Lebanese Canadians in Atlantic Canada

(This is the original version of an article written for “Saltscapes” magazine and published in the January-February 2012 issue. The editors edited and amended it to meet their space and content requirements. Even this draft is less than half of the material volunteered by generous sources. I’m having trouble with my contact for the site at present so, if you want to email me, please use miramichier_dac@hotmail.com . )

In 1911, 15-year-old Ibrahim Kassouf,  left his home in the Mount Lebanon area of Syria. He eventually arrived at the Newcastle, New Brunswick, train station having become, according to a tag on his chest, Abraham Asoyuf who would be picked up by his brother Charles, who had arrived in 1897 at the age of 15.

The very next day, with no English and a few words of French, equipped with a pack of dry goods and notions from Charles’ store, Abe Asoyuf set out to peddle in Eel River, near Baie Ste. Anne, on Miramichi Bay.

Like Charles, already on his way to becoming a successful merchant, Abe thrived and eventually owned a herring packing plant. When it came time for him to have a wife, his parents arranged his marriage to to a cousin, Zakia, from home. He met her boat in Montreal and brought her home.

Their Maronite Christian countrymen repeated that story, over and over, in all four Atlantic Provinces. Their Phoenician ancestors built the first world empire around 1,500 BCE. It was based on trade and gave the world its first alphabet. Like them, immigrants from the area we now know as Lebanon, fanned out from arrival ports in Montreal, Quebec, Halifax and New York to trade in communities throughout their new world.

In Newfoundland, Saliba Dominic started out as a peddler, opened a store and hired ships to carry his goods from Spaniard’s Bay to outports in Labrador. He had S. Dominic & Sons Ltd. stores in Corner Brook and Botwood. His grand daughter, Sharon Dominic now co-ordinates a growing annual gathering of Lebanese Canadians in St. John’s.

When and why

The first surge of immigration from what was then Syria and part of the Turkish Ottoman Empire occurred between 1880 and 1900.

Population growth was a factor. Lebanon is one fifth the size of Nova Scotia. There was little opportunity for young Lebanese to acquire land. The European industrial revolution dealt a heavy blow to the Lebanese textile trade as did the 1869 opening of the Suez canal which gave Chinese silk a much faster, cheaper route to European markets.

Religious conflict and Ottoman designated government were significant factors.

In 1860, as many as 20,000 Maronite Christians were killed in a conflict with Islamic Druze. France and other European countries intervened with the fading Turkish Ottoman Empire. Its Ottoman rulers agreed to separate Lebanon from Syria and appoint a Christian governor. France sent 6,000 peacekeeping troops to ensure order.

The presence of missionaries and the opening of European and an American university in Beirut gave young Lebanese some idea of the U.S. and Canada as potential areas of opportunity. Even more went to South America and many to Australia.

Ocean liner agents in Beirut and Alexandria sold tickets to Marseilles, Montreal, Halifax and New York. Fraud artists put some on ships that dropped them off as nearby as Egypt telling them they were in New York.

Immigration to Canada dwindled after 1900. Lebanese were included in quotas and fees aimed primarily at excluding Chinese. The Turks fought on the German side during WW I, which prevented immigration from the Syrian part of their empire.

There was another surge when the Mt. Lebanon area was parceled off to the French in 1920 after the war.

Yet another surge occurred during civil war from 1975 t0 1990.

According to Fredericton artist, Michael Khoury, continuing conflict in Lebanon is not among Lebanese Christians and Muslims. Syria has never accepted Lebanon as a separate country and Iran sponsors conflict there as part of its ambition to destroy neighbouring Israel. Lebanon has the misfortune to be a battleground.

The French connection

The French connection with Lebanon grew from the Christian crusades of the 11th and 12th centuries. Coming to the Holy Land, the French encountered the Catholic Maronite Christians named for their fourth century monk founder, St. Maroun.

The French and Maronite Christian relationship bloomed and grew with religious, linguistic, cultural and commercial engagement. In 1638, France guaranteed the protection of Catholics, including the Maronites, in the Ottoman Empire of which Lebanon, in Syria, was then part. France cited that declaration when intervening after the 1860 conflict.

In 1920, after WW I, the League of Nations divided up the remains of the losing Turkish Ottoman Empire. France was awarded a mandate to control what became Lebanon. That enabled another surge of emigration.

During WW II, with France occupied by Germany, the French Vichy government recognized Lebanon as an independent country. In 1946, the post-war French government confirmed the recognition and Lebanon became an independent country for the first time. That meant that the first and second surges of emigrants to Canada were Syrian Turks, not Lebanese. Most became Canadians before they became Lebanese.

After Lebanese independence, French remained an official language. Beirut was known as the Paris of the Middle East.

Assimilation

Lebanese peddlers, more than their Jewish and Greek contemporaries, tended to pick up from the end of another peddler’s route and go on from there rather than settle around larger communities.

It was arduous work carrying carefully balanced packs weighing about 100 pounds. In the days before catalogues and cars, country homemakers eagerly anticipated the arrival of the peddlers with the staples like suspenders, shoe laces, thread, pins, needles, tapes, scissors, thimbles and elastic along with fabrics and items of clothing.

The peddlers also brought news and paid for meals and accommodation with small gifts from their packs.

