….especially when talking about cisterns for water storage during a drought.

“I’m buying another cistern.”

“When you do, please order one for me”.

“Tow my tin boat down to the other island bay Saturday morning and we’ll load them both into it when I come over for this weekend.”

And so we did.  Took us awhile to get the big ol’ tin boat down to the loading dock.  Can’t plane.  So we just ‘skewed’ our way down.  Took an hour and a half.  The tanks were there waiting on the dock.  Sal and I pushed them around a bit to get a sense of how to handle them while we waited for my neighbour to arrive.

“I’ll go get gas for the boat. Maybe some milk. Want some ice cream to go with that berry pie?”

Off she went.  I waited.  Neighbour arrived.  “OK, let’s do this!”  We pushed the tanks over the edge of the dock and they fell nicely into the tin boat.  He then got his own boat started and Sal returned.  We headed out.  Weather was good.  Seas a smidge choppy.  The occasional NW gust to 15.

We were towing the tin boat for a bit but, when he caught up, we passed him the tow rope. His boat is bigger.  “See ya at home!”  And off we went.

Got home.  Had a bite to eat.  Waited.  Watched.  Used the walkie-talkie to no response. Waited some more.  “Sheesh, they should have been here by now.  And the wind’s up a bit.  Let’s get back in the boat and go look for ’em.”  And so we did.

We traveled almost 2/3 of the way back to the loading dock.  There they were.  Crawling along.  Two cisterns and a tin boat in tow.  Three separate tows.

“Wha’ happend?”

“Wind blew ’em out of the boat.  Then the wind took ’em and they were skimming off heading back to the dock where we loaded them.  We were running around for awhile gathering tanks and boats and corralling it all up again.”

We took a tank in tow and the two boats meandered home together.

I dunno….sometimes shopping gets pretty monotonous, don’t you think?

We took two young friends into the beach yesterday.  We were headed up to the old cabin to do a reconnoiter of the creek.  The purpose of the outing was to reassess our creek water supply and flow situation. The wet, west coast is uncharacteristically dry this year and the Gulf Islands are notoriously dry, even in typically wet seasons.  Essentially, the Gulf Islands are rocks, and granite does not hold water well.  Of course, there are some soil pockets and some wells and some creeks and lakes but, generally speaking, islanders have to be water savvy every year and this year it is even more of an issue.

By far. In fact, it is a drought by our standards.

June is also a time of year when low tide happens around mid-day and low tide is quite low. We can get zero tides around this time.  According to the tables, we were at low tide at 1:30. We misread that and concluded 12:30.  We were on the beach at 11:30 and calculated a two hour excursion hiking and adventuring.   Meaning the tide would go out for an hour and then come in for an hour and so, wherever we anchored off, the boat would be in the same place.  But, like I said, we misread the tables.  The tide would be receding for TWO hours and take two MORE hours to come back.

Off we went hiking and messing about in the creek.  Had some fun.  Did some work. Headed off to pick berries (at least we had thought ahead and brought containers) and when we had them filled we proceeded to the beach to go home.

The boat was high and dry.

A quick re-calculation determined that we would have a two hour wait.

Which should have been OK, don’t you think?  We had water to drink.  We had berries. We had company. The place is beautiful. We could even pick more berries.  ‘Ommmmmmmmmmmmm……..zennnnnnnnnnnn……….go with the flow fellow butterflies………………….’

“No way!  C’mon, let’s drag the boat to the water!”  And so a bit of dragging on a one ton boat stuck in the mud ensued until futility made it’s point much more pointedly.  I sat and went to my happy place. I figured to spend two hours there.

Not Sal.

“I can hike along the cliff edge and then swim back to the dock to get the other boat”, volunteered Sally. 

“Or, we can wait the same amount of time as that will take and the ocean will float our boat.”

“No.  I misread the tables (she didn’t, really, but I only heard the 12:30 part, not the later correction).  It is my responsibility.  I’m going.”  And, with that, Sally put on a life jacket, waded into the sea and swam and climbed her way along the shoreline (with Fiddich providing some motive power now and then) and she eventually scrambled and swam her way to the dock – about a 500 meter journey overall.  Twenty minutes later a wet Sal came into the bay with her boat and we all went home to get a cup of tea and wait until the other boat was floating and ready to go home soon after.

