We have a Pathfinder.  1996.  Almost 200,000 kms.  It starts.  It goes.  It carries.  In fact, except for the usual suspects (brakes, exhaust, bulbs, belts and tires) it seems to be pretty much all one could ever need in a vehicle (‘cept for the odd rodent).

It ain’t shiny. It ain’t pretty.  It’s got more than few wrinkles and bumps to mark it’s life here on earth but, all in all, it wears a coating of dirt as well as any other vehicle.  I like it.  Sal likes it.  Fid knows ‘his’ car in a parking lot.  The old Pathfinder seems good for another 100,000 kms.  Except…..well……

Landcruiser sounds better…….G-wagen sounds good, too.  So does crew cab.  I’d love to find a slightly larger, maybe more macho SUV.  Black.  Ya know?  (on Natural gas, of course).  I keep filling the old PF to the rafters and then spilling on up to the roof rack. Sometimes we have even filled the old utility trailer past the maximum rating by scary amounts, too.  And then pulled it behind the stuffed PF. There have been times when you couldn’t have squeezed a loaf of Wonder bread into the vehicle it was soooooooo loaded up.

So….do I need a new vehicle?

I don’t think so.  I really don’t.  I only need to get from A to B now and then and to carry a whole lotta crap while doing so.  And I am doing that quite well, thank you very much.

Sooooo…….why am I feeling as if I need to buy?

I don’t think it is peer group pressure.  If PGP had any effect on me, I’d be slimmer and more polite, at the very least.  I’d dress better, for sure.  It ain’t status.  I can assure you of that.  Mostly because I equate more status to an old vehicle in good nick than what a tub full of cash can buy off a showroom floor.

It just MIGHT be the moving cornucopia of ‘sexy’ cars and trucks out there, tho.  They do look good compared to Ol’ Poofy, I’ll give you that.  But, seriously…….

I had an hour to kill and went to a Chinese foot massage place (always a treat) and got mildly tortured by a nice monolingual Asian woman just a smidge too keen on upgrading me to a full body massage.  I resisted her fetching smile with remarkably little difficulty, actually.  But I got to talking to the guy massaging the person next to me.  He is a recent Chinese (mainland) immigrant.  He works 7 days a week starting at 10:00 am and not quitting until 11:00 pm!  “Why the hell, William, do you do that?  That’s no life!”

“Aaaaahh……I know!  Car payments!  Gas!  Bills.  Gotta pay the bills, eh?”

“You buying a house?  In this market!  You can’t rub enough feet to buy a house in Vancouver, man!”

“No!  No house! (recent immigrants often speak with exclamation marks at the end of their sentences for no real reason that I can discern). I just buy ‘spensive new car!  Car cost money. Lots of money!  I pay for car!”

“Shoot!  What kinda car you driving, dude?”

“Lessus!  Leck sas?  Luk sis?”

“Lex-us, William.  Lex-us.  You better keep rubbing, William, old boy.  And welcome to the wonderful world of consumerism.  You’ve got a lot of feet in your future and a long, long way to go.”

I walked out of there with nice feet and no desire for a shiny car.  What a deal!

In town a month already.  Getting acclimated.  Driving faster, getting impatient.  Needing car repairs.  Using enough fuel to warrant a protest group of my own.  But….it’s good.  It’s all good.

You know…feeling and being alive….doin’ stuff….writin’ about it…?

Car repairs?  Well, that’s a weird one – a mouse, rat or squirrel made a nest on my engine at some point (URBAN RODENT!) and chewed on the distributor cap and wires to ‘settle in’ and, because of that, caused the car to miss and flash warnings.  $500 later and a stray cat strapped to the air cleaner and we are good to go.  Cat’s a bit noisy but so is the whole of the city – you just have to learn to tune it out…ya know?

