Posted on June 25, 2018 under Monday Morning Musings with one comment

A great day for grazing

 

What do you do when you’re carless?

You walk. A lot.

We’ve been a one car family for some time now so when we loan our vehicle to a family member from time to time, we are forced to get around on foot. If we lived in the country or even on the outskirts of town this could be problematic but being downtown apartment dwellers, everything we need is a short walk away.

I am not in the habit of counting steps which seems to be the fashionable thing to do these days but just for fun, I checked my iPhone before going to bed on Saturday night, our first full carless day. I had racked up 24,804 not including the trips to the bathroom that most 66 year olds make more than once a day. I tried to retrace my footsteps in my head.

I can easily account for the first 15,000 or so. My friend and former marathon partner is heading off at the end of the summer to tackle a leg of the famous El Camino trail in Spain. In order for her to complete approximately 25 kilometres of walking each day, she needs to be in “walking shape” which is different than “running shape”. Our two hour early morning walk takes us to Back Road Brierly Brook, one of the best places to shake off early morning cobwebs.

We are both astonished at the lush and green landscape. The birds are chirping. The cows are in the fields enjoying a feed of fresh grass. The sky is clear and the air pristine. The air is rarely still when two old friends are out for a long walk.

If I can keep body and soul (and mind) together for another year, I hope to tackle the El Camino next spring, all 800 kilometres.

A short walk takes me to a nearby service station. Maybe I should call it “Corner Gas”! I buy the Saturday Herald and start with Bruce’s cartoon. I move on to the New York Times crossword puzzle.

The next couple of thousand steps take me up Hawthorne Street to Annie’s Bluff to spend one last hour with several family members who are making their way home after a week filled with laughter, tears and far too many sweets. All of my siblings and other members of the clan sip on a coffee as we reminisce about the week that was. We jokingly refer intermittently to the “talking stick”. My brother has a talking stick at his cottage. This is used in many indigenous cultures as a powerful communication tool that ensures a code of conduct. The person holding the stick, and only that person, is designated as having the right to speak and all others must listen quietly and respectfully. Good luck with a roomful of MacDonalds!

Late in the afternoon, I realize that there is no bread in the house so I lace them up again and head back up Hawthorne Street to Brendan’s. With apologies to the current owners of Hawthorne Convenience, it will always be Brendan’s for most of us. On my way back home, I make a left off of College onto Pleasant Street. Several residents of the R.K. MacDonald Nursing home are outside enjoying a beautiful summer day. I know most of them from my weekly visits to do music. They feel like family to me. I take a seat and spend a pleasant half hour chatting. It is time well spent.

As I’m leaving the R.K., I spot a young man moving along the sidewalk in his wheelchair. He is a well- known and valuable member of the L’Arche community. Forget about my steps. How many times has he applied pressure to his wheels to propel himself forward every day of his life? Forget about counting steps and start counting blessings.

I have had a pile of papers on my desk that have been there for at least a year gathering dust. I suspect a few of you have one of these piles too. I finally decide that this is the day to clear off my desk. Buried in the stack are the lyrics to “Fields of Athenry”. Nobody sings this quite like Sheumais MacLeod. I might give it a go next week at the R.K.

24,804. A lot of steps but well worth the effort.

Have a great week.

P.S. I took my children out for a meal after my mother’s funeral. One of them asked me about my music choices for my own funeral when that day comes. Without missing a beat, one of them came up with this suggestion: “Highway to Hell”!

 

 

 

 

Posted on June 18, 2018 under Monday Morning Musings with one comment

Waiting for summer

 

I step out of the car. I can smell and taste the salty air. I can see summer on the horizon.

It is possible that June is the very best month of the year if you are lucky enough to live in the Maritimes. June reeks of anticipation.

Who loves June more, a school teacher or a student? It’s a tossup. After the arduous grind of a school year, everyone is ready to bust down the school doors and head for the hills when the final buzzer sounds near the end of the month. The camping gear is aired out and dead flies removed from the tent. Many of you will head to Stanfest in a few weeks’ time to soak up the music and possibly get soaked doing it. When you’re on vacation, nothing can dampen ones spirit.

It is lobster supper season. Pretty well every weekend, a person can drive 30 minutes in just about any direction and enjoy succulent crustaceans, potato salad, fresh rolls and pie at one of the community run events. I love these. Even when there’s a big lineup, it’s not a hardship knowing the rewards for your patience. And you get to meet old friends and talk about the weather, politics, sports or your summer plans. It’s laid back. It’s oh so Maritime. Did I mention pie?