And we did that.

“Sorry about the mistake”, we said to the young couple, “but all’s well that ends well, eh?” 

“Don’t be sorry!  It was lots of fun.  Berries, oysters, creek-wading and a disaster-at-sea adventure all in one afternoon.  We had a blast!”

….lives and mostly hides out these days in Surrey.  She is just being cautious.  But she has to be.  She is  not alone.  Her neighbours are being cautious, too.  There have been a lot of shootings in Surrey and the last ones were on her street.  She doesn’t feel as if she can go for a stroll in her neighbourhood anymore without thinking twice.  Maybe three times.  She doesn’t even think about it in the evening.  Nobody does. She has to be really careful – even parting the curtains to look out the window.   Her kid can’t go out to play.

No one lets little kids go out to play in the streets and parks alone anymore anywhere it seems but her new level of security is a step up.  In fact, it is a form of ‘lockdown’ for her and her child.

Harper and the gang of idiots have concentrated on fear mongering to sell their C-51 legislation but it is ironic if not negligent to concentrate on fears of Muslims, immigrants and terrorists (apologies for the joint reference) when the real danger to Canadians is ordinary money-seeking, low-life, criminals.

I need to reiterate: no one in Canada has ever been attacked by a terrorist. That John Nuttal and Michael Zihaf-Bibeau are trotted out as so-called terrorists is asinine. They were born and bred Canadian nut-bars through and through.

But – you already know all that.  I am just re-stating the obvious.  But what is NOT obvious is what normal everyday negligence on the part of government is actually doing to the people. Aside from having to hide out (somewhat) in her own home, she is also powerless to move. No one will buy houses in that part of the lower mainland despite record high prices even in Vancouver’s Skid Row.  Surrey is deemed by the dollar-voters to be a worse environment than even the Dowtown Eastside.  Skid Row. That’s quite a statement.

An intelligent, law-abiding, major contributor to her community (and the province) with a young child has to hide out in her own home because of narco-criminals running pell mell and creating all hell around her.  Does C-51 do anything about that?  No.

The RCMP are supposed to curb that sort of thing………..but………..well………..maybe they are ………or not…not yet, anyway……………or……………maybe….who knows?

On the assumption that the RCMP is on the up-and-up (an assumption I make generously), why are they so impotent?  Why can they taser a teen almost to death or shoot an innocent senior, jump on the backs of traffic violators and occasionally get caught with their fingers in all the wrong places but they don’t seem to be able to catch the criminals who are obvious-by-their-colours, tattoos, cars and street-strutted gangsta behaviours?

I know you NEED proof but you need proof for a conviction, not an arrest.  Tasering Robt. Dziekanski to death proves they needed no evidence – just a well founded fear for their well-being even tho – in his case – they were armed and in the majority by 4 to 1.  In other words; why not hassle the bad guys instead of the hapless citizens?

Put bluntly: my friend is being hassled by the thugs.  Terrorized.  Trapped like a rat.  Her kid is being stifled in her growth.  My friend is losing money (that usually seems to matter) and the police and the government is failing her completely.  No Muslims involved.  No flag-carrying terrorists. Just the subtle influence of evil and insanity, greed and poverty, isolation and well, just punks-being-ugly, mostly.  Young, poor, ignorant and unemployed idiots with nowhere to put their misguided energy.

Some of the crooks are immigrants but just as many are Canadian citizens.  This government (Feds and Province) is failing her and them completely.  Being an unemployed, ignorant youth-out-of-culture is a recipe for this sort of thing.  The government knows that.  It is total dereliction of duty and responsibility.  Total absence of accountable, constructive presence for her and her neigbours.  AND the punks.  They are just NOT doing their job.  NOT in the least.

How can Harper harp about ISIL and Ukraine and other bloody distant nonsense when the kids next door can’t even play in the park?  That guy has to go and he should take Christy Clark with him.

