Blog Archives

I'd rather nap with an alligator

1/31/2015

    I saw this alligator in a Florida swamp last week the day before we returned home from a visit with my mother. As I look back, I'm thinking it would have been less painful to lie down beside this guy for a nap than to try to get home flying with Air Canada.

     However, after 36 hours without sleep - the first 19 of those thanks to several delayed and cancelled flights before even getting away from the Tampa terminal - we finally got back to Sioux Lookout.

     Those wonderful hours hanging aimlessly around the terminal with a small community of other displaced people (some of whom had been there for two days) resonated with dark humor delivered slapstick style by a bunch of punch drunks. It wasn't totally unpleasant.

     Responding to the recorded public address announcement urging anyone seeing something suspicious to report it immediately, my tattooed biker buddy tried to report our bald headed friend wearing a bright sweater, who had dozed off, as "an orange blob with no hair, left unattended in a lounge chair."

     Memorable was the Toronto guy wearing plaid shorts who had gotten a deal on clamps (the devices to hold pieces of material together while the glue dries) at a Tampa Home Depot who was wrestling a duffel bag as big as he was full of them, while sporting three straw hats atop his head (I didn't ask), one on top of the other. I called him "Cat in the Hat" which he thought was funny.

     After several security checks and a customs clearance at 3 a.m. I had mixed feelings at the final security stop when my watch with a velcro closure on the strap attached itself to the little strips covering the x-ray box at the end of the conveyor belt. Since the guards had already confiscated my hand cream (container too large) and squeezed the bejesus out of my Polident (looking for suspicious lumps, I guess) and lecturing me about packing the large size tube, I didn't know whether to call attention to myself by asking for help, or to just walk away and let the next shift coming on later wonder why a Timex was dangling from the spy machine like a crippled kite caught in a tree.

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Flight cancelled

1/30/2015

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    This is the down escalator in Tampa airport. Air Canada has arranged for me to watch this amazing sight for the next 13 hours. For the second time on this trip they have cancelled a whole flight. They are generous, though, as they gave me a meal voucher for $20, which I promptly squandered on a cup of coffee and a bottle of water. Guess I'm on my own for breakfast, lunch, and supper.

     So far I have counted more than 300 stairs disappearing into the ground floor. By tonight's 8:30 flight I'll probably be into the tens of thousands.

     I don't think an Air Canada flight ticket is worth a nickel and their customer service isn't either.

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My mother's hearing

1/29/2015

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I have been a bit concerned about my mother's hearing, so tried a little test. As we sat out on the patio this morning I recited a dirty limerick in a soft voice without moving my lips.

Judging from her reaction, it seems that maybe her hearing is okay...

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Visiting my mom

1/26/2015

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We're enjoying a pleasant visit with my mom in Florida. When I have some spare time I take wine, disguised as coffee, in a cup with a lid, and sit on the wooden bench outside Ma's building at the 10th tee box beside a little pond. There, I kibitz with every golfer who stops to tee off, watch the egrets feeding along the shore, and sip in the sunshine.

One woman asked if I live here...

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Sweet meeting at Magnolia on Main

1/23/2015

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    Ten or 11 years ago I created a website called Fairbanks Friends. It attracted people with an interest in Fairbanks, Alaska - a place where I had lived for a couple years in the mid 1960s.

     Among the 250 members was one particularly spirited lady, a retiree from the U.S. Army living at that time in Fairbanks with her husband, another career Army man stationed in Alaska.

     Major Devil Woman, as she called herself, hated cold. Despite that, she set aside her dream of a little house flooded with year 'round sunshine and warmth, and took ice skating lessons. She built a snowman in front of a Fairbanks webcam for her Fairbanks Friends far away. She embraced the seasons and all they could offer, because that's where she had to be at that time and she was going to make the best of it, dammit. No whining and wishing for the impossible.

     I loved her spirit. We all did. She was a much admired member of our little online group.

     Happily, we've kept in touch over the years. It was with pleasure that I listened and read about her move to a little house in the warmth and sunshine of Charleston, South Carolina. She's lived there for the last six or eight years, and loves it.

     Recently I planned a visit with an old high school buddy now living in Raleigh, North Carolina.
A five hour drive separates Raleigh and Charleston.

     Suddenly a light bulb flashed like a lightning streak. "MDW, what would you think of meeting at some halfway location for lunch next week?" I texted.

     Bennettsville, South Carolina was a quiet little spot on the map between Raleigh and Charleston until quarter to 11 Friday morning.

