Writing about the Kyle Rittenhouse case is silly. The law is one element, the circumstance is another and, of course, the facts presented are more complex than what the average reader knows. Second guessing trials is basically disrespecting the entire process. Kangaroos make poor judges.

That doesn’t stop me from adding something, tho. And, NO, it is not a rant about ‘Merican gun culture, nor a plea for a young man of limited capacity being driven to the protest zone by his own mother! It isn’t even a blog about this case illustrating the great divide in US society (along the lines of pro and anti-vaxxers, races, Red and Blue state politics and Trump-types vs the rest of us). Nope. NOT any of that. Well, maybe ALL of that. And more.

This blog is about the parts that they are NOT writing about, NOT publicly looking at, NOT addressing and that is the incredible dereliction of duty as manifested by the Kenosha police department, the perverse parenting values of a so-called mother, the bizarre but inadequate support of his ‘fellow militia-troops’ and the stark differences in how dumb, underage, white gun-carriers are treated compared to unarmed black men. This blog is about the social madness deep and prevalent in that increasingly crazy society called ‘Merica.

The scene: There is a protest. Fires burning. Shadowy figures running around causing domestic fuss in the night. Kyle Rittenhouse (17) shows up with an assault rifle and over 30 rounds of ammunition. His cap is on backwards, of course. He approaches the very large and ridiculously over equipped police assemblage standing by a block or two away. Underage and armed, he chats up the cops. They ask him nothing, they inquire about nothing, they do not identify him. They sit in their large, armoured vehicles drinking coffee and eating donuts while the protest rages on. Seventeen-year-old Kyle wades into the protest zone.

Overhead, an FBI chopper shoots infrared film. There is no other police presence save for the chopper and armoured vehicles and such a safe distance away. Rittenhouse has an altercation, kills two people and wounds a third. After that incident he is seen by the crowd as an ‘active shooter’ and they chase him. He runs back to the police. They did not come to him. They were sitting in their donut vans. He ran to them.

So, Rittenhouse is a young simpleton caught up in some kind of quasi-militia society, armed and literally driven to the ‘battle ground’ by his own mother, no less! He parades and preens around the local police before his incident. They do nothing. Two other militia-types are loosely accompanying Kyle but they are not really together. One said, “He (Rittenhouse) was underequipped and under-experienced.”

Just to make my point regarding the police: the protest that night was about the previous (4 months prior) Kenosha police shooting of a 27 year old black man by the name of Jacob Blake. He was shot seven times in the back. He is now paralyzed. No charges were laid against the police. Blake was charged with resisting arrest!

So, who is on trial here? Really? Obviously Rittenhouse is on trial but he has a great defense: “Your honour, I identify as a policeman and self identification is real now. I was armed but that is an American’s right. The police, sir, knew I was there and encouraged my presence. I did not hide my gun. In fact, sir, my mother drove me there. I had parental permission. I was accompanied by two Wisconsin militia and they supported me as did my brother-in-law who bought me the gun ’cause I was underage. My defense, sir, is simply this: is this not the American way? Have I not been raised and encouraged to do this? Have I not been supported by friends, family and police officers?”

I would definitely convict if I was the judge. (Judge Kanga Roo) Firstly, I would convict the mother for parental neglect, child-abuse, failure to provide….etc. Then I would convict the two militia dickheads for being at large, armed and stupid, aiding and abetting a juvenile to commit a crime and generally promoting camo-idiocy detrimental to the public good. Then I would convict as many Kenosha police for dereliction of duty before and after the incident as I could. I would charge them with misappropriation of public funds (armoured vehicles are not for dunkin’ donuts). I’d definitely revisit the Blake shooting. And I’d fire the chief.

Then I’d convict Rittenhouse. (Sentence him, actually. The jury decides on conviction). If the jury rendered a heavy judgment based on the charges, I’d give a sentence on the less severe side of the ledger. He is a young fool badly parented and led in all the wrong directions. If they came back with one or more of the lighter charges, I would give something longer than just a light sentence. If they come back with a verdict: ‘innocent’ of all charges, I’d demand a retrial. (Yes, even if I was the presiding judge.)

But mostly, if I had the power, I would convict the society at large of gross moral neglect, promoting stupidity, violence and a toxic gun mentality. The USA has gone off the rails completely and that shows up in this instance but, even worse, they are not looking at this case that way. They are only looking at Rittenhouse. These fools think the main crime was Rittenhouse shooting other idiots. The real main crime is ‘Merican values and a rotten police culture.

