He was about my age.  He was about my height.  And he sported the same bar-of-soap shape I did.  Plus it looked like someone had cut his hair by first placing a bowl on his head and removing what remained showing.  He was applying to be a doctor in our Downtown Eastside clinic.

I looked at him, asked a few questions and reviewed his credentials.  He answered well, spoke well enough, was a recent graduate of a reputable Canadian university and had done his residency in Toronto.  He had a pleasant demeanor.  On the face of it, he would be perfect.  Except for the face of it.  He was Chinese.

“Than you for applying,” I said.  “But I don’t think this is the right fit for you.  So, no.  No thanks.”

Stunned at such a quick rejection, he repeated himself, “No, I be doctor.  I apply for job.  I am ready to work.  Hire me.”

“No.”

Again, “No, I be doctor.  I have papers.  I work here.  Why not?”

“Well, to be blunt, you are Chinese.  This is skid row.  We have hundreds of crazy, addicted and violent people coming in here every day but none of them are Chinese.  I am sure your culture has problems but they are different from the ones here.  You would be out of place, out of your element.  You would not be happy.”

“Yes.  I am Chinese.  But, no problem.”

I went on to describe the racism, the madness, the hatred, the dysfunction and the danger that he would face every day.  “They’ll call you gook and chink.  They’ll call you slant-eyed.  They will be rude, resistant and horrible.  They do that to all of us because they are angry but you provide a racial component for them to target extra cruelly.  You’ll hate it.”

“No problem.”

It was hard to say no to a person who had just faced a barrage of the very prejudice that was to come if I hired him, but he seemed determined and that was the primary attribute I was looking for in an employee.  Until he applied, no doctor had lasted more than two years and many didn’t last three months.  I didn’t see that record being challenged by Dr. Daniel Wang.

“OK.  You are hired.  But, here’s the deal.  You give it a fair shot.  When it becomes clear to you that this is too hard, too mean, too ugly, let me know and I will find you a nice job at St. Paul’s hospital and you can work there and buy a nice Mercedes-Benz like all the other doctors.  Deal?”

“No problem.”

Daniel was given the hardest job of all the doctors.  He was on the streets every day.  No office. No examination room.  His job was to carry the classic doctor’s black bag and ferret out the sick and diseased that were so far gone that they no longer came to the clinic.  He had to go to the rat-infested, addict strewn, filthy rooming houses that filled the Downtown East Side — most of the time alone.  He was back-up for the street nurses but had his own caseload as well. Daniel was an average, mid twenties, dyed-in-the-silk Chinese, even down to the initially-heavy Chinglish he spoke. He was a relatively new Canadian having been here only long enough to get his education and find his way to our clinic.  He didn’t have any experience.  He didn’t have any street skills either and he was completely naive about the job he faced.  He basically didn’t have a clue.

I gave him three months.

Daniel out-lasted me.  Daniel stayed in skid row for eight years.  Daniel was, by far, the best doctor we ever had at the clinic by longevity standards alone.  I think he was the best doctor the area ever had and I am pretty sure that he would have been good anywhere.

Of course, as the years went by, we became friends and one day he wanted to go to lunch at a fancy uptown restaurant in one of the top five hotels in the city.

“Dan, we can’t go there.  You always wear dress clothes but I am in jeans and a t-shirt.”

“No problem.”

We went in my beaten up old sports car and he instructed me to park in a reserved space by the entry. That seemed odd.  We entered the hotel, walked to the restaurant and saw a long line with the maitre de controlling the red rope barring entry to the dining area.  Dan walked to the front.  I followed.  At the head of the line-up, waiting his turn was the then mayor of the city, Jack Volrich.  The maitre de dropped the rope, we walked through and took a place at a reserved table.  The rope was put back in place.  Jack cooled his heels in the line-up.

“Geez, Dan.  How did we walk past the line up?  How did we we get seated ahead of the mayor?  What the hell is going on?”

“No problem.  I own it.”

“You own the restaurant?  How is that possible?  We pay peanuts.”

“I own the hotel.”

Seems Dan’s family was rich.  Rich enough to own the hotel and a lot of other stuff.  Dan was not overly impressed by all that but, as number one son, he was still very much involved in the family empire.  He preferred doctoring.  On that particular day he had to attend to a quick business meeting and he thought we could catch lunch at the same time. I guessed later that it was his way of sharing his personal life with me.  After a while I asked him why he would work as a doctor in skid row when he could afford to buy his own hospital or, at the very least, have his own clinic.

“I came to Canada eight years ago.  I was fully accepted by everyone I met.  No prejudice. No discrimination.  I got my education here.  My sons were born here.  You even hired me. I am Canadian now and I appreciate this country very much.  When I became a doctor, I decided I had to give something back.  So, I decided to work in the worst place with the worst patients and do the best I could.  It is my way of saying thank you to Canada.  And I will continue to do that for as long as I can.  But, I would appreciate it if you would not tell anyone.  My family is rich and we have to worry about security.”

Over the years, we have remained friends.  Really good friends.  He went back to Hong Kong in the early nineties to manage the family empire but I have been over to visit.  He has been back to visit.  We are friends and shall remain so regardless of the distance.  It’s not everyone who would do what he did, do it so well and do it so unselfishly.  Daniel has lived most of his almost seventy years in Hong Kong.  Only about ten or so were spent in Canada.  But I see him as one of the best Canadians I have ever known.

He was the worst of the worst.  Wrecked.  Disgusting.  Mental.  Aggressive and so far beyond filthy as to redefine the word.  Robert had thick matted hair that stuck like a large brown bag on his head falling down to mid back, and covering his face.  He had no shoes, only several pairs of rotting socks.  They stunk.  He stunk.  The air around him stunk.  He had several layers of clothing all of which was in tatters, the crotch rotted out through the layers because he relieved himself without removing them.  His skin was pock-marked with dirt and it felt like bugs and fleas were coming off him if you even came near.  He was hunched over and he dragged his feet when he walked.  He was so bad that the lowest of the low detoured around him.  Robert was the craziest, most filthy, most repulsive person I had ever seen.

