Video Bar

Please note that my video bar is now up and running.Take a few moments to view some of these song of the day videos,featuring one of the very finest young singers I know,Heather Berry from North Carolina.When I saw my first Heather Berry video a few years ago,I was amazed at her talent.Discovering Heather was,for me reminiscent of discovering another fine young singer,nearly forty years ago.That singer was Emmylou Harris,and she remains one of my very favorite all these many years later.I am absolutely convinced that Heather has a bright future and that many years from now we will be mentioning her as a singer similar in stature to Emmylou.Please take a moment to listen to one or more of her videos in the video bar.

Today's sky over Calgary in one of the strangest,moodiest looking skies I've ever seen,and it would not surprise me at all if we were in for some severe weather.Everywhere over the whole vista there are open parts.letting sunlight through.To the south there is an arch,which looks like a Chinook arch,but really isn't since Chinooks come out of the west or southwest,out over the Rockies.It's not clear behind the arch but it's clearer and more luminous than the skies to the north of it.The sky looks to be drawing water up into itself too,out of the Bow Valley far off to the south.West is a dull gray,streaked and spotted with a lemony yellow in places.The Rockies are  barely visible for the large amount of mist lying close to the ground,but from what I can see,they are losing their snow quickly.The water level in the Bow doesn't reflect the loss of snow,but if these skies open up,all the rivers will soon be higher than normal.I've never seen the bow flood.In these parts,it's the Elbow River that causes all the problems.The North and the northeast are where my biggest concerns lie.Heading straight east,out of downtown the skies are dark almost to the point of blackness,but then as we turn north become more gray,so that they look like battleships low in the water and moving from east to west.The wind at ground level,on 36th street,where I'm standing is out of the west though.I can see dozens of pipe like little tendrils hanging down from those low lying clouds,though none of them appear to be funnels.But from experience.I know that this is the kind of sky that can show funnels very quickly.There appears to be no electrical activity in the sky yet but that too can change in a flash.There was one flash of lightening yesterday,followed immediately by thunder.But only one.It must have rained overnight as there is a lot of water lying on the ground in the downtown area.I slept well and heard neither rain nor thunder.In a word,today has an ominous feel to it,like the severe weather might strike again at a moments notice.I'm not certain how bad it will get,but today is unlikely to be a calm day.It's such a shame that my cell phone was not sufficiently charged for me to get photos of the fascinating heavens over our city this morning.It also seems as I didn't wait quite long enough to do my memoir writers homework on the subject of colours as today the sky is in full display of about a thousand of them,mostly some shades of grey,which I had no idea was so rich in variety.It's as if a huge grey peacock has partly blotted out the sun by spreading its wings over the skies.Weather may be tomorrows headlines here in Calgary.

memoir writers homework

I don't know what happened to the list of topics from my memoir group in Toronto over the last few weeks,but I see that there is now a full list of them up to and including yesterdays meeting.It must be time to complete another homework assignment.I very much miss writing with my colleagues and friends in Toronto,as our sessions were always spirited,fun and revealing in ways I never expected them to be.Today's assignment is on the topic of "colours"and was one of May 28th's topics.I'll try to complete an assignment from yesterdays list a little later this week.

Once I took a photography class in the early1980's,and one of the students asked the instructor a question about black and white film.The instructor evidently though the question did not warrant a lot of comment,as he replied"I don't even know why anyone bothers with black and white.To me its just a waste of time since we see in color".Well,at least most of us do,except the ultra conservatives perhaps,but that's another diatribe.

However,I quite agree with that instructor.Colour is a thing we are just immersed in from the day we are born.My grandmother used to call African people "coloured"and I always thought the term strange,so I asked her what she meant by it and she said"you know exactly who I'm talking about"Colour used as a euphemism.She got really annoyed when I told her I was a coloured person too.I just wasn't brown.Well,I still think I'm right and I don't so much object to this archaic term so long as I'm included in it.

Red is likely my least favorite colour.Our house was always red and white.And our summer cottage,as well as that little two by four and plywood monument to organic chemistry that's parked beside it.All red and white.Just seems a bit lacking in imagination,since we seemed to paint these buildings every couple of years.Maybe,I'd have thought,we could paint at least one of them yellow or purple or some colour besides red.But we never did.

