Make-Up

   My wife is beautiful with make-up. My wife is beautiful without make-up.

   She is beautiful in subtly different ways, from a physical standpoint. With make-up on she is beautiful in a very classical way, so much so that she draws looks from men, wherever we go. I quite enjoy trailing slightly behind her, watching men watching her.

Mona Lisa

The Madonna

   With make-up off, she takes on a whole different look, her beauty morphs into something a little more ethereal, Lady Madonna or Mona Lisa-esque, innocent and almost child-like.
   It matters little to me what kind of outward beauty she presents, I didn't marry her based on her physical appearance. In my line of work I am constantly surrounded by attractive women and have been for many years now. Nothing about their beauty has ever tempted me.
   Doralyn's beauty goes so much deeper than any of that and has so much more to do with how she interacts with the world around her and the people inside it. For many years I watched people fall in love with her and, at some point, I finally succumbed as well.
   The Doralyn I fell in love with wore make-up. For about 15 years whenever I saw her she was wearing it. I maybe saw her once without it. In light of the fact that it took 15 years for me to fall in love with her I doubt that any of that was the result of her make-up. Much more than likely it was all the times when we realized we were thinking the same thing at the same time, all the times I would crack a joke and she was the only one who laughed because she was the only one who got it, and probably all the times she kissed Syd on the cheek (but that's a whole other blog...).
   Sorry, this was supposed to be about make-up...
   How many times have you seen pictures of celebrities without their make-up and realized just how plain they actually are? On the flip side, how many of those makeover shows have you watched where they take a very non-descript, girl-next-door kind of woman and, with an expert application of make-up, turn her into someone who is stunningly attractive?
   It all kind of makes you stop and re-assess the definition of beauty.

My Sweetie, after a hard day of wearing make-up

   Doralyn and I have this ongoing disagreement about the nature of her physical beauty. She will go almost nowhere without her make-up. I have many times told her she really didn't need to go to all the bother, that she was quite beautiful without it. This rarely deters her from putting it on. And in actuality, I was unable to find any pictures of her without it. So you'll likely have to take my word for it that, in fact, she is lovely in the skin she was born in. That is just one of the many reasons I am lucky to be her husband!
   And apparently she is not the only woman (or man) who is reluctant to go without make-up. World-wide it is an almost 200 billion dollars a year industry! This, of course, if you include such things as toiletries and perfume and such. Still, it's all rather mind-boggling the extent to which we go simply to look good. Lord knows what the figures would be like if we included fashion in them!
   When you think about it, make-up is kind of a funny concept. It is superficial almost by definition. There is no disguising the fact that you are wearing it (although I understand that make-up, when applied well, should seem very natural) and what you end up presenting to the world is a person who is trying to hide something.
   Well, okay, I guess clothes also fall into that category then, don't they? I myself am quite reluctant to go anywhere without clothes and do spend some time making aesthetic choices when picking out what I'm going to wear for the day. Apart from maybe shaving, I leave my face alone, though. I'm imagining that most guys do, apart from maybe a little moisturizer or something. Nothing that will dramatically alter his appearance, no eye shadow, blush or mascara, nothing that might make it trickier for his buddies to pick him out of a crowd.
   So it's essentially only women who have to live with the make-up issue. Anthropologists would likely suggest that this is an offshoot of millions of years of evolution, wherein the female of the species needed to make herself as attractive as possible to as many males as possible simply in order to ensure the survival of that particular species.
   I doubt, however, that most women are taking this into consideration as they perform their daily make-up ritual. They might, though, be in some kind of subconscious competition with the other women in the office or perhaps the girls at the bar or party. In this way, then, perhaps evolution carries on, inexorably.
   So ladies (and perhaps gentlemen) wear your make-up with pride. Or don't wear your make-up, we love you just the way you are!
   Whatever you do, remember to shine out from within!
  
  
  
  
  

Stone

    As I navigate around this blog, I quite often find myself stopped at the title picture.
   It is a picture of me standing on a rocky outcrop at one end of the beach just below the house owned by my grandparents in Gibsons, B.C.  back in the thirties to the seventies. It is the beach I played on when I was a young boy visiting them and essentially was my favourite spot on earth.
   My recollections of it over the years since I have been away have become almost mythical, to the point where I almost have come to doubt them. 
   In the picture, my hands are upraised, almost in supplication. My thought at this very moment was, "I'm back!" Right where I somehow felt I belonged.

The same outcrop I am standing on, above. All being explored by the Dafoe boys.

