*Warning: The following post contains suggestive material and may not be suitable for all audiences

My adored blogging sister, Jazz of Haphazard Life, recently wrote a wonderfully blasphemous blog in which she pondered whether the biblical Lazarus was perhaps the first print account of the existence of a zombie.

I liked it.

But, I don’t much care for zombies. I don’t ‘do’ zombies, if you will.

In fact, I don’t much do creatures of the nether world of any sort, like vampires and werewolves and other monstrous incarnations because I don’t believe in them.

I don’t believe in ghosts, either.

My otherwise very well-read, intelligent and logical grandmother (pictured here with my grandfather) believed implicitly in ghosts and maintained she’d had visitations from the back and beyond. But, she grew up in Edwardian times, an era in which folks believed in a lot of rubbish like the Titanic was unsinkable and that the hideousness of World War One was somehow a good and patriotic thing.

But, much as I loved her, I just never bought in.

That is not to say I don’t have my fantasies or that I mind speculative tales of the improbable. In fact, I do make one exception in terms of creatures that don’t really exist other than in the imagination, and that is as follows:

In folklore traced back to medieval legend, a succubus (plural succubi) is a female demon appearing in dreams who takes the form of a human woman in order to seduce men, usually through sexual intercourse.

Now, I could get around that idea. I mean, why something disgusting and rotting, or scary, when you could have a visitation from a babe? ‘Succubus’. Even the name is suggestive.

I could, of course, do without the bat-wings and the tail, and am picturing someone more in the vein of Scarlett Johansson or maybe Rose from Dr. Who.

Otherwise, I find the idea quite wonderful as a fantasy. Of course, it has been suggested that the idea was pushed by the early Catholic church as a warning against the ‘sin’ of self-abuse by the young.

And just so females don’t get left out of the nether-world carnality realm, there is also the incubus, who is a male who does the same dirty stuff.

 

 

This won’t take long, so just lie back and think of the Empire

Hey-hey-hey – Vickee-hee-hee!!

There, that’s my little song to Queen Victoria.

Queen Victoria of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha who died 111 years ago is celebrated on this May weekend in Canada and good Canadians mark her legacy by camping out, planting their tomatoes, barbecuing and drinking a lot of beer, believing that any old excuse is good enough.

And it’s nearly summer, after all.

I honestly don’t know why we mark Victoria Day around this country, unless it’s just a milksop to those who take some solace in hanging on to our colonial legacy, for whatever reason best known to them.

Don’t count me amongst their numbers. Means nothing more to me than Groundhog Day other than the aforementioned long weekend.

In truth, however, Queen Victoria, who reigned for hundreds of years, was kind of an interesting little bird in her own right.

She is known for looking glum and being obdurately unamused was actually quite different from popular conceptions of her. While her name is lent to an era known for its uptightness, what with panties on piano legs and all, that prim morality is more likely attributable to her highly anal German hubby, one Prince Albert after whom a town in Saskatchewan and a pipe tobacco is named, not to mention a London concert hall and the ugliest memorial to be found in that metropolis.

But, evidently, according to her diaries, the young Vicky was a mighty horny little minx when she was first with Al, and she minces few words about her ardor over making the royal beast-with-two-backs. Good on her. And they did that – a lot – and she bore dozens of children, many of whom went on to marry morally bankrupt European royal sorts who eventually caused World War One.

Then Albert died untimely and Victoria went on to a prolonged grieving period in which she always wore black and was heavy-duty unamused. Her once loyal subjects were ticked with her negligence and dubbed her the Widow of Windsor. But then she happened upon a ‘kiltie’ named John Brown, who was her ‘gilly’ (whatever that is) and he brought her back to life by tapping into a long forsaken behavior that she had obviously missed since Albert had untimely left the scene.

And then she went on to amass the mightiest empire that ever existed and which ultimately resulted in a goodly number of disenchanted colonials and ‘pukka sahibs’ who shared a lot of Kiplingesque nonsense about “white man’s burden” and other politically incorrect rubbish.

Oh, and those colonial vestiges in Canada, predominantly to be found in her namesake city down south of here.

