Re: meeting with the Green’s Jane Sterk (leader) to explore future in politics. 

I thought I’d best be upfront about what I wanted to talk about when we met.  So, I wrote her about what I was going to say at our meeting.  I told her the Greens had to have an economic platform or else they were going to be relegated to the fantasy fringe.  She urged me to read the new Green book.  I did.

It seemed to have come from the minds of babbling fools.

I said, “While I support the ideas proposed in the Green book (kinda), they are not my priorities and, with respect, I don’t think the average citizen feels any differently than do I.”

“Of course, you are welcome to join the party and contribute like everyone else to the policies and platform.”

“Well, I’d love to.  But I am too old and impatient for that.  If you can’t – as leader – change the platform to a more realistic one, I may as well thank you now for your kind reception and bid you and the party adieu.”

And that is where we left it.

But I thought I’d share with you what they are thinking.  The Greens now feel that these are their top ten issues (my comments to Jane attached in italics):
The Greens would:

1. Re-establish a provincial police force.  Definitely not priority #1 in the mind of the public.  More like #20.  Still, good idea but not really necessary.  We just need to ride herd on the police a lot more.  They are just suffering from an in-bred, old boy, militaristic-type culture.  We should NOT make their job more difficult, just have an independent board of inquiry made up of real people other than all lawyers or judges to investigate their mistakes and set better policy.  This is a topic that has some real possibilities but not the way it is stated.    

2. Raise the carbon tax to $50 per tonne of emissions, and “Tax all GHG emitting industries”. (The Liberals, who introduced the tax, would triple it over time. The NDP would scrap the tax.)  Stupid.  Totally alienating.  Joe average doesn’t ‘get it’.  This just sounds like more taxes.  And, in a way, JAv is right.  This is not the way to go about greening anything.  It is punitive and makes people ‘wrong’.  They are not.  They are just people trying to get by and they need incentives, not punishments, to get better. This is just another BIG Brother act that means nothing but negativity to the average person.  Dump it.  But enforce the existing pollution laws to the hilt. 

3. Cancel the Gateway highway-expansion program. (The Liberals are pushing Gateway, and the NDP is not opposed to it.)  Wrong again.  Cars are not the problem- it is pollution that is the problem.  Individual cars mean individual freedoms.  People want ém.  And they need ém.  Public transit is a myth.  We just have to make it so that roads and cars don’t pollute.  Once again BIG Brother (all the planners and academics) has missed the point.  Real people, real workers, real life requires individual transport.  The professors and the planners can take transit, the loggers, fishers, store owners and soccer moms need wheels.  We need to give them ‘clean and green’ wheels.  Yes, I know that isn’t easy. But it is the only way. 

4. End drug prohibition.  Maybe.  Maybe not.  It is not as simple as that.  Not as simple as they imply.  Trust me.  I worked on skid row.  I worked with juveniles.  On the street.  Ten years.  It is not that simple.  Regardless, it is not priority #1.  More like #21.  All we are saying as a party is that we don’t have our focus in the right place.  Stupid. 

5. Take tasers away from all law-enforcement agencies in the province.  I hate the damn things.  That RCMP murder at the airport (Robt. D) sickened me.  But it is not the taser.  It is the doofus using it.  Once again, focusing in the wrong place. 

6. Move the province toward a “steady-state economy” that would avoid the shocks of economic highs and lows, and allow for better environmental protection than unfettered economic growth.  Agreed.  100%.  And it ain’t hard to do. We have the product.  We have the people.  We just don’t lead them in the right direction is all.  This one is #1. 

7. Create “green-collar jobs”. These have been largely undefined to date, but they emphasize job creation that does not diminish natural resources to the extent that unfettered economic growth does. (Both the NDP and the Liberals tout increased growth, though the one of the Liberals’ six pillars concerns making do with less.)   Agreed.  100%.  Same as 6 above. 

