I started this blog because everything about living off the grid was so new at the time.  We were learning and we were learning stuff not commonly or easily learned or taught except by doing; how to build your own house, live (partially, anyway) off the land, make your own electricity and all that comes with the new lifestyle we chose.  We were OTG newbies and keeners and leapt at the adventure that was our new life with energy and enthusiasm.  It was great!

Still is.  In fact, we are still learning and facing mini-challenges all the time. But it dawned on me the other day- “Hey, Sal!  In three more years we will have lived as long off the grid as we did in the cul-de-sac house where the children grew up! In a month or so we will have been here 11 years”.  

“Holy!  It doesn’t seem that long! Feels like we just got here.  Are you sure?” I see her doing the math in her head and then saying, “Ohmygawd!  You are right!  We aren’t newbies anymore, are we?”

“Skill-wise, I’d say we are still pretty wet-behind-the-ears (with blood, usually) and that is because this lifestyle is so much more independent and complicated than our previous choices and because we are older, stupider and don’t have the same energy.  But, basically, we are progressing like we have before only slower.  We aren’t newbies anymore but we are barely achieving sophomore status.  We won’t be any good at this way of life for another twenty years at the rate we are going.”

“I’m OK with that!”  For Sally, attitude is everything.

Sal and I have lived different ‘styles’ several times in the past.  We lived on our various boats for 11 years.  We traveled for a combined three or so years not counting Hong Kong.  We lived in a mansion in Shaughnessy for three more and a few apartments as well.  We only really went mainstream for 19 years – 5 years in a Richmond suburb and almost 14 in the cul-de-sac neighbourhood of Tsawwassen.  Child-rearing years.  Those two stints in the normal lane felt twice as long, this one feels like we arrived last year.

I think we are good here for at least another 15 years.  Sal would be good for another 30 if it weren’t for me but I will try to drag her wherever I go (except to an old-folks home).  By the time I am 80 or so, I may opt for something a bit easier.  “So, where would we go and what would we do if we left here?”

“Not ever leavin’ here!”  Attitude, eh?

After much discussion, she relented to leaving ‘here’ for four months or so in the winter and living in a nice motor home so long as she can spend the rest of the time here.  Sorta like what we did this year and last, actually, except this time with wheels.

“Dave, why are you even thinking this way?” 

One of our neighbours whose OTG expertise has been learned and earned over forty years of living minimally, independently and competently pointed out that few up here stayed on past 75.  He opined that the new generation (his and ours) might be good for an extra five.  “By 80, dude, you will be looking for more ease.  Well, not Sal, of course, but you will.  Me, too.  By 80, we are done.”

“Well, by 80, I hope to be done all my projects and still have enough energy to enjoy them working for me.  Anyway, I live with the Energizer Bunny.  I can ride that electric scooter for awhile.”

“OK.  Fine.  Be like that.  Where you going when you are 90?”

“I understand Bhutan is nice to old people………….?”

Eric the car guy is a you-tube star.  Which is somehow very satisfying for him, I am sure.

Occasionally, I get a ‘look-at-me’ sent from him.  Yesterday, I did.  It was on battery maintenance.  I knew most of it but he also showed how using his multimeter to measure stray ‘leaks’ across the top of the battery, one could find battery loss even while the battery just sat.  Put the positive lead on the positive terminal and place the negative anywhere on the top of the battery’s plastic casing and – even tho there should be no charge – THERE WAS!!  I went out to look at my batteries and had anywhere from 3 volts to nine volts discharging across the top of each battery!!  That was a shock.

OK, the voltages are varying and are likely measured in nano-amps but that is NOT the point.  The point is that damn batteries are weird creatures.  Just when you think you have them figured out, ZAP!  They get you. THAT is how batteries age and die, I guess.

Eric suggested using a solution of washing soda to clean the tops which I did but that did not help at all.  I was near some WD40 and so I gave that a shot and the runaway voltages stopped!  Who knew!?

