What's an Apocalypse or two between friends?

An interesting article in today’s Ottawa Citizen entitled What 2012 really means by an associate professor in the Department of Archaeology at the university of Calgary, Kathryn Reese-Taylor. The lead-in reads: It’s our culture that is obsessed with the end of the world, not the ancient Maya. Professor Reese-Taylor points out that there are only four books extant from the Mayan empire (the rest being burned by the Conquistadors) and none of them says anything about the end of time. The implied reference to 21 December, 2012 is found inscribed on a column that describes the ceremony to be performed honouring the ending of the 13^th “baktun” (a baktum being roughly 400 years).  That’s it. No catastrophe foretold.  The predicted catastrophe and rise of a new world order is an invention of writers specializing in end of the world scenarios. Sound familiar?

You can find any number of books predicting an Apocalypse in book stores. They are a very popular item. Generally they are written by people who have been granted a special insight into the workings of history from a mythological point-of-view. In other words: they are wannabe cult leaders. Some of them do very well, especially on revenue from book sales, though people are encouraged to send monetary donations to whatever corporate structure has been set up especially for that purpose.

End of the world scenarios are as old as civilization. Maybe older, but we don’t have written records. The Biblical flood story is just one example of the kind of stories told in the ancient Middle East (catastrophic flood stories are popular in most cultures including those of Canada’s west coast First Nations.) A cataclysmic flood is a neat way of explaining how fossils of what appear to be sea creatures wound up on mountain tops. Also, the most popular settlement sites humans pick are usually river valleys. Plentiful water, good soil, attractive to animals, and…prone to flooding. Oops.

We are no smarter than the earliest humans (in fact, they may have been smarter than we are), and we look at events through the prism of our own experiences. As they probably saw floods as punishments caused by a ticked-off god, we are no better at seeing reality. We impose our fears, expectations, insecurities on whatever we find. The Book Revelation (The Apocalypse), written by John of Patmos, is a good one. (Sorry, but God did not write that one.) You can interpret passages in it any way you like. A third of the earth’s water poisoned? Oh yeah, he must have been talking about global pollution. Fiery devastation from the sky must refer to nuclear weapons. World wide pestilence and disease is obviously a prediction of HIV/AIDs.  

Nostradamus is an even better prophet than John of Patmos, as his predictions point to specific events; such as the rise of Hitler, the death of Princess Dianna, the collapse of the World Trade Centre. You name it, he predicted it. His accuracy is augmented by the fact that his original French poetry can be misinterpreted and mistranslated so that it appears to refer to events that have just occurred. Nothing like re-writing a prediction after an event has occurred.

Every major religion and most minor ones have messages about the end of time, when everything will be destroyed (especially the people we don’t like) and a new world order (composed of people we do like) will be established. A comforting fantasy to while away the time. I told you you’d be sorry, has such a nice assertive justifying ring to it.

Two 19th Century Books

I have just finished reading two memoirs set in Canada in the 19^th century. One is entitled The Mysteries of Montreal: Being Recollections of a Female Physician by Charlotte Fuhrer. Written in 1881 it is a marvellous picture of life in Montreal in the 19^th century. The other, Life in the Backwoods of Canada, written by Suzanna Moodie in the1840's, is set in the primeval forest near Peterborough, Ontario. Both authors are “ladies” in the 19^th century sense of the word, in that they expected to have servants and to be spared from the chores of domestic life. Ms Fuhrer was raised in Germany while Ms Moodie grew up in upper class English society.

Ms Fuhrer claims that the stories the book contains are true, but, I have some doubts about that. At the least, they appear to have been somewhat embellished. Each chapter is a story about a woman and her (often extra-marital) problems centering on the birth of a child. Needless-to-say, for a book written in the 19^th century, all pay the “price” for their “crimes” of conceiving a child outside of legal wedlock. In that sense, the book reminds me of the books by Horatio Alger who wrote “morality stories” involving orphaned teenage—or younger—boys whose honesty and perseverance resulting in their being adopted by a millionaire.

I have no doubts about the accuracy of Ms Moodie’s descriptions of her seven years spent in the remotest of areas of Canada at the time. Her husband was an officer in the British military and, was common at the time, was pensioned off with a grant of land in Canada. They arrive at their holdings in two wagons, with children and servants, in mid-winter—which was the best time for travel at the time, as roads, made of logs laid side-by-side (called “corduroy”) were smoothed out by the winter snows. Out of virtually nothing, they clear land and build a house, then plant crops and clear more land. Just as they were getting settled into their lifestyle, Mr Moodie was called up to help put down the rebellions centered in Toronto, leaving his wife, children, and a few servants, to fend for themselves.

In contrast Ms Fuhrer and her husband settled on Montreal as the city where she would establish her practice—partly (and get this!) because the climate was more agreeable than that of the Eastern USA. Also, Montreal was more “European” in outlook and so more likely to accept the idea of a female midwife. (Female physicians were very rare in the 19^th century, and, in North America, at least, all “midwives” were males.) She, and many of her clients, lived in the area now between Concordia and McGill Universities. Mountain, McTavish, McGregor are all streets I recognize. Though many have been torn down or converted to businesses, the elegance of the old mansions can still be seen.

Both women have a generous side. Neither thinks anything of inviting strangers into their homes whether it be single mothers, as in Ms Fuhrer’s case, or indigents, as in Ms Moodie’s case. However, in Ms Moodie’s situation, the poverty was overwhelming, but, what little she had, she shared. The same can be said of her neighbors, both settlers and First Nations (Mississaugian and some Ojibway). Like the famous Plymouth Pilgrims, the First Nations people kept the whites from starvation and helped them to adjust to their strange new environment. There is no trace of condescension in Ms Moodie’s writing about the people she encountered, and, though Ms Fuhrer could be generous, there is a clear distinction in her attitudes towards her English neighbors and the French Canadians she encounters, who appear only as landladies, working men, or nuns.

I found Ms Fuhrer’s moralizing and odd lack of empathy with the women she helped off-putting. However, I genuinely like Ms Moodie. Despite her upbringing she does reach a point where she realizes that she has to work as hard as her servants in order to survive and she does so uncomplainingly. She helps clear land and plants crops despite the blackflies and mosquitoes, hauls firewood and water, and, in one case, goes on a long trek to take baskets of supplies to a woman and children whose husband had abandoned them. It’s as though Ms Fuhrer saw the world through the eyes of someone privileged, but, yet with a genuine desire to help the less fortunate; while Ms Moodie saw the world as a place where we must all work together to ensure our survival, a place where the ability to hunt and trap, to travel the forests and swamps, were highly desirable skills. She judged people by what they could contribute whilst Ms Fuhrer judged them by their moral (in her judgement) character.

