Oscar, Oscar, Oscar

We have some interesting Oscar hopefuls this year and all I can say is Rooney Mara.  This girl put in an absolutely astounding performance as Lizabeth Salander in “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo”.  When she was cast in the part instead of Natalie Portman who I thought would be excellent in the role I was dubious of this unknown (to me) actress.  Her performance is so intense and I really hope she comes out a winner.  This is her first time out and she is up against really stiff competition, the always incomparable Meryl Streep and Glenn Close and strong contenders Michelle Williams and Viola Davis.  It will be an exciting evening on this score alone.

Less thrilling is the actor category but I am leaning towards Gary Oldman who has put in many strong performances in years past.  However, I have an early suspicion that Brad Pitt may get this one due to “other reasons”.  Wink.

I’ve always adored Nick Nolte so seeing his name as a nominee for best supporting – well he has my vote.  I don’t have an opinion on the actress but I loved, loved, loved The Help.

I’ve been watching the Oscars since 1969 when Katherine Hepburn and Barbra Streisand tied for Best Actress and I am pretty darn good at Trivial Pursuit “pink”!

Are you up for the challenge?

Steady She Goes

We are in the last week of January but it seems like we have already been slugging away at this year 2012.  It is so easy to complain and yet we have been so lucky in having such a good winter to date with only one week of brutally cold temperatures.  Now we just have one more month and often times March can bring in spring like temperatures.  I like to listen to the weather when they also include the sunrise and sunset times.  We are at the point of gaining about 3 minutes per day now and soon it will be 5:30 before sunset, and then we have to set our clocks ahead again.  Oh for that extra hour of sunshine in the evening.  It must seems like I start to get my life back again.

So what shall I do with that extra hour of sunshine?  Weather permitting a country walk seems like a good idea right now.  Getting off that couch is the biggest task in the world during the winter time!  However exercise isn’t really the reason why I want to see the sun, it is simply because I WANT TO SEE THE SUN!  The building I work in is Green which means, among other things, that the windows are all tinted so that even on the sunniest day the sky still looks grey.  It is very demoralizing and therefore seeing clear blue skies from my own windows is so heartening.

Do you find yourself being more cheerful on a sunny day?  Does your heart lighten as the snow disappears and the grass begins to green?  Does the sound of the geese flying overhead tell you spring is on the way and how does that make you feel?  Yes I speak prematurely and doing so has probably jinxed us to another bout of blizzards and misery but I can’t take it back (well I could but I won’t).  Thinking about spring is like thinking about winning the lottery, ten pounds lift off my chest!  I still think about the morning I dwelt so long on the idea of winning the latest lottery that I drove right past my turn – that was a good amount of musing and I’ve more than chuckled my money’s worth!

Steady she goes, time marches onward and leads us into the warm.

Peace and Plenty

I bought Sarah Ban Breathnach’s latest book the other day and have been devouring it ever since.  I shake my head at the sad state she found herself in but at the same time I admire her resilience in bouncing back from financial ruin.  While one can hardly wish her experience on to her the message she brings is very timely considering the troubles people are experiencing around the world, especially in the United States.

I particularly like how Sarah picks up quotes from various women throughout history, especially women who wrote in the 1920’s and 30’s.  Those women lived under difficult times also and the life lessons, once absorbed, are valuable to women today.  Certainly we live in different times, our financial hardships are perhaps more varied, but in the end we can handle poverty with grace and dignity. 

As I’ve written before, I am a very Material Girl, and the thought of losing my home is so frightful to me that I can hardly stand to think about it.  Fortunately for me I am in a good financial position but this was not always the case.  I’ve had many a sleepless night wondering what was going to happen next.  Lucky for me that I am a Morning Optimist and usually I am able to look on the positive side of things once I wake up. But the darkness of night can bring a blackness to the mind that is positively daunting.  When I think of the poor people who had managed to put together money to buy a home only to discover a few years later that they were evicted because of the financial bubble burst in Wall Street, I get angry.  Personal greed in Wall Street has caused global disaster for hundreds of thousands of people.  For the life of me I cannot fathom how people can continue to have faith in a government (Democrat or Republican) that turns the other way and allows this corrupt financial system.