“Does it matter, if it is only milli-amps?”  Probably not. My solar array is pumping in gobs of juice these days and so what if I ‘spill’ a bit.  Everything is fine.  Still, it is weird to discover yet another way in which OTG electrical systems can go rogue on you.

I heard from a reader yesterday who is planning on doing something OTG in future.  He’s 61.  Time to make the move.  Another reader (mid 50’s) is already up this way and looking around. He’ll find something I am sure.  Has the exodus begun?  No, I don’t think so.  If there is ever to be a mass migration from urban to rural I think there will have to be a catalyzing event.  Moving without a strong nudge just isn’t in our nature.  A body at rest tends to stay at rest.  A body in motion tends to stay in motion.  The fellow already up here has been motor-homing for awhile and so he is a body-in-motion and breaking that primary and inherent inertia seems to be the biggest step.  He’s done that.  He’ll make it.

“Was it like that for you?”  I like to think I am different but I am not.  My need to change places and have an adventure could have been sidelined by the TV and my comfy cul-de-sac chair.  I seem to recall sinking deeper and deeper at one point.  But the BIG family trip we took the kids on through N.A and Europe by motorhome started me moving again and once moving, the cul-de-sac lost all appeal.  So I, too, needed a catalyzing event.  I am grateful for having had one.

In other words: waiting for it to happen will NOT make it so.

“Maybe I prefer just the dream…?”  Nothing wrong with that.  Talking to the guy still at the planning stage reminded me of how much fun it was to plan, learn, dream and take baby steps.  In retrospect I would suggest that 25% of the overall reward was derived simply from the dreaming stage.  I have no problem with that nor even limiting it to that. But getting going, actually making the move, putting physical energy into it..well, that is when it starts to take on a life of it’s own.  That is when the adventure gets a little scary and the adrenaline starts to flow.

And, in the beginning, when the energy starts to flow, it is usually a bit misdirected, varying, random and rogue efforts like the little leaks across the battery.  The key is to eventually direct that energy through the proper terminals and power up what needs powering up.  If you don’t, your battery can go dead on ya from simply leakage across the casing while doing nothing but sitting there.

Like that metaphor, did ya?

Got back late Tuesday.  Took it easy.  Too much stuff to schlep in one day so we left 95% of it in the trailer and truck focused on just getting home with the perishables and getting the house ‘on’.  Temperature inside the house: 10C.  First job; start the warm-up, then to the power-on panels, then to the water system.  Everything kicked up as expected.  Then to the freezer and fridge.

Couple of odd readings on the electrical panel but I don’t trust electrical stuff at the best of times and things powered up despite the weird readings.  How could I have 59.2 volts in a 48 volt system?

At 9:00 pm that night we remembered a critical item that needed fetching.  Started one of the boats (first go, thank God) and zoomed across the sea in a brightly moonlit but icy cold night.  Returned an hour or so later.  Forgetting something in the car was a mini adventure and we both felt very alive for it.  OK, it was nothing, really.  And yet it was something.  Maybe just a beautiful way to feel that we were home again?

Three hot water bottles in the bed and, after a long day, it was time to join them.

Next day we went to schlep stuff but first we had to get the other boat going (which we did first go, thank God).  And off we went for the first of four or five trips.  On this trip we took half the double-paned windows that weigh between 80 and 150 pounds each (depending on size).  Got ’em on Sal’s small boat at the beach and came across.  Got ’em up on the far shore and Sal started to go back in her boat and I just finished up.  I took a few extra minutes.  Sal was gone.  By then my boat had gotten stuck so I jumped to shore and pushed off.  And then I leapt for it.  I missed.  I was hanging in the water holding on to the boat with one arm and we were now drifting off.  Not good.  One arm was not going to get me back in the boat so I let go and sank lower in the water than I liked…I was wearing a lot of layers and they soaked up the water to the point that I felt like I was swimming in jello.  I made it back to the shore but had to ‘land’ on a fairly vertical but barnacle-covered wall of granite.  I stuck like a limpet.

