The Green Movement, the 100 Mile Diet, Save The Planet, Carbon Credits: it turns out that determining the best way to go about putting environmental concerns into action just isn't that clear or easy. Take shopping at the grocery store for example. Do you want to help the impoverished grape pickers of Chile eke out a meager existence and have the bunker fuel burning cargo ship's pollution on your conscience, or do you want to buy those somewhat more local Fraser Valley blueberries and subsidize the destruction of valuable disappearing wetlands? Do you want corn on the cob in January brought in the tens of tons by train from California, or are you willing to wait until August when Jerome drives three bushels over from Midway in his rusting out '73 Ford pick-up? Which is more eco friendly? And then of course we still have to bag it. Paper or plastic? Do you want to pillage the green treed slopes of Beaverdell, or ravage the oil sands of Alberta? Normally I'd say Alberta, but you can't even joke about this anymore; it's become just too serious.
Power generation is another area that poses a dilemma for the environmentally concerned. Recently in the Vancouver Sun, former Socred minister Dr. Pat McGeer ranted against the move to small privately-funded power projects. Instead he wished for a return to mega-dams, the Site C project south of Fort St. John in particular. If built, such a dam would indeed provide great amounts of power, 900 megawatts, but flood 80 km. of the Peace River Valley. The small run-of-river power generating projects on the other hand flood nothing. Instead they divert water around waterfalls and rapids that are enjoyed by outdoor enthusiasts and require the construction of access roads and power lines through often environmentally-sensitive areas.
When I was growing up, the issues people faced were local or perhaps just family related. Now we are expected to think regionally, nationally, and globally.
The guilt we are supposed to feel about our actions or inaction has now expanded to embrace the rapidly expanding deserts of Africa to the dwindling ice caps of both Poles.
I can't allow myself to become depressed, however; the medication I would then have to purchase would merely support the irresponsible policies of the avaricious multinational drug monopolies. At my age, any more guilt might kill me.
Friday, April 25, 2008
Celebrating Christmas
For some reason, memories of Christmas seem particularly clear and unusually plentiful. I can’t remember what I ate for breakfast, but I can tell you what I got for Christmas when I was 11: a World Book encyclopedia in twenty four volumes. I had wanted a set of swim fins, a mask and snorkel and a rubber band powered spear gun. Okay, I knew my parents wouldn’t get me the spear gun, but an encyclopedia? What a let down. That’s the other thing about Christmas: our memories of the holiday cover such a wide range of feeling. Joy and sadness, elation and disappointment, togetherness and loneliness, Christmas has a way of heightening every emotion and magnifying every perception.
I missed Christmas entirely when I was eight, brought low by a bout with some bug that rendered me comatose from Christmas Eve Day until Boxing Day. Actually, my mother might have knocked me out with one of her Scottish Highland medications designed to stop coughing, clear sinuses and aid sleep, and which as an adult, I began to suspect contained some quantity of whiskey. At any rate, I missed everything: the playing with my cousins, my Uncle Pete’s fabulous animated outdoor Christmas displays, my grandfather’s sweet smelling Swedish “glüg” distilling slowly on the kitchen stove, and the laughter. Everyone’s laughter. It wasn’t that my own family didn’t laugh, but it was different at Christmas. The petty concerns of being a kid were momentarily forgotten. You didn’t have to worry if your parents were still mad at you for breaking your glasses – again, or be jealous of your older brother’s 26 inch bicycle, or plot how you were going to catch your younger brother stealing from your piggy bank. You could just be happy and laugh. When I was eight, I missed all that laughter: the tittering of the other kids at silly knock-knock jokes and comic books, my grandmother’s warm, quiet chuckle, the sudden grinning outburst from my father, my Aunt Betty’s ironic comments muttered out of the side of her mouth, and most of all, the laughter that welled up and resounded from my Uncle Ray. Uncle Ray wasn’t a big man, but he had a deep, warm laugh that filled the room and enveloped everyone in it. The laughter that came from him was slow and rich and conveyed a sense of pleasant well-being that I don’t believe I have experienced since. I loved to hear Uncle Ray laugh.
We opened our presents with my cousins at their house on Christmas Eve, in the Swedish tradition, the tradition of my father’s family. After a few years, a clever child could predict what the presents would probably be: clothes mostly. A sweater from my grandparents, a shirt from each of my aunts, practical things, with a box of chocolates thrown in for fun. The main presents from Santa, the bikes or trains (or encyclopedias) would be delivered the next morning at home. I welcomed the clothes though, mainly because my other relatives had different taste than my mother and I could expect to receive something that had a little flair, a little chic, a little colour, and that didn’t always itch. Like the paisley shirt my Aunt Betty once bought for me, or the cowboy belt with imitation silver buckle and end tip that my Grandmother gave me. My grandmother’s sense of humour carried over into her gifts. When I was in my early teens she began a tradition of bringing a box of neckties to the Christmas Eve celebrations to be given away to all the men. The ties came from the closet of a wealthy friend who had passed away without any heirs, leaving a multitude of clothing items behind. The eight males in the family would draw numbers that determined the order of tie selection and then pick their favorites until all the ties were gone. Then we would offer a Christmas toast to the late Mr. Forsinger. For years the most valuable clothing items I owned were a half dozen of those Italian silk neckties; I still have one.