I am ‘doing business’ and it feels a bit like old times.  I even bought a couple of dress shirts.  But there is no going back.  I don’t fit.  Not really.  Still, I am accepted as an older experienced guy in the role I have now and people sometimes say ‘sir’ and that sort of thing.  It’s weird but it is also illuminating to learn that so much that one has learned over the years is actually NEWS to young people!  Simple, basic lessons on life, business, whatever, still has to be passed on to the next generation and, for the last forty years, I WAS that next generation.  Now I am the GRAND or ‘last’ generation.  Now I get to pass stuff on.

‘Course none of it is necessarily correct, true or even relevant to what they are asking about but I pass it on anyway.  One of the nice things about getting old is you don’t really care all that much about what you say.  I can tell the younger ones anything!

No sexual advice, tho.  That topic has gone way beyond me.  I don’t get it.  50 shades of grey?  I am still trying to be a good missionary.  I am way out of it!

Some of my advice will work, tho.  I am pretty sure.  Maybe half.  About the same as a coin toss, actually.

One odd feeling: I may have done my last mediation……it was good.  I liked them.  They got sorted.  It was a good experience all around.  Friends were made.  All good.  But…well, hard to say, really…..I charge $300 an hour and it just wasn’t worth it…NOT for me, anyway.  It wouldn’t have been worth it at twice that.  TIME is what I value now.

I dunno….I never really became a mediator for the money and I only raised the rates to ‘cut back’ on the work but no one is worth $300 an hour in a world like ours (especially me) and that includes the Sedins (both of them!).  There are people who don’t make that in a year!

And Harper should be paying us!

I usually do about five hours of work to bill one hour but, even at that, I am NOT working for the money.  I work from interest.  Always have.  Most people do when they think about it.  And I am no longer that interested in the ordinary disputes in life and small business and that was my area of expertise as a mediator.

And if you are not interested, you are NOT good.

It is time to quit unless something BIG comes along.  I’d go to Syria.  I’d go to Ukraine.  I’d even go to Hong Kong or Ferguson, MIssouri but nano-disputes no longer turn me on.  I need a war or something.  And, to be frank, I’d be too scared to be much good mediating ISIL maniacs or Boko Haram, so my curiosity is way, way larger than my courage.

Time to retire again, I guess.  I’ll be checkin’ out again as soon as these current young people I have bamboozled catch on……

Issues come and go and that is to be expected.  We don’t have long attention spans in a world full of attention-getting advertising and news delivered in 15 second dollops.  We have been acculturated to mentally move on if, for no other reason, there is so much drivel backed up waiting to be downloaded into our brains, we have to.  We are being force fed infotainment.  I came to know that profoundly while living off the grid.

Living off the grid was always busy for us.  Always.  We had things to do and they all required learning and doing and physical work (which takes us longer as we age).  Our days were full but were never jammed or hectic mentally.  Our days were relaxing even when physically challenging.

Our days were also pretty balanced.  We had first to dream, to think, prepare, work, maybe clean up and then review and then (often) repeat the process just to get the simplest of things done.  The only demands were self-imposed. It was a natural pace of doing things.  The big difference: we were only REACTIVE after we had had a chance to do it once.  And, even then, our ‘reaction’ required re-thinking as well.  And, even then, we reacted at our own pace.

The city is different.  Most of the time you are instantly REACTIVE in the city.  You are ‘reactive’ to schedules, traffic and, of course, the incessant demands of others for your attention. You do not take time to think.  There is no time.  Having a chance to think is, surprisingly, an option or a luxury – something that seems to disappear with urban immersion.  Even the urbanite’s weekends are filled with ‘catching up’ on chores or social engagements. Spending time ‘contemplating’ becomes so rare as to disappear for many people.

I know that, for myself, I spent the bulk of twenty or thirty years in ‘reaction’ mode and my idea of ‘turning it off’ was to turn the TV on.  And then I would ‘react’ to what was being aimed at me.

And again – in the city, at this writing, I am now almost fully booked for the next three weeks.

