Back in the big city again. Damn! Two weeks, maybe? Family issues. Tough times. Life can be harsh at times. It is right now. But, I won’t dwell on it…all of us get some of that and/or are part of that….that’s just the way it goes…..nobody gets out of here alive.

So, instead, I’ll write about OTG. Why not?

Spring has sprung and the flowers and critters are coming out of their winter dens. So are we. It is glorious. All of a sudden things are happening, getting underway and/or are in the planning stage. Biggest goal this year for us is to paint the interior of the house. We’ll see how that goes….

We even brought up the first four logs the other day. Pulled ’em up from the lagoon. Winter wood-getting is just-now beginning. And we also just started a young feller on rebuilding the long front stairs (they were first done 20 years ago and made from untreated-but-locally milled wood. It is truly amazing that they lasted as long as they did). The stairs were rotting. I recently cracked a few treads. The stringers made noises, too. The timing was right. The price of the treated lumber wasn’t (holy cow!) but it never is…….

The log-getting threw my winter back-of-blubber out of whack and getting into stair construction mode proved more than just a smidge painful but local-guy, M, needed the moolah and I had already ordered the lumber…..which I could NOT lift when they (the barge) dropped it all on the beach. So, M came to the rescue….that was good. Really good.

I like watching young people work. Made my back feel better just standing there yelling destructions at ‘im.

It is just another year out here and I am just another year older….

….and it is all still good.

But ‘out here’ does not a whole-wide-world make. We, like the little spoiled brats we are, are remote and mostly isolated from the big ugly. We live in a beautiful bubble. Pollyanna, Gus and Daisy, is our name. But real-life still stumbles, trips and lurches along on the outside like a drunken imbecile. And so does a lot of insanity, evil and death. Ugly still occupies a significant place on our planet. Enlightenment eludes us but we get snippets of happiness and contentment. Like I said, it is basically all good.

OTG is for the fortunate.

I would happily continue to bury my head and contentedly plan projects, catch prawns and drink scotch if I could but, well, into every life a little rain must fall. And it is raining right now. We are right now in the BIG ugly and we are getting more than just a little bit wet.

I’ll let you know how it goes.

When we lived urban, we had a city-oriented mindset of course. WHAT exactly that meant was not always clear to us at the time because, well, it’s a mind and it’s set. And you kind of have to get away from a mindset for a time to be able to see what it is or was. Vacations helped, of course. But not two weeks at an all-inclusive beach with folks from Ontario. That’s just living the same but different. Ya really gotta get out amongst the foreign natives in a strange land and live each day differently than what you are familiar with to have any real chance at a proper mental respite. For Sal and I that meant three months or more at the very least – just for vacations.

Habits, routines, ruts, patterns, protocols, disciplines, even daily, ease-of-doing behaviours/memory/routines/schedules that help get you to work on time and choose the right hallways and elevators to use…..all keep our minds more than just somewhat set…..the word, ‘concrete‘ comes to mind. Mindsets (beliefs and habits) and constructs (self perception) act much the same as well. Lifestyle (preferences and behaviours, taste, style), too. We are not only creatures of habit but we tend to seek such a perspective.

I once heard that major law firms will not grant sabbaticals or even long-term leaves to junior lawyers because too many of them never come back. In other words, like people incarcerated for a long time, you do not know what your real perspective on life is until you get away from it for a good long time. If you don’t get away you can’t really avoid it. You just get programmed.

….but that is not my point….

The point is: that from our OTG perspective (our new, reformed, holier-than-thou point of view on just about everything) too much of our modern society is really, really stupid (not to mention self destructive). It does not work. It is not sustainable. Makes me wonder if we really need the governments and institutions we have. Makes me wonder about our economic, justice and education systems a lot, too. To be blunt, just about every major aspect of modern life needs a radical review and reformation because, currently, it is off the rails.

Get this microscopic example: It seems part of inflation is now being blamed on warehousing! First the Covid-affected supply chains emptied the warehouses and then, duh, they later filled them up. But the demand and logistics for products coming and going faltered, stuff got out of balance, the system got the hiccups and bottlenecks and jumbles resulted. So now the warehouses are full.

You’d think that would lower prices but, NO, that raised them because warehousing costs a lot and they simply can’t get rid of the stuff fast enough. Everyday your product sits stored, they raise the price of it to pay for the storage.

Solutions being undertaken (by all of them) include selling on the secondary markets and, of course, destroying new product so as to keep primary market prices high. That’s right – you put in an order for a $2000 fridge but it’s on back-order (translation: stuck in a warehouse that is spilling over with fridges) and so the ‘system’ sells 20% of the new fridges to Argentina for $250.00 each or else they simply destroy the product. They have to or else the supply chain backs up again. Oh yeah, and because of the storage cost, your fridge is now $2100.00.

And that is just one tiny, silly, inconsequential aspect of a world-gone-mad (just in the ‘warehouse’ category). Here’s another: Clarence Thomas, the Supreme Court judge, regularly takes private jet trips and stays at private resorts courtesy of a Republican donor who has also donated some $10M to non-reporting private societies associated with Thomas and his wife. Last year Thomas and Ginny enjoyed a $500,000 private yacht vacation courtesy of the donor. Thomas, of course, is supposed to report any kind of gift or donation over $415.00 but has never done so. This has been going on for over a decade. THIS IS A SUPREME COURT JUDGE!!!!!

