Planting Trees

Planting trees is probably the hardest thing I ever did for a buck in my life. It is totally exhausting. In the early 1970s I made an attempt at this type of work twice. Once at Franklin River which is between Port Alberni and Tofino on the west coast of Vancouver Island and a second time in Northern BC at a place called Ootsa Lake. 

It seemed to me, at the time, that those best suited for planting trees were the lean wiry types, people who could do a lot of sit-ups if asked to. A strong back was also a good asset. If you were a bit soft in the middle it could be a bit of a struggle. 

I had a friend in Port Alberni who had done some tree planting and I thought I would give it a try. I went out and bought myself a pair of corks which are basically heavy work boots with nails sticking out of the soles. The nails are for traction. I hated the damned things. First of all they seemed to weigh about 10 lbs. each and secondly you could cut one of your legs if you tripped which I did more than a few times.  

The instrument one uses to plant trees varies depending on what is available or what the foreman of a crew has chosen. One instrument is the old pick axe with a flat blade and another is a thing called a dibble which is a metal pole about as long as a ski pole (much heavier) with a little ledge on it about 6 inches from the bottom that you jammed your foot down on to make a hole. 

Usually a crew would consist of about 8-10 people and a leader. The guy who would run the show was often the same guy who had acquired a short term contract from a forestry company. Each day, shortly after sunup we would drive out to where the day’s planting was to occur and we would pack up about a hundred seedlings in a cloth bag that we slung over our shoulders. We would then spread out about 10 feet across and march forward in a row. We were expected to plant a tree about every 3 yards. Our daily quota was 1000 trees. 

Often the area where we were planting was where a forest fire had occurred or it had been burned purposefully to allow for new growth. We worked in all kinds of weather including sleet and rain. By the end of the day we would be pretty filthy. There were lots of mud and lots of rocks. There isn’t much more futile and bone crunching than coming down with an overhead swing of a pick axe onto a hard rock. 

I lasted about 5 days at Franklin River before telling the foreman to shove it when he was riding me late one afternoon. I swore to myself that I would never plant trees again. 

About a year or so later I was staying out in Gordon Head, a suburb of Victoria, BC. A girlfriend of a friend of mine was house sitting a professor from U. Vic’s place for the summer. And what a gorgeous house it was. It was right on the ocean. Throughout the house there were glass cases with artifacts the prof had picked up on his world travels. Although I never met him, Paul Horn, the world renowned jazz flautist, lived next door.

 

My 68 Ford Falcon at house in Gordon Head.

One night we were sitting around yacking and a friend of a friend of mine told me he was going up north to plant trees at a place called Ootsa Lake and would I be interested in joining him. I told him about my previous experience and somehow through his convincing and my being short of cash I decided to give it another try. I had just acquired my first car a few months earlier, parked it down the laneway, and a few days later joined a crew in two “crummies”  (a pick-up truck with a backseat) and we caught a ferry to Vancouver and onward up to Northern BC. 

We travelled along Highway #1 and cut north at Cache Creek. I had only been driving for a few months and came up with the bright idea of offering to drive the crummy for a while. I had never driven a big truck before. It didn’t take long for me to feel like I was on some wild amusement ride. The other truck in front of me was doing about 80 MPH and I was trying to keep up. I think there were some eyeballs in the back seat staring at one another. Finally it was suggested that someone else take the wheel. There was no arguing on my part. Did I mention that we had all shared a joint? 

 

 

Our crew foreman was a thickset guy named Glenn. He had his bush pilot’s license and played rugby. Not a guy to trifle with. Most of the rest of the crew were hippies who came up every year to make enough cash to buy some pot and basic food staples that would sustain them for a good part of the rest of the year. A few of the guys had ponytails. One guy was a walking authority on the band The Who. 

The month was late May and the warmer weather hadn’t turned up yet. Our sleeping quarters were in trailers. One trailer was where the kitchen and dining room was. The food looked great and there was plenty of it. Maybe this time planting trees wouldn’t be so hard? What was a month out of my life? All I had to do was survive and I would get a nice fat pay cheque at the end. 

Things kind of started off OK, at least for the first week or so. And then I started to wear down a bit. This was really hard work. Most days were overcast and we worked in the rain and light snow. I was amazed that a few of the hippies would keep working for extra cash at a nickel a tree after a full 8 hours and already having planted a 1000 trees that day. 

 

Loading up our bags of trees for the day.

 

The camp cook turned out to be a drunk and the quality of the food began to deteriorate. Stuff that had been passed on the day before was offered up again. It is an empty feeling when you can’t look forward to eating. Each morning when we woke up some guy would play and Eagles album. The music was like an ominous warning of the miserable day ahead. It took me quite a while to appreciate the Eagles after that. 

Back in Victoria I would have been chasing women at The Olde Forge Cabaret and working on my tennis backhand out at U. Vic. What had I gotten myself into?  

Well at least the hockey playoffs were on and there was a TV. By 8 o’clock each night everyone was asleep including the hard working hippies. Before one hockey game I drove the crummy over to the lake and cast off a fishing line with 2 hooks and bait attached. I came back and hour or so later and I discovered that I had hooked 2 rainbow trout. I was quite impressed with that. 

We were working 7 days a week. A plan was made that where we would go into Burns Lake some distance away and spend a Saturday night there. There was quite a lot of drinking going on with the crew. Around 4 p.m. I thought I would grab a nap back at the hotel we were staying at and be ready for some real partying that night. As luck would have it, I slept through the whole evening and missed out on everything. I learned the next day that one of the hippies had picked up a stripper the night before.

3 of the crew.