Huffing an puffing and feeling like a very stupid limpet, I rested for a bit.  The thirty or so feet I swam had taken some effort.  Letting go to get to a better purchase was not easy to do.  I felt like I weighed twice what I do.  Letting go seemed like just dropping a lead weight in the water. So I searched and found my inner amoeba.  Spreading myself gelatinously over as large an area of sticky granite as I could, I then concentrated on wiggling the jello-blob (me) and using my fingers in unison to slowly make my way up the beach. Think ‘speed of a star-fish’.

By then Sal had returned wondering what was keeping me.  Barely suppressing a smile, she asked, “Wanna go get changed?”

“Nah.  We just have one more load of glass and you need me for that.  Plus I left the truck within the tidal range….wouldn’t want to leave it there too long”. So, I clambered in my boat weighing a ton and we went over and loaded her boat and took the truck up the hill to await another day.  Two trips plus a dunking would be enough for now.

Bloody Murphy.

’Twas brillig, and the slithy toves

Did gyre and gimble in the wabe: All mimsy were the borogoves,

Tim Geithner’s book Stress Test is illuminating already- and I am only half way through.

He was chair of the NY Federal Reserve and an advisor to Bill Clinton.  He also became Obama’s Secretary of the Treasury.  He was one of three executive BIGGIES during the recent financial crisis and Tim never even got his degree in economics.

His book is mostly about dealing with the American capitalist system and doing so as it grew to encompass all the countries over the last few decades in the phenomenon known as globalization.  The first half is about how he ‘learns on the job’, follows the practices of those whom he followed and how the world of capital and the economies embracing it, are basically out of control.

I think the second half is about how he and two others captained the world through 2007/08 despite not knowing very much about what would work or not.

‘Course he has yet to actually use those words but he he writes of ‘bubbles’, crashes, recessions, depressions and the like throughout.  He seems to expect financial chaos as part of the system.  And he openly admits his lack of understanding.  He talks of “no one really understanding the complexities of derivatives and credit default swaps and all the fancy financial instruments that have been allowed to proliferate”.  And he talks about the inherent inabilities of regulatory bodies to influence much.  This is kind of telling when you consider that understanding and regulating the banks and Wall Street was the job he was always hired to do.

He also told about the International Monetary Fund riding to the rescue of faltering economies with strict economic reforms attached to the rescue only to change their minds half-way through their work.  The over-riding impression: no one really knows what the hell was going on before the 2007/08 crash and I am inclined to surmise that none of them has gotten much more learned since.

But, never mind.  The world’s economies revolve around confidence and manipulations and that is psychology on a monumental scale.  I doubt that any one person  –  especially economists and bankers (not known for their expertise or even empathy with the humanities) – could have a grasp on such matters at any time.  George Soros, maybe.

“So, what is your point, Dave?”

Well, to paraphrase Rafe Mair, “Never overestimate the abilities of experts”.  Basically, that means that the people in charge don’t know what they are doing.  Which isn’t news, really.  But Geithner is pretty open about it.  They just ‘wung it’ during the financial crisis and, in the short term, it seems to have worked.

In the long term, it won’t.  It can’t.  Impossible.  Very briefly: all economies are now linked and yet none of them are equal.  In fact, the capitalist system is based on having inequalities and it has built-in mechanisms to keep it that way.  Thus one can expect financial chaos to be forever present somewhere.

Being linked means inequities and people revolt over that kind of thing.  If they don’t revolt, they at least migrate and that is already happening on a massive scale as the rurals go urban, the southerners go north and the easteners and the westerners get riled up (Islam).

And don’t forget: all economies are based primarily on the ups and downs of confidence and who has that?

Do you have confidence in the system?

