Category: Uncategorized

August 12: For a couple of years now, I have been thinking about renting a vintage wooden boat on Lake Muskoka and revisiting some of the cottages and towns that were part of my “wasted youth”. A couple of weeks back, I took the plunge – pardon the mixed metaphor – and set something up. Only then did I recall that my boat operator’s license had been lost when my wallet was stolen last year.

I checked around and arrived at the Federal Ministry of Transportation site. They apparently look after navigable waters and licensing in Canada. Not finding a simple way to replace my license, I finally called the 1-800 number and got an actual, helpful person who told me that the replacement had to come from the company that issued the license. In my case, although I don’t remember using them, that was apparently boaterexam.com .

Finding their site was easy but, once again, there was no direct link I could find to allow me to easily replace the permit. So I resorted to the 1-800 number. This time, I got the usual “all of our operators are busy at this time…” But then it continued on to say that they valued my patience and rather than keeping me waiting on the line they would call me back at this number. After reciting my phone number, the line went dead. I thought that was quite a good idea but, after sitting looking at the phone like the RCA Victor dog for more than an hour I realized that I wasn’t actually going to be called back that day. Or the next day. I waited another couple of days, and then called again and got the same process. More waiting.

After a few days I went back to the site and found a “contact us” button with an e-mail form. I explained that I had called and had not yet received a reply. Could they look into this please ? After almost 2 weeks of trying to track down a reasonable facsimile of a person who could give me an answer, I got an e-mail. It said that my request had been resolved. Period. If I had questions or comments, I was to reply to the message and they would follow up. This I did, pointing out that I had not actually spoken to anyone or received anything that looked even slightly like a boat operator’s permit. That was more than a week ago and I still have no idea what’s going on.

At this point I thought I had better let the boat rental guy know why we were delaying the tour – I had no license. He replied that I didn’t need a license to rent a boat. You only need one if you are operating your own boat.

So here’s the thing: If you have been going to Muskoka or the Kawartha’s for decades and are intimately familiar with those lakes you need a permit. But if you are some bonehead who may never have operated a boat and has no familiarity with the lakes or indeed any of the rules of navigation, you don’t need a permit at all. Here, take my vintage boat. Please.

As the renter said: “Makes no sense, I know…”

And I still have no license.

August 10: The following article appeared in the weekend Globe and Mail. It’s by Tessa McWatt, a professor and author. She writes about the many things that we face in these uncertain times, and ruminates on how they may be made better.

“As the COVID-19 lockdown ends, what world awaits on the other side? “

“Will we return to a state of mind that says there’s not enough for us all – that state of mind that doesn’t put each other and the planet first? Will we open up to a world that seems to perpetually choose disrespect for nature, racism, extremist nationalism, Islamophobia, anti-Semitism, misogyny, homophobia and many other forms of hatred?”

“The scaffolding of how we live has been duly exposed. Why would we go back?”

And later: “The hope that I’m speaking of is not about asking for more inclusion into a system that is already broken, but rather about replacing it. It’s a hope that we align our responsibility to ourselves with our responsibility to others. And it’s time for us all to engage in radical, mutual care to repair our relations with each other and the planet. As Angela Davis has said, “You have to act as if it were possible to radically transform the world. And you have to do it all the time.”

The whole article resonated with me and my hopefulness that this current mess will be resolved in a way that brings us all closer together in mutual respect and opportunity, while repairing some of the damage we’ve done to our home – the earth.

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/article-as-the-covid-19-lockdown-ends-what-world-awaits-people/

July 31: After putting together Miscellanea (which follows), I found this work in progress buried in the draft folder. I found it interesting, so it’s been resurrected, perhaps to provide some perspective on the “then and now”.

April 17: I was walking by the lengthy line-up outside the Valu-Mart across the street when I noticed a sign in the window saying that they were short staffed as result of the COVID virus and that they were looking for temporary workers with “relevant experience” to fill the gap. I began absent-mindedly thinking that I might apply: It could be an opportunity to pick up some spare change, get a bit of exercise and serve the community by helping the food-chain.

