(with apologies to William Shakespeare)

Many of us were forced at one time or other to memorize Shakespeare’s “All the world’s a stage,” also known as “The seven ages of man.”

The poem, which follows this piece, is a speech from “As You Like It.”

There is no word for it better than brilliant.

It is universal and timeless.

In recent years, I’ve realized that we all have other age milestones in common.

As little kids, we usually want to be older but without any particular reason. We’ll say, “I’m going to be six,” shortly after our fifth birthday.

Our first year of school is a milestone but not one we eagerly await.

We are all, of course, very excited about the age of our first romantic kiss. That’s not a fixed age but it sure dominates our attention.

For most of us, the first fixed age we really look forward to, is 16. It was a purer joy in the days when driver examinations were casual and sometimes non-existent. In the town where I grew up, Art Neff sometimes came out of the pit at his garage to take you out for a road test. Sometimes he just signed the form.

Cars had bumpers that actually protected the driver’s car and others from the rookie driver. I bumped into Wayne Lunn’s old Model T. We fixed it with a ball peen hammer.

Somewhere, in around there, are two ages that are significant but not specific.

One is the day when we first get into a drinking establishment without being asked for ID. I was 15, when the drinking age was 21. I was with a group of older men. It was dark.

The other is the day (night?) when we lose our virginity. We usually remember that to, at least, the closest year and season.

There’s a lot of, in Shakespeare’s words, “sighing like a furnace” then.

I once asked Hubert Sweezey, then principal of Miramichi Rural, if kids were getting crazier.

“Not really,” he said, “There were always a couple of years when you couldn’t get their attention. It just happens a little sooner now than it used to.” That was about 15 years ago.

His words rang true. In grade 10, I sat at the end of the row nearest the window. Lilah (short for Delilah) Hobbs sat at the end the row two over. She was remarkably voluptuous for her age and very intelligent. She wore very form-fitting skirts. Her father was a Pentecostal minister. She never could (would?) go out with me. She’s about all I remember about grade 10. By grade six, Georgia Hewitt and Dianne Longworth had my interest but I could still think about other things for minutes at a time.

Graduations, marriage, and first jobs are all very important but often not things that dominate our thoughts and feelings for years before they happen. They are milestones but not entirely related to age like voting.

Another significant age is when you can legally walk into to a licensed establishment and produce an ID if challenged.

There is an age that is special to women. Oh, wait a minute, better make that two. I suppose birth counts although I’m not sure how age enters into that.

The one I’m thinking of is the last time they are asked for ID on entering a licensed establishment. When that happens to a woman who in her 30’s, it is a very happy and memorable day indeed.

Ages begin to cluster up again in our mid to late 50’s. We gradually realize we are invisible to a new generation of mature members of the opposite sex. For some it can be earlier or later. For a man, someone said, wearing a cardigan sweater is enough to trigger it at any age. On the plus side, the range of age groups, we find attractive, broadens with each passing decade. I have regular flirtations going with a woman of 75 and one of 90.

From 55 to 65, some senior citizen discounts kick in. Nicer than the financial incentive, is the true or just polite claim by a young cashier that she would never have guessed you were old enough for the discount. I don’t know if young male clerks do that or not. If they don’t, it is because they are too stunned to know how well a woman of 55 and on, loves the game and knows the score.

Henri Estienne, in the 16^th century, said “Ah, if youth knew! If age could!”

One of the things youth doesn’t know is that, these days, age can.

At 60 or a bit earlier, ships we’ve sent to sea begin to come in. There are gangs of them going out too. By that age, many of us are cruising.

We get the mortgage paid off. We begin to collect a company pension. We have the option to begin collecting the Canada Pension Plan and, at 65, Old Age Security.

Sadly, in along there somewhere, no one asks us if we qualify for a discount anymore. On the plus side, the generation currently becoming senior, is the boomer generation. It has the votes and the money to make sure its interests are protected for life.

In Shakespeare’s time, life went downhill toward the end.

“Last scene of all,
That ends this strange eventful history,
Is second childishness and mere oblivion;
Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything.”

All that is going to change for us, isn’t it?

The words of Mary Hopkin’s pub song “Those Were the Days,” will come true for us.

“Those were the days, my friend
We thought they’d never end
We’d sing and dance forever and a day
We’d live the life we’d choose
We’d fight and never lose
For we were young and sure to have our way.”
They’ll never end. We’ll have our way.
On we go!