Their tendency, as soon as they could, to open stores near their routes, accounts for the presence of prominent Lebanese Canadian families in communities throughout Atlantic Canada.

Assimilation began almost immediately. Barry MacKenzie, author of an M.A. thesis on the Lebanese immigrant experience in New Brunswick, learned that, rather than teach their children Arabic, most first generation immigrants concentrated on learning the local language from their children.

One exception was Joab Abbass in Sydney, Cape Breton. When his daughter, Philomena, complained about the difficulty to learning French in school, he taught himself to read and write French from an Arabic-French, Bible. He told his daughter, “If I can learn French from a book, you can learn it in school”.

The Abbasses are also one of the remarkable examples of families with names changed from the original. Unlike most, the story goes back to olden times in their native country.

According to Fr. Francis Abbass, Joab’s son, the family name was originally Esau.  The family was descended from one of many Crusaders’ orphans left behind when the French forces withdrew. With the Pope’s approval, the orphans were raised as Maronites.

When an Esau killed a man with a sword (saif in Arabic) the family became Esau Saif. The family fled to southern Syria where it resettled among Islamic Druze.

During a time of Druze, Maronite, conflict, the Esau Saifs left their children with an Arab neighbour for safety. Druze came looking for Maronites for probable execution.

The Arab neighbour swept the children behind her skirts, bared her breasts, and declared “These are my children nursed at my breast!”. According to family history, the Druze were reluctant to attack a woman and left.

In gratitude and respect, the Esau Saifs declared the children would forever be known by their Arab saviour’s name, Abbass.

Fr. Abbass confirmed details of the family story from a Saif genealogist in Lebanon and passed it on to his niece, Ann-Marie MacDonald, author of the award winning novel, “Fall On Your Knees”.

When Fr. Francis Abbass visited Lebanon both Christian and Islamic citizens were startled by the combination of Christian and Muslim in his name. Several times he heard “It is as likely that a berry bush would produce a power pole as that an Abbass would produce an altar boy!”.

There were very many Lebanese names changed by mistake or for convenience in Canada. One of the most extreme was when Ibrahims, landing among the Irish immigrants in Miramichi, became O’Briens! In Newfoundland, Lorraine Michael’s father, Ferdoon Elia ibn Mikael became Frederick Michael. In PEI, Frank Zakem’s brother-in-law, Rahshib Labeeb became Larry.

Cuisine not assimilated

Describing assimilation, Barry MacKenzie says that the marker that has survived most clearly is food. Lebanese Canadians always enjoyed it and often included it in menus in otherwise conventional Canadian restaurants.

Michael Khoury, who was brought to Canada at the age of 9, says that it began to really spread into the non-Lebanese community after the 1975 Lebanese civil war. He says immigrants from that time popularized the cuisine outside the Lebanese community.

Now yogurt, hummus, baba ghanouj, tabbouleh, dolmass, kibbeh, fattoush, falafel, shawarma kebabs, flat breads and various phylos are increasingly familiar to Canadians. Yogurt, hummus and baba ghanouj are available in most supermarkets and many farm markets. Most larger communities have Lebanese food restaurants. Over the millennia, Lebanese, Turkish, Syrian and Greek food intermixed and evolved so it is difficult to determine where a dish originated.

Shaun Abbass remembers his father eating, at Easter, a special penance meal consisting of a type of meatball and bulgar wheat in a vinegar sauce. It was to be a reminder of the Roman refusal of water to slake the thirst of Christ on the cross. Lebanese are dedicated vintners. Currently Mitchells (el Miitke) are crossing a grape vine their family brought with them from Lebanon with another brought by their neighbours, the Salomes.

The common spirit is arak, anise (licorice) flavoured which, like the Greek ouzo, turns milky when mixed with water.

The Lebanese version of the Turkish hookah is called the narghile. In the homeland, it is used to smoke everything from rose petals to hashish. A 100-year-old woman says that, on her visits to Lebanon and Egypt, she never saw any tobacco growing. She will remain nameless because she will only admit to 95 although her name appears in the 1911 census. In fact, she is more vivacious and irreverent than many people less than half her age but it would not be polite, or quite safe, to contradict her.

A large party feature unique to the Sydney area is a card game called tarbish or tarabish. It seems to have originated in Turkey and came to Cape Breton with one of the early Lebanese immigrants. It is a game of tricks like euchre or 45’s. According to Fr. Maroun, it is a significant feature of undergraduate life at the University of Cape Breton.

Lebanese include avid gamblers. Lorraine Michael tells of a Belle Island woman renowned for coming to the St. John’s weekend poker games with nothing but money and changes of underwear. Regular high roller poker weekends, conducted by people of Lebanese heritage have been a standard feature in most communities.

Mahajarans and hufflees

Lebanese are renowned for their hospitality, love of socializing with family and friends, music, dancing, drinking and smoking.

Sources for this article in all four provinces mentioned that a visitor to a Lebanese home is not offered food or drink. It is automatically served. That was certainly the case during all interviews conducted for this article.

Emile “Clish” Napke’s family, in Miramichi, still holds a large family dinner with from 20 to 35 family members every weekend.