However that may be Sarah Ban Breathnach’s book gives hope to those who are finding themselves in a difficult situation.  As always, she advises that we look at our blessings and somehow, the rest will come.  For those in despair, this may seem completely unreasonable, but I am here to tell you that when I first read “Simple Abundance” I was not in the best financial position possible but I just took one day at a time and worked slowly and surely toward my goal.  That goal was to be mortgage free.  That meant no vacations for 15 years – yes 15 years – and I packed a lunch every single day.  I watched every penny.  Was it worth it?  You bet it was!

Today I have my health, I have an excellent job (by some miracle), and I have my house.  My cup runneth over.

Law & Order

Yesterday my sister told me a true story that occurred locally.  I wonder what you think of it.

A young lady owns a pub, comes home every evening with a large amount of cash because the night deposit is not open.  One particular night after she came home the woman who lives across the street from her banged on her door and yelled

“Please let me in, he’s beating me.  I need help.”

She lets the woman in.  She calls the police.  The police attend at her home.  The police tell the pub owner that she “must” keep the woman overnight.  The pub owner doesn’t want to, the woman is a stranger plus she smells of alcohol.  The police insist she has a responsibility to keep the woman safe.  The pub owner caves in.

The police leave.  After a while the pub owner goes to sleep (presumably the strange woman goes to sleep too).  In the morning, the pub owner’s truck is gone and so is her money.  The police deny any responsibility in the situation.

So, what do you think? 

I find the whole scenario incredible.  I don’t think the police can make a person take someone into their home.  If they do, then how can they deny responsibility when the Good Samaritan is robbed?  Why wouldn’t the police take the husband to jail and let the woman go back into the home?

My sister is positive this is a true story (without going into details, I believe her).  I am aghast.

Social Longevity

As one approaches retirement it is essential to consider the social ramifications.  What do I mean by that?  Once a person leaves the workplace social interaction is cut by 80%; that is to say that currently, while one is working 80% of our time is spent at the workplace.  What will you do with that time when you are no longer working?

In preparing for retirement it seems to me that it is important to know what you are going to do with that time by way of interacting with people.  If you don’t have a wide circle of family and friends, if you don’t attend church regularly, where are you going to meet people?

If you do have friends it is equally important to keep that connection strong.  It is so easy to excuse lapses of the social graces by saying “family crisis”, “too busy”, “other commitments” and the like but then you are suddenly, a few years down the road, finding yourself cut off from the friends you used to have.  Those friends have moved on, built strong relationships, and there you are wondering why no one calls!  Sure we all have busy lives and with our parents aging we have commitments that can put some stress on us.  We also may have boomerang children who are home again and that is putting pressure on us.  But in between this stress and that pressure, remember who your friends are.  Friends are the ones who help ease the stress and the pressure.  They are the ones that make you laugh, have a strong shoulder to cry on, and lend a sympathetic ear.

I’ve been watching “Cranford” and so enjoy the way the ladies of the town show their friendship to each other.  It is charming.  Is there any reason why we cannot extend that kind of friendship today?  When you see how the ladies struggle with poverty, the social restrictions of how to respond in courtship and so on our own troubles diminish in comparison.  Okay, so Grandpa Riley is running down the street in his pajamas and granddaughter Lulu just threw up on the brand new carpet (why did you buy white carpet?) but seriously, why are these dilemmas any worse than Miss Matty having to open up a teashop in her home when she is destitute?  Her dear friends, who hardly have much more than her, support her by purchasing a pound of green tea (even though it’s known to be bad for the digestion).  It’s the support that I find so endearing, and the delicate way the support is given.

I feel very fortunate in having friends who extend their support in sundry ways; like telephoning me after seeing a pitiful email that starts “Woe is me” or sending me a special card through the mail (yes, I still have friends who are old fashioned enough to know where the post office is located).  I get messages on my voice mail, I have notes on Facebook.  I am one of the lucky ones.  Friendship is a little bit like work, because one has to keep up one’s end of the deal.

Next time you are wondering why no one is calling, ask yourself “When was the last time I made the effort?”  A friend is only a phone call away.

Comedy in Life

If you can’t see the funny things in life then life isn’t worth living.  Who wants to cry all the time?

Do you ever wonder at the miracle of surviving rush hour traffic?  In fact, these days I certainly wonder how some people ever got a driver’s license.  It seems as though as soon as a person acquires an SUV they feel so empowered that they can speed through a blizzard with only one hand on the steering wheel and the pedal to the metal racing past the ones who, albeit armed with winter tires, are driving at a cautions 100 km in the 110 km zone because – oh let’s say there’s the potential of black ice down the road, there are white out conditions, and hey, a semi truck driver was killed in a rollover the day before on that exact stretch of road.  Does that give the SUV driver pause to think?  Apparently not.