If you have any doubts about all this, ask yourself the following question: “What were the ten biggest news stories of the previous year (2013)”?  Name one from 2011.  Ask yourself what you did six months ago that was ‘different or out of the ordinary?”  I hope you have some semblance of answers but most of us are on cruise control and it all blurs into a morass of nothing.

Well, it did for me, anyway.

But when you write a blog (or, better put: when I write a blog) I always start with, “What is in the back of my head?”  I know what is up front and demanding but I want to consider what is still there and yet NOT getting my attention.  Today it is police behaviour.

I think police behaviour has gone way, way out of control.  And that is, collectively, an insidious act of social change – but we hardly notice.  And that is just plain weird.  I am making a guess here but I would opine that more people are killed by the police than by criminals in Canada.

Some old lady police protester in Ferguson, Missouri was quoted as saying, “The police are the biggest single danger to the security and safety of the populace in the USA!”

The other day the Vancouver police shot and killed a 57 year old man wielding a two by four standing in the middle of an intersection.  Clearly mad.  Admittedly, they first tried to subdue him with bean-bags from a shot gun but then they just shot him dead.  What kind of ‘training’ is required if they resort to killing at the drop of a hat?

Then there was the 12 year old in some US city playing openly with a BB gun (pistol) and the police arrived and shot him dead within a second of their arrival.  Seriously.  NOT two seconds.  No talking.  No ‘get on the ground now!’ crap.  They just pulled up and shot him from the car.  Dead.

And that is something to think about.  THAT is really something to think about.  Why are ordinary men (they must be to get in to the police force, one should think…..) killing unarmed citizens to such an extent that it is creeping up the consciousnesses of even old ladies?  And me?

More to the point – ask yourself how close you are to being screamed at (GET ON THE GROUND NOW!) and, not having a clue as to why the officer is ‘out of his mind’, responding with “what is the problem, officer?  I’ve done nothing!” …..and then…..being shot?  The possibility of that kind of madness is increasing.

If a Hell’s Angel walks up to you and appears angry, you might get a beating.  If it’s a police officer, you might be killed.

Does that make any sense?

OK…this is unexpected, I am sure.  But I have to say it: Kangaroos are here and having their way with us! Kangaroo courts beget lynchings and we are definitely watching lynchings and letting them happen.  Therefore…watch out for kangaroos!

What I mean by that: allegations are not fact.  Allegations can be just gossip.  If someone alleges a crime was committed, an investigation should take place and a proper trial convened.  The alleged victim has to come forward. Evidence has to be presented. Anything else is just rumour or gossip, however compelling the story.

The above is written knowing full well that alleged victims can be telling the truth but are hesitant to come forward and often for understandable reasons.  Women are especially reluctant to describe personal violations even if the intimacy was not wanted or expected. It’s embarrassing at the very least.  It can be traumatically scarring.  Fraud victims feel similarly.  They feel stupid for being so naive or trusting.  Their wounds can be more than just financial, too.

But others cannot pay the social and legal price for a crime they may not have committed. That is blatant injustice and, to my mind, that kind of injustice trumps embarrassment, humiliation and monetary loss. As I write this, the current rash of accusations serving as judgments is a travesty of any kind of justice and we are now all accomplices to that very real crime if we don’t at least speak out.

I am not alone in thinking this way – it is the basis on which our criminal legal system operates. It is a fundamental premise in all law.  Proof is required. The accused has to know the accuser.  It’s tough for everyone but so was the alleged crime and so is the possible judgment.  Crime is not nice and no amount of dancing around it or coddling will make it better.

All of the above, I believe, will be agreed to by most thinking individuals but I want to considertwo other elements as well.  Time and changing standards and basic primal motives – the kind that no laws have effect on.

Firstly, what constitutes sexual harassment today was considered normal behaviour less than thirty years ago. Women were subjected to sexual inequality in many ways and it was the norm.  That does not make it right nor does it make it better but what might constitute a crime today may have been just considered a ‘pass’ or ‘naughty behaviour’ a few decades ago.

