American Justice

I have been following the Ivy League / Celebrity Scandal or whatever you want to call it. So Felicity Huffman thinks one month in jail for bribing an Ivy League college to get her daughter into is “too much” because “they aren’t those kind of criminals”? On “the view” they were mentioning that a poor homeless woman went to jail for five years because she lied about where her son was living so he could go to KINDERGARTEN (any kindergarten).

Now this is American Justice (and ironically wasn’t that the name of one of the TV shows Huffman appeared in?) and while I find it difficult to accept that “white collar crime” is punished by jail sentencing that happens to be the way it is in the United States so all I have to say to you, missy, is “suck it up buttercup”. Take it on the chin and all that sort of rot.

You may be wondering what I would personally endorse for the “crime” of both Huffman and the poor homeless woman? In the first instance I think honest to goodness community service (not attending red carpet events) would be better service – say in a soup kitchen for the next year so she can see how “those people” survive. In the case of the homeless woman I would suggest giving her a helping hand to get on her feet would be much more appropriate because you are talking about two human beings here, her son as well as herself. Jail time is not going to help her situation – or his. Punitive measures are not always the answer when people have done something wrong.

However “the greatest country in the world” enjoys punishing their people, the more down on their luck they are the more they enjoy grinding their heels into them. All I can say is that I thank the Good Lord every day that I was born Danish and that I live in Canada where people are given compassionate care more often than not. I don’t say Canada is perfect, but we are doing a whole lot better than the USA.

Thank you Canada and thank you Mom and Dad for raising us here.

I'm Fed Up with the B.S.

I am so fed up with the way the Conservatives are ranting about molehills and voters are buying into the insane rhetoric. This morning I snapped when I saw an ad during one of my morning games that whined about the carbon tax. I could hardly move my brain into a calm meditation mode because I was so riled up and ready to give what-for.

No one (apparently) likes to pay any kind of taxes in Canada. Yet the first time something goes wrong in one’s life you can be pretty darn grateful for health care, employment insurance, pensions or other types of benefits – all supported by taxpayers. As I have said in the past, most of these taxes come from individual, personal taxes, not from those of the big cat corporations.

But here’s something else to consider; when was the last time you wrote a letter to your MLA or MP and objected to something? I suspect NEVER. How many of you have ever missed voting in an election (I am really hoping no one has in my circle)?

Here’s my Electric Bill breakdown:

Usage:                                  $30.33

Administration Fee                $  5.46

Delivery Charges:

Distribution                           $32.59

Transmission Charge           $16.51

A1 Rider                               $ 0.26

Rate Rider                            $ 0.73 

NO CARBON TAX CHARGE 

Here’s my gas bill:

Cost of gas                                     $9.46

Administration fee                           $ 8.21

GST                                                $ 0.89

Delivery Charged – fixed                $25.64

Delivery Charge – variable              $ 5.42

Rate Riders                                     $ 3.53

CARBON LEVY                              $11.21

GST                                                 $ 2.29

TOTAL                                             $ 66.65 
 

I only used $9.46 worth of gas but because of all the other “administrative” charges the bill is higher and the levy taxes are exaggerated. To be honest I am not sure why that is working in such a way, it seems incorrect to me. However the main point of my argument is that when my bills started changing 30 years ago I called the two energy providers and questioned them on the extra charges; I did not get a satisfactory answer. I think the charges are outrageous and simply “hosing” consumers. And yet did we hear an outcry from politicians on those charges? Not a word, not a blessed word.

I guess it means that we are okay with companies hosing us with whatever charges they can get away with ON ESSENTIAL SERVICES LIKE HEAT AND ELECTRICITY but for a government to impose a tax on people in the cause of making them mindful of usage, taking an economy in a new direction and reinvesting in cleaner energy, etc. – for some reason that is not only civilly unacceptable but it has politicians spitting blood as part of their rhetoric.  

Is Vision too esoteric for the common voter?

Apparently it is.

Why I Love Canada

I cannot cherish my birth country without also paying tribute to the country where I was raised. My father considered many countries when he looked at immigration and of course finally settled on Canada as the safest country to live in. Beyond that he didn’t know very much about Canada as any of our relatives who immigrated had gone to the USA (his side) or Australia (Mom’s side) and even then not much was known about their experiences, at least for Dad.

