Béliveau!

   For the better part of the last fifty years, I have hated the Montreal Canadiens.
   I have admired them for the wonderful teams they produced and I have envied them for all the records they hold. At the same time, though, I have hated them for the roadblock they always presented to just about any and every team I had pledged my allegiance to.

Béliveau and his favourite accessory.

   For the first decade or so of that fifty years, the player that personified the Canadiens mystique was Jean Béliveau, a center and captain of the team. Both in stature and playing ability, he stood the tallest among a team of very talented and driven players. In this way, he could and should have been the lightning rod for all my distaste and anger. It was, however, impossible to hate the man.
   I, begrudgingly, adored Jean Béliveau. He was the epitome of grace, style, ability and quiet leadership both on the ice and off. It was hard to see him almost perennially lifting the Stanley Cup and not think to yourself that this was simply the way it was meant to be.

Two of my faves--Béliveau and Sawchuk, the goalie!

   As Canadian hockey legends go, none stood much taller than Jean Béliveau. On December 2, however, Le Gros Bill, as he was known in Quebec, passed away. Most Canadian hockey fans went into a variety of forms of mourning with his passing and nowhere was there heard a negative word, indicative of our admiration for both the hockey player and the man. Such was his stature that a state funeral was held for him in Montreal. The city was in the middle of a blizzard the day of the funeral and yet there was still an overflow crowd. Many dignitaries attended, including the Prime Minister of Canada, the premier of Quebec and the mayor of Montreal along with many former and current players.

Béliveau---at center one final time.

   The pallbearers were all former Canadiens players and I was reminded of the Crash Test Dummies video for "Superman's Song", wherein all of Superman's pallbearers were aging super heroes. Beliveau was as close to a super hero as you might come in the real world.
   I am one of the fortunate ones who are able to say that they saw Jean Béliveau play. A younger generation than mine might compare him to Mario Lemieux---the size, the reach and the stick-handling ability were similar. Béliveau also had the ability to take younger players under his wing.
   Part of his mystique was that he was revered by anglophone and francophone alike and, in the dressing room, he could get his message across well in both languages. Invariably, his message centered around the players' duty to themselves but, much more importantly, also their duty to the Montreal Canadiens and all the former greats who'd played before them.
   Béliveau was worth buying a whole league to the Canadiens. In the fifties, he played in the Quebec Senior Hockey League, an amateur league, and was quite content to do so, having no great interest in playing in the NHL. The Canadiens had tried to sign him to a pro contract as a teenager but his family balked at this idea. Instead, they signed him to a a contract stating that, should he ever turn professional, he would then be the property of the Montreal Canadiens. Montreal then bought the Quebec Senior league and turned it and all of its players into professionals! At this point, they were then able to sign the young Béliveau.
   In his professional career, Jean Béliveau won the Hart Trophy (MVP) twice and the Art Ross Trophy (scoring leader) once. Along the way, he won the Stanley Cup (league champions) 10 times. As an executive with the team, his name was engraved on the Cup another 7 seven times for an astonishing total of 17 times, a record. He played on the All Star team 10 times and was the first recipient of the Conn Smythe Trophy for MVP in the playoffs. The year after he retired in 1971 he was inducted into the NHL Hall of Fame.
   An ardent family man, Beliveau graciously turned down offers to sit in the Senate and be considered for Governor-General of Canada after his playing days, so that he could be with his family.
   It is sometimes hard to explain to non-Canadians the hold that hockey seems to have on us. America has its football, basketball and baseball and much of the rest of the world has its soccer and I suppose those sports are held in a similar regard. The thing those other sports have in common, though, is that they involve having their players firmly grounded, on grass or a court somewhere. Hockey is played on ice, for goodness'sake, and its players are only connected to this ice by narrow, almost razor-sharp strips of steel. We are the best in the world at this sport and Jean Béliveau was one of our best, both as a man and a hockey player. There will almost certainly never be another one like him.

                                                                                                     

   

   
    
   

Welts

   I discovered this evening, as I was perusing the fairly pristine parts of my body visible in the bathroom mirror, that I miss welts.
   It has been the longest time since I was able to glory in the puffy purple raised redness of a good welt. I used to get them all the time when I was playing ball hockey and was quite happy to bring them home, roll up a pant leg in the living room and say to Doralyn so do you wanna see something...?
   She would always wrinkle her brow and say something like oh, Sweetie, why do you do that? and I never really had an answer for her, at least not one she'd be able to relate to.
   I used to feel the same way about black eyes, deep lacerations, sprained ankles and dislocated fingers---they were all bodily abominations I was happy to put on display for the world's amazement and tacit approval.
   