In an art gallery in Calgary,not so many years ago I saw a beautiful painting of a trout migrating upstream through a river,over a bed of gravel,and it reminded me of one of my favorite places,a small stream in the hills of Albert County New Brunswick.And it was not so much the colours themselves that supplied the reminder as it was the thought that those colours were not likely rendered by the artist in exactly the same way as they appeared.Neither does my favorite place in my minds eye.The place is green,of course,leaf green and frog green.It's banks are shades of earth,brown and yellow and black mud.Its stones many coloured.Moss flowing in strands of green.The water different at different times and seasons,but when you scoop up a handful,no color at all,completely clear.Lately I"ve began to wonder if it might not be a good place to have someone drop a few white ashes into the stream bed so that I might add my own colour to God's exquisite rendering of earth and water.What I imagine it to be is not truly the colour it is.I think I see the place as more of an impressionist vision than what it really is.That comes from being away so long.

Memoir/Backstory

Most of what I know of Goose Bay is from hearing my parents talk of the place,mostly in a fond manner.My father talked much more about it than my mother who often just seemed to agree.

I know that Goose Bay was my birthplace,as well as that of my sister,the one that is younger than me by a year.But what of the time before?Most of that knowledge was from my parents stories,but there is also a few pictures that my parents kept on slides.I've seen them all many times.Because of it's northern location there are,of course pictures of Goose Bay under a blanket of snow.And there are pictures of the road,a muddy quagmire.And there are even a few pictures of Goose Bay that don't feature mud or snow.As I recall,there was at least one photograph showing the snow removal equipment at the airport and there was a lot of it.Either as a testament to there being a lot of snow,or there being a vital need to clear runways quickly and efficiently,or more likely both.There was a picture of a parade too,in which I recall,some of that same snow removal equipment was used to haul the floats.I never was clear on what the occasion for the parade was.From all of the pictures that I can remember of Goose Bay,it very much had the look of military bases just about anywhere.The same kind of warehouse looking buildings,guard shacks with big striped gates,army trucks and jeeps everywhere and uniformed personnel walking about.There were planes too,as Goose Bay was an air force base,but not so many.A few jets lined up on a tarmac,ancient looking now but state of the art when the photos were taken.All in all,my parents did a decent job of documenting their stay in Canada's north,if only in a kind of ordinary way.

My father told many stories of Goose Bay,though I only recall a few.I think it must have been in the days before he met my mother,but he tells of meeting a preacher once in the shower room of the army barracks.For some reason he became angered by something during his shower and cut loose with a torrent of colorful language in the best traditions of coal miners anywhere,some of whom can be rather plain spoken.The preacher,showering in another stall introduced himself while they were drying off later,and noticed,"you certainly know how to swear."My father said that despite the incident he and the preacher became good friends and he noted the incident was "embarrassing."I believe the first time I heard him tell that story he was embarrassed at having told it in front of his children,as swearing was not exactly what you would most like to brag about to impressionable children.I've often wondered why he used such foul language in those days,as he tried to keep a civil tongue when at home.Tried but did not always succeed.It could have been boys being boys,or something bigger fueling the foul mouth.I've heard that military personnel have been known for colorful outbursts from time to time so maybe it was just being young and part of the culture.

At one time my father owned a taxi in Goose Bay,though I don't know when he would ever get the time to drive it.Most of his fares he said were between the Canadian and American bases.I'm sure there must have been liquor runs too.though I'm less certain that they involved a liquor store. Likely what his taxi business consisted of was picking up a few worse for wear soldiers each day,during the hours he was not working but still awake.It's unlikely he provided 24 hour service,as I don't recall him mentioning hiring another driver for the cab.The enterprise could not have made a huge profit.To look at Goose Bay in pictures,it hardly looks like the place where a lot of people would take taxis,though I'm certain the mud and drunkenness could make the short appearing walk across base unattractive.