Ignoring all that is willful blindness and societal neglect to the point of gross dysfunction. And that dysfunction is still growing.

PS: I am not so sure it really changes anything but, in the interest of being as factually honest as my biases will allow, it has been recently revealed that the reports of Kyle’s mother DRIVING him to the protest were wrong. She did NOT drive him to the protest. She encouraged him and supported him but she DID NOT drive him there.

I am a major Greenie, liberal-conservative socialist (who lives off the grid). Or, better put: non-partisan in every way. No party says what I want to hear, no party does what I want them to do and all the parties seem to stumble and fail. Worse for me, I do not trust them. And that is even true for MY own levels of government – it is even worse when trying to relate to foreign governments. So, being in relationship to my ‘system’ or our ‘institutions’ is very difficult for me. Relationship to say, Russia, China or even the bloody US of A is impossible.

Modern 1st world relationships are now mostly just built on shallow, superficial, transactional communications anyway. We message, we e-transfer cash, we order on Amazon, we work-from-home, we give our help through charities! In the old days, relationships were built on shared community tasks, mutual suffering and hardships (like war, famine and natural disasters). It included the influence of family connections, neighbourhoods and regions, religion, occupation and culture but those bonding influences have waned considerably in the last few decades. We don’t have that anymore.

With Covid, we do not even have the option! In-person verbal/written communication has moved away from proximity and the nuances of body language and facial expressions so basic to human intimacy and trust building. If we don’t at the very least have dialogue/conversation/proximity/involvement, we cannot have any kind of meaningful relationship. And, for touchy-feely folks like me, conversation by email, phone and ZOOM fail to make the grade.

And it is getting worse. Zuckerberg and his ilk are leading the push to AI (artificial intelligence). Call centres (a major spoke in the Consumer wheel) defy almost all the communication basics with culture, region, nation, language and commonalities abandoned for ‘canned’ questions and answers. And (a personal aside) I cannot stand FAQs and Chatlines either.

In many ways, it is all illustrated succinctly by modern surveys. The questions asked often have no relevance to the answers the participant wants to give. We fit our opinions on a sliding scale of one to five based on chosen ‘issue’ that is incidental or irrelevant to our real concerns. It is almost as if we designed these surveys to confuse and mislead rather than enhance information exchange. I obviously don’t trust surveys either.

Politicians nowadays know this instinctively and have evolved a form of communication that says nothing and means nothing. They can’t risk real communication because, as elitists, they have no common bonds with the people. No relationship. When they speak, they do not communicate.

Thank God Trump was basically a horrible person, communicator, speaker, writer but he has the instincts and skills of a good con-man. He stayed close to his base. He schmoozed ’em. He kept a human toe in the pool with his rallies. He communicated with skillfully rehearsed body language and buzz-words, slogans and a visceral appeal to those who exist at primarily a visceral level. He was and is a Machiavellian populist. Trump is a populist pig but he could oink and wallow when needed. The pigs understood what he was saying…… They enjoyed his company. But he did that for the con, not relationship. He has no real relationships.

So, where does all that leave us? Well, we have clearly abandoned the ‘getting-to-know-you’ part of relationship these days…..and we have eliminated the ‘need-to-trust-you’ in relationship with e-transfer and Pay-Pal and lawyers. We have, instead, embraced “I-want-your-money” as a sufficient common denominator but it is NOT relationship. It is not community. And I fear that it is so ‘not-strengthening-society’ and that our common-ness is being eroded more and more. We are losing community, society and humanity as we keep going down this road to ‘economic efficiency’. Basically, we are quickly losing touch with one another and the society we built.

Probably nothing says that more clearly than Facebook. There is a medium that requires no personal, intimate, sincere relationship whatsoever and yet it has largely replaced many levels of relationship except for those who work or live closely with one another. You no longer need to know your neighbour – they are on your Facebook page. That’s good enough.

The point: we may have, as a species, shot ourselves in the foot. At a point in history when humanity is facing the largest existential threat ever (the 6th Extinction is the name given), we can’t communicate. We are NOT in relationship. There is little trust and lots of polarization. We do not have a plan. We do not have leaders. And we are running out of time.

“Dave, why say that? What good does it do?”

