll have to start keeping it in the fridge.
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The fridge is huge. I saw it advertised in the newspaper and a deal was pretty much made over the phone. I've never had a very good grasp of the size of an object that's described in cubic feet. Anyway, I'm glad now. I keep many things in the fridge. It keeps them from freezing: things like canned goods and ketchup; oils and vinegars; potatoes, pickles and peanut butter — not to mention shampoo and conditioners, moisturizers, makeup and lotions. I think I could — as it used to be expressed — sell refrigerators to Eskimos. They could use them the same way I do.
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I almost froze my fingers getting my big washtubs in from the shed. My hands were a little damp and when I reached up to lift the first tub off the hook where it hangs, my fingers stuck to the surface. I peeled them off; no permanent damage but I went and put my gloves on before I dragged the tubs in.
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The two tubs sit side by side in the middle of the kitchen floor, one filled with hot soapy water, the other with less hot clear water for rinsing. The steam rises into the still-cold air of the kitchen like you see from those hot springs in Iceland. I sit on a cushion. I have a washboard for scrubbing and a hand-operated wringer that clamps on the side of the tub for wringing. A little shelf at the bottom of the wringer moves back and forth to keep the soapy water draining into the soapy tub and the clear water back into the clear tub. It's very efficient.
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I put the newly wrung-out clothes and towels and sheets into a wicker basket on the floor beside me but before I got outside to the clothesline, the bottom layer had already started to freeze up. I put a few layers of newspaper and a folded blanket under the basket until I was ready to go out.
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">God, it was cold out there. I was already wearing long underwear, heavy pants, wool socks and a couple of sweaters and I added boots, scarves, jacket, mitts and a wool hat plus earmuffs. The wind was still blowing and if the clothes weren't frozen in the basket, they were most certainly frozen by the time I got the clothespin fastened onto the line. It's not that easy to do, wearing gloves and mitts and still having numb fingers. Why do I do it? Well, they'd freeze if I hung them in the house anyway and they dry a little faster outside, especially in that wind.
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">After the clothes were hung and as long as I was dressed for outdoors, I decided to fill the woodbox and take a trip to the outdoor facility to empty my little private indoor commode. It was frozen too.
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I made some bread this afternoon. I had lots of potato cooking water, bottles and bottles of it — in the fridge, of course — and a bag of stone-ground whole wheat flour my sister had given me for Christmas. It has taken me quite a while to find the best way to raise my dough in that cold old kitchen. I tried placing the bowl in the warming oven of the wood stove but it was too warm. It rose too fast and the texture wasn't good. Placing it on the outer edge of the open oven door caused an uneven rise.
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I finally worked out a system that involves hot towels, newspapers for insulation, and an enclosed space that holds some heat where I set my big bowl — a medium-sized cardboard box works fine. (I'm quite inventive. I'm the same person who used to bake beautiful loaves of bread in a fireplace that I built on the shore out of flat stones and mud with a refrigerator shelf from the dump as the baking rack.)
<div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgLbOKCKxx-hd9xlXMwBqUtm5I4W5fdPQQqbkRwDuSW6X_P9A3Mr6hVmNl7sUCpXbqVHFtPwAnO7GbAqrZPFSr_2RxbYxyZy_5_PhkOGz8BeDCjdsdEDXomifwIoyTZ9a2JHC_woZsk2ylTciucvLrI6L8TWe7elb4QSgtA2H0PxqUt4Kaev6vqxt0f/s905/Black%20River%20Sharon%20cooking%20at%20her%20own%20fireplace.jpg" style="display: block; padding: 1em 0; text-align: center; "><img alt="" border="0" width="320" data-original-height="591" data-original-width="905" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgLbOKCKxx-hd9xlXMwBqUtm5I4W5fdPQQqbkRwDuSW6X_P9A3Mr6hVmNl7sUCpXbqVHFtPwAnO7GbAqrZPFSr_2RxbYxyZy_5_PhkOGz8BeDCjdsdEDXomifwIoyTZ9a2JHC_woZsk2ylTciucvLrI6L8TWe7elb4QSgtA2H0PxqUt4Kaev6vqxt0f/s320/Black%20River%20Sharon%20cooking%20at%20her%20own%20fireplace.jpg"/></a></div>
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The rest of the day was uneventful. I brought the clothes in and stood them up around the kitchen until they thawed and fell over. They really do smell good. I read a lot, with my chair pulled close to the stove and my feet on the open oven door. I've drained the pump and I'm ready for bed now. My head got really cold in bed last night. I've put a large thick towel at the bedside so I can wrap it around my head tonight, if necessary.</em>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj3qA7vvwv7X4wjQ_hFbku45xikz14oBUT_6fbAcmKeCs-jVTUSUkiwg_qSD9qV9RRWvzXbaVO_AtGC0I4ynefst2fL7vsSuY8unx4O62qLsyqiZVmi5MsZgJjrnZuyRjKCM-9EqpsgwPnGMUkDH7wy5bbaA3UTmW6pOooWTfDIs4BYgqS0HOK4hWrm/s1014/McGraw%27s%20Barn%20from%20kitchen%20%20%282%29.jpg" style="display: block; padding: 1em 0; text-align: center; "><img alt="" border="0" width="320" data-original-height="1002" data-original-width="1014" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj3qA7vvwv7X4wjQ_hFbku45xikz14oBUT_6fbAcmKeCs-jVTUSUkiwg_qSD9qV9RRWvzXbaVO_AtGC0I4ynefst2fL7vsSuY8unx4O62qLsyqiZVmi5MsZgJjrnZuyRjKCM-9EqpsgwPnGMUkDH7wy5bbaA3UTmW6pOooWTfDIs4BYgqS0HOK4hWrm/s320/McGraw%27s%20Barn%20from%20kitchen%20%20%282%29.jpg"/></a></div>
________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The stories I tell about living in the cold old house on the shore are not about poverty or hardship. They're credentials. I tell them because it's fun to tell them. I tell them so I don't feel I have to explain why I love my washing machine.
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">But I tell them carefully and never with a suggestion of deprivation. Every day I lived in the old house, I thought of the woman who had lived there first, whose husband had built the house in the early part of the century. She had eleven children, most of them born in those very rooms. She had no electricity, no car to take her to town for shopping, no fridge to keep her food from freezing. And her water pump, unlike mine which was conveniently located in the kitchen, was outdoors.
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">There was another woman I used to think of too, while I was living in that cold old house. She lived in Chatham, where I grew up, and I met her only once.
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">It was 1950. I was six years old, a sweet little girl with long hair curled into ringlets by my mother every morning, dressed carefully in tiny pleated skirts and crisp white blouses, sent to school with bookbag and accessories — a pencil case, a plastic ruler with a hole in the middle, a soft pink eraser, fresh notebooks, everything I needed. I went to The White School, an old wooden building that must have had another name in the beginning but was never known by another name in my time. It seemed very big to me; today, when I drive by the lot where it used to stand, I realize that it didn't take up much space. The students who went there were mostly working class; a few were middle class; some were very poor.
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">One day in winter, all of us in grade one, having struggled into our winter duds, were standing in line in the ante-room waiting for the teacher to come around and tie our scarves at the back of our necks so they'd be ready to pull up over mouth and nose for the cold walk home. As she approached me, I saw with dread that she was carrying a small sheaf of papers.
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">"I want you to take Eddie's lessons home to him," she said. "He was sick today."
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">My little heart sank. I was scared of Eddie anyway and I had heard all the lurid White School tales about the house where he lived. I didn't understand some of it but I knew what a bootlegger was. This was a grade one nightmare.
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I lagged behind the others on the way home. I tried to think of some way of getting out of it. Finally — but much too soon — I turned down the street where Eddie and his family lived, in a ramshackle frame house behind an abandoned building. I picked my way through the rubble in the snowy yard — old car parts, an overturned wheelbarrow, a wagon with no wheels. Before I knocked, the door opened. A woman holding a baby was standing there.
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">"Who are you? Who sent you 'ere?" she said.
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">"I brought Eddie's lessons from school."
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">"Come into the 'ouse."
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Oh no oh no. This was not part of the deal. The room she led me into was more like a shed: it had bare board floors, a few old sticks of furniture, an unmade bed in the corner. It was cold. There was no sign of Eddie or any of the older children or the bootlegger but there were small children, a few of them — toddlers and babies.
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">"What's your name?" she said. I told her.
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">"I know where you live. A new 'ouse."
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">It was a new house; it was owned by the power commission where my father worked. It was an ugly house and my mother didn't like it. But it had a furnace and rugs and matching furniture and curtains. To Eddie's mother, it must have seemed like living in a palace.
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">My childhood experience had not prepared me for her house. How could I have fit that cold hovel, those ragged children, that unkempt woman into my ordered little life where we collected money in Mission Band to buy food for hungry little heathen children in India; where we made little drawstring bags out of facecloths and filled them with soap and toothpaste and toothbrushes and combs and maybe a barrette for deprived children in Africa?
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">How could it be that there were little children in Chatham living like this? Did they have enough to eat? Did they ever have roast beef on Sunday? Did they have any toys or storybooks? Did anyone ever take them to the beach? Did they have aunties and uncles who visited at Christmas? Was there even a stove in this place?
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">These specific questions came to me years later; at the time, I asked no questions at all. I don't know why except little children often feel shame and embarrassment when faced with complex situations that are uncomfortable.
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I never saw Eddie's mother again. I think they moved away shortly after my visit. I never told anyone I'd been there.
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">There was something else I never told anyone. The day I went to Eddie's was the third time the teacher had asked me to take his lessons to his house. The first time, I tore the pages into little pieces and buried them under a rock in a swampy ditch on the way home. The second time, I put them at the bottom of the box where I kept my supplies for playing school. No one ever found them.
Sharon Fraserhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06484421511625293763noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4251575251734028201.post-23407214308081032262021-11-08T14:29:00.002-08:002021-11-08T14:29:43.342-08:00'As good as any, better than most'<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">February is Black History Month; March is Women's History Month. Either one is an appropriate time to look back at the life of Dr. Carrie Best.
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">In the history of Nova Scotia — home of the largest indigenous Black community in Canada — Dr. Best was well-known and admired for her many years of work on behalf of her people. She died in 2001 but not before she had made her mark and helped to dispel some of the egregious racism that existed throughout her life.
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><a href="http://www.sharonfraser.ca/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/Dr.-Carrie-Best.jpg"><img src="http://www.sharonfraser.ca/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/Dr.-Carrie-Best.jpg" alt="Dr. Carrie Best" width="175" height="231" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-1651" /></a>
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">She was born in New Glasgow in 1903. In 1946, she founded <a href="http://www.parl.ns.ca/carriebest/clarionyears.html"><em>The Clarion</em></a>, the first newspaper for Blacks in Nova Scotia. She wrote for newspapers and magazines and was a weekly columnist with <em>The Pictou Advocate</em>. She was the author of an autobiography, <a href="http://www.parl.ns.ca/carriebest/tribute.html"><em>That Lonesome Road </em></a> (which is also a social history of Nova Scotian Blacks.)
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">She was well-known across the country as an equal rights activist and was a founding member of the <a href="http://www.collectionscanada.gc.ca/women/002026-303-e.html"> Kay Livingstone</a> Visible Minority Women of Nova Scotia, an organization which works with women and young people to promote a sense of identity and pride of race, integrity and self-discipline “and to lift others, as we ourselves climb toward dignity and self-respect.”
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Her last doctorate was awarded in 1992 by the University of King's College in Halifax. In 1970, she was awarded the Lloyd MacInnis Memorial Award for her work in social justice. In 1973, she received the first annual award of the National Black Coalition of Canada. In 1974, she was appointed to the Order of Canada. In 1975, she was granted the degree Doctor of Laws by St. Francis Xavier University.
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">In December of 1991, she received an award for outstanding contributions to human rights on the anniversary of the day the United Nations ratified the Declaration of Human Rights.
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I interviewed her a few years before her death at her home in New Glasgow. She scoffed at my tape recorder and refused to let me turn it on, telling me she didn't want to talk into "that thing." I returned to the time-honoured tradition of taking notes. Her words are in italics. My occasional comments are not.
<p><hr noshade size="1"> </p>
<p><hr noshade size="1"> </p>
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><strong><big> The 'religious hobo' </big></strong>
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Dr. Best is in perpetual motion, rummaging in her well-packed briefcase for a pertinent document, punctuating her remarks with a gentle jab to her interviewer's shoulder or a soothing pat to the knee. Her energy and vitality are infectious. She often speaks with tongue in cheek.
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">* * *
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><em>I was invited to give the convocation address to the Atlantic School of Theology. I nearly dropped dead when they asked me! They can't mean me, I said. Do they know I don't go to church? Well, I slept on it. I do live close to God — I'm a born-again Christian — but I consider Christianity and “churchianity” two different things.
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">In the end, I accepted. I described my religious background to them and told them I was a “religious hobo.” When I was born, my parents were Salvationists and that's how I was registered at birth. When I was a young child, they left the Army because the first “black church” had been established in Pictou County. That was Baptist.
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">When I grew up, I had the bad taste to marry an Anglican but he was good enough to go to the Baptist church with me. After a time though, he missed the Anglican way of worshipping so ... he had accommodated me and I thought it was my turn to accommodate him so I went to the Anglican Church with him. But I missed the Baptists. The Baptists clap and laugh and sing and really know how to praise the Lord. So I went back to the Baptists. You can see I'm a religious hobo.
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">As I got older, I met so many wonderful people of all religions. I began to accept people for what they are — colour and creed don't matter. I believe that all roads that lead to God are good.
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The root of my faith is Mother Earth. I think of all the little creeds as just different ways of interpreting God.
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">So that's what I told the graduates of the Atlantic School of Theology! </em>
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">* * *
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><em>That Lonesome Road </em>is dedicated to her mother. On the dedication page, she wrote, “Society Said: You are an inferior being,/born to be a hewer of wood/ and a drawer of water/ because you are Black.... My Mother Said: You are a person, separate/ and apart from all other/ persons on earth. The pathway/to your destiny is hidden.../ you alone must find it./ ...And then she said.../ Take the first turn right,/ and go straight ahead...”
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">* * *
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><em>It's very painful to talk about some of the practices of the past. When I was growing up in New Glasgow, you couldn't eat in a restaurant. You couldn't get your hair cut. I went to jail. My son and I were at the movies; we sat downstairs, we went to the movies three times a week and we'd sat in the same seats for years. Then one day, the usher came to me and said, “You can't sit here. You have to go into the balcony.” I refused. They called the police; they had to drag me out of there. I was in jail for an hour. I was charged with causing a disturbance.
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">But at all times of my life, I've been a happy person. When I was young, I think we might have been broke but we were never poor. I was personally just as happy no matter what we had. My personal happiness had nothing to do with racial discrimination.
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I confront bigotry face on. If I hear — and this has happened — that someone has called me “n****r,” I go right to that person. I look him right in the eye and I say, “did you call me 'n****r'? Now I've heard you did and all I want from you is to tell me if it's true. If you say it isn't, I'll believe you. We'll go together to the person who told me and you will tell him it isn't true.” You could always tell if it was true or not.
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I'm not a n****r. I'm as good as anyone and better than most. I love everyone who's worthy of my love — but I won't sit back and take that kind of bigotry. </em>
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">* * *
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Her memory seems unlimited. She quotes long stanzas of poetry, long passages from books, most of which were learned many years ago. She considers poetry to be part of her spiritual nature and part of her search for identity.
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">“The long hours spent in reading poetry,” she wrote in <em>That Lonesome Road</em>, “and the hundreds of poems memorized during my early childhood, my learning years, my yearning years and even now in later life, are fragrant memories of my journey in Search of an Identity. The irresistible habit of committing poems to memory still persists, and like deposits in a savings account, can be drawn out at will. The fund is never exhausted, for the interest grows both on deposit and withdrawal and is compounded daily.
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">“Black history was virtually non-existent in Nova Scotia during my learning years ... I remember when I received my cherished volume of the Poetry of Paul Lawrence Dunbar. I was ten years old ... I found to my utter astonishment and delight that I could read the Dunbar poems which were written in the Negro dialect as easily as those he had written in classic English. These gave me my first sense of Black Identity.”
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">* * *
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><em>Things have changed — but not enough. The white race has got to start learning from those they feel superior to. The Blacks have to take pride in who they are. When <a href="http://www.online-literature.com/frederick_douglass/"> Frederick Douglass</a> was a young slave, the white mistress said, “He's a bright boy. I'd like to teach him to read.” The slave master said, “When you educate a Negro, you unsuit him for a slave.”
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Education is very important — more important than ever. We have to start teaching our children ourselves — in “kitchen schools.” We have to get funding from Black churches, Black organizations, and take the time to teach the children where they come from, how far they can go.
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Being old now is not a disadvantage to me in all my projects. It's a blessing. God gave me this extra time to accomplish whatever I can, to meet wonderful people of all races. I'm so thankful.</em>
Sharon Fraserhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06484421511625293763noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4251575251734028201.post-24130211010142038052021-10-01T09:59:00.001-07:002023-02-20T09:10:52.210-08:00Rita Joe: Creating a beautiful image of her people
<div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEie2BkcqmlhA9N1vG6mrgfLj64sJxg8gbvTExpsz4h5_SLxrKgDlvHOcRx9U1BBvOXQSBtDu7y0wSGhwlJdzrDWYZT7-pTUUnIE-yhKr5UddT__ix2bNY9hwtpam4qNWeh4h_8MfI4RfSU/s499/Rita+Joe.jpg" style="display: block; padding: 1em 0; text-align: center; clear: left; float: left;"><img alt="" border="0" height="320" data-original-height="499" data-original-width="375" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEie2BkcqmlhA9N1vG6mrgfLj64sJxg8gbvTExpsz4h5_SLxrKgDlvHOcRx9U1BBvOXQSBtDu7y0wSGhwlJdzrDWYZT7-pTUUnIE-yhKr5UddT__ix2bNY9hwtpam4qNWeh4h_8MfI4RfSU/s320/Rita+Joe.jpg"/></a></div>
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Rita Joe died in 2007. In 1994, I spent a day with her in her home and shop, chatting, snacking, crafting. <i>She</i> crafted – she made beautiful earrings and other jewellwey – and I watched. She gave me a pair of earrings to take with me when I left.
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><b><i>Rita Joe is the acclaimed Mi'kmaq poet. She was born in Whycocomagh and now lives in Eskasoni, the largest reserve in Nova Scotia. She is a mother, a grandmother, a weaver of baskets. She sells her crafts and those of her family and community in her Eskasoni shop. What follows are her own words.</i></b>
...............................................................
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I describe myself as Native – Mi'kmaq. I'm 62 years old now. When I started writing, I was in my 30s, and I saw a need: that was to create a beautiful image of my people. When I was a little girl, I was called a little savage, a cannibal. I didn't know what cannibal meant – all these derogatory things I heard when I was a little girl.
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">When my children used to bring their books home and see something bad like that, they'd point it out to me. “Look Mum, look what it says here,” and I would read it.
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">And I would hear myself say, we were not the writers of our own history. Then I would say to myself, why aren't any books written about the beautiful part of our culture? So it dawned on me that there has to be somebody to document the beautiful part. So I began to write.
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">
<i><p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I am the Indian
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">and the burden lies
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">just with me.</i>
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I have spoken across the nation and when I read that little three-line poem, there is heavy discussion. They're trying to find out, what is the burden, what is the burden that Rita Joe is talking about? I tell them: the burden I'm carrying came from you, the European. You have made me carry my burden because you're the ones who documented our lives and it was not the truth.
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">In any culture, any culture on this earth, when you look for the good, you'll find the good. That's what I look for so I can present it to the people who look down on us. I have been doing it so long that my own perception of my own culture – to me, it is beautiful. Everything about my life, since I was a little girl and what I have seen since is beautiful.
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">When I was a little girl – my mother died when I was five – I was put in a succession of foster homes, all over Nova Scotia. I can't tell you how many different foster homes I was in but I had a lot of mothers, I had a lot of dads. I came back to live with my own father just before he died. I was nine and I lived with him for a year. I used to see him open a book of hieroglyphics. That's why I say in one of my books, the written part of our life is for us to read which you did not recognize – same with Egyptian writing, that was not recognized. I saw my dad open a book a lot of times and read and I saw him explain these symbols and I know there was a written part of our life – that's why I said in a poem “that the world chooses to deny.”
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I was mostly in native homes, not that many non-native homes, and they were as poor as I was. There were times when I didn't have enough to eat.
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">All these homes, Mi'kmaq was spoken. All my life, I've spoken Mi'kmaq. When my dad died I was 10. I was placed in a home with this woman and she told me, “Go home and pick up your clothes – don't bring them all because I'll make dresses for you.” I loved her, she was a good person. I went home and got my little box. Right at the time I was putting my clothes together, somebody came up the stairs. A woman took me by the hand and told me to come with her.
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">When you're 10 years old, you listen to older people – especially if your dad is dead and there's no one advising you. So this woman took me by the hand and led me away and put me on the train. They took me to a non-native community and I went to school there. I was 11 when I went to school there and of course, they made fun – they were all non-natives. They jeered and I made a vow at that time that I would get higher learning. I would teach these people that I'm just as good as they are.
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I was 12 years old when I put myself into the Shubenacadie Residential School. It was that determination to learn – to learn to cook, to sew and all these things.
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">When I arrived there, I admired the place. It was so beautiful – the shining floors, the pictures on the walls, the beautiful building. The priest at the time when I was there, we became good friends because he was also from where I just came from – Cumberland County. He would never remember my name, Rita, but he would call me Cumberland County. He was a nice gentle old man, he was so kind.
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I had some bad experiences in school but the way I look at life, I forget about the bad things that happened and I look for the good. I always look for the good. I consider it being Christian to be forgiving, not to carry injustices on your shoulder all your life.
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I read a book written by an anthropologist about a writer who lived 300 years ago and he wrote this: they have no religion; they have no art. He was observing Native people, and I just threw this book down. The gall of this person to say that we had no religion. We had a beautiful spiritual part of our lives that they did not know.
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Me, I never accepted it. When I was told by the nuns, “your religion is no good,” I always knew in my mind sure, it's good, it might even be better than yours.
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">There's an oral tradition with my people. We're always talking amongst ourselves. My husband's family was from Newfoundland. At the time when my husband-to-be and I met in Boston, he asked me to marry him the second week after we met. At the time when he proposed to me, he said we're not related, are we? Native people are always concerned about that.
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The sweat lodge is a very religious experience. Part of the tradition is traditional food – deer meat, or meat of other animals we have killed – moose and deer and salmon, not something that we've bought from the supermarket. Or something that was donated from the people in the community – eels maybe.
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The two sweats that I have taken part in, the first one was here in Eskasoni. Everything that I write about, I try to take part in it. I did not know when I went in there what one experiences. So it was very frightening at times what I experienced. The learning I got from the sweat lodge did not come from the live people who were in there with me – there were 13 of us – the teaching I gained from that sweat lodge came from the spirits that were there.
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">It's very hot, even hotter than a sauna. The medicine woman who was sitting next to me kept touching me and saying are you alright Rita, do you want to leave? I said no, I wanted to stay, and I stayed for two hours and 40 minutes. I stayed in one in Restigouche for five hours. They were all women there. The all-woman sweats are more powerful than the men's. Women have more spiritual power than men. Men have spiritual power too but women have more. Everybody knows that – even the men recognize that.
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">One time, when I was in Vancouver, I took the baskets that I make with me. Some of them are made from sweet grass. They scolded me for them. You're not supposed to use sweet grass in basket-making, they said. It's a sacred grass and it's supposed to be used only for sacred purposes. The way I explained it was when I make my baskets, I make them for people to enjoy the basket. Because whoever purchases the basket, they do it because they love the little basket and when they're sweet grass, people want them, right away. So I was explaining to the Natives up there, when I use sweet grass in my baskets, it makes people feel good and I don't think our Creator is going to get angry with us for making other people feel good.
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Sometimes, I weave sweet grass into braids and I tie them on each end and when I'm doing it, I'm thinking about love.
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;I lost my talk
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;The talk you took away.
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;When I was a little girl
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;At Shubenacadie school.
<p></p>
<p></p>
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;You snatched it away:
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;I speak like you
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;I think like you
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;I create like you
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;The scrambled ballad, about my word.
<p></p>
<p></p>
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;Two ways I talk
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;Both ways I say,
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;Your way is more powerful.
<p></p>
<p></p>
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;So gently I offer my hand and ask,
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;Let me find my talk
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;So I can teach you about me.I lost my talk
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;The talk you took away.
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;When I was a little girl
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;At Shubenacadie school.
<p></p>
<p></p>
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;You snatched it away:
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;I speak like you
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;I think like you
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;I create like you
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;The scrambled ballad, about my word.
<p></p>
<p></p>
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;Two ways I talk
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;Both ways I say,
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;Your way is more powerful.
<p></p>
<p></p>
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;So gently I offer my hand and ask,
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;Let me find my talk
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;So I can teach you about me.
Sharon Fraserhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06484421511625293763noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4251575251734028201.post-47956495706342718402021-03-07T15:29:00.001-08:002021-03-07T15:45:28.337-08:00How can I ignore, the boy. . .<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">(This piece comes from my archives. It was published on Saturday, July 14, 2012.)
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">It used to be, if you wanted to be a writer, the prime advice you were given was, "read." You were advised to read books, magazines, newspapers – just keep reading. The purpose of all this reading was to help you recognize words, sentences, paragraphs – not to mention style and rhythm.
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">It's still good advice although it comes today with a caveat.
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">It used to be that you would very occasionally see a typographical error in a newspaper story. You would almost never see a typo in a magazine article and if you saw one in a book. . . well, that was a topic of conversation for the dinner table. It was almost unheard of.