As I get older I have come to appreciate more the stories of what would be my grand-parents and great-grandparents. They remind me that we are not so far removed from a world where people had to be self-reliant; they could not call a veterinarian if a cow took sick, or a doctor if a child had a fever. If a tool broke, they had to repair it; if part of a house burned down, they had to rebuild it. Dying of starvation and exposure were very real possibilities. There are places in the world, even in our “civilized” country, where all that is still the case. Something to remember next time you adjust the thermostat, call for delivered pizza, or purchase a new winter coat on the Internet.

"Traditional" Christmas

Contrary to what many believe, Christmas did not begin with the birth of Jesus of Nazareth. For one, no one knows with any precision when he was born. Most estimates put it during the spring of 6 BCE judging by comparing the rulers and events mentioned in the New Testament with historical records. If you want to get technical about it, Christmas, as a mid-winter, late-December celebration began in Europe long before Jesus’ time. Though differing in different regions, generally it was a celebration of the return of the sun.

In Rome the feast of Saturnalia occupied about a month just before and after the winter solstice. This feast was celebrated with hedonistic excess and, in some cases, slaves and masters reversed roles. Specifically December 25 was reserved for the most important celebration of the year honouring the birth of Mithra. The fourth century pope, Julius I, set the Feast of the Nativity on December 25 in order to compete with and absorb the pagan rites and traditions associated with that date. Generally speaking, Christmas was not viewed as a significant holiday during the Middle Ages; Christians saved their biggest celebrations for Easter. However, in parts of Europe Christmas was a day when peasants would approach their lords demanding gifts of food; if they failed to comply, the peasants would play nasty tricks on them. If this sounds more like Halloween than Christmas, well you’re probably right. “Traditions” did have a way of getting mixed together throughout history.

The Puritans did not approve of the excesses and raucousness of Christmas and so banned it where they had the power to do so. When they migrated to North America, any hint of the celebration of Christmas brought fines. The sloppily sentimental picture of Pilgrims bringing the celebration of Christmas to the New World would have been regarded as an obscenity to them; they associated Christmas with Devil-worship. Christmas did not become an official holiday in America until 1870. Prior to that it was just another work day.

So, where did our concept of the “traditional” Christmas come from? The complete picture of Christmas celebrations involving a fat older gentleman in a red suit; evergreens brought indoors and decorated; and the excessive exchange of gifts developed during the early 20ieth century. It was the Coca Cola Company that invented the “traditional” image of Santa Claus for use in their advertising; in fact, their heavy Christmas-related advertising campaigns during the 1920’s are the root of today’s commercialization of the holiday, complete with “holiday madness.” The evergreens were imported from the German worship of Odin, introduced by Queen Victoria and copied by wealthy Americans. The exchange of gifts in some form or other was often associated with December 25^th and so it became incorporated into the celebration of Jesus’ birth, encouraged by American merchants and advertisers.

Of course, the image of the “traditional” Christmas celebration probably would not have become as firmly fixed as it did if it weren’t for Hollywood. The sentimental image of family gatherings, scenes of forgiveness and redemption, and overly-orchestrated “Christmas” music during the Depression of the 1930’s and the World War of the 1940’s created a nostalgia in people for something that had never really existed. If people genuinely craved “tradition” then we would celebrate the birth of Jesus by besieging the rich for gifts and drunkenly crowning a “lord of misrule” for the day.

As for any association between the Biblical story of the birth of Jesus and the modern holiday, I can’t find any connection. The Biblical story is about poverty and sacrifice; about the outcasts and hopes of redemption. More so, it is a story about the power of simple acts of love and kindness. If anything, it is the antipathy of modern towns and cities hoisting huge tress covered with sparkling lights in the town squares; and decorating their downtowns with wreaths and coloured lights. That sounds suspiciously like the Feast of Saturnalia. Apoplexy because people say “Happy Holidays,” instead of “Merry Christmas?” That sounds more like Thought Control to me.

Canada and the United States are not, and have never been, “Christian” nations. In fact, the founding fathers of the American state would be horrified at the almost vice-like grasp that uneducated and willfully blind “Christians” have on so many of their institutions.  And, to add insult to the injuries they are inflicting on our societies, they want us to believe that their concepts and views are somehow universal and fixed since time began? Humbug!

The One-Room School

The other evening I met a woman who taught elementary school in the early 1950’s. After four years she got married and so had to resign her position. After all, we can’t have married women influence children. The children might get the idea that she does something unthinkable with her husband. Oh I know…we know for sure that mothers don’t do such things! June Cleaver never had her hair mussed or makeup disturbed and Rickie and Lucy certainly did not share a bed!

But, that’s not what I wanted to write about. The school where the woman I met taught was a one-room rural school house, heated with a wood stove in winter. (It was the older boys’ job to keep firewood split and light the stove in the morning, feeding it all day.) One row per grade level; she had one girl in grade eight. That immediately brought back memories. When I was eight years old my parents divorced and for the first month afterwards my brother and I boarded at a farm where there were several other children. Each morning the teacher would pick us up, loading kids into his Volkswagen on his route to school. In the evening we were expected to walk home. (I don’t recall exactly, but it was two or three miles; it probably took us about an hour to make the trip.)

The school he took us to was a one-room school house, heated with a wood stove maintained by the older boys. One row per grade. Only one or two in grade eight. He had a large bell that he rang to announce the end of recess and we all ate our sandwiches for lunch at our desks. I was in grade four. On the first day the teacher asked me if I was “smart” or “dumb” at school work. They didn’t mince words in those days. Kids classified as “dumb” usually cheerfully accepted that ruling and got on with their lives. I answered that I was “smart” and so I was given a seat at the front of the grade four row.

I don’t remember much if anything of the classes, but the long walks home I do remember. We’d start off as a group of about a dozen kids and, along the route, kids would peel off as they reached the laneways to their farms. Sometimes we’d stop off to play in someone’s barn. We’d climb up and cross a beam to its central point, someone would throw us a rope; we’d grip it and kick off, sailing through the air across the barn. The idea was to let go at just the right moment so that one would perform an arc, landing in a pile of hay.

Farm life was quite a different experience for me.  I remember watching the farmer cleaning the guts out of a freshly-killed chicken that was going to be our dinner. He pointed out the partially formed egg in the chicken’s innards. I was curious about such things. Milk was straight from the cows each morning. One of the older boys took care of that chore. All the kids slept on cots in the attic of the house. It formed one large room with one end divided from the rest by a blanket. That was the “girls’ room.”  I have no idea how many of there were, but, there were a lot of kids.

I don’t recall church, but, Sundays were set aside for rest and worship. The problem, from a kid’s point of view, is that we were not allowed to play on Sundays. We could read or rest quietly. Period. No one was allowed to talk. There were not many books in the house, but I must have read all of them during those periods of enforced silence. There were a few old Farmers’ Almanacs and some ancient copies of National Geographic . One book that I went back to time and time again had pictures of members of the shark family. What a bizarre group they were—hammer heads, especially, struck me as alien life forms. There were also some pictures of deep-sea creatures with their odd angular bodies and a glowing light dangling in front of their mouths.