And men make passes at women all the time.  It is natural.

For instance: forty years ago a man might pat or pinch a woman’s bottom as she walked by.  That might have been pushing the social envelope even then, but it seems to be an indictable offense today.  Whether it was as bad or damaging as currently alleged by feminist politics is not the point – the point is social behaviours change.  People change with them. Something viewed in retrospect misses the context.  And context counts.

The longer the time interval the less credible the allegation.  Another basic premise in law.

Mind you, rape is always rape.  Child molestation was and always will be a crime.  Some things have no statute of limitations.  But sexual harassment does.  Or should.  Hell, there was not even such a term forty years ago.  We have come a long way, baby!

Which brings me to my most contentious point:

By and large (although not so much today) men pursued women and women allowed themselves to be caught.  Or not.  Women attracted as many men as possible and then rejected the ones they didn’t want.  It was the natural order of things.  But what that meant was that an attractive woman would attract some (if not many) unwanted suitors and sometimes they were unwanted because they weren’t very nice.  Society had norms and standards for that and sometimes even chaperons.  The sexual ‘danger’ an attractive woman was in was well understood.

Muslim cultures even clothe women from head to toe in black blankets because of it.

But (here it is) why is it that men aren’t nice?  Why did we and why do we still operate as if men are a danger?

Answer: because we are!  Men are trying to get into the gene pool any way they can.  It is natural.  It is instinctive.  It is the way men are wired.  And some men try harder than they should or than is expected or wanted.  Some go to unacceptable lengths.  It is the way of us.  ‘All men are pigs’ is an expression meaning simply that they are driven by their hormonal urges and, to a women, that can be and is a danger.  It’s not nice but it is natural.

We may even deem it illegal and socially unacceptable a lot of the time but it is still mostly hormone-driven (yes, there are some guys who are just nuts).  So the point…? Behaviour has to be regulated for a society to function but, perhaps, ruining a person (and their family) for succumbing to primal biological urges is an over reaction.

And ruining a person for an allegation is just plain wrong on every level.

Consider the justice or injustice being played out lately in Canada by our politically correct politicians (but this has been going on for decades in so many venues.  One of the most memorable for me was the SFU coach who was accused by Rachel Marsden who then went on to accuse others of the same thing only to eventually be proven completely mad. She had a mental problem.  Not them.  But the men accused were ruined for a long time).

Ottawa: Two women were allegedly sexually assaulted some time in the past.  It must have been horrible for them but they managed to recover to the extent that they have normal lives today and are even successful. They are so successful they are MPs in parliament. They are OK by societal standards – they have the votes to prove it.  At some point they decide to tell their story but do not want to go public.  They need to talk about it. Fair enough.

Justin Trudeau is told the story and decides (after consulting with senior lawyers in his cabinet) that if the allegations are true and he does not act, he will be vilified.  So he literally ‘outs’ the accused MPs.   He knew the difference between a political rock and a hard place but that is clearly all he knows.  And he acted out of concern for himself – not on behalf of all women.  Nor on behalf of justice or the accused.  Nor on our behalf.   In that way, he failed all of us except himself.

The two accused MPs are ruined.  They have no forum in which to be heard.  They have no one to appeal to.  They are punished well beyond the scope of the alleged crime.  We left them to be convicted by kangaroo courts.

Justice and the law have been rent asunder.  Trudeau is ‘believing’ the words as they were told to him on a bus without the proof, without a trial, without the accused having a chance to defend.  No cross examination.  No hard questions.

And we, the people, are accepting of that?  We who have tried to live within the law are accepting of some blatant kangaroo court conducted in the media!?

What the hell is wrong with us?