   It is never very easy to go back. I am old enough now to go re-visit many of the places I knew as a young boy. Invariably, they are different; buildings have been demolished, streets have been re-routed, high rises have been erected, the people you knew have grown old (if, in fact, they are still alive).
   Here, though, at what we call Gran's beach, things are the same now as they were back in the sixties, when the Baker boys visited. And they are the same because rock and stone do not change in the space of a person's (or many persons') lifetimes. I suspect they are also still the same as they were back in the thirties, when my Dad was a kid there. The pools, outcrops and crevices are all exactly in the same place they always have been. The bluff at one end of the beach is essentially the same one my Dad and his cousins dove off when kids. The one thing that is markedly different is that the bluff now has a home on top of it.

The Bluff-at a certain point in high tide my Dad used to dive from it.

   Somewhere there is a black and white picture of my Dad standing just behind where I am standing, on the outcrop. He is holding up a freshly caught salmon. Behind him, there is a blurry glimpse of a young boy. The image is blurry because the boy was caught, in full flight, as he leaped across one of the many crevices there. I am not even sure who the boy is, he may have been one of my cousins. But everywhere my Dad was standing is still exactly the same now, and I was almost able to stand in his footprints when I was there. The concrete steps leading down to the beach from Gran's house are still there and are still exactly the same although the wooden steps and railings that led up from them are gone or overgrown. It is hard to be there and not almost choke on the history. Even the islands you see in the horizon are exactly the same as the ones you saw as a boy. That is only because they are stone, rising up from the ocean.
   I imagine you are wondering why this is so important to me, why I would even bother to sit and write about it. I guess it all gets back to me looking at that title picture; it has such a profound effect on me that it almost stops me in my tracks any time our paths cross. It reconnects me with anything I thought was truly important when I was a young boy. In a world where almost nothing else from my childhood has survived intact, this little part of it remains virtually untouched. For that reason, I write.
   I am thankful to stone. I am thankful for its continuity and what it preserves. I am thankful for even the man-made things of stone, like old buildings and monuments.  Left alone, they as well provide opportunities to go back and re-visit the familiar things that are still important to us.

   A couple of weeks ago, Doralyn and I, her cousin and a couple of our kids were walking down Danforth Street, in Toronto. We came across a gigantic, old church, made principally of stone. Its size was such that, from the street directly in front of it, it was impossible to fully take it in. Its cornerstone was directly in front of us and read "March 14, 1926". The other date read "November 14, 1915". These dates struck us, for a couple of reasons. Firstly, the first date was my Dad's birthday. But not just his birthday, it was the actual day of his birth! The second date was Doralyn's birthday. Surely a startling co-incidence and all preserved there in stone, for almost a hundred years now and likely there for a hundred years more.

   I drive by a cemetery in Lambeth often. Every time I do I pass by the grave of my great-great-great-great grandfather. What marks this for me as I pass by is a slender, white stone which has been there since 1826. Much like the rock on the beach, this stone rises up out of the ground and, decade after decade, has stood there in continuum.
   As we age, we struggle to hold on to whatever we can of the "olden" things. Because of this we value any virtually indestructible signpost which still has the power to take us back to a period in our lives which was seminal.
   Because of this I love stone. I love the mountains. I love passing by grassy fields and noticing, right there in the middle of them, that a rocky dome rises above the grass. I love being at the beach, picking up smooth stones and trying to imagine the thousands of years it took to make them that way...just before I crouch down low, fling them out just above the waves and watch them skip.

  
  
  
  
  

New Year's Resolutions

   Okay, I guess it's that time of year again, time to sit down and figure out if there are changes to be made in your life in the New Year and, if so, what they might be.

   This is one of those weirder traditions, I've always found. I'm one of those people who believes that self-examination is something that should be pretty continual and ongoing, and not something that should rightly be reserved for any particular time of the year. I also think that most people I know would be in agreement with this but, still, it's hard to resist the temptation to sit down and make a list. Lists are fun!

              Brian's New Year's Resolutions

1. The old faithful....."lose some weight". How many other lists is this one on? Doralyn has lost a ton of weight in the past year being gluten-free and I seem to have packed on everything she lost! Doesn't seem fair to either of us!

2. Write more.  Okay this one should be pretty easy, I'm already kind of in the groove. Just gotta get to work on that novel...

3. Do something with my music. Even if I just take what I've got on audio and transfer it over to CD. After that, who knows, what's the market out there for "movie music"...?