We drove back to camp at Ootsa Lake. There was only two weeks left of this misery and I thought I would survive to the end. We were divided into two groups both led by hippies. These guys could be pretty funny at times. I remember one of them saying something that some might think inappropriate but it sure made us all laugh. One of the hippie leaders stood on a hill ahead of us and yelled “Come on you niggers!” like we were plantation workers. These guys didn’t have a racist bone in their bodies. 

Ootsa Lake is pretty well out in the middle of nowhere. I think the lake was a result of some dam being built and a river being diverted. Eurocan Pulp and Paper had a mill there for a number of years. Later a bible camp was built in the area.

Over the close to a month that I was up there I saw lots of wildlife, often not too far away. There were bears and caribou herds and I had my once only ever sighting of a lynx. 

The guy in our crew that I knew from Victoria was struggling to make it through each day as I was. He also had the handicap of being rather stout in stature. We were kind of at the bottom of the totem pole as far as fitness goes. He was in quite a lot of pain where I was just totally bagged by it all. 

The calendar pages were turning very slowly. I counted the days until we would return to civilization. On the second to last day the foreman came out to check on our work. I don’t think he ever caught on that a few guys were burying a handful of saplings in soft earth by creeks when they weren’t being watched. 

The big no-no in planting trees was a thing called “hockey stick roots”. If you planted the tree at an angle instead of straight up and down the tree would grow at an angle. I think I mentioned that the foreman was a pretty intimidating guy. The long and the short of it was the shit hit the fan when he discovered some  hockey stick roots. I was one of the culprits. It certainly wasn’t intentional. The foreman started to ride me a bit verbally and I kind of snapped. I was fired on the spot, perhaps partly as a warning to the others. 

I quickly found out that being fired meant that I would have to find my own way back to Victoria. No ride in the crummy for me or the Kelsey Bay ferry trip back to northern Vancouver Island. No high fives. No group hugs. Just hit the road Jack! On top of that I wasn’t going to be paid until I got back to Victoria. 

I didn’t have any alternative other than to pack my bag and head down the dirt road that led to the camp and try to get some rides hitchhiking. I lucked out when a guy stopped to pick me up in a dark coloured station wagon. He drove me all the way to Cache Creek which was quite a distance. 

I was a seasoned hitchhiker and the first thing I always did when I got into a car was start a conversation. This would usually give me a clue if I was travelling with a pervert or a serial killer. One of things I asked was what the driver did for a living. He kind of let that slide and we talked about other stuff. A few hours into my lift I asked him again what he did for a living and this time he came clean. He worked for a coroner and had just recently fished a body out of a river. The same body was now behind a curtain just over my shoulder. Yuck! 

It took me about a day and a half to make my way back to Victoria. I met up with some of the crew at a tavern on Government Street and one of the guys had my pay cheque. I peeked inside the envelope and got that peaceful easy feeling if you know what I mean. We had a few laughs and told a few stories and I went on my way. I think I got about 30 bucks when I sold my corks. 

In the past few years I have read stories about people from third world countries living in tents in atrocious conditions at tree planting camps in BC. Apparently the tree planting contracts are now bid on and some of the winners cut as many corners as they can including providing reasonable room and board. In retrospect I probably got off pretty lightly. 

It is now over 40 years since I planted my last tree. Somewhere, far away in northern BC, there are some very mature trees swaying in the breeze that I planted. Actually there are thousands of them and just maybe a few that aren’t as straight as the others.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Monkland Village, Montreal....50 Years Ago

Monkland Ave. between Wilson and Harvard. Note the streetcar tracks. Late 40s or early 50s.

One of the main thoroughfares in the district of N.D.G. in Montreal is a street called Monkland Avenue. The street is named after James Monk who was the attorney general for Lower Canada (the province of Quebec) at one time. In 1804 Monk built an estate that became known as Monklands off of Decarie Boulevard at the eastern end of Monkland Avenue. The property later became the site of the Villa Maria, a Catholic private girl’s school.

Over the past number of years Monkland Avenue has become somewhat yuppified with a number of specialty restaurants and coffee shops with outdoor decks and umbrellas. It lends itself to an urban way of life where you can go and have a cocktail after work and see people from the neighbourhood, or do your grocery shopping without having to drive a distance.
 

Apartment buiding entrance 2012.



Apartment building on Marcil at Monkland 2012

 

I was born in 1947 and spent the first 3 or 4 years of my life living in an apartment building on the corner of Monkland and Marcil Avenues. We moved from that apartment building to a flat on Harvard Avenue. The apartment we lived in was quite large and I think the reason we lived there was because of the cost and my father trying to get back on his feet after being overseas in WW2.

Marcil Ave. 1949 near Monkland Ave.


 

Back in the early 1950s street car tracks ran along Monkland Avenue from Girouard Avenue to Grand Boulevard. When I was in grade 1 at Willingdon School a boy in my class was run over by a car and killed by a motorist after getting off a streetcar on Monkland Avenue.

The most notable building on Monkland would have to be the Monkland Theatre  with its art deco exterior walls. It was built in 1930 and closed its doors to movie goers in 1981. I have a feeling my mother spent a number of hours at the Monkland Theatre during the war years as I would sometimes watch old black and white movies with her in the 1950s and she seemed to know the names of a number of the character actors along with the stars.

Art Deco exterior of Monkland Theatre 2012

So…let’s take a walking tour along Monkland Avenue some 50 years ago. We will start on the south side of Monkland at the corner of Girouard and make our way down to Grand Boulevard.

