Here are some observations of a first time snowbird from Miramichi in Gulfport, Florida.

            For one thing, taking a scenic route that included coastal highways from Maryland south, it is 2,100 miles, 3,400 kilometres from Miramichi to Gulfport. Gulport is a town attached to the southern edge of Tampa.

            For the first time in my life, I was able to hit golf, balls, swim outdoors and attend an NHL hockey game in December. I took in the Lightning, Bruins game December 4.

            Ryan Malone, Wild Bill’s grandson and Greg’s son plays left wing for the Lightning. Ryan set up the first goal with an excellent pass to Vincent Lecavalier who needled it to Martin St. Louis who scored into an acre of net.

            That was it for the Lightning. Boston tied it up in the second, went ahead on a short-handed goal in the third and then scored an empty netter with a half second to go.

            I haven’t been at an NHL hockey game since son Tyson was a raving Patrick Roy fan about 15 years ago. NHL hockey marketing is certainly different than it was at the Forum then.

            For one thing, the Lightning have cheerleaders dressed just like the leggy, bosomy, hardbody cheerleaders at National Football League games. There are also leggy, teeny bopper rink rats wearing similar outfits and wielding snow white (handles and all) shovels. They skate out and scrape around the nets during commercial breaks.

            There is some kind of game or demonstation at every stoppage in play. People shoot at tiny holes in a cutout goaltender. Two teens, for concert tickets, get a chance to race each other, the length of the ice in giant, clear plastic balls. That is something to see. Makes you want to try it.

            The emcee picks an enthusiastic family in the third tier of seats and moves them down to the first tier. A young boy and a young girl are chosen to ride on the two Zambonis flooding the ice between periods.

            Lights and music constantly encourage fan support. I had never heard Hava Nagila, the Hebrew “Let Us Rejoice” folk song blaring from the sound system at a hockey game before.

            Every now and then a roar goes up at an unexpected time during a play stoppage. After awhile you realize that is a cue to look at the game clock and video screen which will be showing some especially cute kids in the crowd or a couple of busty young women doing the chicken dance along to the music.

            Food concession prices as are as high as the colesterol levels they produce. A bag of popcorn and a bottle of pop is $11.50.

            A youth’s Lightning sweater costs $100 PLUS another $100 to have Ryan Malone’s name and number applied.

            My seat, in the second tier, near centre ice, cost $80. Parking in the garage was $15.

            There are dozens of corporate box owners suites overlooking the tiers. In one I could see into, guests enjoyed slabs of perfect hip of beef and attentive bar service throughout the game.

            According to the Vermont snow birds sitting next to me, crowds are down dramatically from this time last year. They thought it had more to do with the team’s lacklustre performance than the collapsing economy.

            Even so, there were several thousand people at the game. There were many families with little children and many young couples including bored looking young women dressed not nearly warmly enough for a somewhat chilly rink.

            I am impressed and a bit surprised at how many people they can get out to a game in Florida.

Geezer stuff

          Is it Florida I have heard referred to as heaven’s waiting room? There sure are a lot of geezers here. At 66, I am the kid on my block. I see couples out and about who are so frail they have to lean on each other for stability.

            Please don’t think I am putting them down. I greatly admire the oldsters I have seen all over the world leaning on each other, limping on canes, pushing wheeled walkers, or in wheelchairs. They are the ones who refuse to give up and keep getting out and about to enjoy life.

            I have noticed too, though, that some people in wheelchairs seem to think their handicap gives them an excuse to drive the aisles of supermarkets and department stores like bad-tempered truckers.

            Geezer transportation and mobilization is big business here. Electric vehicles about half again as big as golf carts are legal on Gulfport streets. Golf carts themselves are everywhere. There are electric and pedal-power tricycles. I never dreamt there are so many different types of walkers and push carts.

            Store flyers promote lift chairs and even lift cushions.

Christmas

          Christmas decorations are remarkably familiar. You can get a BC Christmas tree for $60 and up. The same lights and wire Santas, reindeer and trees are all available. You probably won’t find the lighted, wire, moving Christmas decoration alligator at Canadian Tire or Home Hardware.

            In this neighbourhood, there seem to be as many lighted boat Christmas parades as there are street parades. The Friday, December 5, St. Petersburg Times, lists 9 in the coming week.

            A Santa Claus parade in a local community was canceled yesterday. For much of the day, schools were in lockdown and people were warned into their homes as police closed in on a gunman. They were hunting him for a murder and chased his vehicle into the community. He leapt from his car and began spraying bullets from an automatic assault rifle at pursuing police. One of  his bullets hit, and killed, a man riding, with his son.