After about a month my father found another family to board us and so we left the farm. The teacher, I recall, seemed very sad to see me go. He asked if he could keep one of my many drawings of ships. I liked drawing ships. They always sailed from left to right.

Such schools are long gone, replaced by large regional ones with kids shipped in by bus from a thirty- or forty-mile radius. There’s not much chance that they would visit and play with one another, or that a teacher would follow their progress from their first day of school till their last. Instead of sandwiches made with home-made bread (there was no other kind when I was young), and milk straight from the cow with all that cream still in it, they consume pop-tarts and soft-drinks. One thing for sure, there are no more “smart” kids and “dumb” kids anymore. Just one grey homogenous mass and a few troublemakers. Because if you don’t blend in and disappear into your classmates, you are a “problem” that needs to be “addressed.”

Depression: coping with it.

When periods of depression hit, I was usually among the last to realize it. You go along doing whatever it is that you do and then one day it just seems too damned difficult to keep doing it. The change is slow and sneaks up on you. Now, just because some regular tasks might now appear to you to be more difficult than they used to be doesn’t mean that you give up. Most people, myself included, just keep plugging away as things continue to slowly fall apart.

Sleep usually becomes an issue. You are either unable to sleep and tired all the time or just plain tired. You just want to get things, like brushing teeth, out of the way—either doing a cursory job or not doing it all. And, the dreams and thoughts can start to frighten you. People around you seem to be nagging at you all the time. “It’s time to get up for work.” Leave me alone. “When are you going to empty the dishwasher?” When I get to it. “When is the last time you had a shower?” You’re not my mother. And so on. At work the boss takes you aside and asks you if everything is alright, he’s gotten some complaints about you.

There is no start point and end point in depression. Unlike a case of stomach flu where you can say, “I was not sick yesterday, but I am today,” when depressed you cannot say, “I was not depressed yesterday, but I am today.” It is just the state that you are in now. The changes are incremental whether the depression is developing or it is starting to fade through treatment.

Some people seem to regard depression as some sort of weakness. But, it can come from many different sources and usually has more than one cause. Stress, whether through dealing with an injury or with a divorce or with moving to a new home, is usually the main trigger. Problems can build up at work, at home, in health until you are carrying a load that just seems too heavy to bear. And, one of the earmarks of depression is that you find it very difficult to confide in anyone or seek help. It’s usually a quiet personal battle. What’s wrong with me? you might ask yourself and come up with very simple answers (I didn’t get enough sleep last night) or very complicated ones (I was always picked on in school and that caused me to have problems maintaining relationships which is why I am now living alone and feeling blue.)

One thing I learned in group therapy was that though the causes vary from person to person the symptoms are remarkably similar. Maybe someone in the group has just been diagnosed with type two diabetes so you can understand why they are feeling down, whereas someone else might be brooding about the death of a friend many years before and you feel, why don’t they just get over it and move on? The reason is simple: they can’t any more than the diabetic can make that condition go away—not without help.

Let me state as clearly as I can: there is no cure for depression. You can take fistfuls of anti-depressants, take personal, group, and couples therapy, have a religious conversion, take a long vacation, get a new boyfriend, but the best you can hope for is to alleviate the symptoms and learn to live with them. I am in no position to argue with any physician or psychiatrist who says otherwise—I don’t have the specialized training and knowledge that they do—but I have been living with this for at least the past 50 years—if not longer—and have met hundreds of people suffering from the same debilitating condition.

That does not mean that there is not hope. For the past several months I have been living in a state of calm peacefulness. It took an awful lot of personal work to get here, but I know that there are no guarantees that this will last. Stress will return, build up, and start to tear away at my wellbeing.  But, I now know an awful lot of ways to cope and how to minimize the effects.

Depression

Depression. What a depressing topic! But, they say you should write what you know about and I do know about depression.

A few years ago I was diagnosed with Dysthymia, a life-long, or—at least—decades-long disorder characterized by a general mild depressive state with periods of profound depression. In other words, I tend to see things as more grey than they really are, even at the best of times. Mostly this is self-directed, such as low self-esteem—a sense of unworthiness or that “they” are going to realize that I am a fraud. No matter how much positive feedback I get, those feelings still nag at the back of my mind. I tend to, as a result, swing between periods of feeling incapable and periods of supreme self-confidence. Bipolar disorder (manic-depression) is often associated with depression, but it is not as marked in my case.

I want to explain this, because depression is so wide-spread today that it is estimated that at least 20% of North Americans could be diagnosed as having a depression disorder. It’s no accident that sales of anti-depressants are so high. At the same time, it is also no accident that dismissive remarks about the “Prozac-generation”—aw, feeling sad? Take a pill! –are so popular. Many people just don’t get it. They tend to view depression as an excuse for laziness, and its sufferers as unjustified complainers. Can’t get out of bed in the morning? All you need is a good swift kick in the ass!

Try to imagine that a heavy weight is pressing down on you and, no matter how hard you try, you can’t shake it off or escape from under it. It is so easy for an outside observer to assume that you don’t want to. I have described my serious bouts of depression as a feeling that the black dogs are circling round me and closing in, or that there is a blackness just outside of my peripheral vision waiting to overwhelm me. Apparently that is a fairly common description of the state of being as reported by those depressed.

The point of those two metaphors—of the circling black dogs or of a black cloud closing in—is that they are beyond control of the suffer who may well be trying to stave off what he sees as inevitable: that he will be overwhelmed by and consumed by the negativity expressing itself in his head. The depressed are not crazy; they know that they are facing a battle or that they have given up. I knew it was not healthy when I slept 20 hours a day, but, there was nothing I could do about it. You have to sleep, you sleep. People who can’t face the prospect of eating know that their repulsion towards food is not a normal reaction. But, they can’t ignore a gagging sensation whenever they think of eating.

There are many causes. But, underlying it all is a physical basis. Whether the physical changes are a result of, or a cause of, depression is irrelevant: they are there. Moods, thinking, emotions, are related to chemicals in the brain. You might not like to think of the rush of “love at first sight” as a release of hormones from various bodily organs. Which one is the primal cause: the experience or the chemicals? Does it really matter? Low levels of two important hormones that affect the functioning of the brain are common in people suffering from depression: dopamine and serotonin.

Dopamine affects behavior and cognition, motivation, sexual desire, sleep, mood, attention, and learning. A shortage of it in the brain can cause difficulties in all those areas and more. Serotonin is the “feel good” hormone that affects one’s feeling of well-being and happiness. Both of these chemicals are created in the body and are broken down by normal functioning, but the rate of loss can be affected by various drugs, variously known as “anti-depressants.”