The only other thing that comes to mind about Victoria is that I once saw a pair of her knickers, not on her, but on display in (appropriately) the Victoria and Albert Museum. They were HUGE. No Victoria’s Secret about them.

If you’re in Canada I hope you’re having a great weekend in her name. If you’re in the US, then you have Memorial Day coming up.

To market, to market, to buy a fat pig, or at least a fine, hormone-free chicken

Yesterday we went to the Farmers’ Market here for the first time this year. The morning was bright and sunny (I think that’s redundant) and it was just the perfect way to begin the weekend.

We milled around the stalls, people watched, bought some items like eggs, really good farm-raised chicken, assorted herbivorous things and fresh homemade donuts (to balance the green stuff, for fear of overdoing ‘healthy’.

I think Max enjoys our market jaunts as much as we do. He chats with all the other dogs there, and it’s so pleasing that dogs are as welcome as people. That’s what a market should be like in terms of tolerance.

There are some people around who would like the market to move indoors to a permanent structural enclosure – you know the sort of place; they’re called supermarkets. To those who would like that to come to pass, I say fie on them. In my mind I used a stronger ‘f’ word, but I don’t want to break your bucolic mood. Anyway, keep it outdoors and we’ll keep coming back.

We don’t confine our marketing to the local scene. When we travel we also check out the marketplaces. We have regularly attended the market in the little town of Kilauea on Kauai (pictured above). It’s actually quite similar to our homegrown version other than a much larger array of tropical fruits. We head over there after having Kauai coffee and the best macaroons on the planet at the Kilauea Bakery. Doesn’t get much better than that.

Unless you happen to attend the market at Avarua (pictured above) on the Cook Island of Rarotonga. There they throw on entertainment in the form of unscripted dogfights involving the feral canines that wander the island. That’s fun, as is wondering how long before one would succumb to e-coli after pondering for sale food dishes that involve a lot of mayonnaise and prawns that have been sitting in the tropical sun for hours. Either the Rarotongans have iron-clad guts or diarrhea is simply ‘one of those things’ in your reality. We didn’t take the chance. We figured we were safer buying coconut and bananas.

I absolutely loved the open market in the Arab Quarter of Grenoble. There you could avail yourself of clothing (with labels that may or may not have been real, and electronic equipment just recently fallen off a truck in the French countryside, and again vegetables and other foodstuffs, garden plants and whatever else you might be seeking. All of this was accompanied by a cast of characters out of an Indiana Jones movie.

I’ve also attended markets in many, many English cities and towns, and in Old Town San Diego. Something some stall operator here might consider and that is making and offering churros. That’d work for me.

 

 

If I actually lived in London, Boris would have my vote for many reasons

I was gratified to learn that rumpled and crumpled Boris Johnson had been re-elected mayor of London and even more gratified to know he’d defeated that tiresome old retro-Marxist ‘Red Ken.’

Why should I care about London’s political players? Well, primarily because I love London and Boris is such a wonderfully eccentric fit for a wonderfully eclectic city. My greatest joy when I lived in England many years ago was being able to get ‘up to London’ at least once a month, and all it took was a 1½ – hour train trip to be in the most amazing big city in the world. I’m of the Dr. Johnson (no relation to Boris) school that holds that ‘he who is tired of London is tired of life’.

And Boris personifies that view. If you don’t know Boris, or of him, he is worthy of your consideration. Looking like a disheveled private school boy he is, in fact, a bit of a slob. But a mighty smart slob. I got to know him best as a damn fine columnist and he still writes for the Telegraph, and one of the reasons I pick up the overseas edition of that paper is so I can read my Boris. His insights, even though I don’t always agree, are worthy of consideration, and despite some of his harum-scarum personal history, he is a sharp dude.

And he has a rep. A bit of a history as a philanderer in the past, and certainly no stranger to love of the grape, he is also indicted by those left of centre for his patrician background – Eton and Oxford. Yet, his love of his city and his dynamic in applying that love allowed him to surmount the whims of his detractors, despite the fact he looks like a schoolboy gone to seed..