            Police spent hours searching the neighbourhood with dogs. They got the shooter.

            In the meantime, the mayor had canceled the parade. In condolence for the family of the victim, he did not call it on again when the crisis was over.

Snow

          Meanwhile, in Gulfport, downtown was a magic, fairyland picture of lighted trees and canopied kiosks on the main commercial street, closed to vehicle traffic.

            The town’s annual “Art Walk” and shop local promotion featured various arts and crafts including a machine to coat nuts with a cinnamon mixture. There was musical entertainment, and SNOW! The city department of public works brought in a seven-foot mountain of shaved ice. Kids by the hundreds took their turns being helped to the top of the mountain and sliding down on a collapsed cardboard box.

            Yes, I said seven-foot mountain. I’ve seen Miramichi snow removal crews scooping up banks higher than that before stores open.

            I don’t suppose the Historic Water Street merchants thought to bring in pile of snow to entertain the kids after the Parade of Lights last night?

            Oh, and there was a Celtic band playing in a little plaza that is like an outdoor food court. Those Irish are everywhere!

Grayhounds

          Grayhound racing is a big gambling sport here. As a result there are a great many surplus dogs too old or not fast enough to earn a living. A volunteer organization has been set up to find homes for these reject animals so they aren’t summarily destroyed.

            At every local outdoor market, you see kiosks promoting dog adoption or fostering programs. That, in turn, leads to large numbers of grayhounds among the hundreds of dogs you see being walked every day. They are almost all very quiet, rather sad and wary looking animals. One gets the impression human affection was not a large part of their early lives. It is wonderful to see the bond they have with their new owners.

Home

          It is great to be in Gulfport. At the same time, I find myself overwhelmed with an aching sadness every evening as the sun sets over Boca Ciega Bay. Michelle went home over a week ago for the Christmas season at her store, Edgewater Gifts and Gallery on Water Street.

            There wasn’t much point in me going at the same time. We don’t see each other during the retail peak anyway.

            Being here alone is an impressive reminder how much any pleasure is magnified when it is shared with one you love and how much of the flavour is missing when you are alone.

            Many of the people here are going back north for Christmas. I go on December 10.

            I can hardly wait to get home. I want to see friends. I want to visit and tease at the farm market. I want to light a fire. I want to see my breath and dress warmly. I want to hear Christmas carols in cold, clear air. I want to wallow in the company of my family around the Scotch Pine Christmas tree and squint at the lights to make them twinkle. I want to eat shortbread cookies and meat pie. I might even enjoy shoveling a bit of snow off the walk.

            I do need your advice on one thing though. I have such a lovely tan. I should be about the same colour as the turkey when it comes out of the oven. Do you think it would be okay to wear a tank top and shorts at Christmas dinner?

                                                                                    DAC

            The past two weeks have been traumatic ones for the world and Canada.

            The vicious terrorist attack in Mumbai, India, demonstrates, once again, how deadly religion can be. The words of kind-hearted prophets are easily perverted to justify mass murder.

            In Mumbai, the targets were Hindu, North American and Jewish. Muslim Pakistan used to be part of India. The two countries have been at odds ever since partition in 1947. Both now have nuclear weapons.

            Muslims and Jews have grown increasingly at odds since the United Nations recognized Israel in 1948. Before the Holocaust and subsequent determination on the part of Jews to have their own country, Muslim Arabs and Middle Eastern Jews had enjoyed more or less normal relations.

            Enmity between many Middle Eastern Muslim and Western, primarily Christian, nations has been gradually building for years. Western morals are anathema to fundamentalist Muslims as they are to fundamentalist Christians.

            Western governments have supported repressive and corrupt Middle Eastern governments in the interests of stable oil supplies and cold war jockeying for client states.

Never again

            Mankind, to its shame, is able to demonize others to the point where citizens will not only tolerate but support and even participate in mass murder and genocide. We keep saying “Never again!” but, in fact, it never, ever, stops.

            The weekend before the Mumbai attacks, I visited the Holocaust Museum in St. Petersburg, Florida. I’ve read about the Holocaust most of my life and visited museums in Dusseldorf, Washington and St. Petersburg. I understand why Hitler wanted to use the Jews as scapegoats. I understand how he and his henchmen demonized the Jews using the most sophisticated marketing techniques of the day.

            I have a harder time to understand how people can ignore what is happening around them. I have an even harder time understanding how people can actually do the hellish job. I can never understand what drives the men who initiate and accomplish it.

            As I continue to read and go through the dark rooms of railway sorting platforms, concentration camp barracks, and gas chamber replicas, I also find examples of human heroism that are also hard to comprehend.