I dunno…..just a thought, I guess. But, if there is anything to what I just said, then this is the message: get off of Facebook and Twitter as a form of communication. Get off social media as a means of acquiring information (OK, ‘cept for me, of course!). Use cash more. Drop chit-chat and introduce REAL talk that emotes, feels and strives for understanding, empathy and intimacy. But, given the timing, this might be the time to also up the output of ‘real’ messages to your politicians and eliminate any dissembling in your own life. We just no longer have time for BS and ignorance.

Thirty years ago I experienced a full-blown gallbladder attack. It was pretty bad. So, I went to the local hospital and they said they’d schedule me in for immediate surgery. I declined, “Unh, I would prefer to keep my organs, ya know?”

The ER doc replied, “You won’t feel that way at 2:00 in the morning.”

At 2:00 a.m. the pain was so intense, I cancelled the ambulance Sal called because I was sure I’d be dead within minutes. I lay prostrate before the great Porcelain God and passed out. But instead of my passing really out (dead), I only passed the stone and fully recuperated. Mind you, it felt like I had experienced a hot spear stuck in my chest for the better part of six hours prior to that. All in, from start to finish, my first encounter with Gall stones was something like 8, maybe 10 hours.

Last week I got some kind of chest pain/inflammation and that, coupled with inexplicably intense bursts of pain, made me think about Shingles! Don’t ask why…that was my first thought. The next few thoughts got impressively bleaker. But, after a few days of increasing discomfort, I realized that I was experiencing yet another gall bladder attack. And every day the pain got worse. By last Saturday night, I was not surprised when the hot spear feeling returned…with a vengeance. I called the local doctor.

Long story short: a ton of heavy drugs (with a large handful of Oxycodone before midnight and Morphine injected at 3:00 am) and I ‘rode out the worst of the storm’. But this time I did not pass the stone…..probably just dislodged it back into the bladder…..only to have it likely rise again another day.

You do not want to eat anything at a time like that. And that has been going on now for almost four days. I drink only mint tea. Sal gave me the shots (and two other injected muscle relaxants as well). On the superficial face of it, it was kinda macho, true grit, OTG stuff.

“OOooohh…I could never live way out there without a hospital nearby or something…”

But here’s the surprise: my local doctor said that common initial therapy has the patient infused with pain killers and relaxants for a period of time (72 hours max) and this often results in the stone passing of it’s own accord. If the stone does NOT pass, they go in and take out the gallbladder.

In other words; if you had a gall bladder attack in the city they would ‘process you’ the exact same way as I was. The only difference is that my stone eventually subsided and I stayed home the whole time. You would be first going to see a doctor and waiting patiently in the waiting room, then going to the hospital, then you would have waited patiently in the hospital emergency room forever and then you’d be on some gurney for a few hours and then they would have sent you home or, in 10% of the cases, to the surgery.

I dunno…I’ve been down both roads now on gallbladders and this way strikes me as the more sane.

I do not feel good enough yet to feel ‘pleased’ about whatever the outcome might eventually be and I still have to go for scans and ultrasounds and crap but medicine OTG is not a great deal harder or worse than in the city*. And that is NOT the way we think about it, is it?

* I think it is actually better because our local doctor knows us all personally and acts in a manner logical and consistent with the circumstances and constraints we are all under. And he never wanders off during an examination. During those same days, we had the ‘big storm’ and even tho I would go anyway if I had to, he was aware that traveling in a storm using small boat and logging roads would be uncomfortable. He simply transferred the hospital treatments to me and Sal. The ‘drug deal’ took place half-way from his house to Sal in the middle of the forest just before dark. It helps that Sal worked in a hospital for decades. That kind of relationship is HUGE!!!!

The Great Resignation is a recent term used to describe the somewhat* surprising overall reluctance of ‘people’ to go back to work. Economists are trying to figure it out. Why is there a labour shortage all of a sudden? (* it is not surprising to me)

A lot of surmising and guessing have postulated a few theories such as ‘Covid burnout’, too generous unemployment/pandemic benefits and the like. But those are short term influences. I think it is a bit deeper in the bone than that. I think there has been a measurable perspective or paradigm shift and a catalyzing moment that rocked the status quo thinking.

In other words, there are a lot of pressures out there and they have, over time, created a mountain of ennui and despair amongst the vast majority of people. Then we hit a tipping point for that slag-heap resulting in lack of commitment to the system, to work, to the establishment, institutions and especially government. We have collectively maybe* lost the faith? (*as you know, I have definitely lost faith in the system – it is unsustainable at the very least)

The buildup of this fuel-for-depression has been ongoing since maybe the 1950’s? And maybe Vietnam was the first match thrown….? You know? The hippy anti-establishment movement that eventually petered out? Anti-materialism that morphed to ‘greed is good’?