And most of all, he’s not a bore.

And he even has green creds in that he rides his bike to work every day.

Wendy and I were talking the other day and I expressed the opinion that I could not think of one politician around the whole world that amounts to much more than a pinch of coonshit. And their biggest failures is that not only are so many incompetent, so many are colorless bores.

We currently have arguably the most boring prime minister in our history. I mean, whatever his skills or lack thereof, he remains amazingly uninteresting as a human being. Pierre Trudeau could be a jerk at times, but at least he was never boring. Yet, though I hate to say it, Obama has proved to be much more boring (and less talented) than I anticipated. And ‘stick-u-his-ass’ Romney, that fucking goes without saying. David Cameron of the UK? Just terminally whitebread. Sarkozy in France had a bit of style, but they have him (and his hottie wife) the boot. The new guy also has an even hotter wife. What’s with that? But, that’s another topic.

An interesting guy in a sort of repulsive way is that slobby Ford guy who’s mayor of Toronto and who tends to embarrass Torontonians with his ‘not our sort’ mannerisms, which is in itself a good thing. I don’t know much about him other than that he has run-ins with reporters and doesn’t like ‘Pride’ parades. But, at least he’s less boring than most. A scribe can always get a few amusing inches of copy out of the guy.

But, he’s nowhere near as charming as Boris. I’d vote for Boris and I’m glad a lot of other people did.

 

 

Next time around I’m going to do it ‘this’ way

As far as I know we only get one crack at this thing called ‘life’. Pisses me off, that does because once you’ve gained a certain mastery of the thing it comes to an end. Where’s the advantage in that?

I mean, there is reincarnation. But, most reincarnation precepts hold that once you croak the first time and then come back; you aren’t entitled to remember aspects of your former time around. You know, what with wading in the River Lethe and all. That sucks, too. You should be able to put what you’ve learned to good use and not make the same mistakes.

Now, should I return to this earthly sphere I do know the things I’d like to do, but also (and perhaps more importantly) the things I definitely would not do. I have lived and I have learned and am quite prepared to concede I have made some gaffes along the way. Nothing horrific, but counter-productive nonetheless.

I have been blessed, I am prepared to concede, in many respects. I got to be born where I was, in a democracy and a place that holds out hope for those with a modicum of talent and energy and a tad of intellect. I live in a decent neighborhood in a nice town. I’ve thus far never either committed a crime nor been a victim of one. I have friends whom I value and love. While my childhood was far from ideal, it wasn’t wretched. I wasn’t beaten or forced to do without material sustenance. My parents were law-abiding folk. And, although my mother became a rather sad alcoholic later in her life, for the most part she was OK.

Currently I live in a nice house with a nice lady whom I love greatly. She is somebody who was prepared to accept me, warts and all, after my – shall I say – pushed a bit to the limits years before I met her. Since she arrived I have kept to the straight-and-narrow, and I like that.

Now, here’s what I wouldn’t do in my next life:

-         get married young. I wasn’t all that young when I got married at age 24, but I was ridiculously ‘unformed’ in terms of wants and needs from a relationship. And, even though that marriage took a long time to founder, ultimately it did. Divorce isn’t at all enjoyable and if it could be avoided I’d like that next time around.

-         Start smoking A vicious and pernicious addiction that is hell to stop. What makes it worse is that (like many addictions) smoking is relentless in its appeal to pleasure centers. So, kids, don’t start and in my next life I’m not going to do so.

-         Be afraid: There have been courses and highways and byways in life that I haven’t followed because I haven’t had the self-confidence to say, “What the fuck, why not? If it doesn’t work out then it won’t work out. Where’s the loss?” Fear is soul-destroying.

-         Be unfaithful: A bit soul-destroying for all involved. I like to think that if I hadn’t gotten married young I might have kept my zipper in place with a little more resolve. Mind you, I also got to know some awfully charming people whom I cared about a lot.

And here’s what I would do:

-         Travel hugely: I’ve traveled a reasonable amount, I’ve lived abroad. I have seen many things. But there are also places I’ve never been and things I’ve never seen. I want to see them all. I know I can’t this time around, but next time, sure I will.