            A Belgian teacher, for example, coordinates the harbouring of Jews and even uses her eight-year-old daughter as a messenger. In a tight corner, one day, the little girl manages to swallow the message she was to deliver.

            A Japanese trade consul, in Europe, against the instructions of his government signs passports by the thousands to help Jews to escape.

The Bielski Brothers

            Three Jewish brothers in Byelorussia, then Poland, created a community deep in the forest for the purpose of rescuing as many Jews as possible. Unlike most partisan groups, their first purpose was to save lives. They took children and the aged to their woodland hideout and fortress.

            They were the Bielski brothers. They came from primitive living conditions, survived the Nazi era and two of them went on to live in the U.S. There is film of one of them as an apparently normal old man sitting, talking, laughing, on a couch in his apartment. Thousands owed their lives to him and you would not have noticed anything remarkable about him if you saw him on the street.

            Of course, that is also true of our own war veterans. It is not obvious that they are giants who wrought heroic success that we enjoy.

            Few now actually remember the ones who died in the attempt.

            Sadly, this week, three more Canadians joined that number in Afghanistan. If you lose your child in a smaller war than WW II, it is the worst war.

            Holidays and religious celebrations go by various names – Christmas, Chanukkah, Kwanza – at this time of year.

            Jews, Christians and Muslims all pray to the same god.

            Concentration camp execution squads and gas chamber builders attended Christian churches. The suicide squads who attacked and killed Jews and Christians in Mumbai expected their reward from the same God those Jews and Christians prayed to for salvation at the hour of their deaths.

            What part of “Peace on earth. Good will toward men” do we not understand?

            Why can’t we work it out?

                                                                                    DAC

            There is controversy this year about new rules for New Brunswick students participating in extra curricular sports. Provincial policies were re-written after last years winter highway accident that killed seven students and a teacher.

            The policy that is causing the uproar is that students will no longer be excused from classes to go on athletic road trips. The policy has a crippling effect on many league games and weekend tournaments. There isn’t time, outside school hours, for teams to get to and from game sites. The policy puts extra stress on the ability and willingness of coaches to volunteer their time.

            What seems to sting most is the fact that other school activities are not subject to the exact same rules. Drama clubs, for example, can take class time off to go to the provincial festival.

            As usual, lines are created between academics and jocks. Some proposed solutions have little to do with the original concern.

            Having been a parental unit in households made up of both academics and jocks, I’ve seen various aspects of the mental, physical, relationship in education. I also had the privilege and purgatory of going to a high school that had 200 students in five grades. Those were the days of elimination and retention rates of 10% and less. With only 100 boys in the whole school, we had to take turns being the jocks, brains, and gawdhelpus, the musicians!

Glory booze and sex

            From the academic point of view, the jocks get all the glory and preferential use of the student funds for transportation. Eyes are turned while they get to drink alcohol on school property.

            The “St. Petersburg Times” last week published a letter from a retired principal. He said that high school sports often teaches young men to objectivize females and to believe star athletes are exempt from many of society’s rule. He spoke of teams of boys who make deflowering as many young women as possible into a competitive team sport as a common occurrence.

            Now that I have all the parents and coaches of jocks frothing at the mouth, let’s turn to the academics.

            Academics are all that matters to the majority of namby-pamby teachers and administrators who couldn’t make one free throw in 50 and couldn’t tell you who won the Stanley Cup last year or why Newfoundlanders care and most Miramichi fans are disappointed.

            They think sports is just mindless fun and a privilege that should be taken from anyone who doesn’t want to, or cannot, dig deeply into, and memorize, academia’s interpretations of some effeminate poet or political economic theory.

            Musicians just play and play and play. Neither jocks nor academics worry about canceling their privileges or courses. Music is nice but it doesn’t really matter.

            There, have I got everyone in a fury? I should have. It’s all garbage.

            As Nice Eddie Mcdermaid once told me, the thing people love about sports is that it is a microcosm of life with a clear result in three hours. Normal life isn’t like that.

            Inherent in that statement is that everything that holds true in life also holds true in sports. Over a game, a season, a generation, a lifetime, things like discipline, practice, character, courage, attention to detail, fundamentals, teamwork, leadership, and everything else you can think of, good and bad, come into play.

            Athletes are often very good students. Miramichi athletes have won full scholarships to Princeton and Yale.

            Yes, some athletes are jerks. As I write this, New York police are waiting for New York Giant football player, Plaxico Burris, to turn himself in and explain how he came to shoot himself in a bar with a gun he has no permit to carry. He faces three and a half years in jail if he doesn’t have a fine story.  

            Academics are often very physically active. Ron Wallace, formerly local educator, used to traipse off to mountainous, third world, countries in summer leaving his watch behind so he wouldn’t be worth killing.

