The Bear, #MeToo, and, well, me too....

   True story.
   A few years ago, I was walking through the forest, alone, and I came across a bear. It was a mother bear and she had a cub with her. From all I knew of wilderness safety, this was a bad combination. I stopped dead in my tracks and watched them. My mind, however, was racing a mile a minute. It was going through all the small bits of data it carried regarding bears--- their tendencies, behaviours and inclinations.
   I had been in close proximity to wild bears before but it was always from the safety of a car, stopped by the edges of mountain highways. I had never been on foot, alone, with only the fresh morning air between me and a bear.
   What I knew in that moment was that the bear was the one who would be deciding what happened next. I knew I could neither fight nor outrun it. 
   Without the presence of the bear, the situation was as

benign as you could have made it. The sun was filtering down through the treetops, the forest was moist and primeval, and the air was easy to breathe. With a bear and her cub added to the equation, however, I was suddenly faced with some terrible possibilities, the consequences of which might leave my life seriously compromised or, possibly, over.
   The mother bear saw me at the same time I saw her. Neither of us lost eye contact for what seemed like an eternity. Blessedly, the cub had no idea I existed and was intent on exploring its surroundings. Its curiosity took it across the trail I'd been on and back up into the forest. The mother briefly continued to look at me but then decided to follow her cub. I gave them a minute to get further into the forest and then I hurriedly continued on my way.
   It did not occur to me then but it strikes me now that this must be what it's like for women to travel a landscape which, as much as the forest is made for the bear, is almost entirely advantageous to men---men of many ilks and dispositions.
   I, obviously, am a man and part of a subgroup which benefits from a great many things not always afforded to women. Of all of these, personal safety is perhaps the area in which there is the largest chasm of difference. For the most part, men go where they want with no fear. Until, perhaps, you are in the forest with a bear.
   When you are in the forest with a bear, you are at the mercy of whatever natural instinct strikes them. You have no idea when (or what) they might have eaten last, what the nature was of the interaction they had with the last human they saw, or, more simply, whether they were having a bad day or not. If you are lucky, you get to safely share their environment with them. If you have picked a bad day to be in the forest, then you are maimed or dead.
   In a way, is this not the same for some, many or even all women? Whether or not it is at the forefront of their fears, is it not at least subliminally there, whispering warnings? As benign as the setting may be, if you are a woman in close proximity to a man you are unfamiliar with is it not that much different than coming across that bear in the forest? And how many hundreds of thousands of women have found themselves in the forest, on a bad day?
   