A mahajaran is a larger reunion or gathering. A hufflee is a smaller party. English spellings of Arabic words and names are phonetic and vary from region to region and family to family. Annual mahajarans now occur in Newfoundland, Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island. Some New Brunswickers attend the large one in Halifax each year.

Frank Zakem, former mayor of Charlottetown, says that half of the 600 people who now attend the community’s annual mahajaran, about a week after New Year’s,  have no Lebanese heritage. The Lebanese association women cook for about three days and have a unique arrangement with the hotel to provide their own food.

Lorraine Michael, Member of the Newfoundland House of Assembly, and leader of the province’s New Democratic Party, remembers big community parties among the Lebanese families clustered in the New Gower Street area since razed for redevelopment. She remembers lots of music and dancing, including the dabke, a type of line dance, and women taking their turns belly dancing inside a circle.

Emil Napke remembers families from all over New Brunswick gathering in Moncton, Saint John and Fredericton. He also remembers a party of young couples at a local hall where the women, clearing up after the meal, drank the remains of the wine in the glasses and became especially cheerful.

Lebanese weddings are exuberant. Traditionally the bride’s family and friends celebrated at her house and the groom’s at his. Then the bride and her group came to the groom’s. In a ritual called the zaffeh, the bride made her entrance doing a sensuous dance. These days, with bride’s wearing conventional North American gowns, a belly dancer often performs in her place.

Shaun Abbass remembers being at a wedding that was typically Canadian except that the bride danced up to her husband at the reception.

Fr. Albert Maroun, of South Bar, Nova Scotia, remembers a party where a young Cape Breton woman got up and step danced to a dabke beat played by a German immigrant.

Musical instruments

Lebanese music and instruments are, like the cuisine, a mixture and evolution of various Asia Minor regions. Various Atlantic Provinces sources identify the same drums, for example, by different names and vice versa. The tablah and darabuka are similar and common.

The oud is a pear-shaped guitar. The buzuq is a long-necked guitar with a round body.

The most amazing of the instruments common to Lebanese music is the mijwiz. It is a pair of reed tubes with smaller tubes inside them. There are holes in the tubes as in a flute.

The amazing thing is that the musicians produce a constant sound with what is called circular breathing. That is they breathe in and out at the same time!

Contributions

The success and contributions to Atlantic Provinces community life has been enormous. Too many Lebanese Canadian families to mention have been and are dominant merchants throughout the region.

Joe Ghiz and his son Robert both became premiers of Prince Edward Island. Frank Zakem, a former mayor of Charlottetown, was given a founders award by the University of PEI in September. Lorraine Michael lead her New Democrats in the Newfoundland and Labrador elections that same month.  Michael Basha represented Newfoundland in the Senate of Canada. Paul Zed served as a Member of Parliament in New Brunswick.

Anne-Marie MacDonald wrote the Giller finalist and Oprah Book Club selection, “Fall On Your Knees”. Dedicated scholars like Peter Murphy, David Weale, Nancy and Joseph Jabbra, Frank Zakem and Barry MacKenzie have laboured to preserve the record of Lebanese Canadian immigration to the region. Charles Asoyuf of Miramichi maintains a huge library of Lebanese Canadian genealogy, documents and photographs in files and on computer media his home.

Band leaders, musicians and artists of all kinds pervade the Lebanese Canadian community. The same holds true for academics, teachers, and local philanthropists. During one interview, the subject pointed to a picture of a local United Church celebrating its centennial.  “My father donated those pews!” he said.

Atlantic Canadian governments might be well advised to consider attracting a few thousand new Lebanese immigrants to re-energize our economies and further enrich our social and cultural lives. DAC

For most of my life, I have been trying to understand how so many normal human beings allowed the WW II Holocaust to happen. I could not imagine a person going to work every day abusing, torturing and killing helpless men, women and children and then going home, eating dinner and getting a good night’s sleep.

The WW II Holocaust was not even the first such horror I learned about. As a young man, reading an anthology of great British reporting, I came across a first-hand report of the rapes and murders of hundreds of thousands of Armenians by the Turks during WW I. The Turks were not as mechanized and industrialized as the Germans. According to the report I read, platoons of soldiers went into the camp of victims every night raping and killing as many as they could with bayonets and swords.

How does one comprehend such horror?

Sadly, just this week, I think I finally know.

Apparently, for some 13 years the Athletic Director, and iconic football coach, Joe Paterno, and a graduate student all knew the graphic details of the rape of a 10-year-old boy and other abuse of children by an assistant coach. No one informed the police. The assistant coach continued on staff and continued to have the run of the university after retirement.

This is just the latest in a long line of revelations of members and hierarchies of institutions covering up abusive, illegal and disgusting behaviours of various kinds.

Churches, branches of the military, police, corporations and government members, departments and agencies have all been known to do the same thing.

One explanation of why Germans did not speak up or act was that they feared for their own lives and their families‘ safety if they did. Germany was ruled by a brutal dictatorship at the time.

In our society, so-called whistle blowers are often shunned, vilified, punished, exiled, or black balled for revealing corrupt behaviour in the institutions of which they are part. The layers in organizations seem to absorb and diffuse such breaches like ponds absorb ripples.

Information and outrage move up the line and peter out. It is someone else’s responsibility. We mind our own business. We are loyal to the team. We have each other’s backs. Not being without sin, we do not cast the first stone. Perhaps the victim shares the blame.