It’s that weird time in every summer.   Late afternoons.  You know, when everyone nearby gets together, has drinks and chips and used to flirt but now, instead, wax nostalgic about ‘remember-whens’ and try to recall names and dates that no longer have any relevance? These happy hours usually last about two hours.  We have an unspoken rule NOT to go past three for mental health reasons.

We are talking about that time when the short attention spans combine with loss of voice projection, memory loss, Early Onset, booze and deafness to cause six separate conversations among eight people.   Two hours of shake and bake trivia-laced topics, with most issues left unresolved for the next time — which will prompt memory challenges then so as to create our own version of the Never Ending Story.

It is the late sunset, social pleasantness at the end of the day. Confusion reigns.  I can do it once week.  But I prefer once every two.  My friends only want me once a month (and they are being generous of spirit to include me that much) so it’s all doable.

Happy Hour always leaves my head spinning from the influence of wine and chaos and endless conversations not finished, not heard, not remembered and no one even cares!

“Good to be back here.  Lovely day.  Nice to see you all again.”

“Yeah, when was the last time we were all together?  Wasn’t that the Labour Day weekend last year? Or was it Holly’s birthday?  No! I remember now.  It was when Bob came to visit and stayed for the festival.  Right?  He had that sombrero?  Had a red band on it. And Stone Mason or Mason Jar or Jarhead or something was playing….what was their name? They won a music award. Heard that on Q before Jian imploded.”

“No.  I remember that Labour Day because we were at….whose place were we at last Labour day, honey?  Honey?

“Place mats?  You want place mats?  Just a sec’ I’ll get some and some napkins, too”.

“No, you were here because I helped you do that step down to the lower level.  Used six bags of concrete and ten feet of re-bar.  Had to drill 10 six-inch holes.  We used cold cure to set them.  Remember? ”

“That was the year before when Bob was here.  What ever happened to Bob, anyway?”  

“He married that girl from the Philippines.  Seems some old guys are doing that now.  Their pensions make them attractive.  Bob would need three pensions to be attractive!”

“I think Phillipinas are attractive.”

“Not you!  Bob!”

“What about Bob?”

“Here’s the beer.  I forgot to get place mats.”

“That’s OK, honey.  Just remember…to put on the BBQ…OK?”

“Did someone say Bob was coming?  Should I put on extra chicken?”

“Heard you on the walkie-talkie today.  Pretty funny.”

“That’s ’cause I think mine is broken.  Can’t hear what’s being broadcast. I have the volume turned right up.”

“You can’t turn the volume up.  It’s digital.  You gotta go into the menu to adjust the volume.”

“What?  I didn’t catch that.”

“So is Bob coming or not?  I have to know.  Especially if he is bringing a date.”

“Would anyone like a place mat or a napkin?”  

Eleven years.  Storms.  Snow. Darkness.  Huge loads.  Heavy, heavy things. Challenging?  Yes.  Impossible?  Not until yesterday.  Yesterday was too hard!

We bought a lot of food this town day.  Stocking up.  Costco.  $1000.00.  Then Save-On for another $100 or so.  Plus boxes of dog food, 5 heavy steel bars and a 4×8 sheet of expanded metal. And, finally, a garbage can full of odds and sods.  We were packed.

Don’t plan on going in again until late July.

Wind was up.  Maybe 25.  Seas had been working up all week.  Nothing scary.  A three foot swell-cum-chop is nothing to be afraid of but it can get wet in a small boat.  Plus it is bloody awkward at the rocky beach.  We were, of course, in a small boat.  Cowardice got the better of my valour and I dropped the 4×8 sheet of metal off at a nearby sheltered dock.  That was a fortuitous decision.  And then we headed to ‘our sea stairs’.

The bow was describing six foot arcs.

The cooler weighed close to or just over 100 pounds.  Sal couldn’t lift it. I got it on the bow of the boat and she perched just beside it.  When the wave rose, I nosed in and she leapt off on to the beach.  I circled around and, waiting to catch my wave, nipped in just so that she could one-arm a cooler she couldn’t previously two-arm.  It came off the bow of the boat and almost took Sally into the deep.  Somehow she gritted it out and got the beast onto the lowest step on the stairs.  It had taken a herculean effort.