It is now the era of #MeToo and #TimesUp. In an age when communication between people is both instant and constant, women have been able to rally around these hashtags and share their stories and fears. Because of this, both collectively and individually, they have found the ability to rise up against the evil which men sometimes do and have almost always gotten away with. #MeToo has also exposed the pervasiveness of male sexism---at any given point in their lives, pretty well all women could justifiably claim to have been victimized in some way, shape or form.
   In part because of #MeToo, patterns of male behaviour have been laid bare, open for inspection, and many of us men have been found lacking. We have also been found complicit---many times by simply looking away. We have heard stories from other men about the many ways they might have abused women, or continue to do so, and we have remained silent.
   In the ongoing aftermath of all this, many men, I believe, are now looking back at their past interactions with women in an attempt to determine whether at some point they might have strayed. Some men may have done this in an effort to predict possible fallout headed their way. Other men, simply in an effort to understand how their attitudes and behaviours in the past can be changed for the better.
   As a man, you can learn if you pay attention. I have a female friend on Facebook I've known for many years. She has an amazing smile, in my opinion, but she rarely uses it when she posts photos. In the past, I have gone out of my way to point this out to her, while commenting on the occasional pic. It has only been since the emergence of #MeToo and the accompanying discourse on latent sexism, that I've come to realize how inappropriate it is for me to do this, regardless of how well I know this woman and and how light-hearted our exchanges seem. So I've stopped making this mistake and am actually contemplating an apology. It is simply not my place to offer an opinion to someone on how they can more closely live up to what my expectations are on how physically attractive I think they could be.
   This seems like just a small thing to me but I also think it is indicative of what hopefully the new climate around gender roles is bringing---men rethinking how they act and react around women. And if you are on social media and you are paying attention, women will actually provide you with do's and don'ts.
   For a moment, back to the bear in the forest. 
   I drew the comparison between me encountering that bear in the forest and women interacting with men in common, everyday environments. I'm not sure how far-fetched or unrealistic comparing those two things may sound to you but the fact of the matter is this---for that length of time I was in that forest with that bear, my life was basically upside-down. Whatever vestige of male privilege I'd carried with me prior to that moment slipped away into nothing. No amount of physical strength or intellectual reasoning was going to come between me and that bear. If the bear thought it had any good reason to seriously hurt or kill me, well, that's what was going to happen. I would have done nothing wrong but having been in the wrong place at the wrong time, with a predator. Is this not sometimes what women face? 
   I'm going to present yet another metaphor or scenario which, as far-fetched as it might sound, I think might actually be applicable. As women walk around in this world they are faced with about 50% of the rest of the population being male. Out of that 50%, perhaps 75% of men are capable of performing whatever act of violence they wish upon whatever women they encounter. As a man, I can only think of one sphere of existence wherein, on a daily basis, I might have to live my life faced with similar odds of having to face violence or possible death. Prison. 

Is this what it's like for women, in a man's world?

   These are not numbers which will ever change and I doubt that many of us view life this way. But, for many women, this is a reality and for many women it will become a reality. As men, we need to understand our role in all of this and come to grips with some of the changes which need to happen.
   This will probably screw us up. How we treat women (how we treat people, in general) is something we started to learn basically as we were lying on our mothers' bellies for the first time. We learned from how our mother treated us and then watching how she was treated.  We have witnessed the many ways power can be used. We have spent our lives watching how the people around us used or abused relationships and we have formed behaviours around all this which will now be difficult to change. There will be confusion and there will be anger and we will rail against what seems to suddenly be an injustice we don't understand.
   Make no mistake about it, though, women will force a change.  Women will save themselves. Along the way, men will need to provide fewer reasons for women to be wary of us. We will need to come to grips with masculinity also meaning protecting, enabling, and respecting as much as it does anything else. We can do this if we just think. What we can't become, or continue to be, is the bear in the forest.
   
   
   

   

Old Friends

    Simon and Garfunkel had a song called "Old Friends" many years ago, on their "Bookends" album. It was a bit of a sad, yet beautiful, homage to the aging process. I was a young man in my early twenties when I heard it for the first time. 
   I had it running through my mind the other day after I left the restaurant I had just had breakfast in. I had been sitting near a table which had six elderly men, eating breakfast and generally being convivial. I'm not sure whether they were just a group of friends getting together or whether it was perhaps a "meeting" of some kind (a couple of the gentlemen seemed new to each other) but I found myself somehow or other enjoying being in their proximity. 
   Now, I did say elderly, didn't I? 