I think it is the information about how Joe Paterno’s entire leadership culture was about honour and fairness and decency that is so clarifying. If he could keep quiet about the information he had, what hope is there that less successful, less motivated, less powerful, less privileged, less secure people would do more?

I am rocked to think that the question, “Could it happen here?” has, for me, been answered.

It has happened. It is happening. It will continue to happen.

It is not so monumental or focussed or efficient as the Nazi Holocaust. It is thousands, millions, of crimes and abuses by thousands, millions, of people ignored by thousands, millions, of us.

The only remaining questions are, “Who would, who will, stand up for us? Would you, will you, stand up? Would I, will I?”. DAC

Brigette DePape, a page in Canada’s Senate, held up a “Stop Harper” sign in the aisle in front of the speaker during the throne speech on Friday. She was hustled out of the chamber and promptly fired.

The government had been so clear in advance about what would be in the speech, her action was the only surprise of the day. As such, it got quite a lot of attention.

The event was an excellent example of the old Arab axiom, “Dogs bark and the caravan moves on”. While startling and unusual, her action carries no weight whatsoever. Brigette DePape is a very small dog. She will not be martyred with imprisonment. Her stunt will not put so much as one grain of sand in the gears of government.

Canadians who cared have made a choice and voted. Our most excellent Parliamentary system has produced a majority government and given it a mandate to direct our affairs for the next five years.

Some folks whine that the government did not get a majority of the popular vote. To me that is entirely irrelevant. Jean Chretien’s Liberals won majorities when the Progressive Conservative Party was split by the formation of the Reform Party. Peter MacKay resolved that issue when he took his dwindling PC’s into a merger with Reform. He probably does not get as much credit as he should for the current Canadian political landscape.

If, or when, one of the centre left parties give up hope of ever forming a government, they may find their own Peter MacKay. The solution to concerns about governments without popular majority support is to win the most seats.

Nor am I upset that members are expected to vote the party line. We elect a member we hope will represent us in caucus but we know they are members of one team. We are entitled to expect they will represent us forcefully in caucus (team meetings) but we are not entitled to expect them to help the other team if they don’t like the batting order. There are moral exceptions and Parliament usually allows for those with free votes. Otherwise, members opposing the team are usually traded to the Leafs. That may seem like mixing metaphors but don’t the Leafs sometimes look more like a baseball team than a hockey team?

The fact that Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s Conservatives are governing without a popular majority does have some significance. They want that majority and will try to govern to move toward it next time.

We have a wonderful system. The caravan moves on.

On we go.                                                                                          DAC

Former premier of New Brunswick and Canadian ambassador the U.S.,Frank McKenna and his wife Julie donated $1,000,000 to encourage and provide mentorship for entrepreneurs here. Frank referred to it as giving back to the community that provided him his first experiences in law, business and politics.

Obviously Frank has done well. He is currently the deputy chairman of the Toronto Dominion bank. A million-dollar donation is a very significant gift. Miramichi is very fortunate to have friends like Frank and Julie and Dr. Gerard and Judy Losier who were enthusiastic spectators at Frank’s announcement. I don’t know of anyone who has given more than the Losiers.

Miramichi and New Brunswick have not been very gracious in return. A local middle school is named after the Losier family in recognition of several generations of local medical care and good citizenship. That was done long before the recent millions in donations.

So far, neither Miramichi, nor New Brunswick, have done anything significant to recognize Frank McKenna’s contribution and leadership.

The premier who succeeded Frank, Miramichier Camille Theriault, did not really have time to do anything. He was promptly replaced by the Progressive Conservatives led by Bernard Lord. I didn’t really expect the PC’s to rush to memorialize Frank.

When Shawn Graham and his Liberals came to power, I did expect something and pestered him about it. I thought it would be fitting to name our local hospital after Frank. I was led to believe that then health minister Mike Murphy did not agree. At one point, Graham told me his cabinet had plans to honour Richard Hatfield, Bernard Lord and Frank all at once.

I thought that sounded like a classy move for a Liberal government but it never came to pass and now, of course, Graham is history.

I wonder if Premier David Alward and his Progressive Conservatives might find the time and inclination to do what Graham suggested he would.

Frank McKenna came to power at a very difficult time in world economic history. Canada, New Brunswick, and much of the world had years of deficit spending coming due. New Brunswick came through that relatively well because Frank faced up to it early and, with his finance minister, Allan Maher, moved decisively toward a better balance sheet. At the same time, he became New Brunswick’s best ever salesman. He enticed call centres and other businesses and encouraged private money to twin the highway from Fredericton to the Nova Scotia border.

At least as significant was his constant message that New Brunswickers could do anything we set our minds to, especially if French and English worked together as in the call centres.

It is now well past time both Miramichi and New Brunswick named something significant after Frank McKenna.

On we go.                                                      DAC

Delancey Place (delanceyplace.com) offers an excerpt from a non-fiction book each day. Recently there was an item, from Michael Pollan’s “The Omnivore’s Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals”.  David Wallerstein invented super-sizing. He discovered that customers would choose supersized orders of popcorn and drinks when they would not choose a two-for-one offer. Wallerstein went to work for McDonald’s and eventually convinced Ray Kroc of his findings.