There was a United Cigar Store on the corner in the Monkland Theatre Building. In the next block there was a restaurant called The Maryland Tea Room. The restaurant’s name was printed in gold letters on the wide plate glass windows. I remember that they served the darker coloured smoke meat. I think they catered to the after movie crowd.

For the next few blocks there were a number of 4 story apartment buildings. At some point in the past few decades stores were built into the ground floors of these apartment buildings. Between Harvard Avenue and Melrose Avenue I believe there was a furrier. There was a gas station on the corner of Melrose. My gut says that it was at one time Supertest station but I may be wrong. Between Melrose and Draper Streets was a Steinberg’s supermarket. Steinberg’s also had home delivery where they would pack up your groceries in a cardboard box.

At the corner of Royal Avenue, in the 1960s, there was a restaurant called the B & M. where kids from West Hill High and other schools often hung out. Next to it there was a barbershop that had little rocket ship crystal radios on display in their front window. Just off of Monkland and on Royal Avenue was The Monkland Tennis Club that I believe opened in the late 1920’s and still exists today. A little further down Royal Avenue was LCC (Lower Canada College) which catered to well to do families.

Monkland Tennis Club 2012

There were no more stores or businesses on this side of Monkland from Royal Avenue to Grand Boulevard. It was all houses or apartment buildings.

So…let’s start our walk again beginning at Girouard Avenue across the street from the Monkland Theatre on the north side of Monkland. I believe there was a bank on the corner. I also think there was a gas station at the corner of Old Orchard Avenue. Storefront businesses in the 1950s started at Old Orchard and ended up at Wilson Avenue going west. There was then a big gap of apartment buildings before stores resumed again around Hingston Avenue where there were a few blocks of more stores.

The Monkland Taverne was at the corner of Old Orchard and Monkland. Years ago it was one of those places where working men hung out and enjoyed cheap beer. Times have changed. In the block between Old Orchard and Marcil Avenues there was cake store that I believe was called La Patisserie de Nance. There was also a record store in this block at one time. In the 60s there was a laundramat in this block. Some kids would go for rides in the driers.

Monkland Taverne 2012

On the eastern corner of Marcil there was a small farm on Monkland. In the mid 50s it was bulldozed and a Thrift grocery store was built and later changed its name to Dominion. Magic Tom Auburn lived on Marcil just off of Monkland. On the other side of Marcil on Monkland was Tom’s (Monkland Tobacco & Stationery). For years my father would pick up his copy of the Montreal Star there on his drive home from work until one day his “reserved copy” wasn’t there and some harsh words were spoken and he never darkened that doorway again. As mentioned in another story, Tom’s was crowded with model kits and in the back of the store there was a barbershop.

Next to Tom’s there was a small grocery store. They also had a guy who would do home deliveries on bike. (I may have the blocks mixed up a bit as to where some of these stores were located.) I think the grocery store was called Powers.

There was another store quite like Tom’s between Harvard and Oxford called Nichol’s. The guy that ran the place seemed like a bit of an odd duck. I remember a friend winning a yo-yo contest outside of Nichol’s. On the eastern corner of Harvard was The American Drug Store, a good place to get diamond yo-yos and Classic Comics. When I was in my late teens I ran into the American Drug Store pharmacist a few times downtown. There was no doubt in my mind that he was interested in young boys and I steered clear of him.

On the other side of Harvard was a bank where I opened my first account. At the corner of Wilson there was another store like Tom’s and Nichol’s called Dexters. It was run by an elderly Jewish couple. I remember standing outside of Dexter’s with a fresh pack of trading cards. (The ones that came with a wafer of hard gum.) The cards were of planes from different countries and I was confused by one fighter jet that said Turkey beside it.

Between Wilson and Melrose Avenue there was a Chinese Laundry. The finished products were wrapped up in brown paper and string. From about this point on going west it was all apartment buildings until about Hingston. I can’t remember any of the stores in that area except vaguely another kind of corner store.

At Royal Avenue there was a long two story building that stretched the complete block from Royal to Hampton Avenues. A good part of the building was used for storing old films I believe. I seem to remember an old Paramount sign. A black or so further west was a Bell Telephone building. At least that’s what I think it was. It is still there today.

Other notable shopping areas in eastern NDG back in the 1950s……..

The little strip mall at Wilson and Somerled…. The NDG Food Market, Lackman’s Drug Store, a beauty parlor and a dry cleaner’s.

Strip mall on Cote St. Luc Road at Melrose…. Bellman’s Drug Store and restaurant, Bob Lunney’s Sporting Goods, Roland’s Barbershop, a delicatessen.

A joint called Harry’s was right next to the Share Zion synagogue  on Cote St. Luc Road near Marcil.  Next to Harry’s was another joint called Sid’s. In the 50s Sid’s got knocked down and they built a strip mall there. One of the stores was a deli where I often bought karnutzel. When they were building the strip mall we would often look for the workers empty pop bottles when they had gone home and use the refunds to buy candy.

Cote St. Luc Road around Clanranald. Near where the bus lane ran down to Queen Mary Road in Snowden….Labow’s Drug Store, Cote St. Luc Bar-B-Q, and a lumber yard. The Diamond taxi stand was about a block away.

I never knew that much about Sherbrooke Street when I was a kid. Of course there was the Chalet Bar-B-Q near Girouard. And the huge NDG park. I remember when the first Dairy Queen opened on Sherbrooke and hundreds of people would be lined up on hot summer nights. There were also the Empress and Kent theatres on Sherbrooke in NDG. One day in the 50’s Clayton Moore who portrayed The Lone Ranger made a personal appearance at the Kent Theatre.

Does anyone else remember this stuff?  I am pretty sure that I will be corrected on something. What the hell….I gave it a shot!