Black eyes were really the best. Nothing about a black eye truly looked accidental, I think every one's first assumption was that you'd perhaps been engaged in fisticuffs somewhere, more than likely in a bar brawl. This, of course, was never how I got my black eyes. My shiners were invariably the result of random balls or elbows or sticks and, for the most part, were accidental. One of the best parts about a black eye was that you never had to go out of your way to show it off to someone---they were always just there, like a neon sign in the middle of your face. Of course you were just dying for someone to make a comment and when they did you always made it sound as though you'd almost forgotten it was pasted to the middle of your noggin, like you were so damn tough it had actually slipped your mind.
   Lacerations and cuts  were always good, too. Granted, they tended to be messier than bruises and the showoff appeal didn't last as long because, necessarily, bandages needed to be applied.

   I ran into a birdbath once while using a neighbour's yard as an endzone. It was one of those plastic birdbaths and, as I was looking backward for a pass (football was the game at the time) I ran into it and it shattered. This left a foot-long elongated and bloody "s" on the inside of my right thigh. It wasn't deep enough for stitches but was deep enough to scar me for life. And I loved it.
   At the ripe old age of sixty-one, I am still attempting to get back into ball hockey. The running I've been doing the last couple of years has convinced me that I can keep up with the youngsters and I have no doubt, emotionally, that I could still play. Intellectually, though, ageism has provided me with some doubt---it doesn't make common sense that I should be able to do something like that. I guess.
   I will, however, play ball hockey again. The ball will go into the corner of the rink and I will follow it there and run into two or three other players and sticks and elbows will fly and I will possibly come out of all that nicked. Someone from the other team will wind up to take a slapshot at our goal and I will race out to him and throw myself into the path of a hard plastic ball travelling at about ninety miles an hour. 
   I will have welts from all of this and I will be a happy man!
    

I See Dead People

   A week or two before this past Halloween, I came across a website (appearing before me, magically, likely either on Facebook or Twitter), which creeped me out. It could well be that it was only out there for public consumption due to the proximity of All  Hallows Eve or it may have been fairly random but it still creeped me out.

   It focused on the Victorian habit of having portraits taken of deceased family members. Quite often the family member in question would be arranged so as to appear as natural as possible, sometimes in a sleeping position or occasionally propped up by mechanical means in a pose. If you're wondering what I'm speaking about and want to perhaps take a look at the website then it is here for your perusal. I would offer the warning, though, that there is a very discomfiting feeling to some of the pictures you will see and you are not going to be able to unsee what you have viewed at the end of the experience.
   As much as these portraits made me eerily uneasy, at the same time I had to look at them, I almost couldn't stop myself.
   I don't know if there is a name for this affliction of mine, this desire to immerse myself in the macabre, but I have been this way for a long time. I remember in public school we had a series of people come to talk about different vocations there were out there and one of these people was an undertaker. He had brought along with him a couple of the tools of his trade and one of them was the tool they use to wire shut the jaws of corpses. It was a little like a staple gun, with wires, and he demonstrated their use on a piece of board he brought along with him. At the end of the presentation, I quite timidly approached him and asked if I could have the board he'd used. He said yes and I ended up taking the board home and eventually hung  it on my bedroom wall, as a piece of art, I guess. Not sure what my parents thought....
   Later on in life, every time I came across a picture of a dead person (think crime scenes and war photos and the ilk) I stopped and, for lack of a better word, soaked it in. It was almost as if I was attempting to come to grips with the whole mortality thing and the more time I spent contemplating death's aftermath, the less foreign (and scary) it might become.

   There is a museum just outside of London and in one section of it are housed large machines, tractors and threshers and....horse-drawn hearses. Hearses from the mid to late 19 century and I am drawn to them like flies to a carcass. They are eerie and ancient and those are two of the things I love about them. It is difficult not to look at them and think of the countless lifeless bodies they carried and all the personal histories which ended at that point in the journey.
   The first dead body I can remember seeing in person was when the father of my best friend in public school passed away unexpectedly. My dad took me to the funeral home and I can clearly remember walking up the aisle to where the open casket was. In my mind I was thinking please no, please no, please no and then I was there, staring down at him. I'm not sure what I had been expecting but the reality was much less terrifying than the expectation. No viewing since then has disturbed me nearly as much, having realized how antiseptic the experience could be.
   Obviously the Victorian days have passed and we no longer feel the need to gather around our loved ones who have passed, for photos. Instead, we are generally blessed with being able to view pictures of them in various stages of the lives they lived, as they were living them. To be clear, I am drawn even more to these portrayals of the fully alive then I am to portraits of the deceased. Occasionally, though, I see dead people. And I kind of like it.  