Of course, if that’s all that depression is—a deficiency of certain chemicals—depression would disappear overnight. If only it were that easy. Some of my friends would still be alive today if that were the case.

Life, the universe, and everything

I used to enjoy reading textbooks about the “big” picture. You know, the history and future of the universe—that sort of thing. Unfortunately, I loaned most of my books to someone who never returned them. Still, it’s a subject that has always fascinated me.

Take the subject of entropy, for example. Entropy in the engineering sense is lost heat (the second law of thermodynamics: entropy of a system always increases or remains the same).  Another way of putting that is that thermal energy always flows from higher temperature to lower temperature. In layman’s terms: things cool off. Eventually, everything in the universe will become the same temperature (heat death). What has this to do with anything? Well, one way of describing time itself is the movement from low entropy to higher entropy. At the end, everything will be homogeneous (absolute entropy).

This suggests that a time existed when the universe had no entropy. We could describe that state as being infinitely hot. Now, to move from infinity to a measurable interval is clearly impossible. The best we can ever do is approach closer and closer to infinity, but we can never reach it. That’s what infinity means: no end point. That is why we cannot talk about the “beginning” of the universe, or “what happened before the beginning.” The best we can do is get closer and closer to a “starting point,” but we’ll never get there. We can talk about a trillionth of a trillionth of a trillionth of a second of the existence of the universe, but we will never get to the “beginning.”

Now, the movement of time from near-zero entropy to near-infinite entropy is only one way of looking at it. Not everything is always breaking down and disintegrating as it dissipates its heat energy. Things do get put together. Like stars, chicken eggs, and social structures. This suggests a force that is working against entropy; in other words, moving from near-infinite to near-zero entropy. So, are there two arrows of time, headed in opposite directions?

Maybe an example would help. Drop a chicken egg on the floor. Its structure of shell, yolk, and sac is destroyed. In other words, it’s a mess. Now, reassemble this mess into a perfect egg. You can’t do it. In this case, entropy has increased and the only way back would be to reverse time. On the other hand, where did the egg come from? It began as a single cell in a chicken. It divided and kept dividing as different parts of it began to assume different structures. In the end, we have an egg with yolk near the middle, a sac wrapped around it, and all encased in a hard shell. This is a movement away from the “natural” process of always increasing entropy, seemingly violating the second law of thermodynamics. I think that a better way to describe it is the process of repackaging energy. The chicken actually “pulls” energy from its food and converts some of it into egg. The egg or, if it develops fully and produces another chicken, will eventually give up its energy to another life-form in the form of food.

You could describe the entire process of the evolution of the universe, of the planets, of life, etc. as working against rot and decay. It would be nice to think that—it has a nice positive ring to it and can be used to justify the belief in the existence of a higher order, a God, or a purpose. The assemblage of atoms into molecules, of molecules into stars and planets, of planets into systems—some of which support life—has an almost heroic aspect to it. But, I want to draw your attention to a very simple and common observation.

Where do rocks come from? They are created when materials are subjected to incredible pressure and heat, found, for example, in the earth’s mantel. And, where do they go? They get broken down by wind, water, cycles of heat and cold, and eventually end up as sand. And, where does the sand go? Eventually, it gets swallowed up in the movements of the tectonic plates and remixed back into the mantel.

And, when did this process begin and when will it end? Well, it began when dust and rocks coalesced into a planet large enough to support such a process. It will end when the planet disintegrates back into dust and rocks. And that dust and those rocks will eventually coalesce to form another star or planet. And so on, until the universe runs out of heat energy, and everything will stop forever. Unless, of course, the universe collapses back into itself, thus reversing the flow of entropy and building up unbelievable temperatures once again that will restart the process.

Just something to think about.

Historical Imperatives and me

One of the music forums I participate in is focused on more theoretical discussions. Today a fellow I have run into before posted a longish article asserting that only the “classical” music of Christian Europe and some notable early 20ieth century pop writers like Cole Porter and Irving Berlin produced any music worthy of serious consideration. I expect that most of you, even without any detailed knowledge of musical history, realise what a crock that is. I made my (now almost routine) reply accusing the poster of academic elitism. I have nothing against anyone preferring to listen to pre-20ieth century European music or the music of Cole Porter, but to present this as if that is the only “good” music (and, by definition, everything else is garbage) is absurd.

This reminded me of a situation in my adolescence when I was taking a grade 12 history course in the evenings in an effort to graduate secondary school. (That was before I gave up on the idea of wasting any more time on high school and applied for and was accepted into a university without, what high school propagandists promoted as essential for getting anywhere in the world, a secondary school graduation certificate. I must be one of the very few high school teachers who never graduated high school—a situation my students thoroughly approved of.)

In any case, this was a course in 20ieth century world history. In one of the first classes the teacher drew a sketch on the board where he circled Greece-Rome then drew a westward arrow pointing to a circle labelled “Europe” and, from that circle another westward leading arrow to “North America.” He then extended the arrow and drew a heavy circle around “Vietnam.” That, he explained, was what the entire conflict in Vietnam at that time was about. They were resisting the inevitable historical westward march of “civilization” around the globe. I was outraged, even then at the tender age of 18.

Like my musical friend, the teacher was cherry-picking a few of his favourite places and then linking them together while ignoring everything outside of his somewhat narrow point of view. First of all, the Greeks and Romans did not discover civilization. Civilizations, as defined by having a common code of laws and procedures governing large numbers of people, are as old as, well, civilization itself. How can one ignore the civilization in Egypt that lasted more than five thousand years? Well, it didn’t fit the teacher’s “ever westward” idea. The “civilization” thing would have had to travel north and east to get to Greece, even assuming that that was its only stop. The Mesopotamian civilization survived a mere 2,500 years and the Indus Valley civilization lasted some 2,000 years by contrast.  Chinese civilization has been around for an estimated 9,000 years (though that is by inference and archaeological evidence; there are no written records from before about 1500 BCE). The Arab civilization was around before the Europeans got their act together. More recently we have had the Mayan civilization, the Aztecs, the great African kingdoms, and the civilizations that flourished in North America before the Europeans arrived. Let’s not forget Japan, whose history as a civilization is almost as old as China’s, and south-east Asia generally where many smaller civilizations grew and disappeared.

Oh, and compared to all these other civilizations, North America is a baby having survived a mere three hundred years so far. There is also the inconvenient fact that there was a timeout of approximately 1,000 years between the fall of Rome and the introduction of this brand of “civilization” into Europe during the Renaissance, making something of a mess of the idea of a continuous connection between ancient Greece and modern Vietnam.

But, none of these facts supported this teacher’s theory of historical imperative, and, so they were ignored. Neat. Using similar techniques we can “prove” just about anything we want to. I must be next in line to the British throne. All I have to do is ignore the tens of millions of people who have a superior claim to mine. Let’s see: the art forms of the folks who inhabited the Bering Strait area 10,000 years ago are the best the world has ever produced. I don’t have to strain my brain at all to ignore every other art form that the world has produced.