Part two.  Some of the problem is that even I believe the allegations a bit.  Why?  Because ‘piggy’ behaviour is essentially part of the male human animal.  Plus we seem to have a lot of such stories lately which may say something about the media as well.  Mostly it speaks to the human condition – whether we like it or not.

Men have an XY chromosome and, if you read about it, the weird Y is a miserable little mess of things compared to the female X chromosome.  Someone born with two X chromosomes is much more likely to behave like another 2X person than are two people with XY chromosomes.  XYs are different because the Y’s are kinda whacked.

I know that the above can read like an apologist point of view and that it will be condemned roundly for seemingly condoning bad male behaviour.  That is not the intention.  The intention is to point out that bad male behaviour has been with us for a long, long time and it is – whether we like it or not – to some extent natural.

I have no idea why we weren’t created with a consent-first gene but we weren’t.  I think we might be evolving to one as we continue to live (as a species).  Or maybe there will always be bad boys trying to enter the gene pool without permission.  I dunno.

But in the meantime, it seems only right that we at least adhere to the laws of the land as we allow some time for the species to evolve.  If we don’t, we will be over run by kangaroos called Justin.

Off The Grid is, of course, about living OFF the grid, not ON the grid and, since I am currently ON the grid, I should stop writing under this blog title.  But I can’t.  Writing is a habit.  A man’s gotta vent his spleen.

I won’t bore you with the basic urban traffic story anymore.  It is as bad as it has been described in the past and seemingly getting worse.  What a colossal waste of time for everyone.  It took us over an hour to cross the Lions Gate Bridge the other night.  At minimum wage and factoring in gasoline prices, it cost close to a gazillion dollars in wasted time, auto depreciation and operating expenses not counting pollution.  Maybe closer to two gazillion.

We took Fiddich for a walk on the seawall (off-leash section) this weekend (both days) and it was almost as crowded as a Hong Kong sidewalk.  That’s weird.  Dog walking is supposed to be relaxing  – not like commuting in traffic.

Yes, you’ve sensed the theme of today’s post: urban life is crowded, polluted and requires you to smell the butt (or exhaust) of the entity ahead of you while experiencing your butt being too-closely explored by those behind.  Fiddich and I are not amused.  Fiddich, especially, seems put off by all the butt-sniffing going on.  As a dog, he should be ‘into it’ but he is more than hesitant, he is literally shocked at such coarse behaviour.  Walking on the sea wall, for him, is a just one long moving violation.

I feel the same way about traffic.

And I can see why everyone is freaked out by ‘talking-on-the-cell-phone’ all of a sudden.  I have had a car-phone/cell phone since the mid eighties and I just couldn’t understand why all of a sudden it was such a big deal.  But my cell phone was (before I left the city) simple. As in ‘dumb’.  Now the phones are smart and require your complete focus.  Driving and phoning is easy.  Driving and smart-phoning is a major challenge.  Mind you, I am doing it. Like everyone else.  But it is NOT surprising that people are generally unaccepting of that. I am, too.

Even as I do it.

I am, of course, back to filling my car up every other day.  $60-70.  Ka-ching!  That gets old fast. And that’s closing on $750.00 a month!  $1000 before taxes. That cuts into my consulting fees!! The rat race is insane!

But we are ‘restauranting’ again. A bit.  Interestingly, that habit maintains it’s cachet for us and will for a while.  So far, so good.  We’ve had some really good food these past few days and I am not opposed to doing that a few times more.

Our Wfer’s came to join us at the site.  They had been on their own for the last two months on other Wfing gigs.  They got work cleaning up.  They are happy.  Canada has been good to the ‘boys’ and their memories will be good.

Sally has been content to shop, cook, walk and do quilting.  Wants me to pick up some bon bons for her next time I am out.  It is a bit of a vacation for her.  And that’s good.

All in all it is a back to the future kinda thing.  Deja Vu.