Those two examples of Orwellian-level absurdity and corruption are not without way, way too much company in a vast sea of modern day ‘mindsets’ that either condone, practice or ignore the city-centred madness. No one needs a comprehensive ‘urban-centric’ list that includes police belligerence, voting scandals, fraud, pollution, drug deaths, wars, homelessness and political corruption. No one needs to know of all the madness all the time everywhere. So, the modern person just hunkers down, looks ahead and applies their nose to the grindstone (which aids and abets the insanity even more). We choose NOT to see!

They ignore everything they can because to address it all is impossible. In fact, addressing all that faces just themselves is getting impossible. The kitchen is getting unbearably hot. Everybody’s kitchen is hotter than hell. But they still hang in there…..like the frog in the pot of heating water. What the modern first world citizen has come to accept as normal, everyday, the-way-of-things is now absolutely beyond reason from our perspective.

I don’t know how y’all do it.

April 4 and the weather seems to have finally turned. It’s perfect for me – cool and sunny. Flowers are emerging. Fishing season is opening. The garden beds loom. Lumber-for-projects is being delivered. The woodshed is mostly empty. And, of course, there are a couple of engines that will not start. Those are the usual signs of Spring for me.

Weirdly, the biggest visual Spring signal for me is that the low tide times are now in the daylight hours and that makes schlepping, hauling, carrying and even boating just that much more strenuous. When the sea drops as much as 18 feet in half a day, you can’t help but notice it.

But nothing is normal in 2023. Not really. And no one who reads me needs another litany of modern woes to read. Suffice to say, 2023 is not gonna be normal and it may even possibly be worse than recent bad times. I keep hearing the sound of sabres rattling…………..

What is good? Well, it seems more and more people are looking to re-locate OTG. Or at least to small towns and rural properties. I like that. A recent article on real estate claimed that inventory for small town, rural and recreational properties is at an all-time low right across the country. And people have been snapping up what there has been. I have more than a few urban friends talking about recreational property, too. But talk is cheap and recreational properties are not – not any longer.

One friend wants a nice, large cabin with sunny waterfront acreage, plenty of fresh water and road access for around $100-200K. “That might be available in Peru”, I said. “Maybe something similar in Northern Saskatchewan or even, perhaps, in the Appalachians of West Virginia. But you’d have to go past Prince Rupert to find anything like that for that price in BC and even that would not have a cabin.”

“I thought OTG was cheap!”

“No. It is not. It is an expensive way to live poor, actually. I mean, I consider it ‘living rich’ but I measure luxury in silence and clean air, wild animals and privacy. I measure wealth as having my own time all to myself, Sally and the dogs. I value NOT having to deal with cities, towns, rules, regulations and bureaucrats. Or schedules measured in hours and minutes. Or traffic. I think I am stinkin’ rich but, by normal metrics, I pay a lot to live simply with a high degree of physical effort”.

“Yeah. That’s why I want a road and a town nearby so I can hire people.”

That kind of fantastical and wishful thinking is common amongst newbies-from-the-city. They thought that selling an old bungalow in Surrey for $2M would get them a ranch on the ocean with $1.5M left over. And, to be fair, there have been times when something like that might have been almost, kinda possible. You still CAN buy paradise by selling Hellburbia and making a lot of adjustments but the ratio of urban-to-rural buying power has dropped considerably over the Covid years.

We now have properties worth well over a million dollars on the more accessible island next door and I would not be in the least surprised if some of the ‘magnificent’ properties of the wealthy wouldn’t fetch even more on our island. Put another way…..the $200K property OTG is currently rare and likely not desirable.

Of course, what I just wrote is true mostly for the area bounded by twenty to thirty kms around the Salish Sea. Travel further North or further Inland and properties are considerably less expensive simply because the temperate part of BC is around the Salish Sea/Gulf of Georgia.

I wrote the above under the introduction of ‘What is good?’. To be honest, I do not regard it as good. I do not regard it as bad, either. It just is what it is. But most people seem to like property values going up……which makes no sense to me. If the property value goes up you simply pay more taxes unless you sell. But, if you sell, then you just have to buy back into some other market. Why not go to where you want to live, buy what you can and just stay there? After that, property values dropping would be what to wish for.

Oh, well……I told you that 2023 was not going to be normal.

Sal and I have been together fifty-two years and it has been a very good fifty-two years. Well, for me, anyway. Sal is still mulling it over.

I was reflecting on our unusually long and enjoyable time together and wondering what our secret was. Fact: there is no secret. Sal is pretty special. Incredibly tolerant, patient and pleasant. I’m just a smidge better than mediocre in most things, rotten in a couple and just really good at kissing, doing the dishes and making her laugh.

As her girlfriend said a few years back when thanking us both for her 3-day-stay of our hospitality, “Sally, it was wonderful seeing you again. Love this place. Love the dogs! You are wonderful. And David, well…….David was….unh…adequate.” (I had not given her a single kiss the entire weekend so I think that explains my low ranking).

So, I must be relatively OK to get such a high rating from a woman who has gone through as many husbands as she has. Actually, compared to many men out there, I am probably a solid C, I might even just squeak in at C+. The bar is kinda low. I tend to excel when the competition is poor.

