There are so many stories about Basic Training. Unfortunately, most of them are tragic. We lost a few. For instance, there was "Fat-Fuck Frank" who always trailed behind on the route runs. We didn't seem to march anywhere, we "doubled it" everywhere! When Frank would fall quit running because, well, he was just so out of shape, the Corporal would get a bit ahead, wheel the whole troupe back around to pick him back up. We called it "bringing the bus around". This added quite a few extra steps to our day, and we resented it. Hence the horrid nick name we applied to Frank. I remember him grinning at the nick name....he told me nobody had ever given him a nick name before, and it made him feel like he belonged. I felt it was cruel, but he told me that it kicked in that little extra anger to enable him to overcome his natural lethargy. He had a good heart, but it wasn't strong enough to drive his body as hard as his tremendous will did. It gave out on him during the downhill part of the 3 miler. We were just too far away from the MIR (Medical Inspection Room) at that point to get him help. Made us all feel like shit for a long time.
We lost another in the pool. I don't even remember his name...he was some French fellow in 4 squad, upstairs from me. It was what, the second time we all ended up in the pool, and we were drown-proofing. This is a process where you take a deep breath, put our face in the water, and float for a bit, then blow out the air underwater, lift your head, take another deep breath, and float some more. The idea is to calm you down so that you don't thrash around and panic...which will kill you quick! Its almost like meditation! And it works. Unless you get it wrong, and breath in under water instead of breathe out. He died without a struggle, just floating in the pool along the rest of us. The lifeguards only moved when we were all ordered out of the pool and he didn't respond. I think this one ended sort of well...the lifeguards got the water out of his lungs, and breathed for him. We heard that he was in the hospital, and would not be completing training with us.
Another trainee just couldn't take it, and suicided on us. This was his last chance, I guess, and he just couldn't take it. That was back in 1975, and of course, depression was part of growing up. Don't believe me? Just listen to a "Donovan" album. The less said about this incident the better. I got a lot of brownie points because I volunteered to clean up the mess. I didn't have to though....some "Personnel Awaiting Training", that is to say, people who had been temporarily taken out of the stream for mostly medical reasons got that un-enviable task. We came back from a day's lesson in how to use atropine or some similar military type training to find the whole bed space totally cleaned out, no lockers or beds or anything. His name was Chris, and he was my friend, and he was gay. The Sergeant got me a letter sometime later on in the course, from Chris's boyfriend. It was pretty incoherent.
Jim was a acne covered kid from Cape Breton Island. His girlfriend was like him...not a great looker, and definitely country folks. I stop short of calling them hillbillies, but Jim had a lot of trouble reading. His girl showed up around week 6, and discovered about a thousand government inspected horny 18 year olds. Seeing her chance to break a record, she proceeded to screw as many of of them as possible. When she had nailed most of 4 platoon, Jim just lost it. I mean, 4 platoon is our rival platoon! The ones we competed against in sports, in drill competitions and now apparently, in nailing Jim's girlfriend. He kept punching his locker, kicking at it, and smashing it with his fists. He reduced the locker to almost half its size, and broke every bone in his hands. The military police arrived about the time I was wrapping bandages onto his hands, and they took him away. I saw him marching with PAT platoon and had a drink with him at the Green and Gold on graduation day. I don't know if he ever got re-coursed and graduated....I hope so. He was a basically decent guy. I can't figure her though....I think she had just discovered that guys found her attractive, and took it to extremes in a two weeks period of her life she will NEVER forget! Some of the discussions she and Jim and I had in the G and G are even now, too surreal for me to process properly!
There were cool ones too! Frenchy Dorion who spoke up when we were asked if anybody played a musical instrument. "I can play drums" he said. Well, he played a 5 piece set with 2 high hats in a rock and roll garage band in Miramichi, and they gave him a snare drum. Normally he would just beat time for us on the march, but every once in a while, when he would get bored, he would deliver what I can only describe as a "riff". The corporal would yell at him, and he would go back to "da dum. da dum" . One is reminded of a slave galley with Ringo trying to do fancy bits from the Beatles as the drummer up in front! And there was GF Currie...the GF stood for, well, never mind. Tremendous drive. Tremendous resilience. Tremendous incompetence.
So, we were 9 platoon. We started with 123 raw long haired "alises" and ended up with 78 flat bellied, steely eyed twits who thought they knew everything. It was a real sea change for a lot of us long haired hippies who had to put their bodies where their mouths were.
Tuesday, May 30, 2006
Saturday, May 27, 2006
International cooking
Its funny, so many countries, so much bad cooking! I knew that I was in trouble when I got to Malta and discovered that instead of Italian Cooking, Mediterranian weather, and English speaking, I got Semetic speaking, Newfoundland weather, and English cooking. This WAS unfortunate. Fortunately, I like the weather, the cooking, and semetic language reminded me of downtown Ottawa. (Little Beireut...) I found out that it really IS possible to get a bad wine....and Maltese wine is pretty bad. It was good to cut the grease in the sink, but tasted awful. Heck, the plonk in the boxes at the train station convenience store in Rome was twenty times better!
The idea of eating my way through Europe sounds seductive, and not such a bad way to spend a summer vacation. So, I got some reviews of European cooking. This was one of the best....http://www.guardian.co.uk/food/Story/0,,1783596,00.html#article_continue
You have your pick of Iceland shark, Lithanian potato sausages, and Dutch double fried chips with Mayonaisse. Though we have plenty of questionable cooking right here in North America! I am sure some of my blogger buddies can tell stories of Winnepeg Perogies and Prarie Oysters, Baltimore soft shelled crab, Alabama deep fried pork fat nuggets, and New Brunswick Dried Seaweed.
