A friend wrote to ask: “Really, what are the benefits of change?”  He, too, is 62 and wondering what retirement might hold in store.  So, I feel compelled to answer.  Not because I know what the hell I am talking about for him but because I know what I am talking about for me and, to be fair, I have been a bit of booster for shaking things up now and then.  I should have some kind of answer for a friend standing on the threshold of change, shouldn’t I?

I am not sure when I retired.  In fact, I am not so sure that I ever have.  Who knows?  Perplexing state of being, actually.  I am still ready, willing and mostly-able to work given that my now outrageous and exacting requirements and personal limitations are met.  One thing is for sure, I am not cheap nor am I much good.  Quite a niche!  You should think twice before recommending me.   In fact, I not only moved out of the very-low-standards-expected-market, I have likely priced myself way, way out of any other type of market as well. 

I sure hope that I have or else I will have to raise my rates yet again. 

I do know that I had lost the will to run with the rats back in 1999.  I was 51 and placing mid-pack at the time.  For some reason, all of a sudden it all seemed so silly.  Still does.  I still needed chee$e, of course, and we were in no position to retire or even, for that matter to lift our noses off the grindstone or to even linger at a rat race watering hole (Palm Springs, Cabo, Whistler) for very long.  But I wanted off the treadmill and the ennui grew. 

I found myself slowing, even faltering at times.  I was being passed by other rats and there were no competitive juices complaining in response.  By the time I was 53 or 54 I simply had no heart for it anymore.  A financial need, perhaps.  Money, after all, ruled at the time.  But I had no heart for that either.  None.    I had to wait for Sal, of course, but the ennui disease was, it turned out, contagious.  Once I was in a swoon, she felt herself fading fast.  We both wanted a way out and cost was not a factor.

As you know, we found it off-the-grid.  I was 56 and living and building on a remote island but still thought of myself as not-yet-retired.  What a nut!  I kept my Vancouver 604 number for four more years. “For my clients!”  Totally delusional on my part.  Although I have had four cases in six years, I think I have to admit that I am now real close to retirement.  Maybe. 

A quick aside: A huge amount of gratitude is owed to Emily, our daughter.  We were gifted with a kid who has a sense of independence and wanderlust.  Even better she was smart enough to win a scholarship to York University in Toronto.  She too, wanted to ‘go’.  When she left home at 17 to ‘be on her own’, we knew that she would handle it.  And she has.  She gave us our freedom.  Credit goes to Ben, too.  He was three years ahead of Emily and became just as well established.  He never looked back. 

Living out here and building our own house answered all my needs.  I am happy and indebted to both my children for being as great adults as they were kids. 

So, I am happy.  Right? 

Right!  I do find this way of life a lot more ‘real’.  Translation: I play an important role in everything I do and I almost understand what I am doing.  Office work?  Not so much.   I find that a little adventure in the morning is a good thing and adventure is defined as requiring a bit of adrenaline.   I tend to schedule a little ‘adventure’ in for about noon-ish.  Quite civilized, don’t you think?  I am pleased with solving the myriad daily challenges we face, the daily exertions, the constant learning curve.  Tho I am still not a big fan of heavy sweating, I have come to enjoy swinging an axe or running a chainsaw now and then!  Mind you, I am even more pleased that I can quit all that $%$#@!! learning at 5:00 and have some wine if I want to.  I usually want to.

I am basically pleased at the level of NON boredom I have now and I was singularly displeased previously at the enormity of the omnipresent BOREDOM of the cul de sac lifestyle that I had then.  So, on that score, this is a step in the right direction. 

Key thought: direction……………..

But really, is the cul de sac any less real than the cabin?  Is chopping wood in the great outdoors any better than pushing paper in a rabbit warren office cubicle?  Is fresh air better than HVAC air?  Is being able to work to your own rhythms and moods any better than marching to the beat of the corporate drum? Is a nice glass of wine before a slowly-made-and-eaten-home-cooked-dinner that much better than a drive-thru or a 30 minute hot delivery?