   Well, the fact of the matter was that they all were either balding or had white and/or graying hair, they were wrinkled in the usual spots, jowls were present, and they all wore eye glasses and short-sleeved dress shirts. And, wouldn't you know it, I just described....me!
   So, yes, I am an old man, by pretty well any definition you use. I am eligible for all the Tuesday Night Senior Specials and I get called "Sir" on a fairly regular basis. Dinner at 4:30 or 5 o'clock doesn't seem like that foreign of a concept. The eyesight's occasionally blurry and the hearing requires electronic assistance (although I am holding out on that one) and middle-of-the-night trips to the bathroom occur pretty well every middle-of-the-night.
   The accouterments of old age are all there and yet, somehow, I still feel removed from it.
   The adage goes You are only as old as you feel and I pretty well put full faith in it. For the most part, I have not stopped doing the things I have always enjoyed doing and this has always involved keeping the body and mind active. The body is active with running, hiking, golf and, occasionally, ball hockey. The mind is active with poetry, writing, crosswords and blogging.
   Because of all this, as I sat there in the restaurant the other day, it was hard to feel true kinship with all the gents at the next table. It kind of felt like watching my dad, perhaps sitting there with a bunch of my friends' dads---it wasn't like spying on a group of my peers.
   Sometimes I wonder if this is problematic, if maybe I should spend a little more time "acting my age". Of course "acting" would be just that---acting. There is no sense in attempting to be other than what you actually are, whatever that is. I suppose I'll just continue to do what I have always done until my passion for that thing has dissipated.
   Of course, it could very well be that every gentleman sitting at that restaurant table is as active and young-feeling as I am! Because I don't really know any of them, I am going to try and avoid the trap of making assumptions, based on their appearance. I think this has occasionally been done to me---because the trappings of old age apparently hang from my shoulders I have been conveniently placed in a niche, deposited on a mantle and only occasionally dusted off. This, of course, by people who don't know what I know.
   At one point in "Old Friends", Paul Simon says
                         Can you imagine us
                         Years from today,
                         Sharing a park bench
                         Quietly?
                         How terribly strange
                         To be seventy.
   Well, I may accidentally be sitting on a park bench someday with a friend when I'm seventy but it won't be terribly strange and the people around us are going to be wondering why those two old geezers are raising such a commotion with all laughing and giggling! And if it's not a park bench it just as likely may be a players' bench in a hockey arena or a participants' bench at a track meet!
   

Although it is quite easy to, I try not to judge people by what other people tell me. Generally, I prefer to react to people based on mutual shared experiences. What this means is that if you are a person in their sixties who acts like a person in their thirties then I am going to treat you like a person in their thirties, until given reason to do otherwise.
   I would only hope that people do the same for me---treat me as you know me to be. We will get along fine if you do!

O Cohen, My Cohen!

   This past week, Leonard Cohen passed away.
   I knew, of course, that this was eventually going to happen and I also knew, deep inside, that this was possibly imminent. Leonard himself, reflecting on the recent death of his longtime muse and love, Marianne Ihlen, seemed aware that he soon would be joining her. As much as I was intellectually prepared for this event, emotionally it was still a numbing moment.
   The world responded quickly, as it invariable does these days, and much was written about the poet and singer's legacy. Many tributes and much reminiscing occurred and his name has now been added to the seemingly endless list of musical icons who have passed away in this sad year.
   If you know me well, then you know how important Leonard Cohen was to me. My love for the man's writing and music grew out of the crucible of teenage hormonal angst we almost all found ourselves dealing with at that age. For me, this occurred back in the late sixties.
   I was not depressed or suicidal or filled with undue anxiety at the time but I did find myself torn in many directions and wanting desperately to be a man of the world when, in fact, I wasn't even a man of the subdivision. Finding my way with the girls was a constant state of struggle and rejection (or at least what felt like rejection) was the constant hidden jungle trap. On top of everything else, as much as I wasn't dealing with suicidal depression, someone else in my family was.
    So it was during this part of my life that I discovered Leonard Cohen.
   I was as prone to listening to the music of the day as anyone else was and there was a steady stream of Beatles, Rolling Stones, Led Zeppelin and The Doors engaging me on a daily basis. I liked it all, for sure, but then I heard Cohen's "Suzanne" for the first time.