Robert was also angry, insane and volatile.  If you spoke to him he began spitting and waving his arms and making aggressive gestures.  The fear one felt stemmed mostly from being so near the filth and the disease.  And the spray of germs and slime that projected from him was worse than a weapon.  He was like a walking plague.  He was a human sewer rat.

No one went near Robert.

Our policy at the clinic was to ‘accept’ the weirdos and to offer assistance.  Part of the definition of ‘weirdo’ was repulsive, dirty and way too often, addicted and crazy.  Robert was all of that and so much more.  But our staff did what they could without getting too close.  In fact, Robert came to the clinic about once a week and went to the small food store we ran.  The staff would open a free can of sardines, give it to him with a plastic spoon and he would scurry off to a corner and protect his meal from anyone approaching within ten feet.  Usually he ate undisturbed.  No one ever approached on purpose.

One day, I asked the street nurses about him. “Robert?  Are you kidding.  None of us will go near him.  I’d quit before I had to attend to him.”

“Seems kinda chicken not to try.  You guys are the toughest, most street savvy skid row workers going.  If you can’t do it, who can?”

“Robert’s so crazy that you need to commit him.  That requires two doctor’s signatures. From different offices.  And both doctors have to examine him and agree on the decision to commit.  Then the paddy wagon comes when only all the paperwork is done.  They take the real crazies to Crease Clinic.  No doctor is going to see Robert because  no one can get Robert to do anything or go anywhere.  Getting two of them to see him is impossible. Never gonna happen.”

I went to all our doctors and explained the situation.  No go.  I went to the other street clinic miles away and explained the situation to them.  No go.  So I went back to my group and asked them to examine him on the fly if they could.  In the hallway, in the washroom, on the street, whatever.  They agreed to do that if the opportunity arose.  I got the other clinic doctors to agree, too.  Any kind of exam anywhere would do. Then, after months of futile waiting for an opportunistic encounter, I asked one of my doctors to sign a committal form in advance so that I would NOT have to chase paper if any of the others had the chance encounter but he/she did not.  They would not do that.  But, eventually one did on the promise that at least one of the other doctors in our clinic saw him and, of course, the other clinic doctor also saw him.

Then I asked the other clinic to do the same and with the same promise.  I now had two signed committal forms and I was determined to wrestle Robert into seeing at least one of my group doctors when I could.  The second impossible bridge would have to be crossed after that.

To make a long story short, it never happened.  Robert was too erratic.  When he did show, the staff were busy with other patients.  And the second clinic doctor was going to be even harder to satisfy.  After a few months, I gave up doing it the right way.  I gave up my promise.  When I next saw Robert I called the paddy wagon and I gave them the two signed committal forms and they took him away.

In effect, I broke every rule in the book.  I not only put myself in danger of being charged with a long list of crimes, but I jeopardized the doctor’s and their professional standing.  In hospital administration terms, I was the worst felon possible.  And, I felt that way.

For about a week.

Skid Row is busy.  We had over 800 people a day come through the clinic on a busy day and all days were pretty much busy.  That kind of ocean of sickness tends to erase any one day.  After a week, I forgot about Robert.

Until about a year later when a tall distinguished guy wearing a three piece tailored suit and carrying a briefcase asked to meet with me.  He had such a professional bearing and elegance, the receptionist made the only exception I have ever seen to her rule of never coming out from behind the Plexiglas.  She escorted him to my office.

“Are you David Cox?”

“Yes.  How can I help you?”

Getting some papers out of his briefcase, he continued, “Do you recall Robert Smith, a patient at this clinic?”

“Yes.  Yes I do.” And I started to think about my pending arrest at that very instant.

“Are you aware that you violated the legal procedures for committal?  I have already spoken with the doctors involved and they claim that the entire committal was executed by you in violation of their specific instructions and that they are claiming no responsibility in the matter whatsoever.  Is that true?”

“Yes.  I broke the agreement.  I felt I needed to.  It was an accident.  They did nothing wrong except to trust that I would keep my word and I did not.”  I almost extended my wrists together for him to handcuff.  I hung my head.

“Are you aware of what happened to Robert Smith?”

“Not a clue.  He went to the hospital.  That’s all I know.  It was a long time ago.”

He stood there looking down at me.  He was over six feet, average build, about fifty, with lawyer-style greying temples and he was wearing a very stern expression.  I could feel my life coming apart.

He extended his hand and smiled. “Don’t worry about a thing.  I am Robert.  Your actions saved my life.  I came to thank you.  If you hadn’t done what you did, I would surely be dead by now.”

Seems Robert had been on meds for a form of schizophrenia.  He has no idea what caused him to come off the meds but, at the time, he was living in Kelowna and had a family.  Wife and kids.  He was an accountant of some kind.  He had subsequently lost seven years of his life to the madness that was his condition and he estimated that almost all of it was spent in the Downtown Eastside.  His memory of the time was hazy but he remembered the building, the sardines and Oppenheimer Park.

After he had been at the hospital for a month or so, they had him stabilized. New meds. He contacted his wife.  She was overjoyed and went immeditely to retrieve him and the last year was spent putting his life together.  He looked great and we spent a half hour grinning and sharing what we knew about the old Robert.

Once he was together enough, he had investigated how he had been saved.  He unraveled the mystery on his own.  No formal inquiry, just conversations.  The secret was safe.

Robert left.  I told the doctors what I had learned.  Robert had not told him that he was, in fact, the man that had briefly asked them a question or two recently.  They, too, thought that it was a lawyer making inquiries.  They were as relieved as I was.  We all spent much of the time together saying things like. “I never should have agreed to do that”.  “After all is said and done, it was still a violation of ethics and blah, blah, blah.”  “I am sorry.  I really am.” (I really was when I was saying that but a week or so later when the dust had cleared and I had time to think about it, I was not.  I was pleased about it.) 

Situational ethics.  Not uncommon for anyone working in skid row but rarely as dramatic as Robert.

I needed a pharmacist for the clinic and they were hard to find.  Pharmacists, generally, can make a good living in the capitalist economy but institutional pharmacists do not.  And institutions in skid row had even less appeal for them, even fresh young graduates needing experience.  I hired a guy called Ahkbar. He was a young Ugandan refugee with the right credentials who was an arrogant, puke of a human being but I had little choice.  It was either the Ugandan snot or the pharmacy could not function.