(aka, The Seven Ages of Man)

From the play “As You Like It”

by William Shakespeare

All the world’s a stage,
And all the men and women merely players;
They have their exits and their entrances;
And one man in his time plays many parts,
His acts being seven ages. At first the infant,
Mewling and puking in the nurse’s arms;
Then the whining school-boy, with his satchel
And shining morning face, creeping like snail
Unwillingly to school. And then the lover,
Sighing like furnace, with a woeful ballad
Made to his mistress’ eyebrow. Then a soldier,
Full of strange oaths, and bearded like the pard,
Jealous in honour, sudden and quick in quarrel,
Seeking the bubble reputation
Even in the cannon’s mouth. And then the justice,
In fair round belly with good capon lin’d,
With eyes severe and beard of formal cut,
Full of wise saws and modern instances;
And so he plays his part. The sixth age shifts
Into the lean and slipper’d pantaloon,
With spectacles on nose and pouch on side;
His youthful hose, well sav’d, a world too wide
For his shrunk shank; and his big manly voice,
Turning again toward childish treble, pipes
And whistles in his sound. Last scene of all,
That ends this strange eventful history,
Is second childishness and mere oblivion;
Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything.

Pride of Baltimore II, Station Wharf Marina, July 31, 2007

Once a week, I get a phrase from this fellow in the UK who seems to have access to and the ability to search somehow every document ever published in any language that uses our alphabet at least.

I wonder why I enjoy it so much? Knowing that “favour” in the phrase “to curry favour” is actually a mispronunciation of “favel” which was the name of a donkey in a story about sucking up to false leaders and that “favel” is a French acronym for the seven deadly sins, is totally, absolutely, useless information and delights me.

In a recent example, I learned NOT ONLY that “freeze the balls off a brass monkey” does NOT refer to naval cannon balls falling off a brass holder called a monkey and just means the testicles on a monkey made of brass, BUT that the cannon ball story is symptomatic of a syndrome called, CANOE which stands for Committee to Ascribe a Naval Origin to Everything.

How’s that for a rush?

Is there a 12-step program for my affliction?

I have a link to the Phrase Finder site under the Blogroll heading in the right hand column of my home page and Colin Casey, my webmaster and guru is going to work a link that will make the most recent four postings from it directly available.

If you have the addiction to esoteric information, I am willing to be your enabler.

Hmm, sounds like a tee shirt – “The Enabler.”

My sister and her husband from British Columbia were visiting on August 6 when this guy dropped by to help make them welcome. Click on the picture once to enlarge and again to enlarge again.

My daughter Joanne took me to lunch at the Rodd on my birthday last Friday.

From our table on the deck, we could see all the moms and dads and children and young people strolling on Waterford Green. It is delightful to have such a charming public space on the waterfront. It is a sign that the city truly cares for its citizens that its most beautiful space is reserved and designed for their pleasure.

As we watched, one young mother moved from one side of the boat slip to the other because her toddler daughter had a stone she wanted to throw into the water. She couldn’t throw far enough to hit the water from the other side.

I have a mushy weakness for little girls. My daughter wound me around her little finger in her first five minutes of life.

The little girl toddled ahead at that great rate of knots only toddlers can achieve. She got to the lattice fence along the slip, stepped on the baseboard and hauled herself up so she could see over the top.

She was looking up and across the river toward the bridge and everything on both sides.

“Oh, Mommy!” she exclaimed, “I can see the whole world!”

Well, her perspective on that may evolve as she grows older and taller. She may see more world than she could last Friday.

I doubt she will see anything more beautiful to her soul than young families playing on a lush green lawn by a majestic river called Miramichi.

Side dish, Appetizers, Turkish (Surprisingly delicious!)

Yield: 4 servings

• 1 Eggplant
• Salt
• Extra virgin olive oil
• 10 oz Can tomatoes with liquid
• 1 Chopped tomato
• 1 tbs. Tomato paste
• 2 tbs. Water
• 2 tsp. Mashed garlic
• 2 tsp. Vinegar
• 4 lettuce leaves

Cut stem off eggplant. Remove strips of skin with a vegetable peeler.

Cut lengthwise in half, then crosswise into 1/4″ thick slices.

Spread on a cookie sheet & sprinkle with lots of salt.

Put in a colander & set aside for 4 hours. Rinse well & drain.

Heat oil in skillet & fry eggplant slices over a high heat till they are golden brown on all sides. Drain. Pour off all but 1 tbs. olive oil.Mash tomatoes with a fork & put into skillet. Simmer, stirring often, 5 to 10 minutes, until they form a thin sauce.

Blend in tomato paste & water.

Cook 1 minute.

Stir in garlic & vinegar & remove from heat.