The idea of eating my way through Europe sounds seductive, and not such a bad way to spend a summer vacation. So, I got some reviews of European cooking. This was one of the best....http://www.guardian.co.uk/food/Story/0,,1783596,00.html#article_continue
You have your pick of Iceland shark, Lithanian potato sausages, and Dutch double fried chips with Mayonaisse. Though we have plenty of questionable cooking right here in North America! I am sure some of my blogger buddies can tell stories of Winnepeg Perogies and Prarie Oysters, Baltimore soft shelled crab, Alabama deep fried pork fat nuggets, and New Brunswick Dried Seaweed.
Friday, May 26, 2006
How the company works...
Here is the new paradigm of operation of the South Tower Armouring Guild.
http://members.shaw.ca/mickee/blog_images/computer/inside.htm
http://members.shaw.ca/mickee/blog_images/computer/inside.htm
Monday, May 22, 2006
Archaeology
Just in case you have a few days to do nothing but surf...a hospital stay for instance, each of these sites will be good for at least 2 hours.
http://www.nakedscience.org/ The Naked Science Society, founded in 1989, is a privately funded organization devoted to the development of a philosophy that evaluates human culture from a scientific perspective. Humans are part of a scientific civilization, and knowledge and its integrity are crucial for the survival of our species. Science is only the Latin word for knowledge, and for our culture to survive, the pursuit of knowledge must be our destiny.
http://intarch.ac.uk/index.html Internet Archaeology is the first fully refereed e-journal for archaeology and publishes articles of a high academic standing which utilise the potential of electronic publication. Internet Archaeology is published by the Council for British Archaeology and hosted by the Department of Archaeology at the University of York. (Stag's note....they have come a long way from when they were using the local hospital's cat scan to chart out the coppergate helm!)
http://www.archaeology.co.uk/ This is the website of Current Archaeology, Britain’s leading archaeological magazine. Or rather, two magazines, for Current Archaeology, which deals with British archaeology, has now been joined by Current World Archaeology. Here you can explore both magazines, and the articles they contain.
There is also the listings section, based on the Archaeology Handbook, which tells you how you can go on an excavations, and lists the many organisation of all sorts that make up British archaeology. And there is also a mass of other miscellaneous information. Good reading! (Stag's note....nice casual reading...what you should have under your belt if you plan to write a book about Roman Britain)
http://www.antiquityofman.com/ (Stag's note.....a real attempt to place archaeology into its place as history. With all the difficulties that we as 21st century mortals have with history! Even history which we have a thorough knowledge of. How then do you interpret pre-historic artifacts? The author, Mikey Brass, believes there are universal constants....motherhood, drunkenness, competition for resources and so forth which make good tools with which to do the interpretation.)
The copyrighted provision of summaries of past and current academic thinking, research projects and debates available here illustrate that our past is not reconstructed by archaeologists and historians, but rather constructed. Archaeological facts cannot speak for themselves. Rather, the material remains are marshalled, compared and manipulated by scholars who are active participants operating within their own social contexts to support mutually inclusive and exclusive hypotheses of past behavioural patterns.
http://archaeology.about.com/cs/newandusedbooks/fr/feder2.htm (Stag's note... perhaps the above is a little deep for a beginner. Thats fine... this site will provide you with the terminology, and might even a direction if you wanted to go into the field!) Linking to the Past is an interesting experiment in the use of web-based instructional materials. It is, first and foremost, an introduction to archaeology, in standard format, with chapters (called Units) on various topics in archaeology, such as laws supporting archaeological research, survey methods, dating, predictive models, stone tools, paleobotany, economic and social aspects. The breadth alone is pretty unusual for your basic text. But what Feder does is include a CDRom version of the book, with additional information.
http://www.staff.ncl.ac.uk/kevin.greene/wintro3/ (Stag's note....another guide. But this one is for second year students!)
There, that should be some good reading! Better than trying to figure out the DaVinci code.
http://www.nakedscience.org/ The Naked Science Society, founded in 1989, is a privately funded organization devoted to the development of a philosophy that evaluates human culture from a scientific perspective. Humans are part of a scientific civilization, and knowledge and its integrity are crucial for the survival of our species. Science is only the Latin word for knowledge, and for our culture to survive, the pursuit of knowledge must be our destiny.
http://intarch.ac.uk/index.html Internet Archaeology is the first fully refereed e-journal for archaeology and publishes articles of a high academic standing which utilise the potential of electronic publication. Internet Archaeology is published by the Council for British Archaeology and hosted by the Department of Archaeology at the University of York. (Stag's note....they have come a long way from when they were using the local hospital's cat scan to chart out the coppergate helm!)
http://www.archaeology.co.uk/ This is the website of Current Archaeology, Britain’s leading archaeological magazine. Or rather, two magazines, for Current Archaeology, which deals with British archaeology, has now been joined by Current World Archaeology. Here you can explore both magazines, and the articles they contain.
There is also the listings section, based on the Archaeology Handbook, which tells you how you can go on an excavations, and lists the many organisation of all sorts that make up British archaeology. And there is also a mass of other miscellaneous information. Good reading! (Stag's note....nice casual reading...what you should have under your belt if you plan to write a book about Roman Britain)
http://www.antiquityofman.com/ (Stag's note.....a real attempt to place archaeology into its place as history. With all the difficulties that we as 21st century mortals have with history! Even history which we have a thorough knowledge of. How then do you interpret pre-historic artifacts? The author, Mikey Brass, believes there are universal constants....motherhood, drunkenness, competition for resources and so forth which make good tools with which to do the interpretation.)
The copyrighted provision of summaries of past and current academic thinking, research projects and debates available here illustrate that our past is not reconstructed by archaeologists and historians, but rather constructed. Archaeological facts cannot speak for themselves. Rather, the material remains are marshalled, compared and manipulated by scholars who are active participants operating within their own social contexts to support mutually inclusive and exclusive hypotheses of past behavioural patterns.
http://archaeology.about.com/cs/newandusedbooks/fr/feder2.htm (Stag's note... perhaps the above is a little deep for a beginner. Thats fine... this site will provide you with the terminology, and might even a direction if you wanted to go into the field!) Linking to the Past is an interesting experiment in the use of web-based instructional materials. It is, first and foremost, an introduction to archaeology, in standard format, with chapters (called Units) on various topics in archaeology, such as laws supporting archaeological research, survey methods, dating, predictive models, stone tools, paleobotany, economic and social aspects. The breadth alone is pretty unusual for your basic text. But what Feder does is include a CDRom version of the book, with additional information.
http://www.staff.ncl.ac.uk/kevin.greene/wintro3/ (Stag's note....another guide. But this one is for second year students!)
