Remembrance Day made me think of my Grandpa Cadogan, as it always does. His father moved the family from Wales to New Zealand when he was a baby. To avoid being apprenticed as a Jackaroo (sheep herder) he ran away to sea at 14.

            He fought in the Boer War and WW I where he rose to the rank of company sergeant major and received, among other medals, the French Croix de Guerre.

            I have some of his medals and two diaries containing very sporadic entries.

            I know that shell of facts and very little else about him. We lived over 100 miles apart in a time when that was significant and he died while I was barely in my teens. He was a tiny, tough man who got a huge kick out the gory beatings portrayed by professional wrestlers on TV.

            I’d dearly love to have real details of his life in the wars and at sea.

            I’m sure there are people in your family tree you’d like to know better. What would you give to be able to go back in time and interview them for a couple of hours?

            Okay then, imagine what your great grandchildren would give to be able to know you? To know what excited you, frightened you, pleased you, hurt you? To know what you liked to do and what you loved and where you’d been?

            My wife’s family are all musical. I’ve been trying for years to get them to record themselves making music together. I try to tell the children how much they would enjoy being able to play that for their grandchildren someday. They agree but we aren’t getting around to it.

            While you can, you might want to consider making a record of your life for your descendants. The common details of what you do for fun will be fascinating to them.

            I remember 35 years ago interviewing a couple on their 60^th anniversary. I asked them what they did for fun when they were courting. They described groups of young people taking their horses and cutters up the Saint John River to Hartland. There they skated, built a bon fire and roasted marshmallows and hot dogs. At the end of the evening they cuddled up under their buffalo hides and headed back to Woodstock. Their eyes twinkled as they told me that.

            Another man, a renowned local athlete, told me about how the CPR used to allow communities to use a train on the weekend if they could get the crew to volunteer. He told of people boarding the train after church with picnic baskets and partying their way down to St. Stephen. There the town’s hockey teams would have a game and then they’d party their way back home.

            I’m sure your stories of your fun will sound as wonderful 95 years from now.

            Young people, in their prime, should also have a professional photographer take some glamour shots of them. Someday they will realize how beautiful youth and health is no matter what flaws they think they have now. They will value the ability to show their grandchildren what they looked like at their best.

            Wedding pictures will do that, you might be thinking. Not necessarily. Sometimes wedding pictures become obsolete. They’re not the same thing as a glamour shoot anyway.

            Maybe you could give your kids or grandkids a photo session with a pro as a gift.

            Tell the story of you. The audience may not be huge but it will be dedicated.

                                                DAC

            As an older person, I am perhaps more appreciative of how beautiful young people are than they are themselves. I am certainly more appreciative of the life they have available to them.

            With Canada currently at war for the first time in my adult life, I am forcibly reminded of the youth of the warriors fighting our battles in Afghanistan. As a man of my generation, I am perhaps slightly more sexist than some younger men. A photo of two young Canadian women members of the military catching a nap by a vehicle in Afghanistan touched me especially deeply.

            As a driver for Meals On Wheels, I have the privilege of knowing, and hearing stories from, veterans of World War II including some I don’t see at Remembrance Day services.

            One of my current clients is a vivacious, elegant woman of 90. I mentioned to her this past week that she must have known many of the veterans who did and who didn’t survive the war.

            “I am a vet!” she replied.

            She was a nurse who served overseas in Africa, Italy and France in field hospitals right up behind the lines.

            As Terry Gadsden mentioned to me at the service in Loggieville this Remembrance Day, even the people who survived that war saw things no human should ever have to see.

            People of my generation, who have lived the most privileged existence in history, cannot even imagine what that must have been like.

            I don’t even want to try to imagine what medical staff in those hospitals must have seen and the battles they must have won, lost or partially won. Those people have always been older than I. Sure, they were once younger than I am but always older now than I am.

            I’ve always known that most of the people on the front lines of war were very young. Now, looking at pictures of the beautiful young people whose families are grieving their loss in the current war, I am looking at the faces of people much younger than I.