Arrange eggplant slices on lettuce leaves on a serving dish & pour over sauce.

Serve warm as part of a buffet.

In June of 2006, Charles LeBlanc, an ADHD (Attention Deficit, Hyperactivity Disorder) blogger was taking pictures of a demonstration. Business leaders were meeting in Saint John to discuss the concept of Atlantica, an Atlantic region free trade alliance.

Apparently police thought he was part of the protest. Although he was doing nothing but taking pictures, he was tackled, arrested, and charged with obstructing justice. Police also seized and erased pictures from his digital camera!

Immediately following the incident, and in the subsequent court case, the issue seemed to be whether LeBlanc is a legitimate journalist. The media did a considerable amount of musing on that. Even professors of journalism got into the act talking about how journalistic status is a more complex issue now that anyone can blog. The issue was further confused by the fact that LeBlanc had been refused membership in the New Brunswick Legislative press gallery. I don’t know if his ADHD makes his behaviour a factor in that or not. Officially it was just because the gallery’s terms of membership don’t include blogs which didn’t exist until recently.

It is especially disappointing that journalists themselves don’t realize that they have no special status whatsoever. Any citizen has the same right as a journalist to attend and photograph a public demonstration.

Imagine someone charged with assaulting a person and vandalizing his camera defending himself by saying, “Gee, judge. I thought it was okay. I thought he was just a citizen.”

How did whether or not LeBlanc is a journalist become an issue in the media and the court?

He wasn’t trying to break down any doors or assaulting police officers trying to defend participants in a meeting. He was simply standing taking pictures as CBC TV coverage clearly shows.

Mind you, LeBlanc did work hard to make his status as a journalist the issue. It is not.

It is important that all citizens realize that reporters have all the same rights citizens do and citizens have all the same rights reporters do. If it’s okay to beat up citizens but not to beat up reporters, reporters will have little support and sympathy from citizens when they need it.

The reverse example

The flip side of the LeBlanc situation occurred in the early 90’s when Keith Spicer was the head of a program of citizens forum public meetings across the country to discuss constitutional amendment with a view to keeping Quebec in Canada.

I attended several of these meetings and, each time, the forum facilitator offered the attendees the choice of having the media present or not.

What an outrage!

How can you have a public meeting and exclude the media? How can you invite citizens to a public meeting, as the ads for the forums did, and then suggest that media representatives are somehow not members of the public and can be excluded?

On that occasion too, none of the major media reacted to this imaginary differentiation between the rights of reporters and citizens generally.

In an ironic twist, Spicer, who so casually labeled reporters a lower caste of citizen with limited rights, eventually served a term as editor of the “Ottawa Citizen!”

Weird!

In the immortal words of the Wizard of Id cartoon king, “Freedom of the press is not a pretty thing.”

Miramichi Mayor, John McKay, and the “Miramichi Leader” got into a squabble last week over comments made by a Leader columnist, Dan Benoit, about council not sponsoring fireworks for Canada Day.

McKay, speaking at a council meeting, blasted the paper for its negativity and lack of support for council and extended the accusation to the paper and its Irving family owners.

The paper responded with a spirited defense that took more space that the charges levied by the mayor. It used considerably more space to survey councilors on their position on the matter.

I thought the mayor was ill-advised to use his pulpit to cry about a freelance columnist taking a potshot at council. I thought extending the claim of negativity all the way up to the mega-business owners was a bit of a farce.

For one thing, none of them will have heard of Dan Benoit and probably not Mayor McKay.

For another the Irvings undoubtedly have as big a stake in the welfare of the Miramichi as anyone else in the world. True, it isn’t as big a percentage of their total holdings as it is for most Miramichiers. Still, there is no reason to believe they wish us ill.
Apparently they are about to build a huge new Kent Building Supplies store in the power centre. It wouldn’t appear they are backing away.

On the flip side, I thought the paper engaged in overkill with its acre of reaction and putting councilors on the spot to pick a side.
Councilors could have spoken up in council to express their support or opposition to the mayor’s position. Readers might question the depth of their sincerity when the paper put them on the spot.

Mayor McKay must be reminding himself of the Mark Twain (?) adage, “Never pick a fight with anyone who buys ink by the barrel.”
Rather than attacking the paper and the owners over the fireworks and negativity issue he might have been better advised simply to suggest that Benoit ask the Irvings to sponsor next year’s fireworks.

Weird welcome

Mayor McKay was the star performer in a somewhat weird welcome to the tall ships crews at a reception, Tuesday evening, held at, and sponsored by, the Rodd Miramichi River.