Then I thought about that some more.  I am 70 years old this year and therefore in the age group that is most vulnerable to the virus. And, while I do have experience in retail grocery stores – having worked in this very store when it opened as a Dominion in 1969 –  that experience is now more than 50 years ago. And really, do I want to give up my morning coffee to go and put cans of peas on a shelf ?

That I was considering the job at all was borne out of a certain boredom or frustration – ennui* – arising from having unlimited time to sit around the house and think about nothing in particular. The job was a tangent that offered a diversion and possibly some sort of entertainment as the days stretched into infinity.  And really, I think a lot of people have reached a point where they are ready to try just about anything to relieve the monotony of this enforced break. (I say this with the greatest respect for those of you still working from home, or looking after partners, parents or grandchildren.) There is not much that will change that situation until infection rates decline, and not much we can do to make that happen other than stay the course.

I am reminded of the word “acceptance”. You can look up a definition if you wish – you have the time. To me it means the ability to accept things affecting your life that you can not change, and a transition toward changing the things that you can – things that are beneficial for you. I have accepted that I am too old and useless to work in a grocery store. But I do enjoy writing, and painting, and running and those things are good for me and bring me joy. Sometimes. So maybe this is a good time for me to be focusing on those aspects of my life, and thinking less about the things I’m not able to do right now. The time will come for those things and we can celebrate that when it happens.

For now: another coffee. And more Netflix.

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*ENNUI: Noun: a feeling of listlessness and dissatisfaction arising from a lack of occupation or excitement. “He succumbed to ennui and despair.”
Synonyms: boredom · tedium · listlessness · lethargy · lassitude · languor · restlessness · weariness · sluggishness · enervation · malaise · dissatisfaction · unhappiness · uneasiness · unease · melancholy · depression · despondency · dejection · disquiet · Weltschmerz ( I love this word…. )

July 26: The observant reader will notice that there has not been much activity in this space for the last few months. This was perhaps entirely predictable. Like many, the start of the COVID lockdown seemed to me to be an opportunity to tackle all those things that required concentration and a block of time – the bigger the better. There was writing for this space, making music, and painting, but as the months have passed, not a lot was accomplished. As well, I am not travelling this year so a good supply of marginally interesting stories is also not available. That said, I have been dabbling a bit in writing to no great effect.  Herewith a few of those works in progress….

Seventy:  (July 12:) A little more than a week ago I celebrated my seventieth birthday. That would be seventy as in seven zero. Seventy as in the beginning of my eighth decade….

I am not a huge fan of birthdays. For the last several decades they have been “just another day” to pass, albeit with some small personal celebration which usually involved a good meal and some appropriate wine. While I was aware of the passing of time reflected in the steadily rising number, it felt unimportant.

Forty was spent drinking (too much) wonderful wine in  in Chablis France; fifty was marked by a reunion of my friends from Inglewood Drive that was held in June;  sixty was the year I retired, so arguably the retirement cake I received at work was a “birthday cake” of sorts; and for sixty-five I was in Europe for my first major trip in many years. In each case, the day marked the end of another year. I really gave little thought to the implications of my advancing age going forward.

This year feels different. For whatever reason I am alert to the fact that I don’t have much time remaining. My life has felt somewhat like a long hallway with doors off each side. The doorways presented different opportunities and the hall seemed to extend in straight lines to infinity. But now, I am very aware that there is also a door coming into view at the end of the hall that, at some point, I will have to confront.

I say this not to be alarmist or maudlin but simply to acknowledge these new feelings about my stage of life. My generation is generally in better health and physical condition than our parents. We are economically well-off and privileged by our social status. We have advantages and I anticipate that those will last for many years to come. But at some point, end it must. For now I am settled into a period of mindful anticipation and awareness, trying to enjoy each day as it comes.

