I’m almost 64. I have noticed that the median age of those I hang out with is close to that. Give or take. I know a few older. I know a few younger but ‘talking ’bout my generation’, they are all past the post (60) for the most part.

We are all hoping it is not the last post.

We invite the Chinese students to come visit, interview for ESL teachers overseas, see our own kids and their friends now and then….and then there are the Woofers. They are all in the early to late twenties. Median age say, 24 give or take. When we have guests, they are likely in their sixties or in their twenties.

Where have all the 45 years-olds gone?

We know a few 45 year-olds of course. Can’t miss ’em. They are the ones that vibrate from stress and are stooped in the back from their debt load. Their faces are creased with premature aging as they try to cope with rising and falling economies, children, downsizing, parents and a world gone mad. They burst into tears every time the price of gas goes up and they try harder every month to make it all make sense.

Like they can do something about it, eh?

You don’t see the 45 year-olds out here. Too bad. They could use a few weeks off.

What I find really interesting is the number of 20-somethings who relate to what we are doing. Indeed, the ones I am encountering are aspiring to it. There seems to be a contingent, anyway, of young people who would prefer a small homestead somewhere to membership in the rat race. That surprises me.

I recall the first ‘real, measurable, positive’ steps I took to living remote. It was pathetic, of course, but the first one was to research and then purchase the equipment required to make my cell phone work from an ‘iffy’ location where the coverage was poor. Obviously, I was missing the whole concept of getting away from it all but that is what I did.

The young fella that convinced me to buy a Yagi antenna and marry it up with a booster-pack was your classic ‘mumbling’ techie-who-does-not-speak until he found out that my purpose was to live feral.

“Oh man, oh, man! That is so cool. Man, like, that is what I want to do, man!”

“Kids. Wife. Bills. You know.”

Seems I was wrong about him cruising the gene pool but I did understand the trap that he had gotten into. In fact, it was visibly manifest by the little ‘techie’ room that was covered in equipment and had no windows. It was a cell. I saw him more clearly from then on in. He was like an animal in a zoo. Trapped. I left the establishment vowing to return someday to see if he was still there. I haven’t gotten back yet but I haven’t forgotten.

And Sarah reminded me of this last night. She is our niece and she had come up with her grandfather, Sally’s father, to visit with us these past few days. She hiked, climbed, kayaked and explored the garden. And she did it all with enthusiasm. She liked it. A lot. When we talked about our little homestead, she said that it was her dream to do the same thing (perhaps a bit more emphasis on gardening, tho. She is a vegan, mostly).

Is this a subtle sign of a civilization shift? Are young people ‘disengaging’ from the rat race without having even done a few warm up laps? Or am I seeing what I want to see?

I know that when I was frequenting some homesteading forums years ago, there were people of all ages who were either living off the grid or desiring to. But, that was a self-selected crowd. I know that W’fers, as a rule, express the same sentiments and they also come from all walks of life and many different countries. But, again, self-selection to some degree.

Maybe it is just a natural segment of all societies and eras that some people prefer the country life.

I don’t know.

The Chinese kids have made it home safely. The Banff bears didn’t get ’em. Too skinny, I guess. Probably not considered worth the trouble compared to northern Europeans. Germans are the full-meal deal (flavour packed and chock full o’chocolate!) and the favoured menu items for the bears so the kids were fine.

(The running German bear joke is for my one European reader, Corinna.)

Travel advice: when in Banff, go where the German tour bus has just been – the animals are full and much safer to be near.

We get follow up e-mails from the kids for a while after their visit to Canada. Usually one or two will write for about a year and then their lives move on. But, now and then, one or two ‘pop up’ again on the e-mail and we find out what is happening in their lives. It’s fun, actually.