Gordie: Part Two

   If you should happen to do a Google Images search on old-time NHL player Lou Fontinato of the New York Rangers, the chances are the most prevalent and striking image you are going to see is that of a hockey player whose face is pointed south while his nose is most definitely pointed west. And bloody.
   Such was the damage inflicted on Fontinato in a fight with the Red Wings' Gordie Howe on Feb. 1, 1959 that it has lived on in hockey lore and was one of the recollections people spoke about recently as Howe was recovering from his stroke. It was said at the time that the other players nearby could hear something break with pretty well every one of Gordie's punches during this fight.

Fontinato--facing two directions at the same time

   Howe, during his long NHL career, was regarded as the toughest and meanest player in the league. His elbows were legendary and he was also not shy about "laying on the lumber", if the circumstances warranted it.
   A few short years later, though, Fontinato suffered a career-ending neck injury while playing for the Montreal Canadiens. He, in fact, was paralyzed for over a month before finally recovering. Howe was one of the first people to offer well-wishes.
   This then was the dichotomy Gordie represented---he was a mean s.o.b. on the ice but one of the nicest men you'd want to meet off of it.
   Long before Howe suffered this recent stroke (he has been plagued with smaller ones in the past little while) I already knew that I wanted to do a blog post about him. On top of the strokes, Gordie has also been suffering with Alzheimer's disease.
   I have, and always have had, an image in my mind of Gordie Howe. Some of that image is as a hockey player, albeit with streaks of grey around his temples. Much of it is as an older gentleman, surrounded by those who respected and/or idolized him. Any image I have of him is as a vital and strong person. To hear that he has been struggling with Alzheimer's and to hear how this has affected him is distressing.
   Recently, Gordie was viewing some Red Wing related coverage on the T.V. and afterwards commented that he really wanted to connect with his old friend and former teammate, Sid Abel. Sadly, Sid Abel has been dead for almost fifteen years. At some point, Gordie obviously knew this but had been robbed of this information by the Alzheimer's. I can only assume that he has both his good and his bad days coping with the disease but this is totally at odds with how I remember him to be.

Howe and Richard

   I am not so naive to believe that celebrities and sports heroes should be immune from all that ails us. I do find it interesting, though, how easily we fashion a place for them in our minds (and hearts) which finds them exempt from old age, illness and infirmity. I tried to imagine Gordie Howe struggling to speak, walk and remember and I found this almost impossible to do.
   A few years ago, another famous Number 9 in hockey, Maurice "Rocket" Richard, also found himself struggling with both Parkinson's and Alzheimer's. I recall that, as journalists would quiz him about his playing career, he would reply that he couldn't comment on things he simply no longer remembered. At that point, we found ourselves remembering for him.
   

Gordie Howe lives on and may be with us for some time to come. Such is his place in some of our lives that it may not be  necessary to think of him as he is now but only to remember what it is he has meant to us over all these years. I do find myself occasionally at odds with the mortality of people who have been important in my life, whether they be people I know or whether they be people we all know and hold in some form of high esteem. I think there are those who we hold as constants in our lives. Sometimes they are friends and family, sometimes they are people who have the power to move us through music, art, written words or film. Occasionally they are sports heroes, those who have demonstrated physical skills and a type of determination we ourselves can only aspire to. Gordie Howe is that kind of constant in my life.   
   

Gordie: Part One

   All-time National Hockey League great, Gordie Howe, suffered a debilitating stroke recently. This unfortunate event brought on an outpouring of well-wishes and hopes for a speedy recovery, all directed Gordie's way.
   It also prompted those who remembered his playing days to share their fondest memories of a player who was simply known as "Mr. Hockey".

This about says it all!

   As someone who was born in the early fifties, the name "Gordie Howe" entered my consciousness before I was even really a hockey fan or understood clearly what hockey was all about or even how it was played.
   I am sure I can thank my father for this. I think he spoke about Gordie with a reverence normally reserved for saints and I think he did this constantly, in passing, and without even thinking about it. Because of this, Gordie Howe was the first hockey player I had ever heard of and, because of this again, "hockey" and "Howe" became synonymous for me.
   I think there was also something about the name "Gordie"---rather than the more formal "Gordon"--that helped reinforce his legend status. "Gordie" sounded more like the neighbourhood kid everyone knew, the kid everyone liked and remembered long after you'd moved away from that same neighbourhood. He was everybody's friend.
   By the time I was old enough to become an actual hockey fan, most of Gordie's best days were behind him. I never got to see him raise the Stanley Cup or win a scoring title. Thanks, though, to his utterly amazing longevity, I was able to see him play.
   