July 17: COVID: This will mark the 18th week of my lockdown for the COVID pandemic which has continued, with only infrequent recent exceptions, since March 15. A cursory review of the stats associated with that disease clearly shows that it affects the elderly, the unhealthy and those in lower income communities more frequently and harshly than those of us who are privileged.

Recent reporting by Global News found a strong association between high coronavirus  rates and low income, conditions of work, visible minority status and low levels of education. There was also a link between neighbourhoods with a high number of coronavirus cases and those with a higher population of people of colour. Similar data was recently reported by the Globe and Mail. These communities are also facing increasing unrest related to ongoing Black Lives Matter protests in the wake of several highly questionable Police-involved shootings of civilians. As difficult as this situation is, a far worse outcome has been taking place in the Province’s Long Term Care (LTC) homes.

Provincial data show a current total of 37,163 cases. Of those, 5,548 are residents of Long Term Care facilities and 2,455 are health care workers associated with a Long Term Care environment. Of 2,737 total deaths, 1,731 (63.2%) have occurred in Long Term Care homes. Eight health-care workers have also died.  As far as I can tell, residents of Long Term Care Homes are essentially sitting ducks for this virus.

Terence McKenna of the CBC recently filed a report that compared the death rate in Canadian and Australian LTC homes. In a nutshell: “When it comes to the death toll of the COVID-19 pandemic, the comparison between Canada and Australia is shocking. Australia has suffered four deaths per million residents compared to more than 212 in Canada.” He recounts the successes of the Australian system and the now very obvious deficiencies of the Canadian model which include an alarming lack of reasonable governmental oversight of  private, for-profit LTC homes.

But most disturbing for me was a section that discussed the role of Mike Harris, former Premier of Ontario and the leader of the 90’s era “Common Sense Revolution”. McKenna says: “Many trace the drop in Ontario senior care staffing levels back to the 1990s when Conservative Mike Harris was premier. Harris actually budgeted an extra billion dollars for senior care in Ontario, but his government directed 60 per cent of that money to private “for-profit” providers, and he cut staffing requirements.” Mike Harris is now Chairman of Chartwell Homes, one of the Province’s largest LTC providers, and one that has consistently avoided meeting government standards. Harris made more than $7 million last year. McKenna’s full story follows and I commend it to you.

https://www.ontario.ca/page/how-ontario-is-responding-covid-19#foot-7

Black neighbourhoods in Toronto are hit hardest by COVID-19 — and it’s ‘anchored in racism’: experts

https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/australia-covid-19-long-term-care-1.5591912

June 22:

May 16: Occasional reader(s) will know that I gauge the arrival of Spring by the full bloom of the Saucer Magnolia trees in my neighbourhood. On May 9 last year, with the tree at the end of the street in bloom, I concluded that Spring was “underway”. The weather was cold – one day above 20C in a month – and wet – 20mm of rain in 30 days. During this strangest of times, this years weather has not been much warmer or dryer.

Since the Saucer Magnolias are now more or less in bloom, and this is the Victoria Day weekend, I suppose I can again conclude that Spring is underway if not yet fully arrived. As I think back to May Two-Four Weekends of years past I can recall some pretty poor weather, so I know that this time of year has always been “changeable”.

I’m sure that being in isolation has tended to focus my thinking on how poor the days have been. A period of warmer and drier days would let us get outside for a while and ease the feeling of being locked inside (for 9 weeks now). I know that I am not alone. My fear is that if the weather does turn suddenly warmer and clear, most people will abandon isolation and start thronging to public places. As we begin the process of easing separation, I could then foresee a rebound in the number of COVID cases and a further period of isolation.

So perhaps the lousy weather is a double-edged sword: discouraging and unpleasant, but easier to endure if we must isolate ourselves. It’s an exercise in patience however you think of it. Stay well.

April 30: A little over a week ago, memorials began appearing for the 22 people murdered in a shooting rampage in Nova Scotia. Some were extravagant bouquets of flowers; others more restrained and considered. In addition to flowers, teddy bears and dolls also made and appearance. In Toronto there were also memorials appearing, but they were outside senior’s homes and long-term care facilities.