On the face of it, Yes!  A thousand times yes.  But there is a caveat……………

Learning, it seems, is the real key for me and Sal.  Our location, lifestyle and health is much better but the real key was to reawaken the ‘student’ in us.  We have been on a huge learning curve these past six years.  And it is still advancing.  Except when we fall backwards, of course, but we then just pick ourselves up again and carry on.  Advancement is slow but steady as a result.  The ‘direction’ we are heading in is more about learning than anything else.    

We learn stuff new every day, every week and every season.  It is like being at school again, only way, way better because we choose the topics, we choose the pace and we do the grading.  It is that learning of things that is so interesting to us and, I think, feels so good.  Truthfully, there may or may not be much of a real difference between HVAC air and fresh air but the fresh variety is largely a new experience for me.  I can smell the trees, pick up scents from flowers hundreds of yards away.  I can hear better.  I see better.  Whatever the value difference is in the actual air quality is almost irrelevant to the whole experience.  The bonus stuff I get, like clouds and birds and rustling leaves, makes ‘fresh air’ better than HVAC air.   But the real lesson is in now knowing the difference.

But, you know what? We felt the same way as beginner ESL teachers in Hong Kong.  And air quality there was not a positive factor!  So, it doesn’t matter what or where the learning takes place – it just has to happen.   
So, I am definitely ahead by one great lesson.  Learning that learning new stuff is the best and easiest part of having fun, being healthy and enjoying life.  The location and the activity are not so critical although, by definition, they should change now and then – for me, anyway.  But the real ‘refresher’ is in the learning. 

Part of that is coming by way of this blog.  I am poking at ‘readership’ and seeing what happens.

Just so you know, I poke at things all the time.  Not every time is there a life changing result.  In fact, some pokes are pointless.  Still, out of 30 pokes at the universe, something always unfolds.  I wonder where this one will go. 

Maybe I will become a ‘cabin consultant’?

Neighbour called.  Needed to use our vehicle.  So, it’s gone for a day or two.  A guest called needing to be picked up on Quadra but a neighbour on Quadra is coming out on the same day and so the guest will be retrieved by them and be delivered to our end-of-the-road dock for boat pick-up.  A bunch of women need boat rides to get to book club on Sunday and, with a call or two, that is handled as boat drivers and pick-up points are agreed to.  And, when they arrive at the landing, a neighbour’s flat deck truck will drive them (all 7 standing on the back) through the forest to the host’s house a few miles away.  Four hours later they will be flat-decked back.

The community workshop group will reconvene next Wednesday and all parties coming to volunteer will bring some supplies from their own stockpiles to keep the work progressing.  And, of course, the dock will host the community lunch.

Yesterday, John and Jorge picked up some supplies in town for us. Now the phone works.  Delivered to the door!  The best neighbours in the world, by a huge margin, are John and Jorge.  John drops off movies that he has bought even before he watches them!  And books (but he usually reads them first).  After these many years I know that I could ask for just about anything.  Of course, in an effort to be good neighbours ourselves, we ask for little and only in a pinch.  Weird, how that works, eh?   

‘Doing for others’ is a way of life out here.  What has become so ingrained in our daily lives is, however, foreign to most others.  Especially those who live in the city.  We, at least, just didn’t do that before.  In Tsawwassen, if everyone on our block needed a loaf of bread, 30 cars would leave the driveway and arrive at the store.  Everyone would say ‘hi’ to one another and then 30 neighbours would return home in their cars.  Here, we travel 15 miles to get a loaf of bread and so calling around to see if you can pick up a few things for others while you are at it, only makes sense.  And everyone does it.

Mind you, it is done, primarily, for those immediately close to you.  And the protocol is to offer first before you can ask.  Actually, ‘asking’ is not so good..  Not really.  Waiting for an offer and then accepting is the proper protocol.  Should someone be going to town and they do not offer to pick up something, it is assumed that they have way too much to do and no face is lost.  And, once in awhile, if something is more pressing than a loaf of bread, it is OK to ask if someone is going to town.  But such imposition must be reserved for things necessary like prescription drugs, a part for the boat motor or just about anything for a baby. 

