Tag: free thinking

Remembering

Cherry ree in a coal heap. a remnant of the glory days of coal mining and export. Environment was a world seldom used and misused.
Between the sea and the mountains. Burnaby, once a suburb of Vancouver has become another urban jungle.

November 11th. We had a windstorm last night. Half our leaves are gone and the starkness of winter descends. I always say things about Remembrance Day that inflames someone. I’ll keep my pie-hole shut except to say that we really need a day to remember all the innocents who die in wars which are always about someone else’s greed, usually far away form the carnage. There is no-one standing to the haunting strains of the ‘Last Post’ and thinking of the thousands of children dying in Gaza, Israel, Ukraine and other places we’ve simply forgotten. There is no point in remembering anything about war if it is still not in the past tense.

You’re probably wondering why I called this meeting.

Lately we seem to worship the infinite possibilties of artificial intelligence. No-one wants to consider the overwhelming force of genuine stupidity and that we have not learned anything through the ages. Our weapons may have evolved but our penchant for cruelty and destruction remains immense. Frankly my perspective leads me to feel that the war-dead, military and civilian, are the lucky ones. Their pain is over. It is the survivors who carry immense burdens for the rest of their days that we the ignorant elite cannot comprehend. It is also part of my silent rage that the Americans must have a finger in every pie. I understand that they truly believe they offer help but goddamnit! Stay home and clean up your own mess. Maybe a lot of the world’s troubles would disappear if you retracted your missionary compulsion to make everything just like home.

I’ll keep my uninformed opions to myself. There is no media source which is trustworthy, there doesn’t even seem to be concern about using language correctly. “No doubt eh?” (Yes really) You have to put together the pieces of conjecture to arrive at a vague overview of the approximate truth. Every time I have had firsthand experience with an event which the media covered, their account left me rather mystified about what they are talking about. But today of all days, when our noble savages who went to the other side of the planet to “Defend democracy” are touted as heros, and we see images of wide-eyed traumatized children huddling in the rubble of Gaza… don’t you want to ask a few questions? Then, after all the lip service and horn blowing, think of how many of our vets are treated so poorly. It is bullshit!

It is a sunny morning, most unusual for November eleventh. I remember standing in a military uniform at various cenotaphs, always in the cold pouring rain, listening to trumpet solos and some medal-chested geezer droning on with cliche sentiments. I don’t intend disrespect but do wish folks would peek out from under their blinkers and try to grasp a bigger picture.

Another fine day. Nanaimo in the autmn sun.

The dogs are asleep in their wee beds and I’ve been perusing advertising as I look for a small travel trailer. Folks, if you really want to sell something put some basic information up front. Make, year, length and please lay off the bullshit. “No leaks in roof but four walls are water damaged.” I see! There is a venerable wooden tugboat, now a liveaboard, being advertised as “Lovingly restored above the waterline but needs some work below.” Uhuh. That’s nice.

A head of its time. The tasty tidbit, a long way from the stream is proably being enjoyed for supper at this moment.
Here today, gone tomorrow; a lot like us.
This delicate beauty looked edible to me. But I didn’t.

November 12th dawns grudgingly. It is bleak, grey and slimy damp. Life stumbles on. My knee which awaits replacing throbbs mericilessly like a ten-pound toothache. It is amazing how that seems to suck the energy out of a body. I remember the grumpy old folks of my youth and finally, I get it. Still, today is the only day available and we may as well make the most of it. The dogs knows only how to live in the moment and they want to go for a walk; NOW.

This damned leaf leaves me feeling awfully tiny.

And now, on the 15th, I’m getting around to posting this blog. Life gets in the way at times. I’ve had time to think about what I’m saying and I’ll stand by every word. So there!

Out of ballast, heading for a cargo. “The same mystery which floats a vessel in a fathom of water, provides bouyancy in a thousand.”