     Within three minutes of each other, two people who had never met converged at Magnolia on Main Cafe like a couple circus monkeys just released from solitary confinement. Waitresses and customers didn't know quite what to think, but they were polite and let us stay. We were allowed to order off the menu and eat with forks.

     If ever I met a woman with mischief more brilliant in her eyes than MDW I don't remember.

     The next two hours exploded with good will, good friendship, fine food, and bubbling laughs. I raised the sleeves on both arms to show off my tattoos. She raised her pant leg to reveal hers. We talked and smiled, and carried on like long lost twins.

     Eventually our time was up. She had to head south, while I was destined for the north bound lanes.
But... we thought, a short walk might be nice, so we whiled away another half hour strolling the downtown streets together, taking in the outdoor patios we could have enjoyed if the weather were warmer and rain wasn't falling, and admired the "Buggies, Wagons, and Harness" shop.

     We still didn't think we should part, so we pushed open the Magnolia doors and went in again, pulling up chairs at the only empty table, at the back of the room, right outside the men's room. Being right there, and having the need, I went in while the Major ordered us another round of coffee.

     On my exit, my beautiful friend ambushed me with my own camera. I was stunned.

     "It's okay," she said. "I could hear you peeing in there. I wanted to get a surprise picture as you came out, but all I got was your arm."

     Slow to react, I just spilled out, "There better be a tattoo on the arm in that picture."

     And we giggled, snickered, snorted, choked and laughed as we got up and claimed a table near the middle of the room just being vacated by lunchers going back to work.

     There we finished our coffee, polished off a gorgeous visit, and said good bye.

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Out of print

1/19/2015

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    A year ago a man walking in a Thunder Bay library pushed past a cart loaded with old books destined for the recycle bin. He accidentally brushed one of those books with his arm and it jumped from the cart and plunked itself onto the floor, leaning slightly against the wall.

     In 1972 I published a small book of poetry. Although I was excited to write a book, another side of me was somewhat anguished, as I was not proud of the content, a disappointment with myself that grew during the following years.

     Friends bought my book. I surreptitiously dropped a few off here and there, including one that I left on a library counter when nobody was looking. Even a co-op bookstore in Thunder Bay agreed to take 10 on consignment, to sell for $2 apiece.

     A year later, a good friend confided that she had been in that bookstore and happened across my books on a shelf - all 10 of them, marked down to a nickel. She bought them all, embarrassed for me.

    Over the next couple years I took every opportunity to beg back, or sometimes to steal back, every book I could find from every friend I could remember who had one, including the one nestled in my wife's bookcase.

     The man in the library bent over to pick up the fallen book to place it back on the cart. Lilacs and a Crushed Peony, he mused, scanning the title. He had never heard of it - nor had he ever heard of the author. Being an amateur collector of rare books, he took it home with him.

     In about 1981 or '82, I had gathered up every book I could find, including a few hundred that remained unsold, carted them off to one of the bush dumps that MNR used to operate.
In only a few minutes I had climbed down into the pit, stuffed every one of those damn little embarrassments up into an overturned washing machine, and dragged a dozen Jack Pine boughs over to cover the evidence.

     I had a wonderful feeling, a sense of relief, that the burden of the book I had come to despise had come to an end. For the rest of the summer I visited the dump site often, to make sure my burial hadn't been discovered.

     My joy was complete the day I went there and found the whole pit filled in and covered over by bulldozers.

     Almost three decades passed, with rarely a thought of that book. I buried the memories, as well as the books, in that pit. It was the right decision.

     A few months ago a message arrived in my Facebook account. "I don't usually contact strangers, but I looked you up because I found a book at a library in Thunder Bay and I'm wondering if you are the man who wrote it?"

     Three days ago, after months of talking and texting, my new-found friend and I met in a Thunder Bay restaurant and enjoyed a marvelous meal and great conversation over a bottle of wine.

     The guy with the book is Mauri "MO" Marchand, a talented man with various interests, but most well known as the drummer in the band "The Sensational Hot Rods" ( www.thesensationalhotrods.com ) which has played throughout North America during the last 20 years.

     Coincidentally, I had been the emcee at several events the hot rods played in Sioux lookout over the years. I had announced their performances. Seven years ago I met the whole band in their dressing room as I gathered information for their introduction.

     Reluctantly, our long, pleasant evening had to conclude. MO extracted an autograph inside the front cover, though, as I assured him it is, indeed, a rare book. My hope was that it might be the only copy still in existence.

     And, although the book sat on the table all evening, I wasn't tempted to even peek inside. After all these years, I still don't want to be reminded.

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What would happen?

