Chagal4's Blog

Red Dress Road

Lights…two

No, three…far up the road

Glit…tering…glittering, yes

But far…see? And they’re bright too

In the past thirty years in Canada more than twelve hundred Aboriginal women have been murdered or gone missing . That number is an estimate and may be too low 

There are noises on the highway

Not cars…not trucks

Just sounds in the trees

In the dark…small animals moving

Hunting…if I listen I can hear them

I’m tired and nobody will come

Why won’t they come?

I’m here….waiting, tired

Why won’t they come?

Recently Aboriginal leaders and others have been calling upon our government to launch an inquiry that would look at the overall picture instead of just treating each situation as an isolated case (which also needs to be done, of course) and to look at ways to find patterns, break patterns and increase the safety and security for all women but particularly for Aboriginal women…on reserves and off reserves.

The lights are too far

My legs are asleep

My arms are asleep

Everybody was laughing

Dancing…drinking…smoking

The music was loud

And…I was wearing my…

Oh my head is splitting

Splitting in two

Maybe I’ll just go to sleep

Who was that guy?

The one with the beard

Did he say he knew my dad?

The government refused. Even though Aboriginal women are three times more likely to be abused  or murdered than non-Aboriginal women…our government denies the possibility of any “cultural” issues. Maybe they should rethink that bias…after all they held national inquiry on salmon.

I’ll just sleep here by the road

Somebody will come

Take me to the lights

They’ll see my

Pretty red dress.

In the summer of 2014 an artist from Winnipeg, Jaime Black mounted an exhibition at the University of Saskatchewan.130 red dresses on hangers were hung around the campus where people could see. touch and brush against them. They were there to raise awareness of the issues of murder and abuse of Aboriginal women. But they should remind us of these issues for all women.

I made this drawing before I heard about the exhibition…I decided to post my drawing here and to say that I think the show at U of S is brilliant.

If you think this is important …please pass it along.

Blues

22-09-14

Click on drawing for larger image.

Two things brought me down this week and neither one of them was the rain. This morning as the sky turned from granite to slate…the news was filled with the suicide of Robin Williams. I felt leaden…like my legs were too heavy. It happened yesterday but the news was so loaded with other dismal events that it was as if the media had to collect itself to decide how to approach the sudden death of this particular man…and the fact that he was a suicide. Well, he brought me joy on more than one occasion and many of those times joy was what I needed most. His suicide is none of my business…he lived his life and died his death. So R.I.P. Robin Williams.
The second thing actually happened before Robin Williams died. I debated whether I would even mention it here and decided that I would, if only to try to get it out of my head. We have been flooded with events over the past few years that have been called “the depths of depravity”, so much so that the term itself has lost its currency…lost its meaning. Whatever was the “depth” today will be deeper tomorrow. And while there may be nothing as obscene as war…the many conflicts going on around the world these days are not wars…they are mass murders and fall beyond obscene. It is only because mainstream media struggles to find terminology to allow themselves to keep our screens filled with this terrible imagery that we haven’t sat back and declared that this is necrophilia and that we should dedicate ourselves to putting a stop to the atrocities that spawn these images.
Of course the media is being manipulated. Much of this grotesque reportage is propaganda…generated to create a response, one way or another. At some point it ceases to shock…it merely becomes expected…it adds a tiny tingle to the accumulated numbness. And it drives the crazies even further into the outer reaches of madness. It’s there that the lines should be drawn. A British soldier hacked to death on a street in the U.K. in broad daylight…for the purpose of filming it!!!And just the other day a psychopath from Australia photographs his eight year old son holding up the severed head of a Syrian soldier…and posts it on the net. “Depth of Depravity”? I’m afraid that broadcasting these images is close to making media complicit. It’s no longer a matter of information…”see how brutal these people are…” It’s an invitation to outrage in an environment already overburdened with outrage. And it depresses me.
I’m old and I’m tired of all this. I was born during the Second World War…and there has been a conflict somewhere for almost my entire life. For a few minutes in the nineteen forties and early fifties I was Huckleberry Finn…took my fishing rod to the river, hung my feet off the dock. Some summer mornings when the temperature was heading for a hundred and there wasn’t a tickle of breeze…the river would flow quiet and flat as a sheet of indigo glass…sun washed… with a soft surface haze. Then there were old men in my town…though much younger than I am now…who talked not at all about the ghastly days of their service in the war just past. They wanted the end of that war to mean that they could put it behind them…buy a new Ford or Chevvy…maybe get a house and raise the kids…try to find “normal”. Then came Korea and whatever else followed. We have been incredibly lucky…it’s said, to have been born here in North America. A strange kind of luck…to be living someplace that isn’t split by conflict and strife and death and the slaughter of civilians, old young, men, women, children. And to be living in an age when we can watch it all on a screen half the size of our living room wall. How lucky is that?
I’m old and I’m tired of all this but I know it’s not going to stop and that all of these images of madness suggest that it can only get worse. I know that we have to keep finding ways to live with this and that thought is miserable. Finding ways to not accept…not ignore…but somehow cope.
Today I said hello to a total stranger…asked him how he was doing. It was raining by then and he looked up at the sky and smiled…”Good for the grass. ” he said.