Preamble: Part of my management style (*most important part – always do what Sal says) recognizes that people are generally followers.  Especially employees. Leaders cannot lead except by example and the choice to follow or not is made by the people themselves – NOT by the so-called leader-in-gold-braid. If you want to be a leader then initiate something and then get that something done. Someone may help and thus become a follower. They may not.  Either way, you got something done.

And we had to practice what we preach when we were building.  Even tho we had no followers except each other!!  Thank God for our last ten years! Hands-on constructing helps keep it real.

I remember working in offices downtown.  They weren’t quite real.  I wore a suit, a tie, shiny shoes and carried a cell and a briefcase and considered it ‘work’.  And it was in a weird kind of way.  Mental work.

But, if there were a dozen cardboard boxes that needed to go to storage, they just sat in the hallway until ‘someone’ came to get them. Maybe a ‘mover’ had to be called. The truth is just about every office I ever worked in had strong healthy adults working there, too. Some of them fitness buffs.  But no one would move the boxes.

Moving boxes to storage was somehow ‘beneath’ their station.

I am consulting with a firm right now for a short period.  Very short. A bit of a re-org. Change: how to get things done (they seem to be a bit slow to take action).  Been there a week.  “So, I’ve known you guys for over thirty years and the plants in the office are exactly as I remember them.  Are they real?”

“Yes.  And I hate them.  OMYGAWD I hate those plants.  Always half-dead, always the same.  Aaaaarghhh!”

“So, why not chuck ’em?”

“I have given up asking for that to happen.  Been asking for years.  It never gets done!”

“But you want them out?”

“Yes!”

So, with that, I went to the closet to fetch the little trolley I knew was there, came in and wordlessly loaded the two half-dead plants and trundled them to the elevator.  I took the elevator to the basement and re-orged those corn plants into the dumpster.  Yes, I was dressed-for-success but my tie did not get in the way.  The plants were light enough.  I did not get dirty.  Ten minutes. Done!

When I came back the office was abuzz.  People I hadn’t seen were vacuuming up the shucked and fallen leaves.  Furniture was being rearranged.  My guy had a smile on his face. Someone brought me tea.  A secretary volunteered to get new plants for the office first thing next week.

“So, I said, now how about those twenty cardboard boxes at the other office that have been sitting in the hallway for six months.  Gonna get ’em done?”

The guy looked at me.  And smiled.  “Let’s go get ’em together. They have REALLY been bugging me!  Let’s go now.  I’ll get the key to the storage.”  When he went to the guy who had the key and had NOT moved the boxes in the last six months, that guy insisted on joining us.  Three guys in suits and ties went to the other office and in one hour had ‘gotten the ‘job’ done’.

“Today was a good day!”

Consulting, eh?  Who knew?

My father was in WW ll.  He was very badly wounded.  My father was wounded so badly that he received a 100% disability pension.  That says something when you consider that a soldier who lost both legs would receive an 80% disability pension.  My father kept all his limbs but the damage was still so horrific that he was classed as 100% disabled.

To my way of thinking, 100% disabled is dead.  For much of the first decade after the war, he thought so, too.

My father was totally wrecked and despite the healing, it took him the rest of his life to get near half better.  It took him two years just to get out of the hospital bed and for the next two years after that he was employed at Shaughnessy Hospital as a janitor because he kept collapsing.  It was easier to treat him when he was already there.

I mention all this because I know that he would be disgusted by Remembrance Day 2014 as presented by a government near you. He was very respectful of Remembrance Day but he felt that way because of the soldiers and the victims of war – NOT the government then.  NOT the government now.

He didn’t speak much of the war and, when he did, it was clear: war is hell and there is no glory in it.   He also would have said, “Nor should there be any political gain derived from it!”

Despite the tragedy (and sacrifice) of Cpl. Cirillo, my father would have seen the exaggeration of that nut-bar incident at the Parliament promoted as a quasi-terrorist incident as ridiculous.

