Posted on November 22, 2021 under Monday Morning Musings with no comments yet

Frigid Air Appliances

 

“I am not a crook.”

President Richard M. Nixon

“I am not a scrooge.”

Len MacDonald

By the time you finish reading this piece, many of my new readers will be convinced that I have the worst traits of Ebenezer Scrooge and the Grinch. My long-suffering readers know that just about every year for the past 10 years, I have posted something similar at this time of the year… the lead up to Christmas. Actually, it occurred to me to take the easy way out and just recycle one of my old posts, but I was too lazy to go and search for it.

I don’t hate Christmas. There are aspects I love like travelling in jam packed airports during the festive season or going grocery shopping on Christmas Eve Day.  Seriously, I do love spending time with the family during the holiday season. Luckily, we have special events like Christmas, Easter and Thanksgiving which give us a reason to get together otherwise we might remain in our caves all the time. Having missed last Christmas because of Covid, I am anxious to be home this year.

The last poppy has barely been lain at the cenotaph to honour those who died in wars when some well-intentioned person (with the IQ of an aging gerbil) will ask you, “Are you ready for Christmas?” Shortly thereafter, you will be treated (?) to the first of 450,000 renderings of Mariah Carey’s “All I Want For Christmas is You”. I’m sure Mariah is a lovely person. Does she have a song about the Easter bunny? I just wish there was some way of celebrating Christmas without the hype. (You can address your comments to Grumpy Old Man”)

Look, I’m all for peace and joy but just without the nauseating commercialism. I am not insensitive to the needs of small businesses who rely on Christmas sales to survive but that is a rather sad commentary on the current business model. This Christmas, in particular, will likely be make or break time for many enterprises after the devastating effects of Covid. I wish them well.

Shop local.

Luckily in the north, I am immune from all the pre-Christmas hype. By the time I get home for Christmas, I might even welcome Mariah Carey and The Little Drummer Boy.

I’m not one of those trash talking kind of guys but today is an exception. No, I am not going to boast about my prowess at reorganizing closets or one of my legendary long walks. So far, my work at the school has been more or less what was described in my contract. I am doing administrative work and some teaching. Nowhere in the job description did it mention anything about ‘dump diving’. No, that’s not a typo. We don’t have dumpsters in Kangiqsujuaq.

Our large school yard is dotted with large storage containers. These come in by ship a few times a year. They contain everything related to the school. There are maintenance and janitorial supplies, school supplies like desks, chairs, bookcases, photocopiers etc and furniture for teacher’s houses. They also become storage units for obsolete equipment like old washers, dryers, and fridges which will eventually be shipped down south and recycled.

A large shipment of school furniture and household items arrived this fall. My job was to go through the containers, check the packing slips, review the order forms and then tag items for our maintenance guys to deliver. Several teachers ordered items for their apartments including new stoves. Actually, before I left last year, I had indicated that my apartment needed a new stove as it always ran 75 degrees too hot. I enlisted the support of a colleague (ER was amazing. Thank you again) to assist me with labelling these items. We spotted a few stoves and immediately tagged one for my old apartment.

On the day that the stove was delivered, the new tenant contacted me to tell me that there were no oven racks. This, I found odd until it dawned on me that the container with new fridges and stoves also contained older, used appliances. She had received a “gently used” stove from our kitchen program. That did not explain the missing oven racks. When I told our principal early the next morning about the conundrum, she immediately dispatched me to the dump. “You need to find the old stove that the maintenance guys took to the dump yesterday. Grab the racks quickly.”

It was early and the sun was just beginning to rise as one of the maintenance guys accompanied me to the landfill to show me exactly where they had deposited the old stove. It is hard to believe that a dump can look majestic but on this day the sun crept above the horizon directly behind the dump. It was spectacular. We quickly found the old stove but sadly there were no racks inside. There were a few dozen others and after clambering over piles of old appliances, we found three racks.

Our joy was short lived. The new tenant in the apartment informed me that the racks I had retrieved were too small. Knowing that the apartment across the hall was vacant, I suggested that she go there and borrow a few until we could order new ones. There were no racks in that oven. I discovered that oven racks are routinely removed from old stoves and used as cooking racks at local peoples’ cabins. My friend was able to borrow a rack from someone else in her apartment building.