4. Sell the house and/or Keep the house. Gotta do one or t'other and then get on with things!

5. Do something "outside the box" at work. Not sure what this might be but I'm kind of in a rut.

6. Be artistic. Create something that could actually be called "art". A painting, a sculpture, etc.

7. See my boys more. This one could easily have been closer to the top of the list! I enjoy seeing them so much that it should really happen more often. Or, at the very least, talk on the phone.

8. Talk to my brother. Any way I possibly can.

9. Spend more time at my Dad's He's gonna need it...

10. Find a chair that doesn't hurt my ass so much! Especially when it comes down to "novel-writing time".


   There, that's a list of 10, that should probably do it for now! As I already mentioned, life changes are something that likely should occur at any time of year. Introspection is never a bad thing (unless you wallow in it!) and should happen regularly.
   So Happy New Year's to you all and may 2012 be the best year ever!!

Cheers!!

Brian

The Year in Blogging

   I have been blogging for just over a year now. Somehow or other, it seems like it's been something I've been doing forever. But there it is, in black and white (and red, blue, yellow, green, and mauve), all the evidence pointing to the fact that, in actuality, it's only been about a year.
   I recently went back over the list of blogs and their titles and occasionally had that "holy crap, I'd forgotten about that" feeling. Upon further investigation, it seemed as though someone else had perhaps written them, I kept running across metaphors and similes and turns of phrases I simply didn't remember having used. In that way, it was almost like reading them for the first time.
   It has been a truly rewarding experience. Having a reason to write has made it so much easier to sit down on any kind of a regular basis and practise the craft. Writing a blog has also enabled me to get more or less instant feedback on what I've written. So far most of it has been positive...
   Like most writers, I do intend to sit down one day and write a novel or, at the very least, a collection of short stories. I have tons of ideas for both an maybe this is part of the problem--choosing. So often I find myself watching ordinary people in their day to day lives and trying to imagine the extraordinary things those people simply aren't telling us about. Most of us have some kind of story we haven't told but I'm not above making something up, either.

   Until very recently, my Dad didn't know I was writing a blog. When I brought the subject up he didn't even really understand what a blog was (he is an 85-year-old technophobe) and so I explained it to him, as best I could. Told him it was a little like writing a weekly column for the paper. He asked what I wrote about and I told him pretty well anything running through my head. He was at our place for Christmas yesterday and after dinner I sat him down with my laptop and showed him the blog. I showed him a couple of the more family-related pieces I'd written, to begin with. He spoke well of my writing, which I was pleased to hear. One of his comments was that he was surprised that I wrote about "everything". He made this statement just as he began reading "My Yearly Physical". He chuckled pretty well all the way through that one and even repeated a few of the lines out loud, which I found rather heartwarming. He, of course, has been blogfodder for me and,  as a matter of fact, my most highly viewed blog was "Dad, these days", wherein I described a little bit of his Alzheimer's experience. I suspect that, in the future, he will continue to make the odd appearance.

   The blogging has been a little more intensified for me in the last couple of months as I've become more comfortable with what I'm capable of doing. As it has intensified, I have also started to wonder a little more about my audience (if any). At the moment I only actually have three blog followers and the only way I publicize it is to post a link on Facebook. Having said this, though, I fairly recently discovered that, apart from Canada, my blog's been viewed by people in the U.S, U.K., Russia, Germany, Malaysia, Singapore and the Ukraine! Who knew!? Now a couple of those are because I have Facebook friends in those places but that doesn't explain Russia, the second-highest viewership outside of Canada! So this is all a little weird right at the moment...

   I have not published all the blogs I have written. This has been for a variety of reasons, mostly personal. I am still coming to grips with how much of my personal life to expose on these pages. One of my problems is that I've always been much too open with my personal life and quite willing to talk about almost all aspects of it, holding back little. I've battled with this long before I began blogging. Now I need to remind myself that what seem like only little personal conversations with myself are in fact going to be out there for the world (and Russia!) to see. So I've nixed a couple of pieces and a couple of them are just waiting for a better time to let them loose.
   So it's been a fun year and I'm looking forward to 2012. Hopefully I will not run out of things to write about. When going back through the blog list it occurred to me that two or three blogs concerned the deaths of people. I hope this trend takes a drastic downturn in the next year! I also noticed that two or three blogs touched on the nature of life, is there a God, was there a Christ, and so on. I suspect this theme may pop up again, I am finding it very difficult these days to not dwell upon that area. Hopefully, though, I will not bore!
   So all the best to you in 2012! I hope that many of your dreams come to fruition and that your families are well. Please feel free to comment, one way or the other, on any of my blogs. Even if you think the odd one sucked! Doralyn, my wife, was praising one of my blogs this morning. She tends to do this and I found myself asking her if she would actually tell me if she thought one of them sucked. She then asked me if I wanted her to tell me, if this was the case. I thought about this for a bit and then I replied (gulp) "yes". So feel free to comment or offer an opinion and I will (gulp) be happy to respond!
   Take care all!