Over the next year Ahkbar managed to alienate just about everyone in the clinic and even the down and out patients of the area.  He was rude, insulting, dismissive and beyond prejudicial.  He openly disdained all of us, patients and staff alike, for being sub-par human beings while he was, in his own mind, just a notch below a god.  That he was handsome in an Omar Sharif kind of way just made it worse.  I detested the puke.

During his time with us, Ahkbar boasted that his stint as a pharmacist was just temporary and that, as soon as his family’s money was recovered from Uganda, he was going back to school to become a doctor, a position more worthy of his gifts.  When he left a year or so later, it was an amicable parting- we were both happy to see the last of each other.

A few years later, I was in physio therapy trying to make my knee work again after major surgery.  I was in St Pauls.  One day Ahkbar walked by and, seeing me, came over and inquired after my health and made pleasant.  It was a bit of a shock but at first I wrote it off to a guy getting what he wanted and was then, as he predicted, a doctor and, presumably enjoying the status he felt he so richly deserved.

But Ahkbar made a point of finding out my physio schedule and, further, visited me repeatedly. I enjoyed his visits.  He was caring and interesting and remarkably likable. Finally, I asked how it was that he seemed to have so changed.  Was it me?  Or had he actually changed?

“I think the change you see is me, David.  I am different.  And I am glad to be different.  In fact, I owe you and the clinic an apology.  I was not a good employee.  Please forgive me.”

That was quickly dispensed with because I wanted to know what happened.

“Before I entered medical school my parents thought it a good idea that I visit my homeland and my relatives.  And so they sent me to India.  I honestly do not know if I am actually Indian or Pakistani because the village I went to was in the north and virtually on the border of the two countries.  It makes no difference.  We had to hike for three days and two nights to get to the village.  I had to dress in rags and wear rope sandals n case we were caught.  We had to hide from Indian and Pakistani police and their army patrols because neither believed we were worthy of even living, let alone being there.  It was terrifying.

“But when I got to the village it was life changing.  It was surreal.  It felt like science fiction at first.  I could hardly believe what I was seeing.  Everyone in the village of just over a hundred people looked exactly like my brothers, cousins, parents and family.  Everyone.  I saw people who were virtually twins of not only my parents and my brothers and sisters but I also saw a couple of guys who looked exactly like me.  Of course, there were very minor differences but, at first, I was sure that I had walked into a living nightmare.  These people were poor, ignorant, uneducated and primitive in the extreme.  But, at the same time, they were me.  They were my family.  There were, literally, my family.  We were the same! 

” I must have cried every night I was there.  My entire sense of who I was was just based on good luck.  I could just as easily be one of them.  I was one of them. But they were kind, generous, accepting and they wanted nothing from me but to accept their love and to receive some in return. I felt so close to them, I loved them, I wanted to be with them and I wanted to be like them but I was ashamed of myself the entire time.  I was so humbled and embarrassed, I swore that I would go back to Canada, become a doctor and go back to help them.  And so I did.

“But they also showed me that it was not really about them.  It was not about our family connection.  I was a doctor and I had to help others, too.  I am part of  Médecins Sans Frontières, (Doctors Without Borders) now.  I go back to that village but I also go to many other villages.  Even other countries. It changed me.  You were right all along.  I was wrong.”

” I don’t know about my being right, Ahkbar.  I am no longer there.  Couldn’t take it anymore.  But I am very glad to hear that story.  It’s a great one.  Thanks for telling me.”

“No worries.  It’s my turn, anyway.  Nice seeing you, too.” 

He was aboriginal, addicted, blind, angry, scared and always wielded a large hunting knife swung around in front of him almost all the time he moved instead of using a white cane like other sight challenged people.  He was also somewhat imposing and very scary-looking.  You could hear him coming and you could see the people running away.  The guy was nuts.

For the first few months, of course, we all just gave him the room he seemed to require and he came to the clinic, ate some soup and left.  In a way, being visited by a screaming, high, blind and angry Indian armed to kill became a common occurrence. It was my job to make sure that he didn’t hurt anyone but, in the process of following him from a relatively safe distance, he came to know I was there.  At first he would turn and slash his way towards me but he was easy to evade and I would attempt to explain that I was just there to help and keep people safe.  I told him to go about his business, ignore me and he would not have a problem.

And, for the most part, that was the way it played out for weeks.  The hardest part was that he was always under the influence of something and so sometimes I felt like we could communicate, other times I was sure he had no idea who the voice talking to him was. Each visit required a new risk assessment and an altered approach to getting him in and out of the clinic safely.

The real tragedy was that his blindness was the result of an opaque layer of skin growing over his eyes.  According to the doctors, that condition can be improved completely with relatively simple day surgery.  I began trying to explain that to him.  Keeping a safe distance most of the time, of course.

One day, he was eating his soup and his knife was beside him.  I sat down and started talking.  He did not pick up the knife.  He barely acknowledged anyone but his leaving the knife alone spoke volumes.  I found out his name and worked the day surgery angle and, to make a long story short, and it took a long, long time, he agreed to go to St. Paul’s Hospital to try to get a sense of what I was talking about.

I had told the staff there of his condition and his mental state.  I asked them to do this procedure without an appointment because my guy was too erratic in every way.  I would bring him when I could and, for the sake of all the patients they had that day, it was in everyone’s best interests if they got him in and out as fast as possible.  No waiting.  No chit chat.  We come, they operate, we leave all in the least possible time.  It only took one visit with him to cement the deal.  St Paul’s was on side.

I must have had him in my car and almost to the hospital door a dozen times before he would bolt and run screaming and swinging his knife into the downtown streets. He was terrified.  At least twice, maybe four times, I actually got him in to the reception area and they were expediting him as they promised when he freaked out and took flight.  Each time was dramatic, frightening for the staff and, to be honest, a bit edgy even for me.  I was getting to the point of giving up.

Of course, Skid Row sorts everyone eventually and he was found dead by his own knife a few weeks after our last effort.  Someone had simply used the weapon most handy and dispatched him.  He was a miserable, angry man that even a mother would stop loving.  I had pretty much run out of my sense of duty.  I had maybe one more effort left in me, but maybe not. I’ll never know.