            Some academics are jerks too. I wish I could remember who said that the political battles in academia are so vicious because the stakes are so small. Professors and poets can be small and mean.

            Business and political superstars are not immune to the abuse of power and spoiled behaviour. Henry Kissinger said that power is the ultimate aphrodisiac. Some of the financial masters of the universe seem to have been a tad careless with responsibility and the niceties of the law.

            Yep, academics and jocks are ultimately pretty much alike and often the same people. They can each find success and happiness in their passions.

            Sometimes success peaks at different stages. I get a kick out of a yell Ivy league university student football fans chant when they are being clobbered by a jockier school.

            “That’s all right! That’s okay! You’ll be working for us someday!”

            So, let’s put aside the jock versus academic quarrel and look at the issue. We want our kids to be safe when they play games or go to drama,speaking, musical or citizenship exchanges.

            Let’s look at the real issues. When I was in high school in southwestern Ontario, the schools were tiny because they were not yet centralized. Our team travels ran 11 to 20 miles. New Brunswick has fewer, larger communities spaced further apart.

            My son, Nathan Cline, pointed out that his basketball team was once at a game in Grand Falls when a snow storm came up. His coach told the home team coach it was not safe to travel. The Grand Falls coach took some of the kids to his own home and billeted the rest in the homes of his players.

            Why can’t we simply ask how many parents of students would be willing to billet other players overnight when safety is a travel issue?

            With regard to time away from classes to participate in tournaments, why don’t we consider what makes kids want to be an enthusiastic member of a school’s student body?

            One of my sons didn’t like anything about school except athletics. When he got to a school where he was valued for that, his blood turned the school colours. They made him want to please.

            We know it is important to keep kids in school. What is more important is to have them want to be there and want to succeed.

            For that to happen, we have to find their talents and passions and ride them as hard as we can.

            I remember reading once of a type of school administrator who felt the education system would work just fine in his school it were not for all those kids!

            Sometimes one wonders if educational systems designed by bureaucrats might be good if it were not for kids and teachers and volunteers.

                                                                        DAC

             Watching Canada’s so-called constitutional crisis from the United States is fun. To qualify my position, I am a passionate believer in Canada’s first-past-the-post Parliamentary system. That includes the Senate, which, I believe, does a fine job of providing sober second thought.

            Will a possible Liberal, NDP, coalition be a constitutional crisis? Why would it be? Wouldn’t a crisis be if the constitution were violated? How is that going to happen?

            People may be outraged if a coalition of minority parties seizes government from another minority. If called upon, Governor General, Michaelle Jean, will make the decision she is required to make by the terms of her job. I believe her job is to find someone who can form a government. If there is a coalition, that should be a relatively easy decision.

            Will it please everyone? Of course not. Does not pleasing everyone constitute a constitutional crisis? Of course not.

            Will there be political consequences to a coalition power grab? Of course.

            Frankly, although I am not a Conservative, I don’t much care for the idea of a coalition power grab. On the other hand, a significant majority of Canadians did not choose the Conservatives so they have no majority mandate. Stephen Harpher has arrogantly been acting as if he did and does. He provoked the last election and now may be hoist by his own petard.          Two, and more, can play that game.

            For years, the Liberals held majorities in Parliament because the Conservatives had split into two parties. It made the Liberals arrogant, sloppy, greedy and some even crooked.

            Now the left-of-centre Liberals and NDP may be uniting as the Progressive Conservatives and Alliance/Reform parties did.

            There is a difference, of course. The Conservatives got married and then made a baby. The Liberals and NDP are planning to have a baby without a ring.

            I love how our system works. Our governments can govern with more authority than in the more fragmented and individualized US system. Our governments can also be brought to heel at almost any time a majority of Members of Parliament wish it. In extreme cases, that could even include government party members.

            If a majority of Members of Parliament are suddenly crazed and decide David Cadogan should be President for Life, the Senate is still there to say “Wait a minute! Shouldn’t he have to retire at 75 like us?”

            No, we are not facing a constitutional crisis. We may be facing a political and regional crisis but not a constitutional crisis.

            We are seeing what a rough and tumble business democracy is as it was designed to be in a time when the alternatives were considerably rougher and often bloody.

                                                                        DAC

            The last time I was in Gulfport, Florida, there were turtles in the little pond I walked by every morning. I haven’t seen any this year. There is a sign on the pond warning me not to molest or feed the alligator. I thought alligators perhaps ate the turtles.

            It turns out Floridians have been gathering up the local turtles and selling them to the Chinese market. New Brunswick is losing its Johny Walker Black Lable single malt Scotch to the Chinese. Floridian turtles are winding up in the soup in China.