Corporal Punishment

   I got the strap once. It was in Grade Two and I got it for throwing a snowball in a "non-designated" area. And I think I might have gotten off scot-free if I hadn't creamed Brian McCauley in the face with it. Brian didn't really care if he made a fuss about stuff like that in those days and the resultant  uproar led to the investigation which landed me in the principal's office.
   My recollection of what transpired in that office is somewhat dim, I don't remember much if any inquiry and I'm pretty sure the principal took on the "judge, jury and executioner" role, I'm asuming with relish. The strap itself was short and black and I received one resounding whack. Can't even remember if I cried or not.
   Since then I have occasionally worn this story as a badge of honour. It does go somewhat against the image people have of me and anything I can do to re-inforce a "bad boy" image is something I'm game for.
   Above and beyond that one sad schoolyard episode, I've had very little experience with corporal punishment. As a kid I think I maybe got one belt on my hand and yet one more attempt at this by a very sleepy father who wasn't quite awake and didn't have his glasses on so not much pain involved.
   As a father myself my recollection is that I never employed more than one bare-handed whack on a bum per episode. It was usually an attention-grabber more than anything else and wasn't something I think my boys particularly feared. So it did not get used often. It discontinued entirely after I used it one time on my bare-bottomed youngest kid. A couple of minutes later I noticed a perfect hand print on his little butt and that was the last time one of my boys got spanked.
   Corporal punishment in the schools, of course, has run its course. It is frowned upon in the home as well. What has taken its place is sitting down with your child, giving him or her clear expectations, boundaries and consequences and heaping on the praise when he or she meets these requirements.
   When done well, this works. Done poorly and it is disastrous. And it is very easy to do poorly as it entails so many different components, all of which need to work in conjunction with each other in order to be effective. It is a time-consuming and sometimes mentally-draining process. That is why it is either not understood well or given up on prematurely, leaving a kind of vacuum wherein the child has no fear of physical punishment curbing his behaviour and no effective reinforcement shaping his behaviour. You then have a kid running amok. 
   So it all seems to come down to deciding whether to hit your kid or talk to him. I got hit as a kid (but not a lot) and I did some hitting as an adult (but not a lot) and I think that both my boys and I turned out okay. My getting hit as a young boy taught me that if you do something bad then there's a nasty consequence. And yet I don't have a really strong negative feeling about whatever that consequence was I was dealt with. Using the strap as an example, I did get the strap and it did hurt quite a bit but I don't think it scarred me in the slightest, as I've explained. However, there were occasions when simple things that came out of my parents mouths ended up hurting far worse than any hand-whacking I ever received.
   Words have that power, you better believe it! So when we as parents are being told that you mustn't spank and that you need to talk to your kids it is with this proviso: You need to say the right thing! And you need to say it in the right way and at the right time. Getting all three of these things straight is extremely difficult. What makes them even more difficult is that sometimes we are angry when we are trying to do this. An angry word at the wrong time can be so much more devastating than getting whacked on the butt.
   With a spanking, generally it is a cause and effect issue; you do something bad and then you receive punishment (generally the punishment you were expecting) and the issue is over. Words spoken in anger, however, dissipate much more slowly, if ever. A word spoken in anger can make a kid stop and say to themself "oh no, that's what they really think about me...!"
   I have been blessed insofar as I never had to endure too many "angry words" as I was growing up. I can, however, think of a couple of times when my parents said things that crushed me. The fact that they immediately realized what they'd done and tried to make amends afterwards did little to lessen the blow.
   My point here is that when my parents said those things I really would rather have been spanked! I would have gotten over a spanking so much more easily and not had to deal with it years later.
   In case you're wondering, it's not that I'm a fan of any type of corporal punishment. I much more lean toward reasoning with your kids if it can be done in such a way as to help them understand how the world works and then act accordingly. At the same time, lion mothers cuff their cubs for a reason and this, in its own way, is a teaching tool as well.
   So remember what made you feel bad when you were a kid and try to remember how and why it made you feel bad. Then, try and recall all the things that made you feel good about yourself, whether it was a pat on the back, a simple glance or perhaps some verbal praise. Speak with other parents and find out what worked and didn't work for them. Read a book. Weigh all of these things against each other and do what feels right with your own kids.
   Good luck!
  