“I’ll come around again.  I’ll go out, reload the bow and then surf in again.”

“No!  Don’t.  I can’t do that again.  And we have a lot of stuff and some of it is heavier.  Go around to the lee side and we’ll unload into J’s floatshed.  Get the rest of the stuff tomorrow.  I have the stuff that needs the freezer but I can’t get it up the stairs.”

“I’ll get it when we come back.  Just lift it up a step or two so the tide doesn’t get it.  And strap that rope around it ’cause the ravens will open it and steal.”

Just then, as I was keeping off, a wave washed over the whole of the back of the boat, engine and all.  For a second I heard no sound.  I thought  the engine had stalled.  That would have been a beach-crashing disaster.  But it was just muted by the sea and we were still good.  Sal’s idea to try again the next day was a good one.

And that effort was made today.  And, of course, the wind was way, way less.  We got smug.  Put everything into Sal’s little boat because loading/unloading is easier from it.  But the tide was way, way out.  So, I had to do the Sally leap onto the slimiest of rocks and barely made it.  As it was we were both completely ‘stretched out’ passing heavy goods and the seas were still enough to wash over her bow now and then.  She was standing in 3 inches of water as she tried passing things.

The 30 pound box of dog food was what got her.  She tried swinging it up to me but couldn’t.  So she just held on to it as the 30 pounds took her in it’s Newtonian way – a body in motion will take it’s friend into the sea. Next second she was knee deep in water and rapidly slipping deeper.  I grabbed her by her vest and she pulled herself back out and reclaimed the boat.  I had reclaimed the dog food.  No words were spoken.  When we were done, she went back to the other dock.  Then we carried a ton up to the existing fun cart and loaded it.

“So, how do you feel about the work-in-progress lower cart now?”

“Now?  Now I think you should have done it last year, you lazy butt-head!”

“But, didn’t you think I was obsessing over it just last week?  Didn’t you suggest I go to yoga instead of working on it?”

“I don’t remember.  But, regardless, that lower fun cart is now top priority.  Get on it!”

Sal and I built to the 30 year rule and we started when I was 55.   Whatever we built only had to last as long we were likely to last.  And most people are lucky to see 85.  Ergo – the 30 year rule.

They may still be here breathing but having good vision at that time is not a given (so they don’t see 85 as it zooms like a comet right by them).  Very few see 100 even fleetingly. Time flies after 65. The 30 year rule seemed logical at the time.  Hell, I even added supports and extra reinforcements on most things we constructed and so we probably made the 35 year rule without even knowing it.

A little maintenance and we might make 40.  Me?  95?  I don’t think so.

Problem: we are 11 years into it.  And I can still do the math.  We are working to the 20-ish year rule right now and, of course,  there’s a certain chill in the air when I think about that. So, I try not to.

Mind you and ironically, this is when I decided to make things out of heavy metal.  And make no mistake – when I make something out of metal, it is heavy.  My new funicular cart will be pushing 700 pounds.  My guess is that it will easily achieve the 300 year rule.  It is mostly heavy, double hot-dipped galvanized angle steel and it seems, at times, virtually indestructible.  Did I mention ‘heavy’?

In other words, I may be entering some sort of welding influenced denial stage in my life. I’m not sure.  I could build this damn thing out of Styrofoam (with epoxy and duct tape) and it might last 20 years!  Seriously, a cedar-strip funicular cart would definitely make it. What am I doing?

My kids will inherit after the last of us pass but, with Sal, that could be a long time.  She’s got genes and she knows how to use ’em.  Still, they can at least count on a double-hot-dipped funicular to comfort them when that time comes.

“Geez, Dave, why so morbid?”

Not my fault.  I blame Mike. He’s 30.  He comes by and borrows tools now and then, talks, laughs at my jokes.  We’re friends.  Somehow the 30 year rule came up.  “I’m 30!”

“Yeah.  I know.  Seems like a long time, right?  Well, I am already down to the last twenty of MY 30.  You can see the math, right?  You just lived it.  Now imagine that you only get that same amount back.  Scary, right?”