August 12 2014

Our media is so filled with the notion of life on the large…that life on the small has been reduced to anecdotal illustration of the “bigger picture”. Personal stories are used, shamelessly, to help us understand the global issues. Too bad really, because small stories have their own territorial rights and their own integrity. Shared locally they are less distorted or contorted by the splash of the  big screen. And they don’t preach or teach.

Nearly a month ago Cigar Bob tumbled over in church and those around him thought he had dropped something and bent to retrieve it…or that he was offering a private prayer. He was having a heart attack…a bad one…and when they eventually realized it…he was whipped away in an ambulance. After four weeks in the hospital he was moved this week to a “care facility” because he’s paralyzed on one side and has some memory loss. I just don’t think they can take care of him at home yet and it may be that he’ll be away for the summer. I’ll miss him on his porch of course and I’m wishing him well. At the same time I’ve been pondering the fact that having known the man for fifteen years…I don’t really know him at all. It turns out that I’m not alone. I have friends who also live in this neighbourhood even on this street and they know as little as I do about Bob. There are others like my next door neighbour who have known Bob since childhood on this street.

Years ago when a strong wind blew me out of the small town I was raised in…I remember a piece of homey advice given by one of my many aunts. She said “you don’t want to go live in a big city…you won’t even know your next door neighbours!”. I should point out that I grew up fifteen miles from Detroit…walked its streets, licked its windows, got teenage, falling down, drunk on the cheapest wine and then mistakenly imagined, along with equally impaired pals, that half a dozen greasy, silver dollar burgers would be the perfect medication. We didn’t die…but it was close. It never crossed my mind that people needed to know their neighbours. There were times when I didn’t know the people in the next room…many times. In small towns though, knowing one’s neighbours is not only a given…it’s a consuming pursuit. Go into the barber shop or hair dresser’s shop on Saturday…tuck yourself behind a magazine…and prop your ears open with toothpicks. The things you’ll learn will astound you. And the details…oh the details are the gold currency of the stories…They are raised eyebrows and knowing nods and sheer glee. Not simply passing tales these…no…they become part of history, of legends, last and live for generations…polished and embellished. The thought that none of that would be possible in the big city is like the thought of losing half of a vital sense like hearing or sight or touch. Holy smoke! how could you stay balanced?

I’ve been living in cities for more than fifty years now and I almost never think about those small town home truths (and lies). Coming to realize that Bob could easily have died on that church floor a month ago and I wouldn’t have known for weeks…gave me a slap up the back of my head. As I said before I thought I knew all that I needed to know about Bob…that we had reached an accord…that he was important to me. But …also that I took it for granted. This is a small story and one that that I hope to learn from…I may not get to know my neighbours any better…but I’m determined not to take them for granted…and If one goes missing I’ll try to find out why. Meanwhile I’ll be waiting and watching for Cigar Bob.

