Pics

How we did it back in the olden days...

   I spent a little time the other day with a pile of old pictures dating as far back as the thirties, digging through them and posting to Facebook many of the ones I thought my friends and family might be the most interested in seeing.
   When my Dad passed away recently, several boxes of old family photographs ended up at my house. Only recently have I had the time to give them any more than a cursory glance.
   Many of them were pictures from my childhood, generally when I was on vacation, either in Calgary or Gibsons, B.C.
These pictures always evoke a visceral response, a strong longing to be in those places once more, as a child. I've been able to go back to many of those spots in the pictures as an adult but, obviously, they are not the same and never will be. It would be preferable to simply crawl back inside any of those pictures and just resume my life all over again. It is apparent from talking to some of my relatives that they wish this was a possibility as well.

How it's done these days

   Up at the top of this blog is an old Brownie camera. We had one that was essentially identical this one. These were one of the most popular types of camera back in the 40's, 50's and 60's. This camera took many of the photographs I found among Dad's albums.
   There is a difference between the black-and-white photos of yesteryear and the digital ones of today. The old ones can be held. Having to take them somewhere and get them developed produced something that could be arranged, collected, written on, stored and moved. Sometimes this meant they got tattered around the ages, or creased. Often this did little to deter from their value, much as laugh lines give a face personality.

Old photo albums

   Of course, old photos are more difficult to share. That is the blessing of today's digital world, wherein it is possible to instantly convey images from person to person and group to group. The problem with digital pics, however, is that they are almost too easy and convenient. There is virtually no need to make sure that a picture has purpose or composition, it is easy enough to simply snap away with abandon and then discard what you don't like.

Digital picture frame

   It was a marriage of these two technologies that I was engaged in the other day, finding old photos and taking pictures of them with a digital camera and then sharing them. To the vast majority of my Facebook friends, I'm sure the pics were pretty insignificant. To the chosen few, though, I hope they provoked some of the same feelings they did for me. If they did, it was something  I was happy to do. 
  
  

Tether

   This past week, a man named Nik Wallenda tight roped across Niagara Falls, the first person to do so directly over the Falls. He is a member of the Flying Wallenda family, one of the most famous families of circus aerialists in history. He dedicated the feat to his great-grandfather, Karl Wallenda, patriarch of the family.
   One of the Flying Wallendas' claims to fame was doing their performances without the benefit of a safety net. This also has been the source of some family tragedy. In 1962, while performing their famous seven person pyramid on a tightrope, one of their bottom members faltered and the whole pyramid fell. Two family members perished and one was paralyzed from the waist down. Then again in 1963, yet another family member fell and died as the result. Sadly, Karl himself passed away in 1978 after falling from a tightrope stretched between two high rises in Puerto Rico. In this way, the Flying Wallenda legacy is fraught with both tremendous physical accomplishment and horrendous personal grief.

The Flying Wallendas' seven-person pyramid

   All of this led to Nik Wallenda's historic walk across the falls.
   When I heard about this proposed walk, I immediately thought of the danger and the family legacy. I mainly thought of the danger. I thought this would surely be a death-defying feat of the highest order. It would actually define death-defying.
   Except death-defying it wasn't. The reason why it wasn't is because ABC, the American T.V. network which sponsored the walk and agreed to telecast it decided it didn't want to necessarily broadcast the possible demise of someone on live T.V. To this end they forced Nik Wallenda to use a tether, a strap that would connect him to the wire and prevent him from falling to his death should he actually lose his balance and not be able to recover during the walk.
   To his credit (I think), Wallenda was totally against using the tether. It certainly flew in the face of family tradition. I imagine it also went against whatever macho nature he has residing in his daredevil's heart. There was talk that he might even begin the walk with the tether on but then remove it when he was actually on the wire, the agreement being that if he felt the tether itself poised a safety threat he then had this option. As it turned out, however, the tether remained on.
   For many people, this changed the whole mystique around the performance. Suddenly, what once seemed like a once in a lifetime not-to-be missed extravaganza was now a non-event. Rather than the death-defiance, what we got was a long, wet stroll.
   There was a huge crowd in Niagara Falls watching Nik Wallenda's walk, possibly a hundred and ten thousand people. Then again, millions more watched the telecast. I didn't myself but, if I had, I would have watched under the assumption that death was being defied. I wonder how many people made the trek to the Falls under the same assumption and, if they had known about the tether, might not have bothered.
   As it turned out, the safety measure was totally unnecessary-- Nik even ran the last few metres. But, in the end, he'd been robbed of much bravado, strapped up as he was. He even admitted to feeling like a "jackass".