Dad told his mother when she was on her visit here in 1962 that “Canada is a hard land, but a good one”. While we had financial struggles from the beginning Dad also saw opportunities in many areas and with his usual enthusiasm he embraced many things (but no debts) quite quickly. They got a television and a car within the first year which was something they could hardly dream of acquiring in Denmark at that time. They also owned their first house within 2 years of arriving in Canada, simply impossible in post-war Denmark at this time.

From the time we had our first home we lived in Suburbia and this provided a truly sheltering environment for a young family. Not for us the hard knocks of downtown Toronto; rather we lived in an almost Utopian world where children ran free and wild in the neighbourhood without fear of getting hit by a car. Suburbia was still raw enough to also offer nature which we enjoyed to the max. The opportunities of the in-school library was heaven to me and I took full advantage of it. Dad was insistent that two things were essential in a child’s life, a bicycle and skates which we got at the “appropriate time”.

As an adult I see Canada through many lenses and while Canada has a long way to go in its socio-political evolution it is still a country with strong, high values and principles. I am not Justin Trudeau’s biggest fan but I support his vision of Canada as being a Peacekeeping Nation rather than a warrior one. I may not totally embrace his reconciliation process with Aboriginals but I understand them. Canada is still a very young country and is still trying to figure out its true identity of multi-culturalism, peace and security but given the times we are in and the neighbour we are suffering through at this time, I think Canada is on its way to being a quietly great nation. And that is who we are – polite to a fault (vis a vis “a quietly great country”).

The bottom line for being happy in Canada is that it is a land of opportunity and it is the safest country in the world.

Oh Canada

Let’s start July with celebrating being Canadian.  I am forever grateful to my parents for choosing Canada over any other country when they decided to emigrate from Denmark.  My father evaluated many countries including Australia, South Africa and the United States.  He often joked that he chose Canada because they didn’t have rattlesnakes but one of the main reasons for chosing Canada was that there was no draft.  He only had one son in 1957 but Dad had lived through WWII. Denmark was occupied by Germany very early in the war and while Churchill liked to call Denmark “Hitler’s Canary” the fact was that Britain was prepared to invade Denmark only a short while after the Germans had made their move.  Denmark would have been a bloody field of battle even worse off than the Netherlands.  The fear of yet another war was large enough in people’s mind after the war to make many Europeans turn toward immigration as the answer for a safer life.

We were completely alone when we landed in Canada, we knew absolutely no one.  Furthermore there was no aid for immigrants.  I am not talking about financial aid but the kind of information as to where to find an apartment, how to register for a social insurance number and so on.  Dad was lucky enough by already having a job so his employer helped with the work process but finding a decent apartment was a nightmare.  Mom was almost beside herself dealing with a filthy little room and brand new furniture that fell apart after sitting on it for 2 days.

But somehow my parents overcame these obstacles with the fortitude of their ancestors as well as a determination not to be failures by turning tail and running “home”.  Canada became their home and we integrated, something Scandinavians are particularly good at.  Having said that, my family was somewhat unique in that we retained not only our language inside the home but we are still very Danish culturally.  To this day we sing the Danish carols and dance around the Christmas tree.  We have duck instead of turkey for Christmas dinner and we celebrate Christmas Eve rather than Christmas Day.  We like our Danish porcelain, we like our open face sandwiches and don’t even get me started on “Rod grod med flode”.

Mom asks me “are you more Danish than Canadian”?  I cannot answer that because all I know is that I am an integrated Canadian with a Danish background and foreground.  I feel blessed to come from two great countries but I will always call Canada my home.

Attacks in Canada

Yesterday I was cleaning house and helping my brother with some building prior to a friend stopping by for lunch.  When she arrived she asked if we had heard the news?  No, what news?  There had been an attack at the Parliament Buildings and a soldier was killed.  To say we were shocked is an understatement.  Two attacks on our military on Canadian soil in the same week leaves us in shock and disbelief.

Shock and disbelief?  I am not certain if those are complete emotions in how we are feeling.  There is anger, a lot of anger.  How does a person express all the emotions without sounding like some sort of a racist lunatic?

Let me be brief but to the point.  Canada is a nation that embraces people from all over the world.  We are a country that even has a multicultural policy where we allow people from other countries, other beliefs, other religions to practice those beliefs even to the point of allowing their teenage children to wear a “ceremonial knife” in schools.  We are a country that has been a peace loving and peace keeping nation; in the past we have led missions around the world as peace keepers.  In the past 15 years our role on the international stage has changed in response to changing times on that stage. 