The man with the moves.

Gordie retired from the NHL in 1971 at the age of 43. Circuitously, after joining the newly-established World Hockey Association so that he might have the opportunity to play pro hockey with his sons and then having that league eventually merge with the NHL, Gordie found himself back in the NHL, now at the age of 51. At this time he was playing for the Hartford Whalers and I can clearly recollect watching the Whalers play the Leafs one Saturday night on Hockey Night in Canada. At one point in the game, Gordie had the puck in the Leafs zone and a hapless Leaf defender skated right up to him, intent on relieving him of the puck. Gordie simply shifted through him, appearing on the other side, still with the puck. I think my jaw kind of dropped and I had one of those wow moments, not so much because I had never seen a similar play but because I'd never seen a guy in his fifties do it to a guy in his twenties! This then, became my favourite Howe story and one I fondly recalled as others were doing the same, in the wake of Gordie's recent illness.

Mr. Howe

   At this point, it's difficult to say how much longer Gordie Howe will be with us. The initial fears, after the stroke, seem to have somewhat subsided. Howe was always known as one of the toughest men in hockey and there was a bit of a consensus that if anyone might survive and, hopefully, at least partially recover, it might be him. So far, so good!
      
   

Just A Guy, Lookin' For A Team...

   I was walking through our garage the other day when I looked off to the right, at a variety of different things we have hanging on hooks just inside the garage door. My hockey bag, the one with all my goalie equipment in it, has been hanging there, in the exact same spot, in the exact same position as I left it in, after the last time I played about two years ago. This what it looked like:

Yes, those are cobwebs....

   We have several things in our garage which likely have not been touched or moved in the last couple of years either but my hockey equipment is the only thing which seems to have gathered cobwebs.
   At this point, I can't tell you how hard I'm trying to ignore the implicit symbolism going on here!
   For the last little while, I have been battling a couple of different minor physical ailments, both of which have limited my involvement in sports. For this reason, my ball hockey career has been on the shelf.
   Now, though, I feel almost a hundred per cent. The legs, thanks to all the extra running I've been doing, are actually more muscular than they have ever been and I have this itch to play again.
   Alas, but no team to play on!
   For the past week or so, I have been contacting guys I know who run teams in the London Ball Hockey Association. This is a league I played in back in its original incarnation in the early seventies. I, up until a couple of years ago, had played in its present form for the last 12 to 13 years.
   The problem here is that I am old. I am sixty-one, I look like I am too old to play and I am actually older than I look. But I can still play. I know I can still play.
   As I've contacted guys I know in the league, I have actually almost begged them for a chance to play, told them I'd pay full price for just a three or four game tryout. So far, no dice.
   It actually seems incomprehensible to me that I am not playing somewhere. I just feel so full of ball hockey....ENERGY! As old as I am, I have never been the slowest guy on any team I've played on.
   Now, the fact of the matter is that my goalie days are probably over, the last few times I played, I embarrassed myself greatly and I have no great need to do that again. But I can still play forward or defence as well as a lot of guys I've played against in the past.
   At this point, I am on the waiting list for a spot on a team. Dick Price, the LBHA commissioner has promised to play the "wily veteran" card the next time some team is looking for a player. And, in the meantime, I'm gonna pester a few more guys....

  

Off To The Bank For Something Irresistible

   About a month ago, Doralyn and I were watching T.V. when a commercial for a bank came on. In the commercial a young man with a passion for guitars suddenly comes across the guitar of his dreams, in a pawnshop.
   He must have this guitar but in order to purchase it he must rush off to the nearest branch of this particular bank in order to take advantage of their expanded hours and withdraw the large sum of money required. In a world awash with credit cards, atm's, and debit machines it's a little difficult to imagine this scenario but I did mention it was a commercial, didn't I?
   Anyway, it prompted Doralyn to ask me the question, "So, Sweetie, what could you find that would be irresistible?"
   This gave me much pause for thought, kind of like those, "What would you do if you won ten million dollars?" kinds of things.
   The difference here was that I wasn't being asked how I thought my life might totally be changed, I was being asked what few singular items might have a profound and positive effect on it.
   For the most part, the things that began to pop into my head were all small (yet significant) things.
   Amazingly, a perfect example of something I might find irresistible popped up on the internet either the same day or the very next day after Doralyn asked me that question.

I discovered that the handwritten, rough draft of the lyrics for "Judgement of the Moon and Stars (Ludwig's Tune)", one of my favourite songs by one of my favourite singer/songwriters, Joni Mitchell, had come up for auction. This is a perfect example of the type of thing I'd have rushed off to the bank in order to purchase. A few pages of scribbled lyrics, torn from a notebook. What they represented, though, was almost priceless---a singular view into the thought process of one of the greatest songwriters of all time. On top of which, pieces of paper Joni actually touched! And, likely, agonized over!