   I had never heard anything like it before. The voice, the lyrics...they were like nothing else playing on the radio those days and I was drawn to them like no other. 
   Part of the attraction was Cohen's imperfect voice. There were no histrionics employed and the monotone he effected made it seem as though he was just one of us, one of the strugglers in the world who was trying to figure things out the same way we all were. As much as anything, though,  it was the lyrics which stood out. He talked about mysticism and sexuality and Jesus, for Christ's sake, all in the same song! The intimate nature of the music made it easy to feel as though it was only directed at me, and not the surrounding, acne-riddled masses.
   As soon as I was able, I bought the album "Songs of Leonard Cohen", playing it over and over. My parents were somewhat aghast that I would so readily immerse myself in what they saw as nothing more than monotonous melancholia. I, myself, was unable to adequately explain the attraction---apart from the fact that all teenagers seem to be  drawn to what their parents aren't.
   My love of Cohen wasn't easily shared. It probably didn't help that "Suzanne", partly because of its Canadian roots,  soon became part of the high school English curriculum. We studied it, for goodness' sake. Picked it apart. This was not an exercise most of my peers particularly enjoyed and the fact that I actually doted on Cohen never scored me any points on the popularity scale.
   On the wall in my bedroom, the posterised Cohen soon appeared. On another part of the wall, mounted like a shield, hung the cracked and broken top of a plastic birdbath. This birdbath and I had had a run-in in a neighbour's backyard and its jagged edge had made my leg bleed profusely. With my neighbour's blessing, I retrieved it, detached the top, and positioned it in a place of honour above my bed. Not far from this, I had also mounted a chunk of 2x8. Attached to this piece of wood was were samples of the same wires and staples that morticians use to ensure their clients' mouths stay firmly closed after death. An undertaker had once come to my public school as part of a "careers" presentation and had demonstrated their use. Afterward, I rather boldly asked him if he had any further use for this piece of wood. He did not and it came home with me. This then was the room to which I retreated to listen to Cohen in the dark, for hours. Very little wonder that my parents feared for me.
   The feeling that I had at the time, though, was that listening to Leonard Cohen was somehow or other saving me. It was almost as if the angst and confusion were being shared and, in the sharing, dissipated. It was not actually therapy but sort of was.
   I bought all of Cohen's early albums and soon along came "Songs of Love and Hate". I still consider this to be Cohen's masterpiece. I so clearly remember lying there in the dark, with headphones on, listening to "Dress Rehearsal Rag", an epic-length song from that album. Essentially it is a

contemplation of regret and loss in which suicidal images are very prevalent. It was easy to identify with the protagonist and feel, similarly to a good movie, that you were right there living his life with him. Then, just when you think it's possible he might actually end it all, suddenly "the cameras pan, the stand in stunt man, dress rehearsal rag, it's just the dress rehearsal rag." To me, this seemed like some form of redemption, that you could be depressed and contemplating ending it all (possibly even practising) but that, in the end, it perhaps was just as acceptable to carry on.
   As an adolescent, then, I let Cohen share the dark with me. As an older man, I allowed Leonard Cohen to age right in front (and only somewhat ahead) of me--sharing his joy, bewilderment, anger, longing and passion right up to the end.  The fact that he could still get the women as he aged also couldn't help but endear him to me

                                                   I knew that he would be gone some day and wondered how this would affect me. Of course, I have been able to share him with many over the past week or so, thanks to the world we live in these days. In an age of instant gratification and lightning-swift communication, though, I was bemused to discover that Leonard Cohen had actually passed a full three days before the world found out about it. This, and that fact that he was buried in a simple pine box next to his parents, helped to add  a little  perspective to the self-deprecatory man he always was.
   A very complex and simple man. 
   
      
    

   

So what's it like, suicide bomber?