My precaution this week has been to leave at the ungodly hour of 4:45 a.m. to make the trek to Calgary.  Miracle of miracles, the SUV driver is still abed.  It has been great driving the highway, despite the menace of slick conditions, I can drive at 90 km without anyone being up my rear end.  Once I hit Calgary the other – cautious – drivers are leaving lots of space before and after me.  Oh my but this is great.  The down side?  Well sure, I am in the office one hour before anyone else but avoiding the nutbars on the road is worth it!

What is there to laugh it in this saga of stupid drivers?  Not much, but I do see the humour in having to get up so early in order to avoid things that I find more and more difficult with each passing year.  I am getting so like my dad it isn’t all that funny [visions of his other habits worry me].  My dad left home at 5 a.m. in order to get to Toronto before anyone else was on the road – back in the 1960’s believe me, no one else was awake (except his kids)!  My dad hated driving more than anyone I ever knew.  He would not deviate from the prescribed route for anything.  When Mom was driving with him (and she usually was) she would suggest that they turn off to go to the Danish bakery.  Not in the program that day so nope, he wouldn’t make the turn.  Gee, my sisters will tell you that that sounds awfully familiar to them when I am doing the driving. 

The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree . . . and with age, look out, it becomes even more apparent. 

Strength of Character

What makes one person more persistent than another?  What makes one person steadier in character than the next fellow?

I think it is partly genetics, partly how a person was raised, partly what a person reacts to situations and partly the breaks a person gets in life.  Some people never seem to catch a break no matter how hard the try.  The important thing is that the person keeps trying.  The life we lead is not easy for even the people who seem to have everything really don’t.   It’s quite true that money doesn’t buy happiness although it can buy peace of mind.

I think it is really difficult to rate anyone’s character except those close to you.  Impossible to really know how a public person is in character but even one’s closest friends and relatives may be difficult to gauge.  When I think about my own character I have a hard time analyzing myself from day to day.  How can I possibly truly understand someone else?

I think about what Emerson said about not being bound by what one thought two weeks ago or a year ago.  It seemed rather airy fairy and gratuitous but the more I think about it the more I realize that in certain respects we do flow with our ideas.  But when I talk about strength of character I really mean what a person stands for in the way of values and ethics.  Being stubborn does not mean that you have strength of character, it simply means you are being stubborn about something.  Strength of character means that you won’t be swayed by others, or circumstances, into doing something you really know is wrong.  Strength of character is being able to withstand the blows that come at you in life.  It doesn’t mean you cannot be hurt or be pained, of course you can, but in the end you will not cave into crushing despair forever.  Eventually you will bounce back and go on with your life.

Life is not easy nor is it fair.  Some of us get dealt a better hand, but the best hand of all is having that strength of character that will pull you through anything.

Elegance of Mind

In this age where profanity is common place even on daytime television it can be difficult to be pure in one’s speech.  I am not stranger to using a swear word but at least in my professional life I prefer to keep a clean tongue in my head.  I was truly shocked when I first started working in a law office and heard the lawyers using the F word in front of their secretaries (in those days we were called secretaries, not assistants).  I was 25 years old and can honestly say I had never used that word nor had anyone ever used that word in front of me during my professional career up until that point.  I had worked with some seemingly uneducated persons, butchers, mechanics, clerks and so on but I must say that they were all true gentlemen.  If they accidentally let slip a word like “damn” or “hell” they would apologize profusely.  So it was with considerable astonishment that I heard these so-called educated lawyers using extreme profanity in front of their secretaries with never a word of apology spoken. 

Over the years I have even less reason to respect the law profession than I had back then when I was exposed to this constant crude atmosphere.  I went in expecting to be Della Street to some Perry Mason; boy was I wrong.

Why am I bringing this up?  I am currently enjoying the second season of “Downton Abbey” and in between I am watching “Cranford” and therefore appreciating polite expressions of thought.  I don’t know if that was really the way it was back then but I am pretty certain that women of any respectable class did not use bad language.