To those would be terrorists in Canada, shame on you.  To all proud Canadians, stand tall, speak out, support our government and do not allow these terrorists to change who we are, a peace loving nation.

 

Government Cutbacks

Whenever I hear about government cutbacks I go from simply shaking my head into entire rants (while driving along the highway by myself this can be scary).  The target of cutbacks are always those least able to fend for themselves.

       Yesterday the talk was about how many civil employees are going to lose their jobs with the numbers, supposedly, in the tens of thousands.  We won’t know until the budget comes down.  However, Mr. Kenney, our immigration minister is meanwhile telling us that we “desperately” need more immigration because we are lacking workers.  Hmmm.  We are going to cut a whole bunch of jobs, and then we are going to bring in immigrants.  How bright.  On the same page of the Globe and Mail there is an article about the human trafficking case where we have an IMMIGRANT crime boss from Hungary on trial for “alleged largest human trafficking rings in Canadian history.  Oh yes, his sentence is reduced to 2 years and time served; then we get to spend millions of dollars in government money while he fights deportation.  Been there, done that how many times before?

       We have how many people on unemployment or have otherwise fallen through the cracks?  We charge how much for re-educating people who have lost their jobs?  Let’s maybe do a re-think here and come up with a plan (at no cost) to educate those who are going to lose their jobs to put them in positions for all these supposed jobs that the immigrants are going to fill.  Because, let’s be clear here, it will NOT be for minimum wage jobs in Walmart that these folks are coming in to fill.  Or will it?

       What are we doing in this country?  Are we creating a third world country of minimum wage workers and Rich People to lord it over us?  I kind of think this is where we are headed.  Is this what Canadians want?  Do they feel that because things are good for them right now they shouldn’t pay attention to what is going on in our government and just keep their head in the sand and allow these things to happen. 

       Because let me tell you something – if this keeps on going, sooner or later, you and yours will be affected by this situation.  Be careful, as these tens of thousands of government workers (who have likely been friends of this government) lose their jobs and wondered “what the heck happened”?  Remember when Ralph Klein actually campaigned for the Premier’s job and said that he was going to close down the government liquor and sell off government run enterprises like AGT?  He LAUGHED afterwards, did what he said he would do and the employees wondered “what the heck” and Klein said “did they think I was joking”?  (true story).

       Mr. Harper did NOT campaign on reducing old age pensions (in any form) and here we are facing serious changes to our system.  He didn’t campaign on immigration, and here we are.  And he has a majority government now, and 4 more years to wreak havoc on many more things that will impact the poor, weak and ineffectual.  Yes, I mean you.

       Tomorrow – let’s talk about the prisons.  Oh boy, DON’T GET ME STARTED.

1950's Furniture

My parents had some wonderful pieces of furniture before they left Denmark.  Everything was sold and the plan was to buy something when they got to Canada.  They went shopping and found some great looking furniture.  I can still remember them.  They got 2 blue brocade sofas, 2 chairs (one was brown, large and square, the other was round, twirled and was teal blue).  After about two weeks the legs fell off one sofa and the back snapped off of the other one.  The legs on the one table also began to totter but somehow my mother managed to fix it.  They also bought a small china cabinet (no hutch) and a dining table with 4 chairs.

            My parents were shocked at the terrible quality of the furniture.  This was something they were simply not accustomed to back home.  When you bought a piece of furniture it lasted centuries.  As it was my parents learned to adjust by my mother taking up her carpenter skills, and also being creative in how she reupholstered the furniture.  She was really quite good at it.  When they moved to Hamilton she discovered a fabric shop that sold wholesale goods and that’s how Jeanette and I ended up wearing coats and pioneer style winter hats made out of the same fabric as she reupholstered the chair!  It was a good thing we were not allowed to bring friends home because it would have been humiliating for them to see us wearing a sofa on our backs!        Some of the furniture lasted better than others.  I still have the bedroom dresser that my parents bought back in 1957 and my brother Erik has the little coffee table (new legs though).

            Our Bing & Grondahl ornaments did not arrive until later, when my grandfather started sending things to my mother to ensure that we kept our heritage.  To make up for selling our paintings back home my mother took up her painting again and created some fine pieces for our living room.  My brother John still has those pieces in his home.