Update: Nov. 23/12... Monkland Avenue shops 1957 as per Lovell's Directory.....

5500 Mallet's Tobacco Shop
5501 Bank of Montreal
5504 Monkland Theatre
5507 West Hill Pharmacy
5510 Monkland Drug Store
5511 Superfine French Pastry
5514 Laura Secord Candy
5595 Thrift Stores
5605 Monkland Tobacco & Stationery (Tom's)
5605 Monkland Barber Shop
5611 J.J. Pilon (small grocery store)
5617 Quebec Liquor Store
5624 Richstone's
5661 Nicholl's Stationery
5665 Power Provisions (small grocery store)
5669 Vogue Cleaners
5677 Acme Meat Market
5683 American Drug Store
5696 Emery's Exclusive Furs
5701 Royal Bank
5707 Peggy de Paris
5709 Dexter Stationery & Cigar
5757 Union Laundry
5830 Steinberg's (large grocery store)
5955 Paramount Film Service
5957 Warner Bros. Pictures Dist.
5963 Twentieth Century Fox
5969 United Artists
5971 Columbia Pictures.

 

Hot Dogs...And Other Sausages

 

 

 

When I was a kid growing up in Montreal we would occasionally have hot dogs at home for a meal. My mother always boiled the wieners and the brand she most often chose was Swift Premium. Once the hot dogs were cooked they were placed in buns that had a slit down the middle. Mustard and relish were the only garnishes we used.

We also used to eat La Belle Fermiere sausages sometimes at breakfast or in one of my mother’s specialties that I believe was a dish that originated in England called Toad In The Hole. It was kind of a souffle with sausages buried inside. La Belle Fermiere also made very delicious country sausages that were square in shape and had a bit of extra fat. “La Belle Fermiere, the mealtime treat, the country fresh sausage that you like to eat!”

Back in the 1950’s, every so often, our family would take the drive over to Decarie Boulevard and have curb service at Miss Montreal or The Bonfire. It was at one of these restaurants that I first discovered the Michigan Red Hot which is basically a hot dog with a not all that hot meat sauce. Being that there was 4 kids in our family hot dogs were our only choice on the menu to keep the costs down. The waitress would slide a long thin metal tray into the car and both ends of the tray were attached to the glass on the car door windows. The hot dogs came in cardboard holders with an open end.

As I grew up, I discovered “greasy” spoons” which were small restaurants with a grill. It was sometimes discussed whether the cooking oil was ever changed in these places. A hot dog cooked on a grill tasted much better to me than one that was boiled.

There were a number of Jewish delis around the neighbourhood I grew up in and I became a bit addicted to a Jewish sausage that looked like a thinner pepperoni and was called karnatzel. There were two versions, the wet or the dry. The kanatzels hung from a holder near the deli case out in the open. I guess that germs weren’t considered because the meat had been cured. You would tell whoever was behind the counter how much you wanted to spend and they would cut off a piece that fit a price. I think an arm’s length was about 35 cents back then.

In 1959 some of my family went to Europe. In Copenhagen I found a totally different way of having a hot dog. Street vendors would give you a cooked European sausage along with a bun. Instead of the yellow French’s kind of mustard and relish I was used to, the wiener was garnished with English mustard and ketchup. You would take a bight out of the wiener and then a bight out of the bun.

Danish style hot dog.

In the early 1960s I then discovered “steamies”. These kind of hot dogs could be found in areas more heavily populated by French Canadians around Montreal. Both the hot dog and the bun were steamed. They could be could be bought as cheaply as 2 for a quarter. Chopped fresh cabbage was a common garnish.

I think it was around 1966 that I heard a very interesting story about hot dogs. I was working at a place called Hughes-Owens as a store clerk and one of my co-clerks was an elderly gentleman who had been in World War 1. Yes that’s right, World War 1. One day he told me about how he used to spend weekends up in the Laurentians. One of his cottage neighbours worked for Swift Premium in Montreal and every weekend in the summer he would bring up a load of free hotdogs that everybody enjoyed around a campfire. One Friday the old vet went to pick up his friend at the meat plant to give him a lift up to the Laurentians after work. He got there a bit early and his friend gave him a tour of the plant. Apparently it almost made the old guy gag. It was the last hot dog the old guy ever ate and he spread the word around cottage country as to what the process involved. His friend continued to bring up the free hot dogs but as soon as he was out of sight they were buried. I have no idea how long this masquerade went on.

The above story didn’t dissuade me at all. I went on to knockwursts. For 35 cents you could get a grilled knockwurst on rye at Dunns’s Delicatessen in downtown Montreal. They spilt the wiener in half before putting it on the grill.

 

In the late 1970s I was in southern Florida and checked out Nathan’s in Miami, a kind of a home away from home for Jewish New Yorkers. I would give Nathan’s a thumbs up in the tube steak hall of fame.

 

In 1986 I got my first Costco membership and to this day I stop by their food court and have a hot dog there at least once a month. They are only $1.25 including a drink and you can pile all kinds of things on top of them. I used to buy kosher wieners at Costco too but at this age I don’t know what I would do with a big package of them anymore.

I checked out the J. Kwinter gourmet hot dog franchise at Oakridge Mall in Vancouver a few times. Apparently a tasty hot dog can be made without using questionable additives. Who knew?

We also had the chance to try the British version of a hot dog at an outdoor market in London, England. They prefer to call their sausages “bangers”. It sure beat the hell out of the street food we had in France.

This past summer we were in upstate Vermont or New York ( I can’t remember which state) when we spotted a roadside hot dog stand called Brigante’s. Linda was so impressed with her Michigan hot dog that we brought a package of the dried seasoning home with us. When we got back to the west coast we had some folks over for a bar-b-q and the sauce was a hit.