8. Seek a moratorium on gambling licences and a “gradual phase-out of the most addictive forms of gambling such as slot machines and on-line gambling”. (The Liberals have seen this sector grow exponentially under their tenure.)   What is it with our people?  Televangelists are less judgmental.  The Pope is more liberal.  You are acting like a Seinfeld character – obsessed with the minutae.  I hate govt. sponsored gambling.  It is wrong.  It is immoral and an evil way to fund pork barrelers.  And we should ‘curb it’ significantly.  But it is not priority #1, 2 or 3.  The Greens need political savvy.  This ain’t it. 

9. Repeal Bill 30, which removed local-government decision making on some zoning issues.  Absolutely.  100%.

10. Return B.C. Ferries to the status of Crown corporation. (The Liberals want business as usual, and the NDP promises only to return “accountability” to B.C. Ferries.)  Absolutely.  100%.  And that goes for all the Crown corps.  ICBC, BCH, BCR (if we could) and so on.  But especially BC Systems. 

Maybe I am not green at all.  Maybe I am a liberal or something…………….sheesh.

When the weather is this cold, you tend to stay in, drink tea and think about stuff.  All sorts of stuff.  Of course, I could let my mind turn to politics but there is so little satisfaction to be had there.  And so I will…………but just for a bit……….

Firstly, I have a confession: I called Jane Sterk, head of the provincial Greens and said, “I have this idea that the Greens can actually get elected.  Maybe.  But it requires a radical change of strategy.  If you are open to that, I’ll come down to see you sometime.”  To her credit, she was nice, polite and willing to listen.  We’ll likely meet just before Christmas.  More on that as it unfolds.

I’ve also been thinking about the economy.  How is it working?  You know, ‘pump it full of ‘bailout’ money and hope that, like a bump-start, the engine kicks back in’.  But has it?  I think not. 

If any reader has ever bump-started a car, the analogy holds – the engine is forced to run by the momentum of the car pushing it, and it eventually catches and takes over.  But I have had a number of cars in my life that needed that sort of treatment now and then and sometimes the bump-start method fails.  In fact, the bump-start method is usually just a harbinger of much worse things to come.  When you are down to the bump-start, the car is likely on it’s last legs.  And I am thinking our economic system is in just such a state.   

Bump-starts only work if there is spark and fuel.  If there is no spark or fuel, there is no start-and-run. In this sense the ‘consumer’ is the fuel.  And they seem to be absent in the market place in droves these days.  Consumer debt – even in Canada – is at an all-time high and so we are simply not buying so much anymore – certainly not the BIG items. 

Neither are the Yanks.  Americans are still losing their homes and declaring bankruptcy by the millions.  The average employee in North America, working or not, is struggling to make ends meet and, with a huge component of the population (baby-boomers) soon entering retirement, the appetite for stuff is just going to naturally wan even further.  So there is no fuel.  At least not in North America.  Not like before.

Bottom line: the gas gauge reads close to empty. 

‘Spark’ without fuel is a waste.  But is there even ‘spark?’  In this sense, ‘spark’ is innovation, drive, ambition, creativity, new markets.  And, in that sense, I think there is some.  Not a lot.  But some.  But is the ‘spark’ in the right place?  I don’t think so. 

Some of the spark manifests in terrorism, urban gangs, Mexican drug wars and increased security, tasers and the rise of the police state.  These people are radically outside the system.  Or, radically inside.  But they are still reliant on the system staying the course.  They are ‘sparking’ but not in a good way.   

To be fair, we also get ‘Kindles’ and Iphones and entertainment crap but we are still buying food from Safeway and cars from dealerships.  More of the same.  It just feels as if the economy is trying to get back on it’s feet wearing the same old shoes.  Same old clothes.  And saying the same old things.  The economy feels ‘old’.  And, for this, I blame institutions, politics and all the ‘systems’ that we have held to so dearly.  Even the American dream has wrinkles.  It all seems so ‘old’.

Some of this may be projection on my part.  I admit to that.  I’m getting old.    