There, that should be some good reading! Better than trying to figure out the DaVinci code.
News
This may become one of the new ways we access the internet. Or maybe not.
http://www.jeroenwijering.com/whatsup/
Its a clever concept.
And I don't know if this will be the "next great thing", but again, this attracted my interest. Its a product called "sphere", and does all the web surfing for you. Sort of like Google on steroids, but different...
http://www.sphere.com/tools
Of course you have to load firefox to make it work. Ah well. Can't have everything.
http://www.jeroenwijering.com/whatsup/
Its a clever concept.
And I don't know if this will be the "next great thing", but again, this attracted my interest. Its a product called "sphere", and does all the web surfing for you. Sort of like Google on steroids, but different...
http://www.sphere.com/tools
Of course you have to load firefox to make it work. Ah well. Can't have everything.
Sunday, May 21, 2006
Texas Bix Bender's Guide to Life
This is culled from my archives..... and it is still as good as it ever wuz....grin! Now if only I could follow the last one!!!
> Don't name a pig you plan to eat.>
> Your fences need to be horse high, pig tight, and bull strong.>
> Life is not about how fast you run, or how high you climb, but how well you bounce.>
> Keep skunks and bankers and Lawyers at a distance.>
> Life is simpler when you plough around the stump.>
> A bumblebee is considerably faster than a John Deere tractor.>
> Words that soak into your ears are whispered, not yelled.>
> Meanness don't jest happen overnight.>
> Forgive your enemies. It messes up their heads!>
> Don't sell your mule to buy a plow.>
> Do not corner something that you know is meaner than you.>
> It don't take a very big person to carry a grudge.>
> You cannot unsay a cruel word.>
> Every path has a few puddles.>
> When you wallow with pigs, expect to get dirty.>
> The best sermons are lived, not preached.>
> Most of the stuff people worry about ain't never gonna happen anyway.>
> Don't squat down with your spurs on.>
> Don't judge people by their relatives.>
> Remember that silence is sometimes the best answer.>
> Live a good, honorable life. Then when you get older and think back, you'll enjoy it a second time.>
> Don't interfere with something that ain't bothering' you none.>
> It's better to be a has-been than a never-was.>
> The easiest way to eat crow is while it's still warm. The colder it gets, the harder it is to swaller.>
> If you find yourself in a hole, the first thing to do is stop diggin'.>
> If it don't seem like it's worth the effort, it probably ain't.>
> It don't take a genius to spot a goat in a flock of sheep.>
> Sometimes you get and sometimes you get got.>
> The biggest troublemaker you'll probably ever have to deal with watches you shave his face in the mirror every morning.>
> If you get to thinkin' you're a person of some influence, try orderin' somebody else's dog around.>
> Don't worry about bitin' off more'n you can chew; your mouth is probably a whole lot bigger'n you think.>
> Only cows know why they stampede.>
> Always drink upstream from the herd.>
> If you're ridin' ahead of the herd, take a look back every now and then to make sure it's still there with ya.>
> Good judgment comes from experience, and a lotta that comes from bad judgment.>
> Lettin' the cat outta the bag is a whole lot easier than puttin' it back in.>
> You can't tell how good a man or a watermelon is 'till they get thumped'.>
> Never, never, miss a good opportunity to shut up!>
> Don't name a pig you plan to eat.>
> Your fences need to be horse high, pig tight, and bull strong.>
> Life is not about how fast you run, or how high you climb, but how well you bounce.>
> Keep skunks and bankers and Lawyers at a distance.>
> Life is simpler when you plough around the stump.>
> A bumblebee is considerably faster than a John Deere tractor.>
> Words that soak into your ears are whispered, not yelled.>
> Meanness don't jest happen overnight.>
> Forgive your enemies. It messes up their heads!>
> Don't sell your mule to buy a plow.>
> Do not corner something that you know is meaner than you.>
> It don't take a very big person to carry a grudge.>
> You cannot unsay a cruel word.>
> Every path has a few puddles.>
> When you wallow with pigs, expect to get dirty.>
> The best sermons are lived, not preached.>
> Most of the stuff people worry about ain't never gonna happen anyway.>
> Don't squat down with your spurs on.>
> Don't judge people by their relatives.>
> Remember that silence is sometimes the best answer.>
> Live a good, honorable life. Then when you get older and think back, you'll enjoy it a second time.>
> Don't interfere with something that ain't bothering' you none.>
> It's better to be a has-been than a never-was.>
> The easiest way to eat crow is while it's still warm. The colder it gets, the harder it is to swaller.>
> If you find yourself in a hole, the first thing to do is stop diggin'.>
> If it don't seem like it's worth the effort, it probably ain't.>
> It don't take a genius to spot a goat in a flock of sheep.>
> Sometimes you get and sometimes you get got.>
> The biggest troublemaker you'll probably ever have to deal with watches you shave his face in the mirror every morning.>
> If you get to thinkin' you're a person of some influence, try orderin' somebody else's dog around.>
> Don't worry about bitin' off more'n you can chew; your mouth is probably a whole lot bigger'n you think.>
> Only cows know why they stampede.>
> Always drink upstream from the herd.>
> If you're ridin' ahead of the herd, take a look back every now and then to make sure it's still there with ya.>
> Good judgment comes from experience, and a lotta that comes from bad judgment.>
> Lettin' the cat outta the bag is a whole lot easier than puttin' it back in.>
> You can't tell how good a man or a watermelon is 'till they get thumped'.>
> Never, never, miss a good opportunity to shut up!>
Wednesday, May 17, 2006
Basic Training
Today is the 31st anniversary of me arriving in Camp Cornwallis on Basic Training. There is no other three month period in my life which was as memorable. Yet it really wasn't that great a lifestyle change...I was in Cadets and the Militia before I went off to the Regs, so I should have known what to expect.