But we also had deals to help us in the beginning. We kinda knew that there would be misunderstandings and arguments so we put in place a few quick ‘formulas’ for dispute resolution from the get-go. Of course, I pointed out right away that being intimate every night, even if we were in disagreement over something, ensured that we’d start the next day without rancor. And the relationship would flourish. I told her it was relationship physiotherapy.

The Art of the Deal in real life terms!

Mind you, two other of our agreements were that we would not have children and that I would never, ever have to do the dishes. Ever. I was willing to eat straight out of the pot, throw dishes away after only one use, use paper plates or simply eat at restaurants for the rest of our lives but my doing-dishes-days were over. Sal agreed to both and – just for perspective – last night was my third night in a row for doing the dishes and, of course, in the middle of one of the soapy moments our daughter called.

Deals are made. Not all deals are kept.

Another fundamental gimmick to getting along was to fairly quickly declare how strongly we felt about something on a scale of 10. “I prefer the action thriller. I feel say, 7.25 out of ten.” “OK, that’s fine. I only feel 6, maybe 6.5. We’ll go watch your movie.”

We also never fussed, argued or even discussed much about money. Whatever she wanted was fine with me and vice versa. She basically controls everything and I sorta make a few directional decisions, the big moves, that sort of thing (when she lets me).

For example, when we bought our first house, we had no money. None. Not even enough for a down payment on a condo. But I had a few deals in the offing and anyway, we had to leave our current residence (a 13000 sft Shaughnessy mansion) because it had been sold and the new owners wanted immediate possession.

A realtor took us to a plain-jane split level in Richmond listed for $107,500 asking. We had a two and a half year old and Sal was 8+ months into our second child. For her to get out of the car and get our son managed while gathering up all the accompanying detritus of a young family took forever. So, as she began the struggle to extricate herself from the car, I did a quick run-through the house and made an executive decision. Sally got to the front door just as I was telling the realtor, “We’ll take it. Full price offer. But only $1.00 down. Don’t worry. I am closing a deal. I’ll have the money.” The realtor rolled her eyes. Sally rolled hers, too. “Should I even bother to go in?” I signed the interim offer.

I am not really the bastard I sound like. Sal was exhausted. The baby was coming within days and we had nowhere to live. This place was empty and immediately available. We had discussed what we needed and this had it all. It was a no-brainer (and it was a no-money-deposit-er). And Sal soon agreed with the decision 100%, even if it was after-the-fact.

And that ‘deal’ worked out as hoped. The point? We trusted each other from the very beginning. Still do. That really helps.

I mention all this as some basic background to our recent example of such deal-making. When we show up as being on a ‘different’ trajectory we sometimes make deals, weird, kinda-compromise, give-or-take deals. The other day, I snapped at Sal. I raised my voice, exclaimed my impatience, intolerance, frustration over whatever it was (probably she got distracted by a squirrel). She quietly rebuked me, “Don’t be mean!”

Later she dropped a hammer on her thumb and let out one of her famous coal-miner list of expletives that turn the air blue, shock grown adults and may someday even get her arrested. She is an angel who turns into Charles Bukowski for a second.

Later that day she said, “You shouldn’t get impatient with me. I am not a professional carpenter.” I said, “I know. But I think you were an angry coal miner in your past life and you now channel Lenny Bruce.”

“Let’s make a deal. I won’t swear and you do not lose your patience with me.”

“Fair deal. Every time you swear, that gives me licence for one ‘snap’. You tend to string your blue-words together so I will count your typical three-word cussing as one swearing offense. Deal?”

By the end of the day I had built up an 8-time ‘snap’ credit and we were just at dinnertime. I had counted each blue moment as the day went on and, upon hearing that she was at 8, she swore a full blue sentence and then immediately slapped her hand over her mouth. “I can’t !#@%**&-ing do this! Oh my God, *^&$#@!! (*&^&$!!!! “. I pointed out that that exclamation raised the total to ten. She was hysterical and went around with both hands clamped over her mouth for the next few minutes.

” I can’t do this. I’m doomed. The deal is off. No deal. Snap all you want. I don’t @#$#@!-ing care anymore. %$#@$#@&^%!!!.”

“OK. I get it. But that makes 12 snaps-in-the-bag for me or else we just go back to being who we are. Don’t answer that right away, Sal. You still have a lot of ‘F’s’ in your mouth.”

Unlike some people, my life has been one of constant change and transition. I was in 13 different schools before I graduated high school, lived in 20 – something separate homes before I was 20 (almost 20 more after that) and…well, there has been a lot of that sort of thing in my life.

I have even had four major careers. I was a social-worky type for twelve years, a real estate developer for eight, a consultant for six and a mediator/arbitrator for close to twenty. Throw in a lot of travel, some cul-de-sac time and living on boats and you might get the impression that I lived in a state of flux so much that change seemed constant and, worse, routine probably became unbearable. And you’d be right. The short form of routine is rut and, for me, routine is hell.

I have enjoyed lots of ‘life’ changes and, of course, with that comes the inescapable transitions between them. ‘Aye, …and there’s the rub!’ You cannot go directly from A to B. You have to cross through the empty space from A before getting to B. That space is uncomfortable and, for me, basically an ordeal. When you get to B, you get to start adjusting, adapting, coping, learning…new people, new situations, new interests, new, new, new, new. It’s all good once you make it to B.