   I find myself wondering quite often what it's like to wake up on the morning of the day which has been chosen for you to end your life, along with the lives of as many other people as you possibly can.
   Believing that heaven awaits you at the end of this task, I wonder if the air you breathe has already begun to smell a little sweeter and the food you taste just that much more delectable as you begin what you know are the final steps to this glorious outcome. I wonder if excitement broils in you.
   If there was a time when you doubted you could perform this task, how long ago was that and who or what intervened in such a way that you had now become fully resolute in your lives-ending mission?
   Does it feel as though you've become something more than a man? Do your insides pulse with what you can only imagine to be the sown seeds of divinity? 
   What is your ability to actually fail at your task? What if it just doesn't feel like a good day to die, or maybe even the right day? Are there do-overs, do you get to go back to your friends or associates and say something like sorry, guys, just having kind of an off day here but I'm gonna give her another go tomorrow? Or could it be that they will kill you, regardless, so why not aim for that heaven thing while you're at it?
   Are you allowed to say goodbye to anyone, apart from the group who has helped you along this path?
   What if you are in the exact spot you're meant to be in order to set the bomb off and all of the sudden your sister appears beside you? Or your uncle? Or an old school chum and what kind of small talk do you engage in with that old school chum anyway? Would there be any attempt to ward off these people, should they appear?
   The more I consider suicide bombers, the more questions I have.
   Occasionally you hear about the target being missed, the bomb seems to detonate accidentally and the only person who dies is the bomber himself. You almost want to cheer when this happens, one of those in your face, sucker kinds of moments. Is it possible, though, that some of these failed attempts might only be the end result of last-second changes of heart? Could it be that reason took over? Or maybe even a little bit of humanity? And, if so, how awful to know you simply cannot return where you came from without detonating a bomb, even if you are the only one who will die from it.
   Whatever the motivation, whatever the reasoning behind it all, there will continue to be instances of individuals insinuating themselves among crowds of people and letting death and destruction ensue. There will not be a plethora of pictures with this blog post. A quick search on the internet provided no suicide bomber pictures which were suitable to publish here---nothing but mayhem and body parts.
   Out of all of this, then, who ends up in heaven and who doesn't? My own personal belief is that anybody who dies ends up somewhere heaven-like. This would apply as much to the bomber as to the ones killed by him. Nobody knows, of course but what we do know is that there is this little bit of pointless hell left behind for the rest of us to deal with.
  
   
   

Unthinkable

   Back on June 15, my ball hockey team lost in a hard fought battle. In the last few seconds of that game, one of our best players, Asa Johnson, became involved in an altercation with one of the opposing players, an altercation which got Asa and the other player tossed out of the tiny bit of the game remaining.
   We were clearing our stuff out of the players' bench and I noticed a wallet still lying there, unclaimed. I picked it up, saw Asa's name on the inside, and took it with me. I ran into Asa, who'd returned to retrieve it, by the boards. I gave him a look what I've got kind of smile as I waved it at him and he smiled and took it from me. At that point he headed off.

   That was the last time I ever saw him.
   This past week, a rather ominous post on our team Facebook feed announced that Asa was missing. Then, later that day, it became known that he had actually passed away. As a team, we were naturally in shock. Most of the players are young and in their twenties and all very vital and athletic. The last thing you suspect is that one of you might die.