 

I don’t think that I am by any means a hot dog expert but I do have my preferences. Vienna wieners are at the top of my list. It is hard to turn down a good bratwurst smothered in fried onions. Although I am not Jewish, I have always trusted the ingredients in kosher hot dogs and I am sure that the rabbis don’t bless anything that is suspect.

These days, if you read the obituaries, you will find that a lot of old folks are lasting into their nineties. I’m sure that a lot of them have had a hot dog or two in their lives. What’s the old line? If it doesn’t kill you it just might make you stronger.

Don’t get me started on cured meats, particularly smoked meat. I love that stuff!

 

Lost At Sea

There is a little town on Vancouver Island about a 45 minute drive north of Nanaimo called Bowser. Not a lot goes on there. Many of the people who live in the area are retired. The town is by the ocean and there are a few stores on either side of the old Island Highway that runs right through the community. There is hardware store, a couple of small grocery stores, one of which also sells liquor, one garage, a legion hall, and newer small strip mall with a coffee shop.

The area is known as “lighthouse country”. Off in the distance a few miles away you can see a lighthouse on a tiny island right next to Denman Island. The only way to get to Denman Island and Hornby Island right next to it by car is by catching a ferry from Buckley Bay which is about a half hour’s drive north of Bowser.

Lighthouse off of Denman Island

Years ago, before insurance rates made the business impossible, there were a number of small boat rental places dotted along the eastern coast of Vancouver Island. Campbell River had a number of them. There was one also in Qualicum Beach called Patterson’s. All that is left of Patterson’s today and their boat dock are some weathered grey posts sticking out of the water. I once caught a couple of salmon fishing from a rented boat from Patterson’s late on a summer afternoon back in the 1970s. Just off the shelf a few hundred yards out at sea.

Qualicum Beach

In the late summer of 1988 my ex-wife and her parents and I spent a weekend at the Sand Pebbles Inn at Qualicum Beach. My ex was pregnant at the time and we would later find out that we were going to have twins. It was supposed to be a lazy kind of weekend but I was getting itchy feet. I asked if anyone would mind if I went fishing the following morning and was told to go ahead. I drove up to Bowser about a half hour away and reserved a boat at Bowser Bill’s for the next day.

Bowser Bill's sign.

I got up at about 4:30 a.m. the following morning and as quiet as a church mouse I slipped out of our motel room and drove up to Bowser Bill’s. A teenager was awaiting me. We lifted the boat onto a railway track kind of thing and slid the boat out onto the water. By this time the sun was just starting to rise. I assumed that all the necessary gear was on board. I was going to catch some salmon.

Salmon can be caught at any time of the day but the best time is very early in the morning until about 9:00 a.m. and in the evening a few hours before sunset. There is also some tidal stuff that comes into play and where your boat is located. Not to forget using the proper bait.

I gunned the motor and headed straight out to sea. Off in the distance I could see several boats in the same area. I decided to join them thinking they must know something I didn’t. I shut the motor off and rigged up my fishing rod. Once everything was set up and with my line in the water, I started the motor again but this time at a much slower speed and started trolling. I probably had about 100 feet or so of line out with the lure being about 20 feet below the water surface.

I started to do slow wide figure eights with the boat. A few times when I got within hailing distance of the other boats I made a hand sign that looks like you are suggesting the size of a fish. The responses were headshakes which meant they hadn’t caught any fish yet.

A few hours went by and the salmon were not biting. I noticed a few seals popping their heads up. That is never a good sign. They scare the crap out of salmon. The other boats started to disappear but I was determined to max out my fishing opportunity. I think it was around noon time when I finally decided to pack it in and head back to Bowser Bill’s.

I hauled in my line and expected to have the boat back in about an hour. I looked for the silhouette of the mountains and pointed the boat in that direction. I don’t know if I was daydreaming at the time but about 45 minutes later it seemed like I wasn’t getting any closer to shore.

The water was starting to get a little choppy and I looked around for a life vest. There was none. The boat I was in was about 14 feet long and aluminium. There was no steering wheel and the boat was directed by holding on to the arm connected to a 9 horsepower motor. Not exactly a powerhouse. I started to wonder if maybe I had become disoriented doing all of those figure eights.

Distances can become confusing on the open sea. Things like land and islands can appear to be closer than they are. I realized I didn’t really know where I was. And now it was windy and the water was choppy. A little boat like the one I was in could get swamped by a big wave. And no damned life vest!

Map of Denman and Hornby Islands



I told myself not to panic and just stay in the direction I was headed.  I didn’t want to second guess myself. By now my hand was frozen on the steering arm. It took me about another hour and a half to get to where I was headed. As I got closer to the shore all I could see was deep forests behind the beaches and hardly any houses. This didn’t seem right.

I dragged the boat up on the rocky beach and spotted someone standing on a bluff a few hundred yards away. I made my way over to a person who was about 30 years of age and had a beard. Maybe a squatter or a back to the earth type I thought to myself?

“Can you tell me where I am?” I asked. “Texada Island.” he responded. Texada Island? Gazooks! I had travelled in the totally opposite direction that I had intended to. I asked the Texadan if he could point out where he thought Bowser was and he pointed to a gap in the grey silhouette of mountains on Vancouver Island that looked like they were a long, long way away.

Texada Island is one of the biggest islands off of the B.C. coast and one of the least populated.

Map of Texada Island

I went back to the boat but before relaunching it for my return trip I took a peak at the gas tank gauge. It appeared to be about half full. I never thought to check the spare tank. I wasn’t looking forward to the next few hours.