Well, not always. Christine is a nice kid. Graduated and is now an accountant. Works like a machine for ridiculous hours in terrible conditions. And she is not really ‘fit’ enough for that. She writes: “Guess where I am? I am in Mongolia now, a totally new country for me. I am doing audit for a Mongolian company. Here is super super cold, minus thirty something. I got a cold here…life here is quite difficult, different languages, different cultures and the weather is driving me crazy…I have a very special new year here, that is staying in the apartment and eating cup noodles”.

Some just slip into ‘mainstream Hong Kong/China life’, others embark on something more adventurous and some even ‘break out’ and become free radicals of a sort maybe continuing their travels or changing career paths. Trust me: changing career paths is ‘breaking out’ in Hong Kong culture. Jin joined Greenpeace! Dong went from being shy and practically invisible to a confident, outgoing young man.

Ya just never know with kids, do ya?

It’s been a funny summer so far. Sunshine was late in coming. Temperatures nowhere near normal. Everything’s been a little ‘off’. We had a weird summer, weather wise. But, by comparison to the rest of the world, we had the best. Much of the NA continent was assaulted by 100F degree temperatures for long periods of time and all sorts of things were going on around the world including Tsunamis, Hurricanes, radiation poisoning and earthquakes – just to name a few of the headliners.

We got a bit less sunshine. Wahh!

And things got worse in a lot of places. I doubt that Haiti is much better than it was and the horn of Africa is being ravaged again. I’d hate to be an Iraqi. Tough place, this Gaia-ball.

We have nothing to complain about.

Well, there were the wasps! We couldn’t find the nest and so every happy hour had unwanted guests. So, I guess we have had our share of the pain. Woe is us.

But don’t worry about us. We’ll be fine. Resilient is our middle name. We’ll switch to gin and tonics – the wine attracts the little bastards too much. “We will not be driven out of the neighbourhood by those damn wasps!” I believe it was ‘Wheezie’ Jefferson who first said that.

If they can deal with them, so can we.

Busy day yesterday. We went a’visitin’. Again. Then, Peter and Sarah arrived while we were away and were at home to greet us on our return. We had ‘family’ for dinner. A right social whirlwind, it was.

More finger-food and chit-chat tonight when we all go to the neighbours’ for happy hour.

The last twelve logs we have gathered will remain unchopped. Oh well……………

Our first ‘do’ was to say goodbye to a friend and neighbour who was, after 35 years, leaving the area. ‘M’ is 80. Been here for the better part of his life. Built houses, boats, furniture and all sorts of projects and he keeps at it all day long to this very day. They guy is a dynamo. Reason for leaving: “…..the fish have moved north. I came for the fish and I am following them. Bought a little place up past Alert Bay and I’ll keep catching the salmon for as long as I can. You’ll have to visit me sometime!”

And we will. Visiting and being visited is in our genes.

Another old buddy at the party had just come down from Bute Mountain. He had been asked to join the team that was ascending the ‘face’ of it so that some climber-type-guy (Dean Potter?) could leap off of it and plummet 6500 feet to the delta plain below. The ‘alpinist’ was going to do so wearing a squirrel suit, a body glove that puffed up with air and assumes an aerodynamic shape as the wearer falls. Kinda gutsy, if you ask me.

National Geo was filming it and ‘R’, being a famous and local mountaineer was asked to accompany them. ‘R’ is retired now and so he declined the climb and the plummet but he went along as an advisor, colour man and honorary team member. He loved it but it didn’t tempt him as I thought it might. “T’aint no country for old men!”

So, mountain climbers get smarter as they age, it seems.

Can’t say as the rest of us do. Seem to be gettin’ stupider, myself. ‘Course all that finger-food and martini-sipping isn’t helping. Can’t say much for the over-exposure to chit-chat, either. That kind of thing can wear a man down, you know? Makes ya crazy!

Gotta know when to quit. Usually we ‘quit’ at the end of the summer and that is just around the corner. I should be able to make it but I may be a little ‘whacked’. Waddya think?

Neither Sal nor I can see very well, anymore. I mean, we can see well enough to live, of course, but a lot of the details are blurred by decrepitude and the fact that our lifestyle does not require examination of minutiae so much these days. Writing this blog is about as ‘tiny’ as the world gets for me. I really only need to see my dinner plate, the movie screen and logs float by.