The memories of Christmas that Canadians have differ significantly one from another; our families are so very different. Our traditions are wonderfully varied as well, garnered from the many lands and cultures around the world where the Christmas story is celebrated. They shift and refocus over time, as families change and grow and new memories are added.
My Uncle Ray died last week. He was 89. I hadn’t seen him in 10 years, or more than four times in the last 40. Circumstances and geography got in the way. But as I celebrate Christmas this year with my own children and grandchildren I will think of him and my other relatives who are no longer with us. Those memories will make the holiday even richer. And at some point, in the midst of the celebration, above the sound of children and Christmas music, I know that I will smile to hear in the background a certain familiar, deep, resonant laugh. I always do. I always will.
I missed Christmas entirely when I was eight, brought low by a bout with some bug that rendered me comatose from Christmas Eve Day until Boxing Day. Actually, my mother might have knocked me out with one of her Scottish Highland medications designed to stop coughing, clear sinuses and aid sleep, and which as an adult, I began to suspect contained some quantity of whiskey. At any rate, I missed everything: the playing with my cousins, my Uncle Pete’s fabulous animated outdoor Christmas displays, my grandfather’s sweet smelling Swedish “glüg” distilling slowly on the kitchen stove, and the laughter. Everyone’s laughter. It wasn’t that my own family didn’t laugh, but it was different at Christmas. The petty concerns of being a kid were momentarily forgotten. You didn’t have to worry if your parents were still mad at you for breaking your glasses – again, or be jealous of your older brother’s 26 inch bicycle, or plot how you were going to catch your younger brother stealing from your piggy bank. You could just be happy and laugh. When I was eight, I missed all that laughter: the tittering of the other kids at silly knock-knock jokes and comic books, my grandmother’s warm, quiet chuckle, the sudden grinning outburst from my father, my Aunt Betty’s ironic comments muttered out of the side of her mouth, and most of all, the laughter that welled up and resounded from my Uncle Ray. Uncle Ray wasn’t a big man, but he had a deep, warm laugh that filled the room and enveloped everyone in it. The laughter that came from him was slow and rich and conveyed a sense of pleasant well-being that I don’t believe I have experienced since. I loved to hear Uncle Ray laugh.
We opened our presents with my cousins at their house on Christmas Eve, in the Swedish tradition, the tradition of my father’s family. After a few years, a clever child could predict what the presents would probably be: clothes mostly. A sweater from my grandparents, a shirt from each of my aunts, practical things, with a box of chocolates thrown in for fun. The main presents from Santa, the bikes or trains (or encyclopedias) would be delivered the next morning at home. I welcomed the clothes though, mainly because my other relatives had different taste than my mother and I could expect to receive something that had a little flair, a little chic, a little colour, and that didn’t always itch. Like the paisley shirt my Aunt Betty once bought for me, or the cowboy belt with imitation silver buckle and end tip that my Grandmother gave me. My grandmother’s sense of humour carried over into her gifts. When I was in my early teens she began a tradition of bringing a box of neckties to the Christmas Eve celebrations to be given away to all the men. The ties came from the closet of a wealthy friend who had passed away without any heirs, leaving a multitude of clothing items behind. The eight males in the family would draw numbers that determined the order of tie selection and then pick their favorites until all the ties were gone. Then we would offer a Christmas toast to the late Mr. Forsinger. For years the most valuable clothing items I owned were a half dozen of those Italian silk neckties; I still have one.
The memories of Christmas that Canadians have differ significantly one from another; our families are so very different. Our traditions are wonderfully varied as well, garnered from the many lands and cultures around the world where the Christmas story is celebrated. They shift and refocus over time, as families change and grow and new memories are added.
My Uncle Ray died last week. He was 89. I hadn’t seen him in 10 years, or more than four times in the last 40. Circumstances and geography got in the way. But as I celebrate Christmas this year with my own children and grandchildren I will think of him and my other relatives who are no longer with us. Those memories will make the holiday even richer. And at some point, in the midst of the celebration, above the sound of children and Christmas music, I know that I will smile to hear in the background a certain familiar, deep, resonant laugh. I always do. I always will.
New Year's Resolutions
Everyone at lest considers making New Year’s resolutions, and some actually do – about 30%. Of those, only 10 % really keep them. In a town the size of Grand Forks, that amounts to about 17 people. Those 17 are easily identifiable. They are the high profile, Type A personalities that are constantly busy achieving things. That’s why they are able to keep their New Year’s resolutions while the rest of us fail miserably; they are used to reaching their goals. Formerly, they all had multi-paged, leather bound Day Planners; now they have little hand held computer/phone devices that they constantly type their schedules into. That’s another thing the lucky 17 have in common: schedules that they actually adhere to, broken down into fifteen minute parcels of time. The rest of us are somewhat vague about time. We usually have four parcels: morning, afternoon, evening and night. Some only have two: day and night, or awake and asleep.