            All of that, of course, was before the world economic crisis. According to an article in the excellent “St. Petersburg Times,” demand and prices for turtles have fallen recently. At the same time, a movement for a ban on commercial turtle harvesting is building with support from Florida’s governor.

Tozer time?

            The US President-In-Waiting, Barak Obama, has announced the basic idea of a recovery program he has in mind for the US economy. It entails pouring several hundred billion dollars into national infrastructure – primarily roads and bridges. There has been a need for such a program for some time anyway. The US went on a road-building spree that started at the end of WW II and never really stopped. Now many of those roads and bridges are old and decrepit. Some of the bridges may not even be safe.

            I remember Robbie Tozer mentioning a few years ago that there would be a large demand for bridge reconstruction in the US. He was preparing to get in on it. Since then, of course, he has won a contract for a major bridge contract on the McKenzie River.

            President Obama’s recovery program could be very good for Tozer’s construction company and, therefore, Miramichiers.

            In the category of silver linings, the world financial crisis could be good for turtles and Tozer.

Lobster and crabs

          There is an old joke about the pig and the chicken discussing a breakfast of ham and eggs.

            “For you” says the pig, “such a breakfast involves a contribution. For me it is total commitment.”

            Another article in the “St. Petersburg Times” tells about an old crab fisherman who allows tourists to pay to accompany and help him as he attends his traps. He has fished since childhood and likes to work with his environment. He has encouraged government to limit fishing in areas where boats damage the sea grass. He buys and dumps metal fencing into the bay to serve as habitat for shrimp, crabs, oysters and barnacles.

            One of his personal conservation practices has to do with the stone crabs he catches. Although the law does not require it, he rips off only one claw before tossing the crab back into the water. Fishermen are allowed to, and most do, take both claws. Gus Muench, the fisherman in the article, says he read that less than 50% of the crabs with both claws gone survive to grow new ones.

            Theoretically, I suppose, our lobster fishermen could do the same thing. The reason lobsters usually have one claw bigger than the other is that they have lost one to a predator or in a fight and grown a new, smaller one.

            Just the lobster’s bad luck, I guess, that the tail is the most popular and valuable part. I’m quite sure the survival rate among lobsters with neither claw nor any tail would be quite low.

                                                                                                          DAC

            Savannah, Georgia, strikes me as the epitome of the image of the South as a steaming cauldron of romantic, sexy, intrigue. New Orleans is the city of uninhibited, in-your-face raunch where midwestern college girls expose their breasts for beads. Savannah is the city of the veiled invitation, lazy ceiling fans and genteel discretion.

            It is an old-fashioned city. Most of the downtown has been preserved.  Founded by a Brit, James E. Oglethorpe in 1733, the first planned city included a pattern of blocks reserved as public parks. Oglethorpe had four rules: no slaves, no Roman Catholics (they might side with the Spanish enemy to the south) no liquor (wine was fine) and no lawyers (he had had a bad experience with lawyers).

            That may sound good but it did mean many examples of the alternatives to lawyers – duels.

            As a major seaport, the cotton capital and a frontier opposing the Spanish, the British during the war of independence and the Union during the Confederate secession attempt, Savannah played a significant role in US history.

            Now tourism and its very active Savannah College of Art and Design, make it a tourist mecca. Many of the historic property renovations are carried out by the college and the art college culture produces a huge number of interesting artists and crafts people.

            The hop-on, hop-off trolley services make for convenient roaming around town. You can sit, rest and learn in one of the open buses, hop off wherever you like and get back on when you are ready. The trolleys take you past the home where the violent death took place in “Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil,” and the park where Forrest Gump’s bus bench was located. John Wesley preached in Savannah. The Marquis de Lafayette, French hero of the American war of independence, returned to Savannah in 1825 to pay tribute to pay homage to another war hero, Count Casimir Pulaski.

            Savannah could be called the city of statues. There are tributes in every park.

            The riverfront is an interesting collection of stores, galleries and restaurants with a sweet southern flavour with interesting views of river traffic.

            People wanting a sample of hearty, basic southern cuisine are sent to Mrs. Wilke’s  Boarding House. There people are seated at large tables and platter after platter, bowl after bowl of barbecue, collard greens, sweet potatoes, grits and anything southern you can think of just keep coming until patrons are stuffed like ticks in a pack of country hounds.

            Savannah is perhaps most clearly described to Canadians as the Quebec of the south.

            And, oh, would you believe Savannah has the second largest St. Patrick’s Day parade in the U.S.? The locals say Savannah has the second largest and New York has the second best.