And that was what we did this morning. Saw a log and went for it. Actually, we had spied it earlier and it was high up the beach and just a perfect size for log furniture and so we waited until high tide today and went a-pickin’.

The beach was a rocky one and we know it fairly well. There are some big boulders that disappear when the tide is up but they lurk just below the surface. Outboard propellers are vulnerable. I aimed for the right place to land and gave the engine a bit of juice and then slipped the gear into neutral. If the un-powered blades glance a rock at slow speed, no harm is done. Not usually.

But doing so means that Sally, me, the dogs and the boat silently glided into the beach. The Honda at idle is pretty quiet. We slipped in. Sneaky-like. Stealth afloat.

No big deal, really.

Or so we thought.

As we silently approached the still somewhat blurry rocks a little ‘boulder’ lifted off the ‘mother’ rock. Big eyes. It was a baby seal pup and we had mistaken it and it’s still sleeping mother for rock.

And in we came at a quiet rush!

The little guy was not too proficient at launching himself and his mom was sleeping some herring off so he just jiggled and rolled until he was in a position to flop into the sea. That was enough to alert mom and, just as we were about to land on top of them, she managed to torpedo her and kinder out of the way.

The dogs, of course, erupted! Whatever those things were, they deserved a good telling-off and that was delivered with gusto. All hell broke loose for a minute.

We landed, got the log and left. Mom and son watched from a safe distance. Once we were gone, they went back. We felt like riff-raff. And we sounded like it, too. Still, all’s well that ends well.

Amazing. Guilt from Exxon. Guilt from a seal. Does it never end?

Oysten Dahle, Exxon’s former VP North Sea operations said, “Socialism failed because it could not tell the economic truth, and capitalism may fail because it cannot tell the ecological truth.”

It is not often I hear ‘leadership’ from an Oil company executive but that is precisely the message that should be shouted from the rooftops.

Well, so I think, anyway.

I won’t bore you with more environmentalism ranting although I will encourage you to follow Alex Morton on the Cohen Commission into the Fraser River Sockeye runs. Talk about exposing institutional lying!

I think all 3-digit IQ people are now onside with ‘protecting the planet’. You don’t need me to muddy the issue further. Nor will I get on a podium about capitalism and it’s evil conjoined twin brother, Greed. Everyone also knows about that. No, to me the essence of Mr. Dahle’s message is simply about telling the truth.

Truth-telling, it seems, has simply gone out of fashion. From being politically correct to the now-common poli-speak, from business jargon to burying our heads in the TV, from muted media to ‘being professional’, we seem to have incorporated the essence of lies into everything we do.

And remember: for evil to be done, good people only have to do nothing! If we aren’t actually lying, we are silently acquiescing to it. Did it start with political propaganda deemed so necessary to start a war? Did it start simply in the loose license of mass advertising? Maybe it started with the married customers of the world’s oldest profession. I dunno.

But it is pervasive.

All I know is that the truth is rarely heard anymore. No more John Crosbys’, no more Jack Munroes’. We still have Rafe Mair, thank God. And Alex Morton. But, really? If numbers of honest speakers means anything, truth-telling is dead.

And I am just as guilty. I pick and choose the hills on which I might die and more and more I am using diplomacy and double-speak rather than get-to-the-point truth in my communications. I just don’t want to offend or argue or inherit a legacy of animosity, ya know? Easier to say, ‘whatever’ and shrug and leave the issue alone. Easier for everyone.

I’d feel more guilty if I was being paid to ferret out the truth, though. Like the media. Or our politicians. Or even our ‘professions’ and institutions so overly invested in the status quo. Together, they promote the BIG LIE instead of any inconvenient truths and it is just too easy to go along. Isn’t it?

Imagine that? An Exxon executive makes me feel guilty! What is the world coming to?