I never realized that an oven rack could be such a hot commodity!

Maybe if I cheerfully embrace Christmas without any whining about Mariah and commercialism, Santa will bring me some oven racks.

Have a great week.

P.S. With the possible elimination of fossil fuels in the coming years, at least Santa won’t be able to leave a lump of coal in my stocking!

 

Posted on November 18, 2021 under Thursday Tidbits with no comments yet

Life isn’t always a bed of roses

 

“Let us pause in life’s pleasures and count its many tears,

While we all sup sorrow with the poor,

There’s a song that will linger forever in our ears,

Oh, hard times, come again no more.”

Hard Times Come Again No More – Stephen Foster

I am a storyteller. Someone once referred to me as a diarist. I guess in many ways, my website has chronicled my life and that of my family. I usually talk about the mundane because, lets face it, most of us happily live pretty ordinary lives. I also document the lives of others from time to time in a feature called “Faces in the Crowd”. I use humour to tell my stories and often include the lyrics of a song to bring home my point.

I can’t be funny all the time. I also like to share information that is educational. I try not to preach but rather to inform.

Today I want to use this space to talk about mental health, trauma and its unwelcome partner PTSD… and an amazing guy that I’ve just come to know.

Last week I received mail from home. My daughter, Betsy, sent me Vernon Theriault’s book “Westray – My Journey From Darkness to Light”. I opened the book and started to read and was transported back in time 29 years ago.

On the morning of May 9^th, 1992, I was awoken by a call from our then Mayor, Colin Herman Chisholm. I was a Town Councilor at the time. It was a Saturday, and I was easing into the day. To receive a call from the Mayor at that time of the day was most unusual. He informed me that earlier that morning, there had been an explosion at the Westray mine, just up the road from Antigonish in Pictou County. He asked me to go at once to represent the town and to bring a cheque in support of the families. At that point, there were no details of the explosion or how many men were underground at the time. I spent the next two days at the firehall in Plymouth just across the road from the mine.

Vernon Theriault was a miner at Westray. He worked the day shift on May 8^th and would have worked the day shift again on the 9^th but that was not to be. Instead of performing his duties as a miner, he and many other brothers were faced with the grim and dangerous task of trying to rescue their fellow miners.

Twenty-six of his co-workers were killed that day. In the aftermath of this traumatic event, Vernon and many others suffered from PTSD.

Vernon was courageous on many levels. He was awarded a medal of bravery as part of the recue team. He was brave to seek professional counselling. He was also very courageous in admitting that he had serious literacy issues that needed to be addressed for him to move forward with his life.

I am not a trained psychologist or therapist so I’m on very thin ice discussing trauma, PTSD or mental health. Trauma comes in many forms. The sudden death of a loved one, witnessing tragedies (like first responders) or being caught up in natural disasters can all bring on many unwanted consequences. Trauma can and does affect one’s mental health. Sadly, many people are born with bad chemistry in their brains and through no fault of their own, live lives filled with mental health challenges.

Some of my readers have deep, personal connections to this story, having lost siblings, spouses or close friends. It has been 29 years which seems like a long time, but time never heals every wound. This summer on one of my long walks, I was invited to the home (garage!) of friends for a bite to eat. Unbeknownst to me, the wonderful, personable woman sitting beside me was the sister of one of the men who was killed in the disaster. Only in the course of our friendly chat, when I inquired about her maiden name, did I make the connection.

Vernon worked tirelessly for over ten years lobbying the Federal Government to make changes to the criminal code to hold accountable companies, their owners and managers for safety violations in the workplace. The Westray Bill, as it has become to be known, is aimed at protecting worker’s safety.

When I finished reading Vernon’s book, I reached out to him to congratulate him. We exchanged several messages. I discovered that he was interested in writing a follow up book on mental health. I assumed that his cousin, Marjorie Coady, who co-authored his first book, would assist him with the second. Sadly, Marjorie died a year after the book was published.

I plan to meet with Vernon when I go home for Christmas. I have offered to assist him with the writing of his next book. It would be an honor to be involved in this project. Vernon tells me that all proceeds of the book will go to mental health.

In the case of so many out there suffering from trauma and poor mental health, it is my fervent wish that “hard times come again no more”.

Have a great weekend.