 


  

Andy Moore, R.I.P.

   I didn't even know Andy all that well, we played on two or three of the same ball hockey teams the past couple of years, and that's about it, didn't really know him socially.
   He did seem like a nice guy, though, and that's what I appreciated about him.
   This past Monday evening, Andy played with a brand new team, the Wolfpack, for the first time. He joined me on that team and I was happy to have him as my defence partner that night. He played quite well, in spite of not having played since the summer. After the game, though, he complained of being tired and did not look well. On the way home to St. Thomas he suffered a heart attack and passed away.
   This morning, when I saw his name in the obits, I was shocked, to put it mildly. He had been such a vital player on Monday, taking the young guys aside and giving instruction, cheering them on, hooting and hollering as the play progressed. All of this with not a negative word to be heard.

One of the sports Andy loved.

   I regret that when I saw him not feeling well I didn't do more. I imagine it's possible that if I'd sat down with him and investigated even further then things might have turned out differently, that the heart attack might have happened at the arena and help could have been accessed. Of course, this might not have mattered anyway, it could have just been Andy's time and nothing else to be done about it. The next time I find myself in that same situation, though, I will remember Andy and do things differently.
   About a year ago I wrote a blog called "The Aging Athlete". In it I discussed some of the trials and tribulations of being an older person engaging in sports, particularly against younger people. At one point I even mention heart attacks (as in "make sure you're not about to have one"). Now this has hit home.
   Andy was one of the older guys. He was 47 and most of the guys he was playing with and against were probably in their twenties or early thirties. Although there may have been no correlation I'm sure some people will say he shouldn't have been playing at that age, or that maybe at least he shouldn't have been playing against the kids.
   I'm not sure where I stand on this. I myself am ten years older than Andy and I still play. Not always well, but I still play. I think I have a pretty good idea of what I'm capable of and when  to slow it down a notch. I have an ECG every year. My BP's been fine for quite awhile and the bloodwork is okay. My doctor's never said to slow it down at all. As long as I'm not embarrassing myself on a regular basis and as long as the pain's not too bad, then who knows? And I suppose there's a danger as well in not getting your blood racing occasionally.
   After all is said and done, Andy will continue to look over my shoulder for some time now, I suspect. It will be hard not to think about him the next time we all step on the floor. It will also be hard to press yourself to the limit and not pause and assess the risk. I think...
   At the end of it all, Andy was a good guy. He had a wife, Michelle, and a couple of kids, Brandon and Alex. He was busy as a coach, he was involved with the Air Cadets of St. Thomas, and he was a Mason. I knew him only from ball hockey and thought he was a good man to have on your team, he was passionate about the game and had a positive attitude at the same time. A bit of a legacy I wouldn't mind sharing some day.
                                                                                    
  
  
  
  

Golden Boy

   In an earlier blog I spoke about my Dad's struggle with Alzheimer's. Because of this, one of the things he is also involved in is an ongoing study being done by the University of Western Ontario. This study is designed to track people with  the disease and their families as they navigate the support systems available.

   What this has entailed so far has been a series of interviews involving Dad and myself and, most recently, my wife, Doralyn. They are spaced several months apart, in order to address any changes which might have occurred since the last visit. The interviewer attempts to determine how fully support services are being used, how effective they might be, and what roadblocks might have been encountered along the way. They also try and determine how other family members fit into Dad's support group. 

   One of these interviews was just this past month and, once again, the question around support from other family members came up. At the moment, I am the only one of Dad's kids living in London and the brunt of his support has most naturally fallen on my shoulders. I am quite alright with this and I explained to the interviewer that  I was certain that, when push came to shove, the others would be here in a flash.
   At least the ones in Ontario would be. I have a brother, Bob, who currently resides in Calgary and who would not be able realistically to show up and provide any kind of ongoing support. At this point, the interviewer began to ask questions about Dad's relationship with Bob.
   Theirs is a difficult relationship, and is made even more difficult by distance and by my Dad's inability to fully embrace the myriad of ways we now have to communicate. And, Bob, at best, is a difficult person to communicate with. Even in person. He is quite happy to respond to questions but is very tentative around carrying his end of the conversation. It can be a very exhausting experience!
   As the interviewer pressed on this issue, my Dad attempted to theorize as to how this whole issue of non-communication arose.