Other ‘unwritten rules’ include that the favour should be limited to one necessary item or, at the very most, a few items all from the same shop. Preferably one that the shopper will be at anyway.  It is considered ‘bad form’ to say, “Would you mind picking me up some chocolate fudge from that new shop just out of town and I need a few spare sparkplugs from Lordco as well.  A newspaper would be nice.  Do you think ice cream would melt or do you have a cooler?”

It is much better to say, “If you are catching the ferry, would you mind dropping off my overdue movies at the nearby gas station?”  Or,  “Oh, you are going to the hardware store?  Thanks for asking.  I need a drill bit.  1/2″.  No thanks.  Nothing else.  That’s it.”

Of course, in a pinch, anything goes.  So, this time, there went my car.

Victory!  Rogers did the right thing.  Kinda……………

This victory, however, felt like the war in Afghanistan.  Is there really a victory for any one if there are so many casualties? 

It was an ugly battle.  Rogers employed the old Chinese Art of War strategies: death by a thousand dropped calls, uncountable referrals to others, the ‘hold-and-listen-to-ads’ torture and, of course, the ‘Solly, me no speak Engrish!’ retort or sometimes the more subtle variation, “Right, I understand the problem.  Now, just so I can put you through to the right person to fix this, what is your name again?  Your ten digit phone number?…………..and your date of birth, postal code and mother’s maiden name?”

I got pretty frustrated and when asked my birthdate for the umpteenth time, I once replied, “January, 1948”.  “Unh……..sir, I need the day of the month………..unh………?”  “You do?  You think it was just a lucky guess that I managed to pick the right postal code, phone number and 2 parts of my birthdate?  Do you really think I am a cheater trying to get some advantage over you but you may have CAUGHT ME ON THE BIRTHDAY QUESTION!?”  “I am sorry, sir, but we are required to……………“

I got one woman who was pretty high up.  She came across as pretty confident, pretty arrogant, really, but my perspective may have been off.  She was demanding the oft-repeated ‘fact check questions’ before deigning to speak to me.  I interrupted.  “Excuse me.  Do you have the power to make decisions?” “Of course!” She snapped. “You are now at Senior Customer Care!”

“Wow!  Does that mean you are senior to the other fools I have dealt with so far or does that mean you are a specialist in dealing with Geriatrics?” 

“What!?”

“Never mind. Back to the decision making.  Can you credit my account with a $5.00 credit?” 

“Yes.  Of course.  This is the senior……….”

“Good.  Because I want a credit please.  Put $700.00 credit on my account.  Read the file for the rationale.  Thanks.  It has been great talking with you.  Bye!”

“Wait.  I can’t authorize $700.00.”

“But you are senior something.  You can make decisions.  You can also, presumably read so just read the notes and make the decision.  At this stage, I don’t care either way.  Just make it.  Thanks.  Bye.”

“That is above my limit!”

Oh!  What is your limit?”

“$100.00.” 

“$100!!??  How senior is that?  Is there an antiquities level somewhere?  Do you have a pre-Neolithic department?  Any Palaeontologists on staff?”

“What?”

“Never mind.  Send me as far up the chain as is needed to get a yes or no on $700.00.  And, while you are at it, could I please have the address – e-mail will suffice – for your legal department?”

“I can’t give that information out, sir.” 

“Why not?  It is a department within the corporate offices.  It is findable.  The lawsuit has to be delivered somewhere.  I know!  If you give me your home address, I’ll mail it to you and then you can, while protecting their corporate address of course, deliver it yourself.  How’s that?”

“Sir, I have to put you on hold.” 

“If you put me on hold one more time, I will lose my mind.  I’ll snap.  That wouldn’t be good for senior care, now would it?”

“Senior Customer Care!”

“Whatever.  Unless you can put me through to the president, his or her spouse or the corporate psychologist, I would prefer you to do this instead: make a decision yourself or pass my e-mail address on to someone who can.  I am not going to talk on the phone any more.  I am off to find the address of your legal department on the internet.  Bye.