But government seems especially old.  Government is so ‘old’ to most people they either vote from habit (like old geezers) or they don’t bother to get out of their house to exercise their franchise (like old geezers). 

Face it, the system just ain’t sexy no mo’.  

‘Getting ahead’ was sexy for awhile – pre 2008.  Now it seems futile to many these days.  Greed was such a driving force for such a long time.  But those that succeeded at that game are 60 or fast approaching it and those that did not succeed are way ‘out of reach’ still.  Young people, even those working and earning what seems to be a good wage ($60K) are still not able to buy even a cheap condo.  Vancouver’s Olympic Village, projected to lose millions, is still too expensive to sell to young people seeking homes in the city.  So, how is that going to work?

It is not going to.

And that is part of my thinking – acceptance of the BIG mistake.  We’ve done a lot right in this the modern era, but we have also done a lot wrong.  We have to accept that.  It’s not hard.  I think ‘screwing up’ is pretty normal, actually.  Much more normal and a larger part of life than we normally imagine.  We tend to think we do nine out of ten things right and, ‘oops’, there is that one thing that got away.  I don’t think so.  In fact, I think we err more than we get it right.  I do, anyway.   

First off, I think we, as a society, repeat the mistakes of the past.  Big time.  And look at that history!  It’s bloody scary.  And the period from 1900 to 2000 is scarier than most. 

Secondly, I think we err at a higher frequency than we admit to but we can usually recover quickly when it is at an individual or small group level.  That kind of ‘recovery’ is a common trait of people but not of the institutions they create.  Or the ones they work for.  Governments, corporations, even religions are just not flexible.  They don’t ‘adapt’ (the very quality that made the Homo Sapien successful).  In other words, I think individuals will find answers, institutions won’t.

But we keep investing in BIG!

Ergo: Big is out.  We have to look away from government, corporations and institutions.  Now is the time to NOT listen to what they say.  Now is the time to do the right thing as you see it.  Put bluntly: our current leaders are wrong.    

Real, innovative, leaders seem to come out of the blue.  And they do.  They come from outside the system.  They are truly free thinkers.  Contrarians, to be sure.  But more than just contrary, they are creative and visionary.  They are innovative.  They are different. 

Appointed, elevated, respected and ‘graduated-from-the-system’ leaders are not leaders at all.  They are followers, sheep who have ‘drunk the Kool-Aid’.  They say what we want them to say, lead where we want them to lead and do what we expect them to do.  They are, for the most part, useless as leaders.  And now that it is not working anymore, they are useless as icons.   

So, here’s my thought:  If you are ever going to step out of line, now is the time.  If you are ever going to rage against the machine, begin flailing today.  If you are ever going to stand up and get counted as the power of one, seize the moment!

We need that kind of input.   

I now live amongst the most eccentric of people.  They are colourful. They are different. They are contrary.  And they are very, very independent.  And, you know what?  They are also happy.  They are successful in their ways and they do no harm.  These days, I am pretty pleased to be following their lead.  It seems to be working for me.            

It’s cold. Minus degrees with a very strong wind chill factor.  The neighbourhood ‘fiords’ dump cold air down our channel during their ‘outflow’ moods and the temperature just plummets.  Locally these winds are referred to as a ‘Bute’.  We sit up on a rocky ledge on our beach so as to maximize the cooling effect – in summer.  In winter, we crank up the little stove til it’s a-hummin’ so as to minimize the cooling effect.  Aah, the yin and yang of life, eh?

It’s pretty nice here, tho.  Cosy.  Warm.  Very beautiful.  It’s good.  We have 8 coming for dinner tonight and Sal is trying to get six for lunch next Tuesday.  I am not as keen to entertain when it’s minus 10 and the guests have to come by boat but Sal has a ‘social accounting system’ to reckon with and so we all convene whether we want to or not.  Whoopee!  I asked her about the logic of this and she said, “It’s almost year-end.  We still have some payables!”

She may be missing the hospitality concept a smidge.

