You can't go home again

May 17, 2016 Maurice Leave a comment

After a long week in Calgary, Pam and I returned to Vancouver via the Yellowhead Highway through Jasper and then south on the Number 5 from Valemont. It was a lovely drive, although the route is considerably slower than the southern route, it is so worthwhile! We saw lots of wildlife including a couple of bears, cariboo, several deer, and lots of mountain goats. We appreciated the slower speeds to savour the views.

During our visit to Calgary, an old friend and I arranged for a group of old rocker friends to get together – thirty years later. Always funny to see who got the baldest and fattest (I think I won both awards!) I was deeply saddened by some of the tragic stories, but also greatly heartened by others.

Everyone has their tragedies, of course, and it was tough to talk about some of the mistakes we’ve made. And certainly the old pecking order came out. Some of the things said were so offensive, you wonder if people are just naturally that rude in Alberta, or were my “old friends” just….?

One guy tried to tell me he could get in his car, go down to the library, ask the librarian to look something up for him, she would print it off, and he’d have that done faster than using his “so-called modern internet connection.” After picking myself up off the floor, I suggested to him that she was probably looking up his request on the internet, he shook the pile of papers in my face. I knew there were Luddites around, just amazed to see one of my old friends as one!

Coming from a city that has been awash in color and flowers and greenery for months, then driving through picturesque mountains, with wonderful wild flowers in bloom, it’s shocking to come to a dull drab city like Calgary, with it’s unending, sandy colored flat lands, pockmarked with pot hole filled streets, covered in loose, dusty gravel, with huge pickup trucks driven by aggressive rednecks careening down narrow streets, covered in snow. Yeah that’s right, snow in May – choosing to live in Calgary is a bit like choosing a toothache. Who chooses a toothache?

They love to talk about their strong economy, as if pulling oil out of the ground is an economy. When Alberta has more unemployed than Quebec it’s not hard to see why people are leaving in droves. We got sick of passing Albertans with their U-Hauls full of stuff heading to BC. You certainly don’t stay in Calgary because it’s pretty!

They sneer at West Coast liberals, proud to be unabashedly Conservative – while smoking their pot and needing details on how soon they’d get pot stores like Vancouver has had for years. Their sneers at Justin Trudeau were based merely on his parenthood. And of course they assumed I voted Liberal. (I did not.)

Ironically, it is Trudeau who will actually make a very real difference in most of their lives. The removal of criminal prosecutions for marijuana is so long overdue, it doesn’t even need stating. Some of them suffer from pot convictions. Harper’s rants on marijuana – sigh – typical Alberta redneck bullshit. No basis in fact, which of course helps in Alberta, where most problems are “solved” with out facts.

And these were guys who listened to the Ramones, and still call themselves rockers… sigh. Old people…

Family, Something About Us

Wainwright: Then and Now

May 12, 2016 Maurice Leave a comment

I’ve been wanting to take a trip to Wainwright Alberta for a number of years. Our family lived there from 1964 to 1967. It is a military training base, one of the largest in the world. It’s east, and slightly south of Edmonton. It haunts my psyche, lives in my dreams, and populates my nightmares.

Wainwright is the first place I became conscious of “me” – I was born in Barrie, Ontario, but Wainwright is the first place I can remember conversations, things I did, things that were done to me, schoolteachers, friends, even the first death I experienced.

It’s been 49 years since I’ve seen Wainwright, and I was able to drive right to our house! The rocky ledge that I fell down as a child and scrapped all the skin off my left hand is still there, no doubt catching other clumsy kids. I can distinctly remember the pain of having my hand cleaned with iodine, the old school cut cleaner – no polysporin in those days!

I stood in our back yard and turned and could see the ghosts of us running across the yard. If you wanted to recreate that picture, you could. The view is identical. All the elements are there – the “ole ski hill” in the background, the cable for the clothes line is even still there.

The hockey rink still figures prominently just below the ski hill. There seem to be a few more lights, but it’s mostly unchanged. The Canex is still there, so was the infamous round-about where Mom lost a hubcap driving a car full of hockey players to a game in the middle of a snowy day (“Don’t tell your Father!”), the swimming hole, the golf course – everything was there – except the school and the baseball diamond. They’ve been torn down and a cluster of new PMQs cover the area.

The town has the feel of a lot of prairie towns – a big long strip of hotels along the highway, and then the main town runs off down Main Street. You can see the same town structure all over Canada and the US. It’s awfully generic, with each town having something to which they cling for fame. Wainwright was the original shelter for the buffalo. The town essentially sprung up to protect the buffalo, when in 1907, the original Buffalo National Park was created.

Although the park no longer exists, it was eliminated in 1939, Wainwright still takes immense pride in their role in preserving the magnificent plains beast. In 1967, during Canada’s Centennial celebrations, the town decided that a life size sculpture of the great bison should adorn the entrance to Main Street. My Dad took a great series of four pictures as the statue is unveiled.

I could talk a long time about the using a Navigation System to get to a small town like Wainwright, but I’m not sure my heart could take the strain… suffice to say that there are an awful lot of unpaved roads in Alberta, and our tires have driven over far too many miles of them.

We had lunch in Stettler, a small town where my maternal grandfather was born. There were no plaques to him – most unfortunate!

Family, Something About Us

Mother's Day race in Calgary

May 9, 2016 Maurice Leave a comment

Yesterday was the Forzani’s Mother’s Day Race in aid of the Neo-Natal Intensive Care Unit. It’s a cause we’ve supported before and this day was pretty nice. Weather was warmish, with only a slight wind, just enough to help keep you cool as you run.

The race is a bit strange in that you actually run down one of Calgary’s main streets – Macleod Trail – but only on the south bound side! The north bound side is still active, with cars whizzing by… There is a barrier, so there is no danger, but it is one of the charms of the race.

The course was nice and flat, with only a couple of minor uphill portions. I did pretty well, but I tell you something is very strange. I use the app MapMyRun to track my runs, and as I crossed the start mat, I clicked it on… After the race, it takes quite a while to get the phone out, turn off the app, and save it. I was really pleased with my time of 32 minutes and 20 seconds. Pam and I had a look and we oohed and aahed.

I check my official chip time on the website this morning and I’m at 37 minutes! Ah well… I prefer the MapMyRun stats, but I guess I have to live with being 34th in my category. In my last race I was 630th in my category, so that’s not a bad comeback.