The theory is that people do not want to appear gluttonous by taking two orders. The psychology at play is called “the thrifty gene”. It goes back to the days when hunters feasted when they could, not knowing when the next feed might come.

By coincidence, the “St. Petersburg Times,” one morning last week, carried an article, by Mary Beth Breckenridge, “Taming your inner packrat”. One of the recommendations was to limit the number any particular item you save. You should set a number or allot a space for such things as pens or margarine tubs.

These articles make me think my thrifty gene may be too strong.

On the food side, my adult life has been a constant battle with chronic obesity.

On the packrat side, it bothers me deeply to discard perfectly good mason jars that came with pickles or pasta sauce or plastic containers that are as, or more, serviceable than some containers we buy.

The rest of the article could have been addressed to me personally too. I have enough clothes I’ve put aside for yardwork to clothe a prison chain gang.

I wash Baggies!

Breckenridge’s tip about clothes, by the way, is to hang items with the hanger hook facing out. When you wear something, rehang it with the hook facing in. At the end of a season or a year, the clothes whose hangers have not been reversed are candidates for culling.

Obese packrats, of course, have the additional challenge of knowing when to discard clothes of different sizes.

The articles also answered another question I’ve had about my behaviour over the years. I wondered why I could be so disciplined about managing some aspects of my life and so hopeless about food and paper. Now the Breckenridge article is part of that pile.

I think it may be that thrift, conservation and re-use are useful and productive in many areas of existence but counterproductive in others.

Over the years, I have learned to avoid buffets. I have learned no longer to save every joke or item of trivia someone emails me.

The question now is, can we save David by dialing down his thrifty gene and save the planet by dialing up our collective thrifty gene so we stop consuming mountains of resources and discarding them.

On we go.                                                      DAC

Daddy Nathan, the dread pirate Pam, and the fairy mermaid Annie

Our grand daughter, Annie Elizabeth Cline was born on April 10, 2010.

Until now, I have not written, in any detail, how I feel about that. That is just one of the surprises her first year have brought. There were some issues to sort out but they were insignificant.

One was that everyone expects a grand father to be goofy and boring about the perfection of his grand child. How would I avoid that? Turns out the answer to that one is, no can do.

Another is a titch of proprietary confusion. Just how much does one want to reveal about the location and value of a family treasure? How much authority does a grandfather, a step-grandfather at that, have to take a grand child’s life public.

Incidentally, there was one most delightful piece of external input from a friend. She assured me that there is no such thing as a step-grandfather. She said a grand child is as much mine as anyone’s. I believe she is right. Everyone in the baby’s blood family seems closer to being my family than ever.

Yet another has been that I have spent a great deal of time taking, receiving, editing, organizing, filing and distributing hundreds of pictures of her and spending time with her. I can feed her, change her, watch her sleep, rock her, watch music videos with her and, forgive me, sing to her ‘til the cows come home. Let me rephrase that; until her parents reclaim her.

There has, however, been only one mountainous reason for my silence on the subject of Annie Elizabeth Cline. It is that I have been so overwhelmed by her and the emotions she has evoked in me and all of her family.

I have spent 11 months now searching my heart and mind for words that come close to expressing how I feel about her. She has evoked a continuing hurricane of emotions and thoughts in my heart and mind. I suppose many grandparents have found themselves in the same situation. I work hard to keep my life in balance. It is not entirely comfortable to be so completely discombobulated.

I knew it was going to be bad. Baby girls especially have made a habit, at birth, of casually wrapping me around their little fingers and enslaving me.

Incidentally, for me, an exciting element of the miracle of brand new life is the baby finger fingernail It is so tiny and its manicure so perfect it can never again be equalled.

My sister, daughter, step-daughter, nieces, and now Annie, have all made enchanting and enslaving me one of their first and most casual priorities.

I think it may be worse this time. When my daughter was born, I was scared silly. How could I possibly be all the father she needed and deserved?

Now, I am one member emeritus of an army of support. I can concentrate on enjoying the benefits and revel in the opportunity to help a little.

I know you would discount my list of all of Annie’s super qualities so I won’t bother including them here. Besides, it would be far too long and I would still forget or miss some. She is the most delightful human born to date.

To get back to trying to find words to describe how she makes me feel. I’ll use some of the words of others to give you an idea of how difficult it is.

All of the women in her life, without exception, have at one time or more said, “I just want to eat her up!”

These women are not green-complexioned hags in pointy hats. They are lovely, warm, kind and generous women who love her to the core of their beings. They all fairly shiver when they talk about eating her up. They also laugh a sardonic little laugh as they describe how easily they could eviscerate anyone who would ever be mean to her. They way they talk about it, you get the idea they wouldn’t have to think about it any more or longer than you do about whether you should blink your eyes when you sneeze.

All the while, they have that tender, misty, look in their eyes that fairy godmothers get when they are conjuring up their charge’s future all the way to happily ever after.

Burly men, and she is surrounded by them, are afraid they might hug her so hard they might hurt her. Meanwhile, they fall to their knees, turn into cuddly little puppies and laugh like enchanted children seeing their first butterflies. They hold her so tenderly they would not ruffle a humming bird’s feathers.