Sally’s dad is coming. He’s bringing his granddaughter, Sarah, our niece. They set sail from Sidney a few days ago and are tacking and jibing their way north. They are on a 27 foot sailboat that Peter has had since we (Sal and I) were last on boats. At least twenty years ago, probably 30. It is ship-shape, of course, clean as a whistle and well-equipped. Looks the same as the day he bought it – only better!

And not because of modern gee-gaws.

Peter is a sailor of the old school. In fact he is a real master mariner and, I believe, was a captain when he left the sea to immigrate to Canada some 55 years ago. He knows sailing from when ‘sailing’ actually meant sailing. I wouldn’t be surprised if he still uses a lead-line instead of a sounder. Mind you, the lead-line would be well-marked, and be made of real lead with a hollow bottom and, knowing Peter, have a real dollop of wax in it (for determining what kind of bottom he is anchoring in).

Of course he has a real lead line! What am I thinking?

He and Sarah will sail when the wind allows it and, like all BC sailors, power when the wind is on their nose. And they’ll anchor instead of tying up to wharves. Dig for clams. Grab a few oysters. And they’ll catch prawns and maybe a fish now and then. They’ll use a real chart, not a ‘book’ or a ‘map’ or GPS. And they’ll have martinis when the sun sets over the yardarm. Old school.

Perhaps I shouldn’t emphasize ‘old’. Peter is, however, 88. That is ‘getting on’, for most of us. He is more than capable of single-handing the little sloop all by himself but he is definitely pushing the higher end of middle-aged. I think he would accept that……..

He’s more than capable of making martinis all by himself, too, but it just isn’t as much fun, as I understand it, unless you have younger company that passes out hours before you do. Peter is, honestly, more like 58 than 88. The guy makes the Energizer bunny look like a slacker.

And good ol’ Sal shares some of those genes (she got the best of both gene pools, really).

My biggest challenge over the next few days will be to stop him from making me work at things I don’t want to do and for me to keep up with the martinis once the damn yardarm is in the shadows. Trust me, you have to pace yourself with Peter.

They say age is just a state of mind. I don’t believe that. I think numbers count. Age accumulates and then you topple over from the weight of it all. So far, the best argument against such an obvious truth is Peter. He is 25 years older than I am and I fully expect him to ‘see me out’ as the British say.

Maybe it’s the martinis?

Received a comment yesterday critical of my previous post regarding the Layton funeral and the CBC. Except for all the usual and regular critical comments of my kids begging me to ‘stop using my real name’, this was the first real negative I have had on the blog (well, there is the daily critique from Sally, too, but I have developed a selective deaf ear like most husbands. It is a universal coping mechanism employed by 50% of the population – if not more).

The writer disagreed with me and waxed proud of Canada and Harper and the CBC. I am glad he/she wrote. Nice to get feedback. The writer was polite. And that was nice, too. It was good of them to take the time.

Mind you, for the record: I prefer praise but, failing that, encouragement will do almost as well.

One of the reasons for living off-the-grid is a lack of tolerance for living on the grid. Stands to reason, really, if you think about it. If you don’t really like the ‘grid’, that likely means disliking things like the CBC, the government and all that.

You know..I mean…. I don’t really dislike cheap power or roads or piped in water, do I? Who would? In this context, the ‘grid’ is a metaphor for ‘normal living’. I am just not ‘keen’ on what passes for real life in the burbs anymore. That’s all. Nothing wrong with it. I am just not keen.

And, to be fair, it is not so much the life-in-the-burbs lifestyle but rather the lies and constructs that seem so necessary to keep us there, grazing in herds peacefully all the live-long day. I think the news is a farce. T’aint news at all. It is virtually all lies.

I think the justice system is so often wrong as to be criminal in itself (I wrote it off when Robert Latimer went to jail and then again when we paid the millions of dollars to the lawyers for the defense of the Gordon Campbell scum that arranged the BC Rail deal). Actually, I wrote it off a long time ago. I have no idea what it is but justice it most definitely is not!