-         Have children: I have no children. This one’s simple. I’d love to have a child. Preferably, as I was raised in a masculine household, a girl child. Female toddlers can practically make me weep with delight at seeing them.

-         Be circumspect with alcohol: In my day I loved a fine wine, a pint of best bitter, a single-malt scotch, a vintage cognac. I loved them, but I didn’t respect them. They ultimately didn’t respect me. So ultimately I bade them ta-ta. I don’t miss them, but it would have saved a lot of bullshit from happening if I’d, say, recognized what was happening.

-         Explore all the depths of love I can muster: Love is what life is all about and it should be considered deeply. I’d like another crack at it and do it better.

So, I probably won’t get that extra shot – but you never know.

-          

 

 

 

 

 

 

Eggplant and zucchini are satanic — end of argument

Males and females are very different and I for one applaud those differences. Females are smooth and soft and indent where I jut out, and jut out just where they’re supposed to. Females smell nice, have soft voices, and walk in a manner that catches my attention. It’s all just so darn nice, and I believe that is just the way it’s supposed to be.

There was a drive afoot in certain strident educational circles a number of years ago to nullify gender differences, and the more dedicated to this cause were determined to prove that little girls were no different from little boys, and that ultimately, when the teachers’ union ‘ordained new order’ arrived, there would be a blending of both sexes. Of course, this new order would follows a stalwart feminist agenda, and boys would be profoundly discouraged from such erstwhile male bastions as nose-picking, urinating while standing, and audibly farting. This followed the assumption that little girls never indulged in such practices. And, of course, they don’t. My wife said so.

That new order never did fully arrive, but there has been in recent years a certain ‘blending’, or at least compromise between the sexes that seems quite healthy. Males are still allowed to be boys in certain behaviors, and girls can be as ‘girly’ as they like, as long as both groups concede that equal rights should be accorded at all times. I certainly acknowledge the changes, and endeavor to act accordingly. One gesture on my part has been to put the seat back down at least 70 percent of the time. Not bad, considering I was born in a different era, and was raised in a house with a lone female and four males.

However, there is one area in which the twain shall never meet. That is at the dining table, or the grocery store. Choices in acceptable foodstuffs are simply miles apart. Take zucchini, for example. Females actually like zucchini. They will march into the produce section, and exultantly note that zucchini is on special. I have lewdly suggested the affection stems from the fact that shapewise zucchini is a bit on the phallic side. I only suggested that once before the jape was deemed unworthy and ‘old’.

Another female favored grub is eggplant. Why? If it weren’t for females, there would be no eggplant. Even Greek males wouldn’t eat eggplant dishes, despite the fact Socrates extolled its virtues. But, we know all about Socrates and his predilections. Actually, I made that up about Socrates but, since this is ‘my’ blog, I can do that. And, iff you can believe it, there is such a thing as a zucchini and eggplant lasagna. That’s right, both of them in one sorry dish. Lasagna is a wonderful treat, but it is a treat that virtually all males would see as something that involves liberal lashings of meat and cheese. On the other hand, many females of my acquaintance would suggest that maybe this dish has a place in the world and, “wouldn’t it be nice to try something different?” No, not really. Let’s face it, if men had complete sway, there would be no such things as zucchini and eggplant — or courgettes and aubergines, for my more European constituents.

Truly, food seems to be a gender-specific thing. Not that both sexes don’t indulge each other periodically, but generally speaking men favor dishes that involve a lot of meat, and a paucity of vegetables. That is not to say that males eschew all veggies. For example, potatoes and corn on the cob are generally fancied by guys. That’s because they are sort of like meat in that they call for a lot of gravy, or butter or some other sort of animal by-product to be at their best. I used to have a friend who staunchly maintained that potato chips and ketchup were vegetables, and such items would easily satisfy his daily requirements.