The problem for me is that the plumbing is frozen.  Or wants to be.  I have heat tape on it but I have to run the genset to keep it functioning and that seems a bit silly.  So, last night I drained the system.  Tonight, I’ll recharge it til everyone has gone home and then, in the dead of night, drain it again.  Heat tape and genset on while they are here.  Party preparations are different out here. 

Q-Hut is nearing completion.  Looking good.  Turnout for the work-party this week was excellent.  We’ll be done in three or four more sessions.  But, as you may recall, we don’t work in the rain.  We stopped work in the summer (everyone had personal projects to complete) and we are disinclined to work when it is really cold.  Projected completion date – sometime in 2011.  Maybe.  2012 for sure.  But we don’t care.  We like doing it and, if stretching the job is required to prolong the enjoyment, we will do just that.  This task may never get done!

Just for the record: the Liberal govt. is imploding in ways uniquely spectacular, don’t you think?  “Here a tax cut, there a tax cut, whoops, sorry, only kidding!” And – just for interest sake – the NDP are tripping and falling at the same time!  Carol James is struggling to remain upright what with all the daggers stuck in her back.

My God, there is such a dearth of style and poise let alone leadership in this pathetic province you have to wonder how and why all these people got to such a position.  It is no wonder that apathy reigns and disillusionment prevails amongst the electorate.

I’m going to encourage Sally to run.  I’d vote for her.  She’s right once in awhile (don’t tell her I said that!) and is really cute.  Way cuter than Carol Taylor.  That’s a better track record than most of our elected governments who, it seems to me, are wrong virtually all of the time (and look bad in the process).  Hell, on that basis, I’d vote for either one or both of our dogs!  I’d even vote for a ‘broken clock’ on the basis that is right at least twice a day!

Just before I quit this rant: The Liberals were likely the worst government we ever had (and we have had some really bad ones) – selling off our rivers, eviscerating BC Hydro, huge spending over-runs on the convention centre and now the Olympic village debacle – just to name a few (and there are many, many more, especially the criminal BC Rail/Basi/Virk issue).  But where was the opposition in all this?  The only voice of dissent I ever heard (other than the echoes of my mind) was Rafe Mair.  And Bill when-it-comes-to-a-buck VanderZalm.

Honestly, we really have to do better next time.         

‘Birthday wishes’ to Fran got handled thanks to an early morning reminder from reader Sid.  Whew!  Thanks, buddy.

Town day was postponed.  Blowing 25 with gusts.  We had whitecaps and sizeable waves.  Normally this wouldn’t deter us but lacking the big boat (motor dead) meant reliance on Sal’s boat, the equivalent of a Miata.  Imagery: imagine a large helping of mashed potatoes heaped on a plain white saucer, maybe with two bits of broccoli on the side………..that’s me sitting in her little boat and the little broccoli bits are her and her outboard motor.  Not a seaworthy picture, really, is it?

So, we’ll go another day.

Dogs are starting to bug me again.  I suppose I should blame the local otter – the dog perfume dispenser. Nothing seems to please the dogs more than a few rolls in fresh Otter poop.  Then they come in and sit at my feet in front of the woodstove.  “They love you, sweetie” says Sal.  I know it is silly of me, but I am not keen on steaming dogs reeking of Otter poop and, strangely, I don’t care if it is a sign of affection.  I am not impressed.

Our neighbour Judith is the ‘go-to’ dog sitter for us.  The dogs (especially Fiddich) really do love her.  And it seems mutual (but she won’t take them permanently no matter how much money I offer).  Judith dropped by the other day with fresh deer offal and bones.  For the dogs.  There was about 25 pounds of still-meaty bones, spines, noses and other organ meats and the dogs have taken to it like wolves.  It’s a good thing.  I think.