I don't think it was really all that hard. Physically it was no more difficult than a hockey camp. Mentally, it was a "sea change". Becoming a soldier (or a sailor or an airman) means leaving behind all the "comfort things" of being a high school kid. Clearly some kids had more trouble than others.
When you watch movies about basic training, they focus on the things like obstacle courses, and teams of soldiers stripping and assembling exotic ordinance. The reality is that it is a series of soul deadening jobs like spit polishing boots, station jobs, parade ground drill and long distance running. Memorizing the names of Commadants is considered more important than being able to shoot (say) downhill at dusk. The obstacle course is welcomed as a welcome break in the routine.
The other thing that happens is that you get the mother of all colds, and everything you do during your time in Basic is punctuated by hacking, sneezing and coughing. It is the inevitable result of lowered bodily resistance brought on by lack of sleep, too many innoculations in too short a time, way more PT than us fat kids were used to, and too many people from all over Canada in the same room. This results in a generally slimmer waistlines , and lowered body fat levels. This lower body fat levels....this can lead to problems.
Trouble was....I was SUCH a bad boy when I was in school. Early '70s, lots of drug use. I had spent most of 3 years stoned out of my mind! When I decided to clean up my act, I went the whole way....got my hair cut, quit drinking, quit smoking dope, quit dropping acid. PCPs, LSD, and the rest of the alphabet were definitly part of my life. Not that I have anything against a nice pot rush, but thats just it...it was TOO nice. I was watching my life disappear in a haze of pot smoke. Darned if I can remember grade ten! Even large chunks of grade eleven are gone for good....and this scared me a little. So, I joined up and in May of 1975, I was on the plane to Camp Cornwallis. (and incidently, it worked....I never did recreational drugs again! Well, aside from Red Rock Lager and Woods Dark Rum. )
The loss of body fat was unexpected, and it had really unexpected side effects. All those chemicals in my body fat started coming out, and so not only was I sick, miserable, tired, but I was also stoned out of my feakin' skull the whole time I was in Basic Training. This may be one reason why I remember the time with a certain fondness. However, the mother of all "bad trips" is when you focus in on that pretty halo of light and discover it is a really a drill sergeant screaming at you to (multiple explitives and suggestions about parentage and anatomical impossiblilties deleted)
They knew about it of course...I mean, you don't, can't and should't keep that sort of past secret. Which lead to a memorable afternoon. We were wearing out our shoe leather on the parade square and the usual hacking, coughing and visual hallucinations were happening. The trees that day were bright pink. Nothing else was. And they were staying that way. This was disturbing. So at the break, the DS calls me over and asks me how I am doing. He was a little concerned about one of his "troopies" and I told him that it seemed to be a lot worse today. He asked me "How so?" And so I explained my difficulty. He looked at me. He looked at the trees. He looked back at me. Then he put his face in his hands and shook his head. "Stag, you idiot! This is the Annapolis Valley in Nova Scotia in May. Those are cherry and apple trees. OF COURSE they are pink! Those are cherry and apple blossoms!!!". Hey I grew up in Manitoba, we don't have cherry trees there, like, how was I to know!
Picture courtesy of http://www.fotosearch.com/BDX428/bxp65754/
Monday, May 15, 2006
250th Anniversary of the Forgotten War
The French-Indian war is the forgotten war. A time when Canada pretty much covered everything from Michilimacinac to St. Louis, larger than life characters like Cadillac (a fat grasping pig who alienated everybody!) and Pontiac (a war chief with a taste for the sauce) were carving out empires in the woods, and the First American Ranger's were created. A British Regiment of course! (I love the stories of the first commander, a charismatic leader called Colonel Rogers. His rules became the way the British fought in the Americas for the next 150 years! Example...Rule #1....Don't Forget Nothing! Hey, he was a soldier, not a grammar teacher! ) Picture is an AP Photo by Jim McKnight.
Remarkable characters like Washington, Arnold, and others learned to fight during that period of history....most of which, all though well known, is pretty much glossed over, or forgotten, and much of what is "Known fer sure" is actually myth. As much as I love history, I find that the French Indian Wars were very complex, and suffer from a great deal of bowlderiztion and politically motivated historical re-writing.
http://travel.canoe.ca/Travel/USA/NortheasternUSA/2006/05/12/1577075-ap.html
(quoted from the above web site...) "A series of events featuring 18th-century military encampments and battle re-enactments are scheduled at various state, national and local historic sites from western New York to the eastern Adirondacks through 2010.
And this spring and summer, events will take place at French and Indian War-era forts and other locations in Illinois, Maryland, Michigan, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania and Tennessee in addition to upstate New York. " "The visibility of anniversaries raises the public's awareness and brings people to the site," said Robert Emerson, executive director of Old Fort Niagara, a state historic site located where the Niagara River meets Lake Ontario. "Once they get to the site, we can teach them history."
"During last year's Grand Encampment of the French and Indian War, an annual three-day event at Old Fort Niagara, a near-record 9,500 visitors passed through the gates", Emerson said."
That was the event I was too busy taking my buildings down to get to! I won't be too busy this year though!
" Another national historic site in upstate New York is Fort Johnson, where, in 1749, William Johnson and 250 Indians set out to fight the Battle of Lake George. A commemoration of the battle was held at Lake George last year; it was the first in a series of signature events marking the war's anniversary. Other major events will take place in Oswego this summer (Aug. 11-13), Lake George (2007), Fort Ticonderoga (2008), Old Fort Niagara (2009) and Ogdensburg (2010). "
I'm looking forward to the Ogdensburg event...its only, what, 45 minutes from my house! I presume it will be a re-enactment of the "Battle of the Windmill". Now THAT was a fiasco!