            I am very attached to my own material goods and I suffer agonies when I hear what my parents sold or gave away when they immigrated.  You have to be a very brave person to give up so much. 

            And that’s just the material side of things.  Imagine saying goodbye to your family and friends and leaving with the very real possibility that you will never see them again.  That’s what it was like back in 1957.  At that time you could not foresee a change in the economy, a time when there would be enough time and money to travel back to Europe.  In 1957 most people still immigrated via ship, not airplane.  To travel by plane was an exorbitant expense.  In the case of my parents both sets of parents were already elderly when they left.  (I just realized with a shock that my grandmother was 57 – does that make me at 58 elderly?!?)  My mother’s parents were 61.  My parents were 24 and 27 – in relation, the grandparents were OLDER.  As it turned out my mother never did see her mother again.

            Life is strange but we have to take it on the chin.

Things Are Getting Better

The Europeans who came to Canada after World War II came because they wanted to give their children a better life away from the continual threat of war.  My father’s comment to his mother when she came to visit us in 1962 was “Canada is a good land but it’s a hard land”.  I think I have mentioned before that my father chose Canada because he felt that it was the safest place in the world.  He knew that Canada did not have the draft and while he only had one son at the time he had seen the devastation of war and wanted no part of it for his children.

I’ve written some of the sad parts of the story but most of the time it was really good.  For one thing my parents were able to buy a house within 2 years of arriving, something that would never have happened in Denmark.  Just like Erma Bombeck in her great book “The Grass is Always Greener Over the Septic Tank” the first house in Grimsby had some trials, including the whole septic field fiasco.  I actually Google mapped our house on Cline Road but I couldn’t tell 100% which of the 2 homes it was since they were changed a fair bit.  For one thing there was a garage which we didn’t have at the time.  Ours was a little split level of red brick and what I remember most about the outside was that there was a deep ditch separating our back yard from the vineyard on the other side.  Naturally we kids were prepared to ransack the vineyard as soon as the grapes were ready for plucking but we were deterred by the sudden explosion of shotgun!  We scrambled back over the ditch and stood there gapping, wondering where the shooter was.  We couldn’t see the sneaky guy so we decided not to attempt it again.  (It was many years later before we were told that there had been an automated system that kept the birds away!)

My parents had several good Danish friends.  On the weekends we frequently would have these friends over or we would be going to their homes.  When we lived in Hamilton my father also had some good friends in a couple of lady colleagues, Helen and Margaret.  We girls really loved them since they often would bring a treat for us.  It was Margaret’s brother who lent us his summer cottage in Fruitland while our house in Grimsby was being built.  We lived there for several months and we kids had the time of our lives.  The house was right on Lake Ontario so we would fall to sleep with the surf in our ears.  There was a piano in the dining room that Jeanette and I would rattle away on and outside there was a horse drawn sleigh.  Naturally there was no horse but we could imagine that very well and would bounce around on the sleigh yelling Giddy Yap and crack our imaginary whip over our heads.  In the bedroom there was a lady’s dressing table where Jeanette and I would sit and play movie star or Princess.

And soon we had more brothers.  Peter was born in 1959 and Erik in 1961 – today is Erik’s 50^th Birthday in fact.  Things were getting better for my parents.

Lille Søster Jill

Our little sister Jill was born on Christmas Eve 1957.  The first three children had been born at home in Denmark.  This first Canadian child was born in a hospital.  We three spent Christmas Eve with Kaj or Signe and their children while we waited for the best Christmas present ever.

All three of us little girls would get dressed in pink tulle dresses, Jill still in her baby buggy, and we would go for Sunday walks around Toronto.  Jeanette and I adored our little sister and would often play with her, trying to teach her to talk and walk.   One afternoon when Jill was about eleven months old, Jeanette and I were playing with Jill who was in her playpen.  Mom had given Jeanette and I some pears for a snack and she warned us not to give anything to Jill because we both had colds.  Well, I did sneak a bite to Jill.  Shortly afterwards Jill became very sick and the cold turned into pneumonia. 

My mother became so alarmed with this cold that she had the doctor come to see Jill but he said ‘nothing to worry about, just a cold’.  The very next morning Mom went to get Jill out of her crib only to find her blue, cold and dead.  Mom went into shock.  Dad went into shock.  They had no one to comfort them.  The hospital administrator was brutal.  He showed my parents what it would cost to bury Jill and my father said they couldn’t afford that.  Then the administrator said, “if you don’t do it we will throw her in the oven”.  Just like that.  My father said “then that is what you will have to do.”