Women, on the other hand, are partial to things like salad. Men like salad, too, provided it has the term ‘potato’ in front of it. Women gravitate towards fish much more than males. Men like fish a lot if they have caught it themselves, but otherwise they look to mammalian origins for their fodder. I suspect, in my generalization here, if the bulk of grocery shopping was carried out by males, produce sections would be very small — containing mainly varieties of corn and potatoes, with a few onions, some garlic, and maybe fresh asparagus thrown in. There would assuredly be no broccoli or cauliflower areas, and Brussels sprouts would appear only at Thanksgiving and Christmas, as a suitable accompaniment for turkey, mashed potatoes, and Niblets corn — all of which must be drenched in gravy.

Now, for my female friends who might be concerned about my cholesterol intake, be assured that I have moderated my attitudes towards veggies, and even fruit, for the sake of healthful eating. I will, however, cut no quarter in the direction of zucchini and eggplant. Final question; why is it called eggplant, anyway? It’s got nothing to do with eggs, which are another wonderful item in the masculine lexicon of desirable foodstuffs

‘Ian’ just wasn’t a cool enough name for me at age 14. Maybe it still isn’t

My problem when I was a kid (along with a few thousand other problems) was that I hated my name. I thought it sounded dorky. Sometimes I still harbor that thought. Needless to say I also hated my parents for giving me a dorky name. Why couldn’t they have called me ‘Spike’, or something like that?

The problem intensified when I went to junior high. For some reason best know to educational authorities (ed authorities always have theories that make no sense to anybody else) they decided to bus all the kids from my elementary school to a junior high waaaaaaaaaaay across town.

Well, in the day my home community was ‘whitebread central’ in our overweening Anglo-Saxonness. Oh, we had a few German and Dutch kids, too, but all of us as fair of hue as Hitler Jugend.

The junior high I went to had a sizeable Italiano population. I’d never really experienced that mix before. And among the first things that I noticed was that the dudes looked cool: swarthy, with curly, greasy hair, and attitude galore. The chicks were even cooler. Tight sweaters over pointy-tits, little kiss curls on their cheeks and that standard crucifix on a chain around their necks. They stood on the streetcorner and smoked and said “fuck” blithely in their conversations. The Shirley’s, Susans and Cheryls I was used to never did. They scared the crap out of me, but also fascinated (in a not always wholesome manner.)

But the Italian guys also had cool names. How could you not be macho with a name like Mario, Ricco, Carlo, Maggio? With a name like that a guy can swagger. So much more style than Roger, Neville, Thomas or Ian.

I still think the names are cool. I suppose I could legitimately claim Giovanni, since I do have an Italiano connected on my maternal side. Mind you my kin left Italy about 800 generations ago, so it’s not such a direct tie. Nowhere near as much as all the whitebread folks, the Rogers, Nevilles, Thomases and Ians, sigh.

The revenge of the cornflowers is not a pretty sight

I love fine gardens. And I indeed want a garden that looks like Kew, or at those you see in magazines, all neat and with all the flowers in bloom (all season long, it seems) and never a weed or slug or dying plant in sight.

In that regard I am running a couple of photos of what the garden can look like in fine fettle. Right now it’s still in sort of crappy fettle.

But, I love fine gardens, with the rub being that we don’t have hired serfs or a garden maintenance service, that means we have to do it ourselves. Which in itself means we have to do work. I hate that.

So, yesterday, with a spate of decent weather, we went at it. The garden, that is, as opposed to the good kind of ‘going at it.’ I lifted sod, which is a sodding hard task, and I weeded and we went to a garden supply joint and got big sacks of top soil that weighed about 70,000 kilograms (or 50 lbs in ‘real’ weight) and hoisted them into the SUV and brought them home and unhoisted them and put them in our very old wheelbarrow. The WB screamed in horror (well, it probably needs oiling; no it ‘does’ need oiling) at the indignity, but it handled the task of transporting them to the back yard.

While our backyard is a conventional suburban one, a glance at the task to tame it seems to make it reminiscent of the Downton Abbey estate lands. Yet, we have no forelock tugging and obsequious peasants to tend to our matters. Why don’t we? We’ve led a (sort of) good life.