There were things in Goose Bay the apparently most people were not intended to see.My father makes mention of having seen several helicopters inside a hanger long before they came into common use.They were,a number of them, visiting the American side of the base when they saw these helicopters partly hidden by tarps.How they managed to gain clearance to an American base during the cold war is anyone's guess,but it seems that at least some of the things being kept there were not all that secret.My father did make a comment late in the 1980's or maybe the early 1990's that I found astonishing.We were watching some footage of the new stealth bomber/fighter on television when he told me "I saw one of those in Goose Bay in 1956."My father was familiar with  aircraft in general and military aircraft in particular and it seems odd to think if he had seen one of those,that he would have mistaken it for something else.Still he had very little sense of amazement later in life when he saw one again,so perhaps new,bizarre and cutting edge equipment were not so unusual in the Goose Bay of the 1950's.Still.I have no idea as to how my father would have encountered such equipment.

I'm sure the north was a grand adventure for a young boy from Nova Scotia and that is what my father was when he first came to Goose Bay.He worked there for just over ten years as I understand it,as a civilian employee of the Canadian Armed Forces.His job was to operate and maintain a power generating station for the base,a job he held even after being transferred to New Brunswick in the early 1960's.He left Goose Bay to visit Jamaica in the mid 1950's,then again to marry my mother in her home town in 1959,and for the final time in 1962 or early 1963,after both my sister and I were born.

Now aside from all this I have no memory of Goose Bay.I hear of people saying they can remember things in infancy,though I confess,I do not.I do not believe such things are likely.So history,my parents stories and some old photographs are all that constitute my own knowledge of Goose Bay.And,in fact I no longer even have the photographs.

Memoir/Backstory

From Western New Brunswick,and from Springhill,in Cumberland county,Nova Scotia,my parents arrived in Goose Bay Labrador,in the Canadian North.I've never heard the story of how they met,so far as I know,but they married in the late 1950's and lived another three or so years in the north.

Goose Bay is almost straight north of Canada's Atlantic Provinces and anyone with a passing knowledge of the history of the latter half of the last century will know a lot about how it came to be there and what the place is all about.You see,it was a product of that history.And my parents were drawn there by the flow of that history.

Now in discussing history I usually like to forego the tinder dry and mouldy textbooks for what I refer to as the Ron Thomasson (comedian and bluegrass musician extraordinaire) school of history.At least what it lacks in accuracy can be made up for in wit.
So how did Goose Bay come to be.Well,there was this guy in the 1940's by the name of Hitler,who by all accounts was a bit of a jerk.I can't attest to that personally,but a great many people say it's true,and I believe them.He was so bad in fact that everyone ,both good and bad guys alike got together to remove him from the scene.Doing that wasn't easy,but it was successful,eventually.But this raised a whole new set of problems.Because there was this guy named Stalin who was said to be even worse than this Hitler guy.He killed more people,but that didn't bother us too much while we were all fighting Hitler.But about ten seconds after Hitler was gone we recognized Stalin for what he was.That was at the end of WWII.You probably heard of WWII-it was in all the papers.

With WWII over,us North Americans needed another enemy,so Stalin and a succession of  others made a natural choice.They were after all communists,Godless by definition and against all that America stood for.So began a new war called the cold war,and that's where Goose Bay comes in.America had,of course bombed Japan with a new kind of Moltov cocktail,that was bigger and better than anything that came before it.And that finally ended WWII.But the enemy,the Godless Communists in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe were not far behind in developing ever better firecrackers of their own.So,the Americans decided what they needed was a better way to deliver these new explosives.So they more or less kidnapped a man by the name of Von Braun,who,as luck would have it had at least one or two revolutionary ideas about how such things could be delivered.He'd been doing it,and assorted other dastardly things in Germany before he was spirited away.A German friend of mine says he conceived of rocket propulsion because of a gross overindulgence in good German beer and Weiner Schinitzel,drowned in sourkraut.Again,I can't attest to that.