It is also interesting to realize how ‘citified’ I still am.  I am shocked at all the deer blood.  I know that blood is involved in all the meats we eat.  I am not quite that insulated.  But, when you buy a steak from Save-on, they have taken special care not to have the item retain any sense of the ‘real-life/real-butchering/real-death’ process as possible.  Wouldn’t want the customers to really know what they are part of, I suppose.  A Save-on steak has no blood. Neither does a chicken, a piece of swine or a lamb.  They are clean, dry and you can put one on your sore, recently punched, black eye if you need to without worry of staining your clothes with bloody evidence.  Our meat has been sanitized. 

Not so the local slaughter.  Of course, the local hunter hangs and bleeds his dead ruminant and all that but the pieces that are hacked off willy nilly (so to speak) are not wiped 100% clean and wrapped in plastic with a styrofoam tray as background.  Get a deer roast from a local and you get a brown bag with a bloody lump in it.  Feels pretty primal.  And it is.

I am disinclined to becoming vegetarian.  I tried it once and it didn’t work.  But I must admit that more people would consider it if the meat they bought was handed out like the deer offal was.  Makes it pretty real.  You get closer to the deer, closer to the dogs and somehow closer to everything. 

It’s bloody profound is what it is.    

The day before Fran’s birthday.  Sheesh!  Fran is a good friend.  Abnormal and whacked in all the usual suburban ways but especially so when it comes to her birthday.  DO NOT FORGET BIRTHDAY!  That is not a reminder, it is a threat and comes very close to a curse.  It has worked that way on me, that’s for sure.  For years!    

I have been living in fear now since November started.  I usually remember Fran’s birthday because it was also my parent’s wedding anniversary.  But my parents are gone and the double-trigger, it seems, was necessary for me to remember either/both.  So, I remember for virtually every day except, of course, the ACTUAL day and then all Hell breaks loose when it comes and goes.  Tomorrow, we’ll be in town doing some shopping.  I’ll forget.   

I am doomed!

Sal’s gone postal for the day.  It’s her turn at the Post Office.  Plane comes in at noon-ish and Sal sorts mail and gets to spend the next four or so hours greeting islanders as they come in to get books, bills and cheques.  Seemed like a good way to meet everyone when she signed up but well, she knows everyone now and so it is a bit more of an obligation.  “Oh well”, she rationalizes, “I get away from that stupid Dave for a few hours.”

Those five or so hours are pretty hard on me, though.  

This time the benefits for the postal worker are almost outweighed by the negatives.  It is pouring with rain.  Visibility is poor.  A storm is scheduled for later and she is in a 12 foot open boat coming home in the dark.  For most people, that is a daunting prospect.  Not Sal.  Flying over waves and getting soaked is all part of the fun.   Sally manages to make ordinary life into an extreme sport – and I stopped trying to keep up a decade ago. 

But I’ll stand on the deck and look worried starting at about 4:30 pm.  I am the overly concerned ‘responsible one’ in this situation but I’ll play that role from the comfort of a dry, warm home. 

Maybe pour myself a glass of wine to help with the stress.    

Looks like it will an ordinary day in paradise, just a bit wet for the ol’ pudding.    

People come and go.  We expect that.  But when a young couple with two small kids leaves the island, it is somehow worse.  Feels symbolic in some kind of way.  Sad, actually.

H&K are the parents leaving.  Today.  Very nice.  Two little daughters.  R-May is just a few months old and A is barely 2…whatever……and, OMIGAWD is she cute!  (Tons of strawberry blond hair and a giant smile.  Full of beans.  She’s breaking hearts already (mine, for sure).  And she likes me.  Calls me grandpa or Santa whichever is her mood for the moment.  I always get a big hug. And then we ‘play’ at nonsense stuff and have goofy conversations for a few minutes before she heads off for something better.  Sounds crazy but I’ll miss her.)

And therein lies the point of this entry: seems islands are for old people.  The dissonance with that thought is that you have to be young to handle the physically tough living on the islands but only the older, more established people can afford to live here.  Island living ain’t cheap or easy.