A 9 horsepower motor doesn’t get you anywhere fast. The sea was getting choppier and choppier. I had to stay focused with a firm hand on the steering arm. Without a life vest I could be in trouble. It is one thing to have the boat capsize close to shore where I might be able to swim to land but out on the open sea my only chance of survival would be clinging to the overturned boat and just hoping someone spotted it me.

I also discovered that the boat didn’t have any oars. There was only a paddle. The kid who gave me the boat a number of hours before really hadn’t checked anything out it seemed.

After about another 2 hours I could see that I was getting close to another island. And then….the motor conked out. This was when I discovered that the spare gas container was also empty. Things were not looking very good. Luckily I managed to use the paddle to get the boat ashore on Hornby Island and I dragged it up on some rocks.

Now I had to figure out how to get some more gas. I found a trail that led to me to a nature preserve parking lot. On the trail I bumped into a very large gal and a small skinny guy who told me where the parking lot was. The thought crossed my mind as to what the oddly matched couple was up to out on the forest. They also told me that I was on Hornby Island. Having been to this island a number of years before I knew there was a small village on it somewhere.

Hornby Island

Hornby Island

There were several cars in the parking lot. The only people around were 3 women, a mother, a grandmother, and a young girl, who were just about to leave the parking lot. I explained my predicament and they kind of reluctantly agreed to give me a lift into town.

I walked into the local Co-op with the idea of buying a plastic gas container. There were a few back to the earth types in the store. I made the decision to go with a smaller gas container (big mistake) and had it filled up with gas. I told the store clerk of my adventure and after listening to my story he asked me if I would like to put my purchase on my Co-op card. I started to laugh and thought “Man I don’t have any Co-op card! I’m marooned!”

I walked back to the road I had come into town on and stuck my thumb out trying to get a lift back to the park parking lot. It was way too far to walk to. Within a few minutes a gal in her thirties picked me up. Quite attractive too. I was married so I just had Jimmy Carter kind of thoughts. She drove me right to the parking lot. I made my way back along the trail, found the boat and gassed her up and once more I was at sea.

There was one more island I had to pass before getting back to Vancouver Island and it was Denman Island. The one with the lighthouse just off it. Between Hornby and Denman Island there is a very strong current and it seemed to take forever in getting anywhere. Eventually I made it past Denman and the short distance from there to Vancouver Island. The worst was over and my plan was to just follow the shore about 50 feet off until I made it down to Bowser. It was now about 6:00 p.m. in the evening.

It was kind of comforting seeing all the waterfront houses pass by after most of a day spent out on the open sea. And then…..I ran out of gas again! Gazooks redux! Fortunately, I could see a guy mowing his lawn. I yelled over to him asking if he could sell me a bit of gas. He asked where I was headed and I told him my circumstances after I paddled the boat closer to him. He gave me the gas for nothing and said he would phone ahead to Bowser Bill’s and let them know I was coming.

About an hour later, I cruised into Bowser Bill’s. They were waiting for me. When I stepped out of the boat an older guy gave me a hug. I said something about probably owing him a fortune because I had had the boat for a long time. He replied that he was just happy that I was alive and in one piece. I too was happy and grateful and I never bothered to give them shit for providing me with a boat without the proper gear.

By the time I made it back to the motel it was about 8:00 p.m. I had been gone for about for over 14 hours. In my absence a discussion had been had as to whether or not to put out an APB on me. They were about to make the call when I walked through the door.

It had been a tiring day with an adventure I hadn’t planned on but at least I had a good story to tell.

 

 

 

 

My Political Rant: US Election

Have you heard? There is a US election happening on November 6^th. A lot is on the line. Will America go totally to the right and change the social fabric for years to come or will President Obama survive and push the country slowly ahead?

Many issues are being argued. One issue that isn’t being argued very much is that 4 years ago there was a financial crisis worldwide, millions of jobs disappeared, and a recovery for middle class Americans has been slow in coming.

The biggest thing probably on the table in US politics is the reworking of entitlement programs, particularly Medicare but also Social Security and a number of other social programs. The US is almost evenly Democrat and Republican as far as voting goes.

Almost 12 years ago now, George Bush Jr. was elected president. Shortly after assuming office and with a budget surplus inherited from the President Clinton years, he decided to cut taxes for the wealthiest Americans. In the autumn of his first year in office, Bush had to deal with 9/11. All of the 9//11 terrorists except one came from Saudi Arabia. Instead of seeing Saudi Arabia as the enemy Iraq and Afghanistan were chosen as the countries to go to war with. Some think Iraq was chosen because Bush Jr. thought there was some unfinished business from Desert Storm when Bush Sr. invaded Iraq years before.

General Colin Powell was instructed to lie at the United Nations. A story was concocted about Iraq having weapons of mass destruction. None were ever found but it was used as a premise to attack and occupy Iraq.

During Bush Jr.’s 8 years in office both wars were put on the credit card. Medicaid Part D and the tax breaks for the rich were also put on the credit card. By the end of Bush Jr.’s 8 years in office he had increased the US national debt by about 5 trillion dollars.

And then, just a month or so before the last presidential elections the bottom fell out of the US economy. Financial rules had been lax for some time and banks had been playing with exotic money schemes including derivatives. The whole world-wide financial community began to collapse. Later on some would say it was because the banks were forced to provide mortgages to unqualified people. This was totally untrue. The reality is that the banks just turned a blind eye to people’s qualifications in having a mortgage. Then they bundled those crappy mortgages and sold them off to a third party knowing full well that they had little value.