Transition time feels more like a wonky knee, something chronic and crippling…no progress….I came to recognize those transition times as such. It’s basically frustration….the fork in the road, so to speak. All progress, growth and learning stops while you make the next choice. Of course, the ‘new’ phase chosen is super interesting, challenging and an adventure. The new phase, once recognized, is attractive.

That time spent musing at the fork-in-the-road….? Not so much.

Imagine (for a sec) that you are really into something and doing well and learning and growing. You will inevitably start to make a regular routine or process from that growth path. That’s natural. As your expertise or familiarity grows, you anticipate and plan more effectively and you slowly go from apprentice to journeyman to (if you are lucky) an old pro or expert stage. But, as that happens, the excitement and enthusiasm diminish but at least some comfort usually ensues. Wealth of some kind might accumulate. You might even relax? After comfort maybe comes a bit of boredom (for me, anyway) and then restless disinterest combined with fatigue creeps in.

You start to think…..’maybe it is time to ‘move on‘…..that is the inner feeling I am now recognizing again. Frustration. I am full-on into some kind of transition mode.

Don’t misunderstand me; it is extremely unlikely the next phase has me moving back from OTG. Each phase teaches you something deep and established and I am deeply established here or, maybe, somewhere else OTG…(you never know what kind of fork in the road will loom into view and a foreign country OTG is not out of the question) but some things in my life are pretty much firmly established. OTG. Sal. Kids. Friends. Values. I do not see where the next phase is coming from or going to is but I can feel the familiar itch of the transition phase.

“Dave! You losin it, man? You ON something?”

No. Not in the least. And I can prove it. I call to the stand my first witness, Ms Gail Sheehy. She was/is the author of Passages (1972). In that book (I read it in the early 80’s) Sheehy explained that adults go through phases just as children do. The major difference is that kids go through a lot of ‘recognized’ phases from the Terrible Twos to the pre-teen, the pubescent teen, the troubled teen, the young adult and all the phases in between. Young people got phases up the yin yang!

Adults, she claimed, only went through two or three ‘adult’ phases which she never quite defined in years. But her second book, New Passages did. She says….

Provisional Adult: 18-30 years old (includes Turbulent 20’s and the transition to 1^st Adulthood)

First Adulthood: 30-45 years old (includes early 40’s Middlessence – a 2^nd adolescence)

Second Adulthood: 45-85 years old (includes 45–65 Age of Mastery and 65–85 Age of Integrity)

Seems the last phase for Ms Sheehy ends there…. At 85 I might become a master of something and have integrity. Harrumph!

I don’t think so…..I believe her basic theory, her ‘phases’ concept and I have the life experiences as corroborating evidence to back it up…but, well, Gail went only through some phases and some people go through more. Some maybe less. I think we all get the phases we seek and choose. I tend to be a bit greedy and I choose to have more……I think….I mean….I am once again at a transition fork. Progress has stopped while I choose…. first I have to look down another road or two……..

……………quasi political/economic/philosophical ranting (no matter how satisfying it is for me) is not a popular read it seems. Observations regarding Karl Marx and idiocy reinterpreted floated like a lead balloon. One dear reader even questioned my mental health……

So, here we go . . . back to the more familiar . . . Sal saw a few logs floating by and got the itch. And it needed scratching. Bad.

Errant logs have been fewer this year. There simply are not as many ‘floaters’ floating by and what few there are were of pretty poor quality. We were down on our logs. So Sal’s senses were piqued, her antennae tuned and she was Sal-the-Super-Salvager waiting to pounce if something came along. Upon seeing two likely stove-fillers, she was gone in a blur of jackets, ropes, hammers and dogs (the steel kind and the furry kind). My intrepid salvage crew of three were in the boat and zooming out before I knew they were even gone!

She had to navigate a veritable morass of wood debris out in the channel to find the two good logs but she succeeded, drove two steel dogs in them and attached the tow ropes. Then, with two furry dogs watching them follow aft, she slowly towed her prizes back to the ‘sorting yard’.

And it is there that our oft-told log salvaging story gets a bit more interesting……

Sal manoeuvred two twenty-five foot long, 10 – to 12 inch diameter logs behind her 17′ long boat (with an unruly crew jumping and wagging and getting in the way) into the lagoon that fills with water at high tide and goes dry by mid-tide. It was high tide. She drifted in slowly.

The goal is to creep the boat and the salvage forward so as to keep the logs behind the boat as she aims for the shore looking for a good rock or cleft upon which to alight. Sal nudged the bow gently into one such convenient ledge and quickly danced over the furry dogs and untied the two logs. Then, walking lightly along the 4″ inch wide gunwale, she moved forward to the bow with logs in tow. That is not easy unless you weigh much less than say, I do. I tend to tip the boat almost over.

Then she stepped lady-like to the shore with both lines and quickly tied them off to a hook, other fixed-in-place log or a nearby tree. Meanwhile, the boat floated ever-so-slightly higher when she stepped off and that freed it from the ledge and it started to float away. Finished securing her prizes, Sal nimbly danced back across the rocks and simply long-and-deftly ballet-stepped back to the bow. Good balance. A minute later, she was back in the captain’s seat with the crew acknowledging her skills and good fortune with some well placed licks and an enthusiasm of tails.

Ms Nimble Salvager is north of 70.