The events in Nova Scotia are tragic. The loss of 22 people at one time, and in those circumstances, touched a nerve in me and many others. The coverage on TV and in print showed the devastation left behind, and put names and faces to those we had lost. They became very real. It was especially difficult for me to accept the loss of RCMP officer Heidi Stevenson, not because she had some sort of special status or protection, but more because she represented us as an officer of the law, and paid the ultimate price for her service.

I feel the same way when we lose any of the first responder or military community. These are the folks that run toward the battlefields, the burning buildings and the car crashes so that we won’t have to face those horrors. When we lose them, we lose a part of our cultural safety net. Tributes to these folks are well deserved and I find them very emotionally difficult.

Not far from our home here in Toronto, 18 seniors died over the weekend in Meighan Manor, a long-term care building operated by the Salvation Army. I noticed the congruency of the number of dead (first said to be 18 in Nova Scotia), and was immediately struck by the lack of emotion surrounding that loss. Sure, there was a small number of floral tributes near the home, but the report glossed over the personal details of who we had lost in favour of the presumed shock value of the number. It played for a day in the media and was gone. While it was sad news and close to home, I felt little emotion or connection with those we lost; they had been reduced to data.

I think I understand why: there are now so many people dead or dying from COVID that it would be impossible to personalize all of them. Although the Globe and Mail and CBC news have run pieces with some details about those who have died, the psychological impact of seeing so many people identified each day would be traumatic for the rest of us as we struggle to retain our equilibrium while being locked indoors. That said, we shouldn’t lose sight of the fact that every one of those faceless numbers is in fact a loved and missed part of someone’s family, and a meaningful life no longer being live

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As I write this there is news that 6 members of the Canadian Forces have been lost in a helicopter crash off the coast of Greece. Again, we know who they are; several are from Nova Scotia where the ship was based. This will undoubtedly be a difficult time for the province – its second tragedy in 2 weeks. Proportionately this would be the equivalent of losing 420 people in Ontario. My heart goes out to them.

April 19: As we enter the sixth week of our mandated regime of physical distancing and staying at home, thoughts are turning to a time when we will be released. At first, being forced to stay indoors was refreshing. It offered unlimited time to undertake all those projects that are waiting on the “to do list”. Much could be accomplished with time; new avenues and interests could be explored. Of course, most of that remains undone or unexplored, and the extended time alone has become tedious. And now as some of the numbers of infections and deaths are trending lower, talk at the political level is messaging a “return to normalcy”.

My sense of this, not being an epidemiologist, is that we will have allow people and businesses to return to operation in phases timed to coincide with tangible improvements in the rate of decline of the virus. Knowledgeable experts (i.e. not me) stress that it is not acceptable to allow that process to continue if the rate of (re)infection rises. This will need to be done carefully and with a good dose of social restraint and testing if it is to be successful.

So it was with some astonishment that I saw this photograph in the Globe and Mail yesterday. It was part of a report discussing various demonstrations across the United States in support of immediately removing any requirement to self-isolate. The fact that so many people are becoming restive is not really all that surprising. I think most people would prefer to have their lives back to some sort of normalcy. What totally freaked me out was the idea that it was perfectly acceptable to carry a combat weapon to an otherwise legal demonstration in support of your right to disagree with government policy. What is more alarming is the sign in the middle of the frame which appears to call the state governor a Nazi for having the public well-being in mind when she instituted stay at home regulations. (Tellingly, her name is spelled wrong; It’s Whitmer.)

At one time I thought that the US was just like us. They were perhaps a little less reserved and more brash, but we fundamentally agreed about most things.  More importantly, they were leaders of the free world; they set a moral standard and provided financial security for many of the world’s international organizations. But recently they seem to have lost their collective identity and direction in an explosion of inward-looking splintered self-interest. This factionalism starts at the top; the last almost 4 years have been unprecedented for the obstructionism,  divisiveness, lack of morality and outright lying in the White House. And now much of the country has apparently disintegrated into disparate factions which argue endlessly about extremist views – apparently with military fire-power if necessary.