Asa

   Although I never saw Asa again, he continued to appear on the team feed in the month before he passed, making comments and joking around. As a result of the altercation at the end of that game, he'd received a suspension and there was much talk on the feed about how long that suspension might be, when would his first game back be and could we possibly talk the league commissioner into letting him come back earlier, that sort of thing. Then the terrible news. To exacerbate the pain, it has come to light that his death was self-inflicted.
   I barely knew the young man. Ours was a brand new team pulled together at the beginning of this season and not a lot of the players were familiar with each other, only small pockets of friends here and there. What made it more difficult for me was that most of the guys on the team were of a different generation, young enough to be my sons. The boys were full of youthful and endless bravado, if nothing else. To a man my age, they all seemed indestructible.
   To me, the unthinkable had happened once again. It was just a few short years ago that one of the players on a team of mine passed away. That time, however, he was an older man in his late forties who had a heart attack in his car on the way home after a game we'd both played in. I had commented to him after that game that he looked pretty winded and out-of-sorts and he himself acknowledged that he didn't feel quite right. I still regret not forcing him to hang around the arena just a little longer until he either felt better or we got him some medical assistance. I wrote a blog post about that gentleman as well and, in an ironic twist, the same day I found out about Asa passing someone out there in cyberspace viewed the post I'd written on the other man.
   For the few brief moments I'd held Asa's wallet in my hand at the end of the last game he played (in which he was named the third star by the way) I noticed the difference between his wallet and my own. His was very thin and unencumbered by wads of cash, credit cards, receipts and appointment cards. His grown-up life had just begun and there had not yet been the opportunity to accrue all the little reminders of debt, meetings, purchases, interest and responsibility---all things of which my own wallet reminds me of daily. I think I almost subconsciously envied him as it passed back into his own hands.
   As I'm writing this, I have my headphones on and, in another moment of irony, the theme from the movie "Glory" has come on. It is a haunting piece of music which plays over a scene at the end of the movie wherein fallen warriors of the Union army are thrown into a mass grave after a pivotal Civil War battle. It is a haunting moment which reflects the loss of life of young men gone too soon. As I reflect on this, I remember it was written by a composer named James Horner, who also passed tragically this year, only a week after Asa's last game. None of this is lost on me.
   It will be difficult to sit in another dressing room someday, looking around, deeply, at all the young faces, and not think about Asa. I will wonder what their lives are all about when they're not on the ball hockey floor. I will also continue to wonder what kind of intervention, if any, might have prevented his death. It might have been something complex and almost unfathomable or, at the right time, it could have been something as simple as a word or two. As we pass though our daily lives, we would do well to remember that we all have that word or two in us and not be afraid to offer them up, perhaps even in the most unexpected places.  
   
    

Death!! (the suspense is killing me...)

   Nearly two weeks ago, I wrote a post about Bob Ripley, the former United Church preacher who, after much agonizing and deliberation, had decided to become an atheist. He wrote about this in his new book, "Life After Belief: A Preacher's Deconversion".
   In my post, I mentioned how closely I found my own beliefs aligned with those of Ripley---it seemed as though we had traveled more or less the same path, at least in our hearts and minds.
   What I didn't talk about was what I found to be the most significant difference between his beliefs and mine.
   Ripley believes that, once you die, it is the end of things. There is no God, no heaven and no afterlife.
   I, on the other hand, believe there is a possibility that a portion of our energy goes on in at least somewhat of a conscious state.
   What I base this on is difficult to pinpoint. Science tells me that energy cannot be destroyed, that it merely changes forms. Anecdotal evidence suggests to me that spirits exist and we can communicate with them. Because of this, I am willing to hope and assume that something will become of me after I die.
   There are enough tales out there describing near-death experiences and people who claim to have seen wonderful glimpses of the afterlife that there is some contentment in believing that I will experience some of this when the time comes.
   Ripley believes that death is essentially the same as what you experienced before you were born---nothing. He points out all the time of the world's existence and all the monumental things which have occurred over the millenia---all of which were no consequence to us in our unborn state. And it will essentially be this same state we pass into upon our deaths. 
   I have considered this as well, as a possibility, and have come to the conclusion that this is the worst possible thing death might mean. And it really isn't all that bad, when you

Remember any of this?

stop to think about it. I think of dinosaurs, the Roman Empire and I think about concentration camps and then I think that all of those things existed without me and that I was fine with all that. Then, when I am dead, I will be fine with all of everything that happens for eternity. So what's to be scared of?
   I do, however, believe there's more to it than that.
   I believe that the actual moments of death will be a wonderful experience. Granted, there may be some suffering and anguish leading up to it but, when that moment comes, I believe I will welcome it. I am anticipating a yes, this is what it's all about type of experience.
   After that, who knows?
   I fully expect to encounter some form of cognizant state after I pass away, but to what extent I'm not sure. I also wonder whether it will be a lasting state or one which constantly changes. It might well be that the energy I take with me to the other side will slowly and eventually dissipate, leaving me in the pre-birth state I described above. The main thing is, I don't think it will scary and unpleasant, quite the contrary.
   

Thanks!