May 2 2014

We all know we’re going to die…It’s that pale image that stares at us in the mirror every morning. Banished by soap and water, shaving cream and tooth paste…it waits until tomorrow. We know but we don’t really KNOW…until Death rings twice and hangs up…leaving you glad you didn’t answer the phone. But, all of a sudden you KNOW. What you do with the knowledge is up to you. Some people find god…good for them. Some find that lifestyle change they were always promising…good for them too. Some treat friends, family and even enemies better…great for all of us! These are the wake-up-and-fly-right facts of life for those of us who have crossed that sixty five year line.

There’s a pothole in my life just now…It’s Bob sized…and I hear echoes of one of those phone calls. Not to me…but perhaps to him. I’m afraid he answered that phone…because I haven’t seen him for two or three weeks now. So I’m wondering. Bob means a lot to me. He’s been a steady and encouraging presence two doors down the street for the past fifteen years. I’ve grown old in those years and though I resist it with all my energy, I know that it’s so. Bob, though, is older than I am and he has always been there on his front porch or the head of his driveway on all but the most miserably coldest winter days. He never says much…and there’s a lot of enigma about Bob. He’s one of those people who are neither large nor small. He’s just…there. Whatever you think you know about the Bobs of this world you gather by inference and that’s just fine with me. He has always been a little “hello” man…short comments on the weather or the state of things. He keeps an eye on the street and greets anyone who turns his way. Over the years we’ve become touchstones…at least he has for me. When I sit on my balcony I automatically look to my left to see if he’s there. He often is and we’ll exchange a nod or a wave. For me that small gesture contains the secret code. The signal says “I’m O.K.” and “How about you?” and “Yep me too”. Then I’ll sit and read for an hour or so and he’ll smoke his hideous cigars and watch the snow melt or the traffic passing or the birds twittering in the trees across the street. It’s not that I’ve come to rely on those nods and waves…I’ve taken them for granted…foolishly. They’re important to me. When the cancer struck and I was filled with wondering…I’d often sit on my porch and look over at Bob…and he’d wave and my day would be a little less heavy.

What I actually know about Bob wouldn’t fill a shot glass. I’ve never asked. Don’t even know his last name. You’d think that it would matter. It doesn’t. What matters right now is that I haven’t seen him for a few weeks and that’s very much out of the ordinary. It matters that I haven’y seen Mrs. Bob lately either…but when I did just the other day, she was being driven home by a stranger and she was sort of more dressed up than usual. That was when I heard the echo of that phone ringing…and my mind leaped unbidden to the thought that she was coming home from the hospital. I hope that’s all.

We’re leaving the country soon for a couple of weeks. Until then I’ll be on my balcony every day looking left… and if I see the Mrs. Bob…I’ll be crossing my fingers and asking…Where’s Bob?

Spring came in like
A little girl with a missing tooth
Skinned knees, all flying hair and
Fierce energy.
The air was fresh with lilacs
And new mown lawn,
While across the evening city
Sirens shriek and wail
Impatiently at early drunks
And crack heads with pinball eyes
Praying to parking meters and
Passing strangers
For another day.

The market’s up and running,
Farmers selling flowers, fruit and
Culture to the toxic tune of car exhausts.
Four day beards and Birkenstocks
Weave through outdoor bars
And patios…bursting at the seams.
Half a dozen languages saying
Nothing much…just kicking back
And watching winter fading
In the mirror as waiters whisper
Thank you sirs and madams
As they’re gliding
Gracelessly between the tables
And the chairs.

Suburban angels from another hell
In biker leather chic
Rest their aging, aching, asses
Against the polished steel and chrome
Of all their childhood fantasies
Of running away from home.
And me? I never thought I’d live this long
To be in love past sixty five
With tired bones and
Angry feet…some days raging
At a world gone nuts.
And I would meet her on the bridge
Each night…take her hand and walk her home
And ask about her day.

Spring came in like a little
Girl with a missing tooth…
Laughing imp and magical
Like a stained glass memory.