At any rate,rockets turned out to be a much better way of delivering atom bombs than the old tried but not quite true method.Those big bombers were heavy and always seemed to generate a lot of noise complaints when flying over enemy territory.As it turned out,you could expropriate property in Kansas or Nebraska,bury these rockets,called missiles,and if you ever had to fire them the only one who would be annoyed would be some farmer who had a bunch of smoking holes where he should have had corn.Crop insurance didn't cover that,apparently.Well.that farmer and several million Russians that is,but of course they were communists.There were communists over here too but we could get to them without bombs.A man named McCarthy,a master of innuendo and also a bit of a jerk was in charge of that.But I digress.

At some point,our American friends decided to share this cold war with us.As it turned out the most direct route from the United States to Russia went right over Northern Canada.I t was also a convenient place for all of that military hardware to land once the United States superior military machine had shot it down.Far better than Washington,or Los Angeles or Chicago.Well,maybe not Chicago.After all,they had the Bears and the White Sox.

So what followed was a building spree of military bases all over the north.Including Goose Bay which had both a Canadian and an American base.And that's where my parents wound up.By this time a man named Ike came along and decided that war could be used to advance the economy and we haven't looked back since.It seemed to work like a charm, and here in Canada kept a number of communities viable,including Goose Bay.

Well,that's the history part of it,or at least most of it.There were a few other events of note,like the formation of the State of Israel which no one seemed to recognize for what it was because people like Bertrand Russell and Charles Darwin had convinced a great many others to stop reading their bibles.And of course,Newfoundland,where Goose Bay was located had just become a part of Canada a few years before.It wouldn't be long before they became the laughing stalk of Canada and many wished they'd not joined and started flying the Canadian flag upside down.

And thats what I know about Goose Bay.Well,there are a few things my father told me and some things I could tell from family photos,but that will have to wait for tomorrow.

Never in a million years would I have thought I'd miss a place like Toronto.Before I moved there I used to think of it as a place too big for human beings to live in.I was wrong.It may not be my ideal place top live but it is a surprisingly livable city for a place so big.On the other hand,it may be that I just continue to carry around a bad attitude about Calgary.I try not to,but this city is really sucking me dry,demanding way too much of my energy.

Calgary,I've concluded is a place for working,not for living.But that's why I came here and as far as finding employment is concerned,that was not difficult.But the same old boom town problems continue just as though I'd never left.Landlord problems,political problems,poor service in the stores,exorbitant prices for everything.Grapes:3.59/lb in Calgary-1.19 in Toronto.Washing a small bag of laundry in Calgary:3.50-in Toronto 1.75.Green Peppers 2.99/lb in Calgary-as little as .79/lb in Toronto.Last Thursday I went to a work supply store for a safety vest and a new hard hat.I already had both of these,but,of course anything not under lock and key here for more than about ten seconds has a way of vanishing,even from your own home.I'd picked out my vest and was in the process of selecting a hat when I was addressed by a sales lady."Is there anything I can help you with sweetie?"
"Excuse me?"
"Something I can help you with,dear?"
"I heard you and I said excuse me.I said excuse me because of the rude way in which you addressed me.A customer in you store.Not sweetie or dear."

Tell me,am my getting to be a nasty old man,set in my ways beyond all reason?Or does business still require a sense of decorum as it did in my time,not so long ago.I've worked in customer service and I would never dreamed of addressing on of my clients in such a familiar manner.But,you know what ,it happens all the time here in Calgary,so much so that I often think of this city as a huge brothel.Believe me,if I'd wanted to be addressed in such a manner,the brothel is where I would have gone.So please tell me it's not just me.

Maybe it's hard to see things straight when things are not going so well.Late last week I had a fall from the lowest rung of a small ladder and I fear I may have broken my foot.After hobbling around all week end I decided to go to the clinic today,and now I need to go foe x rays.That will have to wait until tomorrow as I've way too much to get done today.Maybe it will get better by then.The doctor says it doesn't seem to be broken,but wants the x rays none the less.The more I walk on it the looser it seems to get,but its still very painful.Painful is one thing.But it's a thing I can put in it's place without painkillers.I can't risk doing further damage to the foot though.And,speaking of pain killers,they are disturbingly easy to get here.As in the past,with almost every visit to the doctor,I'm asked if I want some.A thirty day supply of percocet,at two a day,just for asking.And the doctor isn't even a hundred percent certain that anything is broken yet.I think I can manage my own pain and decline his offer.Still,with this ache every time I take a step I'm unlikely to come to view Calgary in a better light anytime soon.