            Savannah is up there with Venice and Quebec City as locations I would recommend for a second honeymoon.

                                    DAC

            On our drive to Florida, we spent the night of November 4 in Charleston, South Carolina. Again, dark rainy weather spoiled the bridge view of the significant harbour and discouraged a proper visit.

            On the other hand, we were eager to get to a TV and watch the results of the US presidential election. In our hotel rooftop dining room and lounge, everyone was watching. It being South Carolina, many of the diners were not at all enthused about Barak Obama’s success.

            Michelle overheard one woman say “I just wish I could wake up in the morning and see that everything came out the way I wanted!”

            The wait staff, all Afro-American, were having a difficult time containing themselves and presenting a disinterested visage to the clientelle. One waitress broke into what perhaps could be most properly described as a skip as she burst through the swinging doors to the kitchen. As the door closed behind her, we hear her exclaim “Gobama!’ as if it were one word.

            It seemed politic for two Canadians to keep a low profile. Imagine how we would feel if two foreigners were celebrating a Parti Quebecois referendum victory in Quebec. It was quite overwhelming to be in the heart of the South at such a time.

            Moving up to our room, we accidentally found CBC TV’s Peter Mansbridge and Susan Ormiston reporting from Canada. There are two C-span channels and one of them was carrying the CBC coverage.

            Mostly though, we saw the same coverage you did in Canada that night and next morning. ABC seemed the most compelling.

            We saw the lovely young woman with the little boy trying not to totally choke up as she beamed love at him and said how much it meant to her to be able to say that he could grow up to be president and actually believe it.

            We saw the woman talking about how it meant to her that her slave ancestors helped build the steps of the Capitol building where Obama will stand to take the oath of office as President of the United States.

            On National Public Radio the next day, we heard one man suggest that Obama’s election was the final gift to the world from the baby boomer generation. He suggested that, as the boomers move off stage, the generation they produced produced the prize for all the civil rights marches and protests the 60’s activists and radicals, black and white, had conducted and the atrocities they endured.

            As an observer from that time, I remember the excitement of those years and the agony of seeing one after another of its heroes assassinated. Jack and Robert Kennedy, Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., and even Malcolm X were all men whose lives were taken in the effort that now got Barak Obama to the White House.

I think the consensus of that generation is a devout hope that Obama will be a brilliant, honourable, president who survives to add value and honour to all the warriors who struggled for this day.

            DAC

             Michelle and I set out very early Saturday morning, November 1, with plans to stop in Woodstock for brunch at Bragdon’s with son Colin and the Wilsons. A party broke out at brunch and we did not leave Woodstock until after breakfast at Wilson’s Sunday.

            We made the obligatory liquor stop in New Hampshire. Arriving in Boston about four p.m., we found it too late to go to the Museum of Fine Arts and too early to stop. We forged on to Framingham, Mass, for dinner at Legal Seafoods, another New England must. Legal Seafoods is a regional chain of amazing restaurants. It is hard to imagine how a chain can put out such consistently memorable meals.

            From there we continued to Meridien, just south of Hartford and spent the night.

            Monday, we took Highway 15 instead of I95. It is a twinned, four-lane highway but with no paved shoulder. It winds through Connecticut woodlands, making a canopy over the road, and still in leaf with brilliant colours. It passes Yale University and we saw a deer browsing along the verge.

            We skirted New York City via New Jersey, watching for the Badda Bing and Tony Soprano’s commute. It certainly looked familiar but we didn’t see Tony.

            New Jersey, “The Garden State,” ususally gets a bad rap. It seems only fair to point out that it also has some lovely woodland and peaceful, rural, countryside.

            As we moved south, around New York City, Philadelphia and Baltimore, we ran into dark, rainy weather.

            We cut over to the east, down through Delaware, Maryland, and Virginia to see some coastal territory. Unfortunately, the beautiful beaches I had been anxious for Michelle to see were all dulled by gray skies and rain. We paid a quick visit to Ocean City in Maryland. Imagine Bay du Vin Island ringed with resort hotels and condominium buildings. Apparently Maritimers are not the only people who like a day at the beach. There are blessings to being off the main trails.

            From there we went down the peninsula to Cape Charles, Virginia, just before the spectacular Chesapeake Bay bridge and tunnels. Wanting to cross in daylight, we planned to stay there. It turns out Cape Charles is a tiny, old community. Its streets are not even mapped on GPS. Our screen showed the car drifting around but not on any roads.

            With my luck, Shore Stay Suites had just opened a couple of months ago on the highway. We got a lovely housekeeping unit with the kind of bed you need a step stool to get up on. We had dinner at the Sting Ray gas bar and restaurant and convenience store. To our surprise, we were introduced to southern cooking that would attract bears anywhere. I had crab cakes and Michelle had catfish. The portions were huge and included large slabs of corn bread, collard greens, garlic mashed potatoes and gravy.