Well, yeah.  You do.  Otherwise you would be buying bullets instead of bargains at Costco.  But is your confidence high?  Probably not. Most people are feeling the financial pinch and the main message in the news is fear.  One would have to be ridiculously Pollyanna-ish to remain bullish and optimistic in the face of what they see and experience around them.  Especially given climate change.

But we are not the gauge by which to judge.  Think about the Muslims.  Think about the Africans.  Think about the average Asian or Indian or Pakistani or Russian.  Think about the ‘drug-cartel’ managed countries of Central and South America. The only reason most of those folks aren’t showing the signs of lessening confidence in their system is because they had very little in the first place.   Economic globalization is exacerbating that sense of insecurity already and many of them are leaving for safer and higher ground – namely, here.

I can’t help but see it this way………the ship is sinking slowly and all the lifeboats have been launched or are being lowered.  But there are way more passengers than there is room in the lifeboats. And the weather is bad and promising to get worse.  Now THAT is basic economics – supply and demand  – all in a bad and unpredictable climate.

Don’t believe me?  Read Stress Test.

We’re kinda funny…in an old geeky-cum-hippy kind of way.

I went into a store yesterday and bought four jars of O’Keefe’s heel cream (for split heels) and the old crone (older than me by at least ten years) asked me why I would buy four.  “We live off the grid.  If I’m going to buy one, I buy at least two and, if my wife isn’t around, I’ll buy four.  In that way, my storage shed fills up.”

“Why do you want your storage shed to fill up?”

“Well, you know….when the world goes all to hell, I’ll have extra heel cream…or whatever…to last me.”  

“How long do you think you have to last?”

“A year.  Maybe two.”  

“Then what happens?”

“I’m out of heel cream.”

She smiled and suggested I should maybe get a few more (since my wife wasn’t with me) just in case things weren’t put back together in the two years I had allowed.  I thought about it but resisted.  I didn’t want to look crazy.

Stroking her wrinkly, 80 year-old cheeks with both hands, she said, “Let me give you a tip, dear….you know, for your storage shed….get some coconut oil.  It’s great for keeping your skin smooth.”

“Well, that is fine for you.  Beauty is important to a woman.  But I am already ugly and smooth skin isn’t going to help me, especially if the world has gone to hell.”

“But smooth heels will?”

In many of our interactions around the city, our living off the grid comes up in conversation.  I admit that I am inclined to let it slip out rather easily but, to be fair, that fact-of-our-life seems to affect a lot of transactions.  “Do you ship this stuff?”  “Depends. How far away are you?”  And so it starts….

“Oh, God!  This is the best chutney I ever tasted!  Can I get a jar of it?”  “We make it ourselves for our restaurant but how much do you want?”   “Will it keep for  a year?”  “Why do you want it to keep for a year?”  And on it goes………

It’s fun.  People are always interested in where we live.  We get to answer the same questions over and over.  Hard to beat that for entertainment, eh?  But the real fun part is hearing about how they, themselves or their friend, parents, neighbours or co-workers, are always talking about getting off the grid.  Their lack of knowledge usually prompts me to get a little crazy.  “Do they know what off the grid really means?”

“Well, like not paying BC hydro or watching TV.  Right?”

“Close enough.”

“So, you don’t watch TV!!??  You don’t pay Hydro??  So, what about the internet…?”

“No.  None of that.  We hunt, gather sea food, chop wood, kill bears and grow our own food.  Biggest expense is bullets and bandages, ya know?”

“Oh, I don’t think I could do that.  I like shopping too much.  And I couldn’t live without my sit-coms.  And my husband loves hockey.  We could never do that.”

“Hard to beat cougar huntin’…chargin’ through the bush, dogs a-howlin’, blastin’ away in all directions…and all that blood….pretty fun… Most people have no idea how good BBQ cougar tastes.” 