This, then, is where Bob Ripley and might disagree. He believes in a nothingness after death and I believe there will be an experience to be had.
   I quite often find myself  jealous of the people I have known who have passed. They have received answers to many of our great questions and they are not doing a good job of sharing them with us. I can only imagine that this is now one of their privileges, part of the rite of passage, so to say. The irony is that we all want to know, we just don't want to find out!
    
   
  
     

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.   
   

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? 
   

Escape Velocity (You Wanna Live To Be A Thousand?)

   Many, many years ago, I wrote something (a poem?) in which I postulated that ours was the first generation in the history of the world which had any sort of expectation of living forever.

   I stated this simply because of all the medical advances which (at that time) had been made and not because I was privy to any scientific knowledge which wasn't already available to the masses.
   Last week, as I was rooting around on the internet in an attempt to find out some info on Masters athletes, I came across websites which described terms such as "escape velocity", "actuarial escape velocity" or "longevity escape velocity". They were used in reference to the aging process and described the point at which the speed of the advancements in the medical treatment of age-related deterioration exceeded the speed of the deterioration itself.
   One website quoted well-known biomedical gerontologist Aubrey de Grey as theorizing that the first person to live to be 150 has already been born and that in another 20 years the first person to live to be 1,000 will have been born.
   I found this both staggering and fascinating at the same time.
   It throws the world as we know it way out of whack.
   Not that we consciously think about it throughout our everyday life, but we run that same life under the assumption that we're going to die some day relatively soon.
   We set aside money for retirement, write wills, seek adventure and change relationships.
   What would you do differently, though, if you knew you were going to live for a thousand years?
   Because I am under the assumption that I'm going to die sometime soon, I am also planning my retirement and have begun to "count the days". With a lifespan of a thousand years, though, would I then be looking at working for eight hundred of those years? Think about that for a moment and tell me if you find that appealing. Exactly how would you spend a thousand years of your life?


Typical weekend at the beach?

   Back that many years ago when I talked about our generation looking at the possibility of living forever, I also envisioned bodies lacking in vitality. Aubrey de Grey, however, believes that medical advances will make the human body quite viable, giving way to the prospect of being actually able to enjoy our greatly increased lifespan.
   What then concerns me most, though, is what kind of a world will there be to live in?
   Our world, in many parts of it, is a nasty place and is becoming nastier all the time. We also live under the constant threat of terrorism and what seems to be the increased risk of nuclear conflict. Should these threats ever come to full fruition, I think the world will not be a place you'd want to live in, particularly for another 800 years!
   I like the idea of longevity. Part of the deal with "escape velocity" was that you need to be healthy enough to live until these medical advances become available. I personally just wanted to be healthy until the end of my life, say in my mid-eighties or so. I never figured on living anywhere from 150 to a thousand years. I was never aiming, and still am not, to attain "escape velocity".
   Think of a world where no-one dies a natural death. If nothing else, think how crowded it would be. At some point we would at least feel as though we were all shoulder-to-shoulder. You would have the opportunity to meet your great-great-great-great-great-great grandchildren but how familiar would you be with any of them and how could you possibly play a real role in their lives. So what would be the point?
   I strongly suspect that, given the opportunity to live several hundred years, we would choose death at some point. When there were no new things to experience and the world was closing in on you, death would be the only thing left that would seem like both an adventure and an escape with a velocity of its own. 
  

A Sad Week In Running

   Last week was a sad one if you were a runner. Twice, the running world was shocked and saddened to hear of the deaths of Meg Menzies earlier in the week and then James Callaghan, a few days later.
   Both died while doing something they loved...running.
   Meg died as the result of being struck by an alleged intoxicated driver. James' death is still under investigation but it is believed he was struck twice by vehicles as he lay on a road in dense fog. There is speculation that he may either have been on the road due to a hit-and-run or possibly due to a medical emergency.
   Regardless of who you are and what you do, the death of these two people, long before their time, is sad and unspeakable. If you are a runner, their deaths carry an extra sting.