            There was a large Sting Ray on the wall like the one that killed Steve Irwin the Australian crocodile naturalist.

            It being the only restaurant we could see, we had breakfast there the next morning too. Again the servings were huge and accompanied by a bowl of grits. Grits are a bit like cream of wheat cereal – bland, and tasteless. I don’t know why southerners seem to like them so much.

            The next post will deal with US election night in Charleston, South Carolina.

                        DAC

            Being out of the media loop now, I did not anticipate the seachange in the local riding. I heard rumblings of Tilly O’Neill-Gordon’s campaign going well but, then, one always hears enthusiastic stories from all sides.

            Tilly had been an extremely effective back-room force for years. When her then husband, Jim Gordon, was the provincial PC nominee, and subsequently one-term MLA, for Miramichi Bay, excellent letters used to come to the paper over his signature.

            Newspaper staff members were confident that Tilly wrote those letters. Usually a constituency president or nominee of the party not locally elected does not have a high profile. Each spring, Jim would send a letter to the paper announcing the list of local roads to be paved or chip sealed that construction season.

            None of the other elected members or nominees did that. We always thought it was entirely Tilly’s doing.

One prudent Canadian

            It seems to me that the Canadian electorate often does collectively what one prudent Canadian might do individually.

            If it were entirely up to one Canadian to create the government, he or she might well divide it up much the same as we all did.

            He might decide to give Stephen Harper’s Conservatives the lead role but keep them on the minority leash. That keeps the kooky extreme quiet and allows the opposition to block any seriously reactionary legislation. The government is still on probation. It can be dismissed any time.

            He might decide to send the Liberals a signal that Stephane Dion simply did not establish a rapport with the Canadian public and probably never will. He is a fighter but he is down for about an eight count. It will be astonishing if he can get to his feet and his corner lets him come out for another round.

            The prudent Canadian might decide to give each of the five parties some, but not significantly more. That tells them that none of them have inspired him (us) very much. None of the parties got what they wanted in this election. Apparently none of them offered us enough inspiration to cause us to coalesce into a majority. One prudent Canadian might easily have decided that all by himself.

            The avid supporters of any of the parties will not see that, of course. They will think a prudent Canadian would have given their party all the seats. Perhaps instead of prudent, I should have said uncommitted or middle-of-the-road Canadian. Every party has extremists the rest of us would not consider prudent. We all consider ourselves moderate, of course.

Grateful

            Listening, Wednesday morning, to the pundits discussing what happened and what will happen, I was suddenly overcome with an intense feeling of gratitude. I had a wonderful Thanksgiving weekend so perhaps it is partly afterglow.

            It overwhelmed me that we just had a vigourously contested election and none of the parties got what they wanted and everyone is sitting around calmly discussing it. There is no blood in the street and no violent retaliation or oppostion.

            This warm feeling was quickly followed by dismay at the idea that over 40% of us don’t value, believe in, or care enough about our precious democracy to bother to become informed and vote.

            We tend to take what we have for granted. We should be more alert to how rare and precious our democracy is. We should all be working to protect, preserve and enhance it.

            Oh, and when people complain that we spent $350,000,000 on an election which didn’t change much, consider alternatives. How about rioting and the occasional civil war that costs the lives of thousands of citizens? I prefer elections.

Not invested

            I think there are a couple of obvious reasons fewer people vote.

            One is that fewer younger people are involved. They don’t depend upon or interact as much with government as families used to. The federal employees do not all lose their jobs when government changes. Many government positions are now more controlled by the bureaucracy than by politicians. Incidentally, I don’t believe there is much less patronage in that system than in politics.

            In any case, people do not see themselves as having as much of a personal stake in politics as they once did.

            In addition, politics has been centralized as much as retailing or any other enterprise. The party bosses control the message from the top and want no input or off-message comments by local candidates or supporters.

            People are neither stupid, nor happy worker ants. They don’t want to work for a campaign that is entirely directed from high above.

            Education and health are more and more centralized with much less local involvement and interest. Why would centralized politics lead to any different result?

            People also get cynical and disengaged when they know they are being spun and disrespected. They know the parties are all telling them what last night’s polls revealed we want to hear. They know that what parties pledge in a campaign and what they will actually do are not necessarily closely related.

            If they were, free trade and the GST would have been repealed during the first Chretien majority. This most recent election would not have been held until next year.

            Parties seem to all adhere to the maxim that you should never tell a lie unless it is absolutely convenient.