Yeah, I can take that...a summer booting all around Ontario and New York State going to weekend buckskinner events!
Thursday, May 11, 2006
High Class Photo Shoot
A couple of pics that Dmitri Moiseev did of me last Monday. (Yeah, thats me in the top pic!)
More pics at http://www.southtower.on.ca/Dmitri/Dmitri.shtml
(Cor, I luv my job!)(click to enlarge)
Tuesday, May 09, 2006
Ain't no Cure for the Summerside Blues
The following story involves blood and gore...and is not for children.
One of the people I will remember the rest of my life is Roger J. Can't call HIM a poser...what you saw was pretty much what you got. Trouble was, you never quite knew what you saw. A son of a fisherman, he grew up hating fish farmers and seals. Fish farms because they raised "weak" fish who were prone to disease, and were the competition. Seals because they destroy fish wholesale. A seal will dive down, find a fish, take a bite out of it, throw away the fish to die, and then hunt down another fish. A lot of fish in his nets had seal bites in them. Fishermen like Roger and his kin would, and DID happily shoot seals who were hovering around their nets looking for a cheap dinner.
Fishing is like farming...you accept death as part of life, and inevitable. It was Roger who used the phrase "Well, you know, you ain't a gonna get outa this life alive y'know". He used to chuckle at people who didn't want to kill a trapped mouse, and would be the one you call if you want to drown unwanted kittens, or kill a fresh caught fish or chicken for your supper. He raised his own rabbits for the table, (along with another feller I'll tell about in a bit), and had an old boat he and his dad had fiberglassed to make seaworthy that he lived on during the summer months.
And it was Spring, about May, and the birds were nestin something awful. Now there is nothing that goes together worse than airplanes and birds! Little avian buggers will have a nest built in the nooks and crannys of your airplane in 4 hours! Which I wouldn't mind so much but the nests tend to interfear with the operation of control surfaces, and can be life threatening. Oh sure, we check, check, and check again, hang stuffed owls up, play high pitched sounds, but the only thing which really works is the poisoned grain. Every airport in the world has trays of poisoned grain out for the varmints which can bring down an airplane.
So the Warrant Officer and Roger were walking around the hanger, Roger with the clipboard, writing down all the things which need to make the hangar Ship Shape and Bristol Fashion. And they found a pigeon which had partaken of the grain, and was dying horribly on the tarmac. The Warrant Officer was an ex Navy "fish head" , and showing a hitherto unsuspected streak of compassion, he asked Roger to put the "poor wee think out a' its misery". I had to dash off at that point to deal with some disaster in the making, and I was no more than 20 yards off when I heard the Warrant screaming awful things about Roger's parentage, his upbringing, and his mental health! Roger looked like he had been into the paint locker, and so later on, I asked him what happened. As best as I can remember it, these were his words.
"Well, you were in on the first part of it. The Warrant asked me if I had ever killed chickens back on the farm. I told him, Of course. You take the neck in between your fingers, and break their necks just behind the head with a little twist. No big deal. Never did a pigeon though. Their necks are really tiny, almost like a string, instead of that big solid neck a chicken has. So when I wrung its neck, the head just came off in my hand! Well THAT was a surprise! The Warrant was looking at me kind of funny, and I held up the head, and discovered that when you sqeeze the sides, the beak will open and close. So I guess out of nervousness, I made like it was a puppet, held it up, and making the beak open and close, said "Hello Warrant, nice to meet you"! Then he went ballistic!
I am still not sure if Roger J. was in fact a poser, but he was really good at giving the impression that he was "something". Just exactly WHAT that something was....I am not sure. But for the rest of my life, I'll remember Roger standing there with blood splashed all over his uniform and holding up a pigeon's head like it was a sock puppet.
One of the people I will remember the rest of my life is Roger J. Can't call HIM a poser...what you saw was pretty much what you got. Trouble was, you never quite knew what you saw. A son of a fisherman, he grew up hating fish farmers and seals. Fish farms because they raised "weak" fish who were prone to disease, and were the competition. Seals because they destroy fish wholesale. A seal will dive down, find a fish, take a bite out of it, throw away the fish to die, and then hunt down another fish. A lot of fish in his nets had seal bites in them. Fishermen like Roger and his kin would, and DID happily shoot seals who were hovering around their nets looking for a cheap dinner.
Fishing is like farming...you accept death as part of life, and inevitable. It was Roger who used the phrase "Well, you know, you ain't a gonna get outa this life alive y'know". He used to chuckle at people who didn't want to kill a trapped mouse, and would be the one you call if you want to drown unwanted kittens, or kill a fresh caught fish or chicken for your supper. He raised his own rabbits for the table, (along with another feller I'll tell about in a bit), and had an old boat he and his dad had fiberglassed to make seaworthy that he lived on during the summer months.
And it was Spring, about May, and the birds were nestin something awful. Now there is nothing that goes together worse than airplanes and birds! Little avian buggers will have a nest built in the nooks and crannys of your airplane in 4 hours! Which I wouldn't mind so much but the nests tend to interfear with the operation of control surfaces, and can be life threatening. Oh sure, we check, check, and check again, hang stuffed owls up, play high pitched sounds, but the only thing which really works is the poisoned grain. Every airport in the world has trays of poisoned grain out for the varmints which can bring down an airplane.
So the Warrant Officer and Roger were walking around the hanger, Roger with the clipboard, writing down all the things which need to make the hangar Ship Shape and Bristol Fashion. And they found a pigeon which had partaken of the grain, and was dying horribly on the tarmac. The Warrant Officer was an ex Navy "fish head" , and showing a hitherto unsuspected streak of compassion, he asked Roger to put the "poor wee think out a' its misery". I had to dash off at that point to deal with some disaster in the making, and I was no more than 20 yards off when I heard the Warrant screaming awful things about Roger's parentage, his upbringing, and his mental health! Roger looked like he had been into the paint locker, and so later on, I asked him what happened. As best as I can remember it, these were his words.