Some day we will be released from our temporary prisons. I have begun promoting a coffee, a glass of wine, or a lunch with my friends as a celebration of all that we will have been through together. It will take time, and the release will have to be phased over many weeks. Prime Minister Trudeau has recently confirmed that the border with the US will be closed until the end of May. It is at times like this that I value the “peace, order and good government” ethos of our country. Let the Americans pursue individual freedoms; at this point I would prefer a few more weeks of lock-down, however uncomfortable and inconvenient that may be.

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Or, put entirely more professionally, there is this article from The Atlantic Monthly:  https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2020/06/underlying-conditions/610261/

 

April 3: A couple of days ago, I encountered a strange new world while going to the grocery store. People were quietly waiting outside the doors, stationed the mandatory 2 meters apart. I’m sure that many of you have had a similar experience. As we all navigate our way through the COVID19 epidemic, I have heard many people make comparisons to war: we are mobilizing to face a common enemy; industry is being conscripted to produce materials we need to continue the fight; people are being asked to sacrifice comfort, personal freedoms and perhaps their very lives for the “common good”.

While the analogy to war may be apt, most of us have no direct experience of war beyond the stories of our parents to draw upon. But as I thought about it a bit more I realized that there are perhaps parallels to the level of anxiety many of us felt  during the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis.

I was 12 years old and in Grade 7 at Deer Park School. I was old enough to understand some of the issues that triggered the crisis and, while I knew that it was “a big deal”, I think that I was young enough that I didn’t pay much attention. In time, the ominous newspaper headlines, TV broadcasts and the generalized angst I felt in the adults around me began to permeate my thoughts. Even as relatively young children, I think that, as the crisis deepened day-by-day, we all knew on some level that we would not survive an attack if it were to happen.

In preparation for a possible attack, the government began testing the air raid sirens. This seemed to happen at random intervals and underscored in me the idea that an attack could happen at any time and without warning.  Preparations and drills started at the school and I’m pretty sure that my parents were making ready at home as well. I recall the anxiety I felt if I was separated from them for very long. I think we all realized that if an attack happened, we wouldn’t be able to run home from school to Mum and Dad. We would likely face the consequences alone.

As students in Grade 7, we were in a room on the second floor of the school. When the alarm was sounded, we left our classroom and went down to the ground floor hallway (actually a 1/2 below grade level) where we were told to sit with our backs against the wall. One of the students asked a teacher whether there was a basement level, and whether we wouldn’t be safer down there. She replied that there was a basement, but if there was an attack, the swimming pool would flood the basement and we would all drown. Even as 12-year-old’s we clearly understood that an attack would mean the end of us, either by drowning or being blasted to smithereens.

Over the next 14 days or so, the tensions ratcheted up. The crisis began to feel like standing too close to the tracks as a freight train passes. And just like the train ends, Russia blinked, and the crisis ended on October 28. Life returned to “normal”. I think for many of my generation it was a defining moment that introduced us to “global politics” and the realization that so much of what happened around us had huge consequences that were totally beyond our control.

Much of that feels quite familiar in a COVID19 environment. News and television reports highlight the most recent bad news. Things are changing rapidly and seemingly at random. We’re told to take measures to prepare for the worst, and there is a sense of inevitability as the pandemic spreads. While many people – like me – perhaps naively believe that there is a relatively low chance of contracting the disease, there is a level of anxiety in our society that I have not seen since ’62. Every conversation begins with 20 minutes of discussion about the latest developments or miracle cures or how to sanitize your groceries. It’s relentless.

In the end, the pandemic will end. Unlike the Cuban Missile Crisis which ended on a specific date, the pandemic is likely to ebb and flow for a while (perhaps as long as 2 years). Although changed forever in many ways, life will return to normal – whatever that might be. In the meantime, pack your patience, and keep your distance.