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Things have changed as most organizations have decided to do without proof-readers and copy editors and as we've moved into the era of the spell-checker. Everyone knows the perils involved in depending on the spell-check. (Don't get me started on the use of "lead" instead of "led." Stop doing that, you people!)
<div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjP1PK5sephJS-4M7yGnmqM__1UYi-iI25jwS-BXMkQAaJw27kiBf7Dcs2IwOKih2Ev6FXvrX2nTZM-ONZEdThoqUvu4sP3oAK7Evn5InSBugl5sXA72phheC8sXtxQXGvoZ0zNPBo7Ck8/s212/oops.jpg" style="display: block; padding: 1em 0; text-align: center; "><img alt="" border="0" width="320" data-original-height="175" data-original-width="212" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjP1PK5sephJS-4M7yGnmqM__1UYi-iI25jwS-BXMkQAaJw27kiBf7Dcs2IwOKih2Ev6FXvrX2nTZM-ONZEdThoqUvu4sP3oAK7Evn5InSBugl5sXA72phheC8sXtxQXGvoZ0zNPBo7Ck8/s320/oops.jpg"/></a></div>
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">So spell-check doesn't solve the problems around the use of the wrong word – even if it's spelled right – and that's where wide reading comes in: word and phrase recognition to the rescue where "sounding it out" fails.
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">While you're reading though, watch out for these hazards, all of which I've come across recently – some of them, more than once. Clearly, these are the results of hearing, not reading:
<blockquote><p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">• <b>tow the line</b>. This is so common, I see it several times a week. In case you don't know the problem, the proper expression is toe the line.
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">• can't <b>bare the pain</b> but, on the other hand, <b>bear your soul</b>.
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">• <b>by in large</b>. I'm trying to think of something to say about this and nothing is coming to me. Sorry.
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">• I suppose I could have said – as some people would – I'm in the <b>throws of woe</b>, just reporting this.
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">• Or I could tell you I've been <b>pouring over catalogues</b> (pouring what? whiskey? wine? lemonade?), to see if, without further adieu, I could buy something to cheer myself up.</blockquote>
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Just last week, I came across a mis-use that's R-rated so cover the children's eyes. A blogger whose work I often look at was writing about her favourite love songs. She linked to one song on YouTube and wrote, "I can't listen to this song without balling." Oops. Too much information?
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">My final strange little error is where my title originates. It's from the website of someone whose work I enjoy and respect. She's a good writer, intelligent, writes bravely about politics, religion, sexuality, parenting – among other subjects.
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">She and her family have recently moved to a different city and she's been writing about how they're all adapting. Her oldest child has a new playmate, the <b>boy next store</b>. Excuse me? I smiled because I know what it's like to hear a sound in your head and have it come of your finger-tips as right sound, wrong word. The <b>boy next store</b>. Pretty funny.
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I was wrong about it being a one-off understandable mistake though. She referred to the new playmate several times – maybe five times – and every time, she referred to him as the "boy next store."
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">It seems impossible to me that someone who reads widely has never seen the expression, "boy next door." But she's given me a nice conclusion to my reflection on words that must be seen as well as heard.Sharon Fraserhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06484421511625293763noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4251575251734028201.post-15836001202128272542019-12-10T16:29:00.001-08:002019-12-10T16:31:32.128-08:00Back in time: December 1989
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">This column was published in <i>The Daily News</i> in Halifax 30 years ago today, December 10, 1989. Four days earlier, 14 young women at École Polytechnique in Montreal had been separated from their male classmates and brutally murdered. Their murderer accused them of being feminists and said that feminists had ruined his life.
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">There were already people who were insisting that this act was an aberration, that the killer was a one-of-a-kind madman. Feminists fought that view long and hard and this year — 30 years later — it's finally been acknowledged that the massacre was motivated by misogyny and was an extreme instance of violence against women.
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Meanwhile, a woman or girl is killed every three days in Canada, with a total of 118 killed by violence in 2019, according to the latest report from the <a href="https://femicideincanada.ca/callitfemicide2019.pdf">Canadian Femicide Observatory for Justice and Accountability</a>.
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The only changes I've made in the column from 30 years ago are a couple of short additions in square brackets.
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEieVk_SPY90kPi99Zck0BcnmietbDX6o5FfCUnmXHvechDK9jsBWxVJojTz-4LaHilJu92IDEMCtvGyuCIVZ3IK2iosYrOD_aJjGz3v0FM5kBj1nis1Rwx7vgDVE8nc_RqIaiPC404rdNc/s1600/montreal+massacre+sign.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEieVk_SPY90kPi99Zck0BcnmietbDX6o5FfCUnmXHvechDK9jsBWxVJojTz-4LaHilJu92IDEMCtvGyuCIVZ3IK2iosYrOD_aJjGz3v0FM5kBj1nis1Rwx7vgDVE8nc_RqIaiPC404rdNc/s400/montreal+massacre+sign.jpg" width="385" height="400" data-original-width="579" data-original-height="602" /></a></div>
___________________________________________________________________
<blockquote><p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><b>December 10, 1989</b>
<blockquote><p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">On Thursday morning, distinguished lawyer and former MP George Cooper made a little joke on CBC Radio’s Information Morning. He was discussing the recent NDP leadership convention with host Don Connolly and panel mates Dale Godsoe and Ray Larkin when he decided to use a colourful comparison to express his opinion about some aspect of the race.
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">It’s a good news/bad news sort of situation, he said, like that old joke about your mother-in-law driving over a cliff — trouble is, she was in your brand new Cadillac at the time. I believe I detected some laughter from the others and I’d be interested to know whether the CBC switchboard lit up with outraged callers, the way it does when someone says a rude word on the air. Somehow I doubt it.
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">In my household, we sat in stunned disbelief, hearing a joke which would be in poor taste at the best of times but was absolutely scandalous being told and snickered at the morning after the murder of 14 women at the University of Montreal.
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">It wasn’t the only joke being told that day. <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francine_Pelletier_(journalist)">Francine Pelletier</a>, a Montreal feminist who was interviewed extensively on the TV coverage of the murders, said that men in the corridors at Radio-Canada were treating the massacre in a most light-hearted way, one of them remarking, “I’ve often wanted to do that myself.”
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">At around the same time, a young friend of mine was walking into Tim Horton’s to buy some doughnuts. There were two men in front of her carrying a newspaper with a screaming headline about the murdered women and one of the men said something along the lines of, “way to go, buddy.”
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Her friends asked her how she handled this awful moment; most of them felt, bravely, that they wished they’d been there. In retrospect, we can all come up with the enviable line, the cutting quip, the perfect putdown.
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">She said nothing, of course. There are few women — including me — who could respond to those men. Such verbal violence is part of what renders women powerless, unable to act, not so much from fear as from emptiness, from the debilitation that results from crying out for so long and not being heard.
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I’ve been told so often — all feminists have — to lighten up, to learn to take a joke. They don’t really mean anything by it, you know. This week, finally, I’ve been told by men — among others, by Peter Gzowski [the late host of CBC Radio's Morningside] and his panel on the radio, by Tom Regan [a former columnist with <i>The Daily News</i>] on the phone, by my husband at home — that it is time for them to do something about their violent brothers.
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">They know now that they must begin listening to women and they must refuse — loudly — to listen to the dehumanizing “jokes” that so many of them allow to slip by. They must disdain the views of those who keep saying that the carnage in Montreal was an isolated act carried out by a madman.
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">They must examine and be willing to change their political, economic and judicial systems, all of which conspire to keep women in positions of dependence. They must observe their sons — their vocabularies, the games they play, the way they’re learning to deal with anger, the things they say about little girls. They must stop undermining the mothers and, once and for all, lay to rest that age-old excuse that “boys will be boys.”
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">They must not simply be available to provide protection; they must work actively to create a safer world, where their sisters and daughters and mothers can live with the same sense of security that brothers, sons and fathers take for granted. They must recognize and acknowledge that the 14 women in Montreal are only the most recent to die at the hands of a man, that in 1987, almost 70 per cent of women murdered in our country were murdered by the men they lived with.
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">One of the buttons we brought back from the Winnipeg NDP convention — where I saw the joy and exhilaration on the faces of the women who had worked to elect Audrey McLaughlin as their leader — bears the slogan “Men of quality are not threatened by women seeking equality.” The words seem almost horrible in their irony this week but the message remains true.
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">And so it’s time to take another step forward, to convince men that violence against women is the fault of men and — to resurrect an old phrase — if they’re not part of the solution, they’re part of the problem.</blockquote>
Sharon Fraserhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06484421511625293763noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4251575251734028201.post-35311936717939895732019-07-05T08:08:00.000-07:002019-07-05T19:35:48.875-07:00The two lost years of Pandora
<blockquote><p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><i>(Pandora was a Halifax feminist publication that was taken to the Human Rights Commission in the early 1990s for discriminating against a man. This is an account I wrote after the hearing for the</i> The Canadian Forum.)</blockquote>
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">In March of 1992, the Nova Scotia Human Rights Commission announced a decision in favour of <i>Pandora</i>, a Halifax feminist publication, which had refused to publish a letter written by a man.
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">"I am satisfied on the evidence before me," wrote the adjudicator, lawyer David Miller, "that women as a group have been and are disadvantaged and unequal in our society by reason of sex... It follows, accordingly, that a disadvantaged group may undertake a programme or activity which has as its object the amelioration of conditions of disadvantaged individuals or classes of individuals including those discriminated against on the basis of sex even if that results in distinctions being made with respect to the advantaged group...
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">"I am also satisfied that <i>Pandora</i> is an activity which has as its object the amelioration of conditions of disadvantage to women based on sex. I am also satisfied that <i>Pandora</i>'s policy of maintaining <i>Pandora</i> as a single sex newspaper is reasonable for the purpose of ameliorating disadvantage."
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">In the mainstream media, paternalistic pundits all sang the same tune: right decision, wrong reason. All agreed that <i>Pandora</i> has a right to set her own editorial policy – although, they added, all publications owe it to their readers to publish a wide spectrum of opinion. Many of them were unable to comprehend the view that <i>Pandora</i> does publish a wide spectrum of opinion – all written by women.
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">But this was not an issue of freedom of the press. Indeed, throughout the Human Rights Commission hearing, <i>Pandora</i> made it plain that the only issue was the need for women-only spaces as one way of working toward equality.
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhFQSmGC5VAeKZXNhsKefCkeMAxPnA0qJ05J_xLKqLTkSLmM6odT8VYo1kuEHj2ZAk3sXJE4gnU7gw3qf5VQJXrpgi4iNj80RDR1jy7xEfYNn6PRLGKRw7imJ_3CXkAVKa9fk9PdHrqtbw/s1600/Pandora.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhFQSmGC5VAeKZXNhsKefCkeMAxPnA0qJ05J_xLKqLTkSLmM6odT8VYo1kuEHj2ZAk3sXJE4gnU7gw3qf5VQJXrpgi4iNj80RDR1jy7xEfYNn6PRLGKRw7imJ_3CXkAVKa9fk9PdHrqtbw/s400/Pandora.jpeg" width="400" height="300" data-original-width="400" data-original-height="300" /></a></div>
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><b>The beginning</b>
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">This story begins in the spring of 1990 when <i>Pandora</i> ran an article about child custody. Halifax resident, Gene Keyes, phoned the newspaper to ask if he could write a letter in response. He was turned down because of <i>Pandora</i>'s clearly stated editorial policy: "...<i>Pandora</i> reserves the right to publish only letters that fall within the guideline of our editorial policy; letters must be written by women and be woman-positive; we do not accept material that is intolerant or oppressive."
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Alas, Gene Keyes was no ordinary reader. During the '80s, he had been through a bitter custody battle, which he'd lost; he was a well-known fathers' rights activist. He defines himself – and the media were always satisfied to accept him according to his own definition – as a member of a disadvantaged group: divorced fathers who are discriminated against by the justice system. (The facts don't bear him out. In our country, most child custody is settled amicably between two parents. In disputed cases, fathers gain custody in over 50 per cent of the cases.)
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">In June of 1990, Gene Keyes filed a formal complaint of sex discrimination with the Nova Scotia Human Rights Commission against Pandora Publishing. Although there was an attempt at conciliation, no agreement could be reached. Incredibly, the Commission decided to proceed with the case.
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><b><i>Pandora</i></b>
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><i>Pandora</i> cannot accurately be called a "newspaper" although it does, indeed, publish some news. In general though, it's a publication by, for and about women which asks its contributors to share their experiences and their realities with their sisters; it makes no claims to "objectivity" as the mainstream media do. It asks its women readers to become part of the publication – to write to Pandora as if they were writing to a friend.
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">And indeed, there is a feeling of sisterhood in <i>Pandora</i>, a sense that the paper is a shared activity and that the struggles described are collective, not individual. If a single mother writes about living in welfare poverty, she doesn't expect to hear someone hissing, "get a job!" If a teenager writes about incest or a grandmother writes about fear on the streets, they feel the security of a community which will understand and help.
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">It wasn't like that at The Hearing.
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><b>The Hearing</b>
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The Human Rights Commission hearing against <i>Pandora </i>was held on five cold days in January of 1992. The adjudicator, David Miller, was male. The Commission's lawyer, Randall Duplak, was male. Gene Keyes, representing himself, was male. And the system was, most certainly and unmistakeably, male.
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">It was an adversarial situation of cross-examinations and rebuttals. There was always the feeling that if a witness slipped up and said the wrong thing, fingers would be pointed, heads would roll.
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">There was something surreal about seeing this little feminist newspaper forced onto the defensive by a hierarchal, authoritarian system that she had no part in making.
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">To make her case that women are a disadvantaged group in our society, Anne Derrick, <i>Pandora</i>'s lawyer, called 18 witnesses including a feminist historian, sociologists, experts on media, and past and present members of the <i>Pandora</i> collective. All but one of the witnesses were women. (The <i>Pandora</i> women appeared under pseudonyms; when the news of the hearing hit the mainstream media, death threats began showing up on their answering machine.)
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">After the hearing – and before the decision – some of the women wrote in <i>Pandora</i> how they felt about what had happened:
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">"...My special relationship with <i>Pandora</i> as a small women's-only community was torn as I watched and experienced male definitions and bureaucracy invade our thoughts, opinions, experiences and policies. We were no longer operating on our own ground, but became vulnerable to the rules of those who were defining the agenda of the inquiry. I wished I could just jump up and scream out, `this is crazy and we're not going to take it any more...'" one wrote.
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Another wrote: "...Because women have been, and are, deliberately excluded from the development of the texts and practices of the underpinnings of this society (law, medicine, religion, business etc.), we have been silenced and oppressed. Sheltered spaces such as <i>Pandora</i> give us a safe place to birth our own agenda, teach it, nurture its growth until we someday send it forth a mature adult who will stand beside the texts and practices to have an equal say in society..."
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Still another wrote: "...We danced with the system, to their rules, in their ballroom. It was damned uncomfortable, frustrating and tiring, but we survived, elegantly..."
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><b>The aftermath</b>
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Anne Derrick, <i>Pandora</i>'s lawyer, says this case never should have proceeded, but as it did, it becomes a very important case and decision.
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">"The Commission tries to downplay the importance of the case," she says, "but it is the first time in Canada such a decision has been reached. It has much broader implications than most people have considered; not only women but all other disadvantaged groups in society will be affected by it."
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Derrick was not particularly surprised at the outcome. "I felt the choice of this adjudicator gave us the prospect of getting this decision. I felt he had the ability and the intellect to grasp the arguments."
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Having said that, she's also not persuaded that the Commission learned anything from the hearing.
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">"The response we've had from the Commission about what happened after the hearing makes me say, `they still just don't get it.'"
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The day after the Commission's decision was announced, Derrick and a coalition of <i>Pandora</i>'s friends called a news conference to demand an apology for the language used by the Commission's lawyer in his final written argument. He called <i>Pandora</i> women and their expert witnesses "hysterical man-haters," "radical extremists," who presented arguments "beyond reason and sanity." He said the paper did not represent women but only lesbians. He noted that the witnesses for <i>Pandora</i> did not take their oaths on the Old or New Testaments, the Koran, or any other of the many holy scriptures provided, but were affirmed.
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Women's groups and individuals rallied in defence of <i>Pandora</i> and her witnesses but the Human Rights Commission has been unwilling to deal with the inappropriate language used by their lawyer and considers the case closed.
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Most people would agree that part of being oppressed means that you have been defined by someone else. For women, these definitions not our own, have been very dangerous, not to say life-threatening. Women have been told that sexual harassment is flattering, that rape is just good sex preceded by a struggle, that being battered is our own masochistic fault.
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><i>Pandora</i>, still as wise but now much poorer, is back to providing a safe space for women to work on their own definitions; back to challenging those oppressive structures that are responsible for these two lost years.
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">And finally, <i>Pandora</i> is back to being by, for and about women – this time, with no arguments.
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj7pDv00zul33XudsOBIiZuAlGnmGlVtVJO5EnhzK57yDEfpLZk0EJFEsiykc5tQ5PmURWVS-FnkmimRJRQOQxCQLFzu6sA3tUvhCWlWwC7-W3Vm51wdoVWPUwFTkaho3Xfxpt5ufPXagQ/s1600/Pandora2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj7pDv00zul33XudsOBIiZuAlGnmGlVtVJO5EnhzK57yDEfpLZk0EJFEsiykc5tQ5PmURWVS-FnkmimRJRQOQxCQLFzu6sA3tUvhCWlWwC7-W3Vm51wdoVWPUwFTkaho3Xfxpt5ufPXagQ/s200/Pandora2.jpg" width="200" height="200" data-original-width="150" data-original-height="150" /></a></div>
<i><p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Sharon Fraser is a Halifax journalist. She testified on behalf of</i> Pandora <i>as an expert witness on media.</i>
Sharon Fraserhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06484421511625293763noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4251575251734028201.post-5786242692906472042019-05-26T19:57:00.001-07:002019-05-26T19:57:47.269-07:00A posthumous award for Ray's book, 2019
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Ray's last book before his death, <i>Through Sunlight and Shadows</i>, won the 2019 New Brunswick Book Awards prize for fiction. It was presented at a New Brunswick Writers' Federation gala at the Moncton Press Club May 25.
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgOXIkgNA9nWIk8YZY1QJ-sXAJjnOBpb49XDyxwN8TgbRk0KUq4D8dEVkIYtv8PHWSfTtrkUEhLX4G1duRPUSAo6FKKaejbq-dJtGXV_j_WJ8N1NGnaObuFa1dwJmBCGitn350iWFuyB1w/s1600/Through+Sunlight+and+Shadows.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgOXIkgNA9nWIk8YZY1QJ-sXAJjnOBpb49XDyxwN8TgbRk0KUq4D8dEVkIYtv8PHWSfTtrkUEhLX4G1duRPUSAo6FKKaejbq-dJtGXV_j_WJ8N1NGnaObuFa1dwJmBCGitn350iWFuyB1w/s320/Through+Sunlight+and+Shadows.jpg" width="207" height="320" data-original-width="400" data-original-height="618" /></a></div>
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I was very grateful to be there and to have the privilege of accepting the award as Ray's former spouse and as his literary executor. I spoke from notes and this is approximately what I said:
<blockquote><p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">One of the great moments in Ray's life happened when he was a very young man living in Chatham, New Brunswick. He saw a poem by Alden Nowlan and it was the first time he realized that you didn't have to be British, or American, or dead, to be a writer. If he were here tonight, he would see so much more evidence of that early realization.
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I know he would want to thank his publisher, Lesley Choyce at Pottersfield Press for making such a beautiful book. And he would thank his many friends who so willingly proof-read and critiqued and edited to make sure it was the best book it could be. He had become a lot mellower as he got older and actually allowed people to make suggestions and possible changes.
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">My husband, Dan, is here tonight. Dan and I were with Ray during his final hours and in the days leading up to his death, while he was still able to communicate, we could see that one of the things he was most concerned about was his literary legacy.
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Because of that, I want to thank the archives at the UNB library and the archivists who worked with us for their careful and loving collection of his works.
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The archivist who helped us clear out Ray's apartment was amazing. It was like watching someone panning for gold and pouncing regularly on what was obviously a nugget for her. Pure gold. Ray wrote always and everywhere. He left behind countless notebooks packed with writing that was almost illegible to anyone but him. A scrap of paper on his kitchen table might have been a grocery list or it might have been a list of synonyms — a search for the perfect word. Notes scribbled in the margin of a sports magazine left in his bathroom might be the perfect scrap of dialogue he was looking for.
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Christine gathered and filed every one of them and when I was able to tell Ray about the process — he was already in palliative care — it seemed to bring him to a place of peace.
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Ray's funeral was held in the church of his childhood and he's buried just a stone's throw from the house where he was born — the house and the church that figure so largely in this very book.
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">It seems a fitting ending — full circle, in fact, and I think he would see this as a perfect conclusion to this part of his story.
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">He left some unpublished work so there will be a sequel — I'm his literary executor so I can say that — but talk of that is best left for another day.
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Thank you all, so much, for this wonderful honour.</blockquote>
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Dan didn't want to be obtrusive while I was speaking — which I think was very considerate — so he shot the pictures from his only possible angle.
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgzNNZKJpA2BWSRSGW2Lhf8R132VhiycCWz5lYVBIbfpop-y7dPUfzCkIhD6e939rzTCHMe6DcpbXA5gS9XmFtOvyiidLrR68DLU61KMxuxG3V61YJu3Z-fwzHXFa_s5ISVqkkyZC5jiQ8/s1600/Sharon+NB+Book+Awards.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgzNNZKJpA2BWSRSGW2Lhf8R132VhiycCWz5lYVBIbfpop-y7dPUfzCkIhD6e939rzTCHMe6DcpbXA5gS9XmFtOvyiidLrR68DLU61KMxuxG3V61YJu3Z-fwzHXFa_s5ISVqkkyZC5jiQ8/s400/Sharon+NB+Book+Awards.jpg" width="400" height="241" data-original-width="1600" data-original-height="964" /></a></div>Sharon Fraserhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06484421511625293763noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4251575251734028201.post-52741019672668735962019-03-19T12:42:00.002-07:002019-04-02T16:07:24.883-07:00Fire! Noise! Music! how much excitement can you take?
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Today, March 19, is the feast day of St. Joseph. He's the patron saint of Canada and of many worthy causes but nowhere is he more revered and celebrated than in parts of Spain. In Valencia today, a days-long festival will come to an end with fireworks, parades, lots of music and finally, bonfires throughout the city as massive statues built for the occasion will be set ablaze.
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjf4JqdrXgBlLEu740BbTheEhyphenhyphenf7Mdb-HM9E-VN3gBe262uskol6BXRiS-e8mnCBvN_q-_sNun5q9opD0V71WcqgV-UpD6ZbhUC9i39deIhmCSD_6V3lKOQgs4WwWO1Wkw0EB5APVsq_dU/s1600/Valencia+2019+las+fallas.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjf4JqdrXgBlLEu740BbTheEhyphenhyphenf7Mdb-HM9E-VN3gBe262uskol6BXRiS-e8mnCBvN_q-_sNun5q9opD0V71WcqgV-UpD6ZbhUC9i39deIhmCSD_6V3lKOQgs4WwWO1Wkw0EB5APVsq_dU/s400/Valencia+2019+las+fallas.jpg" width="400" height="267" data-original-width="640" data-original-height="427" /></a></div>
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">This is the statue in Valencia's main square and it will be the last one to burn tonight. It will be sometime around or after midnight their time — sometime after eight here in Atlantic Canada. (They haven't set their clocks ahead.)
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The festival is called <a href="https://rove.me/to/valencia/fallas"><i>las fallas</i></a>, literally "the fires."
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I was once in Valencia for <i>las fallas</i>. When I got out of bed on March 19, I thought I had awakened in hell. The cacophony was deafening. I looked out the window and the air was filled with smoke. People were crowded into the streets, laughing and singing with bands that were playing in most neighbourhoods. We went out and joined the ruckus and got swept along in an almost helpless state; it was impossible to fight against it. I noticed at a certain point that many people were wearing earplugs, an excellent idea although too late for us.
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">There were firecrackers going off everywhere but also day-time fireworks. You couldn't really see them but seeing them was not the point. You could definitely hear them. Bars and cafés and restaurants were open and doing a grand business selling mountains of paella and gallons of wine and beer.
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">We followed the crowd and saw lots of the crazy statues before they went up in flames. As so many of the festivals in Spain do, the symbols incorporate a lot of religion and politics and they're often viciously satirical. Trump shows up a lot this year.
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjg6nmLuFg9ilU-tuMwBQK5lgDb3Etx329px-1WoxWo_NaHWa8iixQK0wOa36wgJKl2GnWUmO46CL8YNfXCwUY8vkjl9capkmOlKWR03X_wRKNx-yqRilbyqX-OMC0y6Tr4eSRtldkx5tU/s1600/Valencia+las+fallas+trump+et+al.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjg6nmLuFg9ilU-tuMwBQK5lgDb3Etx329px-1WoxWo_NaHWa8iixQK0wOa36wgJKl2GnWUmO46CL8YNfXCwUY8vkjl9capkmOlKWR03X_wRKNx-yqRilbyqX-OMC0y6Tr4eSRtldkx5tU/s400/Valencia+las+fallas+trump+et+al.jpg" width="400" height="269" data-original-width="768" data-original-height="517" /></a></div>
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Here he is in the company of Franco, Stalin and Hitler. We will probably hear the cheering from here as this one burns.
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I'm going to watch the main statue burn on the <a href="https://www.webcamtaxi.com/en/spain/valencia/plaza-ayuntamiento.html">webcam from the Plaza del Ayuntamiento (Town Hall Square)</a>. As I write this, they're already making the pre-burning preparations.
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">We survived it, being there in person, and I have to say it was very exciting even though in many ways, it was pretty scary.
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Join me at the webcam though. I recommend it!