The reality was he was addicted, nuts, violent and a very unsympathetic character.  He had nothing going for him.  His destiny was written in his eyes.  But, that was the thing. The eyes were so bad that they must have been impairing his vision for years if not decades.  His knife wielding act together with the yelling and screaming was actually an effective way to get places.  If I could get his eyes fixed, there was every chance that he might have led a better life.

He didn’t.  I didn’t.  And he died.  No one was to blame. By the time we encountered him in Skid Row, he had been crazy and addicted way too long. Maybe when the eye disease began, an early intervention might have changed everything.  But he lived with it, he adapted to it and he adopted incredibly mad, destructive life skills to try to cope with it. Didn’t work

The doctors suggested that just a few hours would have changed everything.

A reader suggested that my work history might provide some reading fodder.  Tell me what you think.  It might contain stuff like the following:

It was in the late 70’s.  November.  Cold as hell.  I was running the skid row medical clinic and one of the board members came to my office, her incredible bosom revealing itself a half second before the rest of her came into view.  She was something, she was. Actually, she was more than just one thing, there were three of her.

Alice had been a prostitute, alcoholic and drug addict for years.  Then she graduated to picking pockets and small time hustles to keep her and her five children alive and the family together.  Wasn’t easy.  They were all from different fathers and the men in her life were numerous, omnipresent and ill-fitting, like the tight clothing that incarcerated what should have been illegal breasts.

I say they should have been made illegal because they once almost killed me but I’ll come back to that.  First a bit about who she really was.

“Hey, Dave.  We got any money in the budget to hire someone?”

Alice had graduated after the pick-pocket and hustle phase to being a bona fide social worker and board member of the clinic.  Her natural intelligence and attention-getting appearance made her effective on the drug addled streets of Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside and her ability to defend herself when necessary – which was often and always successful – made her a great social worker.  She was tough, smart, effective and, like the proverbial prostitute with a big heart, she was now an ex-prostitute with a big heart.

“Sorry. No money.  Broke as usual.  Just putting together another grant request.  Why?”

Alice stepped aside and pushed a tall, old man with an erect bearing towards my desk.  Mohan Dhahliwal snapped his heels together, gave me a perfect military salute and greeted me with a sharp, “Suh!”

Seems Mohan had lived his entire life in India until a year or so ago when his son brought him to Canada.  But Mohan was so ‘old school military’ and Indian having spent his whole life serving God and country in the Indian army, that the son and daughter in law were ashamed to be seen in public with him.  They were embarrassed.  They kept Mohan locked in their basement and only brought him out for meals.  He felt humiliated and, on a whim one day, had run away.

Mohan resided in Nanaimo when he escaped.  He was wearing only pajamas and slippers in freezing rain when he made his way to the ferry at Departure bay.  Somehow, he got aboard the boat and somehow he managed to get into the centre of Vancouver and ended up in a flop house where Alice kept tabs on people.  She didn’t feel the flophouse environment was the right match for this guy and so she enticed him to follow her to the clinic where she intended to find him employment and then, with her own money, she was going to front him his rent in a better place.

Of course, on the way to see me, she stopped by another social service and dressed him somewhat more appropriately.  Standing before me was an ex-military, 75 year old Sikh who stood well over six feet tall and had the air of a colonel.  His language skills were minimal but his ‘ready-for-duty’ attitude was obvious.  He was eager to please his new commander – whoever it was.  Alice wanted it to be me.

So, I agreed to hire Mohan as a part-time janitor and Alice found him a place down the street.  He was never late.  He was always hard working.  He was so honest that he brought me pennies and other litter he found while doing his rounds.  Mohan, at 75 and almost unilingual with virtually no relevant education, was the best employee we ever had if you measure that reference by loyalty, hard work and dedication to his job.  We became friends.

Having said that, Mohan always saluted me.  Every morning.  And he never left without ‘checking out’ formally.  “Five o’clock, Suh!  Good night, Mr. David!”  We were friends but I was his commander and that was the way it was.

Now to the boobs that kill.  I doubt that even Arthur Conan Doyle could make this stuff up.

Early 80’s.  I had been gone from the clinic for a few years.  I was driving west on Broadway in my Datsun 311, a somewhat distinctive sports car.  Traffic was moving well and we had just passed through the intersection at Granville. Mid block and, for no reason apparent, the car ahead of me slammed on the brakes.  I barely stopped before hitting it.  Out of the driver’s seat spun Alice, monumental breasts already gaining unstoppable momentum.  She was wearing a yellow halter top that was like a headband on two watermelons.  I jumped out of the car as she ran straight at me with her arms open wide.  You can only imagine the sight.

I was glad to see her, too, even though her face was obliterated from my view every second step or so and, as we began too-rapid docking maneuvers, I must have made the mistake of breathing out.  I exhaled.  Little did I know, it was almost my last.  We collided in exuberant friendship and she grabbed me by the back of my head.  Squealing with delight at having seen me, disrupting traffic and having me in her arms, she slammed my face deep into her bosom.

Who wouldn’t?

But I was out of air.  I tried to breathe.  It was not possible.  My lungs were completely deflated by my ill-timed exhale a second before and all I could feel was all enveloping, soft pink flesh, so much of it that my head was almost completely covered in boob. And I was fading fast.  My knees felt weak and I was a second away from passing out.  Her breasts were being sucked into my nostrils as I fought for survival.  It was horrible.  No, really!  I was collapsing in the middle of stopped traffic in the 1500 block of Broadway because of an assault by a couple of friendly giants.  If it weren’t so terrifying at the time, it would have been embarrassing.  Or funny. As it was, it was almost deadly.

Rescue came as my knees folded and my head pulled down her halter top.  Inadequate at the best of times, it began to reveal even more of the problem and she let me go to save her modesty. I thank God to this day that, after all those years on the wrong side of the modesty tracks, she still had some to save.  It was what saved me.  That rescue act allowed the last vestige of my life spark to restart my breathing.  It was a miracle. I was alive and soon to recover my usual appreciation for a large, soft bosom.  But, for the next few minutes of that day, I kept my distance.