As a side note: this older-person-being-physical phenomena shows up on the women more than the men.  Both genders are in good shape out here (I am the exception that proves the rule) but a man in good shape in his 60’s is pretty shapeless.  A chunk of muscle, gristle and covered in grizzle.  But the women out here still keep their feminine shape.  I can think of several (I just counted up 7 without trying) older women out here whose figures rival that of much younger athletes or even models.  Of course they age as does everyone but they are so active that they can swap clothes with their older grandchildren.  Really!

City living is harder stress-wise and even more expensive when you really consider the situation but, on a purely physical and cashflow basis, island living is just too much for most younger people. That sounds contradictory, doesn’t it?  But, in the city, you can factor in financing and specialization.  Plus they lay on the ‘systems’.  Financing makes it both easier and more enslaving.  Specialization makes all the numbers bigger – you get more and you pay more.  And the systems – well, we know about the systems, don’t we?  Efficient but dehumanizing in the extreme. 

The reason the young can handle the city: energy.  The reason the old can handle the country: money.  

Even tho the country is a cheaper place in which to live, there is no financing.  Not for everything (gensets, runabouts, tools, solar panels, etc.).  And, where you can finance, you can’t earn a steady enough income to pay it off.  Still, I’ve looked at the picture from both sides and I am convinced country living is a much better deal – if you can afford the entry fee.  It costs less, you work less, you live healthier and everything is better.  But you need to ‘enter’ debt free. 

Financing a rural life just doesn’t work.  And young people just getting started need to mortgage themselves to the hilt as a rule and then run as fast they can to keep up with all the payments.  That is hard enough to do in the city but it is almost impossible in the forests these days.

They have to go.  We know that.  It’s inevitable, I guess.  But sad.  To have the systems like school and day care and Starbucks and convenient shopping, you go to the city and sell yourself into servitude.  To have fresh air, trees, wildlife and physical work, you go to the country but suffer from lack of work and socializing with your peers.  Tough choice when you are old.

Even tougher when you are young.      

Engine died.  Not good.  One day it was running and doing it’s job happy in the water and just enjoying being an outboard motor and the next…….well, it started with a nasty cough.  Went on for a few days.  But, it seemed to carry on – more or less like normal – once a few minutes were spent hacking and spewing.  Then the cough got worse and finally, it just couldn’t get out of bed, as it were.  Couldn’t plane.  It could go.  Slowly.  It just couldn’t go well.  There was no joy.

At times like this, I take the old mix-master into Sonny-the-outboard-mechanic and he works his magic.  Usually I am, once again, reunited with the heavy, powerful inanimate object with which I have an intimate and co-dependent relationship.  Not this time.  “Engine’s dead!”, said Sonny sensitively. “Gotta get a new one.”  I reeled. 

“Oh, Gawd!  Tell me it isn’t so!  What happened to the old gal?”  

“Well, they’re outboard motors, ain’t they?  They break.  Yours followed that tradition faithfully.  It broke.  Water got in.  Went all over where it shouldn’t.  I just closed it up when I seen the rust, eh?  No point.  The outboard is dead!  Long live the outboard!”

Sonny is not much for sentiment.  Especially outboard motors.  And, it seemed at the time, outboard motor owners.  He likes me, I am sure, but Sally’s accompanying me doesn’t do the relationship any harm.  He likes cute.  But now he just looked at me like a repo man or tow truck driver rather than the life-giving doctor I had hoped to see. 

I may be a bit harsh in this observation.  He may have looked a smidge more sympathetic like the driver of a limousine at a funeral but, whatever, it was somewhat detached.  Ya know?
 
Basically Sonny was saying, ‘”It is your problem now.  An hour ago, I was kinda interested.  But not now.  Now I am bored of you”.   It felt awkward.  I didn’t belong there anymore.  I left.

But where does one go?  What does one do?  I was lost, aimless, confused.  Alas and woe overwhelmed me for a minute or two until I drove up the street and saw new outboard motors all shiny in the shop window.  ‘New’ might be good………….?

It is times like this that I hate government even more than usual.  Firstly the motor costs more than my first ten cars did — in total.  OK, first 15.  The price is in excess of $10,000.00!!  For that, you don’t get a car or even an umbrella to keep off the weather.  You just get the motor.   Period.  And then the government adds HST. 