One feeling she evokes in me is like a combination of tide and volcano. It is a protective urge that is hot and powerful and irresistible. Another is as calm, quiet, gentle, soothing and mystic as sunrise over glassy water.

To borrow a concept from Sir Francis Bacon, a grand daughter is a “hostage to fortune”. There is a terrifying element to that.

At the same time, in her innocent, loving, confident smile, is all the promise of humankind. She makes us determine to contribute to a better world and confident that, with her in it, it can be, will be.

We can see in her great grandparents a new sparkle and purpose as they bask in the warmth of this new, magnificent treasure. We are in awe of the job her mother Pam is doing and her generosity with pictures and time and news. We are thrilled to bursting to see the nuclear fusion bond she has with her father Nathan who so obviously really needs his physical contact with her every day.

We joke with her other grandparents, Juanita and Johnnie, about jousting for time with her. We know a common bond unites us like blood. Johnnie and Juanita have dibs on taking her to Disney World. Superpop, Suppa, dreams of taking her to the French Quarter in New Orleans and to live theatre.

Her paternal grandmother, Michelle, seems like Annie’s natural twin when they are together. The two of them laugh and carry on like teenagers at a slumber party. Mermaid Michelle is aching to comb beaches with Mermaid Annie and the dread pirate, Pam.

Sometimes the realization of it all floods over me so urgently I find myself taking deep breaths to fend off dizziness.

I used to think others going about their grand children were a bit pathetic. Did they have nothing more significant to do or talk about in their lives? How could they think news of an infant crawling could be a highlight of a day?

Now I think seeing the Hallowe’en fairy, Annie, in her wings smiling and holding her wand in one hand rivals, for thrilling, seeing the Canadian men’s and women’s hockey teams winning gold at the Vancouver Olympics.

She changes so fast and so eagerly, each paragraph I write is obsolete by the time I finish it. I am overwhelmed by how eager she is to learn and how enthusiastic she is about every new experience like, for example, being out in the snow.

One of her obvious effects is that she has drastically raised the horizon for her great grandparents and grandparents. I am 67 years older than Annie. I was enjoying life before she arrived but had a vague sense of being over the peak of the curve and into a routine of peaceful recreation and declining significance.

Now I have new motivation to be fit and alert and current and fun when she gets old enough that she will remember me when she is old. I don’t want her to remember a feeble, hazy, boring old geezer. I want to impress her with lively wit and wisdom and help introduce her to my passions for literature, art, music, exotic cuisines, and music.

She has also had the effect of taking me back to when my own children were babies. My memories of the miracles they were then are newly fresh and vivid and digitally remastered in hi def and surround sound. I’ve even started referring to them by the nicknames I used when they were babies – Dodlebug and Colindebin. Don’t try to make sense of those. I can’t and I coined them.

Besides being the most alert and cheerful of children, Annie has a serious and determined side that has us all convinced she is an old soul. I swear that, for months already, I often see a depth in her eyes that makes me believe she is already wiser than I can ever be.

Before Annie, it had been over 40 years since I paid an inordinate amount of attention to other babies. Now I study each one I see watching for health and contentment, alertness and responsiveness, looking for hints of what is next for Annie, and, most important of all, looking for the baby’s confidence that he or she is unconditionally loved.

Her parents, Pam and Nathan, are in my opinion, doing a perfect job of parenting. Their balance of fun and discipline, caution and encouragement, routine and adventure, concern and calm, all seem just right. She has inherited their musical instincts and inner, as well as outer, beauty. She has also had impressive effects on them. Nathan is just the goofy, adoring, responsible, king of the world I knew he would be. Pam has developed the relaxed, glowing, confidence everyone but she always knew should be her norm. She loves being a wonderful mother. Being a wonderful mother also seems to put everything else in perspective for her. After all, what has she to fear from stepping out in front of an audience to perform when she is Annie’s wonderful mom?

There is a kaleidoscope of imaginings and dreams and mystery in my mind when I think of Annie. I know she can be anything she wants to be which makes the possibilities infinite and vivid. I miss the girl she was each month of her life so far. I am giddy with anticipation to see what she imagines, dreams and discovers for herself.

There is one thing I have learned for sure from her first year of life.

No matter what the question, love is, in fact, the answer.

On we go!                                                                                          DAC

I got an entirely different perspective on hunting season at the hair salon yesterday.

What am I doing in a hair salon, you ask? If you had ever seen Niki, you would not ask. Actually, that is not the whole reason but it will do for now.

For years I had enjoyed, talked about and written about the magnificent tradition of getting together with the guys for a few days in the woods. I never had a gun and, in later years, my friends didn’t hunt much or at all. It was, however, just a grand excuse to get out in the woods, stroll around, and drink and eat a lot.

I’ve eaten in some of the world’s fine restaurants but I defy any kitchen to produce a more seductive smell than coffee, bacon and eggs in a wood stove heated camp in the morning.

Enough of that. You’ve heard that story, you’ve lived that story, dozens of times yourselves.

Getting back to the hair salon. The stylists and women clients were all abuzz about hunting season. How did I get to be my age without ever suspecting that the women left behind look forward to it as much as the men who go?

Oh, I know! They always made it seem like it was a favour to let us go without a fuss. We came back thinking we owed them.