Working in Skid Row can be dangerous in so many ways.  A lot of danger lurks there in the shadows, the corners and the cleavage of the big smoke.

And that was just one of the stories of my naked city.

We’re currently watching a Netflix series about a London police inspector who hears the voices of dead people.  Maybe. They just might be his own voices that he thinks are the dead people in the mystery he is attempting to solve.  He’s not sure.  We’re not sure. He may just be a nutter but he seems to be a good investigator.  Or is he?

All the plots move along (without useful input from the voices) but they all seem to move along because someone goes over the CCTV footage once again for the umpteenth time and sees something no one else saw before.  CCTV footage is the new ‘crutch’ on which mystery plots revolve. But (BIG but) it requires a person to go over and over and over again all the footage.

I am sure that is true.  I am sure they do that.  I believe what the State tells me. It’s all reviewed all the time just to keep me safe. 

But, honestly, that was NOT our experience.

A couple of years ago our car was broken into at the hotel we were staying at and all the Xmas presents we had purchased were stolen.  ICBC no longer covers break-ins explained the dial-a-claim person because, “Well, there are so many of them now, aren’t there?”  Makes sense, actually.  Insure for that which DOES NOT happen but, if it does, cancel that insurance because how are you gonna make a buck doing that?  Not surprisingly, ICBC made no effort to tell us that our coverage had changed.

So, we lost about $1000-1200 dollars and, when we mentioned it to the hotel, they said, “Well, we have security but we never catch anyone.”

“What is your security?”

“CCTV.”

“Anyone actually go outside and check it out?  Patrol the lot or something?”

“No.  Just the cameras.”

“Interesting approach.  Anyone watch the cameras?”

“No.  But we record.  So we have tapes.”

“But no one looks at them?”

“Not unless someone asks.”

“Can I see them?”

” I will have to get permission from my supervisor.  Privacy concerns.”

“Of course.  And not to mention, liability issues and safety and security issues.  You might want to record our conversation and I can bring a record check in with me sometime next week.”

“Huh?”

“Never mind.  Just ask.”

When we looked at the cameras, it was incredible.  There were twelve cameras at least ten of them with our car within their recording view.  For three of them , it was like Hollywood had staged our car to be the story subject.  We saw the two guys come from the street, we saw them look around, we saw them with hoodies and we saw them break in and steal our stuff.  Elapsed time….maybe ten to fifteen minutes.  The smash and grab? Maybe one minute.  If we hadn’t asked to see the tapes, no one would have ever seen them and yet, there they were in black and white.  Evidence.

Even tho we had seen the tapes the guys wore hoodies and the camera action was a bit jumpy, not film-like.  So it was NOT good evidence.  No one could tell anything from that other than they were likely young, male and thin.  I suppose we could have watched the tapes a gazillion times and eventually found enough evidence to trace their family tree and who their friends were.  But I doubt it.  That only happens on Netflix.

I think CCTV serves up the average citizen for 100% monitoring and controlling (driving, workplace, etc).  It is likely a revenue stream – bridge tolls, speeding tickets, etc.   But, for fighting crime, it is useless.  False sense of security at best.  For our successful thieves, 12 cameras trained on them meant nothing.  To be even more cynical, I believe the cameras are there just to comply with the hotel’s insurance company’s requirements for reasons other than the well-being of the patrons.

The police informed us that the thieves like hotels like ours because it was located close to the Skytrain,  People on Skytrain with shopping bags are NOT suspicious but men-in-hoodies walking down a street with packages are.  They knew our hotel had been hit repeatedly. NOT that they did anything about it, of course.  It was just part of the urban bargain now.

My point: there is less security in the city now that there is more.  Don’t ask me why exactly that is so but it is clearly true – the more police and the more CCTV, the more crime and the more of it goes unsolved.

Part of that has to be the lack of human involvement.  We delegate to cameras and computers, we swap digitized information without having to actually handle it, see it, feel it and find a place for it.  We have made a world of recordings, images and pdfs.  In effect it is a kind of vacuum.  It is a  vacuum of consciousness, awareness, caring, feeling and, naturally enough, the empathy that goes with that.  With that CCTV world, no one cares.

Scott Peck (The Road Less Traveled) wrote in another book, People of the Lie, that evil steps in to fill conscious voids.  A lot of bad stuff happens when people are drunk, drugged or NOT thinking and so some of that bad stuff is just plain evil filling up the vacuum.  I suggest that a lot of evil steps in when we trust to computers, too.

So…if we consciously turn our brains off, if we consciously choose to be unconscious and let the cameras and recordings do it all for us, if we purposefully go UNconscious about our lives, Peck postulates we invite harm.  I agree.

During a brief phone call, an urban friend of mine, remarking on the recent Paris attacks, said, “Maybe moving off the grid wasn’t so crazy, after all.”

It was a throwaway line.  Not to be taken seriously.  Not really.  On the other hand, it was not said as a joke, either.  It was more like a self-reflection, a musing, a reconsideration of her previous take on our decision to move out of the city.  She was clearly still processing what she deemed as relevant-to-her news and, with the other part of our discussion (the Syrian refugees), it was indicating a shifting of some sort of position on the politics of things.

That little comment indicated something personal and profound and I would venture that it was some kind of hardening of resolve, some sort of defensive preparation, some sort of weakening of her tendency to sympathy and a strengthening of her resistance to whatever it was she felt needed strengthening.  It wasn’t fight or flight, it was much more subtle than that, but it was along those lines.

The terrorists are having an effect and they have even reached a woman in Vancouver as safe as anyone could be.

But…she is wrong – not only to think that way but to allow them to influence her in any way.

There is no question that we, in the west, have a problem on our hands.  We are getting a lot of new brown people.  Most brown people are just fine, like all people…only browner. Just as we have our white supremacists, bigots, bullies, Hell’s angels, Marc Lepines, mafia and religious zealots, so do they have their ISILs, terrorists and Islamic versions of Charlie Manson.

They are not all that different from us.  Just brown.  So, there will MORE of us.

And, sadly, Nature has seen fit to include a portion of anarchists, murderers and maniacs into the human stew and this group has their fair share.  Maybe a bit more.  But that is not the problem.  That is just life.