One of the major chores of our garden is weeding. I hate weeding it. Once, a few years ago, we thought it would be a clever idea to plant some cornflowers. They’re pretty enough; a bit sort of delicate and rural. What we didn’t realize is that cornflowers are as pernicious as dysentery and ultimately about as appealing. We ended up with &%*#@ cornflowers everywhere. Every nook, cranny and crack boasts a clump and they must all be extricated because they’re like the evil plants in Invasion of the Body Snatchers in their prolific nature. I’ve never looked inside them to see if there are little people being formed, but I wouldn’t be at all surprised.

So, big cornflower extrication took place yesterday. It was hell and it’s still not all done. I also found at the end of the session that my years of muscular disuse doesn’t serve me well. Stuff hurts today. Stuff where I didn’t even know I had stuff hurts.

Gardening is purported to be balm for the soul; you know the benison of getting your fingers in the dirt and all. Like many bits of good advise about healthy behaviors, the process of getting there absolutely sucks. Quit smoking or tend your garden, the inclination is to look towards the end result. It’s human nature. But, folks who are experts about such matters tell us that approach is wrongo, buddy. Like weight-loss, don’t look six months down the road to see what you’ll look like if you eschew your normal per diem two yards of apple strudel. Just cut it out today, and then try again tomorrow. You know, like the AA mantra of ‘just for today’.

Well, I looked at the garden to see what I had done for just that day, and it still looks a bit like shit. Better, but not great.

I’ll see what tomorrow will bring if I’m still capable of walking.

Damn, I wish we had serfs. Anyone looking for some thankless, yet backbreaking labor?

Way back when we had a thing called radio and it was good despite the odd Anka incursion

There is absolutely no point in decrying the horror that radio has become in contemporary times. That AM radio is a banal travesty compared to what it was in my youth in the greater Vancouver area, goes without saying.

That was back in the day when we had our favorite deejays and stations, and we’d trot down to Woodward’s department store on a Saturday to get the new Top-40 list so we could note that Del Shannon’s Runaway was still numero-uno as it had been for about 7,000 weeks, or so it seemed. And while we thought it was good, most of us felt it wasn’t ‘that’ good.

Favorite local stations in the day were LG and C-FUN, but the cosmopolites with R&R taste eschewed those in favor of Seattle’s KJR.

That was then.

It was followed by FM on which you could hear the long version of the Doors’ Light My Fire with the ‘Lizard King’ singing the line that got them booted by Ed Sullivan. That’s not to mention Velvet Underground’s Sister Ray. We of pseudo-‘sophisti-cat’ pretensions could also tune into some fine jazz and other worthy offerings.

And then FM went down certain tubes as listener-worthy and even once reliable CBC Radio screwed around with its lineup, became a little too obnoxiously politicized and ultimately less worthy, which is a pity. Gone were the mornings when a serialized version of Hitchiker’s Guide to the Galaxy would accompany my trip to work each morning.

Yes, I know there’s satellite radio and it’s great and we used it a lot when we were in Europe, but I can’t access it in my car.

So, latterly I find myself playing a lot of CDs in the car. There’s a further reason for that, and that is because, despite the other areas of radio-decline, there is such a thing as ‘Canadian Content’ rules.

Nothing wrong with that in essence. There are Canadian musicians I cherish and so do a lot of people internationally. I’m always up for hearing Neil Young, k.d. lang, The Band, Bryan Adams, Jann Arden, Bachman-Turner Overdrive, Colin James, Ronnie Hawkins, Rufus Wainwright, the Guess Who, Barenaked Ladies (for all you BBT aficionados, Leonard Cohen, and others too numerous to mention.

But what do they give us on radio? Virtually never any of the above, but Gordon Lightfoot (has done some great stuff, but we never get anything from Canadian Railroad Trilogy), Ann Murray (lovely lass but a little goes a long way), bloody Joni Mitchell (I like Big Yellow Taxi, and that’s about it, but whenever I hear that little giggle at the end I wanna scream and basically she sings the same song over and over again with different lyrics) and bloody (ptui) Paul Anka, the Canuck Neil Sedaka and about as inspiring. The guy who penned the repulsive She’s Having My Baby, and the anthem of egotists everywhere, I Did It My Way.