Any time someone tries to draw simple connections through the history of anything he is talking through his hat. The history of everything, from a family tree to the Austrian monarchy, from ship-building to knitting is a complex web of blind alleys, far-flung influences, coincidences, and dumb luck.

“Historical imperative” (or “my favourite music good; everyone else’s bad”) is a result of minimal knowledge and lazy thinking.

Doomed to repeat history?

I have a photograph of my paternal grandparents taken on their wedding day in 1893. My grandmother appears to be about 16 – 18 years old, and, her new husband in his mid to late 20’s. I can’t be precise because hair and clothing styles have changed so much. Be that as it may, my grandmother—grandmother, not great-grandmother—was approaching middle-age before women got the vote in this country and she would have died before they got it in some jurisdictions.

When I was young, women still had little credibility in business and the law. A white-collar male’s testimony had much greater impact than a “house-wife’s.” And children had no rights at all. There was a curious disconnect regarding children. One could join the military at the age of 18 (though many had ignored that restriction in the World Wars), but one could not purchase alcohol or vote until the age of 21. Oddly enough, children were tried in adult courts and sentenced to adult prisons after they reached the age of 16. And, in one case that has haunted me all my life, in 1959 a 14-year-old boy was sentenced to be hanged. Fortunately, his sentence was commuted to life imprisonment and eventually, after being judged guilty of a horrific crime for about 46 years, a judicial review concluded that Steven Truscott’s original trial had been a gross miscarriage of justice and the courts acquitted him of the charges. The point is made: criminally responsible for your actions at 16, but not responsible enough to handle alcohol or the vote for another five years.

In the late 1960’s bleeding heart liberals, like Trudeau and others of his ilk, sought to correct the contradictions in our treatment of adolescents. Voting ages were lowered to 18, and the legal age for purchasing alcohol lowered to 18 or 19 in different jurisdictions. In criminal cases, soft-hearted left-wingers thought it wrong to put children into prisons with hardened criminals, describing the situation as sending young offenders to finishing school. They went so far as to argue that children might learn attitudes and tools of the trade of their fellow inmates. Better, they argued, to mollycoddle them by keeping them away from adult criminals and working with them to ensure that they had options other than continuing on the road to perdition.

Despite the fears of clear-thinking individuals everywhere, children did not turn into criminals en masse because the courts had gone soft on them. In fact, over the next 40-50 years criminal rates consistently fell in Canada, and in other countries that had adopted similar attitudes. At the same time, jurisdictions governed by common-sense where criminals and youths were being sentenced to harsher and harsher punishments, the crime rates sky-rocketed.

Now, you might argue that none of this makes any sense and that we have to “get tough” in order to keeps our streets and communities “safe.” The fact that such streets and communities are far safer environments than they were in the 1950’s is irrelevant: we have no choice but to clamp down to “protect society.”  And so we get omnibus laws filled with contradictions, legal inconsistencies, and counter-productive measures because “the overwhelming majority of Canadians want safer communities.” I’m sure than an “overwhelming majority” of Canadians like maple syrup as well. I bet that they even want to “protect children” and “drive safely.”  In fact, they want to do all sorts of good things.

But does that mean that the next time a Steven Truscott case comes up, we should sentence a 14-year-old to death and make sure that the sentence is carried out, just to show how “tough” we are?

On Welfare

 I find that often when arguing with folks who think that people on welfare are lazy bums sponging off the taxpayers, the only argument they can come up with to support their claim is anecdotal. They know of, or heard of, someone who is cheating the system. Period. End of argument as far as they are concerned.

The trouble with relying on anecdotal evidence is that you can find a story somewhere to support whatever claim you wish to make about anything. So, to answer the argument that welfare recipients are lazy bums sponging, etc., let me quote some anecdotal evidence that demonstrates the opposite of that claim.

My introduction to poverty came relatively early. At the age of 14 I was on my own and, for the first six weeks or so, stayed at the Salvation Army Hostel at Sherburne and Queen Streets in Toronto. Anyone with a passing familiarity with that section of Toronto can recognize that that is hardly a suitable environment for a sensitive and immature lad. Toronto’s homeless men gather in front of the building, smoking, furtively drinking suspect alcohol, and cursing all day until they are let in for the evening. At the time, prostitutes openly solicited across the street. Now, you might suspect that I was a target for all the um…perverts?...and con artists that “we all know” gather in such places. However, I regret to inform you that I always felt completely safe and protected. Instead of taking advantage of this naive youth, most of the men were very protective of me and made sure that I was taken care of.

For the next seven years I lived in some of the “worst” parts of Toronto and then I moved to Montreal where, as a student, I lived in poverty in the slums for the next decade. After that I went off to a small impoverished rural community to teach secondary school.  Many of my students were bussed in from 40 or more miles deep in the woods and even more lived in what might be called “shacks” by our modern standards. Yes, I know all the stories about how First Nations, or Aboriginals, or “Indians” live off of huge government grants. Tell that to some of my students who lived in log cabins with no running water. I never, once, saw any evidence that anyone was living high off the hog courtesy of the Canadian taxpayer and, yes, I knew many of the band leaders personally. Eventually some of my students themselves came to occupy important positions in the community—and there still were no signs of immense wealth.

Skip ahead a few years to the period of 2005 to 2010 when I worked as a tax preparer in a small city in eastern Ontario. It is no exaggeration to say that at least 90% of my clients were either on social assistance or getting by on Old Age Security and the Canada Pension Plan. I heard literally hundreds of stories as I probed backgrounds in an effort to determine what tax breaks my clients might be entitled to. I heard it all. And, yep, a few of them were taking advantage of the system, some shamelessly. But, guess what? Those people were a tiny minority. Most of the clients on welfare or government assistance were poorly educated with no opportunities to ever do anything other than work in restaurants or retail for minimum wage—what the more privileged among us disdainfully refer to as “McJobs.” Many of them were ill. Some had obvious learning disabilities. Some were abandoned mothers with small children. Another tiny minority were fighting addiction problems.

“Fighting?” Why bother to fight when you can live off free government handouts? I don’t understand why those with secure reasonably-paying jobs would think that depending on social assistance is a desirable life-style. Most hate it. They hate the fact that where they live, what they do all day, who they spend the night with are of any concern of the government. But, most of all, they hate being dependent. Some find that when they try to get off welfare the system clubs them back down. If you earn any money, it gets deducted from your cheque and you could be kicked out of the subsidized housing that you depend on. They hated coming to see me hoping to get a few bucks from the tax people and hated the questions that I had to ask. I often hated it—personally I could give a damn who they slept with and for how long. And if a woman claimed that the child with her was hers, could she prove it?