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgmoTvscNtUcakFxZgz3tN4QaksMG27bTUB_cXdP6RMXD-fXUIgF_cDQwbhZ2coiURIYvVhJVF9eag5byKpC_3RGTSWKCcYvK9fkOU0Z7dCsfhU6c16HVZe9Ko_uGNBXllgbSKQdaw8BIY/s1600/Valencia+las+fallas+1..jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgmoTvscNtUcakFxZgz3tN4QaksMG27bTUB_cXdP6RMXD-fXUIgF_cDQwbhZ2coiURIYvVhJVF9eag5byKpC_3RGTSWKCcYvK9fkOU0Z7dCsfhU6c16HVZe9Ko_uGNBXllgbSKQdaw8BIY/s400/Valencia+las+fallas+1..jpg" width="400" height="300" data-original-width="770" data-original-height="578" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhLYPRh8oaXvS9e-ay8ZkbFxOh8ttR9L-e7bNuH-Nrr3XDRad0c3Sm5r59eDAl8pwhB-K_m2tBMoSiEUOp9kqxOP9uPro9jkinPis9kPq7gR9PPDNwTOm3QHX7_Kgsf7KGN9TnXZNYHcms/s1600/Valencia+las+fallas+2..jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhLYPRh8oaXvS9e-ay8ZkbFxOh8ttR9L-e7bNuH-Nrr3XDRad0c3Sm5r59eDAl8pwhB-K_m2tBMoSiEUOp9kqxOP9uPro9jkinPis9kPq7gR9PPDNwTOm3QHX7_Kgsf7KGN9TnXZNYHcms/s400/Valencia+las+fallas+2..jpg" width="400" height="267" data-original-width="960" data-original-height="640" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh8lsYHrv5ZIPfmuJBxdmDBf3JUC2JvDJjUpw_9alaa-hp3oyvkzIOndXUG1zLZGkT0q0MAKIf3C60-OnHaprpp5Mvn86-hmeT9gSTmAPrdXAZcXmonqD1LAkHx7TRrujMTPU_GZRs1Qqs/s1600/Valencia+las+fallas+3..jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh8lsYHrv5ZIPfmuJBxdmDBf3JUC2JvDJjUpw_9alaa-hp3oyvkzIOndXUG1zLZGkT0q0MAKIf3C60-OnHaprpp5Mvn86-hmeT9gSTmAPrdXAZcXmonqD1LAkHx7TRrujMTPU_GZRs1Qqs/s400/Valencia+las+fallas+3..jpg" width="400" height="185" data-original-width="800" data-original-height="370" /></a></div>
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">And tomorrow, the first day of Spring, the neighbourhoods will be back planning and drawing and collecting materials to get started on their statues for next year!
Sharon Fraserhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06484421511625293763noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4251575251734028201.post-11501015989339732332018-11-26T10:37:00.000-08:002019-12-05T20:43:27.726-08:00Finding the origins of Ray's spiritual growth
<blockquote><p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><i><b>Ray Fraser 1941 — 2018: writer and poet, story teller and singer</b></i></blockquote>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiAfyWcc4XA0PrDvpvRH1mwfVNRLwiogDi8CdEH_IpkomcrFMPLKZdj6jhyphenhyphenNeTQBDkUNmpHD-w-SytUsJFrHC8k-IBLu5gfFTOF_yLAJpilDj78J5yYqeHxLeE_lr-Ipwsvr2fth7Xo5_8/s1600/Ray+in+winter+hat+and+sunglasses+January+2017.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiAfyWcc4XA0PrDvpvRH1mwfVNRLwiogDi8CdEH_IpkomcrFMPLKZdj6jhyphenhyphenNeTQBDkUNmpHD-w-SytUsJFrHC8k-IBLu5gfFTOF_yLAJpilDj78J5yYqeHxLeE_lr-Ipwsvr2fth7Xo5_8/s320/Ray+in+winter+hat+and+sunglasses+January+2017.jpg" width="320" height="240" data-original-width="1500" data-original-height="1127" /></a></div>
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">A few days before he <a href="http://www.mcadamsfh.com/obituaries/129031">died</a> — he was in palliative care at the Everett Chalmers Hospital just before a move to hospice care in downtown Fredericton — Ray told me that the doctor had been in and offered him the option of an assisted death. He asked me what I thought of that.
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I told him it didn't matter what I thought. What mattered is what he thought.
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">"I don't think the Catholic Church thinks much of it," he said, with a wry smile.
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I said it was a very complex issue and it often took the Catholic Church a couple of centuries to reach a fixed conclusion on this kind of thing. That amused him.
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">He dozed off then and it didn't come up again. I didn't want to bring it up because I didn't want to sound as if I were trying to influence his thinking or to push him into a decision he didn't want to make. Or an opinion he didn't want to have. I did, however, make a point of telling him that if he wanted to talk about it again, I didn't mind but I'd wait for him to bring it up. It never came up again. After his move to the hospice, it was no longer an option and that was okay because I think everything had been said that was going to be said.
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">After Ray's death, when I was back home at my own computer, I was going through past emails, looking for addresses, people to be contacted, dates of certain events. I came across an email from myself, written on March 2, 2016:
<blockquote><p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><b><i>Did you read this? It’s quite an astonishing story and much of it is about Al Purdy. I’m still trying to get my head around it.</i></b></blockquote>
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The <a href="http://torontolife.com/city/life/john-hofsess-assisted-suicide/">article</a> I linked to was from <i>Toronto Life</i> and was written by <a href="https://www.theglobeandmail.com/life/health-and-fitness/health/john-hofsess-77-devoted-his-life-to-death/article29302209/">John Hofsess</a>. John was a right-to-life activist and before his own death (by assisted suicide), he had facilitated the deaths of eight people, including <a href="https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/al-purdy">the poet Al Purdy</a>.
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj6iG2swY0KF253iFGcHXzei0BgqnpMkRbpFBbbVEeqP5wdcni-ByLHtYLPtOg6BBsSB_VzBGL6r_3ZPBGSwRnuUFYaN9ZI7cajqfyormLCbfwcV29YTJbQrlujhIDHkYmKRddovuDvOB4/s1600/Al+Purdy.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj6iG2swY0KF253iFGcHXzei0BgqnpMkRbpFBbbVEeqP5wdcni-ByLHtYLPtOg6BBsSB_VzBGL6r_3ZPBGSwRnuUFYaN9ZI7cajqfyormLCbfwcV29YTJbQrlujhIDHkYmKRddovuDvOB4/s320/Al+Purdy.jpg" width="276" height="320" data-original-width="259" data-original-height="300" /></a></div>
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I thought the story would interest Ray because we knew Al Purdy a bit back in the Montreal days and also because he liked Al Purdy's poetry. Ray had started a literary magazine (the infamously-named <i>Intercourse</i>) and he had well-known, high profile contributors — among them, Leonard Cohen, Elizabeth Brewster, Alden Nowlan, Irving Layton and yes, Al Purdy. Ray not only liked Al's poetry but he liked the tough-guy persona that Al affected.
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">We met him a couple of times at parties where he would usually be the centre of attention — except for the time when he and <a href="https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/margaret-atwood">Margaret Atwood</a> showed up at the same party. She had just won the Governor-General's Award for poetry and Al appeared to happily relinquish the centre-of-attention position to her — for that one time anyway.
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Ray's response to my email and to the Hofsess article about assisted death held much more significance for me when I read it last week — a month after we'd talked about it in the hospital — than when I read it two years ago. He wrote:
<blockquote><p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><b><i>Interesting. I think a body should do his time and leave when he's meant to, speaking for myself. Although if you turn into one of those brain dead vegetables in old folks homes it might be nice if someone shot you.
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">All the pain I've known so far has had a lesson in it. As the saying goes, "Pain is the touchstone of spiritual growth". You find things out that way you wouldn't any other. And none of it is needless. That's so far, and so far has gone on for quite a while.</i></b></blockquote>
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">"So far" for Ray amounted to 77½ years.
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">In a subsequent note, perhaps having re-read the article, he said it struck him that "Hofsess is more an egoist than an altruist." And concluded, "Anyway, I think if you live right you'll probably die right."
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I'm thankful that it ended easily for him but I know that "living right" doesn't always guarantee an easy death. Far from it.
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The only guarantee is that there are no guarantees.
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Even still, I find something comforting in his words that turned out to be prophetic — for him — and displayed a profound belief in some of the origins of his spiritual growth.
Sharon Fraserhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06484421511625293763noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4251575251734028201.post-7501393134166191812018-05-01T15:33:00.000-07:002018-05-01T15:33:13.582-07:00A sweet little cat says good-bye
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgV-sl3X2SGPiYMobVc4njvj9U31Do7O32jfNe_EUbDKzHlTmgc8A2cBu8uUSSZpd42ZPPErWkFATnvK5wtMWU_my3Q6we5th7r5CtG9Rqq2d-QdJWi00GKL6beLDNeprVGs86PdmRT7fM/s1600/DSCN2702.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgV-sl3X2SGPiYMobVc4njvj9U31Do7O32jfNe_EUbDKzHlTmgc8A2cBu8uUSSZpd42ZPPErWkFATnvK5wtMWU_my3Q6we5th7r5CtG9Rqq2d-QdJWi00GKL6beLDNeprVGs86PdmRT7fM/s400/DSCN2702.JPG" width="400" height="300" data-original-width="1600" data-original-height="1200" /></a></div>
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Our dear Junior cat is gone now. He left yesterday, April 30. I didn't accompany him on his final journey. I petted him and told him to be a good kitty. Dan was with him all the way.
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Junior's prognosis was never encouraging from his initial diagnosis on March 2. He put up a good fight, as we did and as his friends and admirers and caregivers at the Atlantic Cat Hospital did — Dr. Julia and all the dedicated staff.
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">In the end though, we couldn't ask any more of him. I knew it was up to me to make the final decision and I knew he would let me know when it was time. His world had become very small and he wasn't eating enough to sustain his strength. He needed help with some of his everyday motions and he was losing interest.
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Junior was 12 years old. He was born at the SPCA where Dan and William went and chose him. He chose them really. He was so vocal in his demand to be chosen that they couldn't ignore him. He was so young when he joined us, he still had the blue eyes of a little baby kitten. He was too tiny to climb the stairs. I carried him up at night and put him on the bed. During the night, he would find me and burrow into my hair at the back of my head. He would gently knead and purr and yes, suck a little bit, thinking he'd found his proper Mama. The back of my head didn't suffice, unfortunately.
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">He and Grizzly grew apart over the years and didn't really like each other but it was clear they liked each other at one point.
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjZu5ezxpZ-s8z_gvjT2miIu1q-2Mg7lwudW8YnzG-w9NNvD1scLF1BJ3-pJjR_k6inbJAmW2ti6Z-XDtZuDs-mQUghGKIXjZOUxvUYlRP4xNeHmsWmOI26iXJ-aKTn3iEMcSIjT6yNIXY/s1600/Three+cats+July+24+2006+%25282%2529.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjZu5ezxpZ-s8z_gvjT2miIu1q-2Mg7lwudW8YnzG-w9NNvD1scLF1BJ3-pJjR_k6inbJAmW2ti6Z-XDtZuDs-mQUghGKIXjZOUxvUYlRP4xNeHmsWmOI26iXJ-aKTn3iEMcSIjT6yNIXY/s400/Three+cats+July+24+2006+%25282%2529.JPG" width="400" height="194" data-original-width="913" data-original-height="443" /></a></div>
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">He got his name because to a casual viewer, he and Grizzly looked somewhat alike so to allay confusion, we just decided they would be Grizzly and Grizzly Jr. And so Junior he was.
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">We would have liked him to be an indoor cat but no such luck. He turned out to be the most outdoorsy cat of them all. Even in the worst winter blizzard, he would wait patiently until he heard Dan or William shovelling the deck and that would be his signal to demand the door be opened. They would make him a little path and he would go down one or two steps and then scoot under the deck where he apparently had his own designated restroom. In all the time we lived with a backyard, I think he only condescended to use a litter box a handful of times and clearly found the whole idea quite distasteful.
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhUug8rLD9_70527XK213Cm-piHuwqGmsf4QbDZfB1RVNqnSRF6t2eKrDbfJWkjUMBJ-M6uXl_1huuAkBKT0WgNy1wgnZGdVD02OUGOk_OIGpUdc4k1zwOBcy-fVCZv4E5f1cf4GQFi5lk/s1600/DSC06364.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhUug8rLD9_70527XK213Cm-piHuwqGmsf4QbDZfB1RVNqnSRF6t2eKrDbfJWkjUMBJ-M6uXl_1huuAkBKT0WgNy1wgnZGdVD02OUGOk_OIGpUdc4k1zwOBcy-fVCZv4E5f1cf4GQFi5lk/s400/DSC06364.JPG" width="400" height="300" data-original-width="1600" data-original-height="1200" /></a></div>
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">He was definitely a lover of Nature.
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I suppose he found it hard when we moved to an apartment and his outdoor days were over. We couldn't let the cats out on to the balcony because we live quite high up and couldn't take the chance. He became contemplative and enjoyed spending time on the high perch where he watched the comings and goings of pigeons and wished he could get his paws on them.
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjhBWgN4af4Wox3Ou1dyCnjXDWyhbcpHqo9v0OUQa3BZEhw0pR_hNyrsPkISC2Y3ga22RrS2KN9D5qdDvaQ-QO5WDLNbP8CWlRcDqJ2xslCVRFIfvvOLGKk_LFLMPyWG0MEyBezrKRLLo0/s1600/IMG_20161011_153855950.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjhBWgN4af4Wox3Ou1dyCnjXDWyhbcpHqo9v0OUQa3BZEhw0pR_hNyrsPkISC2Y3ga22RrS2KN9D5qdDvaQ-QO5WDLNbP8CWlRcDqJ2xslCVRFIfvvOLGKk_LFLMPyWG0MEyBezrKRLLo0/s400/IMG_20161011_153855950.jpg" width="225" height="400" data-original-width="900" data-original-height="1600" /></a></div>
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">William is out-of-town but he said an affectionate farewell before he left, knowing that Junior wouldn't be here when he returned. When we talked on the phone later, William said, "I think he knew that he had a good life."
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">And insofar as cats give much thought to the quality of the life they're living, I guess William is probably right.
Sharon Fraserhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06484421511625293763noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4251575251734028201.post-3405743943969078032017-12-26T16:24:00.000-08:002018-12-13T09:28:20.627-08:00The Santa Claus Years<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I was a fervent believer in Santa Claus. When I was seven or eight years old, growing up in Chatham, N.B., a kid at the White School in Chatham told me that there was no Santa, that the stories about him were all lies and the presents he supposedly left were all bought by my parents. I scoffed at her. Scoffed! She might as well have told me there were no stars in the sky.</p>
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I saw plenty of Santas when I was a little girl: we used to go to the old Opera House on Wellington St. in Chatham for a visit with Santa. We sat on his knee and told him what we wanted for Christmas. He said, "Ho ho ho," and gave us a small paper bag of hard candy. This happened again at the Sunday School Christmas concert in the United Church hall and at other public events around the town.</p>
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I was never fooled for one minute nor was I bothered by these little ceremonies. I was as polite as I could be, saying, "Hello, Santa," and listing off my heart's Christmas desires. I always thanked him and walked away.</p>
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Never once though did I believe that any of these fellows was really Santa. I didn't even believe that they were — as some people posited — some kind of official "helper." I knew they were just guys from around town, playing the part of Santa, and that was fine with me. I didn't give them a second thought. I only believed in the real Santa.</p>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgPAMTs9S1CrDldUbGtClO9eDGq8szqbE5hCs2U3lzmdk2_h7E0JEe4B9u5IZMvxYnEOOYtToXHTs-VIru_HfbD-b5cq3nBTPTPhd-zGzLZC1eQdo9ilkC-c3Qhgj51KVVGeRzSCMPK724/s1600/Santa+in+sleigh.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgPAMTs9S1CrDldUbGtClO9eDGq8szqbE5hCs2U3lzmdk2_h7E0JEe4B9u5IZMvxYnEOOYtToXHTs-VIru_HfbD-b5cq3nBTPTPhd-zGzLZC1eQdo9ilkC-c3Qhgj51KVVGeRzSCMPK724/s320/Santa+in+sleigh.jpg" width="320" height="240" data-original-width="550" data-original-height="412" /></a></div>
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Many of my ideas and impressions of Christmas came from a book that came out every year at the same time as the decorations and the special candles. It may have looked like this:</p>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhX6EdlHQM6IBE7OMi_i2uO-PZAdZJoGwgoQtWKjyCqgZ59ZDrNwV6fYixIeSInbKvA2SEb3lWkdxlah9EOP04jutxqi5PQxpXqj5YnS_LlMpFlqKJhvWM_9YVmGxeNijPJsX-Qm8YLTZQ/s1600/The+Christmas+Book.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhX6EdlHQM6IBE7OMi_i2uO-PZAdZJoGwgoQtWKjyCqgZ59ZDrNwV6fYixIeSInbKvA2SEb3lWkdxlah9EOP04jutxqi5PQxpXqj5YnS_LlMpFlqKJhvWM_9YVmGxeNijPJsX-Qm8YLTZQ/s200/The+Christmas+Book.jpg" width="151" height="200" data-original-width="187" data-original-height="248" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">although by the time I was able to remember it, the hard covers were gone and it was a little ragged around the edges. The book had poems, carols, drawings and stories at least two of which were almost unbearably sad: <a href="http://www.online-literature.com/hans_christian_andersen/981/"><i>The Little Match Girl</i></a> and <a href="https://ebooks.adelaide.edu.au/w/wilde/oscar/happy/chapter1.html"><i>The Happy Prince</i></a>.
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">There were things in the book I didn't really understand but they created a Christmas image that stays with me to this day. Many years later, my husband found a similar book which now comes out every Christmas in our household. It has all the old favourites and reading <i>The Happy Prince</i> can still bring tears to my eyes.</p>
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">In those days, little girls wore long brown ribbed stockings. They were held up by garters that were attached to an undergarment called a waist.
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhwQkVG52nTdEyywUmU9hXFamh_SmhM6glYvb4EmoatMC42PQ9VZsYwFsaWy_WNui8iB7UtVu7MrrFICBjc5ozPMtPTZH9nXWBI_eysSvZbmsWshPvjD4MJPNaHPXgQhtjpjcW8ctbxpU6o/s1600/garter+waist+2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhwQkVG52nTdEyywUmU9hXFamh_SmhM6glYvb4EmoatMC42PQ9VZsYwFsaWy_WNui8iB7UtVu7MrrFICBjc5ozPMtPTZH9nXWBI_eysSvZbmsWshPvjD4MJPNaHPXgQhtjpjcW8ctbxpU6o/s320/garter+waist+2.jpg" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The stockings went all the way up and they had some "give" so they could easily accommodate lots of goodies and these were the stockings we hung on Christmas Eve. We hung them in the archway between the living room and the dining room and after the ritual of choosing a selection of cookies and fruitcake and making a cup of tea for Santa, off we went.</p>
<p>Th<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">e magic of Christmas morning has never changed for me. When we crept down the stairs and peeked around the corner, the first thing we saw was fresh snow that had been tracked across the living room carpet. That was our first clue that he had been there. A few more steps and we could see the lovely array of presents and the fat bulging stockings. Our father would have stoked the furnace, our mother would have started the Christmas music — and those stockings beckoned.</p>
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> The stockings always included small toys and books, maybe a hairbrush and comb and barrettes, maybe some perfumed bath powder. I mostly remember the wax paper packages of fruit and candy though. Of course, the legendary orange was always in the toe. But at regular intervals throughout the stocking, there would be bunches of grapes, a banana, an apple — always a Red Delicious called, in our house, a Christmas apple or more often, a Santa Claus apple.</p>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh93wR2Huy3R1LTi6EeykTGcXoGV6B4pi5vGpX2umb4QpbQaCVVHCE4HW3k5N-0UgjXayk6i9KNRWhLVwrsk1AovFJkgHa9pKj-n0XO5F57-eoMHiNZcDE2psufpGW8oOcKwIRKHadN7Xs/s1600/Red+delicious+apple.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh93wR2Huy3R1LTi6EeykTGcXoGV6B4pi5vGpX2umb4QpbQaCVVHCE4HW3k5N-0UgjXayk6i9KNRWhLVwrsk1AovFJkgHa9pKj-n0XO5F57-eoMHiNZcDE2psufpGW8oOcKwIRKHadN7Xs/s200/Red+delicious+apple.jpg" width="200" height="200" data-original-width="300" data-original-height="300" /></a></div>
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> There were also wrapped packages of hard candies and of peppermint-cream-filled chocolates. There were those once-a-year specialty sweets: barley toys and ribbon candy.
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiE1h6z5pNBW0IYEtyOGqHblczp6oO1WZk1GXXHQpvs2BF09LnnmaR-MHnYsJPro8ci388AelK1A67zEPNbMHTeQV9reos3fViXk2P7M7mifsrbNE7KejKHiiwgxlGy7vkHidWqH1L9t4g/s1600/barley+toys+ribbon+candy+hard+candy.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiE1h6z5pNBW0IYEtyOGqHblczp6oO1WZk1GXXHQpvs2BF09LnnmaR-MHnYsJPro8ci388AelK1A67zEPNbMHTeQV9reos3fViXk2P7M7mifsrbNE7KejKHiiwgxlGy7vkHidWqH1L9t4g/s320/barley+toys+ribbon+candy+hard+candy.jpg" width="320" height="214" data-original-width="639" data-original-height="428" /></a></div>
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">And — as sure as Christmas had arrived — there were Ganong's chicken bones. They were as much a part of Christmas as the turkey and the tree and they still are at our house.
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJtY3vHzx9MWnjZYUWx-lNYrUdN6SrxNuzHo8boqLwkiaa4YpijoHSdSZywHevwu3ENs3BQKaMF5s3S_lqAMOiqDRL528Sd_ZN2PGJBhRD5pt7eowHByDRnwP8mO7qT4GkEQUmWBmF5Xk/s1600/chicken+bones.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJtY3vHzx9MWnjZYUWx-lNYrUdN6SrxNuzHo8boqLwkiaa4YpijoHSdSZywHevwu3ENs3BQKaMF5s3S_lqAMOiqDRL528Sd_ZN2PGJBhRD5pt7eowHByDRnwP8mO7qT4GkEQUmWBmF5Xk/s320/chicken+bones.jpg" width="320" height="205" data-original-width="482" data-original-height="309" /></a></div>
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I remember some of the big presents over a number of years — the toboggan, the sled, the skates, all the dolls. I have a special memory of the dollhouse. How I loved sitting at its back open wall, spending hours moving the family members and their furniture around from room to room, imagining interesting lives and activities for all of them. This was in the days before everything was made of plastic and my dollhouse was made of tin. It was simple but wonderful.</p>
<p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://img0080.popscreencdn.com/103430362_large-vintage-1950s-2-story-tin-dollhouse-doll-house-toy.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://img0080.popscreencdn.com/103430362_large-vintage-1950s-2-story-tin-dollhouse-doll-house-toy.jpg" /></a></div></p>
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">But as we're so fond of reminding one another — and especially reminding the children — it's not the gifts we remember, it's the magic. The magic for me was all about Santa Claus. I know there's some controversy these days about whether it's good to deceive your children by letting them believe in Santa. I don't think anyone could have stopped me from believing in Santa so it was never an issue for me.
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I believe in him still. Nowadays, when I creep down the stairs on Christmas morning and see the fat, bulging stockings, the old magic returns and I feel the same way that I did all those years ago. It's even more interesting and magical when you consider that I filled those stockings myself, before I went to bed.
<p><a href="http://malaland.files.wordpress.com/2007/12/stocking1.jpg?w=229&h=268" imageanchor="1" ><img border="0" src="http://malaland.files.wordpress.com/2007/12/stocking1.jpg?w=229&h=268" /></a></p>
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Have a happy and blessed Christmas and a wonderful 2014.</p>Sharon Fraserhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06484421511625293763noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4251575251734028201.post-653276502055434062017-11-26T07:17:00.000-08:002017-11-26T07:17:49.538-08:00Betty Peterson: Full-time worker for peace and justice
<blockquote><i><p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Betty Peterson, 77, is an activist for peace and social justice. During the Persian Gulf War, she kept a peace vigil for 88 days in front of the Halifax Public Library. In 1993, she was an organizer of a weekly demonstration of Women In Black to express solidarity with the raped women of the former Yugoslavia.
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">She and her husband Gunnar emigrated to Nova Scotia from the United States in 1975. Gunnar died after they had been here one year.
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">This story, which first appeared in The Women's Almanac in 1994, is in Betty's own words.</i></blockquote>
<p><hr noshade size="1">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEghBCSWEOWUGHgPaUYEhWXia0dEWuIAxCQUmTa4NxtloPUjXi6ViyrESYrNlaMXQTy7VUTwLR4YPpdrsDBQo5HWYXLmDIIzuJpklhJNOdJovvmpj0l_CnOCKBTnSmxI32SlzdtOpkhzovQ/s1600/Betty+Pete.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEghBCSWEOWUGHgPaUYEhWXia0dEWuIAxCQUmTa4NxtloPUjXi6ViyrESYrNlaMXQTy7VUTwLR4YPpdrsDBQo5HWYXLmDIIzuJpklhJNOdJovvmpj0l_CnOCKBTnSmxI32SlzdtOpkhzovQ/s320/Betty+Pete.jpg" width="247" height="320" data-original-width="340" data-original-height="440" /></a></div>
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">We lived in Chicago for 23 years where we both became very much involved in the civil rights movement – in community work, community development, teaching people to read and write. I was active in the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom, League of Women Voters, War Resisters' League, the Fellowship of Reconciliation.
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">When I would pick people up at the airport, I would make it a point to drive them through the ghettoes and my kids would say, why do we always have to drive here? Why don't we drive down one of the beautiful streets? <p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Well, I wanted people to see how terrible it could be. I think I probably overdid that.