            In their faces, I see the faces of the WW II members and realize they have something in common with each other that they do not have with me.

            The 90-year-old nurse, and this year’s young people in the theatre of war, are the same glorious youth.

            There is one thing I know that they did not. I know just how wonderful is the life of peace and freedom my generation have had. Those who died and will die don’t have it. Those who survived, and will survive, carry physical and emotional scars that are foreign to me.

            All we can do is be grateful.

            As I listened to the clear, sweet, melancholy voice of young Abby Godfrey singing “Flanders Fields” at Sunday’s service, the value of the prize we have been given was, I think, clearer than ever.

            Thanks to you who gave us what we have had. Thanks to you who serve to give Abby and her generation as much.

                                                DAC

            Being an internet junkie with a fair number of pen pals, I get many forwarded messages every week.

            Of those, at least one a week enjoins us all to show our patriotism in reaction to some insult or abuse by immigrants, Muslims, even (gasp) liberals.

            I’ve seen a message from the man whose Canadian soldier son, in a Canadian supermarket, was upbraided by an Iraqi checkout clerk who wanted to know why he was bombing her people.

            No one seemed to notice that Canada isn’t bombing anyone, even in Afghanistan where we actually have a combat role. Someone just took an American message and rewrote it to make Canadians angry at Muslims.

            I’ve seen a message decrying the Canadian government paying far more money to immigrants every month than to senior citizens. It too is pure fiction. A news item about refugees getting a one-time set up grant of almost $2,000 got turned into a rant saying they got that every month plus welfare.

            That one started in Canada, was rewritten and mushroomed across the U.S.

            There are regular messages about how Christians aren’t allowed to pray in school.

            The simple fact is that no one can prevent anyone from praying anywhere. All school administrations can prevent is organized group prayer to one religion’s idea of God. I’m good with that.

            The latest one has to do with a BC music producer, Bruce Allen, ranting on two radio programs about Hindus wanting the Canadian National Anthem sung in Hindi, in addition to English and French, at the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympics. Allen is part of the committee organizing the music for the opening and closing ceremonies.

            I’m unable to determine if any Hindu actually asked that that happen. What I am sure of is that Canadian Hindus and immigrant Hindus issued no such collective demand. It is, I suppose possible that some individual or small group did.

            I wish people were not so eager to believe the worst about anyone different than themselves. Nor should people be so quick to believe one fool speaks for all members of that person’s race, culture, religion, or gender.

            Should I believe that all Irish are lazy, shiftless, dishonest, murderous sponsors of the IRA? Should I believe all Irish Protestants supported screaming insults and throwing stones at little Irish Catholic girls walking to grade one?

            Are all Francophones lazy, dishonest, cowardly, welfare-loving bums who won’t do anything for anyone but themselves?

            Oh, and let’s not forget those lazy, shiftless, drunken, Indians who won’t work at all while, at the very same time, are tirelessly killing all the moose and fish and trees in the province.

            Oh, I almost forgot, how about those black folk? What can they do except dance?

            Have I left anyone out. I hope you don’t feel too offended if I did. I’m sure someone had something nasty to say about your heritage.

            Oh, wait a minute! How about Americans? Even the most liberal folk know it’s okay to lump them all together as gun-crazed psychotic bullies.

            The two young Americans from San Diego and the retired lady teacher from San Francisco we met on a train from Venice seemed to hurt just as much as real humans when they were insulted and mistreated by some nasty Italians. The Italians may have been communists. Did you catch me there? Is it possible there could be a decent person who believes in communism? Surely not!

            Let’s not let facts of any kind interfere with our exuberant boarding of the bigotry bandwagon.

            I’m the second generation of my father’s family born in Canada. His older sister was not. We’re of Welsh and Anzac heritage on my dad’s side,  Irish on my mother’s. That helps me see how funny it is when I hear how some whiteys challenge Chinese descendants of men who built our transcontinental railroad to go back where they came from.