Posted on November 15, 2021 under Monday Morning Musings with no comments yet

 

Pokémon Pedagogy

“Back in the saddle again,

Out where a friend is a friend.”

Back in the Saddle Again. Gene Autry

Pokémon. Pain. Patience.

I knew I would get the call eventually.

When I signed my most recent contract, it was understood that 50% of my duties would be administrative and 50% would be teaching. During the first two months of school, I dedicated 100% to administration… if you call professional organizing, administration! While I have enjoyed working on several projects as well as part time secretary, the pace has been frenetic, so when the principal asked me to fill in for a teacher who was heading into quarantine, I didn’t flinch. We agreed that I would do half days in the office and half days in the classroom.

I have discovered that there is no one right way to teach. Every teacher has their own unique style. Some teachers rule with an iron fist while others are more laid back. I’m probably closer to the latter. I think grade 4 might be one of the most desirable assignments a teacher can have. Nine -year olds are still keen to please and are generally polite and respectful.

The young man who teaches grade 4 English is from the village. He is soft spoken and very laid back. Besides being an excellent educator, he is a great musician and a really nice guy. Students worship him. He is, what we would have called back in the 60s, “cool”. To inherit his class for ten days is a mixed blessing. I knew that his lessons would be well prepared and that his students would be respectful. But I am the antithesis of cool. My colleague’s shoes are much too big for me to fill. The only time recently that I felt cool was when a few of us walked the airport loop last winter (7.5km) when it was -53!

Pokémon.

I had heard of Pokémon before and two years ago, Alex’s (not his real name) class was next door to mine. I quickly noticed that his classroom was adorned with Pokémon figures and that he seemed to use Pokémon as an integral part of his teaching. He showed Pokémon videos, played Pokémon games, and even hosted an after school Pokémon club. I never quite understood it but there are many things I don’t understand so that shouldn’t come as a major surprise.

It came as no surprise that the packages of learning materials he left for me, had a decided Pokémon flavour. I have been forced to dive deeper into Pokémon culture and I’m beginning to understand the method to his madness. Teaching is all about engagement. As I have discovered, not only is Pokémon fun but it teaches children to read and do math. It also teaches values like respect. It is little wonder why Alex’s students love him.

Yes, I’m back in the saddle again.

Pain.

It’s a funny thing about pain. Let me rephrase. There is nothing funny about pain, especially chronic pain. I am one of the lucky ones. My issues around pain are not debilitating. Recently, I took a nasty tumble and ended up with some seriously bruised ribs. I received some good natured ribbing about my fall from grace and my bruised ego. The pain was so intense that for the past week, I haven’t noticed the persistent pain in my back. I have a friend back home who is having a really hard time. She has been dealing with severe chronic pain for many years and to add insult to injury, she developed cancer last year. All of the meds she is taking are having unpleasant side effects. I have other friends who have suffered the devastating loss of loved ones. There is no cure for the pain resulting from this type of loss.

Patience.

Living in the north is not easy. It requires a great deal of patience. There are magical days when I think I could live out my life here and others when I want to take the next flight out and lay on the beach in Algarve, Portugal…. that is, if there is no fog, wind or snow to prevent flights from leaving!

And speaking of travel, we just received an e-mail outlining the latest travel restrictions in the north because of Covid. The authorities are not fooling around, especially with vaccination rates in the region painfully low. There are stringent rules for travel especially for the unvaccinated. December 30^th is a day of reckoning for the unvaccinated. Here is a question in the Q&A section of the press release: “I’m non vaccinated and do not wish to be. Q. “Can I stay in Nunavik (our region of Quebec) after the December deadline or later? A. “Yes. You can, however, you will not be allowed to travel south for the foreseeable future. Think in years here.” Of course, if someone waits until the last moment to leave (December 30^th) and there happens to be a snowstorm that day, then they’re stuck here indefinitely.

Got my flu shot this week.

Belugas arriving here which is a cause of great excitement.

Starting to rehearse Christmas music with the students.

Counting the days to head home for Christmas.

I’m waiting patiently, of course!

My writing is painful to read.

Pokémon (also spelled pokey man) Def: A slow moving, elderly man.

Have a great week.

P.S. We’re going to try and arrange a live show featuring my talented children, Betsy and Peter, et moi, during the Christmas holidays back in Antigonish. I’ll keep you posted.