“Sir, I’ll have my manager call you.”

“How old is he?”

“Pardon?” 

“Never mind.  He is senior to you, I assume?

“Yes!” 

“Good!  Make it so, number one!”

This guy called the next day.  Stan.  When we spoke he was impressed that my account with Rogers was older than he was.  I said that alone should be enough for me to get my way.  He agreed.  That call took less than a minute.  But the whole beginning-to-end farce took hours spread over six days. 

Sal asked if it felt like a victory.  “No.  It felt more like a protracted case of the flu.”

As you know, I live remote.   No roads.  No hydro.  No ‘grid’ services and, naturally, no stores.  We are, as they say, ‘out there’.  Imagine my my surprise to meet our local bag lady!

We’ve had the well established cat lady for years so the eccentric lone woman syndrome is not without company.  In fact, we have a list.  Cat lady is a reclusive old crone with dozens of cats living in residence with her in a small domicile not quite up to conventional health standards – even the standards of Calcutta. When the barge delivers fuel to others, it ships cat food and kitty litter to the cat lady.  Used cat litter is dumped just outside.  One of the local heroes went by one time and, with his front end loader, took a load of the stuff and packed it out on his barge.  Didn’t get it all.  Barge was full.  Visualize that.  If you can.

Anyway, the other day we are coming home from the store and noticed a haze of smoke at the old squatter’s cabins across the way.  That usually means Mike has dropped in for a respite from his hurly burly days in the city.  ‘Not this time’.

The squatter’s cabins aren’t really cabins.  They are shacks with at least one wall missing each and both of them list to one side at a 15 degree tilt due to the log foundations settling on the sloping beach.  Imagine a small garage with the front door missing and the wooden floor missing planks, the roof leaking, the walls with fist-sized holes open to the outdoors and no amenities whatsoever.  The motel Deliverance in West Virginia is 4 star by comparison.  Hell, the floating-at-monsoon villages of Bangladesh are better!

The smoke was coming from a cut-off oil drum on the beach and a small fire was being fed by a tall, thin woman in her mid fifties.  Emaciated in that runway model kind of way, she was somewhat striking if not skeletal and frightening.  We stayed offshore with the engine at idle.  Sally and she exchanged a few words and she ended her part in the conversation with a broad smile and a curtsy verging on flirtatious for us taking the interest to check on her.

She had arrived by kayak.  It was a bag-lady kayak.  Old, beaten up, faded and lacking all the normal accoutrements, it was spare and basic in the manner that old shopping carts are.  Adding to the impression were shallow boxes strapped on to the deck of the vessel.  These boxes held her possessions.  Possibly some food.  A la bag lady de l’eau.

I confess to being touched by her warm and ready smile.  She was likely mad but quite gracious and pleasant nevertheless.  What struck me most, tho, was that she was there in the first place.  One has to work hard to get this far and the Squatter’s shack is amongst the least appealing places in the area being located in a dark, dank, mosquito ridden location on the rocky and uncomfortable beach on Quadra’s eastern shore.  Weather was socked in.  Location was poor.  Supplies were minimal and company was absent.  What’s the appeal?

That she was poorly equipped, inadequately supplied and really minimally prepared in every way was obvious in the extreme.  Glaring, actually.  Think: bag lady with paddle.  But she was also independent and clearly choosing to remain so.  Carried herself with a kind of pride, actually.  We asked again after her needs and hearing of none pressing, we bid her adieu and departed with a wave.

She was gone the next day.

I probably won’t.  But I could.  Rogers is really bugging me and so I have resorted to one of my old favourite threats; “You see, I think I am right and I think you are wrong.  I may be wrong, of course, it is certainly possible.  But after years in business, government and law (OK, I am stretching the arbitrator’s diploma a bit but they don’t know that),  I am pretty sure I am right.  