   Our mother passed away in 1973, after a long period of psychiatric, emotional, and substance abuse issues. During this period, as brothers, I think Bob and I somehow or other retreated into ourselves, as a bit of a coping mechanism. Shortly after she passed, Dad remarried. Our step-mum was a wonderful person but at the same time not terribly easy to get along with and soon she and Bob were at odds. At different times she and I were at odds as well but I don't think I had as much emotionally invested in that relationship and was therefore able to  maintain a more even keel. Dad has this as the period when Bob retreated, however, into his shell of non-communication.
   At this point, Dad theorized even earlier into our childhood. He believes the seeds of this non-communication were planted as Bob and I grew up and I took on the role of "Golden Boy"--the boy who could do no wrong, the boy the parents boasted about, the boy that won awards and excelled at school. In the face of all this, my Dad believes Bob kind of faded away, unable to cope with living in my shadow.
   These were all essentially my Dad's words. Over the years, as Dad and I have begun to relate to each other as adults, he has occasionally stopped me dead in my tracks with his insight.
   This was one of those times.

   I have spent many hours trying to analyze my relationship with my brother and have come up with a handful of problematic issues. In one fell swoop, Dad tied every single one of those issues into a neat little bundle and set it there right in front of us(me).
   I believe I was a crappy brother. I did glorify in the Golden Boy image that existed of me and really was very reluctant to share any of it. I was also not eager to let my brother's accomplishments overshadow my own.
   When we were kids, for the first ten years of our life or so we were moved constantly, from one city to another and from one house to another in each city. This meant having friends and stability for only a couple of years at a time, before we moved again. When we did move, for a little while we would each be the only friends we had. I was a little older, though, a little more outgoing and would soon make other friends. As soon as this happened, my brother got relegated to second(or third, or fourth)place.
   In other words, he was great to have around when I needed him.

   As I've grown older, I've had the opportunity to watch other sets of brothers(most notably my sons and stepsons) grow up. They have all had their clashes but there still remains such a strong sense of, well, brotherhood. They went to the same schools and had each other's backs. They had some of the same friends. They supported each other.
   I don't feel as though I dd this.
   My brother was a couple of years behind me in school. He had developed kind of a loner reputation, didn't have a lot of friends and dressed straight out of an army surplus store. When the time came for him to join me in high school I was mortified of the prospect of having to take him on as a responsibility. When that time came, though, they had opened up a brand new high school and, because of the new catchment area we were in, that's where he ended up going. This was a huge weight off of me, but it shouldn't have been. I should have almost been looking forward to showing my brother the ropes in the same high school I went to, just as his nephews have gone on to do.

   So, right at the moment, "Golden Boy" is not feeling too "golden". Bob and I have not had a serious talk about anything in over 35 years but I feel the need to talk this one out. More than anything I have this need to apologize. It could be that he sees everything much differently than I do. I hope this is the case.
  
  

Death of an Atheist

   Christopher Hitchens passed away on Dec. 15, after a battle with esophageal cancer. Hitchens was a well-known author and journalist. He was 62

Christopher Hitchens 1949-2011

   His passing was more significant to me than it otherwise might have been as I'd just recently finished reading his book "God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything".
   This book was published in 2007 and only enhanced Hitchens' literary reputation. As a matter of fact, so great is this reputation that in 2005 he was voted the world's "fifth top public intellectual".
   Essentially the book details how organized religion has been the cause of much strife to the peoples of the world, almost since the beginning of history.
   He presents a fairly endless list of examples of how religion has played a leading role in sectarian violence, terrorism, slavery, misogyny, racism, and genocide. Above and beyond all that he points out how the church systematically and needlessly instills guilt and fear into many of its adherents. As an example of this he refers to the way the church presents an everlasting and fiery hell as the final punishment for a life of sin and what longlasting effect this must have had on children who were indoctrinated this way in their formative years. 
   Because of much of this, Chris Hitchens was an atheist. He was also at the vanguard of what has been termed the "New Atheism". This is a recent movement which has been driven by a group of atheist writers whose assertion is that wherever religion exerts its influence it should be countered and exposed with clear-thinking and rational argument.
   His point of view is straight-forward; how can reasonable people act on and put such blind faith in the edicts of an unseen and unprovable deity, particularly in the face of modern science. Throughout history there are constant examples of human belief, things that were a "given", which later were proved to be simply untrue. How many thousands of years did people believe the earth was flat and the sun revolved around it? They believed this with a certainty and there was undeniableness to their belief. And they were certainly and undeniably wrong.
   Hitchens thought that belief in a God, any kind of god, falls into this same category. Were any other person or entity to come before us and begin to make a host of miraculous claims and promises we would assuredly stop dead in our tracks and and ask for proof. Yet we don't do this with God and are quite willing to follow all sorts of destructive paths, in His name. How polarizing were the 9/11 attacks, how much death and destruction arose out of them, and how many times were God's and Allah's names invoked by both sides after them?