   I have no idea what these items actually sold for. I am now left wondering what I might have paid for them had I accidentally come across them somewhere. I'm thinking a few hundred dollars, easily. Maybe more.
   

Leonard and Joni

It would be the same if I ran across anything personally connected to Leonard Cohen, likely. More than any other artists, Joni and Leonard struck more than musical chords with me when I was young and growing up. My parents at the time were more than a little concerned with my (what they deemed morbid) interest in Cohen and his music, assuming that I must be deeply depressed and, likely, suicidal. Actually, Leonard was having more the opposite effect---it seemed that by hooking on to whatever pathos Leonard was involved in I was able to indulge in my own little catharsis, a reprieve from teen angst.
   I was at the library quite a few years ago and took out a book of poetry by Irving Layton. In leafing through it, I discovered that it was actually a copy which had been signed by Layton himself. I thought this was an incredible find! Not only did I have the book, I had a little bit of Layton himself. Honestly, I was tempted to just keep the book, such was its increased value, in my eyes.
   So they are not big things I'd find irresistible---they're the increasingly simpler, more personal things connected principally to people from whom I took guidance as a younger boy/man.

Howe and Richard

   While I'm mentioning singers and songwriters I should also mention that I am not immune to sports figures as well. And once again, it would not have to be the game-winning puck or the all-time home run ball I'd be interested in. I would be just as happy having something Gordie Howe or Rocket Richard carried with them or perhaps wore or maybe even used once in a game. It would be the distillation of whatever might still be left of their ancient spirits embedded in whatever item it was that would intrigue me, more than anything.
   I'm sure that if I sat here and mused for awhile I could think of a few other things which might cause me to run off to the bank. Can you? In my particular case, though, there would need to be money in the bank...    

Coffee: Part Two

   About a year and a half ago, I wrote a post called "Coffee", in which I waxed eloquently about my relationship with java. I actually just re-read it and I couldn't believe how much I actually had to say about the subject. If you really want to see what I mean by that, you can go here and take a gander.
   Well, my relationship with coffee has changed in the last three weeks.
   About three weeks ago, I went about eliminating as much of the extraneous sugar as I could from my diet. This, unfortunately, included the spoon-and-a-half to two spoonfuls of sugar and/or honey I regularly took in my coffee.
   I have also avoided the use of any kind of sweetener---in the past, they've either caused more problems than the sugar has or they've been extremely expensive. All I have in my coffee now is a little cream or milk.
   This all has changed the coffee experience for me greatly. Before the change, I looked forward to and relished the idea of sitting down to a cup. It had the power to at least briefly transport me away from whatever I was doing or, if not, at least accompany me on the journey as a trusted friend. Nowadays...not so.
   These days, this is what my face does when I take my first sip of coffee:

This is EXACTLY what my face looks
like when I drink sugar-less coffee.

   Eventually, the shock of sugar-less coffee wears off and I can finish the cup with a more-or-less normal look on my face. It does take a fair amount of willpower, though.
   So this begs the question---is it the coffee I used to enjoy? Or just the sugar?
   In spite of the fact that I'm not enjoying the coffee as much anymore, I'm still drinking about as much as I used to. When I look at all the sugarless drink options out there, none inspire me. When you have loved the best....
   Anyway, I do ask myself why I continue to drink it if I barely enjoy it anymore? Could be that I enjoy the companionship, as weird as that might sound. It might even be that simply having a mug at my side somehow completes me, regardless of the nature of its contents. Perhaps it's the warmth on my hands, who really knows? There is something almost visceral about reaching for a cup or mug without even needing to look at it because you always leave it the same distance from your arm and the handle is always turned to the exact point you need it to be at in order to grasp your coffee seamlessly and effortlessly, without thinking about it.
   As I write this, I have about two more sips left of this evening's coffee. It's cold now but not enough's left to bother heating it up. I'm drinking it out of my "mr. almost perfect" coffee mug and things almost are perfect.
   Except for the coffee...