Annie Edson Taylor--first person to conquer the Falls

   I suppose that if Wallenda was somehow robbed then possibly the rest of us were, as well. But robbed of what? What exactly caught our imagination in all this? Was it the Wallenda family name? The mystique of the Falls itself? The opportunity to view the most recent addition to the Falls' long history of daredevil acts which have included men and women going over the precipice in barrels, inner tubes, rubber balls, jet skis and some with only the clothes on their backs? Or is it possible that some of us wanted to see someone actually die on T.V.? Karl Wallenda's life-ending attempt to cross between those two buildings was not televised, that I remember, but was caught on film and is available on YouTube. All at the same time it is both difficult to watch and hard not to watch. Is it possible that some of us, for whatever reason, were out to capture some of this again last week? 

Karl Wallenda's last walk

   I had very little doubt that Nik Wallenda would make the walk successfully. As other-worldly as such tightrope stunts seem to us, to him they are second-nature. This is not to say that he takes them lightly. Far from it, he would point out that complacency is perhaps the biggest danger in undertakings such as this. Indeed, his great-grandfather Karl always thought that safety nets promoted complacency and were a danger in and of themselves. Hence the long history of performing without them.
   Wallenda plans more of the same in the future. Apparently a walk across the Grand Canyon is already in the works. It will be interesting to see what safety measures are employed. I'm sure the subject of the tether will come up once again. Will having used the tether once make it easier for him to agree to use it again? Or will it simply strengthen his resolve to never use it again....?
  

Father's Day

Dad, my sons Bryant and Ben, and myself .

   It is Father's Day today and this will mark the first time in 59 years that I have not had a father to celebrate this with, at least in corporeal form. The fact that he, in one form or another, may be present with us that day and observant of the proceedings has not eluded me, though.
   Naturally, it's a bit of a strange feeling, not having him around to get together with this year. I didn't need to spend any time buying him something, I didn't need to make sure he got the day and time correctly to show up here and I didn't have to worry about whether he'd be able to find the place okay and then find his way back home. I would have been happy to have had to worry about all these things at least a few more years but now I just don't need to anymore. So this is different.
   When I haven't been busy trying to keep on top of all the paper-worky types of things around finalizing his estate I sometimes find myself thinking about the legacy the man left behind.
   His passing afforded me the opportunity to speak with friends, colleagues and associates of his I hadn't spoken to in years. I received messages from people who'd known my Dad who I personally had never even met. To a person, they only had glowing things to say about the man. They talked about his sense of humour, his honesty, his desire to do things the "right way" and his ease around young people. All in all, not a bad legacy.
   It leaves me wondering as to my ability to live up to my Dad's standards. Not that I'm planning on leaving this earth any time soon but, when I do, will there be only good things said about me? Hard to say.

Bryant and I

   I am rife with imperfection, as most men and fathers are. This is not always bad, I don't think too many kids want a perfect father. A perfect father sets up a set of expectations that are difficult to live with. I don't think this is anything I need to worry about.
   In all his imperfection, the only thing a father wants to do is somehow keep his family safe, supported and happy. About seven years ago, however, I took it upon myself to undo all of that, in one fell swoop.
   I found myself in an unsustainable situation whereby I realized I was in love with someone who wasn't my wife. Faced with a choice between a woman I loved and a woman who had been my best friend and the mother of my kids for a quarter of a century I picked the woman I loved.

Ben and I

   Good fathers do not go out of their way to do what feels like destroying their family and this is what I felt I had done. In my mind, I knew that time might heal. In my heart, I wasn't sure this would ever happen.
   At this point in time, almost seven years later, I think a lot of healing has gone on. In spite of this, though, I have this spot in my soul that is irreparable. And, regardless of whatever healing there is still to be, I will always be able to look back to what happened seven years ago and have doubts about my role as a father.
   Your ability to be a good father, however, is also powered in part by the range of your experience and what you have learned from it. For better or worse, I have the experience from seven years ago to draw upon. I learned a lot about my relationships with the people in my life and I learned a lot about myself as well. Just as importantly, I learned a lot about my sons and what kinds of men they are. Through all their pain and anger they did what you would hope they would do--they supported their mother and they supported each other. They also showed the ability to reconstruct a relationship with me and, then, with my new wife, Doralyn. I doubt they really know just how proud of them I am and thankful at the same time. Though neither of them is a father himself yet, I have no doubt their children will find themselves just where they need to be--nurtured, cared-for and very well-loved.