Mike cracked up.  “You gotta do stand-up!  Man!  You are funnn-nneee.  Who talks like this?”

“Old guys talk like this.  Then they die.  Then there’s a bit of a lull and then you start talking like this.  Trust me, man.  Death is just around the corner.”

“So, does that mean I don’t have to bring your hammer-drill back?”

“Only if you want to meet him a lot sooner.”     

Sal is on yet another quilt!  Even traveled to another island today so as to visit other quilters.  A quilting bee.  This is getting out of hand.  I am a quilting widower.  It’s golf pay-back, I am sure.

Funicular cart almost complete.  Bloody marvel, it is.  Steel may be the new wood for me. I am getting better at welding – things actually stick together now.  Not always the first time but, according to my mentor – “Just beat the snot out of it with a big hammer.  If it stays together, you did good.”  Those are the kind of instructions even I can follow.

Near-death experience with ‘head-cold-from-hell’ is almost over three weeks from whence it started.  I am pretty sure it was MERS.  Middle Eastern Respiratory disease.  Comes from humping camels.  What can I say – it’s a fetish.  But there’s nothing wrong with that. Like some flues come from pigs and birds, I guess.  Perverts!

MERs is just another thing to blame on Muslims, eh?  Man, those guys can’t catch a break.  Seems hate crimes are down in Canada by a whopping 17% (who measures this nonsense?) but not for Muslims.  They are still seen as the bad guys.  I think we can thank Harper for a bit of that.

OK, ISIL, mostly but still….you know how I feel about Harper.  He can’t catch a break from me, either.

Not QUITE true.  Harper pledged to recognize climate change before 2050 and even to eliminate the use of carbon-based fuels by the end of the century.  What a visionary, eh?That has to count for something.  I mean…he SHOULD be dead by 2050, shouldn’t he? But he is willing to concede climate change from his grave.  And clearly he won’t be driving by the end of the century.  It’s a start.

We are in our 11th year here.  And we are starting to have to replace a few deck boards. Not a lot.  A few. Maybe 5%.  But, by next year maybe another 5% and then it will escalate.  In five years time we may have replaced most of it.  Wood doesn’t last.  Still, we should be able to keep up.  But it is getting harder. Not so much because of us (but that, too) but also because the thriving, manly sport of milling your own wood is dying out as the wood-millers finish their own building, their machines get old and as they tire of the chore. The local wood-mizer is hanging up his peavey.  Damn!

2100 watts of solar panels are out-putting up a veritable superpower.  We are a-hummin’ with juice.  The new freezer (small) didn’t faze it.  We added a little ‘cooler’ we had and it is relatively inefficient and it didn’t make a dent either. Batteries are full and have been for the last two months.  Bloody marvelous!

All neighbours in and accounted for.  Summer ones.  Seasonal ones.  Full-timers.  All here.  BBQ’ing like mad.  Hammering.  Sawing.  Watering gardens.  Guests here.  Visitors there.  Tourists all over the place.  Sum-sum-summetime.

There you go…..news update.

As you know, I am on a political path til October and, knowing me, it won’t stop then but it will taper off.  A man’s gotta do….

But, even now, when the politics is in full swing, I occasionally deviate.  This blog is a 180 with a slice.  I wanna talk about Tiger Woods.

This poor jerk is the modern equivalent of MacBeth.  A tragedy unfolding like dominoes falling.  OMG!  This guy had been born, raised, trained and focused on golf to a greater extent than even the most dedicated of professional athletes.  Maybe Walter and Wayne were close but even they were somewhat limited by the seasons.  Tiger did not stop swinging a club from almost the day he was born.

Malcolm Gladwell has stated that ‘outliers’ or exceptions or specialists in anything from piano-playing to golf, from hockey to computers get there by putting in a minimum of 10,000 hours of focused work all before they are mature enough to qualify as adults.  Bill Gates, Gretzky, Jobs, the list of prominents goes on and on.  They put in the time.

And Tiger put in more than most.  He passed 10,000 hours while still pubescent.