            At my age, I’ve heard wave after wave of Canadian immigrants slandered — Dutch, Italians, Hungarians, Indians, East Indians, Pakistanis, Africans, Arabs, Caribbean people and all.

            Here’s a beauty I heard about a Lebanese man in Nova Scotia. “All them Jews are crooked!” a young man told me.

            And that’s about as intelligent as bigotry gets.

            I hate it.

            A Gregory Peck movie, “A Gentlemen’s Agreement” made a big impression on me when I was young. Peck played a reporter who pretended to be Jewish to learn what that was like. It wasn’t pretty.

            However, at one point, Peck’s character says something that has stuck with me ever since. He says that if someone tells a racist joke or expresses a racist idea, and you say nothing, you are part of the problem.

            No race, culture or nationality is inherently evil. All races, cultures, nations and creeds are perverted by evil people.

            No race, culture or creed has a monopoly on decency, generosity, wisdom or courage. No race culture or creed has a monopoly on exploitation, cheating, violence, treachery or idiocy.

            Lest I seem to be just a naïve bleeding heart, let me say I have very firm ideas about Canadian values.

            I am even a monarchist. I believe every Canadian, old and new, should pay respect to the heritage that is mostly responsible for democracy and a system of justice that respects the rights of the individual.

            The U.K, the U.S., Canada and all the countries of the British Commonwealth owe the modern idea of democracy and justice to the Magna Carta and due process. I even believe that it matters that is was accomplished without a massacre of the royal family at any point.

            And, yes, I know it evolved through some horrible behaviour. It is still evolving. That’s the point.

            If you believe in democracy and justice and are willing to respect where it came from, welcome. You don’t have to be a monarchist although I think you should be.

            If you feel you can come here and blow up your home country’s enemies, promote hatred and violence against other races, cultures and creeds and abuse and mutilate your women and children in the name of some insane sect of your religion, I am your new enemy.

            As for you earlier immigrants, please don’t ask me to support and pass on foolish, bigoted, dishonest, chain letters. I’ll do what I can to shoot them down.

            Please remember to treat each individual as you find him or her. Please try very hard to be sure you are the solution, not the problem.

            In conclusion, immigrants are responsible for the wealth and growth of this wonderful country. Their children always seem to adopt values much like my own. I’m very optimistic.

                                                            DAC

Her voice was a motor of cigarettes, coffee and draft,

kind, and with all the weary authority of death.

Her laugh was an explosion of bawdy glee,

gusting across an ash tray Armageddon,

smudging the beer rings recording the rounds

on ghost-bleached Formica at the Legion hall.

She said good bye to her first soldier sixty years ago.

Youth’s urgent appointment with sudden mortality

flooding the night with a rush of significance

more vivid than flag, blood or winter trumpet.

The smoke, dust and tears have mostly settled now,

time’s callous camouflage for a fading generation

blown aside, but briefly, on a chill November day,

as young, remembered dead and old, forgotten dying,

hold boisterous reunion in her exuberant laughter.

                                                — David Cadogan

            The Hugh John Flemming Forestry Centre and the Hugh John Flemming Bridge at Hartland commemorate the late premier’s service to New Brunswick. There is a Senator Richard Hatfield memorial fund at the Beaverbrook Art Gallery.

            There is a monument to Louis J. Robichaud in his home town of Ste. Antoine.

            It is past time the Government of New Brunswick named something after Frank McKenna.

            It is 20 years since Frank became premier of New Brunswick. It’s 10 years since he left the office in 1997.

            He was one of the very first North American leaders to reverse decades of deficit financing and mushrooming debt. If he hadn’t started when he did, New Brunswick would have one of the worst victims of the continental recession that occurred as he took power.

            He also carried on the record of Louis J. Robichaud and Richard Hatfield in promoting bilingualism and biculturalism by emphasizing things we could accomplish together that we could not separately. He came in at a time when the divisive Confederation of Regions party was in the ascendancy after the collapse of the Progressive Conservatives.