Grief stricken and alone my parents became overly protective of the rest of their children.  They also never, ever spoke to us about Jill.  I have spoken with other friends who had also lost a little one and they experienced the same silence.  In those days people basically had to “suck it up” and just go on with their lives.  There was no such thing as grief counseling; a person simply had to be stoic about loss of life.

So what do I remember about Jill dying?  I remember my mother putting me to bed, tucking me in and seeing a tear rolling down her cheek.  I don’t remember understanding that Jill was dead, just that my mother was sad.  I was five years old, but by the time I was eight I do remember thinking back on that time and beginning to understand that I could have been the cause of her death because I had given her a bite of my pear.  That guilty fear stayed with me for many years until it finally faded away some time in my twenties.  My mother ever after had a very difficult time during the Christmas holidays although we never understood why.  I was almost 30 years old before my father told me that Jill had been born on Christmas Eve!  Then things started to fall back into place for me.

My parents’ first year in Canada was such a roller coaster of experiences, most of them quite terrible, that it is a real wonder that they did not turn around and go home.  But that is the fiber of immigrants who survive, they have a stubborn determination to succeed that has helped to grow a continent from a barren wilderness into a civilization. 

Spaghetti, the Friendly Food

Coming from Denmark into Toronto was coming into a melting pot of the world.  Nationalities from all over the world had immigrated to Canada after the war and Toronto was often the second stop for them (most landed in Halifax of course).  Canada offered a lot of opportunity to European immigrants.  Europe, even 12 years after the end of World War II, was still a devastated continent with a lot of poverty.  There were a lot of families who immigrated to Canada as “displaced persons” and the acronym DP was used disparagingly on any person with an accent.  Canadians of British descent were particularly arrogant and unwelcoming to foreigners in the 1950’s.  However for some unknown reason we either did not meet with this type of behaviour or we were simply oblivious to it.  We had landed in a neighbourhood inhabited mostly by Italians so perhaps that is why we were not confronted with this awareness right off the bat.  Instead we were learning a lot about other cultures.  For one thing, there was a lot of garlic around, something my mother had never cooked with.  To this day my mother’s cooking spices are salt, pepper and occasionally curry.  She finally learned to make garlic toast after 20 years in Canada. 

Interestingly enough, despite living in this Italian neighbourhood my mother did not learn anything at all about spaghetti.  Perhaps 5 years later we girls began seeing commercials for Chef Boyardee spaghetti products and began to plague Mom to buy it.  We thought it looked cool to twirl food around on a fork!  (I know, crazy reason to want to try a new food, eh?)  Finally she bought some spaghetti, however she had failed to understand that there was a special type of spaghetti sauce to go with it.  Instead, knowing it had to be red, we kids put ketchup on our spaghetti.  It is the only food I ever put ketchup on as otherwise I loathed the stuff.  We ate it that way for at least 10 years before Mom finally discovered Ragu sauce!

It’s funny the things we remember.  I don’t remember ever learning English, I don’t remember feeling like a foreigner, but I remember eating my first plate of spaghetti.  I was eleven!

A Series of Unfortunate Events

When we lived in the basement apartment there was a laundry area with a washing machine of the old ringer washer style.  One day while my mother was doing the laundry the Italian landlady called her away and Mom left me in the laundry room with the admonishment “don’t touch anything”.  What did I do?  I went over to the machine, and the ringer was moving slowly round and round.  It’s smooth rolls fascinated me.  I moved my hand forward irresistibly to touch it and before you could say “Jack Robinson” it had pulled me in all the way up to my elbow.  I screamed and screamed until Mom came running down.  The machine was so old that the springs to snap it open when something was caught did not work; or perhaps they were never on that particular type?  I don’t know.  What I do know is that I was severely injured with torn ligaments in my thumb and pointer finger and since my parents had very little money they couldn’t afford to take me to the doctor or the hospital.  This was in the days before medicare came into effect.  My dad would sit with me on his lap in the evenings and rub my pointer finger and thumb, massaging out the muscles that had been torn.  He told me I should do this every night to straighten the finger back out.  I did it for a little while but I was four years old and not as strong as Dad.  So to this day I have a crooked finger.