If I were in Toronto right about now,with it being Monday,I would be just about to walk into my memoir writing class at the library and sit down with the friends I've come to know over the past couple of years.I don't miss the hot weather there,but lots of days are pleasant enough.Going home I would likely check the dollar shelf at Economy produce,maybe get some grapes or even some mushrooms to make a stir fry with.But I'm stuck here-that's how I've come to see it-in Calgary,with the blue Rockies shining in the morning,less than eighty miles away,as pretty as I've ever seen them and with me having no way to get there.Some days I wish I was anywhere but here.

Memoir-backstory

What my father was trying to say,I think,is that it is a shame to forget where you come from,because that is you.He never said it in so many words.It was a concept that was likely too philosophical for him.But he lived it out in his life.

I mentioned that my father seemed to have a bit of a love hate relationship with his hometown.I think perhaps most people do.Not with Springhill,that is,but with whatever town they happen to call home.It's just a simple fact that life is often times cruel,wherever you happen to live.So while he never thought of living there again,so far as I know,he certainly never abandoned his hometown.Most of his people spent time in other places,but most of them returned to Springhill at times too,sometimes to live for a period of time.We often took family drives in and around Springhill,and it was usually a time that my father took to relate family stories of the times that went before.

According to my grandmother it was a cold night when she went to the hospital to give birth to my father.I seem to recall that she said she went via horse and sleigh.

They must have grown up poor.My father would often mention as we would drive through Springhill Junction,where the railroad tracks are,about walking along the tracks when he was young and collecting coal that would fall off the passing trains.He said that many people did it in order to provide heat that they otherwise could not have afforded.You would get in trouble for collecting coal if you got caught he said,as the coal company regarded dropped coal as still being it's own property.

As a boy,my father liked to go to the beach.He liked the sun and the heat.Springhill was some distance from the beach,or at least the beach where he liked to go.That would be Heather's Beach,near Port Phillip,a distance of maybe twenty five miles.It was maybe twelve miles to Oxford,and something like twelve or thirteen more miles to the beach.They would go on foot,my father said,and stop to steal and kill a chicken along the way.They always killed the chicken,he said by squeezing it's neck so that it would not alert the farmer to what they were doing.It must have been rather more dangerous to raid someones chicken coop in those days than it is today,but he says they never got shot at.

I never knew exactly where my father lived,though I believe it to be in Mapleton,a bit out of town,towards Parrsboro.He never pointed out an exact house to me.Maybe the house is no longer there,or perhaps I simply cannot remember him showing me one.He did say that he liked to fish and mentioned a place called Southbrook which was more or less nearby,if in fact the family home was in Mapleton.We used to visit people in Mapleton,though I'm not entirely certain who those people were.They lived in a small house across from a plant that processed locally grown fruit,especially blueberries.Mapleton as I recall was dense with blueberries.

One day as we were driving back towards Springhill,my father pointed out a certain house,on the same side of the road as the fruit processing plant and not too far up the road in the direction of town.He said that when he was young,maybe twelve or so,he wrapped up some coins inside a tin can and buried them beneath a grove of trees.He claimed the coins were valuable,but that he would never be able to retrieve them,because the owners of the property on which they were buried were angry with him.He said that I should retrieve them,though he never said how.

What happened to my father to cause the fall from grace with one of his neighbours I don't know for certain,but it was noticeable to my eyes that he was not on good terms with every one from Springhill.He was, I came to realize being quite selective about who he visited and associated with from Springhill.We visited with many different people from Springhill,both in Springhill and in other places.Once we went to visit someone in Montreal and they ended up having a kitchen party of sorts,talking about the old days,while I tried not to fall asleep and had an interesting visit with a couple of Hesidic rabbis on a short trip to the store.Well,that's a story for another time

There was a man in Moncton who would visit my father too.He was from Springhill and his name was Shorty.He had a bit of an Irish accent and one year at St.Patrick's Day he appeared with green hair.As to what his background was with my father in Springhill,I really cannot say.they appeared to have a rather close relationship in Moncton though.Shorty seemed to be rather serious about being Irish,which my father never was,though half of his family were Ryans.My grandmother was Rose Ryan and she had a lot of brothers and sisters,though I don't recall that we ever visited the most of them.Her brother Jim Ryan,owned a store at the top of Main Street,and we would sometimes visit there,before it burned down in the 1970's.