Blues
Feb.28 2014

Do the new hipsters remember being dead drunk and
Hungry in alphabet city…going comatose and twitching
On bare mattresses, stained charcoal and greasy
By candle light and flashlight and no light?
Do they still screw suburban girls to the tune of
Bad poetry and scratchy music…and whispered dreams
About a better world’s impossibilities?
Do they walk for hours thinking of a word…finding it
Have a toke…forgetting it…sitting for hours
Thinking of marigolds and silver buttons?
Wear watches, do they? Keep dates and appointments
Do they? Hide money in their socks…do they?
Do the new hipsters think any patch of grass is
Central Park? Do the new hipsters invent languages and
Strange sounds to fill the corners of the coffee house?
What fucking coffee house? Starbucks ain’t no coffee house.
So…bushy beards and curled moustaches…skinny jeans
Over work boots and lumber jack shirts…and horn
Rimmed glasses…and fixie bikes and beer. I want them
To be smart…doesn’t mean that they aren’t, just means
That I don’t know if they are.

I remember the old days and nights. People always say
They were great. They weren’t. They were just days
Like days we have now. Today will be somebody’s
Old days someday. Some people will say they were great.
For others…not so much. That’s why nostalgia is selective.
It’s propaganda for mock history.

The old hipsters were around ten minutes before
The Kennedy years…After Korea, before Vietnam…
The Bay of Pigs…civil rights…lynchings
(Now there’s word to conjure with.) The old hipsters
Pissed in alleys and cursed the sky…suspected
The American dream was a fucking lie.
Came back from Korea with broken eyes…frozen smiles
And suddenly again…kids in green with guns…helmets
Boots and bundles of body bags…flying off to
Somewhere else…Is this the way it is?
This is the way it is.

Do the new hipsters remember the fins on the 58 Cadillac?
Diana Dors? The Rig Veda? Jerry Lee Lewis? Do they
Roll joints in torn pages from The Fountainhead?
Do they like to go fishing?
Watch international films and argue about subtitles?
Do they pass out drunk on bar tables…but
Go outside to smoke?

I like the idea of hipsters…for the images
They bring to mind. I’ve seen them in Paris, New York
And Montreal…Maybe it’s always the same guy…I like it.
It reduces the density of Armani and Zegna. It keeps
Ralph Lauren in some kind of perspective.

Crazy isn’t it…so many questions. You see some people
Sort of like us who apparently choose to set themselves
Apart from us and you wonder…What does that say
About us? And no…that isn’t confined to the safely
Labelled so-called (Who is it that decides to label others?)
Hipsters.

I’ll keep a warm thought for hipsters…as if they care.
The ones I’ve seen ride bikes, they’re anti-fashion
But they got style…and they make me smile.
With all of the other shit that’s going on.
That’s good enough for me.

Blues
Jan. 22, 2014

I just read that Canada’s hundred richest executives had made the average salary of most Canadians by noon on January third. Some had made it by the end of New Years day…and I’m certain there are thousands of wealthy folks around the world who zip past the “average salary” milepost before breakfast. Little factoids like that used to warm my heart…because I knew that some day the wretched excess of these people would awaken a mighty wind in the souls of the working people and they would rise up and eat the rich and stamp out evil and corruption and injustice everywhere. The poor would stay up all night and sew their own superhero costumes by the light of salvaged candles while singing hymns about the new world their children would inherit. Well, this particular delusion no longer sits in the corner of my mind, eating popcorn and watching the movie of my life. The rich will always be with us…just as the poor will always be with us. Nor are the extreme gaps between the very rich and the average earner anything new (although the fierce growth of the disparity since the 1980’s is really obscene). History tells us that the separations have always been huge…often incalculably (great word) greater than the ridiculous numbers that started this rant. I don’t know why the capitalist apologists bother about spreading the propaganda that these executives are “worth every penny” or that they contribute more or that “wealth generates jobs and builds the economy”. Please…not all true and it’s well past the point where we (the ordinary people) can bring it all down…No, they will do that themselves, probably by pushing the disparity gap to a breaking point. We all know the romantic stories about great wealth scavenged through some scheme or another, used to build the big family pile (Downton Abbey style)…and two generations later the profligate heir pisses it all away on horses and hookers and unbelievable stupidity. Alas, even that story has a happy ending when the filthy rich widow appears on the scene, marries the dumb-ass  and after touching up his tarnished gilt edges…leads him to god and the mending of his stupid ways. Please…wealthy widow lady…stay home…let the dismal idiot fade away like a bad smell. We’d like to think that it’s not a pattern that repeats itself but it does. And we have tycoons today that buy and sell football teams…super yachts and city blocks with barely a thought. Do we care where those Russian oligarchs got their dough? Hell no. What about all those dot com billionaires living on the same street, each in a house the size of a city hotel. Did they have the area tested for earth quakes? How much time do they actually spend on those yachts? Do they go out with a fishing rod for an hour or two on a sunny day? Cruise around the harbour with a few pals catching some rays?