And, it paid off.  He was clearly the best to have ever played the game if you count just the athleticism.  He had a golfers body, a golfer’s timing.  He had ‘feel’.  He had focus.  He had it all.

And he got it all.  Winning.  Championships.  Course records.  Money.  Fame.  Blond beauty for a wife.  He even has a beautiful smile.  The whole American Dream in a champagne glass.  What could go wrong?

Well, it seems Tiger never really grew up.  Not enough, anyway.  And he wanted to play some other games.  With women.  With gambling.  With everything.  Worse, he had a pretty pent up sex-drive and very little to hold himself in check.  Not even wife and kids. Tiger went wild.

The results of that are predictable for anyone, let alone someone prominent.

And so then his American Dream blew up.  Classic tragedy?  Not quite.  All the kings horses and all the king’s men put him back together again.  He kept playing golf.  He kept his endorsements.  And he was simply ‘managed’ by his managers in all other aspects of his life but for the principal one – golf.  That started to unravel.  Tiger stopped winning.

His body started to fail him, too.  But, it could be said, he failed it.  Hard to know that one. Regardless, Tiger reached the pinnacle of the game in all respects but maturity and, it could be said, respect for the game and for himself.  Tiger self-destructed.  He beat himself.

At the latest tournament in which he played, Tiger shot an 85.  That is the equivalent for him of almost playing blind-folded.  In fact, there are some blind golfers who have shot better than that.  It is shocking.

“Geez, Dave, everyone has a bad game!” 

I know.  And I hope he pulls it together.  I really do.  Tiger was (a while back) good for the game.  He still has time even if his professional trajectory is declining.  But golf, more than any other sport I have ever participated in, is mental. That makes it the hardest.

When you think about it, a calm 85 year old with a good optometrist can sink a 50 foot putt. And I once played with two old septuagenarians who could not hit the ball more than 150 yards downhill with the wind at their back.  They crushed me.  You need some physical ability to be great but couch potatoes can shoot an 85.  Tiger is off the rails.  It is a modern American tragedy and it is painful to watch.

Mind you, he’ll likely sell the movie rights for a gazillion so I’ll go back to whales, ravens and politicians now.  Thanks for bearing with me.

A naked man living in a cave and subsisting on foraged berries, roots and wild vegetables for years is definitely off-the-grid if not off-his-nut as well.  Living primitively is not fun.  Not easy, either.  To be pure OTG is a reduction of the human being into an animal whose sole function is survival even if wandering in the all-together is sometimes enjoyable on a sunny day. Basically, it would be a really tough life.

If that man should eventually stumble across a logging road and then use it on a regular basis to get from one patch of berries to the next, technically (according to some readers) he is back on the grid.  For some, OTG means leaving everything made-by-others (mbo) behind. EVERYTHING.

That’s just plain silly.  I think that definition is wrong-headed.

Our definition of OTG is so much softer and easier as to be legitimately questioned by even the most tolerant and generous definitions but it is still OTG in our books.  But I admit, our argument is weak.  And that is because we are even weaker.  We are pussies. We need some MBO’s.  We want a lot of MBO’s.

We like MBO’s.

We get propane delivered by barge twice a year.  We buy groceries from the nearest town at the very least once a month.  We get mail delivered to within a few miles. We have the ‘net’ by way of a satellite dish. We own a car and occasionally use it (altho I now put on the same number of kms in a month as I used to put on in a day).  Cell phone service is marginal but mostly functional.  We have grid ties if not actual grids on which we live.  But we don’t have the big ones.

Primary travel is by boat.  We make our own power (albeit by manufactured panels and electronics).  We source our own water.  We fight our own fires, provide our own security and make or fix 90% of what needs makin’ or fixin’.  But I admit I now have a welder to help me and a shed full of tools – all from the ‘grid’.  We are off the grid until it becomes difficult and then we run back on and grab what we need and race back to our strategically near-placed location in case of another emergency like running out of chocolate, scotch or dog food. We are about as off-the-grid as a recreational boater, actually.  We can stay at ‘sea’ for a long time but our voyage is always from port to port.