Language is also a reflection of what is in one’s mind, I think.  Therefore the title “elegance of mind”.  It is difficult to be dainty, polite or elegant when the F word pops into one’s head whenever a “discussion” is going on there.  Thankfully when I am thinking to myself I am usually in a positive frame of mind and curse words aren’t flowing off my figurative tongue.  Have you noticed that when you are in a good frame of mind that you feel better, your ideas are clearly and basically you are in a very positive place.

I think when a person is exposed to foul language it ruffles them up.  I was watching The Rifleman yesterday and a woman was murdered on the episode but we only saw her booted feet.  I’ve mentioned this before but when we see more grisly things it can be extremely disturbing.

The book “The Hunger Games” is coming out as a movie later this year and while the premise may seem far fetched, I wonder just how much closer we are to moving to that level of “entertainment” than we really think we are.  It’s very worrisome to think that we are living in an increasingly violent and uncivilized world.  When entertainment lowers the bar, real life isn’t far behind.

An elderly man from the small town east of my town went missing a week ago, and now they’ve found his body.  The poor man was last seen at a gas station.  Seriously, are we going to have to be afraid to pump gas now?

Just Call Her Cannon

That would be my mother.  My mother has read a lot of detective stories and watched every known detective show produced.  In the old days she was particularly fond of Mannix which I thought was absurd because in every episode Mannix always got knocked out at least once.  Then along came the rotating NBC Mystery movies featuring Colombo, McLeod and McMillan & Wife and the other series of hard nosed detectives like Cannon.  Now we were getting serious missions.

My mother could detect a lie at 50 paces; she could hear the rattle of a cookie bag from 100 yards; and she could walk like a Mohican, silent as the grave.  We could not get away with anything for long; snooping for Christmas presents, sneaking a cookie, lighting a match in the basement.  We were caught by the invincible one, our mother.  As children it was terribly annoying and it became our task to foil her in our mischief.  We practiced our own stealth movements; we found secret hiding spots in order to evade her and yet, in the end we were caught.

Years went by, the younger members of the family had it easy since we taught them the moves and Mom was slowing down.  Pretty soon we thought Mom was getting old. 

We were wrong, she now had bigger fish to fry.  We moved to the big, big city (that would be Calgary) and there was nefarious doings out on the streets.  My mother was up to the challenge.  Did I mention she had eyes like a hawk?  She could read a newspaper from across the room, and I’m talking fine print like in the Wanted Ads.  She had incredible night vision and this is where the story gets hot.

Yes, it was a hot night in Calgary, steam was smoking off the asphalt and it was impossible to fall asleep on this July night.  Mom got up to open the window a little wider and what did she see?  Activity 7 houses down that looked odd to her.  She stood there and watched not able to see precisely what was happening but she was able to identify the culprits because she watched them return to their houses.

The next day Mom saw the neighbour walking around his car and as he happened to be the father of Charlotte’s best friend Mom told Char to tell him that if there was anything wrong with the car she knew who did it.  Later that afternoon there was a knock on our door.  Two officers came to get my mother’s evidence.

That was her first interaction with a police officer but it was not her last.  A few months later the neighbourhood convenience store was robbed but not before he had been spotted running down the back alleys.  Who did the police call but my mother, to see if she had seen anyone suspicious in the neighbourhood.

That’s when we started calling her Cannon!

Communication from Canada

When a family immigrates to a different country they will often protect their family back in the home country by only telling the good things about the immigration.  Back in 1957 a person wrote home.  One didn’t call because long distance was exorbitant in cost.  In the very beginning not only didn’t my parents have a telephone but the family back home didn’t have one either.  So my mother would write letters on thin “air mail” paper and use air mail envelopes with the blue and red border.  I don’t know the price of stamps back then but you had to be frugal with how heavy the envelope was.

When my parents finally got a phone, and the family back home got a phone, we would have to make a special appointment with the operator to set up the overseas call.  It was a huge deal.  And then they had to time the call for about 10 minutes and try not to ask stupid questions like “how’s the weather” and “what did you have for dinner”.  It was very stressful and my parents were tense just making the call.  When it was all over they were not much wiser but satisfied that they had heard the voices of their family.

Today my mother has this special 10-10-7-10 number where she can call her sister for 99 cents and talk for 90 minutes.  The rest of us can use Facebook, Skype and otherwise contact the other side of the ocean in a few minutes.  The world has really changed in my own lifetime.  I often wonder what more we will see during our lifetime; inventions move faster than the speed of light.