The stock market collapsed and millions of people lost their jobs. Over Bush’s 8 years millions of US manufacturing jobs had been sent overseas. The banks were bailed out and they turned around and laughed at the American taxpayer while giving themselves bonuses.

Bush Jr. pretty well left office in disgrace. In the last presidential election no Republican would let themselves be caught anywhere near to him. He wasn’t even invited to the Republican national convention.

Obama came into office with one of the biggest messes any president had ever inherited. The first thing the Republicans did was hold a meeting where they decided to make everything as difficult for the new president as they could. There was not to be any pulling together to help solve America’s problems. Mitch McConnell, the Republican senate minority leader, stated that his number one objective was make sure that Obama was a one term president.

For Obama’s first two years in office the Democrats controlled the house and the senate which may make it sound like they could pass anything they wanted. This was not to be the case. Instead of 51% being enough to get a bill passed in the senate it had become 60%. Joe Leiberman who had previously run for vice president on the Democratic ticket was now an independent who often sided with Republicans. In addition there were also several “blue dog” Democrats who leaned conservative. Some of them had large healthcare insurance companies in their home states that they were beholden to.

As his centerpiece of new legislation, Obama chose to retool healthcare. It was something that Democrats had wanted to do for decades. The cost of healthcare was overwhelming the US economy. After all was said and done, with no cooperation at all from Republicans, and insurance lobbyists pumping out fear and smear, universal healthcare was not even discussed. User pay was rejected out of hand. What barely became law was Romney’s healthcare plan in Massachusetts complete with a mandate.

Early in Obama’s term it looked like the end for America’s car making companies. Obama insisted that they be bailed out and they were and they had a dramatic recovery. A stimulus bill was passed in an attempt to create jobs and ease the tax burden on states.

Unemployment was still very high although more jobs were created while Obama was in office than during Bush’s 8 year term. The stock market totally recovered and corporate America was seeing higher profits than they ever had.

Along came the midterm elections and with the zealousness of the Tea Party (and dimwit Sarah Palin) Republicans took over the house in a landslide. The big issue throughout Obama’s term has been jobs and this was the issue the new Republican house members promised would be on the front burner. Instead of pushing for more jobs they chose to deal with social issues like gay rights and abortion. Almost 5000 state bills on abortion were presented.

Any Democratic bills were blocked in the house including ones to stimulate small business. A number of federal judges were left unappointed. If it was a Democratic proposal it would be dismissed.

The new hero for the far right was a career congressman named Paul Ryan from Wisconsin. One of his plans was to turn Medicare into a voucher system. He managed to get his first Medicare bill passed in the house before working on his plan B. His plan A would have added a cost of about $6400.00 a year for seniors on Medicare. Every Republican in the house signed on to this bill.

Virtually every elected Republican also signed a pledge to an unelected guy named Grover Norquist promising to never ever raise taxes including on the rich.

Earlier this year the debt ceiling issue came up when it was needed to be increased again. Republicans had not batted an eye under Bush Jr. about approving the raising of debt limit numerous times under Republican presidents like the Bushes and Reagan. This time the new Republican congressmen decided to hold the American taxpayer hostage. They had no problem jeopardizing the US’s credit rating. In the end they managed to get a continuation of the Bush tax cuts including the ones for the rich.

Part of the deal was that at the end of this year unless one party has absolute power, the Bush tax cuts will lapse and the government will be forced to cut a number of expenses including the cost of defence.

So now election time is almost upon us.

Several months ago we got to (those that are interested in US politics) see the Republican primaries where they would choose their nominee for president. The whole show was one candidate after another claiming to be more extreme than the other in their right wing beliefs.

In a lot of ways it was like a clown show that shouldn’t be taken seriously. There was Herman Kane and his 999 plan and his obvious history of molesting women. There was the Texas governor Rick Perry who couldn’t remember the third of 3 things he would do if he was president. There was the lunatic Michelle Bachmann whose husband was in the de-gaying business. There was Rick Santorum who is married to a woman who used to live with an abortion doctor and doesn’t believe in birth control. And of course there was the formerly disgraced thrice married Newt Gingrich doing his dog whistles to racists. Trump turned up for some ego time and did his birther bit. A sad lot they were.

The guy with all the money and the backing people like the Koch brothers was the former governor of Massachusetts, Mitt Romney. He pretty well obliterated any competition by carpet bombing the TV airwaves.

This is Romney’s second attempt at trying to become president of the US. This time around he is running as a “severe Republican”. A lot of views he has had in the past have changed including on abortion. He seems to adapt his views to whatever he can manage to sell to a particular audience.

Who is the real Mitt Romney? How about we take a look at his history?

He was born in Michigan into a wealthy family. His father was once governor of the state. His father also ran to be the Republican nominee for president. Romney’s mother also ran for office. Both of his parents were considered moderates and his dad was pro civil rights and ended up being against the Viet Nam war.

The Romney family are Mormons. (They sometimes prefer LDS or Latter Day Saints). There are a few things in this church that don’t quite mesh with other Christian churches. They wear “magic underwear”, believe in a planet called Kolob, think facial hair on men is disrespectful, and only men are allowed to become elders. Some also believe in something called “lying for the lord” which means lying is OK if the end justifies the means.

There is no doubt that most Mormons are fairly industrious. Although their faith forbids things like consuming alcohol, smoking and gambling, they often don’t mind making a profit out of these practices by others.

According to some that knew Mitt at a young age in private school in Michigan he was a bit of a bully including taking part in forcing a schoolmate to endure having his long hair cut by some of Mitt’s toadies.