Oddly, I think Trump (corrupt, lying, rich pig succeeding) was the first match lit that caught fire in this era, Covid was like oxygen on the flame and the immense, aging, hoary, rotten ‘system’ is the fuel source. Those three elements combined with the steadily encroaching climate threat, emergence of China as an enemy and, oddly, the simple aging of the baby boomers and we now have the perfect storm. A perfect storm of confusion, antipathy and fear?

No one wants to venture outside anymore. And, if we do, we want to venture really far and by ourselves outside into nature and not go to the office or the shopping mall.

The Great Resignation may just be the Great Awakening……?

I have had a good work ethic, eventually morphing into a typical work ethic and finally I achieved a GET OUT ethic. I have been a good worker bee, drone and I still do stuff. I write and carry heavy things for instance. Build sheds. But I checked out of the establishment mentally and spiritually 20-something years ago and physically 18 years ago. And I had been suspicious of the system for a long time. I like to contribute to my community and friends but I’d prefer to do it on my own terms and, fortunately, being well paid for it is not important. I work out of interest not acquisition.

But I bring all that up (about me) because I did not want to ‘go to work again’ and my financial situation did not determine my decisions. I simply and quietly resigned (easy to do if you work for yourself). I quit the rat race. But, oddly, I also experienced an awakening, an epiphany, a paradigm shift. I learned to love nature. I now love the forest and the sea way more than anything societal. I do not need a bigger TV or a newer car. I do not like restaurants or canned entertainment. I don’t like anything about the city. I have changed.

The point is: I changed early but I think it is the same kind of change that the Great Resignees are feeling today. I think the Great Resignation is the Great Awakening and, even tho we will still have to work to consume, the rat race will be slower, the merry-go-round much easier to get on and off of and the ladder of success will become a step-stool.

Well, let me re-phrase that: those lifestyle choices will be chosen and forced on us if we are going to survive.

When a pandemic or epidemic does not go away, it is referred to as ‘endemic’.  ‘Commonly present’. And that means; ‘This is the new normal’.  Do not be afraid, we are just gonna have to live like this for a long time.  Covid, the gift that keeps on giving. 

It is pouring down today.  Really wet.  We got togged up like the Franklin Expedition and started the trek up to the village centre for our annual Flu shot.  There is no centre and there is no village but we have a community building and that fills the role of downtown for us.  Sal and I slogged 500 yards to the boat, pumped it out, got the motor running and headed up coast in the ‘declared’ storm (it was miserable but it was NOT a storm to us). 

When we got there the community dock was kinda full.  I squiggled our boat into a small space and we tied up.  Other outer Island residents were arriving and departing. The public health nurses were keeping warm and busy up in the Bunkhouse (a few hundred more yards up hill) and a small crowd stayed waiting socially distanced just outside in the rain while the needles were given.  We wore masks.  A busy day in November. 

Eventually Sal and I got in to the day-clinic.  We de-layered.  Hat, gloves, rain jacket, vest, shirt….down to the t-shirt.  After the usual Care-card rigmarole, ‘in-line’ socializing and the odd side joke with the nurses, we were done.  We had also taken fuel up to the car, put it in, started it and ran it a few hundred yards up and down the road just to keep the cobwebs out of it.   Then, we trudged down to the boat, a few more chit-chats with the comers-and-goers and then into the boat and we headed home.  It was still coming down buckets. 

Two hours after we started, we were home making tea.  Sal laughed out loud…….   “I was just thinking how lucky we are and how convenient all that was given that we all live off the grid!  We even got a Tetanus booster.”

“Why is that funny?”  

“Well, it took us two hours even tho I admit that we kind of dawdled a bit.  We schlepped about a mile or so over rough terrain and then we ran about four more miles by small boat.  We did a bit of car maintenance, socialized in a downpour and waited about twenty minutes for procedure and protocols to pay out before being jabbed.  We did it all during a gale warning although it was actually pretty calm by our standards.  By the time we were done, I was thinking how convenient that was and then I recalled the same procedure when I was working in town.  This way was two hours of hiking in bad weather including sea-travel by small boat, the city procedure was maybe 15 minutes down the hallway and yet, for some reason, it all feels so much more convenient out here. Hard to explain.”