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I had been a music teacher when I first graduated; then I was married, then the war came and the kids came and then you stayed at home. Oh gosh, I was very unhappy in the middle-class bedroom community in the south of Chicago – coffee klatches, bridge parties. Those bedroom communities are terrible.
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Gunnar always had very exciting, demanding jobs – organizing people, helping people – and I just sat at home, talking baby talk. I had to get out.
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">So I got involved again. I was holding two almost full-time jobs – one with blacks, heading up a literacy centre, recruiting teachers. Then I worked at teaching English. There were Vietnamese brides coming back, people from Europe still coming over and no one to teach them, so I took the old idea of Frank Laubach, one of my heroes, with the worldwide literacy program – each one, teach one – and began working up my own materials.
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Looking back now, I realize how I would call home and tell Gunnar that I wouldn't be able to make it for dinner and he'd have to take over. He was always wonderful but I felt guilty. It was years before I realized that this was the beginning of the women's movement and I didn't even recognize it.
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I don't know how things went so wrong in American cities. We brought about a revolution but it didn't go far enough; there weren't enough people committed and we didn't come up with the support services to help people implement change. I don't even want to visit the States any more and that's my native land.
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">We had such hopes that the ghettoes were going to break down and those great apartment complexes were going to save the world. They did just the opposite.
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Well, we fought for civil rights, fought against the Vietnam war and then the Watergate story broke. The system was so corrupt, right through. We wanted out of it.
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">So we came to Canada and bought a little place in Cape Breton – we used to come up in the summers. After Gunnar died, I decided I was going to live up there and make it on my own. But after a few years, I realized I'm a people person and I had to get active again in the world. So after a series of events and meeting good friends and social activists, I came to Halifax.
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">My exposure to Voice of Women, to the women's movement and to people who believed in the same things I do just opened everything up to me.
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhEGSnrAe_pf-j9gA5vs44FGq6HGVNBZn3qg6NPyQb85wB3_hKuKIakqlHd1WE0LcxGLxuhtqsWdEhMf68de_VODqpB37OOOsAZMzJDLz1OglIRdPgfFkO187SUIpCqdDbtbmpLRx6Cb1I/s1600/Betty+and+Muriel.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhEGSnrAe_pf-j9gA5vs44FGq6HGVNBZn3qg6NPyQb85wB3_hKuKIakqlHd1WE0LcxGLxuhtqsWdEhMf68de_VODqpB37OOOsAZMzJDLz1OglIRdPgfFkO187SUIpCqdDbtbmpLRx6Cb1I/s400/Betty+and+Muriel.jpg" width="400" height="297" data-original-width="597" data-original-height="444" /></a></div>
<blockquote><i><b><p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Betty with long-time friend, ally, fellow Quaker, fellow Voice of Women member, Muriel Duckworth.</i></b></blockquote>
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I also became very active again in the Quakers. Back during the Second World War, I became exposed to the Quakers. They suited me. I got tired of standing up and sitting down, singing hymns, reading scripture and all that. I wanted something that was more challenging and robust and interior too – more meditative. Quakerism fit me like a glove.
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Among other things, Quakers are against war and for anti-violence. The main thing is the belief that there's not much point in faith without work. You put into practice what you believe – you don't just go to church on Sunday. So I began working with Canadian Friends Service Committee and then I was asked to serve on a National Native Committee. I'd never worked with Natives. As I got heavily involved, I travelled to other parts of the country and I began to realize that the time for Natives had come – just as the time had come in the States for the civil rights movement.
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">My first heavy duty involvement was with the Innu. I was asked to go – as a Quaker – to a Native assembly in Sheshatshit, Labrador. And here was the ghetto all over again – people forced to live away from their usual style of life in unbelievably awful conditions. I had never been to the ghettos in the south so this was really my first experience with terribly deprived conditions in a rural setting.
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I had never seen real Third World conditions but this was it. Since then, I've been to Labrador six times, always working for the Innu. When I realized for the first time the Innu elders and chiefs were getting together to tell their stories to each other, in their own language, of their experience with low-flying aircraft, it grabbed me and when they said go back and tell people what's going on here, I took that message literally.
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">People have come to realize that there are no single issues, that they're all connected – peace, social justice, the environment, women's issues – and we realized that there is a different way of going about things. The way Natives go about things is so similar to the way women have come to see things. And the way Natives worship is so close to my interpretation of Quakerism.
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Native spirituality came to mean a great deal to me. My first introduction to it was going into Native prisons when, because of my being known as working with Natives, I was invited to go to the native brotherhood meeting in Dorchester Penitentiary. When I saw some of the Native women and men working with prisoners at Dorchester and Renous and Springhill, that was eye-opening for me.
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I'm very much interested in how people are working for alternatives to violence. I'm encouraged by Native people talking about taking back their own justice system. The jails are filled with Native people, many of whom can't relate to our system. They don't even have a word for lawyer or for offender. So turning it back to the community and giving them the power is a wonderful thing.
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I sometimes joke in a bitter way and say that all my life I've believed in the coming revolution. I remember back in the early '40s hearing Norman Thomas, the great socialist, speak. He said, don't think this war is going to be the end – which we all did. We thought we were going to have a better world when the war was over. He predicted that we would live to see the Third World War – between blacks and whites, or between the poor and the rich. Oh, the shudders and gasps that went through that audience. Well, I'm afraid it's going to come true if we don't continue to work for change.
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">What can we do, what can we do about it? We have to face the fact that people who have worked so hard for non-violence and peace and love and understanding, we have to admit that we're stymied right now. How do you stop the carnage around the world? It's absolutely overwhelming.
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I think we just have to be as loving and caring and supportive to other people around us as we can. I think we have to work at building community – sounds old hat, everybody says it, but I've come to believe that's what we have to do, until we get through this period.
Sharon Fraserhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06484421511625293763noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4251575251734028201.post-24652309452645412812017-11-04T19:46:00.001-07:002017-11-04T19:46:20.966-07:00Sexual harassment: it wasn't discovered yesterday
<blockquote><p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><b>I wrote this column almost 30 years ago for <i>The Daily News</i> in Halifax. It seems to suggest that although sexual harassment was widespread, it wasn't yet talked about openly by women, even with one another. I've written here that I was surprised at the widespread incidence of the problem. I had examples in my own work life and knew what my friends had told me but clearly, I didn't yet know everything there was to know.</b></blockquote>
<p><hr noshade size="1">
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><i>June, 1990</i>
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Last winter, I wrote about the many instances of sexual harassment that seem to be taking place in the universities – most of them having been reported to me firsthand, many of them by women looking for suggestions about what could be done about it.
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I confess, I was surprised at the apparent widespread incidence of this frustrating problem and I had no definitive answers or suggestions. I don't today either, although I've concluded that sexual harassment in the workplace is probably just as endemic as it is in the schools.
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Sexual harassment is the only legal term defined by women. It was allegedly first used by women working on a case in Ithaca, N.Y. in 1974. Since then, it's become a term that many women who work outside their homes understand very well; many men still have a problem understanding what falls into the category of sexual harassment. They respond to it in different ways.
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh57RlokmfbiTLk8DdTDiBxWIrHoUUMCPbGSmmaM8GAFQ9vbeOj6brcl1W3yxrhxoGL6_FrZXyDdRLM3Sw-EnVm2aXo5qGI88HiayejOH9csQuPfo2VKR7ZbTvuI5ayH6ZMjT8ebivYlAo/s1600/sexual+harassment+2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh57RlokmfbiTLk8DdTDiBxWIrHoUUMCPbGSmmaM8GAFQ9vbeOj6brcl1W3yxrhxoGL6_FrZXyDdRLM3Sw-EnVm2aXo5qGI88HiayejOH9csQuPfo2VKR7ZbTvuI5ayH6ZMjT8ebivYlAo/s200/sexual+harassment+2.jpg" width="200" height="120" data-original-width="300" data-original-height="180" /></a></div>
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> “It was just a little harmless flirting,” one defence might be. “If they want equality, they better be prepared for life in the real world,” goes another one. “All she needs is a good you-know-what,” is an old favourite. And that old standby, “C'mon, lighten up. Can't you take a joke?”
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">But even men who take a pro-feminist stance have a hard time dealing with the feelings aroused by sexual harassment. “Unwanted sexual attention” is not a concept that they can easily relate to. That's part of the reason why women who lay complaints about sexual harassment get so little support.
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Another reason is that many women have never had any work experience that doesn't involve this kind of atmosphere – as Gloria Steinem once said (approximately), “For many women, what we call sexual harassment is what they call life.”
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Still other women have been socialized to believe that sexual banter aimed at them is flattering – and for that reason, they've been willing to ally themselves with the bantering men against those women who are unwilling to tolerate such behavior. The complainers can't attract men themselves, the line goes, and they resent the fact that other women are getting all the sexual attention.
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">So what can be done, other than quitting school or quitting your job?
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">One of the important things to remember is that sexual harassment occurs in situations where the balance of power is uneven. It's rare that a woman in a senior position would be harassed by a male assistant. (Of course, it's also rare that you would have a woman in a senior position and a male assistant, isn't it?)
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Very often too, the man in the more powerful position has control over the woman's immediate future – whether he is a professor who can withhold marks or a supervisor who can withhold promotions, pay raises, or could jeopardize job security. This makes it risky for women to raise the issue.
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiBCcpWJmN3vFV6S58FoT9joXwPZu4jYgVD2XPE6RDCctGYnEYIK8VqVgdreafXKovRB0jlIw5eQoPI7uwN0oqXypML_lErY9u_E7q9T8Pk68EU60ojsRtSAvW_f6bVCMahQP_3l0m8Ru4/s1600/sexual+harassment+cartoon.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiBCcpWJmN3vFV6S58FoT9joXwPZu4jYgVD2XPE6RDCctGYnEYIK8VqVgdreafXKovRB0jlIw5eQoPI7uwN0oqXypML_lErY9u_E7q9T8Pk68EU60ojsRtSAvW_f6bVCMahQP_3l0m8Ru4/s400/sexual+harassment+cartoon.jpg" width="400" height="138" data-original-width="640" data-original-height="220" /></a></div>
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">And it happens in hallowed university halls and in federal government offices; therefore, it obviously happens everywhere because those are the two locations where it should be least likely.
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">But without definitive answers, if you were to ask me what to do about sexual harassment, I would tell you to approach the guilty person and tell him how you feel about it. That usually doesn't help so then I would suggest that you determine how much support you have in your classroom/office/plant. Life becomes a lot harder if you find you're fighting this battle all alone.
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Do you belong to a union? Does your union have a sexual harassment policy? Would it work on one if the idea were introduced? If you're not unionized, does your workplace have any guidelines of any sort? Is there someone in the organization (in universities, you can go to a sexual harassment counsellor) whose responsibility it is to deal with such cases? Can you recruit the people who seem to support you and hold regular discussions on topics like “dignity in the workplace”?
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">No matter how you answer these questions, it's important to keep a written record – times, dates, incidents – of the harassment; do it openly, let the guilty party know it's being done.
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">And read. Get material (through the Advisory Councils on the Status of Women, for example) that will help you understand that this is not an issue of your lack of sense of humour, will help you see the seriousness of this behaviour and how debilitating it can be to all aspects of your life.
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">And when you do solve it, share your experiences with other women – one at a time or in groups or through relevant publications. When I'm asked, that's my last piece of advice: just keep chipping away.
Sharon Fraserhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06484421511625293763noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4251575251734028201.post-12249009248545629722017-10-30T19:32:00.003-07:002017-10-30T19:32:24.260-07:00Women live cautiously, differently from the men in their lives
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Feminism has never been — is not now — easy. That's partly because the myth of the powerful woman is enough to scare certain people (no sex mentioned) half to death. It's also because women ourselves come out of so many different life experiences that until something happens to bring more of us together, we often walk on parallel paths, heading in the same direction but separately rather than together.
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">There has been a deluge of participants in the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/oct/20/women-worldwide-use-hashtag-metoo-against-sexual-harassment">"me too"</a> campaign, claims made by women that often have never been shared before.
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Feminists — particularly second-wave feminists — are driven by the belief that "until we are all free, none of us is free." I like to expand it to say, "Until we are all safe, none of us is safe."
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I have been sharing this credo with women over the last few weeks — women who seem puzzled by the current atmosphere and who wonder why the sexual outrages in the news happen to so many other women but have never happened to them.
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">But women who believe they are not affected by the recent revelations of sexual harassment and sexual assault live in the same world as the rest of us and they live with the same risks, the same dangers. They live, whether they believe it or not, differently from the men in their lives. In fact, if I were going to get into it, I would dispute their position that they have never been sexually exploited.
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Every time they walk out of their way to avoid drawing attention to themselves on the street, or check the backseat of the car before getting in, or they don't get into an elevator with a lone male, demonstrates a life that's lived carefully and cautiously.
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Here are some random stories I've never told that many women will probably identify with.
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg9AgI9U6KCDU8RPnuEybotO63cvQPgYBwHXWwwBwFJKqG38HzMlQhfbi2B84lrmRSdKEBbwp1I1i5nK03lEfeQC3vmk9oUnnv0OW4qwv2yiW9qvRZO4rkWDnTyaUHztNm6_aQui2xDrGI/s1600/drawing+little+girl.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg9AgI9U6KCDU8RPnuEybotO63cvQPgYBwHXWwwBwFJKqG38HzMlQhfbi2B84lrmRSdKEBbwp1I1i5nK03lEfeQC3vmk9oUnnv0OW4qwv2yiW9qvRZO4rkWDnTyaUHztNm6_aQui2xDrGI/s200/drawing+little+girl.jpg" width="177" height="200" data-original-width="129" data-original-height="146" /></a></div>
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">1.When I was a small girl — maybe eight years old — I was over playing with the Presbyterian minister's children. Our family wasn't Presbyterian but my best friend's family was and I went there with her. The minister had two kids so we were four and we had a fine time playing. Toward the end of the afternoon, we started a game of hide and seek. One of the others was "it" and the rest of us dashed off to hide. I tucked myself in behind a big armchair in the far corner of the living room.
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Suddenly, the minister himself squeezed in beside me saying, "Shhh. They'll never find us here." He was a big, genial and jovial man. There was not much room back there and he pushed himself very close and put his arm around me. I was not at all comfortable. He pulled me closer and held onto my bare arm.
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I want to stress that he didn't touch me inappropriately but the intimacy of his position next to me was not welcome. I was a little afraid and I was glad when the other kids found us.
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjD8hXif_DewvIzlQGvPn4FKL-wsjV7Paz2Op9HbT2mOs7OQLFSQMSH-glBsH0oG7nmUq7qYPoCkRVMle2DFdLxVMPM6_rwDfx9TUcIfQY9rSBN1BcZKr2F_86-anQTa0y1wx8qhF9w_40/s1600/outdoor+rink.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjD8hXif_DewvIzlQGvPn4FKL-wsjV7Paz2Op9HbT2mOs7OQLFSQMSH-glBsH0oG7nmUq7qYPoCkRVMle2DFdLxVMPM6_rwDfx9TUcIfQY9rSBN1BcZKr2F_86-anQTa0y1wx8qhF9w_40/s200/outdoor+rink.jpg" width="200" height="156" data-original-width="236" data-original-height="184" /></a></div>
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">2. There was an outdoor rink in a yard not very far from where I lived. Kids from all around used to go there to skate. A man who lived in the house next to the rink was always there, helping with the skates, keeping a little fire burning so we could warm our hands. He had been, as far as I know, considered harmless (although I'd heard him described as being "not all there") until one day, my mother told me I was not to go to the rink unless there was an adult I knew present. All the other kids were told that too.
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I have no idea what happened but it seemed to have something to do with that man and one of the girls who was just a year younger than I was. In the language of the day, I suppose it was said that "he interfered with her." I don't remember going to the rink much after that. The man was still around and we were told to keep away from him and if he tried to talk to us, we should run.
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEglMoicQ7Bunu9tIa2hpPwSIvawmTj3go-th5TlddT1RDHIMjhXpR-rOoyDG48hPabUAPXvzM4ihRS_-tIw6ASnpDh2OFfK6OJ0O3N-u1KLJo9yOPuo4Yn9vfio6RKiKejPs6pbCoHVTP0/s1600/young+developing+teen.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEglMoicQ7Bunu9tIa2hpPwSIvawmTj3go-th5TlddT1RDHIMjhXpR-rOoyDG48hPabUAPXvzM4ihRS_-tIw6ASnpDh2OFfK6OJ0O3N-u1KLJo9yOPuo4Yn9vfio6RKiKejPs6pbCoHVTP0/s200/young+developing+teen.jpg" width="200" height="148" data-original-width="324" data-original-height="239" /></a></div>
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">3. When I was 11 or 12, the father of one of my friends — and a friend of our family! — leaned across the dinner table (this was at his house, with his family) and said to me, looking pointedly at my chest, "Those are a couple of pretty big mosquito bites you have there. You'll have to get someone to rub something on them later." Everyone laughed and it was horrible. I was so humiliated and embarrassed. This is why young girls walk around with their arms crossed in front of their chests. I never told my mother this. She would possibly have killed him but I didn't want to talk or think about it, ever again.
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjN_jfkDeoRSFnN6W-k8qrQ0GG3H8wLaNnhryJ_QJgfnQju3-_Ce6cBLcIMCgIs6vE66ZFLdvtPgSa88dttkGmgaj2e3bnSr7rEKwsL5OTZNSsJVDCUku-XyWj9zCI6xnlNBT2VozcbEoY/s1600/Micmac+restaurant.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjN_jfkDeoRSFnN6W-k8qrQ0GG3H8wLaNnhryJ_QJgfnQju3-_Ce6cBLcIMCgIs6vE66ZFLdvtPgSa88dttkGmgaj2e3bnSr7rEKwsL5OTZNSsJVDCUku-XyWj9zCI6xnlNBT2VozcbEoY/s200/Micmac+restaurant.jpg" width="200" height="118" data-original-width="960" data-original-height="568" /></a></div>
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">4. I was probably 15 or 16 when I was walking with a group of friends down Cunard St. (in Chatham, NB) from the Vogue Theatre to the MicMac restaurant. It was Friday night and busy and crowded. There were boys on each side of the MicMac steps so they could check out the girls on their way in. There were more boys lining the sidewalk, leaning on the parked cars. There were also a number of air force guys. (There was an air base just outside Chatham and young airmen often came into town on Friday nights.)
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">As we moved along ignoring the bystanders, one of the air force guys stepped out and blocked my way. I moved sideways, back and forth, trying to avoid him but he moved as I did and also moved in closer to me. I gave him a push and said, "Get out of my way." He laughed and he stepped sideways but at the same time, he reached down and stuck his hand between my legs. He ran his hand up and did what Trump brags about. I got away from him and caught up with my friends and we proceeded into the restaurant.
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">These are stories from my childhood and my youth. It didn't end there.
Sharon Fraserhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06484421511625293763noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4251575251734028201.post-44167922134588825332017-10-06T15:02:00.000-07:002017-10-06T15:02:52.144-07:00Ibiza: stopping 'progress' is no longer an option
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">One day recently — September 18, to be exact — I saw a small news item that said 47 years ago, to the day, Jimi Hendrix had died.
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Under normal circumstances, I'm pretty sure I wouldn't have known where I was when I heard that Jimi Hendrix had died. In this case though, I know exactly.
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjkrUd1Q_up3KzmJbvAz8HTLmJks0ZJvp15La8NRJJgcDyy8pHoF3pQZKZYcBjLqWM0KRQa74SItEB2uzoAkJ6g85xANqA6ax7yw8Jqskhbzz5Gtur8cIBnmaJgLkZF2glRigZ2YInuB00/s1600/Freds+Bar.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjkrUd1Q_up3KzmJbvAz8HTLmJks0ZJvp15La8NRJJgcDyy8pHoF3pQZKZYcBjLqWM0KRQa74SItEB2uzoAkJ6g85xANqA6ax7yw8Jqskhbzz5Gtur8cIBnmaJgLkZF2glRigZ2YInuB00/s400/Freds+Bar.jpg" width="383" height="400" data-original-width="619" data-original-height="647" /></a></div>
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Fred's Bar was in a small town on the Balearic island of Ibiza. In 1970, Ibiza was at the dawn of what was to become a massive tourism industry. We used to go to Fred's for breakfast every morning walking down a remarkably undeveloped street from the building where were staying which wasn't quite finished.
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhRGzThNHeIuUuEtnJc8raTCObtqEPofhWAi4k4mJAWSgolPdUSgJMjJOadzNZ3alLOL1K3bsn2yoXAmz3ABkckKbJGFJf5Zyi_vEBLA6zjCj98V2UFI99_2xFaRDEz2WHPETDZ4m4xzzM/s1600/Sharon+on+balcony.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhRGzThNHeIuUuEtnJc8raTCObtqEPofhWAi4k4mJAWSgolPdUSgJMjJOadzNZ3alLOL1K3bsn2yoXAmz3ABkckKbJGFJf5Zyi_vEBLA6zjCj98V2UFI99_2xFaRDEz2WHPETDZ4m4xzzM/s400/Sharon+on+balcony.jpg" width="400" height="394" data-original-width="640" data-original-height="630" /></a></div>
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I used to read the <i>International Herald Tribune</i> while I had my tomato and cheese sandwich and a lovely frothy cup of <i>café con leche</i>. Most things were still cheap in Spain but not the Herald Tribune. We couldn't afford to buy it every day but I bought it two or three times a week and I savoured every word even though it was a very business-oriented paper and often quite boring. I was probably never so well-informed on the subject of international business as I was then.
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">It was there that I read of the death of Jimi Hendrix and I remember it so well. It was on the front page and it must have made quite an impression on me, a small story tucked in among the war, the appointments of big business executives, the ubiquitous news that followed the ups and downs of petro-dollars. The story of the death of a genius musician must have seemed almost out of place.
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">In the past 47 years, Ibiza has become known as "party island" for young Europeans. I don't think I would recognize it today. We used to walk to the beach every afternoon along a dusty little road, past small family farms where the families were often gathered around a big outdoor table enjoying lunch.
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEihuNA8TQ9VqP_LZ-VKBXcSaolbSFs3vJ2qphH9F6sZgM3AMa0wZKLvks-rgmPPij0Yssb0FovVHIyg8TS58dJWaSa5bCV-tn1fwRICH0i0670aSQ-w-k2wIRXP6Ncdf3tPTLPQ29H7OdY/s1600/Sharon+at+roadside.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEihuNA8TQ9VqP_LZ-VKBXcSaolbSFs3vJ2qphH9F6sZgM3AMa0wZKLvks-rgmPPij0Yssb0FovVHIyg8TS58dJWaSa5bCV-tn1fwRICH0i0670aSQ-w-k2wIRXP6Ncdf3tPTLPQ29H7OdY/s400/Sharon+at+roadside.jpg" width="394" height="400" data-original-width="616" data-original-height="625" /></a></div>
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">On a busy day, there might be a handful of other people on the beach but just as often, there was no one. An empty beach.
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjDNd9xuhRNNZShq-_OrE5zomYSkq4YaL0zqvxmLRorNTQlsooTsyoHeEaXDJwNHd_VDXcxm_J5yFga40XgKWPDGm0-K-4l9e_L4Btup5CBs2mUuC4cHXLmT37jhYMuUdUov1SnQxVTKRs/s1600/Sharon+by+the+sea%252C+cliffs.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjDNd9xuhRNNZShq-_OrE5zomYSkq4YaL0zqvxmLRorNTQlsooTsyoHeEaXDJwNHd_VDXcxm_J5yFga40XgKWPDGm0-K-4l9e_L4Btup5CBs2mUuC4cHXLmT37jhYMuUdUov1SnQxVTKRs/s400/Sharon+by+the+sea%252C+cliffs.jpg" width="400" height="398" data-original-width="624" data-original-height="621" /></a></div>
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Today, I'm pretty sure most beaches look more like this.
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEifhRyhK-endJm9kndHwloOq1Du-7-ZxI94pDqo43xdgIOdysC3js23b6lwBx1JUC1FfOE1omse-TtJ2N1tJEThp8axvH5kBhyphenhyphenO9oKoBAIel4UqltrPDPA_gVePknr9_I7dTx-z7pDN2jw/s1600/Ibiza+beach+full+of+people.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEifhRyhK-endJm9kndHwloOq1Du-7-ZxI94pDqo43xdgIOdysC3js23b6lwBx1JUC1FfOE1omse-TtJ2N1tJEThp8axvH5kBhyphenhyphenO9oKoBAIel4UqltrPDPA_gVePknr9_I7dTx-z7pDN2jw/s400/Ibiza+beach+full+of+people.jpg" width="400" height="214" data-original-width="598" data-original-height="320" /></a></div>
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">When I started writing this, I thought it was just an interesting little memory anecdote, the reason I remembered where I was was when I heard of the death of Jimi Hendrix. I didn't know it was going to be another look at unsustainable tourism. I've written about that <a href="https://sharonfrasereachnewday.blogspot.ca/2015/09/49-million-is-just-number.html">here</a> and <a href="https://sharonfrasereachnewday.blogspot.ca/2017/09/my-short-introduction-to-iceland.html">here</a> — about Shakespeare's hometown and about Iceland. I make the point again, sadly, because there are so many wonderful places in the world to visit but so many of the places can't take any more.
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Spain was early to tourism over-development. Throughout the '60s, the Mediterranean coast of the mainland was mindlessly built up with miles and miles of characterless highrise buildings (I'm looking at you, Benidorm), magnets for sun-seeking vacationers from northern Europe.