Blog, Blog, Blog

Do you know how daunting it is to sit at your computer and try to compose a worthy article that people would enjoy reading?  Notice I use the word “article” as opposed to “blog” because I want this to be SERIOUS.  When you speak about “blogging” people don’t seem to take it with the same awed expression as when you say “I’ve just written an article for People magazine” or some such thing.  In any event I seem to going through a dryspell wherein I am flogging away in my dark cavernous brain trying to find something that will twig with me.  Not my audience, but with me. 

Am I getting bored?  Not at all.  I love writing.  But for some reason the moment is not coming upon me they way it was before Christmas.

I sit here in my office, surrounded by paper, by books, by other people’s ideas and still – nothing.  My lightbulb moment is not happening.

There’s Stephen King looking reproachfully at me from the bottom shelf; there’s Anne Morrow Lindberg on the shelf above and above that I see Byron, Keats and Shelley looking very stoic in purple.  Groan.  Ah, Emily Dickinson how refreshing but really, no, I cannot think about poetry when I am in crisis.

So, are you enjoying my babble about this grey matter Hercule Poirot called “his little grey cells”?  I thought not.

Lest you think that this little ramble just happened, well, no it did not.  The reason why I am writing this idiocy and planning on posting this in the morning is that tonight I happened to stumble upon Meg Tilly’s Blog.  That’s right, THE Meg Tilly.  And therefore I am undaunted by this rather mundane little ramble (but I do promise not to make it a habit) because when a celebrity of Meg’s calibre can run off on a tangent then I feel liberated to do the same thing. 

For those who may be unaware, Meg Tilly is not just a Canadian actress of note, but she is also a truly talented author.  I found her book “Singing Songs” poignant.  In other words, I have respect for her work.  At the same time, her blog was not intimidating to me and so I can sit here and write words that may not mean very much in the scheme of things but I mean them as encouragement for those who wish to write, find that blank screen horrifying and walk away.

Don’t do it.  Write your thoughts, however random they may be.  Post or not to post; that isn’t important.  What is important is that if you want to write, just write.  My authority – does it really matter?  Your own permission is permission enough.

So I guess I did have some thoughts tonight.  Who knew?

My Father's Persistence

One of the things that I remember about my father is his lack of patience with lineups.  When he was little he actually fainted once when he was in a line-up at a movie theatre!

My father was one of those persistent people who could nag his parents unbelievably until he hoped to get what he wanted.  They, however, did not give in.  It must have been a terrible trial for his parents to listen to him because he wouldn’t give up and they wouldn’t give in.  When he was about seven years old he got it into his head that he wanted a boat.  His father was a sailor and they often went down to the harbour to look at the ships and boats.  My father had heard about a boat which he could get for “cheap” (it was just a little row boat) and he had saved up money from his errand boy job so he had enough money.

“Far, I want a boat.” He said for the umpteenth time.

His father looked down at him, looked out at the Limfjord (this is the sound that splits Denmark in 2) and then said “You can have a boat when you learn to swim.”

My father took one look at his father, one look at the Limfjord and jumped in then and there!  I don’t know who was more astonished of the two as Dad floundered about in the water or as his father looked on in amazement as he tried to swim.

He got his boat.

My father started his earning “career” when he was 7.  He was an errand boy for a grocer and he would ride one of those large bicycles with the delivery carriage on the back of it.  He rode it all over the town and between that and the fact that he talked to everyone he soon knew everyone in the town.  Years later when his sister was visiting us from Denmark they sat up long into the night catching up on this person and that person and finally my mother asked “did you know everyone in Norresundby” and both of them turned to her, smiled and said “yes”!

Addiction

Forget about philosophy and let’s talk about addiction.  Specifically, shopping.  I didn’t think I had a problem but I am looking at a stack of Christmas cards on my filing cabinet that needs to be explained!  I mentioned a while back that I have always loved notepaper and note cards.  I also told you about this wonderful new store called Papyrus.  Folks, I have become addicted.  I look at the cards and each box is more beautiful than the last one.  I cannot help myself.

Okay, that is a bit dramatic but you get my drift.