June is for brides and grooms. Weddings are anticipation on steroids.

With summer around the corner, people are planning vacations which could include a road trip to far flung places or maybe just a jaunt down to Whidden’s, one of the best camping grounds in these parts. It’s hardly roughing it when you can get a Wheel pizza delivered to your campsite or taking the three minute walk to their establishment on the Main.

Smores. Roasting wieners. A cold can of Keith’s. A singsong around a campfire. And blackflies. Now there’s a buffet fit for a king.

Family reunions abound. And high school reunions. I’m working with a group of former classmates of the former Antigonish High School who are planning a 50^th reunion in 2020. Fifty. How in the hell did that happen?

While all of these things are precious, just feeling the warm sun on ones face is such a joy after a cool, wet spring. Take time to enjoy the summer. Savour every moment. Tell stories (and a few lies!) and belt out the refrain of Barrett’s Privateers. Go to the waterfront in Halifax and enjoy the buskers and watch the massive cruise ships enter port. Visit a winery… or two.

Hike the Skyline trail or go trekking through the woods on one of our many fine locals trails like the ones at Keppoch Mountain.

Count the stars and count your blessings.

Embrace the day. Feel the wind and try to catch it. It is fleeting, like life itself. Put the wind in your sails and the pedal to the metal.

It’s summer. There’ll never be another quite like it.

 

Posted on June 11, 2018 under Monday Morning Musings with 4 comments

An evening at Crystal Cliffs

It was with some bemusement that I listened to the call in show on CBC’s Maritime Noon last Friday on a short road trip to Port Hawkesbury. A professor at Cape Breton University has been awarded a $350,000 grant to “study the links between leisure and nature”, as the lead in to the story indicated. Excuse me but do we really need a $350,000 study to tell us that a walk in the woods is good for the body and the soul? Regular readers know that I wrote a post about this very topic on May 28^th and didn’t get paid a cent to pass along the wisdom of 66 years on this planet.

How sad that it has come to this. We now have to instruct people in the fine art of combining nature and leisure. It’s not surprising with the amount of time many people spend staring at a screen of one sort or another. At least we old farts have the benefit of having grown up in a two channel television universe. Our parents threw us out of the house when we were children and nature was our playground. Nowadays in big cities, people are calling child welfare authorities when they see kids playing outdoors unchaperoned.

I don’t think we need an expensive study to tell us what we know. To feel better, ditch the electronic devices and get the hell out of the house for a few hours.

It is tragic that many children and young adults will never experience the wonders of nature like the symmetry of a spider web or the flight of a monarch butterfly. They won’t get to see turtles laying their eggs on a graveled road or wild, fragrant flowers blowing in the breeze. If they hit the pause button and go to The Landing, they might see an eagle teaching its young how to fly or a beaver hauling branches to build its home. Sadly, most young people will never experience the pure joy of climbing a tree or building a fort. Soppy sentimentalism you say? I don’t think so. A generation devoid of experiencing the outdoors in an unstructured way can hardly champion the environment later in life.

We routinely take our grandchildren to local beaches. Looking for rocks, shells, and other treasures is surely one of the most rewarding experiences for a young child and adults.

It doesn’t require a research grant to state the obvious connection between leisure and nature.

Have you heard enough about Trump and Ford? I thought so. But here’s my tiny postscript to the Ontario election. On the day of recent election, I polled a few friends who live in Ontario. Full and complete disclosure: they are Maritimers and see the world through a different set of lenses! You could sense the trepidation about what was to happen. Here is what I wrote to one of them: “It’s so tragic that politics has become so tribal all over the world. It doesn’t matter who the candidate is any more. It’s about winning at any cost regardless of morals, ethics, or talent. A very sad time for democracy. Actually, democracy is under siege.”

Winston Churchill once said that “democracy is the worst form of government except for all the others.”

It is indeed a worrisome time in the history of the human race but this is nothing new. We just know about things instantaneously.

Here’s an idea. Stop fretting about things you can’t control (like Trump’s Twitter feed). Grab a friend and go for a walk, preferably with someone young who doesn’t get out in the fresh air often. Show them the flowers of a chestnut tree like the one below. Tell them that these beautiful flowers will turn into brown chestnuts. In a few weeks’ time, go back and take a prickly chestnut, bust it open, and show them how to make a chestnut necklace. Worry will soon disappear.

Have a great week.