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgXEUDJgdTEGFalidOP3_CYyY0kIvbuTeFNGM2voGSm-sBOcOlgs3upzpUHHyHFhhRlKCp9gJPfNOuT4zOsJUkXeq-6w-aJsKVOX7jzWga-q6Q0s9UnVa5dcf0ZtmKC1di3L7HivCpjtK8/s1600/Ibiza+Benidorm.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgXEUDJgdTEGFalidOP3_CYyY0kIvbuTeFNGM2voGSm-sBOcOlgs3upzpUHHyHFhhRlKCp9gJPfNOuT4zOsJUkXeq-6w-aJsKVOX7jzWga-q6Q0s9UnVa5dcf0ZtmKC1di3L7HivCpjtK8/s400/Ibiza+Benidorm.JPG" width="400" height="267" data-original-width="720" data-original-height="480" /></a></div>
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">There was little regard for heritage or history but it seemed not to matter. The tourists kept coming. The development on the Balearic Islands began with Majorca, then Menorca, then Ibiza. The smallest island, Formentera, is in the earlier stages of development but it's getting there.
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Many people still don't take this kind of issue seriously. "You can't stop progress!" they bellow. This is not progress but there's no point arguing with people who hold that view.
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">But just look at two views of the Old Town of Ibiza:
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgkxgFjj2DLwmoPscorv8MBHXnyhk_NIySHJMSWVuEcXoN_ATIcDAktEaqOzhyphenhyphenNiV_uCDjQDa2W1GNt7fV2JuJx0mrWrjComVXRMbiADBG5GEyXIR8uKqW8lbcncZd77E0P1ymSbjhyphenhyphenJBE/s1600/Sharon+with+harbour.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgkxgFjj2DLwmoPscorv8MBHXnyhk_NIySHJMSWVuEcXoN_ATIcDAktEaqOzhyphenhyphenNiV_uCDjQDa2W1GNt7fV2JuJx0mrWrjComVXRMbiADBG5GEyXIR8uKqW8lbcncZd77E0P1ymSbjhyphenhyphenJBE/s400/Sharon+with+harbour.jpg" width="397" height="400" data-original-width="622" data-original-height="626" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj0fIdRgSL6ofHyQLleEDB_lk3BhmXwFvqobKyC1CQq4nz-Ju0b0XANi_yHGU0TTxBxcxILOXZrMrwPd-MABHFjaFMSVMn2MCPcv1z_n-DCpKJIP57aCCxtXD87lodeCDytkRCCwFvwTv0/s1600/Sharon+in+street.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj0fIdRgSL6ofHyQLleEDB_lk3BhmXwFvqobKyC1CQq4nz-Ju0b0XANi_yHGU0TTxBxcxILOXZrMrwPd-MABHFjaFMSVMn2MCPcv1z_n-DCpKJIP57aCCxtXD87lodeCDytkRCCwFvwTv0/s320/Sharon+in+street.jpg" width="315" height="320" data-original-width="619" data-original-height="629" /></a>1970</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhRCmUTRF5mnxMI_ZzRkMHkDGad8bxEf1ZkZNQT9u2ldl0-_aYGzN6TOu7FACwDwPf-aPnbxu_avFlaHt4sdsrwYkiqqp6HwWsuC4c4cN7UXh0eUYNzRHTnaqlZmGKD4EAshLrEb6UHlxE/s1600/Ibiza+old+town.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhRCmUTRF5mnxMI_ZzRkMHkDGad8bxEf1ZkZNQT9u2ldl0-_aYGzN6TOu7FACwDwPf-aPnbxu_avFlaHt4sdsrwYkiqqp6HwWsuC4c4cN7UXh0eUYNzRHTnaqlZmGKD4EAshLrEb6UHlxE/s400/Ibiza+old+town.jpg" width="400" height="266" data-original-width="740" data-original-height="493" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjcwjGO8iBwszjPRXz20J5nj0Co42NHUqAeyW2Dz1wiUF_S7GKKkImWI_lZrqTJV4wIIrSUCxo-RXs2Y-lVqmmzALiPJtvk9vR8Ur4l53n2h6z1i1A6x4vMsIRUIuQSpCTH-4jZoV9Qmg8/s1600/Ibiza+street+full+of+people+2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjcwjGO8iBwszjPRXz20J5nj0Co42NHUqAeyW2Dz1wiUF_S7GKKkImWI_lZrqTJV4wIIrSUCxo-RXs2Y-lVqmmzALiPJtvk9vR8Ur4l53n2h6z1i1A6x4vMsIRUIuQSpCTH-4jZoV9Qmg8/s320/Ibiza+street+full+of+people+2.jpg" width="320" height="213" data-original-width="620" data-original-height="413" /></a>2017</div>
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Not progress.
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhaM-zVQplUtpNk98KwkcuNiiFwzKChMvQrSGU4kJZen3D79UOWBPnKxe3VZk4XpZVVRexn2zz0NNHj6U8ETEKefcl32rKuSuARe-PlW7r96aKnLZYcBoYz7kzYnABX62vtX6PddB0vAhA/s1600/Ibiza+Jimi+Hendrix+death.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhaM-zVQplUtpNk98KwkcuNiiFwzKChMvQrSGU4kJZen3D79UOWBPnKxe3VZk4XpZVVRexn2zz0NNHj6U8ETEKefcl32rKuSuARe-PlW7r96aKnLZYcBoYz7kzYnABX62vtX6PddB0vAhA/s320/Ibiza+Jimi+Hendrix+death.jpg" width="303" height="320" data-original-width="747" data-original-height="789" /></a></div>
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">There were two other headlines/stories that I remember reading in Fred's Bar. Janis Joplin died on October 4. And on October 5, James Cross was kidnapped from his home in Montreal by the FLQ, marking the beginning of the <a href="http://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/october-crisis/">October Crisis</a>.
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">That was definitely the headline that had the greatest effect on my own life, both there in Spain and far beyond.
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj9KFJ_a2cjLl_pYPsoUpcm_ZjtmQdzN_BF40oGJF7Rt2H27up9cZUnCeKEsBgpaWYcSBHKKiULzaheLnJWIJ5iOE2YlA4Znhciu7zd-Yk5aIan1ANQfHPEKBb7cTYaMq99nmdPiXEaPIA/s1600/Ibiza+Janis+Joplin+headline.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj9KFJ_a2cjLl_pYPsoUpcm_ZjtmQdzN_BF40oGJF7Rt2H27up9cZUnCeKEsBgpaWYcSBHKKiULzaheLnJWIJ5iOE2YlA4Znhciu7zd-Yk5aIan1ANQfHPEKBb7cTYaMq99nmdPiXEaPIA/s200/Ibiza+Janis+Joplin+headline.jpg" width="134" height="200" data-original-width="236" data-original-height="352" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjLhMT4FWPcgLi2AbLgdzSqEv79LFJIN0gxBsqsE7ZaQ6mBO-R5UMBmUQXfgnvbW24g0CRVNF4pm-b6ckWXQ1PCf4Zfp5iz0nQjXt0-g2bFFGZcrgUmzYRoiiP9Xull0cJTviXDZ8MdpG0/s1600/Ibiza+FLQ+headline.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjLhMT4FWPcgLi2AbLgdzSqEv79LFJIN0gxBsqsE7ZaQ6mBO-R5UMBmUQXfgnvbW24g0CRVNF4pm-b6ckWXQ1PCf4Zfp5iz0nQjXt0-g2bFFGZcrgUmzYRoiiP9Xull0cJTviXDZ8MdpG0/s320/Ibiza+FLQ+headline.jpg" width="320" height="182" data-original-width="220" data-original-height="125" /></a></div>
Sharon Fraserhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06484421511625293763noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4251575251734028201.post-44967511163123052162017-09-10T19:43:00.002-07:002020-09-11T11:33:32.543-07:00A little history of a famous pickle
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Around the turn of the last century, a British Army Officer named Thomas Ashburnham, settled in Fredericton, New Brunswick. His father was the 4th Earl of Ashburnham but as Thomas was the fifth of seven sons, there seemed little likelihood of his inheriting the title.
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">In Fredericton, he used to drink and gamble and at the end of his evening, he would call the phone company to order a horse and carriage to take him home. The night operator who answered most evenings was a local girl, Maria "Rye" Anderson. Rye had a wonderful voice and a pleasant manner and before he knew what had hit him, he had fallen for her. He asked to meet her in person. That happened and in 1903, they got married.
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">They joined two downtown houses together with a porte-cochère and became the centre of Fredericton social life, entertaining friends and family lavishly. This is what the house looked like in those days:
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjMDh-ud2v23bD_tqdDr861D-U9kdtDlJ-N646ssQQoLWt928zN4KcUgaILLWA3r39XmTcFBmdnn6gM67SRNUndBuOMX1JYLmx8zxLpZ2lgYsjk21HeCcTsOdnAxgANJVoNHYrgBm73moY/s1600/Ashburnham+House+painting.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjMDh-ud2v23bD_tqdDr861D-U9kdtDlJ-N646ssQQoLWt928zN4KcUgaILLWA3r39XmTcFBmdnn6gM67SRNUndBuOMX1JYLmx8zxLpZ2lgYsjk21HeCcTsOdnAxgANJVoNHYrgBm73moY/s400/Ashburnham+House+painting.jpg" width="400" height="313" data-original-width="430" data-original-height="336" /></a></div>
<blockquote><p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><i>Painting of Ashburnham House by Fernando Poyatos</i></blockquote>
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Against all odds, all Thomas' older brothers died and Thomas became the 6th Earl of Ashburnham. Rye Anderson, the telephone operator from Fredericton, became Lady Ashburnham.
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Lord and Lady Ashburnham moved to England to take over the ancestral home but that didn't work out very well. The family didn't really accept Rye and she was homesick. So they returned to Fredericton and resumed their entertaining ways on Brunswick St.
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Unfortunately, in 1924, Lord Ashburnham became ill on a trans-Atlantic journey as he travelled to England to deal with family business. He passed away in May 1924 in London. He is buried in the family vault at Ashburnham Church.
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Lady Ashburnham continued to live in their Fredericton home. She died in 1938. The house on Brunswick St. survived for some time. It eventually was divided into apartments — my friend Ann lived there for awhile! — but it was not kept up as it should have been. On Google Street View, it looked like this last year but I've read that it has since been torn down. [As corrected in the comments, the report of the house's demise was greatly exaggerated. It still stands on Brunswick St. I added this correction September 11, 2020.]
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjysbpVYhbtVVMa784M8sws6TlEYXqsQEUt9LLSibKCalFqFqAmrOJQjYFptny1ZyXdzFsg0e6Ojih7dk5nMq-GIpsDyxRydtGL9_72XTlaJeTFv4sCmsJUwsegI0XgPipw9jnehZvZ_Nw/s1600/2017-09-08+%25282%2529.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjysbpVYhbtVVMa784M8sws6TlEYXqsQEUt9LLSibKCalFqFqAmrOJQjYFptny1ZyXdzFsg0e6Ojih7dk5nMq-GIpsDyxRydtGL9_72XTlaJeTFv4sCmsJUwsegI0XgPipw9jnehZvZ_Nw/s400/2017-09-08+%25282%2529.png" width="400" height="225" data-original-width="1095" data-original-height="617" /></a></div>
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Lady Ashburnham's legacy, interestingly enough, is a pickle. She was not domestic herself and didn't do any of the cooking for her delicious dinners but her sister Lucy lived in the household and took care of the kitchen. In Fredericton, the elegant mustard pickles served on Brunswick St. — made by Lucy — became very popular and were known across the city as "Lady Ashburnham's Pickles."
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">And so they are still known today. I've made these pickles everywhere, including on a Coleman stove on deck when we lived on the boat on the Miramichi, tied up at Loggie's Wharf in Chatham; at the old house in Black River Bridge; in Montreal; of course, in Fredericton. I've even made them on television on a show called <i>Foodessence</i>. They didn't turn out that well. We had to keep restarting them. We had to serve the camera, not the cucumbers. The important thing for television was that they looked good.
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I made Lady Ashburnham's Pickles most recently earlier this week.
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEicx2OEsU4veaVvSqsq3UtN74ZQljW6Nmrf5ksjQ_FXCjZqMgPdYyJ0BsoBGPMbI-jGL0Ud-FZuqsC1PjjDGSbdDwqhC1nEAI7HxvllJQS36jgCns-_SDOhkQKfkOfxwp_OoCc5s6G_278/s1600/DSCN4029.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEicx2OEsU4veaVvSqsq3UtN74ZQljW6Nmrf5ksjQ_FXCjZqMgPdYyJ0BsoBGPMbI-jGL0Ud-FZuqsC1PjjDGSbdDwqhC1nEAI7HxvllJQS36jgCns-_SDOhkQKfkOfxwp_OoCc5s6G_278/s400/DSCN4029.JPG" width="400" height="300" data-original-width="1600" data-original-height="1200" /></a></div>
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Those are cucumbers (soaked in salt and water overnight), onions, red and green peppers. They're pretty before you even get started.
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg6lJrYPx2-O3yA_ub5DCyT5rB2Kfvk5y_GJXWb16TijdP_fNbOk75kuca4pQahT1yYNPIQNmgJzMIYNKXR6ai4wRtb1kBmLcIwyTiaDigB1JfpqYvj8r-3FEmPftDbY_nrYDYV8rA9Wkg/s1600/DSCN4030.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg6lJrYPx2-O3yA_ub5DCyT5rB2Kfvk5y_GJXWb16TijdP_fNbOk75kuca4pQahT1yYNPIQNmgJzMIYNKXR6ai4wRtb1kBmLcIwyTiaDigB1JfpqYvj8r-3FEmPftDbY_nrYDYV8rA9Wkg/s400/DSCN4030.JPG" width="400" height="300" data-original-width="1600" data-original-height="1200" /></a></div>
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">There are always variations in a pickle recipe. Most people have adapted it to suit themselves. I stick pretty closely to Lucy's recipe although now that I think about it, Lucy probably didn't use the peppers. I like adding the peppers — they look so nice for one thing.
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgsmsRhzluyYC5khazYe-AB6gu131B5Hla7oIhunnFp9Hi7K6aQWNJQWIYpN30QT12Vu1OkaQoMV5LEei7Z08q9lKqcvG8De9hxGPkPxIfsfLAEJ36n1XBw5nrApxPfZk1_IuO0xfN0-eY/s1600/DSCN4032.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgsmsRhzluyYC5khazYe-AB6gu131B5Hla7oIhunnFp9Hi7K6aQWNJQWIYpN30QT12Vu1OkaQoMV5LEei7Z08q9lKqcvG8De9hxGPkPxIfsfLAEJ36n1XBw5nrApxPfZk1_IuO0xfN0-eY/s400/DSCN4032.JPG" width="400" height="300" data-original-width="1600" data-original-height="1200" /></a></div>
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The one small change I made this year was not planned. I was halfway through the process when I realized I didn't have any yellow mustard seed. I did, however, have brown mustard seed which we bought in the spring for the rhubarb chutney. So brown mustard seed it was and it's fine because the pickling was successful and the pickles are delicious.
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiVwOF8Yep91iRtei-LvqWHaiLIeLIKLfCnjI0vg7sZh4UbUYv_9b1-ZE051wwsasamz7sCx6LZd0-QMVkGkwGK0uVRza4HvXSWz1xVc6Iyejkfvvc_JzTvX5ZKuOOPplnp8u_C_oQmESw/s1600/DSCN4035.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiVwOF8Yep91iRtei-LvqWHaiLIeLIKLfCnjI0vg7sZh4UbUYv_9b1-ZE051wwsasamz7sCx6LZd0-QMVkGkwGK0uVRza4HvXSWz1xVc6Iyejkfvvc_JzTvX5ZKuOOPplnp8u_C_oQmESw/s400/DSCN4035.JPG" width="400" height="354" data-original-width="1600" data-original-height="1417" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg-3t8qeFPdqltQS39s7WImdpp8FVROnU85AMIweRpmTNcA7CX8RfEQoBS0b8R2h29lu3veD73GbnTn7WYg-Ggtlk2dZOWqFdGhoGUGdtPB5wSIhk_5flCkWdvbs12yxl7C4WmyLqfRpt0/s1600/Ashburnham%252C+Lady.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg-3t8qeFPdqltQS39s7WImdpp8FVROnU85AMIweRpmTNcA7CX8RfEQoBS0b8R2h29lu3veD73GbnTn7WYg-Ggtlk2dZOWqFdGhoGUGdtPB5wSIhk_5flCkWdvbs12yxl7C4WmyLqfRpt0/s200/Ashburnham%252C+Lady.jpg" width="155" height="200" data-original-width="232" data-original-height="300" /></a></div>
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I think of Lady Ashburnham — Rye Anderson — whenever I make her pickles. I think of Lucy too and wonder what her life was like, living with her sister who married into British nobility, working in the kitchen, seeing Rye get all the credit for her pickles.
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> She could never have imagined that more than a hundred years later, her pickles would still be made and enjoyed — and her sister would still be getting all the credit.
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Sometimes, life just isn't fair.
Sharon Fraserhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06484421511625293763noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4251575251734028201.post-33021652547612149532017-09-06T20:17:00.000-07:002017-09-06T20:17:48.991-07:00My short introduction to Iceland
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhh-4rAhyphenhyphenTEb6r2pcOTvTcdED201ohmJA4tFIcWe6i02Ye4q_DxUu_OUhgLc0975l9c5r0tO-JO-n8zN4oRxK2c9tfF4x_k1R7ZgMuLlwWmRlbagUXXpaZncf9SKSGpfmUvTQxaDaeXGWI/s1600/DSCN2850.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhh-4rAhyphenhyphenTEb6r2pcOTvTcdED201ohmJA4tFIcWe6i02Ye4q_DxUu_OUhgLc0975l9c5r0tO-JO-n8zN4oRxK2c9tfF4x_k1R7ZgMuLlwWmRlbagUXXpaZncf9SKSGpfmUvTQxaDaeXGWI/s400/DSCN2850.JPG" width="400" height="300" data-original-width="1600" data-original-height="1200" /></a></div>
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">In 2008, Iceland suffered a financial catastrophe. It affected everyone, not just the loss of money although that was serious, but there was a terrible sense of betrayal and humiliation that the bankers had treated their own people so badly, stealing money left and right, from everyone. Icelanders felt a collective depression over this.
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">In 2010, the great volcano Eyjafjallajökull erupted.
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgtobdz01ARBNNZHkXJAQIudaYuGf2nNNixgmxi4V2sJ4dMay68i0DlsVl4tfdXhzSplTiNMxdDN66drah3b1hW9uG2LfEqjTNx6-rtOKRCbvW2eO1zOlOtfWcUw9dxnbALtdFeEkCGrzU/s1600/IMG_4960.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgtobdz01ARBNNZHkXJAQIudaYuGf2nNNixgmxi4V2sJ4dMay68i0DlsVl4tfdXhzSplTiNMxdDN66drah3b1hW9uG2LfEqjTNx6-rtOKRCbvW2eO1zOlOtfWcUw9dxnbALtdFeEkCGrzU/s400/IMG_4960.JPG" width="400" height="300" data-original-width="1600" data-original-height="1200" /></a></div>
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">(This photo was taken by a man named Oliver who lives just below the mountain. When the eruption was imminent, he called the newspaper in Reykjavik and told them it was happening and he was evacuating. The reporter he spoke to said, "Grab a photo on your way out and then get out of there!" Oliver got the photo and then he skedaddled. This photo was on the front page of the Reykjavik newspaper and from there, as the only picture of the eruption. it went all over the world. Oliver did quite well by it.)
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The cloud of volcanic ash was thick and within days, it had blanketed Europe and shut down all airlines of flights coming and going. They remained closed for a couple of weeks.
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">After these two events, happening so close together, the people in Iceland wondered if life had irrevocably changed. The airline shutdown affected much of the world and, in its own mind, Iceland began to feel like an international pariah. They wondered if the people would ever come back.
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Well, the people did come back. The numbers of tourists climbed from 595,000 in 2000 to 2.1 million in 2010, before rising to 4.4 million in 2014 — and they continue to rise.
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Writing about tourism is not easy. I assume I have no credibility as long as I'm one of the tourists. The last time I <a href="https://sharonfrasereachnewday.blogspot.ca/2015/09/49-million-is-just-number.html">wrote about it</a>, we had just visited Shakespeare's hometown, Stratford-upon-Avon, where they get 4.9 million visitors a year. I shared this photo:
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjkv-fi-9hDZMzlUI7lXOhe2GU61tLDoXQvKYBnURlgS0O-vEeaSR8SNGAG8YNBztSrqOT9zwjJUzTHDf2ogGOwwd5n4azK2E3N3KOGm-V8hzrMt77UKWVGo9F2p7N3_81K3LIg5yqnydY/s1600/DSC07286.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjkv-fi-9hDZMzlUI7lXOhe2GU61tLDoXQvKYBnURlgS0O-vEeaSR8SNGAG8YNBztSrqOT9zwjJUzTHDf2ogGOwwd5n4azK2E3N3KOGm-V8hzrMt77UKWVGo9F2p7N3_81K3LIg5yqnydY/s400/DSC07286.JPG" width="400" height="248" data-original-width="1600" data-original-height="992" /></a>Stratford</div>
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">At some point, I had showed you what my first view of the Mona Lisa in the Louvre looked like:
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhSoJeFdAxDE_xzrWUxXfzcydPlxj-kqaNDo02Xu1OtX4V0maRKvhpgv2rie57whQAZMgko6Kpa0qymgXWm9i2ymDIfcSsEKbZ7UVGiWlwNwWtl6H0vbMiSsX5eb7P56iYhYmeBogNF960/s1600/DSC01350.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhSoJeFdAxDE_xzrWUxXfzcydPlxj-kqaNDo02Xu1OtX4V0maRKvhpgv2rie57whQAZMgko6Kpa0qymgXWm9i2ymDIfcSsEKbZ7UVGiWlwNwWtl6H0vbMiSsX5eb7P56iYhYmeBogNF960/s400/DSC01350.JPG" width="400" height="300" data-original-width="1600" data-original-height="1200" /></a>The Louvre</div>
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Can you see her? Way back there at the end of that long room?
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">(Of course, I often show this one too. I elbowed my way to the front of the room. I'm an "older woman" so I can get away with that.)
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg0GXn_e_iLe2dV96C0qNT4uCJJZ3qWV6ORkUHSBBnb9fCF4OKtbc2PQBh4I3tMP5IYeD7Nr7YVpU7rxgStpBbB4H9HNi6y6FBkoi3j0hGskoNfMJASBEhudw84_KMyeDYFA2SBRBwlsCg/s1600/DSC01355.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg0GXn_e_iLe2dV96C0qNT4uCJJZ3qWV6ORkUHSBBnb9fCF4OKtbc2PQBh4I3tMP5IYeD7Nr7YVpU7rxgStpBbB4H9HNi6y6FBkoi3j0hGskoNfMJASBEhudw84_KMyeDYFA2SBRBwlsCg/s400/DSC01355.JPG" width="300" height="400" data-original-width="1200" data-original-height="1600" /></a></div>
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Forty years ago, tourism was seen as the clean, environment-friendly alternative to the older polluting industries and a supplement to fishing and farming which were transitioning to large corporate-owned entities that were much less labour intensive. Tourism would provide good jobs and offer a boost to local economies everywhere. Even the smallest towns were seeking ways to entice visitors to their neck of the woods.
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">And how has that turned out? You don't have to look far to find the evidence that thousands of planes loaded with people being transported around the world and back, is not a sustainable practice. And now, decades after tourism was seen as the solution to economic woes all over, some people are resisting.
<blockquote><p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/travel/2017/aug/10/anti-tourism-marches-spread-across-europe-venice-barcelona"><b><big>First Venice and Barcelona: now anti-tourism marches spread across Europe</big></b></a></blockquote>
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">In Iceland too:
<blockquote><p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/destinations/europe/iceland/articles/reykjavik-compared-to-disneyland-as-number-of-us-tourists-pass-population/"><b><big>Iceland becoming 'Disneyland' as US tourists outnumber locals</big></b></a></blockquote>
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">It's a confusing and contradictory situation for people to be in. I don't begrudge the workers who were able to leave standing in icy water in a fish plant and get a much easier job in a warm hotel for better money. It may not turn out to be a lifetime job however.
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Having said that, we tremendously enjoyed our visit to Iceland. We had a cozy apartment in the centre of Reykjavik. That's the view out our window at the top of this page. It was very convenient for shopping at the nearby small supermarket and William enjoyed being in the vicinity of the very active nightlife. Our apartment was well-equipped with dishes and utensils. It had a stove-top and microwave and even a tiny dishwasher — which we used — and a tiny clothes washer which we didn't.
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiUl5FnczSs2L8EWBn7npRCMsfIZzyd-n_cu_rpzHMjgza6qzLUvqBUh8kSh27rG7vWRBa2QqBuod6WoVGVjwOI8DA0EFMTyC7u5pDuwRi0yIrsNaQOuMWST8ZnM60Lfi3deSN-G2QFqN0/s1600/DSCN2736.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiUl5FnczSs2L8EWBn7npRCMsfIZzyd-n_cu_rpzHMjgza6qzLUvqBUh8kSh27rG7vWRBa2QqBuod6WoVGVjwOI8DA0EFMTyC7u5pDuwRi0yIrsNaQOuMWST8ZnM60Lfi3deSN-G2QFqN0/s400/DSCN2736.JPG" width="400" height="300" data-original-width="1600" data-original-height="1200" /></a></div>
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The bathroom was made of smooth rocks.
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgTEl8mbNpHzJuCAJUYv-vO0BQY09lx9VIuV65ypAzie16mWj-Y9m7bSs-ypVK6bJduihNWeFNUSPVP020x7wepLskCKi5CT-HnwOhipBZFaXQLFpvNQzJm80unEBlci6JnnILvzDlHi4Q/s1600/DSCN2738.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgTEl8mbNpHzJuCAJUYv-vO0BQY09lx9VIuV65ypAzie16mWj-Y9m7bSs-ypVK6bJduihNWeFNUSPVP020x7wepLskCKi5CT-HnwOhipBZFaXQLFpvNQzJm80unEBlci6JnnILvzDlHi4Q/s400/DSCN2738.JPG" width="400" height="300" data-original-width="1600" data-original-height="1200" /></a></div>
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">That's cricket on the TV — a very exciting game, I believe.