Basically, Sal was describing the new normal for us.  OTG normal.  We schlep and slog around to do just about anything.  I carried the 25 pound gas can down to the boat and then up the hill to the car and that was likely the lightest load I have carried in a long time.  Before we left, Sal had climbed down to the lagoon to tie up an errant log.  Something as simple as ‘going to the nurse for a shot’ was pretty good exercise.  THAT is our normal. 

We have adjusted well over the past 18 years to our OTG normal and I can see the same kind of subtle ‘adjustment’ we are now making for COVID.  We are still adjusting but we have more than adjusted somewhat to the Covid pandemic. 

I asked the nurse: “Do I really need to get a Tetanus shot?  I am not an antivaxxer but I am an anti-puncturist.  It does seem as if I have been jabbed a lot lately…ya know?”

“Well, sir, do you work outside a lot?  Do you use sharp tools?  Are some of your tools and materials rusty at all?”  And she said all that to me with a straight face.

I laughed and adjusted my attitude.  “OK.  Hit me”.

Is that the way we all die…….quietly adjusting to the warm bath as the heat is incrementally raised until we boil away like the proverbial frog?   Am I just adjusting to everything and yet everything is really out to get us?  Is that nurse to be trusted?  Did the Chinese make that Flu vaccine?  Sheesh.      

The day starts right: all misty and grey……oooohh.……and Sal comes out in the morning, “Did you clump around in the closet just now?”

“No. Been sittin’ here. Why?”

“I heard something big moving around in the closet!”

“Well, open the door and check…..”

“Are you CRAZY!!! What if it is a bear?”

“Fine! I’ll check.” And, I get up and open the closet that has only one access – from inside our bedroom. I wanna see the bear that can hide in the closet but who also sneaked past us in the night to do so. And I open the door.

“See anything?”

“Nothing………bit of bear scat is all…..”

And so our scary day has begun. I have never been a big fan of All Hallowed Eve or Halloween. Not even when I was a kid. Too many stale handfuls of popcorn and bare apples! And some of them reputedly had razor blades in ’em! And too much of that cheap orange triangle candy that tasted like wax. In my neighbourhoods (‘hoods), the kids Trick or Treated alone or in packs o’kids but parents were not all backed up in the dark on the sidewalk. It was just kids. The scariest thing for us was the bigger kids all backed up in the dark behind us waiting to steal the good candy.

I only began to like Hallowe’en when I could give out the candy. The little ones were adorable and usually more than a bit confused about the whole thing. They were the only sensible ones.

Every year some parent or teen set themselves, their dog or their neighbourhood on fire in some creative way. In the latter days, it was by way of cheap off-shore fireworks. I think that is when the Chinese government realized they could wage war on another country by strategically using cheap exports.

Kids do not trick or treat much living OTG. Too far between houses. Too wet between islands. Too many really big kids dressed as bears. It must seem like a veritable wild place to a new kid. “I ain’t going out there! Are you mad!”

But this year, we have so many new parents and kids (at least another four this year) that a small group is going to ‘inner-circle’ trick or treat around a small cluster of full-on family houses. And then they will all gather later at the old misty ‘Blockhouse’ remote and deep in the forest. The blockhouse is surrounded by a small orchard. If there is mist, I wouldn’t go. WAY TOO SCARY! One of the island cougars lives near there. And I mean the feline variety.

“Maybe we should venture out to the blockhouse this year. It would be fun to scare the little kids. More fun to scare the parents.”

“How would we do that?”

“Still got our old full-bear costumes?”

Trudeau appointed Anita Anand the new minister of Defense. That could be a good thing. She’s reportedly smart and dedicated (although the report came from her). And, I suppose, a non-military person can do the job (altho she is a fresh 2019 inductee to parliament and a lawyer – that makes her a rookie at the very least). And I have no problem that Anita is female. War and danger affects both genders even if the men are way more likely to be in the actual fight and end up wounded or dead.

But I do have a small problem with what she said was her first priority. “My top priority is to make sure that everyone in the Armed Forces feels safe and protected and that they have the support that they need when they need it and the structures in places to ensure that justice is served,”

“I am thorough, I am determined, I am dogged, and I am results-oriented. I will be dedicating all of my energies towards this task.”

Ms Anand, of course, is referring to the problem of sexual harassment in the military.