The real problem is two-fold and even that is passing.  One; we are going to get a large number of refugees, immigrants and illegal migrants and our way of life will be changed. Inevitably. Irrevocably.  And two; those brown people have a DIFFERENT style of mad men, maniacs and murderers amongst them.  Their ‘nutters’ act out for reasons not understandable to us.  We just don’t ‘get it’.  Different culture = different madness and crimes.

So, same but different.  What is the problem?

Adjustment.  Transition.  Change.

And change is always difficult.  The mafia, the Hell’s Angels, even bully-boy police and the seemingly universal embrace of greed in the west is now somewhat understandable to us (maybe not to our great grandparents).  We ‘get that’ even if we disagree with it.  We ‘get’ Harper and Donald Trump, we just don’t agree with them.  But we have come to terms with living with them distasteful and unacceptable as they basically are.

The real trouble is wrapping our minds around young, bomb-clad martyrs, be-headings and other acts of general-but-foreign mayhem inflicted on innocent people.  Seems wrong and evil at a whole new level.

It’s not.  It’s just different.  We have as much deviance and evil.  We match them pretty well on that score. They have bad people.  We have bad people.  Bad is bad.  That is not the issue.

The real issue is: is bad winning out over good?  Hard to say.  I don’t know.  But I must admit that I much prefer to watch the show from here rather than the front row seats.

Make no mistake, however, our friend missed the point about us moving here.  She thinks we moved away from bad. She thought it was because we didn’t like there and we liked here, and since she liked there and NOT here, we must have bene mad.  So, to her way of thinking, if she started NOT to like there, then maybe she would like here.  In effect, she is just thinking of changing seats.

And, while part of all that is true – especially NOW that we have lived out here for awhile and can compare – it was NOT the reason for choosing to sit in the nose-bleeds.  We didn’t.  We really chose a different theater.

The reason for moving out was – in the beginning – I just needed to grow, learn, live my life as fully as possible and I felt that I had given the cul-de-sac all the time I could afford. Yes, I could feel the claustrophobia of greed and Big Brother, I sensed the futility of racing with the rats, I saw the pointlessness of working like hell as I aged just to ‘stay in place’.  But that wasn’t it.  Not entirely.  Just partially.  I wasn’t leaving the bad so much as looking for something different.

The real incentive for me was the call to grow, to learn, to adventure.  It was the desire to feel young and excited again.  I really just wanted to breathe deeply, worry less and look forward to the day rather than not.

I was not running from the fear and loathing of greed, violence and futility and I am NOT afraid of brown people so I wouldn’t run now if I chose to stay in the city instead.

No one should be afraid anymore of the city today than they did last year.  Ya wanna be afraid?  Then look around you now – before the BIG CHANGE happens.  There is enough out there to run away from already without the newer version that is currently presenting. That part of the ugly is constant in the human condition, it seems, regardless of the colour of the people doing it.  Or the cultural diversity manifested in their brands of madness.

Don’t run away in fear but I do suggest that you consider walking away to a better show, different theater. The reason should be: looking for interest, health and well-being, looking for personal growth, trying something new.  MAYBE the forest for some of you…?  Maybe not.

But don’t run because of brown people.

Wow!  Last blog: Only ONE comment.  A new low.  OK, TIED with many others at the old low but not registered so low in a long while.  You guys busy? Got the flu?  Sheesh.

The key to making a blog worth reading is for it to be true.  100%.  ‘Course, it goes without saying that there are gazillion ways to make a blog NOT worth reading.  Philosophizing with Hot and Sour soup is clearly one of those ways.   Lesson learned.

The thing is, I am ‘dry’.  I am NOT progressing much on the empire.  It is cold out here. I will, of course, continue the greenhouse when I get some cedar siding (waiting on that) but I don’t have any yet.  My overall, general work-about-the-house has slowed even tho I didn’t think I could go slower, but I have actually dropped the rpms to nearly dead.

Just writing that last sentence has prompted thoughts of a nap.

The good news is that the VFD has arrived – a Hitachi motor controller (model: NES1 – 002SB*) – so that I can now make the lower funicular functional. The ‘bad news’ is that it is an electrical component of some sophistication and I still get confused by even simple DC connections.  Single phase to three phase, multiple switches, contactors and weird diagrams with even weirder symbols – some of which are in Japanese! – do not bode well for a speedy installation.  I am seriously considering flying my nephew (electrician) out from back east just to wire it up.

The wire going in is simple enough.  The main wires going out are likely decipherable.  Eventually.  But the stop-switches and control buttons are, so far at least, beyond my rapidly eroding, Netflix-corrupted IQ and then making the remote controls work after that (the ones from the nasty Korean, Mr. Kang in Langley, without any instructions whatsoever) make it seem impossible.

It is impossible.  I will call Flight Cente and send for James.

All of which is my way of saying that I am starting to refocus on book 2.  May suspend blog ops.  And I have no idea about what it is yet.  Sal wants all the ‘old stories’ (from girlfriends throwing themselves naked out of my parents second floor bedroom when they came home early from a long weekend to war stories from the Downtown Eastside, politics, motorcycle crashes and assorted manifestations of Chaos theory I have explored in my life).  She can’t listen to them anymore but wants to share the pain with others.

Misery loves company.

I dunno….I am disinclined……

So, there you have it………nothing, really.  Just the everyday battery maintenance, genset oil-change, help-thy-neighbour activities of an older off the grid couple living from day to day, chore to chore and trying to stay dry and warm all at the same time.

Maybe it is time for another change…………?

I have always wanted to visit Northern Japan in the winter, for example.  By rented motor-home, no less.  Maybe I could visit the Hitachi factory.  Look up Kang’s relatives in South Korea…?

What EXACTLY are the symptoms of cabin fever…..

I have had those kinds of conversations before.  I am likely to have them again.  It is really just the standard conversation of people getting older, ‘you tell me your story for the last number of years, and I’ll tell you mine’.  It takes fifteen to twenty minutes if there is any real sharing going on, half hour tops.  Most stories follow familiar themes.  Like Hollywood movies; same but different.