Now we are simply talking about a few little bits of paper with sparkle.  Can you imagine having harmful addictions like drinking, gambling, drugs and so on?  If I can’t break the habit of buying some silly cards how can I be unsympathetic towards someone who has a truly serious addiction?  Think about all the people who make New Year’s resolutions to go on a diet (apparently this is the number one resolution) and that most of these resolutions are broken before the end of the month.  We think that a donut or chocolate bar won’t kill us and yet obesity is a growing concern in our nation and heart attacks are now the number one killer of women. 

When we look at someone critically because they are overweight, are inebriated or have a cigarette in their hand we should examine our own conscience (and closets) and just see what little old addiction is clinging to us before we put on our haloes.  Maybe having too many Christmas cards isn’t the worst thing in the world, but it certainly has me thinking about why I feel compelled to buy every pretty one I see!

Is it addiction or compulsion?  Avarice?  Fear of never having anything again?  Whatever the cause it certainly indicates a fragility I would rather not admit to.  It is humbling but I really hope I don’t have to go to a meeting and say “Hello, my name is Sanne and I am a Christmas Card addict”.  My solution is to do a Christmas Card exchange with my friends so we can all have some pretty cards to share with our non-mutual friends. 

Well . . . I’m trying.

Anxiety Attack

I woke up in the middle of the night with my heart pounding, as though I had had a scary dream.  I couldn’t remember what it was but since then I’ve spent an anxious night wondering about it and trying desperately to get back to sleep.  Restless nights are not fun.  Listening to the clock ticking away, wondering “what time is it now”.  Tossing and turning.  Trying to count sheep.  Think about something nice.  Don’t think about the clock.  What woke me up?

I am not feeling fresh as a daisy this morning, anything but, and now I have to drive through our snow storm to get to work.  Oh joy. 

So I am trying to think through the clutter in my mind to find a story this morning and nothing seems to be jumping out at me.  I was reviewing my “book” last night trying to find a story I could lift but nothing seemed appropriate. 

When I speak with my mother about my retirement and my hope to retire “early” she keeps warning me that I will be bored.  I am not listening to my mother.  Or am I?  I know I am dragging my heels about setting a date using the excuse of “not enough money”.  My mother thinks I will miss my connection with the world.  But when you are awake in the middle of the night you are about as alone as you are ever going to be.  It’s just you and your mind there in the grey black of the night.  And trust me, there is enough going on in that noggin that I feel sure I am never going to be bored!

Aside from the obvious reasons for wishing to retire the biggest release for me is simply Freedom.  I would like to get up in the middle of the night, bad dream or not, and just feel free to enjoy the night without being anxious that I have to be refreshed in the morning to go to work.  Do you ever feel so bound down by your routine that you feel like a slave? 

Freedom 6/49 ah, a beautiful dream.

My Father

One of the things I remember most strongly about my father was his sense of humour.  He could laugh at himself just as easily as over any other hilarious story. 

            When he was a little boy of about 5 or 6 he asked his father if he couldn’t please have an allowance.  Somewhere he had heard about an allowance, perhaps because his older sister was receiving one and he seemed to think it was about time he received some allowance also.  The family was strapped for money but Farfar didn’t want to completely disappoint the boy so he told him that not only could he have an allowance but he had a perfect piggybank for him.  So my father went with him to the room that contained this piggybank.  There on the wall was a metal box with a slot for him to insert his coins.  Perfect.  It was quite some time before my father discovered that the metal box was the place where they would put money into to get the heat for the apartment!

            My father’s sister was seven years old than he and he simply adored her.  The worst thing that could happen to him was to have her become disappointed in him so when he got into trouble he would beg his mother “don’t tell Jonna”.  And my father got into trouble quite often, he simply couldn’t help himself.  He was full of energy and enjoyed playing out of doors.  One time he was playing in Skansebakken Park with a couple of his friends and he discovered a sewer drain that lifted up.  Naturally he climbed down into the sewer and his friends followed him.  They were having a gay old time, and for whatever reason they began digging about as part of their game.  Suddenly they came upon some artifacts which seemed very cool.  He brought them home and his father realized that they were of Viking provenance.  So off they went to the police station where my father told them how he had discovered them.  Then the museum was called and people went down to discover this new find.  But instead of my father being any sort of hero he was in trouble for having trespassed on city property!