“But, what is way more important to the issue is that I am retired.  And I am bored.  I have nothing better to do than make this issue my reason for getting up every day.  I don’t have a job.  My kids are grown.  I live remote.  So, I am gonna make you my hobby.  I am looking forward to it.  Imagine the fun we’ll have?  Oh, I know it sounds a little crazy right now but, in retrospect after a few months, you’ll find that this exercise will help you develop as a person.  You’ll see.   I have done this before.  It won’t be much,  just a few minutes every day.  You know, writing letters, sending e-mails.  Filing files. Responding to superiors.  Maybe fill out a few forms.  I already have your name.  Could you spell it for me, please?”

That always gets their attention (if not the correct spelling) and all sorts of things begin to happen after that.  I currently have Raviid, Christina, Ron and Alex ‘on the job’ and we’ll see what they come up with.  I am toying with adding to the threat:  

“Do you want my blog address?  I will be writing all this up, you know.  Every day.  I love this stuff.  You can’t make it up and yet everyone knows how true it is.  The way I see it, it is a form of ‘documenting my case’ for the lawsuit.   You really should read it for your own protection”.  

“Small Claims court only, of course, but that still takes up a lot of time.  Thank God the paperwork is simple for the plaintiff.  You can file in five minutes.  ‘Course, you’ll have to come to Campbell River.  Like salmon fishing, do you, Alex?  Gimme the name of your supervisor and maybe I’ll just subpoena her.” 

“Dave, get a grip!   There are more important things to do with your time”.  Yeah, I know.  I’m mostly just rattling their cage.  Push comes to shove, I’ll probably just shove off and go to Telus.

Maybe. 

……whether we need to or not, we go to town for the 2nd biggest ‘shop’. 

The first biggest shop(s) happens in the spring and the fall when we go to Costco and fill up on things like 50 pounds of salt with an accompanying free 25 pound bag of mustard seed or something equally as mad.  A 60 kg wheel of Brie.  You know the philosophy, having 40 kilograms of something you once ran out of should prohibit that from happening again.  And it seems to work.  I am still operating from the original pack of Chia seeds I bought two years ago.  And my instant Chai tea inventory is still strong.  I got Bold BBQ sauce up the wazzoo.  We are good to go on that score.

But the things we actually use on a regular basis need to be replenished more frequently and we have managed to limit our ‘real life’ consumer runs to once every three weeks.  In theory we could go for as long as a month but, in truth, a three-week shop is all we can squeeze into the truck.  It’s not just food, you see.  We always have building supplies, one-time purchases (this time three sheets of plastic) and the like.    Plus we have totes, garbage bags and a few changes of clothes.  The SUV earns it’s keep.  All 1-200 kms a month.

The 3rd ‘shop’ is rare.  Twice a year we go only as far as Quadra Island.  Maybe three times.  Pick up a few things in anticipation of guests.  Haven’t been to Vancouver for over a year and a half.    

Bought my ICBC today, too.  At 100 kms a month driving, I pay approximately 60 cents a km for insurance. 40% of it on dirt roads.  ICBCs risk is low.   

I bought 6 bottles of scotch this time.  There was only one bottle on the store shelf so I asked if there was another in the back.  The woman went back and came out with a 6-bottle case.  At that same moment I noticed that the scotch had risen in price for the fifth or sixth consecutive time.  Over roughly 10 months, it was now $7.00 more than the $48.00 it was less than a year ago.  That is close to a 15% increase.  I decided I was ‘saving’ money by laying in a better supply.  I should have bought six cases, but one has to save some room in the vehicle for other things.  Like food.   

I’d do the same with gasoline if I had the capacity.  When a barrel of oil was $140.00 the price at the pump hit, I seem to recall, $1.20 a litre.  Maybe as much as $1.29.  My mind was befuddled at the time.  Now that a barrel of oil is half of that, the price at the pump has dropped between 8 and 15 cents at the pump but the price-at-the-barge, is exactly the same.  I pay $1.20 as a rule.  Plus HST (yeah, the barge charges for delivery and then HSTs the delivery). 