By then it is clear that you still like each other but have taken different paths not very much of them common or shared. Theirs is a film noir, yours is an action comedy. Or vice versa.  Some tragedies, of course.  Some pure farce. You express good wishes and move on knowing deep down that you are unlikely to meet again, the ‘call me when next in town’ suggestion notwithstanding.  Life is like that. Somewhat fleeting.  Full of choices. Some good.  Some bad.  All are different and yet all are much the same; cheap B flicks.

Life is really just a big, giant, weird alphabet soup in which we all simmer, some bits rising to the top, others sticking to the bottom and getting burnt. A lot like Chinese hot and sour soup, actually.  And, like life, their soup never ends.  Some is ladled out during the day and then it is added to before the next.  Somehow, the soup remains the same even though new ingredients are added and a large portion is distributed every day.

And, to beat the metaphor to death by a thousand cuts, it is both hot and sour, sweet and dry, thick and thin and all with rain and cloudy periods.

That is where that goofy metaphor begins to make some sense for our story.  We chose NOT to have the soup this time.  In fact, we didn’t even enter the same restaurant.  Living off the grid is nothing much more than refusing the daily gruel and looking for something different.  Better would be good but different was the primary goal.  Let there be difference, let there be learning, let there be experience.  We went looking for new spices at the very least.

And, while we were at it, we put a hold on some of the routines and tried to kick some of the habits.  The stuff of life off the grid is the same as life on the grid, really. Breathe in, breathe out.  Eat, sleep and poop.  Do something useful during the daylight hours. But, within those restrictions, there is a lot of creative opportunity if you look for it.

If you have lived off the grid for most of your years, then try getting on it for a while.  We’d been on that merry-go-round for a long time so we opted to get off it. In fact, we also left the amusement park.  It just so happened that we ended up off the grid in the forest.  Some people end up off the grid sailing the seven seas or worse, being plucked off the grid and put in prison.  Makes no difference how you describe it, making life changes is just removing yourself from what was your norm and placing yourself in what is now strange and different.

Why would anyone do that?

As Socrates said, “The unexamined life is not worth living.”  Ergo, before you answer that question, you have to start with examining your life.  And, if you are like me and everyone else I know, you do not ace the exam.  If you get high marks in the 90’s then maybe you stay the course, become a lawyer, get a BMW and increase your surplus dollar count. Valedictorian.  If you are getting B’s then maybe you just try harder. A few divorces, a few heart attacks.  Woohoo!

If you are like most of those who get a failing grade at U of UL, you drop the course and the university and enroll in one somewhere else, one hopefully more to your liking or, usually for most people, less challenging and with lower standards.  I dropped out of the University of Urban Life after barely getting my masters (the bachelor part was easy) and ran off with my bff student buddy to try the College of the Wilderness.  We are getting passing grades.  It is hard but fun.  It is doable.  We like it. We may graduate summa cum laude from this one.

Or die trying.  We may just run out of time.

I recognized him instantly.  The $2000 suit was quite a hint but the silver-templed, perfect-postured and extremely well-shod gentleman locking up his 7 series Beemer right in front of me could only be my old friend, Jack.  “Yo!  Dawg!”

“Dave!  What a great surprise.  How are you?  Long time.  What are you doing here?  Say, do you have a few minutes?  Grab a coffee?”

We walked into a nearby Starbucks.  Jack turns heads.  Even at 70.  That is because he is 6′ 4″ in perfect shape and looks just over 50. He has the aura of a movie star around him.  Never a hair out of place.  The guy moved like a thoroughbred racehorse amongst old Shetland ponies, donkeys and various assorted asses of the urban kind. It was great to see him.

“How you doin’, Jack?  You look great.  Bit like Dorian Grey, tho.  Kinda spooky. You drink formaldehyde or something?”

“Yeah.  I do.  Yumm.  Along with Tums and a handfull of pills.  And I had surgery.  But I get that a lot.   What you don’t see is the heavy scarring.  I am broken inside but I look good on the outside.  Part of the job.  So, it seems is two heart attacks, a third wife, almost a bankruptcy and not just a few nasty lawsuits but, other than that, the last forty years have been a walk in the park.”

“Geez, man, heart attacks?  You don’t mean extreme romance?

“Yeah, I am sure they are all connected.  Karma through litigation.  They say that the next one might get me but I don’t intend to have another one.  I watch my diet.  Exercise at the gym every morning at 6:00 am.  Try not to take the stress home with me.  You know, try to relax more?”

“You mean you are not chasing skirts anymore?  Well, I guess lawyers and heart attacks are as common as lovers and partners splitting up, eh?  Sorry to hear that.  And I knew that you and Joanne separated and I suspected that you and Sarah would hook up but are you telling me she is also gone?  So who are you with now?”

“Jackie is my third wife.  She’s OK.  Kinda.  Great boobs!  But, I am really still with all three of them, ya know?  At least in support payments.  And then we have the kids together.  Two with Joanne.  And Sarah’s daughter.  Jackie and I still have two at home or at college or finding themselves in Europe or Thailand or something.  Who knows?  I am kinda supporting them all.”

“Jack!  Joanne was forty years ago.  You mean you have been supporting her for forty years?.  Dude, even doctors will take people off life support after a few years.”

“And there are the kids. It’s a cancer.”

“What kids!?  They are in their mid 40’s aren’t they? They aren’t kids!”

“Yeah, but you know, it has been hard for the last generation.  Barry got two degrees and his masters and still can’t get a job.  Overqualified for oh so many things and only qualified for a few things that he just can’t seem to find or else they choose someone else.  At his age, he kinda lacks the experience now, ya know?  It’s hard for him.”

“Damn!  Tough to hear.  So, what does he do all day?”

“Ahhh, let’s not go there.  Lives with his mom in the basement.  Lots of video games.  We don’t get along.  Don’t talk.  It is not good.”

“OK.  That happens.  Sorry.  How about Madeline?  She good?”

“No.  Not really.  She costs a lot, too.  Three grand kids.  All brats.  All the time.  Not married.  Unemployed. Depressed.  In therapy.  She won’t talk to her mother and she only talks to me to get more money.  She gets support from two ex-husbands but not enough.  I think she is on something, ya know?  Some kind of addiction…looks kinda unhealthy to me.  Lots of tattoos.  But, I don’t know.  I don’t know much of anything, really.  I just write the cheques.”