At the salon, they were all as excited about their freedom from men as the men are about their freedom from civilization.

Just a few of the comments I heard in the 15 minutes it takes to buzz me included:

I have the TV remote all to myself!

Dinner can be whatever I want, whenever I want!

Two words. Wine. Chocolate.

I can have a night out with just my girl friends!

There’s no snoring when I want to sleep!

They were all talking about the special shopping trips to lay in the foods and supplies to pamper themselves while they were home alone.

There is, as is so often the case with our plans and hopes, the possibility they can go horribly awry.

One of Niki’s clients called to say that her husband had left before sunup to seek his moose. At 7:30 she got the call wives dread. He had his moose and was on his way home.

On we go!                                          DAC

Recently, there were several news stories about Russian aircraft closely skirting Canadian air space. The stories coincided with the announcement by the Conservative federal government that Canada will buy 65 new F-35 all purpose interceptors.

The Liberals cried foul that the contract was being awarded to Lockeed Martin without going to tender.

It was a fine example of both of Canada’s dominant parties deliberately playing the electorate for fools.

First of all, Russian air traffic, military and commercial, has been skirting or even crossing into Canadian air space across the north regularly for about 50 years now. When CFB Chatham was a NORAD base, home to 416 Lynx Squadron CF 104 Voodoo interceptors, there was a bulletin board of pictures of Russian crews waving to our cameras from the big Russian TU 95 Bear transport aircraft. The Russians have been using essentially the same aircraft, with updated avionics, all that time.

The Bears, incidentally, are propellor driven aircraft.

The Conservatives are playing us for fools trying to stir up fright that there is some new Russian threat.

The F-35 is a plane designed to meet the specifications of the US and Canadian military for the roles they have now and expect to have in the near and medium term future. The contest to be the designer and builder was held at the beginning of the project, back in the 1990s, during a Liberal government.

I simple terms, Canada got in on the ground floor to be able to acquire equipment for which the bulk of the design cost was paid by the US and to get the volume discount earned by the US purchase.

The Liberals are playing us for fools complaining because the Conservatives are continuing a program the Liberals began.

In Quebec, there is an influence peddling inquiry taking place alleging the provincial government appointed its friends to be judges. Unless the party bagmen conducted an auction or put a sticker price on judgeships, I cannot understand what all the fuss is about.

I would be shocked to learn that there was ever a provincial government that did not pick its judges from among its friends and supporters. Let’s see. Let’s consider a few of our local judges and see if anyone can discern any hint of political history or leanings prior to their appointments.

Denis T. Lordon, John Creaghan Friel, Bob Martin, Jack Walsh, Drew Stymiest, Geri Mahoney.

Sometimes the public is poorly served by a political appointment. The appointments are supposed to be made with suggestions and guidance from law societies but from time to not so rare time, a government slips us a dud with little or no court room experience or expertise.

If the Liberals in Quebec are to be stoned for this, I wonder where the executioners will find the innocent party member to throw the first one.

We know that governments and political parties all have a form of dementia that erases all memory of what they did, or promised to do or not to do, when they were in power. We understand that. They could not speak to us with straight faces if they did not.

The part that puzzles me is that they seem to expect us to go along with the joke and erase our memories too.

On we go!                                          DAC

Big ideas and grand projects are not the only ones that make significant improvements in people’s lives.

I heard of three small ideas and projects in the past week that impressed me with their initiative and compassion.

The grandson of Miramichi friends works in a homeless shelter in Vancouver. One of the things they do is an example of bottom-up thinking that would never come down from on high. Most of us would never have thought about the problem.

If you are homeless, whatever stuff you do have, has to be with you at all times. We’ve all seen the people, on city streets, pushing shopping carts full of scruffy possessions. It had never occurred to me that they could not leave their carts even to go the bathroom or for a job interview. Apparently quite a few homeless people are ready, willing and able to work.

The shelter can give them a place to clean up and dress up a bit. The one the local man works in also provides a place for homeless people to leave their stuff. They have a wall of shelves in the basement of a church. On the shelves are plastic tote containers which can be chained and locked shut.

It is not a big expense or project but imagine what a help it is to people living over the edge.

In Edmonton last week for a family memorial, I had dinner with another friend who works with street people. When I told him about the storage project, he pointed out that another big problem for the homeless is hanging onto their personal identification. The poorest people are always among the most common victims of crime.

A project to provide security for their ID was a priority for his group. Imagine how desperate your situation could be if you had no money and no identification.

At the memorial, I met an art dealer from New York. Her husband and both of her children are dead. She says being an art dealer is something you are, not something you do, so she cannot imagine herself ever retiring.

She said she and her husband did quite well and were careful money managers. Sh lives in a small condominium and has never owned a car. She said she does not have a huge amount of money but has more than she will ever need and no one to leave it to. She decided to use what she has to help emerging artists. Her scheme is simple and beautiful.

Sometimes a gallery owner will give a young artist the opportunity to show and sell of his or her works. Often, however, the artist cannot afford even the frames necessary for a show.

This is where Lise steps in for artists she has identified as talented. She advances the money necessary to stage the show with a no-interest loan. If the show is profitable, she gets the advance back and it goes back into the fund for more artists.