"Well, you were in on the first part of it. The Warrant asked me if I had ever killed chickens back on the farm. I told him, Of course. You take the neck in between your fingers, and break their necks just behind the head with a little twist. No big deal. Never did a pigeon though. Their necks are really tiny, almost like a string, instead of that big solid neck a chicken has. So when I wrung its neck, the head just came off in my hand! Well THAT was a surprise! The Warrant was looking at me kind of funny, and I held up the head, and discovered that when you sqeeze the sides, the beak will open and close. So I guess out of nervousness, I made like it was a puppet, held it up, and making the beak open and close, said "Hello Warrant, nice to meet you"! Then he went ballistic!
I am still not sure if Roger J. was in fact a poser, but he was really good at giving the impression that he was "something". Just exactly WHAT that something was....I am not sure. But for the rest of my life, I'll remember Roger standing there with blood splashed all over his uniform and holding up a pigeon's head like it was a sock puppet.
May
(click on image to enlarge)
May. A time of play. A time of wearing new clothes. A time of re-birth.
In his youth the Duc de Berry liked to take part in this festivity, and at court the King would distribute garments made of cloth vert gai in color and known as livrée de mai.This garb is worn by the three girls riding horses caparisoned in a refined soft green, a color obtained from the crushed crystalline stone, malachite. The sumptuous dress lined with blue and ornamented with gold flowerwork identifies the girls as princesses. One, wearing a white headdress decorated with green leaves, dominates the middle of the scene.Turning to contemplate her is a rider dressed half in red, half in black and white, the royal livery of France at that time; he is probably a prince of the blood. At the girl's left rides a man dressed in a rich blue brocaded coat strewn with golden flowers: could it be the Duc de Berry?In front, musicians lead the gay group of amiable riders to the sound of their trumpet, flute, and trombone. They are accompanied by the Duke's small dogs which frisk about the horse's hoofs.
This pretty scene must have been set in the woods bordering the rue du Pré-aux-Clercs, near what is now the rue de Bellechasse.
The whole article is here....http://www.christusrex.org/www2/berry/f5v.html
Monday, May 08, 2006
Kitty Vitti III, another Poser.
(another story of the characters I met while on Detached Duty..."on Det" in Torbay sometime in the late '90s.)
A poser, technically speaking, is somebody who is attempting to be something they are not. In particular, something they percieve their peer group expects them to be. When they suceed, they get promoted, when they fail, they get branded a "Poser". Military people meet them all the time....the foul mouth drill sergeant who raises flowers, and has to psych himself up to stand there and shout at the troopies. The pay accounts clerk who drops her paycheck into the G-string of the male stripper on"Ladies Night"and leaves him in the parking lot well out of site of her girfriends. All the folks who sow their wild oats all week, and go to church on Sunday to pray for a crop failure.
Guys have this bad, and military guys even more so. The stories and rumours of infidelities among military guys is statistically unlikely, and surprisingly enough (especially to our wives) are mostly not true. Which brings us to the biggest Poser I ever knew, Pierre C. (Name is changed to protect the damned guilty!) A Man's Man, big, tough, works out in a gym he actually pays for, talks big. According to Pierre, he has laid with every woman in St. John, Summerside, Halifax, Trenton and as far as I know, Tim Buc Tu. He used to say with great emphasis and meaning "What Happens on Det STAYS on Det". Which I suspect means something like "I won't tell on you if you don't tell on me." Yeah, fine, whatever. I worked with his wife, and just decided that the less I dealt with this guy, the better me, my career and my mental health would stay. But on this occasion, he was the Master Corporal 2 i c of the Detached Duty team in Torbay Newfoundland.
So one fine evening as the fog finally grounded the airplanes after a bee-och of 13 hour shift, yet again, we were sittin' around the common room in the barracks. Frying sausages, shooting the breeze, swapping lies. We were all pretty tired...it had been a long day, and some had ducked over to George Street to listen to the music and have a few brewskies before bedding down. There was a 6AM launch, so by ten, most of us had made it back home and were watching Hockey Night In Canada. Just like in a movie, the door opens, and in comes Pierre, all quiet like. Not like him at all! So he brings us a bottle of Woods Dark Rum and says "hey guys, I got a girl here, stay out of my room for the next hour or so eh!". So I sez to Pierre....Well, bring her in here for a drink Pete, we won't bite! Pierre gets kind of evasive, and says he has to go, she's waitin in his room for him. "Enjoy the bottle, and I'll see you all in the morning" .
Why was this odd? Well, we were a really small det, and we each had rooms to ourselves that trip. Privacy is something we had, and jealously guarded when we managed to get it. So, like , Pierre didn't have to tell us to not bother him, in fact there was no reason other than bragging to inform us of his situation.
Clever guy this Pierre. He knew the first thing we would do as soon as we heard his door close is creep real silent like down the hallway, and put a glass to the door. (Oh come on, you'd a done the same!) So heres the three of us, listening at the door. We can hear a man's voice, the sound of shoes hitting the floor. Four shoes...good sign. Then the squeak of the iron army bed. A pause, and another squeek, then another. Then a nice rythymic squeeking! "Ah" said I, "The game is afoot". (Or slurred words to that effect). We went back to the common room, the guys were all buzzing about what kind of a guy this Pierre is, and what would we tell his wife, or should we, and maybe there was just a tiny touch of envy.
Then, I had an idea.
Many ideas I had in those days I blame on the skinfull of Red Rock Lager, causes me to do things I shouldn't. ....so I suggested that perhaps we should get a look at this cutie. He is on the ground floor, right? Uh huh. We could see the light under the door so the light is on right? Uh huh. Maybe he didn't pull his curtains? You could almost see the lights come on behind their eyes as they suddenly got it. So, we turned the TV up a little louder, and snuck outside, tramping through the snow to peek into Pete's window.