He appeared as a growling pirate and proceeded to try to be funny. He reminded the captain and crew of the “Pride of Baltimore II” that it was the second and claimed to have sunk the first one.

He said he didn’t like the name “Playfair” for a ship because he (the pirate) had no interest in playing fair.

He said the “Royalist” was far too small to be a pirate ship, no more than a mosquito of a vessel. He did add that a mosquito can bother a moose but he certainly left the impression that the “Royalist” wasn’t much of a ship.

To the consternation of some members of the tall ships festival committee, the Royalist captain appeared to take offence to McKay’s remarks and abruptly left the reception.

Perhaps the visitors weren’t familiar with or fans of the carve-up-your-friends-family-and-acquaintances style of humour practiced by some Miramichiers.

It isn’t a big feature of hospitality speeches and welcomes in most locales.

Free speech isn’t always so very pretty either, is it?

Incidentally

Incidentally, while trying to find the author of the “ink by the barrel” quote, I came across a modern amendment.

There are various references on the internet to the idea that now everyone buys ink by the barrel. Anyone can publish to the net.
The mass media, I think, still have a significantly larger audience. Bloggers might be said to buy their ink by the pint.
However, the internet certainly creates the power for a public demonstration (or mob, if you’re the target) to develop very quickly.
This, in turn, has led to discussions of what rights exist that are exclusive to the media and how far they extend into the blogosphere.

In Canada, at least, the media really have no special rights beyond those of the individual citizen.

They certainly have privileges commonly accorded working reporters. For example, employees of media companies are provided with special seating areas in court rooms and at sports events.

As more and people claim to be media because, like me, they have a blog or web site, how will courts and hockey teams be able to maintain these privileges?

I suspect that, over time, privileges, in the public sector, must disappear to be replaced by more open access for every member of the public. Courtrooms will be visible to all on video.

Media may qualify for preferred seating at private sector events like hockey games by being able to pay for it. That is a somewhat more problematic area because media and professional sports, theatre and concerts have a symbiotic relationship. Mass media audiences want sports news so media is motivated to cover it. At the same time, the sports business needs media attention so it is motivated to cater to reporters.

Things probably won’t change much there. Owning a few community newspapers never qualified me for media accreditation at Stanley Cup games. Private business will continue to calculate what constitutes its own best interest.

Fredericton Harvest Jazz & Blues

However, if you can get everyone you know to read this web site and subscribe to the feed, perhaps someday I could qualify for a media pass to the Fredericton Harvest Jazz and Blues Festival which is becoming one of the biggest success stories in Canadian entertainment.

It’s September 11 to 16 this year. The Crowne Plaza, the most convenient hotel, is already sold out at premium rates.
I remember when son Nathan and his friends were wowed that I had seen Dr. John in New Orleans. In September Dr. John will be in Fredericton. Wow!

Everyone is jumping on the sponsorship bandwagon now. Harvest Jazz & Blues, unlike the East Coast Music Awards, has not been taken over by TV and recording companies. The ECMA’s are now an industry-driven rather than a talent-driven and audience-driven event.

Harvest Jazz & Blues, copying more and more of the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Fest features, continues to cater to music lovers rich and poor. There are exclusive concerts and lots of free entertainment.

1) Economics:

Money is the only thing that flows uphill.

If we put money in the hands of the people at the bottom end of the economic scale, they must quickly spend it to live. It flows up to merchants and continues, swiftly, to those at the top of the economic scale. It seems to me that, taking money off the top and shoving it in again at the bottom, accelerates the economy, making the people at the top ever richer.

In my opinion, therefore, governments should concentrate their efforts on programs to put money, programs and services, in as close to the bottom as practical. Spend on ever better access to shelter, food, education, health, mass transit and the like.

As we raise the level of the floor, I think we will raise the level of the ceiling too.

2) Politics:

Unless we are all safe, none of us is safe

When a small percentage of the population has a huge share of the wealth, as is especially apparent in some third world countries, no one is safe.

The poor are subject to every kind of abuse from starvation to torture.

The rich are vulnerable to the desperate poor. How safe, free, rich, can you be when the starving poor outside the walls of your fortified estate will kill you for your watch and kidnap your children? Conclusion: Doing the right thing is not only moral but also in our own very best interests.

On a lighter note . . . .

Like many people, I like to describe myself as socially liberal and fiscally conservative. Then I saw a cartoon from the “New Yorker,” showing two women talking about relationships over lunch – as universal as the rising of the sun.

One is saying, “He says he is socially liberal and fiscally conservative but I learned that means he sleeps around and he’s cheap.”