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEht5mRdSkdS95mHOIK0b01BEwqAafUsBKVJxdFv9Fs-gLseXOVYs7-JWqdE1i0MW4jXanlwpdTv1PBIPt-ppx_VjVpBKjvxtLPTIaviqm-uIZKBT69dQUSzDkmvOaEWoLhNVZ01zDTV_kc/s1600/DSCN2739.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEht5mRdSkdS95mHOIK0b01BEwqAafUsBKVJxdFv9Fs-gLseXOVYs7-JWqdE1i0MW4jXanlwpdTv1PBIPt-ppx_VjVpBKjvxtLPTIaviqm-uIZKBT69dQUSzDkmvOaEWoLhNVZ01zDTV_kc/s400/DSCN2739.JPG" width="400" height="300" data-original-width="1600" data-original-height="1200" /></a></div>
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Our visit wasn't very long but we managed to do a lot. I'll come back soon to tell you about the city of Reykjavik.
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Meanwhile, I've posted two albums of quite spectacular photos on Facebook. You can look at them even if you don't have a Facebook account. Here they are. Just click:
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><a href="https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10155725286948281.1073741906.526283280&type=1&l=46907e7037">A visit to Reynisfjara black sand beach and basalt columns</a>
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><a href="https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10155722083863281.1073741905.526283280&type=1&l=86cfc376c5">Iceland's Sólheimajökull glacier</a>
Sharon Fraserhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06484421511625293763noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4251575251734028201.post-44632464079636231492017-08-04T20:41:00.001-07:002017-12-30T20:06:20.774-08:00Our Exhibition: a highlight of every kid's summer
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">When I was growing up in Chatham, New Brunswick, the Exhibition was the highlight of the summer. It usually fell conveniently right around the end of August, just before Labour Day although I do remember a couple of times when it was held in early September, after school started. How awful it was for us kids to have to sit in hot classrooms, windows wide open, and hear the tempting sounds of the carnival — the music, the carney announcements, the general hubbub. We could hardly wait for the bell to ring so we could get over there.
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj8pkqjy1E43K3QuFVVv4DUy5KR-8ocxpD-AOcGj1i4XNvu9D2nfvnTKcutpIwRh5rSC5AYFFn77isfxWH6EcL87MHBBRzUNp32xxTlB6q3L_0rDf1pjbOaj-4R5MtzGG835KJEgj8Wa7U/s1600/Miramixhi+Ex+building+painting.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj8pkqjy1E43K3QuFVVv4DUy5KR-8ocxpD-AOcGj1i4XNvu9D2nfvnTKcutpIwRh5rSC5AYFFn77isfxWH6EcL87MHBBRzUNp32xxTlB6q3L_0rDf1pjbOaj-4R5MtzGG835KJEgj8Wa7U/s400/Miramixhi+Ex+building+painting.jpg" width="400" height="160" /></a></div>
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The Exhibition was divided into three distinct parts: the building, the midway and the barns. Even as young people, we felt some responsibility to survey the exhibits in the building when we first arrived. This was quite mature of us as the building was mostly commercial exhibits, farm machinery, appliances, lots and lots of raffle tickets — which we mostly left for our parents to buy. There were also baked goods, pickles and preserves to be judged and there was a wall-full of local art.
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The building was a landmark in Chatham, on a hill behind a large grassy expanse that was used for parking. Later, there were paved lanes in between the grassy parking areas but in my earlier memories, there were unpaved tracks and I remember it as being quite haphazard.
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj0w5NUMiUVeMQFHIRGxU2bLw6NBBXH4_6tasYrSzuWNNJEhEgJDC8aN86A0BqW600zB92ii7fV1cbQsFlgqA2YYbXJUN-Bi9a0Aj3obr4FzXFgTSziK-BUdJnu5NN0irbE31AppWTPIms/s1600/Miramichi+Ex+winter.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj0w5NUMiUVeMQFHIRGxU2bLw6NBBXH4_6tasYrSzuWNNJEhEgJDC8aN86A0BqW600zB92ii7fV1cbQsFlgqA2YYbXJUN-Bi9a0Aj3obr4FzXFgTSziK-BUdJnu5NN0irbE31AppWTPIms/s400/Miramichi+Ex+winter.jpg" width="400" height="204" /></a></div>
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">This building was built in 1937 and it burned down in a spectacular fire in 1993. It's since been replaced.
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">After our dutiful turn around the building, downstairs and up, we were free to head out to the midway with clear consciences. In those days, it was always the Bill Lynch Show and like it or not, the Exhibition was judged on how good the midway was that year. Some years, the rides and the sideshows were scant; people complained and threatened to write letters. The problem was, Bill Lynch could supply a certain number of carnivals at the same time but some years, it became clear, the carnival contents were stretched too thin and all you could do was hope that the following year, schedules would be staggered and we'd get our fair share.
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhS-u37uT9pKJn0oy7ouiqXVA8hW9gZ1mDGC8mzWcdSLRHw5Y0vICzTEA1bDSOI0LZhgXi3Ab0tBckyGLvQlwlbShJ5PZVQSXGduUohWon8pLjA7PUmZTmorvrzJBg78UGEI9gh7GfogFk/s1600/Miramichi+Exhibition.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhS-u37uT9pKJn0oy7ouiqXVA8hW9gZ1mDGC8mzWcdSLRHw5Y0vICzTEA1bDSOI0LZhgXi3Ab0tBckyGLvQlwlbShJ5PZVQSXGduUohWon8pLjA7PUmZTmorvrzJBg78UGEI9gh7GfogFk/s400/Miramichi+Exhibition.jpg" width="400" height="267" /></a></div>
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">You can tell this photo is taken in Chatham because you can see the famous steeple of St. Michael's Basilica in the lower left.
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">We would usually wait until we were out on the grounds before we started eating although I remember one of the service clubs — the Lions, I think — served fresh buttered corn on the cob, right inside the main entrance. It was so good, it probably didn't occur to us that we were making a healthy choice to begin our feasting — and maybe with all that butter dripping down our chins, it wasn't all that healthy.
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I don't know whether it was a widespread habit or just in my circles but we never got our fries from that first truck on the midway, the high truck on the left. It was always said that he charged more and gave fewer fries per serving — taking advantage of his position.
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Right across from that fry truck was the Bingo tent which we had no occasion to enter, not being Bingo players. I think there was an age restriction anyway. I suppose it was considered gambling — but weren't all the games? The back wall of that tent was covered with prizes. I remember table lamps — dozens of table lamps. I remember seeing lots of people over the course of an evening carrying those lamps off too. I'm sure it was an appreciated prize.
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The gaming booths didn't hold a lot of attraction for me. I remember as a very small girl, Dad giving me a handful of dimes for the duck pond, which I loved. The prizes were always a long slender flexible stick with some kind of cheap-o toy attached to the end. I can still see the keeper of the duck pond reaching up for another of those prizes which would last about a day.
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiBoTS91-jUO_veK3V3GFxeL5O7BVxZnu8Ak6-aZ82jD7LzfXjTOSmjk8npTg4GXreFn1recTNsQZ0qEZVJgLtN4cfKXS4nHbMrKS4Tiv2mnQbgouji2gNCG5z9LWRAADn5AaZ7jL2nghc/s1600/Miramichi+Ex+duck+pond.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiBoTS91-jUO_veK3V3GFxeL5O7BVxZnu8Ak6-aZ82jD7LzfXjTOSmjk8npTg4GXreFn1recTNsQZ0qEZVJgLtN4cfKXS4nHbMrKS4Tiv2mnQbgouji2gNCG5z9LWRAADn5AaZ7jL2nghc/s320/Miramichi+Ex+duck+pond.jpg" width="320" height="240" data-original-width="340" data-original-height="255" /></a></div>
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Much later, my boyfriend during my last summer just after high school was a ballplayer with a good arm. I definitely took home a prize stuffed animal every night of Exhibition Week that year. There's teenage status, of course, connected to walking around the midway carrying a big teddy bear and I enjoyed it while it lasted.
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">When it came to rides, I was strictly a ferris wheel and merry-go-round (after the little kids had been taken home) kind of girl. As a small child, I'd been taken on the tilt-a-whirl and I screamed so loud and disturbingly, the carnie had to stop the ride and let me off. I promptly went around behind the ride and threw up. That was it for me. Ever since, I've avoided rides that go up and down and spin around.
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I do remember another ride that I got on. I think it only came to our Exhibition once although I could be wrong. This ride was called The Caterpillar.
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjtrFB6i4PpXw0IWkimOCzIDsKyq7m_fPRdGTN36jDOlV65zXi1m4NvGbYvhhagM1QhZQrYFarPpIrgnDWaLZINIEt1BDxlb38yaQECY4yJKKVucxMPZyL-AovKp66d7BHV1UflOeDOF-4/s1600/Miramichi+Ex+Caterpillar.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjtrFB6i4PpXw0IWkimOCzIDsKyq7m_fPRdGTN36jDOlV65zXi1m4NvGbYvhhagM1QhZQrYFarPpIrgnDWaLZINIEt1BDxlb38yaQECY4yJKKVucxMPZyL-AovKp66d7BHV1UflOeDOF-4/s400/Miramichi+Ex+Caterpillar.jpg" width="400" height="299" data-original-width="800" data-original-height="598" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi7wSbkzHEzcQWhn99gmFPx7UrzG3k1YZE89L45StRpRqUVTjOx1UgkWC9uY57juo7hVBBXaSVFpJxhlmSN1n8YypVvgXgAklbm9IGmovBtltVQPWyyxDJ9FUl9Mc4ugeek8NzCD1m4E7M/s1600/Miramichi+Ex+Caterpillar+2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi7wSbkzHEzcQWhn99gmFPx7UrzG3k1YZE89L45StRpRqUVTjOx1UgkWC9uY57juo7hVBBXaSVFpJxhlmSN1n8YypVvgXgAklbm9IGmovBtltVQPWyyxDJ9FUl9Mc4ugeek8NzCD1m4E7M/s320/Miramichi+Ex+Caterpillar+2.jpg" width="320" height="240" data-original-width="720" data-original-height="540" /></a></div>
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">It was a small roller coaster. You were fastened in to your seat and the ride started up and did a few revolutions in the open air. A few minutes in, the green covering started to emerge from the centre. It rose straight up, like the convertible cover of a car and then it gradually folded over and covered the seats and you finished your ride in darkness. Quite interesting now that I think about it. I'm guessing that it's not commonly found on midways today.
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Back beyond the games and the rides was another phenomenon that has faded away. This is the side-show — including what was commonly called the "freak" show (The Wild Man of Borneo, The Fat/Bearded/Tattooed Lady, The Armless/Legless/Torsoless Man) and those showmen of particular talents who ate swords and fire and cavorted with snakes.
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiYmFFjLiz0a6SgBAVxD4kz1Bl6DIyFuWXSsZlYy1srLXnr934WNxsONN46xcfDeDrQBRQW3bWWFUW2ZT5ZSzeCn7jYR2EgvbYCHqx7aeV_MHJesj6RPWkYlUC9vMTpw_3DYCV9uGadr4s/s1600/Miramichi+Ex+sideshow.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiYmFFjLiz0a6SgBAVxD4kz1Bl6DIyFuWXSsZlYy1srLXnr934WNxsONN46xcfDeDrQBRQW3bWWFUW2ZT5ZSzeCn7jYR2EgvbYCHqx7aeV_MHJesj6RPWkYlUC9vMTpw_3DYCV9uGadr4s/s400/Miramichi+Ex+sideshow.jpg" width="400" height="266" data-original-width="1024" data-original-height="682" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh-tBiOR414TL7ies-XPKH1aZZ8E6m3NDqT9in_2o0ck3TxBL2N18eRndKBHDMJyxpJ2ahc2Stl3MqTbQcfLa25-Yi2i_ihGPnDBsrwDQm5dNuRM4QSrJGAd4rFYZlrMsBboFPrCHsJCw8/s1600/Miramichi+Ex+girlie+show.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh-tBiOR414TL7ies-XPKH1aZZ8E6m3NDqT9in_2o0ck3TxBL2N18eRndKBHDMJyxpJ2ahc2Stl3MqTbQcfLa25-Yi2i_ihGPnDBsrwDQm5dNuRM4QSrJGAd4rFYZlrMsBboFPrCHsJCw8/s320/Miramichi+Ex+girlie+show.jpg" width="320" height="269" data-original-width="587" data-original-height="494" /></a></div>
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">My friends and I, doing our official rounds of the midway, would stand throughout the barker's sales job as he did his level best to entice people into the tent. He would bring out "samples" and use them as part of his selling point. He was loud and seductive and I can still hear that almost-hypnotic persuasion. I was never inside, of course. People in those days didn't routinely carry ID as far as I know but the barker knew who to let in and we kids all knew we weren't going in.
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I grew up, interestingly enough, with a rather warm and affectionate memory of the "girlie shows." I think it's because one day, my friends and I were coming back to the midway from the barns and we somehow got in behind the sideshow tents but still inside the midway fence. There were two or three little trailers there and people milling about. There were women on chaise longues getting some sun, chatting with each other, doing their nails. And there were small children running around playing! We suddenly realized that we had stumbled into the living area of the stars of the girlie show and maybe some of the other sideshows as well. They were families and this was the way they were spending the summer.
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">It seemed so charming and natural that all sense of titillation was lost on me. I suppose that's why they were tucked out of sight back behind the tent stages.
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEinFwrq8hE35iZlyk0GAANnF28xQktQXQeP8xax9mrGEbCZ2uqoq2r7njsjNIBuiqO68aHa-_DUx1TTwqPOyY_PEN2TbGVzE__2ml_WzBbxkE48Akluw38HlFTz26WnV2i0uMtqEea8-RA/s1600/Miramichi+Ex+high+aerial+act.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEinFwrq8hE35iZlyk0GAANnF28xQktQXQeP8xax9mrGEbCZ2uqoq2r7njsjNIBuiqO68aHa-_DUx1TTwqPOyY_PEN2TbGVzE__2ml_WzBbxkE48Akluw38HlFTz26WnV2i0uMtqEea8-RA/s400/Miramichi+Ex+high+aerial+act.jpg" width="400" height="318" data-original-width="340" data-original-height="270" /></a></div>
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">In an unusual twist, one of the memories that comes back to me about the Exhibition is of something that I didn't personally witness. Twice a day — 5:00 p.m. and 11:00 p.m. — the high-wire aerialist climbed the tower and began his act. (I know my photo is of a female but as I remember the high-wire acts, they were usually male.)
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">It was always scary, a lot of breath-holding and gasping and occasional exclamations. Those towers were high — often more than 100 feet — and there was always great relief when the aerialist came down.
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">One day — I'm pretty sure it was the afternoon show — my friends and I had just left the grounds and were out in the area in front of the building. We could hear the sounds that always accompanied the high-wire act and suddenly, there was a sound that was so different, it's impossible for me to describe it properly. It was a scream of fear and horror and disbelief. We didn't know until later what had happened. The aerialist had — working "without a net" as it was always advertised — plunged to the ground. My memory fails me here although I think he was taken to the hospital (which was nearby) and he may have remained alive for a couple of days but I can't say that for sure.
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">That event haunts me still. I can hardly bear to think about it. I can't imagine how it must feel to someone who was there.
<p><hr noshade size="1">
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Years later, I was back living in Chatham and I was editor of the newspaper, the <i>Miramichi Press</i>. By then, the Exhibition — while still fun — was an event to be covered in the paper. Our job was to find new stories about the Exhibition — or to find new angles on old stories.
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">One hot afternoon, I was wandering around the midway and I thought it might be a good idea to see if I could get an interview with the high-wire aerialist/acrobat. I went and knocked on the door of the trailer that was next to the tower. I knocked several times, in fact, and finally, the door was opened a couple of inches. It was a woman and when I told her why I was there, she said no interview, not under any circumstances. She said he was resting. I honestly can't remember the conversation but after a bit of back and forth, she did let me in. I think maybe he heard the conversation and gave his assent.
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">(I don't remember their names. I'll call them Paul and Marie. Who knows? Maybe those <i>are</i> their names.)
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">It was nice in the trailer. There was a fan running and it was dim. Paul was sitting at the table. He was wearing a tank top and sweat pants. His upper body was heavily muscled which I guess is not surprising. Marie was heavily made up and wearing what was obviously a wig. They both smoked a lot. They seemed older than I thought they would be.
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">We chatted. It wasn't so much an interview as it was people sitting around on a hot afternoon, exchanging life stories. I can't remember where they were from or how they got into the high-wire act business — it was probably something as ordinary as people who were working with the carnival gravitating toward the tower and practicing until they knew how to do it. It was a job to them and they didn't seem to find it any more unusual than anyone would find their job. I think they told me they would finish the circuit in Atlantic Canada and then head for Florida where they would spend the winter.
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I sensed at one point that they had become quite suggestive and it was clear that they were interested in me as something other than a local reporter. I made a casual reference to my husband and they reacted quite positively to that mention and wondered if I could get him over to join us. I thought maybe it was time for me to go and I made a graceful exit. I thanked them for their time and wished them all the very best.
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I came back later to watch the act with Marie. She didn't go up the tower but she had a crucial role on the ground, co-ordinating the act, adjusting the guy-wires, timing his moves to get him down safely. There was no conversation. She was working. The whole experience — watching him go through those dangerous moves after having spent a couple of hours together — was very tense for me. When he was safely on the ground, I waved and slipped away. They disappeared into the trailer.
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I wrote my story and it was published later that week.
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Several weeks later, a letter arrived, hand-written in bold black ink. It was from Paul. They were on their way back to Florida. He had seen the story and wanted to thank me. He said he usually avoided reporters because, in his experience, they never got it right but he thought I "got it" and he liked my story. He said Marie sent her regards.
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I hope they both lived to a ripe old age and retired in their trailer to a nice Florida beach.
Sharon Fraserhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06484421511625293763noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4251575251734028201.post-12551787096970146802017-06-26T20:05:00.000-07:002017-06-26T20:05:38.596-07:00Writing my life — Chatham, Black River, Montreal, Halifax
<blockquote><p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><i><b>“Writing is the only thing that when I do it, I don't feel I should be doing something else.”</b> — Gloria Steinem</i></blockquote>
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">There are people in my life who feel this way and I admit, it resonates with me too. In fact, I <a href="http://sharonfrasereachnewday.blogspot.ca/2015/09/welcome-to-my-day.html">started Each New Day</a> to encourage myself to write, if not every day, at least regularly. I noted that I was spending a lot of time commenting on other people's Facebook posts and thus, in effect, losing my observations some of which, I said in that first post, "were researched, others that were well-thought-out and carefully written."
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">So I wanted to keep track of what I was thinking but also, I wanted to write almost every day. We were still living in our house on Duncan St. and although I sometimes suggested that I was in a rut, I was really just keeping to a carefully maintained routine. I'm a night owl and I always wrote my blog posts late at night. It seemed natural then. I wrote about the issues of the day or something wonderful I'd cooked that day or a short reminiscence about a recent trip we'd taken.
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">We moved in October, partly because I wanted a change in routine — which I happily got. I'm still a night owl but for some reason, writing blog posts at midnight doesn't come naturally to me that way it did last year. Who knows why? Don't mind me; I'm just thinking out loud.
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Something else happened. I discovered I liked writing about my past life, memoir-style writing. It turns out that my readers like those pieces too. My most-read piece — by far — is a <a href="http://sharonfrasereachnewday.blogspot.ca/2016/06/a-secret-lake-and-walk-in-woods.html">little story</a> about a lake in the woods near Chatham, NB, where I grew up. Close behind are stories about things I lost when <a href="http://sharonfrasereachnewday.blogspot.ca/2016/06/leaving-our-lives-behind-while-chaos.html">our house in Black River Bridge</a> burned; a sweet story about <a href="http://sharonfrasereachnewday.blogspot.ca/2016/01/a-legendary-ball-player-and-memorable.html">the legendary ball-player, Billy Daley</a>; and a three-part <a href="http://sharonfrasereachnewday.blogspot.ca/2016/05/love-is-sweetest-thing.html">love story</a> about the boy who disappeared.
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">My problem is, I have a lot of stories partly written but I'm out of the habit of getting my writing done and published every day. I'm confessing this because I want to change my behaviour and it's a well-known fact that if your confession is public, you pretty much have to follow through.
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Meanwhile, one of the small but interesting projects we began in our new place is that we take a photo at the same time and place every day, just to watch the world change around us. Because I often tried to be at the window at noon anyway, to see the puff of smoke when they fire the Noon Gun (and hear the boom, which takes a second or so to get here), we decided to take our photo at noon. We started the photo series on March 20, the Spring Equinox. We haven't missed a day yet.
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The photos I'm showing you here are one month apart, the last one being June 21, the Summer Equinox. When we started, we took the photos from inside, through the window. The weather is now beautiful and we take it from outside on the balcony.
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi6WuNcSIEDGXnKxC83aBMUoCfY3qP9m3jKm627hBfuT-sDbUcicYq0gdvXTDIOcMfRBcDvkjli_K3r6vyMZo9UKA7z2FbKKMfQvVTyiRRE2nVvV9ai4PPokkznxMTJIlasa79iBFT9r3s/s1600/17-03-20+a.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi6WuNcSIEDGXnKxC83aBMUoCfY3qP9m3jKm627hBfuT-sDbUcicYq0gdvXTDIOcMfRBcDvkjli_K3r6vyMZo9UKA7z2FbKKMfQvVTyiRRE2nVvV9ai4PPokkznxMTJIlasa79iBFT9r3s/s400/17-03-20+a.JPG" width="400" height="300" data-original-width="1600" data-original-height="1200" />March 20</a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhGK7YqRDkClDznaWJHejbnWDvKSVGntB4c0DNgIsKW9Z7zW0ltlAGkd4AjgwuVsflyqBDpzH7ayFU8vWawd7OCW0rTRhiuX-ATT2rfadEQEAA-kk0UbZ95sikPo2fruBmwuhTMqS9YkGA/s1600/17-04-20+a.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhGK7YqRDkClDznaWJHejbnWDvKSVGntB4c0DNgIsKW9Z7zW0ltlAGkd4AjgwuVsflyqBDpzH7ayFU8vWawd7OCW0rTRhiuX-ATT2rfadEQEAA-kk0UbZ95sikPo2fruBmwuhTMqS9YkGA/s400/17-04-20+a.JPG" width="400" height="300" data-original-width="1600" data-original-height="1200" />April 20</a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhlGgqkL2t-2xO77Bb-rFI4-8VT7sMvengAS1IfO_QAX4H-tUWgmyOjpCJCV3a7yTd-H223mZ-V2oNleyFOGQx4vPCvAav3aznLwe8JqExzBUTk86oXcp8V84K3gV6iwTLNMlGcMPabpJw/s1600/17-05-20+a.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhlGgqkL2t-2xO77Bb-rFI4-8VT7sMvengAS1IfO_QAX4H-tUWgmyOjpCJCV3a7yTd-H223mZ-V2oNleyFOGQx4vPCvAav3aznLwe8JqExzBUTk86oXcp8V84K3gV6iwTLNMlGcMPabpJw/s400/17-05-20+a.JPG" width="400" height="300" data-original-width="1600" data-original-height="1200" />May 20</a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgeWx4sShvUU4m-COhVFtxl79sDh1KPku28uO8JhkHHynuOa-YcRCYMoL82gUlqsq0w3Rv0CBTAwKqKzYl2159XqsGXtMbYI6Rb6QUt1WDVkwhuf5N3BCEcC6jDL0DYwFdKI5hsM9GiR-g/s1600/17-06-21+a.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgeWx4sShvUU4m-COhVFtxl79sDh1KPku28uO8JhkHHynuOa-YcRCYMoL82gUlqsq0w3Rv0CBTAwKqKzYl2159XqsGXtMbYI6Rb6QUt1WDVkwhuf5N3BCEcC6jDL0DYwFdKI5hsM9GiR-g/s400/17-06-21+a.JPG" width="400" height="300" data-original-width="1600" data-original-height="1200" />June 21</a></div>
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">We would definitely be aware how our scenery changes even without the photos. It's rather nice to watch it happen consciously and intentionally though. I'll be sure to show you more photos, as time goes by. You wouldn't want to miss the ones when we're so socked in by fog you can't even see the hotel.
Sharon Fraserhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06484421511625293763noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4251575251734028201.post-86026942026593354742017-06-05T20:17:00.001-07:002017-06-05T20:17:13.926-07:00Something old, something new in the tart world of rhubarb
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Every year we're challenged anew: what can we do with the springtime gift that is rhubarb that we've never done before? (Rhubarb is a gift of springtime but it's also a gift from our friend Valerie who generously brings it to us from Amherst. She's often looking for new ways to enjoy rhubarb also.)
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgb-0OAiqz3VnOfIv9xkJQ7w1PsIjG425YMpWlxY22gYwbJ2Rrwx5LUSr38cnZkvomKPAXN7PT9SgAsRV-z2uKcX9EIO1Fl-NpWjh4pQEsnVAwIOYbncSJnTXMslCsfKWoCqqqWDvZs7Bc/s1600/DSC08708.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgb-0OAiqz3VnOfIv9xkJQ7w1PsIjG425YMpWlxY22gYwbJ2Rrwx5LUSr38cnZkvomKPAXN7PT9SgAsRV-z2uKcX9EIO1Fl-NpWjh4pQEsnVAwIOYbncSJnTXMslCsfKWoCqqqWDvZs7Bc/s400/DSC08708.JPG" width="400" height="188" data-original-width="1600" data-original-height="750" /></a></div>
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">It often feels as if we've done it all. We've made jams and jellies; pies and crisps; cakes and muffins; chutneys. We've made cordial and compote, sweet sauce for ice cream, savoury sauce for chicken and meat.