‘Course, the government is saying inflation is around 1% and the US Fed is worrying about ‘devaluation’.  Prices are dropping, they claim.  I don’t know about you but prices are not dropping for me.  Am I the only one buying scotch and gasoline?  Try to buy a sheet of plastic or wire mesh at Home Depot.  Tires anyone?  Gee, maybe the government is lying yet again.  You know, I honestly can’t remember when they last told the truth.   

I dunno.  Maybe I am just living too high off the hog.  But, if I am, that shouldn’t do it.  Pork is cheap, really cheap.  We don’t eat it because it is one of those ‘industrialized’ products now with the animal processed like a lump of cheese…………….probably with the addition of dyes and chemicals, too.  But pork is cheaper by the pound than most vegetables right now. 

Prices don’t make sense. 

And don’t get me started on Chinese generators.  You can buy a Chinese-made, 5,000 watt genset for about $500.00.  That same genset made well by a reputable company like Honda is $4,000.00 in Campbell River or $2000 in the USA.  Hasn’t free trade and NAFTA been good to us?   Even tho the Chinese genset is junk, they still had to make it.  It still runs (not for long, tho) and it still has a lot of sophisticated parts and was shipped across the Pacific.  In effect, China makes gensets cheaper than we can make a tire – or have dinner at a fancy restaurant.  Is it just me or do all values of things seem out of kilter?

Our ‘shop’ is all day. Throw in a few variables and we could easily spend two.  Our cell phone has gone wonky.  Rogers employs imbeciles and you have to wait an hour on a broken phone to talk to them (just to be cut off within the first few sentences!).  So, I went into town and addressed the problem personally – to no avail.  But that exercise, like so many others, takes an hour or more.  Try getting twenty chores done within a six hour window and ‘shopping day’ invariably turns stressful. 

But we console ourselves by saying, “Ya know, it is hell, to be sure, but we only have to do it once every three weeks.  We can do that!”  And we can.  I just wanted to rant.

The Chinese volunteer teaching program is over.  Seems China’s one-child policy is having an effect and school enrollment is down considerably.  The govt. is closing schools.  To be able to stay open, all the schools that remain are hunkering down and emphasizing the curriculum and exam results.  They are stepping up the rote learning.  More work,  more boredom.  They are hoping for better results in the crammed-for-the-exam time from students who are half asleep, disinterested and force-fed. 

Our program was a ‘frill’.  So, it’s over. 

I am not a big fan of dogs. Not really.  Ours are pretty good but, like, who needs dogs!?  Still, every once in a while they do something I like.  Right now, I admit to being pleased with the ‘fetching thing’.  I am, however, a little worried about Sal.

Dogs have been fetching for some time.  That part isn’t new.  But this is different.  Because we live in a house built on the side of a precipice, the front balcony overhangs the sloping front yard by a considerable height.  Because I am fed up throwing disgustingly chewed, saliva ridden, stuffed toys for the dogs, Megan decided some time ago to push her own toy over the edge and then, after making sure that it fell and lay still, she’d then run to retrieve it.  Now that is a pretty good trick: a dog who throws and retrieves for itself!

Of course, being the lazy sods we are, we tried in vain to teach Fiddich the same trick.  He just didn’t get it (yes, pun intended).  He’d just look at the toy placed near the edge and wait for it to jump.  Finally, we gave up.  But then, because Meg spent a few extra seconds making sure her toy was dead-still after pushing it over the edge, Fiddich used that time to get ahead of her and he would end up doing the actual fetching.  Now we have Meg throwing and Fiddich retrieving.  Not bad.

They won’t do it unless we are there so we are not off scott-free.  We have to supervise.  But Sal loves the trick.  She loves to supervise, too.  She can sit there with a grin on her face for hours while the dogs play ‘fetch’.  And she plays ‘dog supervisor’.

I dunno………..do you think we might have a problem here?

Whew!

Sal and I were reading last night and Fiddich was barking.  I tend to ignore him when he does that but it was incessant.  Wolves?  I went out and there he was facing the wind tower in the dark and woofing at it.  It was making a slight ‘swooshing’, fan-type sound.  It was working!  Wahoo!