I think our politicians are corrupt beyond comprehension (see BC Hydro, IPPS, BC Rail, DFO, Fighter jet purchase and the list just goes on and on). And it never seems to stop, regardless of who is in power. I am tired of it.

I think the medical profession has forgotten the Hippocratic oath. And they are not alone amongst the professions to sublimate ethics for money. I am disgusted by that. And even for the still-dedicated doctor and nurse, every hospital in BC is now infected with the Superbug. Hard to have faith in that system, ya know?

I think the education system…………well, you get the idea. I have lost faith in our systems. I have lost faith in our institutions. I have just lost faith.

NOT with people, however. Some of them are heroes (good example: see Alex Morton at: http://alexandramorton.typepad.com/). I have just lost faith in the systems.

Please! Let us be clear on that.

In fact, I think of it like I do the US soldiers. They were sent to Iraq on a big lie. They shouldn’t be part of what is a horrible political blunder/lie but each soldier has put faith (and their lives) in a system that is simply wrong. I don’t blame them. I blame the system.

I have rejected as much as possible living in the big lie. Or, rather, I have tried to. Not so much that I am uncomfortable, mind you. Path of least resistance and all that. I keep one foot dipped into the system so as to get library books, movie rentals and keep my own ‘systems’ going so I am definitely a hypocrite about it all. I cherry-pick. Lick the icing off the top. Drive my car. NOT noble. I am corrupt as well to get what I want. But I am also trying to want less. I am just intolerant of it on the BIG scale, I guess.

I am like the armchair, Monday morning quarterback passing judgment on the weekend football game. Only difference I can claim: I built the armchair and I am free on Monday mornings to do as I please.

But more succinctly: all criticisms are warranted, legitimate and welcome. Thanks for writing.

Down to Nanaimo and back yesterday: 400 kilometers, 12 hours of shopping chores and travel in the heat of the day. I am not suited for that kind of crap anymore. Too old.

Age, eh?

Speaking of which: Jack Layton was buried yesterday. It was on the radio as we drove. It was on the TV screens at the places we stopped. I found it embarrassing.

I may have this all wrong so I apologize for any offense but I honestly don’t get it. JL was a fine fellow from all accounts – no quarrel with that. And I am sure that he deserved a decent burial and some public ceremony. Who am I to begrudge a public man his last farewell? But, honestly, a state funeral?

I think I am grossed out more than embarrassed. The CBC, in my opinion, exploited the grief of the family shamelessly. They Americanized the event complete with close ups of his wife’s face, spotlights on his coffin and over-the-top eulogies some of them delivered by certified imbeciles. The CBC did a Michael Jackson-type Special on Jack Layton. I half-expected Leonard Cohen to host.

Are we so hard up for cheap-to-produce news that our national broadcasting company has to sensationalize a family’s loss for ratings? It is an embarrassment for the CBC and I am grossed out. Makes my skin crawl.

When the CBC was simply boring and useless, I could just choose not to tune in. But, when it is the only ‘outside’ news readily available to me, I tend to expose myself to it’s toxic blandness more than any sane man should. And yesterday was just plain sickening.

Please don’t misunderstand me: it is to tasteless non-news puffed-up grotesquely that I object. When JL stepped down, it was news. When he died, it was also news – but it was only news for those who knew him personally. The funeral service was not news! This funeral service was turned into made-for-TV news by the CBC.

It is a sad statement but: it was only done because it was cheap-to-produce air-time.

Sadly, it reminded of the Vancouver hockey riots. That, too, was news on the scale of yet another nipple-revealing by a minor singer-celebrity. I.e. little to none. A hockey game riot! Puleez! It is just a bunch of spoiled-brat punks acting out their beer and testosterone. Period! And the CBC made a mountain out of assholes. You know why?

BECAUSE THEY DIDN’T HAVE TO LEAVE THE BUILDING!