            His energy, farm-boy work ethic, athletic competitiveness and boundless enthusiasm helped him establish contact with established and developing continental business leaders and bring a piece of their action to New Brunswick.

            He recognized that NB Tel was an unsurpassed telephone company at the time and used that to attract information technology business.

            He showed North American business that New Brunswickers could perform in the big leagues.

            More importantly, he showed New Brunswickers we could perform in the big leagues.

            He certainly took care of the Miramichi region he represented. The Town Centre, The Rodd Miramichi River Inn, and the greatly expanded Miramichi campus of the New Brunswick Community College and the City of Miramichi itself are a few of the developments hard to imagine without his influence.

            The Miramichi Regional Hospital is the biggest and most cohesive development he brought to the region. Without it, Miramichi would have devolved into a shrinking collection of rural communities peripheral to Bathurst, Moncton and Fredericton.

            I had always expected that the Miramichi regional hospital would eventually be named after him. When Frank’s successor, Camille Theriault, so soon fell to Bernard Lord, I didn’t expect it to happen during a Conservative regime.

            When the Liberals regained power in New Brunswick, I expected it to happen quite quickly. I’m frankly astonished that nothing has happened yet.

            When I heard about the big party to celebrate the 20^th anniversary of Frank’s 58 to 0 election in 1987, I felt certain Premier Shawn Graham would make an announcement there. I was very disappointed when he did not.

            Although we tend to think of the hospital as brand new and leading edge technology, it is, in fact, 14 years old now. Someone once told me a hospital becomes obsolete in 25 years. I suppose that means without constant renewal which has to happen faster and faster now.

            Perhaps there is some other, even more lasting structure or landmark that could and should be named after Frank.

            Whatever it is, it should be at least as significant a fixture of the New Brunswick scene as the hospital.

            Let’s all remind our MLA’s, cabinet minister’s and premiers that it is past time we properly recognize one of our most memorable premiers.

                                    DAC          

            There are primitive tribes, or recently were, who had little interaction with the modern world. The age of aircraft is not so very old.

            There were instances when planes crashed in remote jungles and, naturally, attracted the attention of the local residents. They were quite pleased by some of the things they found in the wreckage.

            They assumed they were some kind of alien bird or gift from the heavens and tried to attract more. Like migratory bird hunters everywhere, they came up with the idea of setting decoys. They built models of aircraft on the ground hoping to lure other planes down.

            Anthropologists called people who adopted the belief and behaviour “cargo cults.”

            Late 20^th century small-town Canadians indulged in somewhat similar behaviour ourselves. Traveling about the country, one cannot help but notice that any town with a population over 5,000 has an industrial park or two.

            Knowing that industry liked cheap serviced land, we created decoy sites all over the continent.

            They worked about as well as the cargo cult decoys.

            Oh, yes, we all lured a few industries to our parks. Some of them were a bit like the birds the cargo cults mistook planes for. Some were fly-by-night. Others were chickens we counted before they hatched and they never really did. There’s not much real industry in most of our parks. Most of what there is is home grown.

            The funny thing is that we kept on building more and more decoys at the same time that we were all talking about the end of industrial era.

            Okay, so here I am, with a cute observation about primitive cargo cults, looking for a moral or a lesson.

            How about this?

            Suppose we try to design our own lure that will appeal to people?

            Was it Izaak Walton, author of “The Compleat Angler,” who said that the successful angler selects his bait according to the tastes of the fish rather than to his own?

            Perhaps we should bait our hooks with quality of life for people rather than with parks for business.

            I golfed this summer with a man whose wife is on Wal-Mart management staff. She’s just been transferred but they’re not selling their house. They intend to retire here some day.

            I hear more and more stories every day about people from all over Canada and the world who are looking for land here. The South Shore of Nova Scotia is gone. Bank presidents bought it all for their retirements years ago. There’s nothing in St. Andrews in winter. We’re looking very attractive.

            Get ready for company.

                                                            DAC

            My father used to quote, with amusement, a short refrain:

“You cannot hope to bribe or twist, thank God, the British journalist.