I do not want to suggest that men and women in the military SHOULD be harassed in any way, shape or form. Nor do I think sexual harassment in the Canadian Forces can continue to be trivialized as various reports have indicated. It is just that…..well.….is Ms Anand putting priority on military sexual harassment when, in fact, the harassers and the victims are the ones we send out to fight and die in a war? That seems wrong-headed. Is she saying, “You can go to Afghanistan and shoot your way around the country and maybe get shot or killed but I am focusing all our resources on keeping you sexually safe from harassment when you are in camp”?

I’ll answer my own rhetorical question: Yes. That is exactly what she is saying.

Put bluntly, Moira, isn’t the problem of sexual harassment NOT really the first priority of our Armed Forces? Bum-pinching is really bad but is it as bad as a violent death on foreign soil? I mean, shouldn’t our desire for their safety be more inclined to the actual theater of war than on the gender conflict?

Our first priority is to defend the country and fulfill our international obligations. If Ms Anand and Justin think the first priority of the Defense Minister is to keep armed soldiers safe from unwanted sexual solicitation, bum pinching and even sexual manipulation, they are wrong and Ms Anand has proven her inadequacy from the beginning. (Justin’s inadequacy has long been established). Is sexual harassment really as bad as those same soldiers getting their heads blown off by an IED (improvised explosive device) or AK47?

If you have a personal agenda and it gets you into parliament and you are picked to be a minister, that is basically a good thing about Democracy. Ms Anand is on a mission and that is why she ran. Good on her. But when you are picked to be the Minister of Defense, your mission becomes a much larger one than your own personal agenda. If Ms Anand wants to champion sexual victims, that is great. And she should. That is what she wants to do.

‘You go girl!’

But that is NOT priority #1. It is NOT even in the top three.

Equip the soldiers. Train the soldiers. Deploy the soldiers. Do our national and international duty. Get our soldiers back intact. And then…..and only then..…IF THEY ARE STILL ALIVE….worry about who pinched whose bum.

It was a dark and stormy night. The ferries weren’t running. We were intending on getting home after a rather harrowing* four day visit to family in Victoria. Intentions mean nothing in bad weather if you live OTG. We stayed, instead, at MoneyPenny’s B&B (fantastic) in Campbell River and weathered the storm like city-folk. Wine and take-out as modest compensation.

Today (the next day) was still blustery but more to our liking and off we went. The car was heavily laden with luggage, supplies and, of course, a few building materials. Loaded the boat to the gunwales and slogged our way home over the still rumbling seas. But the storm was a Sou-easter and our landing is in the lee of the land so we were fine. The funicular went down, the supplies went on and, after docking the boat, we moved everything uphill and started to unload. We got home around 11:00. Sal is still putting stuff away now at 3:00pm.

Part of the reason for so long a process is that we often will stop and have a cuppa tea and light the woodstove. I was stacking some scotch (natch) in the closet when Sal said rather calmly, “Could I get a hand over here?”

I stopped what I was doing and attended to her. “S’up?”

“There’s a woodpecker in the stove!”

Our woodstove has a long stove-pipe. Over 16 feet long. It has a dog’s leg bend near the top. The top section is eight feet or so with the majority of it outside – of course. The top is covered by a chimney-top. Woody must have forced himself in a rather small-ish opening at the top, fluttered and fell down the stove-pipe and, amazingly, landed safely on top of the baffle at the top of the burn-box. There is not much room between the baffle and beginning of the stovepipe….I am guessing maybe 1.5 inches.

Not content with that particular location, Woody somehow scrambled along the baffle and fell into the larger stove area where he remained until Sal discovered him.

We opened the door, Woody flew around the room a bit and then smacked his fine self into a window. He was a bit stunned (but he is a woodpecker, after all. He has a hard head). I covered him with a towel, we slowly opened the window and Woody fell out of it and flew away.

Woody is our second such guest. A couple years ago we had a squirrel. Same process. Same window.

Life OTG, eh?

*I said ‘rather harrowing’ not because ‘going urban’ was any worse than usual this time but mostly because we are even less accustomed to the madness that passes for modern life these days. You know the drill……it took twenty minutes to drive four blocks due to heavy traffic, had to go to the drugstore three times to pick up a bottle of Rx eyedrops (first delay: was ‘our systems are down’, second delay: one untrained young clerk with twenty people in line = one hour wait. Third time we were lucky: only took twenty minutes!). And so it went. Traffic. Line-ups, malls, parking, insane prices…..surrounding you everywhere you look is junque and poor-quality crap complete with really bad service. I am literally incapable of dealing with it all anymore. Sal often makes me wait in the car. I sit there looking at other angry old guys waiting in their car.