My father seethed with anger most of his life but it mostly it just bubbled like lava.  But sometimes it erupted like a volcano.  Hyperbole by politicians would have just raised the temperature a little bit.  Political exploitation, on the other hand, might have set him off like Vesuvius.

He would have grumbled over the tax dollars spent by the Conservative party prior to the nut-bar incident glorifying the war of 1812.  “What the hell are they doing that for?” he would have growled.

And again all the saber-rattling over Ukraine and now Iraq.

And all the government of Canada sponsored TV ads imploring us to remember.

And all the fuss over the Franklin Expedition.  “Who cares about that, anyway?”

He would have been a little bit more riled over the huge Mother of Canada statue proposed to commemorate Canada’s war dead as stupid and ill-considered.  “Why not just help the actual veterans with those millions? Or equip our troops properly?”

But I think he would have been very angry over the whole of it, the cumulative acts by government over the last couple of years to exploit our history for political gain and especially this false alignment of the nut-bar incident with real soldiers in a real war (the victims of the two mental cases are being paraded as soldiers killed on home ground defending our country). 

I think he would have raged at Harper standing in front of poppies and monuments and at commemorations talking nonsense when the veterans themselves would likely string the minister of Veterans Affairs from the nearest tree.

I am pretty sure my father would have erupted at the constant political exploitation of everything Canadian and God help the closest politician to him when that happened.

The reason I can say all this is because I, too, am nauseated by all this pomp and hypocrisy being trotted out as some kind of patriotic Canadian-ism.  It is not.  We are being victimized by political boosterism.  It’s propaganda in a uniform. This is USA-type nationalism to glorify our nation and, by association, our current government.  It is sickening.

We can be proud of being Canadian all by ourselves, thank you.

If my father’s story is anything to go by (and he was there and he paid the price), war should not be glorified.  Not ever.  Victims should never be exploited for politics.  The general population should not be so easily manipulated as they are (record turnouts for Memorial Day ceremonies thanks to the manipulation of the story for the politicians to ride the tunics of the soldiers).  We are a free people and we should exercise that freedom to think for ourselves and NOT allow ourselves to be brainwashed by crass, self promoting politicians.

My father would have said, “Canada is peaceful by nature and that is the way it should be. Any incidents of war were forced on us and let it be left at that. The politicians should stay in the shadows where they belong.  And pipsqueaks like Harper should shut the hell up! 

“Oh, you’re the guy who lives off the grid!”

“Yes.  Yes, I am.  Have we met?”

“No, I am new here but the other staff told me that you were coming in today and they told me that you have solar panels and all that and my husband wants to do that very badly.  He is reading and researching all the time.  I, however, am not so sure.”

“Well, here’s my number.  Give it to him.  I will happily discuss it.”

“Well, we want to buy some land do some farming and live free.  But land is so expensive.”

“The land is actually cheap right now and, compared to farming for a living, that is the least of your expenses.  Farming on the coast is very difficult.  Not a lot of good farmland.  We just seem to grow more rock!  But, if you are looking for a kitchen garden with a few fruit trees maybe and some chickens that is very possible.  Cultivating a half a section is almost impossible.”

“Oh.  I will definitely have him call you.”

He didn’t call.  I don’t blame him.  The dream is almost as good as the doing.  And we all need the dream.  This guy was just turning 50 and his wife, late forties.  So, they may get there.  They may make the leap.  Hard to say.  We’ll see.  But one thing is for sure – the term ‘off-the-grid’ has joined the popular lexicon.  People know the phrase, know what it means and seem to regard the idea favourably.  They aren’t leaving the city in droves but they are dreaming and reading and thinking about it.

I have had to have a lot of meetings at the local restaurant this week (I do not have an office anymore) and so I have come to know their staff as well as the one in a different office mentioned above.  Every time I go in, they ask me about living off the grid but really they want to tell me how hard it is living in the city.  One waitress in her mid sixties drives for an hour and a half to get to her job and then the same amount of time and distance to get home.  That’s eleven to twelve hours of working and slogging time!  In her sixties!  I pointed out the cost of operating the car (at least $1000 per month) and the condo fees ($500/month plus an ‘assessment’ every year of an extra $2000) and asked her why she would work just to drive and pay maintenance?