   
   
   

My Apologies

   Last week, as you may be aware, I experimented a touch with the look and feel of Neanderings. At the time, I also asked for feedback as to how people felt about the changes.
   Well, more or less resoundingly, people hated the difference it made to the blog. It apparently caused much confusion and made navigating the site quite difficult.
   Now, from my end of things, it created a whole new blogging experience. It didn't particularly change the creative process but it did make a huge difference in the amount of page views the blog received. 
   The first day of the change, the blog racked up over three hundred page views. Generally, if I get thirty page views a day I'm pretty happy. Three hundred made me ecstatic.
   Here is a pic of what the blog looked like, on my laptop, when I made the change:

    
   Each of those pics represented a blog post and if you clicked on the pic then you automatically opened up the post. Scrolling down gave you access to any post I'd ever written, right back to Neanderings' inception. For me, it was almost hypnotic, jumping about from post to post so easily!
   I can only imagine that some readers out there were seeing more or less the same thing I was and were gallivanting all over the place, investigating. This, then, might account for all the extra page views. Sadly though, not everyone had this experience.
   The "nays" have accumulated over the past week, unanimously, and I have found myself torn between becoming a "page view whore" and wanting to stay true to readers who have always been faithful.
   What it boils down to is this---I started this blog simply because I had the urge to write. At some point, I realized that there were people out there who, for the most part, enjoyed and looked forward to new blog posts. For about a week, a lot of those same people were no longer enjoying the process. As much as I was amazed and enjoying the sudden increased viewership, the idea that those people were suddenly less enchanted slowly became intolerable. For this reason, I have gone back to the old Neanderings. And it kind of feels a little bit like coming home... 
 

Our Trip To Eldon House

   I have lived in London for fifty years now. For most of that time I have been aware of the existence of Eldon House here in the city but had never visited it.

The rear of Eldon House.

   Eldon House is the oldest residence still in existence in the City of London. It was the home of the Harris family and has been around since the 1830's. The family donated the house and almost all of its belongings to the city in the early sixties. It is now a museum and, obviously, open for tours.
   Doralyn and I had been talking about heading downtown this aft, just to look around and spend some time together and we ended up at Eldon House.

Beautiful, quaint gazebo. It stands
at the back of the grounds, near
the edge sloping down to the river.
Branches rise up out of the forest
in behind, providing all the greenery
you see here, likely many decades'
worth.

   We decided to wait until one of the tours started so we walked the grounds for a little bit and took some pics. While we were doing this, a tour actually started but we were able to catch up to it.
   Ninety per cent of what we saw today was all original Harris family belongings. Any time that the museum has found it necessary to make alterations, they have obtained the family's permission first.
   It was hard to walk through the many rooms and not feel as though you were absorbing history.

World travels.

   The Harris' were a family of great wealth and also were the social hub of London back in the day. The opulence is everywhere. Fine dining and big-game hunting. Artifacts from foreign countries. Silver- and ivory-inlaid furniture pieces. Servants' quarters. You name it, really.
   Our tour grind, Brenda, did a wonderful job of taking us around and giving us a history and an account of each room ( there were many), nook and cranny.
   

The main dining room. The table
setting are changed regularly, to
reflect the different seasons.

An elderly woman was there as part of our small tour group and at one point she declared that her aunt had once been a servant there. Brenda was then able to sit down, go through an old photo album and find a picture of the aunt from the 1930's! Awesome stuff!
   It was difficult to imagine life back in the mid-nineteenth century, Certainly there was more attention to class and manners than these days. The servants' quarters were minuscule compared to the size of the family rooms. Brenda told us a tale of one overnight guest who had the audacity to appear for breakfast in his slippers and then dinner later on in a narrow tie, as opposed to a bow tie. Apparently the gentleman was never asked back!

   We know of tales like this because the Harris women kept almost daily diaries. Brenda explained to us that she is able to take any date on the calendar and find a corresponding diary entry from a variety of different years. So complete were the Harris diaries that they have been published and can be found in the local library! What a window to the past!
   As I mentioned before, Doralyn and I both remarked how easy it was to feel as though you were actually soaking in the history of the place---you could almost sense the spirits at play there. I have also heard that there are "real" spirits which inhabit the building---the ghost of an ancient suitor of one of the Harris girls, a suitor who mysteriously drowned in the Thames below the house has occasionally been spotted by the museum staff. Not that I believe in that kind of thing...
   

The library room.

At the end of our visit there, we discovered that the museum has plans to run a special tour of both the attic and the basement of the old house. Apparently both areas are crammed with artifacts and Doralyn and I have made plans to return for that!
   Also at the end of the visit, we ended up talking to Brenda about how the museum was staffed, how long she'd been there and that kind of thing. At that point, she mentioned that they were shortly going to be hiring three more tour guides. At this point, Doralyn did everything but put in an application for me! For some reason she seems to think I would be perfect for this kind of job and I can only surmise that she's aware of my love for history. Well....I guess we'll see!
       

Changes?