They do this as if they haven’t added any taxes to any other part of the transaction already.  You know, like, “We have to tax this engine ’cause, like, it hasn’t given us anything!  Not lately, anyway.  And, like, even if it did when we taxed it coming into the country and then when we taxed the transporting of it and all that……….well, that was then and this is now.  Now we want more”.

I just can’t do that.  I know that outboards are the ultimate metaphor for life – death and taxes – but I will not go easily into that sweet darkness.  I may have to go but I am going kicking and screaming all the way.  I’m gonna look for second hand.  OK, maybe third.  

The only good part is that my undertaker is called Sonny.  Gives me hope for the after-life.

Some people have been able to comment on this blog, others couldn’t.  The Blogger settings allowed comments so I thought I was covered.   I wasn’t.  So, I have just rearranged the Firefox settings to doubly allow comments – that may have been the problem. 

So, if you are so inclined, please try again.  I have mild existential problems and your comments (or donations) help me to believe I exist.  At this particular time, I am having some doubts.   

‘Comments’ are tricky things.  The ‘commentator’ is writing to me but the comment content is going public.  Most of my friends want to say things to me that they would be embarrassed to think others would hear about.  “Stop writing this!”  seems an OK thing to say directly to me (a very common comment) but may seem odd when made public on a blog. 

And, “don’t forget you owe me $20.00” is kinda off the topic and makes the commentator seem petty  (You are! Get over it.  Move on, already!). 

Of course, I have a lot of friends who have trouble with their mother tongue and can’t, won’t or otherwise withhold their opinions on the basis that their comments are probably stupid (healthy perspective).  I hope I have set the bar low enough so that only the goofiest amongst you still feel that way and, if you still do, then you are probably right – your comments are likely stupid.

But I still want ém.  Existentially, they still work.   

The rants and cuss words are just vulgar and I think when the author/commentators see what they have written in print, they are a bit ashamed.  Don’t be.  You should be but don’t be.   I understand emotional outbursts, so it is OK to vent your spleen on my blog if you must.  I kinda feel the need for a bit of cleansing, myself now and then.  I just may write about Gordon Campbell for a submission or two – that should get the joint a-hoppin’.  A few dozen pages of vitriol just might make me feel a bit cleaner. 

But all comments are useful to me.  They tell me what interests you about our lives out here.  I was delighted to hear from Ginger and Sid on the ‘salvage’ piece.  Seems we are birds of a similar feather in that respect.  And Annette always sympathizes when things go a bit awry.  I like that.  

One of my favourite comments (unpublished) came from a friend and it said, “Gawd, I hate getting and wading through this drivel.  I would ‘spam-block’ you if I didn’t think you’d just find a more effective way to intrude into my life.  At least this doesn’t require seeing you in person!  And, I must admit that a 5 paragraph missive now and then is a helluva lot better than a 51 page e-mail monologue on your apartment in China.  If this is what it takes to help you feel as if you exist, it is the lesser of two horrors!” 

Can’t you just feeeeel the love? 

It was that time again yesterday.  Go to the Q-hut to work on the transformation of an old one-room school made out of a Bailey building just after WWll into a community woodworking shop stopping at lunch time to hobnob with neighbours down at the dock.  That and Sal’s yoga session is part of our weekly routine.

Before and after the lunch-break, we guys work slowly and crack stupid guy-jokes.  It’s quite fun.  Plus we are getting something done.  Doesn’t get much better than that.  Well, it did, actually.  It was a beautiful day and it was additionally graced by two young public health nurses trying to flog vaccines on a paranoid rural subset of humanity.  They had encounters.