And, well, so am I. In fact, it would be more accurate to say that I was rather well south of 80 but, really, who’s counting? I mention it because the next day, we all went down the hill to the lagoon with my chainsaw and cut those previously gathered (16) logs into thirty two winch-liftable lengths.

Of course, the chainsaw required servicing before I went down (despite having serviced it in late Fall). It seems I did not compressed-air-pressure clean the insides and, with winter moisture, the fine sawdust that gets everywhere absorbed enough moisture to form a kind-of dust-concrete that stuck to and limited the controls. A half hour later that was rectified and off we went.

Yes, the dogs came, too.

When logs come and get tied up, the do not just sit where they were placed. They move around with each turn of the tide. Since we ‘collect’ over time and do not address our stash until there is enough to warrant the work, the logs ended up all akimbo on the shore. Some are perched on rocks, some are laying on others and all are on slimy rocks and mud. If any are on an algae covered rock, they are likely to be left there until later because algae-covered granite is treacherously slippery and the slip is always followed by a hard and painful fall onto other rocks, logs and dogs.

But, with judicious choosing, planning and cutting, we got all but one yesterday. The lone survivor will meet it’s division soon enough. We still have time. Yesterday was the first day of Spring.

Karl Marx, that great ‘communist philosopher’, once said, “The bourgeoisie has subjected the country to the rule of the towns. It has created enormous cities, has greatly increased the urban population as compared with the rural, and has thus rescued a considerable part of the population from the idiocy of rural life“.

He said that like it was a good thing……

I used to basically agree with that statement (until I went rural). How could I not? All modern breakthroughs seemed to happen urban, institutional, governmental. Ya know? Where the university profs and the young geniuses hung out? MIT. Harvard. Oxford. The Sorbonne. All the BIG companies. Amazon. Microsoft. Exxon. The ‘world’ was centered in New York, London, Berlin and Paris…..right? All the great voices, actors, writers, capitalists and politicians were urban, sophisticated and well, recognized as geniuses on magazine covers. Country rural was, well, country and rural, ya know? Hick. Redneck. Bubba. Hillbilly. A bit on the dumb side…….if anyone noticed them at all.

“Y’all don’t get no astrophysicists or brain surgeons from Podunk, mister“.

But Marx’s theory has a few minor flaws. For the record, Marx was the son of a rich lawyer and lived off his father’s estate until it petered out. Then he lived poor. He lived in Germany, England, France and various couch surfing locations along the way…..presumably as a really smart urbanite. He never resided in, or even visited, Russia. Marx was more of a philosopher bum than a revolutionary economist. He may have just rationalized his personal failures….I dunno…who am I to judge?

Sill, he had a point or two to go along with the flaws……

I can now judge the phrase, ‘rural idiocy’ a bit better. I can judge it because I believed it and then I went rural and lived it and I now have an urban-gone-rural perspective. I kinda get it…..and I still kinda don’t.

First – brains migrate to the city. Mostly true. Non-physical-work oriented brains definitely go to the city. But some nature-oriented folks who are really smart don’t go and stay on the farm instead. I’ll give the edge in numbers to the urban smarties but I think that there are more of them mostly because the urban gene-pool is larger and more attractive and because larger libraries and institutions are there for the more intellectual (non-sweat requiring) pursuits. I.e. less physical work.

So, yes. More smarty pants are in the cities. Hard workers, making real stuff, fixing everything that breaks and doing so sustainably without endangering others…? Maybe not so much….

And, even though a lot of blithering idiots are also actually in the city (judging by the sheer numbers), they fall faster and farther than do the silly ones in the country. In the country, there is more open space and less opportunity to be revealed as stupid even though chainsaws and the grape-vine does an admirable job at trying to sort that out. Out here, we kinda know the idiots from the foolish, the silly from the feckless and the cretins from the dummies if by no other means than the number of remaining digits and appendages they sport.

Put more succinctly: country mice, like farmers, are capable generalists and city mice are very dependent specialists. I think that’s the basic difference.

Even a real simpleton working his hog farm has to master a lot of skills and can carry on that way for a long time (even if he loses an arm to a chainsaw). An idiot driving in heavy traffic dies in an inferno rather quickly. Even faster if he is a one-armed driver. Or gets shot. Or arrested. Or is addicted Or bankrupted. Or made homeless. Or worse, cancelled! Country life is more general and physical but it is, overall, more balanced and less dangerous to life if not limb. The dumb can linger here. They are accepted. They fail and die much quicker in the city.

Which, in itself, gives an intelligence edge to the country mouse – they live longer and are happier. Duh!

So, how does the longer-lived homesteader influence his greater rural life? Not a helluva lot. Generally speaking, the rural Bubba is a good enough neighbour. Usually salt-of-the-earth type. Nice enough. His or her influence is entirely local, tho. No campaigning. No selfish fund raising. They are a bit prone to populist influences and conspiracy theories but generally harmless – for the most part. Often brilliant with a lever, a hammer or a saw. Geniuses at ‘making do’. They rarely protest or join political issues except on behalf of the environment. They are sometimes inclined to a bit more religion and a lot less formal education. They are also increasingly unable to cope with the rapidly evolving complications, sophistications and convolutions of the modern urban era. They have trouble with cell-phones, computers, forms, laws, regulations and bureaucracies. Ergo, their interaction with others is less. Their influence on others is even lesser.