You might argue that that’s the price you pay for being dependent on taxpayers for support. But try putting yourself in their position. You’re a young woman who gets pregnant, your boyfriend abandons you, and your family kicks you out. Are you supposed to take your child into a corner of an alley and wait to starve to death? You’re a middle-aged man who is injured on the job and can no longer look after yourself. Your wife gets tired of looking after you and kicks you out. Are you supposed to crawl into a dog house and wait patiently for the end? You’re anyone who faces intolerable pressure and finds solace in drugs or alcohol. You become addicted and dysfunctional.  What are you to do? Your apartment burns down with all of your possessions. You have no money, no clean clothing, no decent food. Unfairly accused of a crime or unethical behaviour and, as a result, are now unemployable? Life sometimes sucks. And bad things do happen to good people.

All the world’s religions tell us that we are indeed our brother’s keeper; that we have an obligation to look after those less fortunate; and, to face the reality that: “There, but for the grace of God, go I.” Next time you are approached by a shabbily-dressed person on the street with a hand out, imagine that you and he exchange places. How do you feel now?

A possible candidate for the presidency of the United States recently said that if you are not rich and healthy it is your own fault. Well, one can just hope that he doesn’t become the victim of a dreadful accident and be abandoned by everyone he knows. That is exactly what has happened to many other people, even the “good” ones like you and me.

Some Miniscule Minds at Work

I am sometimes stupefied when I encounter the ignorance and plain idiocy that comes out of many people’s mouths. For example: did you know that “global warming” is a hoax? Yep, we have proof. Two winters ago it snowed in Houston. If that’s not enough for you, try this: a couple of years ago emails were intercepted in which climate scientists were discussing “manipulating data.” The smoking gun! Sarah Palin added that the trouble with scientists is that they don’t look at the “big” picture; she, on the other hand, has gone back 20-30 years and discovered that all this “warming” stuff is part of a natural cycle.

What can you say to people who hold such beliefs? Go back to kindergarten, start over, and this time pay attention?

It’s really odd that scientists who can describe the earth’s weather as it was four million years ago missed Sarah Palin’s 20-30 year cycle. More so, “manipulating data” means one thing to Fox commentators and quite another thing to scientists. According to the Fox interpretation “manipulating data” can mean only that scientists are actually making up data and throwing out stuff that doesn’t conform to their theories. When scientists talk about “manipulating data” they are talking about applying different formulas, algorithms, or equations to help them understand the data.

If it has never snowed in Houston before, but it did two winters ago, then this is one more tiny indication that the earth’s weather patterns are changing. This weekend it snowed in places in the North-Eastern USA for the first time on this date since weather records were kept. What does that “prove?” As the polar ice caps melt it is bound to have an effect on weather world-wide. I am so glad that it is all a hoax. I’m sure that the polar bears who can’t find any ice floes to rest on must feel the same way.

Now here’s another thing that galls me.

Did you know that evolution is another scientific hoax and that there are better, more common-sense, explanations for dinosaur skeletons and fossils of sea creatures on mountain tops? One is that a big guy with a beard snapped his fingers and all this appeared. Poof! And the fossils are his way of testing our faith in him(???) Another is that: yes, life forms have changed on our planet over the years, but the process has been guided by another big guy (not specified whether this guy is bearded or not).

In doing a bit of research for this essay, I stumbled across a web site: http://conservapedia.com/Evolution. It is a fascinating—and frightening—read. Here’s a quote: In addition to the evolutionary position lacking evidential support and being counterevidential, the great intellectuals in history such as Archimedes, Aristotle, St. Augustine, Francis Bacon, Isaac Newton, and Lord Kelvin did not propose an evolutionary process for a species to transform into a more complex version. Now if those guys didn’t come up with the theory of evolution it must be fraudulent, right? I mean, who are you to argue with Aristotle?

Further, this web-page quotes many, many “experts” who question the validity of evolution. Aren’t quotations in themselves enough proof?  But the main problem with evolution is that its adherents are atheists and a court of law in the USA once held that “atheism” is a religion. A “religion” cannot be taught in public schools and, as the core belief of atheists includes “materialistic theories of origin,” evolution cannot be taught in public schools either. The coup de grace: Evolutionary theory played a prominent role in regards to atheistic communism. (I have never understood why right-wing writers use the phrase “in regards to” so frequently.) So, not only is evolution a religious tenet, but it’s un-American to boot.

Frankly, I don’t understand why anti-evolutionists don’t look through their church windows and take a hard look at the world outside. One of the most noticeable and dominant features of “nature” is change. Everything changes. Ever see a landslide or a flood? How about a volcano? That’s evolution. Ever hear of dog-cat-cattle-horse, etc., etc. breeders? That is evolution. Ever hear of a disease becoming antibiotic resistant? That’s evolution. Ever notice that most people have stopped relying on horses for transportation? That’s evolution. The idea that living organisms adapt to their surroundings and pass their survival techniques onto their descendants…I mean, isn’t that something that we all do every day? I can only guess that they have never driven through the country-side and seen rock-cuts through which the highway winds. All those apparent different layers, some at odd angles to the others. You really think that the guy who created everything (like some 200 billion galaxies with about 200 billion stars each) had time to worry about rock stratification?  I suppose that they have an explanation for the Grand Canyon popping out of nowhere.

The world and the universe is one wonderful miracle. The fact that it was created by and is governed by simple laws that even older children ought to be able to understand makes it even more wonderful. Why on earth would anyone want to take away from that splendor by inventing fairy tales about it? It is all so much bigger and grander and more stupefying than the wildest imaginations of those with eyes closed tight.

Elementary Cosmology

The universe, when I was a small child, was very simple. There was the place where we were, and a place above it called “sky.” I gained an insight when I was about 5-years-old while lying on my back studying the sky. I reasoned that the sun was higher than the clouds and that the sky was higher than the sun. This I deduced based on the observation that the clouds sometimes blocked our view of the sun, but the sun never blocked our view of the clouds. Both the sun and the clouds blocked our view of the sky, but it never blocked our view of them. I thought that was a pretty nifty observation.

But then my parents sent me to Sunday school and the picture got very much more complicated.  Unfortunately, they chose a fundamentalist church where my head was stuffed with nonsense by well-meaning adults. I got the idea that heaven was above the sky and below our feet was a place called hell. Okay so far. Bad people went to hell and good to heaven. The trouble is: we were all bad. They kept repeating over and over that we were all unworthy sinners.  In fact, every time you committed a sin, even telling a “white” lie, you got a black spot on your heart. I figured that when you died they must cut you open to see how black your heart is to determine where they should ship the body. It seemed to me that there was no escaping this hell place. I had dreams in which angels with swords swooped out of the sky to slay all the sinners—that is, everyone.