I decided to be one of them for the time I was with the nurses.  It’s kinda fun acting like a curmudgeon from the sticks.  “Wouldn’t be doing this if t’weren’t for wife, you know.  She’s the big cheese ’round these parts.  Resistance is futile.  Still, I don’t usually have what the government is offering.  It’s all a trick, you know.  You gals have trouble sleeping at night knowing that you are injecting that nano-robot, mind-control chip technology into the people?  Or did they inject you two first and now you think it is all good?”

“Uh, sir, you don’t have to have the shots, you know.  It’s a public service.” “So, they say.  But I hear tell them nano-things are in all of us nowadays.  The only real reason to get another shot is to get your nano-things updated, you know, like an update from Microsoft.  Once you are into the system, you gotta keep up or else your programming will go all whacked.  That’s where Alzheimer’s came from, you know.  Old people forget to update.  We’re all programmed by Bill Gates, you know!”

By this time their professionalism is kicking in and they are going with the flow.  “Yes, sir, but you know Bill and Melinda are into eradicating diseases, right?  And so this may just be part of that plan.  Now that would be good, wouldn’t it?”  She says that with a lovely smile in an obvious effort to keep the customer calm and relatively relaxed while she and her assistant start doing their task with amazing speed.  They are going to keep this encounter brief.

I take another tack.  “Can I have this shot in my butt?  You know, I get to drop my drawers and bend over?  It’s always more fun that way.”  “NO!” They say in unison getting that worried look on their faces and working even quicker.

Sue, one my neighbours shows up just then.  And I say, “If you’re wanting one of them nano-probes here, Sue, you gotta get ‘neckid’ first.  These here nurses want to see you in your altogether ‘fore they’ll stick you with the new technology.  Don’t you worry ’bout me, I won’t look.  But they sure do!”  The nurses fix me with cold stare and a sharp jab and tell Sue that it is not necessary to disrobe and that I am just some sort of old trouble maker. 

“Can I get the shot in my butt?” Sue asks.  “It’s always more fun that way.”

Welcome to Surge Narrows.

We are salvagers.  Kinda.  Not really.  Partly.  It is not like we get into our old truck dressed in old, dirty clothes and go about looking for junk we can utilize or anything.  It is just that we are always in old dirty clothes and our truck is also kinda beaten up and we do notice things that can ‘come in handy’ as we drive along.  It is a subtle difference, I know, but there is a difference.  It is basically one of commitment.  We are not committed salvagers, we are just opportunists.

Mind you, we are committed opportunists so it is a slippery slope.

Over the past few weeks we have accumulated plywood.  We need plywood.  Bad. And so, when the opportunity presented itself (Sal’s dad wanting rid of some.  Doug Fleet generously donating to the community woodworking shop) and the other odd source (they don’t get much odder than Doug or Sal’s dad), we took it.

But plywood is heavy and awkward and we have enough barnacle and kelp covered slopes to climb with loaded arms as a rule and so we left it to accumulate in the utility trailer we have at the end-of-the-road for a while.  We had a haul.   

And Sal, of course, had plans.  “Sweetie, it is time we went over and got all the plywood.  Get out of your housecoat, stop drinking tea and playing on the computer now.  Now is the time to schlep plywood.  Come along, sweetie.”  

I don’t know what power has been harnessed in that ‘sweetie’ word but shortly thereafter I am transferring plywood on the beach into Sal’s small boat.  It is 11.5 feet long, 4.5 feet wide.  Plywood is frequently at least 8 feet long.  There is not much room in the boat for dancing when it is just her and me.  We were getting pretty crowded in the vessel and the two saw horses we had also obtained didn’t make it easier.  I’ve been in bigger hot tubs.  Once loaded, we headed over the bounding main to our house.  And then we unloaded over the aforementioned barnacle and kelp covered slippery slopes.

We wrestled the ply under the boat-shed and, when done, considered it a job well done.  It is also a portent of things to come.  As I look back on my last six years, I realize that I have been salvaging almost from the beginning.  Indeed, salvaging without a purpose was the way I started.  I was roaming junkyards a few years before I ever thought about building the Read Island home.  Maybe junk is my destiny? 

I am a junkman, coo-coo-ca-choo.