Does it matter?  I don’t think so.  OTG is not a degree bestowed on you by the U of OTG. It is almost always self-defined and compromised in many ways if examined closely. Even the longest living, most rustic, old-time recluse types when found deep in the woods by documentarians, have axes, knives, stoves and other mod cons that were, at one time, grid-sourced.  There are some wild people out there but even they are exposed to the grid from time to time.   The reason is not because the ‘grid’ is so ubiquitous (altho it is), it is because the recluse needs something and knows where to get it.  It is that simple.

“So, what is your point this time, Dave?”

OTG is a state of mind.  It means for us, for the most part, off the merry-go-round, out of the rat race and living as naturally and simply as possible so as to reduce our own personal stresses and tensions. We have come to add into that description, ‘treading lighter’ on the planet but we still tread.  We have come to think of it as greener but with the emphasis on ‘ER’.  We know it is a 1000% more enjoyable.  To us OTG is almost synonymous with vacation or therapy. It is definitely closely associated with retirement.  OTG is less a function of grid lines than it is laugh lines, less about modern services and more about healthy living, less about your thoughts, more about your physical actions.  OTG is another way of spelling ‘fun’, another way of spelling ‘being present’.  And there is plenty of room.

I guess the point is this: “Jump in!  The water’s great!”   

Disclaimer of sorts:  I wrestled with this one.  I can’t help but make it sound a bit anti-First Nations because of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission.  But it is much more anti-process and anti-bureaucratic stupidity in the form of commissions than it is about the actual people.  Please believe me.  I actually think FNs are doing more as citizens than the rest of us these days but I make a point of their faults as well.  That’s the trouble with mud-slinging – people get dirty.  But, that’s the trouble with people – they get dirty on their own, too.  

The Truth and Reconciliation Commission has recently overseen or been instrumental in revealing the impact of the Residential Schools program on indigenous peoples.  Those who felt impacted by the flaws in what was seen as a well-intentioned program applied for compensation and many were successful in their applications.  About $140,000 was given to many of the self-identified victims.   Fifty six thousand people received about $25,000 and 30,000 people received a further $115,000* (averaged).

These monies are not the only amounts provided indigenous peoples for wrongs and mistakes we have made as a society.  But, what is really crazy is that the constant flow of money doesn’t seem to fix anything and some of the mistakes are still being perpetuated.

We’re all doing something wrong.

Hypothesis: it is the remedy prescribed.  It exacerbates the problem.  It doesn’t fix it.

Money, it seems is deemed the panacea for all harm done in our society. Because the harm done by the residential schools is still being passed down – it is claimed – to this day, and more young indigenous people are suffering because their parents or grandparents suffered, it is proposed that the T&R Commission continue and, presumably, continue paying compensation or channeling cash.  The Residential Schools/Truth and Reconciliation Commission may be the good/bad deed that keeps on giving.

I have extreme sympathy for the direct child-victims of specific crimes that came from the schools.  I even have great sympathy for the more general damage wrought by the larger accident of the plan itself.  Taking kids from their families is traumatizing at the very least and, in most cases, there was no good that ever came from it even if the particular child was never criminally violated.  It was basically just a bad thing done even more badly.

But life is hard sometimes.  It is not a walk in the park.  We all have to deal with hardship and carry on.  Some more than others.  Back in the day, it was not only aboriginal children who suffered physical punishment and deprivation, all kids did.  Kids were caned, spanked, beaten and were ill-treated across all segments of society.  Child abuse as we define it today was almost the norm.

Read Charles Dickens.  Read any book describing a poor kid’s life pre-1960.

My father was wounded in WWII and was 100% disabled.  He was a mess.  Our lives suffered greatly.  We had trauma.  We had deprivation.  We had immense hardship.  Maybe we should have sued? Maybe I should start the largest class action suit of all and sue all the governments involved for the damage wrought from WWII.  Why not?  Greece is contemplating suing Germany for WWII.

Or, maybe I shouldn’t.  Maybe I should just move on and make the most of what I have.

I am a white, privileged male in a patriarchal society seemingly designed to benefit me all to hell all the time and doing so while victimizing others.  I must be sitting pretty.  