O.K. so I’m no longer holding my breath for the day that I hear that the entire yacht basin at Cannes went up in smoke…or that a whole flotilla of super yachts was last seen heading into the Bermuda Triangle. I still care that the huge disparities between rich and poor are connected…I still believe that for somebody to become that wealthy…many people have to become very poor. I still believe that extremes of poverty breed war and disease and death and an endless chain of misery…so therefore it is also extreme wealth that breeds these things. I don’t believe we can eradicate either extreme…but I do believe that we have to wake up and understand that they need to be moderated…the extremes need to less extreme. Our culture expends quite a lot of energy and thought to fight poverty…we need spend at least as much energy and thought to fight the excesses of wealth.

It’s 2014 and my cultural heroes for this year are a small and terrible musical group from Russia. If they ever put out a record we should certainly buy it…but maybe not play it…even if you understand Russian. Besides, you already know what they’re saying. Pussy Riot…Damn! when they let those women out of jail they jumped right into Putie’s face…I wanted to climb through my T.V. screen and give them everything I had in my pockets.

It”s Friday night and the car won’t start…the birds won’t fly…and they say there’s a snow storm coming. Seems like a perfect way to start the new year. I’ve been neglecting my blog lately…I know because a couple of good friends told me so…I stopped for a while because it seemed to me that I was ranting every time I sat down to write and I figured I might have been taking things a little too seriously. Not that there isn’t a plethora of things to be taken seriously…I swear I could find five things to rant about damn near every day. Sometimes it’s not a case of what to rant about but rather what to ignore.  I suppose the problem for me and a lot of others is that the burden of ignoring this stuff builds so much frustration. I wish we could do more…I always wish we could do more. Around this time of year I hear a lot of people promising to be better people. A few years ago I just couldn’t go with that anymore and I figured that I would promise myself to do the best that I could…added a couple of sensible senior citizen caveats and let it go at that. It seems to me that we’d all be better off if we didn’t wait until this time of year to make these promises. Maybe we could do it once or twice a week. After all, you have to wonder where all of these promises go. They don’t just hover in mid air, watching to make sure. They go to the “promise lounge” , hang around with other promises…compare notes…make bets…have a few drinks…and peek out the window every now and then to see how we’re doing. When we all wait until this time of year to make those promises…well…there’s a traffic jam outside the lounge and a line up to get in. Very uncomfortable time for promises. Increases the chances that most of them will not be fulfilled. Once or twice a week though, I’ll bet that lounge wouldn’t be too busy. 

My car will start tomorrow. It’s minus 25 right now but it will warm up to minus ten tomorrow and the birds will climb out of bed and get busy again. It won’t snow until Sunday…and it’ll go away in the spring. I’ll be back in ranting mode in a week or so but for now, I hope you all have a fine New Year and that at least some of your promises make it to the lounge before last call.