   Welcome to the new "Neanderings"!
   Well...it  might only be new for a short time, depending on the reaction I get from people. Or don't get.
   The change is a pretty striking one---readers are suddenly faced with a page full of a rather mind-boggling display of pics from past posts which, when clicked on, will take you to that post. A quick and easy scroll down gets you right back to the very beginning of things.
   So let me know what you think! Is it too distracting? Does anyone miss me standing on a rock by the ocean??
   Let me know!

"What, Me Worry?" My Surprise Encounter With Alfred E. Neuman

   If you're anything like me and are of a certain vintage then you undoubtedly at some point in your life have either read MAD Magazine or at the very least would recognize the iconic image of  the "What, Me Worry" kid, Alfred E. Neuman, which graces the cover of the magazine.

   I was introduced to MAD magazine before I was even a teenager and then read it faithfully throughout my adolescence. I particularly enjoyed the parodies of all the popular movies of the day and, in some way, am only familiar with many of those famous movies through their MAD take-offs! I also enjoyed Antonio Prohias' "Spy v. Spy". and Dave Berg's "The Lighter Side".
   So why am I bringing up MAD Magazine today?
   Well, quite a few months ago, I found myself going through one of the old family photo albums which had come into my possession when my Dad passed away, back in 2012. This particular album I was looking at had originally been my Mum's and was filled with all manner of memorabilia from her youth. As I turned the pages, suddenly I was confronted with an image I was all too familiar with. It was a birthday greeting card which bore the gap-toothed visage of Alfred E. Neuman! What struck me was that there was no mention whatsoever of MAD Magazine and no mention of his name either. In fact, underneath his picture it said "OH JOHNNY!" The inside of the card had the message "It's a honey, hope the birthday is too!" The card was signed by someone who I

The front of the card

assume was my Aunt Eileen and, as near as I can tell, dated back to 1944, long before the inception of MAD Magazine.
   Of course, I immediately headed to Google to see what I could find out about Oh Johnny and his connection with Alfred E.

The inside, with my Aunt's signature.

   It appears as though the image we are now familiar with was actually derived from images decades older, images which evolved over time but are very clearly all connected. Essentially, they are images used to denote a simpleton and appeared whenever its publisher was interested in drawing a comparison, favourable or not. If you're interested, here is the Wikipedia link or you simply do what I did and Google it.
   All in all, things like this almost seem like archaeological finds when you come across them---ancient forms which have been preserved and enable you to compare them with their modern counterparts. These old photo albums have been a treasure trove and it seems as though I discover something different with each journey through them!
    

Randomness

   I've been avoiding this for over a week now.
   As I've mentioned before, my posts in "Neanderings" arise mostly whenever a train of thought envelopes me with its persistence on an ongoing basis. Some of these trains of thought are more persistent than others and that's when you end up with me here, fumbling away with words and their meaning. I guess today is one of those days.
   A little over a week ago, a driver lost control of her vehicle outside the entrance of a Costco here in London. Somehow or other, the vehicle managed to find its way through the barriers guarding the entrance of Costco and then plowed into a pregnant mother and her two children.
   The woman's six-year-old daughter, after being held on life support long enough to donate organs, died. The woman, who was eight months pregnant, underwent an emergency C-section in an attempt to save both her and her unborn baby's life. Sadly, the newborn infant also passed away a few days after the accident. The mother and her other daughter are recovering. After some internal debate, I have decided not to post the girl's name or picture. Frankly, I become extremely sad looking at her pictures and I'm sure they would have the same effect on a reader. Instead, look at any other young child you know and you will see the same qualities.

   I would be hard-pressed to describe any other single incident in the city's history which has involved more of an outpouring of grief involving one of its own than this one.
   The young girl has been described as an "angel". Shown a picture of her in life and I am sure you would agree. In a few short days, the people of London donated $30,000, towards her funeral expenses. Costco is matching, dollar for dollar, any contributions made at their stores, up to $50,000. Thousands attended a candlelight vigil. Much sorrow (and a little anger) has been expressed all over social media and in print.
   I think one of the things which struck us the most was the random nature of this horrific event.
   When you hop into a car and drive away there is this implicit danger. When you are playing sports there is a real possibility that you may get hurt. Swimming in a rough lake, walking deep into the forest. There are a whole host of things we do and activities we engage in which carry along with them at least some small portion of acknowledged risk.
   Standing inside a Costco, on the other side of barriers which are there for the express purpose of protecting you and the building should not be one of those "acknowledged risk" situations.
   Instead, it seemed almost as if there was malignant purpose behind this event, that somehow a vehicle was guided through those barriers (otherwise, how could it have happened) and directed straight at this young family. This didn't seem like the accidental type of occurrence we all assume the risk of as we go about our daily lives.
   It was, of course, random.
   Rather than an orchestrated event, it was simply the intersection of a whole series of seemingly unrelated actions, thoughts, and circumstances, all of which had to happen before this tragedy could occur. If any one of a million small things had possibly been different leading up to these deaths, then they might not have happened at all.