1/13/2015

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Have you ever dealt with a bureaucrat in a big city many miles away, to register for something important? One who can't conceive of a remote house that's not situated on a road, such as a cabin accessible only by boat or snowmobile that a person can't drive a car to? One filling out a form that has little blocks for a street and a number, and who absolutely refuses to continue the process, despite patient explanations of why no such data exists, unless you provide a street and number, because that's what the form says is needed?

Have you eventually thrown your hands in the air, shrugged your shoulders, muttered what the f***, and wondered what would happen if you just made some s*** up?

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A weekend of wolves

1/12/2015

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Here are two wolf-related videos I posted on Facebook this weekend. I think it's interesting that these and The Christmas Feast story have all taken place within two miles, as the crow flies, from the corner of Fourth and Front, smack in the middle of downtown Sioux Lookout.

Sunday morning we heard several wolves howling an hour before sunrise. They were close to the cabin. Temperature was minus 32. I quickly grabbed my phone, set it for video in hopes of capturing the sound, and held my hand out the door. Occasionally I thought to point the camera up at the waxing gibbous moon (you can see the flashing strobe lights on a distant telecommunications tower near the left side of the picture). I have never heard such a loud and lovely chorus so close.

The raven and wolf video was taken Friday afternoon soon after I arrived at camp to start the fire and get the cabin heated up for the weekend. Inside temperature was about -20 so I was still fully dressed from my snowmobile ride out when I saw through the window these two racing around on the frozen lake, the raven flying low over the wolf, just out of his reach, and the wolf jumping like a dog trying to catch a frisbee.

Once in a while the raven would land 20 feet from the wolf and wait for it to lunge, then take up the game again.

I've seen similar behavior in the summer when adult birds are trying to distract predators and lead them away from nests or young ones. I'm not sure what was happening here. It's nice to think they were two buddies enjoying an afternoon romp.

The only camera I had was in a case on my belt under about six layers of winter clothing. It took quite a while to get to it. An onlooker might have surmised I was an escapee from a bawdy house raid as I stumbled out the door onto the deck with coveralls down around my ankles, outer shirt ripped open, vest unzipped and flapping in the breeze, hair touselled like Stan Laurel at his homeliest, camera waving overhead as I tried to steady myself for a picture.

By then the game had stopped and the two pals were engaged in a stare-down, before the wolf slowly walked away, forlornly glancing back every once in awhile at the raven sitting stoically in the snow. It's a feeling I remember from the day I was spurned by my first girl friend in elementary school.

A CHRISTMAS FEAST

A wondrous feast occurred a few days before Christmas in the Grand Dining Room, attended by 30 guests. Late in the afternoon they gathered around the table, shrouded in a snow white cloth, the centerpiece framed by balsam boughs and the brilliant red that could have been the scattered petals of ten dozen roses.

I left camp among the little flocks of birds feeding on suet and sunflower seeds at the feeder for the snowmobile ride to town, 15 minutes away.

Two hundred yards down the lake I passed the home of our neighbors of the last five years – a pair of Ravens with their nest high in the tallest spruce tree on the point.

Along the way my packed trail was intersected by the tracks of wolves, foxes, deer, moose, and rabbits. Sometimes the tracks crossed the trail, sometimes they followed along the trail for a way before launching off to head for the forest.

Inside the tree cover would be a squirrel huddled with his fur fluffed among sheltered branches, a wolf curled cozily into the snow under a fallen tree sleeping off last night’s hunt, a deer leisurely nipping the bud ends of cedar and pine trees, a fox weaving through the tangles, alert for a crouching rabbit or nervous grouse.

I visited the Grand Dining Room, but nothing much was visible right then. Behind the scenes, preparations were coming together for the feast, but the room wasn’t yet decked out.

Three hours later, town project completed, I dressed for the cold ride back to camp in the hazy winter sunlight of late afternoon.

One hour before that, a sleek, soft doe browsing on sweet balsam buds quickly raised her head, cocked her ears in the direction of an almost silent sound, flared her nostrils, snorted, stomped and bolted like a race horse out of the starting gate, white tail waving.

Close behind, running like a hurricane, was the wolf that had snapped the tiny twig moments before.

Once on the open lake, the meal preparation began in the way of the wolves.

My trail ride took me close to The Grand Dining Room. Thirty or more ravens were sharing fresh venison with the wolf that hosted the dinner. It was a glorious sight and an obviously delicious meal.

I pondered, during the rest of my ride to camp, whether I had just witnessed a happy event, or a sad one. There’s no question it was a dramatic affair.

Later, inside the warm cabin, wine in hand, facing the flames of a fine pine-log fire, I concluded that it’s a matter of perspective.

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