Eeeeeuuuw… I don’t think we could do that.  My husband has bad knees. And all my girlfriends and I like to do yoga.  I just don’t think we could do all that.  We’ll stay in Kerrisdale, I think.  It has everything we want.”

“Well, if you ever get the urge to kill some bears or something, let me know.  We have a rustic back-woods cabin you could use.  No plumbing, but we got a stink-hole.  Got a skinnin’ shed with a smokehouse attached too.  And I am thinking of making a sweat-lodge if that has any appeal.”  

“Gee, thanks.  Maybe some day…”

I have rants up the wazoo, plenty up my sleeve for a long time to come, actually.  But I am thinking this one may be my last (or near to last) to go public.  Only a fool paints his butt red and wiggles it at a bull.

When Bill C-51 is passed and Canada’s secret police have even MORE powers (which, by the way, should be read as Canadians having FEWER personal powers, rights and freedoms as citizens), then expressing myself freely will no longer be legal.  I am sure I will be able to express myself in some way but I’ll have to get a permit first and be vetted by security. They’ll screen me.  I’ll have a ‘file’. They may haul me in and hold me in jail for whimsical reasons – because they won’t need any real reasons.  They may even taser me for resisting arrest and striking an officer – which will not be true (not the first time, anyway) – but they will say it and that seems to be good enough for what will soon be our justice system. The government bully is just getting even more belligerent.

But you already know that.  C-51 is in the news and you know it is wrong.  Don’t you?

So, here is the rant-cum conspiracy theory: We have had no terrorist attacks in Canada since the Squamish Five blew up a shack in the wilds of BC.  We’ve had nut-bars going on shooting sprees or buying pressure cookers but, of course, we have had those almost as long as the US has.  Marc Lepine was the closest we came to a terrorist but he doesn’t count as a terrorist because his war was with women rather than the government.

Admittedly, the odd nut-bar has identified with some political terrorists and dressed up in funny garb to affect the ‘look’ but none of our home grown nutters were affiliated in any way with any organization whatsoever.  And the government knows this.

But they want more powers anyway.  As soon as C-51 passes they will get them.  They do not want us to resist that bill.  And so they skew the news reports.  Maybe even make them up?  And the media is complicit.  And they pump the propaganda.  And we are manipulated and truth and honesty and facts are lost while fear and prejudice is fomented. It is blatant.  It is planned. It is evil.  And we are falling for it.

Today I read that some remarkably fit-looking fellow wearing a face-covering dressed in an exceptionally clean and neat camo jacket spoke on an alleged terrorist video representing the al Shabaab terrorist campaign in Somalia (probably the only well-fed, clean Somalian in the country).  Our video’d terrorist referred to an attack on the West Edmonton Mall (WEM).

Right.  A Somalian terrorist threatens the WEM at precisely the time our nation is contemplating imposing a police state by way of new legislation?  Could the timing be any better?  Or could the timing be so good as to be implausible?  I think the latter.  Canada is NOT above black flag operations and this sure smells like one to me.

Again – don’t get me wrong.  There are such things as terrorists.  They do horrific things like beheadings and stuff.  They shoot people.   They are bad.  Mind you, we shoot people, too.  And our allies do beheadings (Saudi Arabia) and we all do horrific things when we want to or need to but I get it; we do bad things because we are the good guys and they do bad things because they are the crazy bad guys.  Simple really.  We are good.  They are bad. Let’s kill ’em.  Not only are we doing good work, we get their oil.

So, where is the doubt coming from, Dave?

I have no doubt.  I know how it works.  Us against them.  Harper is just telling us the truth. They lie.  So we kill ’em. What’s not to like?

The problem for me is that we are actually and obviously lied to by our own government in so many ways. All the time.  They feel the need to lie to us, manipulate us, control us, take our rights, freedoms and sense of well-being.  They fear-monger us.  They push propaganda on us. They tax us and restrict us and watch us and even arrest and taser us and, for the life of me, I don’t understand that because we are clearly NOT the enemy, the enemy is an obviously nasty but well-dressed Somalian or an ISIL member.