            Another time my dad and his friends discovered a pile of those little rings that go on the nuts and bolts (and whose name I cannot recall) and then they discovered what a cool sound these things made when they were twirled on a stick.  And then they sort of hurled off the stick and flew high into the air, quite a distance away.  They heard some noise but it was a considerable time before they realized that when the rings flew away they were actually crashing into windows across the street and breaking the glass.  Once they realized what they had been doing they naturally ran home.  The next day there was an article in the paper about vandals destroying property.  Dad never confessed to having been the culprit!

            It wasn’t that he was bad, he never meant to do things that were wrong but somehow he just did some many different adventures that some of them were bound to get him into trouble.  One of his observations was that whenever the kids got in trouble, or was on the outs with other kids, they would run home to their mothers and the next time you saw them they were outside their home eating a sugar sandwich.  This particular story really resonated with us kids and when we were having a fight with one another (which happened often enough) and one of us would start bawling the rest of us would say “oh go home to mother and get a sugar sandwich”. 

When Steven Harper gets into one of his pouts I feel like telling him the same thing.

What We Are Made of

My parents told us plenty of stories about growing up under the war in Denmark and from adult perspective I certainly feel grateful that we have grown up in Canada where we have been safe from the threat of invasion and war.

            When my father was ten years old he heard the planes flying over Denmark and went home to his parents and said “the Germans are coming”.  (Germany invaded Denmark on April 9, 1940)  His parents didn’t believe him at first but soon enough the country became aware that they were invaded.  The Germans occupied the schools as living quarters so the children did not attend school with any kind of regularity.  Soon enough there was rationing of food, gasoline, leather goods and other things.  My father described how they made shoe soles out of old bicycle tires.  They had liquorice made of liquorice bark or root.  Under this war Danes began eating unsalted butter so that after the war they had become so accustomed to this type of butter that few went back to salted butter.  We always had unsalted butter in our home.

            When my father told the story of the invasion he said “one million Germans occupied Denmark against 9 soldiers at the border”.  That was a bit of an exaggeration.  In the initial action there were approximately 120,000 Germans against 2 divisions of Danish.  The country did not accept the occupation quietly although initial resistance began slowly.  By 1943 there was a large wave of underground resistance and in 1944 there was an actual uprising in Copenhagen.  The Germans had been fairly reasonable with the Danes during the occupation compared with their attitude in other countries but the Danes were quietly furious when the rumour went out that there would be a roundup of Jews.  Under cover of night all but 472 of the 8,000 Jews are spirited across to Sweden or otherwise hidden by the Danes.  Of those, 70 lost their lives in the concentration camps.

            My father told us how even children were recruited to the non-violent resistance movement; they would distribute leaflets and they put sand in gasoline tanks.  At the same time, he described how the Germans could strike fear into people as they stormed up the stairs of apartment buildings in the dead of night.  One never knew when the door would bang open and Gestapo would be in your home.  He described standing in the street and seeing neighbours shot at because more than 2 had congregated on the street after the ban.  He saw his own mother dive into a building to avoid being shot while he dived into another building across the street.

            My family lived in Aalborg close to where the airstrip was and so there would be bombs dropped by the British to try to blockade the German air force.  London wasn’t the only allied city that was being bombed regularly.

            These were some of the stories I grew up on.  War is not something to be taken lightly.  And heroism isn’t the glory that we see in a John Wayne movie.  Heroism is enduring the ignominy of an occupation with quiet, stoic resistance until the tree is bent beyond endurance.

One Week

I was thinking about preparing this blog a couple of days ago and I had a really nice intro prepared in my head and do you think I can remember any of it?  The summation was, however, that philosophy is important in our lives.  How I came to that conclusion was roundabout (as always) but it was making sense in my head.  That was at 2 a.m. so perhaps that is why I am not recalling any brilliance of mind this morning.

            Whether a person reads or is merely an observer of people and life, philosophy does come in to play even though you may not think that you are being philosophical.  But when you make a statement such as “people are funny” you are observing the nature of people.  If you say “life isn’t fair” or “the rich get richer and the poor get poorer” they may sound like clichés but they are also an observation about the nature of things.  People have pondered the world since time immemorial and eventually it boils down to a subject they have named “philosophy”.

            I only took one course of philosophy in university but it was a full year course.  From the first day I noticed a kind of pretension in the language that was used and how quickly students parroted the vocabulary of the professor.  But what did it really mean?  I had a similar experience with Russian history as I found a certain idiom was used in that class and yet it all came down to something very vague.  It worked out very well for me because I could write in vague terms also and ended up with an A but I was very unsatisfied with my Russian class.  I quite enjoyed my philosophy class and I did learn a lot despite poking fun (in my mind) at the language.