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Last year and again this year, we've had a delicious rhubarb coffee cake for Dan's birthday.
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi2yshFPvLdqDuW6nvhGFq8mOMt5jUzV9fg7qV30Rrgrb_qPifeZFfnFk1YFmGllabjOD_O05FzOBWEXaaKIDb31NPgZKWyFw0tide6OQLnn4INjhyphenhyphengD58xD56QhYNp6_tHnbktXAiRWmE/s1600/DSC08722.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi2yshFPvLdqDuW6nvhGFq8mOMt5jUzV9fg7qV30Rrgrb_qPifeZFfnFk1YFmGllabjOD_O05FzOBWEXaaKIDb31NPgZKWyFw0tide6OQLnn4INjhyphenhyphengD58xD56QhYNp6_tHnbktXAiRWmE/s400/DSC08722.JPG" width="400" height="313" data-original-width="1600" data-original-height="1252" /></a>
<br></br>
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhzF9EF4rnif5OO9zUmGgg48cR7UFopEl6TQJo_01TEnUaGqYMvpOonHQXvpIhOC173B8JsOLLVvlGWX1kn-IOqX42bb3YPiNpCB-yfYuR2blVqGyVv9yFxH89fuiiI8Wj13pNkhE3Uel8/s1600/DSC08726.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhzF9EF4rnif5OO9zUmGgg48cR7UFopEl6TQJo_01TEnUaGqYMvpOonHQXvpIhOC173B8JsOLLVvlGWX1kn-IOqX42bb3YPiNpCB-yfYuR2blVqGyVv9yFxH89fuiiI8Wj13pNkhE3Uel8/s400/DSC08726.JPG" width="400" height="281" data-original-width="1600" data-original-height="1125" /></a></div>
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">We're by no means finished this year — we will get back to the tried and true, the old favourites.
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">In the meantime though, I did try something new. Here are clues:
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjvgXRW5m-Zru75W2C8hGgUsgAcBOIEkA2NaqJ8HQfQZ4z1twhjy8HzWnZ1FChWzIS3KVLeLWhqy4NTSxN2PlvNBSsHUTzdK5chVc148G4XuFJCG08ygPOURGYn3zHDW7LbvAzJjA_Tons/s1600/DSCN1318.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjvgXRW5m-Zru75W2C8hGgUsgAcBOIEkA2NaqJ8HQfQZ4z1twhjy8HzWnZ1FChWzIS3KVLeLWhqy4NTSxN2PlvNBSsHUTzdK5chVc148G4XuFJCG08ygPOURGYn3zHDW7LbvAzJjA_Tons/s400/DSCN1318.JPG" width="400" height="325" data-original-width="1600" data-original-height="1299" /></a>
<br></br>
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEggfevJ9fkXUQG9EtVmiGkQpxN94bG3c86orXry2FJnRk-iGa2ehlRgElqczPi7WehynVeUZmAVHI-VisbH_xduU-D5w7iKMzq7SnZSzDnOqUwyfFGJjm6O0imIM3hjVOrGpx8EigGsOe8/s1600/DSCN1321.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEggfevJ9fkXUQG9EtVmiGkQpxN94bG3c86orXry2FJnRk-iGa2ehlRgElqczPi7WehynVeUZmAVHI-VisbH_xduU-D5w7iKMzq7SnZSzDnOqUwyfFGJjm6O0imIM3hjVOrGpx8EigGsOe8/s400/DSCN1321.JPG" width="400" height="300" data-original-width="1600" data-original-height="1200" /></a></div>
<blockquote><p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><b><i>(The Junior cat showed up as a distraction)</i></b></blockquote>
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">You're right. It's rhubarb pickle. It's very easy and the combination of cider vinegar, fresh sliced ginger and lots of pickling spice should make a very flavourful condiment.<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjfwpb8sHdEhmBMu6SFuuicS9KSiUYmMJ3FL1lklOrkD3hunI-viPJH12XfFOqiArdxxMoGf1w6Z3k8f-Vg6snuhmu8y4ak_lI81tDztCas-2awMvmfp7ivMS_ZWQECCLjGWzRS3yUJjo4/s1600/DSCN1325.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjfwpb8sHdEhmBMu6SFuuicS9KSiUYmMJ3FL1lklOrkD3hunI-viPJH12XfFOqiArdxxMoGf1w6Z3k8f-Vg6snuhmu8y4ak_lI81tDztCas-2awMvmfp7ivMS_ZWQECCLjGWzRS3yUJjo4/s400/DSCN1325.JPG" width="400" height="297" data-original-width="1600" data-original-height="1186" /></a></div>
<br></br>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEimQtLVxcyPHVQ1J57PyrH9dyGbt1dHNUKsml36Zm0CwsrAktaHhu9LLn-gvh5mbrLGWbLASqIXZMmFwgiT2koxtCZJTrY4r_gD8v3xGY5fAjSfEkXtwaEJaoE69CnZPWf1R_F86oupURo/s1600/DSCN1327.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEimQtLVxcyPHVQ1J57PyrH9dyGbt1dHNUKsml36Zm0CwsrAktaHhu9LLn-gvh5mbrLGWbLASqIXZMmFwgiT2koxtCZJTrY4r_gD8v3xGY5fAjSfEkXtwaEJaoE69CnZPWf1R_F86oupURo/s400/DSCN1327.JPG" width="400" height="222" data-original-width="1600" data-original-height="889" /></a></div>
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">They have to sit for a couple of weeks so I'll let them do that and I'll report back.
Sharon Fraserhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06484421511625293763noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4251575251734028201.post-5343663268229178962017-05-13T20:56:00.002-07:002022-05-07T09:09:51.954-07:00Mothers: reduced to nothing, blamed for everything
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I wouldn't want anyone to think I've lost my anger even though I may express it more calmly than I used to. I have to tell you though, I'm glad there was a time when I would write a piece like this — on Mother's Day yet! — and never think twice about the fallout.
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">This was a column I wrote in <i>The Daily News</i> for Mother's Day, May 12, 1991. It was just a few months after the start of the First Gulf War. I remember exactly where I was when that war started; I still remember watching the surreal scenes on television of bombs falling on Baghdad — little green explosions on the TV screen. I was sad and I was angry.
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">This column grew out of that sadness and anger.
<p><hr noshade size="1">
<blockquote><p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Sometimes, when I want to refer to something as a “motherhood issue,” I write “so-called motherhood issue.” I do that to acknowledge society's meaning for the expression but also to point out society's ambivalence — not about the issue, but about motherhood. My “so-called” is usually excised by a sharp-eyed editor who no doubt asks himself, “Is it a motherhood issue or not?”
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">A few weeks ago, I quoted a few lines from an article by American sociologist Carol Cohn. The article, <a href=https://people.ucsc.edu/~rlipsch/migrated/pol179/Cohn.pdf>Sex and Death in the Rational World of Defense Intellectuals</a>, deals with the images and languages of war and its weapons. She prepared her article after spending a year at a centre for defense technology and arms control.
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">There's no shortage of research that suggests that some of the rage men feel toward women is rooted in envy of the biological power of women. I shudder every time I hear about fertilized eggs being implanted in a male body in one further step toward appropriating childbirth, and I emphatically disagree when I hear a woman say, “I wish they could have the babies and leave us out of it.”
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiw11yJfacL9EIGHCoHNn4FI2rv6iJEzXctoX5wEb7RuhfjRAHAnp0whyphenhyphendEdGHSV6_ui1pN9RohsiiH6I4C6bzjOzZqhq37EtjEZEdYMryUB4n-QzRvN12G5Nh8SQZHrdxeImR8NUTWbfA/s1600/shepard-fairey-hug-bombs-and-drop-babies.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiw11yJfacL9EIGHCoHNn4FI2rv6iJEzXctoX5wEb7RuhfjRAHAnp0whyphenhyphendEdGHSV6_ui1pN9RohsiiH6I4C6bzjOzZqhq37EtjEZEdYMryUB4n-QzRvN12G5Nh8SQZHrdxeImR8NUTWbfA/s200/shepard-fairey-hug-bombs-and-drop-babies.jpg" width="149" height="200" /></a></div>
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Cohn found much childhood and motherhood imagery in the nuclear war industry. In December 1942, she writes, a telegram sent to the physicists who had developed the atom bomb read, “Congratulations to the new parents. Can hardly wait to see the new arrival.” The bomb was often referred to as “Oppenheimer's baby.”
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The hydrogen bomb was referred to as “Teller's baby,” although “those who wanted to disparage Edward Teller's contribution claimed he was not the bomb's father, but its mother. They claimed Stanislaw Ulam was the real father; he had the all-important idea and inseminated Teller with it. Teller only 'carried it' after that.”
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Cohn discovered that the idea of male birth and its accompanying belittling of maternity — “the denial of women's role in the process of creation and the reduction of motherhood to the provision of nurturance (apparently Teller did not need to provide an egg, only a womb)” — has survived to this day in the nuclear industry. She quotes an officer talking about a new satellite system saying, “We'll do only the motherhood role — telemetry, tracking, and control — the maintenance.”
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Incidentally, the imagery doesn't stop with the “parents” but continues on with the “children.” In early testing of the nuclear weapons, scientists expressed the hope that the baby was a boy, not a girl — that is, not a dud.
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">So I guess you're thinking, if childbirth and motherhood have been reduced to so little importance, how come you get blamed for everything? Is it really all your fault?
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">These are the words of the revered Carl Jung on the subject:
<blockquote><p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><i>“My own view differs from that of other medico-psychological theories principally in that I attribute to the personal mother only a limited etiological significance. That is to say, all those influences which the literature describes as being exerted on the children do not come from the mother herself, but rather from the archetype projected upon her, which gives her a mythological background and invests her with authority and numinosity.” </i></blockquote>
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Having reduced women to nothing, writes <a href="http://sharonfrasereachnewday.blogspot.ca/2015/10/changing-shape-of-our-world.html">Mary Daly in <i>Gyn/Ecology</i></a>, Jung then blames them for everything.
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEisv6LDW1IuudPf7eA5Ac8AOpFdUI0c86jVyLJt_mcletXjT-Eno1Y_mo3noMIC2q5WdZ1Im9n_vjdv3eHi8xAeK22jtttxX6P05JsTMMAq4j0MkINaL3w0mHlJKt1wYrgIyfrzwdkwNPo/s1600/Bad+mommy.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEisv6LDW1IuudPf7eA5Ac8AOpFdUI0c86jVyLJt_mcletXjT-Eno1Y_mo3noMIC2q5WdZ1Im9n_vjdv3eHi8xAeK22jtttxX6P05JsTMMAq4j0MkINaL3w0mHlJKt1wYrgIyfrzwdkwNPo/s320/Bad+mommy.jpg" width="320" height="320" /></a></div>
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">In the early days of what we so blithely call civilization, motherhood was the only recognized relationship — the one that was easily identified. It's really only since someone thought up the idea of marriage and exclusive sexual rights that paternity has become an issue — in fact, that paternity has been given such significance that mothers who raise children without a father are disparaged and discriminated against.
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">A “motherhood issue” is something we're supposed to accept as good without thinking about it. A good education system, universal health care, enough food for everyone — these are motherhood issues. Or are they so-called motherhood issues? You see my problem.
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Happy Mother's Day, anyway. </blockquote>
Sharon Fraserhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06484421511625293763noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4251575251734028201.post-52477214090504765832017-04-08T21:04:00.000-07:002017-04-08T21:04:31.231-07:00'The most popular opera in the world' — big & full & lush
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><i>La Traviata</i>, it's said, is "the most popular opera in the world." It's often said with a bit of a sniff, as if its very popularity is a negative thing.
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I do like it, as it happens, and I've liked it for a long time. I first became familiar with it when a boyfriend gave me a long-playing album of the orchestral version — no singing. I was a Montreal General Hospital student nurse, at that time doing an affiliation at the Montreal Children's Hospital. We were sitting in a restaurant near the old Montreal Forum and when he gave it to me and I read the title, I really had no idea what it was.
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhKt08SfmProAChEXUzTIwOoL6majKQVoMIATnFzmftztyoT4zf3eDe14d4VzWGIuYL9Oz10hG08YR0CDer0kvytKrOFb1QwHa5fLffh1ohUtZ8j8AcCSI-xis85oyYpgtSQw6qiI6XmO8/s1600/opera+La+Traviata+album.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhKt08SfmProAChEXUzTIwOoL6majKQVoMIATnFzmftztyoT4zf3eDe14d4VzWGIuYL9Oz10hG08YR0CDer0kvytKrOFb1QwHa5fLffh1ohUtZ8j8AcCSI-xis85oyYpgtSQw6qiI6XmO8/s200/opera+La+Traviata+album.jpg" width="199" height="200" /></a></div>
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I can't remember where I first listened to the record — I'm pretty sure there were no record players in the public areas of our residences — but I listened to it somewhere because over the years, it became very familiar. Eventually, I preferred the opera with the singing included but I kept this record until very recently, when we moved and parted with all the hundreds and hundreds of LPs in our collections.
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The music of <i>La Traviata</i> is big and full and lush. The singing is emotional and sensual. Productions of this opera usually match all those descriptions with colour and elaborate costumes and grand sets. They're often described as sumptuous or florid.
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The Metropolitan production of 1957, starring Renata Tebaldi, was one example.
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh4WCJuBb0qWrl02ViCfFpjjPcOiHJ_I4ThCFhwq6nwmi9qcIkgJs9Kfh_BbDJ7iq5-27r_zH7K4XZnwtZVOYrl6s9VOZueUSosqfEP170GIsRYUV4QwiO-WgwBebGjnqFjX-x1iVWa7f8/s1600/Opera+La+Traviata+1957+Renata+Tebaldi.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh4WCJuBb0qWrl02ViCfFpjjPcOiHJ_I4ThCFhwq6nwmi9qcIkgJs9Kfh_BbDJ7iq5-27r_zH7K4XZnwtZVOYrl6s9VOZueUSosqfEP170GIsRYUV4QwiO-WgwBebGjnqFjX-x1iVWa7f8/s400/Opera+La+Traviata+1957+Renata+Tebaldi.jpg" width="400" height="324" /></a></div>
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">A production in Rome in 2009 was another example:
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhSWxmtB-UgCnz-7J_StcfJU86dAhCFF06D6yNxYxksrk8W-g5FR5lUQfCRJCFng3AyThsChlnKz6nrig7Tqap2muknXnEZ4z81vfrzODIBMS2jZV0LguyXWIE-CNV3UtjfDrkI0zevWaw/s1600/opera+La+Traviata+Rome.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhSWxmtB-UgCnz-7J_StcfJU86dAhCFF06D6yNxYxksrk8W-g5FR5lUQfCRJCFng3AyThsChlnKz6nrig7Tqap2muknXnEZ4z81vfrzODIBMS2jZV0LguyXWIE-CNV3UtjfDrkI0zevWaw/s400/opera+La+Traviata+Rome.jpg" width="400" height="287" /></a></div>
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">On a recent Saturday afternoon, we saw it Live from the Met with — as they like to say — "audiences around the world . . . when it simulcast the matinee to over 2,000 theaters in some 70 countries as part of its Live in HD series."
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Sumptuous and florid, it was not. I thought <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/verdis-traviata-shines-anew-at-the-met-with-yoncheva_us_58b1b7b8e4b02f3f81e4480c">this review</a> described it well:
<blockquote><p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><i>The curtain rises on a mostly bare stage with a huge semi-circular wall stretching from wing to wing and a curved bench placed in front of it. A gigantic clock leans against the wall at stage left and a man dressed in black, with white hair and stubbly beard, sits on the bench next to the clock, hands on his knees, staring off into space as though waiting for someone to arrive.
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">He, of course, represents Death, or one of his henchmen, and he will stalk Violetta throughout the opera, popping up unobtrusively in various scenes until the final one when he (played by James Courtney) sings the small part of the doctor attending her in her final hours.
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">During the Overture, Violetta herself enters wearing a bright red dress. She first collapses on the bench as though exhausted from a night of partying, then hauls herself up and staggers across the stage as though her feet hurt, kicks off her shoes, and sits next to the man.
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The walled-in stage serves as the set for all scenes, allowing for both scenes of Act II and Act III to be sung without pause. Some boxy IKEA-like couches are added for Violetta’s and Alfredo’s villa outside Paris where Alfredo prances around in boxer shorts. The chorus, all dressed in black suits and ties, men and women alike, invade the stage for the party scenes, emphasizing a male-dominated society. The clock gets moved around some. It’s all very arty.</i></blockquote>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj2Bm9iRGC_sblDxb5WhjGaUFeoFs-YQp8wGYGgSlqmttYqGOgg3erVm2kVxwxO2cxQ2azDRM_0yzPFbRWhki3mrjkgcDq8IeBqemf6jQkw_2NBMmfuWlFlEmjojoWoOa1XBcLRSa7i-9Q/s1600/La+Traviata+Violetta+and+Alberto.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj2Bm9iRGC_sblDxb5WhjGaUFeoFs-YQp8wGYGgSlqmttYqGOgg3erVm2kVxwxO2cxQ2azDRM_0yzPFbRWhki3mrjkgcDq8IeBqemf6jQkw_2NBMmfuWlFlEmjojoWoOa1XBcLRSa7i-9Q/s400/La+Traviata+Violetta+and+Alberto.jpg" width="400" height="225" /></a></div>
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Although I'm trying to be more open-minded, it's possible that if I'd read this before I went, I might have had second thoughts. Thank goodness I didn't. I loved this production. The very starkness of the sets magnified the effect of the music, the characters, the story.
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">In truth though, the real star of this show (along with Verdi, of course) was the Star.
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjzDjyYeTL1FBk4ePZKzQtxStydG17D30jRI_EUH8FpV0qOPy0Zk8UFxW0R-iZ-aGOt1tvlnarKRgZCliQ0C_hYGC1peYgrnhjQ3M3mohW6drCLps30-X7qhnUAxyv_k3l0MuEO7Qt89RE/s1600/Opera+La+Traviata+with+Sonya.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjzDjyYeTL1FBk4ePZKzQtxStydG17D30jRI_EUH8FpV0qOPy0Zk8UFxW0R-iZ-aGOt1tvlnarKRgZCliQ0C_hYGC1peYgrnhjQ3M3mohW6drCLps30-X7qhnUAxyv_k3l0MuEO7Qt89RE/s400/Opera+La+Traviata+with+Sonya.jpg" width="316" height="400" /></a></div>
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Sonya Yoncheva was so appealing. Her voice was magnificent and her acting was so heartfelt — so playful, so sexy and sad, so human. She was almost never out of our sight and her energy never flagged. It was a performance that has stayed with me and keeps popping back into my head.
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The theatre, opera, ballet that we've been able to see at the <a href="http://www.cineplex.com/Events/ComingSoon">Cineplex Events</a> have become one of my favourite things. I'll come back another day and tell you about some of the other wonderful productions we've seen.
Sharon Fraserhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06484421511625293763noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4251575251734028201.post-68173375189333588312017-04-03T21:02:00.003-07:002017-04-03T21:02:53.015-07:00A photo project, a Mrs. Enid sighting & rubber leg syndrome
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The Halifax Public Gardens are closed in the winter. I had never given that much thought until we moved across the street. I'm glad they're closed; it looks so restful over there. As the snow comes and goes, the flower beds and the paths change shape and direction. The pond freezes and snow covers it. The temperature goes up and it's open water again. The Gardens are filled with exotic plants, rare trees, tropical shrubs, and they need this peaceful break.
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjsOjBBFM6fDF9sBxYOhNvuf2sZ2J64wJhOGpL9RejNWTwe04fOcyKeT4sX2wSM5Plwcnm4EI-zPq57zZ8W637j7Y9fy14Yg6A4P4xYb3_wxDjaEGxeMEDwXwFvhzuJgzdPSxz7xRAJc-0/s1600/DSCN0502.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjsOjBBFM6fDF9sBxYOhNvuf2sZ2J64wJhOGpL9RejNWTwe04fOcyKeT4sX2wSM5Plwcnm4EI-zPq57zZ8W637j7Y9fy14Yg6A4P4xYb3_wxDjaEGxeMEDwXwFvhzuJgzdPSxz7xRAJc-0/s400/DSCN0502.JPG" width="400" height="300" /></a></div>
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">On the first day of Spring, we started one of those projects you so often read of other people doing. We decided to take a photo every day at the same time (approximately) of the same view for a year. Dan wanted to get fancy and buy a tripod and do it "properly" but I wanted a more casual project. We'd just go to the window and take the picture. We decided on a view that includes the Public Gardens and Citadel Hill.
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Because I usually try to be near the window at noon, to see/hear the <a href="http://www.ctvnews.ca/canada/halifax-s-noon-boom-a-startling-jolt-of-tradition-since-the-1800s-1.3133999">Noon Gun</a> from the Citadel, that seemed like a good time to take the picture. (I separate "see" and "hear"because even though the gun is not far away, there's an obvious pause between when we see the puff of smoke and when we hear the boom.) So far, we've done the photo every day. A couple of times, we were going to be out so we took the photo early but that's to be expected.
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">A couple of days ago, I was waiting at the window and scanning the surrounding area when I noticed people walking inside the Gardens. They didn't look like intruders so I assumed they were City workers. One fellow set up a tripod and I thought maybe they were going to be doing some surveying.
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Then I noticed there were a couple of women with them, women who looked a bit familiar. There was something about those cloth coats, the little hats, the fur-trimmed snow-boots, the handbag hanging over the arm. "I think that's Mrs. Enid," I said to Dan.
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj5VD9v4g0HF-N98gBV7X4YLe2jVf_ny243kE8-NawtswNQJ4Dsi140qV80-kqjkoq0Lr3KQ4ytMsGPIRpgp17XHkNgYhiangkrG6v9spWtC7kVd4kLmuilgIFar68XM2QQhU9G5V7cJJI/s1600/Public+Gardens+Mrs.+Enid.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj5VD9v4g0HF-N98gBV7X4YLe2jVf_ny243kE8-NawtswNQJ4Dsi140qV80-kqjkoq0Lr3KQ4ytMsGPIRpgp17XHkNgYhiangkrG6v9spWtC7kVd4kLmuilgIFar68XM2QQhU9G5V7cJJI/s400/Public+Gardens+Mrs.+Enid.jpg" width="400" height="225" /></a></div>
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Regular viewers of <i>This Hour has 22 Minutes</i> will recognize the wonderful Cathy Jones. Mrs. Enid is always seen trudging somewhat tiredly down a path in a park, expounding on life. She used to do it regularly with Eulalia — played by Mary Walsh — but I don't think it was Mary with her this time. I'll wait for the program. It was a cold windy day and the way TV is, for a five-minute skit, they were there for at least two hours.
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">There was one more little drama to play out that day. Just before 7:00 p.m., there was a fire alarm. It was very very loud — quite alarming, in fact — and the cats didn't like it at all. Me either. We didn't know what the protocol was in a situation like this so we opened our door and went out into the hall. The only neighbour out was the young man who lives next door. He looked pretty relaxed and said since he's lived here, there have been a couple of such events and they were both false alarms. He thought he'd wait and see if anything happened.
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">We decided maybe we'd better head down. I put on my winter jacket and boots and grabbed my phone, my keys and a pair of gloves. So much for, "What treasures would you rescue if you were escaping a burning building?" We told the cats we'd be right back and we hit the stairs.
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Now remember, we live on the 17th floor — that's our building on the left. Count four balconies down from the top and that's us.
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhlissKunekBN4fN20bO9kPkMVBMzIjmYrQtjXFe-htsWHFbyQC69ZLk82_G4wg1qZlPUCsfGhnpyz7_EEnioZ1GcZwF7Tr4s6t-z3L52jcG4cps6JysE5YAuXLcS3xIhET9ShnAfefO18/s1600/Our+apartment+building+Christmas+letter.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhlissKunekBN4fN20bO9kPkMVBMzIjmYrQtjXFe-htsWHFbyQC69ZLk82_G4wg1qZlPUCsfGhnpyz7_EEnioZ1GcZwF7Tr4s6t-z3L52jcG4cps6JysE5YAuXLcS3xIhET9ShnAfefO18/s400/Our+apartment+building+Christmas+letter.jpg" width="400" height="180" /></a></div>
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">It was awful in the stairwell. There was a wind blowing through there. It was echo-y. People kept joining us as we went down — old people, young people, families, some with babes-in-arms. In one family, two parents and two small children, both adults carried a violin. They knew what to grab on their way out.
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I found it very hard. I couldn't set my own pace because there were people ahead of us, people behind us. I didn't want to be the one who broke the rhythm. I was very thankful for the railing which was continuous and steady.
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">We did eventually find ourselves in the lobby which was full of people and tiny dogs. The alarm was still clanging and when it stopped, the cacophony continued because those little dogs hadn't been able to hear themselves before. They had to make up for lost time. The firetruck was in front of the building but after about five minutes, the firefighters came through the lobby and they declared the all-clear. False alarm. Dan left and went off to a lecture where he'd been headed when all this started, our building manager opened the elevators, and I took the liberty of going ahead of a parade of little dogs and got on the first elevator.
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">By the time I reached the apartment, my legs felt as if they were made of rubber. I was very glad that we didn't have to walk <i>up</i> the stairs but who knew going down all those stairs would be so hard? At the risk of sounding like a cliché, I honestly did use muscles in my legs that I didn't know were there. My legs were very sore for a couple of days and I will head back to the treadmill so I'll be more prepared if the occasion arises again.
Sharon Fraserhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06484421511625293763noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4251575251734028201.post-54967938797824302522017-03-10T21:20:00.000-08:002017-03-10T21:20:11.179-08:00There's a long long trail a-winding *
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Finton Sanburn O'Donnell was born on May 12, 1896, in Carroll's Crossing, Northumberland Co., New Brunswick on the upper reaches of the Miramichi River.