It’s impossible to know, really what happens when a man with a gun…and permission, encounters a boy with a knife…and resistance. That used to be the case…Only those who were there saw and even then they never seem to remember exactly what they saw . That was before cell phone videos…that was before that most notorious Rodney King video…

A few days ago in Toronto a seventeen year old boy commandeered a bus…ordered passengers off at knifepoint, took no hostages and when several police  arrived, he refused to immediately put down his knife when ordered to. The whole sequence was recorded by cell phone videos…and with sound…so it’s almost as if you were there. Horribly there. In the aftermath the police union rep stepped in front of the microphones to defend the cops…saying that we shouldn’t judge anything because we didn’t have the full story. I’m sorry…we have plenty. In the video sequence we hear the shouting police…we see him shoot the kid three times. We see the kid dropped to the floor…We then see the cop shoot the kid six more times. And just to make sure, another cop runs around to the side door of the bus…boards it…runs to the front drawing his taser…and tazes the bullet riddled kid…on the floor. Now the police union rep is right up to a point. We don’t have the full story. We don’t know what the kid had for breakfast…we don’t know why he had a knife or why he exposed himself on a bus…We don’t know why several cops, one of which clearly had a tazer….didn’t use it first instead of last. We don’t know why three shots weren’t enough…we don’t know about steroid use among police officers in Toronto…we don’t know if the kid was using drugs either. So yes there’s a lot that we don’t know. But we know that this could have ended without a dead kid. We can see that.

It was a tragedy. The court of public opinion will debate the “what-ifs” for the coming weeks. There will be an investigation. The weight of authority will lean toward the cop feeling threatened…and justified in using deadly force. The politics of  the whole situation are a tangled web of vested interests. I expect that there will be some publicity friendly recommendations about additional training for police forces but that the official position will be to declare this an unfortunate isolated incident…that the kid should have dropped the knife when ordered to.

This week in Montreal, a seventy one year old man ordered utility workers off his property at gun point and barricaded himself in his house. It was said early in the reporting that the man was a retired university professor. It was also known that the old guy was cantankerous, aggressive, hostile and generally obnoxious…full time. Oh and he was a gun collector…known to have permits for one hundred and eighty two guns. Police arrived…with all of the necessary tactical equipment. It’s a nice neighbourhood…cleared out the neighbours…tried to talk to the guy. Apparently he shot a cop in the foot. They used a tank vehicle to batter down his door…smashed through some internal walls and finally they shot the guy with rubber bullets. He was wheeled off to hospital on a stretcher and they’ll charge him with attempting to kill a police officer…His lawyer will argue that it was just intent to wound…but he’ll be tied up in jurisprudence for some time.  Did I mention …one hundred and eighty two guns?…and he gets shot with rubber bullets!

Hhh-mmm…

The Point? It’s this. We are a complex culture with a society increasingly stressed by an unbelievable range of issues and concerns. There are designer  drugs available to bend minds like pretzels. There are economic pressures to flip out whole families. There are immigrants from countries where the horrific atrocities of tribal warfare shred bodies and spirits. There are victims of broken health care institutions thrown onto the street. There are aging populations feeling increasingly vulnerable, surrounded by younger populations they don’t understand. We have natural and man made disasters that are never completely fixed. We have governments so totally absorbed in partisan polarization that they spend more time obstructing and devouring each other than they do serving the people.  I mentioned steroids and police earlier…That wasn’t an accident. Recently some Ottawa City police officers were caught bringing steroids over the border from the U.S. Personal use? No doubt, but the quantity suggested an organized program of steroid use among police officers. The whole deal went away fairly quickly. There was probably an internal disciplinary result but the much larger issue remains. What’s going on here?

The tragedy in Toronto and the crazy old fart in Montreal are not isolated cases. They are part of an increasingly frequent dilemma facing police. There are countless complex situations that we never hear about but which are common currency among police forces. At the same time, public administrations are facing tougher budget constraints from shrinking tax bases and reluctant cooperations from federal or provincial (state) governments. Those budget constraints hit police forces too, so developing costly innovative training programs and policy shifts are unlikely. It would be reasonable for cops to adopt a siege mentality, to see themselves as “apart” from society. They are a quasi para-miltary force. It’s reflected in the uniforms and the equipment they wear. See any picture of “riot-police” or “SWAT” police. They’re soldiers. It is no wonder that they feel like they need to “bulk-up” in the gym and with steroids. Not all cops….O.K. Not all cops. But enough that we need to look at the  prognosis. This isn’t getting better by itself…and standing in the street screaming into the face mask of an armed and armoured  cop only convinces him that you’re wrong and he’s right…whatever right and wrong are these days.