However, I thought of a way out of this trap that we were apparently in. Based on my reasoning of the relative positions of clouds, sun, and sky and that all three of these objects blocked our view of heaven, what I called the sky was really the underside of heaven. All I had to do was climb high enough and I would escape the vengeful angels and torture of hell. So, I began to pile objects on each other, like my tricycle on top of my wagon. An adult asked what I was doing and I told him I was trying to get to heaven which was above the sun and clouds. He laughed and warned me that I would have to make my way through heaven’s sewers.

I had no idea what “sewers” were, but I knew “sewer pipes.”  They were concrete tubes about 10 feet long with a flared end. I didn’t know what they were for but I would sometimes see them stacked up around town. I pictured that the underside of heaven was filled with these sewer pipes making it very difficult to make my way through them.

Well, you probably figured out by now that I could not make a pile of stuff high enough to get anywhere—not even to the relatively low level of the clouds. Many years later, somewhat ironically, I discovered my childish vision of our place in the universe was pretty close to what the Gnostics believed: that we were trapped on earth by evil forces and we had to be very careful about how we tricked evil into letting our souls (“sparks of heaven”) bypass them on the way to heaven. I also learned that when Christianity was in its formative years, its main rival was the Gnostics. In fact, the Acts of the Apostles specifically mentions Simon the Magician, one of the Gnostic leaders, in a very negative light. Just to make sure, I guess, that we didn’t get taken in by the rival company.

(The word “Gnostic,” in case you are wondering, is from the Greek word for “knowledge.” In other words, its antonym, “agnostic” literally means “Beats me. I don’t have a clue.”)

Now what is this little essay all about?

This: that the universe exists inside our heads.

Our brains are pretty good at picking out patterns and seeing causal relationships even when the patterns and relationships are illusions. Our brains demand answers and, if none are apparent, it will make them up out of fragments of observations. The idea that the earth is the centre of the universe and everything revolves around it is a very reasonable one when looked at from the point of view of a human brain. That is what the sense organs that feed it (mainly sight in this case) are experiencing.  The trouble is, as the scientific parts of our brains have been figuring out, that this is an illusion based on a very limited observation platform. Get us off the planet (whether in imagination or reality) and we see something very different. “Hey brain, you got it wrong!”

Now many people’s brains will not accept being contradicted. It was clearly impossible that men have walked on the surface of the moon because our senses tell us that the moon is usually about the size of a twenty-five cent piece and that it is located somewhere between the clouds and the sky. The entire enterprise had to have been created in a television studio. And, what happened to heaven if men can walk on our satellite? We know for sure that heaven exists because it says so in the bible and the bible, having been dictated to us by the guy who made everything, can’t be wrong. If we have doubts, every now and then a weekly “journal,” devoted to reporting the bizarre and sensational, will post a photograph of a distant galaxy under a headline something like, “Scientists photograph heaven.” I know I have seen at least a half dozen of these front pages at various times during my 65 years.

Something scary: when I was in my 20’s I took a female friend to a campground in the Eastern Townships of Quebec. In the late afternoon the moon was visible, as it sometimes is. “Look!” she exclaimed. “The moon rises during the day here.” She was closer to twenty-five years old than she was to five years old.

Now, picturing the universe the way that science has discovered it to be over the past few years, is a very difficult thing to do. I mean, it is big! And old! Not only that, from our vantage point in this minuscule section of our universe, we have been able to describe its structure in considerable detail. What do you mean that matter and dark matter exist on long string-like structures twisting through a void? Space movies have told us for years that we can reach any planet anywhere in the universe that we chose within the time between commercial breaks, and that all intelligent aliens look just like us except for a few additional bumps and appendages and oddly-coloured skin. Even though we can’t do so with any creature on our planet—even those sharing 98% of respective genomes— we can breed with aliens.  It is very handy that they all speak English as well. Any alien that does not look humanoid is probably a psychopathic killer that eats humans even though it has never encountered any before.

And time? What do you mean that it is a fourth dimension and that there are possibly more time dimensions?  Holy crap! And now you say that everything is made up of eleven-dimensional strings that both exist and don’t exist at the same time? I mean, this science stuff is too weird. Besides it hurts our brains trying to grasp concepts like there is no such thing as “before time began,” and that there are other universes, some only a millimetre or so away.  It is just so much easier to picture the universe as it is here on earth according to our sensory inputs; that there is a place above here called heaven; a place below here called hell; and that it is all ruled over by angry angels with swords.

Stereotypes and Same-Sex Marriage

I think I must have led a very sheltered childhood. I know that any mention of anything sexual was strictly taboo. Even fart jokes were enough for a stern talking-to from an adult. I was ten years old when I noticed that a woman who had gotten married during the past year was very pregnant and it occurred to me to ask a friend:  “Is getting pregnant something that happens when you get married?” I was genuinely puzzled by the seeming connection. (To give you a better idea of the flavour of the 1950’s, Roman Catholics went to their own school and we never associated with them. They were strangers in the midst of our small village. Of course, there were only Catholics and Protestants, so we didn’t have to integrate other religions into the taboo system.)

The point being: I really didn’t know very much about the world. By the time I was fifteen and just starting to date I knew that the word “homosexual” meant someone who was a sex-crazed lunatic attracted to males. (There was no such thing as a “female homosexual.”) Once, when angry with a girl-friend who said she wanted to be free to date other boys, I called her a “heterosexual.” It was the only word I could come up with that meant a sex-crazed lunatic attracted to members of the opposite sex, in the sense that it was an apparent antonym of homosexual. Apparently she told her mother who thought it was hilariously funny.

When 17 I shared a house with two pairs of males. I knew that they were sexual active with each other, but, it never occurred to me that they were “homosexuals” as that word carried so many negative connotations to me that had nothing to do with my house-mates. They were funny, friendly, generous, and were enthusiastic about my interest in girls: lending me clothes and giving me friendly and helpful advice. We never talked about their sexual orientation; it was something that was irrelevant to our relationship.

And then I met John. He was a female impersonator. He would “do” Bette Davis, Ethyl Merman, Mae West, and other female stars for what seemed hours of continuous hilarity. There was no question of his sexual orientation. In fact, the student social workers I was sharing a house with at the time, asked him to find out if I was homosexual.  He breathed heavily and slobbered on my belly for a while, which left me completely cold and uninterested. He concluded from that experiment that I was straight as an arrow.

By the time I was in university I had know many openly gay men. I found their sexual interest somewhat odd in that it simply didn’t interest me and I couldn’t imagine the attraction, but that really had nothing to do with them as people and my relationship with them. Chacun à son goût, as it were. I suppose, looking back, that the reason I met so many gay men was that I was interested in art and theatre. Please don’t leap to any conclusions here: though many men in the artistic areas of life are gay, not all are, and not all gay men are artistic. That should go without saying, but when dealing with stereotypes I feel I have to be careful how I word what might be construed as generalizations.