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">On November 9, 1915, he travelled to Sussex, NB where he enlisted in the 104th Battalion of the Canadian Expeditionary Force. Six months later, on June 28, 1916, the Battalion embarked at Halifax on the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RMS_Olympic"><i>S.S. Olympic</i></a> (the older sister of the <i>Titanic</i> and the <i>Brittanic</i>) and set sail for Europe. (If you click on the pictures, you'll be able to read the small print.)
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgY3h-QoTOvrIMfN2n9WmoazOMW-5ZEFtfCvd93VdRhEA-lsvr_p71ti9RjSq5imp7y7EgiJcZNu45BbLm5s23uifnjbgCNxEsraPhvp4ZwJKwD_cnzXZFimOOXSQi0-7QvVr-PgXPeY0g/s1600/Fint+CEF+lists.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgY3h-QoTOvrIMfN2n9WmoazOMW-5ZEFtfCvd93VdRhEA-lsvr_p71ti9RjSq5imp7y7EgiJcZNu45BbLm5s23uifnjbgCNxEsraPhvp4ZwJKwD_cnzXZFimOOXSQi0-7QvVr-PgXPeY0g/s400/Fint+CEF+lists.jpg" width="360" height="400" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj7RDWK09dFYPEtq5c8ksqm0ePlDP25nrsGgApndSxhGgoQCWSIonK8SUqDjHfj_4LnHWaV82USAkkeRzqg_Soq9L1LHxdqhebaQKBxP8FhuQrbbWW52qZJEa6oAod2__BrRvv0qHIb018/s1600/Fint+CEF+list+page.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj7RDWK09dFYPEtq5c8ksqm0ePlDP25nrsGgApndSxhGgoQCWSIonK8SUqDjHfj_4LnHWaV82USAkkeRzqg_Soq9L1LHxdqhebaQKBxP8FhuQrbbWW52qZJEa6oAod2__BrRvv0qHIb018/s400/Fint+CEF+list+page.jpg" width="400" height="243" /></a></div>
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I never heard him talk about the war but I do know that he fought in the north of France and in Belgium. I connect him with Passchendaele and his service record seems to suggest that he fought at Vimy Ridge. Right at the end of his CEF Soldier Detail form, there's a cryptic note that suggested he might have been killed at Vimy. Look at the very last line:
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgnrgPps2hJny8B_EXgD2OxAmLp3Smxzx388kWyu3yy572MQ-EcXXyQCPpZiAha69GMKVBbwu2q53AzpnCcg17abunf071CxuNs50FGYCwMFWjZpMEDKcrSFRRjzARGg8zRNeYP7q3o_Cc/s1600/Fint+CEF+Soldier+Detail.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgnrgPps2hJny8B_EXgD2OxAmLp3Smxzx388kWyu3yy572MQ-EcXXyQCPpZiAha69GMKVBbwu2q53AzpnCcg17abunf071CxuNs50FGYCwMFWjZpMEDKcrSFRRjzARGg8zRNeYP7q3o_Cc/s400/Fint+CEF+Soldier+Detail.jpg" width="400" height="214" /></a></div>
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">He wasn't killed at Vimy but it may have been there that he picked up all those pieces of shrapnel that remained embedded in his body for decades after. I have a clear memory of him being in the hospital — I think it would have been in the '60s — for "removal of World War I shrapnel." If he went back to Vimy today, he would find it has changed although there may be landmarks he would recognize. It looked like this when we visited in 2015.
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhonXqP7vzwOu5lziVwW_hkdTlrWKqbmfNSb6RH0GVSM2QoWGUR9pLNrXtJTyqu0wBkN-bBODiFyT_IX8SxBdxjL-rTCYz2Q7vdmSen8Hu7wL-1CnAzjeSEKKzKPZLtkRsDsFvkpK4Tk0g/s1600/DSC07638.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhonXqP7vzwOu5lziVwW_hkdTlrWKqbmfNSb6RH0GVSM2QoWGUR9pLNrXtJTyqu0wBkN-bBODiFyT_IX8SxBdxjL-rTCYz2Q7vdmSen8Hu7wL-1CnAzjeSEKKzKPZLtkRsDsFvkpK4Tk0g/s400/DSC07638.JPG" width="300" height="400" /></a></div>
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">After the war was over, when he came back home, he married my mother's oldest sister — Lou, or Lulu. She had been teaching at the little school in Durham Bridge where she and her brothers and sisters had grown up. At some point after they got married, they moved to Smoothrock Falls in Northern Ontario where two of Lou's brothers had settled with their families.
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">But their future was in Durham Bridge. They came back and lived with Lou's family — their only child, Cedric, was born there — while Fint built the house that I visited throughout my young life.
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The house is still there, in a lovely shady yard not that easily seen from the road.
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjyBIrJsdnElEhT1IeIdXy8mS4oiUwX1QzLUIaIFGmoT7ZrU0WWwkOYQkiycLf1md1vc5cBT3CidmCI5MkZXQ0CKPb4mBUp4nY0q_cXc1u9jmSMtetHjnBC66KKmAlIEZq8RRFT_STjoQI/s1600/Fint+and+Lou%2527s+house.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjyBIrJsdnElEhT1IeIdXy8mS4oiUwX1QzLUIaIFGmoT7ZrU0WWwkOYQkiycLf1md1vc5cBT3CidmCI5MkZXQ0CKPb4mBUp4nY0q_cXc1u9jmSMtetHjnBC66KKmAlIEZq8RRFT_STjoQI/s400/Fint+and+Lou%2527s+house.jpg" width="400" height="268" /></a></div>
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">It was a pretty house. It has some charming features that were particularly attractive to little girls. There were inviting built-in bookshelves in the triangular space beneath the stairs. Lulu had lots of books that we loved reading, including most of the works of L.M. Montgomery in old-fashioned hard-cover editions. I was reading one of them one day when it came time to leave and she insisted I take it with me. I still have it.
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhkq-53S2KKnZAGUemxYL149LqbOKuDnqxjR6nJ6a6tA5MiFGk6qtKQFeoMAE1LHxZEXXx8EHkzxmy8JUcp4oMCLcYd_OlU9XOLSPHc3ve1j3VNwFPxHEtmblAD-qMU22Eh2FVcU-LEhM4/s1600/Fint+Further+Chronicles+of+Avonlea.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhkq-53S2KKnZAGUemxYL149LqbOKuDnqxjR6nJ6a6tA5MiFGk6qtKQFeoMAE1LHxZEXXx8EHkzxmy8JUcp4oMCLcYd_OlU9XOLSPHc3ve1j3VNwFPxHEtmblAD-qMU22Eh2FVcU-LEhM4/s320/Fint+Further+Chronicles+of+Avonlea.jpg" width="320" height="240" /></a></div>
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Upstairs, there was a cozy bed at the end of the hall, built into the space where the two slanted walls of the roof met. It was where I slept when we stayed overnight and I liked it partly because I could see whatever coming and going there was in the night, being out there in the hall. It showed a lot of imagination and creativity to have built that little bed in that space. People with less imagination might have simply put a table there — not nearly as interesting.
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The screened-in sunporch at the front of the house was the chosen place for spending an afternoon during a summer visit. I can still feel the soft breeze and almost smell the fragrance from the flower garden, not far beyond where we sat. The women always sat on one end of the porch, the men on the other. There would be tea.
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">As with most country houses though, the kitchen was the heart of the house and the focal point in the kitchen was the built-in sofa/day bed. It was an inviting spot and I spent many an hour curled up there, reading. It seems odd to me now but it seemed perfectly natural then that stacked near the bottom of the day bed was a pile of <i>The Illustrated London News</i>. We often walked with Fint up the railway tracks to the station to get the mail and I remember a couple of times, a bunch of <i>The Illustrated London News</i> would have arrived. It was an occasion; those papers were much anticipated.
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjB-shwlUZLGwmWRmPK5-_m8BzmVDsq-sOve4I_sK_R0mFCBN_Z7y7jhmyd-TXYuRtYmvO7EAC-3uxQ-HVltbl8xzSjC-6PEyQXy5B09TDYJWnmrqlIGwnA7wvpQzu1gNv8zg0mPe5gvSs/s1600/Fint+Illustrated+London+News.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjB-shwlUZLGwmWRmPK5-_m8BzmVDsq-sOve4I_sK_R0mFCBN_Z7y7jhmyd-TXYuRtYmvO7EAC-3uxQ-HVltbl8xzSjC-6PEyQXy5B09TDYJWnmrqlIGwnA7wvpQzu1gNv8zg0mPe5gvSs/s320/Fint+Illustrated+London+News.jpg" width="223" height="320" /></a></div>
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The kitchen sink with a water hand-pump was in front of a low window that looked out onto the garden. There were the usual rows of vegetables but the spectacular parts of the garden were the flowers. There were sweet peas and gladiolas, roses and pansies, cosmos, zinnias, marigolds, nasturtium. Those flowers were magnificent. At a certain point in the summer, every room in the house would be adorned with bowls and vases full of roses. It was a touch of such beauty and elegance.
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Fint reputedly was not that fond of children but he seemed to like Marilyn (my sister) and me and we spent a lot of time with him. The land that belonged to the family was rented out and farmed by a neighbour but Fint still liked to take a walk down through the fields and he often took us with him, especially when there was haying or harvesting being done.
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Although he had retired from working the farm, he kept some chickens and a black cow called Lady in a small barn not that far from the house. I was a little scared of Lady although not when she was in the barn. We loved being there when Fint was milking Lady. There were cats and kittens in the barn and he would send a stream of milk toward them and the cats would leap with open mouths to catch some milk, nice and fresh. He sat on a three-legged stool and milked into a shiny metal pail and from there, the milk went into a beautiful large amber pitcher, right into the fridge.
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">One time, Fint took us up the road to a supper in the community hall. It was baked beans, brown bread, potato scallop and ham. I'm not sure why no one else went to the supper but Marilyn and I were happy to go along with him. It was a good supper too and looking back, I remember how respectful all the people there were toward Fint. I had never seen him except in very familiar family situations and it was nice to see that his neighbours felt so warmly toward him.
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Lulu did most of the cooking in the household, as far as we knew, but apart from that, she sat in her rocking chair like a tiny Queen. She was said to be "delicate," which caused her younger sisters to scoff. "She'll outlive us all," they often said and indeed, she did.
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">She was always nicely turned out and it was no secret that Fint regularly took the bus into town — Fredericton — where he exchanged her library books, bought a box of chocolates, and brought dresses and shoes home "on approval." She would make her choices and on his next trip, he'd return the rejects.
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">When Lady and the chickens were gone and he needed more challenges, he built a workshop just across the yard from the backdoor of the house. It was another place that he welcomed us and I loved going out to the workshop. Inside, there was a workbench on one end with every kind of saw and a good selection of tools. In the far corner, there was a cot and along the opposite wall, a pot-bellied stove. There was a record player with a selection of 78 rpm records that he was using to learn another language — Russian, I think.
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Near the window, there was an easel where Fint painted pictures, usually still life of fruit or flowers. He built the wooden frames to put around his pictures. The floor was covered with curls of newly-planed wood. I loved the smell of the shop, the fresh wood, the paint, the turpentine.
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">He built furniture also. Mum had a sturdy little end table in her den that he'd built.
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">And he built this:
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiH34_fzHHwjod6Kc8UntP1DczOF1ZgoGgN8VoFEASAdl8YvXGEQbalMpvJIiLuK8XTlMZ8Nzsr2xeLC2cdvZS0KL8yb5P7iEdgG9UvYxgy_8C7X7kSXBfOXczCDQLzun30frrsXqqloYo/s1600/DSCN0426.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiH34_fzHHwjod6Kc8UntP1DczOF1ZgoGgN8VoFEASAdl8YvXGEQbalMpvJIiLuK8XTlMZ8Nzsr2xeLC2cdvZS0KL8yb5P7iEdgG9UvYxgy_8C7X7kSXBfOXczCDQLzun30frrsXqqloYo/s400/DSCN0426.JPG" width="220" height="400" /></a></div>
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">My lovely little bookcase — always called "the Sharon bookcase" — has now been with me for several decades. Its first home was in my bedroom when we still lived in the "hydro houses" in Chatham. It stayed home with Mum and Dad for awhile but it's now part of my furniture and has been for many years and in lots of houses. It's just outside the kitchen door here — a high-traffic area — and it's full of cookbooks which seem to suit it very well.
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">When I look at it closely, I see what a labour of love it truly was.
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgAw2gk7d21ah8snbt1XiBogOnHrKiJqivfXNpxnam5JGvo8SDIqLDJxsyqZX-d3BPioRS1Q4Jh9ZMUIOHBvfeE-NFUGj0j6M1BSx6zrERxv0A9cIhM1VZwcGCyvVzVaXqIqvohsIteg8U/s1600/DSCN0425.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgAw2gk7d21ah8snbt1XiBogOnHrKiJqivfXNpxnam5JGvo8SDIqLDJxsyqZX-d3BPioRS1Q4Jh9ZMUIOHBvfeE-NFUGj0j6M1BSx6zrERxv0A9cIhM1VZwcGCyvVzVaXqIqvohsIteg8U/s400/DSCN0425.JPG" width="400" height="300" /></a></div>
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">That's a little drawer along the top and the letters that spell my name are cut from wood and painted silver. Think of the work! I wish I had appreciated it then the way I appreciate it now.
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">It was the bookcase that inspired me to write about Fint. He really was such an interesting person. I had no idea when I was little. How would I know? But when I look back at the man who built such an interesting little house with such imaginative details; who was teaching himself another language; who read <i>The Illustrated London News</i>; who grew the most beautiful flowers ever and also painted their portraits; who built a personalized bookcase for his little niece never knowing that more than half-a-century later it would hold pride of place wherever I lived, I'm filled with admiration.
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">When you hear the expression, "a life well-lived," you don't always think of a life like Fint's, a life on a small farm in central New Brunswick, in sleepy little Durham Bridge.
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I think his life qualifies though and I would like to think he thought so too.
<p><hr noshade size="1">
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><i>* As often happens, I have no particular reason for choosing my headline except for a song that keeps running through my head as I write. I do think of the First World War when I think of Fint although I think of many other things too. But I like this song and I listened to a version that was recorded by John McCormack in 1917. You can listen to it too. You don't have to download it. You can click right at the top of the page where it says <a href="http://www.firstworldwar.com/audio/theresalonglongtrailawinding.htm">Vintage Audio</a>. (Adjust the volume on your keyboard. It opens very loud.)</i>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiGFoD-QNiDDwRdCbXhAJcKYV1ncQbhA_Oy0AECjIwI5dm9BFDbexBH6sNHRcr7ZouEhwwHWpNys98DA61bIZ6duN_Z_Sc9WmphOhn2ANu1bYfVhruklZu8XaLv0_55X8Y6UNACXdCbSz4/s1600/Fint+theres+a+long+long+trail.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiGFoD-QNiDDwRdCbXhAJcKYV1ncQbhA_Oy0AECjIwI5dm9BFDbexBH6sNHRcr7ZouEhwwHWpNys98DA61bIZ6duN_Z_Sc9WmphOhn2ANu1bYfVhruklZu8XaLv0_55X8Y6UNACXdCbSz4/s200/Fint+theres+a+long+long+trail.jpg" width="156" height="200" /></a></div>
Sharon Fraserhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06484421511625293763noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4251575251734028201.post-73847763374714748162017-02-08T22:00:00.000-08:002017-02-08T22:00:53.087-08:00My virtual journey to the land of the politically unhinged
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">It started one day last week when I was reading a Facebook discussion about the latest from the Trump administration. It was the time of the infamous ban on immigration from certain countries; his <a href="http://time.com/4658012/donald-trump-national-prayer-breakfast-transcript/">prayer breakfast ask</a> for better ratings for <i>The Apprentice</i>; his angry and inappropriate conversations with world leaders; and his <a href="http://theconcourse.deadspin.com/a-full-transcript-of-donald-trumps-black-history-month-1791871370">Black History Month statement</a> with the astonishing reference to <a href="http://www.biography.com/people/frederick-douglass-9278324#synopsis">Frederick Douglass</a>.
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjGwzOLurWQp7scWETxbWLD-irI8Mm7ABaZGUOREfezjX8OAXJwZT5F_j55SDDF9ZSr3uWG9YPg3UI2dUDBxG6Wipc1gqEc-Y7UNZ1tyPBX-nPH2EjnLq-KE8MvoqStbniq5LPDKwhbq8A/s1600/Frederick+Douglass.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjGwzOLurWQp7scWETxbWLD-irI8Mm7ABaZGUOREfezjX8OAXJwZT5F_j55SDDF9ZSr3uWG9YPg3UI2dUDBxG6Wipc1gqEc-Y7UNZ1tyPBX-nPH2EjnLq-KE8MvoqStbniq5LPDKwhbq8A/s320/Frederick+Douglass.jpg" width="267" height="320" />Frederick Douglass</a></div>
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Most of the people in the Facebook discussion — progressives all — were expressing various degrees of outrage, shock and embarrassment. It was the mention of embarrassment that raised the subject of people in the US who had voted for Trump: do you think those people are regretting their vote? Do you think they're feeling remorse and will be joining the resistance as time proceeds?
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">It was right about then that a commenter showed up to say something like, "Let's give him some time. Every new president has to learn the ropes and he should be given the same chance as others."
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">This is not an uncommon view on the Internet but I was surprised to see it in this particular discussion. So I popped over to his place to see what kind of fellow he was. I took a look at his profile — he's a Canadian — and checked out a few of the discussions on his own page. Nothing outstanding. Some of his friends looked intriguing though so I took a ramble around. The people I clicked on were American but apart from that, completely random — I chose them either because I found they were interesting looking or they made a comment that invited further investigation.
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">It's hard to come up with numbers but I clicked on dozens of different people starting with that fellow and moving through whole colonies and communities of his friends and their friends and so on and so on. Most people don't use tight privacy measures and all of the people I checked out had hundreds — some had a few thousand — Facebook friends. I read many many discussions on their pages and saw little disagreement among the participants so I think it's fair to say that I managed to get a wee taste, at least, of the political climate.
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The people I chose were not wild-eyed, tobacco-chewin' reprobates. Many, but not all, of my choices were women — women who garden and who lay a lovely Thanksgiving table and have grandchildren. They're church-goers and they quote the Bible regularly. There were quite a few from Texas but also people from Florida, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Arizona, California, Maine and I'm sure a few other states I'm forgetting.
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Having spent a few days following a variety of their discussions, I can assure you of one thing: they do not regret voting for Donald Trump. On the contrary, they love everything he's done so far and they're looking forward to whatever outrageous thing he does next. They couldn't be happier about his cabinet and judicial choices and the harder the Democrats fight against the appointments, the more gleeful and gloating these Facebookers are.
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I can see something else very clearly: their love and admiration and support for Trump has risen to the top of their political lives but it's built on a foundation that is solid and enduring. That is their malevolent, toxic, vicious hatred for President Obama.
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj6MkcB75edVEVBLXMi58A-rY0fB25-VQrKUx0KKYwFH8X0M0EipT2FFSZMyjhgV9WiObP1rk95erkMVJ6WqUok06goT6euD_syS7cujwhBYJE3KlWlt-TsQGQuDEy8w00UIerGnn7i-f8/s1600/Satanic+Salute+Obama.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj6MkcB75edVEVBLXMi58A-rY0fB25-VQrKUx0KKYwFH8X0M0EipT2FFSZMyjhgV9WiObP1rk95erkMVJ6WqUok06goT6euD_syS7cujwhBYJE3KlWlt-TsQGQuDEy8w00UIerGnn7i-f8/s320/Satanic+Salute+Obama.jpg" width="320" height="160" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjvVHs8UJO1r7S1pm5Zbz5UwZTe3g0vIcH63cuS19SjGONSuDdCPJk9D2cHacreYJ5VNGf7YxVoUFOvzeZUHhXKH9efzGuSW94dIalbv1BHmO3nkLfKB1PdMuH2nRGaoN_QpojTEtp-BRM/s1600/Satanic+Salute.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjvVHs8UJO1r7S1pm5Zbz5UwZTe3g0vIcH63cuS19SjGONSuDdCPJk9D2cHacreYJ5VNGf7YxVoUFOvzeZUHhXKH9efzGuSW94dIalbv1BHmO3nkLfKB1PdMuH2nRGaoN_QpojTEtp-BRM/s320/Satanic+Salute.jpg" width="320" height="240" /></a></div>
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The accusations of Satanism are just the beginning. On most of the pages, when he's mentioned, he's referred to as Barack <b>HUSSEIN</b> Obama II. The hatred of Obama is matched only by the hatred and fear of Muslims which is never far from the surface of the discussion. It is also deeply rooted in racism and full of words and images that I can't get out of my head and that I'm certainly not going to report here. I will only say that more than once
— many times, in fact — I have seen references to "our" America (quotation marks theirs) and I've often seen a picture like this. . .
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhTCoI_FPeDEWoEDXh4R4N-1fnmubYyultNKUc4YpvdYBnrMIX1_2ENrsUPqJ5tNqjLW1-7XtDeWfsu6g7JEppqkX7o7FxR-2AZ3EvF0N0TK-n14RHtXEi7PqT6fxBmLvbSjdP09nXDOl8/s1600/Trump+Melania+Barron.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhTCoI_FPeDEWoEDXh4R4N-1fnmubYyultNKUc4YpvdYBnrMIX1_2ENrsUPqJ5tNqjLW1-7XtDeWfsu6g7JEppqkX7o7FxR-2AZ3EvF0N0TK-n14RHtXEi7PqT6fxBmLvbSjdP09nXDOl8/s320/Trump+Melania+Barron.jpg" width="320" height="213" /></a></div>
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">. . .with the statement, "Thank God, we have a <i><b>real</b></i> family in the White House now."
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Now I wasn't that surprised to see and experience the hate. I've always known it was there. Anyone who follows US politics knows it was there. I admit that I was taken aback by the extent of the virulence of some of it and there are plenty of posts, memes and pictures I wish I could un-see. I'll have to hope it fades.
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">If I wasn't surprised by the hate, I <i>was</i> surprised by the love. I don't know if it's really love but it's expressed that way.
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">"I love President Trump so much," was one simple post I saw from a woman in Baton Rouge. There were no comments following it, just a series of sweet little heart icons. It made me sick, to be honest. I never thought someone could feel that way about Trump. But it wasn't the last time I saw that sentiment expressed. It was all over the place. It made me wonder how people could feel so differently about one man and his actions? How could Trump be mocked and ridiculed, scorned and despised by one group of people while another group swoons with happiness over every scandalous action he takes and every atrocious word he utters?
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Two reasons: It's possible that the real divide in the US is where your information comes from. The Trump-lovers are not getting their information from the <i>New York Times</i> or the <i>Washington Post</i> or the <i>LA Times</i> or CNN, CBS, ABC, NBC — any of the outlets that Trump himself calls the "dirty lying media." Source of all fake news.
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">And if Fox News and Breitbart disappeared tomorrow, Trump-lovers would not be left high and dry looking for news. There are certainly hundreds — probably thousands — of "news" sources out there ready to pick up the slack. The appointments Trump makes, the things he says and does, and the things that others say about him are "reported" so differently as to be unrecognizable. When they read the beautiful things about Betsy Devos' life and beliefs and then read about the obscene, repugnant teachers unions and civil rights groups who spoke against her appointment — they're convinced. They love Betsy and anyone who's so kind and so generous will save and protect the children from the perverts who make up the education system.
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">So yes, media make a difference. But maybe not the biggest difference.
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhXs-6JNeqjqUShMlcO3izGS_QQUQBzU5hLmMpW1XyOnn-f9U6fLvibOiAtV97hx_2XtEVAnESgoOxjq-BWaDj1bBqCc2tpI4GqI9IZsLqN8k5fcQScJSofRmYQ_XPZF4tqkD58M-PL2Gs/s1600/Jesus+with+Trump.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhXs-6JNeqjqUShMlcO3izGS_QQUQBzU5hLmMpW1XyOnn-f9U6fLvibOiAtV97hx_2XtEVAnESgoOxjq-BWaDj1bBqCc2tpI4GqI9IZsLqN8k5fcQScJSofRmYQ_XPZF4tqkD58M-PL2Gs/s320/Jesus+with+Trump.jpg" width="320" height="314" /></a></div>
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">This picture has been going around in various communities. It's a big joke in some of them but believe me, to the people I've been visiting with, it's no joke. They not only accept this version of what's happening in the Oval Office, they believe it was ordained. One person posted, "If only you knew a little more about the <b>REAL</b> US history, you would know that Trump is a freaking force of nature sent by GOD to defeat evil! End of story!"
The history he's referring to is slavery. He posts a picture of Jesus signing a bill then, a few breaths later, he launches into some of the most disgusting hate language I've seen all week.
<p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">So I think this is all pretty complicated. I wrote this because I became convinced that there are probably many people who voted for Trump who are not sorry and who love him and his presidency. I've now come to believe that if anyone tries to remove him, there will be hell to pay.
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjvs1j4YPmASjYdi94dQHsWLvfA52d4e0hWog-HzZZyOjg59H4jrRYcf2HVFPbNrnJAs5L948-zICKwImSRiR28nxJ2c4xmJXLj7RuEisZ4g2B0oSTv9bXPOonlFMJ3a5dalpLS36Vvxww/s1600/Trump+is+Lord%2527s+choice.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjvs1j4YPmASjYdi94dQHsWLvfA52d4e0hWog-HzZZyOjg59H4jrRYcf2HVFPbNrnJAs5L948-zICKwImSRiR28nxJ2c4xmJXLj7RuEisZ4g2B0oSTv9bXPOonlFMJ3a5dalpLS36Vvxww/s200/Trump+is+Lord%2527s+choice.jpg" width="200" height="200" /></a></div>
Sharon Fraserhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06484421511625293763noreply@blogger.com3