What we saw was Lucky Pierre, the Man's Man, the guy who cheated on his wife by his own admission every chance he got, sitting on his bed, all by himself, bouncing up and down on the mattress, making the springs squeek. "Right," we all agreed later. "This guy really IS a devoted family man, and a good father, a hard worker, who wants us to believe that he is this drunken cheatin' bastard. His secret is out...he's a good man after all! All that cheating stuff! Thats bogus! What a Poser!"
But oh damn....we can't tell anybody. Because what happens on Det STAYS on det.
A poser, technically speaking, is somebody who is attempting to be something they are not. In particular, something they percieve their peer group expects them to be. When they suceed, they get promoted, when they fail, they get branded a "Poser". Military people meet them all the time....the foul mouth drill sergeant who raises flowers, and has to psych himself up to stand there and shout at the troopies. The pay accounts clerk who drops her paycheck into the G-string of the male stripper on"Ladies Night"and leaves him in the parking lot well out of site of her girfriends. All the folks who sow their wild oats all week, and go to church on Sunday to pray for a crop failure.
Guys have this bad, and military guys even more so. The stories and rumours of infidelities among military guys is statistically unlikely, and surprisingly enough (especially to our wives) are mostly not true. Which brings us to the biggest Poser I ever knew, Pierre C. (Name is changed to protect the damned guilty!) A Man's Man, big, tough, works out in a gym he actually pays for, talks big. According to Pierre, he has laid with every woman in St. John, Summerside, Halifax, Trenton and as far as I know, Tim Buc Tu. He used to say with great emphasis and meaning "What Happens on Det STAYS on Det". Which I suspect means something like "I won't tell on you if you don't tell on me." Yeah, fine, whatever. I worked with his wife, and just decided that the less I dealt with this guy, the better me, my career and my mental health would stay. But on this occasion, he was the Master Corporal 2 i c of the Detached Duty team in Torbay Newfoundland.
So one fine evening as the fog finally grounded the airplanes after a bee-och of 13 hour shift, yet again, we were sittin' around the common room in the barracks. Frying sausages, shooting the breeze, swapping lies. We were all pretty tired...it had been a long day, and some had ducked over to George Street to listen to the music and have a few brewskies before bedding down. There was a 6AM launch, so by ten, most of us had made it back home and were watching Hockey Night In Canada. Just like in a movie, the door opens, and in comes Pierre, all quiet like. Not like him at all! So he brings us a bottle of Woods Dark Rum and says "hey guys, I got a girl here, stay out of my room for the next hour or so eh!". So I sez to Pierre....Well, bring her in here for a drink Pete, we won't bite! Pierre gets kind of evasive, and says he has to go, she's waitin in his room for him. "Enjoy the bottle, and I'll see you all in the morning" .
Why was this odd? Well, we were a really small det, and we each had rooms to ourselves that trip. Privacy is something we had, and jealously guarded when we managed to get it. So, like , Pierre didn't have to tell us to not bother him, in fact there was no reason other than bragging to inform us of his situation.
Clever guy this Pierre. He knew the first thing we would do as soon as we heard his door close is creep real silent like down the hallway, and put a glass to the door. (Oh come on, you'd a done the same!) So heres the three of us, listening at the door. We can hear a man's voice, the sound of shoes hitting the floor. Four shoes...good sign. Then the squeak of the iron army bed. A pause, and another squeek, then another. Then a nice rythymic squeeking! "Ah" said I, "The game is afoot". (Or slurred words to that effect). We went back to the common room, the guys were all buzzing about what kind of a guy this Pierre is, and what would we tell his wife, or should we, and maybe there was just a tiny touch of envy.
Then, I had an idea.
Many ideas I had in those days I blame on the skinfull of Red Rock Lager, causes me to do things I shouldn't. ....so I suggested that perhaps we should get a look at this cutie. He is on the ground floor, right? Uh huh. We could see the light under the door so the light is on right? Uh huh. Maybe he didn't pull his curtains? You could almost see the lights come on behind their eyes as they suddenly got it. So, we turned the TV up a little louder, and snuck outside, tramping through the snow to peek into Pete's window.
What we saw was Lucky Pierre, the Man's Man, the guy who cheated on his wife by his own admission every chance he got, sitting on his bed, all by himself, bouncing up and down on the mattress, making the springs squeek. "Right," we all agreed later. "This guy really IS a devoted family man, and a good father, a hard worker, who wants us to believe that he is this drunken cheatin' bastard. His secret is out...he's a good man after all! All that cheating stuff! Thats bogus! What a Poser!"
But oh damn....we can't tell anybody. Because what happens on Det STAYS on det.
Saturday, May 06, 2006
Kitty Vitti II, the Poser!
There were so many. Posers that is. Dexter S. had to be the worst of 'em. He was a guy who married some Newfie girl every year. A handsome young tearaway of 35 years who looked every bit of 50 used to promise the women the moon, the stars, the ring, and a chance to get away from "all this". Since "all this" was pretty much snow, freezing rain, rain, fog, then bad weather, and of course, that job gutting fish, most anything looked good by comparison. I began to recognize the predatory gaze of these lasses fairly early on, and Dex just used let them chase him until he caught 'em.
He used to find his way up to the lookout point of signal hill with his latest conquest, and in the faint light of the cucumber greenhouse on the hill opposite, would allow himself to be taken advantage of. That is to say, he would allow the lass to pour enough rum down his throat to get him to propose marriage. Then it was a frantic round of parents, uncles, aunts, priests, Christian brothers and military personel who set up an honest to gawd wedding before his two weeks detached duty in Torbay ended. Dexter was a clever one though. He was careful to stay drunk enough to maintain his (and by extension her) dubious virtue, and was extremely careful to not consumate anything after the vows.