As for the public…we’re split. On one hand we too feel threatened by the changing world around us and we want to know that the cops are there. On the other hand  we are getting the idea increasingly that these are guard dogs that occasionally slip the leash…and that scares us as much as the crack head down the street.

Nine bullets in a seventeen year old kid…weren’t put there by a guard dog. It was a man given a gun and the authority to use it…and it’s the whole army that he belongs to that needs to be examined.

August 1 2013

Don’t get me wrong…I don’t hate healthy people. I know some and they’re lovely people ,mostly. There are some who are positively tedious though… walking around with their relentlessly healthy faces flashing like pink neon into the creased and cross faces of the rest of us. My wife woke up in pain this morning, so did I…and while we’re thankful to have made it out of bed at all…I admit to harbouring a little resentment when I see the young folks bounding down the steps across the street like  living Viagra commercials…with earphone heads and full race flip flops. I was once one of them…even more fiercely so…bullet proof. Alas…that’s a lie. I was dragged into the world screaming and I’ve maintained an ongoing relationship with “health-care-professionals.” ever since.

Among my pals, the idea of “healthy” is a relative term…flexible…changeable. It often depends upon the weather…or the phases of the moon…or what’s currently on T.V.. A lot of my pals discovered the word “fitness” waiting on their doorsteps like an abandoned newspaper intended for some one else. It was late in their lives but they took up the notion, bought bicycles, joined gyms, learned to speak yoga and stretching, laced up high tech shoes and galloped into the streets, tearing muscles, pulling tendons, breaking collar bones, collecting stitches, sprains, ligament ruptures, blisters, bruises and road rash. They stopped smoking and reduced the alcohol intake, woke up in pain nearly every day . But the data didn’t lie…They were, we were, getting healthier  every day. Some were convinced that they had shaved years off their bodies and faces…Started looking less myopically at younger women or younger men….began to wonder if that Viagra stuff really works….Oh hell yes!!

And while we’re on the topic I’ll just divert into a long standing annoyance. Spandex ought to come with age warnings (in large print) and while they’re at it there also need to be safety warnings about weight loads on spandex like they have on elevators, for example…”This garment will not hold more than three hundred pounds” and for old dudes in speedos…the warning should be a two foot by three foot sign they need to carry…at all times.

Healthy, is a state of mind and it pisses me off that young people take it for granted…even though I understand their reluctance to think about it. There used to be societies and yes I know there are still societies where young people maintained a caring and helping relationship with elders whose health has become less rosy and more thorny. Good on them. Forty years ago I was doing research on chronic wards in provincial mental health hospitals. Desperate and devastating places to live out your dementia or Alzheimers. The problem? Apartment buildings…The young family on the rise, working in the city, two bedroom apartment…in a high rise…no room for demented daddy or doddering mom. Not enough cash for a private nursing home…What to do? Well, with some helpful doctors, the old folks can be certified…What’s that? It means that they aren’t capable of managing their affairs…might be a danger to themselves (How long has that pot been on the stove, mom?) or to others. Oh the guilt…no matter how deluded they were the young family knows that the old folks are not enjoying their golden years in a fucking spa.

And so, as we edge into the twilight of our years, a few of us older citizens are struggling to stay as healthy as possible and we’re growing increasingly mistrustful of the relatively healthy forty year olds. We see the way they look at us. We want to be healthy enough to fight them off when they decide to “put us away”.

Just to be on the safe side I’m checking out mixed martial arts …sending away for their large decals…getting a bumper sticker that says “Fists of Steel…slightly rusty”

But don’t get me wrong…I don’t hate healthy people. I just think they may be dangerous to those of us who aren’t…and until it’s all redefined…we need to be vigilant.

Blues 11-06-13