“Geez.  I am sorry to hear that.  It must worry you.”

“Well, oddly, it does not worry me so much anymore.  My first set of wife and kids has been like that since the very beginning and it has been going on so long now, it feels like the way things are, ya know? Like an STD you can’t shake.  Like Herpes.  Personal but ugly.  But how about you?  Still with Sally?”

“Oh, yeah.  Be a fool to quit that gig.  She’s great.  Absolutely wonderful.  Makes me happy and makes me dinner.  What’s not to like?  Nothing to complain about.  And she is really happy where we are now.  We live off the grid.”

“What, you moved from Tsawwassen?”

“Yeah.  Twelve years ago.  Remote island up the coast.  Built the house ourselves. Hammering.  Nailing.  The whole hippy, whole-earth, mountain-man thing.  I even call her Cougar Sally now. ”

“What does that mean, built the house yourself? You can’t build.”

“Can now.  Read books.  Asked questions.  Listened to the answers for once.  Sal did half, maybe more.  Up on the roof.  The whole shebang.  We could build anything now but, to be fair, it won’t look all that good.  Lot of blood stains.  But it will be structurally good.  Just a smidge ugly is all.  If it has cedar siding, we are on it.”

“Why?”

“Why build?  Well, we felt we had to.  Or I did, anyway.  Some sort of ‘a man’s gotta do’ kinda thing.  Mind you, I wouldn’t have been able to finish without Sal so it was something I had to do and she had to help finish.  But here’s something I didn’t know.  If you build it, they will come. That statement from Field of Dreams applies to cabins as well as baseball diamonds in cornfields.  We got peeps and they come in droves.  Like a form of pestilence.  Who knew?”

“I’ve been meaning to ask someone and you are obviously the right person, what does off the grid mean?  I’ve heard that expression  a lot but I don’t get it.  What is it?

“Oh, it’s just a phrase like sustainable development, community building or love thy neighbour.  Means nothing, really.  Nothing you can nail down.  No one can be entirely off the grid anymore but a lot of us are trying to get away from something we seem to embody in the word ‘grid’.  Other people have referred to ‘the man’, or the ‘system’, or Big Brother. I personally think the life we have been brainwashed into believing is a good one is the Big Lie but I tend to the dramatic and coin phrases.  We are basically just looking to shed some of the life-sucking leaches and umbilicals of modern life.  Escape the matrix.  Get ourselves free of the cobwebs and cling-ons, ya know?  By some definitions, it means not on the road system, not on the electrical system, not on the giant water or sewer system. No home delivery.  Out there.  Remote.  Banjo music.

“We are moving away from all the modern systems and blatant consumerism but, of course, not when it comes to food stuffs and petroleum products or quilting materials.  We shop Costco so that we can go visit off the grid in spurts, really.  In a sentence, it is living simply, rurally and Green but unplugging as completely as is reasonably impossible.  And then flying south to Palm Springs for a month in the winter.  But we know people need people. And Sally needs chocolate.  I need scotch.  We are all in this together.  We just want to be as far away from it all as possible, that’s all.  And what happened to Sarah?  I liked her.”

“Well, that is what happened to her, actually.  Everyone liked her.  All the males for sure. Especially my ex-partner.  And she liked them.  And him.  I found out and so she divorced me.  Took half of the half I had left from when Joanne and I split.  Left a lot of debt that I picked up.  And support payments.  I’ve been paying her for almost twenty years, too.”

“She slept around?  And you didn’t tell me?  Twenty years ago?  What kind of a friend are you?”

“You are right.  I wasn’t thinking.  Shoulda been you.  Why not?”

“But why are you supporting her?  Didn’t she run off with your partner?”

“No.  That didn’t last.  They split, too.  She is almost 60 now.  No one is going hire her. She won’t apply anyway.  She has a kid from him.  Not mine.  But my ex partner with my ex wife made a kid for me.  Nice.   Since she is living in my old house and I pay for most of everything, his and her daughter feels a bit like mine.  She isn’t.  But it feels like it.  She won’t talk to her real dad, for instance.  But she talks to me. What can you do?”

“You could quit?”

“You mean, retire?”

“Yeah.  Stop working to earn enough to keep others in a lifestyle to which they feel entitled and just go do what you wanna do?”

“Well, that’s how I got into this mess.  Doing what I wanted to do.  OK, doing who I wanted to do, I mean.  I support three women because I liked to screw them.  Now I pay.”

“Well, you are right.  A man’s gotta pay for having hormones these days.  The provincial NDP won’t have them anymore, you know?  No Damn Penises is what the letters stand for now. But, you are 70 or so, right?  No hormones anyway except grouchy ones is my guess.”

“Hey!  I got ‘mones.  Just slower ones is all.  And I just told you about the Ho’s.  I belong to the Vancouver Club, the yacht club and my house is worth $7 million dollars.  I have a nice car, I winter in Whistler.  OK, I can’t actually ski anymore and my third wife lives upstairs and I live downstairs in our house so that part is not so good but I am pretty well off and I am at the height of my profession.  Does it get any better?”

“No.  Probably not.  Sounds successful to me.  I am glad you have all that money, I really am. I think you are wining at the game you play. ”

“Don’t lie to me.  I know sarcasm when I hear it.  I’m a lawyer, after all.  Are you happy doing whatever it is that you do off whatever island grid thingy you live on?”

“Yeah.  Pretty much.  I chop wood, build sheds, write, watch Netflix on satellite.  Sal and I always have projects to keep us busy and, when that isn’t true it’s because we have guests running all over the damn place.  We are good.  Kids are good.  Health seems alright for now.  Doesn’t sound glamorous, I guess, but it is beautiful out there.  Healthy. Quiet.  Whales.  Ravens.  Sea lions.  We are pretty happy with it.  I am not so sure I could cut the mustard in the city anymore, anyway.  I get a bit jangled by the traffic now, if you can believe that.  Weird.  I used to love traffic.  I used to love the city.  Now, not so much.”

“Damn.  I gotta go.  It was great to see you.  Give my love to Sally.  When you come to town next call ahead, let me know, we can tee something up.  Bye.”