            I suspect too that, the farther away we get from the great depression and the world wars, the farther we get from the idea of looking out for each other and hanging together. Political parties, service clubs, and most churches are all suffering declining numbers and involvement. Community as we have known it, is changing and disappearing.

            It is worrisome. The expression “Use it or lose it” applies as much to democracy as it does to anything.

Thankful

            On the subject of being thankful, let us be thankful our election campaigns are, for the most part, over in five weeks. True, the Conservatives began campaigning against Stephane Dion as soon as he became leader but it was not high gear.

            I have American friends who are not sure they will make it to the finish line of their marathon campaign which has been building in intensity for about three years. Talk about campaign fatigue!

                                                                        DAC

            World boxing champions are ranked in history by the opponents they beat. Marciano fought guys like Ezzard Charles and Jersey Joe Walcott. Ali beat Sonny Liston, Joltin’ Joe Frazier and George Foreman.

            Prime Minister Jean Chretien won three consecutive majorities as leader of the Liberals.

            A boxing fan would ask “Who’d he beat?”

            In fact, he didn’t beat anybody. The Progressive Conservative party had split apart over western alienation. Chretien might have beaten the PC’s but he didn’t have to. They consistently and co-operatively beat themselves.

            Now Prime Minister Stephen Harper, having apprenticed with a minority government, is applying for our certification as the captain of a majority.

            At long last the Conservatives seem to have learned the Liberal policy of lying. The Liberals have a long and successful record of lying to get elected. Trudeau castigated Stanfield’s plan to institute wage and price controls for 90 days. Once elected, he put them into effect for several years.

            Chretien railed again the GST and North American Free Trade and then wallowed in the benefits with truly porcine pleasure.

            Harper has acted somewhat reasonable as the leader of a minority government although he did set a permanent fixed election schedule and then ignore it. If the polls are at all accurate, and nothing dramatic happens, it looks as though ignoring the promise will work well for him.

            I suppose it is a little different. Trudeau and Chretien reneged on campaign promises to win government. Harper reneged on a government promise to get an election campaign.

            Harper, who was supposed to be a policy wonk, has certainly exhibited surprising political skill. He has kept the freakier elements of his party quiet to earn the trust of the Canadian public that he will be a responsible Prime Minister with a majority government. His iron control of his own cabinet and caucus reminds me of Frank McKenna’s.

            Dion, who was supposed to be a policy wonk but a pit bull in the trenches seems to have developed no political skills at all. He was my choice during the leadership race. I thought he was the guy who would be the fighter who could convince Quebec that they are fortunate to be part of Canada. He does not seem to be able to set any fires among the electorate.

            I saw him at a newspaper association dinner in Toronto in May. There were several hundred media influences from all over Canada there but he did not work the room. He may have spoken to a couple of dozen people in the time a Hatfield or a McKenna would have greeted everyone there with a winning smile and firm handshake.

So, it looks as though Harper will win. We may soon know what he will do with a majority government. That makes me nervous. I just don’t feel he likes us. I always thought Louis, Richard, Frank, Camille, Bernard and Shawn liked us. I thought  John Diefenbaker, Lester B. Pearson, Joe Clark, Brian Mulroney, Jean Chretien and Paul Martin liked us. Hell, I even thought René Levesque liked us. He wanted to leave home but he wanted to come back on holidays for dinner and drinks.

            I think Dion would have been wiser to defeat the government months ago on principle, take his beating, clean house, and rebuild. Now he looks like a weak leader with compromised principles and no more ready to fight than he was then.

            His chief platform item, the carbon tax, is far too nebulous to inspire any enthusiasm. A promise to reward good behaviour would have been far easier to sell than a promise to punish bad and kiss the boo boo.

            His party, divided by veterans of the Chretien-Martin feud and courtiers in waiting for Ignatieff and Rae, seem to be parked in the alley waiting for the parade to go by so they can begin the next battle to lead.

            For New Brunswickers, and many of the nation’s power brokers, of course, there is another faint question.

            Might there still be time for Frank McKenna and might he be interested?

            The Liberals express no allegiance to the idea of alternating between Francophone and Anglophone leaders but they always do. St. Laurent, Pearson, Trudeau, Turner, Chretien, Martin, Dion, ?.

            It is late. History moves fast in politics and Frank’s soldiers and protégés are graying themselves.

            So, if Harper wins, who’d he beat?

            Anyone up for a Harper, McKenna match?

            We never got to see Teofilo Stevenson (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sOB7_BFqUeU ) fight Ali or Frazier. Many of us would like to see McKenna in the big ring.

            McKenna, like Marciano, remains unbeaten.

                                                                        DAC