But seeing what the man will do unbribed, there’s no occasion to.”

            Thanks to Google, I found the verse, and its author, last week.

            He was Humbert Wolfe, a British civil servant, critic and poet, born in Italy in 1885 and who died in 1940.

            The search was serendipitous in that it revealed two more timely examples of his work. One is:

Listen! The wind is rising, and the air is wild with leaves,
We have had our summer evenings, now for October eves!”

            With Remembrance Day, November 11, so close at hand, did I find this next piece or did it find me?

Requiem: The Soldier

Down some cold field in a world outspoken

the young men are walking together, slim and tall,

and though they laugh to one another, silence is not broken;

there is no sound however clear they call.

They are speaking together of what they loved in vain here,

but the air is too thin to carry the things they say.

They were young and golden, but they came on pain here,

and their youth is age now, their gold is grey.

Yet their hearts are not changed, and they cry to one another,

“What have they done with the lives we laid aside?

Are they young with our youth, gold with our gold, my brother?

Do they smile in the face of death because we died?”

Down some cold field in a world uncharted

the young seek each other with questioning eyes.

They question each other, the young, the golden hearted,

of the world that they were robbed in their quiet paradise.

                                                Humbert Wolfe

Down some cold field in a world outspoken

the young men are walking together, slim and tall,

and though they laugh to one another, silence is not broken;

there is no sound however clear they call.

They are speaking together of what they loved in vain here,

but the air is too thin to carry the things they say.

They were young and golden, but they came on pain here,

and their youth is age now, their gold is grey.

Yet their hearts are not changed, and they cry to one another,

“What have they done with the lives we laid aside?

Are they young with our youth, gold with our gold, my brother?

Do they smile in the face of death because we died?”

Down some cold field in a world uncharted

the young seek each other with questioning eyes.

They question each other, the young, the golden hearted,

of the world that they were robbed in their quiet paradise.

                                                Humbert Wolfe (1851 – 1940)

            There was a time when there was no opportunity for immigrants here because there were no employment opportunities for the people already here.

            Now our population is in decline and many of our young people, experienced trades people, and even young retired folk are  flowing West. Opportunities to really get ahead, establish a grubstake or just fatten up pensions and standards of living have never been more plentiful.

            At the same time, there are tremendous opportunities for services here. Most trades people are very busy and can’t find enough good help.

            I’m trying to find someone to tell me why my wood burning inserts dampers don’t seem to be damping much. I heard from someone else who is trying to get the same guy that he has such a backlog of work he can’t even find time to reply to his phone messages.

            New opportunities abound.

            Two young men I know have good jobs and all the extra work they want. One specializes in advising on and setting up computer programs. He is a programmer by day but is also an encyclopedia of off-the-shelf programs for everything from web cam security to setting up and maintaining a blog and web site like this one.

            The other is an information technician in a government network by day but makes house calls at night. He makes programs and computers work when they don’t want to get along with each other.

            The two functions overlap a bit but not much.

            People who know about these guys are a bit reluctant to share their names. We’re afraid they’ll get so busy we won’t be able to get them anymore.

            With digital cameras, personal digital assistants, iPods, mp3 players, picture phones, and all the related programs, there are opportunities for locals or immigrants to develop service businesses that could keep them busy.

            The term “wireless” to describe our networks of computers and peripherals is a joke akin to “Your call is important to us.”

            With satellite and cable and sling boxes and web cams and security systems, the entertainment area of the home gets tied in. How many of us can set up a high definition satellite dish to a hi def  TV to a PVR linked to two TV’s in different rooms and a surround sound system with DVD player and perhaps a VCR, DVD combo?

            Your old satellite receiver is still good for bringing your satellite or cable music stations in to your stereo set so how about a section in the Yellow Pages for “Home entertainment system service”?

            Politicians and bureaucrats worry about the cost of services to an aging population.

            One solution is to encourage the development of services for the seniors while they have all the toys and disposable income but don’t want to take the time to even try to learn how to support it all.