That’s right – it was delivered hot and fresh and virtually free to their door! THEY REPORTED FROM THEIR WINDOWS! Given that they have no reporters nor any kind of reasonable operating budget, they could divert from the normal on-going, mind-numbing gibberish of their usual on-air non-personalities in order to bring us weeks of coverage of thugs burning cars. OMYGAWD!!

Olivia Layton wouldn’t have asked for what happened. No one would. She didn’t need full facial TV close-ups for long durations, she didn’t need Thompson Hall’s spotlights on the coffin. She sure as hell didn’t need Stephen Lewis prattling on and on as if auditioning for a role at Stratford. That ceremony was not only in bad taste, it was insensitive to the family, exploitative of the man, and sensationalized and embarrassingly self-serving by and for the CBC.

It was bad – maybe as bad as Justin Trudeau when PET died.

I sure hope Wayne Gretsky, Shania Twain and William Shatner outlive me. I can’t take any more of this drivel.

Down to Nanaimo tomorrow to pick up two more guests. They are not ours. They belong to our neighbours but we owe them a favour so Saturday is booked balancing the ledger. May as well shop and stock up while we are at it. And Sunday is bookclub. Sal works Monday at the post office or is it that we have two more guests arriving that are ours? Either way, the beginning of the week is chock-a-block. It is probably both.

But today is a day of cusp. Students gone yesterday, guests arrive tomorrow. Clean-up, shop and prepare = CUSP.

I made Chinese food last night. Seemed fitting somehow, ya know? Sal got home tired from all the running around and so I turned my hand to a fried rice dish. Passable. Edible. But chock-full of husband bonus points. Kept her wine glass full, too. Very good long term move on my part given that I am deep in the red on husband points. Did the dishes, too.

Pretty much had to. Sal was asleep.

‘Course none of this ‘domesticity’ was done well. If I do it well, I have the job forever. I am not stupid. The idea is to do something good enough to get the points but nowhere near as good as she can do it or else I have a new domestic job for the rest of my life. Hard to do it right, sometimes. It’s a balance-thing. Done right, you can keep the points at a negative but respectable level and yet inherit fewer than two or three new domestic chores a year.

I should teach a course.

My neighbour, Mike had it down pat but lacked the finesse. Once he was saddled with too many chores, he simply burnt the house down. Hasn’t been asked to set foot in the kitchen (or the house, for that matter) in years.

Hey, life is all about making choices!

It’s noon. Thursday. And all is quiet on the Western Geweilo Front. Kids are gone. Laundry at capacity. Fridge empty. House is otherwise normal. Water tank refilling as I write.

Dogs seem stunned.

Everyone up at 6:15 (including me!) to hug and say goodbye. Then Sal took them off in the boat to catch various connections depending on their destinations (Hong Kong, Victoria and Toronto). Busy, busy, busy.

But before they go, she will take them to the Ideal Café on the outskirts of Campbell River for a good breakfast. Good , in this sense, means huge, greasy and set in a small 50’s-style diner complete with loggers and mechanics in overalls. The ambiance of the café couldn’t be reproduced by Stephen Spielberg for anything under $30M. The Ideal is ideal. And original.

Erica will head back to Hong Kong. Tracy is off to Toronto for a work-study and the other kids are off to tempt the Grizzlies in Banff.

(But, as everyone knows, Grizzlies generally prefer Germans. The bears get their quota just about every summer. Those tourists are so easy to catch. They walk off the bus and hug you. If you are a Grizzly, you eat ’em. It’s simply ‘good eatin’. Except for having to spit out the camera parts, it’s easier than the garbage bins. German exports (tourists) are the main reason the Rocky Mountain Grizzly thrives to this day!)

Well, that is what I tell my Chinese students, anyway. It’s my way of warning them away from the bears. I also suggest that they do not get their picture taken with a German tourist anywhere in the park. No sense tempting fate.

Mind you, I also teach them to yell “Allahu Akbar!” in the airport as a native Haida farewell.

I sure hope the students don’t forget us.