I think we all have trouble with modernity to some extent but, typically, the country bumpkin has much slower thumbs than does the city slicker (calluses on their hands?) Can’t keep up on Twitter. Many don’t even have internet. Or a blog. Trump has a huge following. So does Kim’s butt. But no one follows Bubba. Country bloggers have only about seven or eight readers at most.

Bottom line: it’s a significantly different kind of intelligence out here. Better oriented for the individual, the family and the neighbour. Better for nature, too. Not suited for Harvard and MIT, Exxon and the Military Industrial complex…. not so much, anyway. And country smarts does less harm to others. Jus’ sayin’…

But there is one thing that makes the rural guy like me an idiot-cum-victim. Our lack of modern sophistication makes us more vulnerable to those that actually do widespread harm. The tricksters. The politicians. Our folks do not understand the Machiavellian machinations, the sophisticated skullduggery, the permutations of perversions that the city slickers come cloaked in. Like laws and taxes and regulations. They do not hear past the bureaucratic-legalese words spoken, they do not see the invisible, in-camera cheatings and double crosses that will impact their otherwise innocent lives harshly. Rurals simply do not count in the corporate boardrooms or the government offices. They are the rubes, the hicks and the fodder for the movers and shakers. They are the targets of the confidence men, the banks, the credit companies and the bureaucracies. The country mouse gets run over by the bigger rats of the city.

Latest example writ large: Fox News saying publicly one thing and saying the opposite in private. They lied to their public entirely for their own sake.

Trumpism bears that statement out rather dramatically and colourfully as well (if you count camo as a colour). See riot at the Capitol Building. Hear the call for donations to Trump! So do polluting mines, ravaged forests and depleted fish stocks illustrate the great sell-out. People just ‘livin’ their lives’ in the forest find out that someone just polluted their river, killed all the animals and gave ’em cancer. And they don’t know what they can do about it……..

Dramatic fact: half the wild fauna bio mass on earth has disappeared over the last twenty years. There is now three times more domesticated animals than wild animals. There are now as many pounds of just pet dogs and cats as all the pounds of all the wild animals in the world.

So, I have had to revise my take on the term, Rural Idiocy. It is not that rural folk are stupid, it is that they are more innocent, vulnerable and trusting than they should be in this dog-eat-computer, make-a-buck, amoral world of double-speak, jargon, lying and not saying anything at all. Government is slowly working to get rid of us all. Corporations are slowly working to get rid of them country folk. Policies, plans and budgets do not recognize them. No one wants the country mouse in the way of things, they are regarded as harmless but they don’t make anyone who is important very much money.

Worse, they are witness to all the environmental crimes.

In this sense rural idiocy means naive and so Marx was not entirely wrong.

“Dave! Where the hell did all that come from?”

Well, ….it comes from deep down but it was sparked by our local government currently up to yet more ‘secret agenda crap’. They (like all governing agencies) are always disingenuous. They lie. They pass bylaws in secret. They are now on a power-acquisition quest. And they even publicly diss locals who speak up while they smile and say phrases like ‘community engagement’. They are basically ambitious penny-ante liars and cheats but it just reminds me (too much) of my time in the city where that was the common style of play.

And then that reminded me of Marx and well, you know how it goes from there for me…..

The most desirable way to own land is called ‘freehold’. Of course that does not mean ‘free’ in any real sense but it does mean entirely owned, controlled, managed and occupied by the title-holder (kinda). People LOVE freehold. Weirdly, most people love the concept of freehold more than they do logic or common sense. They would prefer to own 1/8 of an acre freehold in a subdivision, one they can put a fence around, than they would like to own ten acres with a partner or a 100 acres with ten partners. Somehow, the term freehold bestows a sense of freedom, separation and independence from others.

It is not true, of course. If you have a 1/8 acre lot you own freehold and it is surrounded by 799 other ‘freeholders’ then you are actually sharing 100 acres with 799 others. In the city that means roads, sidewalks, building codes, design restrictions, fences, water, electricity and sewage at the very least. You may have a fence on your ‘freehold’ property but even that came with zoning and design restrictions. Your property is freely held in name and concept only. If you have any doubt about that, try not paying your property taxes or turning your home into a brothel.

There are other ways to own land. Strata titling can allow ownership in large tracts of land or apartments in highrise buildings. Strata titling is usually interpreted to mean that you own a box in or on a commonly owned property. In theory, one could remove one’s box from a stack of boxes (like containers stacked at a port) and go somewhere else but, in practice, your box (surveyed, mortgaged and insured) is permanently affixed to all the other boxes at construction and removal is impossible.

Then there are Co-ops. Co-ops are very much like strata titling except the unit you occupy isn’t actually yours. Instead, the unit is part of the common property and you own a share in the entity that owns the land and the living units. That should work for apartments but doesn’t work all-too-often simply because the rules of the co-op are established by the originators and they often put a lot of financial restrictions on it so that each member was not vulnerable to the financial problems that any one individual member might experience. The strata owner of a unit can go bankrupt but that would not affect others in the strata complex but, if a co-op member went bankrupt their share being sued might affect other members. Basically, co-ops are just harder to finance. Co-ops and Strata are similar but different.