Not that BC Hydro has to worry about this sort of thing catching on.  In fact, even tho the turbine was whining, it was not appreciably adding to our power stores but, then again, who wants to watch a battery fill up?  I went on with things more interesting than staring up at a tower in the dark.  Fiddich continued with his suspicions.  That’s the main difference between dogs and men; men have shorter attention spans.

Evenings here are like that.  Usually no ado about anything.  We have dinner and then watch a movie or read.  We don’t talk much unless someone calls us on the phone (which is not working) and then Sally has a great deal to yell from downstairs if I am answering it and, to be fair, I am prompted to shout loud contributions when she answers.

I talk to her, of course.  I am always suggesting conversational topics to which Sal usually replies sweetly, “You go ahead, sweetie.  I can hear you and read at the same time.”  You’d think that would deter me but it doesn’t.  We have really good monologues, Sal and I.

There is a tendency to disagree over the movies, tho.  I kind of ‘win’ on that score but mostly by default.  The local video store owner is an avid fan of the Bruce Willis, Stephen Segal, Sylvester Stalone genre and even tho we both appreciate a better standard of film, I am reasonably entertained so long as a few cars blow up.  So, it doesn’t matter to me what we watch so long as the bad guys die by the dozen, cars are littered over the landscape and Angelina Jolie is fleetingly glimpsed in the shower. Sally, bless her, wants more.

“Sweetie, there is no more.  It is either Bruce against the aliens, Bruce blowing up cars or Bruce cracking one-liners while he battles the aliens by blowing up the cars they are in. We could go with an old Nick Nolte where he just swears for 90 minutes?”

“I don’t think so.  As appealing as they are, I was kinda hoping for a quirky British heroin addiction movie or something equally as cheery from Eastern Europe.  Or maybe something where the puppies die, the kids have Lukemia and all the farmland is polluted by industry, ya know?  The women have to suffer.  Something real!  I`d really like something like a black and white documentary where all the girl children are sold into sexual bondage or something.”  

“Oh that!  That has been done to death.  Can’t get a documentary anymore without that kind of nonsense.  Manufactured Landscapes, Big Oil,  Born Into Brothels, Priest Recruitment movies!  How about a nice space alien adventure comedy with Eddie Murphy as the Martian commander.  It`s Pixar, you know, with the little hopping table lamp?  All done in animation?”

We compromised and got the Kill Bill series.

Truthfully, we read voraciously.  I tend to the non-fiction almost exclusively.  Sally to fiction (always about weird, crazy things like gender changing, women and children suffering, Harvey Milk, whatever is the latest pop psychology-based novel by a reformed addict from some kind of oppressed minority).  It’s all pretty grim as a rule but these are the choices of her book club.

I read political analysis, economic analysis, social and cultural studies (especially about China) and, sometimes something outrageous like, A Year of Living Biblically by AJ Jacobs.  It’s all comedy, really.  No one has a clue.  The second latest waste of time was China Megatrends by the author of Megatrends, John Naisbitt.  What a doofus!

The last one was Where Men Win Glory by John Krakauer.  It is the Pat Tillman story.  The book is good.  The story even better.  But the revelations about the US Army and the Bush Administration are enough to make you wonder about that country and it’s military – if you hadn’t wondered enough before.

I’ll leave you with this gem.  Approximately 20% of the casualties suffered by the American armed services in WW2 were from friendly fire.  They shot themselves!  In Vietnam that number jumped to 30-something percent!  1 in 3 soldiers hurt in Vietnam were untouched by the enemy!  In the first Gulf war the number is an unbelievable 52%!  Iraq is currently running at 33%+ and Afghanistan is only one in seven. 15%.  For every seven soldiers killed or wounded in Afghanistan, one of them was killed or wounded by their own side.  And that is how Pat Tillman died.

It would seem that all one had to do to win a war with the US was to declare one and then hide.  They`ll do the rest!

And some of you wonder why we left.