            Donald Sutherland played the magnificent goofy tank commander, Oddball, in the movie “Kelly’s Heroes.”

            Asked why he wasn’t helping fix his tank when it broke down, he replied “I just drive ‘em man. I don’t know what makes ‘em go!”

            I don’t think we need to worry about our young people or immigrants not being able to find work here anymore.         

                                                                      DAC

             When I started calling 773-5501 over 30 years ago, Gump Gorman had already been driving cab in Miramichi for 17 years.

            When I needed a cab on Wednesday, while my car was being serviced, Gump was the driver. His son is now the proprietor. He said that, at 82, (doesn’t look it) he’s beginning to think of packing it in but he doesn’t know what he’d do with his time. He knows that, whatever it is, will have to involve being around people. That has been his life.

            On Wednesday he showed me a couple of key tags a customer had had made for him in Ireland. One reads Gorman, the other O’Gorman. One explains the origin of the name. Apparently it means blue.

            Nightlife in clubs used to be a much bigger thing here. At one time bars like The Whooper, The Palamino, The Wing, The Opera House, The Domino, the Low Tide, High Tide, Up Tide, Wharf Inn, Zodiac (aka Zoo) and the Legions might all have live bands on the same weekend if not the same night. At the same time both officers and warrant officers had their own messes at CFB Chatham.

            Matt Minglewood, Dutchy Mason, Sam Moon, Freightliner, Evans & Doherty, Richie Oakley, Doug and the Slugs, Winmill, BB Seecrist, and others were regular performers. Some of the local bands could have traveled but had better lives staying here and having gig money as extra to their day jobs. I still say Nancy Davis did Doobie Brothers better than the Doobie Brothers.

            There was a great deal of drinking. One local businessman drank triple rum and Pepsi in a small glass – and plenty of them. It wasn’t unusual for club regulars to put away a 40 ouncer over the course of a night. Mind you a night often commenced with happy hour at four p.m. and ended at four a.m.

            There was more seasonal employment bolstered by months of unemployment insurance in those days too. Many folks didn’t have to get up early.

            Gradually society, the law and insurance companies clamped down on drunk driving. At one point, Premier Richard Hatfield started his own provincial police force, supplementary to the RCMP. The New Brunswick Highway Patrol didn’t last long but it certainly generated a lot of cash flow from speeders and impaired drivers.

            Through all of that, the taxi business hummed. Liquor stores weren’t open every night and Sundays then and drivers did a lot of ferrying shoppers back and forth from the stores when they were open.

            Gorman’s (later O’Gorman’s) taxi business was so busy it had a dispatcher, the gravel voiced Edna MacLean. Having learned the hard way not to drink and drive, I’d leave my car home when I went out at night.

            When the last dog had been hung, I’d call 773-5501, Edna would answer, I’d say, “Time to go home, Edna.”

            “Where are you dear?” she’d reply.

            In those days, incidentally, it was a mixed message to have your vehicle spotted parked at one of the local clubs in the morning.

            One message was “He drinks to excess.”

            The other was, “He doesn’t drive drunk.”

            For those who did drink to excess but didn’t want to broadcast that message, there was, and is, the Double Gump.

            You dial 773-5501 and ask for it. What you get is a cab with two drivers. One of them takes you and your car home. The other follows to retrieve the driver. It costs double the cost of a single Gump. Mind you, if you use your head and take a cab when you leave home it works out the same, doesn’t it? Cab out. Cab back.

            It is a wonderful fall back plan for when you discover that more rum than you intended has somehow gotten into your mouth. It’ll do that, you know.

            Considering the math of the alternative, it is a lifetime bargain. Consider being arrested, tried, convicted, fined, loss of license, humungous increase in insurance costs and the distinct possibility of someone’s blood on your hands, and an extra five or ten bucks is purely a trifle. Not much more than the cost of one for the road.

            So, raise your glasses and join me in a toast to Gump and the Double Gump!

            Here’s to us and those like us. Damn few of us left!

            On we go!

                                                             DAC