And that brings me to corporate ownership…..the form of ownership we employed 49 years ago. Corporate ownership is much like Co-operative ownership, with the attendant early-owner drafted rules and restrictions, but the company format is a more easily understood concept (or it was at the time) and owning shares in a company that own the land made for a small amount of comfort in the event of a sale or the sale of a share. Corporate ownership is also same but different…..but mostly same as Co-op.

“Why bother with all that? Why not just buy freehold and be done with it?”

The main reason was that property OTG is not often subdivided into what is referred to as ‘bite-size’ (meaning affordable by one buyer). Land OTG is more often available in large chunks. Ours was 86 acres. A Co-op along the way on another island is 120 acres. A neighbour or two has 160 acres. When I was 26, I could not even afford a modest condo in Vancouver, let alone 86 acres of waterfront far away up the coast.

But me and nine others could.

After meeting with the ad hoc group that proposed forming a company to buy the land, Sal asked if I liked all the members in the room. “NO. I do not!” I liked three or four and I was ambivalent or non-judgmental over another four or five but I did NOT like two of the possible partners at all. “So, you think we shouldn’t buy in?” “On the contrary. I think we should. It doesn’t matter where you go, you will have neighbours. And some you will like and some you won’t. So, liking them is not an issue. The issue is that 10 shares of 86 acres provides us with 8.6 acres of separation. That is the kind of ratio that allows for space between us. We cannot afford 8.6 acres any other way.”

As it turned out, some of the original shareholders changed their minds and wanted to sell later on and so we bought them out. Eventually, six of us remained the only shareholders. My share is, theoretically now, 14.3 acres. In reality it is more like one square foot or inch in six square feet or inches. Everything except our building site is ‘common area’.

In a weird twist the Regional District restricted (at the time) lots to a minimum 10 acres which might have dictated that we would be limited to eight shares but that new regulation allowed for two homes on each 10 acre parcel. So, maybe we could have 20 shares? In fact, a company can issue thousands of shares but the zoning might still restrict the number of homes to 20….it is all rather silly, actually. Especially when you consider that a large parcel adjacent to us is Crown Land and, when hiking through the forest, our separate parcels are indistinguishable. In real life, forest is forest.

Our governance, the Regional District, really does not care very much about us. They provide no services or amenities, no support or even on-the-ground presence. We have logging roads and some docks and that is about it. They don’t care. And, even if they did care, they have violated their own rules any number of times. We have some one acre parcels cheek-by-jowl with 160 acre lots. They are not consistent. More to the point: they do not want to care. They do not want to provide service. The tax base just isn’t there to pay for it.

“Why mention all this, Dave?” Because most people have a conventional mind-set when purchasing real estate. That ‘mind-set’ involves realtors and listings and house inspections, financing and insurance. That mindset carries over…..and little of that urban mindset applies out here….well, not in the conventional sense, anyway. Realtors are not interested in working to sell a remote site at a lower price than a nearby condo…too much trouble and expense for them. Most houses would not pass a house inspection because most of the systems are ‘cobbled’ to fit the circumstance. Some old places still have outhouses. We have a stream. Some have a well. Others catch rainwater. No one has conventional Hydropower. There is no ‘professional’ fire protection or police. We do not have roads that actually go anywhere…..

…this is much more…free….hold.

Moving OTG is different. Really different. A lot of conventional real estate purchasing thinking is inapplicable and, more to the point, unworkable. Just the property’s orientation to the sun is a different requirement! This OTG ‘difference’ using real estate as an example is just one part of the difference that a person moving OTG will likely experience, from building to food gathering, from social engagement and entertainment to the kinds of dogs you might have. Tools and machinery even take on a bigger role. I cannot honestly state that living OTG is like living in a foreign land but it is definitely a slightly foreign culture with many different life-adjustments to make it work.

Trump catalyzed the January 6th ‘insurrection’ that was not, really, a bona fide insurrection. Even if the mob had taken over the Capitol Building and killed everyone there, a national, cross-country revolution would not have begun. The J6 event was more like a symbolic, ‘fake’ insurrection, a dramatic ‘scene’ for the media, a stage on which Trump pranced and posed. It was ridiculous and absurd but, still, verging on ‘something’. But, what kind of something? What was that farcical ‘sacrifice’ of exceptionally gullible foot soldiers all about if not just for satisfying Trump’s insatiable ego?

Bear in mind that Trump has no real political substance or philosophy. He is all poseur, all con, all-fake, all-showmanship all the time. This is a narcissistic man who lives for ‘likes’ and craves attention; any kind of attention. For Trump, there is no such thing as bad publicity and he has kind of specialized in creating the much-easier-to-achieve BAD publicity.

But could J6 really just have been about publicity? Was it all about just furthering the great Trump confidence game? Or a run for office again? Is Trump really all about ramming the ‘brand’ down so many throats that it creates a following that he can grift, cheat and steal from? Is that all it is?

I confess: I thought that it was just that – a giant, American style circus. PT Barnum with orange hair.

Some ‘serious’ people think that Trump and Trumpism is a legitimate threat to the government, democracy and even the rule of law. Trump, they claim, is a threat to the USA as a nation.

I was not convinced. But lately something is niggling at me…

January 6th was supposed to be (and was eventually) just a formal confirmation of the final vote (electoral college vote, I believe). Do you launch a revolution on a formality? A ceremony? Does a true revolutionary just throw a bloody but metaphorical pie in the public’s face?