   In his book, Hitchens is unrelenting in his criticism. Not even Gandhi and Mother Teresa escape his wrath (you need to read the book). He spends time talking about some of the great people who espoused atheism but, under certain circumstances, wavered in this. Of all the people he admired, the only one he speaks about who did not waver was Einstein, a scientist.
   People who argue against atheism are quick to present the church (whatever church) as a place where "good" is performed, at least, regardless of how strongly its members might actually believe in God.
   Hitchens, however, offered up the opinion that there was nothing wrong with groups of like-minded individuals gathering together to serve their communities but why all this under the guise of serving a God as well?

   Ironically, we who remain in this world are free to debate the existence of God and offer up our own arguments as to his existence all at the same time that Christopher Hitchens now knows the answer. Hard to say, as death approached, whether me might have done any "bet-hedging", just in case. Myself, I'd have been tempted. It could very well be that he is now somewhere saying, "I told you so" and is supremely happy being there!
  
  
  

The "F" Word

   The "F" word is my least favourite word, for a variety of reasons.
   From a literary standpoint, it simply is overused; the shock value it once had is now so severely diluted that any one of a number of terms or phrases can amply take its place and be just as significant.
   Sociologically-speaking, how and when (and the frequency with which) the word gets used tends to relegate its user to at least some level of intellectual functioning.
   I remember sitting in a hockey dressing room once and one of the guys on the team was engaged in a long, descriptive narrative. He used the "f" word at least once in each sentence. In its various forms, he used it as a noun, adjective, adverb, and interjection. I can usually mildly tolerate this word but, in this particular instance, it was extremely painful to be within earshot. As this man's dissertation continued, it was as if he visually began climbing back down the ladder of evolution, right there in front of us all. At the end, it was almost like visiting a museum exhibit ("Holy cow, so that's what neanderthals looked like...")and I was happy to leave that dismal little dressing room.

   Most disturbing of all was that it was a grown man engaging in this particular use of language. Adolescents, who generally use it seemingly as though they'd discovered it, hopefully will engage in its use until they are tired of it, or realize that they've really outgrown it, at least as a common expression. This is what happened to me, I seemed so much more grown up when I was using the "f" word. At some point, though, you realize that you seem more grown up if you don't use it. Which is not to say that I've abandoned it entirely, far from it! It generally creeps up when I'm frustrated or angry. Hopefully, mostly under my breath. Bang my head on something, though, and it's a whole different story; the "f" word comes stumbling out in a variety of permutations. Used singularly, used in machine gun fire rapidity, used in supplication to deities.
   I also occasionally use it in private, with people who know me well,at times when it is probably the single most inappropriate thing to say at utterly the most inappropriate moment to say it. I do this to be funny. And, some of the time, I am!
   So those are about the only times I use the "f" word.
   There is some division as to the origin of the word. One of the more common ones dates back to medieval times when commoners required permission of their king to bear offspring. Permission granted, a sign would then be posted on their abode, declaring "Fornication Under Consent of the King". Another possible origin is the acronym "For Unlawful Carnal Knowledge", a sign posted when prostitutes were locked up in the stocks, on public display. Possibly the more likely origin was that it developed naturally and fully formed from Dutch or Low German back in the 15 century.
   Regardless of its origin, its usage these days seems to have very little to do with procreation. The FCC in the States has difficulty even labelling it as obscene under its own definition of obscenity because that definition refers to a sexual act. The way the "f" word is used these days, the sex act seems irrelevant.

   So there you have it, an ugly, overused word that no longer denotes or describes what it was it was originally intended to. It is not the only overused and nasty word I don't like. But you don't want the list. I don't think.
   Most assuredly the "f" word will not fade away any time soon, as previously noted it has been around for a long time. This doesn't mean, however, that we need to give in to it. Please feel free to challenge it at every opportunity, its users need to know they can do better than that. And I will try and do better than that, too!
  