Now, to be fair, and if I am being honest…..I, personally, have never suffered at the hands of a Somalian.  Or ISIL member.  Or any terrorist in Canada.  I know, I know, the terrorists are evil and they behead people but, well, I haven’t seen it.  Not up close. But I have seen our police taser and kill innocent people.  I have heard Harper’s outright lies and blatant propaganda. And I see our armed forces bombing them.  That has to make one think….no?

But do I have doubts about our government and it’s intentions?  Of course not; we are the good guys and they are the bad guys and they need to be killed and we need to be lied to for our own good.  Get used to Harper taking care of you that way, it is only going to get worse.

Our boat is out of the water, stored on the hard.  We put it up when we leave for a month or more.  Pull the transom plug and let ‘er rain and drain.  Usually that works just fine.  But I have two boats (and Sal has one more plus a small flotilla of kayaks and dinghys).  One of the boats is kinda permanently stored up on the beach in the manner that is so common to coastal folks.  After a few years the bushes grow up around it and then, after a few more years, there are more and bigger trees and the boat just disappears.   But last month, my permanently-on-the-hard boat almost disappeared ahead of it’s time.  The tides were so high and the storm surge so strong the waves came up higher on the beach than ever before and lifted the boat off it’s cradle.  Had it not been tied, it would have floated off. As it was, my neighbour saw it all askew a few days later and made the effort to re-position it.  Just part of being neighbourly for him.  It is likely fine.

But this global warming thing almost bit me in the boat.

When we get back, something will be amiss.  Always is.  A pilot light won’t start in the stove.  The fridge will stay warm.  Water pump makes noise.  Whatever.  Or, maybe we just forgot something we really needed.  Going home is such a wonderful feeling but Murphy usually adds a little reality to the moment.  Getting re-established and comfortable again usually takes at least all of one day futzing and putzing, fiddling and jury-rigging, making amends with Murphy.   It is rarely ever serious (altho losing the boat could have been…?) but there is always something.

I am kinda looking forward to it.

Kinda.

I like resolving little hiccups, but I am not keen on the catastrophic.  If all the panels fell down, I would be upset. If the water line broke, no biggie.  I can be a handyman and have it going in no time and still get kudos for being manly.  So, arriving is a gamble.  “I wonder how it will go this time…..?”

One thing is pretty dependable – my neighbour.  I call a week before we arrive and ask if it is possible for him to launch the boat and leave it at the other island for my arriving convenience. He always says ‘yes’.  Never a problem.  What isn’t said out loud is the obvious: the boat weighs a ton (with the engine), it is ‘on the hard’ which makes it weigh all that much heavier and it is awkward as hell to re-launch.  My neighbour always makes sure the engine is in running condition, too.  Of course, I leave it ready to go but I know how Murphy works. Nothing starts the first time. There is futzing and putzing and jury-rigging involved there, too.   ‘Course, it was never a mentioned problem for him and all is good and we are supported and befriended as if it was the most normal thing in the world.

And the nice part about it is that it is mostly like that.  We are all mostly like that to each other up there.  It is very, very good.  I miss the place and I miss my neighbours.  I am ready to go home.

And it will be very, very good to get back again for all that.

….well, tolerable few, anyway.  We are getting near the end of our winter sojourn, our hiatus, our respite.  Our big shopping foray.  Our winter dip in the shallow end.  We have stayed our welcome but only just, we could be past it…hard to say. Ten days from now, we begin the trek home and what a convoluted trek that will be taking us first to Victoria before the car points in the right direction. I am getting closer to home by the day and I can taste it.  Homesickness, bittersweet.