In any case, I recall that in my second or third year of university I wrote an article for the student newspaper on some of the problems that gay men experience. Besides the blatant discrimination, I tried to focus on the less obvious areas: such as the struggle many faced with their negative self-image fed to them by the society around them. When children start to suspect that they might be “different” they sense it as something “wrong” with them. The struggles to suppress, avoid, and finally to accept can come with enormous psychological cost. Well-meaning friends and family often make the suffering worse by their own ignorance and naivety.

I once said to someone who had difficulty accepting gay men as deserving of respect as straight men that the only time someone’s sexual orientation should mean anything is when you’re in bed with them. I know that’s a fairly wild statement, but the point I wanted to make with that statement was that, frankly, it is none of my business who someone has relations with unless I somehow become involved in the physical side of things. That pretty much sums up my attitude.

When one of my children boycotted a homophobic teacher’s class until a full retraction and apology for some stupid and hateful remarks the teacher had made, it seemed the most natural thing in the world that a child of mine should take that attitude and be willing to put it on the line to defend a group of fellow citizens who were being treated less than fairly.

Personally, everything came to a head when the church I was an active member of began to debate the question of the “blessing” of same-sex marriage. I assumed, naively, that all Christians, at least of my brand, accepted everyone as equal before God and that it is not our place to judge one another. At least, that what I was taught and what I read all the literature to mean. When our congregation got together with members of another congregation to discuss the issue, I broke the awkward silence by saying, “If I were gay, I would not accept the ‘blessing;’ I would want full-blown marriage.” That got things going, but everyone, expect for a few gay members of the congregations, missed my point and continued to discuss “blessing,” priding themselves on their conclusion that blessing same-sex marriages was okay in their view. The entire question of actual marriage was not even discussed.

To make matters worse, in my view, the national church could not even agree to bless such unions and some congregations felt so strongly in the negative that they withdrew from the national body and set up independent churches. I couldn’t believe it. I wrote a letter to the national newsletter, which was published, saying I had no problem accepting my gay brothers and sisters as full equals, but my problem was in accepting those who opposed the full-inclusion of all church members. When I realized that the church was not going to even attempt to get past the “blessing” hurtle in order to face the real issue, I stopped attending church. I felt that the church had abandoned me. I find it odd that no one from the church community has asked me, though it has now been more than five years since I went from being a warden and assisting with communion to non-attendance, why.

When recently in the hospital after a heart attack, a nurse asked if I wanted to see a member of the clergy. I thought long on it and, in the end, refused. My reason was that I felt it would just end up as a pointless argument with me venting my frustration and anger on this bystander who I had no prior relationship with. It just didn’t seem right to blind-side this unsuspecting man or woman.

Female Drivers and Growing Up

Children first learn about the larger world through their parents and those around them. They take everything in at face value, as they have nothing to compare it to. Whatever they face, they feel is “natural”—that’s just the way the world is. So, the Tooth Fairy visits and Santa is jolly, and that’s that.

And, when I was a child in the 1950’s women could not drive cars. It was a simple given fact. “Female drivers” were a menace on the road. Whenever a woman was involved in a traffic accident, it was clearly because she was a “female driver.” The accidents that men were involved in were “the other guy’s fault,” “lousy weather,” “lousy goddamn road,” or some mechanical failure, such as “the goddamn wheel fell off.” (Everything was a “goddamn” when I was young, including the “goddamn basement door” which always stuck.)

I recall once seeing a woman who had hit a dog with her car which then veered into a stop sign, somehow managing to impale her car on it. I remembered the look of helpless embarrassment on her face. I saw that same look later in life on the faces of women who were married to bullies. The shame, and hope that, if she kept quiet, somehow no one would notice.

During my teens and twenties personal transportation was mainly by subway or streetcars (Toronto), Metro (Montreal), and buses (both). I rarely encountered any drivers, male, female, or otherwise. Automobiles were just something I had to dodge when I crossed Young Street or Ste Catherine. Somehow, by my late twenties, female drivers were common and when they did give me a lift I appreciated it and was not at all worried for my safety. In the intervening years I had forgotten all about “female drivers” and the dangers associated with them.

There were many things that were simple facts when I was young that somehow, over the years, evaporated, to be replaced by my experience and learning. For example, if one made a clever remark then one was “too big for your britches.”  Cleverness became a desirable asset later in my life and if you were too big for your pants it meant it was time to lose some weight. If you stood up for your rights, you were told “don’t give me any of your goddamn talk-back.” Later, “standing-up-for-one’s-rights,” became a rather heroic stance.

Teachers were always right about everything. It didn’t matter if they spouted nonsense; you had to “respect” them. Later in life I attempted to get idiots removed from classrooms and quietly stood behind my son when he stood up to a homophobic teacher by boycotting his classes. When another son was being tormented by a bully who failed him three years in a row, I demanded that the principal intervene and get my son someone who could actually teach.

Let’s see: policemen were always right. If someone was arrested that meant that he was automatically guilty. It made sense; after all, why would the police arrest someone if he was innocent? It didn’t take me long to learn the fallacy of that belief. I encountered more than my share of bullies in uniform when I was a young adult. It took me even longer to learn that most police officers are not crude bullies, but can be helpful and sometimes heroic human beings.

My view of the military was complicated. When young I admired soldiers and their equipment. And then, in my early teens, I overheard my father telling neighbours that after high school I was going to join the army for two years “to become a man” and then go to business college. No one had consulted me on the subject. All I knew after overhearing that comment was that I was never going to have anything to do with the military or business. And then, with the war in Vietnam and the spread of nuclear weapons, my aversion became focused. There was no doubt in my mind that soldiers were insane murderers. I had a bit of trouble reconciling that with the actual former military people I knew who, for the most part, were normal people. But, when you are young everything is black and white and moral certitude is always on your side.

It took me a few years but eventually I started to see things from the soldier’s point of view and started buying poppies for Remembrance Day, solemnly observing the silence to mark the sacrifices of those who had gone to war. I still had no sympathy for the politicians who sent them there, but, I realized that the front-line soldier was not a monster. Most of them were ordinary men and women trying to do an extraordinary job.

In the mid 1990’s I attended a church conference at the Petawawa military base. We stayed in the barracks and in the early morning I watched a troop of soldiers with full packs jogging in the mist. As I was walking across grounds I fell into step with the Brigadier-General of the camp and we remarked on how beautiful the location was, perched high in the hills overlooking the Ottawa River and the hills of Quebec on the other side.

“You know,” I ventured. “I never imagined I would ever be in a military base. When I was young we sat outside the gates blocking the entrances.”

“I know,” the commander of the camp said. “We generals knew you guys were right. The people at the top knew what those weapons could do and what they represented. It was insanity.”

After that conversation I felt much better about a lot of things.