  
  

Oxford Street

   It seems as though I have been driving down Oxford Street my whole life. I got my driver's licence round about '71 and my Oxford Street history commenced then. Prior to '71, we grocery shopped at the Loblaws(?) at the Oakridge Plaza at Hyde Park and Oxford. I remember this mainly because I'd moved here from Vancouver in '64 and never in my life had I experienced humidity like they have here in London. The Loblaws store was also the first place I'd ever experienced air conditioning and it was such a wonderful place to be! We also made occasional forays along Oxford to get to the Twilite Drive-In at Highway 22 and Hyde Park.
   At this point I should probably mention that, at the time, I was living and growing up in Oakridge Acres. I attended Hutton Road Public School, corner of Hutton Road (now Wonderland) and Oxford and then Oakridge Secondary, on Oxford near Hyde Park.
   So it seems as though my early life was intrinsically tied to Oxford, and the closely surrounding area. In the sixties, there was a very rural feel to the whole area. Hutton Road School actually bordered a farm and I can remember one day when a bunch of us gathered by the school fence so we could watch a calf being born. Doesn't get too much more rural than that!
   Progress, however, well... progressed. Farms were torn down for firehalls and housing, malls were built, and highrises went up. All the people living in, working at or shopping in these places travelled along Oxford to get there and I soon joined them!
   Shortly after getting my licence, I occasionally was allowed to drive our second car to and from high school. I'd pick up my friend Bob from around the corner and off we would go. At the time, we had some kind of car that used what my Dad referred to as "vacuum wipers". Don't know if this was the actual term for them and for sure don't understand the technology behind them but the end result was that when you sped up, the wipers slowed down!
   Because of this, I distinctly remember one very rainy morning when Bob and I were attempting to negotiate the hill on Oxford just east of the high school. It was a downpour and we found we more or less had to gun it to get up the hill. Well, the more we gunned it the slower the wipers got! As a matter of fact, before we reached the apex of the hill they stopped! Much nervous laughter between two neophyte high school drivers ensued (along with some cussing...). To this very day, I find myself remembering this just about every single time I drive up that same hill.
   Eventually, as progress progressed, Oxford (in the Oakridge area anyway) turned from one lane to two, speeds increased, etc. and it became much more of a thoroughfare. My old public school was sold and eventually demolished, its bricks became a tiny little strip mall and its playground became a Gulf station. All, of course, at the corner of Oxford and Wonderland. And I, of course, ended up working at the Gulf station, watching Oxford pass me by every day.
   My first apartment was kitty-corner to that wonderful air-conditioned Loblaws and I took the bus down Oxford to get to the gas station(I washed cars there). This led to other stuff, different jobs, strange romances, a wonderful woman, wonderful kids, a home in a totally different part of the city, another wonderful woman and more wonderful kids and now I travel down Oxford street every day of my life.
   Pretty well every day of my life for almost 20 years now. And along the way there are familiar faces. I only know bits and pieces about most of them and about some of them I know almost nothing. If you travel Oxford Street at all on any kind of regular basis you may(almost assuredly) have passed by them. You may even have noticed them.
   There is a woman. She lives in a building reserved mainly for people with psychiatric issues. I noticed her the first time about almost ten years ago. She smokes and is nervous. Her hair used to be straight and jet black. It is almost white now.
   There is a man, standing by the side of the street, watching the traffic. His mouth moves, his hands wave and he plays with things. He's had cancer but you wouldn't know it. He'll talk yo you. Unless he knows you.
   She has a walker and crosses the street slowly. If the sidewalk is impassable, she will walk down the roadway and there will be almost no room for cars to pass safely.
   He propels his wheelchair with his feet, not his hands. He's looking to remove any little bit of garbage he can find, mostly because he has to. One hand is almost useless and he'd like a doctor to cut it off but the doctor won't.
   There is a man on an island. I understand(co-incidentally)that his name is Brian. He drags one foot behind him and he carries a sign. He limps badly, unless he is in a Tim's, in which case, he's fine.
   A man on a bike, everywhere, aluminum cans and glass bottles in his bike carrier.

   I don't talk to most of these people, as I don't know them. I almost feel like I could though, there is that growing familiarity. Maybe even a wave would do, a honk on the phone.
   My car gives me a level of anonymity as I travel up and down Oxford Street, otherwise I wonder if some of these same people might notice me.  And, as much as we are all a constant with each other, Oxford Street itself changes slowly but relentlessly. I am blessed in that I am able to see this happen as it happens and not return, after perhaps having been gone for years, and not really know where I was anymore!
   We all have routes we travel every day. Mine is Oxford Street and these were some of the people who frequent it. I'm glad for their presence, too, it is a long stretch of road, from one end of the city to the other, and a familiar face enlivens it. Perhaps, one of these days, I should get out of my car...


* if you can guess the significance of the colour scheme I used in this blog, please comment*

P.S. Also, hope you enjoyed the 3D effect...