She was inspired by Muhammad Yunus, the man who was given the 2006 Nobel Peace Prize for his development of a bank to make micro loans to the poor to enable them to invest in income producing equipment or materials.

The relatively small amount of cash required to mount an art exhibition can be the difference between an artist’s career being kick started or not.

A friend recently made a Face Book posting “The best things in life are not things!”.

Good, practical, ideas and grass-roots people with big hearts are.

On we go!                              DAC

We have had a titillating judicial scandal here in Canada in Winnipeg. A lawyer and her husband, also a lawyer, seem to have had a proclivity for kinky sex.

He sent some pictures of her inbondage and performing oral sex to a web site dedicated to inter racial sex. He wanted to watch her have sex with black men and take pictures. He also attempted to recruit a black man he wasrepresenting in a divorce at the time to have sex with his wife. He showed him pictures he had taken of her and directedhim to the web site.             The black man complained to someone, I’m not sure who, perhaps just another lawyer becausethe matter was dealt with privately. The husband paid the plaintiff $25,000 and the plaintiff agreed to return the photos he had and never discuss it. I have not read anything that indicates whether or not the wife was aware of this.

Two years after that, the wife was nominated to the Court of Queen’s Bench and was vetted for the position. Part of that includes a personal interview during which one of the questions is whether the nominee has anything in his, her, past which, if revealed, would bring the judiciary into disrepute.

We do not know what she said but wonder if the nomination would have proceeded if she had revealed her sexual activities and, if she knew about it, the contract with the black plaintiff.

Now the black man has gone public with the affair on the grounds he still feels victimized and wants to sue for some$17,000,000. Apparently he did not return all the pictures as per the agreement. I confess, I do wonder if he tried to negotiate another private deal looking for more once the woman was a judge, not just alawyer. The judge has asked to be relieved of her duties while her future is being considered and that request has been granted.

The initial public consensus and some professional opinion seemed to be that, if she knew about what her husband had done and the deal he had made, she should be disrobed. Little play on words there.

I wonder about that.

No one has yet suggested she did anything illegal. Canadian law and policy seems to have more or less adapted to the Right Honourable Pierre Trudeau’s opinion that the state has no business in the bedrooms of the nation.

Might she be justified in holding that the judiciary has no right or expectation that she should tell them about her consensualsexual behaviour? Is it any of their business? Does the fact that it was revealed make any difference?

Might she be justified in holding that, if the judiciary is held in disrepute because of her behaviour, that is their problem and the problem of the people who perceive it as contrary to judicial standards?

I think anyone who has personally known any number of judges knows of quite a few odd ducks with beliefs and habits thatmight strike some as less than solemn. When I was the very young publisher of an Oromocto paper, I met the local magistrate at coffee with a gang of local regulars. Within two minutes of being introduced, he leaned over to me, put a hand on my arm and said, “Dave, it is alright to fondlethe tits of a nun, as long as you do not do it with carnal intent”. I have no idea in the world what brought that up. Perhaps it had been part of a legal decision somewhere in the world but why he thought I should know remains a mystery.

I also wonder how many boomer judges there are who never smoked a joint in university which is, although it should not be, illegal. I wonder how many judges reveal that in their interview.

Some people are damning the media for playing circus with it. I take such folk by the hand and lead them from their position that media do it for the money to the fact there is money in it because people like them (and me) love to read about it. Who are we kidding? Sex is just about the most interesting thing in the world.

Most of us restrict our language and discusson topics in mixed company with our friends although we read the same books and realize we have all willingly exposed ourselves to the most graphic descriptions of sex, survived, and gone back for more. A woman friend of mine talked about that in terms of the pedestal. Women and men pretend women don’t know and that men don’t know that they know.

Friend and former colleague, Rick MacLean, in his Miramichi Leader column, wonders if the media should be giving the story wide coverage. I think it should for two reasons.

One is that it is unusual, the very definition of news, and the public is interested. The media should always be reluctant todecide what the public is and is not fit to know especially when there is a genuine public issue involved.

The other is that sexual and social mores have changed dramatically over the years. There was a time when wife and childbeating was considered a private affair not for public discussion or interference. There was a time when pregnant teachers, nurses and TV announcers were put on unpaid leave for moral and fitness reasons. There was a timewhen the media did not report rape trial details. There was a time when homosexuality was “the sin that dare not speak its name”. There was a time when parents would punish a child who suggested a priest or teacher had made him, or her, uncomfortable.

Our society is healthier because the media gradually dealt with those issues and helped the public reach an informed consensus on a more enlightened position.

A talk show host asked Alec Baldwin about a recording of him berating his daughter on the phone after a bitter divorce and custody dispute.

He said he was abjectly ashamed for his behaviour but asked, “How many people would like to see the worst moment of theirlives broadcast on national television?”

I’m sure most of us would be mortified to see details of our sex lives or emotional meltdowns revealed and discussed in the media. However, with the advent of camera phones and omni present surveillance systems many, many, more of us are going tohave that experience. I am told it is quite common on university campuses now.

I think is worthwhile for there to be public awareness and discussion in the media.

Personally, I don’t really see why the judge should not keep her job. She might be a little harsh on people charged with invading other folks’ privacy but she could recuse herself from such cases.

On we go!                                                      DAC