Here’s an interesting note: everywhere there are HELP WANTED signs. Everywhere! My son explained part of the problem is the housing crisis. Where he works, they have hired several workers from out-of-town who start their first month living in a hotel or motel. By the third month, they decide that finding an affordable decent place to rent is too impossible and they resign and go home. These are folks making $60+ to $100K a year! They are young, but have no down payment and rents are too high to pay even IF they can find a place! That’s crazy!

The good news? We are home. It is fantastic. I used to swear I would never leave here again. Sal would subsequently make me go somewhere horrible but has recently spaced out my traveling obligations to once every four months. This time, when we got home, she said, “I never want to leave here again.” Personal growth is a wonderful thing to witness.

Two were in their very late 60’s…..

The rest of us six, were and still are in our 70’s with one of those – the birthday boy that very evening – turning 81. A very ‘boyish’ 81, I have to add. That is 8 really old people having a dinner party. The meal was spectacular, the wine flowed freely and so did the conversation. It was all good. I think. My hearing is a bit off and I had forgotten my hearing aid so I am not totally sure. Still, one does not have to be able to hear while drinking wine and so I was doin’ just fine for most of the evening.

Two of the people are summer folk and are leaving soon. They are headed back to the big city. She’s keen to find a level sidewalk and a Starbucks. He’d prefer to be here. But his biggest thrill is going to the university library he visits frequently and we do not have much in the way of libraries out here. All our books are still in the trees.

Boyish 81 and his wife are also summer folk but they are ‘hangin’ in a bit longer this Fall. They may even try on a bit of living some part of the winter OTG. Given that ‘home’ is Ontario, winter here is considered snow-birding to them.

And that is the theme for today’s blog……snowbirding is getting harder and harder. (Is it just me or is travel overall getting harder and harder?) Of course, the hardest part of snowbirding/traveling is the cost of it and the logistics. Ya just don’t teleport to Costa Rica, ya know? If we set aside the cost (so easy to say) you are still and increasingly challenged (as you age) by the logistics of it all. Throw in a pandemic, vaxx-passports and the price of gasoline and the snowbird flocks are staying at home in droves (that HAS to be a redundancy, right?).

We did. We stayed home. A flock of two who drove nowhere! Last winter was tentatively planned as a getaway year. The previous one was the obligatory one-year-in-four we spend at home and so we were ready for a getaway. Very ready. Three years out of four, we usually go to where the sun DOES shine. But last year was Covid year one. This is Covid year two. We be stayin’ put again this winter.

I am basically OK with that but, I must admit, I do not like having my options limited. I like having choice (you know? Like in voting?). Choice makes me think I have some control in my life, silly as that may sound. But, honestly, I have very little control and I know it. Not a lot of choice either.

Firstly, I am inclined to ‘listen’ to travel advisories and they are generally always bleak. “Don’t travel to San Lopez without first getting the series of twenty four inoculations against the hundreds of deadly diseases they have there!”

Secondly, I tend to look on-line for vacation ‘deals’ and, increasingly, dirt poor countries like the fictional San Lopez seem to now rent out out mud-hut haciendas with no running water for US$250.00 a night. Globalization first means greed and unrealistic expectations – you know? The American Dream!

Thirdly, there is the gauntlet that is now the average airport. Hours of torment and hell followed by fatigue, disappointment and lost luggage. Maybe a little Montezuma? The hurdle required to get off the ground is so daunting I do not even want to attempt it anymore. Levitation is for the birds!

The countries we generally visited in the past were usually ‘poor’ in the sense that the average person there earned much less than we did. So….we went there to exploit them! (but, of course, we are ‘nice’ about it, eh?). The problem is that 1st world capitalism has been embraced by all three worlds (only three?) and so some historically poor countries now operate on a psuedo-first world basis. They charge what the market will bear and double that for tourists – triple that if they are white tourists. And their original culture is now basically just for the tourists. More and more of their genuine, real-life, very-different culture is being replaced by McDonalds, Nike and Coca Cola and, of course, cell-phone culture-madness.

It is patronizing, condescending and likely racist of me but I kinda liked the third-world countries of yesteryear that still employed beasts of burden, wore traditional garb and their economy was really just the public market place complete with live chickens and baskets of eels for sale. I was in China in the early 80’s and it was water buffaloes, mud-huts, open sewage and collective farms. People got around on tractor-pulled hay wagons. It was virtually medieval.