“War does not determine who is right – only who is left.” Bertrand Russell

NO BIRDS

6 PM
The sun is over the yardarm
and all’s not well.

The sun rose this morning into a cloudless sky. We cannot see anything blue. We are beneath a thick pall of smoke because, it seems, half of British Columbia’s forests are on fire. I don’t know who is to blame, but I reckon that most of the fires are human-caused. South of the border California is in ashes because of the price of Canadian lumber. Thus sayeth the Trump. I know that I may lose subscribers for what I constantly repeat but if you’re not even asking questions, then you like it where you are and nothing is ever going to change. That last sentence became a polemic political rant which I finally deleted. What’s the point? This blog is supposed to be about sailing and freedom and free thinking. People who read my blog understand that in varying degrees and directions. Remember Forest Gump? “Stupid is as stupid does.” Most folks get that and if you don’t, I hope you’re happy in your space.

Banon Creek Falls, Chemainus River.
Chemainus River in drought.
I like smoked meat!
“When I look into your big brown eyes…..”
Uh Huh!

To paraphrase the Red Green Theme:

If you can’t be handsome,

if you can’t be rich,

try to be handy,

do something damnit,

fix the sonafabitch.

Bumtown, Nanaimo. Some have set up this camp because they have no place to go and there is a natural instinct to seek safety in numbers. Others are there because they think they are cool and trendy. Millions of the world’s poor and displaced live like this because they have no choice. The people here have order, toilets, clean water. No one  bombs or shoots at them. Still, imagine trying to nurture children in any place like this.
Immediately behind the camp, in the smoke from our forests, another Asian freighter loads our raw logs for export. It is moored to the wharf of a former sawmill which was closed allegedly due to a lack of available timber. There can be nothing but questions.
Nanaimo Harbour at high noon today. There are 555 forest fires burning in the province at the moment.

I’m presently wondering about the wisdom in trying to sell my beloved ‘Seafire.’ She is my earthquake plan and escape pod. It is said that it is better to drown than hang or burn and today, choke! I see people on the street wearing surgical masks which adds to the eeriness. I am not sure the masks filter out much smoke but if they make people feel better…Good!

As the day advances, the smoke settles and the entire world seems subdued, or oppressed, by it. The streets are oddly quiet as a strange lethargy seems to possess those who are out and about. The sensation is rather the same as when overwhelmed by a heavy snowfall except that this is a crushing rather a sheltering feeling. While I write, the smoke catches at the back of my throat and muted orange-brown light filters in over my desk. To think that I used to smoke deliberately, like a fiend! Fool!

Where the best berries grow.
Jack on deck…of a friend’s boat. There is shade, a good view of the dock and regular treats.

Now I’m writing in the dull glow of the next morning. The smoke is thicker. Fire and brimstone. It’s the tale of sod ‘em and go for more. Getting a clear breath seems a bit difficult in the thick acrid air I am inhaling. Jack just wants to lay low.Suddenly I realize that I can hear no birds this morning. I drove up to Nanaimo this morning and realized at the airport that most flights are grounded.

Fly me to the sun. Now this Cessna Caravan only has to be able to see the ground well enough to land.
Like lemmings row on row
into the smoke
careening cars
deliberately go.
When they get there
if they do,
will they understand
anything new?

The visibility is below safe minimums for VFR. There are few aircraft in the sky and so the doomsday sensation lowers a little more. People are driving like road warriors as if there is no tomorrow and I fear, that for some, they will be right. The volunteer fire department in Ladysmith issues a call to arms with a good old-fashioned air raid siren. Its sonorous howl calls all too often, sometimes several times in one day. Within minutes there is a din of warbling, hooting, honking emergency vehicles heading off on yet another mission to yet another wreck on the highway. The dogs in town respond in kind. Summer wears on.

Tristan Jones wrote, “When in fear or in doubt, raise your sails and bugger off out.”
This senior couple in their lovely 17′ sloop placidly left the marina and continued on their journey.
Perched silently on a limb above passing hikers, this Barred Owl waits for dusk. I had the wrong lense on my SLR for the light, so I made this shot with my mobile phone.

“Thank God men cannot fly, and lay waste the sky as well as the earth.” Henry David Thoreau