Mostly just sweet.  If there is any bitter it is just in the anticipation of creaky bones, aged muscles and loads of loads to carry and schlep when we get home.  We are once again heavily laden from the treasures and junque that will fill the car and the trailer to the brim. We are much less like vacationers and more like outfitters, salvagers and opportunists with too much time on their hands and too much treasure at hand.  Did I tell you I got two more winches?

Seriously, my only limitation to acquisition is the vehicle and trailer capacity and, as you know from last year, I added the roof rack from hell to extend our potential for more and we use it!  This year I cheated and shipped a 1400 pound box by truck and barge.  I could star in Hoarders: the hermit kind.

Sally, usually the voice of reason, has become an enabler.  She ferrets about, collects and finds like I do now.  She no longer complains about a salvage op or a junque trawl.  She’s onside so long as it is NOT in Surrey.  She hates Surrey.  The other day, she elicited a promise from me; “I don’t care if there are ten free, new winches, nine new gensets and a Toyota Tundra with a camper on it, all for free!  We don’t go to Surrey!  OK?  Deal?”

I had to agree.  I have always maintained (even after the first Pit Bull launched itself at Sal only to be stopped by the barbed wired, chain-link fence as it splattered all-legs pressed against the fence) that one could not determine the potential for ‘good junque’ by the neighbourhood.  “Sal, think about it, a person in Surrey could have a good used car, could have a good used tool, some nice salvaged construction materials.  They could advertise on Craigslist like anyone else and have the item of your desire like anywhere else, eh? Why not?”

That argument pretty much won the day twenty years ago when we were looking for a step van (another story) but the legitimacy of the argument eroded as the years yielded one major (and usually scary) disappointment after the other.  I confess to having serious doubts about anything-Surrey for the last few years but I refused to let experience be my teacher.

But Sal became more and more convinced that Surrey was a black hole for honesty and truth.  Even when she saw an ad that looked great and promised even better, she’d say, “It won’t be true.  It’ll be bait and switch. You’ll see.”   And we’d go.  And it was.  Some so blatant you wonder how they can answer the door.

But I mention this mostly because of the new Surrey phenomena of last minute location disclosure.  Seriously.  It is weird.  “So, I saw your ad for an anvil.  The blacksmith’s anvil? On Craigslist?  Do you still have it?”

“Unh.  You better talk to Sam.  He has the anvil for sale.”

“Well, I don’t have to talk to Sam if he still has it.  I can, it seems, just come and see it.  No?”

Unh, like, you better talk to Sam.”

“OK.  Is Sam there?”

“Unh, I dunno….I ‘ll go see….but, like, he likes it that you leave a number, OK?  And then he can phone you back…OK, like?”

“You live in Surrey…right…am I guessing right…?”

“Unh, do you want to leave a number?  Sam says he’ll call you right back.” (……..if you are talking with Sam why not just put him on?…Oh, never mind).  I leave my number and a few minutes later Sam calls.

“Yeah, Sam here.  Ya wanna anvil?”

“Yeah.  That anvil seems the perfect size for me.  About thirty pounds, maybe 40?”

“I dunno, man, its f’ing heavy, like.”

“Yeah, OK.  Give me your address and we’ll come out.  Is today good for you?  Mid afternoon-ish?”

“Yeah.  I’ll be here.  Phone me when you get close and I’ll give you the address.”

“OK.  Fine.  But close to where?  Don’t you have to at least give me a hint as to what is the nearest large intersection or something…”

“Yeah, like, OK…right…unh..we are close to 132nd and 80th ave.  Ya know Surrey?”

“More and more all the time.”

“Huh?”

“Never mind.  I’ll call as we enter your airspace…see you in an hour or so…”

Any one of several scenarios then unfolds: the anvil was sold or was made of ceramic or wood or was out back in the chicken coop near where the Pit Bull was tethered.  They would only open the door an inch and, scanning me with a flinty eye, would only tell me where to look.  The smells wafting out from the door ajar suggested that the chickens lived and died in the house along with them and a gro-op. Sally was pulling on my arm and saying in hissed tones, “See!  What’d I tell you.  Let’s get out of here.”