            Shortly after that incident I had another unfortunate accident.  By this time we had moved into our own apartment.  There happened to be some kind of wire rack behind the stove which caught my interest and I reached to pull it out.  Suddenly the pot of boiling potatoes on the stove came tumbling over and scalded my left thigh.  I fell screaming to the floor and scrambled about like a little crab until Dad caught me up and laid me in a tub with cold running water.  Later I lay on my side in bed and Mom put some type of ointment on the leg.  Once again we were unable able to afford a doctor or hospital so Mom treated me herself.  Fortunately for all of us that was the end of my accidents.

11.11.11

I was up early to watch the various morning shows and naturally “the talk” is about 11.11.11 and what could it mean?  Bottom line, it’s a cool number!  And guess what, a movie of this title is coming out on, when?, this date!   Ooooh Aaah

            Today is Remembrance Day, a day that was instituted back in 1918  to commemorate the fallen men of World War I.  The war ended at the 11^th hour on the 11^th day of the 11^th month and originally it was the Commonwealth countries that celebrated this day.  King George V dedicated the day the following year as an annual remembrance.  Regardless of how a person may feel about war I still feel that it is important to honour our soldiers, living and dead, because they are doing what they believe is important for the protection of our country and others around the world.  As I say, regardless of how you personally may feel about war, this is a day to respect our fallen.            I therefore find it odd that 3 of our provinces do not hold this as a statutory holiday (Ontario, Manitoba and Quebec).  Why is that?

            I know many of us take this day as a holiday without really thinking about its significance.  We take it for granted that we live in a safe country, perhaps the safest country in the world.  Shame on us.  We ought to spend a few minutes at least giving thanks to those who have fought and died in, what they believed, was the cause of freedom, peace and safety.  The last four generations of my family was spared direct conflict in war although my parents lived through Occupied Denmark in World War II.  They were both children, Dad was 15 when the war ended, Mom was 12.  My Uncle Poul and our cousin Verner were both freedom fighters and risked their lives many times in the cause to undermine the Germans during the occupation.  My grandfather’s ship was torpedoed, twice in one week, during World War I and yet he managed to live to tell the tale.  My family was lucky.  Many families were not as fortunate.

            Canada has been fortunate for two hundred years in the fact that they have not been invaded by foreign hostiles since the War of 1812.  But let us not take our safety for granted.  Bow your head in silence for one minute, a simple minute, to give thanks to our brave soldiers, living and dead.

            Thank you.

Wrestling, Westerns and Smarties

When we got our television set my father discovered wrestling, something he had never seen before.  Remember this was on a black and white television set and the days when Abbott and Costello were all the rage.  When Dad first started watching wrestling he thought it was real fighting.  He had never seen anything like it before. 

            My brother Jens-Ole wasn’t watching wrestling with him so he didn’t know what wrestling was when one of the neighbour boys proposed to him, “let’s wrestle” Ole didn’t know what he meant.  But the boy got him in a headlock and Ole being aggressive began “wrestling” with him, at the same time making a kind of rattling sound in his throat.  He was maybe three at the time; he thought the guy said “rasle” which is rattle in Danish.  So Ole was obligingly making this rattling noise while he tackled the boy to the floor. 

            When my Morfar (grandfather) came to visit many years later he would watch the wrestling on Saturdays and be absolutely amazed.  They didn’t have such programs in Denmark and my father couldn’t help kidding around with him.  Morfar believed to the end that the wrestling was real and thought it should be outlawed!  But every Saturday he had to watch it.

            I’ve mentioned that my mother loved to watch I Love Lucy.  She also enjoyed the old movies that they would run many of which had never been shown in Denmark because of the war.  So she loved Abbott and Costello movies but believe it or not she was absolutely terrified when “Abbott & Costello Meet Frankenstein” came on.  She had all us kids sitting around her on the floor as she watched so all of us had our hair standing on end as Frankenstein got out of the box.  We were as petrified as Lou when he stutteringly tried to tell Bud that the monster was behind him.  I kept looking over my shoulder while my finger nails dug into my mother’s leg.  I had recurring nightmares for years afterwards starring Frankenstein in pursuit of me.  I still remember the dreams!