   The randomness of this is what contributes to the sorrow and anger. We're all pissed off because there is no rhyme or reason to any of it and without rhyme or reason contributing to how we lead our lives, what's there to do?
   If you really stop to think about it (but don't, because if you do, you will be frozen) there are an almost infinitesimal number of things which need to either happen or not happen simply for us to survive. As one small example, think of the thousands of cars we pass going the other way on a daily basis. Our lives and/or well-being depend totally on that other driver's health, state of mind and the condition of his car. Any of those things could be in a state of disrepair which might cause his car to swerve into yours. And yet we pass these cars constantly, with no thought towards the random possibilities they all present.
   I have an aunt who was doing nothing more than walking along a sidewalk when a driver who was pulling out of a parking lot hit and killed her. His defence was that the sun was in his eyes. Hard to know whether this was true or not but, at the same time, if my aunt had been a few steps faster or a few steps slower or if perhaps the sun had been at a different point in the sky then this tragedy would have been averted. Such small, almost mathematical things, having such an impact on us.
   The grief here in London is palpable but at the same time there are people dying horrifically all over the world. Planes and rockets are falling out of the sky and we are presented with images of other dead children from around the world, any of whom would be as angelic as the ones we just lost. I am sure their deaths seem as infuriatingly random as these ones closer to home.
   As much, though, as we rail at the seeming senselessness of this young girl's death, there is something else to consider. As I mentioned at the beginning, she was able to give the gift of her organs. This one act would have saved the lives of several others. To the loved ones of anyone who was saved when this six-year-old passed, how exquisitely (and yet somehow excruciatingly) random was this gift? 
   

Bunnies and Buddhas

   In my most recent post, I briefly detailed the lack of success Doralyn and I had had in our quest to find the more or less perfect Buddha for our garden. We had gone to all the most logical places here in London and had found lots of Buddhas of different sizes, shapes and countenances but nothing really that struck our fancy. Even online searches had been unsuccessful.
   As it happened, we were out for breakfast on the last day of our stay up at Oma's trailer, dining at a little place called MacPherson's, right oh Highway 21 as you get near Port Franks. We had finished breakfast there and had decided to take a quick spin through the gift shop attached to the restaurant.
   We checked out a variety of things and were actually starting to head towards the door when I happened to look down. There, at my feet, was a Buddha! Perfect size, perfect face and weatherproof! We couldn't find a price so I went and asked the cashier. She conferred with an older woman behind the counter and I could have sworn I heard the other woman say "$199.99". The younger woman came back to me and said "$109.99". I was a little confused so I repeated that price to her and she confirmed that it was $109.99. I took this back to Doralyn and we agreed that we weren't going to be able to find what we were looking for at a better price and, given our inability to find anything suitable, we kind of jumped at it! So Buddha goes in the trunk and we're off to Oma's trailer to pack up. As I'm flipping the Buddha onto its back so that it would be more stable, I finally notice a small price tag attached to the bottom of it. And it read "$199.99"!
   So I don't know whether we got away with highway robbery there or perhaps the Buddha was simply marked down but it simply seemed like it was meant to be!

Our new Buddha, in its temporary garden spot.

   Today was the first day I had an opportunity to rescue our new Buddha from its temporary spot on our deck and take it down to the garden. As I walked into the backyard to get it, I noticed a small movement in the grass about five feet away. It was a baby bunny.
   This baby bunny has been showing up almost constantly as I've spent more time than normal, working on our backyard. I tend to just leave it alone whenever it shows up and since I've never really harassed it, it's become fairly tame.
   This morning it was just nestled in the clover near our BBQ, munching away. I happened to have my phone with me so took it out and started snapping pictures of it. I'd take a pic, slowly move a step forward, and then take another. I got to about three feet away when it finally hopped off. This is kind of how the relationship works.

Baby bunnies in Brian Baker's backyard!

   At this point, I started paying more attention to the Buddha and took it down to the lower part of our backyard. I found a little bench to set it on, positioned it in a spot in the garden and then stood back to admire.
   As I was standing there, Baby Bunny re-appeared! It was almost as if he (or she) had stopped by to welcome the new addition and I headed off to get my phone for another pic. Unfortunately, by the time I got back Bunny was gone.
   The Buddha will hopefully soon have a permanent and reverential spot in our garden and when that happens  I'll post another pic. And, when Baby Bunny shows up again, maybe I'll have a carrot in my pocket....