I asked him once "Is there sex after marriage". He answered with a shrug, "beats me". This enabled him to get the annulment after 3 months on the grounds of non-consumation and her reasonably understandable resultant infidelity. Oh, he still chased skirts like crazy in the Summerside Junior Ranks Mess, and in "Anthony's" downtown. Of course, that was part of his cunning plan to be a perpetual groom. And in Newfoundland, a groom is treated like, well like a bride! They tell me that some places have the problem of brides who are so in love with the idea of being a bride that they will pull stunts like this over and over. Dexter was the first man I ever met who had "Marriage Addiction".
Things always worked out for the best. The lasses usually trolled the bars back home in PEI (the Garden of the Gulf, and home of Anne of Green Gargoyles, er, Gables) along side Dex, looking for a better prospect, and you know, on at least three occasions that I can testify to, it worked out...the lasses got another young government inspected Corporal to "take her away from all this" and they got happily posted away into the sunset. I kept in contact with one couple, and still, after what, 12 years, they are still happily married and living in Moose Jaw. I hear the fact that there is very little fog and freezing rain in Saskatchewan, and no hip breaking 30 degree ice covered roads goes a long way to keep their marriage solid.
Funny, never heard from Dex again though.
(the top pic of from Signal Hill lookin' over th' harbour. In daytime, the sun burns the fog off the water, but you can see it waiting at the entrance to come in like a socially disadvantaged relative. The bottom pic is Battery Road. thought I was just usin' hypberbole when I was describin' the 30 degree roads eh!)
Thursday, May 04, 2006
KittyVitti part 1
This time of year brings to mind stories of raw and rough dets in Kitty Vitti. Well, actually "detached duty" in Newfoundland, the barracks are in a suburb of St John's called Quidi Vidi, over behind the little lake, t'other side of the graveyard. QuidiVidi, thats Latin for "where he hell am I". Well you may ask that b'y, for once the duty fog bank rolls in, you are lucky to see your hand in front of your face. I was up there supporting the Tracker squadron which hunted drug and people smugglers with 40 year old twin engine prop job airplanes. My job was to fix and gas 'em. Thats one of mine in the pic...click on it to enlarge it.
Well, this one April day, everything was fogged in, and so we got permission to go to town. St John's has one street which is zoned for drinking establishments...we had to leave our barracks, cut through the graveyard and try and see if we could get some "action". If there is action in Newfyjohn, it is on George Street! I noticed on the way over that our well worn path was interupted by some construction work, but visions of bright lights, flowing beer taps and willing maidens made me forget all that, so me and my buddy Tim hit the Ship Inn, the Farthing, the Sailor's Rest, and a few even more disreputable spots.
Tim and I met an even dozen women that night. All good ol' newfies, lookin to hook up to a beau who could take 'em off the rock. Good drinking, smoking, swearing beer kegs with missing teeth and rubber boots. I decided after about 7 or 8 "hot spots" that there isn't enough beer in Canada to drink these girls pretty, and so I told Tim that I was going to head on home. He ignored me, and continued to swap spit with this lass who would be pretty but for the moustache. Though actually, judging by the sound of her laugh, she may have been a seal, but hey..she was a very cute seal...
So, I see the moon is out, the fog is in rags, and very close to the earth. Lots of light to see by, but there were clouds that looked kind of squall-like to me. I didn't want to get caught in a rain squall in April, so I decided to take the short way home, the short cut through the graveyard. I completely forgot about the construction (a skinfull of Red Rock Lager can do that) and then the rain squall hit. I stumbled and fell into a hole. As far as I could see, it was a grave which had been prepared for use the next day. All the fresh earth was scattered loosely about and as I tried to climb out, it turned to mud under my hands and try as I might, I was just stuck there.
Struggling is hard work and I decided to just sit down and rest a bit. (a skinfull of Red Rock Lager can do that) and was just dozing off when suddenly somebody started stepping on my legs, my feet, and so forth. It was my buddy Tim, who had struck out with the seal, and decided to head home as well, and fell into the same trap as I did! There he was, cussin a streak, and jumping up for all he was worth trying to get some purchase on the mud, and having the same luck as I did. He don't even know I am there!
So I stood up, all covered in mud, and taps him on the shoulder. "You'll never get out you know" I said.
But he did!
epilogue......Tim heard me shouting, and came back and using our belts, he managed to drag me out of there. We went back to the barracks with a helluva story.
Wednesday, May 03, 2006
The poppy coloured tulip
Mowing lawns, cleaning and posting birdhouses, yelling at the kids to stop picking my daffodils. Trying to avoid the tulips which are just starting this week. They are going to bloom by this weekend, which of course, is the Ottawa Tulip Festival.
Ottawa groans under the weight of thousands of tulips every year at this time. These gorgeous blooms (20 thousand!) are an annual reminder from the Dutch government that they remember not only the sacrifice of Canadian soldiers who had it really rough when liberating Holland during WWII, but also that the Dutch Royal Family was living out the occupation right here in Ottawa. In fact, Queen Julianna gave birth to princess Margriet right here in the Ottawa Civic Hospital in a room which was made Dutch soil for one day by an act of parliament.
The picture is of a very rare tulip called the "Bell Irving", named after the Canadian General Bell-Irving who lost Seventy Six Hundred men in Holland in 1944 and '45. They almost went extinct, mostly because for some reason, the local squirrels seem to particularly favor the bulbs. At one point, it was thought that it WAS extinct, but those Dutch are a canny lot, and a specialst collector in Holland had a couple hundred he was willing to propogate. He sent half of them to Canada for the 50th anniverary and they died enroute. Next year he sent another couple of hundred, and the squirrels got most of them. But they kept trying, and now the flower beds of Dow's lake and Bell Irvings's home town in British Columbia are awash with them. Not quite so rare now!
There is something uniquely Canadian that would make a flower be the memorial to a good general. A flower symbolic of the country he liberated, and one that is the colour of the poppy...the universal flower of the soldier.
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