            In those days television really kept families together.  We would watch I Love Lucy, The Red Skelton Show, Wagon Train and Maverick to name a few of the shows.  Westerns were really big in those days and as my parents loved Cowboy & Indian programs we saw whatever we could get on the TV.  I can still probably name every Indian nation that ever made it on to a TV program!  Part of watching the TV included getting a special treat on Saturday nights.  My mother would usually buy a package of licorice or Smarties and would divide it up for all of us.  Jeanette and I would keep an eye on to make sure we all get an equal amount of the Smarties.  Can you imagine?  We might have got 8 Smarties altogether.  That was it.  Today a kid would get a jumbo bag all for themselves.  No wonder there is obesity in our nation!  And it wasn’t every Saturday that we would get a treat. Sometimes just watching TV was the treat!         

            Oh how the world has changed.

Dad gets a Studebaker

Dad recalled walking in the evenings with his brother-in-law back in Aalborg looking at cars in a dealership window and wondering to each other if they would ever be able to afford a car.  Within a year of arriving in Canada he bought his first car.  It was a used Studebaker and of course the guy saw a sucker coming a mile away.  What a clunker.  It was always breaking down on him.

            After acquiring the car he then he had to learn how to drive it!  When he took the test the instructor somehow got him passed on the first try.  A miracle.  Dad was always a careful driver but one day he got stopped by a police officer for a random safety check.  The officer asked for Dad’s driver’s license.  No problem.  Then he asked Dad to put on his emergency brakes.  In those days the emergency brake was a rod that you pulled up from some place on the floor.  Well Dad pulled it so hard that the whole long rod came out.  The officer shook his head and wrote in his little notebook. 

Then he said “put on your headlights.” 

My dad didn’t know what head lights were so he turned on the light above his head.  The officer was looking very skeptical now.  He then asked him to put it in drive.   My dad didn’t think twice, he drove away and the cop let him go.  Another miracle!  I guess it was too much trouble for the officer to chase after the poor immigrant!

After the sad experience with the Studebaker my dad became a General Motors man; all his cars after that were GMs and he was terribly shocked years later when he was speaking to one of our elected MPs who drove a Toyota!  He thought it was terrible that an elected representative of our country would drive a foreign vehicle.  No matter how many hard knocks my dad went through, he was a loyal Canadian!  He loved his GM and he loved the NFL (National Football League).  Living in Ontario he was a loyal Hamilton Tiger Cats fan for years.

Tomorrow I will talk about wrestling!

This isn't our car but it was similar; it was blue I think.

Journey to Canada

When we set sail on the Stockholm in July 1957 my parents said goodbye to a brand new, all modern apartment as well as to their family and friends.  They were headed to Canada with 3 children in tow all under the age of 4 and Mom was pregnant with a fourth child.  My father was 27 and the year before he had reached the pinnacle of his dreams by becoming a “meister” in a new and ultra modern meat packing house in Odense.  He was the youngest Master in his trade and he so impressed the visiting Canadians while they toured his plant that he was offered a fantastic job in Canada.

            It was 1957 and Denmark was still recovering from the effects of World War II.  As well, having lived through the war my father was concerned about raising his children in a country that was vulnerable to invasion.  He also thought there would be more opportunity in Canada.  When the Canadians came knocking at his door he had already been investigating immigration opportunities in Australia, South Africa and the United States.  These countries had all been crossed off his list because there were dangerous snakes in those countries!  Canada was free of snakes.

            So they sold all their belongings and set sail, going around Scotland where Ole’s diapers floated to shore.  When my mother finally recovered from her seasickness she still stayed below deck to take care of the children but she did venture up to the dining room to eat.  There was a table laden with fruits and a big bowl of shiny red apples caught her eye.  In my mother’s home back in Aalborg they had several fruit trees in their yard, including 2 apple trees.  Mor adored apples and frequently would pluck an apple off the tree then taking a big bite the juice would run down her arm.  When she bit into this glossy American apple it tasted like sand, dry and without flavour. 

Mor turned to Far and much like Eve said “It looked so good and it is only dust.” 

She said to me “I was very disappointed.  America can make things look so beautiful, but there’s nothing underneath.”

Rampage

Our education system is designed for the few not for the average student. We have the geniuses on one side and the below average on the other side getting most of the attention. The unfortunate average students get the short end of the stick because of the needs of the few. Who is responsible for that? Not the teachers, who are simply forced to work in a system mandated by the school board. I cannot comment on the motivation of the school boards today.