Maybe you do if you have to fight your revolution symbolically? Let’s face it, Trump can’t raise an army, a navy, an air force. At best he had less than half the population….and no forces…..

And, well, here’s where the ‘niggle’ comes in….Trump will be indicted. Soon. Maybe first in Georgia, then New York. I do not know because I have grown ‘bored of it’ and Trump has lost even the attraction of a train wreck. But imagine that his war-model, his strategy, his modus operandi is actually BASED on dramatic stages being set….on dramatic scenes being set…on de facto ‘flash mobs’ symbolically fighting a revolutionary war? If you do NOT have the troops or the ships or the planes, can you ‘puppeteer’ a war? Are staging rallies across the country and inciting the crowd a practice at that, a dress rehearsal for a Broadway show?

Don’t forget: the only time Trump succeeded at anything legitimate was the TV show, “The Apprentice.” That was NOT real life. That was a TV SHOW! That was NOT real, it was, in effect ‘virtual’….a ‘fake’ business….it was pure showmanship….like his whole life!

So, he gets indicted. Atlanta, Georgia. Fani Willis (AG) indicts TRump. Of course It’s on TV. Trump of course announces (on TV) that he will go to Atlanta (being careful NOT to say that he will face trial). He will then invite his Maggots to attend the Atlanta ‘rally’ with him. He will invite them by saying, “Be there. Will be wild!”

And, once again, he has dog-whistled his minions. Once again, they will come armed and in camo. Once again, a mock revolution will be staged. Some people will die. The National Guard will be there in force and without hesitation. A bigger riot may ensue.

Another ‘battle’ has again been fought. The USA will be further polarized.

And a revolution takes a closer step towards reality…….

…….or am I just crazy?

Woke up, fell out of bed
Dragged a comb across my head
Found my way downstairs and drank a cup
And looking up, I noticed I was late……...(Beatles)

“….NOT ME!! Not late for nothing! Not me.………..I am OTG. I am free!“

Well, that is the OTG myth, anyway. I am free in the sense of the Beatles’ ‘Day in the life’ song or compared to a wage-earning urbanite but I still have responsibilities, duties, chores, routines, loose schedules but still schedules. I have a wife. I have dogs. I have machines. Gotta eat. Gotta shower. Gotta pee…..ya know?

Seriously: I have been trying to clean my shop up now for months…no time! Sal has been meaning to organize some cupboards…no time. The dogs are full-on bushy again…where is the time? The outboards need some attention….

Did I mention that we wanted to paint the inside of the house (and have for the last two years)…it really needs some attention….?

“Dave! What are you saying?”

I am saying that ‘LIFE IS DEMANDING’. The older you get, the more demanding it gets. Time demanding! Or so it seems. When we were young, we worked full-time, managed a house, raised two children, did community work, had a busy social life and even had time for some recreation. Damn! I even watched too much TV!!

That is no longer the case. Today, we went down to ‘service the boats’. After breakfast and e-mails, we went to work. Walked past the lagoon. “Maybe I’ll cut up some logs tomorrow”, I said. “Focus on the boats!” she said.

So, in the lovely, bright sunshine, we set to work dealing with a boat that had somehow gotten water in the fuel. It happens all the time, actually – condensation inside half full tanks. We know what we are doing. We can fix it. Two hours later (2 hours!) we had Sal’s boat running fine. We went over to mine. The sunshine had gone. A dark cloud appeared and it began to hail. So, we’ll do that job tomorrow.

We put away some tools, got out the wine, put away some other stuff, petted the dogs…and it was dinner time!

Think about that: two healthy people got just ONE task done and it took all day. Yes, yes, I know…..you really have to plan for the time it takes to just live life as well (and I do tend to linger in showers). I know that. But, but, but, it is taking more and more time just taking care of those ‘daily-living’ tasks and there is less and less time available for the maintenance of things and projects-for-adventure.

Fuggedabout recreational pastimes. We are too busy ‘existing’ to have hobbies or sports or even an active social life. I am for sure too busy for an active social life. Sal’s still got a foot in, tho….

“Dave! Is it really that bad?”

Yes and no. Yes, it is that bad for BIG projects. Maintenance will get addressed one way or the other. Daily life tasks get done in a timely manner (I am a two-shower-a-day guy and that will carry on for as long as I do). But I am not even thinking about building a boat or converting a bread truck into an RV anymore. Those kinds of all-day, all-week, all-month projects are NO MORE. Well, at least not for now…..you should never say never.

I am now more focused on the here and now and what-needs-doing today. Put more succinctly: I will not even start a long series on Netflix. If it says, “Season six coming soon!”, I do not even look at the pilot or the trailers. I wouldn’t start Downton Abbey, Game of Thrones and Yellowstone hasn’t got a hope.

I guess it boils down again to this:…….. time is our only real currency and like all our currencies in retirement, they are dwindling. Less energy, less time, less dreams. And that’s OK. It just means that we take more and more pleasure in the here and now. We have a smaller vision of our world but it is a good one. We have less of an attention span but that just helps the wine flow. Our money might last long enough because the costly projects are gone.

It’s a weird kind of system but we seem to be slowing down as we age and use up our reserves but we are having a fine time of it.

Throw in a beautiful day and I am not sure that it gets better than that.