“Geez, now that we are here, sweetie, don’t you at least wanna see if we can get past the Pit Bull?”

Surrey, BC.  Don’t Craigslist there.

So, anyway, we are going home soon. Lots of stuff.  Wintertime pretty well spent.  But no anvil this time.  Lots of weird stories about Craigslist characters, Surrey neighbourhoods and Sal’s growing bias towards the closer proximity neighbourhoods for buying second hand junque.  And I have to agree with her, I am afraid.  I gave Surrey over twenty years and came up with zip every time.  It’s just that not too many people living in Shaughnessy have second hand old anvils, ya know?.

We went to do a ‘book signing’ the other day at an alternative school.  The kids there don’t do well in ordinary schools and, in some cases, don’t do well at all anywhere.  A friend of ours is a teacher there. We did not draw a big crowd.  Maybe ten or so.

In fact, one kid had to be dragged in.

Ostensibly, I was there to talk about our book.  But I first spoke about me not feeling ‘right’ in the cul de sac, feeling a bit trapped working urban, being a smidge restless for a bit of adventure and, while getting on in years, feeling those feelings even stronger.  Some of the kids paid attention, most looked at the tops of their desks.

I spoke about not really needing the systems that society had to offer, at least not as much as I or most people thought we did. I spoke about being able to grow food, catch fish, build crap and conduct medical responses to my own physical problems most of the time.  Of course, I admitted to living in the system most of my life and I gave credit to the ‘system’ when I used it.

I really just pointed out that I didn’t need or use the support systems as much as I used to. Nor did I want to.  And I pointedly spoke a similar view about so-called education.  I told them I learned better when I was interested and I was never interested while in school.  All the kids were paying attention at that point.  So were the teachers.

So was an ex-nurse.

I spoke about money, jobs, cost-of-living and the umbilicals of life that we don’t really notice if we are born and raised with them – such as telephones, TV, cable, cell phones, internet, roads, electricity grids, plumbing and sewage and the BIG networks of health, education, politics, employment and living that we are so enmeshed and invested in without really being aware.  I spoke about the beauty of the forest and the feeling of being alive when outside even though I confessed to spending time writing my book and watching cheap B flicks at night.  I guess I conveyed a sense of balance…I don’t know…I was just wingin’ it and talking about our book and our life.

Some of the teachers asked questions.  One of the questions was about our dog.  Sal went and brought Fiddich in.  He has a presence.  The classroom came alive.

I talked about rebelling, swimming against the current, taking risks, NOT planning, leaving the herd and all that ‘freedom’s-just-another-word-for-nothing-left-to-lose’ kind of stuff you might expect from a guy wingin’ it and the the kids themselves started asking questions.

On the face of it, I was a bad influence.  Given another few minutes, I might have advocated dropping out of school and finding a carnival or tramp steamer to sign on with. The interesting part was that the teachers would likely have been the first to sign up!

Of course, it is easy to advocate taking alternative actions in an alternative school.  Even if the teachers were NOT receptive (but they were), I could always hide behind the fact that it was, in fact, a place for alternative thinking and learning that was also in essence what the book was about.  I could safely advocate risk without risking criticism or the bums rush.  In effect, I was a poseur except for the fact that we had done it.  I certainly had no alternatives to offer the kids (or the teachers).  I could only tell our story.

But the result was that all but one of the kids got engaged.  All of them asked questions (even the kid who was dragged in).  All of them made eye contact and laughed at the stupid stuff (there was a lot of stupid stuff).  And the teachers were surprised.  The teachers were actually shocked to see the drag-in so engaged.  The idea of Alternative was connecting with everyone, teachers, students, everyone.  It was good.

We left and went to our car so that we could go shop at Costco.  The kids went back to class.  The ‘life’ moment had passed.  Fleeting, like Boson-Higgs.