The Romney family including Mitt’s father George, or any of Mitt’s 5 sons have ever spent a night in an army barracks in their lives. Mitt demonstrated in the 60s as being pro the Viet Nam war but sat it out spending two of those years in France.

Mitt once put his Irish setter in a kennel on top of his car and drove to Canada that way on a family vacation.

After leaving university Mitt used his dad’s contacts and went to work for the Bain group of companies in Boston. He was asked to start up a venture capital company called Bain Capital. He only agreed to take the job if none of his own money would have to be invested and that he would get his old job back if things didn’t work out. Not exactly a big risk taker.

The concept of Bain Capital was to seek out good sized businesses that were having financial difficulty. Time and time again what they did was cut employee benefits and wages to improve the bottom line. They would pare out anything they could and sometimes shipped jobs overseas. Sometimes they would insert people to manage the company with no previous industry experience. Part of their plan was to make businesses more efficient as to profit so they could later be sold off. If the company failed or succeeded Bain still took massive fees. On a few occasions, long time employees were told that they could reapply for their jobs at much lower wages.

One of the more widely recognized companies Bain was involved in was the office supplier Staples. Staples has about 100,000 employees today. About 95% of those jobs pay below the US poverty line by about $5000.00. Not the kind of jobs a family can be supported on.

Altogether, Romney amassed about ¼ billion dollars from his “vulture capitalism” years. Although he hasn’t been actively involved with Bain for years he still earns about 20 million annually from them. And he pays about 14% in taxes according to the two partial tax returns he has released. His father, George, released 12 years of tax records when he was in office.

Romney was elected governor of Massachusetts in 2003 and served for 4 years. He says he worked with a political body that was 87% Democrat and was bipartisan. In fact he vetoed over 800 bills while in office. Instead of raising taxes he raised fees which in the end is the same thing. In his time in office Massachusetts was 47^th out of 50 states in job growth. When he left office in 2007 he had all of his office’s computers destroyed so there were no records.

I guess you could ask a few questions here. What is right wing America’s agenda and what is Romney’s agenda?

The right wing agenda is a bit complex. It is partly religious values and partly the support of the very wealthy instead of the middle class and poor. If you are on their side almost nothing is too extreme.

#1 Racism whether direct or not is OK. Many Republicans believe Obama is not American and was born in Kenya. Somehow, over 50 years ago some people planted his birth notice in 2 newspapers in Hawaii knowing that he would one day run for president. Obama is often depicted by right wing America as “the other”. Some Tea Party signs even made him look like a savage. These beliefs and actions are not part of any bible reading that I am aware of.

#2 The lopsided Republican supreme court decided that rich people and corporations could donate unlimited funds to political action committees (pacs) skewing influence towards their interests through print and TV ads. And the contributors don’t have to identify themselves.

#3 Laws were passed in a number of Republican states requiring people to get sometimes difficult to acquire voter ID. This has never been a problem in the past period. The intent was to disenfranchise poorer people who would quite likely vote Democrat.

#4 An all-out assault was made on women and their right to control their own bodies. Everything from vaginal probes if an abortion was sought, to the use of birth control, to trying to shut down Planned Parenthood. The fact that very few doctors would perform an abortion, unless it threatened the life of the mother, is never mentioned.

#5 Rush Limbaugh is like god to right wingers. After Limbaugh called a college student a slut because she uses birth control Romney remarked that that wasn’t words he would have chosen.

#6 The endless union bashing. The American middle class was at its best when unions were at their peak. Germany has one of the best economies on the planet and a large number of union workers. In the US teachers were made out to be close to pond scum by many Republicans.

#7 The right likes to claim that the Christian religious beliefs are under attack. You almost can’t run for office in the US without claiming to be a Christian. Over and over it is said by the far right that the US is a Christian nation simply because they are the majority. To them others just don’t count.

#8 The constant silly chatter about Socialism, Marxism, and Communism as if they are all the same. Many Americans don’t seem to understand that the concept of any form of insurance is socialistic.

#9 The implying that only Republicans are successful at business. The truth of the matter is the two richest people in America are Democrats, Bill Gates and Warren Buffett. Half of the small businesses in the US are owned by Democrats or lean Democrat.

#10 Perhaps the biggest hoax perpetuated by the right in the US is that Medicare is going bankrupt. It will if they allow it but it can be fixed fairly simply by raising the payroll deduction by 1 or 2 %. A lot less costly than the ever increasing healthcare insurance premiums.

#11 The crap about high gas prices. No president has any control over what the price a gallon of gas is. You could double the drilling in the US and it still wouldn't decrease the price of gas.

The current Republican party represents 2 interests. The religious nuts and the wealthy. They are against things that most Americans want. Here is a list…..

#1 Equal pay for women.

#2 Raising the minimum wage.

#3 Affordable healthcare which includes the public option.

#4 The non-privatization of Medicare and SS.

#5 Enviromental protection.

#6 Consumer protection.

#7 Inceasing taxes on the very rich.

#8 Real financial reform.

#9 An end to corporate subsidees.

#10 Less expensive and more investment in education.

#11 The break up of corporate monopolies.

#12 The choice of gays and others to marry who they wish.

#13 An end to useless wars.

#14 The legalization of pot.

#15 The taxing of churches should they choose to be political.

#16 A major jobs bill that would rebuild the US infrastructure in partnership with the government and the private sector.

These are just some of the things that most Americans want but Republicans won’t let them have. Instead they have the Romney/Ryan budgets that give away billions to the wealthy, increases the US national debt, kills Medicare, and promises millions of high paying jobs based upon trickle down economics that has never worked before.

This election is going to be a close one. Unfortunately, close to 50% of Americans are really clueless.

I am crossing my fingers.