Now I came to meet people in Moncton who were from Springhill and who seemed to cause a reaction of discomfort in my father.Leona Marshall was one such person.she lived nearby and for a while,when I was maybe ten I would spend a lot of time with Her daughter Patricia.I mentioned to my father that they were from Springhill,but ,although he said he knew who Mrs.Marshall was,he never said another word about them.The Marshalls never visited us,except for the one time that Patty came to my birthday party.I always thought it odd that talk never turned to Springhill on that occasion.

As far as I know my fathers schooling seemed kind of ordinary.He completed eighth grade.He never said if it took eight years to complete that many grades,or if perhaps it was more.The only story I can recall that he ever told me about school was of a sort of punishment,presumably for minor transgressions that he once received.It was a variation on the theme of a time out chair,or,if you will,standing in the corner.Nova Scotia schools were,to my understanding in those days segregated,and Springhill had a significant black population because of the mines.My father told of a desk that was said to have been brought from the black schoolhouse,in which you would spend your time out.It was set somewhat to the corner of the class and was referred to as the "nigger chair"It seems so unimaginably mean to me that such things ever took place,but it was viewed differently in those days.

My father seemed to be respected by black people.I once met a man,out in Alberta who said he knew my father well and that he was a good man.He said that he lived in "nigger alley" which was close to where my father lived.Another clue as to the fact that they may have lived in Mapleton.Also somewhat of a commentary on the time that a black man could refer to a place as "nigger alley" so comfortably and without a trace of bitterness.I can't say if my fathers alternative seating arrangements while in school were in any way involved in his view on black people,but even in the 1960's they seemed progressive.We were never to use a racial slur,we were to treat everyone with respect and my father set a good example in this regard.He would as often stop to speak to a black person on the streets of Springhill as he would to a white person.It's caused me to wonder if there might not have been a period of time when the most of his friends were black,and what brought that about.I have never heard a black person ssay a bad word about him though.

If it only took my father eight years to finish school,then three years passed between the time school ended and the time he left Springhill for good when he was seventeen.Of those years I don't know a lot.He does mention that he worked at a hotdog stand at the beach for a man named Art Jardine.Art was a war veteran who took a load of shrapnel in his face in WWII and who was involved in boxing after the war.Art was a man my father was very close to throughout the years.We visited them nearly every time we went to Springhill and when my father built a summer cottage,the Jardines had a cottage less that half a mile away.

It's only speculation on my part,but I would think if you lived in Springhill in the late 1940's or early 1950's and were not attending school,you would have been under considerable pressure to find work in the mines.My father certainly never wanted to work in the mines,but I can't say that it was the reason,or at least the only reason he left Springhill.He did make mention of a fight with someone whom he says he laid out one day after a rather long history of conflict.That would be,to my reckoning 1951.My father moved to Goose Bay Labrador.Labrador is part of the province of Newfoundland,but geographically it is located on the Canadian mainland and is a part of Canada's north.He was,as he always said,seventeen at the time.

My father used to have a picture in his wallet of him at seventeen.He was of medium height with a slim build and,if the photo was any indication was a good looking man.It was the beginning of his adult life.He never returned to live in Springhill,yet it was never really far from home for him either.


Refrences.
Here are a couple of references which  I should make note of in regards to the preceding blog entry.They are informative in respect of coal mining and mining disasters in Springhill,and segregated schools in Canada.I've read the book and viewed the video and both provide invaluable background to subjects I've touched upon in this latest blog entry.

1.Blood On The Coal:The Story Of The Springhill Mining Disasters-Roger David Brown.

2.The Little Black Schoolhouse:Revealing The History Of Canada's Segregated Schools(video,2007).