This is what I want to say though. Parents and the students need to take responsibility for their education. There are a lot of tools online that can assist in this and teachers are capable and willing to help students advance themselves further outside the regular classroom. But if the teacher suggests a reading list, parents, for heavens sake don’t get your pants in a twist because “Of Mice and Men” is on the list and your religion tells you that is a dangerous book. Don’t alienate the teacher by coming into the classroom and causing a riot because your child has suddenly become tainted by Lennie and Ralph. The teacher doesn’t know that you are some nutbar religious freak, they are simply recommending books that are deemed educational by those in the know. Go home with the list and start reading yourself. If you don’t want them to read certain books, so be it. But don’t go attack the teacher who made some recommendations.

I am sick and tired of a few violent, vocal hoodlums making it difficult for the silent majority who are NORMAL. Reviewing articles on the Tea Party and listening to media coverage I have some serious concerns about yet another marginal group affecting the lot of millions. Are there really people in the 21^st century who believe in Adam & Eve? They still think the sun revolves around the earth? I suppose space is a hoax but how do you then explain advances in technology?

Why is this the topic du jour? My niece is in Australia with the dilemma of receving a job offer there when she really wants to be back in Canada practicing medicine here. So why did this happen? Because there are only a certain amount of seats available in medical school in Canada despite the doctor shortage. So at double the cost students are forced to take the dream education in foreign countries while Canada brings in foreign students themselves to the medical faculty. Explain this to me to be other than money grabbing. Our ridiculous obsession with money is costing us in untold ways other than money. Is there no one out there who can do simple arithmetic? Was no one paying attention to the bailouts in 2008; the same morons who asked for billions in bailouts gave themselves ridiculous bonuses, wracked up billions in profits and DONT WANT TO PAY TAXES. Are you f***ing kidding me. And the general population is on board with that? Again, are you f***ing kidding me. Who the f**k gives a s**t about the deficit?

Don’t get me started . . . . I want my niece to come home and practice medicine in her country. It would be nice to have a doctor who could understand when I say what’s ailing me and not ask me to repeat the same thing four times. And not ask me three times why I haven’t had sex in umpteen years.

And yes, this has happened to me!

Melting Pot

I wish I could say that I have a melting pot of ideas brewing this morning but it is the exact opposite. I have a few thoughts here and there but all are inappropriate for family viewing, so to speak. I’m sitting here with my hair all on end, nibbling my cheese toast and sipping a good cup of coffee and trying to come up with something funny. Nadda, zip, zero.

Well, actually there is something which I have been observing at work over the last few months. I’ve been noticing it more frequently lately and that is the fact that whenever Canada writes a story for our news page the next day we get a story from Houston. There is a real rivalry going on (in my mind anyway) between Canada and the USA on our information page. I have to laugh every morning when I see a new story as I feel as though both countries are waving their hands to the mothership saying “look at me, look at me, look what I’m doing, aren’t I great”.

Just generally speaking (nothing to do with our company) Canadians will always be the poor cousin to the Americans. We Canadians are so meek and mild and so terribly polite that we will never shove ourselves in front of the bus, so to speak. Americans still have this notion that all of Canada is covered with snow. I’ve noticed in the last few years that a lot of the American shows will reference Canada (as though we’ve suddenly come on their radar) and they are mostly disparaging comments. Law and Order, for instance, always seems to have some criminal element coming out of Canada. NCIS had a character go to Saskatchewan for a vacation and that became the butt of derisive remarks. I think this attack on Canada comes from the 9/11 accusations that Canada has been lax in letting criminals get into the USA. Hmmm, seems to me that it’s the Americans who are on the border as You Go In to the States. How can that be our fault? (yes, I know the rest of the story, but still????)

Americans always want to be first, they always want to be the greatest, they sure don’t understand modesty. They know everything about everything, so much so that their Hollywood movie stars can come up here to our pristine mountains and while they are vacationing they can tell us what to do about our environment. Excuse me, you are a guest in our country, don’t you think it’s a bit rude to tell us what we are doing wrong? Oh that’s right, we are Canadians, we marry our cousins and therefore we are dumber than donkeys. No need to use manners “up here”. Really?

Lest anyone admonition me for using a sweeping brush to paint all Americans with the same colour, let me acknowledge that not all Americans are ignorant and rude. But there are an awful lot of them that are, and they are kind of annoying. I’m Canadian and I’m proud of my country. When I go to Europe, South America or Cuba I get “We love Canadians” a lot. I’m pretty sure that Americans don’t get that comment. I’m pretty sure Canada is the best country in the world – yep. I’m sure.