Meg

   Were I not a runner, it's quite possible that I may not even have known about these sad events. Runners tend to be absorbed by what they do, however, and because we spend as much time as we do following runners and running bloggers the sad news spread quickly.
   While out running Saturday morning, I thought of Meg and James quite a bit. Actually, runners from all over the world were being asked to run in Meg's honour that day and I understand that over 90,000 runners did just that. We are a unified bunch!
   I am still trying to figure out, though, why such a response.
   I think there is a visceral response every time a young mother dies. Not to diminish the role of a father but you start off your life inside your mother and it is through her that most of your needs are met as a child. Whenever a mother is taken too soon, you center in on her kids. And you remember that you were once a kid and the pain then becomes almost palpable.
   For a variety of sad reasons, we lose young mothers all the time and not too many of those losses invoke 90, 000 heartfelt responses, as they did in Meg's case.
   So the running aspect of her death comes into play. Not only was she a runner who died, she died running!
   Probably only once in a blue moon, as I'm lacing up before a run, do I think about the inherent danger in what I am about to do. From the beginning, I followed all the suggested safety tips around traffic, visibility, weather and the odd wacko out there but then that became pretty routine. For the most part, I am able to stay on sidewalks or find places to run where there is no vehicular traffic. Cars are sometimes a nuisance but my experience so far is that they do their best to steer clear.
   In no small way, though, this has now changed. For me and I suspect a lot of runners, the reality of what can happen has hit home, like a hammer to the heart. The vast majority of us will continue to run but I suspect we may somehow run differently, without taking the act as much for granted as we used to.
   As a life activity, a love of running can sometimes be difficult to explain to someone who doesn't run. With most other life activities, at the end there's generally something to show for it---a painting, a knitted  scarf, a carving or sculpture, perhaps a piece of writing. At the end of a run you have...nothing. Well, nothing that can be seen. What's more, along the way you likely suffered some level of pain or discomfort for all your effort. In this way, it's difficult to justify the activity to the uninitiated.


James

   My point is that I think there's something special about running and that we as runners experience it but, at the same time, are both a little mystified by and also somewhat in awe of it. And because it takes on an almost spiritual aspect, when one of us is affected in such a drastic way as Meg and James were this week, then by a strange ripple effect we are all both shaken and moved. Our response is to do that which binds us all together. Run.
   By all accounts, Meg and James were wonderful people with wonderful families. In a world where bad things seem to happen to good people, we are all left, once again, trying to make sense of it all. James was a loving father of four whose death has received less of a public response but his passing hits a little closer to me, a middle-aged man. As mentioned above, there is some speculation that he may have ended up on the road as the result of a medical emergency before he was even struck by vehicles there in the dense fog. I personally am in good health but am also at that age where the risk of a stroke or heart attack, particularly during strenuous activity, lingers in the back of my mind and in the recesses of my chest cavity. For this reason, I was also running for James Callaghan on Saturday.
   One can only hope that if there might be some lasting legacy from a very sad week that perhaps it will be that we will all be just a little more mindful as we run and cautious as we drive. Two people are dead but some motorists' lives have been horribly altered, and possibly destroyed, as well. One of my biggest fears is that, as a driver, some brief moment of inattention on my part might result in the death of an innocent person. I'm not sure that I could live with myself if that happened and perhaps Meg and James will forever remind me that it can happen.
   Not surprisingly, their respective communities have risen up in an attempt to support both James' and Meg's grieving families. Below are two links you can access if you wish to help out. The first one is to aid Meg Menzies' family and the second is a link to the Facebook page of a running group that James Callaghan belonged to. It was a link I found in a local newspaper article about his passing and it was suggested that people could donate through this group. When I went to the link, however, I could find no way to actually donate. To date, I'm awaiting a response from the writer of the article to see if she is aware of any way to donate. When and if I receive more info on this, I will pass it on.

https://www.bonfirefunds.com/meg-cross-Menzies

https://www.facebook.com/groups/164401273668020/