Come on, radio. You want to fulfill your Canadian Content obligations, how about a little variety? How about a little good stuff?

Well, at least they rarely impose bloody Celine on us, which is testament to the fact that they at least nod towards decorum and moderately good taste.

PS. The happy and wholesome family pictured above is not precisely my family of origin. I never parted my hair down the middle, I didn’t have a sister, and the Dad figure has much too pleasant an expression on his face. Otherwise we were exactly the same.

We’re the largest east of New Zealand. Doesn’t get much better than that

In my graduating year of university – after I’d already received my degree – I did what was called a ‘transfer year’ so that I could get my certification to teach school.

As I had worked right through to a degree with virtually no idea what I wanted to do when I grew up – a familiar story for a lot of young people today, I understand – I decided to be a secondary teacher. And I was indeed one for about 8 years or so, but that is a different story.

What I want to consider here is my numbness of the brain whilst I took prescribed courses (to fulfill a requirement of employment) in the most banal, brain-atrophying, so-called (though it had no right to be so-called) ‘faculty’ on the campus of an otherwise highly-rated university. Hmm, still have some residual spleen it seems. Well, no worries now, they can’t kick me out by this late date.

So, anyway, I am stunned with torpor. Between classes, in my ennui, I would trot up to the top floor of the Ed building where there was a kind of library and large study area. Once there I would attempt to study the nonsense that was passed off as scholasticism in that faculty.

Generally I was extremely bored and could feel my life passing me by. What in the fuck was I doing with my life by doing this crap? I should be out on the road. I should be in a garret in London or Paris. I should be having torrid affairs with any of a number of the comely (pretty girls were still comely in those days) li’l elementary teaching students in their lusciousness that were sitting in the same venue and keeping me from my (ahem) studies.

But when not perusing the pulchritude of those student teachers, I would gaze longingly out the window in the direction of the snow-capped peaks of Vancouver Island across Georgia Strait. I had no inkling at the time that those peaks would represent my future home. But, at that time they symbolized escape for me, and I would think how I’d rather be ‘there’ than where I was.

As it turned out I took my first teaching job on the Island (always capitalize to differentiate ‘The’ Island from a mere ‘the island,’ as in Santa Catalina is the island off the southern California coast. We live on THE Island.

Vancouver Island is big. A lenth of 290 miles, and a commodiousness of 12,407 square miles. Indeed, the largest Pacific island east of New Zealand. I have thought that would be a fitting motto for Vancouver Island – ‘We’re the largest east of New Zealand’ Sounds impressive, no? It’s also the largest island on the west coast of North America, and Canada’s 11^th largest island. But, of the other 10 (with the exception of Newfoundland), none are of any consequence and boast populations of about 5 since they’re in the high Arctic.

Our Island has around 700,000 people or so. And they are largely situated in a narrow strip along the benevolent east coast, with the provincial capital of Victoria being at the south end.

Victorians, I might add, while being on Vancouver Island aren’t really ‘of’ Vancouver Island, they’re of Victoria and are leery of the Island’s hinterland to the north where they believe ‘there be dragons.’

I live a bit less than half way up the Island. About 200 and something kilometers north of Victoria (or about 120 miles in ‘real’ rather than Trudeauesque measurement).

As I say, we most of us pitch our tents to the east. So, it was a pleasure earlier this week to spend a few days on the west coast of the Island. Not an easy passage to get from here to there, with a winding, badly maintained road going to the tourist destinations of Ucluelet and Tofino.

It’s very different there. The sea is less tamed and the wildlife is abundant. There was concern in Ucluelet (where we stayed) that a wolf had taken up residence in the streets of town. A conversation with a woman in Tofino, at the northern tip of the area revealed that her daughter’s Chihuahua had been scarfed by a wolf a couple of weeks before. An agreeable snack for the lupine, no doubt.

Anyway, it was all good. We stayed at a lovely resort called the Black Rock, and it was civilized enough that one of the guests was driving an Aston Martin.

So, if you’re looking for a vacation getaway, come along to the Island. Remember the motto: ‘Biggest East of New Zealand.’