(Honestly, I am way too ‘lucky’ to complain about anything – even the stupid, anti-white man bias.  It is just my nature.  It is not my fault.  I blame the government.)

But if the self-defined perpetual victims out there have their way, I should feel guilty and make reparations for all that has gone wrong for the last few hundred years primarily because I am male and white. Growing up in ghettos and getting CARE packages while attending thirteen different schools before graduation does not exempt me from the incredible privilege of white skin, gender or even my participation in the system of evil it seems.  I am bad to the bone.  So, sue me.

FYI: being the only white kid in an all black school in the poor section of San Francisco, California, was no real advantage while I was there, I can assure you.

My response: That was then.  This is now.  Now is different.  Now is good.  I blame no one for then.  I am grateful for now. 

Can there be another reasonable perspective?   I don’t think so.

But, let us get back for a minute to Truth.  Does anyone really think that the truth was fully revealed by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission? How does the context of the overall societal norms back then get factored in?  Who’s re-writing this history?  Or is the truth somehow further obfuscated by this expensive and pandering exercise?   Does anyone else see any truth being openly revealed to all by the issuance of money to the few?

Don’t get me wrong: I do not begrudge the money or the gesture – especially to individuals struggling to get by.  Nor do I think wrongs should be ignored when brought to light.  I question our reliance on these bureaucratic processes and other mock mea culpas to do anything real.  Or even if anything real can be done.  What’s done is done.  And I really question beating ourselves up for wrongs done by previous generations.  That can go on forever.

See the Middle East.

And what kind of truth and reconciliation requires the continuance of the process of more truth and reconciliation?  Wouldn’t the continuance of that institutionalized ‘my bad‘ simply be an acknowledgment that neither the truth nor the reconciliation process worked?

And what kind of society are we encouraging with this ‘pay me for my pain’ approach? Shouldn’t we do something more constructive than just pay lump sums to some lumps for mistakes made?

Here is the truth.  The residential schools were a poorly conceived idea made even worse in practice.  And they continued on too long.  Those affected should take the compensation offered, close the book and get on with life.  They cannot be made whole again.  They will walk with wounds.  We all do.

Here’s the reconciliation: Canadians, generally speaking, are tolerant, accepting and embracing of others. Victims should work to heal themselves and become more acceptable and embraceable to Canadians.  The potential is there. It’s a two-way street.  Both sides need to move on.  With behaviour, not money.

Let us look for a minute at an even harsher truth.  The government makes mistakes.  Large scale.  All the bloody time. See: Residential schools, war, immigration, police, the senate, health care….the list is way, way too long….  And that is not about to change except maybe for the worse.

Worse?!  The government wants even more power to make potentially even larger errors.  Are we not – by allowing them to legally interfere with us (Bill C51) – simply setting up future generations to have to pay even more compensation to an even larger group of victims?  And wouldn’t those victims (like smokers are today) be somewhat complicit in that injury by voting for it?

Can I vote to have my rights violated and then sue when they are?

If you are not sure about that question, ask yourself this one: Can I smoke cigarettes KNOWING they are unhealthy and then sue the tobacco companies because my health suffers?  The answer in Quebec is ‘yes’.  Can I live a life of irresponsibility, crime, drug-addiction and anti-social behaviour and then sue because it was all deemed to be the government’s fault?  The Truth and Reconciliation answer seems to be yes.  The two issues just mentioned are not closely related causally to each other except by one thing: are these plaintiffs taking full or even enough responsibility for their own decisions, their own lives?

Shouldn’t the individual be the one regarded as primarily responsible for his or her choices in life?  Even from accidents?  Kids?  No.  Not so much.  But, if you make it to 16 or 17 then you have to start to lead yourself and, if you make it to 19, you have to take the full responsibility for your life and how you live it.  Even when bad things happen to good people, it is the individual who has to take the main responsibility for fixing it.  Money doesn’t do it.  Commissions don’t do it.

You have to do it.

That may sound a bit harsh but that is the way I see it.

The real new truth is that we are now living in a money-fix, victim-as-profession madness.

Apologies for the length of this blog.