            The point of this is that I am reading Walden and I see the same roundabout language coming through.  At the same time I also see a sense of humour that reminds a little of Mark Twain and John Steinbeck.  But what I seem to get out of Thoreau is that he doesn’t like control, particularly governmental control.  I certainly sympathize with him there.  I see this conflicted attitude in America; where on one hand they want to feel free as individuals but at the same time they are cramped in their thinking.  It’s a curious state of being.

            January stretches ahead of me and I think tomorrow will be an anecdote kind of day.  Stay tuned!

Children Are Still Children

The other day my nephew asked my mother “who was the best looking baby ever?” I piped up before my mother could say anything “me of course”.  Well, Christopher was not accepting that answer and kept pressing my mother.  Since she had three of her children sitting at the table looking anxiously at her she said “all my kids were the best looking babies” which pleased us but made her 2 grandchildren laugh.

            When my parents started going to the Burns’ Christmas parties Jeanette and I would watch my mother get dressed.  She’d fuss quite a long time over her hair (God forbid that she ever go anywhere without perfect hair) and then she would put on the dress that she had made for the occasion (my mother was a fantastic seamstress) and finally she would put on her best jewellery, all Danish gold, of course.  I would then take a picture of my parents before they headed off to their annual night out.

            The next day we would get a recount of what happened at the party, how many people got drunk (everyone but my parents, of course) and who was the best looking couple there (my parents of course).  Well, my parents were an extraordinarily good looking couple, no doubt about that, but we always used to chuckle behind their backs about that comment.  Then when I was 18 I went off to Denmark to visit my family for several months.  When my mother’s father would take me around to visit that side of the family he would push me forward and boast “she looks like me and my family” the implication being that we were all next door to Elizabeth Taylor in beauty.  When I finally got home again I told my parents “now I know where you get it from.  Morfar sure isn’t shy about bragging on good looks”.

            The funny thing is that both my married sisters and my married brother would come from whatever function they had been at and say the exact same thing.  The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.  Third generation is not lagging behind in that department.  “We were the best looking couple there” has been known to fall from other lips . . .

            Modest?  And you had to ask . . . . what does this have to do with philosophy?  Humour as medicine is a philosophy, and it helps make you live longer when you can laugh at yourself.

The Straight and Narrow Path

My mother can always make me laugh when we decide to get serious.  We were talking about the Bible last night and straightaway she is dubious because “the church was out for themselves”.  Then she went into her favourite discussion of the loathsome, despicable, lousy bastards that were the priests and bishops of Denmark through the ages.  It was a mistake leaving my Encyclopedia of Danish History with her.  She knows all 22 volumes by heart, I swear!

            For a good woman my mother is really quite surprising when it comes to religion.  She will have none of it.  She believes nothing good can come out of a church, synagogue, temple or what have you.  Religion is out for themselves and simply manipulate honest people, duping them of their money (and in the old days their land and other worldly goods).

            “Okay Mum, but surely there are good pieces of advice that come out of the Bible.”  I say.

            She’s dubious.  Perhaps.  Maybe. But you can get better advice from the Familie Journalen (the Danish magazine she frequently quotes).  Oh dear.

            My mother is, in her opinion, an atheist.  At the same time, she would like there to be something else but she is extremely doubtful that there is an after life.  As my father said “it’s a good story” but the imperative proof is not really there.

            So what does all this rambling have to do with the straight and narrow path?  If you remember your Bible Matthew 7:13-14 “. . . because broad and spacious is the road leading off into destruction . . . whereas narrow is the gate and cramped the road leading off into life and few are the ones finding it.”  Leading a good life is not that difficult, but leading a life that could end in everlasting life (if you believe in that way) is hard.  So if one is truly religious one’s life may become very narrow indeed.  I think Emerson took a different approach in his sermons because he very much espoused the development of the mind, of individualistic thought and the search for betterment of the soul.

            It amazes me to listen to the primaries in Iowa where the Americans still believe that religion should be brought into politics.  Why is that?  Are people genuinely religious or simply paying lip service to what they believe is the expected norm?  How many people in America really believe 100% in God?  If there are as many as the politicians apparently believe then I have to ask, why is America so rotten?

            Something to think about.