I count myself among the 30% that make but rarely keep their New Year’s resolutions. It isn’t that I don’t have good intentions, but after all these years I am realistic. I have tried to trick myself into keeping the resolutions by offering myself rewards: a new table saw for losing 20 pounds, a big flat screen TV for going regularly to yoga class, etc. For some reason, however, I end up double-tricking (sort of like double-daring) myself into collecting the rewards without actually keeping the resolution. (I lost five pounds so I will get the table saw and lose the other fifteen before the VISA bill has to be paid, or yesterday I signed up for the yoga class and therefore will immediately buy the big screen TV which will allow me to practice in the comfort of my living room)
I am not really fooling myself, of course, and as a result I have lately altered my approach. This year as last year I am making my resolutions in three categories: Sure To Keep, Likely To Keep, and Are You Kidding? Last year the third category was more optimistically labeled: Might Possibly Keep. Of the four resolutions in that category, I almost came close to keeping one. I never really had a chance at the other three (Learn to SCUBA dive, write a novel and bench press my body weight). I blame that in part on my brother’s failed retirement plans. He was going to move to a property on the beach in Costa Rica – he had pictures – and was going to allow me to live there in a cozy cabana for three months. The real estate promoter absconded with his down payment, however – no pictures of him – and in disappointment my brother and I started eating pastry. My body weight soared to the point that Hulk Hogan in his prime couldn’t have bench pressed it. The last Might Possibly Keep resolution was to bungy jump. I was all set to go to Nanaimo and jump off the famous bungy jumping bridge there when my father reminded me of the family history of detached retinas. Suddenly the thought of deceleraing upside down at the end of a giant elastic lost whatever slight appeal it had in the first place and I gave up on keeping that resolution as well.
My lack of success has caused me this year to place only one preposterous resolution in the third category: I resolve to eat no red meat. I can tell you right now that at the first whiff of any roasting/broiling/grilling beef I will abandon that resolution faster than the Conservatives ditched Reform, but that is okay, because I have some very achievable resolutions in my other two categories. In the Likely To Keep category I have 1) will compose a haiku, 2) will learn Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star on the harmonica, and 3) will stride manfully to the mailbox at least once a month. Just in case those prove too difficult I have included a couple of sure-fire resolutions in the Sure To Keep category: 1) will avoid using Brylcreem on my hair, 2) will not greet any woman over fifty by calling out “Yo, Momma,” and 3) will gratefully accept a seat on a bus from a teenager, if one is ever offered, if I ever take a bus.
I have a good feeling about keeping my resolutions this year. At least a couple of them.
I count myself among the 30% that make but rarely keep their New Year’s resolutions. It isn’t that I don’t have good intentions, but after all these years I am realistic. I have tried to trick myself into keeping the resolutions by offering myself rewards: a new table saw for losing 20 pounds, a big flat screen TV for going regularly to yoga class, etc. For some reason, however, I end up double-tricking (sort of like double-daring) myself into collecting the rewards without actually keeping the resolution. (I lost five pounds so I will get the table saw and lose the other fifteen before the VISA bill has to be paid, or yesterday I signed up for the yoga class and therefore will immediately buy the big screen TV which will allow me to practice in the comfort of my living room)
I am not really fooling myself, of course, and as a result I have lately altered my approach. This year as last year I am making my resolutions in three categories: Sure To Keep, Likely To Keep, and Are You Kidding? Last year the third category was more optimistically labeled: Might Possibly Keep. Of the four resolutions in that category, I almost came close to keeping one. I never really had a chance at the other three (Learn to SCUBA dive, write a novel and bench press my body weight). I blame that in part on my brother’s failed retirement plans. He was going to move to a property on the beach in Costa Rica – he had pictures – and was going to allow me to live there in a cozy cabana for three months. The real estate promoter absconded with his down payment, however – no pictures of him – and in disappointment my brother and I started eating pastry. My body weight soared to the point that Hulk Hogan in his prime couldn’t have bench pressed it. The last Might Possibly Keep resolution was to bungy jump. I was all set to go to Nanaimo and jump off the famous bungy jumping bridge there when my father reminded me of the family history of detached retinas. Suddenly the thought of deceleraing upside down at the end of a giant elastic lost whatever slight appeal it had in the first place and I gave up on keeping that resolution as well.
My lack of success has caused me this year to place only one preposterous resolution in the third category: I resolve to eat no red meat. I can tell you right now that at the first whiff of any roasting/broiling/grilling beef I will abandon that resolution faster than the Conservatives ditched Reform, but that is okay, because I have some very achievable resolutions in my other two categories. In the Likely To Keep category I have 1) will compose a haiku, 2) will learn Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star on the harmonica, and 3) will stride manfully to the mailbox at least once a month. Just in case those prove too difficult I have included a couple of sure-fire resolutions in the Sure To Keep category: 1) will avoid using Brylcreem on my hair, 2) will not greet any woman over fifty by calling out “Yo, Momma,” and 3) will gratefully accept a seat on a bus from a teenager, if one is ever offered, if I ever take a bus.
I have a good feeling about keeping my resolutions this year. At least a couple of them.
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