“What can I do?  I need to pay for my dental work.  I need to save…although we have not saved a penny in ten years.  Actually, we are going into debt!  My husband is working but he is getting fewer hours.  I just don’t know…”

“Move to a small town.  Whatever your condo is worth in the city, it will likely get you a better place in a small town.  You may even be able to walk to work.  The salary is likely a bit less but you will keep more of it.  Spend less time in traffic at the very least.”

“I don’t know.  We have always been city people.”

“Go to the opera a lot?  The hockey games?  Live theater?  You a restaurant freak?”

“No.  We don’t go out anymore.  Can’t afford it.  Too tired.  We watch TV.”

“Spusm has TV.”

“Where’s Spusm?”

“Never mind.  If you can muster the energy and the ferry fare some weekend, go look at Ladysmith or Chemainus or Crofton or even Comox.  Nice places.  Not expensive, ‘cept for Comox.  It is getting pretty popular.”

“Gee.  I don’t know.  My daughter is here.  So is my granddaughter.”

“How old is your daughter?”

“Early 40’s.”

“Old enough, I think, to travel to you to visit you.  No?”

“Oh….I dunno….gee….I just don’t know….I better get back to work….”

“OK.  See ya.”

We are in the city again.  And today was sunny. All in all, a good place and time to be.  A trip to our favourite Indian restaurant and it is a perfect day.  In the city, that is.  I am sure there is such a thing as a ‘nice day’ in jail, too.  Even Hell must have better days than others.  It’s all relative.  But let’s make no mistake – a day in the forest…ANY day in the forest, is better than a day in the city.  Maybe not ANY day in the city but certainly MOST.

As you can tell,  I am already having trouble adjusting.  It could be the traffic.  It could be me.  I am getting older and that adds up.  I used to drive faster than everyone else by at least ten and usually 20kms an hour.  While talkin’ on my phone.  Now I am 10 kms less than everyone else.  I drive in the slow lane.  It is not so much about ability although I know that I am not as Mario Andretti as I used to be, it is more about pace.  I am the pace car now.  No need to race.  No need to hurry.  ‘Oooh, look!  A squirrel!’

OK.  I am not  that bad.  Not yet.  But you know what I mean.  Still, if there is any one thing about the city that hits you in the face like a fish, it is traffic.  And it started at the Parkesville interchange.  One minute we were toodling along with the occasional car ripping by us and the next, we were in bumper-to-bumper traffic.  And thus it has remained all the way to downtown Vancouver (25 minute wait to get on the Lions Gate bridge. Parking just off Broadway was 2 minutes for a dime – $3.00 an hour for street parking!).

We were doing 100 to 110kms along the Upper Levels cheek-by-jowl with people in shiny new cars.  It was like an auto showroom somewhere just exploded.

‘Ooooh, look!  A Ferrari!’

I used to relate to traffic.  It was my language.  I was a driver first, a human being second.  I judged people by the cars they drove.  Not in a bad way.  And usually not women or teens.  But a man’s car says something about him.  Even a company car says well, a ‘company man’…I guess.  One of my best friends drives an 80’s era El Camino.  My son drives vehicles of any sort so long as they do not cost more than scrap value – $500.  I know a guy who drives a big black Suburban!  C’mon!  That says something!

We drive a Jed Clampett-san.  An old Nissan Pathfinder.  With (gasp!) rust!  We are the traffic equivalent of lepers in Vancouver.  People judge us.  But, it’s OK.  They are probably right.  ‘Oooh, look!  Hillbillies!’

The next few weeks are gonna be interesting.

I confess to a bias.  I am getting a bit paranoid.  Call me crazy.