Today, only forty or so years later, I might be run over in China by a Tesla, a Rolls Royce or Ferrari. Or all three at the same time! And I am likely now amongst the poorest in the new giant marble and glass shopping mall they just opened…..

Travel is starting to lose it’s appeal…….

Turn your back for one minute and, VOILA! The workshop is a mess.

OK, I admit it. I messed it up. I had to build a new boat-roof and that means carpentry and f’glassing and sanding and painting and well, it just never ends. This is a miserable little project but I will share it with you.

I (we) drive a small runabout. It’s fine. Nice little boat. Great engine. It’s all good but, of course, small runabouts are ‘convertibles’ as a rule and, if there is any kind of shelter tacked on, you can’t see through the windshield in bad weather and so those little covers are more trouble than they are worth. Unless, of course, it is dark, freezing and the howling wind is slanting the ice-rain in your face. That usually brings a few second thoughts.

One of our neighbours dealt with the problem very nicely. She has to do a ten mile run just to get within hailing distance of another OTG’er and so her boat trip is a bit more challenging and a lot more wet than ours. We travel faster, for a shorter distance and the waters are not usually too crazy. She, on the other hand, has to navigate ‘Crazy’ Channel and, in the winter, she has had to detour around water spouts sprinkling her designated route. Little water tornadoes 20 plus feet high! Several of ’em! She has had ice forming on her boat! Her little boat is maybe 14 feet long, very low in the water and has no ‘protection’ whatsoever. No lights either.

Anyway, she wears a motorcycle helmet in the winter, complete with ‘visor’ or ski goggles. And that, she claims, is all that is needed. That and multiple layers of clothing under a top notch wet weather outfit (and a little fluffy dog stuffed in there somewhere).

I thought I’d try something else. Last year I built a little metal roof-support structure and, on the top, placed a lightweight plywood roof. Small. Two feet by 5 feet. It sits higher than normal little rooftops so that I can get in and out without hitting my head and so that I can still see over the windshield in bad weather. It was good. But, but, but…..

Good isn’t always good enough. I did not f’glass the first ‘prototype’ simply because I did not expect the first one to be perfect. And it is not. It should extend a bit further out over the windshield, be a smidge wider and, since I wanted it light, I used only ‘doorskin’ for the roof and just painted it. This time, all those deficiencies have been corrected. Within a week I will have a better roof over my head. And, of course, I’ll send a pic.

But here’s the point of the story – not that there is much of a point at all – I undertook this new project without double checking my materials. I figured to ‘cobble’ it up if I had to. But Sal went onto the neighbouring island the other day and came back with some doorskins for me. Wahoo! I was ‘on my way’. And I progressed rather quickly…….(quick is very unlike me but the workshop was clean and ordered and that really sped up the process….who knew?). I already have the roof half-made. And yesterday, I started to f’glass it.

So, who has a bunch of resin and mat and cloth and, most important, hardener for the resin on hand….just layin’ around? Turns out…I do!

Yeah. In my ‘accumulation’ of bits, parts, supplies and crappola over the years I have also added all that is needed for f’glassing. Not enough resin to do anything HUGE but I have enough cloth and mat to build a small boat! Of course, it was not readily found. Sal and I first went on a ‘hunt’ for what we ‘kinda felt’ was there somewhere. And we found several stashes of f’glass materials and enough resin to do the job. Having all the stuff was very, very satisfying.

“Dave! That is NOT a story!”

I guess not. Apologies. It is just that Dave’s hardware collection has not let me down in 18 years. I have junk. I have stuff. I have crappola. My work may suck but I can keep on going and that’s half the battle.

The other half is keeping the workshop tidy….

PS: minor dilemma……….the catalyst may have gone stale over time. I may have counted the drops per ounce of resin out wrong. It may be too cold in the workshop (altho I fired up the kerosene heater and it felt warm)….regardless…..it has been almost 20 hours and the ‘glass’ has not fully kicked off. It’s half-set but not hard-set. That is a setback. I am gonna crank up the heat and NOT work on the roof today….give ‘er a chance to set up. I hope. Please God. If the workshop is a mess now, a half-set f’glass project is a colossal mess!

PPS: There is a God! It kicked off! All is good. Well, it is still really bad workmanship but good enough for the standards I work to…..virtually none….if it stands on its own and doesn’t fall down, it is good enough!